Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10 Beta Released!

The beta of the latest Ubuntu distribution is hot off the presses! There are a number of improvements over the older version (8.04), which I pointed out in my previous post about the alpha. To summarize:

• create a private, encrypted directory within each user’s home directory
• screen notifications for changing resolutions for multiple monitors
• limited-permission guest account
• a new theme
• the log out panel applet has been completely replaced
• new wallpaper
• new pam-auth-update tool
• BBC plug-in for Totem
• Samba 3.2
• a “Last Successful Boot” recovery option

You can download the beta from Ubuntu’s web site or if you aren’t ready to take the plunge, the release candidate will be released October 23 with the final release being unveiled just after that on October 30.

New Features in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex Alpha 6

As many people know, the new version of Ubuntu, 8.10, is being released in October. Some have probably tried the Alphas of it, but my guess is that a lot of people haven’t. I tried the 4th alpha of Intrepid Ibex along with the 5th – both which crashed my computer. This is definitly not the case for most people, I’m just…”special”, I guess. This evening I found a nice article showing the updates coming to the oerating system.

The most notable changes being the option to automatically create a private, encrypted directory within each user’s home directory, screen notifications for changing resolutions for multiple monitors, a limited-permission guest account, a new theme, and the logout panel applet has been completely replaced by the new user-switching agent (see picture above). It offers switching to the new, limited-permission guest account. When Pidgin or Empathy are running, you can also use it to change online status.

If you feel compelled to update to the latest and greatest, simply make sure you have Ubuntu 8.04 and press Alt+F2 and type in “update-manager -d” (without the quotes) into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘8.10’ is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

[I’ Been to Ubuntu]