Introduction

Feisty Fawn, the current name of the latest development branch of Kubuntu, will expand on the brand new infrastructure that has landed in Edgy as well as branching out in some exciting new directions. Feature development in the Feisty Fawn release will be improvements to hardware support in the laptop, desktop and high-end server market, and aggressive adoption of emerging desktop technologies.

Herd 1 is the first in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Feisty development cycle as images known to be reasonably free of CD-build or installer bugs. They represent very current snapshots of Feisty. Kubuntu 7.04, Feisty Fawn, Herd 1 releases can be downloaded from the following URL:

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/feisty/

NOTE: This is an alpha (pre-) release. Pre-release version of Feisty are NOT encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or for anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent, breakage. Pre-release versions of Feisty ARE recommended for Kubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Screenshots are available at: http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/?q=node/55

New In Feisty Herd 1

Feisty Fawn, still very young in its inception, contains many of the same applications and technologies from the previous 6.10 release. As Kubuntu 7.04 matures in the weeks ahead, you can be assured that newer applications and technologies will make their way to the forefront. With every new Herd release, this maturity will be documented allowing you to thouroughly test your Kubuntu 7.04 installation. Remember that all of these features are part of a pre-release version of Kubuntu, and may still have issues. We ask that any problems you come across that you file a bug, if one has yet to be filed for your problem.
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+filebug

Linux Kernel

New with the latest release of the Feisty Fawn is the 2.6.19 kernel. Kubuntu specifically uses the 2.6.19-6 kernel to date. This kernel revision contains bug fixes, security releases, multicore tweaks, and much more. Interested in reading more about all of the fixes, additions, and tweaks for the 2.6.19 kernel? Then read over the 3.6MB changelog at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.19.

KDE

Kubuntu 7.04 Herd 1 is starting out utilizing the KDE 3.5.5 desktop environment. This is the same version that is installed with Edgy as well. The current artwork is the same artwork that is in the Edgy release. Future releases will contain the newer artwork as it evolves and it will be documented for you to view. You can also be assured that future releases will be incremented accordingly. KDE 3.5.6?

The big question for Kubuntu 7.04 is "Will it ship with KDE 4?" The answer is no. As it currently stands, KDE 4 is not scheduled to be completed prior to the official 7.04 release (see Feisty Release Schdule and KDE 4's FAQs), but packages will be available for developers and early testers.

Konqueror

We have given you more room on the toolbar for the URL by merging the stop and reload buttons.

Hidden Files

Some may have noticed that in the Edgy release, when you would open the "Save" or "Open" dialog, all you would see is your home and media directories, due to the root directory and subdirectories being hidden. This has been removed in Kubuntu 7.04, so now it will be easier to navigate to another directory not in your home or media directories.

Network Manager

Knetworkmanager is now installed by default, making it much easier to connect to a wireless or wired network. You can start it from KMenu -> Internet -> Network Manager. If it proves trouble free we will start it by default in future releases.

Feedback

We want to hear what you think about the current release of Kubuntu 7.04, The Feisty Fawn, Herd 1 CD Release. We want to know if it Rocks, if it is just OK, or it is flat out wrong. No matter the feedback, as long as it is in line with the Ubuntu Code of Conduct we would like to hear it.

So what are you waiting for, head on over to the Feedback Page and let us know!