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WORK IN PROGRESS

Introduction

The Ubuntu developers are moving very quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source Community has to offer. The Feisty Fawn Herd 2 is the second alpha release of Ubuntu 7.04, and with this new alpha release comes a whole host of excellent new features. The feature list for 7.04 has been slowly growing more exact since Feisty opened late last month. While looking forward nothing is completely certain, here are some of the new things that have already arrived, such as ...

Note: This is still an alpha release. Do not install it on production machines. The final stable version will be released in April 2007.

GNOME 2.17.5

GNOME is still being updated frequently, bumped to version 2.17.5, building up to what looks like is going to be a very stable release. GNOME Games have gone through another round of bug fixing, mainly on the newly added games: Sudoku and Chess. GNOME System Tools has been updated to included more translations, better networking support, a number of bug fixes, much better gui for time-admin and many many more. Epiphany-browser will now have an adblock manager UI. Gedit can now detect external file modifications. Vino (Gnome Remote Access) now has a notification icon when there is someone connected. You can disconnect any remote machine from that icon.

Thunderbird's Latest

A new version of Thunderbird, a popular email client by the Mozilla Foundation was uploaded. It was made to sync the latest Thunderbird package with the Ubuntu repositories, and includes improved stability and several security fixes.

Zero Efforts

Continuing the efforts that are being made by Ubuntu to simplify the desktop experience as much as possible for users, the "ZeroConfNetworking" specification has been implemented for Feisty. Zeroconf Networking is a collection of protocols which try to configure your network automatically, leaving users with minimal intervention and trying to give them clear information to take decisions when conflicts come up. The main advantage behind this new spec is making life easier for users without a local DHCP server for a network, having Ubuntu correctly configuring everything necessary for the network to work properly.

F-spot

The new F-spot .3 offers a plethora of improvements over .2.2 such as view mode improvements, fix for new Picasa web interface, new icons, query improvements and many more bug fixes.

Mounting made Easy

Gnome-Mount provides users with a nice GUI to configure mount options and consistently handle encrypted devices. It has been added to Feisty in the continuing effort to squash [https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 Bug #1].

Instalation

Instalation has been made easier with various UI and stability to ubiquity.

Telepathy

A unified framework for all forms of real time conversations, including instant messaging, IRC, voice calls and video calls. It uses the DBus messaging system to provide a simple interface for client applications, allowing them to quickly benefit from Telepathy's functionality.

GTK+ 2.10.7 added

GTK+ 2.10.7, the multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces is part of Feisty now. This is a mjor bug fix release and aims to close many long standing bugs.

More merges from Debian

A great amount of new packages where merged from Debian leaving only 58 outstanding merges remaining. This has produced a big jump in versions in many packages, which you can read about in the latest [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue27 Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter].

Kernel

The latest rc of the Linux Kernel is included in herd2, new features include KVM, numerous bug fixes, and new drivers.

Good Wine

A new version of Wine (0.9.28),a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Linux has been added to Herd2. Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop. Changes in this version include fixes to OpenGL in child, better mouse support in games, beginnings of new state management in Direct3D, and as always, lots of bug fixes.

Localization

Due to the efforts of the many translators, herd2 is available in many more languages.

Download Herd 2

Get it while it's hot. ISOs and torrents are available at:

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/feisty/herd-2/ (Ubuntu)

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/feisty/herd-2/ (Kubuntu)

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/feisty/herd-2/ (Edubuntu)

• http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/feisty/herd-2/ (Xubuntu)

Reporting Bugs & Testing

Feisty Fawn has bugs! (I bet you're not surprised). Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve future releases. Please report bugs through Malone.

If you want to help out with those bugs, the Bug Squad is always looking for help.

If you plan to do an installation of Feisty Herd 2, be sure to head to [Testing]. With just a few minutes of time at your hands, you can really help to improve Ubuntu. We have two different tests; one takes just a short while, but the other is more thorough.

• Testing/Current - Simply note how your installation went

• Testing/Short - the short test

• Testing/Long - the longer test

Participate in Ubuntu

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at

• http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate/

More Information

You can find out more about Ubuntu on our [http://ubuntu.com website] and [http://wiki.ubuntu.com wiki].

To sign up for future Ubuntu development announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu's development announcement list at:

• http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce

Previous Herds

• [http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/herd1 Feisty Herd 1]

Credits

Heard 2 release notes were brought to you by:

• Cody A.W. Somerville
• Martin Albisetti
• Eldo Varghese

Feedback

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Marketing Team. Please feel free to contact us regarding any concerns or suggestions by either sending an email to ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com or by using any of the other methods on the Ubuntu Marketing Team wiki page.