Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Alpha 6 released
Ubuntu team has released their 6th and final alpha version of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. This release includes lots of bug fixes. This release includes the latest Xorg 7.3 with an emphasis on better auto configuration with a minimal
configuration file.
Alpha-6 brings a new Screen Resolution utility that allows users to dynamically configure the resolution, refresh rate, and rotation of a second monitor. This will be particularly handy for laptop users that connect to a projector or external monitor.
Alpha 6 includes the 2.6.24-8.14 (2.6.24.2-based) kernel. This includes the introduction of dynticks support for amd64, bringing the same power savings already available on 32-bit systems to 64-bit laptops and desktops.
KVM is now officially maintained within the Ubuntu kernel. libvirt and virt-manager have been integrated in Ubuntu. They allow for easy guest creation and basic management of virtual machines out of the box. Virt-manager can be used to administer guests on a remote server. They also work with XEN, even though it is not officially maintained.
Universe repository in alpha 6 includes Likewise Open. It enables seamless integration of Ubuntu within an Active Directory network. Users can use their AD credentials to log on Ubuntu machines and access any kerberized services provided by an Ubuntu Server.
iSCSI Initiator has been fully integrated in the kernel. Ubuntu can thus mount any iSCSI targets as a block device.
Additional access validations have been added to keep /dev/mem and /dev/kmem safe. These changes will help defend against RootKits and other malicious code.
The lower 64K of system memory is no longer addressable by default. This will help defend against malicious code that attempts to leverage kernel bugs into security vulnerabilities.
Applications compiled as Position Independent Executables (PIE) are now placed into memory in unpredictable locations, making it harder for security vulnerabilities to be exploited.
WinFOSS and the Windows open source software have been replaced by umenu, a simple launcher that lets the user install Ubuntu from Windows using Wubi.
In the alternate and server CDs, most file systems are now mounted with the relatime mount option by default, for improved performance. This is not yet done by the desktop CD installer, but that will be in place by beta.
To download Ubuntu 8.04 alpha 6, click here.
Here are the list of problems that were part of the caveats in alpha 5 release notes and missing from alpha 6 release note. I assume that those bugs were fixed.
- Video problems have been reported with the 64-bit (amd64) versions of Ubuntu desktops and some NVIDIA graphics cards.
- Users with an older ATI Radeon graphics card might have video problems.
- Due to the switch to GVFS, which is not feature complete, the «Network» item in the Places menu doesn’t work, and Nautilus can behave erratically, especially in trash operations.
- The desktop launcher for Firefox does not work in Alpha 5, as a consequence of the change from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3.
The rest of the bugs are there, though they may not be very critical except the CD ROM and Firefox printing problem. Here is a new bug in alpha 6. Upgrades from dapper (6.06) are very likely to fail because of problems with python-central. This is a problem only if you are upgrading from Dapper 6.06 LTS release to Hardy 8.04 LTS release. All those bugs should be fixed by the time beta is out.
Source: Ubuntu.
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