Arun's Blog

Ubuntu team has released the beta version of Ubuntu 9.04. If you are planning to install Ubuntu 9.04 beta, please read the known issues section below before proceeding. Here are some of the new features in Ubuntu 9.04:

• Ubuntu 9.04 Beta includes the latest GNOME 2.26 desktop environment.
• Improved handling of multiple monitors with an updated gnome-display-properties.
• The latest X.Org server, version 1.6.
• The -ati driver has received numerous fixes and performance improvements. It now uses the EXA acceleration method by default. 2D acceleration support for the newest R6xx/R7xx family of cards is also available. 3D support is available up to R5xx cards for -ati. An updated -fglrx proprietary driver is available for R6xx/R7xx users who need 3D support.
• New style for notifications and an option to set the notification preferences.
• A number of improvements to the Ubuntu start-up process bring significantly improved boot performance to Ubuntu 9.04.
• Ubuntu 9.04 Beta includes the 2.6.28-11.37 kernel based on 2.6.28.8.
• Ubuntu 9.04 Beta supports the option of installing the new ext4 file system. ext3 will remain the default filesystem.
• Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition makes it easy to experiment with cloud computing. Eucalyptus, an open source technology which is included in Ubuntu as a technology preview, enables you to use your own servers to deploy, experiment and test your own private cloud that matches the Amazon EC2 API.
• The dovecot-postfix package in Ubuntu 9.04 Beta provides an easy-to-deploy mail server stack, with support for SMTP, POP3, and IMAP with TLS and SASL.

Here are the list of know issues in Ubuntu 9.04 beta.

• A bug in an Ubuntu-specific patch to X server logging code will cause X sessions to crash after they have been running for longer than a day. Users encountering this bug should upgrade to the latest version of the xserver-xorg-core package, which will be available immediately after the beta release.
• Some users of Intel i8×5 video chipsets are unable to load X, getting an error message of “Fatal server error: Couldn’t bind memory for BO front buffer”. As a workaround, use the VESA driver by logging into a text console, running “sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf”, and adding the line Driver "vesa" to the Device section.
• Users of Intel video chipsets have reported performance regressions in Ubuntu 8.10 compared with previous releases. Although these performance issues have not been resolved by default in Ubuntu 9.04, a new experimental acceleration architecture option, DRI2/UXA, is available for Intel graphics users. Testing has found this provides significant performance improvements for many users, but has also shown risk of severe stability problems, thus it’s not available to the general public.
• Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is now disabled, to reduce issues experienced by users who accidentally trigger the key combo. Users who do want this function can enable it in their xorg.conf, or via the command dontzap --disable.
• Ubuntu 8.10 systems installed from the desktop CD mistakenly had the lilo package installed as well as grub, although grub was used for booting. If you use the recommended Update Manager upgrade method, then the lilo package will be removed if it does not appear to be used.
• On the timezone map in the desktop CD installer, the markers for cities are displaced from their correct locations. Users should be aware of this issue when selecting their timezone.
• If any filesystems are mounted when starting the desktop CD installer, then a dialog labelled “Unmount partitions that are in use?” will be presented. Unfortunately, the buttons on this dialog box are poorly named: “Continue” attempts to unmount filesystems and then repeats, which will often just display the same dialog box again, while “Go Back” ignores this condition and continues.
• On desktop installations from USB disks, such as typical Ubuntu Netbook Remix installations, the installer displays a warning about the fact that the installation medium itself (often /dev/sdb) is mounted. This warning is unnecessary, because the fact that it is mounted is completely normal, and does not interfere with the user’s ability to install the system to devices other than the USB disk itself.
• In some cases, the “Prepare Disk Space” screen in the desktop installer displays obviously incorrect partition sizes in its graphical disk previews. This is only an error in the preview and does not reflect a problem with the partitioning changes that will actually be applied.
• When installing to a system with another OS previously installed, the migration assistant will offer to migrate settings and documents even when the entire disk is being overwritten.
• Users who were running eCryptfs on the Jaunty Alpha milestones are advised to re-encrypt any encrypted files. An upstream 2.6.28 kernel bug caused random kernel memory to be written to eCryptfs encrypted file headers. The fix has been applied and deployed to Ubuntu users in the Jaunty Beta kernel. Ubuntu eCryptfs users running this kernel should re-encrypt each encrypted file using /usr/bin/ecryptfs-rewrite-file.
• Users of Compaq Smart Array controllers will be unable to remove existing LVM volumes using the partitioner in the installer.
• The mdadm package in Ubuntu 9.04 Beta will fail to assemble RAID10 arrays on boot. Other types of RAID are not affected.
• Booting degraded RAID may fail in virtual-machine setups where the host is running with cpu frequency scaling enabled, due to a non-deterministic race condition.
• Upgrading a desktop system using an ATI video chipset with the fglrx binary-only driver may result in a warning that the driver needs to be replaced. There is a bug in the driver replacement logic, so if you see this prompt, please cancel the upgrade until this is fixed, which will happen immediately after the beta release.

Kubuntu team has released the beta version of Kubuntu 9.04. Here are the new features in Kubuntu 9.04:

• Kubuntu 9.04 Beta includes KDE 4.2.1
• Kubuntu 9.04 ships with latest Qt, version 4.5, which brings a faster desktop experience as well as new features.
• Kubuntu Jaunty now includes a new software manager: KPackageKit.
• Quassel is a new IRC client that is now the default for Kubuntu Jaunty.
• Jaunty Jackalope now comes with the recently-released Amarok 2.0.2.
• The new plasma-widget-network-manager replaces the old KNetworkManager applet.
• KTorrent has been updated to version 3.2.
• Kdebluetooth has been updated and is back in action, fixing the major bluetooth issues that plauged Kubuntu 8.10.

Known issues in Kubuntu 9.04:

• Kmail sieve functionality is buggy and causes CPU hang. You shouldn’t use it at the moment.

Source: Ubuntu release note, Kubuntu release note.

Technorati Tags: Ubuntu 9.04 beta, Kubuntu 9.04 beta, Jaunty Jackalope, GNOME 2.26, KDE 4.2.1, Xorg 1.6, Kernel 2.6.28-11.37, fglrx, ATI, Qt 4.5, Quassel, Amarok 2.0.2

Share on Facebook

Bookmark It

Hide Sites