Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (beta) now out...

Ubuntu 10.04 went beta yesterday afternoon, with downloads at http://releases.ubuntu.com/10.04/, otherwise from the download mirrors.  Lucid Lynx, as it’s called, enjoys LTS support (ie 5 years out the box).

This version promises as a better (and faster) boot experience, new themes, version 2.6.32 as the Linux kernel, Firefox as default browser — with default browser page changed to Yahoo! (that’s new!) nVidia hardware support using open source drivers has improved, and a whack of new features for the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud have been included.

The Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud installer has been vastly improved in order to support alternative installation topologies. UEC components are now automatically discovered and registered, including for complex topologies. Finally, UEC is now powered by Eucalyptus 1.6.2 codebase.

The final live version for production use should be ready April 29, 2010.