Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Beta 2 Now Available

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The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 11.04 Beta2.

Codenamed "Natty Narwhal", 11.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work since Beta 1, fixing bugs and getting things all nice and natty.

For PC users, Ubuntu 11.04 now supports laptops, desktops and netbooks with a unified look and feel based on Unity.

A special Ubuntu Netbook version is provided for platforms based on ARM technology, such as the Panda and Beagle boards.

Ubuntu Server 11.04 has made it easier to provision servers, and reduce power consumption.

Ubuntu Server 11.04 for UEC and EC2 is available as well, with a new kernel and improved initialization and configuration options.

The Ubuntu 11.04 family of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu, and Ubuntu Studio, also reach Beta 2 status today.

Ubuntu Changes
--------------

Some of the new features now available are:

Unity is now the default Ubuntu desktop session. The Unity launcher has many new features, including drag and drop re-ordering of launcher
icons, full keyboard navigation support, launcher activation through keyboard shortcuts, right-click context menu quick-list and switching
between running applications.

The Ubuntu One control panel now allows selective syncing, and the launcher icon now displays sync progress. File syncing speed has been
improved as well.

The Ubuntu Software Center now allows users to "rate & review" installed applications, share reviews via integration with social
networking services added into Gwibber, and has other usability improvements.

Key applications have been updated to newer versions:

Ubuntu 11.04 comes with the latest Firefox 4.0 as standard web browser.

LibreOffice 3.3.2 has been included in 11.04 as the default office package.

Banshee 2.0 is the standard music player now and has been integrated into the sound menu.

And we continue to improve the underlying infrastructure:

11.04 Beta 2 has a kernel based on 2.6.38.

X.org 1.10.0 and Mesa 7.10.1 are the new versions included with 11.04.

GNU toolchain has transitioned to be based off of gcc 4.5 for i386,amd64, and ARM omap3/omap4 architectures.

All main packages have now been built and and are installable with Python 2.7.

dpkg 1.16.0-pre brings us up-to-date with staged changes for the upcoming Debian 1.16.0 dpkg release, as well as pulling in the current
version of the in-progress multiarch work

Upstart has been updated to 0.9.4-1. There are a lot of new features:
its now "chroot-aware", there is support for basic job/event
visualization, there are two new initctrl commands (show-config,
check-config), a socket bridge is now provided, the latest D-Bus version
now allows D-Bus services to be activated via Upstart, a manual job
configuration stanza, and override file support is now available

To Get Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 2
--------------------------

To upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 2 from Ubuntu 10.10, follow
these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NattyUpgrades

Or, download Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 2 images from a location near you:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/download (Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server)

In addition, they can be found at the following links:

http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ (Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/natty/beta-2/ (Ubuntu DVD, 64-Bit forMac, source)
http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/natty/beta-2/ (Ubuntu Server EC2)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook/releases/natty/beta-2/ (UbuntuNetbook ARM)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/11.04/beta-2/ (Ubuntu Netboot)
http://releases.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/natty/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/natty/beta-2/ (Kubuntu DVD,preinstalled ARM image, 64-Bit for Mac)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/natty/beta-2/ (Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/natty/beta-2/ (Edubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/natty/beta-2/ (UbuntuStudio)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/natty/beta-2/ (Mythbuntu)

The final version of Ubuntu 11.04 is expected to be released on April 28 2011.

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