Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Alpha 2

(2010.07.01)

Introduction
The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer. The Maverick Meerkat Alpha 2 is the second alpha release of Ubuntu 10.10, bringing with it the earliest new features for the next version of Ubuntu.

This is an alpha release. Do not install it on production machines. The final stable version will be released on October 10, 2010.

Upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
To upgrade from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on a desktop system, press Alt+F2 and type in "update-manager -d" (without the quotes) into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '10.10' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on a server system: install the update-manager-core package if it is not already installed; edit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and set Prompt=normal; launch the upgrade tool with the command sudo do-release-upgrade -d; and follow the on-screen instructions.

New features in Maverick
Feature development for Maverick has started. Please see the Maverick blueprint list for details.

Please test and report any bugs you find:
- http://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

Updated Packages
As with every new release, packages--applications and software of all kinds--are being updated at a rapid pace. Many of these packages came from an automatic sync from Debian's Unstable branch. The period of automatic syncs has stopped now, so from now on there will be fewer changes.

For a list of all packages being accepted for 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, please subscribe to maverick-changes:
- https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/maverick-changes

GNOME
The GNOME base platform has been updated to the current 2.31 versions. This particularly includes the new dconf and gsettings API. Evolution was updated to the 2.30 version, which operates much faster compared to the version in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

KDE
KDE was updated to the current 4.5 RC 1 release.

Qt
Qt was updated to the current 4.7 beta release.

Unity
The new Unity interface is now the default in Ubuntu Netbook Edition. This includes the global menu bar as part of the default interface. Please note that applications still retain the menu in their own window as long as the global menu bar is still being tested and fixed.

Linux kernel 2.6.35
Alpha 2 includes the 2.6.35-6.7 kernel based on 2.6.35-rc3.

This kernel includes new security enhancements. Of major note is the change the default behavior of PTRACE which is used by gdb, strace, ltrace, etc. The behavior for 10.10 is that only child processes can be PTRACEd, due to the default value of "1" in/proc/sys/kernel/ptrace_scope. This value may be inappropriate for some development systems and servers with only admin accounts. If using "sudo" for PTRACE is not desired, please change this value to "0".

New cloud-init features
cloud-init, the configurable initialization process for Ubuntu Server cloud images, has gained new features in Maverick Alpha 2, including pluggable hooks, ebsmount, ext4 support, and new stanzas in the cloud-config format.

Installation
The new btrfs file system may now be used during installation via manual partitioning, as long as /boot is on some other file system. (At the moment, this only works on the alternate and server CDs.)

Download Alpha 2
Get it while it's hot. ISOs and torrents are available at:
(Ubuntu Desktop, Server, and Netbook)
(Ubuntu Server for UEC and EC2)
(Kubuntu Desktop and Netbook)
(Xubuntu)
(Ubuntu Studio)
(Mythbuntu)

Known issues
As is to be expected at this stage of the release process, there are several known bugs that users are likely to run into with Maverick Alpha 2. We have documented them here for your convenience along with any known workarounds, so that you don't need to spend time reporting these bugs again:

- Encrypted home directory creation may be broken on some images. (588705)

- When installing Xubuntu, the systray appears in the middle of the screen, with three icons flashing constantly. This prevents the installation from the live environment, and makes the desktop pretty much unusable after any installation completes. There is a workaround to this issue described in the bug report. (586012)

- Due to a kernel issue, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud on amd64 is not able to register images out-of-the-box in Alpha 2. A fix is already available: run "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" to update to the fixed packages. (588861)

- Ubuntu Netbook Edition with Unity does not currently provide a fallback for systems without a 3D capable video driver, such as NVidia cards. (600567)

- Some AppArmor profiles, like the one from the CUPS printing system or MySQL, do not work due to a flaw in the kernel. As a workaround, disable the AppArmor profile for those services with "sudo aa-complain cups", or disable AppArmor altogether with "sudo update-rc.d apparmor disable". (599450)

- The btrfs file system cannot be used for installations from the desktop CD. It may be possible to work around this by installing thebtrfs-tools package in the live session first. (600586)

Reporting bugs
It should come as no surprise that this alpha release of Maverick Meerkat contains other bugs. Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve future releases. Please report bugs using the tools provided.

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

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/