Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Alpha 3

(2010.08.05)

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 3 is the third alpha release of Ubuntu 10.10, bringing with it 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

Ubuntu
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.

Ubuntu Netbook Edition
The new Unity interface is now the default in Ubuntu Netbook Edition. This includes the global menu bar as part of the default interface. The date/time indicator now has a real calendar widget.

The standard photo management application has been switched to Shotwell.

Kubuntu
KDE Platform was updated to the 4.5 release candidate. The standard web browser is now Rekonq, a KDE browser based on Webkit.

Qt was updated to the current 4.7 beta release.

Xubuntu
Xfce4 was updated to the current 4.6.2 release. This fixes many of the bugs and updates the programs used in Xubuntu.

New default applications: Parole (Xfce4 Media Player) replaced Totem Movie Player, Xfburn (Xfce4 CD/DVD burning tool) replaced Brassero, and xfce4-taskmanager (Xfce4 process manager) replaced Gnome-Task-Manager.

Edubuntu
Edubuntu changes include the changes from Ubuntu. The edubuntu-artwork package has been split into smaller packages to improve future updates and reduce download sizes.

Software-Center
The software-center got a "Featured" and "Whats New" carousel in the Frontpage. It is faster and more responsive and contains a "History" feature that keeps track of what was installed/removed/upgraded. Plugin support is added and technical items will not be shown by default

Linux kernel 2.6.35
Alpha 3 includes the 2.6.35-14.19 kernel based on 2.6.35 final.

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".

Ubuntu Server Cloud images
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.

Starting with Alpha3, cloud images instances can now manage their own kernel, and can upgrade kernels with apt. This is done by utilizing pv-grub provided by Amazon.

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.

Download Alpha 3
(Ubuntu Desktop, Server, and Netbook)
(Ubuntu Server for UEC and EC2)
(Kubuntu Desktop and Netbook)
(Xubuntu)
(Edubuntu DVD)
(Ubuntu Studio)
(Ubuntu ARM)

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 3. 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:

- OEM mode installation fails when you do not have an internet connection, due to a failure to install the oem-config package from the installation image. If you need this for testing, please ensure you have a network connection all the time. (613008)

- The Wubi Windows installer was reported to fail. Investigation of the problems are ongoing (600578, 613288)

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

- On systems with very little memory (256 MB and below), ureadahead causes out-of-memory conditions, which may break booting. (600359)

- Applications using sqlite3 encounters a lot of performance issues and query accuracy, like in banshee. (612370)

- A pre-release version of Eucalyptus 2.0 was included for alpha3, and it still has rough edges. In particular, registration after installation is currently unreliable (609112), and complex topologies (separating the CLC from the Walrus, for example) are not supported yet (613033). When Installing a 'node' system, expect 2 x grub issues that can be safely ignored. (613463).

- KDM times out when starting from the Kubuntu live image, following the prompts from failsafe X should start the session (613574)

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/