Yes, I know I stole the idea of the title from Jono Bacon, however, unlike Ubuntu who supposedly only needs testers right now, Kubuntu needs all of you! Of course, quite a bit of the work left to do is testing and fixing, we can use many of you to show your support in #kubuntu, helping those who need it. Right now, all of the 9.10 support is in #ubuntu+1, so if you have any questions, or feel like helping others, head on over and check it out.
Interested in knowing what’s new with this latest release, check this out:
- KDE 4.3.1
- Kubuntu Netbook Technical Preview
- Social From the Start (no more reason to not have any friends!)
- OpenOffice.org KDE integration created by our very own Kubuntu developers!
- Installer bling (I don’t use the Live Desktop installer, but this is so hot I just might have to!)
- Amarok 2.2 RC (wait, and pretty soon you can update to the new Amarok 2.2 “Sunjammer”
- and more…
Many of you may have heard about this Kubuntu Netbook thing and for once we are officially releasing and unofficial release. Does that make sense? I didn’t think so, as I just lost myself. Anyways, it is unofficial because we have been working very closely with upstream to bring the KDE Netbook environment to Kubuntu and KDE 4.3. You see, the netbook work upstream is all geared at KDE 4.4, which isn’t do out until February. The current version of the Kubuntu Netbook preview works fairly well, however there are still some annoyances here and there. I have been using it now for a couple of months on my netbook and I absolutely love it! Do I think it is the best netbook implementation right now? No, but I do see it being the best soon. KDE developers are working hard making sure to not waste space on such a small resolution, and they are also working on some really cool things for future releases with KDE 4.4. I can’t wait!
Also during the Karmic development cycle, a group of Kubuntu developers worked with developers from OpenOffice.org in order to bring you a groovy KDE 4 infused release. There are still some quirks being worked out, but I am sure they will be worked out before release. Though I don’t use OpenOffice.org, I have to say for once it looks good in KDE!
Installer bling, better known as Ubiquity, has had one hell of a make over. Roman, aka ‘shtylman’, has put some damn fine touches into the Live CD installer. I was really impressed with the work, and for once the installer was pleasing to the eye. Great job Roman and thanks for all of your great work!
Now, with all the good, there is of course a little bad yet, I mean it is still a beta release. One has to do with logging out back to KDM, which oddly enough doesn’t effect everyone. If you do get bit by this, you have to go out to the console by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1. Once there simply login to the console and type sudo stop kdm, unless of course you want to shutdown, then it is just sudo shutdown -h now or sudo reboot. And yes, we know KPackageKit does not install software, which is comical yet sad at the same time. Who wants to install software anyways? Well, I am sure most of you who will give this release a try are probably pretty comfortable around the command line, so nothing an apt-get can’t fix for the time being.
We invite everyone to give the new beta a good running and help us test the release and fix the release. Yes I mean everyone, as input from people with various skill levels matter so much to us. So please, feel free to join us in any of the following IRC channels:
- #kubuntu for support for all stable releases
- #ubuntu+1 for support for the latest development release
- #kubuntu-devel if you would like to contribute
Or you can visit us on our development mailing list or our support mailing list for more. Thanks everyone!
