Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Beta 1 Is Official Released

Unlike any other Ubuntu release, the 11.04 version is going to bring major changes to Ubuntu in both software and philosophical point of view. Since they decided to dump the Gnome 3 and develop the Unity desktop which will be the default desktop in the 11.04 version, you have to admire their courage actually... although the Unity project has been there for few years... still now it seems that they are forced to make heavy changes within a shorter time period.

Hurray!, Banshee is still there :)...

Anyway, few hours ago they officially announced the Ubuntu 11.04 beta 1 which is available to download from now on. If you don't know what the numbers stand for in Ubuntu, for instance, the 10.10 version represents the release date (2010 .. October = 10th month), First two digits for the year which is followed by the month. So if everything goes well they should release it within April 2011.

What's new...

*. Merged -

Now with this release they've merged both Ubuntu desktop edition and the Netbook edition to a single downloadable CD, so if you have a netbook and want to get the beta version of the Netbook edition, then you don't have to download it separately anymore.

*. Just "Server" -

Previously the Server version was called the Ubuntu server edition, but now they've renamed for Ubuntu Server.

*. No WUBI (temporally, I guess :( ) -

WUBI a windows based installer which lets you install or uninstall Ubuntu within the Microsoft Windows, but because of a known bug, this will be dropped in this beta.

Application updates

*. Finally, they've updated the Firefox to the version 4 and unlikely with the Ubuntu 10.10, this time they haven't done any "personal changes", but this could be due to the OS still being in beta stage. So when they release it officially, we could see some changed menu's and icons on Firefox4 I guess.

*. Banshee is still there! - Surprisingly, after their recent clashes I actually thought they'd kick Banshee out of the distro. But it is still the default music player, maybe they are trying not to look too bad in the eyes of the users because of the recent "not that good" feedback they got from the media and several others, nonetheless, this should be appreciated.

*. LibreOffice has been updated to the latest version which is 3.3.2.

These are just a few to mention. I personally haven't downloaded it actually, so can't review it. Anyway, if you want to try it out, then back-up your current personal data before doing so. Good luck :).