Ubuntu 9.10(Karmic Koala)

The Ubuntu 9.10 Release Candidate,brings a host of exciting new features

Upstart
As part of our boot performance work, we have now transitioned to Upstart native jobs, to let users get to their desktop faster after boot. Upstart is written by Scott James Remnant.

Software Center
Ubuntu 9.10 RC includes the Ubuntu Software Center, developed by Michael Vogt, replacing 'Add/Remove' in the Applications menu.

GNOME
Ubuntu 9.10 RC includes the latest GNOME 2.28 desktop environment with a number of great new features:

■Empathy has replaced Pidgin as the default instant messaging client, introducing the Telepathy framework.

■The gdm 2.28 login manager by William Jon McCann is a complete rewrite compared to the version in earlier Ubuntu releases, permitting a more integrated login experience.

■Evince, the GNOME document viewer, now ships with an enforcing AppArmor profile. This greatly increases security by protecting you against flaws in the historically problematic PDF and image libraries. Users who use a non-standard location for their home directory will need to adjust the home tunable in /etc/apparmor.d/tunables/home. This profile has been developed by Jamie Strandboge.


Application development with Quickly
Quickly, by Rick Spencer and Didier Roche, makes it easy for developers to make new applications for Ubuntu, and to share those application with other Ubuntu users via .deb packages or personal package archives

Linux kernel 2.6.31
Ubuntu 9.10 RC includes the 2.6.31-14.48 kernel based on 2.6.31.1. The kernel ships with Kernel Mode Setting enabled for Intel graphics (see below). linux-restricted-modules is deprecated in favour of DKMS packages.

hal deprecation
Ubuntu 9.10 RC's underlying technology for power management, laptop hotkeys, and handling of storage devices and cameras maps has moved from "hal" (which is in the process of being deprecated) to "DeviceKit-power", "DeviceKit-disks" and "udev".

New Intel video driver architecture
The Intel video driver has switched from the "EXA" acceleration method to the new "UXA", solving major performance problems of Ubuntu 9.04. Ubuntu 9.10 RC also features kernel mode setting by default on Intel hardware, which reduces boot-time flickering and dramatically speeds up suspend/resume.

ext4 by default
The new "ext4" filesystem is used by default for new installations with Ubuntu 9.10 RC; of course, other filesystems are still available via the manual partitioner. Existing filesystems will not be upgraded.
If you have full backups and are confident, you can upgrade an existing ext3 filesystem to ext4 by following directions in the Ext4 Howto. (Note that the comments on that page at the time of writing about Ubuntu's use of vol_id vs. blkid are out of date and are not applicable to Ubuntu 9.10 RC.) Maximum performance will typically only be achieved on new filesystems, not on filesystems that have been upgraded from ext3.

GRUB 2 by default
GRUB 2 is the default boot loader for new installations with Ubuntu 9.10 RC, replacing the previous GRUB "Legacy" boot loader. Existing systems will not be upgraded to GRUB 2 at this time, as automatically reinstalling the boot loader is an inherently risky operation.
If you wish to upgrade your system to GRUB 2, then see the GRUB 2 testing page for instructions. See also the upstream draft manual.
Some features are still missing relative to GRUB Legacy. Notable among these are lock/password support, an equivalent of grub-reboot, and Xen handling.

iSCSI installation
The iSCSI installation process has been improved, and no longer requires iscsi=true as a boot parameter; the installer will offer you the option of logging into iSCSI targets if there are no local disks, or you can select "Configure iSCSI" in the manual partitioner.
Putting the root filesystem on iSCSI is now supported.

AppArmor
AppArmor in Ubuntu 9.10 RC features an improved parser that uses cache files, greatly speeding up AppArmor initialisation on boot. AppArmor also now supports 'pux' which, when specified, means a process can transition to an existing profile if one exists or simply run unconfined if one does not.
Please see the AppArmor documentation for information on using AppArmor in Ubuntu

The original Ubuntu 9.10 will release within 4 days that is on 29th Oct.Lets welcome Ubuntu 9.10 :)