Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” Beta released

Ubuntu announced today the release of the beta version of Ubuntu 7.10 codenamed “Gutsy Gibbon”. This cutting edge version of Ubuntu includes the freshly new Gnome 2.20, and also comes with Compiz Fusion by default. Compiz Fusion brings in 3D desktop effects and improves the usability and visual appeal of the system.

Ubuntu uses the latest Linux kernel, 2.6.22 featuring dynticks. It allows the processor to use less power and produce less heat. For laptops this means more battery life and burn-free laps and for desktops and media centre PCs, a quieter, cooler environment.

Ubuntu is more hardware sensitive, detects if the hardware is capable of running compiz, if not it leaves the Desktop unchanged. Ubuntu automatically detects and configures printers, they say “Only three clicks are needed to fetch and install firmware for wireless cards with Broadcom chipsets, and for a number of Winmodems commonly found in laptops, provided that you have an alternative Internet connection”.

Whilst previous Ubuntu releases only supported read access to Windows (NTFS) partitions, Gutsy Gibbon now fully supports reading and writing to them, by integrating the NTFS-3g project. This significantly eases file and document sharing with Windows, they say.

Ubuntu has practically adopted Novell’s famous security framework, AppArmor to provide an added layer of protection against undiscovered security vulnerabilities in applications.
Even Firefox has been improved. It has a plugin finder wizard and users can install Firefox plugins via the package manager, and Gnash.

The release note says that Ubuntu was released together with it variants, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu. They all can be downloaded from the Ubuntu testing page. The final release of Gutsy Gibbon would be on October 18, 2007.