Easy Testing of Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 1 with TestDrive

Ubuntu ‘Lucid Lynx’ 10.04 has just been released, if you want to give it a quick try, with little or no hassle, then do it the TestDrive way. It simply downloads the latest working ISO and turns it into a virtual machine. So if you’ve got VirtualBox installed on your current working Ubuntu, Ubuntu 9.10, flip-up the terminal and drop in this line of code that adds the TestDrive PPA repository to your sources; sudo add-apt-repository ppa:testdrive/ppa && sudo apt-get update, update and install with sudo apt-get install testdrive. To personalize TestDrive settings, edit the /etc/testdriverc file, the defaults are just OK.

Run TestDrive; Applications -> System Tools -> Test Drive Ubuntu ISO, this will open a terminal window where you can choose which version of Ubuntu you want to install. In this case, just hit 1 and ‘Enter’ to get the Lucid download process rolling. If the download hangs for any reason, it don’t get scared, TestDrive caches the download process, re-launch TestDrive and direct the download to where the incomplete download ISO is found e.g /home/username/.cache/testdrive/iso

At the end of the download, VirtualBox will be launched automatically and you’ll be left with just one decision, whether to install Ubuntu 10.04 beta 1 on a VBOX hard disk or to test it without going through the installation process.

Use TestDrive when ever you want to give upcoming Ubuntu releases a spin, it has never been easier! Get TestDrive