The Ubuntu Linux 6.04 Alpha 3 has been released

The Dapper Drake continues to improve bringing us great new software and many very beneficial improvements. This week brings us Flight 3, the third alpha release of Ubuntu 6.04 - The Dapper Drake. Improvements in this release include an updated installer CD boot splash, X11R7, GNOME 2.13.4, improved and simplified menus, new default desktop panel configuration.

Flight CD 3 is ready. This is the third in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Dapper development cycle, as images that are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD-build or installer bugs, while representing very current snapshots of Dapper. You can download it here:

Europe:
http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/dapper/flight-3/ (Ubuntu)
http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/dapper/flight-3/ (Kubuntu)

United Kingdom, and the rest of the world:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/dapper/flight-3/ (Ubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/dapper/flight-3/ (Kubuntu)

An Edubuntu release should follow soon. Please download using BitTorrent
if possible, and see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Archive for other mirrors.

A list of notable changes in this release across the whole distribution
is available here, thanks to Matt Galvin:

http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperFlight3


Significant changes affecting the installer and live CD include:

* Improved the x86 CD graphical bootloader screen by adding a
normal/expert mode switch to reduce the number of menu items,
offering more video modes, disabling the timeout on install CDs,
removing the scary countdown-to-doomsday timeout clock, and making
the "boot from first hard disk" option clear the screen properly.

* The installer now runs in a single stage. This has lots of
advantages in terms of speed, comprehensibility, reducing code
duplication, and bug fixes.

* The live CD now uses squashfs and unionfs, which makes it faster and
smaller.

* Live CD keyboard setup has been improved.

* An integrity check boot option has been added to both install and
live CDs.

* Users of powerpc CD images on 64-bit hardware no longer need to type
'install-powerpc64' or 'live-powerpc64' by hand; the bootloader will
figure that out automatically.

* Configuration of network cards on first boot has mostly been fixed.

* Network cards that require firmware will once more work in the
installer.

* Many hardware detection/activation fixes.

* Fixed path display errors in the automatic partitioner.

* Installs to USB sticks should now get correct GRUB bootloader
configuration.

* The live CD will now look for a device labelled "casper-cow" (the
label may change) and automatically save its state to that, so that
you can carry around a USB stick with all your documents and
settings saved from the live CD.

* The live CD boot process now uses usplash, making it much more
aesthetically pleasing.

* The system now displays a better "restart required" notification
when complex system upgrades require a reboot.

* Installation on non-networked machines now works properly again
(broken in Flight CD 2).

* Kickstart support has been fixed to cope with some installer
changes from earlier in the Dapper release cycle.


Known bugs:

* Restoration of sound card mixer settings is erratic.

* Bad shutdowns can result in network cards not getting activated on
subsequent boots.

* The powerpc live CD is still pretty broken, due (I think) to unionfs
bugs.

* OEM installation is broken, since it hasn't been fixed up to cope
with the single-stage installer yet.

* Many of the CD images are oversized for 650MB media.