The new GNOME-flavoured spin of Ubuntu 12.10 has released an early alpha build for testers to try.

Aiming to provide as ‘pure’ a GNOME experience as possible on Ubuntu, the spin uses the latest beta of GNOME 3.6 as its default desktop environment.

Some updated GNOME apps, such as the new Nautilus and the latest release of Totem, are not included. This is largely down to the Ubuntu 12.10 repositories not including them (for various technical/conflict reasons).

A GNOME 3 PPA is available that does provide these, but as the spin is seeking ‘official status’ within the Ubuntu family it cannot provide this PPA by default.

Other casualties lost in its drive for a “vanilla experience” are some Ubuntu apps, including Ubuntu One and the Ubuntu Software Center.

New Name

The project originally intended to use the name of ‘GNOMEbuntu’ but has been forced to rename itself after the folks at GNOME blocked this title.

So, for now at least, the distro is referring to itself as “Ubuntu GNOME Remix”.

What’s Included

Amongst the new and updated apps included:

‘Web’ (aka Epiphany) is the default web browser

Abiword and Gnumeric are the only office apps

Evolution replaces Thunderbird

GDM is used as the login manager

‘Software’ package manager

Download Alpha 1

In case the alpha in the title of this post didn’t warn you I’ll repeat it again: this is an alpha build. Stability shouldn’t be expected, neither should polish or finesse.

One thing you can expect are bugs. And lots of ’em!

Download links below. If you try it out let us know what you think in the comments.

You can expect to see the full and final release of the GNOME Remix on October 18th.

[button size=”medium” color=”blue” url=”https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGNOME/ReleaseNotes#Download_the_Alpha”] Download Ubuntu GNOME Remix [/button]

Via Ubuntu Forums