The first alpha release of Ubuntu 8.10, codenamed Intrepid Ibex, was made available on Saturday. This preliminary Intrepid prerelease includes updated packages, a new version of the Linux kernel, and an experimental new visual style.

Ubuntu adheres to a time-based release cycle and puts out a new major release every six months. Development of a new version begins soon after each major release. The first stage of the Ubuntu development cycle, which is now complete for Intrepid, is planning the roadmap and merging in updated packages from upstream Debain.

A close look at the roadmap and blueprints reveals a modest but promising assortment of planned features for Ubuntu 8.10. Some of the most interesting plans relate to Canonical's strategy for bringing Ubuntu to subnotebook portable computers and mobile Internet devices. We recently looked at some of the early pieces of Ubuntu's upcoming Netbook Remix, which is optimized specifically for devices with Intel's Atom processor. The Netbook Remix user interface is shaping up nicely, and now the Ubuntu developers are moving to the next level by focusing on bringing some important improvements to the underlying platform that will make Intrepid a stronger contender in the ultramobile space.

The most notable plans for subnotebook supremacy in Intrepid are better support for mobile networking, improved startup time, and official support for USB installation images. Network configuration in the current version of Ubuntu is handled by NetworkManager, which offers simple point-and-click support for connecting to WiFi access points. The new version of NetworkManager, which will be included in Ubuntu 8.10, adds basic support for 3G networking. In addition to integrating the new version of NetworkManager, the Ubuntu developers will also conduct testing to ensure compatibility with the most commonly used 3G networking devices and services.

Improving boot performance in Intrepid is another high priority for Ubuntu on mobile devices. This will be done by integrating prefetching, a predictive loading strategy. A participant in Google's Summer of Code program last year created a prefetching implementation for Ubuntu that has been found to reduce boot time by roughly 6.31 seconds and reduces startup time for certain large programs like OpenOffice.org. The Ubuntu developers will also be migrating more system services like D-Bus and HAL to Upstart, an asynchronous replacement for the legacy init system that is roughly similar to Apple's launchd.

Many subnotebook mobile devices do not have optical drives, which makes it difficult for users to install Linux distributions on them. Some clever users have modified existing distributions and offered customized USB installation images that simplify the process of getting a popular distro onto devices like the Eee PC. The Ubuntu developers plan to officially support USB installation by creating a cross-platform utility similar to Fedora's new LiveUSB Creator that will take an ISO CD image and automatically generate a modified version that will be written to a USB disk.

In addition to subnotebook improvements, Ubuntu 8.10 will get an assortment of other new features and notable application upgrades, including OpenOffice.org 3 and improved KDE integration for Firefox. Another big change that is going on right now is a visual overhaul, which will bring a new look to Ubuntu. A major theme change was originally planned for 8.04, but it was deferred for various reasons until now. The new style will use dark colors with bright orange highlights. Work on this has already started and a very rough first attempt is visible in alpha 1. It's important to note that this effort is still early in development and will likely undergo a lot of changes before it is finished.

Dark colors have traditionally not been particularly well supported or executed in GNOME themes, but there has been a recent trend in that direction among some GNOME developers. Having a dark theme by default in a prominent distribution will likely help to expose some of the most significant issues with dark themes, which will ensure that they are better supported in the future. The new theme uses the Murrine theme engine instead of Clearlooks, which means that designers will have a lot more flexibility and the ability to deliver an aesthetically richer experience.

As I've written many times before, I'm not a particularly big fan of Ubuntu's themes. There are a few third-party Gtk+ themes with similarly dark color schemes that look a lot more polished, such as the official Ubuntu Studio theme and the Murrine Human Dark theme from the ColorizeMe scripts collection. I don't particularly think that the new dark brown iteration shipped with alpha 1 is an improvement, but there is still a lot of time for it to evolve during the development cycle before the official release.

The alpha release is available for download from the Ubuntu web site. There are also Kubuntu and Xubuntu flavors of the alpha too. LiveCD images are not available right now, so you need to use the text-based alternate installation image. Keep in mind that alpha releases are not intended for use in production environments and there are still a lot of bugs. Additional alpha releases will be distributed in July, August, and September. A beta release is planned for the beginning of October and the final release is tentatively scheduled for October 30.

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