Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope hits release Candidate

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 17 Apr 2009 at 10:24

Canonical has unveiled the release candidate of Jaunty Jackalope, the latest version of the popular Ubuntu operating system.

Unlike the beta which was recommended only to experienced users, distributor Canonical claims the release candidate is "complete, stable, and suitable for testing by any user".

Hopes are high for Jaunty Jackalope, or Ubuntu 9.04, which will hit final release on 23 April.

Among the significant improvements, users will see improved boot times - down to around 25 seconds on netbooks. On the server side, customers will be able to deploy Amazon Machine Images allowing them to embark on their own cloud computing adventure.

Elsewhere, the inclusion of the Gnome 2.26 desktop environment will bring improvements to Evolution, the default mail client, which can now import Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders and has support for Microsoft Exchange's MAPI protocol.

There's also an option to install the Ext4 filesystem and the inclusion of version 2.6.28 of the Linux kernel.