Draft: Gutsy beta release announcement

Wed Sep 26 09:34:40 UTC 2007

Hi all,

The Gutsy Beta release is a day away, and so it's time to collect our
thoughts and tell our users all about it this shiny new release.

Attached is a draft for the beta release announcement mail.  I would
appreciate your review of this draft to help more clearly communicate to
users why they should give this beta a try.

A few notes on the text.  I have one bit of language that I'm not thrilled
with marked with a 'FIXME', feedback on this would be particularly welcome.
The download urls have not yet been vetted at all, but copied directly from
the Feisty beta announcement.  And two of the wiki pages mentioned in the
mail, <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GutsyUpgrades> and
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyGibbon/Beta>, do not yet exist.  Help in
collating the information for these pages would also be welcome.
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Subject: Ubuntu 7.10 Beta released

The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the beta release of Ubuntu 7.10.
Codenamed "Gutsy Gibbon", 7.10 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of
integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a
high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

Ubuntu 7.10 on the desktop features the cutting-edge Compiz compositing
window manager (FIXME: and quantum-elastic dingledongers too, is this the
right way to express Compiz to the audience?), fully automated printer
installation, and superior support for Firefox browser plugins.

Ubuntu 7.10 server edition brings enhanced security-in-depth with AppArmor,
and easy install-time options for multiple common server configurations.

Desktop highlights
------------------

Compiz Fusion: This innovative compositing window manager enables 3-D desktop
effects that let users work with, and see, their desktops in completely new
ways.

Printer installation: The hal-cups-utils package allows printers to be
automatically configured for use as soon as they are connected.

Free Flash support with Gnash: This browser plugin and player brings free
Flash support to the desktop, on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

Automated Firefox plugin installation: Beyond the addition of Gnash, Firefox
in Ubuntu now supports automatic installation of popular plugins through the
standard Ubuntu package repositories, for a richer web-browsing experience
with all of the security support of the rest of the Ubuntu system.

Server highlights
-----------------

AppArmor: Servers will have an added layer of protection against unknown
security vulnerabilities in applications, with this easy-to-deploy kernel
technology that control the resources an application is allowed to use.

Pre-configured installation options: Mail Server, Print Server, and Database
Server options join existing LAMP and DNS/DHCP options for preconfigured
installations, easing the deployment of common server configurations.

Edubuntu highlights
-------------------

Faster thin clients: Thin clients have been sped up significantly through
the use of compressed images.

Kubuntu highlights
------------------

Dolphin file manager:  This updated file manager gives Ubuntu users a glimpse
of the upcoming KDE 4.

Other
-----

* On the Desktop: GNOME 2.20, OpenOffice.org 2.3.0rc1, X.org 7.2

* On the Server: Apache 2.2, PostgreSQL 8.2, PHP 5.2.3, LTSP 5.0

* "Under the hood": GCC 4.1.2, glibc 2.6, Linux 2.6.22, Python 2.5

The full release notes can be found at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyGibbon/Beta

About Ubuntu
------------

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for your desktop, laptop, thin client
and server, with a fast and easy install. The Ubuntu project makes no
separation between our free edition and our enterprise edition - this
is our best work and it is freely available.

Used by businesses, home users, schools and governments around the
world, Ubuntu offers regular releases, a tight selection of excellent
packages installed by default and professional commercial technical
support from Canonical Ltd and hundreds of other companies.

To Get Ubuntu 7.10 Beta
-----------------------

Download Ubuntu 7.10 Beta here (choose the mirror closest to you):

  Europe:

    http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (Sweden)
    http://es.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (Spain)
    http://nl.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (The Netherlands)
    http://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/linux/ubuntu/7.10 (The Netherlands)
    http://ie.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (Ireland)
    http://it.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (Italy)
    http://pl.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (Poland)
    http://de.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (Germany)
    http://bg.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (Bulgaria)

  Australia:

    http://au.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10

  Africa:

    http://za.releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (South Africa)

  Rest of the world:

    http://releases.ubuntu.com/7.10 (Great Britain)

Please download using Bittorrent if possible.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 7.04 to Ubuntu 7.10 Beta, follow these
instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GutsyUpgrades

The final version of Ubuntu 7.10 is expected to be released in
October 2007.

Feedback and Helping
--------------------

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of
ways you can participate at

  http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate/

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help turn
this Beta into the best release of Ubuntu ever.  Please report bugs
through the Launchpad bug tracker:

  https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+bugs

If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but
are not sure, first try asking on the #ubuntu IRC channel on FreeNode,
on the Ubuntu Users mailing list, or on the Ubuntu forums:

  http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
  http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

More Information
----------------

You can find out more about Ubuntu and about this preview release on
our website, IRC channel and wiki. If you are new to Ubuntu, please
visit:

  http://www.ubuntu.com/

To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to
Ubuntu's very low volume announcement list at:

  http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce