Ubuntu 11.10 to release on Oct 13, beta download available now

The next milestone in Ubuntu’s development cycle will be met on the 13th of October, next month. If you’re impatient like some of us, you’ll want to get your hands on it as soon as possible. You can download the Ubuntu 11.10 beta build from their download page. Remember that this isn't the final build, so there are bound to be a few glitches that will be ironed out on the way to the final release. A lot has gone into the forthcoming release that’s been codenamed Oneiric Ocelot. The last build, 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) introduced the new Unity interface and there’s been more development on that front in the new installment. 

Oneiric Ocelot will be the last release this year

The window controls at the top, for example have now been hidden and the theme has been updated. The Software Center application has been updated and there’s a brand new switcher application, as well. The beta ships with Firefox 7 and Thunderbird 7 in their beta forms. The final release of Firefox 7 is scheduled to happen in September itself, so it’s assumed that Ubuntu 11.10 will ship with the final release of the browser. Unity in 11.10 will run on top of a GNOME 3 layer instead of GNOME 2 like in 11.04. After Oneiric Ocelot launches next month, the next release (12.04) for Ubuntu will only happen in April, next year.