• A new graphical boot screen manager called ‘Plymouth’ which is to replace the currently used xsplash and usplash boot screen systems.
• The user menu and power/session locking menus have been split into two distinct icons, marking the first steps into the development of Ubuntu 10.04′s social networking features including the ‘Me Menu’.
• Improvements in the manner in which restricted drivers are handled allows you to now have multiple nVidia graphics drivers of different versions installed simultaneously. Activating an individual driver is then only a matter of a few click and a restart.

In terms of application changes, the PiTiVi Video Editor has been added to allow home and professional users to perform various tasks to create new videos or editing existing ones. It comes with a variety of features including different video/audio effects, time-line management, dubbing and the like. A quick screenshot of the PiTiVi video editor is shown below.

Many of the existing default games in Ubuntu are planned to be replaced over the course of the development cycle for Lucid Lynx. gBrainy is the first new game to enter the scene, and is a brain training game, which is essentially a fun and extensible logic, memory and intelligence test. It resembles, it some ways, the brain training exercises and games for the Nintendo DS.

Rhythmbox Music Player, the default music playing application which ships with Ubuntu has seen some usability improvements in the way of a new application indicator. Application indicator’s are a new attempt to standardise and regulate the difference between notification and effective quick access menus for specific applications which require or desire interaction beyond the scope of their main application windows.

On a more heavily technical side, Alpha 2 of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx brings with it the complete removal of ‘hal’, the now legacy hardware abstraction layer. The removal of hal will allow for faster boot up, shut down and improved, speedier resuming from suspend and hibernation mode.

For additional details about Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2 and the changes it brings, see the official Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 testing page.

A Lynx - basically just a wild cat

The first alpha version of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, which will be known as Ubuntu 10.04 LTS  (long-term support) upon release, is now available for download. Want to get it immediately? See the Ubuntu Lucid Lynx alpha download links below.

• 32-bit Desktop Edition – x86 Desktop edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 64-bit Desktop Edition – AMD64 Desktop edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 32-bit Server Edition – x86 Server edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 64-bit Server Edition – AMD64 Server edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1

If you wish, there are other versions of this alpha available for download. These include the Lucid Lynx alternate install CD for x86 and AMD64 architectures, the ARM platform installation disc and the BitTorrrent files for all Lucid Lynx alpha 1 disc images.

Although Canonical’s servers and the various mirrors have huge bandwidth limits and very little in the way of speed restrictions, I still recommend the use of the BitTorrent files for download of Ubuntu’s disc images as, due to the nature of BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer protocol, downloading Ubuntu via BitTorrent will relieve some strain on the download servers.