Ubuntu 8.10 Beta Features

Ubuntu 8.10 beta desktop and server versions have been released. I Download the .ISO file and looked at some of the new desktop features which turned out to be impressive. Some of the Ubuntu 8.10 beta features include Gnome 2.24, X.org 7.4, Linux Kernel 2.6.27, an encrypted private directory, guest session, Network Manager 0.7, Samba 3.2, and more.

I was particularly impressed with:

Guest Session
I’ve experienced a need for a feature like guest session many times in both student and work environments. When starting a Guest Session you create a temporary password-less user account with restricted privileges. This allows other people to use you computer but restricts them from doing things like accessing the home folder or saving a bunch of files permanently.

Encrypted Private Directory
The Encrypted Private directors comes to us from the ecryptfs-utils package recently promoted to Ubuntu “main”. This gives Ubuntu support for a secret encrypted folder withing the home folder.

Gnome 2.24
Gnome 2.24 has some new fixes and features of it’s own. Now in Gnome 2.24 Nautilus file manager includes tab support and a few other features. The File Roller archive manager now support ALZ, RZIP, CAB, and TAR.7Z file types.