After a long six months of development, the Ubuntu team has announced the release of Ubuntu 5.10, also known as “Breezy Badger”. Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for your desktop or server, with a fast and easy install, regular releases, a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default, every other package you can imagine available from the network, a commitment to security updates for 18 months after each release and professional technical support from many companies around the world.

Coinciding with this release, Jonathan Riddell also announced Kubuntu 5.10:

The second release of Kubuntu, codenamed Breezy Badger, is now available for download. This release comes with the very latest KDE 3.4.3 and includes the new Guidance configuration tools. If you missed our testing releases for Breezy you will be pleased to see the other new additions in Kubuntu Breezy including Adept package manager, System Settings and KDE Bluetooth.

And last, but certainly not least, the Edubuntu team’s first release is also available. Developed in partnership with the K12-LTSP community, this is a great base distro for people working with FLOSS in schools:

Features include a built-in Linux Terminal Server, educational applications such as GCompris and the KDE Edutainment Suite, Tux4kids, and other quality software that you will also find in Ubuntu.

All three are available for the i386, PowerPC, and x86_64 hardware architectures. As always, ordering a complimentary copy of the official Ubuntu 5.10 CD — or a handful to give to friends, your school or LUG — is a snack with shipit! The Documentation team has whipped up a quick tour that you can peruse while waiting for your download. Also, don’t forget to read the release notes. Enjoy!

The Ubuntu 5.10 release, also known as Breezy Badger, is not drastically different from the previous Ubuntu release, 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog, but it is an excellent distribution that is well worth a look for any user interested in a Linux distro for the desktop or server.

The Ubuntu distribution is on a six-month development cycle, so releases tend to be full of minor improvements and incremental changes. This is a good thing for users, since it means a great deal of stability from release to release — as well as a predictable release cycle that’s easy to plan around.

I’m writing this column on my trusty IBM Thinkpad, which has been running the newly released Gnome 2.12 for about a week now. This is thanks to Ubuntu Linux, which has gotten so much praise in my recent reports, a colleague suggested I should change the name of this column to “Ubuntu Agent.” Ahem.

The version of Ubuntu I fell in love with last spring is 5.04, also known as the Hoary Hedgehog release. Version 5.10, the Breezy Badger (could I make this up?), is now available in prerelease form, and may very well be finalized by the time you read this. I like what I see, although there are also some disappointments. Let’s dive in.

Oh, it’s so exciting! The latest Ubuntu, Breezy Badger, hot off the web and on my desktop. Judging by previous Ubuntu Linux releases, the preview edition is a pretty good indication of what to expect from the final product, which usually just gets a slight tune-up just before release date.