It is that time of year again: a new Ubuntu release is upon us. The beta version of Ubuntu 8.04 was released a few days ago, so I decided to give it a try and see what new features and improvements they have shoved into this one. As always, this is as much a preview of the latest GNOME release (2.22) as it is of Ubuntu itself. Read on for the preview.

You will be happy to find out that you no longer have to boot the entire live desktop before you can install Ubuntu. On the CD's GRUB menu, there is now an option called "Install Ubuntu", which will load the installer, but not the entire live desktop. Good effort, since I do not really use the live desktop anyway.