Pre-releases of Karmic are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Alpha 3 is the third in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Karmic development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Karmic. You can download it here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-3/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-3/ (Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/karmic/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu Studio)

See http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors for a list of mirrors.

Alpha 3 includes a number of software updates that are ready for large-scale testing. This is quite an early set of images, so you should expect some bugs. For an overview of new features and a list of known bugs (that you don't need to report if you encounter).

For Ubuntu please see:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/alpha3

For Kubuntu please see:

https://wiki.kubuntu.org/KarmicKoala/Alpha3/Kubuntu

If you're interested in following the changes as we further develop Karmic, have a look at the karmic-changes mailing list:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/karmic-changes