Enter the Jaunty Jackalope: Ubuntu 9.04 begins in beta

Canonical today released the public beta version of Ubuntu 9.04, signifying to those on the "every-six-months-give-or-take-a-week" Ubuntu update schedule that a new, stable OS will be available in just about one month (April 23 to be exact.)

Outwardly, very little has changed since the 8.1 release last October. Betanews booted both releases simultaneously, and true to the Ubuntu team's claims, 9.04 does start up a bit faster, completing startup at 37 seconds versus 8.1's 58 seconds.

This version uses the GNOME 2.26 desktop environment (the previous release used 2.24,) and updates to the latest version of X.Org server (version 1.6), that was released in late February. Ubuntu 9.04 is based on kernel version 2.6.28.8, which supports the Ext4 journaling file system.

There are a few minor stylistic tweaks, including the updated notification system, which pops up opaque black notifications in a stack on the right side of the screen.