The Ubuntu development community announced today the availability of Ubuntu 10.04 alpha 2, a new prerelease of the next major version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. This alpha is the first Ubuntu release to completely omit HAL, a Linux hardware abstraction layer that is being deprecated in favor of DeviceKit.
The alpha release introduces a few new applications, including the Pitivi video editing tool and the GBrainy game. Some of the other planned changes to the default application set have not yet been made. The GIMP, which is scheduled for removal from the default installation during this development cycle, is still included in alpha 2. Some other applications that are planned for inclusion in 10.04, such as Gwibber, aren’t ready yet and have been pushed back to alpha 3.
