The beta version of Ubuntu 20.10 "Groovy Gorilla" has already been released and is available for testing to the general public. This release goes on to mark complete freezing from the base of the package and moved on to final testing and bug fixes.
As many of you will know, versions xx.10 are versions with few months of support and that are released in order to improve various aspects of the distribution, introduce proposals and changes for the next LTS version, which will be Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
Main news of the Ubuntu 20.10 beta "Groovy Gorilla"
In the beta version of Ubuntu 20.10, we can find the updated versions of several of the system applications.
And it is that in technical terms, one of the novelties of this new version Ubuntu 20.10 and its official flavors (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Mate, Studio, etc) is the Linux 5.8 kernel, which is considered to be one of the largest kernels in history and which adds a large number of updates to drivers, support and more.
On the part of the desktop that has been upgraded to GNOME 3.38 in which the configurator, in the user administration section, you can now configure parental controls for regular accounts. For a given user, you can prevent certain installed programs from appearing in the application lists. Parental Control is also built into the Application Installation Manager and allows you to allow installation of only selected programs.
The configurator introduces a new fingerprint scanning interface for authentication with fingerprint sensors.
Added option to block activation of unauthorized USB devices connected during screen lock.
Other applications that were updated were those of Python, Ruby, Perl and PHP and updated system components like PulseAudio, BlueZ and NetworkManager.
On the part of the system packaging, in this new version a new version of the office suite has been proposed Libre Office 7.0.
Regarding the changes that stand out, we can find that the transition to the use of nftables tables was implemented of the default packet filter.
To maintain backward compatibility, the iptables-nft package is available, which provides utilities with the same command line syntax as in iptables, but translates the resulting rules into bytecode nf_tables.
Added la ability to enable Active Directory authentication to the Ubiquity installer.
Popcon package removed (popularity contest) of the main line, which was used to transmit anonymous telemetry about downloading, installing, updating and removing packages.
From the data collected, reports were made on the popularity of the applications and the architectures used, which were used by the developers to make decisions about the inclusion of certain programs in the basic delivery.
Popcon has been shipping since 2006, but since the Ubuntu 18.04 release, this package and its associated backend server have been broken.
Access to the / usr / bin / dmesg utility is restricted to the users of the "adm" group. The reason cited is the presence of information in the dmesg output that attackers can use to facilitate the creation of exploits for privilege escalation.
For example, dmesg shows a stack dump in case of a crash and it has the ability to define address structures in the kernel that can help bypass the KASLR mechanism.
Download and get Ubuntu 20.10
Finally, for those who want to download and install this beta version of Ubuntu on their computers or to be able to test it in a virtual machine, They should download the system image from the official website of the system.
This can be done from the following link. Also, it is important to mention that images of UbuntuServer, Lubuntu, Free, Free Mate, Free Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, and UbuntuKylin (China edition).
As well as images for Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 2, Pi 3B, Pi 3B +, CM3 and CM3 boards.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the launch is scheduled for October 22.