Some of these minor changes are, better Ubuntu One integrations/sycing, Shotwell replaces F-Spot, the installer now gives you the option to install the mp3 codec (this is my favourite feature) and overall they did some more polishing on the desktop user interface (the menus look great).

You can download it here, however I'd recommend getting the torrent version because you'll probably get better speeds, here.

What changes would you like to see in Beta 2 if it's not already been changed in this release? (I'm sure a lot of people are going to say, "buttons")

I'd like to see Rythmbox get support for Audiobooks and have better Podcast functionality. If they fixed that and then in 10.10 added a Podcast directory which you could browse and subscribe to Podcasts (like Miro), it would complement the UbuntuOne Music Store perfectly.

I would also like to see ATI get their arse in gear and support the new X version, but I'd be surprised if that'll happen before 10.04 is released. However that isn't really in the Ubuntu developers hands, the current workaround is to use the open source driver -ati driver.

Please leave a comment bellow and tell me what you'd like to see in Beta 2? or 10.10?

With Google entering the Operating System (OS), their initial strategy is to sell netbooks with Chrome OS pre-installed on it. Google has said that one of there biggest focuses is to get driver support for everything you'd want to plug into your netbook, this means cameras, mp3 players, e-book reader, etc...it all should just work! They aren't taking the project lightly and have partnered with several big hardware vendors to ensure that wireless cards, graphics card, etc...are all compatible and work perfectly out of the box. They have also partnered with Canonical (the people behind Ubuntu) to help them creating a great stable OS. Chrome OS is essentially a very lightweight stripped down version of Ubuntu.

So how is this going to help Linux? Google is too big to ignore, even if they are just starting off in a new space and vendors are going to want to make their products Chrome OS compatible. I'd like to see Google rewarding vendors and allowing them to put a “Chrome OS Compatible” badge of some sort on there boxes which will make products attractive to consumers. Google has really embraced open source and open standards which is not only good for there business, but is great for the consumer. I believe this could be a defining moment in Linux history if Google can encourage companies to release drivers and support products for Linux.

I'm interested in what you think of the impact that Google could have on Linux, post a comment below.

Note: Great disscussion happening on the Ubuntu Forums

Google Chrome OS is an open source operating system for people who spend most of their time on the web built around the core tenets of speed, simplicity and security. http://www.chromium.org

During the Q&A I found that people really didn't understand what ChromOS is and the differences between it and the Chrome Browser. Firstly everything on the system is a web application so you should be able to use the web application from any browser. People just need to think of it as an OS that is just the browser. This means you never install applications, everything is stored remotely and nowadays that's fine seeing as we spend most of our time in a browser connected to the internet.

I'm glad Google behind the rather bold move to really push the envelope of what web applications can do and open new doors for creativity. I do see how this will help them though, but Google are a business and they want to make money, but this is still great news for the opensource community.

I personally would love an eclipse web application as I use that as my primary IDE for programming and if it could automatically save my code in the cloud that would be great! I see there being some problems with the OS like storing music collection and syncing them with a device. Am I going to have to download my whole music library from the internet every time I get a new mp3 player? What about uploading my music library online? Is that going to cause problems with piracy and such? Bandwidth cap? That's just one item that really jumped out at me that had a lot of questions around it.

Overall I'm excited about this new OS and I will test it out and probably do a tutorial on how to build the code yourself over Christmas break, but for as mentioned in the video they don't really see it as being your primary OS so I'll be sticking with the more conventional OS model for now.

Please post a comment on what you think about the OS?, where you'd like to see it go? and whatever else you have on your mind.