They are now shipping only a single CD for each distribution - the Desktop CD which is a LiveCD with a graphical installer.

If you need the text-mode installer - for example for the OEM installation or server installation - you will have to download it or get it from a Freedom Toaster (once 6.06 has released in early June).

The Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Edubuntu teams are proud to present a second Beta release of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Edubuntu 6.06 LTS, codenamed “Dapper Drake”. This release corrects some serious flaws in the installer present on the Desktop CD in the first Beta release. Although the text-mode install CD also forms part of this release, it has not been modified since Beta 1.

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution

Book description

In Open Sources, leaders of Open Source come together in print for the first time to discuss the new vision of the software industry they have created, through essays that explain how the movement works, why it succeeds, and where it is going. A powerful vision from the movement’s spiritual leaders, this book reveals the mysteries of how open development builds better software and how businesses can leverage freely available software for a competitive business advantage.

On the Desktop

• A new graphical installer is available on the live CD, allowing Ubuntu to be installed quickly and easily to your hard disk
• Faster system startup and login
• Simplified menu organization
• Graphical shutdown process
• Easy access to power management settings with GNOME Power Manager
• Improved support for video playback
• Optional NetworkManager for convenient roaming between different wireless and wired networks
• It is now possible to enable accessibility options from the very first boot screen of the live CD, and thereby use the accessibility features of Ubuntu during installation
• GNOME 2.14.1
• OpenOffice.org 2.0.2
• X.org 7.0

On the Server

• New kernels targeted at server platforms. The server kernels are tuned differently than the desktop kernels (providing better performance for server applications). The “server” kernel is generic, and should work on the same equipment that the desktop kernel does. The “bigiron” server kernel is geared towards systems with greater than 8 CPUs (ES7000/Summit/BIGSMP).
• Turn-key LAMP installation
• Improved support for clusters and SANs
• Numerous thin client enhancements, including faster client startup, graphical boot process, reduced memory requirements, and sound device support

Localization

• Automatic setup of non-Latin input methods
• Menu item translations can now be included in language packs, for faster integration of new and updated translations

Installation and Upgrades

• The text-mode installer now runs in a single stage, rebooting straight into the complete system. This makes it faster, simpler, and more reliable.
• Ubuntu can now be installed to USB devices, such as removable hard drives and flash memory, using the text-mode installer
• A new upgrade tool is available, for simple, clean and reliable upgrades from one Ubuntu release to the next, starting with Ubuntu 5.10

“Under the hood”

• GCC 4.0.3
• glibc 2.3.6
• Linux 2.6.15.6
• New live CD infrastructure for improved performance, usability and space-efficiency
• Greatly improved infrastructure for automatic hardware detection and activation
• The system PATH is now set in exactly one place, /etc/environment, for convenient administration

For screenshots, see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/flight6 (the previous milestone release, but screenshots won’t have changed much).

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (long-term support) will be the first Ubuntu release to be supported for three years on the desktop, and five years on the server.

Development of this LTS version has had the focus on stability. While previous versions of Ubuntu have been supported for 18 months, this version is targetted at those organisations that can’t upgrade operating systems every six months.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 5.10 to Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Beta, follow these
instructions:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperUpgrades

The final version of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS is expected to be released in June. At
that time, we will mail pressed Desktop CDs free of charge.

For this version, the Live CD has been renamed “Desktop CD” since you can install from it. This will now be the default CD to distribute to end users, since they can try out the desktop environment by booting off the CD, and then they can proceed to install on the hard drive from this live environment.

However for system integrators and OEMs, the text-based installer CD remains the preferred media since it has an “oem” installer mode which doesn’t create the user account(s) during installation. This means that it can be preloaded onto systems, and when the end user boots for the first time they are prompted to create a user account at that point.

Also note that the Desktop CD does not contain deb packages, so you can only install packages on your newly-installed 6.06 system if you have an internet connection to download them from the Ubuntu archives. If you need to install packages such as build-essential without an internet connection, the text-mode install CD is what you need.

The beta release announcements for the Ubuntu family are here:

• Ubuntu, based on the GNOME desktop
• Kubuntu, based on KDE
• Xubuntu, based on the lightweight Xfce desktop environment
• Edubuntu, a classroom distro for education, with LTSP support, and
• Ubuntu ports, for UltraSparc, IA64 and HPPA CPUs.

Microsoft’s position on this is that base systems with no operating systems encourage software piracy - however this has been seen as an attempt to force those who want to run Linux and other free / open source operating systems to pay the “Microsoft tax” by having to buy Windows even though they will not use it.

Linux vendors and free software supporters, though, believe these base systems can play an important role in supporting the open source market. Some are concerned that Microsoft may be attempting to use its powerful position in the market to hamper competition.

The European branch of the Free Software Foundation hopes that PC vendors will not be swayed by Microsoft.

“We would be happy to see any kind of hardware being shipped without an operating system, or pre-installed with free software. Furthermore, we would be happy to get in contact with any hardware vendor who wants to free his customers this way,” said Joachim Jakobs, of the FSF Europe.

Perhaps Microsoft is not aware of this, but the Free Software and Open Source movements are also against software piracy. Rather use Linux than pirate Windows - it’s free and totally legal.

So vendors under this sort of pressure should simply bundle an Ubuntu CD with the system - a no-cost operating system which the customer can use, or not use if they prefer a different operating system…

The final release of SimplyMEPIS 6.0 will coincide with the release of Ubuntu 6.06 - around 1 June.

Warren Woodford, founder of MEPIS, commented on the work so far, “The MEPIS community has been very helpful with suggestions and the support from the Ubuntu Project has been great. By the time we’ve identified a problem, usually they have already fixed it! This gives us more time to work on integration and improvements. It was a big plus that Ubuntu recently decided to support KDE 3.5.2 for the current build cycle.”

“Install a LAMP server” as an option right there in the boot menu will definitely make server deployment easy.