Following its rapid release schedule, eager Ubuntu fans need only wait until April 23rd for the next release of the open-source Linux distro. In the meantime, if a little over a month is just too long to wait, you can take a sneak peek at Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, currently in alpha form.

The just released Jaunty Jackalope Alpha 6 is the fifth alpha release of Ubuntu 9.04 and includes several new features, along with a handful of known bugs. Among the former is a new X.Org server, version 1.6, better font-size optimization tailored to your monitor rather than defaulting to 96 dpi, new style for notifications and notification preferences, a new Linux kernel (2.6.28-8.26), and support for the new ext4 file system.

Keep in mind that as an alpha release, you should expect instability. Known issues include the disabling of the "encrypted home directory" option, video driver problems with the XServer, mis-reporting of proper font sizes resulting in abnormally small or large fonts, CTRL-ALT-Backspace is disabled, and users of Intel's i846 or i865 video chipsets receive an error message stating "Fatal server error: Couldn't bind memory for BO front buffer."

Still interested? Grab your download here.

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