"HAL" unfortunately isn't the heinous supercomputer from Kubrick's film 2001, but Ubuntu's Hardware Abstraction Layer between Ubuntu's hardware and software. It has now disappeared entirely from the current Ubuntu 10.04 test version, it's function being taken over among other things by DeviceKit. The advantage to this, according to the official announcement, is that Ubuntu has a faster boot and startup from hibernate time.

Alpha 2 provides Kernel version 2.6.32-10.14 and has the newest GNOME and KDE packages on board. The GNOME desktop is version 2.29.4 and KDE is 4.4 RC1. Interestingly, the three proprietary versions of NVIDIA graphics drivers (190.53, 173 and 96) can be installed at the same time without a problem, provided only one is configured for use. In the past the automatic installation of the wrong driver version via Jockey could lead to a failed graphical interface in some applications. Further enhancements went into Ubuntu's Enterprise Cloud (UEC) that is now based on Eucalyptus 1.6.2.

As usual, the announcement warns about known issues with implementing Alpha 2. Removing HAL has the consequence that Wacom drivers can no longer be used for drawing tablets. Desktop ISOs from Kubuntu no longer fit on a CD, so they need to be burned to a DVD or USB stick. A LiveCD reboot can freeze on the boot logo on systems supporting Kernel Mode Setting (KMS), which may indeed be a Plymouth error. The workaround is to boot from USB stick instead of CD. The notification bubbles are rather hideous at the moment, as the notification system is still in debug mode during the development phase.

Debug mode is more or less the state of all of Ubuntu 10.04. The usual message is that the alpha is an unstable system not to be deployed in production. Nevertheless, downloads come in a variety of flavors:

• Ubuntu Desktop
• Ubuntu Server for UEC and EC2
• Ubuntu ARM
• Kubuntu Desktop and Netbook Remix
• Xubuntu
• Edubuntu
• Mythbuntu