Ubuntu ports 6.06 Beta has been released:

The Porting Team is proud to announce to the Ubuntu world the Beta release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS codename "Dapper Drake" and Ubuntu Server 6.06 LTS for UltraSparc, IA64 and HPPA (1.1 and later) CPUs.

What's hot and new
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For the second time the Porting Team is releasing together with Ubuntu
mainstream (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2005-October/000040.html). This is the proof that our ports are getting better and more stable in time specially thanks to our amazing growing community,

On top of what Ubuntu mainstream already has, a number of architecture specific improvements have been done from the previous release:

* new amazingly fast build machines have been donated by Canonical and hosted at the official data center.

* HPPA did overrule all the other 5 architectures for being the most up-to-date in the archive.

* a lot of work has been done on the sparc kernel that now has preliminary support for SUN Niagara T1 CPU (as previously announced).

* mono has been ported to sparc, bringing the sparc desktop experience almost at the same level as other architectures.

* a lot of sparc installer bug fixes made their way to the archive. Including also installation on RAID and LVM.

* and much more under the hood.

How to get Ports
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Download Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Beta here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/6.06/beta/

or the Ubuntu Server 6.06 LTS Beta here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/ports/releases/dapper/beta/

Net install images are available here:

UltraSparc:

http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/dapper/main/installer-sparc/current/images/

HPPA:

http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/dapper/main/installer-hppa/current/images/

IA64:

http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/dapper/main/installer-ia64/current/images/

Known Issues
- ------------

Due to a very unfortunate bug, the HPPA CD images will not be able to complete the install. It is highly recommended to use net install that is known to work fine.

Feedback and Helping
- --------------------

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can
participate at

http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate/

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help ensure that our next release is the best release of Ubuntu ever. Please report bugs through Launchpad:

http://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bugs

If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but aren't sure, first try asking on the #ubuntu IRC channel on Freenode, on the Ubuntu Users mailing list, or on the Ubuntu forums:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

For specific Ports involvement and development you are welcome to join the #ubuntu-ports IRC channel on Freenode.