Every six months without fail, a new release of Ubuntu arrives, carrying a number of new features. At the moment, this is great. Ubuntu improves at an extremely impressive speed and, each time, the release is a little better.

If you are running a recent distribution release, say, Ubuntu 11.04 or Linux Mint 11, you are likely running Firefox 4. But what if you want to run the bleeding edge version (of Firefox), that is the Daily Build?

Ubuntu on tablets is the latest Ubuntu platform from Canonical, the company behind the popular Linux distribution. Barely two months ago, the company announced Ubuntu for smartphones. Before that, was Ubuntu for TV and before that, too, was Ubuntu for Android.

The Fedora Project has released Fedora 9, a significant upgrade for the popular Linux distribution. Fedora 9 packs in a number of new features including an improved package management system, KDE 4 and more.

I can't say Ubuntu's installer is bad compared to other installers (in fact, it is one of the better ones), but it could certainly be improved. Right now, it works and it works pretty well, but there are a fair number of unnessessary clicks and some unexplained features. Here is my list of important features for an installer...

While recent Ubuntu releases have been more about careful enhancement and distribution maintenance, the current version 9.10 offers a new look as well as a whole range of new technical features – the developers have restructured the distribution's standard filesystem, boot system and hardware maintenance, and they have introduced new software.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about five features that make Ubuntu so much more enjoyable to use than certain less-Free operating systems. The comments on that post got me thinking about several other great features that I didn't mention. So to give those their due, here's a second list of five things Ubuntu does that I couldn't live without.

Every six months you're guaranteed at least one entertaining post on the Ubuntu mailing list: Mark Shuttleworth's announcement of the next Ubuntu release. I don't know how he does it, but each announcement manages to relate the planned features of the next release to specific characteristics of the chosen mascot. This year, though, something is different.

Over the past few months, we’ve looked at the installation and configuration of Feisty Fawn, the latest release of Ubuntu Linux, which is perhaps the most popular free Linux distribution available.