During Ubuntu Developer Summit in Barcelona, developers discussed the new features in the forthcoming release of Ubuntu. A large amount of non-official information on this subject can be found Michael Rooney’s
blog.
It is worth to mention that this is not official information from Canonical.
Here's a list of important changes in the next version:
Ekiga is to be removed from the CD, releasing 10 MB,
Empathy is likely to become the default IM. Empathy can also import settings from Pidgin, and is easy to configure,
Rhythmbox is likely to be replaced by Banshee,
the startup is to be faster - 10-12 seconds,
ext4 will be the default file system,
/tmp directory will become /tmpfs and will reside in RAM and use the swap file,
GDM is likely to be upgraded to GDM2,
improved energy management - sound cards will be switched off after 10 seconds without sound,
it will be easier to create encrypted folders,
Firefox 3.5 will be the default browser.
