The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1.

Codenamed “Oneiric Ocelot”, 11.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs. This release introduces a new set images called Ubuntu Core. These include a minimal software and are can be used as the basis for customized Ubuntu distributions and products.

The DVD images have been slimmed down to 1.5GB, retaining a complete set of language packs, for faster downloading and use on USB drives.

With Ubuntu 11.10, we also welcome a new Ubuntu family member, Lubuntu!
Lubuntu, together with Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu, and Ubuntu Studio also reached Beta 1 status today.

Remember before you start:

• Don’t make the update on a production environment
• You can directly upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10 (“Oneiric Ocelot”) from Ubuntu 11.04 (“Natty Narwhal”) only.
• Be sure that you have all updates applied to your current version of Ubuntu before you upgrade.
• Before upgrading it is recommended that you read the release notes for Ubuntu 11.10 Beta, which document caveats and workarounds for known issues in this version.

Read more on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OneiricUpgrades