Following the news that the Linux.com web page has been relaunched thanks to the efforts of the Linux Foundation, we have more good news for the Linux community: Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 1, codename Karmic Koala, has been made available for download; the second good news is that Canonical has introduced Ubuntu One, the currently in Beta service that “helps you store, sync and share”.

Starting with the Karmic Koala, here is the schedule that Canonical has set for this Linux distribution:
Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha1 – May 14
Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2 – June 11
Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 3 – July 23
Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 4 – August 13
Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 5 – September 3
Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 6 – September 17
Ubuntu 9.10 Beta – October 1
Ubuntu 9.10 Release Candidate – October 22
Ubuntu 9.10 Final – October 29

“Alpha 1 is the first in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Karmic development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Karmic. The primary changes from Jaunty have been the re-merging of changes from Debian, updating to the current Linux kernel, and updating GNOME to the current development release. There are also some infrastructure changes for power management and the Intel video driver,” explains Martin Pitt.

Moving on to Ubuntu One, it must be said that the service is currently in Beta and provides Linux users Cloud synchronization functionality. For the time being Ubuntu One is available to Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope users, the ones that take the time to go through the “Getting Started” 3-step process:
1. Request an invitation.
2. Subscribe to Ubuntu One.
3. Install the software on your Ubuntu 9.04 powered machine.

If you would like to get Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 1, a download location is available here.
If you would like to use Ubuntu One, you can visit the official web page here.