Thank goodness Joe Jaxx took the time to dispel some rumors that had been floating through the Fluxbuntu release hysteria thread. It was starting to get ugly.
In short …
- Yes, there will be a 7.10 release. It’s not there yet (or it wasn’t, at 00:00 UTC on 07/10/26)
- RC images are being tested, which is better than just dumping them on the public
- The 7.10 release candidate will use debian-installer (think: the alternate text-install version)
- The 7.10 final will have live and alternate CDs
- Anything else you hear is absolute rubbish
Actually, I’m quite impressed. If Joe and Company can pull this off, it will go a long way toward a proper lightweight version of Ubuntu. This might be a project to invest some time in, particularly if light-fast-etc. are priorities for you.
In the mean time, watch the bug reports here, and get a look at artwork and code here. Best of all, there’s an open meeting on 27 October at 18:00 EDT to discuss 8.04. So these guys are serious.
So now it’s your turn (and mine) to put up or shut up. If it’s really that big a deal, get involved, as they say. I’ll wait for the RC and see if it’s something I want to chase. Maybe I’ll finally be able to shake off my irritation with Xubuntu. 
I’m testing the pre-rc edition right now, and it’s very promising. Good artwork, perfect automounting via hal+ivman magic, and amazing performance even in a VM. (it’s the first OS I’ve tried than has NO lag at all in a VM. simply amazing.) It uses less than 64MB of RAM as well. If you have anything you want me to look at for you, just let me know and I’ll try it.
I think my curiosity is more to see how it performs on a very old machine. I have my trusty K6-2 waiting patiently for it.
Well I do have a pentium II 300mhz laying around. I’ll give it a shot on there are report back my findings.
Yay for install troubles… it won’t detect the hard drive, asks what driver to load. This is the first time I’ve tried to put anything on that box though so it likely isn’t just fluxbuntu. oh well.