We are in Final Freeze, and the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 10.04 will be out this Thursday. It’s thanks to those of you who volunteered to test the previous milestones that we got mostly showstopper-free alphas and betas along the development cycle, and it’s now time to repeat that effort for the RC, which will be the last and most widespread milestone release before 10.04 goes final.

What Is ISO Testing?

A while before each Ubuntu development milestone release (alphas, betas and the RC), the package archive is frozen, and only bug fixes that help towards a high quality testing release are accepted. Towards the end of this period, usually on the first day of the week leading to the release, a set of daily images are designated as candidates for release, and are subject to an additional round of testing commonly referred to as “ISO testing”, in order to ensure that they’re reasonably free of showstopper bugs and ready to be tested by the broader testing audience that grows with each milestone.

How You Can Help

Final Freeze is now in effect, and candidate images for the RC are available on the ISO testing tracker. You can test any number of test cases you’d like, and report bugs.

If you’re unfamiliar with the procedures, there are two good places to start:

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