Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta 2 doesn’t come with drastic visual changes, but there are quite a few minor improvements and tweaks. In this post I’ll try to cover all the changes made since Beta 1 (see also: Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Beta 1 screenshots).

If you’ve installed Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha or Beta 1 and kept upgrading, you already have all the changes in this post. If not, here is what’s new (visually) in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta 2:

The biggest visual change (well, the most unexpected one anyway) is that the Metacity window buttons order changed again, this time to: close, minimize, maximize (like on Mac OS X) – as opposed to maximize, minimize, close as they were until Beta 2 -, and it will definitely stay like this in Lucid. But the buttons will remain on the left:
ambiance light theme ubuntu 10.04 screenshot
radiance light theme ubuntu 10.04 screenshot
At least part of the Metacity window buttons is now fixed – meaning you can arrange the buttons for the new light themes: Ambiance and Radiance in any order you want and they will look ok:
ubuntu 10.04 window buttons screenshot

You can do this in multiple ways. For an easy way, see Mwbuttons.

Also, all the other themes except Ambiance and Radiance (and Dust, but that’s a bug and it will be fixed) now automatically switch the Metacity buttons on the right, in the order everybody is used to:

new wave theme ubuntu 10.04 screenshot

There were also a lot of other minor tweaks to the Ambiance and Radiance themes which you can see throughout all the screenshots in this post.

The Ubuntu One Music Store is finally available for all Ubuntu 10.04 users (as a Rhythmbox plugin, but other music players can get a similar plugin too):

ubuntu 10.04 lucid ubuntuone music store rhythmbox screenshot

Another change in Ubuntu One is that now you can sync your Firefox bookmarks:

ubuntuone preferences dialog
There is also mobile contacts sync available through Ubuntu One (including an iPhone app), but only for subscribers (paid):
ubuntuone iphone app screenshot
(image thanks to arstechnica.com)
The proposed Ubiquity Slideshow is also now live:
ubuntu 10.04 ubiquity slideshow screenshot
The Ubuntu Ubiquity Slideshow is a project which uses Webkit that provides a slideshow when you install Ubuntu.
Since Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 1, there are also a lot of changes to the ubuntu-mono icons, such as the Indicator Applet icon turning green when you have a new message:
indicator applet green icon - ubuntu 10.04 screenshot

The Indicator Applet Session icon now turns to red when a restart is required:

indicator applet session restart required ubuntu 10.04 lucid screenshot

And a new Ubuntu icon in various places such as the System menu:

The new icon is also present in the Ubuntu Software Center:
software center new supported packages logo

and in the GDM login screen:

GDM new logo

The Ubuntu Software Center category icons were also slightly redesigned:

ubuntu software center 10.04 screenshot

The Me Menu got new icons as well as a slightly changed design:

memenu ubuntu 10.04 lucid screenshot

Nautilus now has a nice border around the image thumbnails:

nautilus thumbnail border image ubuntu 10.04 lucid

Also, Google should be back as the default search engine in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, but this change didn’t come in Beta 2.

Download Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta 2 @ http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/lucid/beta2

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