The Ubuntu Linux team is planning to release a beta of Gutsy Gibbon (7.10), the latest version of its OS tomorrow. Progress on the latest release looks promising.
Ubuntu 7.10 will ship with the latest edition of the GNOME desktop, 2.20, released last week. Kubuntu 7.10 will ship with KDE 3.5.7, and should also include packages of KDE 4.0 rc 2 for optional side-by-side installation.
The developers are aiming for Ubuntu to be one of the first distributions to ship the newly merged Compiz and Beryl projects (compcomm/OpenCompositing); and enable it as the default window manager on systems with a supported combination of hardware and drivers. Systems which do not support compositing, or those with it disabled by user option, will use the existing metacity window manager. See:
Tectonic: Tectonic