Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation flavor of Ubuntu, built for the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphics enthusiast or professional.

The Ubuntu Studio team is very excited over its ninth release: Natty Narwhal 11.04, available as a 1.5GB DVD iso image from http://ubuntustudio.org/downloads/ Numerous improvements have been implemented for this release, but here are some of the more notable. 

=== Installation tasks ===
The task selections during installation have been updated.  The audio tasks have been parsed into two groups: generation and recording.  The 'generation' task selections is focused more on synthesizers and sequencers (i.e. tone __generation__) and the 'recording' task focuses on __recording__ live musician performances.

=== Kernel ===
Currently, Ubuntu Studio is shipping the -generic kernel.  We are working with the Ubuntu Kernel Team to get a -lowlatency kernel into the archives which will then ship, in addition to the -generic kernel, in Ubuntu Studio.  An interim -lowlatency kernel is available in [[https://launchpad.net/~abogani/+archive/ppa?field.series_filter=natty|Allesio Bogani's PPA]].

If possible please report any testing results comparing the -generic kernel performance compared to the -lowlatency kernel performance at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RealTime#Natty%20Benchmarks.

=== Network ===
Due to continuing problems, network-manager will replace gnome-network-admin. If performance degradation is experienced, please contact the Ubuntu Studio developer via email [[ubuntu-studio-devel@lists.ubuntu.com|email]] or on IRC (#ubuntustudio-devel on freenode).

=== Package selection ===
The installed packages have changed. The packages shipped in Ubuntu Studio are more focused to support identified tasks and their derived work flows.  Please note that this is a work in progress.  If your favorite package is not include, please inform us about it and consider updating the [[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/Workflows|task/work flows wiki page]].

=== Unity ===
Ubuntu Studio does not currently use Unity.  As the user logs in it will default to Gnome Classic Desktop (i.e. Gnome2).

=== ubuntustudio-controls ===
We were hoping to have -controls updated for Natty but it appears to we will not be done in time.  Therefore we will be removing -controls from Natty as it's functionality is either not needed or broken.

We plan to continue working on it and hopefully SRU it into Natty later.