Bionic Beaver 18.04 Beta 1 Released!

By guiverc | Published: 2018-03-10 
"The beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam: No, I didn't
build it myself, but it's based on an idea of mine".
-- Charles Hard Townes

The first beta of the Bionic Beaver (to become 18.04) has now been
released, and is available for download!

This milestone features images for Kubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Kylin,
Ubuntu MATE, and Xubuntu.

Pre-releases of the Bionic Beaver are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a
stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional,
even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu flavour
developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing
bugs as we work towards getting this release ready.

Beta 1 includes some software updates that are ready for broader testing.
However, it is quite an early set of images, so you should expect some bugs.

While these Beta 1 images have been tested and do work, except as noted in
the release notes, Ubuntu developers are continuing to improve the Bionic
Beaver. In particular, once newer daily images are available, system
installation bugs identified in the Beta 1 installer should be verified
against the current daily image before being reported in Launchpad. Using
an obsolete image to re-report bugs that have already been fixed wastes
your time and the time of developers who are busy trying to make 18.04 the
best Ubuntu release yet. Always ensure your system is up to date before
reporting bugs.

[Kubuntu]
Kubuntu is the KDE-based flavour of Ubuntu. It uses the KDE Plasma desktop
and includes a wide selection of tools from the KDE project.

The Kubuntu 18.04 Beta 1 images can be downloaded from:
* http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/18.04/beta-1/

More information about Kubuntu 18.04 Beta 1 can be found here:
* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BionicBeaver/Beta1/Kubuntu

[Ubuntu Budgie]
Ubuntu Budgie is the Budgie Desktop based flavour of Ubuntu. Combines the
simplicity and elegance of the Budgie interface to produce a traditional
desktop orientated distro with a modern paradigm.

The Ubuntu Budgie 18.04 Beta 1 images can be downloaded from:
* http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-budgie/releases/18.04/beta-1/

More information about Ubuntu Budgie 18.04 Beta 1 can be found here:
* https://ubuntubudgie.org/blog/2018/03/08/18-04-release-notes

[Ubuntu Kylin]
Ubuntu Kylin is a flavour of Ubuntu that is more suitable for Chinese users.

The Ubuntu Kylin 18.04 Beta 1 images can be downloaded from:
* http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/18.04/beta-1/

More information about Ubuntu Kylin 18.04 Beta 1 can be found here:
* http://www.ubuntukylin.com/index.php

[Ubuntu MATE]
Ubuntu MATE is the MATE Desktop based flavour of Ubuntu.  It is ideal for
those who want the most out of their computers and prefer​_ a traditional
desktop metaphor.

The Ubuntu MATE 18.04 Beta 1 images can be downloaded from:
* http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/releases/18.04/beta-1/

More information about Ubuntu MATE 18.04 Beta 1 can be found here:
* https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-bionic-beta1/

[Xubuntu]
Xubuntu is the Xfce Desktop based flavour of Ubuntu.  It is perfect for
those who want the most out of their desktops, laptops and netbooks with a
modern look. It works well on older hardware too.

The Xubuntu 18.04 Beta 1images can be downloaded from:
* http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/18.04/beta-1/

More information about Xubuntu 18.04 Beta 1 can be found here:
* https://wiki.xubuntu.org/releases/18.04/release-notes

If you're interested in following the changes as we further develop the
Bionic Beaver, we suggest that you subscribe to the ubuntu-devel-announce
list. This is a low-traffic list (a few posts a week) carrying
announcements of approved specifications, policy changes, beta releases and
other exciting events.

* http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce

A big thank you to the developers and testers for their efforts to pull
together this Beta release!

On behalf of Ubuntu Release Team,

Dustin Krysak

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2018-March/001238.html
Originally posted to the Ubuntu Release mailing list on Fri Mar 9 19:51:58 UTC 2018 
by Dustin Krysak, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team

Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS released

By guiverc | Published: 2018-03-03 
The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS
(Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well
as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support.

Like previous LTS series', 16.04.4 includes hardware enablement stacks
for use on newer hardware.  This support is offered on all architectures
except for 32-bit powerpc, and is installed by default when using one of
the desktop images.  Ubuntu Server defaults to installing the GA kernel,
however you may select the HWE kernel from the installer bootloader.

As usual, this point release includes many updates, and updated
installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to
be downloaded after installation.  These include security updates and
corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining
stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Kubuntu 16.04.4 LTS, Xubuntu 16.04.4 LTS, Mythbuntu 16.04.4 LTS,
Ubuntu GNOME 16.04.4 LTS, Lubuntu 16.04.4 LTS, Ubuntu Kylin 16.04.4 LTS,
Ubuntu MATE 16.04.4 LTS and Ubuntu Studio 16.04.4 LTS are also now
available. More details can be found in their individual release notes:

    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes#Official_flavours

Maintenance updates will be provided for 5 years for Ubuntu Desktop,
Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Cloud, Ubuntu Base, and Ubuntu Kylin.  All the
remaining flavours will be supported for 3 years.

To get Ubuntu 16.04.4
---------------------

In order to download Ubuntu 16.04.4, visit:

    http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Users of Ubuntu 14.04 will be offered an automatic upgrade to
16.04.4 via Update Manager.  For further information about upgrading,
see:

    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XenialUpgrades

 

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2018-March/000229.html

Originally posted to the Ubuntu Release mailing list on Thu Mar 1 21:09:03 UTC 2018 
by Lukasz Zemczak, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team

Xenial 16.04.4 Call For Testing (All Flavours)

By guiverc | Published: 2018-02-24 
Some time ago our first release candidate builds for all flavours that
released with xenial have been posted to the ISO tracker [1] into the
16.04.4 milestone.

As with each point-release, we would need volunteers to grab the ISOs
of their flavour/flavours of choice and perform general testing. We
obviously are mostly looking for regressions from 16.04.3, but please
fill in any bugs you encounter (against the respective source packages
on Launchpad). There is still time until the target release date on
1st of March, but for now we're not considering pulling in any more
fixes besides ones for potential release-blockers that we encounter.

With enough luck the images that have been made available just now
might be the ones we release on Thursday.

Thank you!

[1] http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/milestones/386/builds

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-release/2018-February/004297.html

Originally posted to the Ubuntu Release mailing list on Fri Feb 23 22:33:06 UTC 2018 
by Lukasz Zemczak, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team

Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) reached End of Life on January 13, 2018

By guiverc | Published: 2018-01-17 
Ubuntu announced its 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) release almost 9 months ago, on
April 13, 2017.  As a non-LTS release, 17.04 has a 9-month support cycle
and, as such, will reach end of life on Saturday, January 13th.

At that time, Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or
updated packages for Ubuntu 17.04.

The supported upgrade path from Ubuntu 17.04 is via Ubuntu 17.10.
Instructions and caveats for the upgrade may be found at:


https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Upgrades

Ubuntu 17.10 continues to be actively supported with security updates and
select high-impact bug fixes.  Announcements of security updates for Ubuntu
releases are sent to the ubuntu-security-announce mailing list, information
about which may be found at:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-security-announce

Development of a complete response to the highly-publicized Meltdown and
Spectre vulnerabilities is ongoing, and due to the timing with respect to
this End of Life, we will not be providing updated Linux kernel packages for
Ubuntu 17.04.  We advise users to upgrade to Ubuntu 17.10 and install the
updated kernel packages for that release when they become available.

For more information about Canonical’s response to the Meltdown and
Spectre vulnerabilities, see:

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2018/01/04/ubuntu-updates-for-the-meltdown-spectre-vulnerabilities/

Since its launch in October 2004 Ubuntu has become one of the most highly
regarded Linux distributions with millions of users in homes, schools,
businesses and governments around the world.  Ubuntu is Open Source
software, costs nothing to download, and users are free to customise or
alter their software in order to meet their needs.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2018-January/000227.html

Originally posted to the ubuntu-announce mailing list on Fri Jan 5 22:23:25 UTC 2018 
by Steve Langasek, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team

Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) released

By guiverc | Published: 2017-10-19 
Codenamed "Artful Aardvark", Ubuntu 17.10 continues Ubuntu's proud
tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technology
into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.  As always, the
team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features
and fixing bugs.

Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including
a new 4.13-based kernel, glibc 2.26, gcc 7.2, and much more.

Ubuntu Desktop has had a major overhaul, with the switch from Unity as
our default desktop to GNOME3 and gnome-shell.  Along with that, there
are the usual incremental improvements, with newer versions of GTK and
Qt, and updates to major packages like Firefox and LibreOffice.

Ubuntu Server 17.10 includes the Pike release of OpenStack, alongside
deployment and management tools that save devops teams time when
deploying distributed applications - whether on private clouds, public
clouds, x86, ARM, or POWER servers, z System mainframes, or on developer
laptops.  Several key server technologies, from MAAS to juju, have been
updated to new upstream versions with a variety of new features.

The newest Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE,
Ubuntu Studio, and Xubuntu are also being released today.  More details
can be found for these at their individual release notes:

   https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes#Official_flavours

Maintenance updates will be provided for 9 months for all flavours
releasing with 17.10.

To get Ubuntu 17.10
-------------------

In order to download Ubuntu 17.10, visit:

   http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Users of Ubuntu 17.04 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 17.10. For
further information about upgrading, see:

   http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade

As always, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free 
of charge.

We recommend that all users read the release notes, which document
caveats, workarounds for known issues, as well as more in-depth notes 
on the release itself. They are available at:

   http://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes

 

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2017-October/000226.html

 

Originally posted to the ubuntu-announce mailing list on Thu Oct 19 13:08:46 UTC 2017 by Adam Conrad, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team