The Ubuntu team is very pleased to announce our eighth long-term support release, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS for Desktop, Server, Cloud and Core.
Codenamed “Focal Fossa”, 20.04 LTS continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.
The Ubuntu kernel has been updated to the 5.4 based Linux kernel, with additional support for Wireguard VPN, AUFS5, and improved support for IBM, Intel, Raspberry Pi and AMD hardware.
Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 LTS features the latest version of the GNOME desktop environment, 3.36. Notable changes from 18.04 LTS include performance improvements, a new lock screen design, and support for fractional scaling under X11. 20.04 LTS also features a new look-and-feel: the “Yaru” theme, available in both light and dark variants.
20.04 LTS also brings support for installing an Ubuntu desktop system on top of ZFS. The latest version brings performance enhancements and optional encryption support. Zsys, Ubuntu’s ZFS system tool, provides automated system and user state saving. Tight integration with GRUB allows a user to revert to any system state on boot and go back in time to pave the way to a bulletproof Ubuntu Desktop.
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS includes Python 3.8 as the default version but Python 2.7 is still available in the Ubuntu archive.
Ubuntu Server brings major updates to industry-standard packages available on private clouds, public clouds, containers or bare metal in your datacentre. Included are an updated HA/Clustering stack, PHP 7.4, Ruby 2.7, Postgres 12, MySQL 8 and updated OpenSSH with U2F support for security.
The newest Ubuntu Budgie, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, 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/FocalFossa/ReleaseNotes#Official_flavours
Maintenance updates will be provided for 5 years for Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Cloud and Ubuntu Core. All the remaining flavours will be supported for 3 years. Additional security support is available with ESM (Extended Security Maintenance).
To get Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
In order to download Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, visit:
https://ubuntu.com/download
Users of Ubuntu 19.10 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 20.04 LTS via Update Manager shortly. Users of 18.04 LTS will be offered the automatic upgrade when 20.04.1 LTS is released, which is scheduled for July 23rd. For further information about upgrading, see:
https://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:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FocalFossa/ReleaseNotes
Find out what’s new in this release with a graphical overview:
https://ubuntu.com/desktop
https://ubuntu.com/desktop/features
If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but aren’t sure, you can try asking in any of the following places:
#ubuntu on irc.freenode.net
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
https://ubuntuforums.org
https://askubuntu.com
Help Shape Ubuntu
If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at:
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/contribute
About Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, clouds and servers, with a fast and easy installation and regular releases. A tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications is included, and an incredible variety of add-on software is just a few clicks away.
Professional services including support are available from Canonical and hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information about support, visit:
https://ubuntu.com/support
More Information
You can learn more about Ubuntu and about this release on our website listed below:
https://ubuntu.com
To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu’s very low volume announcement list at:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce
To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu’s very low volume announcement list at:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce
Originally posted to the ubuntu-announce mailing list on Thu Apr 23 17:47:04 UTC 2020 by Iain Lane, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team
