The Ubuntu team is very pleased to announce our seventh long-term support release, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS for Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core.

Codenamed “Bionic Beaver”, 18.04 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 4.15 based Linux kernel, with additional support for Linux security module stacking, signing of POWER host and NV kernels, and improved support for IBM and Intel hardware enablement from Linux 4.16.

Ubuntu Desktop 18.04 LTS brings a fresh look with the GNOME desktop environment. GNOME Shell on Ubuntu is designed to be easy to use for people upgrading from 16.04 LTS and presents a familiar user interface. New features for users upgrading from 16.04 LTS include assistance with logging in to public Wifi hotspots and the Night Light feature to reduce eye strain in the evenings.

18.04 LTS also brings the new minimal installation option which provides a full desktop with only the essential packages installed, and a tool to easily enable Canonical LivePatch to apply critical kernel security fixes without rebooting.

Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS includes the Queens release of OpenStack including the clustering enabled LXD 3.0, new network configuration via netplan.io, and a next-generation fast server installer. Ubuntu Server brings major updates to industry standard packages available on private clouds, public clouds, containers or bare metal in your datacentre.

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/BionicBeaver/ReleaseNotes#Official_flavors

Maintenance updates will be provided for 5 years for Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Cloud, and Ubuntu Core. Ubuntu Studio will be supported for 9 months. All the remaining flavours will be supported for 3 years.

To get Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

In order to download Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, visit:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Users of Ubuntu 17.10 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 18.04 LTS via Update Manager shortly. Users of 16.04 LTS will be offered the automatic upgrade when 18.04.1 LTS is released, which is scheduled for July 26th. 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/BionicBeaver/ReleaseNotes

Find out what’s new in this release with a graphical overview:

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop
http://www.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
http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
http://www.ubuntuforums.org
http://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:

http://community.ubuntu.com/contribute

About Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, netbooks 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:

http://www.ubuntu.com/support

More Information

You can learn more about Ubuntu and about this release on our website listed below:

http://www.ubuntu.com

To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu’s very low volume announcement list at:

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

Originally posted to the ubuntu-announce mailing list on Thu Apr 26 22:59:59 UTC 2018 by Adam Conrad, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team