Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is now available for download

[BoraMurdar]

Canonical today released the latest Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu, its widely used Linux distro. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, also known as Bionic Beaver, arrives to solidify some major changes made with the release of Ubuntu 17.10, including the use of the GNOME desktop environment instead of the defunct Unity desktop used until the previous LTS version of the OS, Ubuntu 16.04.

With the release of Ubuntu 17.10 in October 2017, Canonical opted to ditch its home-baked Unity desktop environment, a GNOME-based shell first imagined to power netbooks, in favor of GNOME itself. The move was explained by Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical founder, as a necessary step as the company prepares to go public. This transition is now complete with the release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, which ships with the latest version of GNOME, 3.28.

Two other very important changes are the ditching of the 32-bit installer images for the desktop version of Ubuntu, which in fact first happened with the release of Ubuntu 17.10, and that Canonical will now be collecting system usage data, starting with Ubuntu 18.04. This includes the version of Ubuntu installed, the manufacturer of the device, CPU model, which desktop environment you installed, the system time zone, and which packages are installed.

In terms of what's new since version 17.10:

• X is the default display server. Wayland is provided as a Technical Preview and is expected to be the default display server in 20.04 LTS. To try it out, just choose Ubuntu on Wayland from the cog on the log in screen.
• The installer offers a minimal install option for a basic desktop environment with a web browser and core system utilities. Many official 18.04 desktop flavors are using this new feature too!
• Apps provided by GNOME have been updated to 3.28. For more details about GNOME 3.28, see their Release Notes.
• LibreOffice has been updated to 6.0.
• Emoji now show in color in most apps. Keyboard shortcuts for the emoji input chooser are Ctrl+. or Ctrl+;
• Calendar now supports weather forecasts.
• Some utilities have been switched to the snap format for new installs (Calculator, Characters, Logs, and System Monitor). Snap apps provide better isolation which allows them to be upgraded to new stable releases during the LTS lifecycle.
• The Characters app replaces the older Character Map by default.
• The Ubuntu Software app allows easy switching between different channels for Snap apps.
• The To Do app has been added to the default normal install.
• spice-vdagent is pre-installed for better performance for Spice clients such as the GNOME Boxes app.
• The right-click method for touchpads without physical buttons has changed to a two-finger click instead of clicking in the bottom right of the touchpad. You can use the GNOME Tweaks app (not installed by default) to change this setting.
• Although libinput is the default driver for mice and touchpads, it is now possible to use the synaptics driver with the Settings app. Support for the synaptics driver will be dropped in a future Ubuntu release.
• Computers will automatically suspend after 20 minutes of inactivity while on battery power.
• GNOME Shell now supports Thunderbolt 3.

For those upgrading from version 16.04 LTS, here are some highlights of what else has changed:

• 32-bit installer images are no longer provided for Ubuntu Desktop.
• The Ubuntu Desktop now uses GNOME instead of Unity.
• GDM has replaced LightDM as the default display manager. The login screen now uses virtual terminal 1 instead of virtual terminal 7.
• Window control buttons are back on the right.
• Driverless printing support is now available.
• GNOME's built-in screen keyboard is used instead of Onboard.
• Calendar has a Week View and supports recurring events.
• These apps have received major user interface redesigns: Disk Usage Analyzer, Files (nautilus), Remmina, Settings, and Ubuntu Software.
• System Log has been replaced by Logs, an app to view logs from the systemd journal.
• Many GNOME apps now have a Keyboard Shortcuts popup available in the app menu.
• gconf is no longer installed by default since it has long been superseded by gsettings. Note that statistics and preferences for the Aisleriot card games will be reset when upgrading from 16.04 LTS or 16.10. gconf will be removed from the Ubuntu package archives in a future Ubuntu release.
• The Ubuntu GNOME flavor has been discontinued. If you are using Ubuntu GNOME, you will be upgraded to Ubuntu. Choose the Ubuntu session from the cog on the login screen if you would like the default Ubuntu experience.
• Install gnome-session then restart your computer and choose GNOME (or GNOME on Wayland) from the cog on the login screen if you would like to try a more upstream version of GNOME. If you'd like to also install more core apps, install the vanilla-gnome-desktop metapackage.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS optimised for security, multi-cloud, containers & AI

 

[ZeroDay]

Mine with the community theme:

 

[Deleted member 178]

Unity was way better, stupid move. Anyway i prefer KDE

 

[ZeroDay]

My main OS now is Solus. It's not just a distro it's an OS built from the ground up. I've just got a few other distros installed too lol. I miss unity a lot, but the move to Gnome makes a lot of sense. I wished they'd have worked harder with Unity though. For me, personally Solus OS is very hard to beat for many reasons, performance and support are second to none.

 

[MeltdownEnemy]

Linux Distros is the future great migration option after win 7 will have gone, I'm learning with Debian and Kubuntu, but Debian is the main favourite designed for security, and doesn't allow Alzheimer's with your username and password at logon, and besides the all partitions always being protected with password at every sesion login.

 

[ZeroDay]

Linux Distros is the future great migration option after win 7 will have gone, I'm learning with Debian and Kubuntu, but Debian is the main favourite designed for security, and doesn't allow Alzheimer's with your username and password at logon, and besides the all partitions always being protected with password at every sesion login.

Debian is amazing. Great stability

 

[AlanOstaszewski]

I will not change from 17.10 to 18.04. I will rather go more in the direction of Trisquel and Debian.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Unity was way better, stupid move. Anyway i prefer KDE

Same. I have never even managed to boot Ubuntu, it always fails on any PC, downloading Kubuntu 18.04 right now.

 

[ZeroDay]

I will not change from 17.10 to 18.04. I will rather go more in the direction of Trisquel and Debian.

Trisquel is a great way to too. I've got a lot of respect for Solus OS because Ikey didn't just build a distro he built a whole OS. The MATE version is great for people switching from Windows 7. I'm waiting to see what the Mint to come up with with their next release. I'm wiping my drive on my main system tomorrow to go back to all GNU/Linux. The only time I'll use Windows is in a VM.

 

[ZeroDay]

I hear the Manjaro KDE version is awesome.

 

[ZeroDay]

We can't win can we? We switch to Linux and there's no more messing with third party AV's or third party security software, then we get a distro and desktop environment addiction

 

[Deleted member 178]

We can't win can we? We switch to Linux and there's no more messing with third party AV's or third party security software, then we get a distro and desktop environment addiction

i can't disagree with that, i fell for it

 

[illumination]

I hear the Manjaro KDE version is awesome.

It is pretty awesome, and another rolling release as well.

The main issue with picking just the right distro, is the open source applications you chose to cover applications you used on windows. What i mean by this, is that many open source applications will work great on one distro, while being buggy and having loss of functionality in another. When it comes to application stability, Ubuntu is definitely up at the top tier of stability.

I prefer rolling releases myself, so there is no upgrading/reinstalling every 9 months. Both Manjaro and Open SUSE are great for this.

 

[ZeroDay]

It is pretty awesome, and another rolling release as well.

The main issue with picking just the right distro, is the open source applications you chose to cover applications you used on windows. What i mean by this, is that many open source applications will work great on one distro, while being buggy and having loss of functionality in another. When it comes to application stability, Ubuntu is definitely up at the top tier of stability.

I prefer rolling releases myself, so there is no upgrading/reinstalling every 9 months. Both Manjaro and Open SUSE are great for this.

I'm very familiar with the majority of distros and I agree with your above points. I recommend Solus OS a lot because as well as being rolling release it's incredibly stable and it's not just a distro it's an OS built from the ground up. I like Budgie desktop but the MATE version is awesome too. I spent 6 years using only GNU/linux distros and out of all the ones I used including Arch I found Mint to be an awesome distro, I loved Manjaro and then along came Solus. We're spoilt for choice aren't we. There are so many solid, nice looking and fully functioning GNU/Linux distros that there's a distro for everyone. We're in the times now where someone must either really like Windows or really need it for something because there are definitely much better alternatives in the Linux world. I really like BSD too. Open SUSE is a keeper too.

I'm at the point now where I'm ready to say goodbye to Windows for good, I'll run it in a VM just to mess about with, but for me, personally Linux has a lot more +'s than -'s I'm not a gamer, I'll have a play on the PS4 from time to time but that's about it and most people I speak to recently all say pretty much the same that they're fed up with Windows and all this spying crap and if they didn't need Windows for gaming they'd switch to something else.

I hope your significant other is well @PathFinder I was sorry to read your post yesterday and shocked at the levels or lack thereof level of security for something so vital.

 

[illumination]

I hope your significant other is well @PathFinder I was sorry to read your post yesterday and shocked at the levels or lack thereof level of security for something so vital.

Thank you, she is doing better as of last night, pump adjusted.

This is the only reason every computer in our house is not Linux at this point, compatibility for medical devices. I ran Linux for a long period myself. At the time, i dabbled in photography, was testing security applications in Virtual Box with windows, used Office suites for business, and was able to do so just as easily as i could on windows. You can secure them quite well with App Armor and use applications like Back in Time to create snapshots/backups. Cover your browser and your good to go.

 

[ZeroDay]

Thank you, she is doing better as of last night, pump adjusted.

This is the only reason every computer in our house is not Linux at this point, compatibility for medical devices. I ran Linux for a long period myself. At the time, i dabbled in photography, was testing security applications in Virtual Box with windows, used Office suites for business, and was able to do so just as easily as i could on windows. You can secure them quite well with App Armor and use applications like Back in Time to create snapshots/backups. Cover your browser and your good to go.

I'm glad she's doing well that's great news. Yeah, Linux Mint even comes with TimeShift built in now it's an awesome application. I've recently switched a few friends to Various Ubuntu based distros and I've installed and setup time shift on all of them. It's a really good application. App Armour is great too it allows us to get our geek fix and lock that system down. I've got one friend who refuses to switch to Linux because he tried Ubuntu when it was still using Gnome 2 and he hated it. He want even watch videos I send him of reviews on certain distros just to show how far Linux distros have come over the years lol.

 

[ZeroDay]

I just thought I'd leave a comment here to save starting a new thread. I've been messing about with various different Linux distributions today (Yes I'm that sad lol) Anyway...For anyone who has an interest in Linux distros please, please do yourself a massive favour and try Manjaro KDE edition it is absolutely amazing and this is coming from someone who has never really liked KDE no matter how good it was. I was blown away by Manjaro KDE edition it's definitely a very solid replacement for Windows. The distribution itself is awesome, but the chosen set of applications has clearly been given a LOT of thought. I'm very impressed with this particular distribution. Manjaro MATE edition was also impressive, but not on the same level as the KDE version. The MATE version looks extremely neat and tidy though and it's lightning fast. But, for any KDE fans looking to distro hop I'd definitely recommend trying out Manjaro KDE edition.

I initially checked out the Cinnamon version with Cinnamon being my favourite DE, but came away much preferring the KDE and MATE versions. My personal opinion is, that for someone who just wants a classic looking OS, which is light on resources, extremely quick and up to date is to just go for either Manjaro MATE edition or Solus MATE edition. But, even people such as myself who've never really liked KDE would be surprised with Manjaro KDE.

 

[AlanOstaszewski]

@ZeroDay I am very happy that you found your favorite distribution and your desktop environment! I'm more of a MATE fan, but KDE is also cool.

 

[Garzaman]

I hear the Manjaro KDE version is awesome.

I´m a Manjaro Deepin user. For me the best distro and, for me, the best desktop. Now I want try Ubuntu, because I prefer Gnome to Unity and I love .deb

 

[ZeroDay]

Anyone looking to bring life back to a very old system should che

@ZeroDay I am very happy that you found your favorite distribution and your desktop environment! I'm more of a MATE fan, but KDE is also cool.

I've kept the MATE edition too and to be honest I'm sticking with it I love it. It's a nice, straightforward DE that's very fast and looks very neat and tidy. I particularly like the start menu in Manjaro MATE edition. I love the Cinnamon DE, but, for me personally only the Mint team 'Do' the Cinnamon DE properly it just blends in with the rest of the polish in Mint. I have to say though, Gnome with the Ark theme and icons also looks very nice.