Ubuntu 18.04 LTS available for download

Canonical has just released the latest Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu, one of the most widely used Linux distributions. Also known as Bionic Beaver, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS solidifies some major changes made on Ubuntu 17.10, such as using the GNOME desktop environment instead of the now defunct Unity used up until now in the previous LTS version of the operating system. The 18.04 LTS replaces Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

With the release of Ubuntu 17.10 in October 2017 Canonical proposed a new desktop environment in place of its Unity that was originally designed to meet the needs of netbooks. Unity, which was based on GNOME, was replaced with the same GNOME in a necessary innovation, according to Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, before the company’s IPO. And with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS the passage can be considered concluded.

The latest version of Ubuntu uses in this case GNOME 3.28, and implements several other novelties: the 32-bit installation packages for the desktop version are discontinued (this novelty is borrowed from Ubuntu 17.10), and from this version Canonical will start to Collect system usage data, including the installed operating system version, device manufacturer, CPU model, used desktop environment, time zone, and installed packages.

Data collection is active by default, but users can of course decide to disable it in favor of greater privacy. The information collected is not sufficient to link data to a specific device, and the entire database will be publicly available. Among the new features, there will of course be the latest Linux Kernel (4.15), a fast boot process, and the option to install a lightened version of the operating system.

In this, we will find only the web browser, Mozilla Firefox, and the basic tools. The default server display returns to be Xorg, after which on Ubuntu 17.10 it was replaced with Wayland (which in turn can be activated later on 18.04 LTS). The emojis are now reported in color, and some of the native apps are installed as Snap on clean installations.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be supported until April 2023, while the last two currently supported versions (14.04 and 16.04) will be updated respectively until April 2019 and April 2021. For those who use the non-LTS version 17.10, support will end in July 2018 and updating to the latest LTS version is highly recommended. The Ubuntu 18.04 LTS download can be downloaded from the official website, where ISO images can be downloaded.

Whoever uses Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or 17.10 system will receive a notification within the operating system through which to update.