18.04

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Revision 1 as of 2018-02-28 00:41:20
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Editor: jbicha
Comment: import from 17.10, fill in Desktop and some other parts as a rough draft
Revision 2 as of 2018-03-22 21:48:25
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Editor: jbicha
Comment: mention qemu bash bug
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 * bash won't work in a qemu chroot (Bug:1751011)

Introduction

These release notes for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) provide an overview of the release and document the known issues with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and its flavors

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be released on April 26.

Support lifespan

The 'main' archive of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be supported for 5 years until April 2023. Support lengths for community supported Ubuntu flavors vary and will be announced.

Official flavour release notes

Find the links to release notes for official flavors here.


Get Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Download Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Images can be downloaded from a location near you.

You can download ISOs and flashable images from:

Coming Soon…

Upgrading from Ubuntu 17.10

To upgrade on a desktop system:

  • Open the "Software & Updates" Setting in System Settings.

  • Select the 3rd Tab called "Updates".
  • Set the "Notify me of a new Ubuntu version" dropdown menu to "For any new version".
  • Press Alt+F2 and type in "update-manager -cd" (without the quotes) into the command box.
  • Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '18.04' is available.
    • If not you can also use "/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk"
  • Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade on a server system:

  • Install the update-manager-core package if it is not already installed.

  • Make sure the Prompt line in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades is set to normal.

  • Launch the upgrade tool with the command sudo do-release-upgrade -d.

  • Follow the on-screen instructions.

Note that the server upgrade will use GNU screen and automatically re-attach in case of dropped connection problems.


New features in 18.04

Updated Packages

Linux kernel 4.15

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is based on the Linux release series 4.15.

Network configuration

New since 17.10

Teaming support with libteam is available in NetworkManager.

New since 16.04 LTS

The default DNS resolver is systemd-resolved.

ifupdown has been deprecated in favor of netplan and is no longer present on new installs. The installer will generate a configuration file for netplan in /etc/netplan, which will set up the system to configure the network via systemd-networkd or NetworkManager. Desktop users will see their system fully managed via NetworkManager as it has been the case in previous releases, but Server users now have their network devices managed via systemd-networkd on new installs. This only applies to new installations.

Given that ifupdown is no longer installed by default, its commands will not be present: ifup and ifdown are thus unavailable, replaced by ip link set $device up and ip link set $device down.

The networkctl command is also available for users to see a summary of the network devices. networkctl status will display the current global state of IP addresses on the system; and networkctl status $device can display the details specific to a network device.

For more information about netplan, please refer to the manual page using the man 5 netplan command.

Other base system changes since 16.04 LTS

  • The gpg binary is provided by gnupg2

  • For new installs, a swap file will be used by default instead of a swap partition.

Ubuntu Desktop

New since 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 that offers a basic desktop environment with a web browser and core system utilities. Just check the box during the install.

  • Apps provided by GNOME have been updated to 3.28 Beta (3.27.90). For more details about GNOME 3.28, see their Release Notes (after March 14).

  • LibreOffice has been updated to 6.0.

  • Emoji now show in color in most apps.

  • The Calculator app is now provided in the snap format. 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 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.

Other highlights since 16.04 LTS

  • 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.

  • Python 2 is no longer installed by default. Python 3 has been updated to 3.6.

  • 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.

  • 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 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 Server

Known issues

As is to be expected, with any release, there are some significant known bugs that users may run into with this release of Ubuntu 17.10. The ones we know about at this point (and some of the workarounds), are documented here so you don't need to spend time reporting these bugs again:

Desktop

  • Bluetooth audio devices cannot be used in the Greeter. This will cause issues for people using the accessibility features such as screenreaders at the login screen. Once logged in everything should work as expected.
  • Some admin utilities will not work with GNOME on Wayland since the apps have not been adapted to use PolicyKit to only use admin privileges for the specific functions needed. Also, some screenshot and screencast apps and all remote desktop server apps do not currently work on GNOME on Wayland. As a workaround, you can use the default Ubuntu session.

  • Exiting the live session may get stuck with a "A start job is running for " error. You may need to forcefully power off the computer if you see this. (1706939)

  • The Dock and Appindicator system extensions appear to be Off in tools like GNOME Tweaks. (They are on but cannot be disabled because they are system extensions for the Ubuntu session.) (1718850)

  • Mouse & Touchpad settings and behavior will not work right in the Ubuntu desktop if xserver-xorg-input-synaptics is installed. Some desktop environments such as Unity require xserver-xorg-input-synaptics. (1686081)

  • The screen reader is not working for the Ubuntu installer from the menu 'Install Ubuntu' (1719995) but it works fine when the installer is started from the live session.

  • Tracker is not installed by default. When installed, you must log out and log back in for the tracker service to start (1697769)

  • Opening the Users panel in Control Center is slow.
  • Systems may fail to boot when connected over DisplayPort to an external screen, on NVidia graphics hardware such as the GTX970 chipset. (1723619)

  • When an external monitor is connected to a laptop, the login screen is only displayed on the internal one and in some case is not visible (1723025)

  • The warning dialog when a user force a UEFI installation does not respond to input event and the installation is then blocked at this stage (1724482) Avoid yourself some troubles and do not force a UEFI installation without a UEFI partition, grub-installer will fail anyway.

  • Doing an "Entire disk" installation over an existing LVM installation will fail because the installer selects the wrong boot device (1724417) Use custom partitioning instead and manually select the right boot device in the combo box.

  • The Files app remains at 3.26.

Server

  • On s390x architecture, in KVM virtual machines interface names are not preserved on upgrade, and new predictable interface names are used. This will result in lack of network connectivity due to incorrect names in /etc/network/interfaces. An upgrade SRU to preserve ethX interface names is being prepared. (1682437)

  • Partitioning step allows to configure LVM across multiple devices without requiring to setup a separate /boot partition. This may lead to failure to install the bootloader at the end of the installation, and failures to boot the resultant installations. (1680101)

  • LVM configuration cannot be removed when volume groups with the same name are found during installation. Partitioner does not support installation when multiple conflicting/identical volume groups have been detected. For example reinstalling Ubuntu with LVM across multiple disk drives that had individual LVM installations of Ubuntu. As a workaround, please format disk drives prior to installation, or from the built in shell provided in the installer. (1679184)

  • cio_ignore blacklist is no longer active after installation, because not all install-time parameters, like cio_ignore (s390x), are propagated to the installed system. Workaround is to edit /etc/zipl.conf to apply these and re-run sudo zipl to update the IPL. (1571561)

  • bash won't work in a qemu chroot (1751011)

Printing

  • USB printers do not get set up automatically and IPP-over-USB does not work at all. Please set up your USB printer using "Devices"/"Printers" in the GNOME Settings. If possible, especially for driverless printing, connect your printer via network (Ethernet or Wi-Fi) or wait to upgrade to 17.10 until the problem gets fixed (1721839).


Official flavours

The release notes for the official flavours can be found at the following links:

Coming Soon…


More information

Reporting bugs

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve the quality of future releases. Please report bugs using the tools provided.

If you want to help out with bugs, the Bug Squad is always looking for help.

Participate in Ubuntu

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at

More about Ubuntu

You can find out more about Ubuntu on the Ubuntu website and Ubuntu wiki.

To sign up for future Ubuntu development announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu's development announcement list at:

BionicBeaver/ReleaseNotes/18.04 (last edited 2019-07-05 14:51:16 by fheimes)