ReleaseNotes

Revision 60 as of 2016-03-04 11:05:48

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Introduction

These release notes for Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) provide an overview of the release and document the known issues with Ubuntu 16.04 and its flavors.

Support lifespan

Official flavour release notes

Find the links to release notes for official flavors here.


Get Ubuntu 16.04

Download Ubuntu 16.04

Images can be downloaded from a location near you.

You can download ISOs from:

http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04/ (Ubuntu Desktop, Server, and Snappy Core)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/releases/16.04/release/ (Less Popular Ubuntu Images)
http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/16.04/release/ (Ubuntu Cloud Server)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/16.04/ (Ubuntu Netboot)

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/16.04/release/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/16.04/release/ (Lubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/16.04/release/ (Ubuntu Studio)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/16.04/release/ (Ubuntu GNOME)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/16.04/release/ (Ubuntu Kylin)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/releases/16.04/release/ (Ubuntu MATE)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/16.04/release/ (Xubuntu)

Upgrading from Ubuntu 15.10

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" (without the quotes) into the command box.
  • Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '16.04' is available.
  • 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 /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades is set to normal.

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

  • Follow the on-screen instructions.

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

There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server. Please ensure you have network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible mirror and follow the instructions above.


New features in 16.04

Updated Packages

As with every new release, packages--applications and software of all kinds--are being updated at a rapid pace. Many of these packages came from an automatic sync from Debian's unstable branch; others have been explicitly pulled in for Ubuntu 16.04.

For a list of all packages being accepted for Ubuntu 16.04, please subscribe to xenial-changes.

Linux kernel X.Y

Ubuntu Desktop

The general theme for 16.04 on the desktop is one of bug fixes and incremental quality improvements ...

Unity

Compiz

General

LibreOffice

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 16.04. 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:

Boot, installation and post-install

Upgrade

Graphics and Display

fglrx

The fglrx driver is now deprecated in 16.04, and we recommend its open source alternatives (radeon and amdgpu). AMD put a lot of work into the drivers, and we backported kernel code from Linux 4.5 to provide a better experience.

When upgrading to Ubuntu 16.04 from a previous release, both the fglrx driver and the xorg.conf will be removed, so that the system is set to use either the amdgpu driver or the radeon driver (depending on the available hardware).


Official flavours

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


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: