Ubuntu 18.04 Released – What’s New?

Canonical should release Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver” long term support distribution later today. One of the most obvious change compared to Ubuntu 16.04 is the switch from Unity to GNOME 3.28 resulting in a fairly different user interface, although the company tried to keep the look-and-feel are close of the Unity version as possible. There are still some differences such as the dash now appearing on the top center of the screen.

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Eventually, Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop ISO file will be found on Ubuntu website, but in the meantime, I could update an Ubuntu 17.10 virtual machine to Ubuntu 18.04 using the following commands:

I’ll update my main machine a little later, maybe after the dot release in July, and my server after that, just in case some bugs have gone unnoticed.

You’ll be greeted with a “What’s new in Ubuntu” window after upgrade showing the main part of the new interface with Apps button, Launcher, Windows Switcher, System Menu and so on.  The next part of the wizard includes:

  • Livepatch integration, so you just need to sign-in with your Ubuntu One to enable live updates of the kernel without rebooting.
  • Anonymous data reporting opt-in/opt-out
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Ubuntu 18.04 comes with newer packages such as LibreOffice 6.0, Rythmbox 3.4,  Files/Nautilus 3.26, etc…, as well a a more recent Linux 4.15 kernel:


Canonical is also said to have improved boot speed, offers a new minimal installation option (for fresh installations with the ISO file), a new server installation menu, support for color emojis, and more. Canonical has dropped 32-bit x86 support since Ubuntu 17.04, so updating from Ubuntu 16.04 32-bit to Ubuntu 18.04 32-bit won’t be possible, you’d need to move to a 64-bit ISO file., but you’ll still be able to update to Ubuntu 18.04 32-bit, the company does not release 32-bit Ubuntu ISO anymore.

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11 Replies to “Ubuntu 18.04 Released – What’s New?”

  1. “Ubuntu 16.04 32-bit to Ubuntu 18.04 32-bit won’t be possible, you’d need to move to a 64-bit ISO file.”

    You should be able to upgrade 16.04 -> 18.04 32 bit without issue, there just is no ISO.

    1. Thanks. I thought they completely dropped 32-bit support, but you’re right 32-bit upgrades still work.

  2. Did install Ubuntu Mate 18.04 over my W10, more free RAM and overall faster and secure after tweaking.

    I used Ubuntu last time in 2010 or so 😀 very big differences and noticeable better support for drivers.

    1. Yep, driver support has improved leaps and bounds.

      For typical, mainstream hardware, Linux requires much less setup & configuration than Windows, nowadays.

  3. I tried to upgrade, but I got”dpkg: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting: unable to install updated status of ‘libgs9-common’: No space left on device”. … but “no space” on which partition? I have 6G free on my / and 8G space on my /home … so which one is too little space?

    1. or maybe you are short of RAM and it’s run out of tmpfs on /tmp.

      Try this:

      sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/swap bs=1M count=1000
      sudo mkswap /home/swap
      sudo swapon /home/swap

      and after you’re done:
      sudo rm -f /home/swap

  4. Just installed Kubuntu 18.04 and seems almost perfect on my 4-year old Asus N550JK. No major pain points. Beautiful visuals and the usual, powerful KDE features.

    ATM, I am running it from an external USB3 HDD and still fairly snappy.

    If Linux desktops keep improving at this rate, a fair amount of Windows and macOS users will be seduced in the future. I definitely prefer any of my Linux systems to the company-issued Macbook Air.

    Simply awesome.

    Hoping to install Witcher 3 that now runs pretty well on DXVK and Wine.

    If Adobe releases CC on Linux or MS Office compatibility gets sorted out in LibreOffice, the floodgates will open.

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