17 ms·

Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS released

211 points by reddotX 10y ago

hd4 10y ago
I think the coolest thing introduced here is that the HWE kernel is going to become a standard feature of LTS releases going forwards.
- listic 10y ago
  Unfortunately, Alternate release images are not published after 16.04.1.
  - rlpb 10y ago
    Everything in 16.04.1 comes from the package archives. It's what you get by default from a particular image that changes. You can still get to whatever state you want regardless of which variant and point release installation image of 16.04 you use. However, doing things manually is of course not the same as being automatic.
  - compuguy 10y ago
    So are you saying they won't make any more alternate releases for future releases?
    - listic 10y ago
      Yes. It was that way for the 14.04 LTS, too.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  HWE kernel: http://askubuntu.com/a/248936 http://askubuntu.com/a/248936
- simosx 10y ago
  Here is HWE, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack and there was a change recently in the policy. In a nutshell, 1. if you are happy with the currently kernel in Ubuntu 16.04, then you can stay with this kernel (it's version 4.4) and it gets supported until 2021). 2. if you want to jump to the new supported and tested (tested in 16.10) 4.8 Linux kernel, then there is a command described in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack that helps you upgrade. However, when you upgrade the kernel (and Xserver stack that are linked together), your Linux kernel will be upgraded every six months from now on, until 2021. The next kernel version update will be in July, and it will be whatever Linux kernel was released in Ubuntu 17.04.
- fsaintjacques 10y ago
  Does that means you can have fairly recent kernels with LTS releases? If so, amazing. That was my biggest complaint of Ubuntu on servers.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    This is the first time I'm hearing about this, but the link would suggest that yes, this is what it means. Kind of a sidethought, but I wonder if I can get an easily-administrable WRT distribution (like Tomato is) on my DSL router that has the kernel's bufferbloat fixes.
- kasabali 10y ago
  What do you mean by standard feature? HWE kernels were already introduced after each Ubuntu release.
  - seenitall 10y ago
    Ubuntu used to add a kernel to the LTS from each subsequent release, but they were separate packages. Now there will be just one HWE package that will roll until the subsequent LTS.
8draco8 10y ago
I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux community. Canonical is doing great job of putting, fairly reliable system on massive number of devices, something that other distributions can just dream about. In my opinion, currently, Ubuntu is the best general purpose Linux distribution for new and semi advance users.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  CLAs and a history of going their own way i suspect. Then again the "majority" way is largely dictated by a few big projects in and around Fedora, with developers largely on Red Hat payroll. And the shit slinging didn't really take off until they up and created Unity after a spat with Gnome over the latters future course (afaik). Closely followed with Canonical starting Mir after misrepresenting/misunderstanding where Wayland was going. So who really knows whats going on...
  - funnyfacts365 10y ago
    And you know what, Unity is great.
    - sametmax 10y ago
      I like it too. And the funny thing is all beginers I gave unity to liked it better than gnome. Only power users complain about it, which is lame given they are precisely the ones able to install another desktop whenever they want.
    - vetinari 10y ago
      Unity from a user's point of view is great. Too bad it requires patched upstream libraries, so it does not run on other distributions.
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        Do wonder why those patches are not accepted upstream...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
reefwalkcuts 10y ago
Newbie Ubuntu user here. Currently I have the 16.04LTS (I don't know if mine is 16.04.1 but I downloaded and installed this version of mine the day 16.04LTS officialy released last April 2016). Should I upgrade to 16.04.2? If so, how? I mean, do I have to download the 16.04.2 installer or is there a update command?
- 8draco8 10y ago
  sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade will do it for you. To check what version you are on simple do cat /etc/os-release
  - runejuhl 10y ago
    Or, for a more cross-distro approach, `lsb_release -a`, although it requires the `lsb-release` package installed.
    - 8draco8 10y ago
      Truly cross distro is cat /etc/* release
- pilif 10y ago
  No need. Just keep installing the regular updates to your OS. These minor releases are just new installer images so that new users don't immediately have to download a huge chunk of data.
- imglorp 10y ago
  You can run the Sofware Updater any time you want, including setting it to run automatically. https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade
  - reefwalkcuts 10y ago
    I actually run that every morning. So good to know :)
Siecje 10y ago
Anyone using ZFS with Ubuntu? Any problems? Anyone tried btfs?
- acranox 10y ago
  ZFS? Yes, many people. I'm sure you can read lots about it. I've been using it for over 6 months with no problem.
- simosx 10y ago
  If you use LXD in Ubuntu, you can (and should) have your containers stored in the ZFS filesystem. I have be doing that, and did not notice any problems. About LXD: https://stgraber.org/2016/03/11/lxd-2-0-blog-post-series-012/ https://stgraber.org/2016/03/11/lxd-2-0-blog-post-series-012...
- sp332 10y ago
  I ran with BTRFS for a while. It was pretty nice overall, but you have to be aware of which features are production-ready and which ones aren't. And the wiki isn't up to date either. I had to ask questions in the IRC channel because I didn't feel like wading through mailing list archives which is apparently the only place up-to-date info gets written down. Edit: This is new. https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Status https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Status I was hoping that it would grow into a more stable, user-friendly project. But RAID1 was broken for months, it would let you create RAID5/6 volume even though the feature wasn't even finished yet, and I personally ended up with a filesystem that will crash the kernel when I try to read certain files. I recovered most of the data using a virtual machine that I could reboot quickly. Maybe I'll look at it again in a couple years, see if someone is taking the project seriously.
- luca_ing 10y ago
  I've been using ZFS on all my desktops and my personal NAS for, I can't remember, probably 4-5 years. Including ZFS root filesystem, and swap on a zvol. I have to say, I really like it, and I'll use it again if I have to redo a machine. Installing Ubuntu on a ZFS root filesystem is much more involved than merely running the installer. If you have never done it before, and are appropriately cautious, it'll take you half a day to follow the (very detailed and helpful) Wiki page. I can do it in less than an hour now. ----- So far, only one problem (and not a bug, more of a misfeature): when one of the disks in the NAS died, I couldn't replace it with a new one, because the ZFS mirroring was using its default 2kb blocks (I forget the correct term). It can only do this on 2kb/sector HDDs. My new HDD had 4kb/sector. I was forced to recreate the entire filesystem using a larger blocksize (ashift=12). Luckily this worked without a hitch, thanks also to zfs send | zfs receive, but it still pissed me off.
simosx 10y ago
Here is a summary of what is said in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack regarding the 16.04.x versions 1. If you are happy with how Ubuntu 16.04 works for you, you get to keep it and you receive support until 2021. 2. With Ubuntu 16.04.2, you get the option to switch to a new path of updated Linux kernels. If you do so, your Linux kernel will get updated every six months, until 2021. For the first update with Ubuntu 16.04.2, you can enable to get the 4.8 kernel that was used/tested in development version of Ubuntu 16.10. In the subsequent update with Ubuntu 16.04.3 (around July 2017), you will be updated to that Linux kernel that was used/tested in Ubuntu 17.04 (to be released in April 2017). And so on. The command to switch you to the new path of updated kernels (updated every six months), is sudo apt-get install --install-recommends xserver-xorg-hwe-16.04
- sp332 10y ago
  Hey that's great. My biggest complaint from running 14.04 LTS for a couple years was the lack of kernel upgrades. Fortunately it's not that hard to install a kernel package from a more recent Ubuntu on it, but I had to find out how to do it and it's more manual than I was expecting for a LTS release.
  - simosx 10y ago
    The https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack page has the appropriate upgrade command in order to upgrade the kernel to the newer and supported version. According to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack#Kernel.2FSupport.A14.04.x_Ubuntu_Kernel_Support https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack#Kernel.2FS... you are now at the Linux kernel 4.4 and it will remain the same until the EOL of Ubuntu 14.04 (in 2019).
- brudgers 10y ago
  Just to clarify, that is how Ubuntu's LTS [Long Term Support] releases are intended to work. The 'point one' release fixes bugs in the initial release and keeps the same kernel. It winds up being the actual release that is supported 'Long Term'. Releases 'point two' and later get updated kernels...and potentially new bugs to go with new features. I won't say that the End of Life illustration is easy to interpret, but it shows how Ubuntu releases work: https://www.ubuntu.com/info/release-end-of-life https://www.ubuntu.com/info/release-end-of-life
tyingq 10y ago
Interesting bit from the release notes: Python 3: Python2 is not installed anymore by default on the server, cloud and the touch images, long live Python3! Python3 itself has been upgraded to the 3.5 series.
- brudgers 10y ago
  What that means is that all of the build scripts in Ubuntu 16.04 have been upgraded to Python 3 and building no longer has a dependency on Python 2. One way of looking at it is that Python 2 is not included with the current release of Ubuntu for the same reasons that MIT Scheme and PHP and Forth are not. The system does not require them.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    Well, yes, but the interesting bit is that some notable organization just finished their move from 2 to 3.
    - brudgers 10y ago
      Some notable organizations are planning not to move and more or less forking: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/01/grumpy-go-running-python.html https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/01/grumpy-go-running-... Python 2 will be with us for a long long time.
      - orf 10y ago
        Any other links, bar this one (which isn't really much more than a proof of concept)?

211 points by reddotX 10y ago

hd4 10y ago

I think the coolest thing introduced here is that the HWE kernel is going to become a standard feature of LTS releases going forwards.

listic 10y ago
Unfortunately, Alternate release images are not published after 16.04.1.
- rlpb 10y ago
  Everything in 16.04.1 comes from the package archives. It's what you get by default from a particular image that changes. You can still get to whatever state you want regardless of which variant and point release installation image of 16.04 you use. However, doing things manually is of course not the same as being automatic.
- compuguy 10y ago
  So are you saying they won't make any more alternate releases for future releases?
  - listic 10y ago
    Yes. It was that way for the 14.04 LTS, too.
tonyedgecombe 10y ago
HWE kernel: http://askubuntu.com/a/248936 http://askubuntu.com/a/248936
simosx 10y ago
Here is HWE, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack and there was a change recently in the policy. In a nutshell, 1. if you are happy with the currently kernel in Ubuntu 16.04, then you can stay with this kernel (it's version 4.4) and it gets supported until 2021). 2. if you want to jump to the new supported and tested (tested in 16.10) 4.8 Linux kernel, then there is a command described in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack that helps you upgrade. However, when you upgrade the kernel (and Xserver stack that are linked together), your Linux kernel will be upgraded every six months from now on, until 2021. The next kernel version update will be in July, and it will be whatever Linux kernel was released in Ubuntu 17.04.
fsaintjacques 10y ago
Does that means you can have fairly recent kernels with LTS releases? If so, amazing. That was my biggest complaint of Ubuntu on servers.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  This is the first time I'm hearing about this, but the link would suggest that yes, this is what it means. Kind of a sidethought, but I wonder if I can get an easily-administrable WRT distribution (like Tomato is) on my DSL router that has the kernel's bufferbloat fixes.
kasabali 10y ago
What do you mean by standard feature? HWE kernels were already introduced after each Ubuntu release.
- seenitall 10y ago
  Ubuntu used to add a kernel to the LTS from each subsequent release, but they were separate packages. Now there will be just one HWE package that will roll until the subsequent LTS.

8draco8 10y ago

I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux community. Canonical is doing great job of putting, fairly reliable system on massive number of devices, something that other distributions can just dream about. In my opinion, currently, Ubuntu is the best general purpose Linux distribution for new and semi advance users.

digi_owl 10y ago
CLAs and a history of going their own way i suspect. Then again the "majority" way is largely dictated by a few big projects in and around Fedora, with developers largely on Red Hat payroll. And the shit slinging didn't really take off until they up and created Unity after a spat with Gnome over the latters future course (afaik). Closely followed with Canonical starting Mir after misrepresenting/misunderstanding where Wayland was going. So who really knows whats going on...
- funnyfacts365 10y ago
  And you know what, Unity is great.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    I like it too. And the funny thing is all beginers I gave unity to liked it better than gnome. Only power users complain about it, which is lame given they are precisely the ones able to install another desktop whenever they want.
  - vetinari 10y ago
    Unity from a user's point of view is great. Too bad it requires patched upstream libraries, so it does not run on other distributions.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Do wonder why those patches are not accepted upstream...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

reefwalkcuts 10y ago

Newbie Ubuntu user here. Currently I have the 16.04LTS (I don't know if mine is 16.04.1 but I downloaded and installed this version of mine the day 16.04LTS officialy released last April 2016). Should I upgrade to 16.04.2? If so, how? I mean, do I have to download the 16.04.2 installer or is there a update command?

8draco8 10y ago
sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade will do it for you. To check what version you are on simple do cat /etc/os-release
- runejuhl 10y ago
  Or, for a more cross-distro approach, `lsb_release -a`, although it requires the `lsb-release` package installed.
  - 8draco8 10y ago
    Truly cross distro is cat /etc/* release
pilif 10y ago
No need. Just keep installing the regular updates to your OS. These minor releases are just new installer images so that new users don't immediately have to download a huge chunk of data.
imglorp 10y ago
You can run the Sofware Updater any time you want, including setting it to run automatically. https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade
- reefwalkcuts 10y ago
  I actually run that every morning. So good to know :)

Siecje 10y ago

Anyone using ZFS with Ubuntu? Any problems? Anyone tried btfs?

acranox 10y ago
ZFS? Yes, many people. I'm sure you can read lots about it. I've been using it for over 6 months with no problem.
simosx 10y ago
If you use LXD in Ubuntu, you can (and should) have your containers stored in the ZFS filesystem. I have be doing that, and did not notice any problems. About LXD: https://stgraber.org/2016/03/11/lxd-2-0-blog-post-series-012/ https://stgraber.org/2016/03/11/lxd-2-0-blog-post-series-012...
sp332 10y ago
I ran with BTRFS for a while. It was pretty nice overall, but you have to be aware of which features are production-ready and which ones aren't. And the wiki isn't up to date either. I had to ask questions in the IRC channel because I didn't feel like wading through mailing list archives which is apparently the only place up-to-date info gets written down. Edit: This is new. https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Status https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Status I was hoping that it would grow into a more stable, user-friendly project. But RAID1 was broken for months, it would let you create RAID5/6 volume even though the feature wasn't even finished yet, and I personally ended up with a filesystem that will crash the kernel when I try to read certain files. I recovered most of the data using a virtual machine that I could reboot quickly. Maybe I'll look at it again in a couple years, see if someone is taking the project seriously.
luca_ing 10y ago
I've been using ZFS on all my desktops and my personal NAS for, I can't remember, probably 4-5 years. Including ZFS root filesystem, and swap on a zvol. I have to say, I really like it, and I'll use it again if I have to redo a machine. Installing Ubuntu on a ZFS root filesystem is much more involved than merely running the installer. If you have never done it before, and are appropriately cautious, it'll take you half a day to follow the (very detailed and helpful) Wiki page. I can do it in less than an hour now. ----- So far, only one problem (and not a bug, more of a misfeature): when one of the disks in the NAS died, I couldn't replace it with a new one, because the ZFS mirroring was using its default 2kb blocks (I forget the correct term). It can only do this on 2kb/sector HDDs. My new HDD had 4kb/sector. I was forced to recreate the entire filesystem using a larger blocksize (ashift=12). Luckily this worked without a hitch, thanks also to zfs send | zfs receive, but it still pissed me off.

simosx 10y ago

Here is a summary of what is said in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack regarding the 16.04.x versions 1. If you are happy with how Ubuntu 16.04 works for you, you get to keep it and you receive support until 2021. 2. With Ubuntu 16.04.2, you get the option to switch to a new path of updated Linux kernels. If you do so, your Linux kernel will get updated every six months, until 2021. For the first update with Ubuntu 16.04.2, you can enable to get the 4.8 kernel that was used/tested in development version of Ubuntu 16.10. In the subsequent update with Ubuntu 16.04.3 (around July 2017), you will be updated to that Linux kernel that was used/tested in Ubuntu 17.04 (to be released in April 2017). And so on. The command to switch you to the new path of updated kernels (updated every six months), is sudo apt-get install --install-recommends xserver-xorg-hwe-16.04

sp332 10y ago
Hey that's great. My biggest complaint from running 14.04 LTS for a couple years was the lack of kernel upgrades. Fortunately it's not that hard to install a kernel package from a more recent Ubuntu on it, but I had to find out how to do it and it's more manual than I was expecting for a LTS release.
- simosx 10y ago
  The https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack page has the appropriate upgrade command in order to upgrade the kernel to the newer and supported version. According to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack#Kernel.2FSupport.A14.04.x_Ubuntu_Kernel_Support https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack#Kernel.2FS... you are now at the Linux kernel 4.4 and it will remain the same until the EOL of Ubuntu 14.04 (in 2019).
brudgers 10y ago
Just to clarify, that is how Ubuntu's LTS [Long Term Support] releases are intended to work. The 'point one' release fixes bugs in the initial release and keeps the same kernel. It winds up being the actual release that is supported 'Long Term'. Releases 'point two' and later get updated kernels...and potentially new bugs to go with new features. I won't say that the End of Life illustration is easy to interpret, but it shows how Ubuntu releases work: https://www.ubuntu.com/info/release-end-of-life https://www.ubuntu.com/info/release-end-of-life

tyingq 10y ago

Interesting bit from the release notes: Python 3: Python2 is not installed anymore by default on the server, cloud and the touch images, long live Python3! Python3 itself has been upgraded to the 3.5 series.

brudgers 10y ago
What that means is that all of the build scripts in Ubuntu 16.04 have been upgraded to Python 3 and building no longer has a dependency on Python 2. One way of looking at it is that Python 2 is not included with the current release of Ubuntu for the same reasons that MIT Scheme and PHP and Forth are not. The system does not require them.
- tyingq 10y ago
  Well, yes, but the interesting bit is that some notable organization just finished their move from 2 to 3.
  - brudgers 10y ago
    Some notable organizations are planning not to move and more or less forking: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/01/grumpy-go-running-python.html https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/01/grumpy-go-running-... Python 2 will be with us for a long long time.
    - orf 10y ago
      Any other links, bar this one (which isn't really much more than a proof of concept)?