6 ms·

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

107 points by MidnightRaver 8y ago

augustl 8y ago
I plan to run LTS on my laptop from now on, so that I get a stable desktop environment. I used to be a sucker for running the latest and greatest, but I guess I'm too old for that now. I wonder how my applications will fare. I would like to have the latest version of Firefox, emacs, git, and so on. It's the desktop environment and OS itself I want to be as stable as possible. I'd also like to get the most recent kernel, I think, since the kernel is pretty darn stable and rarely has regressions, at least in my experience. I also learned that there's an official plan for 18.04.1, to be released July 26th. This is the release that will prompt 16.04 LTS for an upgrade. In other words, the official upgrade path for an LTS is to wait for the first patch release, and not upgrade immediately. So I'm considering waiting to update from 17.10 until 18.04.1 is out.
- beojan 8y ago
  I would avoid running LTS unless you really need the stability. Otherwise, having the latest applications (and utilities like git) is going to be difficult.
  - setquk 8y ago
    I'd argue that's less of an issue these days. Hopping between LTS releases seems to be the most productive and free from issue way of working, at least for me. The main thing is latest browser versions and they still ship with the LTS release.
    - augustl 8y ago
      I plan to try, at least! There's an ppa for the latest emacs and fish shell anyway. Maybe I can find a ppa for git. My other editor, IntelliJ, updates itself. Spotify also has its own repo.
  - piotrkubisa 8y ago
    It is worth noting Ubuntu comes with snap and flatpack support since latest two releases, and it works flawlessly for most of GUI applications. Sadly there isn't many CLI tools available to download like aforementioned git or zsh.
    - beojan 8y ago
      On newer laptops, disk space is at something of a premium (SSDs are expensive, so the disk size got smaller again), so Snap / Flatpak / Appimage are a bit of an issue.
    - jhasse 8y ago
      For many command line utilities you can use Linuxbrew: http://linuxbrew.sh/ http://linuxbrew.sh/
  - oblio 8y ago
    What does the latest git provide, that is actually noteworthy or a game changer? Honest question.
  - pmontra 8y ago
    I'm on 16.04 and I have no problems with that. I use the repositories of the developers, so I get the latest versions. I use Canonical's repositories for the OS and the software I don't really care much about. I had no problems with this approach (LibreOffice, PostgreSQL, etc). I occasionally run some software in a docker container to get the latest version, or to run multiple versions of the same server application (example: I've got two Redis for two different projects). Asdf [1] can manage multiple PostgreSQL versions (and several languages). The real advantage of staying on a LTS has been no big updates and no changes in the GUI. I'm on Gnome Flashback which I tweaked to be as closed as possible to Gnome 2. It seems that Gnome Shell eventually got enough extensions to also make it look like Gnome 2. I'll give it a try again after those memory leaks will go away. I can probably stick to 16.04 for another year before developers start skipping it in their builds. Edit: I checked and I have git 2.17.0, which is the latest version. I keep it up to date with ppa.launchpad.net/git-core/ppa/ubuntu [1] https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf
    - augustl 8y ago
      I'll definitely look into Gnome Flashback. I'm not all that happy with Gnome 3. It often fails to restore my windows when attaching an external monitor at work, and the caffeine extension for keeping the display on during presentaitons etc somehow managed to lock up Gnome entirely when suspending. A sign of a unhealthy plug-in architecture, maybe...
  - kingosticks 8y ago
    When using core tools (like git) in a large company, there is zero chance of everyone having the latest version. Nobody builds anything assuming you have the latest version and so everyone can keep working. We can't even rely on everyone having access to worktrees! The stability of LTS far, far outweighs every new feature I've found so far. It's a no-brainer when you are trying to get stuff actually done and don't appreciate having to regularly waste cycles on your toolbox.
  - calgoo 8y ago
    The only reason why i would NOT run the LTS, is if i need some very new and fancy kernel version. However, even then they normally get backported into LTS, but sometimes that wait can leave you without something critical (like wifi or hibernation / sleep support) for months. There is always the option of recompiling the kernel from LTS to support the driver you want, but at that point, i would just go with the latest release.
    - wiredfool 8y ago
      There's generally a kernel package from the latest release built for the LTS distro: https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=xenial&arch=any&searchon=names&keywords=linux-image%20lts https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=xenial&arch=any&sea...
- thibran 8y ago
  To get the latest version of an app you can use snap-packages. E.g. to always get automatically the newest version of LibreOffice: sudo snap install libreoffice Don't forget to remove the preinstalled – and soon outdated – .deb-package version of LibreOffice :)
  - augustl 8y ago
    Oh, that's really cool! I had no idea this existed. Thanks a lot!
  - roryisok 8y ago
    Wait... Do Linux apps (Firefox etc) not self update like Windows and MacOS?
    - adamtulinius 8y ago
      No, that is usually the responsibility of the system wide package management system. :)
    - dingo_bat 8y ago
      No, they depend on the package manager to do that.
    - pasta 8y ago
      No. And there are multiple reasons for this. One example: when Firefox decides to integrade a keylogger it is very unlikely you will find that release on your Ubuntu installation. But in my experience Firefox is updated very soon after official releases.
      - dogma1138 8y ago
        On the other hand the only users that predictively fall to browser exploits when we run end user targeted red-team ops are the devs and IT peeps that run Linux instead of OSX/Windows. In fact across the board Linux machines in many enterprises are more likely to run outdated and possibly vulnerable software.
- viraptor 8y ago
  > I used to be a sucker for running the latest and greatest, but I guess I'm too old for that now. This seems to be much easier these days. Around 10.x / 12.x releases being on recent versions of everything made a lot of sense. Especially with browsers not updating separately from the main repo. There were actual, big improvements with drivers, power management, hi-res support, and other things. These days, I don't see that many reasons to keep current. All the tools I use are stable and almost old - vscode may be the only new one in 5 years. That's my anecdata anyway.
- SiempreViernes 8y ago
  Yeah, life really is nicer if you only have to muck about with the software you actually care about. I've been using LTS for several releases now, and have remained in blessed ignorance of X.org settings for most of that time :)
  - augustl 8y ago
    Good to hear, I look forward to it! As a seasoned LTS user, would you recommend waiting for 18.04.1?
- nikolaplejic 8y ago
  You can always use something like the Nix package manager[1] to install Firefox, Git, and Emacs, and leave the rest to Ubuntu. Save for Firefox, which I install from a tarball and use auto-update, I have been doing that with Debian stable on my laptop, and it works well. [1] https://nixos.org/nix/ https://nixos.org/nix/
  - geokon 8y ago
    So they will run on X11 that's from Debian stable? Will for example Emacs read your .Xresources from your home directory? I've been eyeing this setup with Guix but I have some concerns. If I install a newer version of GCC through Nix/Guix, can I run update-alternatives on it?
    - nikolaplejic 8y ago
      Yes, it will run on your system X11 obeying your .Xresources. I have never tried using update-alternatives to replace the system-wide GCC (or any piece of software for that matter).
      - geokon 8y ago
        that's nice it hooks back into your system. I might just have to try it :)
konschubert 8y ago
Weird, I am still getting "No new release found." when running `do-release-upgrade`... EDIT: Found the answer in another comment: > I also learned that there's an official plan for 18.04.1, to be released July 26th. This is the release that will prompt 16.04 LTS for an upgrade. In other words, the official upgrade path for an LTS is to wait for the first patch release, and not upgrade immediately. So I'm considering waiting to update from 17.10 until 18.04.1 is out.
- augustl 8y ago
  If you really want to upgrade, you can run `do-release-upgrade --devel-release` (or just -d), which will get you from 16.04 to 18.04. Apparently, 18.04 is considered an development level release from the perspective of 16.04? (I don't really know what I'm talking about here.)
  - fgonzag 8y ago
    Upgrades between LTS versions are officially supported until the .01 of the newest LTS afaik (so you'll get the update prompt when 18.01 is released)
- wiredfool 8y ago
  That's been the pattern for a few LTS releases.
- fordarnold 8y ago
  Same here, but I think that's because it takes some time for the new Ubuntu releases to be considered stable... For now its still in development according to them. Ref: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-upgrade-to-ubuntu-18-04-lts-bionic-beaver https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-upgrade-to-ubuntu-18-04-lts-b...
throwaway84742 8y ago
No fractional scaling still. ‍️Why?
- augustl 8y ago
  Afaik they rolled back wayland, 18.04 uses Xorg. So maybe that's why.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- skriticos2 8y ago
  There is an experimental feature that enables it on Gnome with Wayland [1]. The result is off in various ways though (blurry things here and there, some weird positioning). At least on my Fedora install I just keep it at 100% on my 4k 30" screen and then use the tweak tool to adjust font sizes to 150%. That works reasonably well and as a benefit makes those huge title-bars not so huge any more. https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/09/enable-fractional-scaling-gnome-linux https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/09/enable-fractional-scalin...
- jhasse 8y ago
  Because it's a hard issue to solve.
  - throwaway84742 8y ago
    It’s already solved in 16.04 though. They have _removed_ support for it in this case.
    - jhasse 8y ago
      Unity's approach introduced some visual glitches due to rounding errors and didn't work with multiple monitors (with different dpi), I wouldn't call that "solved".
SiempreViernes 8y ago
> Window control buttons are back on the right. Does anyone have a list of how this has evolved? Are we getting more or less stable on this, the ultimate bikeshedding issue?
- jhasse 8y ago
  https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/08/ubuntu-moves-window-controls-right https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/08/ubuntu-moves-window-cont... has some info about this.
KeitIG 8y ago
Great release, with great features, and still a really (really) bad UI. The new theme has so many inconsistencies and bad decisions made. And I find it really cringy for an LTS release to distribute this new theme as the default one. I hoped hard the communitheme would be the official theme of this release, but no. Examples: - The active directory effect in Nautilus's sidebar makes me thing there were two sidebars with different purpose [1] - Changing the background of every other rows in the settings look weird. The fact they are splitting settings by group do not help. I thought it was a theme glitch, and found out it was an actual feature [2] I understand why people are interested in more serious theme (arc-theme) or even other Ubuntu-based distros (elementary...). [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dbxn7TrV4AItn2f.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dbxn7TrV4AItn2f.jpg [2] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DbxoSISVwAAn1fV.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DbxoSISVwAAn1fV.jpg
- piotrkubisa 8y ago
  Personally I have no idea why they rolled these theme styles for nautilus while they have been worked on Communitheme [1], which does not have tab-like menu [2]. However I'd like to note even in adwaita (and many other styles) there is design inconsistency between nautilus and gnome-tweak-tool. Sadly, Ubuntu dev team and community have not released any stable version Communitheme yet, so they were too late to bring new, consistent theme to 18.04. [1]: https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-communitheme https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-communitheme [2]: https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-community-theme/ https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-community-theme/
finnjohnsen2 8y ago
I suspect Ubuntu (even after 18.04) will still randomly tap my shoulder and complain about my full /boot partition -.-
- blubb-fish 8y ago
  yes - and the best solution I found is a long and cryptic series of commands involving "apt-get purge" ... as long as those kind of issues bother users Linux is practically not usable for non-technicians.
unixhero 8y ago
Any news on Powermac build? I know there is a Community effort behold the ppc big endian build. I am praying to the open source gods for it to happen.
jlubawy 8y ago
I wonder if they had this Bionic Beaver in mind, I hope not :) THE FAMOUS BIONIC BEAVER Our Signature Drink for Sharing! Seagrams Vodka / Gin / Rum / Triple Sec / Peach Schnapps / Light Beer / Grenadine / Splash Cranberry https://guava-beach.com/menus/drinks/ https://guava-beach.com/menus/drinks/
merricksb 8y ago
Extensive discussion about this release commencing 20 hours ago and still on page 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16931491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16931491

107 points by MidnightRaver 8y ago

I plan to run LTS on my laptop from now on, so that I get a stable desktop environment. I used to be a sucker for running the latest and greatest, but I guess I'm too old for that now. I wonder how my applications will fare. I would like to have the latest version of Firefox, emacs, git, and so on. It's the desktop environment and OS itself I want to be as stable as possible. I'd also like to get the most recent kernel, I think, since the kernel is pretty darn stable and rarely has regressions, at least in my experience. I also learned that there's an official plan for 18.04.1, to be released July 26th. This is the release that will prompt 16.04 LTS for an upgrade. In other words, the official upgrade path for an LTS is to wait for the first patch release, and not upgrade immediately. So I'm considering waiting to update from 17.10 until 18.04.1 is out.

beojan 8y ago
I would avoid running LTS unless you really need the stability. Otherwise, having the latest applications (and utilities like git) is going to be difficult.
- setquk 8y ago
  I'd argue that's less of an issue these days. Hopping between LTS releases seems to be the most productive and free from issue way of working, at least for me. The main thing is latest browser versions and they still ship with the LTS release.
  - augustl 8y ago
    I plan to try, at least! There's an ppa for the latest emacs and fish shell anyway. Maybe I can find a ppa for git. My other editor, IntelliJ, updates itself. Spotify also has its own repo.
- piotrkubisa 8y ago
  It is worth noting Ubuntu comes with snap and flatpack support since latest two releases, and it works flawlessly for most of GUI applications. Sadly there isn't many CLI tools available to download like aforementioned git or zsh.
  - beojan 8y ago
    On newer laptops, disk space is at something of a premium (SSDs are expensive, so the disk size got smaller again), so Snap / Flatpak / Appimage are a bit of an issue.
  - jhasse 8y ago
    For many command line utilities you can use Linuxbrew: http://linuxbrew.sh/ http://linuxbrew.sh/
- oblio 8y ago
  What does the latest git provide, that is actually noteworthy or a game changer? Honest question.
- pmontra 8y ago
  I'm on 16.04 and I have no problems with that. I use the repositories of the developers, so I get the latest versions. I use Canonical's repositories for the OS and the software I don't really care much about. I had no problems with this approach (LibreOffice, PostgreSQL, etc). I occasionally run some software in a docker container to get the latest version, or to run multiple versions of the same server application (example: I've got two Redis for two different projects). Asdf [1] can manage multiple PostgreSQL versions (and several languages). The real advantage of staying on a LTS has been no big updates and no changes in the GUI. I'm on Gnome Flashback which I tweaked to be as closed as possible to Gnome 2. It seems that Gnome Shell eventually got enough extensions to also make it look like Gnome 2. I'll give it a try again after those memory leaks will go away. I can probably stick to 16.04 for another year before developers start skipping it in their builds. Edit: I checked and I have git 2.17.0, which is the latest version. I keep it up to date with ppa.launchpad.net/git-core/ppa/ubuntu [1] https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf
  - augustl 8y ago
    I'll definitely look into Gnome Flashback. I'm not all that happy with Gnome 3. It often fails to restore my windows when attaching an external monitor at work, and the caffeine extension for keeping the display on during presentaitons etc somehow managed to lock up Gnome entirely when suspending. A sign of a unhealthy plug-in architecture, maybe...
- kingosticks 8y ago
  When using core tools (like git) in a large company, there is zero chance of everyone having the latest version. Nobody builds anything assuming you have the latest version and so everyone can keep working. We can't even rely on everyone having access to worktrees! The stability of LTS far, far outweighs every new feature I've found so far. It's a no-brainer when you are trying to get stuff actually done and don't appreciate having to regularly waste cycles on your toolbox.
- calgoo 8y ago
  The only reason why i would NOT run the LTS, is if i need some very new and fancy kernel version. However, even then they normally get backported into LTS, but sometimes that wait can leave you without something critical (like wifi or hibernation / sleep support) for months. There is always the option of recompiling the kernel from LTS to support the driver you want, but at that point, i would just go with the latest release.
  - wiredfool 8y ago
    There's generally a kernel package from the latest release built for the LTS distro: https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=xenial&arch=any&searchon=names&keywords=linux-image%20lts https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=xenial&arch=any&sea...
thibran 8y ago
To get the latest version of an app you can use snap-packages. E.g. to always get automatically the newest version of LibreOffice: sudo snap install libreoffice Don't forget to remove the preinstalled – and soon outdated – .deb-package version of LibreOffice :)
- augustl 8y ago
  Oh, that's really cool! I had no idea this existed. Thanks a lot!
- roryisok 8y ago
  Wait... Do Linux apps (Firefox etc) not self update like Windows and MacOS?
  - adamtulinius 8y ago
    No, that is usually the responsibility of the system wide package management system. :)
  - dingo_bat 8y ago
    No, they depend on the package manager to do that.
  - pasta 8y ago
    No. And there are multiple reasons for this. One example: when Firefox decides to integrade a keylogger it is very unlikely you will find that release on your Ubuntu installation. But in my experience Firefox is updated very soon after official releases.
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      On the other hand the only users that predictively fall to browser exploits when we run end user targeted red-team ops are the devs and IT peeps that run Linux instead of OSX/Windows. In fact across the board Linux machines in many enterprises are more likely to run outdated and possibly vulnerable software.
viraptor 8y ago
> I used to be a sucker for running the latest and greatest, but I guess I'm too old for that now. This seems to be much easier these days. Around 10.x / 12.x releases being on recent versions of everything made a lot of sense. Especially with browsers not updating separately from the main repo. There were actual, big improvements with drivers, power management, hi-res support, and other things. These days, I don't see that many reasons to keep current. All the tools I use are stable and almost old - vscode may be the only new one in 5 years. That's my anecdata anyway.
SiempreViernes 8y ago
Yeah, life really is nicer if you only have to muck about with the software you actually care about. I've been using LTS for several releases now, and have remained in blessed ignorance of X.org settings for most of that time :)
- augustl 8y ago
  Good to hear, I look forward to it! As a seasoned LTS user, would you recommend waiting for 18.04.1?
nikolaplejic 8y ago
You can always use something like the Nix package manager[1] to install Firefox, Git, and Emacs, and leave the rest to Ubuntu. Save for Firefox, which I install from a tarball and use auto-update, I have been doing that with Debian stable on my laptop, and it works well. [1] https://nixos.org/nix/ https://nixos.org/nix/
- geokon 8y ago
  So they will run on X11 that's from Debian stable? Will for example Emacs read your .Xresources from your home directory? I've been eyeing this setup with Guix but I have some concerns. If I install a newer version of GCC through Nix/Guix, can I run update-alternatives on it?
  - nikolaplejic 8y ago
    Yes, it will run on your system X11 obeying your .Xresources. I have never tried using update-alternatives to replace the system-wide GCC (or any piece of software for that matter).
    - geokon 8y ago
      that's nice it hooks back into your system. I might just have to try it :)

konschubert 8y ago

Weird, I am still getting "No new release found." when running `do-release-upgrade`... EDIT: Found the answer in another comment: > I also learned that there's an official plan for 18.04.1, to be released July 26th. This is the release that will prompt 16.04 LTS for an upgrade. In other words, the official upgrade path for an LTS is to wait for the first patch release, and not upgrade immediately. So I'm considering waiting to update from 17.10 until 18.04.1 is out.

augustl 8y ago
If you really want to upgrade, you can run `do-release-upgrade --devel-release` (or just -d), which will get you from 16.04 to 18.04. Apparently, 18.04 is considered an development level release from the perspective of 16.04? (I don't really know what I'm talking about here.)
- fgonzag 8y ago
  Upgrades between LTS versions are officially supported until the .01 of the newest LTS afaik (so you'll get the update prompt when 18.01 is released)
wiredfool 8y ago
That's been the pattern for a few LTS releases.
fordarnold 8y ago
Same here, but I think that's because it takes some time for the new Ubuntu releases to be considered stable... For now its still in development according to them. Ref: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-upgrade-to-ubuntu-18-04-lts-bionic-beaver https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-upgrade-to-ubuntu-18-04-lts-b...

throwaway84742 8y ago

No fractional scaling still. ‍️Why?

augustl 8y ago
Afaik they rolled back wayland, 18.04 uses Xorg. So maybe that's why.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
skriticos2 8y ago
There is an experimental feature that enables it on Gnome with Wayland [1]. The result is off in various ways though (blurry things here and there, some weird positioning). At least on my Fedora install I just keep it at 100% on my 4k 30" screen and then use the tweak tool to adjust font sizes to 150%. That works reasonably well and as a benefit makes those huge title-bars not so huge any more. https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/09/enable-fractional-scaling-gnome-linux https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/09/enable-fractional-scalin...
jhasse 8y ago
Because it's a hard issue to solve.
- throwaway84742 8y ago
  It’s already solved in 16.04 though. They have _removed_ support for it in this case.
  - jhasse 8y ago
    Unity's approach introduced some visual glitches due to rounding errors and didn't work with multiple monitors (with different dpi), I wouldn't call that "solved".

SiempreViernes 8y ago

> Window control buttons are back on the right. Does anyone have a list of how this has evolved? Are we getting more or less stable on this, the ultimate bikeshedding issue?

jhasse 8y ago
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/08/ubuntu-moves-window-controls-right https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/08/ubuntu-moves-window-cont... has some info about this.

KeitIG 8y ago

Great release, with great features, and still a really (really) bad UI. The new theme has so many inconsistencies and bad decisions made. And I find it really cringy for an LTS release to distribute this new theme as the default one. I hoped hard the communitheme would be the official theme of this release, but no. Examples: - The active directory effect in Nautilus's sidebar makes me thing there were two sidebars with different purpose [1] - Changing the background of every other rows in the settings look weird. The fact they are splitting settings by group do not help. I thought it was a theme glitch, and found out it was an actual feature [2] I understand why people are interested in more serious theme (arc-theme) or even other Ubuntu-based distros (elementary...). [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dbxn7TrV4AItn2f.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dbxn7TrV4AItn2f.jpg [2] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DbxoSISVwAAn1fV.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DbxoSISVwAAn1fV.jpg

piotrkubisa 8y ago
Personally I have no idea why they rolled these theme styles for nautilus while they have been worked on Communitheme [1], which does not have tab-like menu [2]. However I'd like to note even in adwaita (and many other styles) there is design inconsistency between nautilus and gnome-tweak-tool. Sadly, Ubuntu dev team and community have not released any stable version Communitheme yet, so they were too late to bring new, consistent theme to 18.04. [1]: https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-communitheme https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-communitheme [2]: https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-community-theme/ https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-community-theme/

finnjohnsen2 8y ago

I suspect Ubuntu (even after 18.04) will still randomly tap my shoulder and complain about my full /boot partition -.-

blubb-fish 8y ago
yes - and the best solution I found is a long and cryptic series of commands involving "apt-get purge" ... as long as those kind of issues bother users Linux is practically not usable for non-technicians.

unixhero 8y ago

Any news on Powermac build? I know there is a Community effort behold the ppc big endian build. I am praying to the open source gods for it to happen.

jlubawy 8y ago

I wonder if they had this Bionic Beaver in mind, I hope not :) THE FAMOUS BIONIC BEAVER Our Signature Drink for Sharing! Seagrams Vodka / Gin / Rum / Triple Sec / Peach Schnapps / Light Beer / Grenadine / Splash Cranberry https://guava-beach.com/menus/drinks/ https://guava-beach.com/menus/drinks/

merricksb 8y ago

Extensive discussion about this release commencing 20 hours ago and still on page 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16931491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16931491