Ubuntu News Archives

It's not quite the Ubuntu rolling-release process that some have proposed over the years, but a new proposal is being formulated for shipping updates to key Ubuntu system components on a monthly basis rather than having to wait six months for updates to the Linux kernel, Mesa, etc.

A week ago Ubuntu 17.10's ISO was pulled due to a show-stopping laptop bug whereby some UEFI-enabled laptops from multiple vendors were running into "BIOS corruption" where BIOS settings could no longer be changed, USB booting becoming non-functional, and similar UEFI-related issues. Fortunately, a fixed kernel is now available and some affected users are reporting a successful workaround for making their laptops full-functioning once again.

Last week we reported on Ubuntu maker Canonical's financial performance for FY2017 with a $122M turnover and nearly 600 employees after spotting the latest data. For those wondering how that compares to previous years, here is more of the past year's performance.

When Canonical announced they would be dropping their Unity 8 plans but that Mir would still be maintained, their reason at the time for maintaining it were "Internet of Things" (IoT) use-cases. While not yet clear, Canonical is privately working on Mir IoT plans for 2018.

While Red Hat is on track for a run rate of nearly three billion dollars for their current fiscal year, Canonical - the company behind Ubuntu - isn't quite there yet while still dominating the cloud landscape and other areas.

While Ubuntu Touch may be dead to Canonical, UBports continues to work where the convergence / Unity 8 developers left off with trying to make this mobile platform a reality.

With Ubuntu 17.10 the 32-bit desktop image/installer was dropped while for the upcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release they plan to do away with the ubuntu-server i386 release.

Canonical has temporarily pulled the download links for Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" from the Ubuntu website due to ongoing reports of some laptops finding their BIOS corrupted after installing this latest Ubuntu release. The issue is appearing most frequently with Lenovo laptops but there are also reports of issues with other laptop vendors as well.

It was a heck of a year for Ubuntu's Mir display server from it starting off as the display server to the now-abandoned Unity 8 desktop and it surviving Canonical's cancelling of the Unity/convergence projects to now not only being fitted for IoT use-cases but gaining Wayland support with hopes some will use it as a Wayland compositor. This also went from Mir 1.0 nearly being released and back to the drawing board to Canonical now hiring more Mir developers and adding Mir to other Linux distributions: what a wild ride 2017 has been for this controversial project.

The past few days Canonical's Mir developers have been preparing their next milestone with pushing this display server along with Wayland protocol support and now that new "v0.29" release is available.

Not only are Ubuntu developers working towards demoting Python 2 on their Linux distribution but they are also working on being able to demote the GTK2 tool-kit from the main archive to universe followed by its eventual removal in the future.

There's a little more than two years left until Python 2 will be officially discontinued by upstream and Ubuntu is preparing accordingly for this end of life.

While a few months ago we could have written off Mir as a dead project following the Unity 8 abandonment, Canonical is continuing to push it along in its new route of Wayland support.

While Canonical abandoned their work on the Unity desktop environment in favor of the Unity-inspired customized GNOME Shell that debuted in Ubuntu 17.10, some within the community have remained interested in maintaining Unity 7 and even getting it into an official spin/flavor of Ubuntu.

Canonical developers working on the Mir display server want feedback from the community about the direction Mir should pursue in the future now that it's getting basic Wayland support in place.

While it was only months ago that Canonical let go of several Mir developers at the same time as other staff reductions for the Unity team and different areas as the company changed their focus, they are now looking for new Mir hires.

The latest in the development of the "Bionic Beaver" is that new system sounds might come to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Ubuntu is back to spinning daily ISOs of their latest development packages in preparation for the next release, which this time around is the 18.04 "Bionic Beaver" Long Term Support release.

If you have been trying to use the RADV Radeon Vulkan driver that's packaged for Ubuntu but find it not working, chances are it's caused by Canonical's patches for Mir support.

Not only are the Canonical developers that are left working on the Mir display server trying to make it easier to run Mir on other Linux distributions, but they have now punted the project to GitHub.

Earlier this year is when Canonical shared they were creating a new Ubuntu Server installer as an eventual replacement to the text-based Debian Installer that their server edition has been using up to this point. It's looking like this "Subiquity" installer could be in good shape by Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Mir 0.28.1 is now available as a minor update over Mir 0.28 that squeezed out the door ahead of Ubuntu 17.10.

With Mir now having basic Wayland support, next on their agenda is to improve the acceptance/conformance tests around Wayland in general that will help in vetting Mir's Wayland support code.

Mark Shuttleworth has just revealed the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS codename...

Lead Mir developer Alan Griffiths has spent the time getting the Mir display server running on Fedora. This is part of a broader feature request of getting Mir running on more Linux distributions than just Ubuntu.

The official Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" spins are now available.

Next month will mark five years that Steam has been available for Linux and it's been about the same length of time that Ubuntu has tried to improve itself as a gaming platform, but has it worked?

There's one week to go until the official Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" release and it looks like Mir 0.28 will land in the nick of time.

While we've long been told that Mir 1.0 would happen for Ubuntu 17.10 -- even as recently as last month -- and then earlier this week was a Mir 1.0 tag and the v1.0.0 milestone in Launchpad, that version is being pulled back in favor of calling it Mir 0.28.

There is just one week to go until the Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" release but it looks like the Mir 1.0 release will still happen in time.

Overnight the final beta of Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" was released for Ubuntu proper and its derivative friends.

Ubuntu will no longer be producing a desktop i386 ISO beginning with the soon-to-be-released Ubuntu 17.10.

Following our reporting of Mir picking up initial support for Wayland clients, Mir developer Alan Griffiths at Canonical has further clarified the Wayland client support. It also appears they are still planning to get Mir 1.0 released in time for Ubuntu 17.10.

Quietly being added to the Mir display stack a week ago was initial support for Wayland clients.

The first beta is available today for the Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" release for the flavors opting in to participate in this development milestone ahead of the official launch in October.

Ubuntu 17.10, the Artful Aardvark, has crossed into the feature freeze this week.

Will Cooke of Canonical is out with another weekly update on the latest happenings for the Ubuntu 17.10 desktop as the "Artful Aardvark" release continues getting closer.

Making their GNOME Shell session more like the Unity 7 experience, Ubuntu 17.10 as of today is installing its new Ubuntu Dock by default.

Mir 1.0 might be close to being released for Ubuntu 17.10, but it doesn't yet have Wayland support.

While we await the Mir 1.0 release with its new target of supporting Wayland clients directly, we noticed there was a re-licensing change this week for the Mir code-base.

Officially out today is Ubuntu 16.04.3 as the newest point release for this Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) release.

There has been some mixed messages by Ubuntu developers in recent weeks about the default GNOME Shell session planned for Ubuntu 17.10 and whether Wayland would be used. The latest is that Wayland-by-default is still on.

The second alpha release of the "Artful Aardvark" 17.10 is now available for Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie, and Ubuntu Kylin.

Ubuntu will begin their transition from GCC 6 to GCC 7 in early August.

While Ubuntu's desktop future now rests with GNOME Shell for Ubuntu 17.10 and beyond, developers are still working on some Unity 7 refinements for existing Ubuntu desktop users.

Canonical is running a survey in trying to figure out what should be the default applications for next year's Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release.

Will Cooke of Canonical has posted the latest weekly status update concerning happenings for the desktop on Ubuntu 17.10.

Linux laptop vendor System76 has provided a status update on their activities around their Pop!_OS Linux distribution.

Ubuntu's Mir display server is out today with version 0.27 that is an interim step before Mir 1.0 with Wayland client support. Mir 0.27 contains functionality that was a work-in-progress during Canonical's recent restructuring and shift in focus.

In yesterday's Windows 10 Radeon Software vs. Ubuntu 17.04 + Linux 4.12 + Mesa 17.2-dev comparison I tested both Ubuntu 17.04 out-of-the-box and then upgraded it to the Linux 4.12 kernel and Mesa 17.2-dev. Here are some complementary tests I did with a larger set of Linux games.