Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS released Wednesday—here’s what’s new

[Karlston]

Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS released Wednesday—here’s what’s new

It's never been a better time to adopt a Bionic Beaver.

Enlarge / Wherever possible, we recommend most users stick to LTS releases. Today's 18.04.4 update makes that possible for newer hardware, like HP's Dragonfly Elite G1.

Jim Salter

This Wednesday, the current Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Service) release—Bionic Beaver—launched its fourth maintenance update.

 

Ubuntu is one of the most predictable operating system distributions in terms of its release cycle—a new version is launched in April and October of each year. Most of these are interim releases, supported for a single year from launch; but the April release of each even-numbered year is an LTS, supported for five years. LTS releases also get maintenance releases as necessary, typically about every three to six months during the support cycle of the LTS.

 

Today's release, 18.04.4, is one of those maintenance releases. It's not as shiny and exciting as entirely new versions, of course, but it does pack in some worthwhile security and bugfix upgrades, as well as support for more and newer hardware—such as the bleeding-edge Intel WiFi chipset in HP's Dragonfly Elite G1 laptop, which we reviewed last month.

 

18.04.4 fixes several potential minor irritants in installation, most notably a bug that sometimes prevented clean shutdown or restart from the installer environment. There were also some minor bugfixes to upgrade installations, but the most important class of fixes affect the system itself. There are far too many fixes and upgrades to list more than a few of the most interesting here:

• Nvidia proprietary drivers provided by Ubuntu got several updates which cover newer graphics cards
• Gnome-software got several UI fixes
• The thunderbird email client got a new version from upstream
• WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) environments will now properly detect, install, and start X11 and PulseAudio for Windows
• Canonical's package containerization system, snapd, received a new version from upstream
• The much-unloved Amazon Web launcher, scheduled to disappear in this year's upcoming LTS (20.04 Focal Fossa), gets removed from 18.04 with this release

If you're already running Ubuntu 18.04, you don't need to do anything special to get these fixes—your system will get them automatically during normal system updates, either manually (apt update ; apt dist-upgrade on the command line, or via the Software Update GUI) or automatically, if you've enabled automatic system updates. New users can download 18.04.4 directly from ubuntu.com.

 

 

Source: Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS released Wednesday—here’s what’s new (Ars Technica)  

[steven36]

Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS Released with Linux Kernel 5.3

 

 

The latest Ubuntu 18.04 LTS point release is now available to download.

 

Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS, which arrives a week later than planned due to a few last minute issue, serves as the penultimate point release in the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release cycle.

 

As ever there’s not much that’s “new” per se. An Ubuntu point release is simply a freshly spun install .iso that features all of the OS fixes and improvements released to the OS since last install image was issued.

 

Or, to word it another way, point releases are a shortcut; a hop on point for new users. They still install the same OS that was released back in April 2018, but without the hassle of having to download the 100MBs of updates released to it since.

 

Some notable changes are carried in the 18.04.4 LTS respin including installer bug fixes, window manager fixes, and a few Snap related niceties in the GNOME Initial Setup tool.

 

 

HWE 18.04 LTS

 

Arriving alongside the release of Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS is the 18.04.4 LTS HWE, or new ‘hardware enablement stack’. This is composed of a newer Linux kernel back ported from Ubuntu 19.10, updated graphics drivers, and newer display server (where applicable).

 

The Ubuntu kernel shipping in  this update is based on the Linux 5.3 release. This kernel update adds, among many general impromvents, hardware support for new MacBook laptops, AMD Navi GPUs, and several Wacom graphics tablets.

 

If you installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS in April 2018 you won’t get the new HWE update automatically unless you’ve specifically opted in — but you can install the HWE easily by running this command from a new Terminal window:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04

 

If you installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS using a point release image (18.04.1, 18.04.2, etc) then you will get the new HWE automatically via a regular system update — so keep an eye out for it.

Download Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS

Ubuntu 18.04 is the latest long term support release of Ubuntu and is supported with on going updates until 2023.

 

Download Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS (64-bit .iso) Here

 

A new Ubuntu LTS release, Ubuntu 20.04, is arriving in April. It will be possible to upgrade Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04 later in the year.

 

 

Source