Ubuntu 21.04 released! Active Directory Integration by default!

[Guest willies leg]

Ubuntu today released their Linux version 21.04! In keeping with their push with Microsoft, this edition includes, by default, integration with Active Directory:

"Ubuntu machines can join an Active Directory (AD) domain at installation for central configuration. AD administrators can now manage Ubuntu workstations, which simplifies compliance with company policies.

Ubuntu 21.04 adds the ability to configure system settings from an AD domain controller. Using a Group Policy Client, system administrators can specify security policies on all connected clients, such as password policies and user access control, and Desktop environment settings, such as login screen, background and favourite apps."

 

Also it's able to run Microsoft SQL server natively:

“Native Active Directory integration and certified Microsoft SQL Server on Ubuntu are top priorities for our enterprise customers.” said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical.

"Canonical and Microsoft will provide integrated support for Ubuntu with Microsoft SQL Server deployed on-prem or through the Azure Marketplace, for mission-critical workloads."

 

Flutter development too, for GUI applications, showing they can work with Google as well as Microsoft:

"Canonical has been a fantastic contributor to Flutter, enabling Linux desktop support in Flutter and opening up the opportunity to bring high-quality Flutter apps to Linux. We look forward to our continued partnership in making Flutter the best choice for app developers, no matter which platform they target,” shared Chris Sells, Product Manager, Flutter.

 

Other enhancements include a new dark theme, etc. etc.

 

Summary

Canonical and Microsoft are working well together, with Microsoft porting SQL server to Linux and making Ubuntu their premier platform, while Canonical built out native Active Directory support and enabled it by default. Also, Flutter is the icing on the cake!

 

My thoughts

If you're into exploring Linux for the first time, Ubuntu 21.04 might be the release for you, with integrations into Active Directory. Also you'll be able to run Microsoft SQL server fully supported on Linux!

 

Sources

https://ubuntu.com//blog/ubuntu-21-04-is-here

[rcmaehl]

I mean with CentOS dead as of December, I'm glad to see other Distros stepping up their enterprise game.

[elfensky]

I was just setting up my new VPS when CentOS kicked the bucket, so I'm glad to see Ubuntu working close with enterprise customers.
I'm currently using 20.04 to host my bitwarden instance and various websites and other projects. Also glad to see MS supporting Linux.

 

 

[leadeater]

Damn this is awesome, will be changing over to this right away

[WereCatf]

Meh. There are only two reasons why I care about this new release and those are: it now includes the drivers for my 2.5GbE NIC and there's now a workaround for the Kingston A2000 NVMe-drive in the kernel. Other than those two, there's nothing new or exciting about it.

[Franck]

The most important part of that news for me is MSSQL can be installed on a non server specific edition OS. This allow for a lot more options when searching for VPS / Remote Dedicated hosting. Specially love the fact you wont have to pay the core license twice. Typically licensing goes 1 license is for 2 core and both windows server and SQL use that licensing so it cost you easily a total of 5k per 2 core you have. If I can cut 50% of the costs that's great.

[jagdtigger]

*kicking off rsync task "mirror-sync"*

I hope the mirror i use got the stuff for this already....

[Tensimeter]

2 hours ago, willies leg said:

Ubuntu today released their LTS (long term release) Linux version 21.04!

21.04 is not an LTS release. It is supported for 9 months, and the idea is that you'd then upgrade to 21.10 using the built in easy upgrade tool later this year.

 

22.04 will be the next LTS after 20.04.

 

Also wayland is default in ubuntu 21.04, which is an absolutely fantastic improvement. Using it improves HIDPI, fractional scaling, and fixes many fundemental graphics issues including screen tearing.

This is a nice video overviewing 21.04:

 

[Guest willies leg]

15 minutes ago, Tensimeter said:

21.04 is not an LTS release. It is supported for 9 months, and the idea is that you'd then upgrade to 21.10 using the built in easy upgrade tool later this year.

 

22.04 will be the next LTS after 20.04.

 

Also wayland is default in ubuntu 21.04, which is an absolutely fantastic improvement. Using it improves HIDPI, fractional scaling, and fixes many fundemental graphics issues including screen tearing.

This is a nice video overviewing 21.04:

 

Aah, yes, you're right, forgot it's the even years, fixed the post. Thanks!

[RejZoR]

Not a fan of stupid Ubuntu interface with that silly massive sidebar. Thank god we have Kubuntu, which is basically the same as Ubuntu, but with KDE. KDE is just better even though a lot of people hate it for some reason...

[WolframaticAlpha]

21 hours ago, willies leg said:

Ubuntu today released their Linux version 21.04! In keeping with their push with Microsoft, this edition includes, by default, integration with Active Directory:

"Ubuntu machines can join an Active Directory (AD) domain at installation for central configuration. AD administrators can now manage Ubuntu workstations, which simplifies compliance with company policies.

Ubuntu 21.04 adds the ability to configure system settings from an AD domain controller. Using a Group Policy Client, system administrators can specify security policies on all connected clients, such as password policies and user access control, and Desktop environment settings, such as login screen, background and favourite apps."

 

Also it's able to run Microsoft SQL server natively:

“Native Active Directory integration and certified Microsoft SQL Server on Ubuntu are top priorities for our enterprise customers.” said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical.

"Canonical and Microsoft will provide integrated support for Ubuntu with Microsoft SQL Server deployed on-prem or through the Azure Marketplace, for mission-critical workloads."

 

Flutter development too, for GUI applications, showing they can work with Google as well as Microsoft:

"Canonical has been a fantastic contributor to Flutter, enabling Linux desktop support in Flutter and opening up the opportunity to bring high-quality Flutter apps to Linux. We look forward to our continued partnership in making Flutter the best choice for app developers, no matter which platform they target,” shared Chris Sells, Product Manager, Flutter.

 

Other enhancements include a new dark theme, etc. etc.

 

Summary

Canonical and Microsoft are working well together, with Microsoft porting SQL server to Linux and making Ubuntu their premier platform, while Canonical built out native Active Directory support and enabled it by default. Also, Flutter is the icing on the cake!

 

My thoughts

If you're into exploring Linux for the first time, Ubuntu 21.04 might be the release for you, with integrations into Active Directory. Also you'll be able to run Microsoft SQL server fully supported on Linux!

 

Sources

https://ubuntu.com//blog/ubuntu-21-04-is-here

lel. There is a reason why people switch from Windows. It's because MS is a dirty b*tch that is a danger to foss. And windows telemetry sucks(Redstar OS can run better telemetry at a fraction of the resources). And canonical is f*cking walking into their trap. Shitty telemetry(that can be disabled though) and still slow bloated messy packages, Also stupid ad services. Great going, canonical. You made me just the more thankful that I switched to Clear Linux.

 

 

Also there is a reason, why rms hates ubuntu

 

18 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Not a fan of stupid Ubuntu interface with that silly massive sidebar. Thank god we have Kubuntu, which is basically the same as Ubuntu, but with KDE. KDE is just better even though a lot of people hate it for some reason...

KDE is awesome. They had a bug on 4.18 that would send the resource usage to the moon(And debian used it for 4 months!). That's why it has such a shitty reputation. It's lighter than XFCE. And unless you consider LXde/qt, it is the lightest usable DE. And LXDE/QT LOOKS SO F*CKING HORRIBLE(And ricing lxde/qt is a pain in the ass)

 

 

Also back in the days of GNOME 2, KDE was basically the gnome of the time, big and beautiful but too heavy

 

18 hours ago, Tensimeter said:

21.04 is not an LTS release. It is supported for 9 months, and the idea is that you'd then upgrade to 21.10 using the built in easy upgrade tool later this year.

 

22.04 will be the next LTS after 20.04.

 

Also wayland is default in ubuntu 21.04, which is an absolutely fantastic improvement. Using it improves HIDPI, fractional scaling, and fixes many fundemental graphics issues including screen tearing.

This is a nice video overviewing 21.04:

 

Wayland has been on fedora for the past 2 years.

 

Also nvidia, being the b*tch that it is to a linux* users, has made it an utter pain installing drivers on wayland. 

 

20 hours ago, leadeater said:

Damn this is awesome, will be changing over to this right away

Please consider changing to Mint or pop! or mx or manjaro or basically anyone. No one should use stock ubuntu. It's like Firefox. If you aren't running custom or something based off it, then why are you even trying.

[jagdtigger]

4 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Shitty telemetry and still slow bloated messy packages

The only telemtry that ubuntu has runs once at install and if you dont allow it it wont send anything. As for the rest Canonical is pretty much forced by the market to integrate AD because everyone and their dog uses it in the corpo world. MS has a perfect lock-in without any easy way out so corps just keep using it regardless how bad is it.

[WolframaticAlpha]

2 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

I mean with CentOS dead as of December, I'm glad to see other Distros stepping up their enterprise game.

RIP CentOS. You can still use the upstream version and SUSE always exists. IMO, Ubuntu won't be coming close to SUSE in the void left by Cent. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 minute ago, jagdtigger said:

The only telemtry that ubuntu has runs once at install and if you dont allow it it wont send anything. As for the rest Canonical is pretty much forced by the market to integrate AD because everyone and their dog uses it in the corpo world. MS has a perfect lock-in without any easy way out so corps just keep using it regardless how bad is it.

No they aren't. Canonical is the only company putting ads on their shiz

[jagdtigger]

8 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

No they aren't. Canonical is the only company putting ads on their shiz

Huh? What kind of ad?

[suicidalfranco]

Noice

Now to count the days when 22.04 releases

By the time 22.10 is out I'll finally upgrade to it

A LTS user life

[StDragon]

3 hours ago, Franck said:

The most important part of that news for me is MSSQL can be installed on a non server specific edition OS. This allow for a lot more options when searching for VPS / Remote Dedicated hosting. Specially love the fact you wont have to pay the core license twice. Typically licensing goes 1 license is for 2 core and both windows server and SQL use that licensing so it cost you easily a total of 5k per 2 core you have. If I can cut 50% of the costs that's great.

Yeah, no. Licensing is MS bread and butter. They won't let anyone off the hook that easily. I would be floored if that wasn't the case.

[leadeater]

18 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Please consider changing to Mint or pop! or mx or manjaro or basically anyone. No one should use stock ubuntu. It's like Firefox. If you aren't running custom or something based off it, then why are you even trying.

No thank you. The proper AD integration this is offering is directly what makes this appealing. My use case isn't personal computers, it's managed network environment. Also we use Ubuntu Server.

 

Our primary Linux fleet is actually RHEL but basically all our researchers want to use Ubuntu as the community itself uses Ubuntu and all the information and resources are most tailored to Ubuntu. These are people who's primary role is not Linux system administrators so it's our job to give them the tools that best allow them to work which is Ubuntu. I'd rather they use RHEL as we have all the licenses in the world for it but they want Ubuntu.

 

18 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

MS has a perfect lock-in without any easy way out so corps just keep using it regardless how bad is it.

As it pertains to Active Directory and Group Policy there is nothing better on the market, the management toolset is just so far ahead of anything else. Your issues with Windows have nothing to do with these and integrating Linux in with AD and Group Policy doesn't bring any of those in to the Linux environment at all.

 

Active Directory and Group Policy have the market capitalization they have due to being head, shoulders and the kitchen sink above the rest.

 

17 hours ago, StDragon said:

Yeah, no. Licensing is MS bread and butter. They won't let anyone off the hook that easily. I would be floored if that wasn't the case.

I think what he is talking about is that the Windows OS itself is core pack licensed now and SQL is core package licensed, so if you run SQL on Linux you're not having to pay for a set of licenses. It's not as much cheaper as what they are saying though, SQL licenses are way more expensive than Windows Server licenses.

[bcredeur97]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

As it pertains to Active Directory and Group Policy there is nothing better on the market, the management toolset is just so far ahead of anything else. Your issues with Windows have nothing to do with these and integrating Linux in with AD and Group Policy doesn't bring any of those in to the Linux environment at all.

 

Active Directory and Group Policy have the market capitalization they have due to being head, shoulders and the kitchen sink above the rest.

THIS ^^ 

And it's so much better than MS Intune which still feels like an incomplete beta product...

We have a couple centOS machines we joined to AD that we control logon access with, but I didn't know you could do policies that control things like the wallpaper and apps though. This post was a pleasant surprise. Makes me wonder how close we are to being able to deploy linux machines to end users even who pretty much just need a browser, or like us in IT, some of us would like linux desktops just because preference..

Is it possible to centrally manage updates for linux machines? Like WSUS but Linux.. that'd be nice. I'm sure you could write scripts to go remote into things and update them but something with nice central management and reporting would be great.

[leadeater]

40 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

Is it possible to centrally manage updates for linux machines? Like WSUS but Linux.. that'd be nice. I'm sure you could write scripts to go remote into things and update them but something with nice central management and reporting would be great.

Yea there are tools for this, for us we have Red Hat so we use Red Hat Satellite which you can do staged approval of updates and releases of them. You can use Puppet or Ansible to drive this, or some other way. It's a little more "roll your own" solution than WSUS + GPO but it's pretty darn good non the less. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

11 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

I like the sidebar. Doesn't waste precious vertical space like Windows and Mac (where the default configuration is atrocious).

Y'know you can shift the thing sideways.

[WolframaticAlpha]

18 hours ago, anodos said:

There's nothing wrong with stock Ubuntu. It works, and takes very little time or effort to get working. Sometimes, that's all you want.

If you want a just works distro, then those needs will be much better served by Mint or Pop!_OS

 

18 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Huh? What kind of ad?

Well, Ubuntu embeds ads in some terminal tools and serves up user data to amazon

16 hours ago, leadeater said:

No thank you. The proper AD integration this is offering is directly what makes this appealing. My use case isn't personal computers, it's managed network environment. Also we use Ubuntu Server.

 

Our primary Linux fleet is actually RHEL but basically all our researchers want to use Ubuntu as the community itself uses Ubuntu and all the information and resources are most tailored to Ubuntu. These are people who's primary role is not Linux system administrators so it's our job to give them the tools that best allow them to work which is Ubuntu. I'd rather they use RHEL as we have all the licenses in the world for it but they want Ubuntu.

Doesn't fedora have ADI integrations too?(not built in, but in a package)

 

But, I don't know shit about a sysadmins job. Of it works for you then awesome!

[WereCatf]

12 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

It's because MS is a dirty b*tch that is a danger to foss.

Microsoft is a danger to FOSS by....actively encouring FOSS-development, funding and contributing to multiple different projects -- including the Linux-kernel -- and making several great FOSS-applications of their own? Wow, so very dangerous!

12 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

No one should use stock ubuntu.

Why?

[WolframaticAlpha]

Just now, WereCatf said:

Microsoft is a danger to FOSS by....actively encouring FOSS-development, funding and contributing to multiple different projects -- including the Linux-kernel -- and making several great FOSS-applications of their own? Wow, so very dangerous!

Why?

Embrace extend extinguish

[WereCatf]

Just now, WolframaticAlpha said:

Embrace extend extinguish

Do you have any actual argument?