Ubuntu 16.04: Canonical's new LTS as arrrived

[suicidalfranco]

Two years have finally passed ever since the last LTS release from canonical hit the masses and, as precise as swiss watch, here comes the the new long term release: Ubuntu 16.04 codename Xenial Xerus

 

So what's new in this release you might wonder, well here are the features it brings:

Linux 4.4

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It introduces numerable improvements to system stability, performance, power efficiency, and file system handling, and introduces support for newer Intel and AMD hardware.

Improved Intel Skylake processor support

3D support in the virtual GPU driver

New driver for Corsair Vengeance K90

Support for TPM 2.0 chips

Journaled RAID 5 support

It also introduces drivers for the Logitech G29 racing wheel and enables support for hardware features on some newer Toshiba laptops.

ZFS support

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A bigger (and somewhat controversial) change is the addition of support for the Zfs filesystem on Linux — the first version of Ubuntu to support it natively, out of the box.

ZFS is best described as a combination of a volume manager (like LVM) and a filesystem (like ext4, which remains the default for Ubuntu installations).

Python 3.5

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Python 3.5 is default in 16.04. Apps that are based on and/or use Python 2 remain available and will continue work as normal. Developers are advised to upgrade their software to take advantage of Python 3.

Bye bye fglrx

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if you use a device with AMD Radeon graphics hardware you should NOT upgrade at present. The fglrx driver is now deprecated in 16.04, and although open source alternatives (radeon and amdgpu) are recommended, they do not deliver comparable performance.

Snappy (more info about it here: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/04/ubuntu-16-04-lts-snap-packages)

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if you use a device with AMD Radeon graphics hardware you should NOT upgrade at present. The fglrx driver is now deprecated in 16.04, and although open source alternatives (radeon and amdgpu) are recommended, they do not deliver comparable performance.

Unity 7.4

This time it allows us to place the laucher at the bottom of the screen, online searches in the Dash are now disabled by default, session shortcuts (logout, restart, shutdown) are now accessible from the Dash and many, many bug fixes. other changes include:

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Removable devices now have launcher shortcuts

‘Format’ option added to device quicklist

Improved appearance of apps that use CSD

New app spread shortcut: Super + Ctrl + W

Window management fix for Trash

New HUD shortcut: Alt + Space (previously just ‘Alt’)

Option to ‘Always Show Menus’ in System Settings

Dash: new overlay scrollbars

Improved HiDPI support

Apps now show launcher icons while loading

The Sound Menu will show a microphone input volume slider on devices with a built-in (or connected) microphone. In earlier versions the input slider was only shown when the microphone was actively in use by an application.

Pre-installed applications

Ubuntu 16.04 presents itself with a new store app ditching the old Ubuntu software center in favour of the fresh Ubuntu Software (still buggy as fuck, couldn't install chrome or opera from it, if it fails on you to use dpkg on terminal or install Gdebi if you want a graphical interface), also brings a new calendar app capable of showing you reminders and appointments in the datetime indicator.

Apps that are still there and received an update are:

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Firefox 45

Thunderbird 38

Chromium 48

LibreOffice 5.1

Nautilus (aka ‘Files’) 3.14.2

Totem (aka ‘Videos’) 3.18

Rhythmbox 3.3

GNOME Terminal 3.18

Eye of GNOME 3.18

Shotwell 0.22

Apps that are gone include: Brasero disc burner and Empathy the instant-messaging client.

 

And that should be all. Those who rely solely on the LTS releases are getting many changes to get uses, those who simply upgrade every six months it will simply look as an incremental upgrade, as it as always felt ever since Ubuntu 11.04

 

Let me conclude this with screenshots of all of the popular Ubuntu flavors:

Xubuntu the poor man's BFF

The modern Ubuntu GNOME

Widget whore Kubuntu

Nostalgic Ubuntu Mate

The low spec requirements Lubuntu

 

sources:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/04/see-whats-new-ubuntu-16-04-flavors-screenshot

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/04/ubuntu-16-04-download-new-features

 

Personal experience: GOD PLEASE MAKE THE KERNEL PANICS STOP!!! <--- me today

Huh... did i just spent the whole night trying to fix grub? *watch sunrise* Yes, yes i did <-- me yesterday

And it was a fresh, clean install.

[bcredeur97]

well good to see progress being made I guess. I really have no comment to make on this for some reason...

 

ZFS support is cool, but it might be a bit early for everyday use.

[Dabombinable]

So...still not ready for my laptop with its MR HD5650+MR HD4250. Oh well at least I have it running 2013 drivers now under Windows 7 instead of the late 2010 ones that its had for years.

[Guest]

Yeah, I'm waiting for Mint based on this.

I tried one of the 16.04 betas and saw that Unity had become worse since I last used it.

Ditching window list is just a stupid, stupid idea. It's the fastest way to switch between windows and every DE that ditches it proceeds to just waste the space it freed up and shifting the functionality it provided to a dock at the bottom of the screen, which defeats the purpose of having the taskbar at the top in the first place.

[Nineshadow]

I use Arch so...rolling release ftw. 

[zMeul]

I did some benchmarking with the new Ubuntu release but I find Unity desktop just infuriating, I ditched it instantly and installed Lubuntu

also I found issues in installing and running the STEAM client in Ubuntu that didn't happened in Lubuntu 

[Burusutazu]

Looking forward to installing Kubuntu next week after finals.

[Misanthrope]

Oh neat!

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Unity 7.4

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

I did some benchmarking with the new Ubuntu release but I find Unity desktop just infuriating, I ditched it instantly and installed Lubuntu

also I found issues in installing and running the STEAM client in Ubuntu that didn't happened in Lubuntu 

I also had problems installing steam, for some reason the c++ library steam uses didn't bode well with my gpu driver, my fix: delete the c++ library

 

1 hour ago, Misanthrope said:

Oh neat!

So far it's not bad, like that they disabled all online scopes, feels less encumbered when searching for stuff. I'll definitely be installing Gnome 3.20 next week, but it's refreshing too see what as changed in Unity 

 

1 hour ago, Johners said:

Running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS at the moment and I'm not having any issues with it. Works fine with all of my hardware and the gaming performance is great.

Lucky!!! I envy you so much!

[zMeul]

5 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

I also had problems installing steam, for some reason the c++ library steam uses didn't bode well with my gpu driver, my fix: delete the c++ library

yes that works, but it's a step I didn't had to do on Lubuntu 

[suicidalfranco]

2 minutes ago, zMeul said:

yes that works, but it's a step I didn't had to do on Lubuntu 

i understood that, just leaving this here if anyone gets in the same problem also the c++ library is in 

$HOME/.steam/steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6

or just copy paste this command:

cd $HOME/.steam/steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.bak

and this

find $HOME/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/*/usr/lib/ -name "libstdc++.so.6" -exec mv "{}" "{}.bak" \; -print

 

[Master Disaster]

I upgraded from Ubuntu Gnome 15.10 to 16.04 today, it finished without a hitch and so far, zero issues.

 

I had one... Irregularity I guess you could call it. For some reason the upgrade process uninstalled Retroarch and didn't reinstall it? Its not a native package and was installed directly for the RA repository by terminal so why the upgrade process would feel the need to remove it is beyond me, I mean it didn't touch any of my other apps (VLC, Steam & Kdenlive no name a few) during the process so why Retroarch?

 

It meant I had to rescan all my libraries again so I could play and I lost all my saves

[M4st4M1nd]

23 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I upgraded from Ubuntu Gnome 15.10 to 16.04 today, it finished without a hitch and so far, zero issues.

 

I had one... Irregularity I guess you could call it. For some reason the upgrade process uninstalled Retroarch and didn't reinstall it? Its not a native package and was installed directly for the RA repository by terminal so why the upgrade process would feel the need to remove it is beyond me, I mean it didn't touch any of my other apps (VLC, Steam & Kdenlive no name a few) during the process so why Retroarch?

 

It meant I had to rescan all my libraries again so I could play and I lost all my saves

Could be that it depended on an older version of a required package. If its no longer compatible it will just remove it to save causing system instability.

[Xorbot]

4 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

I also had problems installing steam, for some reason the c++ library steam uses didn't bode well with my gpu driver, my fix: delete the c++ library

 

 

3 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

i understood that, just leaving this here if anyone gets in the same problem also the c++ library is in 

$HOME/.steam/steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6

or just copy paste this command:

cd $HOME/.steam/steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.bak

and this

find $HOME/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/*/usr/lib/ -name "libstdc++.so.6" -exec mv "{}" "{}.bak" \; -print

 

 

16 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

 

Personal experience: GOD PLEASE MAKE THE KERNEL PANICS STOP!!! <--- me today

Huh... did i just spent the whole night trying to fix grub? *watch sunrise* Yes, yes i did <-- me yesterday

And it was a fresh, clean install.

 

And so,... Linux is supposed to be better than Windows, apparently?

 

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, Xorbot said:

And so,... Linux is supposed to be better than Windows, apparently?

 

System upgrades break things on Windows too. The difference is - on Linux those upgrades don't take 12 hours on a 100Mb/s internet connection.

... And they don't come with spyware that reinstalls itself at every update even if you try to manually disable it.

[patrickjp93]

6 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

I also had problems installing steam, for some reason the c++ library steam uses didn't bode well with my gpu driver, my fix: delete the c++ library

 

So far it's not bad, like that they disabled all online scopes, feels less encumbered when searching for stuff. I'll definitely be installing Gnome 3.20 next week, but it's refreshing too see what as changed in Unity 

 

Lucky!!! I envy you so much!

Deleting C++ libraries should always be done with great care.

 

6 hours ago, AlexTheRose said:

It’s about fuckin’ time the Debian derivatives got a kernel that can be upgraded in-place! All hail kernel 4! Rolling release platforms have had that for going on a year now, haven’t they? Now starts the wait for RHEL and CentOS to bring their massive client base over to kernel 4… I won’t hold my breath for that.

It shouldn't be very far behind. Fedora 22 and 23 had it by default, so the standard 2-year cadence is almost up.

 

Or you could just do this. http://linuxg.net/install-kernel-4-x-on-enterprise-linux-7-centos-7-and-rhel-7/

[patrickjp93]

1 hour ago, Svinsparbriivu said:

 

System upgrades break things on Windows too. The difference is - on Linux those upgrades don't take 12 hours on a 100Mb/s internet connection.

... And they don't come with spyware that reinstalls itself at every update even if you try to manually disable it.

Ubuntu does.

 

[Nowak]

5 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

Ubuntu does.

 

It's disabled by default in Ubuntu 16.04, therefore it's completely fine now!

[patrickjp93]

20 minutes ago, Daring said:

It's disabled by default in Ubuntu 16.04, therefore it's completely fine now!

So Canonical says... Let's see what actually comes out of it.

[suicidalfranco]

2 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

So Canonical says... Let's see what actually comes out of it.

good thing it's open source, the source code is out there waiting for someone to analyse it. 

3 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

Deleting C++ libraries should always be done with great care.

well, didn't really delete it, just renamed it. It technically is still there

5 hours ago, Xorbot said:

And so,... Linux is supposed to be better than Windows, apparently?

didn't say i was unhappy with it. First day of release of a new Ubuntu image is always the most fun for me cause it's the only moment i'll spend countless nights without sleeping trying to get everything right.

 

Windows is stale, boring and only serve as a game platform, Linux is personal and fun to deal with bug, crash, kernel panic and other unexpected events

[Trixanity]

8 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

fun to deal with bug, crash, kernel panic and other unexpected events

Never heard anyone enjoying things crashing and bugs galore. We usually try to avoid such things. 

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, Trixanity said:

Never heard anyone enjoying things crashing and bugs galore. We usually try to avoid such things. 

you don't know how to have fun fren

[patrick3027]

Linux is better than Windows because it doesn't fucking force you to upgrade.

[suicidalfranco]

3 hours ago, patrick3027 said:

Linux is better than Windows because it doesn't fucking force you to upgrade.

was it really hard to put a don't upgrade button instead of hiding it behind close button smh

here's a prompt that makes sense 

[SparkyRain]

Still no unity 8 by default. At least a new softwarecenter that doesn't look pre 90's anymore.