As most of you guys might already know that Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver” has entered Freeze state and we are going to get the very 1st beta build of Ubuntu 18.04 on 8th of this march. I decided to take a quick look at the latest daily build released. There are significant new things to be excited about as well as few bugs which are expected. Now without wasting time, let’s get started.
Download Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver”
Here is the link from where you can grab the latest daily build of Ubuntu 18.04 for testing purposes. Remember there are bugs and by no means, it is usable for daily use. Test it on a virtual machine or live boot it.
What’s New In Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver”?
An LTS Release
I clearly know that most of you guys out there actually skipped 17.x releases because you wanted an LTS release because it gets development, updates, and stability and most of OS based on Ubuntu actually prefers LTS release to work over.
Linux Kernel v4.15
Yes, 18.04 is going to be shipped with Linux Kernel v4.15 which as expected will include the latest security patches, new features, stability and much more. Just to tell you all v4.15 actually booted fine and gave me no issues while testing. It is the result of amazing work done by Canonical.
New Theme
Before you get excited, let me tell you that this is still uncertain whether this theme will make its debut officially in 18.04 or not. By default, in the daily build, you will still get the old theme from 17.x series. However, you can install this theme separately and then choose on login screen like you choose to change DE (as simple as that). Below are the commands to install the theme.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:communitheme/ppa sudo apt update && sudo apt install ubuntu-communitheme-session
As per Canonical, they have created the theme as suggested by the community and I must say that I really liked this.
GNOME and Xorg
As you might have noticed already GNOME is now the default DE since 17.x and now Xorg joins the party of default programs as being default display server for 18.04. You get updated GNOME with much better and faster transitions while Xorg works perfectly fine with it. I got 0 issues on my machine (yours can differ).
Again a friendly reminder for GNOME lovers that what you get is Ubuntu’s modified GNOME and not Vanilla GNOME.
Problem Reporting
Canonical is now gonna collect anonymous usage data which will make the public on its website and will use it to improve Ubuntu. You can control this feature in settings and can turn it off if you don’t like it.
Colorful Emojis
Yes, you can scream as it is confirmed that Ubuntu 18.04 will finally add support for colorful emoji on various supported apps. I am happy with it and so will be social birds.
Minimal Installation
Not minimal iso, but minimal installation is a new feature that will be available in the installer of 18.04 which will install core programs for you to just use the computer. This is much welcomed as it will save installation time as well as skip app you probably don’t use and are planning to remove after installation.
Bugs
Yes, there are bugs as it is not even beta but a daily build. I experienced glitches on boot, switching users, and power off. This is expected as Canonical is working on improving boot time and this is still ongoing. My wifi driver kept losing signal strength. Update manager was broken for me and I was unable to launch installed apps from Ubuntu store for unknown reasons (It must be noted that barely 10+ apps are available in store that not installed by default).
Still, it is daily build and bugs are expected. Beta builds will be much more stable and I assume all of these issues will be fixed in beta builds.
Screenshots
Below are some of the screenshots of Ubuntu 18.04 for you all to see.
Conclusion
Ubuntu 18.04 promises significant new good stuff that we should be excited about. Beta builds will start soon and will be much more stable and will contain many bug fixes which is good news. As this is an LTS release it will pave way for other OS based on Ubuntu to start preparing for new updates. Ubuntu is evolving and is loved by users much more due to designing 18.04 as per asked by the community.
You can test it or wait for the first beta build. My advice is to wait as it will be much more stable and will create a good UX for you.
