Every two years, Canonical releases Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu Linux based operating systems. The previous version was Ubuntu 12.04 LTS “Precise Pangolin”, and the latest Ubuntu 14.04 LTS “Trusty Tahr” has just been released with a 5 year support commitment for bug fixes and security patches. The company also releases other version every 6 months without long term support.
There has not been major changes to this version, at least compared to Ubuntu 13.10, with the development team focusing on performance and stability improvements. For the first time, this LTS release also includes Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, and Ubuntu Studio. It is also the first long-term support release to support “arm64” architecture for 64-bit ARM systems.
Some notable others changes for Ubuntu Desktop include:
- Support for High-DPI screens and desktop scaling
- New screen saver and lock screen
- New window decorations, with improved appearance and performance
- Some new options such as the ability to put app menus back into app windows
- Libreoffice office suite has been updated to version 4.2.3
- Unity 8 Preview (Mostly for developers and testers)
Ubuntu Server includes OpenStack 2014.1, Puppet 3, Xen 4.4, Apache 2.4, MySQL 5.5, Juju 1.18.1 among others. Ubuntu Touch is not an officially supported feature, but has been released with support for Nexus 4 phone (mako), as well as Nexus 7 (2013) (flo) and Nexus 10 (manta) tablets.
You are already running an earlier version of Ubuntu, you should have a Windows pop at boot time asking whether to upgrade or not. If you don’t get this window, you could also launch the Software Updater to upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04. If you’re considering switching from another OS, such as Windows XP, you could download one of the ISO images for PC or Mac.
Further details about the releases are available on Ubuntu Trusty Tahr Wiki.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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From the TrustyTahr wiki page: “ARM multiplatform support has been added, enabling you to build a single ARM kernel image that can boot across multiple hardware platforms. Additionally, the ARM64 and Power architectures are now fully supported.”
Anybody an idea what that means? Which are those “multiple hardware platforms”? Does that include Beagleboard and Cubieboard, for example?
BTW: I just discovered this: Chromium on a fresh Ubuntu 14.04 does not have/run Adobe Flash. Solution: install pepperflashplugin-nonfree