Ubuntu 14.10 out
The Utopic Unicorn prances into the world (and on to our DVD) and Canonical begins work on 15.04.
Ubuntu 14.10 is now out and ready to be downloaded. You can get the 'classic' version from http://releases.ubuntu.
com/14.10 or grab the LXF remix from the disc. As usual, it will be supported for nine months for Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin along with all other versions. If you’re running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS you can upgrade via System Settings.
New features in the latest version of Ubuntu include an upgrade to the Linux kernel. It's now kernel 3.16 and brings a number of bug fixes and new hardware support. The Unity desktop has benefitted from a number of bug fixes, and high resolution displays are now better supported. LibreOffice4.3 is included as standard along with Firefox33 and
Chromium38. A new tool called Ubuntu Developer Tools Center is also included. The centre is an alpha release and strongly focused on 14.04 LTS for stability reasons, but it's been included to enable developers to easily set up a variety of development environments. Currently, this means a full Android developer environment, but that's just for starters.
While Canonical is understandably pleased with the latest release, work has turned immediately to the next version, the ‘V’-themed Ubuntu 15.04, which will be known as Vivid Vervet. As Mark Shuttleworth has already hinted that the next release could have a strong focus on bringing Ubuntu to mobile devices: “Our ventrous quest to put GNU as you love it on phones is bearing fruit,” says Shuttleworth on his blog. “With final touches to the first image in a new era of convergence in computing. From tiny devices to personal computers of all shapes and sizes to the ventose vistas of cloud computing, our goal is to make a platform that is useful, versal and widely used. Who would have thought – a phone!”