Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
As an Ubuntu fan I want to describe about Ubuntu 18.04 LTS features and as a computer user you should know about these features. This is my 4th article in Medium.
It’s a new LTS (Long Term Support) release. So, you can get 5 years of support for both the desktop and server version. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS has been code-named Bionic Beaver by the founder of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, who provided the following explanation for the curious name: the mascot is a Beaver because it’s energetic, industrious, and an awesome engineer — which perfectly describes a typical Ubuntu user, and the new Ubuntu release itself. The “Bionic” adjective is due to the increased number of robots that run on the Ubuntu Core.
Color emojis 👏👏👏
With previous versions, Ubuntu only supported monochrome (black and white) emojis, which quite frankly, didn’t look so good. Ubuntu 18.04 will support colored emojis by using the Noto Color Emoji font. This same emoji font is used in recent versions of the Android operating system, and all of its source images can be found in the Noto Emoji GitHub repository. With 18.04, you can view and add color emojis with ease everywhere. They are supported natively — so you can use them without using 3-rd party apps or installing/configuring anything extra. You can always disable the color emojis by removing the font.
GNOME 3.28 desktop environment
Ubuntu started using the GNOME desktop environment with Ubuntu 17.10 instead of the default Unity environment. Ubuntu 18.04 will continue using GNOME. This is a major change to Ubuntu. GNOME has also done a lot of changes to their desktop environment. An improved dock, an on-screen keyboard, and more. So, check out GNOME’s website for more info.
Faster Boot Speed
Canonical has promised better boot speed in Ubuntu 18.04. Using system’s features, bottlenecks will be identified and tackled to boot Bionic as quickly as possible.
Minimal install option
You’ll see a new ‘minimal installation’ option when you do a fresh install of Ubuntu 18.04. This minimal installation is nothing, but the regular Ubuntu install without most of the regular software. You’ll just get a web browser and a handful of utilities.
People who like their operating system clean of bloatware and prefer to install applications of their choice may like and use this option.
New default applications
Last year, Ubuntu ran a survey and asked its users what they would like to have as default applications in Ubuntu 18.04. The results were declared a few weeks later with over 15,000 responses:
Category :- Top Voted Default Application
Browser :- Mozilla Firefox
Video Player :- VLC
IDE :- Visual Studio Code
Video Editor :- Kdenlive
Screen Recorder :- Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)
Email Client :- Thunderbird
Text Editor :- gedit
Office Suite :- LibreOffice
Music Player :- VLC
Photo Viewer :- Shotwell
Terminal :- GNOME Terminal
PDF Reader :- Evince
Photo Editor :- Gimp
IRC/IM :- Pidgin
Calendar :- GNOME Calendar
users are happy with most of the default applications.
Using PPA is slightly easier
Ubuntu 18.04 is removing the redundancy here. Now if you add a new repository with add-apt-repository command, it will run the apt-get update command automatically. No need for you to run this command manually. Saves some time, doesn’t it?
Before Ubuntu 18.04
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ppa-url
sudo apt update
sudo apt install app
After Ubuntu 18.04
Sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ppa-url
sudo apt install app
Linux Kernel 4.15
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will ship with Linux Kernel 4.15, which contains the fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown bugs. Linux Kernel 4.15 is the slowest Linux Kernel release since 2011.
Some changes in NFM
Interface of Nautilus File Manager was slightly changed by Ubuntu to make it aesthetically more pleasing. The left side pane is now dark and the icons are separately placed in the leftmost column.
There is no 32 bit version. Ubuntu dropped 32 bit versions with its 17.10 release.
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