Here Comes The Focal Fossa- Ubuntu 20.04

Though the World is struggling with COVID-19. The opensource communities are still working at their pace to provide the latest release of every software, so as to safeguard and make you WFH more entertaining. This is the month of the April, everyone is waiting for the Ubuntu-20.04 LTS (The Focal Fossa).

First and Foremost Question, How Can I upgrade to Focal Fossa from Bionic Beaver or any other non LTS version?

To ensure the installation is bug free and there are no updates pending run the rituals commands of the ubuntu.

$ sudo apt-get update -y
$ sudo apt-get upgrade -y
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
$ sudo apt-get autoremove -y

Check whether you have a package require to update the release update.

$ dpkg --list | grep update-manager-core

Generally it is shipped with Ubuntu if you have already, then skip the next step, otherwise install update-manager-core.

$ sudo apt-get install update-manager-core -y

If you try to install Ubuntu 20.04 by the following command now from Ubuntu 18.04, it will report that No LTS release available since Ubuntu 20.04 is in Beta Mode. But if you are on any Non LTS version like 19.04 or 19.10, It will show you the 20.04 as release update.

$ sudo do-release-upgrade

Although it is in beta mode, still you can upgrade your system with Focal Fossa. But with a word of caution, first think then proceed, it will contain bugs.

$ sudo do-release-upgrade -d

The -d flag will enforce system to download development mode of OS. It will take nearly half an hour or three quarter of an hour.

If you are not currently on Ubuntu and dreaming to switch to Ubuntu You can download an ISO from here http://releases.ubuntu.com/focal/ and make a bootable ISO.

Features

So whats special about Focal Fossa. Let’s first focus over visual changes

Visual Changes

There are lots of visual changes you can observe after installing Focal Fossa. The Icon set, default directories icon color is made little grayish touch with Ubuntu visual effects.

The lock screen has also been animated with new effects.

As the Dark Theme is always a topic of Meme for IDE, Now Ubuntu also gives you a chance to create meme about Black Theme.

If You find something more that we miss, you may share in the comment below.

Technical Changes:

The Gnome Version has been updated to 3.36.1. All above visual changes were introduced due to this change.

The kernel version has been upgraded to 5.4.0. Which has feature of Linux Kernel Lockdown (another lockdown after Covid Lockdown, just kidding). It enhance the security of kernel. In a nutshell this feature will prevent arbitrary code execution of kernel by any compromised root account. If you want to know about Linux Kernel 5.4.0. You can visit the Link given at the end of the post.

“Ubuntu 20.04 LTS comes with refreshed state-of-the-art toolchain including new upstream releases of glibc 2.31, ☕ OpenJDK 11, rustc 1.41, GCC 9.3, 🐍 Python 3.8.2, 💎 ruby 2.7.0, php 7.4, 🐪 perl 5.30, golang 1.13.” — Ubuntu Wiki

The Ubuntu Software store has been replaced by Snap Store to install and update packages.

Must Visit: Linux Kernel 5.4 Released With Kernel Lockdown, ExFAT Support & Improvements to AMD Radeon Graphics - Its Foss