Based on the schedule of release, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) will be released on April 26, 2018, the day after tomorrow.

Now, my all VPS is running on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. LTS is an abbreviation for “Long Term Support”.  An LTS version is released every two years. So after Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, it is Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.  Now all LTS version has five years support.

I can use Ubuntu 16.04 LTS until 2021. Security updates will be released during the time period.

I am waiting for the release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. I would like to try it on my staging server, or a virtual machine. Try all my existing web programs on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Find the compatible problems then fix them.

Maybe after a few months testing. I am sure there are no issues with it. I will install a new VPS with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and move the websites to it.

New Features in 18.04

There are a lot of new features since 16.04. I just mark my interested one here. Only server related.

  • Linux kernel 4.15
  • The default DNS resolver is systemd-resolved.
  • The gpg binary is provided by gnupg2
  • For new installs, a swap file will be used by default instead of a swap partition.
  • Python 2 is no longer installed by default. Python 3 has been updated to 3.6. This is the last LTS release to include Python 2 in main.
  • OpenSSH now refuses to use RSA keys smaller than 1024 bits. ssh-keygen -l -f /path/to/key.pub can report the length of a key.

  • PHP was updated to version 7.2.x.
  • Apache was updated to version 2.4.29. Additionally, HTTP/2 support is now enabled in 18.04.

I will install the beta version first, to have a look today. Then wait for two more days to try the official release by upgrading and new installation.

David Yin

David is a blogger, geek, and web developer — founder of FreeInOutBoard.com. If you like his post, you can say thank you here

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