Canonical released today the beta development version (a.k.a. Final Beta) of its upcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system, along with the second beta for opt-in flavors.

While many of the opt-in Ubuntu flavors participated in last month's beta release, this is the first time Ubuntu 18.04 LTS gets a public beta build that users can actually download and install on their personal computers if they plan on becoming early adopters ahead of the official release later this month.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is Canonical's seventh LTS (Long Term Support) release, and it comes with several exciting changes for the Ubuntu community. These include a slightly, darkish theme and X.Org Server as default display server instead of Wayland, which is used in the current stable release, Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark).

As expected, GNOME 3.28 is the default desktop environment, though some components couldn't be upgraded, such as the Nautilus file manager due to it no longer supporting the handling of desktop icons, there's now a Minimal Installation option in the graphical installer, and a new app called GNOME To Do.

Powered by Linux kernel 4.15

Under the hood, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is powered by the Linux 4.15 kernel, which includes patches for the Meltdown and Spectre security flaws, various utilities are now offered in the Snap format, including System Monitor, Calculator, Characters, and Logs, and there's a new automatic suspend timeout of 20 minutes for laptops.

Moreover, you can now easily switch between different channels of Snap apps in Ubuntu Software. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS lets users use the Synaptics driver with the Settings app despite the fact that libinput is the default driver for touchpads and mice, and the default right-click method for touchpads was changed to a two-finger click.

Other than that, there's color emoji support in most apps and 32-bit installations are no longer supported on desktops (only Ubuntu). Not much was changed for the opt-in flavors since the first beta release, so expect only minor software upgrades. The final release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) is expected later this month on April 26, 2018.

You can download Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Final Beta, as well as Kubuntu 18.04 Beta 2, Xubuntu 18.04 Beta 2, Lubuntu 18.04 Beta 2, Ubuntu MATE 18.04 Beta 2, Ubuntu Budgie 18.04 Beta 2, Ubuntu Kylin 18.04 Beta 2, Ubuntu Studio 18.04 Beta 2, and Ubuntu Server 18.04 Beta 2 right now through our web portal.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS