Ubuntu developer Matthias Klose informs the community of one of the most popular GNU/Linux distributions in the world that the upcoming Ubuntu 17.04 operating system is now officially open for development.

Dubbed by Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth as "Zesty Zapus," the Ubuntu 17.04 release should be yet another normal, unexciting version of Ubuntu Linux, supported for nine months. However, just like Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak), it will ship with the latest software releases and an up-to-date Linux kernel.

"Zesty Zapus is now open for development, with syncs from unstable still running. The development version already starts with some changes," said Matthias Klose, Software Engineer at Canonical. "Please check your uploads in a zesty chroot, don't just test in a Xenial or Yakkety environment."

GCC on ARM64 and ARMHf now based on GCC Linaro

According to Mr. Klose, Ubuntu 17.04's development cycle starts with a couple of important changes, such as the fact that the ARM64 (AArch64) and ARMHf GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) is now built from the GCC Linaro branch, and that the OS has transitioned to the latest Boost 1.62 and OpenMPI libraries.

Unfortunately, there's still no release schedule published for the Ubuntu 17.04 "Zesty Zapus" operating system, so we can't tell you yet when you'll be able to get your hands on the first Alpha pre-release. However, it shouldn't be long now. Just like previous Ubuntu releases, Zesty Zapus will get two Alpha builds and one Beta for opt-in flavors.

The first official development release of Ubuntu 17.04 will be the Final Beta milestone, which should arrive for public testing in spring next year, and the final release will land sometime in April 2017. As usual, we'll closely monitor its entire development cycle to let you know what new features and functionalities it will bring. Stay tuned!