
Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS released - reddotX
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-release/2017-February/004036.html
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8draco8
I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux
community. Canonical is doing great job of putting, fairly reliable system on
massive number of devices, something that other distributions can just dream
about. In my opinion, currently, Ubuntu is the best general purpose Linux
distribution for new and semi advance users.

~~~
mmjaa
I agree with you. I've been using Linux since the day Linus announced it on
minix-list, and for the last 12 years Ubuntu has been my daily-driver system
.. and it is amazing. I'm a musician, so when people see that I'm using Ubuntu
Studio for my DAW, I usually hear a few chuckles .. until I fire up Ardour,
show them my plugin list, the standard suite of synths and effects I use, and
so on .. that usually shuts them up at least. But what gets them _really_
curious is when I show them how easy it is to break out the source code for
_any_ of these powerful tools, make modifications, re-install and maintain my
system with very, very powerful techniques.

There simply isn't any operating system as conducive to creative tinkering and
progressive enhancement of key software as Ubuntu Studio. Its way, way ahead
of the pack in this regard, and I think anyone who scoffs at the idea needs to
be taught the lesson that Ubuntu - and of course, Linux and the ecosystem it
promotes - is really worth the effort to know, learn and understand.

~~~
Pigo
Looks like you got a lot of feedback from your comment, but if you have the
time I'd like to ask a question too. I'm still getting my feet wet with more
the more advanced aspects of Linux, primarily Ubuntu on my Chromebook. I
always hear about people tweaking programs, but it never dawns on me what kind
of tweaks are possible or even useful. I'd be interested in a couple use-cases
you've come across, like problems you wanted to solve with a program and a
brief overview of how you altered the source to do so. Maybe it's embarrassing
to admit, but I've never tweaked anything outside of VS Code or Atom.

~~~
zeptomu
First, it is definitely not embarrassing to admit, and the answer may be
overwhelming, but you can customize nearly everything.

One of the simpler things is to customize the look and feel. E.g. you could
try out different desktop experiences and WMs (window managers). Most of them
are just an `apt-get` away and when you logout and login again you can choose
and try out a different desktop.

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simosx
Here is a summary of what is said in
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack)
regarding the 16.04.x versions

1\. If you are happy with how Ubuntu 16.04 works for you, you get to keep it
and you receive support until 2021.

2\. With Ubuntu 16.04.2, you get the option to switch to a new path of updated
Linux kernels. If you do so, your Linux kernel will get updated every six
months, until 2021.

For the first update with Ubuntu 16.04.2, you can enable to get the 4.8 kernel
that was used/tested in development version of Ubuntu 16.10.

In the subsequent update with Ubuntu 16.04.3 (around July 2017), you will be
updated to that Linux kernel that was used/tested in Ubuntu 17.04 (to be
released in April 2017). And so on.

The command to switch you to the new path of updated kernels (updated every
six months), is

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends xserver-xorg-hwe-16.04

~~~
newman314
One key item to note is that switching to upgraded kernel path breaks live
kernel patching at this time.

I was considering switching I saw this caveat...

"For clarity, the Canonical Livepatch Service is only available and supported
against the generic and lowlatency GA kernel flavours for 64-bit Intel/AMD
(aka, x86_64, amd64) builds of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial) release. HWE
kernels are not supported at this time."

[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/RollingLTSEnablementStack](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/RollingLTSEnablementStack)

Also, it's not clear if there is a different kernel/command for upgraded
kernels on a server.

EDIT: looks like it's going to be "linux-generic-hwe-16.04"

~~~
fulafel
Do people see evidence of the live patching system doing something?

For me, canonical-livepatch status --verbose has never showed me any fixes,
running linux-image-generic on 16.04.

~~~
newman314
Not really so far. I enabled it a couple months ago but have not seen any
changes.

It's not clear to me if upgrading to HWE would correctly disable the
livepatching.

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hd4
I think the coolest thing introduced here is that the HWE kernel is going to
become a standard feature of LTS releases going forwards.

~~~
listic
Unfortunately, Alternate release images are not published after 16.04.1.

~~~
compuguy
So are you saying they won't make any more alternate releases for future
releases?

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listic
Yes. It was that way for the 14.04 LTS, too.

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tyingq
Interesting bit from the release notes:

Python 3: Python2 is not installed anymore by default on the server, cloud and
the touch images, long live Python3! Python3 itself has been upgraded to the
3.5 series.

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brudgers
What that means is that all of the build scripts in Ubuntu 16.04 have been
upgraded to Python 3 and building no longer has a dependency on Python 2. One
way of looking at it is that Python 2 is not included with the current release
of Ubuntu for the same reasons that MIT Scheme and PHP and Forth are not. The
system does not require them.

~~~
tyingq
Well, yes, but the interesting bit is that some notable organization just
finished their move from 2 to 3.

~~~
brudgers
Some notable organizations are planning not to move and more or less forking:
[https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/01/grumpy-go-
running-...](https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/01/grumpy-go-running-
python.html)

Python 2 will be with us for a long long time.

~~~
orf
Any other links, bar this one (which isn't really much more than a proof of
concept)?

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reefwalkcuts
Newbie Ubuntu user here. Currently I have the 16.04LTS (I don't know if mine
is 16.04.1 but I downloaded and installed this version of mine the day
16.04LTS officialy released last April 2016). Should I upgrade to 16.04.2? If
so, how? I mean, do I have to download the 16.04.2 installer or is there a
update command?

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imglorp
You can run the Sofware Updater any time you want, including setting it to run
automatically.

[https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade](https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade)

~~~
reefwalkcuts
I actually run that every morning. So good to know :)

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Siecje
Anyone using ZFS with Ubuntu? Any problems? Anyone tried btfs?

~~~
sp332
I ran with BTRFS for a while. It was pretty nice overall, but you have to be
aware of which features are production-ready and which ones aren't. And the
wiki isn't up to date either. I had to ask questions in the IRC channel
because I didn't feel like wading through mailing list archives which is
apparently the only place up-to-date info gets written down.

Edit: This is new.
[https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Status](https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Status)
I was hoping that it would grow into a more stable, user-friendly project. But
RAID1 was broken for months, it would let you create RAID5/6 volume even
though the feature wasn't even _finished_ yet, and I personally ended up with
a filesystem that will crash the kernel when I try to read certain files. I
recovered most of the data using a virtual machine that I could reboot
quickly. Maybe I'll look at it again in a couple years, see if someone is
taking the project seriously.

