Tag Archives: release

25 Feb

Xenial Xerus Beta 1 released

The Lubuntu Release Team is happy to announce the first beta milestone of Xenial Xerus (to become 16.04 LTS in April) has now been released! A few bug fixes have come since the last alpha, but one piece of excitement is that this new milestone includes the 4.4 kernel that will be shipping with the final product.

Make sure to read the release notes to be aware of known bugs and workarounds. Your help would be most appreciated in terms of helping confirm/troubleshoot/triage those bugs, as well as filing any new bugs you find.

Speaking of bugs, though we’re still working on LXQt for a future release, we do expect to have some bug fixes for LXDE in the final release, so make sure to keep watching for announcements, especially on the Lubuntu Development mailing list.

For Release Notes and downloads, please see the Lubuntu Wiki.

To everyone that helped make this release possible, thank you. To those that would like to help, please get in touch (especially those of you that have PowerPC machines!).

18 Feb

Lubuntu 14.04.4 released

Another LTS step version has been released, upgrading AMD64, i386 and PowerPC systems. Lubuntu 14.04.4 fixes lots of bugs fixes and improvements, specially within the kernel:

  • Refresh hardware support in LTS releases for carefully-selected hardware
  • Roll up accumulated stable updates into updated images to reduce download requirements for new deployments
  • Maintain stability of existing installations
  • Various bugs that required updates are rolled into this update.

You can grab the new ISOs in the Downloads section. More details on the (several) changes can be found here. Don’t forget to read the Release Notes. More images here.

29 Jan

Xenial Xerus alpha 2

The second alpha of the Xenial Xerus (to become 16.04) has now been released! As usual, you are asked to read the release notes so that you are aware of issues and thus save you time filing them again. But, please do test it as widely as possible. Features:

  • LXQt is still in development, as such Xenial Xerus is GTK based
  • This Xenial Xerus snapshot includes the v4.3 kernel. 16.04 will ship with the 4.4 kernel which is available for testing
  • As this is an LTS, there will be a new PPC version released

Release Notes and downloads at the wiki page.

04 Jan

Xenial Xerus alpha 1

Hi folks, the 1st milestone release of what will be our 16.04 LTS is now out in the wild. I’m only posting the release notes link, as it is important you know of issues (none are computer critical) so that you don’t waste your time reporting an issue we already know of. If you find new issues, please follow the reporting section at the bottom of the notes.

Grab it while it’s hot!

23 Apr

Lubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet is here

As expected, the next version of Lubuntu is here. It’s known as a bug release, as we’re preparing the next generation Qt based desktop. Lots of bugs have been fixed, and there’re many improvements. Artwork has been redesigned too, with a smoother and unified overall look and feel.

Remmarkable changes are:

  • General bug fix release as we prepare for LXQt
  • Many LXDE components have been updated with bug fix releases
  • An update of the artwork (more icons, theme update, more compatibilities …)
Check out the full list of included applications. More data at the official website.
You can read the release notes here. Grab it while it’s hot here.
28 Feb

Lubuntu 15.04 Beta 1

We’re preparing Lubuntu 15.04, Vivid Vervet, for distribution in April 2015. With this Beta pre-release, we are now at the stage of being semi stable. However pre-releases are not suitable for a production environment.

Note: this is an beta pre-release. Lubuntu pre-releases are NOT recommended for:

  • regular users who are not aware of pre-release issues
  • anyone who needs a stable system
  • anyone uncomfortable running a possibly frequently broken system
  • anyone in a production environment with data or workflows that need to be reliable 

Lubuntu Pre-releases ARE recommended for:

  • regular users who want to help us test by finding, reporting, and/or fixing bugs
  • Lubuntu developers

Read the release notes before downloading.

21 Feb

Lubuntu 14.04.2 available

Lubuntu developers are proud to announce that (with a delay of two weeks) version 14.04.2 of the fast and lightweight operating system is now available for download via this
link.

Release Manager Walter Lapchynski explains: we had to delay the release for two weeks because of problems with X meta-packages which caused us numerous re-spins. But we wanted to do it right in order to maintain stability of existing installations and – on the other hand – roll up accumulated stable updates into updated images to reduce download requirements for new deployments.
Jens Leineweber, Head of Lubuntu Press adds in: and because we want our users to experience a stable environment even for computers with low resources, we decided to not release a .2 version of the alternate installation. That’s due to the fact, that we were not able to fix all the bugs brought to our attention.

One major issue the team is fighting with is the debian-installer that causes troubles. Once again Walter Lapchynski: we’ve been asked a lot lately to stop doing alternates in lieu of netboot, but that’s not really a good solution.

The Lubuntu Team will now team up with the Ubuntu Release Team and Servers Team to develop a possible low resource version of the Ubiquity installer.

Caution: before you install Lubuntu, we advice you to have a read of the
Release notes!

23 Oct

The blue Unicorn set free!

After the success[1] of their first Long-Term-Support (LTS) version in April this year, the Head of the Developer Team, Julien Lavergne, has finished work on the Utopic Unicorn which can now be downloaded at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/GetLubuntu.

Acting Release Manager, Walter Lapchynski, shortly after the release: “This cycle we mainly focused on fixing known bugs. But”, he adds “there is a downside, too: due to several serious bugs, we had to skip PPC versions of the Unicorn. We recommend using of the LTS version for now and do hope, that we are able to present a PPC Version in April next year. For the moment we are still working on our plans to implement LXQt in either 15.04 or 15.10.”

The Unicorn itself comes with eliminated known bugs[2], software such as Pcmanfm, Openbox and LightDM brought to state of the art technology and new wallpapers which were sent in by Lubuntu users via Flickr [3]. Artwork Director Rafael Laguna explains: “We try to get a little contest going each cycle in which we offer a chance for users to become part of this great distribution.”

What is Lubuntu?

As the name suggests, Lubuntu is the lightweight of the Ubuntu family. Based on the LXDE technology, Lubuntu takes only 512 MB ​​RAM for simple actions such as surfing the internet or word processing with LibreOffice. Once again Walter Lapchynski: “We do recommend to have at least a Pentium 4 or Pentium M or AMD K8 with 1 GB RAM to prevent advanced internet services like Google+, Youtube, Google Docs and Facebook from failing to work.”

[1] https://twitter.com/montyjanderson/status/505362281468006400
[2] For issues and features common to Ubuntu, please refer to the Ubuntu release notes.
[3] https://www.flickr.com/groups/lubuntu1410contest/

23 Sep

Lubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn Final Beta

Testing has begun for the Final Beta (Beta 2) of Lubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn. Head on over to the ISO tracker to download images, view testcases, and report results. If you’re new to testing, anyone can join and they don’t have to be
Linux Jedis or anything. You can find all the information you need to get started here.

Please note that we especially need testers for PPC chips and Intel Macs. We have a special section discussing it here. In particular, if you have an Intel Mac, I have a few questions for you that might help us trim down the workload of the testing team.

Also, if you have a PPC chip, we’re about the only distro actively supporting this architecture. However, we are community supported, so without formal testing, the arch will lose more support. So please, join in testing!