14 DAY TRIAL // If you were expecting to upgrade to the second point release of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system on February 2, you'd have to wait one more week because Canonical has just delayed its launch for another week.
Ubuntu kernel manager Leann Ogasawara is reporting today, January 31, 2017, that her team recently identified a serious boot regression on AArch64 (ARM64) hardware, and it could take a few more days for the developers to patch the issue, which will require them to push new versions of the Linux kernel and other related packages.
As such, they've requested an extension for Ubuntu 16.04.2's release, and Canonical's Adam Conrad was quick to inform the community about the delay. This would be the second time Canonical is delaying the launch of Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS (Xenial Xerus), and users should now expect to download the new ISOs or upgrade existing installations after February 9.
"I'm a big fan of caution when it comes to the bits that make people's computers either boot or completely fail to, as it's pretty hard to fix boot errors after shipping them. So, yes, a delay for a week while all this is landed and tested seems entirely reasonable to me. Will push the release to Feb 9 instead," said Adam Conrad, Software Engineer at Canonical.
Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS is shipping with Linux kernel 4.8
A few weeks ago, when Canonical delayed the release of Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS for the first time, we reported on the changes and new features it would bring. On this occasion, we'd like to remind you that this second point release is shipping with up-to-date internals backported from Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak).
These include the Linux 4.8 kernel and an updated graphics stack based on a newer Mesa 3D Graphics Library version, as requested by many users. However, Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS is still shipping with the X.Org Server 1.18.4 display server, just like Ubuntu 16.10 does, but it's still a recommended update for all LTS users.
As expected, Canonical will release an updated Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS installation medium for all the official flavors that participated in the Xenial Xerus LTS series of the operating system. We'll let you know, right here on this space, if anything changes and when you can download the Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS ISOs.