14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical has released today the first Beta of the upcoming Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) operating system, but only for the opt-in flavors, which include Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu Kylin, and Ubuntu Budgie.
The development of Ubuntu 17.04 continues at a reasonable pace and today's Beta brings numerous up-to-date components, including the recently released Linux 4.10 kernel, which should significantly improve the performance of your hardware, especially if you're using an AMD Radeon graphics card, and LibreOffice 5.3.
Talking about AMD GPUs, Zesty Zapus' graphics stack remains based on the Mesa 13.0.4 3D Graphics Library and X.Org Server 1.18.4 display server, and we have no idea if Canonical plans to move to the latest X.Org Server 1.19 stable series, though they promised to upgrade the Mesa packages to version 17.0.
We've been testing Ubuntu 17.04 for a while now, and while there are no features that stand out, we consider it a pretty stable release. Small enhancements have been made here and there to offer users a slightly improved Unity experience, but you'll be able to test it yourself next month when the Final Beta hits the streets, on March 23, 2017.
Here's what's new for the opt-in flavors
Among the highlights of the opt-in flavors that participated in today's Beta release of Ubuntu 17.04, we can mention that Kubuntu 17.04 Beta is shipping with the KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS desktop environment and KDE Applications 16.12 software suite, and it looks like Ubuntu Budgie 17.04 Beta uses the Budgie 10.2.9 desktop with the latest GNOME 3.24 Beta apps.
Ubuntu Budgie 17.04 Beta also brings AppIndicator support by default and make Terminix the default terminal emulator program. On the other hand, Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 Beta appears to have received the most attention, as it is now powered by the GNOME 3.24 Beta Stack with its brand-new Night Light feature.
"Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 proudly features GNOME 3.24 Beta (3.23.90)," the release notes read. "GNOME 3.24 introduces Night Light which can automatically reduce the blue light emitted by your computer screen at sunset or whenever you choose. The Calendar app now has a Week view."
However, some of the apps included in the Ubuntu 17.04 flavors using the GNOME Stack remain at version 3.22 or even 3.20, such as the Nautilus file manager, due to some unresolved bugs. The rest of the opt-in flavors that have been released as part of Ubuntu 17.04 Beta either have minor changes or didn't publish any details.
All these flavors are powered by Linux kernel 4.10, and as mentioned before, the development cycle of Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) continues next month on the 23rd with the Final Beta release, when Ubuntu itself will participate. The final release of Ubuntu 17.04 will see the light of day on April 13, 2017, as initially planned.
Until then, we invite you to download Kubuntu 17.04 Beta, Xubuntu 17.04 Beta, Lubuntu 17.04 Beta, Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 Beta, Ubuntu Budgie 17.04 Beta, Ubuntu Kylin 17.04 Beta, and Ubuntu Studio 17.04 Beta right now from our website if you want to take them for a test drive and report bugs.
