14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical's Lukasz Zemczak put out a call for testing today for the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS point release of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system series.
Release Candidate (RC) images of the Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS point release, which is the fifth and also the last for the long-term supported Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system, are now ready for public testing. The Ubuntu community is urged to download and test drive the new RC images in case some unknown issues arise.
"The first set of official working builds for the upcoming xenial 16.04.5 point release (due this Thursday, August 2nd) have been added to the tracker for all supported flavors," writes Lukasz Zemczak. "We had a few images for this milestone already but had to re-spin due to quickly spotted regressions. The ones now seem to be test-worthy at least."
Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS is currently scheduled for an August 2 release
At the moment of writing, the Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS point release is scheduled for an August 2 release, but if there are some last minute regressions that need to be fixed, it could be delayed later in the month. If there isn't enough testing from the community and no other issues are discovered, it will be released on Thursday, August 2, 2018.
As mentioned before, Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS will be the last point release of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system series. However, Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS is expected to ship with updated kernel and graphics stacks based on those from the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system series, along with all the latest security patches and software updates.
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS was released on April 21, 2016, and like any other LTS (Long Term Support) Ubuntu Linux release, it will be supported for five years with security and software updates, until April 2021. However, Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS will be the last updated live/install medium for the Xenial Xerus series. To test the Release Candidate images, head to the official tracker.