14 DAY TRIAL // After a one-week delay, Canonical released today the second point release of its latest LTS (Long Term Support) operating system series, Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (Bionic Beaver).
Initially planned for release on February 7th, 2019, the Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS operating system has been delayed by Canonical until Valentine's Day, February 14th, due to a bug in the Linux 4.18 kernel inherited from Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish) causing boot failures with certain graphics chipsets.
The kernel regression was quickly addressed in the Linux 4.18 kernel package of both Ubuntu 18.10 and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS systems, so Canonical now released Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (Bionic Beaver) with updated graphics and kernel stacks from Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish), as well as all the latest security and software updates.
"18.04.2 includes hardware enablement stacks for use on newer hardware. This support is offered on all architectures and is installed by default when using one of the desktop images," said Adam Conrand. "Ubuntu Server defaults to installing the GA kernel; however you may select the HWE kernel from the installer bootloader."
Here's what's new in Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Besides shipping with updated kernel and graphics stacks from Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish), the Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (Bionic Beaver) point release also includes all the latest security patches and other updates or bug fixes that have been released through the official software repositories since Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS.
In addition, this release comes with support for Raspberry Pi 3 single-board computers in the Ubuntu Server edition to accompany the existing Raspberry Pi 2 image. As expected, all the other flavors contain the same core updates and various improvements and bug fixes.
The Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system series will be supported for up to 10 years, depending on the platform it is used on, and will receive three more point releases. The next one, Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS, should be available later this year based on the kernel and graphics stacks from Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo).
Until then, you can download Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS, Kubuntu 18.04.2 LTS, Xubuntu 18.04.2 LTS, Lubuntu 18.04.2 LTS, Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2 LTS, Ubuntu Budgie 18.04.2 LTS, and Ubuntu Kylin 18.04.2 LTS right now from our free software portal. Please note that if you're already using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, you don't need to download the new ISO image to update.
