The final release arrives on October 18, 2018

Aug 6, 2018 14:40 GMT  ·  By

As of today, the upcoming Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish) operating system is now powered by the Linux 4.17 kernel, which provides users with better hardware support and some exciting new features.

Launched on June 3, 2018, the Linux 4.17 kernel series introduces better power management and HDMI audio/sound support for AMD graphics cards in the open-source AMDGPU graphics driver, support for Intel's High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) digital copy protection, and support for Intel's Cannon Lake architecture.

Additionally, Linux kernel 4.17 adds support for the Andes NDS32 RISC-like architecture, but removes support for a bunch of microarchitectures, including CRIS, M32R, Blackfin, TILE, FR-V, MN10300, Metag, and SCORE. Support for the Nvidia Tegra Xavier processor is available as well in Linux kernel 4.17.

Linux kernel 4.17 also supports AMD's upcoming Radeon Vega 12 graphics processing units and includes numerous other updated drivers, filesystems, and architectures. After being in development since early May 2018, the Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish) operating system is now finally powered by the Linux 4.17 kernel series.

Ubuntu 18.10's kernel may be bumped for the final release

However, since there two and a half months left until the final release of the Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish) operating system hits the streets, the kernel might be bumped to the upcoming Linux 4.18 series, which should be out later this week on August 12. But it will take a while until it lands by default in Ubuntu 18.10.

Being a short-lived release, Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish) looks to be a testbed for Canonical. The upcoming operating system will launch with a brand-new system-wide theme called Yaru, along with a revamped login screen, the forthcoming GNOME 3.30 desktop environment, and a bunch of other updated applications and core components.

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Ubuntu 18.10 is powered by Linux kernel 4.17
Ubuntu 18.10 is powered by Linux kernel 4.17
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