The new Ubuntu 17.04 "Zesty Zapus" is expected to be released for beta in April 2017 and promises to be packed in new features compared to the current 16.10. Ubuntu 17.04 will include the Linux kernel 4.10.
The kernel 4.10 alone provides important new features, especially for owners of graphics cards equipped with AMD chips. However, Ubuntu 17.04 current is being equipped with Mesa 13.0.4 and the graphical server X.org 1.18.4. Canonical intends to upgrade to Mesa 17.0, but has given no indication of the future date.
Here are some quick highlights:
- Unity 8
- Linux Kernel 4.10
- Use Swap files instead of Swap partitions
- 32-bit PowerPC support is dropped
- Driverless printing
KDE, GNOME and others
As for the classic and official variants of Ubuntu, there will be many changes also, depending on the version of the environment chosen. Kubuntu now includes Plasma 5.8 (LTS) as well as the KDE Applications 16.2, the accompanying software suite.
On the GNOME side, 17.04 will bring us to version 3.23.90, which is actually the beta of the 3.24 released earlier. The Control Center is completely revamped, photos can import the snapshots, calendar re-displays the week view and a night mode will make its first debut.
Many Upgrades Everywhere
Many improvements comes with Ubuntu 17.04, spread over several areas. These include the existing applications, with the default use of LibreOffice 5.3, the presence of chrome-gnome-shell which allows the link between browsers (Chrome, Chromium, Opera and Vilvadi) and the GNOME Shell extensions, or the presence of Flatpak 0.8 for applications that take advantage of it. In addition, the DNS resolution is now provided by systemd-resolved.
Some internal changes are also worth taking notes of. For example,The graphics server is still not ready to be used by default, unlike Fedora. It can still be tested since the experimental session devoted to it. The search and indexing engine is also "sandboxed" and the new installations of the system use a swap file rather than a partition.
A few applications have been removed from the default installation, such as Brasero (burning CD / DVD), Evolution (email) or Seahorse (management of keys SSH and GPG). Others did not follow the move to GNOME 3.24 because of problems that have not been resolved. The Evolution stack remains for example in version 3.22, and others - like Nautilus and Terminal - remained at 3.20.
The final release version expected to be on April 13, 2017
The final beta is expected by March 24, 2017. There will then be the typical two-week waiting period during which many bugs and issue will be fixed. Then, the final version of Zesty Zapus will be available for download on April 13, 2017. Its support period will be of 9 months long, Canonical recommending to those needing more support period to remain on the previous Ubuntu LTS 16.04, which will continue to be supported until April 2021.
