We are happy to announce the release of our latest version, Ubuntu Studio 18.04 Bionic Beaver! Unlike the other Ubuntu flavors, this release of Ubuntu Studio is not a Long-Term Suppport (LTS) release. As a regular release, it will be supported for 9 months. Although it is not a Long-Term Support release, it is still based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS which means the components will be supported as usual for a LTS release.
Since it’s just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading. Please see the release notes for a complete list of changes and known issues.
Changes in this Release
There are no notable changes in this release since 17.10 Artful Aardvark. Information on newer packages can be found in the release notes.
Want to help out?
Ubuntu Studio is maintained by a very small team and we are actively seeking new contributors. We are looking for developers, packagers and testers. Even if you are interested in contributing outside these areas, please do not hesitate to reach out. Your contribution is precious regardless of your field of activity. We are open to volunteers with all expertise levels. Just head over to our contribute page to find out how to get started.
Found a bug?
Taking the time to report bugs makes a huge difference; it’s the first step towards improvement! Clear and specific bug reports is the best way to get attention to a problem that needs fixing. The easiest way to create a bug report is with the terminal.
Open one up and type: ubuntu-bug <package>
Read more about this at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs
April 27th, 2018 at 2:45 pm
Can you clarify the support cycle for the low-latency kernel part of it please. It seems weird that for one year there will be no supported LTS version of Studio in existence at all with this announcement! Makes you wonder whether to bother with 18.04 at all….. If the low-latency kernel will still get support throughout the whole LTS release cycle it’s probably worth it. Else maybe it’s time to give Ubuntu the heave ho…….
May 1st, 2018 at 12:46 am
My laptop with a keyboard controller is so well configured with Ubuntu Studio 16.04 LTS that I don’t see why should I ever upgrade it. Maybe to 20.04, if it’ll be a LTS release.
May 2nd, 2018 at 5:07 am
For everyone who is asking why it’s not an LTS, let me be clear: we are very much in need of volunteers to help with development. We especially need help with packaging and documentation.
This entire project is run by volunteers. Nobody on the Ubuntu Studio team is employed by Canonical. We do this out of passion for the project.
That said, we simply do not currently have the manpower that it takes to support a Long-Term Support version. If you would like to change that for future releases, please help!
What this means: There will be no further versions of the Ubuntu Studio 18.04 ISO image file. There will be no backports other than those items backported in the official Ubuntu repositories. That said, the Ubuntu stack (including lowlatency kernel) will be supported for 5 years. So, for those (especially 16.04 users) fearing they can’t upgrade to 18.04 because it’s not LTS, fear not. Your packages will continue to update.
For the team, this means that our focus is on 18.10 going forward. We want to put a lot of energy into making it great and even looking to making some changes. We did not want to do this for 18.04 because with big changes comes bugs, and we don’t have the manpower to be chasing those bugs. 18.04 is a solid release that is evolutionary from 17.10. Evolutionary, not revolutionary.