Canonical continues to adhere strictly to its updates schedule, and after the launch of Ubuntu 14.04 as an LTS (long-term support) distribution, the first of its three ‘minor’ releases has arrived prior to the next LTS. Utopic Unicorn has no visual changes on its menu, as all of its new features are focused on internal improvements related to system performance and stability. As usual, all the other flavors of Linux based on it have also arrived hand-in-hand with the official version.
The lifecycle of this version is, as usual, 9 months, and includes both Ubuntu and the rest of its ‘offspring’. The update of its kernel to version 3.16 translates to improved support for certain hardware architectures like the Power8 family from IBM or ARM64 processors. The update has also improved system stability when working with latest-generation graphics cards from Nvidia, Intel, or AMD. And for the latter, support has been added for the Radeon .264 encoder. With regard to the new versions of the operating system’s default programs, the following stand out:
- LibreOffice 4.3.2.2
- Firefox 33
- Thunderbird 33
- Nautilus 3.10
- Evince 3.14
- Rhythmbox 3.0.3
- Unity 7.3.1
One of the truly noteworthy new features is focused on developers and lets you download the so-called Developer Tools Centre, so you can easily download the Android SDK alongside the latest version of Android Studio, although this option has been available since 14.04. To do so, you have to type on your device:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:didrocks/ubuntu-developer-tools-center
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-developer-tools-center
$ udtc android
