Ubuntu 18.04 release date, new features, upgrade procedure and everything important associated with it. 
The CEO of of Ubuntu Distro , Mark Shuttleworth has announced about the Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark.. The new Ubuntu 18.04 will be a LTS release & will be called Bionic Beaver. The word beaver means a large, amphibian rodent which has sharp teeth & smooth fur. Bionic refers to the artificial body parts.

Ubuntu 18.04 Review & New Features After Release

If you an Ubuntu user, then you can see the features of new Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. If you are an Ubuntu user with a previous version i.e. LTS version, then you can perform an upgrade in your computer. But before that you can see the features of this new Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver.
The founder of Ubuntu 18.04 Mr. Mark Shuttleworth Says

“It’s builders that we celebrate – the people that build our upstream applications and packages, the people who build Ubuntu, and the people who build on Ubuntu. In honour of that tireless toil, our mascot this cycle is a mammal known for it’s energetic attitude, industrious nature and engineering prowess. We give it a neatly nerdy 21st century twist in honour of the relentless robots running Ubuntu Core. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you 18.04 LTS, the Bionic Beaver.”

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS arrives April 26, 2018, powered by Linux kernel 4.15

The release date of Ubuntu 18.04 has been announced & the date is very easy to predict. The Ubuntu 18.04 Release is on April 26th, 2018. By now, the builds are available for testing purposes

1. Alpha 1 Release: 4th January
2. Alpha 2 Release: 1st February
3. Feature Freeze, Debian Import Freeze: 1st March
4. Beta 1 Release: 8th March
5. Final Beta Release: 5th April
6. Final Freeze, Release Candidate: 19th April
7. Final Ubuntu 18.04 release: 26th April

All of you know that the development process of Ubuntu Desktop is gone through the process written above. The dates mentioned above may be some different, but the release date will the same. These dates will provide you enough information about the next release & installation for your Ubuntu machine.

Features of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

These are some of the features which are given in the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS . We will update this article frequently. So you can visit us again.

New default applications

Last year, Ubuntu ran a survey and asked its users what they would like to have as default applications. The results were declared a few weeks later with over 15,000 responses:

GNOME 3.28 desktop

Ubuntu has shifted to the new GNOME desktop as default with some tweaks. If you haven’t used Ubuntu 17.10 yet, then you will have a new experience with the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. The GNOME version in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is expected to be GNOME 3.28.

Kernel 4.15

Canonical team provides new version of kernel after every six months. The official announcement of Ubuntu in a blog post is that “The team expects that Linux kernel 4.15 will power Ubuntu 18.04”.

New desktop and icon theme

Ubuntu 18.04 will not have GTK theme. Suru is the default icon theme. This existing icon theme is developed by the same developer like Moka and Paper. The appearance of Ubuntu desktop will be similar to the earlier version of Ubuntu. This statement is still valid when we have already told about the new GNOME desktop.

Xorg by default

In April 2018, the next LTS will be released with both traditional Xorg graphics and new Wayland-based stack.Xorg will be the default. The development team has given some reasons for the same. This may perform better with the software like Hangouts, Skype, and WebRTC services, in Xorg. It will recover better for Shell crashes. There can be a re-consider for Way-land as default.

Minimal installation option

With Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release, the users will be able to perform a lean installation of Ubuntu. The option will remove the software packages & you will get a system with a desktop environment, web browser, core system tools, and no much more. This will be seen in Ubuntu installer.

Ubuntu will collect some data

Canonical will also start collecting some user data related to the system configuration & installed packages on the machine. With Ubuntu 18.04 LTS,this opt out option will be provided in installer. This feature will be discussed soon. Here’s the kind of data Ubuntu 18.04 will be collecting:

• Version and flavor of Ubuntu you’re installing
• Whether you have network connectivity at install time
• Hardware statistics such as CPU, RAM, GPU, etc
• Device manufacturer
• Your country
• Time taken to complete the installation
• Whether you choose auto login, installing third-party codecs, downloading updates during install
• Disk layout
• Ubuntu Popcorn service will track the popularity of applications and packages
• Crash reports

New installer for Ubuntu Server

The Ubuntu 18.04, Canonical will refresh the Ubuntu server’s command line installer. The installer will be called Subiquity as default in the upcoming LTS release. This change will provide new look to the server installation process, other than the Debian’s text-based installer.

Support for color emojis

Ubuntu desktop will also have colorful emojis. This new feature will show color emojis in different apps. Emojis have become an important messaging & communication entity. So, the colorful emoji will provide a new experience while chatting.

Faster boot time

By using systemd features , canonical is working to decrease the boot latency. This exciting change will be interesting to see their work in Desktop team.

How to upgrade from 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS ?

Before you do anything, make sure that your system is already up-to-date. Run a full Ubuntu update and upgrade with Apt.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

This will help to ensure that the difference between packages is as small as possible. It also will be the way that Canonical has most likely tested the upgrade themselves, so it’s least likely to encounter bugs. Lastly, before you begin to upgrade Ubuntu to 18.04 LTS you may also want to remove all no longer required packages using:

$ sudo apt dist-upgrade