A new stable version of Ubuntu is now ready for download

Apr 23, 2015 13:52 GMT  ·  By

Canonical has officially released Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet), a Linux distribution based on Debian that uses the Unity desktop environment.

A new Ubuntu release is made every six months, and now it's the time for users to download and test the new Ubuntu 15.04 version. It houses some very interesting new features and important changes, although the biggest one is probably the replacement of Upstart with Systemd. It should be a painless transition for most users who won't even notice that something as big as the init system has been replaced.

Each intermediary release between two LTS versions are supported for a period of nine months, and the same is true for Ubuntu 15.04. Even if it's an important milestone for Canonical for many reasons, it will reach end of life in nice short months, and a new one will take its place.

Ubuntu 15.04 is full of interesting stuff

Many users will feel that it's not a big evolution over the previous Ubuntu 14.10 release, and they might be right, but only from a visual point of view. As you can expect, a ton of packages have been upgraded, including the Linux kernel, the init system, and even Unity.

"As with every new release, packages--applications and software of all kinds--are being updated at a rapid pace. Many of these packages came from an automatic sync from Debian's unstable branch; others have been explicitly pulled in for Ubuntu 15.04," reads the official release notes.

Some of the bigger improvements include a configuration option for Unity to have menus displayed at all times instead of only on mouseover, the ability to display Unity's dash over full-screen windows, GNOME packages upgraded to the 3.14.X branch, LibreOffice 4.4 provided by default, and Firefox 37.

We will publish an Ubuntu 15.04 review shortly, so make you check back with us to learn more detail about some of these changes. We have also prepared a separate blog post with download links for Ubuntu 15.04, Kubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu MATE 15.04, and other official flavors.

You can also check out Screenshot Tour of Ubuntu 15.04.