It’s release day which means you can download Ubuntu 17.04 right now!
The official, final and stable release ISOs are up on the official Ubuntu server (and many mirrors) ready for you to download.
If possible I’d suggest you use the official Ubuntu 17.04 torrents to download Ubuntu. This is a) faster and b) reduces load on the over-worked Ubuntu servers.
If you plan to upgrade Ubuntu 16.10 to 17.04 manually you can kick-start your upgrade round about now — but keep in mind things may be slow as thousands of other users will be trying to do the same thing.
For anyone not in a hurry just wait until you the new release notification appears on your desktop.
Ubuntu 17.04 Review
‘Ubuntu 17.04 is jam packed with features — it’s just that none of them are new…’
This is no normal release of Ubuntu. It’s potentially the last version of the distribution that will come with the Unity 7 desktop by default. That’s not a certainty, of course, but we know that Ubuntu will switch to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS next year. It’s reasonable to expect developers to want to kick a few tyres on that switch ahead of time, in the next interim release.
A bittersweet release then, Ubuntu 17.04 sees the distro reach the end of the alphabet in codenames, and the end of an era in everything else.
Sadly there’s not an awful lot to say. Unity is, by and large, the same as it is in the 16.04 LTS. It’s still fairly nippy on my hardware, but while there may be a few bug fixes and a bit of performance tuning here and there, it’s not especially noticeable versus in 16.10 and 16.04 LTS …or 15.10… and so on.
Swap Files
Fresh installs of Ubuntu 17.04 will no longer require a swap partition that’s (at least) twice the RAM size. It makes little sense on modern systems that have more memory available.
So, instead, Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus uses a swapfile by default. Sizing of swap files is different to the swap partitions and typically use no more than 5% of free disk space (or 2048MB of RAM), which is another potential benefit.
Linux Kernel 4.10
Ubuntu 17.04 includes the Linux kernel 4.10, which is great news for anyone looking to run the release on AMD Ryzen or Intel Kaby Lake systems. Gamers will also appreciate the inclusion of MESA 17.0.2 and the X.Org Server 1.19.2 is also included by default.
Default Apps
Ubuntu’s core app set has been largely updated and dusted down for 17.04.
There’s the latest LibreOffice 5.3 (aka the one you can enable the ‘Ribbon’ interface in); the default Calendar app picks up a handy week view; and key essentials Firefox and Thunderbird are shipping their latest stable versions, too.
With the bulk of GNOME 3.24 available in Zesty you also get new versions of many other apps and tools, except for the stock Terminal emulator (which stays on v3.20), the Nautilus file manager ( on v3.20) and Ubuntu Software ( on v3.22, but with some additional features, like Snap URL support).
- Firefox 52
- Thunderbird 45
- LibreOffice 5.3
- Nautilus 3.20.4
- Rhythmbox 3.4.1
New default wallpaper
Other misc changes
The default DNS resolver is now systemd-resolved, and gconf is no longer installed by default having been replaced by gsettings.
Summary
Ubuntu 17.04 is an iterative update with modest appeal. While there is little compelling reason for anyone running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to upgrade (especially for those who opt receive the newer hardware enablement stack) it’s not an irrelevant release.
Ubuntu 16.10 users will want to upgrade to Ubuntu 17.04 for the general around improvements, access to newer apps, and because the truncated support period of these short term releases necessitates it.
For users of other Linux distributions there’s probably little here worth upping sticks for, unless your distro of choice isn’t providing timely updates or newer kernel releases that you feel you really need, of course.
Download Ubuntu 17.04
Ubuntu 17.04 download links are available from the official Ubuntu website but, do note, that the Long Term Support release remains the default recommended download.
To grab the release directly you can download an ISO from this link: