It’s not a huge surprise, but the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS codename will begin with the letter ‘B’.
Canonical’s Adam Conrad has pre-registered the ‘bb’ series name on Launchpad, which is where the bulk of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS development will take place.
Unless it is a cunningly played red herring, this bit of name-squatting is per tradition (‘Yakkety Yak’ was pre-registered as ‘yy’, ‘Zesty Zapus’ was pre-registered as ‘zz’, Artful was pre-registered as ‘aa’, and so on).
I think we can rule out any name featuring the ‘Bustard’ bird…
This will be the third time that Ubuntu has revisited a letter it has previously used. Ubuntu 5.04 ‘Hoary Hedgehog’ and Ubuntu 8.04 LTS ‘Hardy Heron’ share the letter ‘H’, while Ubuntu 4.10 ‘Warty Warthog’ and Ubuntu 15.10 ‘Wily Werewolf’ share ‘W’).
But what alliterative adjective and animal name association will Mark Shuttleworth arrive at for this admiringly anticipated LTS release?
Might we upgrade to the Brilliant Bison? Install the Bombastic Baboon? Be fixated by a Bodacious Bilby? Or find ourselves filing bugs against a Belligerent Barbet?
Based solely on the danger of accidental typos — not just my own, wisecracker — I’ll rule out any name featuring the ‘Bustard‘ bird. Cheeky meme-makers would have an absolute field day with that choice (*coughs in the direction of System76’s Pop!_OS*)
Should Shuttleworth select cuteness as his top selection criterion when choosing the Ubuntu 18.04 name (which, clearly, he should) then the adorable Australian Bilby is a no-brainer!
D’aww! Look at that tail!
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS — What we know so far
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be released on April 26, 2018.
The 7th Long Term Support release, Ubuntu 18.04 will come with 5 years of ongoing support from Canonical, including bug fixes, security patches, select app updates, and new hardware enablement stacks.
The nature of LTS releases mean we can expect minor and conservative changes to what’s on offer in Ubuntu 17.10, rather than bold new features. But 18.04 is likely to include a new GTK theme, and revert to using Xorg as default (though Wayland will, we hear, still be installed as an option).
What Would You Choose as the Ubuntu 18.04 Name?
Now you know a bit more about the upcoming release it’s your turn to turn speculative.
Let us know what you would name the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release in the comments below.
While there are no prizes on offer if you happen to guess correctly, we will endeavour to put you in touch with your local ESP group.