Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is out! Stable, friendly & functional (April 26 2012)

The new Long Term Support version of Ubuntu is out! It's the fifth Ubuntu LTS release, the first desktop edition to receive five years of support and the first LTS to include the Unity interface. As we could have guessed, Unity has reached the maturity of an enterprise-grade distro. But that's not all! Ubuntu 12.04 also includes some brand new stuff like the HUD interface, a new dash look with new lenses, a revamped system monitor that includes privacy settings and the "management service" among other small functionalities here and there. All of these changes are an overall improvement over the previous 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot. If we consider that LTS releases are usually more conservative, 12.04 LTS has a lot of new stuff!

For this release we also prepared a new series of tutorials that are already online on the Ubuntu tutorial page. A new tutorial was created to help newcomers go through the migration over to GNU/Linux. The focus of this new tutorial (called "First steps") is to show how to download, try and install Ubuntu. Two additional videos to help understand the transition from Windows to Ubuntu and from Mac to Ubuntu were also released (as suggested by Brendan, by the way, thank you for the suggestion!).

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is hands down the best Ubuntu yet. Rock solid stability, great user-friendliness and amazing functionality. This might very well be a turning point in the history of GNU/Linux and the adoption of Free and Open Source Software by the masses. Let's hope the "Precise Pangolin" receives the love it deserves!!!