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Ubuntu 17.04 inches closer to production

Zapus jumping in April

Ubuntu's final beta for version 17.04 has landed.

Zesty Zapus covers Ubuntu desktop, server and cloud editions, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, MATE, Studio and Xubuntu flavours.

It's not a huge feature boost, but the release is using the Linux 4.10 kernel, useful if your iron runs Intel Kaby Lake or AMD Ryzen silicon.

If configuring the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) is on your hate-list, there's good news: the release includes support for driverless printing.

Either Apple AirPrint or IPP Everywhere printers can be installed without printer-specific drivers – and if it Works As Expected® discovery should happen automatically when the printer is connected to the USB or the LAN.

HP printer/scanner users are warned not to run it in driverless mode, because it won't scan. Such devices can, however, be installed using the HPLIP driver.

Other changes in the desktop version include LibreOffice, updated to version 5.3; most GNOME apps updated to version 3.24; and a Week view on the calendar.

For sysadmins, the Ubuntu Server now uses qemu 2.8, the libvirt virtualisation library is version 2.5, and for white-box networking nerds, there's version 16.11.1 of the data plane development kit.

The team is confident that there aren't any “showstopper CD build or installer bugs”, so they don't expect much to change between now and official release date on April 13. ®

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