Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal approaches end of life

Ubuntu 11.04 running Firefox 4.0 In a post on the project's security announcements, Ubuntu Release Manager Kate Stewart has reminded users that version 11.04 of Canonical's Ubuntu Linux distribution, known as "Natty Narwhal", will reach its end of life on Sunday, 28 October. This means that from that date onwards, no further updates, including security updates and critical fixes, will be released.

Based on the 2.6.38.2 Linux kernel, Ubuntu 11.04 was released in April 2011 and was the first version to see the GNOME Shell replaced by Unity; this is being developed in-house by the Ubuntu developers as the distribution's default desktop environment. Built-in applications included version 3.3.2 of the LibreOffice productivity suite, Firefox 4.0, the 0.9.2 release of the Shotwell photo manager and the Banshee 2.0 media player. Users still running Natty Narwhal are advised to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" or later to continue receiving updates.

The current stable release of Ubuntu is 12.04.1 "Precise Pangolin", the first maintenance update to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS from April. For those who want to upgrade from 11.04 to 12.04, the developers advise users to first upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10 and then to 12.04. The next non-LTS edition of Ubuntu will be 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal", which is currently available as a first beta version. According to the release schedule, the second beta of 12.10 will be available on 27 September, while the final release is expected to arrive on 18 October.

See also:

• What's new in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, a feature from The H.
• What's new in Ubuntu 11.10, a feature from The H.

(crve)