Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus Features Overview (Screenshots) and Download Links

The day has come, soon we are going to see Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial LTS around, every LTS is exciting but 16.04 Xenial and it's flavors made some special place in users heart. Soon Ubuntu team will announce the availability of final version of Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial and all other flavors. Ubuntu 16.04 will be supported for 5 years for Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin along with all other flavors, the final release of Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products. Xenial Xerus final version includes most recent versions of core set of packages, notable changes: Linux kernel 4.4.x version; Ubuntu software center is replaced with Gnome software Center 3.20.x, Boot service: systemd, Unity 7.4.0 has introduced new features, many bugs fixed and online search (spyware) is disabled by default, Compiz brought various improvements, Firefox 45.x, LibreOffice 5.1.x, Gnome platform 3.18, GNOME Calendar 3.19.x, Thunderbird 38.x, Chromium 49, Rhythmbox 3.3.x, Deja Dup 34.1, Shotwell 0.22.x, Nautilus 3.14.3, GTK+ 3.18.9, most of the Gnome 3.18, Gnome System Monitor 3.18.x, Terminal 3.18.3, Gedit 3.18.3, Docker 1.10, Mesa 11.1.2, Xorg Server 1.18.x, Python 3.5, Golang 1.6, a new program QML-based USB Startup Creator, Pulseaudio is updated and latest versions for other applications.

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial is going to support Mir server display for the latest Vulkan 1.0 specifications. Hopefully there will be likely two versions - one with X server and Unity 7, and other with Mir and Unity 8. Another change introduced as new setting called "Menus visibility" in the Appearance panel. It comes with two options: Always displayed and Displayed on mouse hovering.

Bad news for AMD GPU owners, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS won't be supporting the proprietary AMD Catalyst graphics for AMD GPUs, known as fglrx driver. Instead, it now encourages users to use open source AMDGPU and Radeon alternatives. Well, without the fglrx drivers Radeon users will lose support for any applications that require OpenGL 4.3 or later. Even if you download drivers from official AMD site and try to install them in 16.04 but you won't be able to because the driver doesn't support Xorg 1.18 that will be shipped in 16.04 Xenial.

Another exciting feature added to 16.04 is, it will support two different packaging system for applications, you can install Deb packages as well as Snap packages. ZFS is now officially added to Ubuntu 16.04, zfs the FS for containers in Ubuntu, ZFS is a combination of a volume manager (like LVM) and a filesystem (like ext4, xfs, or btrfs).

The best feature of Unity in 16.04 is that now you can move your Launcher to the bottom. I don't think I am going to do it because I am use to left side but many people would prefer it, like a user switch from other OS to Ubuntu. Unity Tweak Tool now has this option to easily move Unity launcher to the bottom or left of screen.