Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) released

[Adam Conrad]

Codenamed "Vivid Vervet", 15.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition
of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a
high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.  The team has been hard at
work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.

Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including
a new 3.19-based kernel, a new glibc, and much more.

One of the larger changes this cycle is a switch from upstart to systemd
as the default for managing boot and system service startup.

Ubuntu Desktop has seen incremental improvements, with newer versions of
GTK and Qt, updates to major packages like Firefox and LibreOffice, and
stability improvements to Unity.

Ubuntu Server 15.04 includes the Kilo release of OpenStack, alongside
deployment and management tools that save devops teams time when
deploying distributed applications - whether on private clouds, public
clouds, x86 or ARM servers, or on developer laptops.  Several key server
technologies, from MAAS to Ceph, have been updated to new upstream
versions with a variety of new features.

This release also includes the first release of snappy Ubuntu Core, a
new distribution model based on transactional updates.  To find out
more about snappy and how to try it out, see the developer pages:

  https://developer.ubuntu.com/snappy

Continuing the excitement of new and interesting products, Ubuntu 15.04
also welcomes Ubuntu MATE to the party as an official community flavour.
Please give them a warm welcome to the family.

The newest Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, and
Ubuntu Studio are also being released today.  More details can be found
for these at their individual release notes:

   https://wiki.ubuntu.com/VividVervet/ReleaseNotes#Official_flavours

Maintenance updates will be provided for 9 months for all flavours
releasing with 15.04.

To get Ubuntu 15.04
-------------------

In order to download Ubuntu 15.04, visit:

   http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Users of Ubuntu 14.10 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 15.04 via
update-manager.  For further information about upgrading, see:

   http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade

As always, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free 
of charge.

We recommend that all users read the release notes, which document
caveats, workarounds for known issues, as well as more in-depth notes 
on the release itself. They are available at:

   http://wiki.ubuntu.com/VividVervet/ReleaseNotes

Find out what's new in this release with a graphical overview:

   http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop
   http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/features

If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug
but aren't sure, you can try asking in any of the following places:

   #ubuntu on irc.freenode.net
   http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
   http://www.ubuntuforums.org
   http://askubuntu.com


Help Shape Ubuntu
-----------------

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list
of ways you can participate at:

   http://www.ubuntu.com/community/get-involved


About Ubuntu
------------

Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops,
netbooks and servers, with a fast and easy installation and regular
releases. A tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications
is included, and an incredible variety of add-on software is just a
few clicks away.

Professional services including support are available from Canonical
and hundreds of other companies around the world.  For more information
about support, visit:

   http://www.ubuntu.com/support


More Information
----------------

You can learn more about Ubuntu and about this release on our
website listed below:

   http://www.ubuntu.com

To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to
Ubuntu's very low volume announcement list at:

   http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce


On behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team,
Adam Conrad