For the first time in recent memory, there are some very big changes in the latest release of Ubuntu: 17.10. And it's not all to do with going, er, GNOME.

• Upgrade Ubuntu 17.10 To 18.04
• Ubuntu 17.10 Download Iso

The 17.10 ISO file is 64-bit only. The Ubuntu 17.10 minimal CD supports installation of Ubuntu on computers that have a 32-bit processor. ###How to make an Ubuntu Minimal USB using dd. While the minimal iso image is handy, it isn't useful for installing on UEFI-based systems that you want to run in UEFI mode. The latest version of the Ubuntu operating system for desktop PCs and laptops, Ubuntu 20.10 comes with nine months, until July 2021, of security and maintenance updates. Recommended system requirements are the same as for Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS. Ubuntu 20.10 release notes. Ubuntu Advantage is the professional support package from the experts at Canonical. Get 24x7 support with access to engineers with first-hand experience of your issues. It includes Landscape, the systems management tool, for monitoring, managing, patching, and compliance reporting on all your Ubuntu desktops.

The new GNOME-based Ubuntu desktop (click to enlarge)

This release is the first since Canonical announced it would cease development of its Unity desktop and its long-touted goal of 'convergence' – AKA one OS to rule them all. All that is gone and in its place Ubuntu has returned to the GNOME desktop. The result is a revamped Ubuntu that feels a bit snappier and more modern than Unity, and, more importantly, seems to have imbued Canonical with a renewed sense of purpose as a distro.

If you've been using Ubuntu long enough (since prior to 11.04) you're really returning to GNOME, though if you enjoyed Unity it may be something a bittersweet homecoming. While Ubuntu has a done a nice job of integrating GNOME extensions to create something that bears at least some resemblance to Unity – making things at least look similar means a less jarring transition for users – there are undeniably missing features compared to Unity.

There are then two reviews to write here: first, how is Ubuntu with GNOME? And second, how is Ubuntu with GNOME compared to Ubuntu with Unity?

The answer to the first question is that it's, well, pretty damn good. In fact, were it not for a few bugs that seem to make Ubuntu 17.10 unstable under Wayland, I would call 17.10 a great way to experience GNOME 3.26.

Ubuntu has done a good job of integrating a few plugins that improve GNOME's user experience compared to stock GNOME – most notably a modified version of the Dash-to-Dock and the App Indicator extensions, which go a long way toward making GNOME a bit more like Unity. It's worth noting that Ubuntu's fork of Dash-to-Dock lacks some features of the original, but you can uninstall the Ubuntu version in favour of the original if you prefer. In fact you can really revert to a pretty stock GNOME desktop with just a few tweaks. Canonical said it wasn't going to heavily modify GNOME and indeed it hasn't.

The result is a very nicely themed GNOME desktop for Ubuntu that is very reminiscent of the way Ubuntu used to customize GNOME prior to the advent of Unity. Unfortunately, there have been several stability issues in the course of my testing. Trying to configure UFW via the GUI pretty reliable crashes GNOME thanks to this bug. It's easy enough to configure UFW via the terminal, but that bug affects other applications as well, particularly anything launched by using sudo appname. It's really a GNOME bug, but for whatever reason 17.10 is the first time I've encountered it.

From my testing, the big crashing system-stoppers are all limited to running under Wayland though so, my suggestion is, until 18.04 arrives, if you want a rock solid system, stick with running Ubuntu under X.org.

While the out-of-the-box experience for Ubuntu 17.10 is generally good, it is not arriving out of the blue. It is replacing an arguably more powerful desktop – Unity.

There are the obvious missing features, for example the HUD is gone and no GNOME extension I've tried has worked the same way save this one but unfortunately when I tested it was quite buggy.

New stuff

There are, however, some other things to be aware of even if you don't care about the HUD and other Unity-specific features, most notably the considerable differences between GNOME applications that used to ship with Unity and those that ship with GNOME proper. Canonical has long patched and heavily modified quite a few stock GNOME apps, but one that's most obvious is Files. Files (formerly Nautilus) has completely different right-click menus and toolbars.

The GNOME Files app, somewhat different than the heavily patched version previous Ubuntu desktops used. (click to enlarge)

Other changed apps include Archive Manager, Gedit and Deja Dup, which now only works with NextCloud. The latter is one of those classic GNOME dictatorial decisions that have alienated so many users. Once upon a time Deja Dup supported Amazon S3 and some other very nice online backup solutions, but those were deemed 'asking casual users to set up an Amazon S3 account is too high a bar'. Last time I checked all you had to do to set up an S3 account was create an AWS user, which while perhaps a bit harder than Google Drive, seems well within the capabilities of most people. Except those that GNOME considers its core. But what drives me batty about this kind of thinking isn't that S3 is too complicated for 'casual users' it's that once that decision is made the feature must be removed for everyone.

Technically speaking you can get the S3 option back. Open conf-editor and navigate to /org/gnome/deja-dup and change the backend key to either gcs, openstack, rackspace, or s3.

However, before you resume backing up your files with Deja Dup, consider this note about the future of S3 and other apparently complicated backup services: 'Eventually, we might drop support for backing up to them. And then later, maybe we'll drop support for restoring from them too.'

Upgrade Ubuntu 17.10 To 18.04

You don't say. If you're the sort of user who likes to control your data, and likes, for instance making encrypted backups to S3, might I suggest you learn how to use the considerably more powerful and future-proof, s3cmd.

Alas this is the sort of thinking that pervades the GNOME project, as far as I can tell, from top to bottom. GNOME is not (perhaps it never was) a desktop for those who like customize, do things themselves, or have any say in the future of the software they use.

This is also where I see a bumpy future for the Canonical-GNOME relationship. Canonical has always been very good at assessing and understanding what the users want and need. They've posted quite a few surveys just to see what people wanted for the transition to GNOME and appear to have taken the feedback to heart.

The new Ubuntu software app is largely the same as in the previous release (click to enlarge).

Canonical is also not afraid to turn its back on projects that don't work.

Ubuntu 17.10 Download Iso

A lot of companies would never have admitted that the vision of convergence wasn't what people wanted. That's the sort of move that takes guts and honest appraisal of what you're doing, what's working and what's not. The GNOME project has never displayed that kind of thinking. And as far as I can tell, it operates on nearly the opposite premise. It's to early to say, but I predict conflict down the road. Keep a bag of popcorn handy, I believe there will be plenty of fireworks to watch.

For now though Ubuntu 17.10 feels very much like Ubuntu has some of its mojo back. For the first time in a long time there are updates worth mentioning and the distro no longer feels like it's in limbo, waiting on convergence.

Instead it feels like the groundwork has been laid for a brand new, rejuvenated Ubuntu. While I find this release a little unstable, it's a nice preview of what I think will be the release to jump on board with the new Ubuntu – next spring's Ubuntu 18.04. ®

NetPlan is a new network configuration tool introduced in Ubuntu 17.10 to manage and configure network settings easily in Ubuntu systems. It allows you to configure a network interface using YAML abstraction.
This new tool replaces the static interfaces (/etc/network/interfaces) file that had previously been used to configure Ubuntu network interfaces. Now you must use /etc/netplan/*.yaml to configure Ubuntu interfaces.
The new interfaces configuration file now lives in the /etc/netplan directory. There are two renderers. NetworkManager and networkd.
NetworkManager renderer is mostly used on desktop computers and networkd on servers. If you want NetworkManager to control the network interfaces, use NetworkManager as the renderer, otherwise use networkd.
When you use NetworkManager as the renderer, you will use the NetworkManager GUI to manage the interfaces.
In this article, we will explain how to configure a network static or dynamic IP address for a network interface in Ubuntu 17.10/18.04/18.10 Server using Netplan utility.

List all active network interfaces on Ubuntu Server

Before configure static IP address, you need to identify the available network interfaces on your Ubuntu server 17.10/18.04/18.10. You can list all attached network interfaces on your system using the ifconfig command as shown.

From the output of the above command, we have 2 interfaces attached to the Ubuntu system: 1 ethernet interfaces and the loop back interface. However, the enp0s3 ethernet interface has not been configured and has no static IP address.

Configure Static IP Addresses on Ubuntu server 17.10/18.04/18.10

To configure a static IP address using the new NetPlan tool on Ubuntu server, the file should look similar to the content below.
For example you might find a default netplan configuration file in the /etc/netplan directory called 50-cloud-init.yaml with a following content using the networkd deamon to configure your network interface via DHCP.

Then file should look like this one below:
The above is a default networkd redenrer configuration file for a Ubuntu server using DHCP IP configuration. If you want to setup a static IP address, configure the file as shown below.

Then configure IPv4 addresses as shown below. take notes of the format the lines are written.

Exit and save your changes by running the commands below

If there are any issues, run the following command to investigate and check what is the problem in the configuration.

Now, let us check the Ip address using command:

Sample output from my Ubuntu:

ou can find more information and configuration options by consulting the netplan man page.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully configured a network static IP addresses to your Ubuntu servers. If you have any queries, share them with us via the comment form below.