14 DAY TRIAL // As of today, January 13, 2018, the Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) operating system has reached end of life and it's no longer supported by Canonical with security and software updates.
Released last year on April 13, Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) was the last version of the popular operating system to ship with the Unity 7 desktop environment by default. It was powered by the Linux 4.10 kernel series, Mesa 17.0 graphics stack, and X.Org Server 1.19 display server.
Being supported for only nine months, Ubuntu 17.04 reached end of life today, January 13, 2018, and it will no longer receive any software updates or security patches. Therefore, those who still use the operating system are urged to update their systems to the latest Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) release as soon as possible.
"Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 17.04. The supported upgrade path from Ubuntu 17.04 is via Ubuntu 17.10. Instructions and caveats for the upgrade may be found at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Upgrades," said Steve Langasek, Engineering Manager, Ubuntu Foundations at Canonical.
Ubuntu 17.04 is not patched against Meltdown and Spectre
If you find it hard to upgrade your Ubuntu 17.04 computer to Ubuntu 17.10, at least you should be aware of the fact that it's not patched against the recently unearthed Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities that affect billions of devices, as Canonical didn't put any effort on updating the kernel packages because of the EOL timing.
"Development of a complete response to the highly-publicized Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities is ongoing, and due to the timing with respect to this End of Life, we will not be providing updated Linux kernel packages for Ubuntu 17.04. We advise users to upgrade to Ubuntu 17.10," Langasek added.
So that should be the main reason to update your Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) installations right now if you haven't done so already. You can always rely on our "How to: Upgrade Ubuntu 17.04 to Ubuntu 17.10" tutorial, as we provide straightforward instructions for everyone.
Before upgrading, please consider making a backup of your files and settings, especially that Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) doesn't ship with Unity 7 by default, but with the GNOME 3.26 desktop environment instead, which was highly customized by Canonical to offer users the same feeling as Unity did.
You should also keep in mind that Ubuntu 17.10 is a 64-bit only operating system. There aren't any 32-bit installations images anymore, so if you're running an Ubuntu 17.04 32-bit installation, you'll have to reinstall the OS. Canonical released the other day new ISO images of Ubuntu 17.10, which you can download from our website.