14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical's Adam Conrad announced that the Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system is about to reach end of life next week on July 19, 2018.
Released on October 19, 2017, Ubuntu 17.10 was dubbed Artful Aardvark by Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth and was the first Ubuntu release to ship with the GNOME desktop environment by default after using Canonical's Unity user interface for more than six years, since the release of Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal).
Ubuntu 17.10 also marked the discontinuation of the Ubuntu GNOME flavor now that the main edition shipped with the GNOME desktop environment by default, and it was also the first to switch to the next-generation Wayland display server by default instead of X.Org Server, a decision that was withdrawn with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
However, being a non-LTS release, Ubuntu 17.10 only received nine months of support that will end on Thursday, July 19, 2018. After this date, Canonical will no longer release security and software updates for Ubuntu 17.10 users, leaving their systems vulnerable to a wide range of attacks.
Ubuntu 17.10 users must upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
If you're still using the Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system on your personal computer or server, you should prepare to upgrade to the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) series as soon as possible. Canonical has provided Ubuntu 17.10 users with upgrade instructions and caveats at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BionicUpgrades.
"Ubuntu 18.04 continues to be actively supported with security updates and select high-impact bug fixes," said Adam Conrad in the email announcement received by Softpedia. "Announcements of security updates for Ubuntu releases are sent to the ubuntu-security-announce mailing list."
Before attempting to upgrade your Ubuntu 17.10 installations to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, which is an LTS (Long Term Support) release supported with security and software updates for five years, until April 2023, please make sure you have a recent backup of your files. It is recommended though that you do a fresh install of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver).