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The next major release of the very popular Ubuntu Linux distribution will be Ubuntu 21.04, and Canonical already published an official release schedule and final release date.
Following the Ubuntu 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla) release, there will be Ubuntu 21.04, whose codename will start with the word “Hirsute” followed by an animal name, which will probably be voted by the community soon. If you want to give the Ubuntu developers some suggestions on the H animal, check out this Ubuntu Discourse topic.
Until the codename is decided, development on Ubuntu 21.04 will kick off later this week on October 29th with the toolchain upload, based, of course, on the current release, Ubuntu 20.10. And, as its version number suggests, the final release will be expected in April (04) 2021.
But we don’t have to wait any longer to find out when exactly Ubuntu 21.04 will hit the streets as it looks like the official release schedule is already available with a final release date set in stone for April 22nd, 2021, while the Beta release is scheduled for April 1st, no joke!
Other important dates in the release schedule of Ubuntu 21.04 are Feature FreezeĀ and Debian Import Freeze, which are set for February 25th, as well as the Final Freeze and Release Candidate milestones, set for April 15th, 2021.
Two optional Ubuntu Testing Week events were scheduled for December 31st, 2020, and March 4th, 2021, respectively. These will help the Ubuntu developers discover and fix more bugs in the upcoming release before it hits the streets, if the community is willing to test the official flavors and report issues.
It’s too early to know the new features of Ubuntu 21.04, but one thing is for sure, it will ship with the upcoming GNOME 40 desktop environment by default, and, if my math is right, it will be powered by Linux kernel 5.11.
But don’t get your hopes too high because Ubuntu 21.04 is a short-lived release supported for only nine months, until January 2022, just like Ubuntu 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla) and Ubuntu 21.10, expected in late October 2021. The next LTS (Long Term Support) release will be Ubuntu 22.04 LTS in April 2022.
Update 28/10/20: The codename for the Ubuntu 21.04 release has been revealed today, October 28th, as the “Hirsute Hippo”.
Last updated 3 years ago
