Tag: Ubuntu

The Ubuntu team will this week release Ubuntu Server 18.04.1, the first minor revision to 18.04 since its release on April 26th.

Following the release on July 26th*, Ubuntu 16.04 machines everywhere will soon start to get notifications that a new release is available to upgrade to.

In this article, I’ll show you how to upgrade Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04 using the command-line. This can be used on all Ubuntu derivatives, but is mostly aimed at Server installs that do not have a graphical interface.

Ubuntu Server is a Linux distribution that is ideally suited to server workloads. For example: hosting websites and web applications.

One of the annoying things I find about some Linux distributions (Ubuntu included) is that packages are “frozen in time” through the life of a release. For example, Ubuntu 16.04 was released with PHP 7.0. However PHP 7.2 is now the latest release. Vendors typically apply security fixes to their packages, but you’re still missing out on new features.

The open-source database fork of MySQL, started by MySQL’s original developer – MariaDB – have certified their latest release of the 10.1 series (10.1.8) as Generally Available – i.e. suitable for production use.

MariaDB 10.1 is a drop-in, binary replacement for MySQL for those that want a quicker development cycle and don’t want to have their hands tied by Oracle, who know own the MySQL project.

I’ve already upgraded my server to this release, and if any of the below sound good to you – so should you.

Software developers sometimes have to get involved in choosing an infrastructure partner or web hosting provider, especially if that developer runs their own application or websites, or they work in a small company that can’t afford (or don’t want) to employ separate infrastructure engineers.

In my current role as a technical consultant, I can be called upon by a client to recommend a hosting environment, so it’s important I know what’s available on the market, and who to trust.

This is all very daunting, particularly if you’ve never had to experience it before.