Ubuntu's Hardware-Backported LTS Gets Delayed

Ubuntu 12.04.2, the first Long-Term Support point release of Ubuntu Linux where new hardware support is back-ported to the LTS release, has been delayed.

Pete Graner of Canonical shared today that Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS won't ship on 31 January as first expected. The Canonical QA department has decided for now to delay this next point release by two weeks to allow for additional testing and verification to happen.

Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS is worrisome since it introduces a new kernel as well as the Linux graphics components. This new hardware enablement work is being done since Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is being supported for a longer period of time on the Linux desktop and as a result introducing more modern hardware support is necessitated for this Linux distribution release that originally shipped in April of 2012.

For Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS, the upgraded components are basically pulled from the Ubuntu 12.10 package set.

More details on the Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS point release delay can be found via this mailing list message.