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Updatable Ubuntu Server Live Installer

The Ubuntu Server Live Installer, introduced with the release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), provides a live Ubuntu Server environment along with a streamlined server installation experience. Building on guided installs for LVM, RAID, encrypted disks and advanced networking configuration (VLANs and bonds) the installer can refresh itself to the latest version during the live session.

Top 3 benefits of Apache Cassandra and how to use it

It’s no secret that organisations have a love-hate relationship with data. Decision making can be unguided and market insights can be lost when organisations collect too little data. On the other hand, with large and active datasets, where requests number in the hundreds of thousands, maintaining database performance is increasingly difficult. One open source application, Apache Cassandra, enables organisations to process large volumes of fast moving data in a reliable and scalable way.

Managed OpenStack cheaper than self-managed?

Outsourcing OpenStack operations can significantly accelerate the OpenStack deployment process. Although most organisations are successful with the initial roll-out of the cloud, many struggle to operate it effectively post-deployment. Under certain circumstances, a fully managed OpenStack can also be a cheaper option than the self-managed one. We have recently published a webinar in which we demonstrated a detailed cost analysis of both options.

How to upgrade from Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to 20.04 LTS today

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) was officially released on April 23. This is the latest Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) release, with security patches and updates available until 2025. If you are currently using an older version of Ubuntu, you may be interested in upgrading. In this tutorial, we will show how to safely upgrade from Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), the previous LTS, to the current one.

Enhanced SSH and FIDO authentication in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

One of the most exciting security enhancements in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) is the ability to use the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) or Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) devices with SSH. By using a second authentication factor via a device, users can add another layer of security to their infrastructure through a stronger and yet still easy to use mechanism for authentication. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS includes this feature out of the box through the latest version of OpenSSH 8.2.

The State of Robotics - April 2020

So, we’ve passed the first quarter of 2020. What have we learned? You don’t need us to tell you that, but robots are still cool As usual, this State of Robotics post discusses work the Ubuntu robotics team has done this past April, and some interesting projects we’ve seen in the community. Unfortunately, we had a total of zero submissions to be included this month, hopefully not a sign of the times.

Go for ROS

If you started reading this post thinking I would explain why you should go for ROS when building robots, think again. To be fair, that topic deserves a post of its own. But for this article, I’ll be using Go in the context of Golang. As in the Go programming language. As in the one designed by Google with an adorable Gopher for a mascot. Specifically, we will talk about ROS client libraries for the Go programming language; their features, their advantages, and what gaps still remain.

WSLConf: Sessions Part 2 - DevOps on WSL and more

This is the second blog in our series releasing the WSLConf recordings. Earlier this year, Canonical had the pleasure of hosting WSLConf, a virtual conference dedicated to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The conference highlighted ideas and projects from presenters from around the globe with attendees from at least eight different time zones.

Work smart, not hard - fun applications to help you do less in your day

Modern-day life is fast, hectic, demanding. Time is precious, and we often need to be able to squeeze every atom of efficiency from our environment and our tools. But sometimes, the best thing you can do for your productivity is – to do nothing. Sometimes, less is more. In this article, we want to show you a number of nice, fun and not-strictly-productivity-focused apps that can help you relax, forget about the time-efficiency continuum, and recharge your cells for the next lap in the race.