Canonical has announced the release of Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products as well as other Ubuntu flavours with long-term support. Additionally, those still running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will now be offered the upgrade inside the Update Manager. As with other point releases, Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS comes with all the latest security patches from preceding months, saving time post-installation.
When Ubuntu 20.04 LTS was released back in April, those on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS were not offered the update right away because Canonical wanted to let the new release mature a bit. Long-term support editions of Ubuntu are supported for at least five years so they’re preferred in production environments so stability is a very important factor.
The new point release means that new ISO disc images have been spun, if you download and install these you’ll have all the previous security patches pre-installed so you don’t have to spend time post-installation installing updates. On a good internet connection, updates don’t take that long but having the newly spun ISOs available is useful for computers on a slower or offline network.
According to the Ubuntu Wiki, many popular pieces of software have been patched in this update and constitute installation bug fixes, upgrade bug fixes, desktop fixes, server and cloud fixes, and kernel and hardware support updates. If you’ve already installed Ubuntu 20.04, there’s no need to install this point release, just ensure that you have installed all the available updates.