Transition to Ficus is important for the community because, on the one hand, it introduces new capabilities for Open edX development, while, on the other hand, it requires checking and updating custom Open edX modules to ensure they are compatible with Ubuntu 16.04.
Ubuntu 16.04 benefits were described in this review on Arstechnica and many others. The main new Ubuntu LTS capabilities include:
- Much better security as compared to 12.04 version
- Almost all known bugs and issues of previous Ubuntu versions are resolved and system performance is greatly improved
The full list of Ubuntu 16.04 release notes is available on their official website.
One more important reason to move to a new version timely is that when something bad happens on a supported OS version, you are covered by 4 years of LTS warranty. If something bad happens on an outdated and unsupported system, you are pretty much on your own!
The other topic mentioned on the meetup was further implementation of Docker containers into Open edX development, which simplifies the Vagrant workflow greatly. As of now, it is not needed to be delivered to deployed instances, but developers should keep track of the process.
The full meetup recording can be found here:
To wrap it up, we recommend considering your Open edX LMS instance compatibility check and/or transition to Ubuntu 16.04 before April, 2017 to be on the safe side. We’ll keep you posted on the news, so stay in touch!
