Will 16.04 LTS ISO image be modified to include Spectre and Meltdown fixes?

Question

was about to download and install Ubuntu a week or so ago, then Spectre and Meltdown issues came to the fore and I decided to wait. Will the LTS ISO image available for download be patched? If so, I'd prefer to wait for a short while until that happens. If it's not going to be patched, and I install from the LTS iso downloaded from Ubuntu site, will the update come automatically, or will I be on a learning curve to manually update? Thanks

Answer 1

Always upgrade after install

Irrespective of Meltdown and Spectre whenever you install from Live USB or DVD (do they still make those?) you should update your Ubuntu and Kernel using:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

This will give you the latest fixes for everything including Meltdown and Spectre.

Alternatively if you have modern hardware you might want to consider upgrading to the newest mainline / stable kernel.

Answer 2

The current 16.04 image is 16.04.3, released for various flavors and architectures between 01 and 03 August 2017. This image does NOT include security update since.

The Desktop installer offers to install security updates during the install. In addition, desktop images include Unattended Upgrades pre-configured to automatically download security updates in the background. There is not a significant "learning curve" there.

The next image of 16.04 will be 16.04.4, 6 months later: Expect it sometime around 01 February 2018. These are scheduled updates, not due to any particular event.