A year ago, we were bold enough to predict that the next release of the elementary OS distribution would be version 0.4, dubbed Loki and based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS operating system.

Now that Canonical has launched its most anticipated Ubuntu release, the Xenial Xerus, a.k.a. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, it looks like the elementary OS community has flooded the forums with questions about the release date of the elementary OS 0.4 "Loki" operating system, which has now been finally confirmed as being based on Ubuntu 16.04.

"Currently, elementary OS releases are built using the Ubuntu package repositories (repos). At the beginning of the cycle, we choose a target repo to work from. For Loki, that repo is Ubuntu 16.04," said Daniel Foré, founder at elementary. "So watch out for the Beta announcement and soon after for the final release of elementary OS 0.4 Loki!"

So today's story is all about the fact that elementary OS 0.4 "Loki" is coming, and it promises big new features, which have not yet been revealed by the team of hard-working people behind what was previously known as the "most beautiful Linux distro." However, we do know there'll be better HiDPI support and, of course, the integration of the Birdie Twitter client.

When is it coming? Well, the final release date for the upcoming operating system has not yet been revealed, but we know for a fact that the elementary OS team is currently working on pushing a first Beta build to developers and public testers in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. If you can't wait, you can monitor the progress for the Loki Beta 1 milestone.