by 
Canonical published today the beta version of the upcoming Ubuntu 22.10 (Kinetic Kudu) operating system release for public testing ahead of the planned final release on October 20th, 2022.
Featuring the latest GNOME 43 desktop environment, Ubuntu 22.10 beta comes with PipeWire as the default sound system, which is accompanied by WirePlumber as its session and policy manager, GCC 12 as the default system compiler, support for the WebP image format out of the box, as well as updated components and apps.
But the most interesting part of this release is the fact that Ubuntu Unity is now available as an official flavor, featuring the good old Unity7 desktop environment on top of an Ubuntu 22.10 base. Canonical decided to accept Ubuntu Unity as an official flavor starting with the Kinetic Kudu release in late October.
The other official Ubuntu flavors ship with updated graphical environments too, including KDE Plasma 5.25 for Kubuntu and Ubuntu Studio, Xfce 4.17 for Xubuntu, LXQt 1.1.0 for Lubuntu, Budgie 10.6.2 for Ubuntu Budgie, MATE 1.28 for Ubuntu MATE, and UKUI 3.1 for Ubuntu Kylin.
Under the hood, Ubuntu 22.10 beta is powered by Linux kernel 5.19, which features support for AMD’s Secure Nested Paging feature, initial support for Loongson’s “LoongArch” RISC ISA CPU architecture, support for ZSTD-compressed firmware files, support for the ARM Scalable Matrix Extension (SME), and many other changes.
As mentioned before, Ubuntu 22.10 will hit the streets on October 20th, 2022. Until then, you can take the beta version for a spin on your personal computer by downloading the live ISO images from the official website, where you’ll also find beta versions of the Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Unity, Ubuntu MATE, and Ubuntu Kylin official flavors.
However, please keep in mind that this is a pre-release version of Ubuntu 22.10, so don’t install it on a production machine because bugs may still be present. Also, do NOT upgrade from a previous Ubuntu release to this beta version. If you don’t want to test drive it on your PC, check it out in action below!
Last updated 2 years ago
