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Canonical released today the Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar Lobster) operating system, a major update to its popular GNU/Linux distribution that brings some of the latest and greatest technologies and Open Source software.
Dubbed the “Lunar Lobster”, Ubuntu 23.04 is powered by the latest Linux 6.2 kernel series and features the recently released GNOME 44 desktop environment series. These two changes, which bring numerous new features, will make many Ubuntu users upgrade their existing installations.
Another major change in the Ubuntu 23.04 release is a brand-new installed for the Ubuntu Desktop edition, which has been in development for a few years now and it’s written entirely in Google’s Flutter UI SDK. While it preserves the functionality of the old installer, the new one is missing support for new ZFS installations.
Those of you who want to deploy Ubuntu with the ZFS file system can still do so using the Legacy ISO images. Under the hood, the new Desktop installer leverages the functionality of the Ubuntu Server installer, Subiquity.
Ubuntu 23.04 “Lunar Lobster” also comes with three new official Ubuntu flavors, namely Ubuntu Unity, Ubuntu Cinnamon, and Edubuntu, as well as native Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) support to allow Microsoft 365 (M365) Enterprise users to authenticate on Ubuntu Desktop using their M365 or Azure credentials.
Ubuntu 23.04 also improves workflows for cross-platform development, adds new hardware support for a wide range of ARMhf, AArch64, RISC-V, and s390x devices, adds support for private PPAs in debuginfod, and introduces a new Minimal ISO image for those who want to fully customize their Ubuntu installations.
Snap support has been greatly improved in the Lunar Lobster release with a new refresh awareness capability for Snaps on Ubuntu Desktop, the ability to pause automatic updates of specific Snaps, a stable version of the Steam snap for Linux gamers, and hardware-accelerated rendering in the Firefox Snap for Raspberry Pi computers.
Under the hood, Ubuntu 23.04 comes with an up-to-date toolchain that includes some of the latest and greatest GNU/Linux technologies, such as the GCC 13 system compiler, Mesa 23 graphics stack, NetworkManager 1.42 network connection manager, PipeWire 0.3.65 multimedia framework, BlueZ 5.66 2 Bluetooth stack, and systemd 252.5 init system.
The official Ubuntu flavors ship with updated graphical environments like KDE Plasma 5.27 LTS for Kubuntu and Ubuntu Studio, Xfce 4.18 for Xubuntu, LXQt 1.2 for Lubuntu, Budgie 10.7 for Ubuntu Budgie, Unity 7.7 for Ubuntu Unity, Cinnamon 5.6 for Ubuntu Cinnamon, and MATE 1.28 for Ubuntu MATE. You can find more details here.
Last updated 1 year ago
