With Lunar Lobster (23.04), Canonical solidifies the family by making new flavors official
recently I know announced the launch of the beta version of what will be the next version of Ubuntu 23.04 "Lunar Lobster", which marks the complete base freeze of the package and with which developers proceed to just focus on final testing and bug fixes.
The launch, which is classified as an interim release, whose updates are formed within 9 months and the release of the final version is scheduled for April 27.
What does this Ubuntu 23.04 "Lunar Lobster" beta feature?
Of the main changes that we can find in this beta version of Ubuntu 23.04 "Lunar Lobster", the integration of the new version of GNOME 44, which continue to transition apps to use GTK 4 and the libadwaita library (the GNOME Shell user shell and the Mutter composition manager, among other things, have been translated to GTK4). Icon grid content display mode has been added to the file selection dialog, numerous changes have been made to the configurator, and a section for managing Bluetooth has been added to the change settings menu fast.
Another of the changes that we can find in this beta is that now a new installer is used by default to install Ubuntu Desktop, implemented as a plugin of the curtin installer low-level which already uses the default Subiquity installer on Ubuntu Server. The new installer for Ubuntu Desktop is written in Dart and uses the Flutter framework to build the user interface.
In addition to this and as already announced in previous articles here on the blog, in this new version of Ubuntu has dropped support for Flatpak in the base distribution and, by default, they excluded the deb flatpak package and the packages to work with the Flatpak format in the Installation Center of base environment applications. Users of previously installed systems that used Flatpak packages will still be able to use this format after upgrading to Ubuntu 23.04.
Users who did not use Flatpak after the update by default will only have access to the Snap Store and the distribution's regular repositories, if you want to use the Flatpak format, you need to install separately the package to support it from the repository (flatpak deb package ) and, if necessary, turn on support for the Flathub directory.
For the part of the software that will be the base of this new version, we can find the Linux kernel 6.2, together with the graphics stack Mesa 22.3.6, systemd 252.5, PulseAudio 16.1, the Firefox 111 web browser, the LibreOffice office suite 7.5.2, Thunderbird 102.9 email client, VLC 3.0.18, among others.
Also, it is highlighted that the capabilities of the debuginfod.ubuntu.com service have been extended, which allows you to avoid installing separate packages with debugging information from the debuginfo repository when debugging programs supplied in the distribution.
With the help of the new service, users can dynamically load debugging symbols from an external server directly while debugging. The new version provides indexing and processing of package sources, which makes it possible to dispense with the separate installation of packages with source texts via "apt-get source" (the debugger will download the source texts transparently). Added support for debug data for packages from PPA repositories (so far only ESM PPA (Extended Security Maintenance) is indexed).
Of the other changes that stand out:
- In the Ubuntu Dock, application icons are labeled with a counter for unseen notifications generated by the application.
- The official editions of Ubuntu include the Ubuntu Cinnamon build, which offers a Cinnamon user environment built in the classic GNOME 2 style.
- The official version of Edubuntu has been returned, offering a selection of educational programs for children of different ages.
- Added a new minimalist Netboot assembly, 143MB in size. The assembly can be used for burning to CD/USB or for dynamic booting via UEFI HTTP.
- Ubuntu Server uses a new edition of the Subiquity installer that allows you to download server builds in live mode and quickly install Ubuntu Desktop for server users.
Finally, for the interested in being able to test the test images, they should know that they are ready for both Ubuntu, as well as for its different flavors: Ubuntu Server, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Unity, Edubuntu y Ubuntu Cinnamon.