KDE users are celebrating today the 25th anniversary of the project. For Kubuntu users, today the party is twofold, since a new version of its operating system has been launched (waiting to be made official). And it is that today October 14 was the day that the Impish Indri family had to arrive with Ubuntu 21.10 to the head. Although it is a normal cycle launch, the jump is important, in what the graphical environment has a lot to say.
On Ubuntu 20.10 and 21.04, Canonical used GNOME 3.38. Last April they decided not to go up GNOME 40 because many changes had been introduced and GTK 4 was also taking its first steps, but now everything is very mature and they have updated GNOME Shell. What attracts the most attention are the gestures of the touch panel, but there are more news.
Ubuntu 21.10 makes the leap to GNOME 40
Among the novelties of a new release we must always mention the kernel, and Ubuntu 21.10 uses Linux 5.13. The kernel mainly improves hardware support, but what you will see as soon as you start Impish Indri in its main version is GNOME 40, with its new gestures on the touch panel to enter the application drawer or change desktop, the trash can in the dock, which is kept to the left, separation between favorite apps and those that are not and we have open, more information from the team in «About», or a new Yaru theme.
Regarding the applications, it stands out that some of GNOME 40 and others of GNOME 41 are used, which Firefox (93) will use the snap version by default or other updates, such as Thunderbird 91 or LibreOffice 7.2.1. It is also important to mention that a new installer is available, but in Ubuntu 21.10 it is only available as an option; in 22.04 it will be by default. In addition, and as with every new release since its return to GNOME, performance has been improved.
Ubuntu 21.10, which is a normal cycle release and will be supported for 9 months, It is now available from the this link, and also in the official website of the operating system.
Image: National Geographic.