Kinetic Kudu is finally here. The latest release of popular Linux distribution Ubuntu 22.10 has been announced for general release. This time there's quite a lot that’s new, including an excellent antelope-based desktop background.
Kinetic is an interim release, meaning it gets support for nine months, after which you’re expected to upgrade to the next version. This stands in contrast to the previous release, 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish, which was a long-term support, or LTS, release, which will be supported for much longer. All the way to April 2027 in fact.
Gnome 43 is the big news in Kinetic, the latest version of the popular desktop environment brings with it a number of enhancements. These include quick settings so you can toggle Wi-Fi, dark mode theme, and power schemes easily. The quick settings also makes switching between different networks and audio devices simple too. The Nautilus file manager has had a complete makeover, and elsewhere a lot of work has gone into increasing overall performance, with support for the latest processor architectures from Intel and AMD, plus the OS includes multi-threaded decompression to improve multi-core desktop Snap performance.
Talking of Snaps, the containerised app packages that have been divisive among users for being convenient but slow and buggy, Kinetic’s Steam snap comes with the latest version of Mesa, an open-source graphics library that bundles OpenGL, OpenCL, Vulkan and more into one package. Linux gaming is increasing in popularity, particularly since the launch of the Steam Deck, and useful packages like Mesa just make it easier.
Users of single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi are catered for too, with a release also being provided for our favorite single board computer. If your SBC preferences is for alternative CPUs, 22.10 has support for more RISC-V processors included. Interestingly the press release mentions support for MicroPython on a variety of microcontrollers, including the Raspberry Pi Pico W. this support boils down to software packages being available in the official repositories. There's also a lean toward Internet of Things development, with updated toolchains for Ruby, Go, GCC and the Rust programming language. “Connected devices are an exciting area of innovation that also create new digital risks in the home and the business,” said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Ubuntu parent company Canonical. “We are focused on enabling a new generation of easy to use and highly secure IoT, so these developers in particular will find a number of quality of life improvements for embedded device and remote development in Ubuntu 22.10.”
Ubuntu 22.10 is available for download and installation on x86 and compatible Arm or RISC-V devices starting today.
