Ubuntu 19.10 Debuts With Raspberry Pi 4 Support

Canonical released Ubuntu 19.10 (also known as Eoan Ermine) today with support for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. The update isn't all good for Raspberry Pi enthusiasts, though, as the company said that "Ubuntu 19.10 Raspberry Pi images can no longer boot on the Raspberry Pi 3 A+ development devices."

Raspberry Pi 4 support isn't Eoan Ermine's main draw. It also updates the distro to the Linux 5.3 kernel, introduces the GNOME 3.34 user interface and makes numerous improvements to Ubuntu's security. More information about the changes arriving with Ubuntu 19.10 is available in the release notes on its website.

In its announcement, Canonical noted that "with the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, developers get access to a low-cost board, powerful enough to orchestrate workloads at the edge with MicroK8s."

There's no disagreement here: in our Raspberry Pi 4 review in August, we said it was "the new gold standard for single-board computing." Canonical's push to support the latest Raspberry Pi also lends even more support to the idea that these single-board computers aren't just for hobbyists to play with.