Canonical today released Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar Lobster), a major update to its GNU/Linux distribution.
Ubuntu 23.04, dubbed ‘Lunar Lobster’, comes with the latest Linux 6.2 kernel series and the recently released GNOME 44 desktop environment series. These two changes, which bring a host of new features, will encourage many Ubuntu users to upgrade their existing installations.
Another major change to the Ubuntu 23.04 release is the installation of a completely new version of Ubuntu Desktop, which has been in development for several years and is written entirely using the Google Flutter UI SDK. While retaining the functionality of the old installer, the new installer lacks support for the new ZFS installation.
Those who want to deploy Ubuntu using the ZFS file system can still do so using the old ISO image. Under the hood, the new desktop installer takes advantage of the functionality of the Ubuntu server installer, Subiquity.
Ubuntu 23.04 “Lunar Lobster” also brings three new official Ubuntu versions, Ubuntu Unity, Ubuntu Cinnamon and Edubuntu, as well as native Azure Active Directory ( Microsoft Azure AD) support, allowing Microsoft 365 Enterprise users to authenticate on Ubuntu using Microsoft 365 or Azure credentials for the desktop.
Ubuntu 23.04 also improves cross-platform development workflows, adds new hardware support for a wide range of ARMhf, AArch64, RISC-V and s390x devices, adds support for private PPA in debuginfod and introduces a new minimal ISO image for interested users to fully customise their Ubuntu installation.
Snap support has been improved in the Lunar Lobster release to include new refresh-aware functionality for Snap on the Ubuntu desktop, the ability to pause specific Snap auto-updates, a stable version of Steam Snap for Linux gamers, and hardware-accelerated rendering of Firefox for Raspberry Pi computers. Snap.
Under the hood, Ubuntu 23.04 comes with the latest toolchain, such as the GCC 13 system compiler, the Mesa 23 graphics stack, NetworkManager 1.42 network connection manager, PipeWire 0.3.65 multimedia framework, BlueZ 5.66 2 Bluetooth stack and system 252.5 initialisation system.
Official Ubuntu releases come with updated graphical environments, such as 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.
For the Ubuntu 23.04 system download, click here.
