After another 6 months of hard work following the Ubuntu 21.04 release, Ubuntu 21.10 is out now with it being supported until July 2022. If you want long-term support (LTS), you're best sticking with Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS but there will be another LTS release in April 2022.
What's new with Ubuntu 21.10? A few quick items:
- Linux Kernel 5.13 bringing new hardware support
- Firefox 93, with it now a Snap package as a joint effort between Canonical and Mozilla
- Wayland session available for NVIDIA GPU users
- PulseAudio 15 bringing support for Bluetooth LDAC and AptX codecs, as well as HFP Bluetooth profiles providing better audio quality
- GNOME 40
- LibreOffice 7.2.1
- Thunderbird 91.1.2
GNOME 40 is probably the biggest user-facing change, as that release came with the redesigned Activities Overview. More on the differences in GNOME 40 in our previous article. However, Ubuntu continues to add in their dock on the left so it's not a stock GNOME 40 experience making it a bit easier to use. Screenshots below (click them to enlarge):
Where to download? Well, that depends what version you want.
There's the official Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Kubuntu and others - it all depends what desktop environment you want.
Canonical doesn't usually do flashy release videos but our friends at OMGUbuntu put together a nice one going over it:
Direct Link
Quoting: HoolyI am excited to see what Pop!_OS will do in 21.10Exactly my tought! Pop_OS! 21.10 incoming!
Quoting: MohandevirI find it kind of amusing that I like Pop_OS due to them ripping out Snap, and it's easier to just switch to just normal Gnome with it, than it is to switch to normal Gnome and to rip out snap for Ubuntu.Quoting: HoolyI am excited to see what Pop!_OS will do in 21.10Exactly my tought! Pop_OS! 21.10 incoming!
And yeah, looking forward to Pop_OS 21.10 now, albeit, I take their improvements with a pinch of salt these days, given that I'm a bit of a KDE convert!
Quoting: scainePulseaudio 15 is now weirdly "meh", now that the world has re-focused on Pipewire instead. I suppose Pipewire still leverages PA under the hood though?
And yeah, looking forward to Pop_OS 21.10 now, albeit, I take their improvements with a pinch of salt these days, given that I'm a bit of a KDE convert!
I believe Pipewire has interfaces for both PulseAudio and Jack.... though I can't remember if that's PA -> PW or if it was for using applications expecting PA/Jack with PW.
Quoting: scainePulseaudio 15 is now weirdly "meh", now that the world has re-focused on Pipewire instead. I suppose Pipewire still leverages PA under the hood though?
And yeah, looking forward to Pop_OS 21.10 now, albeit, I take their improvements with a pinch of salt these days, given that I'm a bit of a KDE convert!
Totally get your point. Still hoping for SteamOS 3.0 to be released. If it's widely available, that's probably when I'll switch to KDE.
Quoting: MohandevirQuoting: HoolyI am excited to see what Pop!_OS will do in 21.10Exactly my tought! Pop_OS! 21.10 incoming!
The Pop!_OS 21.10 beta is available now. I think it's been available for several days.
I had a short period using it, but I've been mostly a SteamOS user since 2013, and only resorted to Ubuntu when SteamOS 2.0 was clearly abandoned (or so I thought at the time).
I did tried to keep SteamOS alive by adding Sidux repos and having practically everything up to date, but it eventually it was: what's the point?
Ubuntu served me well and I have no complaints, but for now: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, looking forward for SteamOS 3.
Quoting: dubigrasuWell, for me is hello Ubuntu, goodbye Ubuntu, its days as my distro are numbered.I still think it shouldn't be called SteamOS 3 and needs to be 4... 3.0 was the beta branch based on Debian, and we all know Valve can't count to 3, but assuredly they can count to 4. :P
I had a short period using it, but I've been mostly a SteamOS user since 2013, and only resorted to Ubuntu when SteamOS 2.0 was clearly abandoned (or so I thought at the time).
I did tried to keep SteamOS alive by adding Sidux repos and having practically everything up to date, but it eventually it was: what's the point?
Ubuntu served me well and I have no complaints, but for now: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, looking forward for SteamOS 3.
I also wish I could find some time to test it, but I don't know why you couldn't take SteamOS 2.0 and change the repositories to mainstream Debian and just upgrade to Bullseye and have a newer / stable system.
Quoting: slaapliedjeI still think it shouldn't be called SteamOS 3 and needs to be 4... 3.0 was the beta branch based on Debian, and we all know Valve can't count to 3, but assuredly they can count to 4. :PYou mean the SteamOS Clockwerk attempt maybe? In any case, it was never viable, even as a beta, just an incomplete repo.
QuoteI also wish I could find some time to test it, but I don't know why you couldn't take SteamOS 2.0 and change the repositories to mainstream Debian and just upgrade to Bullseye and have a newer / stable system.You can add Debian repos, and that's what I did for a while, but eventually Sidux offered some newer Mesa drivers I believe (don't remember exactly what it was the reason).
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