It is time to start a new Ubuntu development cycle! This consists of three “interim” releases leading up to the next long term support version, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, which is due out in April 2024. Read our Ubuntu 22 Review.
Written by Adam Hunt
Interim releases are the new official Canonical term for what they used to call “standard” releases. They try out new software and other changes to be incorporated in the LTS release, but are also functional standalone releases that can be used for getting work done.
In this cycle, the first interim release is Ubuntu 22.10, which came out on 20 October, 2022.
Ubuntu 22.10 is the 37th version of Ubuntu, and the 11th with the modified Gnome 3 desktop. Like the other recent interim releases, Ubuntu 22.10 is supported for just nine months, until July, 2023. The LTS releases have five years of support, with an optional ten years extended support available.
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The first release after an LTS is always interesting, as it sets the tone for what users can expect over the rest of the development cycle. Often, the first release in the cycle introduces the main changes, which are then refined over the following two releases, resulting in an LTS that is very polished.
In this case, Ubuntu 22.10 brings some interesting new things for developers, system administrators and even for desktop users.
Installation
I downloaded Ubuntu 22.10 from the official sources via BitTorrent and did an SHA256 sum check to make sure it was an uncorrupted download.
The Ubuntu ISO file is now up to 3.8 GB in size, which is 400 MB bigger than Ubuntu 22.04 LTS was, and 900 MB bigger than the previous release before that, Ubuntu 21.10. That means it has grown 24% in the past year although it is not clear why that is.
As in recent evaluations, I dropped the ISO file onto my USB stick equipped with Ventoy 1.0.81 and booted it up from that. Ventoy makes trying out Linux distros really easy and painless. They run from the stick as well as if they were installed on a hard drive.
One Full Circle reader did the system upgrade from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to 22.10 and found that his system was very slow, with the CPUs maxed out due to trackerextract-3 running. After a reboot or two, it settled down and everything ran normally.
System requirements
The recommended minimum system requirements for Ubuntu 22.10 have not changed since 20.04 LTS and remain:
2 GHz dual core processor
4 GB RAM
25 GB of hard-drive, USB stick, memory card or external drive space
Screen capable of 1024×768 pixel screen resolution
Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installation media Internet access is useful but not essential
This means that Ubuntu 22.10 should run fine on hardware designed for Windows 7 or later. I would suggest 8 GB of RAM as a working minimum as Firefox alone can eat up 4 GB of RAM with some tabs open.
New
There is a lot new in Ubuntu 22.10, much of it aimed at internet of things (IoT) developers and system admins working in enterprise environments, but there are also some new goodies for the average desktop user.
For the developers, there are the usual and expected toolchain updates including Ruby 3.1, Go 1.19, GCC 12.2 and Rust 1.61. On Ubuntu Server, OpenSSH now uses systemd socket activation by default which means that the sshd daemon will not start up until a request is received thus reducing the memory required. A new tool, debuginfod, is now included for debugging the programs which are shipped with Ubuntu.
This release includes MicroPython for a variety of microcontrollers including the Raspberry Pi Pico W. The use of Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) graphics also means that developers can run Pi-based graphical applications using other frameworks, such as Qt, outside a desktop session and without any Pi-specific drivers.
For admins, the Landscape 22.10 beta system management tool offers improvements, including ARM support. This release also supports RISC-V processors and hardware allowing Landscape to be deployed as a portable system.
For desktop users, this release drops PulseAudio in favor of PipeWire as the default audio controller. PipeWire is reportedly less buggy and has better hardware support.
Ubuntu 22.10 uses Linux kernel version 5.19 which has multi-
threaded CPU squashFS decompression which should improve the startup times for snap applications on some devices.
The initialization system is systemd 251.4. Systemd has now been the init system since Ubuntu 15.04, through eight years and 16 releases, and has proven to work reasonably well, despite detractors.
This release ships predominantly with applications from Gnome 43, which uses the GTK4 toolkit along with libadwaita. This should improve performance and also gives Ubuntu applications a more uniform look.
This version of Gnome also reintroduces an old feature that spreads out all open instances of any given single application when clicking on the application’s icon in the Ubuntu dock.
The option of using a ZFS file system on a fresh Ubuntu 22.10 installation has been disabled due to a bug that prevents it being properly mounted on first boot. It should still work on a system upgrade from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS though.
For gamers, the Steam snap includes the latest version of the Mesa 3D Graphics Library to make games run better without needing outside PPAs. The Linux 5.19 kernel included has the new futex_waitv
syscall enabled, which will give performance gains when gaming using Wine or Proton.
In the official announcements, there are also hints of things to come in future Ubuntu releases. These include a new Flutter-based Ubuntu Software (snap-store) design to replace the current one based on Gnome Software, and a new Ubuntu installer called Subiquity which also uses a Flutterbased user interface. Look for these in the upcoming interim releases and, hopefully, they will also make it into Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
Settings
The top right status menu has added “Quick Settings” which are buttons that give instant user access to wifi, bluetooth, audio device selection, night mode, dark themes, and power settings, all without having to resort to opening the main settings menu.
Because this Ubuntu release is codenamed “Kinetic Kudo”, after the species of African antelope, there are five new kudu-themed wallpapers among the eight wallpapers provided.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Ubuntu 22.10 are:
Archive Manager (File Roller) 43.0 archiver
Cheese 43.alpha webcam application
CUPS 2.4.2 printing system
Document Viewer (Evince) 43.0 PDF viewer
Document Scanner (Simple Scan) 42.5 optical scanner
Duplicity 0.8.22 file back-ups
Files (Nautilus) 43.0 file manager
Firefox 106.0 web browser**
Gnome Calendar 43.0 desktop calendar
Gnome Disks 43.0 disk manager
Gnome Terminal 3.46.2 (for Gnome 43) terminal emulator
Gnome Text Editor 43.1 text editor
Gparted 1.3.1 partition editor*** Image Viewer (Eye of Gnome) 43.0 image viewer
LibreOffice 7.4.2.3 office suite
Pipewire 0.3.58 audio controller
Remmina 1.4.27 remote desktop client
Rhythmbox 3.4.6 music player Shotwell 0.30.16 photo manager Startup Disk Creator 0.3.15 (usb-creator-gtk) USB ISO writer Thunderbird 102.3.3 email client Transmission 3.00 bit (transmission-gtk) torrent client*
Ubuntu Software (snap-store) 41.3 package management system** Videos (Totem) 43.0 movie player Wget 1.21.3 command line webpage downloader
indicates same application version as used in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
- supplied as a snap so version depends on the upstream package
manager indicates included on the ISO for boot-up but not included in a full installation
As can be seen from the above list, almost all the applications are from Gnome 43 with only Simple Scan as a hold-over from Gnome 42 and even it was a version upgrade from the last release.
One application has been dropped from the list of default applications: Gnome To Do, the personal task manager. If anyone misses it, it can still be found in the Ubuntu repositories and installed, although it is worth noting that both the application and the package name have been changed and it is now called Endeavour.
The gedit text editor has been part of Ubuntu since the start, but, after 37 releases, it has been replaced with the new Gnome Text Editor. This change may actually go unnoticed by most users, as in the recent past, gedit has appeared in the menus as “text editor” and the new application has the same menu name; even the application icons are extremely similar. Gnome Text Editor was created to retain most of gedit’s features, but with an interface that more closely follows the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines. It is billed on its homepage as “a simple text editor focused on a pleasing default experience”. Like most current
Gnome applications, the interface is very simple and clean-looking. Gnome Text Editor has most of the functionality of gedit, including spell-checking, syntax highlighting, find, find-and-replace, line highlighting, and whole line deletion via ctrl+D. It has nine syntax highlighting color schemes, all of which can be quickly selected as light or dark schemes through the main menu theme. For fans of gedit, that application can still be installed from the Ubuntu repositories. There is even a new version for Ubuntu 22.10: gedit 42.2.
Ubuntu 22.10 includes the Nautilus 43.0 file manager which has now been migrated to the GTK4 toolkit. This gives it a slightly new look and adds some new features including improvements to the list view. It now dynamically changes its layout based on the window size selected, and also supports the .webp photo format, as does the associated Image Viewer (Eye of Gnome) 43.0, which is a useful advancement.
As in past releases, the Ubuntu 22.10 version of LibreOffice is supplied complete, except for LibreOffice Base, the database application, which can be installed from the repositories if needed.
Conclusions
For an interim release, Ubuntu 22.10 is very solid, highly polished, and ready for everyday use. It brings some useful changes to kick off the new development cycle. It looks like users can expect some
new ideas to make it into this cycle without any big changes or desktop paradigm shifts expected.
For some IoT developers, or enterprise sysadmins, this release may offer enough advantages to lure them away from 22.04 LTS, but my guess is that most desktop users will stick with the most recent LTS version for now.
The next interim release, Ubuntu 23.04, is scheduled for 20 April, 2023, so let’s see what it brings along the road to the next LTS version.
External links
Official website: https://ubuntu.com/