| guide | Ubuntu has long been the no-nonsense desktop for businesses, and this new long-term support release is better than ever for anyone who wants a working Linux desktop. |
In October 2004, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Linux, had a vision. He will create a Debian-based Linux that everyone from students to global corporations can use for free. Now, 18 years later, Ubuntu's promise is still being delivered, powering developers, enterprises, and the largest public clouds. Its latest release, Ubuntu 22.04, aka Jammy Jellyfish, offers everything anyone could want from a top Linux distribution.
Ubuntu is an essential operating system for everything from telecom's 5G cloud to Raspberry Pis, and from AI development to the Internet of Things (IoT). As Shuttleworth said in the press release, "Our mission is to be a secure, reliable and consistent open source platform -- everywhere.
For Ubuntu 22.04, this is exactly what they did.
This starts with Ubuntu 22.04 as a Long Term Support (LTS) release. This means this release will be supported via maintenance updates for five years (until April 2027). However, Ubuntu's parent company, Canonical, provides patches for five years, for a total of 10 years. The lifecycle consists of an initial five-year maintenance period (during which maintenance updates are publicly available without an Ubuntu Advantage subscription) and five years of Extended Security Maintenance (ESM). The full lifecycle is available with an Ubuntu Advantage subscription or a free individual subscription. This scaling support is critical for businesses.
This is true no matter where you use Ubuntu, from mainframes to Raspberry Pis. For now, though, I'm focusing on the latest Ubuntu 22.04 desktop.
I've been running Jammy Jellyfish on my 2020 Dell Precision 3451. This high-end PC originally shipped with Ubuntu 20.04. It's powered by an Intel 8-core 3GHz i7-9700 CPU and also includes 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
That's a lot more computer horsepower than Ubuntu needs. You can install and run Ubuntu 22.04 on any system with a 2GHz, 2-core 64-bit processor, 4GB RAM, and 25GB storage. If your computer came with Windows 7, it can run Jammy Jellyfish.
Installing Ubuntu 22.04, like any modern Linux, is a lead pipe. short version? Download Jammy Jellyfish, burn it to a USB stick, boot from the USB stick, run it to see if it likes your hardware, and press the install button. That's it.
However, if you are already running Ubuntu 21.10, you cannot upgrade to this latest release. According to the Ubuntu 22.04 release notes, "Upgrading to 22.04 LTS is currently not enabled (due to snapd and update notifier bugs), but will be enabled in the next few days.
Under the Ubuntu hood, you'll find the brand new Linux 5.17 kernel. One difference is that Ubuntu Desktop uses a rolling hardware enablement (HWE) kernel (linux-hwe-22.04). The rolling HWE kernel is based on the v5.15 kernel of the 22.04.0 and 22.04.1 point releases. The point is to make sure users get all the benefits of the latest kernel and X Window graphics support.
If you have an NVIDIA graphics card, you have access to the Linux-restricted NVIDIA driver modules on ARM64 in addition to the existing x86_64. ARM64 users can now install and configure NVIDIA drivers from the Ubuntu Archive using the ubuntu driver tool. You can also now use the display server protocol Wayland with Nvidia graphics cards.
This extra hardware support is less aimed at gamers than at artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) developers. With it, you can install the NVIDIA virtual GPU (vGPU) software driver and NVIDIA vGPU software 14.0.
All of these support the GNOME 42 desktop (GNOME is Ubuntu's default desktop). Of course, you can use many other Linux desktop GUIs such as KDE Plasma Desktop, MATE Desktop or Cinnamon.
GNOME 42 offers a cleaner and more refined desktop than its predecessors. My favorite thing about the new GNOME Shell desktop is its new snipping tool. All you need to do is tap the screen lock button, and you're ready to take a screenshot. Nautilus File Manager now also has a scrollable path bar; you can also create and extract password-protected .zip files from it. Both are very handy features.
The only major difference is that two of GNOME's longstanding desktop applications have been replaced: Gedit and GNOME Terminal.
An alternative to Gedit is Text Editor. It's easier to use, but the real win for this editor is that it finally includes autosave. It also has a highlighting mode, which developers will find useful.
As you might expect, Ubuntu 22.04 also ships with the latest versions of the most popular Linux desktop applications. For example, LibreOffice 7.3.2 for your office suite, Thunderbird 91.8 for email, Firefox 99.0.1. If you need more programs, Ubuntu makes it as easy as searching and clicking to install new programs.
For business users, Ubuntu 22.04 also supports industry compliance standards such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and FedRAMP. If you're in a Windows-centric office, Active Directory (AD) is now fully supported in the Ubuntu installer with advanced Group Policy Objects. This enables administrators to allow finer-grained control over AD user permissions and script execution.
All in all, I think the new Ubuntu 22.04 is a great Linux desktop. Other than that, it's also a great Linux distribution that can be used for almost any purpose. For more Linux information, please check: https://www.linuxprobe.com