Ubuntu Linux has been known by many different names over the years, but that hasn’t diminished the seriousness of the corporate features it offers.

Today saw the wide availability of Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu, the distribution’s second major update of 2022. This new version is an incremental upgrade that includes enhancements for embedded and IoT applications. The Kinetic Kudu offers a modern desktop user interface that will boost business efficiency.

Oliver Smith, Canonical’s product manager for Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu WSL, told VentureBeat, “We’re completely in with Gtk 4.0 theming and it’s considerably more smooth than past versions.”

For Ubuntu users, the Linux desktop is crucial

Users will notice the most aesthetic changes between versions in the desktop edition of Ubuntu 22.10.

When it comes to file management, tools, and menus for desktop activities, Linux distributions have a lot more leeway than they do with Windows or MacOS. Gnome has long been the de facto standard for many business-oriented Linux distributions, including Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 22.10 includes the Gnome 43 release, which allows users to more quickly switch between open windows and open files. The new desktop has a revised Quick Settings window for expedited access to system preferences including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and battery.

The goal is to make all desktop functions, such as the file manager, which is frequently forgotten yet crucial, more intuitive and aesthetically pleasing for users.

“The file manager isn’t normally the most fascinating software, but it has really great dynamic scaling,” Smith noted.

Speeding up applications

Just as with desktop environments, Linux users have a variety of options for managing applications.

For most users, Ubuntu’s snap package format, which it developed in 2014 and has been improving ever since, is the default. Smith said that the 22.10 version brings a better compression method, which improves snap speed on the desktop.

According to Smith, “we have really enabled multithreaded SquashFS decompression,” something that wasn’t possible in the previous version 22.04. As a result, “we should also notice an increase in performance on certain multicore devices.”

Snap also allows developers to specify code dependencies for software library versions that may not be included in the typical Ubuntu installation.

Smith provided an example in which an application required the most recent version of a software library. This very recent version of Ubuntu may not be included in the official release since it is not deemed reliable enough for everyday use. As a result, snap allows a single programme to use a library built with a different version while the remainder of the operating system continues to employ a different, perhaps more reliable, version.

Please, give me more Raspberry Pi

Ubuntu is also widely used in embedded technologies like the RaspberryPi, which has a tiny form size.

However, Smith did point out that although the full-sized Raspberry Pi has had hardware shortages over the last year, the smaller Raspberry Pi Pico boards are still widely accessible. Unlike other systems, the Pico is not a standalone unit but rather a microcontroller board that may be integrated into a larger system.

To support the Raspberry Pi Pico, “we’ve committed a substantial bit of effort,” Smith added. We are now providing developers with the resources necessary to create applications for microcontrollers.

Programming environments for microcontrollers like the Raspberry Pi Pico are made easier with the tiny Python development stack included in Ubuntu 22.10.

Azure Active Directory is expanding its corporate connections

The original plans for Ubuntu 22.10’s features didn’t include all that was planned.

Azure Active Directory (AD), a cloud service from Microsoft that handles user directories and authentication, is one such functionality. According to Smith, Ubuntu’s on-premises editions have supported Active Directory integration for some years.

Smith said that “we are now seeing clients wanting to switch to the cloud-based Active Directory, and that is a totally different architecture.” According to the company’s CEO, “I believe that’s going to be quite a huge thing for a lot of clients, since support on Linux is one of the type of friction points for them transitioning entirely to a cloud-based identity management solution.”

Ubuntu 22.10 does not have support for Azure AD; however, Canonical plans to include this feature in Ubuntu 23.04, which is scheduled for release in April 2023.

With a rich and varied past

Canonical, the company in charge of Ubuntu’s open-source development, offers paid services and software. Ubuntu is compatible with a wide variety of hardware, from embedded devices (through a specialised version known as Ubuntu Core) to PCs and even the cloud.

Ubuntu has followed a naming strategy in which an African animal name is followed by an adjective from its initial release in 2004 (which was called the “Warty Warthog”). If you were wondering, a Kudu is a kind of antelope native to Africa.