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Ubuntu is open-source and is based on the Debian Linux operating system. This distro is suitable for users who are new to Linux. Ubuntu is easily understandable and is known for its free libraries and user-friendly interface. It contains several free software packages, including LibreOffice, ThunderBird, Firefox, etc. Linux keeps on releasing new distros from time to time. The main reason people prefer Ubuntu is that it is free and easily available to download. However, there are several free, open-source Ubuntu alternatives available in the market. This write-up will discuss about five Ubuntu alternatives for 2021. What are the 5 Ubuntu Alternatives for 2021? The list of the 5 Ubuntu alternatives to try is below: Linux Mint OS. Fedora OS. Arch OS. Ubuntu MATE OS. Deepin OS. Alternative 1: Linux Mint OS Linux Mint is a Debian-based Linux operating system distro. It was first released on August 27, 2006. It comes with a lot of productivity-driven features with the goal of providing a classical desktop environment to its users. It is supported for both “x86” and “x64” architecture. It released its latest version, “Linux Mint 21.1 vera” on December 20, 2022, for all three desktop editions, which are “Cinnamon”, “Xfce”, and “MATE”. Linux Mint is also known for its classical desktop interface. Linux Mint’s default desktop environment is Cinnamon. Download Linux Mint Alternative 2: Fedora OS Fedora is another RedHat-Base open-source Linux operating system distro. It was initially released on November 6, 2003. Fedora releases a new version after every six months. Its users can upgrade their old version to a new one without the reinstallation process. Like other Linux distro’s, it is also available on “x86” and “x64” platforms. There are three desktop environments available for Fedora, including “GNOME”, “Shell”, and “Bash”, where “GNOME” is the default desktop environment for “Fedora OS”. Fedora has the following package managers “dnf”, “rpm” and “flatpak”. It is released for servers, supercomputers, and desktop computers. Its security mechanism of “SELinux”. Download Fedora OS Alternative 3: Arch OS Arch OS is an open-source Debian-based Linux distro that is developed using Python and C language. It was first released on March 11, 2002, by Levente Polyak. Arch Linux is supported on both “x86” and “x64” architecture platforms. There are six desktop environments available for Arch Linux, which include “GNOME”, “Cinnamon”, “Enlightenment”, “Xfce”, “KDE”, “LXDE”, and “MATE”. Arch OS Linux has two package managers, which are “Pacman” and the “libalpm”. It is designed for both “Computers” and “Servers”. Arch Linux follows the rolling-release model to provide fast and stable releases of the user software. Download Arch OS Alternative 4: Ubuntu MATE OS Ubuntu MATE is an open-source Linux distro designed for users who want a classical desktop environment. It is a Debian and Ubuntu-based Linux distribution, which was first officially released on October 23, 2014, by the Ubuntu MATE team. Ubuntu MATE released its latest version, “22.10 Kinetic Kudu” on October 20, 2022. It has only one desktop environment, which is “MATE”, and is the default one. It is supported on “x86” and “x64” supported systems. Ubuntu MATE OS supports only the “dpkg” package manager. It is compatible for both old and new computers. It has support for four types of computers, including “Raspberry Pi”, “Live Medium”, “Beginners”, and “Desktop”. Download Ubuntu MATE OS Alternative 5: Deepin OS Deepin OS (Previously known as the “Linux Deepin” and the “Hiweed Linux”) is another Debian-based Linux distro. It was first released on February 28, 2004, by the “Deepin technology co.”. It will release its latest version on November 9, 2022. It has only one default desktop environment, which is DDE(Deepin Desktop Environment). It has support for “x86” and “x64” architecture and is only designed for desktop users. Deepin OS has two package managers, which are “APT” and “dpkg” Download Deepin OS Conclusion Ubuntu is an open-source and free Linux distro that is based on the Debian operating system. There are various Ubuntu alternatives, which include “Linux Mint OS”, “Fedora OS”, “Arch OS”, “Ubuntu MATE OS”, and “Deepin OS”. This write-up has covered the 5 most relevant Ubuntu alternatives. View the full article

As awesome as the default Kinetic Kudu desktop is, we know many Ubuntu users love to customize their workspace. If you count yourself among that crowd, you’ll be pleased to know that Ubuntu 22.10 comes packed with some incredible backgrounds from our most recent Wallpaper Competition. The community was given the difficult task of reviewing nearly 50 amazing submissions from their fellow community members and choosing their favorites. The initial plan was to include the top 5 into the Kudu release, but due to a surprise tie, a bonus 6th wallpaper was included! Here are the chosen winners: “Reflection” by juliettetaka “Obersee” by UNakade “Sunset Over Lake Lugano” by doctor-rover “Twisted Gradients” by g0b “Kinetic Kudu (with light and dark theme)” by jt05 “Saffron” by rakeshkryadav You can view and download all of the excellent submissions over on the original Ubuntu discourse post. The Community Team would like to thank all of those who submitted an entry, voted and helped spread the word. The wallpaper contest is just one of many ways you can help contribute to the Ubuntu ecosystem. To see the many ways you can get involved, check out the official Ubuntu wiki. More ways to make Kinetic kick A fresh wallpaper isn’t the only way to make Ubuntu Kinetic Kudu yours. Here are some other ways to give your desktop that personalized flair: Try out Dark Mode Not only does it save your eyes, it also looks really cool. You can enable it in the Appearance section in Settings. Or via quick toggle in the handy new Quick Settings menu. Change the Accent Color Orange and purple aren’t your colors? No problem! You can easily change Ubuntu’s accent color in the Appearance section in Settings. Change the Dock Position Slide to the left, slide to the right, can you go down low? The answer is YES. You can change the position, size and visibility of the Ubuntu dock anytime in the Ubuntu Desktop section in Settings. Take an Ubuntu flavor for a Test Drive If you really want to mix things up, why not sample one of the many official Ubuntu flavors? View the full article

Ubuntu Desktop 22.10, codenamed Kinetic Kudu, is here! This is the first release after Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which means that there are a number of changes in both the underlying technology and the user experience, as well as some previews of what might be on the horizon in future releases. Excited? Let’s jump straight into our highlights. New GNOME The desktop environment has been fully updated to GNOME 43 which delivers new ways to interact with your device, helping you achieve your tasks faster and customise your experience. GNOME 43 provides stylish updates to the file manager, which now dynamically changes its layout based on the window size. The general look and feel of the app was also improved, with the list view getting a new look. Quick Settings The status menu has been redesigned to allow faster access to the most common settings. Now you can change Wi-Fi settings, toggle Dark Mode, switch audio devices and more, with fewer clicks. Spread effect is back! Fans of the Unity desktop might remember the spread effect: it shows all open windows of the same app when clicking on its icon in the dock. No need to keep reminiscing, as the feature is back in Ubuntu 22.10! Now, instead of a list of thumbnails, you’ll see a spread effect of high-resolution window previews. If you are happy that this effect from the Unity desktop is back, you’ll be pleased to know Ubuntu Unity is now an official flavour! New official flavour Those heartbroken after the Unity desktop breakup can rejoice again: Unity is back as an official Ubuntu flavour and wants to see you again. Ubuntu Unity is a beautiful, slick and lightweight Ubuntu flavour. It focuses on beautiful design, and an efficient and elegant workflow. It promises “unparalleled level of efficiency” with features like the heads-up display (HUD), the Global Menu and powerful search. Official flavours are owned and developed by members of the global community, but get backing from Canonical for infrastructure and support. The same repositories that are used on Ubuntu are also available in official flavours. Learn more at the Unity blog. New Tech Kinetic Kudu brings toolchain updates for Ruby 3.1, Go 1.19, GCC 12.2 and Rust 1.61. Being the first release after an LTS, Ubuntu 22.10 is ready to deliver some bigger changes as well: PipeWire While also present in previous releases for video sharing in the Wayland session, Ubuntu 22.10 now defaults to PipeWire as the audio system. Expect better performance and more compatibility, particularly with modern Bluetooth devices. Test them out using the new quick settings! Snappier performance Kinetic Kudu ships with Kernel 5.19 and is configured to enable multi-threaded CPU decompression for squashfs. This will improve snap startup times on some devices. On the subject of snaps performance, you can read our series focusing on Firefox to learn about the improvements we have shipped so far. Keep an eye out for Part 4 coming soon! Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Gaming Gamers who use tools like Wine or Proton will be happy to learn that the Kernel in Ubuntu 22.10 has the new futex_waitv()syscall enabled, which should result in performance gains. The version of Mesa shipped is at version 22.2 – but if you’re using the Steam snap the latest Mesa drivers are bundled, ensuring that you’re always up to date regardless of your host OS. This is just the start of the additional features we’re building into the Steam snap. For a deep dive into what’s new and what’s coming, check out our latest progress update. Coming soon to Ubuntu Desktop As a reward for reaching the end of the blog post, here’s a quick look at some of the things that are coming to Ubuntu Desktop in future releases, that you can also check out today. New desktop installer Our shiny new desktop installer is still in development but, like previous releases, there is an alternative build of Ubuntu 22.10 available for those looking to test it out. The new installer uses Subiquity, the same technology used on Ubuntu Server, with a Flutter-based UI. Consolidating the installer for server and desktop on common technologies will mean we can deliver a consistent, robust, installation experience across the Ubuntu family and focus our efforts on maintaining a single code base. The main update for Ubuntu 22.10 is improved partitioning support and we’d like as many users as possible to test it out and provide feedback on the flow and functionality. Download the Canary ISO to try it out and share your thoughts in the Ubuntu Discourse. The future of Ubuntu Software Some Ubuntu detectives may have noticed that a popular community project building a Flutter-based App store has become available in our official snap-store preview channel. Indeed, we are now actively collaborating with Frederik Feichtmeier and the Ubuntu Flutter community to make this version the default store experience in a future Ubuntu release. This version of the store is under very active development, and your feedback is invaluable. Please check out the community repository on GitHub, or test it on your current system using these commands: killall snap-store snap refresh snap-store --channel= preview/edge Are you interested in creating your own Flutter-based apps? Check out the blog post announcing stable Linux support that landed in Flutter 3. Get started today Ubuntu 22.10 is available to download here. If this is your first time installing Ubuntu, check out our handy tutorial for a walkthrough on how to get started. To upgrade from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, go to the “Software and Updates” app and set the last option in the “Updates” tab to “For any new version”. You will be notified when the update is ready, or you can run the “Software Updater” app immediately. If you prefer the command line route, simply run: sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade sudo do-release-upgrade More resources Learn how to install Ubuntu. See how to upgrade from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Read the full release notes Read the press release More Ubuntu 22.10 news What’s new for Raspberry Pi Systemd support for Ubuntu WSL View the full article

The latest interim release of Ubuntu helps IoT developers and enterprise administrators. 20 October 2022: Ubuntu 22.10 will be available to download and install later today from https://ubuntu.com/download. Codenamed “Kinetic Kudu”, this interim release improves the experience of enterprise developers and IT administrators. It also includes the latest toolchains and applications with a particular focus on the IoT ecosystem. “Connected devices are an exciting area of innovation that also create new digital risks in the home and the business. We are focused on enabling a new generation of easy to use and highly secure IoT, so these developers in particular will find a number of quality of life improvements for embedded device and remote development in Ubuntu 22.10”, said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical. ”This release also brings new capabilities to our enterprise management story. The new Landscape beta makes it easier than ever to administer your entire Ubuntu estate across any architecture”. New tools to optimise developer workflows Ubuntu 22.10 delivers toolchain updates to Ruby, Go, GCC and Rust. OpenSSH in Ubuntu 22.10 is configured by default to use systemd socket activation, meaning that sshd will not be started until an incoming connection request is received. This reduces the memory footprint of Ubuntu Server on smaller devices, VMs or LXD containers. Ubuntu 22.10 also comes with a new debuginfod service to help developers and admins debug programs shipped with Ubuntu. Debugging tools like gdb will automatically download the required debug symbols over HTTPS. Support for microcontrollers and embedded displays on the Raspberry Pi Ubuntu 22.10 now supports MicroPython on a variety of microcontrollers, including the Raspberry Pi Pico W. rshell, thonny and mpremote are all available in the Ubuntu repositories. The Ubuntu graphics stack transition to kms means developers can run Pi-based graphical applications using frameworks like Qt outside of a desktop session and without Pi specific drivers. This complements expanded support for a range of embedded displays for the Raspberry Pi, including the Inky eInk HAT series, Hyperpixel range and the Raspberry Pi Official Touchscreen. Upgraded enterprise management tooling The new Landscape 22.10 beta makes it easier to run and manage Ubuntu on any architecture with monitoring, managing, patching and compliance reporting across Ubuntu estates from server to desktop. Users can now install Landscape Server on computers with Arm or Arm-based processors, including Ampere® Altra®- based ARM64 virtual machines on public cloud and the Raspberry Pi, to simplify home administration. RISC-V processors and hardware are also supported in this release, making it easy to deploy Landscape as a portable management system. Improved desktop usability and performance All users will benefit from the refinements in GNOME 43, including GTK4 theming for improved performance and consistency. Quick Settings now provide faster access to commonly used options such as wifi, bluetooth, dark mode and power settings. The Pipewire audio platform broadens support for audio devices and provides a step up in bluetooth connectivity, delivering improved performance for video conferencing. Linux 5.19 improves the power performance of intel devices and now includes multithreaded decompression on Ubuntu to improve multi-core desktop snap performance. Finally, the new Steam snap available on Ubuntu Software includes the latest Mesa, so that gamers can be confident they’re always up to date regardless of their host OS and without the need to configure additional PPAs. More resources Download Ubuntu 22.10 Release notes Ubuntu Discourse community Landscape beta What’s new for Raspberry Pi About Canonical Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, the OS for most public cloud workloads as well as the emerging categories of smart gateways, self-driving cars and advanced robots. Canonical provides enterprise security, support and services to commercial users of Ubuntu. Established in 2004, Canonical is a privately held company. View the full article