Ubuntu 22.04 – Release Schedule and Features - Tutorials and How To

Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions, releases its LTS ( Long Term Support ) releases every 2 years, and usually, in the fourth month of the year. After Ubuntu 20.04, the next LTS release on the queue is Ubuntu 22.04 codenamed Jammy JellyFish. Ubuntu 22.04 is set to be officially released on April 21, 2022.

What’s new in Ubuntu 22.04?

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As with any new OS release, and Ubuntu for that matter, developers include a few changes to enhance its functionality and user interaction. This is no different in the latest LTS release. In fact, quite a few features have been included in Ubuntu between the 20.04 and 22.04 releases. In this guide, we have put together a list of noteworthy improvements and features. Let’s explore

1) Newer versions of default software applications

Jammy JellyFish ships with the following newer versions of every-day-to-use applications:

PHP 8.1

The latest Ubuntu version makes an upgrade to PHP 8.1 which definitely comes in handy for PHP developers PHP 8.1 was released on November 25, 2021. It is packed with new and exciting features such as Enums, intersection types, performance improvements with inheritance cache and so much more. For a comprehensive list of all the features, visit the PHP 8.1 release page.

Ruby 3.0

Prior to Dec 2020, developers have been using Ruby 2. x . All that changed on the Christmas Eve of December 2020 with the release of Ruby 3.0 which is a major upgrade. Ruby 3.0 aims at providing CPU and RAM optimization, better parallelism and concurrency, and faster performance among other features.

OpenSSL 3.0

In September 2021, after 3 long years of development, a new standard for OpenSSL 3.0 was released. OpenSSL 3.0 introduces key features such as the new FIPS module, new versioning scheme, new encoder and decoder support, and many more. Worth noting is the shift in licensing to the Apache License 2.0.

Python 3.10.0

In Jammy JellyFish, Python 3.10.0 is the latest release. This is the newest major release of the Python programming language and provides the latest features and optimizations. You can find a comprehensive list of all the new features by visiting the Python 3.10.0 release page.

Golang 1.18

Go programming language is increasingly becoming a popular programming language. Because of this, Ubuntu 22.04 decided to include it by default

Those are some of the key highlights of the latest software package updates.

2) Kernel 5.15

Kernel 5.15 ships with the latest Ubuntu LTS release. It provides nifty improvements such as:

optimizations for Ext4 systems
improvements for AMD CPUs and GPUs
improved NTFS3 driver
Enhanced support for Intel Alder Lake
Improved Apple M1 support

And so much more.

3) GNOME 42.0

GNOME 42 is set to be released on March 23, 2022, meanwhile, it is available to the public for testing as GNOME 42 Alpha. With the new desktop environment, there are plenty of GTK4 and Libadwaita applications, some of which are already included such as Nautilus. It also provides a dark theme and tons of other enhancements and under-the-hood changes.

4) A new-look Ubuntu 22.04 installer

Ubuntu 22.04 rocks a revamped installer with a modern and sleek look developed using Google’s Flutter UI development toolkit. The installation prompts a little different, but nothing complicated. You will still be able to seamlessly install Ubuntu intuitively as you have done with earlier releases.

5) Enhanced Raspberry Pi 4 support

The latest Ubuntu LTS release now provides ARM support for Raspberry Pi models with as little as 2 GB of RAM thanks to zswap.

6) GRUB 2.06

Ubuntu 22.04 comes with a new version of GRUB. However, this is likely to cause problems with dual booters since OS prober is disabled by default. This comes across as surprising and makes me wonder whether it was an oversight by developers. However, there’s an easy-peasy workaround to this. Simply add the following line to the /etc/default/grub configuration file.

‘GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false’

Then run the command:

$ sudo update-grub

Closing thoughts

In this guide, we have walked you through some of the major changes and features expected in the latest LTS release of Ubuntu. Although most enhancements take place under the hood, Ubuntu 22.04 provides a sleeker and appealing UI. Stick with us as we feature more guides on Ubuntu 22.04.