Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

If there's one thing Mayank Sharma likes even less than Ubuntu, it's Ubuntu LTS releases, which are notably stable but not notable generally.

- Mayank Sharma

The eagle-eyed would probably notice that after over a decade, Ubuntu 22.04 ships with a revamped logo with a contemporary lift to the Circle of Friends promise.

SPECS

CPU: 2GHz

Memory: 2 GB

HDD: 25 GB

Build: x86-64, Arm, RISC-V

Unlike regular releases, long-term support (LTS) releases like such as 22.04 codenamed Jammy Jellyfish aren't designed to show off new features. Instead, LTS releases focus on stability over anything else.

Ubuntu will support Jammy Jellyfish for the next five years. Even after the expiry of that period enterprise customers can pay for the Extended Support Maintenance (ESM) contract to ensure their 22.04 installation is supported for another three to five years.

Because of its focus on stability, the developers are reluctant to bundle the latest bleeding-edge versions of the core components that do the heavy lifting. However, it's unfair to compare LTS releases with regular releases that Ubuntu churns out every six months.

So while Ubuntu 21.10 users won't notice any stark differences in the 22.04 release, Jammy Jellyfish will be a breath of fresh air for users on the previous LTS release, Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa.

Is there a Gnome at home?

The first noticeable change in the distro is the placement of the Home and Install icons in the bottom-right corner of the screen, from their traditional position on the top left corner. Yet the difference worth noting is the inclusion of Gnome 42, which is the latest edition of the popular desktop environment. In fact, Fedora, which prides itself for bundling the latest Gnome desktop, also includes Gnome 42 in its latest release, Fedora 36 (see page 23).