This is my account of using the Ubuntu computer operating system, as well as other free software.
On we acquired a used Dell PC to run the Linux-based Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. Because of the success in using Ubuntu, on we reformatted the remaining Windows XP computer and installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on it, going Windows-free.
I haven't missed Windows at all, in fact I have been far better off without it. Linux is free, works better, is more stable and doesn't run viruses or spyware. It does everything I want to do and has been a perfect solution for my computing needs.
Over the years I have used Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Debian, Pop!_OS and Ubuntu Cinnamon, as well as tested Ubuntu Unity, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Puppy Linux and many others. Reviews of those are all here, along with write-ups on applications and other software tested.
I do these write-ups primarily for myself, mostly so I can remember my own "how-to" instructions, as well as pros and cons found, but I post them here to help out anyone looking for information.
I also write for Full Circle magazine and my reviews can be found there. Each archived Full Circle article is also linked from the equivalent article here.
Here is a very old Linux distribution that has been recently resurrected after a 16 year absence! I thought that alone warranted a look.
Damn Small Linux (often just called "DSL" for short) was started by John Andrews and had its first release 19 years ago, on . It went through 18 releases over three years before the project ended with version 4.4, which came out on .
Back then DSL was an experiment to see what kind of Linux distribution could be created in a 50 MB download, so it was a real lightweight and could be booted from media like bootable business cards, which typically had 50 MB of space. In those days it was based upon Knoppix.
Now here we are, 16 years later and there is a new alpha release of DSL that has been put out by Andrews on , but there are lots of changes. For one thing it is no longer a 50 MB download. His new aim is for it to fit on a CD and thus needs to be under 700 MB, or about 14 times bigger that the original was. Today you would not get much of a Linux distribution for 50 MB! His 700 MB limit still makes it relatively small here in . In comparison the most recent Ubuntu release, Ubuntu 23.10 is 5.2 GB, more than seven times bigger than DSL 2024 is.
DSL is also no longer based on Knoppix and has moved to being based on antiX 23 i386 instead. AntiX is in turn based on Debian Stable. It could be argued that there is not much in common between the old DSL and the new one, beyond the name and the main developer involved. AntiX itself is a very small distribution with similar aims, as are Puppy Linux and SliTaz, too, so it is a bit of a crowded field of offerings for what may be quite a small potential market.
Available only in 32-bit, this time around DSL is aimed at old 32-bit hardware from the Windows XP era, which ended about . This new DSL version is intended for boxes with 256 or 512 MB of RAM and which cannot be booted from a USB drive (well without using Plop, anyway) and only have a CD drive, not a CD/DVD combination drive, hence the maximum size limitation.
To get it down to under 700 MB, Andrews limited the installed languages to a few varieties of English and eliminated a lot of the source code, help manuals and other bloat. He also, of course, picked very lightweight applications with very few dependencies, all to save space.
I will also note that I do not usually review pre-release software and especially not alpha releases, for the simple reason there is usually much that does not work right and that is the case with DSL 2024 alpha 1. I will note what I found. It might be interesting to come back, though and look at the final release when it does come out and see if everything was fixed.
Installation
I downloaded the 698.1 MB ISO file for DSL 2024 alpha 1 from the official website via https, since there is no BitTorrent version. An MD5 sum is provided for confirming the download is correct and it tested as valid.
I ran DSL from a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.0.97. DSL is not listed as officially supported by Ventoy, but AntiX is and predictably it booted up flawlessly.
System requirements
The official website does not state any minimum system requirements, but I can say with several applications open I never saw RAM use over 325 MB, although that was without web pages open. Basic idle RAM was 182 MB.
Features
As advertised, DSL does provide a basic and functional desktop, with a mix of applications that offer the sort of functionality expected. Everything is lightweight and that means most applications have minimal features.
The good news is that APT works fine from the command line and it is connected to the antiX repositories, which provide a wide range of applications available for installation. I was able to run updates and also interrogate the repositories easily from the command line. It should also be possible to install a graphical package manager, such as Synaptic, if you don't want to manage your packages with APT on the command line.
Systemd haters will be overjoyed to learn that the initialization system is runit.
The very conventional style menus can be actuated from the menu button on the task bar, or with a right click anywhere on the desktop, which is a nice labour-saver.
Because this is is alpha software there are many features that are not yet working right. I found that these included:
My wifi card was not found, so I had to use an Ethernet connection for internet
The wallpaper could not be changed from within the zzzFM file manager or elsewhere, which is too bad as it needs changing
Many menu items do not launch or open
The BadWolf web browser was very slow and crashed endlessly
The Dillo web browser barely works at all, probably due to its lack of Javascript capabilities.
Hopefully all of these items will be fixed by the time the stable release comes out.
Settings
DSL boots up with Fluxbox as the window manager, although JWM is also available. Fluxbox is quite minimal in its settings, but it does have 22 alternate window colour and text size themes, which is good, because the default Radiant-small theme is a pretty garish assault on the eyes. There are more toned-down themes and with bigger fonts provided.
The default desktop wallpaper is a scene showing two mice working on a clock interior. It is cute and whimsical, but, as wallpaper goes, cluttered and busy. Personally I prefer cleaner wallpapers. In the alpha 1 release you can't change it, either. That should be possible from the zzzFM file manager, with a right click on an image file, but that feature is broken.
Applications
Some of the applications included with DSL 2024 Alpha 1 are:
Abiword 3.0.5 word processor
AlsaMixer 1.2.8 sound controller
Archive Manager (File Roller) 43.0 file archiver
Badwolf 1.0.3 web browser
Dillo 3.0.5 web browser
Feh 3.10 image viewer
gFTP 2.9.1b FTP client
Gnumeric 1.12.55 spreadsheet
Leafpad 0.8.18.1 text editor
MPV 0.35.1 video player
mtPaint 3.50.09 image editor
scrot 1.8.1 command line screenshot tool
Sylpheed 3.8.0 beta 1 email client
XMMS 1.2.11 audio player
Zathura 0.5.2 PDF reader
zzzFM 1.0.7 file manager
The mix of applications provided actually does cover most desktop user's needs, although the ones provided are are very lightweight and therefore feature lacking. I do have to wonder if most users will use APT to install LibreOffice, Firefox and other similar applications, but then to run those you will need considerably more RAM.
When I first booted DSL up I went looking for the screenshot tool, so I could create a Wiki Commons gallery of them. A quick check of the menus did not show one, but an inquiry on APT showed that command line screenshot tool scrot was actually already installed. There was no key binding to the "Prt Scr" key, though, which would have been helpful, but scrot worked fine from the commend line using a programmed delay to allow me to get the terminal window out of the picture:
$ scrot --delay 5
User base
As with other recent reviews, I have to ask the question, "who is this distribution aimed at?" It seems to me that if you have the hardware to run a more fully-featured distribution you probably would do so, so the main user base must be people with old 32-bit Windows XP computers. Is that a large number of people? I wouldn't think so. Perhaps it will appeal to Linux fans who have an old XP box that they want to get back into use as a back-up, a garage computer or similar.
That said, there are quite a number of Linux distributions aimed at old hardware like this, so when it gets to a stable release, DSL will be competing with Puppy Linux, antiX and also SliTaz, too, among others.
Conclusions
Being an alpha release (and this one really is), DSL 2024 alpha 1 is not ready for daily use yet, as there are too many broken elements still to be fixed. It does show some potential though and while I was preparing this review a new alpha 2 was released on . I presume there will be another alpha or two and then a beta, before the stable release comes out later in . I may just have a look at the stable version when it comes out and see how it has progressed.
iBuntu is, as most people would guess, an Ubuntu variant that looks like MacOS. In fact this version, 2.1 is called "Lix Sur" and is intended to resemble MacOS 11 Big Sur. It does a pretty good job, too:
iBuntu is not the first attempt to make a Linux distribution that looks like MacOS. In the past there was Macbuntu another Ubuntu-based attempt, which seems to have died out about 2015 and PearOS, another project that is still active here in .
I have to start off my look at iBuntu by noting that this Linux distribution is actually pretty good, but the developer behind it might give users some pause to reconsider, however. I have no issue with the developer remaining anonymous, as quite a number of Linux developers do that for various reasons. The project website does not project confidence, however. There are the multitude of spelling and grammar errors (Why making a own distribution?" - can't anyone edit that for him?), some web hosting rants and I won't even get into the cringe-worthy legal issues page, which you can read for yourself.
Then there are the issues around the 3.0 release. On the developer released iBuntu 3.0 Monterix, but the release announcement is antithetical to confidence inspiring:
It took us several months, more than 30 builds and the bitter feeling that we had to recognize the fact, that we couldn't get rid of "all" the bugs we found - at least in the Live-Version. So this is also the first big thing I want to point out here to all Youtubers, Testers etc. : Please don't cry and wine about the error messages, popping up in the Live-ISO. Yes we know it's annoying. No, there is nothing we can do against this right now. No, this is nothing you need to cherrypic to rant against iBuntu since this is a known issue. So you don't have to "warn" your audiences from it - we do the job for you here with this announcement. And also, the most important thing: This only happens in the Live-Version. Once you installed the system, there won't be error messages anymore. And if you say now that you don't want to install iBuntu permanently and therefore this would be a big issue for you.. well too bad for you. This we don't support. Never did, never will. iBuntu always was and is intended to be installed on either real hardware or a virtual machine and not to be used only as a Live-Version.
iBuntu 3.0 Monterix – Ubuntu like it should be! Attention! This version of iBuntu is very unstable and we don't promote or recommend it anymore since it just won't work together with Ubuntu 22.04 as planned. Since as of now and until further notice we won't have time to adress [sic] the bugs within Monterix, we recommend, using Lix Sur 2.1 instead!
After reading all that I am sure most Linux users would just flee, but, as I noted, iBuntu 2.1 itself is actually quite good.
Installation
I downloaded the large 6.0 GB ISO file for iBuntu from the official MediaFire hosting page via https, since there is no BitTorrent version. No SHA256 or MD5 sum is provided for confirming the download is correct, which is a serious oversight.
I ran iBuntu from a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96. iBuntu is not listed as officially supported by Ventoy, but it booted up flawlessly.
System requirements
There are no published system requirements that I could find, including an answer to one question I had: "will it run on a Mac?"
Features
iBuntu 2.1 is the ninth iBuntu release, with the earliest dating from . That does not count the withdrawn release, iBuntu 3.0, which was the tenth one. As a ninth release iBuntu 2.1 should be pretty refined and, in fact, it is.
Once booted up you end up with a very Mac-like desktop and it functions well. Under this Mac-like interface this is Ubuntu with the KDE Plasma 5 desktop and so very similar to Kubuntu. With the sole exception of the Google Chrome web browser in its Linux version, the rest is all from common Linux repositories. Making it all look like a Mac does produce a few surprises, though. For instance, clicking the launcher icon for "Finder" launches the KDE Dolphin file manager, clicking the "Safari" icon launches the Firefox web browser, the "Apple Books" icon launches the Calibre ebook reader and the "Apple Photos" icon launches the Gwenview image viewer.
One quick fix was required on boot-up and that was setting the keyboard to English-US instead of the default German.
By default iBuntu 2.1 has a KDE effect turned on called Wobby Windows, which has been around for many years and is really awful. I would recommend turning that one off!
It is also good to note that the off, reboot, etc, selection menu is hidden at the very top left of the screen, marked with an apple icon.
Settings
Because iBuntu is Kubuntu right underneath it offers a lot of user choices. It has two global themes: bright or dark, eight Plasma styles, four application styles, (including one from Windows 9, of all places!), 19 colour sets, 11 icon sets, three cursor styles and 58 wallpapers, including many Mac-like ones and even a Debian one!
Applications
Some of the applications included with iBuntu 2.1 are:
Apple Music for Linux 0.7.0 music service**
Ark 19.12.3 file archiver
Calibre 4.99.4 ebook reader
Dolphin 19.12.3 file manager
Firefox 104.0 web browser
GIMP 2.10.36 image editor**
GNOME Calendar 3.36.2 calendar
GNOME Files 3.36.3 file manager
GNOME Maps 3.36.1 mapping application
GNOME Software 3.26.1 software store
GNOME Terminal 3.36.2 terminal emulator
Google Chrome 86.0.4240.111-1 web browser*
Gwenview 19.12.3 image viewer
iCloud for Linux 0.13 cloud computing interface**
Kamoso 19.12.3 webcam
Kate 19.12.3 text editor
KCalc 19.12.3 calculator
KDE Partition Manager 4.1.0 partition manager
Konsole 19.12.3 terminal emulator
Konversation 1.7.5 IRC client
Latte 0.9.11 desktop dock
LibreOffice 6.4.7 (Calc, Draw, Impress, Writer) office suite
Ocular 19.12.3 PDF viewer
Skanlite 2.1.0.1 optical scanner
SMPlayer 23.12.0 video player**
Spectacle 19.12.3 screenshot tool
Timeshift 20.03 system restore utility
* indicates proprietary software ** indicates a Snap file
The default applications provided here are all free software with the sole exception of Google Chrome, which is proprietary, but at least available in a native Linux (.deb or .rpm) version. Firefox is also provided.
Otherwise, the software mix is a curious collection of KDE and GNOME applications, with duplication in file browsers, terminal emulators and web browsers. The remainder provides a good selection for desktop users, including the LibreOffice suite (less Math and Base) and also including the GIMP image editor.
The Mac-like dock used is actually a Linux application called Latte, which has a wide range of configuration options. Out of the box it looks and works much like the actual Mac dock, so was probably an easy choice to employ in iBuntu.
User base
As in my review of the Windows 11 lookalike Wubuntu 11.4.3, I have to ask the same question about about iBuntu, "who is this distribution aimed at?"
The developer is a bit vague, saying: "Purpose of iBuntu: Simplicity, Stability, Usability all combined in a macOS-like environment which just looks beautyful [sic]. We want to give you the closest macOS-like feeling you can get with Linux."
My take is that this is not going to appeal to most Linux users, as they generally like Linux to look like Linux and would rather be running Kubuntu "as is", than with Apple camouflage. While the desktop does look like a Mac, it doesn't really offer any operational advantages over vanilla Kubuntu.
I would also think that most Apple fans would probably own a real Mac, rather than a PC running iBuntu. It is possible that there are Mac fans who have an old PC around that they want to have a similar interface on to their main Mac computer or even an old Mac that won't run a currently supported version of MacOS. It is also possible that iBuntu may appeal to people aspiring to be Mac users who can't afford a Mac. At least one reviewer suggested this might be a way to introduce Mac users to Linux, but I tend to think this would probably run the other way, instead.
Overall iBuntu does look like this would be a distribution for a small niche user market, rather than one with general appeal inside either the Linux or the Mac worlds. I won't even suggest Windows users might like this.
Conclusions
iBuntu works well and is very functional as a desktop distribution, as long as you ignore the issues and rants that the developer himself introduces on the official website. Hopefully he gets the next release sorted out and actually released once again at some point!
Wubuntu (also called "Windows Ubuntu") is not the first attempt to come up with a Linux desktop distribution that looks like Windows, but it is the latest. I thought it might be interesting to have a look at the most recent release of Wubuntu, which is 11.4.3 LTS, out on .
The background on this distribution is missing some details, but here is what I have found. Wubuntu is based on Linuxfx with new icons, themes and Microsoft software added. Linuxfx is in turn based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Both Wubuntu and Linuxfx are developed by the same anonymous developer, who seems to be from Brazil.
Wubuntu 11.4.3 LTS seems to be the second release of Wubuntu, having been preceded by 11.3.22.04.2 LTS, which was also Ubuntu 22.04 LTS-based and released on . The wubuntu.org website was active as early as 2014, although it is unclear if it then belonged to another project.
The version numbering indicates that both releases are intended to resemble Windows 11, and indeed they do:
The previous 11.3.22.04.2 release offered a choice of downloads for either the KDE Plasma 5 or Cinnamon desktops, while version 11.4.3 has only the Plasma desktop. A developer post indicates that a Cinnamon version will be available in "the first weeks of ", although it has not appeared yet.
Wubuntu 11.4.3 LTS uses the KDE Plasma 5 desktop, much like Kubuntu does. Being highly customizable it is not that hard to make KDE emulate Windows, although Wubuntu has gone as far as to duplicate the Windows menu and other features. Some serious effort has obviously been expended in customizing this distribution.
Installation
I downloaded the rather weighty 5.1 GB ISO file for Wubuntu from the official SourceForge page via https, since there is no BitTorrent version. No SHA256 or MD5 sum is provided for confirming the download is correct, although the previous version had an MD5 sum available.
I ran Wubuntu from a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96. Wubuntu is not listed as officially supported by Ventoy, but it booted up without any issues.
25 GB of free hard drive space (SSD is highly recommended)
Internet access is helpful
Either a DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
Virtual Box: It is extremely important to install guest add-ons for the system to run efficiently.
These minimum system specs are actually very close to those specified for Windows 11, although Windows has specific requirements for processor types and additional items such as TPM 2.0.
Features
Wubuntu does indeed look and work very much like Windows 11. Its main differences are that it is more secure and stable, doesn't run Windows malware, doesn't come with all the crapware and bloatware and may run on some older hardware that does not support Windows 11, despite the similar specs.
Of note, while exploring Wubuntu, I did discover that cancelling and closing the Wubuntu PowerToys Register dialogue box deletes all your saved documents. I had to redo all my screenshots as a result.
Overall Wubuntu looks attractive and works well for what is there, even if it is a bit incomplete without paying for the PowerToys extras.
Settings
Wubuntu does come with settings available for some degree of user customization, similar to Windows 11. It has 98 wallpapers, the most of any Linux distribution I have seen, including many from Kubuntu, as well as some Windows-like ones. It has three window colour themes: light, dark and one which has light windows and a dark bottom panel. From Kubuntu it also has 73 desktop widgets, small programs that can be put on the desktop and provide such things as a calendar, clock or weather.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Wubuntu 11.4.3 are:
Android File Transfer client
AntiMicroX 3.1.4 gamepad keyboard mapper
Ark 23.08.3 file archiver
ChatGPT 1.1.0 AI client
Cheese 41.1 webcam
Discover 2.1.2 software store
Dolphin 23.08.3 file manager
Google Chrome 120.0.6099.62 web browser*
GParted 1.3.1 partition editor
Gwenview 23.08.3 image viewer
K3B 23.08.3 CD/DVD burner
KCalc 23.08.3 calculator
KMail 22.04.3 email (failed to launch)
KTorrent 23.08.3 BitTorrent client
KWrite 22.04.3 (failed to launch)
Kate 23.08.3 text editor
Konsole 23.08.3 terminal emulator
Microsoft Copilot AI toy*
Microsoft Edge 119.0.2151.97 web browser*
Microsoft Office Online (Excel, OneNote, People, PowerPoint, Word)*
Microsoft Teams chat sign-up*
Microsoft OneDrive cloud service sign-up*
Okular 23.08.3 PDF viewer
OnlyOffice 7.5.1.23 online office suite (Calc, Word, PowerPoint)
PulseAudio 15.99.1 audio controller
Power Toys Android Support sign-up
RemoteDesktop Client 0.23 remote desktop
Skanlite 23.08.3 scanner
Spectacle 23.08.3 screenshot utility
Steam 1.0.0.74 gaming client
Thunderbird 115.5.1 email client
VLC 3.0.16 media player
Webcamoid 8.8.0 webcam
Wine Stable 8.0.2 Windows compatibility layer
Winetricks 0.0+20210206-2 Windows compatibility layer
Wubuntu PowerToys Register
* indicates proprietary software
There are quite a lot of proprietary applications here, with an emphasis on Microsoft products or at least access to them, which will not thrill free software advocates, but which are naturally quite normal for Windows users. Some of these are Windows programs running on the Wine compatibly layer.
The list of included free software applications is a bit odd and includes several redundancies, such as two web browsers, two webcams, two office suites and two email clients. The two office suites are both only on-line ones, too.
The list of default applications does reveal that at its core Wubuntu is basically Kubuntu, as it has many applications from KDE Gear 23.08. Using APT from the command line or the Discover software store it is easy to install more familiar KDE applications and other common Linux desktop applications, such as Firefox or LibreOffice. In fact it would not be that hard to delete all the proprietary software and replace it with free software alternatives from the Ubuntu repositories, but if you were going to do that wouldn't you just install Kubuntu instead?
User base
One question that arises is "who is this aimed at?" It is pretty obviously not going to appeal to your average Windows 11 user, as I am sure they would rather actually run Windows 11, even with all its disadvantages. It is not going to appeal to Linux fans either, as it doesn't offer much of value and is contaminated with Microsoft's proprietary software as well. Most Linux users certainly don't want to run something that looks like Windows. The main market for Wubuntu may well be wanna-be Windows 11 fans who have older hardware that does not meet the Windows 11 requirements.
One factor that may shed some light on the point of this distribution that is the developer's provision of a package of extras, called the PowerToys Professional Key. This carries a one-time fee of $35. The official website says: "PowerToys is a powerful toolset that implements a software layer based on Microsoft Windows applications. Tools like Control Panel, Network Settings, One Drive, Android Support and many others are available through PowerToys". So in effect Wubuntu is being offered as a freemium product. This release had 10,000 downloads when I checked, which is not much by Linux standards and certainly will not have resulted in 10,000 installations, but if even 10% of those bought keys that would be $35,000 in the bank. The same PowerToys package is also offered for Linuxfx. This "freemium" model is unusual in the Linux user world and is probably another indication that the intended audience is not conventional Linux users.
Interestingly there are numerous forum complaints about installing Wubuntu and then getting "nag screens" about buying PowerToys. One user noted, "anytime you try to change the desktop it Nags for you to purchase Powertoys!! It's actually INFURIATING it's so often! IF I can actually get this OS setup on my PC, the way I want, I'll be happy to support your work, but right now, NO WAY! Right now, this OS is NOT ready for Prime Time!". Another user noted, "worse than running an unactivated copy of Windows 11. Had to uninstall and move on. If you don't plan on buying the $35 key I can't recommend Wubuntu." Another wrote, "When does the nagging stop? It is relentless, every single time." There are some indications that this issue was at least dialed back via updates.
Conclusions
While Wubuntu looks good and works well enough as provided, it seems to be aimed at that subset of Windows users who really would like to be using Windows 11, but can't afford new hardware to run it on. In that regard it is really competing with Windows 10 more than anything else, which is still supported until . As Windows 10 runs out of support there may well be a market opening for Wubuntu to keep something like Windows 11 running on that old Windows 10 hardware.
Wubuntu users have also complained about the constant marketing of the PowerToys paid upgrade package within the installation, which makes it look the main aim of this distribution is to generate income for the developer.
Overall there doesn't seem to be a large base of enthusiastic users for Wubuntu yet, but it has only been six months since its first release, so it will be interesting to see how it fares over time. It is encouraging that a newer update, 11.4.4 came out on .
Here is a table of all the variants of Ubuntu that I have found, that bear the Ubuntu name or at least parts of it, in chronological order. The Ubuntu variants with non-Ubuntu-related names are not included.
Distribution names that have current releases are marked in red. Distribution names that are no longer being developed are in grey.
Cubuntu is a Linux distribution that I always wanted to take a look at, but its development ended before I had a chance to try it out. It was developed by Eric Kranich of France, from to . It was only recently through ArchiveOS that I discovered that the last Cubuntu release, 16.04.3 LTS, out on , is still available!
Cubuntu was the first attempt to bring the Cinnamon desktop to Ubuntu and even though it did not become an official flavour and ultimately didn't survive, it did point the way for the later success of Ubuntu Cinnamon. Ubuntu Cinnamon was started in , two years after the Cubuntu project ended and ultimately went on to become an official flavour in early .
Cubuntu was started specifically to bring the then brand new Cinnamon desktop to Ubuntu. Cinnamon had been developed starting in 2011, by the Linux Mint developers, as a direct reaction to the GNOME Project introducing GNOME 3 as a replacement for the hugely popular GNOME 2, which Linux Mint and many other distributions used. At its introduction in GNOME 3 was hugely unpopular and Cinnamon was one of many answers to creating something better, along with MATE and Unity, as well. Project Cinnamon was started in and later that year Kranich started Cubuntu with the first release 12.04 LTS. It was also one of the first distributions to offer MATE, another GNOME 3 alternative that had only been launched in the summer of .
Kranich's vision was not to remove anything from Ubuntu, which by then was using the Unity interface. Instead he wanted to enhance Ubuntu, by offering a choice of desktops at installation, with Cinnamon as the default, plus many proprietary drivers, plugins and media codecs, GPU drivers and a slate of propriety applications, as well as extra free software applications. He termed it a 100% Ubuntu Ultimate Edition. The result is a very complete distribution, but one with some drawbacks, too.
Installation
I downloaded the 2.8 GB ISO file for Cubuntu from the official SourceForge page via https, since there is no BitTorrent version, and carried out an MD5 sum check on it from the command line to confirm the download was good. The MD5 sum was provided by ArchiveOS, but it did pass. No SHA256 sum is provided.
I ran Cubuntu 16.04.3 LTS from a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96. Cubuntu is not listed as officially supported by Ventoy, but it booted up just fine, regardless.
System requirements
None listed that I could find.
The most important consideration in running Cubuntu 16.04 LTS in is to use it on older hardware, as the included Linux kernel 4.10.0 does not include support for newer devices.
Features
As advertised, Cubuntu boots up to a live session with the default Cinnamon desktop. Cinnamon is a simple and easy to use interface that most people can figure out quickly. On installation, though, you get a choice of Cinnamon, Unity or MATE.
Cubuntu also comes with an applications dock that can be turned on from an icon on the panel and turned off from the dock itself. The dock is very Mac-like in that the icons swell when moused-over. Personally I find these docks annoying, as they add desktop clutter, but the good news is that this one is very easy to turn off.
One oddity is that on boot-up the splash screen says "Ubuntu". I guess it was never customized during Cubuntu's release history.
Even over several reboots I had issues with the Cinnamon menu. It worked fine with keyboard inputs, but didn't accept mouse clicks, just closing the menu instead of opening applications. Perhaps it was just my hardware, but this would be very annoying in an installation intended for daily use.
The keyboard layout on a live session is by default French, but this can be switched to English from the panel, which is good as an English keyboard does not work in French.
One of Cubuntu's biggest drawbacks is that out-of-the-box it only supports the French language, including for installation. This leaves a newly installed system as French-only, although other languages can be installed afterwards via Synaptic. Of course that does mean you have to be able to read enough French to accomplish that.
I think that these drawbacks explain why Cubuntu never caught on to any great degree and probably why as a project why it only lasted five years, before dying out.
Settings
Cubuntu does come with a wealth of settings available for user customization, including 48 wallpapers, five cursor styles, 13 icon sets and an amazing total of 56 window colour themes, although most of them don't work right. The default window theme is called Cubuntu and is an attractive light theme.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Cubuntu 16.04 LTS are:
Audacity 2.1.2 audio editor
Brasero 3.12.1 CD/DVD burner
Cheese 3.18.1 webcam utility
Empathy 3.12.11 contacts
Evolution 3.18.5.2 email client
FileZilla 3.15.0.2 file transfer protocol client
Firefox 54.0 web browser
Geany 1.27 IDE
GNOME Disks 3.18.3.1 disk manager
GNOME Document Viewer (Evince) 3.18.2 PDF reader
GNOME System Monitor 3.18.2 system monitor
GNOME Terminal 3.18.3 terminal emulator
GNOME Text Editor (gedit) 3.18.3 text editor
Google Chrome 60.0.3112.90 web browser*
GParted 0.25.0 partition manager
Kazam 1.4.5 screencasting
LibreOffice 5.1.6.2 office suite
Nemo 2.8.6 file manager
Openshot 1.4.3 video editor
Radio Tray 0.7.3 online radio streaming player
Remmina 1.1.2 remote desktop client
Rhythmbox 3.3 music player
Shotwell 0.22.0 photo manager
Synaptic 0.83 package manager
Skype 4.3.0.37 video conferencing*
Spotify music service client*
Thunderbird 52.2.1 email client
Transmission 2.84 BitTorrent client
UXTerm (Bash) 4.3.14 terminal emulator
VLC 2.2.2 media player
XTerm 322-1 terminal emulator
* indicates proprietary software
There are three proprietary applications here, the Google Chrome web browser, Skype video conferencing client and the Spotify audio streaming client. I suspect these inclusions did not thrill free software advocates, especially Skype which these days is considered spyware.
Otherwise the list of included free software applications is very complete, although it does include some redundancies, such as two web browsers and three terminal emulators!
Because this is the Cinnamon desktop the file manager is Nemo 2.8.6, a fork of Nautilus, with much of the functionality and user customization settings that had been removed from Nautilus restored.
Cubuntu includes the LibreOffice office suite, which, as in mainstream Ubuntu itself, is complete except for the LibreOffice Base database program. It is probably the least-used part of LibreOffice, but can be installed if required.
Conclusions
Overall Cubuntu was not a bad concept in that it aimed to provide a choice of desktops, with the excellent Cinnamon desktop as default, plus MATE and Unity. It provided a lot of applications in the ISO file and most of the needed media codecs as well. Its downfall seemed to be its default French language-only installation and its unnecessary inclusion of non-free applications, which tends to annoy Linux users.
With Cubuntu 16.04.3 LTS still available for download, today you could still run it on older hardware, although standard support has run out and it only has extended support available. That said, these days Cubuntu is mostly just a piece of Linux history. In many ways it was a predecessor of three modern and currently quite successful Ubuntu-based distributions, Ubuntu MATE introduced in , Ubuntu Cinnamon in and Ubuntu Unity in . Cubuntu was a good effort for its time, now gone, but not totally forgotten.
After only 27 months, my System76 Galago Pro laptop was showing some premature aging, as it landed in a local repair shop for a month, needing a keyboard replacement. The delay was getting parts from System76, not installing them which took under an hour. Given its hefty price tag, I was hoping it would last at least five years in service. Perhaps now that it is fixed it will last some time yet.
I have a desktop computer running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS that I use for a back-up, but it is now 12 years old and may not last much longer, either. I thought having a newer back-up computer might be a smart idea.
I found a pretty good deal on a refurbished Dell Latitude 7490 laptop at The Trailing Edge, here in Ottawa. They sell refurbs that have been returned from government or business use. The price for a used Dell Latitude 7490 was one third of the new price and also one third of the price of my Galago Pro.
Features
The Dell Latitude 7490 was sold from until about and intended for business use. It is a tough unit, well-built and solid, including a robust keyboard.
I had the laptop upgraded to 32 GB of RAM with a Sandisk 512 GB NVMe solid state hard disk and combined with the Intel quad core, eight thread i7-8650U 4.2 GHz Kaby Lake R processor it runs very smoothly.
The laptop has some interesting features, like a 180° hinge, a caps lock light, dual mouse buttons above and below the touchpad, and a keyboard-mounted cursor slew button. The case is rubberized, too, which makes it quite non-slip.
Operating systems
The laptop came with a brand new, clean hard drive, with no operating system installed, which suited me fine. Prior to installing the operating system the BIOS required two adjustments: turning off secure boot and setting the new drive so it was not listed as a RAID array.
I had planned to use Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS on it, but ran into the widely-reported crash issues with Pop and so I switched over to Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10. Ubuntu Cinnamon is very elegant, easy to use and also is less of a RAM-hog than Pop is, idling at only 1.4 GB instead of Pop's 3.9 GB. The next release of Pop may fix that problem with its new Rust-based COSMIC DE, whenever it comes out, as a release date has not been announced yet.
Ubuntu Cinnamon also seems to to totally fix the Pop Firefox-spellchecking-menu-overlapping-the-top-panel-issue, as the menus stay on the screen and Ubuntu Cinnamon has no top panel to cause menu interference. Furthermore, the Alt-Tab application switcher works much better on Ubuntu Cinnamon than on Pop, too.
Crash on waking
The only issue I ran into with the Latitude 7490 was crashes on coming out of sleep, plus some random lock-ups and crashes, that often required several reboots to get it working again.
There is a lot of documentation about this issue, including:
I did not find any consistent answers, but lots of suggestions. Some people said disabling swap fixed it, others said a BIOS adjustment for eliminating deep sleep, reverting to an earlier Linux kernel 5.4 (or earlier - we are on 6.5.0-14) or upgrading to a newer kernel, adding kernel parameters, plus some other possibilities. Also some Windows users reported the same crash-on-wake issue.
I tried temporarily disabling swap and then disabling the BIOS deep sleep settings, but those didn't solve it.
The next thing I tried was editing the Grub boot parameters, since a number of the above links mentioned that as a successful solution. In particular Linux Reviews indicated: "Intel "Baytrail" chips and some other low-powered chips have a hardware flaw which makes them randomly hang when deeper CPU sleep states are enabled. Using the intel_idle.max_cstate=1 kernel parameter is a known workaround. Some Kaby Lake Refresh chips are also affected" and also "i915.enable_dc=0 disables GPU power management. This does solve random hangs on certain Intel systems, notably Goldmount and Kaby Lake Refresh chips. Using this parameter does result in higher power use and shorter battery life on laptops/notebooks." Arch Linux wiki agreed. However, at least one commenter said: "It's been recommended to set enable_dc=0 for certain Intel CPUs to prevent catastrophic crashes. However, the statements about the power usage penalty are misleading. That parameter only controls the power management for the Display Controller and NOT the GPU core power, so the power usage is penalty is not that high. In fact, the penalty for doing so is likely to be minuscule (in the order of a few hundred milliwatts at worst)."
So I tried it. I opened the Nemo file manager as root with:
$ sudo nemo
navigated to:
/etc/default/grub
opened it in the gedit text editor and then went to line 10, which says:
Note the syntax, as the new parameters go inside the quotation marks. After adding that I then ran:
$ sudo update-grub
to cause the boot-up sequence to use that and it fixed the issue, no more crashes or lock-ups!
Conclusions
Overall I really like the Latitude 7490, it is a solid and well-built laptop and with the crash issue fixed, it is pretty much an ideal Linux laptop computer.
On I picked up a refurbished Dell Latitude 7490 laptop while my System76 Galago Pro is in the shop with a keyboard issue and also to keep as a back-up. The Latitude 7490 is quite nice and solidly put together.
My initial intention was install Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS, which I did, but it just kept locking up and crashing and was completely unusable, even crashing on many boot-ups. I had seen this too, on the Pop installation on my Galago Pro, but I did a re-installation on that laptop and that seemed to solve it.
In searching the internet I discovered many dozens of posts and bug reports with hundreds of users reporting the same issue. Many suggestions have been made on how to fix it, but none of them seem to work. Likewise, where the fault lies is also a matter of debate, too, but gnome-shell may possibly be implicated. Many people just seem to have given up and moved on to other distros. The developers seem to be addressing it by working on a new version of the Pop desktop, COSMIC DE, written in Rust, which will hopefully solve it some time soon, but there is no release date yet.
Since I had to move to something else, my solution was to install Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10, as I had the ISO file on hand and since it does not use gnome-shell in its desktop, unlike Ubuntu 23.10. The installation went well and I created a new checklist for it, including addressing the main criticism in my review, that it comes with a lot of duplicate software and a ton of games, which makes for a lot of menu clutter. Obviously tastes vary, but I really like much more minimal installations, with only what I need for work and without any games. As a result I wrote an APT command to remove what I didn't want:
I have found the Nemo 5.8.4 file manager is actually quite impressive. It is, of course, a fork of Nautilus (GNOME Files) and brings back a lot of the functionality and user configuration choices that Nautilus once had, before it was greatly oversimplified. I think a feature that is unique in file managers is the choices at Edit→ Preferences→ Toolbar, which allows adding more tools or removing them all one-by-one, for a resulting very simple interface. If you remove the "views" and navigation buttons these features are still available via keyboard shortcuts; very elegant and flexible. The only thing Nemo lacks is bulk file renaming, which is why I added GPRename. GPRename is very flexible and offers almost every way of bulk renaming files. The only thing it lacks is a thumbnail capability, which would be handy.
The snap version of Firefox is actually working much better in 23.10 than it did in 22.04 LTS. It opens much more quickly, downloads updates in the background and the lets you know to close Firefox and then when it has been updated and may be reopened. As a bonus Firefox also no longer crashes when opening files from the browser. It is actually quite functional and not annoying!
Outstanding issues
Interestingly Ubuntu Cinnamon actually works better than Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS in many ways:
Idle RAM
The Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS idle RAM after a fresh reboot, with no applications open, is quite high at 3.9 GB. Ubuntu Cinnamon idles at 1.4 GB.
In use RAM
With a few typical desktop, daily use applications open, such as Firefox, OpenOffice Writer and gedit, Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS typically uses about 12 GB of RAM. With the same applications open Ubuntu Cinnamon uses about 6 GB.
Firefox spellchecking menu overlap with top panel
With no top panel, Ubuntu Cinnamon does not suffer from this issue.
Alt-Tab functioning
In most Linux distros, using Alt-Tab shows and cycles through all open windows, but Pop is configured differently so that this features does not work well. It shows only one entry per application, even if multiple instances are open, requiring selecting those by touchpad. This makes this feature pretty cumbersome and useless. For instance, cycling between normal and private Firefox windows is not possible. You need to use the Pop launcher instead, which is not as efficient. On Ubuntu Cinnamon Alt-Tab works properly.
Window snapping
With Ubuntu Cinnamon this annoying feature can be turned off.
New issues
I have only found one new issue:
Opening files in Eye of Gnome
When opening images in the Eye of Gnome (EOG) image viewer, it will start with the first image in the file, not the one you clicked on, although you can arrow key to the one you want. If there are a lot of images in the folder it can take a while, though. I have found a workaround for this issue, by setting the default application to open images to mtPaint instead of EOG, it is possible to right click on an image and open it in EOG and then it will display the correct image. This also makes opening images for editing much faster.
Conclusions
As I noted in my detailed review, Ubuntu Cinnamon is a very clean, elegant and simple distribution with lots of customization available. It is easy to use and works well. Since the hardware lock-up and crash issues were fixed by changing the Grub boot parameters, it has run smoothly and reliably. I am happy running it as an alternative to Pop.
UwUntu is an unofficial Ubuntu derivative that was started as a class project by two Spanish student developers. So far it has had two releases, 21.05 "Mochi Mango" based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and 22.10 "Leo Dango" based on Ubuntu Budgie 22.04. It is not clear if there will be further releases to follow or not.
We really did this as a school project on our free time, cause we wanted to create an OS that was to our exact liking, but then we invested more and more time in the project
like, built the website, released the OS on the internet just to see if people liked it, etc
and as it was a good name to play with, we were lucky enough to find people who liked it.
They also stated in their initial 21.05 release announcement on Reddit, "we wanted this distribution to be as weaboo as possible, furthermore, we wanted to use it once we ended the development, so we gave everything we had into the project."
It is worth explaining that "Weeaboo is a mostly derogatory slang term for a Western person who is obsessed with Japanese culture, especially anime, often regarding it as superior to all other cultures."
So given that cultural positioning, let's see how the end result turned out.
UwUntu was built using Cubic (Custom Ubuntu ISO Creator), which is a GUI-based wizard that allows easy creation of a customized live Ubuntu or Debian-based ISO image.
Installation
I downloaded the 5.0 GB ISO file for UwUntu from the official Google Drive page (yes, Google Drive) via https, since there is no BitTorrent version, and carried out an SHA256 sum check on it from the command line to confirm the download was good.
It is worth noting that the official downloads are hosted in three places, each of them file sharing sites that provide free services: Google Drive, MediaFire and Mega.nz. I guess that is one way to save hosting bandwidth costs.
I ran UwUntu 22.10 from a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96. UwUntu is not listed as supported, but Ubuntu Budgie is officially supported by Ventoy and it booted up just fine.
Given the background and the aims stated, you would think that UwUntu would look a lot like Moebuntu, which "is a customized Ubuntu (Linux OS) desktop environment for Moe-fan. This site tells you how to customize your desktop looks moe-moe." Moe-moe is "a Japanese word that refers to feelings of strong affection mainly towards characters in anime, manga, video games, and other media directed at the otaku market." And if you thought that UwUntu would look like that, you would be dead wrong.
In fact, out-of-the-box UwUntu has no indications of Japanese culture. Instead what you get is a close-to-stock version of Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 LTS, with some additional Japanese wallpapers and an application mix that favours gaming, some new window themes and that is about it. Sure you can use the provided alternate wallpaper of Mount Fiji in place of the default dog wallaper, but does that make you a weeaboo?
UwUntu does seem to have simplified Ubuntu Budgie's messy and confusing user settings and that is a good thing.
Settings
UwUntu 22.10 has an expanded range of 22 window colour themes, with the default one a dark theme, Vimix-dark-beryl. There are light themes, though, like Vimix or Vimix-ruby.
There are also 12 icon sets, four cursor styles and 16 included wallpapers. The wallpapers are three UwUntu ones, 12 Japanese themed ones and one Windows XP Bliss wallpaper parody which at least shows the devs do have a sense of humour.
Applications
Some of the applications included with UwUntu 22.10 are:
* indicates proprietary software ** supplied as a flatpak, so version depends on the upstream package manager
There are a few unexpected packages here, including two proprietary ones, the Discord messaging voice and video client and the Spotify audio streaming client. While practical, this will not thrill free software advocates. Also notable is the free software Steam 1.0.0.75 gaming platform. It is worth adding that while the client is free software, most of the games available are proprietary.
Unlike all the official Ubuntu flavours, UwUntu 22.10 provides Firefox as a flatpak instead of as a snap package.
UwUntu 22.10 includes the LibreOffice 7.3.6 office suite, which is complete except for the LibreOffice Base database program. It is probably the least-used part of LibreOffice, but can be installed if needed.
Conclusions
UwUntu 22.10 is a Linux distribution that does not really offer much over its Ubuntu Budgie base than a few extra packages, some wallpapers and themes. While it does simplify some Budgie settings, I think it is hard to make the case that this is a new distribution and not just Ubuntu Budgie with a few tweaks and new wallpaper. Wallpaper does not a Linux distro make. That said, it does work for daily use.
One unanswered question is, will UwUntu continue? With only two releases, will there be a third one? Time will tell if this has some following or whether it was just a school project that did not survive graduation.
Another official member of the Ubuntu family that I have never reviewed before is Ubuntu MATE. It is yet another result of the introduction of GNOME 3 and the people who hated it.
From its introduction in , GNOME 2 quickly became a very popular desktop and was widely used across many Linux distributions, including being Ubuntu's first desktop. When the GNOME developers decided to take something that was just about perfect and completely break it, that caused users and developers to rebel, resulting in a plethora of new desktops as solutions, including Cinnamon and Unity and MATE.
The MATE desktop was started by a developer from Argentina, named Perberos, who decided to fork GNOME 2 and continue it, as his solution to GNOME 3. The initial release of the new desktop was on , just four months after GNOME 3 came out. It became an official Debian desktop on and part of Arch Linux in .
Developers Martin Wimpress and Alan Pope decided to create an Ubuntu derivative using the MATE desktop, with the motto, "for a retrospective future". They started with a base of Ubuntu 14.10 and a first release on . In an unusual move, Ubuntu MATE 14.04 LTS was released 19 days later, on , after 14.10, to provide the benefits of a long term support version. With version 15.04 Ubuntu MATE became an official Ubuntu flavour. Today they have lots of help as a community of developers has coalesced around Ubuntu MATE.
Wimpress has also been working on a project to produce a dedicated spin of Debian that will have a MATE desktop that is as good as the version that Ubuntu MATE has.
Incidentally the desktop is named for a traditional South American high-caffeine tea drink, mate, made from the yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) plant, so it is properly pronounced mah-tay and not the English mate, although that term for "friend" does not seem at all inappropriate for this user-friendly desktop. Because of its South American origins, many components of the desktop, forked from GNOME, were given Spanish names. For instance the Atril PDF viewer means "lectern", the Caja file manager means "box" and the Engrampa file archiver is Spanish for "staple".
Of note, the project writes MATE with all capital letters, even though it is not an acronym, just to make it fit in with some of the other desktop names, like GNOME, KDE and LXDE (but not like LXQt, Xfce or Cinnamon). It also later devised an English recursive backronym to retroactively explain the use of the capital letters: "MATE Advanced Traditional Environment".
Even though the original GNOME 2 three menu system has more recently given way to a single MATE menu, Ubuntu MATE is the flavour that is still closest to the original version of Ubuntu 4.10 Warty Warthog, which came out in with the GNOME 2 desktop. The use of GNOME 2 on Ubuntu lasted six years, with the last version Ubuntu 10.10. In , Ubuntu 11.04 switched to Unity to avoid GNOME 3 and then, with the release of Ubuntu 17.04, in turn dropped Unity for a modified version of GNOME 3, which had somewhat improved by then. So if you liked the early GNOME 2 Ubuntu releases from 4.10 to 10.10, you will probably love Ubuntu MATE.
Ubuntu MATE 23.10 is the project's 20th release and after ten years this can now be considered a pretty mature distribution. 23.10 is an interim release and so is supported for just nine months. Next out will be the LTS release, Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS, due on .
Installation
I downloaded the 3.6 GB Ubuntu MATE 23.10 ISO file from the official website via HTTP, as the BitTorrents had been shut down. Once I had the file downloaded I carried out an SHA256 sum check on it from the command line to make sure it was an uncorrupted download.
I dropped the Ubuntu MATE 23.10 ISO file onto a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96 and booted it up. Ubuntu MATE is listed as officially supported by Ventoy and, as expected, it worked fine.
System requirements
The Ubuntu MATE website lists the minimum hardware as:
Dual core processor
64-bit
1 GB of RAM
8 GB of disk space
Display 1024 X 768 px
The recommended hardware is:
Core i3 processor
64-bit
4 GB of RAM
16 GB of disk space
Display 1440 X 900 px, with graphics card
As well Raspberry Pi B models are supported, including Raspberry Pi 2, 3, 3+ and 4 (all memory sizes).
Features
MATE is very close to the old GNOME 2 desktop, with the exception of the menu. Originally it had the old GNOME 2 triple menus (Applications, Places and System), but today it has a single, unified menu. The menu is simple to use, allows searching, but cannot be resized. The menu system will make MATE an easy transition for people coming from Windows.
Ubuntu MATE retains the two panels that GNOME 2 had, one at the top of the screen and the other at the bottom. Most other desktops have moved to a single panel. The bottom panel can be deleted, but then you have to rely on alt-tab to find open applications. It can be restored by right-clicking on the remaining panel and then selecting "reset all panels".
Overall what you get with MATE is a very simple desktop that just works, without any gimmicks. It is pretty much as unobtrusive as any desktop can be.
New
As the latest singular release, Ubuntu MATE 23.10 brings only a few very minor bug fixes and small improvements. For example caja-rename 23.10.1-1 has been ported from Python to the C programming language. Most users won't notice!
I think the lack of substantial changes means that after ten years of releases, the developers and the users are pretty happy with how Ubuntu MATE is working these days. Given that MATE was spawned by a group of GNOME developers making radical changes to GNOME 2 to create the debacle of the GNOME 3 rollout, I would not expect to see large scale changes in MATE ever, as it is fundamentally all about not changing things.
This release continues the recent trend of including at least one AI-generated wallpaper. For this release codename of Mantic Minotaurthe wallpaper was generated using Stable Diffusion XL by a friend of Ubuntu MATE founder Martin Wimpress, who is the Head of Research Platforms at Queen Mary University, in London, Simon Butcher.
Settings
Ubuntu MATE has a default green-coloured theme, including the default wallpaper for 23.10, but with 23 window themes and 28 wallpapers provided, including the aforementioned Minotaur wallpaper, there are lots of choices here for customization. It is not hard to change it using the MATE Control Center which gathers all the settings into one convenient place.
The Plank desktop dock is installed by default and can easily be turned on by opening the Plank preferences if you want a dock. It is easy to turn off, too, just right click "quit" on it.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Ubuntu MATE 23.10 are:
* indicates same application version as used in Ubuntu MATE 23.04 ** supplied as a snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
Most of the default applications are MATE forks originally from the GNOME desktop. It uses the MATE desktop's own Caja file manager, in place of the standard Gnome file manager, Nautilus. Caja is actually an earlier fork of Nautilus, with some of Nautilus' deleted features reinstated, like the "up one level" button. It also has bulk file renaming, which is useful.
The inclusion of Software Boutique 0+git.0fdcecc is worth mentioning. This is a custom Snap package, but hosted on github and not snapcraft.io, which is the usual place for Ubuntu Snaps. Software Boutique is an attempt to produced a better software store for MATE than GNOME software or Ubuntu Software is.
Like the other Ubuntu flavours, Ubuntu MATE 23.10 includes the LibreOffice 7.6.2 office suite, which is complete, except for LibreOffice Base, the database program. It is probably the least-used part of LibreOffice, but it can be installed if needed.
The list of default applications provided is fairly complete, but not excessive. For most new desktop users there is not much missing, perhaps just a video editor?
Conclusions
Ubuntu MATE is obviously aimed at people who loved GNOME 2, but it will also appeal to users who are looking for a very simple Linux distribution with a classic menu system. In this regard it is competing with Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Cinnamon and Ubuntu Budgie , all of which have very similar menu systems.
Overall Ubuntu MATE 23.10 is a well-polished and solid release with no real detractions. While it is not going to appeal to users looking for zing, bling and gimmicks, if you are looking for a distribution that stays out if the way and lets you work, Ubuntu MATE is worth a look.
The next release will be an LTS version, Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS, with three years of support, out on .
There are a couple of official flavours of Ubuntu that I have never looked at and I thought it was time to rectify that. One of these is Ubuntu Cinnamon, which uses the Cinnamon desktop developed for Linux Mint.
The Cinnamon desktop has a long and storied history and how it came to Ubuntu is a complex story.
Like the MATE desktop and Unity, the Cinnamon desktop was created as a reaction to the switch by the GNOME developers from the traditional GNOME 2 desktop to GNOME 3, which happened in . GNOME 2 had been a simple three menu desktop, while GNOME 3 uses a dock and also simplified many desktop elements to the point of complete non-functionality.
GNOME 3 was what happens when software, like GNOME 2, gets to a state where it is pretty much perfect. Developers can't just leave it alone and they end up breaking it. A lot of people loved GNOME 2, but absolutely hated GNOME 3 when it first came out and that led to a flurry of solutions.
It is probably worth adding that in the 12 years since its introduction GNOME 3 has improved. There are still people who don't like it, but it is more functional now than it was in .
The first reaction by the Linux Mint developers was to create Mint GNOME Shell Extensions (MGSE), but while it did fix some issues with GNOME 3, as a solution it was incomplete and not well received by users. Instead GNOME 3 was forked and Project Cinnamon started in January 2012 instead. Various GNOME 3 applications were also forked, including the Mutter window manager to Muffin and the Nautilus (GNOME Files) file manager to Nemo. With the release of Cinnamon 2.0 in the new desktop became independent of GNOME 3. It remains the main desktop for Linux Mint.
A lot of its popularity on Linux Mint is that Cinnamon is a classic menu-driven desktop and is an easy transition for Windows users to make.
Not long after Cinnamon was started there were a number of calls to create an Ubuntu derivative using the new desktop. One early effort was called Cubuntu, which was started by Eric Kranich in 2012. Its first release was Cubuntu 12.04 and the last was Cubuntu 16.04.3, out on .
Developer Joshua Peisach started another effort in , with a first release as Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix 19.10, out on . It was soon renamed just Ubuntu Cinnamon and gained official Ubuntu flavour status on in time for Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.04, its eighth release.
Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10 was released on and is the distribution's ninth release. As an interim release it is supported for nine months, until . Next up will be the long term support release, Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04 LTS which is due out on .
Installation
I downloaded the ISO file for Ubuntu Cinnamon from the official website via HTTP, as BitTorrent was not working this late after the official release date, due to lack of participants. Once I had the file I carried out an SHA256 sum check on it from the command line to make sure it was a good download. The ISO file was 4.1 GB in size.
I put the Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10 ISO file onto a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96 and booted it up from there. Ubuntu Cinnamon is not listed as officially supported by Ventoy, but it worked fine, regardless.
System requirements
None listed, that I could find, but it is probably safe to assume that it is the same as Ubuntu 23.10, a minimum of:
2 GHz dual core processor
4 GB of RAM
Features
The key feature in Ubuntu Cinnamon is the menu, which replaces GNOME 3's launcher and menus. The Cinnamon menu has some quick links down the left side for things like Firefox and the reboot switch, and then specific lists of all applications, accessories, games, graphics, internet, office, sound and video, administration, preferences, places and recent files, all on the right side. Like in Xubuntu, the menu can also be resized.
The preferences section of the menu provides a list of each setting area and then clicking on one opens the individual setting box. Unlike on the GNOME 3 desktop, which has a single, long settings interface, on Cinnamon each setting box stands on its own, linked only from the main menu or from the System Settings box. From a user perspective, it actually works well like that and probably makes it more modular and thus easier to maintain as well as add to for the developers.
While it is not GNOME 2, with its three menu system, Ubuntu Cinnamon is very simple and easy to use, and makes up for the deficiencies in both GNOME 3 and Ubuntu.
As in mainstream Ubuntu and unlike in vanilla GNOME, Ubuntu Cinnamon has three buttons on its windows for minimize, maximize and close.
New
New in this release is Cinnamon 5.8.4 which replaces 5.6.7 used in the last release. This new version supports gestures using KDE's touchegg and brings some changes to the themes module that allows making simplified themes.
One other change is to the Plymouth Theme displayed text at sign-in, which now says Ubuntu Cinnamon instead of ubuntucinnamon, and that the bottom of the text is not truncated.
Otherwise, this release uses Linux kernel 6.5 with its new hardware support and has updated applications from the Ubuntu repositories.
Settings
Unlike mainstream Ubuntu 23.10, which has very limited user choices, Ubuntu Cinnamon gives a lot of scope for customization. User settings are all contained in one main System Settings menu, although the settings boxes themselves are all modular and can be accessed from the Cinnamon main menu directly. It is a unique system that probably makes developer modifications much easier.
Some of the options include three different mouse pointer themes, 35 window themes, 32 icon themes, 29 desktop themes (which set the panel colours) and 37 wallpapers organized into 22 categories! That wide range of choices puts it in the same class as Kubuntu and Ubuntu Unity.
The default wallpaper for 23.10 includes the Ubuntu Minotaur and labyrinth design. The rest of the wallpapers provided are an eclectic collection from many sources, including Ubuntu and even some from Debian with the Debian curl logo on them. I guess that is a fair inclusion, as Ubuntu Cinnamon is a true Debian derivative, via Ubuntu.
One useful setting adjustment is that the bottom panel can be adjusted in size over quite a large range, allowing it to be made much narrower or wider. The icons on the panel size automatically.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10 are:
* indicates same application version as used in Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.04 ** supplied as a snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
As can be seen most of the default applications are from the GNOME desktop. Ubuntu Cinnamon uses the Cinnamon desktop's own Nemo file manager, in place of the standard Gnome file manager, Nautilus. Nemo is actually an earlier fork of Nautilus, with some of Nautilus' deleted features reinstated, like the "up one level" button. It does not, however, have bulk file renaming, so adding a standalone bulk file renamer, such as GPRename might be a good idea.
Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10 includes the LibreOffice 7.6.2 office suite, which is complete, except for LibreOffice Base, the database program. It is probably the least-used part of LibreOffice, but it can be installed if desired.
As an aside, it is worth knowing that GNOME Tweaks does not work on Cinnamon, as it requires GNOME shell to work.
The list of default applications is quite long and includes just about anything a desktop user could want, except perhaps a video editor. There are a lot of applications included that duplicate other applications, like two terminal emulators, two image viewers, two image editors, two software package managers and two video players. There are also 19 games included. I would probably have a long list of things to remove to make Ubuntu Cinnamon lighter and its menu lists shorter. A "minimal installation" version, like Ubuntu and Xubuntu have, might be a good idea.
I have tried to create my own "minimal installation" version by writing an APT command to remove much of the duplication and all of the games.
Conclusions
Ubuntu Cinnamon will appeal to users who are looking for a simple Linux distribution with a classic menu system. In many ways it is competing with Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Budgie , which all have comparable menu systems. With its similarities, Ubuntu Cinnamon would be an easy transition for Windows users to make.
Overall Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10 is a good, solid release with very few vices. It is quite elegant and simple to use. Perhaps its only drawback is its long list of default applications with many functional duplicates there. I think many users will want to remove at least some of those to reduce menu clutter.
The next version expected will be the LTS release, Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04 LTS, due out on .
Ubuntu Budgie 23.10 was released on and is the third and final interim release in this release cycle. This is also the distribution's 16th overall release. As an interim release it is supported for nine months, until .
Next out will be the long term support release, which completes this development cycle. Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS is due out on .
Installation
I downloaded the ISO file for Ubuntu Budgie from the official website via BitTorrent and carried out an SHA256 sum check on it from the command line to make sure it was a good download. The ISO file was 3.9 GB to download, which is an increase of 500 MB over Ubuntu Budgie 23.04's 3.4 GB.
I dropped the Ubuntu Budgie 23.04 ISO file onto a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96 and booted it up from there. Ubuntu Budgie is officially supported by Ventoy, so it is no surprise that it works fine.
The Ubuntu Budgie developers have been busy during this whole release cycle and there have been quite a number of changes incorporated, including some new things in 23.10.
This release uses the new Budgie desktop 10.8, which brings improvements to the alternative Budgie Menu, the alternative application indicator StatusNotifier that can be added to the panel, plus introduces the new Magpie 0.9.3 window manager.
Magpie came about as a result of project issues with how Gnome's Mutter window manager was being administered. Budgie was using the budgie-wm on top of Mutter, to handle specialty Budgie features. Last minute changes in Mutter for each release resulted in a requirement for last minute changes in budgie-wm, plus incorporating older regressions so Budgie can still run on X11, instead of Wayland. As Mutter moved on to Wayland support, this got harder and harder and so the Budgie team decided to fork Mutter at Gnome 43, which saved a lot of regression catch-ups. Future plans include a Magpie 1.0 version with full Wayland support, which will have Budgie's own desktop needs already built in, simplifying making the desktop work right. That is the short version of the tale, but there are a lot more background details on Magpie in the 23.10 release notes.
The Budgie Trash Applet was previously a third party addition developed by Buddies of Budgie team member Evan Maddock. It has now been incorporated into and made a default feature of the Budgie desktop. It improves file deletion and also restoration, when needed.
Other changes include PolicyKit graphical privilege escalation, battery indicator status applet selections added and Appindicators that can be added to the panel in lieu of the Status Notifier applet. The system tray also now uses the Status Notifier specification for better presentation of tray symbols. There is a new design Budgie Control Center with many upgrades and fixes. As well there have been changes to the themes, which are now using green as the highlight colour instead of blue, plus that the Kvantum and Murrine themes are now hidden inside the Budgie Desktop Settings. There are also a lot of other small changes and refinements in this release.
The new default wallpaper, ("budgie-codename"), is a modified version of the standard Budgie spacey-looking wallpaper ("ubuntu_budgie_wallpaper1") that has been in use since Ubuntu Budgie 19.04. In Ubuntu Budgie 23.04 that standard wallpaper included a lobster, which was a nod to the release's code name of Lunar Lobster. This time, for Mantic Minotaur, the Ubuntu 23.10 Minotaur and labyrinth design has been added to the space wallpaper. Perhaps this is a trend? This release has 35 wallpapers provided, only one of which has the Minotaur theme, though.
Settings
This release also has many theme updates and changes.
As before, Budgie Desktop Settings is where you find the window themes, oddly under Style → Widgets. There are 14 window themes provided, with the default one still as Pocillo-dark. There are some good light themes provided, including Pocillo-light. There are also styling preferences (light or dark); ten icon styles, with Pocillo as the default; two cursor styles and four notification positions to choose from, one in each screen corner, with top right as default.
Budgie Makeovers & Layouts is where you find complete one button wallpaper, window theme and icon packages, now with nine to choose from, although only three are installed, while the remaining six have to be downloaded for use.
Budgie Extras is where the desktop applets are hidden. This time there are 35 applets included, one less than in the last release. These add things like clocks, calendars, weather and other functionality to the desktop. On Kubuntu these would be called "widgets".
There is also the Budgie Control Center, which is a modified form of Gnome Settings. Here you can configure such features as wifi, wallaper, sound and power settings.
As can be seen, the settings are still scattered all over the place and are quite confusing. This is the one area where Ubuntu Budgie could really use some serious work, having the settings all in one place would make life a lot easier for users, especially for new users.
As in past releases, there is a small Mac-like dock at the bottom of the screen, called Plank, which works okay, if you like docks. It will hide if a window touches it. Settings for it can be accessed by right clicking on the dock itself, as it does not appear in any of the many settings menus. One of the settings is "quit" which closes it, but then there is no way to turn it on again. Closing it also means you have no list of open applications or access to minimized applications, other than using alt-tab.
The main menu can be set to either show application tiles in alphanumerical order or as icons by category.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Ubuntu Budgie 23.10 are:
* indicates same application version as used in Ubuntu Budgie 23.04 ** supplied as a snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
This time around there are no changes to the suite of default applications provided, just some updated versions. As can be seen the applications are a mix from Gnome 43, 44 and 45, MATE, Cinnamon, plus independent projects such as Guvcview, Thunderbird and Firefox.
Ubuntu Budgie 23.10 uses the Cinnamon desktop's Nemo file manager, in place of the standard Gnome file manager, Nautilus. Nemo looks good and works just fine, but is missing integral bulk file renaming, which is a fairly important feature for a file manager to still be lacking today. Adding a stand-alone bulk file renamer, like GPRename would be a good way to address that.
Ubuntu Budgie 23.10 includes the LibreOffice 7.6.2 office suite, which is complete, except for LibreOffice Base, the database program. It is probably the least-used part of LibreOffice, but it can be installed if desired.
Conclusions
Ubuntu Budgie continues to appeal to users looking for a distribution with a more classic menu system and in that regard is really competing with Kubuntu 23.10 and Xubuntu 23.10.
Ubuntu Budgie 23.10 is a nice, solid release; it looks good and it works well. Its only fault is really its highly scattered user settings. It will be interesting to see if the current fast pace of changes continues right into the LTS release, Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS, which is expected on .
There are two things that developers behind a Linux distribution can do to help out software reviewers and make it easier for us to tell the story of their latest release. The first one is to provide a screenshot tool in the default ISO file and the second one is to provide release notes with a list of what is new, so we can check over the changes and report on them. At least Ubuntu Unity 23.10 has a screenshot tool....
Out on , Ubuntu Unity 23.10 is this distribution's eighth release. It is the third and final interim release in this development cycle, before the the next LTS version, Ubuntu Unity 24.04 LTS, comes out on .
Because it is an interim release, 23.10 is only supported for nine months, until .
Installation
I downloaded the Ubuntu Unity 23.10 ISO file from the official source using Transmission, via BitTorrent. I ran a command line SHA256 sum check on the file and verified it was all correct and not corrupted.
I tested it from a live session, from a USB stick equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96. Even though it is not officially listed as supported by Ventoy, it booted up just fine.
The Ubuntu Unity 23.10 ISO file was a 3.5 GB download, a 200 MB increase from the last release's 3.3 GB, but still considerably smaller than the mainstream Ubuntu 23.10 which was 5.2 GB.
System requirements
Ubuntu Unity does not specify any system requirements, but it is probably safe to assume that it is the same as Ubuntu 23.10, a minimum of:
2 GHz dual core processor
4 GB of RAM
New
According to the release announcement the development team has been spending the last six months working on three things, none of which are included in this release. The first is a move to replace the Nux OpenGL toolkit in the next version of Unity, currently referred to as UnityX. Apparently Nux is preventing switching to the Wayland display server, instead of the current workaround of using XWayland. Ubuntu Unity 23.10 uses Unity 7.7.0, the same as Ubuntu Unity 23.04 did. Second, there is work underway to allow Lomiri to work on Ubuntu Unity, but despite being forecast to be out on release day, , it was not ready, due to some application launcher bugs. Lomiri was formerly known as Unity 8 and is currently developed by UBPorts as part of Ubuntu Touch for phones. The third project underway is noted as "adding support for CUPS 2.0 in Unity (printing), which has now been pushed back by Ubuntu to 24.04." Since this release uses CUPS 2.4.2 and even the very first Ubuntu Unity 20.04 LTS used CUPS 2.3.1, it is not clear what that project is about.
Otherwise the release announcement seems to imply that Ubuntu Unity 23.10 brings no changes at all over 23.04, beyond the usual upstream inputs, such as new repository application versions, Linux kernel version 6.5 and the Systemd 253.5 initialization system. A lack of any distribution-level changes is not necessarily a bad thing. It may just indicate that the developers are happy with where things are for this release and also for the upcoming spring LTS version. Given that Ubuntu Unity 22.10 and Ubuntu Unity 22.04 LTS both introduced a dizzying array of unexplained applications switches, this new default application suite stability is much more reassuring.
Continuing to employ Unity 7.7.0, which was first used in 23.04, means that the menus are still in portrait mode, using only half the screen and often requiring scrolling. As I noted in my look at Ubuntu Unity 23.04 this still seems like a sub-optimal use of screen space. Unity 7.7.0 also uses the indicator-notification system, which I still find intrusive and annoying, compared to other Linux notification systems.
The balance of the release announcement is used to advertise the Ubuntu Unity merchandise shop at HelloTux, which was introduced in the 23.04 release announcement.
Settings
In this release the settings are once again spread out between the regular settings menu, the panel brush icon and the included Unity Tweak Tool, but once you find them, the settings all work just fine. Once again the Unity Tweak Tool offers four window themes: Ambiance, Radiance, Yaru and Yaru-dark, plus 36 icon themes and six cursor styles. The regular settings menu has only two window themes, Yaru and Yaru-dark, as does the panel brush icon, which is intended for quick changes. Both the settings menu and brush icon now have 20 accent colours to chose from, an increase of ten over the last release.
For this release, code named "Mantic Minotaur", there is a new default Minotaur wallpaper. Also provided are 19 other wallpapers, 13 of which have Minotaurs on them. If you want something less Minotaur, you can always use your own wallpaper.
Ubuntu Unity continues to offer a high degree of user customization, setting it apart from mainstream Ubuntu, which has very limited choices in that regard.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Ubuntu Unity 23.10 are:
* indicates same application version as used in Ubuntu Unity 23.04 ** supplied as a snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
As noted, the default applications provided with 23.10 have not changed in this release. The mix of applications mostly come from the Gnome and Mate desktops, with some, like the VLC media player and the Thunderbird email client, from outside projects.
Like 23.04, Ubuntu Unity 23.10 is still using the PulseAudio audio controller and, unlike all the other Ubuntu flavours, has not yet switched to PipeWire.
The file manager is still Nemo from the Cinnamon desktop environment. Nemo works fine, but still lacks bulk file renaming. Adding a stand-alone bulk file renamer, like GPRename would rectify that.
LibreOffice 7.6.2 is once again supplied complete, lacking only the LibreOffice Base database application, which can also be installed from the Ubuntu repositories, if needed.
Conclusions
Ubuntu Unity 23.10 is a solid release with a lot going for it. The development team seems to have stabilized the list of default applications included, which is a good move. The Unity interface works well and is smooth and easy to use. Ubuntu Unity also has a very wide range of user customization, perhaps only second to Kubuntu.
As the last of three interim releases and with no real changes incorporated, that seems to point to Ubuntu Unity 24.04 LTS, scheduled for , being very similar to 23.10, but with three years of support. That should add up to some happy Ubuntu Unity users.
When can we expect Lomiri and UnityX? Perhaps during the next development cycle?
Out on , Kubuntu 23.10 is the final one of the three interim releases leading to the next LTS version, Kubuntu 24.04 LTS, due out on . As an interim releaase 23.10 is supported for just nine months, until .
This is the distribution's 38th release and the 17th with the KDE project's Qt-based Plasma 5 desktop, so this is really a very mature project and probably the Ubuntu derivative with the most enthusiastic and dedicated user base.
What is new in this release? Like the last two interim releases, the answer is "not a lot". That is not necessary a bad thing, though. That dedicated Kubuntu fan base are pretty happy with Kubuntu and don't see a lot of need for changes and the developers seem to be in tune with that user sentiment.
Installation
I downloaded the ISO file via BitTorrent from the official source and ran an SHA256 sum check from the command line, to confirm that the file was good, which it was.
An anomaly in this period when Ubuntu family downloads are getting steadily bigger, this ISO file is 3.9 GB, compared to 5.0 GB for the last release, Kubuntu 23.04. It isn't clear why this release is 28% smaller, as nothing critical seems to have been removed. That said, smaller downloads are a good thing.
I dropped the ISO file onto a USB stick equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96, booted it up and it worked perfectly.
The one live session anomaly is that the session goes into screen lock after a few minutes of inactivity and demands a password. An extensive search of the Kubuntu website and indeed, the whole internet, finds that no one seems to know what it is. You have to reboot to get back into the live session and will lose your reviewer screenshots. I did, so be warned!
25 GB of hard-drive, USB stick, memory card or external drive space
Screen capable of 1024x768 pixel screen resolution
Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installation media
Internet access is useful, but not essential
That recommended 4 GB of RAM is probably less than ideal for web browsing and 8 GB is probably a more realistic amount.
New
Pretty much every new Kubuntu release gets a new default wallpaper, but not 23.10. This release sticks with the default wallpaper from 23.04, Mountain by Andy Betts. While it is a nice enough wallpaper, it kind of begs the question if this is really a way of saying "we are really not changing anything in this release". There are a total of 35 wallpapers provided, many from past Kubuntu releases, so if you have a recent favourite it is probably there. Given that the code name for the 23.10 Ubuntu family of releases is "Mantic Minotaur", at least there are no Minotaur wallpapers.
Kubuntu 23.10 uses the Qt 5.15.10 toolkit, KDE Frameworks 5.110, with updated applications from KDE Gear 23.08 and the KDE Plasma 5.27.8 desktop, which is a bugfix update. KDE Plasma 5.27.8 does include some refinements to hybrid sleep and improved monitoring of NVIDIA GPUs on multi-GPU setups, using the Plasma System Monitor. Like all the Ubuntu 23.10 family of releases, Kubuntu 23.10 comes with Linux kernel 6.5 and Systemd 253.5 as its initialization system.
Plasma 5.27.8 will probably be the last of the Plasma 5 desktop, as Plasma 6 is scheduled for release in . It will be interesting to see which Plasma version ends up being included in the LTS release.
Kubuntu still has Wayland on test and so this release continues to use the X.org display server instead. The release notes do state, "a Plasma Wayland session is available for testing, but is not supported. A Wayland session can be started by selecting it at the login screen."
Settings
Kubuntu remains the most user customizable distribution of the Ubuntu-based Linux distributions and probably will be, at least until the next version of Pop!_OS comes out, which may give it some competition. As has been the case for quite a few releases, in Kubuntu 23.10 there are still four global themes, four application styles, six Plasma styles, five window colours, two window decoration styles, eight icon sets and eight cursor styles and those are just the list of installed options, as most of the settings pages have one-button downloads for lots more options. Kubuntu remains an embarrassment of riches in terms of choices, which is probably a factor in its popularity.
Kubuntu 23.10 also offers 68 pre-installed desktop widgets, the same number as in the last release. Widgets are small applications that can be added to your desktop to improve functionality, like clocks and weather reports. Hundreds more of them can be downloaded, too, with the main hazard being the resulting desktop clutter.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Kubuntu 23.10 are:
* indicates same application version as used in Kubuntu 23.04 ** supplied as a snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
As usual the lack of asterisks shows that almost all of the applications included are updated versions from KDE Gear 23.08.1.
Like all the Ubuntu official derivatives, starting with the 23.04 release Kubuntu stopped offering the ability to install Flatpak applications by default, to use debs and snaps instead, as per the Ubuntu policy. However, the release notes continue to detail how to enable Flatpak applications, for anyone who wants them instead.
As in past releases, Kubuntu 23.10 does not include a webcam application, an image editor or video editor by default, although there are many options in the repositories, if needed. KDE's Qt-based Kdenlive remains probably the best choice in a video editor.
One application improvement is that the Gwenview 23.08.1 image viewer can now read the GIMP image editor's native .xcf file format.
LibreOffice 7.6.2 is once again supplied complete, lacking only LibreOffice Base, the office suite's database application. Base is probably the least used component of the suite, but it can be added from the repositories, if required.
Conclusions
Kubuntu 23.10 seems to be another solid release of this popular Linux distribution. This third and final interim release of the development cycle indicates that the LTS release will probably be very similar to Kubuntu 23.10, with just a few small changes, plus three years of support. Overall I think the lack of major changes will be news that will keep Kubuntu fans happy.
Xubuntu 23.10 was released on . This is the third and final interim release (or as the Xubuntu release announcement calls it "regular release") in this development cycle. Next up will be the LTS release, Xubuntu 24.04 LTS, due out on .
This is Xubuntu's 36th release and, as it is an interim release, it is only supported for nine months, until .
All three interim releases in this cycle have brought only small changes, so it is probably a good guess that the LTS will not suddenly add a lot that is new when it comes out.
Overall these conservative release cycles with just little incremental changes are a good thing. It shows that the developers think that Xubuntu is working well and doesn't need a lot of major changes and that approach will keep the users happy as well. Most Xubuntu users are pretty dedicated to this Linux distribution and like it the way it is.
Installation
I downloaded Xubuntu 23.10 from the official source via BitTorrent, using Transmission and then carried out an SHA256 sum check on it from the command line to ensure I had a good download.
This Xubuntu release is 3.2 GB in size, slight bigger than the last release, Xubuntu 23.04 at 3.0 GB. This compares to 2.8 GB for Xubuntu 22.10 and 2.3 GB for the one before that, Xubuntu 22.04 LTS, so they are getting bigger over time, but as not quickly as mainstream Ubuntu 23.10, which is now a 5.2 GB download!
I tested Xubuntu 23.10 from a USB stick equipped with Ventoy 1.0.96, by dropping the ISO file onto the stick. Ventoy takes care of the rest at boot-up, making testing Linux distributions very easy.
Two GB of RAM will quickly be used up by Firefox all by itself, with just a few tabs open, and so 8 GB of RAM is probably a more realistic minimum for decent performance these days. More RAM is always better!
New
Xubuntu 23.10 uses the GTK-based Xfce 4.18 desktop, with some components from Gnome 45 and Mate 1.26. This desktop includes some appearance upgrades and fixes. The Linux kernel is version 6.5 and the initialization system is Systemd 253.5. PipeWire audio, with libspa-0.2-bluetooth improves support for Bluetooth headphones, while touchpads are better supported due to the removal of xserver-xorg-input-synaptics.
The newly added colour emoji application works with Firefox, Thunderbird and other newer GTK applications, including the Xfce Mousepad text editor. It can be accessed in any composing application with Ctrl+. (that is Ctrl plus the period key). This could be a really useful feature if you like inserting emojis everywhere.
The screensaver has improved integration and stability. The desktop itself should also be more stable and responsive, due to updates in the associated library files. Xubuntu's default image viewer, Ristretto, now has support for printing. The Xfce4 Screenshooter screenshot tool now has support for AVIF and JPEG XL image formats.
Settings
This new version of Xubuntu once again uses Greybird as the default window colour scheme, although in an upgraded version. There are still a total of six window themes provided in the "Appearance" manager: Adwaita, Adwaita-dark, Greybird, Greybird-dark, High Contrast and Numix. The separate Window Manager also has 11 window themes: Daloa, Default-hdpi, Default-xhdpi, Greybird, Greybird-accessibility, Greybird-compact, Greybird-dark, Greybird-dark-accessibility, Kokodi, Moheli and Numix. Oddly some of those themes with the same names in two different places are the same themes, while some are quite different. There is also a choice of eight icon themes, the same as in the last release, with Elementary Xfce Darker as the default.
The default Xubuntu 23.10 wallpaper is a bit of a modernist abstract design, but is that really a guitar pick? There are also 11 other wallpapers provided, plus all the old release wallpapers are now available in repository packages for installation as well, in case you have a long lost, old favourite. Even though this release is code named "Mantic Minotaur", thankfully there are no Minotaur-themed wallpapers.
Just like all Xubuntu releases since 14.04 LTS, this one employs the Whisker Menu as its menu system. Whisker is the main feature that makes Xubuntu distinctive from the other Ubuntu flavours. The Whisker Menu is highly customizable and can even be resized, which remains almost unique among Linux menus, which the exception of Ubuntu Cinnamon.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Xubuntu 23.10 are:
* indicates same application version as used in Xubuntu 23.04 ** supplied as a snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
Once again, there have been no changes to the default list of applications included in this release, just newer versions provided, many with improved capabilities or at least bug fixes. As in recent Xubuntu releases, there is no default webcam or video editing application, although there are several in the repositories that can be installed. Xubuntu remains almost unique in the Ubuntu family in providing the GIMP image editor in the default installation (as does Ubuntu Cinnamon).
Xubuntu 23.10 includes LibreOffice 7.6.2, which is, as usual, lacking only LibreOffice Base, the database application, which can easily be installed, if needed.
Overall the list of default applications is very complete and comes with pretty much everything that any new Linux user just starting out could want. For more experienced users who want a lot fewer applications pre-installed, there is the Xubuntu Minimal (formerly called Xubuntu Core) download available, instead. It is only 1.7 GB in size, so just 57% of the full desktop download. That minimal installation approach has been successful enough that the Ubuntu project has adopted it as well, calling it their "default installation", with a "full installation" optional.
Conclusions
Xubuntu 23.10 is pretty much a flawless release, with just just a few small refinements over 23.04. While there are some enticements included for users to upgrade, like better Bluetooth headphone support or upgraded hardware support from the new Linux kernel, I am sure most users will wait to upgrade until the next LTS version, Xubunu 24.04 LTS, comes out in six months, in .
Lubuntu 23.10 was released on . This is the 11th LXQt release for Lubuntu and the 28th overall Lubuntu release. As an interim release, Lubuntu 23.10 is supported for nine months, until .
This is the final interim release of three, leading to the next LTS version, which will be Lubuntu 24.04 LTS, due out on .
The three interim releases that make up this development cycle have only introduced a few very minor changes, so this all indicates that the upcoming LTS will look a lot like the last LTS, with just a few tweaks. Overall this is not a bad thing. Most Lubuntu users seem to like the way it works and don't see any big need for changes.
Lubuntu remains true to its vision of being a good relatively lightweight, but full-featured, menu-driven desktop.
Installation
I downloaded Lubuntu 23.10 via BitTorrent from the official source and did a command line SHA256 sum check on it to make sure it was good. I then booted it up using Ventoy 1.0.96 on a USB stick, which worked perfectly, as always.
The Lubuntu 23.10 ISO file is 3.0 GB to download, while 23.04 was 2.9 GB in size, Lubuntu 22.10 was 2.7 GB and Lubuntu 22.04 LTS was 2.5 GB, so they are getting noticeably bigger over time. For comparison, the latest mainstream Ubuntu 23.10 release is 5.2 GB to download, though.
System requirements
Since the release of Lubuntu 18.10 the project announced that it would no longer publish any minimum system requirements.
New
There is not much new to report in this release. The desktop has moved up to LXQt 1.3.0, which is based on the Qt 5.15 toolkit. Work has begun on Qt 6 basing, but the lack of a stable version of KF6 has delayed this. Visually 23.10 looks the same as all the other recent LXQt releases and uses the same Lubuntu Arc default theme with ePapirus icons. The new file manager version, PCManFM-Qt 1.3.0, has some bug fixes included, as does the terminal emulator, QTerminal 1.3.0.
The included Linux kernel is version 6.5 and Systemd 253.5 is the initialization system.
The default Lubuntu 23.10 Mantic Minotaur wallpaper features a Minotaur and labyrinth and was designed by Walter Lapchynski, with help from Erich Eickmeyer of Ubuntu Studio. There are also 10 other wallpapers included, many from recent Lubuntu releases. As well there are 19 window themes, 13 icon themes, 12 LXQt themes, two cursor themes and eight GTK3 and GTK2 themes, providing a really wide range of user customization choices.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Lubuntu 23.10 are:
* Indicates the same version as used in Lubuntu 23.04 ** supplied as a snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
Other than updated versions, there have been no changes to the suite of applications provided in Lubuntu 23.10.
As in previous LXQt releases, Lubuntu 23.10 does not come with a webcam application, email client, CD/DVD burner, photo editor or video editor, although these can be easily added from the repositories, if needed.
The Lubuntu installer remains Calamares 3.3 Alpha 2 which has been used since Lubuntu 22.10. The developers report it works well so there is not much motivation to mess with it, which is always a good philosophy.
Conclusions
This third and final interim release of the Lubuntu development cycle only introduces a few small behind-the-scenes changes that few users will notice. Overall I think that this is good news for Lubuntu users, who don't seem to be clamouring for changes right now for their favourite distribution. That also means that there are very few reasons to upgrade to this release, unless you need a newer Linux kernel version for hardware support. All indications are that the next LTS version, Lubuntu 24.04 LTS, due out in , will be very similar to 23.10, just with three years of support included.
Ubuntu 23.10 is the final of three interim releases, all leading to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, which is due out on .
Ubuntu 23.10 was released on schedule, on and then quickly withdrawn due to a malicious Ukrainian translation issue in the installer, apparently some propaganda was included. I was lucky to get a copy quickly via BitTorrent, before it was gone, as it was only posted again for download on , as Ubuntu 23.10.1.
This is Ubuntu's 39th release and the 13th since the switch to its current modified Gnome 3 desktop, so it is a pretty mature operating system. As an interim release, Ubuntu 23.10 is supported for nine months, until .
Up until this release, this release cycle had just brought some small, incremental changes, but with this final interim release as the last chance to try out anything new before the upcoming LTS, it looks like the Ubuntu developers have jumped on that opportunity, as this release adds many changes.
This release is code named Mantic Minotaur and so, predictably, there is new Minotaur and maze-themed default wallpaper. This is not the first Ubuntu release to be named for a mythic beast, as we have previously seen Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn and Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf. It is worth noting that "mantic" means having the power of divination or prophesy. There are a total of 14 wallpapers provided and ten of them have Minotaurs on them.
This is actually the second Ubuntu release with an "M" code name, the previous one being Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, which was released on , 13 years ago.
Installation
I downloaded Ubuntu 23.10 from the official source using BitTorrent and carried out an SHA256 sum check to ensure that the ISO file download was good.
This release has once again grown, this time to 5.2 GB, which is 6% bigger than Ubuntu 23.04's 4.9 GB. Each release seems to get bigger and bigger for reasons that are not clear. This release is now 35% bigger than the last LTS and overall Ubuntu has now almost doubled in size in the two years since Ubuntu 21.10, which was 2.9 GB.
I did not install Ubuntu 23.10 on my hard drive, and instead tested it from a USB stick, using Ventoy 1.0.96, which worked perfectly.
25 GB of hard-drive, USB stick, memory card or external drive space
Screen capable of 1024x768 pixel screen resolution
Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installation media
Internet access is useful, but not essential
This means that Ubuntu 23.10 should run fine on hardware designed for Windows 7 or later, although I would suggest at least 8 GB of RAM as a working minimum.
New
There are so many things new in this release, that I am just going to present them in two lists.
First, these are the changes that desktop users will notice:
Gnome 45.0 desktop, including updated applications
The Ubuntu Desktop default installation is the former minimal installation, which only includes the Firefox web browser, Gnome Text Editor and Gnome Terminal, plus the App Center to install more software. There is still an full installation option, for those who prefer to have applications like LibreOffice and Thunderbird installed at first boot.
A new workspace indicator in the top left of the screen, which replaces the previous "activities" menu.
Expanded window tiling capabilities.
These are more "behind the scenes" changes that desktop users will probably not notice:
TPM-backed full-disk encryption (FDE) is introduced as an experimental feature
Support for Raspberry Pi 5 and SiFive HiFive Pro P550
Netplan 0.107 networking configuration tool
Docker 24.0.5 with Docker plugins, docker-buildx and docker-compose-v2
Linux kernel 6.5
systemd 253.5 init system
Mesa 23.2 graphics drivers
GCC 13.2.0
binutils 2.41
glibc 2.38
Python 3.11.6, with 3.12.0 is available in the archive
Perl 5.36.0
LLVM 16, with 17 is available in the archive
Rust 1.71
OpenJDK 17, OpenJDK 21 is now provided
.NET 7 packages were updated to 7.0.110, and .NET 6 packages were updated to 6.0.121
Go 1.21
BlueZ 5.68
Cairo 1.18
NetworkManager 1.44
Pipewire 0.3.79 audio
Poppler 23.08
xdg-desktop-portal 1.18
Support for ZFS guided installations
Updated Ubuntu fonts
Many security improvements, including requiring programs to have an AppArmor profile
The documentation that accompanied the release of Ubuntu 23.10 included some absolutely cringe-worth PR writing. It is a bit scary that Canonical allows writing this bad to be published under their name, in this case by Product Manager Oliver Smith:
The standout new feature of Ubuntu Desktop 23.10 has to be the new App Center, which replaces Ubuntu Software for users going forward. Combined with the new installer, these two apps give us a much deeper level of ownership of the first time user experience on Ubuntu Desktop and a strong base to iterate on going forward.
The actual developers must be laughing their asses off reading that garbage.
Applications
The Ubuntu 23.10 ISO file actually boots up to the full installation and not just the minimal default installation. This means that the full suite of applications is present in the ISO, but does not install under the default installation, which is a bit odd. You would think that the developers would have used this decision to save a bunch of disk space, but apparently not, as there was concern that new users would get confused. There was a lot of developer debate on how to handle this and the result seems to be a compromise and so you get a huge download and a minimal installation. I actually am in favour of minimal installations for Linux distributions in general, as these allow users to add the applications they want and not have to spend any time removing clutter that they don't want. A nice side effect of this should be a much smaller ISO download, however. In this case, in many ways, the final result here is the worst of both worlds.
Some of the applications included with Ubuntu 23.10 expanded installation are:
* indicates same application version as used in Ubuntu 23.04 ** supplied as a snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager *** indicates included on the ISO for boot-up, but not included in a full installation
As can be seen, the application collection is a mix of versions, but mostly from Gnome 45, with a few Gnome 43 and 44 holdovers. As noted, the addition of Gnome Clocks and the rewritten App Center are the only changes to the suite of applications.
The App Center is a worthwhile update. It is actually just a rewrite of the Snap Store using Flutter, but it does work better. It is faster, lighter and best of all, now allows finding both Snaps and Deb files, which are the preferred combination on Ubuntu today.
The Files 45 RC (Nautilus) file manager now has improved performance, loading and displaying files more quickly, including generating faster thumbnails.
The Firefox web browser is still a Snap package, but now works in Wayland mode by default, instead of Xwayland, meaning that rendering is much more clear and sharp, plus it has full touchscreen support.
Conclusions
Ubuntu 23.04 is a nice, solid release, that brings a large number of small changes at the "last minute" of this release cycle, just before the next LTS release, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, comes out in . Over the whole release cycle, these changes all add up to my prediction that the spring's LTS is going to look a lot like Ubuntu 23.10, with a long list of small improvements, along with five years of support.
MiniOS is both a new and an old Linux distribution. Originally introduced in , it was a Mandriva-based distribution that was intended to be run from a USB stick. It lasted four years until and came to an end when Mandriva did. Resurrected as a concept some seven years later, in , it is now based on Debian, instead. It is billed as "lightweight and fast".
With no DistroWatch page or reviews in the tech press, there are some holes in what we know about this relatively new distribution, for instance who is behind it? It does seem from the GitHub pages that it is just one anonymous developer. That can be important, because if it is only one person the distribution may just end without warning, which is less of a risk with a bigger team. Also missing are sha256 sums and minimum system requirements.
We do know that it comes in six different editions:
Flux - a very lightweight version using Fluxbox, only minimal software and no browser, 32 and 64 bit, around 355 MB
Minimum - based on an older version of Debian, with the Xfce desktop and minimal software included, 32 and 64 bit, around 375 MB to download
Standard - a few more features and a more up to date version of Debian, Xfce desktop, 32 and 64 bit, around 560 MB
Maximum - a more complete desktop, including office and media player software, 64 bit only, around 695 MB
Ultra - includes virtualization and 3D modelling software, 64 bit only, around 1370 MB
Puzzle - a system builder version that offers modular additions, 64 bit only, 530 MB or 1660 MB
One of the main features of MiniOS is its use of system configuration modules. These allow easy system customization, including preferences and programs, and allows MiniOS to be run as a live distribution from a USB stick with saved preferences, as an alternative to being installed on a hard drive.
Installation
I downloaded two versions of MiniOS, Minimum and Standard, so I could compare them and also see how they stack up to other live USB distributions, like Puppy Linux and SliTaz. I got both from the official website using HTTP, since there are no BitTorrent downloads. There do not seem to be any SHA256 sums, or even MD5 sums, to use to check to ensure that the ISO file download is good. This is a serious oversight.
The Minimum version, MiniOS Buster Xfce Minimum amd 64 20230815_1045 is based on Debian 10.0 Buster which was released in , more than four years ago. I am not sure why such an old version is offered, as not only is the Xfce desktop old, but all the applications in the repositories are, too. For instance the version of LibreOffice offered for installation is version 6.1.5, whereas the current version today is 7.6.2. Overall, the Minimum version is a bit of a museum piece and was a 391 MB download. It is possible that it is being retained as a smaller-sized alternative than more modern Debian versions.
I also got MiniOS Bookworm Xfce Standard amd 64 20230815_1122, which is based on the much more recent Debian 12.0 Bookworm, from . It weighed in at 596 MB for download. Being based on the current Debian version, all the application versions are much more up-to-date as well.
I tested both versions from a USB stick, using Ventoy 1.0.95, which worked perfectly. MiniOS is not officially listed as having been tested and supported by Ventoy, but MiniOS claims they work and both do. They also note it can be booted from Rufus, UNetbootin, BalenaEtcher and others, too. MiniOS supports EFI and legacy BIOS boot. It comes with its own hard drive installer, which offers a choice of file systems, including btrfs, ext 2, 3 or 4, fat32 and ntfs. Not sure I have ever seen a Linux system running on those last two!
System requirements
None that I could find listed.
Settings
With both using the Debian Xfce desktop, MiniOS Minimum and Standard have normal Xfce settings.
Minimum includes only two green wallpapers, both MiniOS branded, one with the logo and one without. It also has two window themes, Greybird and Raleigh, which makes it look like Windows 98. It has four icon sets: elementary Xfce, dark, darker and darkest, with dark as the default. These are fine, although, yes, minimal.
Standard comes with a few more choices, including 39 wallpapers, all MiniOS themed. It also has only two window themes: Greybird and Greybird-dark.
Applications
MiniOS Minimum includes the rather old version of Xfce 4.12 from Debian Buster. The applications included are:
Firefox 102.14.0 ESR - web browser
Htop 2.2.0 - system monitor
Mousepad 0.4.1 - text editor
Ristretto 0.8.3 - image viewer
Thunar 1.8.4 - file browser
Thunar Bulk rename 1.8.4 - file renamer
Xarchiver 0.5.4.14 - file archiver
Xterm 344-1 - terminal emulator
This is certainly pretty minimal, with no office software, email client or webcam application, not to mention no BitTorrent client, photo or movie editor, video or audio player, nor even a PDF reader. Overall that is a not a bad approach, as you can add what you need and don't have to remove a bunch of unwanted applications.
One of the things it is really missing is any sort of graphical software management system or software store. Being Debian-based, I found that APT worked from the command line and once the updates and upgrades were run it connected to the Debian repositories and offered everything normally found there, like Chromium, LibreOffice, Synaptic and GIMP. The updates also downloaded drivers, including for the wireless card, which was initially missing. One annoyance for software reviewers was that it was also missing the Xfce screenshot tool, xfce-screenshooter, but I was able to install version 1.9.3 from the Debian repositories and use it to get some screenshots. The menu system is the old basic Xfce menu.
MiniOS Standard is based on the current Debian version, Bookworm, adds some elements to the basics found in Minimum, including the more modern Xfce 4.18 desktop. The additional applications included are only:
xfce4-screenshooter 1.10.3 - screenshot tool
Remmina 1.4.2.9 - remote desktop client
The inclusion of the screenshot tool was appreciated, but there is still no graphical software management by default, however. Again by running updates and upgrades from the command line with APT, I was able to install Synaptic. The included menu system is the popular Whisker menu.
Because both these versions require command line skills, at least at the level of MiniOS Minimum and Standard, these are not really distributions for beginners. Otherwise they work reasonably well and provide a fairly functional, if vanilla, Debian Xfce experience.
There is some documentation available, but it is pretty minimal, leaving users to rely on the official telegram channel or GitHub forum for support, although they seem to not be used much. There is also the Debian documentation, which is much more detailed and may be helpful.
It is tempting to compare MiniOS to other lightweight live distributions like Puppy Linux or Slitaz, but both of those are actually lighter and more full-featured out of the box. MiniOS is really more similar to SpiralLinux, as a more friendly, prepackaged version of Debian.
Conclusions
Overall MiniOS gives a nice, simple Debian Xfce experience. In its lighter weight versions it is fairly minimalist, but can be added to and customized for daily use and run from either a USB or a full installation. Because of its reliance on more advanced skills and its skimpy documentation, MiniOS is really not aimed at beginners, but may hold some appeal for more advanced Linux users.
I am not sure what the user case for the Minimum version is, just due to it being three Debian versions out-of-date. Unless you are really space constrained, I would suggest starting with at least the Standard version, which uses the current Debian release and building it up from there.
On I switched my System76 Galago Pro Laptop over to Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. I had been running Ubuntu for a year, since and had become more and more dissatisfied with it over time, particularly with the dock behaviour and the snap version of Firefox, plus some software issues with the touchpad buttons and thought Pop!_OS might solve all those issues, as it was designed for my laptop's hardware. I thought this might be a good opportunity to review Pop!_OS 22.04, while I was learning it.
Pop!_OS 22.04 is the latest release, but it does date from , which is 16 months ago. Needless to say there were a lot of updates to install!
This is Pop!_OS's 10th release and the third with the COSMIC (Computer Operating System Main Interface Components) desktop. Based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, this is also a "long term support" (LTS) release, apparently supported for two years years, until . The lead POP!_OS developer, Aaron Murphy, has made 22.04 LTS the last release for a while, as the team works on the upcoming Rust-based COSMIC DE for the next release, so, unlike with Ubuntu, there will be no "interim releases" for now. The next release, with the COSMIC DE, may turn out to be 24.04 LTS, which should be here in .
While Pop!_OS is developed by System76 and is aimed at their own retail hardware, it is not your typical vendor "marketing distribution" operating system, like Apple's MacOS is. Pop!_OS is free software and is publicly available as a free download for use on any compatible, 64-bit computer. I am guessing that by freely allowing anyone to install and use it that the company hopes it will lead to increased hardware sales, or at least some positive PR exposure. In fact, that is already happening, as FOSSpost named it the Best Linux Distribution of 2022.
Installation
I downloaded Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS back when it was newly released, from the official source using HTTP, since there are no BitTorrent downloads. I carried out an SHA256 sum check to ensure that the ISO file download was good.
Even though it is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, this release is a significantly smaller download than Ubuntu. Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS weighs in at 2.48 GB for the vanilla version, (2.97 GB for the NVidia version and 2.41 for Rasberry Pi), compared to 3.4 GB for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and 4.9 GB for the current Ubuntu release, Ubuntu 23.04. That makes it half the size of Ubuntu 23.04!
I tested Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS from a USB stick and then installed it on my hard drive, using Ventoy 1.0.91, which worked perfectly. That was expected, though, as Pop!_OS is listed as having been tested and supported by Ventoy.
The installation went very smoothly, with no issues seen. It is worth noting that the Pop!_OS installer uses disk encryption by default, but does not offer dual booting options. I have never been a fan of dual booting anyway; I figure if you are "in" you are in.
In my testing I found a fresh reboot with nothing open was using 3.9 GB and a normal load of applications open was using 9.5 GB of RAM, so 4 GB is really unrealistically low. This compares to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS which has an idle RAM of 1.3 GB.
New
This Pop!_OS release has quite a few new features over the last release, Pop!_OS 21.10 and over my last review, which was Pop!_OS 21.04.
New in this release are:
a Settings support panel to connect users to System76 forums and tickets
light and dark window themes
enhanced CPU performance with the System76 Scheduler
an improved Pop!_Shop software store
the audio controller is now PipeWire instead of PulseAudio
a new robot-themed user icon.
This release started out with the Linux 5.16.19 kernel, but my installation upgraded to the 6.2.6 kernel.
Like Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, the initialization system for Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS is systemd 249.11. Unlike Ubuntu, which is now using Wayland as its display server, Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS still uses X.org, although the future COSMIC DE will shift to Wayland.
The COSMIC desktop
The COSMIC desktop as used in Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS is well thought out and very functional. Unlike Ubuntu, which really has an enterprise or business focus, Pop!_OS is aimed at software developers and gamers, so it is pretty geeky and quite customizable.
In 22.04 LTS, the COSMIC desktop is based on Gnome 41 and 42, but quite modified from the stock Gnome or even the Ubuntu experience and is expected to become more modified over time, too, with the "rolling-style updates" System76 sends out. Of course the upcoming Rust-based COSMIC DE in a future release will take the Pop!_OS desktop even further from Gnome, into something quite different, as well as hopefully lighter and faster.
COSMIC has its own set of unique keyboard shortcuts, including:
Super – launcher
Super / – launcher
Super D – workspaces
Super A – applications
Super F – Nautilus file manager
Super T - Gnome Terminal
Super V - Calendar and notifications
Super Esc – lock the desktop
Using the settings → keyboard → keyboard shortcuts input, I created my own keyboard shortcut:
Super Z - hide all windows (ie show desktop)
COSMIC breaks the usual Gnome menus down into three different ones: applications, workspaces and the launcher. The launcher is where you will find all running applications, can search for any installed application or document (using ?+file search, or just type in "find" and the document's name). In fact as a file search the COSMIC launcher works better than the one in Ubuntu. In Ubuntu it only finds recently opened documents, while in Pop!_OS it can find any document, which is a great improvement. Once you get used to it, this system of three menus works very quickly, especially using the keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures. The latter includes four finger left swipe for workspaces, right for applications and down for next workspace. There are top panel buttons for these as well, but they can be removed in settings to reduce clutter.
COSMIC also has fairly sophisticated window tiling capabilities for people who like that sort of thing and have bigger screens. Tiling is not really that useful on a small laptop screen.
So far I have noted that Pop!_OS seems to give better battery life, by perhaps as much as 20% over Ubuntu, giving as much as 5:30 in battery life.
Settings
The Pop!_OS Settings are worth mentioning. Based on the Gnome Settings GUI, in Pop!_OS it is greatly expanded with many new options and all gathered on one place, too. It is quite exemplary, especially compared to some distributions, like Lubuntu and Ubuntu Budgie, which both have rather dispersed settings.
Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS offers users a lot of customization in some areas and less in others. For instance the dock is almost infinitely adjustable for size, location and how it works, while there are only two window colour themes in the settings. The light theme has a dark brown window top, while the dark one is black. Both use light blue highlighting. Gnome Tweaks offers up a total of six window themes, including Pop light and dark, plus Adwaita, Adwaita-dark, High Contrast and High Contrast Inverse. Gnome Tweaks tends to be balky when selecting window themes and often gets stuck on one theme when clicking around trying them out, requiring a system reboot. If you just choose one theme and leave it, it works, though.
There are 53 wallpapers included, all of them System76 custom ones. The default one was a bit too bright for me, but I found some better ones provided and eventually made up my own wallpaper.
I found the default system fonts a bit small, as they were set to 10 or 11 pt, so, as suggested in the Pop!_OS documentation, I installed Gnome Tweaks and then just bumped them up a bit to 13 pt, which was a great improvement for visibility, but caused some related problems. As the Pop!_OS documentation warned: "Be aware that many applications are designed with default fonts. Changing these fonts may result in unwanted positioning and sizing of text in application labels." Indeed, with the fonts increased in size the right-click spellchecking menu in Firefox often overlapped the top panel and would not allow selecting the top item on the list, which, of course, is usually the one you want. I tried setting the font sizes back and also reducing the font zoom, but nothing worked, it stayed broken. After having to do a complete system re-installation on due to a frozen pointer, this time I just selected "large text" in Settings → Accessibility, but did not change the fonts in Gnome Tweaks and this problem was mostly solved, with only a few instances of menu overlap encountered.
I also used Gnome Tweaks to pick a more toned down icon set, a new window colour theme, turn off double clicking on window title bars for maximizing and set day of the week to show on the top panel.
I also went though the settings menu and made some changes, such as large text → on, time format → 24 hour clock, show battery percentage and so on. Lots of choices there.
For me, the best settings included are being able to turn the dock off and declutter the desktop by removing the buttons for workspaces and applications, and then use the keyboard shortcuts instead, plus the ability to create new keyboard shortcuts. Really the only setting from Ubuntu I miss is the ability to choose the system accent colour.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS are:
As can be seen, the default application collection includes a mix of software from Gnome 41 and 42.
The suite of default applications with Pop!_OS is fairly minimalist, which I think is a good thing, as it means fewer unwanted applications to remove. I would rather add the things I need, than have to remove a lot of applications I don't want.
Notably not included compared to Ubuntu are:
bit torrent client
file back-up
games
image editor
music player
photo manager
remote desktop client
video editor
webcam application
All are available in the repositories, though, if needed.
System76 does not use the Ubuntu repositories, but has a mirror of them for its own use. This means that any application available for Ubuntu should be available for Pop!_OS.
Software management is via Pop!_Shop, which is a fork of the elementaryOS software centre. It allows graphical installation of applications with a choice of .deb files or Flatpak packages in many cases. With its connection to Flatpak, Pop!_Shop offers some proprietary applications like Google Chrome and Opera. Pop!_Shop is also where you can do system updates. There is a notification presented when updates are available, but the "click" here on it does not work, but you can just open Pop!_Shop and run the updates. Alternatively, you can use APT from the command line for managing applications and updates, which is my personal preference.
One big difference between Pop!_OS and Ubuntu is that, while both include Firefox as the default web browser, Ubuntu uses the snap version, while Pop!_OS uses the the Mozilla tarball instead. This eliminates the difficulties with snaps, as there are no snaps at all on Pop!_OS.
The LibreOffice suite provided is lacking only LibreOffice Base, the database application, but does include LibreOffice Math, the math formula writer, although I have never been sure what the user-case for that inclusion is.
Because I did a full installation, my chosen applications from the repositories were:
The use of the GPRename bulk file renamer makes up for the limitations in bulk file renaming inherent in Gnome Files (Nautilus). For instance Nautilus cannot handle adding sequential numbers to files unless they start at one.
Oddly, a later system update reinstalled Gnome-calendar, Gnome-contacts, Gnome-weather and Geary, as well as their dependencies, so I removed them again. I hope this won't be a regular thing.
New issues
Idle RAM
In comparison to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, the idle RAM after a fresh reboot, with no applications open, is high at 3.9 GB. Hopefully the new COSMIC DE, currently under development, will reduce that to closer to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS's idle RAM of 1.3 GB, which is high enough.
Working RAM
In comparison to Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10, the working RAM with a typical assortment of applications open is very high. With Firefox and a dozen tabs or so, plus gedit and LibreOffice Writer, Pop can use as much as 13 GB of RAM, versus 6 GB for Ubuntu Cinnamon. Pop is definitely a RAM hog and it is not clear why.
Firefox spellchecking menu overlap with top panel
As described above, I was mostly able to fix this by not adjusting font sizes and just using "large text", but it still occurs occasionally and prevents selecting the top spelling suggestion. It can be quite annoying.
Alt-Tab functioning
In most Linux distros, using Alt-Tab displays tiles and cycles through all open windows, but Pop seems to be configured differently so that this feature does not work well. It shows only one entry per application, even if multiple instances are open, requiring selecting those by touchpad. This makes this feature pretty cumbersome and useless. For instance, cycling between normal and private Firefox windows is not possible. You need to use the Pop launcher instead, which is not as efficient and slows down workflows.
Window snapping
I have not found a way to turn off window snapping. This happens when you try to move a window, where the operating system tries to resize it to maximize it on the move.
Lock-ups & crashes
There seems to be a problem with random lock-ups and crashes, as well as on boot. Sometimes multiple reboots do not work and just result in endless lock-ups. There are dozens of posts and bug reports with hundreds of users reporting the same issue, but no solutions. The Pop installation on my Galago Pro crashed, could not be successfully booted and had to be reinstalled, which has worked so far, at least. On my Dell Latitude 7490 my initial Pop installation was unusable due to repetitive crashes and, rather than reinstalling it, I moved to Ubuntu Cinnamon.
Outstanding issues
Here is a look at how switching to Pop!_OS addressed my outstanding complaints from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS:
Firefox Snap
Pop!_OS uses the Mozilla tarball instead of the snap package and that has fixed pretty much all the snap version issues. This version of Firefox will now open and save files without crashing, can be updated while open and has fixed some of the website keyboard navigation not functioning right. The residual there may just be the website. Overall the tarball version works better than the snap, even if updates are very slow.
Ubuntu dock
The Pop!_OS dock can just be turned off so it does not display, a great improvement as far as I am concerned!
Cursor freeze-ups
I had three in the first three weeks of use and then no more, so this might have been fixed by updates.
So, overall, Pop!_OS worked better for me than Ubuntu 22.04 LTS did.
Conclusions
Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS is a good Linux desktop release, with some nice features, lots of customization available, including the ability to remove the dock, add keyboard shortcuts, plus no snap packages. Over the first two weeks of daily use I found it quite impressive and easy to use, especially once I had learned some of the keyboard shortcuts.
Aside from the issue of the crashes, Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS is a relatively good distribution. Hopefully the next version Pop version will bring the new Rust-based COSMIC DE and that will fix the outstanding issues. In the end the crash issue and the other listed annoyances persuaded me to drop Pop and move to Ubuntu Cinnamon instead.
I have been having an issue with the touchpad buttons on my Galago Pro laptop. It started early on when I first got the laptop and installed Lubuntu 20.04 LTS and Lubuntu 22.04 LTS on it and it has continued now that it is running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Basically the touchpad buttons often interpret single clicks on either button as double clicks. It is annoying and slows work down, as it opens two browser tabs or highlights text, instead of just inserting the cursor, and so on. Mostly I have been just living with it, but recently I decided to get to the bottom of it and got it solved.
At first I thought it was a hardware issue, possibly dirt in the touchpad buttons or defective hardware, but I discovered that a reboot would fix it temporarily and a shutdown and restart would fix it even longer. That seemed to point to a software/firmware issue.
Because it is intermittent and often does not show up until some time after a reboot, it has been hard to troubleshoot. I tried some live sessions from a USB device and it seemed to work fine on those. More recently I tried some extended live sessions over several days, using Ubuntu 22.04 LTS from a USB, which is the same operating system I have installed, and again it seemed to work fine over that live session.
The key question was "what was different?"
Step 1
In doing some online searching I found some information on System76 Open Firmware, which includes touchpad firmware. That led me to wonder if the system76-driver was implicated, as it seems to have touchpad drivers included and since I had installed that on both Lubuntu and Ubuntu.
So to test that out I removed the system76-driver:
plus I ran the Software Updater GUI, which had an additional "partial update", which I accepted. I have to admit I was surprised it would even boot like that with drivers removed and I was prepared to do a clean installation if it didn't.
After a reboot things seemed to be working better, but that didn't last. The touchpad button issue often seems to improve with a reboot or shut down and restart, as noted above, but after a few hours it starts misbehaving again.
Step 2
My next step was to reinstall Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS, which I did on . It took 1:10 to do that and get everything back set-up and running right. It was apparent during the set-up that some settings had survived the re-installation and, unsurprisingly, the touchpad button issue came back within a few hours after the last boot. My next step was to reinstall the system76-driver and see if that fixed it, but it didn't.
Step 3
The next step was to use Gnome Discs to erase the drive and then once again reinstall Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS, which all went smoothly enough. By now I was getting good at it! Oddly when the installation was done and all updates installed, I had Linux kernel 5.19.0-45, whereas before I had 6.0.2. Regardless it ran fine like that. The touchpad button issues were not entirely gone, but they were pretty minimal, at least to start. As usual they returned as the time from last boot increased.
Step 4
My next test was to see if it was related to using Wayland as a display server, versus X.org. Ubuntu 22.04 allows choosing either one at boot-up with Wayland as default. I did a boot and tried X.org instead. Once again after booting it worked quite well, but over time got worse as usual. So it does not seem to be the choice of display server.
Step 5
To see if I could duplicate the issue on another operating system, I tried a live session with Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS and it ran fine with no issues, but then, all live sessions on any OS have done that. I did test the touchpad with "tap to click" enabled in Pop!_OS and found that worked well, too. I booted back to Ubuntu and then started a test with "tap to click" enabled and that seems to have addressed the problem. Using "tap to click", including using two finger "tap to click" to right click, works fine and reduces needing to use the actual touchpad buttons to a bare minimum (mostly for "dragging" and "highlighting"). So the problem is solved, or at least mitigated so that it is not an issue.
I must admit I usually do not use the "tap to click" and in fact turned it off, as on past laptop computers it has not worked very well, but on the Galago Pro it works really well, with no unintentional clicks and in fact it reduces fatigue versus using just the buttons.
Summary
The following items were tested and eliminated as not causing this touchpad button issue:
I have been using Kdenlive as my video editor with good success for seven years, ever since Kdenlive 15.12.3.
In the past I have just installed the version in the Ubuntu repositories and used that, with no updated versions until the next LTS operating system release. Then I discovered that the Kdenlive developers have their own Ubuntu PPA on Launchpad, which provides the latest releases as updates and I installed that instead on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
At first it worked just fine, regularly updating versions through APT and each new one worked well. Then I got version 23.04 and it broke not just Kdenlive's updates, but my whole APT package update system. It seems that this version required a newer version of one dependency, Melt, than Ubuntu 22.04 LTS has available and that caused the issue. I waited a week or so to see if it would be resolved through updates, but in fact the broken dependency actually stopped all my Ubuntu updates. It looked like I would have to fix it myself.
My procedure from the command line was:
$ sudo apt remove kdenlive
$ sudo purge kdenlive
I then went to Software And Updates → Other Software, deleted the PPA and then:
$ sudo apt install kdenlive
Which installs the regular deb file format version from the Ubuntu repositories, instead. This is an older version, Kdenlive 21.12.3, but it works just fine and at least is supported on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
There are lots of options to get Kdenlive besides the PAA and the deb file from the Ubuntu repositories, including AppImage, Flatpak and also as a Snap.
Given that on Ubuntu the priority is now supporting debs and snaps, I probably would have made the snap version my choice if I needed a newer version than the debs provided. Snaps come packaged with all the required dependencies and so they should not run into this issue.
I learned a useful lesson here about PPAs and their limitations, particularly with regard to dependencies and so in future I'll just stick to debs and snaps.
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