UBUNTU 23.04 & all flavors review: Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Cinnamon, Ubuntu MATE…

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#ubuntu #linux #linuxdistro

00:00 Intro
00:28 Sponsor: Take control of your network traffic with Portmaster
01:23 Ubuntu Specific Features
04:52 GNOME 44 Features
07:34 Application Updates
08:53 Ubuntu Flavors
09:27 Kubuntu
10:18 Ubuntu MATE
10:40 Ubuntu Budgie
11:52 Xubuntu
12:50 Ubuntu Cinnamon
13:35 Ubuntu Unity & Lubuntu
14:02 Ubuntu Studio
14:23 Should you upgrade?
15:09 Sponsor: Get a PC that runs Linux perfectly, from Tuxedo
16:00 Support the channel

First is the new installer. Everything feels more polished, more subdued and modern, although the screens are presented in the same order as before. It doesn’t support ZFS. Installs should also be faster.

Next is the Ubuntu Dock. You now get a small counter on top of an app’s icon when this app has a notification, and when the app is open. Apart from that, Ubuntu 23.04 isn’t an LTS release, so it will get 9 months of support, it uses the linux kernel 6.2, the codename is Lunar lobster, and it has the usual new wallpapers in the same usual colors.

Ubuntu has been updated with GNOME 44. The big changes are in the quick settings menu. It’s now more descriptive. The bluetooth settings have the ability to quickly connect to a device you previously paired your computer with. There’s also a new icon for the screenshot tool, and you can now click on the speaker icon in the menu to mute or unmute your computer.

You also get support for background apps, but it still lacks a lot of interaction before it can be even considered a replacement for the system tray.

In the settings, you can now decide to disable mouse pointer acceleration. and you get small videos that will let you better understand natural scrolling mode and classic scrolling mode.

And in the Network settings, you’ll be able to configure Wireguard VPNs.

The file manager gained back the ability to unfold folders in the list view. More importantly, now you get image thumbnails in the file picker.

A change that will affect all Ubuntu flavors: Flatpak is no longer installed by default in the flavors where it was.

Kubuntu 23.03 comes with KDE 5.27, and moves to pipewire by default instead of pulseaudio, and uses the same internals as the regular Ubuntu.

Ubuntu MATE 23.04, as far as I could find, only updates the internals and the repos to match the regular Ubuntu variant.

Ubuntu Budgie 23.04 gets better hotcorner support, the window shuffler applet now lets you do quarter tiling, and you get Budgie 10.7, with dual GPU support, a new screenshot tool, and the Raven panel has a new API for developers to build widgets that can go in it, and you can now reposition these widgets how you like.

On the Xubuntu front, there’s a new Xubuntu minimal install with only the bare utilities and no added apps, and Xubuntu now uses XFCE 4.18 with a much better Thunar file manager that includes an image preview sidebar, and editable toolbar, and file highlighting features to attribute a specific color to a file or folder.

Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.04 just joined the official flavors list, and it will give you the cinnamon desktop, used mostly in Linux Mint, with the yaru theme on top of it, Nemo as the file manager, plus Celluloid, gThumb, GNOME Photos and the usual Libreoffice, thunderbird and Firefox. It doesn’t come with the Mint apps, also called Xapps, and it uses GNOME software for updates and app installs.

As per Ubuntu Studio, it also uses pipewire by default, but they recommend moving back to pulseaudio for professional work. It also uses KDE 5.27, like Kubuntu, and will benefit from the same improvements, and all the default graphics editing, video editing and audio apps got a version bump to the latest available.