Linux distribution
Ubuntu 22.10
Michael Reed examines the latest Ubuntu release and finds that it’s a solid offering but unlikely to get your heart racing.
IN BRIEF
Another Ubuntu release brings another set of small, general improvements to a reliable formula that hasn’t changed in years. It’s a stable base for business users and fully expandable by the more adventurous.
SPECS
CPU: 2GHz
Mem: 4GB HDD: 15GB
Builds: Many official x86/x64 variants with different desktops. Arm builds for the likes of the Raspberry Pi, too.
The latest Ubuntu (22.10) has made its customary October appearance with the colourful code name of Kinetic Kudu. As it’s not an LTS (Long Term Support) release, it will have to be upgraded in nine months, but in our experience, this tends to be a rather pain-free procedure. However, go back a version number and install 22.04 instead if you’re looking for a setup that won’t need a major upgrade for five years.
As ever, the official, stated target of Ubuntu emphasises the corporate desktop, but the actual user base is broader and includes hobbyist and home users as well. It’s a stable desktop to set up for family members who aren’t computer experts, just to give one example of where it can be used. It’s not massively resource-intensive, but neither is it a particularly lightweight desktop.
As we have come to expect, this latest release uses a combination of a reasonably up-to-date Gnome desktop on a Debian base. The installation routine is about as easy as it could get and hasn’t changed much for several years, and by default it creates a single ext4 partition. Btrfs takes up a bit more CPU time and disk space but offers advanced features such as snapshotting, and distributions such as OpenSUSE have made the leap to it for their standard desktops. As with most of Ubuntu, if you have the know-how, you can choose something more advanced than the default arrangement.