On the disc
Discover the highlights from this month’s packed DVD!
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LEMUR POWERED
MIN SPECS: 4GB RAM, 25GB HD SPACE
Ubuntu 21.10
W e have to wait until April 2022 for the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS release. In the meantime we’ve got the last of the interim releases, which besides giving some hints as to what to expect in the LTS, is a damn fine OS in and of itself. The release was just too late to feature the Gnome 41 desktop (which made it into the delayed Fedora), though some apps have been co-opted from the new release. Gnome 40 is nothing to be sniffed at, either: it’s got dynamic workspaces and laptop users will love the support for three-and four-fingered touchpad gestures.
Snaps, Canonical’s homespun application packaging and containment system, gains yet more prominence in this edition. As is the norm, a few Gnome programs and the associated runtime are bundled in Snap form. But the big change is that now Firefox is too, and that the Firefox Snap comes straight from Mozilla. Our quest to get hardware video decoding working with this Snap (in the cover feature) may not have been a success. But that was just teething problems that in all likelihood will be remedied by the time you read this. Having the default browser inherit the security benefits that come with Snaps, and having it shipped straight from the source, will be a boon for everyone.