Linux distribution
Ubuntu 21.04
Les Pounder has long been a fan of Ubuntu and Hippos, but had to look up Hirsute in the dictionary.
IN BRIEF
The latest Ubuntu release and the first to use Wayland by default. We have a marginal increase in overall performance with Wayland, but “The Raspberry Pi Experience” is far from stellar.
If you want to build cool electronic projects then Raspberry Pi OS (Raspbian) is still the best on offer. But for a modern Linux desktop, Ubuntu 21.04 covers the basics.
Ubuntu has been the first Linux distro for many new users, but not for the majority of Raspberry Pi users. Ubuntu 20.10 was the first to release a simultaneous Raspberry Pi and server/desktop image. Six months on and the latest release – 21.04, codename Hirsute Hippo – arrives for those same platforms and so we took it for a test drive on a Raspberry Pi 400. The 64-bit image is also compatible with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, but we’ve lost compatibility with older models of Pi.