Ubuntu 23.04 Beta
Les Pounder loves the B-52s’ ‘Rock Lobster’ but will he find Ubuntu 23.04 Lunar Lobster also rocks or is just a bit rocky?
The Settings menu looks great and gives us quick access to common tasks, while enabling us to delve a little deeper if we need to.
IN BRIEF
The latest Ubuntu release for the Raspberry Pi sees the desktop-centric OS improve its performance on the Raspberry Pi 4. If you need a low-power desktop, this could be the OS for you. Makers, however, need an OS with better HAT support as Ubuntu 23.04 cannot pull off wearing HATs, just yet.
C anonical’s Ubuntu distro has a huge community base. Users of typical Intel and AMD hardware are well accustomed to the OS, and to a lesser degree so are Raspberry Pi users. Ubuntu 23.04 is the first new release for 2023 and we took a look at the beta release for Raspberry Pi. To get the most from it you need a Raspberry Pi 4 or Compute Module 4 with 2GB of RAM. We tested with a Raspberry Pi 400, essentially a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM. We installed the OS to a fast microSD card and started the onboarding and setup process. Here everything felt great, as though we were sitting at a much more powerful machine. The new installer looks sharp. Once installation was complete, a quick reboot and we were sitting at the familiar Ubuntu desktop. Powered by Gnome 44, it felt great, even if it was running on low-power hardware.