Ubuntu 21.10 Released With GNOME 40 Desktop, Many Underlying Improvements

[Jabberwocky]

Ubuntu 21.10 is making use of a Snap'ed version of Mozilla Firefox as the default web browser to replace the existing APT-based Firefox package

It's been a while since I used wget to download Firefox! xD

[hubick]

Ideally we would have updated to 41 but feature freeze is today and we didn’t really have the resources available for the update. If you want to update some components please do, otherwise we can still request exceptions for selected updates

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-21.10-With-GNOME-40

So, they didn't want to be outdated, they didn't have a choice, because they just don't have the manpower.

[bple2137]

Funny thing about stable distros (and this is my personal experience and will likely not reflect everyone's experience) they aren't more stable than rolling release.

So much this. The old myth of great stability with old packages is making me sick. There is no day in office that I wouldn't hear complaints about something being broken made by people using Ubuntu LTS. At the same time they consider me being out of mind for running Arch on my production machine, while my setup is pretty rock solid. Oh boy, last *major* issue I had was need for reconnect my AirPods after getting them out of etui, because no sound on 'first' connect. That was probably something with Pipewire and the issue magically disappeared after some updates.

Only thing I miss with arch is debug symbol packages. So not an option for my work laptop unfortunately.

You can build any package for Arch with debug symbols with ease and even automate that, but if you really need binaries so that you didn't have to spend time on compilation, then sure, not the best option.

[You-]

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-21.10-With-GNOME-40

So, they didn't want to be outdated, they didn't have a choice, because they just don't have the manpower.

That is a bigger problem IMO than choosing to stay with the last stable release due to stability. It means they have less resources than they had even 1 year ago and for components like gnome-shell, Gnome 41 more like a spit and polish cycle than a bigger feature development one. (gnome software on the other had had bigger changes)

Ubuntu by virtue of having the biggest installed base has a lot of sway over the linux user community and if they are suffering from manpower shortages, any unfixed bugs etc will leave a sour taste.

IMO a bigger problem though is that Ubuntu downstreams get frustrated due to a lot of back seat driving; look at recent frustration exposed by System76 because the fixes they developed for Gnome 41 could not be backported to gnome 40 without api breakage. Instead of fixing problems in software as it is developed, it forces them to develop solutions to already released stable software.

[Vorpal]

So much this. The old myth of great stability with old packages is making me sick. There is no day in office that I wouldn't hear complaints about something being broken made by people using Ubuntu LTS. At the same time they consider me being out of mind for running Arch on my production machine, while my setup is pretty rock solid. Oh boy, last *major* issue I had was need for reconnect my AirPods after getting them out of etui, because no sound on 'first' connect. That was probably something with Pipewire and the issue magically disappeared after some updates..

To be fair, almost all issues I had on Ubuntu (on Thinkpads mind you) were related to either Nvidia graphics or suspend/hibernate or both at the same time. I will be interested to see if those issues are reduced on Arch on that laptop.

You can build any package for Arch with debug symbols with ease and even automate that, but if you really need binaries so that you didn't have to spend time on compilation, then sure, not the best option.

That and on my work laptop I need ROS (a platform for research robotics). While you can install ROS on Arch Linux it is via AUR, and it is not officially supported by upstream. Also ROS is huge and consists of a large number of packages (a search for ros-noetic, the version I currently use, found 483 packages on AUR) of which you will need a large subset. Compile times are not fun (lots of C++ code). Also, since ROS involves multiple networked nodes (i.e. your laptop, and some computers on the robots) talking to each other, there can be version compatibility issues. Thus, not worth the effort.

[darkbasic]

They are a joke, why not 41?

[om26er]

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this release. Let's now work hard to the next LTS of the most important Linux distribution.

[Operius73]

Funny thing about stable distros (and this is my personal experience and will likely not reflect everyone's experience) they aren't more stable than rolling release.

People have different definitions of stability.
For me stability is having no surprises after an update. What I have is what it is, and it will stay what it is. Just security updates, nothing more. No surprises by some developer that decided that a program I use should have a different lay-out of the gui, or having functionality removed or altered. No suprises by some developer that decided that my desktop should change its lay-out like with gnome3.x to gnome40.

Stability is more than just software not crashing. When I turn on my machine I know exactly what I will get, for as long until I decide to upgrade/change to something else.
Rolling release distros are therefore not for me.

[hubick]

That is a bigger problem IMO than choosing to stay with the last stable release due to stability. It means they have less resources than they had even 1 year ago and for components like gnome-shell, Gnome 41 more like a spit and polish cycle than a bigger feature development one. (gnome software on the other had had bigger changes)

Well, and it's not like we're talking about some little obscure package here... Gnome is more or less the heart of a desktop distro. If haven't had time to pull that in, I really question if you should release at all?

[vandelay]

People have different definitions of stability.
For me stability is having no surprises after an update. What I have is what it is, and it will stay what it is. Just security updates, nothing more. No surprises by some developer that decided that a program I use should have a different lay-out of the gui, or having functionality removed or altered. No suprises by some developer that decided that my desktop should change its lay-out like with gnome3.x to gnome40.

Stability is more than just software not crashing. When I turn on my machine I know exactly what I will get, for as long until I decide to upgrade/change to something else.
Rolling release distros are therefore not for me.

Yep, there's stable as in "lack of bugs" and stable as in "not changing with respect to time". The latter is perfect for things like servers or workstations where you value predictability and don't want new features, possibly forcing you to update configurations (outside of a scheduled, purposeful update), just security fixes.

For my desktop though I personally prefer rolling to get the latest version the developer of that program deems as stable (lack of bugs) since I like playing with and actually use the new features. In fact by being on the latest version often saves me time when trying to test some new code I just pulled, or playing games, since the biggest cause of issues for me when I ran Ubuntu was packages being too old. (this is why people shouldn't blindly recommend things like LTS releases to new users, non-LTS or rolling can sometimes be easier and more "stable" (lack of bugs) for their use case)