Ubuntu 21.04 Released With Wayland By Default, New Dark Theme

Written by Michael Larabel in Ubuntu on 22 April 2021 at 09:33 AM EDT. 59 Comments
UBUNTU
Ubuntu 21.04 "Hirsute Hippo" is now available.

The most notable change with the Ubuntu 21.04 desktop is now defaulting to the GNOME Shell Wayland session for supported GPU/driver configurations rather than the X.Org session. The X.Org session remains available for those that want to switch back to it or for unsupported configurations and other desktops, but finally the time has come where Ubuntu developers are comfortable enough with the support/features/performance/reliability to use it by default.

Ubuntu 21.04 is still using the GNOME 3.38 desktop by default with not having moved to GNOME 40 to allow that more time to bake. But Ubuntu 21.04 does introduce a new dark theme for its desktop.


Ubuntu 21.04 is powered by Mesa 21.0 and Linux 5.11 for offering the latest Linux hardware support. There is also a plethora of updated packages like Python 3.9 and many other latest software versions. The Ubuntu 21.04 performance is looking good and more benchmarks are on the way.

Downloads and learn more about Ubuntu 21.04 at Ubuntu.com release announcement.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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