Ubuntu Desktop "Charting A Course For The Future" With Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Next Year
With Ubuntu 23.10 being released in two months, ahead of the big Ubuntu 24.04 Long-Term Support cycle, Olver Smith noted how internally at Canonical they've been working on their goals and vision for the Ubuntu desktop experience over the next few years. He also shared some interesting highlights from their perspective that the Ubuntu desktop has more than six million active users (just counting desktop reach), that Ubuntu desktop is said to be the far most popular distribution for developers based on a Stack Overflow survey, and that the Ubuntu desktop is the most used desktop Linux distribution for gaming based on Valve's Steam Survey numbers.
His post notes though how the desktop is evolving with a greater focus on security, a rapid transition of user data and enterprise management to the cloud, cloud desktops, more experimental technologies like embedded AI, and augmented or virtual reality productivity environments coming about.
The expressed values of the Ubuntu Desktop are choice, quality, support, enjoyment, performance, privacy by design, security by default, seamless integration, and looking towards the future.
As for security by default, Oliver notes that Ubuntu 23.10 is working on a "highly experimental" implementation of hardware-backed full disk encryption as an option in the Ubuntu installer.
Or on the performance front, their example is how they partnered with Intel to provide hardware accelerated video encoding/decoding within the Chromium browser Snap package... That hardware-accelerated video support in the Chromium Snap is working its way to stable. Let's not forget though how browser video acceleration on other platforms has just been pretty much assumed for years and it's due to Snaps that enabling this VA-API support has been more of a challenge.
Looking ahead to the future, not much was shared in this post. But Oliver does note the ongoing work around Ubuntu Core Desktop as their immutable desktop spin and further leveraging Snaps. More planning details around the Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 LTS release, which is due out in April, should be shared before the end of the year.
Those interested can learn more via the Ubuntu Discourse post.
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