Linux in The New 11-28-22
Ubuntu Touch OTA-24 Released for Ubuntu Phone Users, Here’s What’s New
The UBports Foundation announced today the release of the OTA-24 software update for its Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system for supported Ubuntu Phone devices.
Ubuntu Touch OTA-24 is here almost five months after Ubuntu Touch OTA-23 and while it’s still based on the Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) upstream repositories, it introduces further improvements to increase the overall stability and reliability of the mobile OS.
Highlights of this release include initial gesture support with double-tap to wake for selected devices, improvements to fingerprint unlock by allowing more backoff time between read retries, as well as support for media buttons on headsets for most Ubuntu Phone devices.
In addition, the Ubuntu Touch OTA-24 update adds support for handling the sms:// URL scheme for properly opening the Messaging app, adds Full HD 1080p support to the Aethercast implementation, improves SMS and MMS support, and adds various performance tweaks to the Mir-Android-Platform.
Various bugs were addressed as well in this release. For example, A/V desync during video recording was fixed for Google Pixel 3a devices, interactive drawer blur performance was improved, Reset Launcher and Messaging app freeze issues were fixed, broken Bluetooth on Volla Phone was fixed as well, and it’s now possible to set rotated images captured with your device’s camera as desktop wallpapers.
The Ubuntu Touch OTA-24 update is now rolling out to all supported Ubuntu Phone devices, including Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1, BQ E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, BQ E5 HD Ubuntu Edition, BQ M10 (F)HD Ubuntu Edition, BQ U Plus, Cosmo Communicator, F(x)tec Pro1, Fairphone 2, Fairphone 3, Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL, Google Pixel 3a and 3a XL, Nexus 6P, LG Nexus 4, LG Nexus 5, Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition, Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition, Nexus 7 2013 (Wi-Fi and LTE models), OnePlus One, OnePlus 2, OnePlus 3 and 3T, Oneplus 5 and 5T, and OnePlus 6 and 6T.
Furthermore, it’s also available for the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (910F, 910P, 910T), Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo+ (GT-I9301I), Sony Xperia X, Sony Xperia X Compact, Sony Xperia X Performance, Sony Xperia XZ, Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet (LTE or Wi-fi only), Vollaphone and Vollaphone X, Xiaomi Mi A2, Xiaomi Mi A3, Xiaomi Mi MIX 3, Xiaomi Poco F1, Xiaomi Poco M2 Pro, Xiaomi Redmi 3s/3x/3sp (land), Xiaomi Redmi 4X, Xiaomi Redmi 7, Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 and 7 Pro, Xiaomi Redmi 9 and 9 Prime, as well as Xiaomi Redmi Note 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro Max and 9S devices.
Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar Lobster) Daily Builds Are Now Available for Download
The time has come for Ubuntu fans to test drive the daily build ISO images of the next major Ubuntu Linux release, Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar Lobster), which is now available for download and public testing.
Ubuntu 23.04‘s six-month-long development cycle kicked off at the end of October 2022 with the toolchain upload. Now, early adopters and application developers can download the daily build ISOs, which appeared earlier today on the official servers.
As expected, these daily build images are based on the previous Ubuntu release, Ubuntu 22.10 (Kinetic Kudu), which was launched on October 20th, 2022. This means that ship with pretty much the same core components as the previous version, especially the kernel, but also the same desktop environment and apps.
During its six-month-long development cycle, Ubuntu 23.04 will receive some of the latest GNU/Linux technologies and software, such as the upcoming GNOME 44 desktop environment, the upcoming Linux 6.2 kernel series, and the upcoming Mesa 22.3 graphics stack.
Other noteworthy GNU/Linux technologies expected in the Lunar Lobster release include GCC 13 as an optional system compiler, LLVM 16, Python 3.11 by default, GNU Binutils 2.40, GNU C Library 2.37, OpenLDAP 2.6, Go 1.20, and PolicyKit 122.
The Lunar Lobster release might also be the first Ubuntu release to finally ship with the revamped desktop installer that Canonical has been working on for some time now. The new installer is written in Google’s Flutter UI SDK and can be tested as part of the daily-canary daily build images.
If you want to take Ubuntu 23.04 for a test drive, you can download the daily build ISOs from here. However, please keep in mind that these are pre-release images that you should NOT install on a production machine!
Besides the Ubuntu Desktop and Server flavors, you will also find daily builds for the Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Unity, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie, and Ubuntu Kylin official flavors.
