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The Ubuntu team announced that Ubuntu 21.10 Beta “Impish Indri” is now available for
download and test. We give you a quick look at the new features and download instructions.
We are nearing the release of Ubuntu 21.10 “Impish Indri”. As per the schedule, the
beta .iso images are now ready to be downloaded and tested. Ubuntu 21.10 is the final short-term
release of 2021, and it brings moderate updates and bug fixes.
Following the trend, Ubuntu 21.10 is code named “impish Indri” as we are at “I”
based names. The “Indri” refers to “babakoto, is one of the largest living lemurs, with
a head-and-body length of about 64–72 cm and a weight of between 6 to 9.5 kg. It has
a black and white coat and maintains an upright posture when climbing or clinging” (from
Wikipedia).
I have covered the new features and updates of this release here. However, let’s recap
and take a look at the new features in brief – before you jump on downloading the .iso
files.
Ubuntu 21.10 beta release Ubuntu 21.10 powered by Linux Kernel 5.13.
This release will not feature GNOME 41, due to schedule mismatch and among other reasons.
So, you get the updated version of GNOME 40.2. This is the first Ubuntu release which features
the new GNOME 40 desktop. Hence, it comes with a twist. The customized GNOME 40 desktop
features a fixed left side dock and eliminates the stock bottom dock in GNOME 40. If you
are using GNOME 40 already via different distributions, you may feel it a bit weird. However, it is
done to reduce the learning curve of the Ubuntu users.
So, initially it would feel a bit strange with have left fixed dock with horizontal
workspaces, overview and scrolling. But it would be interesting to observe user reactions
and feedback once it releases.
A brand new Desktop Installer which would replace the decade old Ubiquity. This is created
in collaboration with Google in Flutter and gives a nice and easy way of installing Ubuntu.
We covered more about this installer in detail when it was launched. You can read the coverage
here. However, I am skeptical that it would be available in this release as it is still
not in daily build.
The default theme would be set to Yaru Light. As per the Ubuntu team, it is difficult to
maintain a mixed theme with both and dark and light together.
In the prior Ubuntu 21.04, the Wayland display server is made default. In this release, NVIDIA
driver users also would be able to Wayland, hopefully.
A brand-new default wallpaper is selected featuring the official mascot. This is chosen
via a community competition.
A rather controversial is decision is taken by the Ubuntu team in this release. The Firefox
will be packaged as snap and instead of .deb. This is going to be interesting as Snap is
known to be slower with start time and other constraints. And a popular, most used browser
like Firefox is now snap.
The applications and packages sees their respective version upgrades in this release. Here’s
a quick summary.
Firefox 89 LibreOffice 7.2
Thunderbird 78.12 The official Ubuntu desktop flavors would
have their respective version upgrades. Here’s a quick update.
Xubuntu with Xfce 4.16 Ubuntu MATE with MATE 1.24
Kubuntu with KDE Plasma 5.22
You can download the BETA .iso (desktop). However, use caution while using it as it
is still a pre-release version. Avoid using it for your daily driver at the moment. You
can, however, use it after a couple of days.
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