Ubuntu 21.10 Impish Indri is now officially released, as the latest semi-annual update of Ubuntu Linux, and also the last version before the next long-term support cycle Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Ubuntu 21.10 brings a variety of improvements, the most notable is the switch to GNOME Shell 40 in the desktop system, and there are many improvements, including the improvement of some themes.
There are many low-level improvements to enjoy in Ubuntu 21.10, such as the kernel and compiler upgrades that excite us, and the upgrades of other major software packages.
Some of the highlights of Ubuntu 21.10 include:
- GNOME Shell 40 provides the default desktop experience of Ubuntu 21.10. Unfortunately, there is no GNOME 41, but at least after GNOME 40 was postponed from the original Ubuntu 21.04 plan, it is now on. GNOME 40 and Ubuntu 21.10 mean more Wayland improvements and various other desktop improvements.
- Ubuntu 21.10 is using the Snap modified version of Mozilla Firefox as the default web browser to replace the existing APT-based Firefox software package…
- Support the use of the latest NVIDIA proprietary drivers in Wayland sessions.
- Zstd compression has started to be used to compress Debian packages in archives.
- PHP 8.0 can now be used in archives.
- Linux 5.13 is providing updated hardware support for Ubuntu 21.10. Unfortunately, there is no Linux 5.14, but it is at least ahead of the 5.11 on Ubuntu 21.04.
- GCC 11 is the default system compiler, provides AMD Zen 3 target support, and has many improvements over GCC 10.
- Mesa 21.2 is used to provide current stable OpenGL and Vulkan drivers for Ubuntu. Compared with Ubuntu 21.04, there are various performance improvements.
Ubuntu 21.10 can be downloaded at Ubuntu.com: