Canonical What is the announcement? The latest version of the popular Ubuntu operating system. With Ubuntu 23.04 “Lunar Lobster”, users benefit from a new desktop installer called Subiquity, improved Azure Active Directory support, and a better gaming experience. Desktop users also benefit from all the improvements that are present in GNOME 44 such as quick settings.
Let’s start with gaming, in Ubuntu 23.04, the Steam snap package has been promoted to the stable channel. Now that Steam comes as an image (this is going to be controversial), gamers can play their games without additional PPAs. It comes with 32-bit libraries and the latest Mesa drivers to bring the latest updates with impacting system stability. Some users find Snap to be too slow to load, so this decision may upset some.
Another change in this update is support for authentication in Azure Active Directory. According to Canonical, Ubuntu is now the only Linux distribution that provides native user authentication with Azure Active Directory. This feature allows Microsoft 365 Enterprise users to authenticate their Ubuntu desktops that they use to M365 or Azure. Canonical said that IT administrators should review the ‘aad-auth’ feature in this release which is ready for a backport to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS which is planned for later in the year.
Ubuntu 23.04 also has some new features for Active Directory, including support for enterprise proxy, app confinement, and network shares. These will be backported to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS later this year.
Finally, if you don’t like GNOME, even with all the new features that come with GNOME 44, you can use another flavor. Ubuntu 23.04 adds two new flavors, Cinnamon and Edubuntu flavors.
You can download the latest version of Ubuntu from now. The company’s download page. You can upgrade from Update Manager, but first, go to Software and Updates > the latest > Notify me of a new Ubuntu version: For any new version. Once you have selected this option, check Update Manager.
