 Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution out there and even if you don't use the stock standard vanilla version of Ubuntu with the garish colors and the bar along the side with all the app icons, you're probably using a distribution based on Ubuntu, whether that's one of the Ubuntu flavors or it's Linux Mint or it's XorinOS or elementary OS, the vast majority of people are using either Ubuntu or a distribution based on Ubuntu. So that's why it's so important for us as Linux users to kind of pay attention to what's coming up in the next Ubuntu release. And this one here is actually really important because it's the next LTS release. So if you don't know what that means, basically the way Ubuntu's release schedule works is that every six months or so they have a release and the vast majority of those releases are called interim support releases and they're not supported for very long. They're mostly feature packs, if you will, kind of beta E. That doesn't mean they're unstable or anything, it just means that they're more likely to have big features that are being tested for the next LTS. And those aren't supported for very long, but every two years in the spot, instead of interim release, we get an LTS, which means that you're getting a very stable release of Ubuntu that is supported for five years. So this one here will be supported until April 2027. That's what LTS means and the reason why the LTS is even more important beyond the fact that it's going to be supported for a really long time is that there are a lot of distributions like Linux Mint, like elementary OS that actually base themselves on the LTS from Ubuntu. So with all that in mind, that means it's time for us to take a first look, a pre-look, if you will, at what's coming up in this LTS because it's going to be a very important release. The first thing we can expect is some new GNOME features, mostly pulling from GNOME 42. And there will be some visual changes, some of the things that you'd expect from a new GNOME release, but also because they went through in GNOME 40 and went through and redid the entire UI basically, and the succeeding releases, they've gone through and kind of tweaked those changes and made sure that more things work together harmoniously, if you will. So you'll see things like better support for workspaces in GNOME 42 than you did in GNOME 41. Now the problem with Ubuntu in terms of their usage of GNOME is that they don't use the entire GNOME stack. So when you go through and actually use the Ubuntu version of GNOME, you're getting some things from GNOME 42, you're getting some things from GNOME 41, you're going to get some things from GNOME 40, you're going to get some things from GNOME 3.38. It's a mess that way, but that's just the way Ubuntu has chosen to do it. So what specific features we're going to get from GNOME 42, we don't know yet, but we will see some of them. The one thing we won't see supposedly is anything that is built on GTK4, or at least that's the things that I've been reading so far is that we won't see anything from GTK4, whether or not they stick to that, we don't know yet. The feature set has not been completely frozen yet, they have until the end of February to do that, so it's possible that we will see some GTK4 stuff in there, but as of right now, from what I've read, we're not going to see any of that kind of stuff. In terms of applications and stuff, it's just going to be kind of a waiting game to see what gets updated to more newer versions of the GNOME stack and what won't. Sadly, until we get that final release, we won't know what's final. We're also going to see a flutter-based firmware updater app, so basically, ignore the flutter part, but basically what this will allow you to do is update firmware to newer versions. So basically, this is going to be more targeted towards laptop manufacturers, I'd assume, but it's going to be there. Now, whether or not this is actually finished in time for 22.04, I'm not sure if it will be, but it is being worked on, and it's something a lot of people are really excited about. Now, me personally, I don't have a new or enough laptop for this to really be a big deal, and I don't know whether or not it's going to affect desktop, motherboards, or anything like that at all, so I'm not sure exactly how that would affect me, but for people who use Linux laptops, people that get things from like System76 or Dell or Lenovo or something like that, you'd be able to use this tool to update your firmware. Now, probably the biggest feature that they're going to be shipping, or at least they're supposedly going to be shipping, is the brand new installer for Boom 2. Now, if you've seen any of the news items for this, you're probably wondering what the big deal is, and for the most part, it's not that big of a deal. They are going through and rewriting it in flutter, which is a UI framework that they're adopting seriously, and it allows them to do things like animations and stuff like that. There are a few visual changes in it from what I've seen, but for the most part, it's going to function exactly like the old installer, just a little better maybe. Maybe it will run smoother and things like that. We don't actually know how this worked because it's been in beta, in the beta channel for quite a long time. They've been working on it for well over a year. Now, this is interesting for me because usually the LTS is not a release where they go through and put a huge distro-changing change into it. When they switched to Wayland, that was done in an interim release. When they added the ZFS option, that was done in an interim release. Usually all these big changes are done in the interim releases because less people use them, but they still allow them to test new features. Plus, if they put a game-changing feature in and it breaks, they're not stuck with it in an LTS, which a lot of people use and rely on to be completely stable. Putting an unproven, basically not-intested feature into an LTS is very unusual. I know a lot of the Ubuntu blogs and Linux blogs have said that the new installer is going to be there for the LTS. It will astonish me if that's actually true because, like I said, the installer hasn't been tested. Now, when I say it hasn't been tested, not that people haven't used it. It's been in the beta channel for a long time, but it hasn't been widely tested. So it hasn't been tested by so many people that would use it in an interim release. That's why they test new features there because millions of people use that, thousands of people or whatever, and they can easily suss out bugs when there's not many people using that kind of stuff. That hasn't happened because we didn't get it in 21.10. If they put it in the LTS and allow the LTS people to test it, that just doesn't seem like something canonical would do because that's not something that they've ever really done. So I would be surprised if the new installer is actually in 22.04. I'd more suspect this to be a feature that we see in 22.10 later on in the year, but we'll see. I know that they've been working on it for a long time. Maybe they're confident enough in it that they'll ship it with the LTS. It would really surprise me if though if they do, but we'll see. You'll also see a lot of improvement for the Raspberry Pi 4. They've been working on getting Ubuntu to be more performant on not only the higher end Raspberry Pi's, but the low end. So they just released an image that will work on the 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and 22.04 will continue that trend of making Ubuntu work better on Raspberry Pi's. Mostly how they've been doing this is by using a new compression algorithm, that's what they call it. I'm not actually sure, but it's called ZSwap and it should allow them to make the distro function a lot faster than it previously did. It's much too technical for me to understand, but if you're interested in that kind of stuff, there will be links in the video description on how that stuff kind of works. So we'll also see new and updated versions of languages and other tools, so things like OpenSSL 3.0, Ruby 3.0, Python 3.10, PHP, Dead 1, and GCC 11, maybe on that last one. We'll see. It's expected, but there's been no formal announcement. And that is basically it in terms of things that we expect to see or might expect to see. The thing about the LTS releases, like I said before, is that we don't normally see huge new features. Usually what the LTS does is it aims to be the most stable release canonical can release. And that means that any untested brand new features like an installer, for example, usually aren't put in there because they want it to be stable. They don't want to have to deal with any great game changing bugs that are more common in untested features. So the LTS usually isn't the place where we see huge new features. Instead, what we see is an updated software stack and a polished user experience, something that can be very easily supported for a long period of time. One thing that I didn't talk about is the increased reliance on snaps. So one of the things that canonical is doing in this next release is that the Firefox browser that comes with Ubuntu and has come with Ubuntu for a long time is going to be now released as a snap and included as a snap. So that means that if you want to, in terms of user facing consequences for this, you're going to have to deal with all the stuff that snaps kind of entails, slower startup times, stuff like that. But in terms of mostly functionality, it's probably going to be the same as you'd normally see, just a little slower. For Ubuntu and canonical, it means that they can go through and kind of just develop and release one version of Firefox and release it across every single piece of every single ISO of Ubuntu that's still supported. So that's another thing that you'll probably expect to see in the next version of Ubuntu is an increased reliance on snaps, not only for Firefox, but for other applications as well. So as we move into this era of snaps, it wouldn't surprise me to see more applications being included out of the box as snaps. So that's Ubuntu 22.04. So in terms of timeline, February 24th, we'll see the feature freeze, meaning they won't be adding any new features at that point. March 17th is the UI freeze, meaning that they won't change anything like the Yaro theme or stuff like that. We'll also see in March 31st, we'll see the first beta release, April 14th will be the release candidate, and April 21st is when the final stable release. Now, obviously those dates can change. One thing reading those out made me remember is that they have been continually going through and improving the Yaro theme. So I wouldn't be surprised to see more tweaks to the Yaro theme. I know they were talking about the Yaro GNOME shell theme, whether or not that's in this release or maybe it was even in the last release. I can't honestly remember. I know that they were talking about it, so more refinements to the Yaro theme is probably something that we will see because that seems more like the kind of thing we'll see even in an LTS because that kind of stuff doesn't usually break stuff. And even if it does, they can release like a point release and fix it. So more refinements to Yaro is something else you can probably also expect. So we'll see 22.04 in April. If you're looking forward to another interim release, if you're on the interim release kind of track where you prefer to use those releases, we'll see that in October with 22.10. So that is it for this video. If you have questions or comments, you can leave those in the comments section below. I really do appreciate hearing from you. You can follow me on Twitter at the Linuxcast. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash linuxcast. Before I go, I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons. Today, Devon East Coast Web, Patrick O'Prymas, Marcus, Maiglin, Jack Snip, Phil Steeve, Sabragare Linux, Garrick, Mitchell Arts Center, CarbonDade, Sean, Jeremy Oden, Merrick Camp, Josh Lee, J-Dog, Peter A, Crucible, Dark Bandit 6. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.