Lubuntu For Linux

Lubuntu is famous for its super lightweight LXQt desktop and has always been one of the most popular Ubuntu flavors, especially for those running slower or older computers.

The latest incarnation of Lubuntu, 22.10 Kinetic Kudu, is based on Ubuntu 22.10 and it shares most of its core changes. This is, of course, a non-LTS version which means it will only receive support for 9 months until July 2023.

Since it has Uubntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu at its core, Lubuntu also ships with the latest Linux Kernel 5.19 (which boasts impressive technologies such as the Average Power Limiting (RAPL) support for Intel's Raptor and Alder Lake processor, multiple families of ARM updates and the typical processor/GPU file-system updates).

Other changes include the transition from PulseAudio to Pipewire, WebP support by default, and the replacement of wpa_supplicant with IWD for managing Wi-Fi connections.

Since Lubuntu uses the Calamares system installer, as opposed to other Ubuntu flavors who rely on Ubiquity, it's no surprise that the team behind Lubuntu decided to run the latest version of Calamers. To quote the official release notes, "we decided to get ahead of the curve by shipping Calamares 3.3 Alpha 2 in 22.10."

One could argue that the most important change in Lubuntu 22.10 is the usage of the latest LXQt desktop, 1.1.0 which was release on April 2022. LXQt is based on Qt 5.15 LTS and brings an impressive list of changes. This is a big step, especially considering thta most other prior Lubuntu changes features LXQt 0.17 which was, by all accounts, a bit (or more than a bit) on the old side.

This new LXQt desktop has native file dialog (which can also be used by non-Qt apps such as Firefox which, of course, is a Snap). This is all thanks to LXQt's DBus interface implementation in the PCManFM-Qt file manager.

Another noteworthy changes include a plethora of customization options such as 5 new color palettes and the ability to create customized palettes. One of the main reasons why this version of Lubuntu looks better than before has to do with the default theme changes. It uses Clearlooks with the Breeze icon theme.

The LXQt power management is also better than it ever was, and adds three new try icons (for the battery charge display).

Besides the new LXQt desktop and the new desktop wallpaper, new themes, new customization options, Lubuntu 22.10 also features the latest versions for some of its toolkits installed by default.

These include Featherpad (1.3.0), Vi editor (9.0.242), Muon (5.8), Discover software manager from KDE (5.25.5), Firefox 105.0.1, Thunderbird 102.3.2, and LibreOffice 7.4.2.3.

Lubuntu 22.10 is the 23rd release of Lubuntu, and the ninth release to use LXQt as its default desktop environment. Lubuntu 22.10 is a very nice release, with tons of nice features and improvements, and it definitely makes us excited for the next release (23.04).