Ubuntu Studio For Linux

Ubuntu Studio has always been a bit special, especially for creatively-driven Linux users such as musicians, music producers, content creators, video makers, editors, graphic designers, artists, authors, and even publishers.

In its latest iteration, namely Ubuntu Studio 23.04 Lunar Lobster, the OS comes with a series of nice upgrades, improvements, and changes. Ubuntu Studio 23.04 marks the 33rd release of Ubuntu Studio, and it's a interim (regular, standard, normal) release that features support for only nine months, until January 2024.

When compared to the latest iteration, Ubuntu Studio 22.10 Kinetic Kudu, the Lunar Lobster release comes with a brand new version of KDE's Plasma Desktop (namely 5.27) which is packed with stability and performance improvements.

Ubuntu Studio now features a rewritten installer (in order to accommodate high-DPI displays), and because it uses the Zenity GTK interface, it also gives users a lot of choice when it comes to package selection.

Another highlight of the release is that PipeWire is not installed by default. What's interesting here is that Ubuntu Studio 23.04 doesn't only  have PipeWire by default, but also features PipeWire-JACK (and PulseAudio plugins). In short, all JACK and PulseAUdio apps will work out-of-the-box without the need of extra configuration.

Wayland is also available (installed by default), but it's still not entirely supported. The Materia Theme (a fan favorite) has made a comeback in this version. 23.04 comes with the Materia theme, as well as all the Papirus icons (however it still uses the Dark theme introduced back in Ubuntu Studio 22.04).

Lastly, Ubuntu Studio 23.04 now features a brand new Login Screen and Lock Screen (also based on the Materia theme), which gives the OS a bit of much needed visual consistency.

In the Audio section, the following apps have received updates: RaySession (0.13.0), Carla (2.5.4), lsp-plugins (1.2.5), Audacity (3.2.4), Ardour (7.3.0), and Patchance (1.0.0).

When it comes to graphics-related apps, Ubuntu Studio 23.04 comes with an upgraded version of Krita (5.1.5), Darktable (4.2.1), and digiKam (8.0.0 Beta). Some video apps have also received some updates, and they include Blender (3.4.1), OBS Studio (29.0.2), KDEnlive (22.12.3), Freeshow (0.8.0), OpenLP (3.0.2), and Q Light Controller Plus (4.12.6).

For a standard release, Ubuntu Studio 23.04 Lunar Lobster is not at all bad. There are a lot of interesting changes that should compel users who want to test out the latest technologies to give it a try.