Ubuntu Studio For Linux

Ubuntu Studio is definitely not the most popular Ubuntu flavor, especially not in the last few years. Be that as it may, Ubuntu Studio, now at version 23.10, still fills a unique niche in the market.

Ubuntu Studio 23.10, code-named Mantic Minotaur, is an interim release which means that it will only receive support for nine months, until January 2024.

Probably the biggest change of Ubuntu Studio 23.10 is the fact that it ships with version 5.27.8 of KDE Plasma. It's not the biggest change since the last release (which came with 5.27), but as usual, incremental improvements are the name of the game.

Other than that, Ubuntu Studio 23.10 comes with a new version of KDE Frameworks (5.11.0), a new version of Qt (5.15.10), and a new version of KDE Gear (23.08.1).

Starting off with the Audio app changes, I firstly have to mention that PipeWire is now the default sound server. There's no denying the fact that PipeWire is better suited to professional audio work, still, it's not the perfect sweet spot Ubuntu Studio developers were hoping for.

Professional audio work aside, the truth of the matter is that most day-to-day users may actually prefer a pure JACK setup, which is no longer supported (was supported in Ubuntu Studio 23.04 that used PulseAudio).

Other changes include updates to apps such as Carla (2.5.7), lsp-plugins (1.2.11), Audacity (3.3.3), Ardour (7.5.0), and Patchance (1.1.0).

The changes to graphics and video apps include new versions of digiKam (8.1.0), Darktable (4.4.2), OBS Studio (29.1.3), Blender (3.6.2), KDEnlive (23.08.1), Freeshow (0.9.7), and Q Light Controller Plus (4.12.7).

Ubuntu Studio 23.10 brings forth the latest evolution of KDE Plasma and gives us a very clear idea of what we can expect with the upcoming, more important 24.04 LTS release.