Canonical releases Ubuntu 23.04 Lunar Lobster

New installer, Active Directory login and gaming performance enhance Ubuntu Desktop for work and play

20 April 2023:

Today Canonical announces the release of Ubuntu 23.04, codenamed “Lunar Lobster”. Available to download and install from https://ubuntu.com/download.

“This Ubuntu milestone release demonstrates our progress in raising the bar for the enterprise developer desktops, thanks to our best-in-class Linux integration with Active Directory Domain Services and now Azure Active Directory”, said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical. “Our expanded investment in Ubuntu gaming means your downtime is just as satisfying”.

New installer scales up desktop deployments

The new Ubuntu Desktop installer marks a significant step forward for enterprise deployment and customisation  at scale. 

Our unified Ubuntu server and desktop installation engine, Subiquity, supports the same autoinstall configuration workflows for both desktops and servers.

In line with our mission to make the Linux desktop accessible to all, the Ubuntu 23.04 installer sports a refreshed user interface with a modern but familiar first-time user experience, and new enterprise management capabilities.
“At Compudopt, our mission is to bridge the digital divide by providing technology access and education to underprivileged youth and communities across the United States”, said Thijs van de Kamp, National Director of Technical Operations at Compudopt. “Our creative approach combines Landscape management with Subiquity to enable us to deploy and securely manage our devices with ease, regardless of their location. The new desktop installer introduced in Ubuntu 23.04 will greatly simplify our workflows going forward”.

Expanded login management with Azure Active Directory

Ubuntu Desktop 23.04 is the first and only Linux distribution to provide native user authentication with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) enabling users on Microsoft 365 (M365) Enterprise plans to authenticate Ubuntu Desktops with the same credentials they use for M365 or Azure. IT administrators are encouraged to evaluate the aad-authfeature in this release and provide feedback for its backport to the current  Ubuntu 22.04 LTS release, later this year.

Active Directory Bridging Toolsuite (ADsys) now supports Samba winbind Domain Services in addition to SSSD. This extends compatibility to Amazon Workspaces and older AD configurations.

ADsys is available with Ubuntu Pro and allows IT administrators to manage mixed Windows and Ubuntu Desktop fleets using the same familiar workflows.

Improved workflows for cross-platform development

Ubuntu 23.04 delivers the latest toolchains and runtimes for Python, Java, Go, C, C++, Rust and .Net to ensure the most up to date experience for innovators and enthusiasts. QEMU allows developers to emulate their applications on multiple architectures and the latest release includes new hardware support for a range of armhf, arm64, Risc-V and s390x devices to ensure that local development environments match the target deployment architecture.

The latest versions of Docker and Containerd deliver improved container security and lifecycle management. LXD environments are also easier to deploy thanks to pre-seeding in cloud-init and network hotplug support.

With Ubuntu 23.04 debuginfodnow supports private PPAs. This service provides required debug symbols on-the-fly over HTTPS to make debugging Ubuntu packages easier, quicker and less error-prone.

More controls for apps and snaps

Desktop snaps have a new refresh awareness capability. Updates for running snaps download in the background and are applied automatically when the app is closed.

Users and administrators can now  pause automatic updates of specific snaps as long as desired.

Ubuntu 23.04 includes GNOME 44, delivering further usability improvements with a focus on new quick settings options for bluetooth device management and dark mode.

The Firefox snap also benefits from significant performance gains on the Raspberry Pi with hardware accelerated rendering.

Levelling up the Ubuntu gaming experience

Over 150,000 gamers downloaded the early access beta Steam snap, which is now promoted to the stable channel. The Steam snap bundles key dependencies to run both new and older titles without the need to enable and manage additional PPAs. This includes 32-bit libraries and cutting edge Mesa drivers.

More Resources

• Download Ubuntu 23.04
• Release notes
• Ubuntu Discourse community
• Introduction to Azure AD user authentication

Join our roundtable discussion this May the 4th to learn more about the future of deployment, identity management and gaming on Ubuntu Desktop. 

About Canonical

Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, the OS for most public cloud workloads as well as the emerging categories of smart gateways, self-driving cars and advanced robots. Canonical provides enterprise security, support and services to commercial users of Ubuntu. Established in 2004, Canonical is a privately held company.