Streamers, photography editors, writers, publishers, and digital creators have one extra reason to be happy with the release of Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS, codenamed Jammy Jellyfish.
Its release marks Ubuntu Studio’s 31st release, and it will be supported for the next three years (until April 2025). Most of the changes in this release are natural evolutions of the 21.10 version of the OS, hence, most of the apps contained within are simply ugraded versions.
Big changes
One of the most important changes is the new dark theme. This version of Ubuntu Studio uses a bespoke GNOME Adwaita Dark theme with a corresponding Light theme. This is bound to improve eye comfort, especially for users who use Ubuntu Studio to edit photos (as well know that system themes and colors can affect the how we see photography tones).
Ubuntu Studio now boasts support for rEFInd, a bootloader for UEFI-based OSes. rEFInd is bound to help support the lowlatency kernel. This creates a menu entry that makes it easy for you to apply those settings and keep the lowlatency kernel as the default kernel.
The Backports PPA is one area upon which the team behind Ubuntu Studio have some worked plan for the next few years. One example is the folder icons that will eventually match the accent color set in System Settings.
Ubuntu Studio shares a lot of its desktop environment elements with Kubuntu. That said, if you want to ensure that your desktop environment stays as fresh and as up to date as possible, you can add the Kubuntu Backports: “sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports,” and “sudo apt upgrade.”
App updates
Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS features the latest stable release for most of its multimedia and digital creation suite. One of the biggest changes is to the Studio Controls app that new has a set of new mixers and plugins, and has been updated to version 2.3.1.
Other audio-related updates include the following apps: RaySession (0.12.2), Carla (2.4.2), jack-mixer (17), and lsp-plugins (1.1.31).
In the graphics department, Krita has been updated to version 5.0.2, Darktable to 3.8.1, Inkscape to 1.1.2, and Digikam yo 7.5.0. Last but notleast, two major video apps have also received updates: OBS Studio upgraded to 27.2.3, and KDEnlive upgraded to 21.12.3.
Conclusion
Even though Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS is simply builds on top of 21.10, the changes are quite significant, starting with the transition from Xfce to KDE Plasma, and the plethora of internal changes, and ending with the upgrades of almost all its apps.
All in all, Ubuntu Studio is now better than it ever was, and is still the premier choice for digital creators who need a capable multimedia workstation, but still want all those nice advantages Ubuntu brings to the table.
More information about the changes in 22.04 LTS can be found on the official Release Notes section.
