Ubuntu 21.04 Beta Available with Latest Linux Kernel

Canonical, the company responsible for the development of Ubuntu , usually releases two updates a year, similar to what Microsoft does with Windows 10. These updates can be more or less large, depending on the company’s development sheet, and generally usually update the kernel. , the desktop and packages. This same month, the users of this Linux will receive a new version of this distro, Ubuntu 21.04 “Hirsute Hippo” . This will be a minor update, with 9 months of support, which will help to pave the way for the next LTS, which will arrive in April 2022.

Ubuntu, broadly speaking, is a good Linux distro , especially for users who do not have much knowledge within this ecosystem and want to take the first steps in it. This is one of the best gateways to Linux, a distro that has an excellent balance between ease of use and performance. However, it also has bad points, and one of the worst is the support that Canonical offers.

Ubuntu 21.04 Beta Available

Leaving aside that offering 9 months of support for non-LTS versions is insufficient, Ubuntu rarely comes to the latest in software, especially in the Kernel . As Canonical verifies and adapts the kernels to its distro, each new Ubuntu release usually comes one or two versions below the latest Linux kernel. However, with the new version 21.04 things will be different.

Ubuntu 21.04 Beta

Get to know what’s new in Ubuntu 21.04

The first thing that strikes us about this new version of Ubuntu is its core. As we can see in the new beta of 21.04, Canonical has included the latest Linux Kernel 5.11 , the latest version (as of today) of this kernel that brings us the best support for the latest CPUs, GPUs and other hardware modules. Version 5.12 is in Release Candidate 6 phase, and it may be stable before the final version of 21.04, but even so, including such a kernel is a big decision on Canonical’s part.

But not everything is good news, and it is that Canonical is going to give us one of lime and another of sand. And it is that, despite the new and revolutionary GNOME 40 being already available, Ubuntu 21.04 will bring a previous version, 3.38.4. If we want to install and use GNOME 40 we will have to do it by hand by executing the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shemgp/gnome-40 sudo apt update sudo apt install mutter && sudo apt install gnome-shell sudo apt upgrade

All native applications related to the desktop are updated to the corresponding version of GNOME, that is, we will not have the Disk utility 40 or Image Viewer 40 versions, but we will have the versions corresponding to version 3.38 of the desktop.

Security will also improve in this new version of this distro. The Ubuntu installer, Ubiquity, will finally allow EXT4 drives to be encrypted without forcing us to use an LVM partition scheme. The permissions of the home directory also change from 775 to 750 to be much more restrictive and secure.

Wayland will be the default graphical server to see if it is ready to replace X11. However, X11 will continue to be available to all users, being able to switch between one and the other easily from the login screen if there are problems.

And finally, we will also see new aesthetic changes in the general appearance of Ubuntu, such as:

  • New wallpaper (according to Hirsute Hippo).
  • New icons.
  • Default dark theme.

Download and test the new beta

We can download this new beta version of Ubuntu for free, as always, from the following link . We will download a 64-bit ISO image that we can use to boot any computer or virtual machine.

Being a beta version, still unfinished, we recommend not using it on a day-to-day basis, but only in tests. If we want a stable Ubuntu, ready to work, we recommend betting on the latest LTS, 20.04, which will support us for updates for 5 years.