The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 22.10, code-named “Kinetic Kudu”. This marks Ubuntu Studio’s 32nd release. This release is a regular release and as such, it is supported for 9 months (until July 2023).
Since it’s just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading. Please see the release notes for a complete list of changes and known issues.
You can download Ubuntu Studio 22.10 from our download page.
Upgrading
Instructions for upgrading are included in the release notes.
New This Release
Ubuntu Studio Feature Uninstaller
Previous releases of Ubuntu Studio had a way to choose the features you wanted when you installed. Unfortunately, this had to be removed from the installer several releases ago. An often-requested item is a way to uninstall some of these features after installation since they might not integrate into your workflow.
A new addition to the Ubuntu Studio Installer package is the Ubuntu Studio Feature Uninstaller which performs the reverse of the Ubuntu Studio Installer: removes groups of packages from the Ubuntu Studio installation as long as they aren’t required by another group of packages. For example, if you have ubuntustudio-photography installed and ubuntustudio-graphics installed but wish to uninstall ubuntustudio-photography, you will still have gimp installed since it’s part of the ubuntustudio-graphics metapackage. This method of uninstallation is safe and effective at making your digital studio yours.
Audacity 3.2
Included with this release is the brand-new Audacity 3.2. Prior to this release, Audacity had been still on the Audacity 2.4 release. This is the first Ubuntu release to carry Audacity 3.x and we couldn’t be prouder.
Just a word of caution: Audacity 3.2 isn’t compatible with all of the audio plugins we carry, so there may be some errors when scanning, so keep that in mind.
Software for Live Performances and Houses of Worship
A major group of people that could benefit from Ubuntu Studio and its software is those who do live performances and those in houses of worship, such as Churches and Synagogues. As such, we have included, in addition to our vast audio suite, such software to enable houses of worship to create effective services.
For lighting, we have included Q Light Controller Plus to serve the needs of controlling house and stage lighting across multiple universes of light fixtures. Whether you have simple stage lighting or moving programmable RGB lights, QLC+ can handle it.
For projection, in addition to LibreOffice Impress, we now have FreeShow, a presentation program to easily show text on a big screen, with support for stage display, remote control, media, and many more advanced features. It is geared toward houses of worship but can be used for many live performance lyric presentation applications. If FreeShow is inadequate or not featureful enough, OpenLP is also included.
Backports PPA
There are a few items planned for the Backports PPA once the next release cycle opens. We plan to keep the backports PPA up-to-date for the next six months until the release of 23.04, at which point you will be encouraged to upgrade.
Instructions for enabling the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA
- Automatic method:
- Open Ubuntu Studio Installer
- Click “Enable Backports”
- Manual method:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntustudio-ppa/backportssudo apt upgrade
Plasma Backports
Since we share the Desktop Environment with Kubuntu, simply adding the Kubuntu Backports will help you with keeping the desktop environment and its components up-to-date with the latest versions:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backportssudo apt upgrade
More Updates
There are many more updates not covered here but are mentioned in the Release Notes. We highly recommend reading those release notes so you know what has been updated and know any known issues that you may encounter.
Get Involved!
A wonderful way to contribute is to get involved with the project directly! We’re always looking for new volunteers to help with packaging, documentation, tutorials, user support, and MORE! Check out all the ways you can contribute!
Special Thanks
Huge special thanks for this release go to:
- Len Ovens: Studio Controls, Ubuntu Studio Installer, Coding
- Simon Quigley: Packaging, Ubuntu Core Developer
- Eylul Dogruel: Artwork, Graphics Design
- Ross Gammon: Upstream Debian Developer, Testing, Email Support
- Sebastien Ramacher: Upstream Debian Developer
- Dennis Braun: Debian Package Maintainer
- Rik Mills: Kubuntu Council Member, help with Plasma desktop
- Mauro Gaspari: Tutorials, Promotion, and Documentation, Testing
- Aaron Rainbolt: Testing and bug reporting, IRC Support
- Krytarik Raido: IRC Moderator, Mailing List Moderator
- Erich Eickmeyer: Project Leader, Packaging, Direction, Treasurer
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.
Additionally, FreeShow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded to the snap store. Therefore, for FreeShow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.
Q: Is PipeWire the main sound server like Ubuntu Desktop 22.10?
A: One of our goals this release was to create some kind of switch between our traditional PulseAudio/JACK setup and PipeWire, but this did not come to fruition as we had quite a few other bugs to squash as a result of the transition to ffmpeg 5. Additionally, we had a lot of clean-up after the transition to Python 3.10 in 22.04 LTS among other bugs. Sadly, that’s where our attention went and PipeWire support had to be deprioritized for this release.
Additionally, PipeWire does not support any JACK backends other than ALSA, so users who need NetJACK, FFADO for FireWire, or other backends would not be able to use PipeWire alone. Therefore, we need to develop an easy way to switch between the more traditional PulseAudio/JACK setup and PipeWire.
Q: Will you ever make an ISO image with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio. Please note that this process does not convert that flavor to Ubuntu Studio but adds its tools, features, and benefits to the existing flavor installation.
Q: What if I don’t want all these packages installed on my machine?
A: Simply use the Ubuntu Studio Feature Uninstaller to remove the features of Ubuntu Studio you don’t want or need!
