Canonical has released the official Ubuntu 21.10 update which is named Impish Indri. What is offered in this update?
Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux variants in the world. Every six months the developer often releases an update that includes fixes and updates.
"As open source becomes a new destination, we hope to bring Ubuntu to enterprises and all the places where developers want to innovate. From the largest cloud systems to the smallest devices, from DGX servers to Windows WSL workstations, open source is a springboard for innovative ideas. and Ubuntu will be safe and secure and more consistent," said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical.
Changes in Ubuntu 21.10
1. GNOME 40
With GNOME 40 environment, more dynamic workspace and touchpad gestures, better graphics support, especially applications under Windows Subsystem for Linux. There's also Firefox as a Snap app, and Canonical says the number of snaps published in the store has increased by 25%, serving more than 10 million systems per day.
2. PHP 8, GCC 11 and developer focused features
PHP8 and GCC 11 take effect in this release. PHP 8 was released last June and the most interesting feature is the just-in-time (JIT) compiler. In theory, the addition of JIT should make a sizeable improvement to performance in certain situations.
Previously, PHP used Opcache, and you can see more about what it means to include a JIT compiler for PHP here.
In addition, Ubuntu version 21.10 provides Apache Cassandra as a snap package and MicroK8s, which can be used to install Kubernetes much faster and easier than before.
3. Linux Kernel 5.13
Ubuntu 21.10 features Linux Kernel version 5.13, adding support for Kernel Electric Fence (KFENCE). KFENCE is a new run-time memory error detector designed for production environments, keeping overhead low while still detecting the most common memory errors. This is enabled by default, and Ubuntu 21.10 will randomize the kernel heap memory location on each system call entry on amd64 and arm64 architectures.
