Today Canonical announced the release of Ubuntu 25.04, codenamed "Plucky Puffin. Ubuntu 25.04 delivers the latest GNOME 48 with support for triple buffering and an improved install and boot experience. The introduction of a "devpack" for Spring expands toolchain availability in Ubuntu. Advancements in silicon enablement with Canonical's partners deliver performance improvements for AI workloads on Intel GPUs, and support for confidential computing on AMD SEV-SNP.

"Plucky Puffin combines the very latest in open source desktop technology with a focus on making high quality developer tooling readily available on Ubuntu. Ubuntu 25.04 delivers performance improvements across Intel GPUs, and a new purpose-built ISO for ARM64 hardware enthusiasts. Our increasing support for confidential computing with AMD SEV-SNP makes Ubuntu the target platform to deploy AI workloads securely and at scale on both public clouds and private data centers.", Jon Seager, VP of Ubuntu Engineering at Canonical

Canonical Ltd. announced the upcoming availability of Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition for free download on 30 October. In related news, Canonical also announced the simultaneous release of Ubuntu 8.10 Server Edition.

Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition is designed for the pervasively connected digital lifestyle. With new 3G network support, users can move smoothly from wired and WiFi networks onto 3G cellphone networks while traveling. Ubuntu 8.10 is also built to be shared - users can start a quick "guest session" on the fly and let someone use their computer to surf the web or check email, while maintaining the security and integrity of their own data. And if that person really enjoys their brief session as an Ubuntu guest, they can put Ubuntu on any USB key and take it home to install on their own computer rather than having to burn a CD.

Linux/Unix (*nix) users have probably heard all about Gnome by now. Gnome is a window manager for the X Window system. Window managers allow *nix users that would otherwise be looking at command line or the rather bland X Windows system to use something much more elegant, which may even surpass Windows or Macintosh's various window managers in functionality, efficiency, and beauty. Back to Gnome. The makers of Gnome have ensured that they would stay on a timetable for releases, and 2.18 rolled out just in time. Gnome 2.18 adds a laptop power manager for mobile users, improves window managing between two windows, and vastly improves security. If you're really interested in all the changes from the previous version of Gnome, you can read the full release notes here.

Those of you using *nix (such as the techPowerUp! FreeBSD club) who enjoy the clean Gnome environment can download the latest version here.