What’s new in Ubuntu 15.10: desktop and devices

The desktop edition of Ubuntu 15.10 will be available for download from today – 22nd October – with the latest developer tools and freshest desktop interface, with a preview of the converged phone, desktop and tablet experience that has been making waves in the tech community.

Over-the-air updates to Ubuntu Phone

Users of the Ubuntu Phone will automatically receive all features of Ubuntu 15.10, demonstrating for the first time the integration of Ubuntu’s famous flow of updates to this new ecosystem. Some elements of 15.10 have already been delivered to phone users.

Developer experience for Ubuntu Core and the Internet of Things

Ubuntu Core is a tiny rendition of Ubuntu that uses a transactional update and rollback system for apps and the OS itself. This release of Ubuntu includes the latest version of Snapcraft,  the developer tool that makes it easy to create a “snap” for Ubuntu Core.

Snapcraft is a one-stop tool to make packages of existing applications, or snaps, from source or classic Ubuntu packages. Learn more about Ubuntu Core and Snapcraft at https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/.

For ‘makers’, Ubuntu Make now has support for more platforms – now 20 versus 14 in 15.04.  Ubuntu Make provides essential tools which are always fresh from the upstream providers, and a thorough testing framework so developers can be assured of a smooth experience.  More information is available at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-make.

On the desktop

Ubuntu has been pre-installed on millions of PCs worldwide and remains one of the world’s most popular, easy-to-use and reliable operating systems available today. Ubuntu is the high-end developer platform of choice, with Nvidia, Dell and other companies launching workstations for machine learning, visualisation and general purpose development on Ubuntu. The Dell XPS 13 and Precision M800 mobile workstation both demonstrate the focus Canonical, and its partners, have on bringing next-generation tools to Ubuntu developers.

In 15.10, Unity8 is demonstrating Canonical’s convergence vision as a tech preview.  Users can log into a Unity8 session on the desktop, experience the new features, and cleanly revert to the default Unity7 experience. The feature set of Unity8 now includes the important windowed mode for Desktop users, which allows users to multi-task between multiple running apps. Mobile apps such  as the Music player and the Deko email client have added support to cover small form-factor devices and large screen Desktops. Ubuntu 15.10 also has improved support for developers of traditional apps that want to bring these apps into Unity8.

Ubuntu Kylin

Ubuntu Kylin users in China will benefit from all of the improvements in 15.10, such as input methods which provide a faster, more elegant Chinese experience. Users are now able to input pinyin directly in the Ubuntu Dash to search. Fewer keystrokes means faster searching! There are also UI improvements to Ubuntu Kylin Software Center and Youker Assistant for more consistent look and feel.

Ubuntu 15.10 will be available to download from http://www.ubuntu.com/download