A couple of compelling new open source technologies are present in latest development builds of Xubuntu 23.04, which is due for release in April of next year.
Both PipeWire, the newer and less buggy multimedia stack, and Flatpak, the sandboxed package management, have been adopted by Ubuntu’s lightweight sibling. Other Ubuntu flavours adopted PipeWire during the 22.10 cycle, and Ubuntu MATE added native Flatpak support in its 22.04 LTS release.
In the December development update Xubuntu’s Sean Davis explains: “PipeWire has been reported to improve many of the issues users have with PulseAudio, including high CPU usage and Bluetooth connection issues. Xubuntu 23.04 adds PipeWire, WirePlumber, and the Bluetooth connection libraries.”
And having used the tech on Ubuntu (and other distros) a fair bit I have to say, anecdotal though it is, I’m yet to encounter any major hiccups, drop-outs, or codec issues.
Additionally, the distro has chosen to provide Flatpak and the GNOME Software Flatpak plugin out-of-the-box, for all users. This allows anyone using Xubuntu 23.04 to install .flatpakref and .flatpakrepo files from the get-go, as well as install apps from Flathub, the de facto Flatpak app store.
Other changes in Xubuntu 23.04 include a larger Xfce Terminal font size, automatically sizing of system tray icons, and switching .deb installers to open in GNOME Software rather than the distro’s stock archive tool.
In all, some exciting additions for this Xfce-based flavour which, all being well, will feature Xfce 4.18 too.