Ubuntu 23.10 launches with a new App Center interface and better security

After a long period of internal testing, Canonical has just officially announced the release of Ubuntu 23.10 'Mantic Minotaur' with a number of small but notable changes and additions that can greatly impact the user experience. In addition, this is also an update that lays the foundation for the next long-term support (LTS) release in April 2024. Currently, Ubuntu 23.10 is available and users can download it to experience it right now. hour.

The first major change that can be easily noticed in Ubuntu 23.10 is the new 'Application Center' - App Center. Canonical says the new interface will provide a more intuitive and user-friendly experience, along with good support for snap and deb package formats. App Center pulls metadata from the Canonical Snap Store to give users more tailored recommendations about the apps they want to download.

Another notable change in this update is the ability to preview support for hardware-backed full-disk encryption. Canonical hopes to provide broader hardware support for this feature, as well as more management and configuration options in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

 One security-related change worth mentioning in this update is that the Ubuntu kernel now supports an additional mode, which forces programs to have an AppArmor Profile to use unprivileged namespaces. The company says this will help reduce kernel interfaces that often require root access, which can create dangerous security vulnerabilities.

Canonical says many popular applications such as web browsers use unprivileged namespaces, and display of kernel interfaces is often limited; This poses many security risks. Applications in the Ubuntu repository now come with an AppArmor profile to ensure they comply with this new policy when it is enabled.

As a non-LTS release, Ubuntu 23.10 will only be supported for nine months. For most people, it's best to just use LTS versions. But if you are running Ubuntu 22.10 or 23.04, then upgrading to Ubuntu 23.10 is necessary.

Micah Soto

Update 22 October 2023