Canonical Revives Its Immutable Ubuntu Core Desktop

Back in 2023, Canonical engineers laid out plans for Ubuntu Core Desktop, an immutable desktop flavor of Linux. Early progress looked promising, but from 2024 onward the project went largely quiet. Now the company has announced it is bringing the effort back, with sweeping plans for the future.

The decision to accelerate development was shared by Jon Seager, Canonical's VP of Engineering. He acknowledged that the 2023 preview "fell short" of the original vision.

Three use cases to start

During the Ubuntu 27.04 development cycle, Canonical will put more focus on Ubuntu Core Desktop and target three use cases: browser-centric machines, developer workstations, and gaming PCs.

That choice stems from the project's main problem: application availability. The range of software available as Snaps remains one of the key blockers, so the team is starting where the catalog is already good enough.

Other challenges include modularizing the desktop, handling permission prompts for the user, and supporting KDE Plasma well alongside GNOME.

A new team and daily builds

Canonical recently set up a dedicated Ubuntu Core Desktop team. Its first tasks are to revive the 2023 work, re-establish the pipelines that produce immutable images, and assess where the project currently stands. Daily Ubuntu Core Desktop images are expected during the Ubuntu 27.04 cycle.

Classic Ubuntu stays

Seager stressed that Ubuntu Desktop in its present form is not going away. Still, he called this possibly the most exciting announcement since he took the lead of Ubuntu: he has long seen Ubuntu Core as the future of the distribution, but until now the company had not been in a position to execute on the desktop side.

There is a long road ahead and plenty of technical hurdles, Seager admits. The result, though, should be a safer, more resilient, more trustworthy and future-proof Ubuntu. His long-term mission, he says, is to make Ubuntu Core the de facto target for Linux applications and workflows, and the default Ubuntu experience on the desktop, in the data center and at the edge. Pushing the desktop forward, he believes, will advance all of these.

Full details are available on the Ubuntu Discourse.

Source: Phoronix