Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Lubuntu 21.04 arrived on schedule, along with the other Ubuntu flavors, on 22 April, 2021. This is the middle release of three “standard” releases that will result in the next long term support version, Lubuntu 22.04, which is due out in April, 2022.
This is Lubuntu’s 23rd release and the sixth with the LXQt desktop, so it has reached a fair degree of stability and maturity.
As this is a standard release, it has only nine months of support, until January, 2022.
System Requirements
Lubuntu no longer lists any system requirements since the introduction of LXQt in Lubuntu 18.10, but I can report that in testing, Lubuntu 21.04 ran quite well on my 2011 vintage System76 Pangolin Performance laptop with a 2.3 GHz quad-core processor and 4 GiB of RAM.
Booting It Up
After downloading the ISO file via bittorrent, I did an SHA256 sum check on it to make sure the download was good and then used UNetbootin to write it to a USB stick for testing.
Booting up Lubuntu 21.04 from the stick is now a lot faster than past versions, as it seems that the file checker program that checks for a good USB stick write now works invisibly in the background. I am presuming it will inform you if it finds any errors.
New
Lubuntu 21.04 introduces only a few small, incremental changes. It uses LXQt 0.16.0 which is based upon the Qt 5.15.2 toolkit. This does result in some minor changes to the “look and feel” of Lubuntu themes.
Also new is the LXQt Archiver application which replaces Ark, the default archive manager since LXQt arrived in Lubuntu. LXQt Archiver is actually not all-new, though, as it is based upon the MATE desktop’s Engrampa, which is based on the Gnome File Roller.
The Lubuntu Update Notifier has been updated again to provide a better tree view and thus more information on updates.
The MPV video player has been removed. It was always a supplement to the default VLC media player and was probably never really needed or employed by most users anyway. If you need it, it can still be installed from the repositories, though.
The default wallpaper is also new. It was the winner of a wallpaper competition held specifically for Lubuntu 21.04. The past 23 wallpapers have been generally elegant and minimal, whereas I found this one an assault on the eyes. Fortunately there are ten alternative wallpapers provided or you can use your own wallpaper instead.
Settings
Nothing has changed in settings for Lubuntu 21.04. Settings still work well and the desktop is relatively easy to customize with a choice of 19 window themes and 13 icon sets. Unlike Ubuntu, in Lubuntu the setting menus are spread out a bit. They can all be found in the main menu, though, within Preferences-LXQt Settings.
The default window and bottom panel theme remains the rather dark Lubuntu Arc theme, although there are lighter choices available.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Lubuntu 21.04 are: • 2048-qt 0.1.6 simple lightweight game* • Bluedevil 5.21.4 bluetooth connector • Discover Software Center 5.21.4 package management system • FeatherPad 0.17.1 text editor • Firefox 87.0 web browser • K3b 20.12.3 CD/DVD burner • Kcalc 20.12.3 calculator • KDE partition manager 20.12.3 partition manager • LibreOffice 7.1.2 office suite, Qt interface version • Lubuntu Update Notifier 0.4 software update notifier • LXimage-Qt 0.16.0 image viewer* • LXQt Archiver 0.3.0 archive manager • Muon 5.8.0 package manager* • Noblenote 1.2.0 note taker* • PCManFM-Qt 0.16.0 file manager* • Qlipper 5.1.2 clipboard manager* • qPDFview 0.4.18 PDF viewer* • PulseAudio 14.2 audio controller • Qtransmission 3.00 bittorrent client, Qt interface version* • Quassel 0.13.1 IRC client* • ScreenGrab 2.1.0 screenshot tool • Skanlite 2.2.0 scanning utility* • Startup Disk Creator 0.3.9 (usb-creator-kde) USB boot disk maker • Trojitá 0.7 email client* • VLC 3.0.12 media player • Wget 1.21 command line webpage downloader • XScreenSaver 5.42 screensaver and screen locker*
* Indicates the same version as used in Lubuntu 20.10 LTS
As can be seen, Lubuntu 21.04 comes with a decent assortment of productivity applications including Firefox, LibreOffice, and, my favorite, the FeatherPad text editor. FeatherPad even got an update to 0.17.1 which includes choices of syntax highlighting colors. Version 0.17.1 was not the most recent version at release, that was 0.18.0, but at least it was only two versions out of date.
As in the previous LXQt releases, no default image editor, video editor or webcam application are provided, although an assortment of these can easily be added from the repositories if needed.
Conclusions
This second standard release in the development cycle leading to the next LTS includes just small, cautious changes. This is really how operating system development should be approached, particularly when you have a loyal user base who are happy with how everything works and are generally not demanding big changes.
It will be interesting to see what turns up in the next release, Lubuntu 21.10, due out on 14 October, 2021, as that is the last chance to introduce anything new before the next LTS release the following spring. If the pattern set by Lubuntu 20.10 and 21.04 continues, we can expect only a few further small tweaks in Lubuntu 21.10.