What’s New in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS? 20 Features You Need to Know

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" was recently released, bringing many changes over previous LTS releases and incorporating cumulative updates from Ubuntu 20.10, 21.04, and 21.10.

1. Default Wayland

Wayland is now the default display server, with Pipewire enabling out‑of‑the‑box screen sharing and full support for NVIDIA graphics. Users can switch back to an Xorg session from the login screen if needed.

2. Light‑by‑Default Appearance

The Yaru GTK theme now uses a fully light theme, removing the mixed dark title bar. Window close buttons are no longer a bright red dot; instead, subtle gray "backdots" appear behind all three window controls, matching GNOME 42's libadwaita look.

3. More Compact Desktop UI

Upstream GNOME Shell changes make Ubuntu 22.04 appear more compact, with tighter margins on panels, pop‑ups, and menus, reduced padding, and a less obtrusive OSD for volume and brightness.

4. Improved Desktop Icons

The new desktop icon extension lets you drag files and folders between the file manager and the desktop. A revamped appearance panel in Settings offers limited icon settings, and new folders appear in the bottom‑right corner by default.

5. Horizontal Workspaces

Workspaces are now added and managed horizontally, remaining dynamic with new multitasking settings, and can be accessed via the Super key, the Activities label, or new touch‑pad gestures.

6. App Launcher Changes

The launcher now slides up from the bottom, supports horizontal paging, and allows free rearrangement of app shortcuts via drag‑and‑drop. Hovering over a truncated name reveals the full title.

7. Dock Differences

The Dock now includes a trash can item, a separator between running and pinned apps, and additional settings such as a “close‑panel” toggle, visibility options, and multi‑monitor behavior controls.

8. Accent Colours

The Yaru theme’s dominant purple has been replaced with orange, but users can choose from ten accent colours, affecting the GTK theme, GNOME Shell, and some icons.

9. Touch‑Pad Gestures

Three‑finger swipes open the Workspace Switcher, additional three‑finger gestures reveal the App Launcher, and two‑finger swipes page left/right. The gestures are 1:1 with hand movement, providing a polished feel.

10. Password‑Protected Zip Files

Users can extract password‑protected .zip files directly via “Extract Here” and create such archives from Nautilus by selecting “Compress” and enabling the password option.

11. Microphone Mute Alert

When the microphone is muted, a gray icon appears in the top bar, indicating that no audio is being captured.

12. Calendar Events in the Notification Area

Events from the Calendar app appear in the notification shade/clock applet, with a dot indicator for the current day and a preview card below the calendar.

13. Power Options

Three power modes—"Power Saver", "Balanced", and (hardware‑dependent) "Performance"—are available via Settings → Power or the status menu, with automatic activation of Power Saver on low battery.

14. Show Battery Percentage

The top bar now displays the battery percentage out‑of‑the‑box, without requiring scripts or tweaks.

15. Prominent Restart Option

A clear restart entry has been added to the session options in the status menu.

16. Keyboard Shortcut Settings

The shortcut settings have been moved under Keyboard in Settings, offering a searchable, faster interface for editing key bindings.

17. Multitasking Options

Settings → Multitasking lets you choose dynamic or fixed workspaces, disable the hot‑corner for the workspace switcher, and turn off window snapping.

18. New Screenshot Tool

Pressing Print Screen now opens an interactive screenshot utility that allows region, window, or full‑screen capture, as well as screen recording.

19. Proper Dark Mode

Ubuntu 22.04 ships a true dark theme that affects the entire UI, including GNOME Shell, fixing the half‑light issue present in earlier releases.

20. Firefox Delivered as Snap

Firefox is now provided as a Snap package by default; upgrading from Ubuntu 20.04 replaces the .deb version with the Snap version.

Source: OSC Open Source Community.