Now about a year ago I bought one Raspberry Pi 4 to use it as a media center, game emulator, and do some tests and desktop tasks. Personally I have two complaints: its architecture prevents installing some applications, such as Ace Stream Player, and the operating system that works best, is easier to install and respects all the space on an SD card is Raspbian, a distribution that will be renamed Raspberry Pi OS and that right now ... well, I will say that I don't like it at all. For that reason, I was happy to read the news that I bring you today.
And yes, right now we can install Ubuntu on a Raspberry Pi, and even Focal Fossa includes official support, but it is not a desktop Ubuntu, if not a "bare" one like Ubuntu Server; If we want it to have a user interface with all that that implies, we have to install the packages from a desktop. That will change in Ubuntu 20.10 Groovy Gorilla, or so Martin Wimpress, the lead developer of Ubuntu MATE who is now also the leader of the Ubuntu desktop, has suggested.
Ubuntu 20.10 will include a desktop version for Raspberry Pi… right?
With a recent podcast from Ubuntu Podcast, Wimpress dropped a bombshell when he said that they are probably working on an Ubuntu Desktop for Raspberry Pi. It's something he said during the debate on the new 8GB version of the Raspberry Pi 4.
«Maybe, maybe ... Shhh, it's just between you and me, don't tell anyone, but one of the things that OMG article! Ubuntu! on Ubuntu 20.10 it did not include ... maybe we are working on an Ubuntu Desktop for Raspberry Pi ».
Right now and with the logical absence of an official statement, little can be known about this project. We do know that Wimpress already offered various versions of Ubuntu MATE for the raspberry board, but the last one is based on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver, the 64-bit one is in the experimental phase and, after installing it via Etcher or similar tools, the storage of the operating system does not exceed 4GB. In 5 months we will know what and how they are preparing it.