Ubuntu 27.04 may bring a preview of the long-awaited Core Desktop

Canonical has announced that they are accelerating the development of Ubuntu Core Desktop, a desktop version of their immutable IoT distribution. The company's engineering vice president, Jon Seager, made the announcement on the company's Discourse forum, explaining that the project has been delayed for a few years but is now moving forward.

Seager outlined three potential use cases for Ubuntu Core Desktop: a browser-centric machine, a developer workstation, and a gaming machine. These goals suggest that Canonical is wary of making something too specialized too early, as it may not be versatile enough for more challenging roles. The three use cases are reminiscent of niches occupied successfully by rival immutable distros for years.

ChromeOS and ChromeOS Flex dominate the browser-centric niche, while Fedora's Atomic editions and community-led distros based on the same technology have been around for years in the developer workstation and gaming machine niches, respectively. Canonical acknowledges that it is lagging behind its competitors and has identified some of the problems that have delayed the release of Ubuntu Core Desktop.

These include the need for a specially modified version of the base core22 snap, essential underlying technology that is not obvious, smartphone-style permissions prompting, inter-snap dependencies, content snaps, and snap components. The company is also planning to introduce modularity in desktop snap packages, isolating components such as the display manager and the desktop from each other.

These plans are ambitious, but they aim to make Ubuntu Core Desktop a versatile and modular desktop version of the existing immutable OS.