Here’s some awesome news: Ubuntu 23.10 will support the Raspberry Pi 5.
So if you’re among the hundreds-of-thousands to pre-order a new model you may be pleased — I only say ‘may’ as chances are someone out there won’t be — to know the latest version of Ubuntu will work on it, once released.
And with up-to 3x the CPU performance and up-to 5x the GPU performance of the Raspberry Pi 4, the Raspberry Pi 5 is better suited to everyday desktop usage than before. Heck, it can run dual 4K displays at 60Hz.
Canonical’s developers had early access to the Raspberry Pi 5. This enabled them to test the upcoming Ubuntu release on the device, identify areas where support for new hardware was required, and file Feature Freeze Exceptions to queue in the new/updated packages required.
Among them, patches to the Mesa 23.2.1 stack Mantic ships with; a new pisp package to handle the Pi 5’s (much enhanced) camera capabilities; and a major update to python3-gpiozero to conform with the changes the new model makes to its GPIO operation.
An updated rpiboot packages won’t be available in time for the release of Ubuntu 23.10 but as this isn’t strictly required, it’s not an issue.
From reading the numerous commit messages and bug reports it seems that Ubuntu 23.10 (with these changes in tow, of course) is working well on the Raspberry Pi 5 – which is great.
As the Pi 5, it’s available to pre-order from approved resellers priced from £60/$60 with a ship date of late October. Ubuntu 23.10 is released on October 12 – and if all goes well a new Ubuntu 23.10 Pi image will be served up alongside it.
