Lubuntu developer Simon Quigley informs Softpedia today that future releases of the Lubuntu Linux operating system will shift focus from being a Linux OS for older PCs to a modern, functional and modular GNU/Linux distribution.

From the moment it was created eight years ago, Lubuntu was always known as the official Ubuntu flavor targeted at users of "old computers from 10 years ago," mainly because it shipped with the very lightweight and less resource-hungry LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) as default user interface a.k.a desktop environment and corresponding apps.

It never was a bloated operating system and will never be, but since 32-bit computers are going away and are very hard to find these days, the development team decided that it's time to shift the main target of Lubuntu from old PCs to modern, yet functional and modular GNU/Linux distribution that won't stand in your way.

"We decided that going forward, we need to adapt for the current state of the market. Therefore, our main focus is shifting from a distribution whose main focus is providing a distribution for old hardware to a functional yet modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer," said developer Simon Quigley.

With that in mind, future Lubuntu release will provide newcomers with all the support they need to get started with using a Linux-based operating system, leverage modern, Qt-based apps to offer users a functional and modular Linux experience, maintain a light experience by default, and support any language across the globe.

Future Lubuntu releases are adopting LXQt

As we exclusively reported earlier this year, future Lubuntu releases will ship with the LXQt desktop environment by default instead of LXDE, which is old and based on open-source technologies that will soon go away. LXQt is the modern version of LXDE based on Qt technologies, so you'll be able to use a lot of Qt apps too.

The first Lubuntu release to feature LXQt by default will be Lubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish), due for release on October 18, 2018. It also looks like Lubuntu 18.10 might not support 32-bit installations, though users who can't afford a 64-bit machine can still use the long-term supported Lubuntu 18.04 LTS release until April 2021.

In the end, Lubuntu will remain the operating system to bring back to life old computers, but computers from 10 years ago which use a dual-core 64-bit processor with at least 2GB of RAM, not 32-bit machines from 20 years ago that no longer exist. To learn more about Lubuntu's future vision, visit the official announcement.