14 DAY TRIAL // The Ubuntu Software Center might be going away, but that’s not stopping the Ubuntu developers from updating it. A fresh update has been released, but only for the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS daily build, at least for now.
It’s been a long time since we had an update for the Ubuntu Software Center and we didn’t really expect one. The Ubuntu developers have already announced that they plan to replace the Ubuntu Software Center with GNOME Software (adapted for Ubuntu), but that’s only happening for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
The Ubuntu community doesn’t particularly love the available Software Center, and Canonical didn’t put any effort into improving it in the past couple of years. It’s been stuck at version 13.10 for quite some time, and just a couple of security updates were issued. This latest upgrade for USC brings the version number up to 16.01 from 13.10, which is a really big jump.
Ubuntu Software Center 16.01 is a massive update
It looks like Ubuntu devs & company have been working for some time on this update since it doesn't look like something that’s been done over the weekend.
According to the changelog, the old gtk+ based SSO UI has been removed, the "Ubuntu One" token is now being used for authenticating to the server, the unbranded .desktop file has been removed to avoid unnecessary duplication, support for Adwaita Dark Theme Variant has been added, extras channel support has been removed, and a missing GLib import has been added.
Also, the unity-scope-* packages have been added in the list of dash search plugins, some rendering issues in the lobby grid views and container headers have been corrected, network access is no longer required for installing local .deb packages, the Unity launcher integration has been improved, and numerous other bugs have been fixed.
This is just scratching the surface of what’s new in the latest version of the update. Make sure that you check the full changelog below.