More than 1300 certified components from 161 manufacturers are now listed by brand and by category, making the catalog the largest list of Linux-compatible components available, Canonical says.

Linux has a firm foothold as an operating system for servers — it's popular for hosting Web sites, for instance — but has only a few percent of the desktop market.

Built around an immutable Linux core, this new Snap-based Ubuntu should provide a remarkably stable Linux desktop.