<p>Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ‘Resolute Raccoon’ was released on 23 April 2026, the 11th long-term supported Ubuntu release. The main edition gets five years of security updates (until April 2031), extendable to ten years via Ubuntu Pro. Official flavors like Kubuntu and Lubuntu get three years. Minimum system requirements are a 2 GHz dual-core CPU, 6 GB RAM (up from 4 GB), and 25 GB storage.</p>
<h2>Kernel and hardware</h2>
<p>Linux kernel 7.0 is the foundation, bringing support for Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake), full Intel Core Ultra Xe2 and Arc Battlemage GPU support, and RISC-V RVA23 baseline. Mesa 26.0.x handles GPU drivers, with NVIDIA 595.x series shipped by default. NVIDIA Dynamic Boost is enabled by default on laptops. The NTSYNC kernel driver is included, which improves Windows game performance under Wine and Proton.</p>
<p>ARM64 gets an official desktop ISO and Canonical Livepatch support for rebootless kernel patching on Arm64 servers.</p>
<h2>Wayland is now the only option</h2>
<p>This is the first Ubuntu LTS to ship without an Xorg desktop session. GNOME 50 drops X11 from GDM entirely. Kubuntu follows the same path, dropping X11 session support in favor of Wayland as the sole officially supported session. Lubuntu is the exception — it ships LXQt 2.3 without a Wayland session in the ISO, though one may arrive via PPA later.</p>
<p>If you rely on software that only works under X11, check compatibility before upgrading.</p>
<h2>Desktop changes in GNOME 50</h2>
<p>Fractional scaling is now stable. Variable refresh rate (VRR) is enabled by default. HDR support is improved. Remote desktop gets hardware-accelerated encoding.</p>
<p>Five new default apps replace older ones:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Ptyxis</strong> replaces the old GNOME Terminal</li>
<li><strong>Loupe</strong> replaces Eye of GNOME as the image viewer</li>
<li><strong>Papers</strong> replaces Evince as the document viewer</li>
<li><strong>Showtime</strong> replaces Totem as the video player</li>
<li><strong>Resources</strong> replaces GNOME System Monitor</li>
</ul>
<p>All five are written in Rust. Nautilus has received significant improvements, and notifications are now grouped. There’s a new Wellbeing panel for screen time tracking, battery charging limits, and a text size slider for accessibility. A new Security Center app provides granular Snap permissions. A Telemetry panel has also been added.</p>
<p>The Yaru theme has refreshed folder icons. Several older tools were removed: Software &amp; Updates, Startup Applications, and Google Drive integration in Nautilus.</p>
<h2>System-level changes</h2>
<p>TPM-backed full-disk encryption is now generally available (no longer experimental). Dual-boot alongside BitLocker-encrypted Windows is improved.</p>
<p>Rust is spreading through the stack: sudo-rs replaces the classic sudo implementation, uutils coreutils replaces GNU coreutils, and several kernel drivers are now Rust-based. Note that sudo-rs isn’t fully compatible with all sudo configurations, so check yours before upgrading.</p>
<p>Dracut replaces the old initramfs tooling for faster boot times. cgroup v1 support is dropped. apt-key is removed. This is also the last release supporting SysV init scripts.</p>
<p>APT gets new commands and better output formatting. The App Center now supports expanded Deb package management.</p>
<h2>AI/ML and developer tooling</h2>
<p>NVIDIA CUDA and AMD ROCm are now available directly via <code>apt</code> from official repositories, removing the need for manual driver setup for AI/ML workloads. Confidential computing support covers Intel TDX and AMD SEV.</p>
<p>On the developer side, GCC 15.2 is the default compiler. The toolchain includes OpenJDK 25, Rust 1.93 with cargo-auditable support, Golang 1.26, and an official .NET snap with multi-version management. New devpacks for Spring and Go bundle framework tools into single-command installs.</p>
<p>Post-quantum cryptography is available via OpenSSH 10.2.</p>
<p>Authd handles cloud identity provider authentication, supporting Entra ID, Google IAM, and OIDC.</p>
<h2>Updated applications</h2>
<ul>
<li>Firefox 149</li>
<li>LibreOffice 25.8 (26.2.2 in some flavors)</li>
<li>Thunderbird 140</li>
<li>GIMP 3.0</li>
<li>Qt 6.10.2 (Kubuntu)</li>
<li>KDE Plasma 6.6 with KDE Frameworks 6.24.0 (Kubuntu)</li>
<li>LXQt 2.3 (Lubuntu)</li>
<li>VLC 3.0.23 (Lubuntu)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Upgrading</h2>
<p>Direct upgrades from 24.04 LTS are delayed until the 26.04.1 point release in July 2026. Users on 25.10 will see an upgrade prompt soon. Anyone on a release older than 24.04 needs to upgrade to 24.04 or 25.10 first.</p>
<p>For most users, this is a solid LTS release. The Wayland-only change is the one most likely to cause friction — everything else is incremental improvement on a stable base.</p>


Collections

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 'Resolute Raccoon' is the 11th long-term Ubuntu release, shipping with Linux kernel 7.0, GNOME 50, and a complete drop of Xorg — making Wayland the only supported desktop session. Key highlights include TPM-backed full-disk encryption now GA, sudo-rs and uutils coreutils replacing their GNU counterparts, Dracut replacing initramfs tooling, and five new default GNOME apps all written in Rust. NVIDIA CUDA and AMD ROCm are now installable directly via apt. The developer toolchain includes GCC 15.2, OpenJDK 25, Rust 1.93, Golang 1.26, and an official .NET snap. ARM64 gets an official desktop ISO. Direct upgrades from 24.04 LTS are delayed until the 26.04.1 point release in July 2026.

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS: what changed since 22.04 and 24.04

<p><em>Direct upgrades from 24.04 LTS are delayed until the 26.04.1 point release, expected in July 2026.</em></p>
<p>I can confirm from experience that waiting is a good idea. I used the -d option to update from 24.04 today and BOOM. So i will need to do a full reinstall anyway, no problem for me but others might not be that lucky.</p>


<p>Is **26.04 **our gitf for us 23 April Sant Jordi?
A rose for a love, and a book forever.</p>


<p>this i feel will be a fine desktop distro, a stance on wayland is also good, no one will lose old application compatibility, xwayland is available and works well … the increase in hardware requiriement , while sad, is simply necessary , up from 4 gigs to 6 , yeah, todat an 8 gig pc / laptop is considered bottom of the line , so yeah, it was time instead of limiting the system’s capability to a nominal 4Gb system …</p>


<p>This all sounds interesting. I use 24.04 currently and had just setup my desktop environment on Ubuntu from GNOME to Sway/Wayland and I am liking it a lot. Never realized how much work the desktop env manager was doing and never really thought about it, lol. Fun to mess around with and check out different was to get into RICING the OS… Preparing myself to create a Arch(btw) partition on my Linux drive. heh heh, prob will break shit but is also why I was considering not trying to do it on my actual disk until I can walk through a docker arch download, lol. I would like to do it all myself because, I am a big noob and looking to specialize in SWE for my BSCS and come to find out I am having a lot of fun with making noob projects in python, learning Bash scripting as well and automating some stuff on my local machine/home lab- its so fun and wish I would of not been so lazy when I was younger because, I could have gotten into this profession when it was actually easy to get in- 2005-2010… oh well… Which is why I essentially stopped playing videogames and make all my free time centered around school and building up a CS portfolio- Github with projects/networking config and README’s for setting up different services like nginx, docker, kubernetes, and also building the networking pipeline between my ubuntu server OS running on my LAN via Rpi5 and will be my host for a webpage/webpages. I am currently learning Pygame and are putting my lessons to the test to just try and create some dinky noob projects, containerize them, create a simple blog with Python/HTML/CSS, most def not JS, lol… I want to then use my Rpi5 to serve the files to the browser and utilize Pygbag or whatever the utility is that allows me to compile the pygame source code in Web Assembly and then can be run locally on the clients device in their browser and stress their CPU out, lol. I want to be able to have at least 1 games current version up at any time and will mainly have friends/family hop on and criticize it etc. I believe it will be great to complete this noob project because I will get some experience with the networking/ along with the programming practice etc… lol… Sorry, I totally didnt mean to just spit out my thoughts but… Here they are, lol, smh. Hey if I sound stupid or are just flat out wrong/ignorant to a more efficient way to do this and you are will to point it out- please do!!! lol, I do my best to utilize AI just as a teacher but will also use to help me generate code but, I don’t ever just copy/paste… Unless it’s something like- logic behind a basic todo or expense tracking cli app, etc. I am decent with the basic built in library Python has but def not intermediate yet. Still noob tier, but, I have only been deep diving into CS concepts since I started school 10 months ago and I legit knew nothing like I do now, lol.</p>
<p>Hope everyone is having a great weekend and that Mythos doesn’t hack us all and expose me and my targeted ads, ahhhhh… Speaking of which, I am about to have pfBlockerNG-devel on my mini pc that I have do my routing/firewall and just setup this past week. Way better than comcast’s PoS… Also, don’t get me started on trying to access the admin panel on my comcast rental device that performs my WAN/LAN routing and set it to DMZ mode, lol. I am cheap and don’t feel like purchasing a modem and WAP , plus… F******* Comcast charges you less if you accept the rental, lol. I am sure it is because, it makes the user feel like they are getting a hook up whilst they allow us to use their poopy gear… Then after a year or more that device has essentially been paid for numerous times… I am assuming because, it seems like a 100$ device at most and serves as a 3 in 1… hmh… Yea, I had to actually download the stupid xfinity app and couldnt ‘hack’ my way into the admin page from my terminal by trying to wget 10.0.0.x/admin | head -50 ,and I could see the actual login page that I was being redirected from after I would click on the button that says- “click here to enter admin mode for your router”, and it redirects you to a prompt and says- you need to download app from this stupid xfinity site where you will have to survive the dark patterns and ad traps… It’s awesome, I love it, live for it really… F****** BS, Comcast!! We are paying to use the equipment, let me into the damn admin panel to my own home router, you PoS greedy f****!!!</p>
<p>Alright for real, though… I am out- sorry for ranting in a Ubuntu update thread, LMAO… I can already hear it.</p>


<p>Great overview of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. The move to Wayland-only and Rust-based core utilities is a bold step, while hardware, gaming, and AI/ML support improvements make this release especially interesting for developers and power users.</p>
