Ubuntu 26.04: What's New, Release History & EOL Status

What Is New in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (Resolute Raccoon)

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ships the Linux kernel 7.0, GNOME 50, and a significant refresh across the entire stack -- from core utilities rewritten in Rust to a new default sudo implementation. If you are coming from 24.04 LTS, expect two years' worth of accumulated improvements landing at once.

Support runs until April 2031, with ten years available under Ubuntu Pro (ESM). Desktop minimum requirements are now 6 GB RAM and 25 GB disk space.

What Changed on the Desktop in Ubuntu 26.04?

The desktop has seen the largest single-release overhaul in years. GNOME has jumped from version 46 to 50, Wayland is now the only backend for the GNOME session, and several core apps have been replaced with newer, often Rust-based alternatives.

GNOME 50

Fractional scaling is now optimized to minimize blur -- a long-standing complaint on HiDPI screens. You can configure apps to launch at login directly in Settings → Apps. The default monospace font size has been aligned with the UI font size, which matters for terminal-heavy workflows. The Sysprof profiler app is now installed by default.

Wayland-Only GNOME Session

GNOME Shell no longer supports X.org as a session backend. The Ubuntu Desktop session runs exclusively on Wayland. X.org applications still work through the XWayland compatibility layer, and non-GNOME sessions (KDE on X11, Xfce, MATE, i3) remain fully supported on X.org. NVIDIA machines now fully support Wayland as well, with suspend-resume fixed in the proprietary driver.

Replaced Core Apps

• Terminal: Ptyxis replaces GNOME Terminal
• Image Viewer: Loupe (Rust, powered by Glycin) replaces Eye of GNOME
• Video Player: Showtime replaces Totem
• Document Viewer: Papers (GTK4, partially Rust) replaces Evince
• Video/audio thumbnailer: gst-thumbnailers (Rust + GStreamer) replaces the Totem thumbnailer

Updated Bundled Applications

• Firefox updated to version 149/150
• LibreOffice updated from 24.2 to 25.8
• Thunderbird updated to version 140 "Eclipse"
• GIMP updated from 2.10 to the long-awaited 3.0

Other Desktop Highlights

JPEG XL images are supported out of the box without extra packages. Hardware-accelerated video encoding and decoding via VA-API is now enabled by default for AMD and Intel users. The Software Updater no longer steals focus -- it uses a system tray notification instead. The file indexer, previously known as Tracker Miners, is now called LocalSearch and ships version 3.11; third-party media extractors (ffmpeg, iso, office) still need separate installation.

The Software & Updates settings app is no longer installed by default but remains in the repository. Install it manually if you need it:

sudo apt install software-properties-gtk

What Changed at the OS Core: Kernel, init, and System Utilities?

This release swaps out several foundational pieces. In practice, most of these changes are transparent for workloads, but a few require attention before upgrading production systems.

Linux Kernel 7.0

The kernel jumps from 6.8 to 7.0. Crash dumps (kdump) are enabled by default on both desktop and server. The new sched_ext scheduling framework lets you implement custom schedulers as eBPF programs -- a big deal for latency-sensitive workloads and experimentation. The linux-lowlatency package is retired; use linux-generic plus the new lowlatency-kernel userspace tuning package instead.

cgroup v1 is gone. If any of your containers or monitoring tools still rely on the legacy or hybrid cgroup hierarchy, this is a hard blocker for upgrading.

systemd 259

Updated from version 255 to 259. Two things to flag immediately: cgroup v1 support is removed (see above), and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is the last release that supports System V service script compatibility in systemd. If you have not migrated your /etc/init.d/ scripts to native unit files, the clock is ticking. Also, /tmp is now a tmpfs by default -- anything writing large temporary files there may need reconfiguring.

Dracut Replaces initramfs-tools

Dracut is now the default initial ramdisk builder. It uses systemd in the initramfs and adds support for Bluetooth and NVMe-oF. The original initramfs-tools stays in the repository and you can switch between them if custom kernel hooks depend on the old tooling.

rust-coreutils and sudo-rs

The core utilities (ls, cp, base64, etc.) now come from the rust-coreutils package. The GNU versions remain available if you need them. Similarly, sudo-rs -- a Rust reimplementation of sudo -- is now the default provider. The original sudo (maintained by Todd C. Miller) is still available as sudo.ws. Note that sudo-ldap has been removed; switch to LDAP via PAM instead.

APT 3.1

APT moves from 2.7 to 3.1. The new dependency solver kicks in automatically when the classic solver fails, improving error messages and resolution. TLS and hashing now use OpenSSL instead of GnuTLS/gcrypt, shrinking the footprint on minimal installs. The apt-key command is gone -- key management now goes through gpgv directly, per the guidance in apt-secure(8). APT also adds an automatic pager for apt show and apt list, similar to git log.

Netplan 1.2

Netplan updated from 1.0 to 1.2 with custom systemd-networkd-wait-online logic (waits for link-local addresses plus one routable interface), wpa-psk-sha256 WiFi support, and routing-policy configuration on the NetworkManager backend.

Which Server Software and Databases Got Major Updates?

The server stack has significant version jumps across the board. Several of these carry breaking changes or mandatory migration steps.

OpenSSH 10.2p1

Upgraded from 9.6p1. DSA key support is fully removed -- host DSA keys are no longer generated, and the weak DSA signature algorithm is dropped. Post-quantum key exchange (mlkem768x25519-sha256) is now available and on by default. The new PerSourcePenalties option rate-limits clients that fail authentication. A new sshd.service alias means both ssh.service and sshd.service work in systemctl commands.

Chrony Replaces systemd-timesyncd

Fresh installations use Chrony as the default time daemon, with NTS (authenticated, encrypted NTP) pointing at Ubuntu time servers. If you are upgrading an existing system, run the following to switch:

apt-mark auto systemd-timesyncd
apt install chrony

The Ubuntu NTP configuration now lives in /etc/chrony/sources.d/ubuntu-ntp-pools.sources -- if you customized chrony.conf before, double-check for duplicated server entries.

PostgreSQL 18

A substantial release. The new I/O subsystem delivers up to 3x faster storage reads in benchmarks. Major-version upgrades complete faster and reach steady-state performance sooner. Developers get virtual generated columns (computed at query time), a native uuidv7() function for better index performance, and OAuth 2.0 authentication support for SSO integration.

MySQL 8.4 LTS

MySQL's first official long-term support release, starting at 8.4.8. This is a notable milestone -- 8.0 was never designated LTS upstream. 32-bit MySQL Server support has been dropped, though client libraries remain available on armhf and i386.

DocumentDB (New)

DocumentDB is now available in Ubuntu starting at version 0.108-0. It is a MongoDB-compatible document database built on top of PostgreSQL, maintained by the DocumentDB open-source project. Worth evaluating if you are running MongoDB workloads and want a fully open-source alternative with a SQL engine underneath.

Valkey 9.0

Valkey (the Redis fork) updates to 9.0.3, adding atomic slot migrations and hash field expiration.

Samba 4.23

SMB3 Unix Extensions are now enabled by default. NetBIOS is disabled by default in fresh installs. New features include SMB3 Directory Leases, Group Managed Service Accounts, and LDAP TLS/SASL channel binding support. If you run a Samba AD/DC, make sure you have the samba-ad-dc package installed before upgrading to avoid a broken AD controller post-upgrade.

HAProxy 3.2 and Other Services

HAProxy jumps to 3.2 LTS with improved QUIC support and performance gains. Squid updated to 7.2 with a new tls_key_log directive and DoH DNS support. SSSD updated to 2.12 -- it now runs as user sssd instead of root, and the implicit files provider has been removed. PHP updated to 8.5 with property hooks, asymmetric visibility, a pipe operator, and the new array_first()/array_last() functions. Django updated to 5.2 LTS from 4.2.

What Are the Language and Toolchain Versions in Ubuntu 26.04?

Every major language runtime has moved forward. Here is the full picture at a glance:

OpenJDK 25 is TCK-certified on four architectures. GraalVM Community Edition (JDK 21, 24, 25) is now available as a snap, giving Java developers a native image compilation path alongside standard OpenJDK and OpenJDK-CRaC. The Spring devpack snap and Gradle/Maven plugins for Rockcraft are also available for building container images from Java applications.

What Security Improvements Ship in Ubuntu 26.04?

The security story this release is a mix of system-level hardening and developer tooling for supply chain visibility.

TPM-Backed Full-Disk Encryption

Ubuntu Desktop now supports hardware-backed disk encryption using the TPM. This includes passphrase management, recovery key regeneration, and better integration with firmware updates. It is an alternative to the traditional LUKS + passphrase-only setup and avoids the unlock prompt on every boot when the hardware state matches expectations.

New AppArmor Profiles

A batch of new AppArmor sandboxing profiles has been added for a wider range of applications. These can occasionally cause breakage in non-standard use cases -- when AppArmor blocks something, it logs the denial to syslog or the auditd log, and you can use that output to write a local override. File bugs on Launchpad if common use cases get blocked.

cargo-auditable for Rust Binaries

Rust packages built on Launchpad can now opt in to cargo-auditable, which embeds JSON dependency metadata directly into compiled binaries. When a CVE hits a popular Rust crate, this makes it straightforward to check whether a specific binary on your system is actually affected -- without rebuilding or grepping source trees.

Ubuntu Insights (Opt-In Telemetry)

Ubuntu Insights replaces Ubuntu Report for system metrics collection. The key difference: it is opt-in, and previous consent given to Ubuntu Report does not carry over. You are prompted fresh during setup.

What Hardware Support Is New or Changed?

Several hardware-specific improvements landed, with a few platform requirements that are worth knowing before deploying on specific targets.

NVIDIA

Dynamic Boost is now enabled by default on supported NVIDIA laptops -- it shifts power between CPU and GPU dynamically based on workload, engaged only on AC power when the GPU is under load. Suspend-resume has also been fixed in the proprietary NVIDIA driver, preventing display corruption and freezes on wake.

Intel

Full support arrives for Intel Core Ultra Xe2 integrated graphics and Arc B580/B570 "Battlemage" discrete GPUs. Hardware-accelerated AVC, HEVC, JPEG, and AV1 encoding on Battlemage is included. Ray tracing via Embree on SYCL shows 20-30% frame rendering improvement on supported Intel hardware.

Raspberry Pi

A new A/B boot layout is introduced: new boot assets are "tested" before being committed as the known-good set, improving recovery from bad updates. The Pi 4 firmware must be dated no earlier than 2022-11-25 for this to work. The desktop image for Pi is now based on desktop-minimal, saving roughly 777 MB by dropping applications like LibreOffice, Thunderbird, and Rhythmbox from the default install.

Platform Requirement Changes

• IBM Z: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS requires z15 (LinuxONE III) or newer. z14 and older are no longer supported.
• RISC-V: Only hardware implementing the RVA23S64 ISA profile is supported. As of April 2026, only QEMU with -cpu rva23s64 qualifies -- no physical hardware meets this bar yet.
• ARM64: The linux-generic kernel now provides broader compatibility for ARM64 desktop platforms using UEFI boot. An official generic ARM64 Desktop ISO is available, targeting VMs and Snapdragon X Elite platforms.