Kubuntu is one of the longest-running Ubuntu flavors and also one of the more sensible ones to recommend.
It ships the KDE Plasma desktop on top of an Ubuntu base and is maintained by a volunteer team that tracks the KDE release cycle closely and works to get the latest Plasma builds into each release.
If you want the KDE experience without leaving the Ubuntu ecosystem, Kubuntu is the cleanest way to get there.
Anyhow, with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS officially out, Kubuntu 26.04 LTS is also here alongside it, and here's what this release has to offer.
Kubuntu 26.04 LTS: What's Fresh?
Same as its Ubuntu base, this Kubuntu release is powered by Linux kernel 7.0, which comes in as a notable hardware support and storage upgrade over the kernel that shipped with Kubuntu 24.04 LTS.
Intel Arc users get considerably more detailed temperature data through the hardware monitoring interface, now covering memory controller, PCIe, and individual VRAM channel readings rather than just a single GPU core temperature.
XFS picks up an autonomous self-healing daemon that watches for metadata failures and I/O errors in real time and kicks off repairs without taking the filesystem offline. Rust support also officially moves from experimental to stable in this kernel.
For the desktop environment, Plasma 6.6 is included, which offers many improvements.
You get OCR functionality in Spectacle, the screenshot tool, Plasma Setup, a first-run wizard that handles user account creation, and virtual desktops can now be set to appear only on your primary screen.
Then there's the removal of the X11 session, which is not installed by default and will not be supported by the Kubuntu team going forward. Wayland is now the only officially supported session, and the plasma-session-x11 package remains available in the Ubuntu archive for anyone who needs it.
A few other changes from the Ubuntu base that are also worth knowing about. sudo-rs, the Rust rewrite of the classic sudo tool, is now the default sudo provider in this release.
The NTSYNC kernel driver is included too. It handles WinNT sync primitive emulation at the kernel level rather than pushing that work into user space, which improves performance for Windows games running through Wine or Proton.
NVIDIA laptop users get Dynamic Boost enabled by default, which shifts power automatically between the CPU and GPU based on what the workload demands.
You also get a set of updated applications and tooling:
Ubuntu doesn't need much of an introduction. It has been a reliable starter distro for people finding their way into Linux for years, and for good reasons as well. It installs without drama, runs on most hardware, and the surrounding community is large enough that almost any problem you run into has already been solved and documented somewhere.
I ran it as my daily driver for a while, a few years ago, and the experience was just what I needed at the time. It was fast, familiar for someone coming from Winslop, and stable enough that I wasn't stuck fixing issues every other day.
My experience with Ubuntu was what made me go further into the world of Linux and open source, and I still recommend it to anyone who asks me for a distro suggestion.
With that said, let's dive into the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS "Resolute Raccoon" release right away! 🚀
Powered by Linux kernel 7.0, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS comes with five years of standard security and maintenance updates from Canonical, keeping it covered through to April 2031.
If that's not enough, Ubuntu Pro stretches that to 10 years of security maintenance across the full Ubuntu archive, taking coverage to April 2036.
New Boot Animation
When you boot up, you're greeted by a fresh animation that takes cues from the default raccoon-themed wallpaper, with a circular arrangement of sharp lines fanning out like sun rays as the system loads. It flows smoothly and looks clean, in my opinion.
If you have a decently specced machine with Ubuntu on an SSD, though, you'll most likely miss it entirely. Which is just fine.
GNOME 50
This is how GNOME 50 looks on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS!
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ships with GNOME 50, making it a four-step jump of major versions from GNOME 46 that came with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. That is not a small gap, and you will feel it in the day-to-day desktop experience.
Then there's the matter of X11 being gone from GDM. With this release, GNOME now runs exclusively on Wayland, and there's no session option to go back. Similarly, fractional scaling and variable refresh rate have both graduated out of experimental status and are now stable.
The shell also picks up some quality-of-life changes. A power mode indicator shows up in the top bar whenever you're running outside the default profile, so it's visible at a glance, and the volume slider now locks to 100% when over-amplification is on.
A couple of long-standing annoyances are fixed too, including deleted default folders reappearing on reboot and a privacy issue where password text was leaking into IM pre-edit fields.
The new folder icons on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
The Yaru icon theme also gets a notable refresh in this release. Folder icons have been redesigned with a wider, shorter shape and a more three-dimensional look, complete with depth shading and styled emblems for special folders like Music and Downloads.
The Desktop folder icon has been brought in line too, dropping its old desktop-styled motif for a design that looks like a folder. And, when you change your system's accent color, you will notice that folders now fully adopt whatever color you pick rather than just taking on a light shade.
Improved App Suite
From left to right, we have Ptyxis, Loupe, and Showtime.
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ships five new default applications, replacing tools that have been part of the Ubuntu desktop for years.
Ptyxis is now the default terminal, taking over from GNOME Terminal. Loupe replaces Eye of GNOME as the image viewer. Papers is the new document viewer in place of Evince, and Showtime now handles video playback in place of Totem.
Finally, we have Resources, which replaces the System Monitor and Power Statistics apps as a one-stop dashboard for all your system metrics needs.
App Center on the left, Security Center on the right.
Then there's the App Center, which was updated with several practical additions. In-progress installs are now visible, snap management has improved across the board, and you can now manage third-party DEB packages directly through it.
The Security Center is growing into a proper control panel for system security. It now has an experimental permissions prompting feature, which was first seen in Ubuntu 24.10, giving you more granular control over how snapped applications access your Home directory.
It's still experimental and not enabled by default, but it's there if you want to try it.
Also, if you remember from earlier this year, the Software & Updates app is no longer pre-installed on fresh installs of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and later. This was done in a bid to prevent users from getting exposed to features that were deemed too "dangerous or too complex for normal users."
Security Buffs
TPM-backed full disk encryption has moved from experimental to being generally available in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. Previous releases had this behind a flag, but this time around, Canonical has finally addressed what was holding it back.
These are things like recovery key handling during firmware updates being more predictable, documented hardware incompatibilities being clearly flagged, and storage configuration requirements being spelled out.
Post-quantum cryptography support is also included via OpenSSH 10.2. The hybrid key exchange algorithm mlkem768x25519-sha256 is on by default, and DSA support has been dropped entirely. With this in place, you don't need to configure anything; it works out of the box.
Other Improvements
Wrapping this up, here are some other changes that are worth mentioning:
NVIDIA Dynamic Boost is enabled by default on supported laptops.
JPEG XL is now supported out of the box, with no additional packages needed.
The new NTSYNC driver is included, offering better performance with Windows games running on Wine and Proton.
Full support for Intel Core Ultra Xe2 integrated graphics and Intel Arc B580 and B570 "Battlemage" discrete GPUs.
There is now an official ARM64 desktop ISO that targets VMs, ACPI + EFI platforms, and Snapdragon-based Windows on ARM devices.
Existing users can refer to our Ubuntu upgrade guide for instructions on how to get this release through the upgrade process. While that guide was made for an older Ubuntu LTS release, the steps should still be relevant.
Ubuntu 26.04 is releasing today. It is natural to have questions about a new release, specially for beginners.
I have tried to answer those frequently asked questions about Ubuntu 26.04 here. I hope it helps clear your doubts if you had any. And if you still have questions, feel free to ask in the comment section below.
What are the system requirements for Ubuntu 26.04?
Ubuntu 26.04 requires a 2 GHz dual core processor or better, a minimum of 6 GB RAM and at least 25 GB of free disk space. These stats for the default GNOME version. KDE and Xfce flavors may work with 4 GB RAM.
If you are dual booting it with Windows, you should at least give it 50 GB or even 100 GB. 25 GB will be filled way too soon.
How long will Ubuntu 26.04 be supported?
It is a long-term support (LTS) release and like any LTS release, it will be supported for five years. Which means that Ubuntu 26.04 will get security and maintenance updates until April 2031. Flavors get supported for three years only.
You can enable Ubuntu Pro, free for personal use, and get extended support for five more years. This will give you just security and maintenance updates; new features and software versions will mostly not be available.
There is also the option for legacy add-on for Ubuntu Pro that will add five more years to extend the life.
These extensions are suitable for people who do not seek new features as much and happy to have a computer that works for most of their day to day need of browsing internet, manage photos and document etc.
There are other options in "Ubuntu 26.04"?
Ubuntu has various flavors based on the desktop environments they provide. Kubuntu is with KDE, Lubuntu is with LXQt, Xubuntu is with Xfce desktop. I hope you are familiar with the concept of desktop environments. This is what determines how your Linux system looks by default.
Where can I download Ubuntu 26.04?
You can get the ISO image of Ubuntu 26.04 GNOME from its website. You have both direct download and torrent options. Other official flavors will be available on their official websites.
Note: if you don't see the option to download Ubuntu 26.04, you can get it from the daily build page.
Can I download Ubuntu 26.04 via torrent?
Yes. you can. If you have an inconsistent or slow internet, you can download Ubuntu ISO image via torrent as well. Just go to the Ubuntu download page and look for alternative downloads. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see the torrent options.
How can I install Ubuntu 26.04?
Just like any other version. You download the ISO, make a live USB and use it to install Ubuntu on your system. You can dual boot it as well. The detailed steps are demonstrated in our Ubuntu installation guide.
Can I install KDE or some other desktop environment on Ubuntu 26.04?
Yes, you can. Linux gives you the flexibility to install the desktop environment of your choice. However, I recommend that if you have a fresh Ubuntu install where you don't have important data, it is better to install the official flavor instead. This is because some times, desktop environment elements conflict with each other. So if you want KDE, go for Kubuntu.
I am already using Ubuntu. Can I upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04?
Yes. Ubuntu allows you to upgrade from one version to the next or one long-term support (LTS) version to next. If you are already using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or 25.10, you will have the option to upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
If you are using Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, you'll have to upgrade to 24.04 LTS first and then upgrade to 26.04.
Please check your Ubuntu version. If you are using any version other than 22.04, 24.04 or 25.10, chances are that it has reached end of life. A fresh install will make more sense.
Why don't I see the upgrade to 26.04 option?
A new Ubuntu release is gradually rolled out to users. You'll see it eventually, just keep your system upgraded.
If you cannot wait, you can force update manager to look for "development release" and that should give you the option to upgrade to 26.04 immediately.
Should I wait or upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 right away?
In my experience, a new Ubuntu release often brings up bugs and issues that have gone unnoticed in the testing phase. If you easily get annoyed and don't want to troubleshoot, I would advise upgrading for a few week from the release. If you want to take it even more slow and comfortable, you can wait till the first point release of Ubuntu 26.04.1. Most of the discovered bugs are fixed by then.
Do I need to back up before upgrade?
Upgrading from existing Ubuntu version to new version is generally safe. In my 17 years of Ubuntu usage, I have never experienced a broken system while upgrading it.
That said, it is not impossible to encounter issues. It's rare but rare events do happen. So, if you have important data, make a backup with timeshift or simply copy the data on an external disk.
Before upgrading, if these things have not been backed up, I copy most of the contents from the home directory to my SanDisk external SSD (partner Amazon link) shown in the picture below. SSD with USB 3 or Thunderbolt have very good copying speed.
That is up to your technical abilities and convenience. Personally, I feel that a fresh install works better, specially if you have been upgrading to newer versions for the past several versions. Still try the upgrade first and if you feel it is sluggish, you can go for a fresh install.
Remember that you'll lose your data on the disk if you go for a fresh install. So, please make a backup of your important data on an external disk.
If I upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 can I downgrade to 25.10 or 24.04?
No, you cannot. While upgrading to the newer version is easy, there is no option to downgrade. If you want to go back to Ubuntu 24.04 or 25.10, you’ll have to do a fresh install of the desired version.
Should I be concerned about Wayland only Ubuntu 26.04?
That is really up to you. If you are using a software that is important to your workflow and that software does not support Wayland, then you will have issues.
While it is still possible to install the legacy Xorg display server on KDE, GNOME 50 has completely removed Xorg support. As far as I know, you cannot use Xorg on GNOME 50 or higher anymore.
So, please check which applications are essential for your workflow and then check from their website or forum to verify if they support Wayland or not. Make a decision accordingly if you have to keep on using 24.04 or switch to 26.04.
How do I know if Ubuntu 26.04 supports all my wifi and printer drivers?
While a newer version brings newer kernel that supports more hardware, it is not unheard to encounter wifi connectivity issues.
More questions?
I have tried to answer the common doubts an Ubuntu beginner usually have about a new release. This is coming from seventeen years of using Ubuntu and fourteen years of running this website. But then I am not a beginner anymore and I may not be able to think of all the questions a new Ubuntu user might have. So, if you still have doubts, please ask them in the comments and I'll try to help you out.
Linux has had a quiet takeover of computing. It powers all of the world's top 500 supercomputers and Android, which runs on billions of smartphones.
It has also found its way into places that have nothing to do with traditional computing. Smart TVs run some variant of it. Cars run it. If something has a processor and a purpose, there is a good chance Linux is involved somewhere.
Over the years, we have also seen some interesting experiments involving Linux and Windows together. loss32 runs an entire desktop as Win32 software under Wine, and Microsoft's WSL has made Linux a part of Windows 10 and beyond.
Now, Hailey, an open source developer, has taken that idea and turned it around. Instead of Linux hosting Windows apps, she has made Windows 9x host Linux.
The project brings a Linux subsystem to Windows 9x, covering 95, 98, and ME, with Linux kernel 6.19 running alongside the Windows 9x kernel, letting both operate on the same machine at the same time.
As for how it works, a patched kernel from Hailey's win9x-um-6.19 branch sits at the core, which is compiled using the User Mode Linux architecture and loaded at a fixed base address of 0xd0000000.
A VxD (virtual device driver) handles initialization, loads the kernel off disk and manages the event loop for page faults and syscalls. Since Win9x lacks the right interrupt table support for the standard Linux syscall interrupt, WSL9x reroutes those calls through the fault handler instead.
Rounding it all out is wsl.com, a small 16-bit DOS program that pipes the terminal output from Linux back to whatever MS-DOS prompt window you ran it from (as shown in the screenshot above).
In her Mastodon post (linked above), Hailey pointed out that WSL9x requires no hardware virtualization, and that it can run on hardware as old as the i486. The same architecture that you might remember is being dropped from the Linux kernel.
Get WSL9x 📥
WSL9x doesn't ship a pre-built binary, so you'll need to build it from source and deploy it on a Windows 9x system (95, 98, or ME). The source code and build instructions are on Codeberg.
Carl Richell, the founder of System76, has shared that Colorado's Age Attestation Bill (SB26-051) is set to be amended to exclude open source software from its requirements.
The proposed amendment would exclude open source operating systems and apps, code repositories like GitHub and GitLab, and containers like Docker and Podman.
We covered this bill back in February, when it made no such distinction. Carl has been working directly with Colorado Senator Matt Ball, the bill's co-author, to push for these exclusions since then, and it looks like his efforts are paying off.
When Neal Gompa (of Fedora fame) followed up, asking whether there was any outreach to California and New York over their age verification bills, Carl replied by saying that the community now has a template to take the fight elsewhere.
And that the next step is a letter to Colorado representatives to pass the bill with the amendments in place, and then adapting that letter for other states while working with the open source community to raise awareness.
Before any of that, though, Carl has to testify. 🏛️
He's scheduled to appear before lawmakers tomorrow, on April 23, and is asking the community for backup. He's specifically looking for stories where kids have built or made things thanks to having unhindered access to open source software.
You can share them on the Fosstodon post linked above or DM him directly.
As for the bill itself, it passed the Colorado Senate 28-7 back in March and is currently waiting on a House vote.
Speaking up helps!
All this is proof that speaking up against something detrimental and fighting for your rights does work if there's enough noise and disruption surrounding it.
And while users of Linux distros and other open source platforms in Colorado will hopefully breathe a sigh of relief, those in the other states are still at risk of being affected by age verification laws.
Maybe Carl's template is something you could apply in your state? 😉
And then there's also the proposed federal bill pushing for OS-level age verification across the US, with no exemptions for open source, potentially overriding any state-level exclusions.
Before we get into the console, we must know some background information.
EmuDeck is an installation script that simplifies setting up emulators on the Steam Deck and other SteamOS devices. It handles emulator configuration, hotkeys, and most of the tedious setup work that retro gaming on Linux would otherwise involve.
Back in 2024, the project lead, Dragoon Dorise, launched an IndieGoGo campaign for EmuDeck Machines, a pair of Linux mini PCs built for couch gaming in a Dreamcast-inspired 3D-printed case. The idea was to make hardware as approachable as EmuDeck had made software.
But it never shipped. Funding fell short of what manufacturing required, and the project quietly died. Now, EmuDeck is rejoining the gaming hardware space with a Linux-powered gaming console that looks a lot like an Xbox Series S.
Playnix Console: For Linux Gamers
The Playnix Console is powered by a six-core AMD Ryzen 5 5500, which is running at 3.6 GHz and has a 65W TDP. Graphics duties are handled by an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT. It is an RDNA4 card with 32 compute units, 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and a 150W TDP.
For the memory, 16GB of DDR4-3200 in dual-channel configuration is on offer, and given how absurd RAM prices have been lately, this seems like a sensible call over packing in more at added cost.
Cooling is handled by Noctua and Thermalright fans, with claims that the console stays around 65 °C during 4K gaming while maintaining quiet operation.
What makes it a Linux gaming console is that it ships with PlaynixOS, a custom Arch Linux-based distro developed by Playnix that boots straight into Steam's gaming mode, with updates being handled in the background.
Of course, if that doesn't suit your gaming needs, you can swap it out for other Linux-powered or proprietary OSes like Bazzite, Nobara Linux, SteamOS, and Windows.
As for what kind of games you can play on it, the official text points out that 4K 60 FPS at High settings using FSR or XeSS presets is possible in a resource-heavy title like CyberPunk 2077.
The Playnix team has also created Playnix KB, a portal that lets the community share game settings and tweaks for maximizing performance across different titles. It's already populated with many popular games, and updated information should come in as more people get their hands on the console.
The rest of the specifications include:
Storage: 1x 512 GB NVMe and 1x empty NVMe slot.
Ports: 2x USB 3.0 + 4x USB 2.0 + 1x USB C 3.1 + 1x Gigabit Ethernet + 1x HDMI 2.1 (HDR 4K 120hz and 8K 60hz support), 1x DisplayPort 2.1 (with HDR 4K 120hz and 8K 60hz support).
Connectivity: WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.
Power: Unnamed Flex ATX 600W PSU.
All of the above is enclosed in a 3D-printed case that encourages user repairability, as much of the internal components like the CPU, GPU, RAM, etc. can be repaired or upgraded, provided they fit inside the case.
Its measurements are 320 x 247 x 64 mm / 12.6 x 9.7 x 2.5 inches.
Want Yours?
Batch #1 and #2 are already sold out, and at the time of writing, #3 was up for order with a $1,179 price tag, which doesn't include shipping. These devices come with a 2-year warranty that covers repairs and replacement.
If you've spent any time poking around the self-hosting world, you've likely come across containers. They let you run software in isolated environments that carry their own dependencies, keeping things clean and predictable without the extra weight of a full virtual machine.
That's made them a staple for everything from running a home media server to deploying production applications. Spin one up, use it, and tear it down. The host machine stays clean all the way through.
Docker is where most people start, and for good reason. It has the ecosystem, the documentation, and years of community knowledge behind it. Podman is Red Hat's alternative, largely compatible with Docker on the command line but without a daemon running in the background, and it runs containers as a regular user rather than root.
Now managing containers can be a handful if you have got a bunch of them running, and this is where Pods comes in. It is built in Rust and uses libadwaita for its interface, following GNOME's design principles closely.
From a single window, you can pull and build images, create containers and pods, start and stop them in bulk, view logs, monitor processes, inspect details, and clean things up when you're done.
With Pods 3.0, the entire backend was rebuilt to support multiple container engines, with experimental Docker support being the first addition to come out of that change.
I took this release for a test run to see how it performed.
Pods: Easy Container Management
I ran Pods on a Fedora Workstation 43 system, which already had Podman pre-installed. Do keep in mind that I had no prior experience with containers going into this, so I stuck to simple images like PodmanHello, nginx, and BusyBox to get a feel for how the app handled the basics.
After enabling the Podman socket, I launched Pods and set up a new connection. Two URLs were already pre-selected, the Podman Unix Socket and the Docker Unix Socket, with the option to point to a custom URL if needed.
I gave the connection a name and a color, and Pods quickly populated with the available containers.
From there, I could see the telemetry of any running containers, along with options to kill, restart, start/stop, pause, and delete them. I tested the start/stop toggle with nginx, and it worked without a hitch.
I even double-checked that by running the podman ps command before and after I had used the start/stop toggle, and the results were positive. Pods was able to start and stop a container without much fuss.
Starting and stopping containers using Pods.
I did notice that freshly pulled containers came with long, jargony names by default. That was easy enough to sort out though, as Pods lets you rename them directly from the interface.
You can click on the pen icon near a container's name to do so!
And in cases where I had pulled something by mistake or just didn't need a container around anymore, I could delete it just as quickly using the delete button.
Renaming and deleting containers using Pods.
Pods also let me batch manage containers through a "Multi-Selection" mode, which surfaces the same kill, restart, start/stop, pause, and delete options but across multiple containers at once.
This can come in handy when you have several containers you want to act on without going through each one individually.
You will find this mode in the top bar menu; just click on the checkmark button.
I could even create pods, which are groups of containers that share the same network and resources, but I stuck to focusing on containers for this one. I went into the Images page to see what options were on offer. Here, I could see each image's properties, like its ID, when it was created, how much storage it was using, and what command it had.
I could also inspect the image properties in structured text for a more detailed look under the hood, browse through the history of the image, and check the repository tags it was associated with.
Image management in Pods.
Finally, I checked out the Prune Stopped Containers option, which lets you bulk remove containers that are no longer running. It even shows a calendar view to set a cutoff time, so you can prune only containers that stopped before a specific date rather than wiping everything at once.
You can find it via a dedicated button in the top bar that looks like an eraser.
Get Started
If you think Pods would be a good fit for your workflow, then you can install it from Flathub, or, alternatively, by running the following command:
flatpak install flathub com.github.marhkb.Pods
If you prefer building from source, then you can visit the project's GitHub repository.
