Things You Should Know About Ubuntu 26.04

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.

SanDIsk external SSD (Amazon link)

Should I upgrade to 26.04 or do a fresh install?

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.

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Microsoft Has WSL, But This Developer Built One for Windows 95

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.

WSL9x: Overview ⭐

Via Hailey on Codeberg.

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.

WSL9x

---

💬 Do you think that this is something that you would play around with? Or is just a gimmick?

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A Linux Hardware Maker Is Convincing Colorado to Leave Open Source Alone

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.

Carl Richell via Fosstodon.

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.

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The People Who Put Emulators on Your Steam Deck Now Want to Sell You a Linux Console

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.

You can get yours by visiting the official store.

Playnix Console

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This Simple GUI Tool Takes the Pain Out of Docker and Podman

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.

Pods (Flathub)

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Thunderbolt Wants to Do for AI Clients What Thunderbird Did for Email

MZLA Technologies Corporation, the Mozilla Foundation subsidiary behind Thunderbird, has announced Thunderbolt, an open source, self-hostable AI client for organizations that want to run AI on their own infrastructure.

The project is funded through investment from Mozilla and is a standalone product, separate from Thunderbird, built by a different team within MZLA that's focused on enterprise AI products.

Offered under Mozilla Public License 2.0, Thunderbolt offers an AI workspace where users can interact with AI through chat, search, and research, connect to enterprise data, and choose the models and tools that fit their needs.

It runs natively on Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, with a web client also being made available.

A thing to note…

You should know that Thunderbolt ships with telemetry on by default.

According to the project's telemetry documentation on GitHub, it uses PostHog to collect usage data covering chat activity, model selections, settings changes, and location information.

This can be switched off in settings, and the project states no personally identifiable information (PII) is collected without explicit consent.

Who is it for?

The intended audience for this could be organizations with strict data residency or compliance requirements. So think healthcare providers, legal firms, and financial institutions that cannot afford sensitive internal data flowing through third-party AI services.

As for its competition, Thunderbolt is a direct challenge to Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT Enterprise, and Claude Enterprise. In the open source space, it sits alongside tools like Open WebUI and LibreChat, both of which offer self-hosted AI frontends.

Announcing Thunderbolt, the CEO of MZLA Technologies Corporation, Ryan Sipes, added that:

AI is too important to outsource. With Thunderbolt, we’re giving organizations a sovereign AI client that allows them to decide how AI fits into their workflows – on their infrastructure, with their data, and on their terms.

What can you expect?

Thunderbolt connects to frontier models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Mistral, handles local inference through Ollama, and accepts custom providers, with the workspace offering Chat and Search modes.

It can also handle scheduled work, pulling together briefings, tracking topics over time, or kicking off actions when set conditions are met.

deepset's Haystack integration ties the client into enterprise agent and RAG pipelines within the same architecture, whereas MCP (Model Context Protocol) support is in preview, and ACP (Agent Client Protocol) is in active development with an April 2026 target.

How to get it?

You can get started with Thunderbolt by visiting thunderbolt.io. Organizations interested in enterprise deployment, professional support, or custom development can get in touch with the team.

As for the source code, it lives on GitHub.

Thunderbolt

Other than that, the FAQ does mention that a Thunderbolt version for regular users is on the cards, but there's no release date for it yet.

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Mozilla’s New Firefox Mascot ‘Kit’ Triggers Online Backlash Over Pronouns

It started with one thing. I don’t know why… but somehow, it turned into a debate no one expected.

I could not help taking a walk in Linkin Park ;)

Okay. Back to serious stuff. Weird but serious stuff.

So, last month, Mozilla unveiled the new Firefox mascot, named Kit. That's a cute-looking macot, by the way.

Mozilla shared a post in their official subreddit. A couple of weeks later, someone noticed the use of'pronouns in that post and all hell broke loose. What was supposed to bring "warmth and familiarity", brought heated arguments and boycott threats.

As you can see above, instead of "it", they/them was used in that post, potentially indicating the assignment of non-binary gender identity to them. More on this in the later section of this article.

Hi everyone, if you’ve been poking around our recent updates, you might have noticed a new mascot showing up a little more intentionally. We figured it’s time to introduce them properly. Meet Kit. And before you ask, Kit is neither fox nor red panda, they’re a firefox of course.

The discussion gained traction around April 11, when Brian Lunduke highlighted the pronoun usage and thus bringing the topic into wider debate.

Meet “Kit”. The Firefox Web browser’s new, non-binary mascot.

Yes. You read that right.

Non-binary. With “They/Them” pronouns.

Because, of course @Mozilla had to inject “pronouns”, and “gender identity” politics into a web browser. pic.twitter.com/wPnpCcDfy0

— The Lunduke Journal (@LundukeJournal) April 10, 2026

How the Internet Reacted (Predictably)

As you can imagine, the internet reacted really well, being "very accepting and non-controversial". If you don't believe me, you're right. I've missed April's fool by a huge margin to even consider making that joke.

The “Woke” Debate and Boycott Calls

The outrage was very evident on X (Twitter) and Reddit. Some people immediately jumped ship, posting screenshots of them uninstalling Firefox.

Some posted about how it is all a part of the "rainbow" agenda, and how they're trying to infuse politics into something that has no need for it.

Some people started posting about using the "male lion" browser, Brave.

The word "woke" was used in almost every other tweet, claiming that it was being spread like a virus.

There was a smaller faction of the critics that brought up a few points of criticism about Firefox's past. The co-founder Brendan Eich had made a significant contribution to a cause in California that sought to ban same-sex marriages (he then proceeded to resign after the outrage, and founded Brave).

Other than that, their AI integration, and the CEO's statements in favor of censorship in 2020 were also brought up.

Counter-Reactions: “Why Does This Even Matter?”

The other side consists more of indifference than support, the most frequent point being that it doesn't matter what pronouns a cartoon fox mascot uses, that the outrage was misplaced and irrelevant to everyday usage of the browser.

The word "snowflake" was thrown around from both the sides, but more to emphasize how a part of the internet was offended by something very harmless.

While some users spoke of inclusion of a large faction of people, and brownie points for spreading awareness, other users claimed alienation of "half of the population".

On a different note completely, a part of the internet went all in with the jokes, my personal favorite as a physics student being that it is only obvious that Firefox is non-binary considering their codename "Quantum", in which a particle exists in two states at the same time.

It goes without saying that there were plenty of "what does the fox say?" jokes.

The Reality: Is Kit Even Non-Binary?

The important point to remember through all of this, however, is that Mozilla did not really claim that Kit was non-binary, but only referred to Kit with "they" later in the article.

You don't have to rely on a tweet for the reference. If you read the branding guideline from Mozilla, it clearly mentions this about Kit:

Kit (he/she/they/them/it) is the user’s constant companion. Wherever they choose to roam, Kit will accompany and guide them with clever, playful encouragement and support — giving the user the confidence to run free.

Basically, Kit has no gender. Or, should I say it has whatever gender you prefer. Perhaps the person who posted from Mozilla's official account prefered the 'they/them' pronoun? Personally, I would prefer calling it "it" because it rhymes with "kit".

Final Thoughts: Much Ado About Nothing?

So what’s the takeaway?

A mascot meant to feel friendly ended up triggering a familiar internet cycle:-interpretation, outrage, and counter-outrage.

Whether you see it as inclusion, overreach, or simply irrelevant, one thing is clear; even a cartoon fox isn’t safe from becoming a debate.

What do you think? Overreaction or valid concern?

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