Ever wished you could talk in to a text field rather than type? Ubuntu 26.10 hears you – quite literally. Canonical’s VP of Engineer Jon Seager, at the Ubuntu Summit, said the distro will soon lets users “press a button and talk into any field that you could previously type in”. A small, on-device AI language parsing model like Whisper will power the feature. It’s part of a wider push to integrate AI features in Ubuntu this year, with founder Mark Shuttleworth aiming to position Ubuntu as the ‘OS for agentic AI’. AI features in Ubuntu will be shipped as […]
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Canonical has released the first monthly snapshot of Ubuntu 26.10 ‘Stonking Stingray’. This is the first of 4 planned testing builds in the lead up to the final, stable release of Ubuntu 26.10 on 15 October, 2026. Utkarsh Gupta announced the release on the Ubuntu developer mailing list, noting that a couple of images – including the ubiquitous Intel/AMD64 build most of us use – are missing from the first snapshot. Those will return in time for Snapshot 2. Ubuntu monthly snapshots are not alpha builds. They exist as a way for Ubuntu’s engineers to fine-tune new, automated build processes. […]
Daily builds of Ubuntu 26.10 ‘Stonking Stingray’ are now available for download, as development on the distro’s next major release kicks in to gear. As the name suggests, new ISOs are produced from development code on a (mostly) daily basis, giving those keen to test October’s release in advance the ability to do so. However, because package updates can break the ability for a bootable image to be created, it’s not unusual for there to be temporary gaps between new daily builds being available. Daily builds will continue to be produced for remainder of the Ubuntu 26.10 development cycle, right […]
GNOME Sushi fans, rejoice: the spacebar preview feature is being fixed in Ubuntu 26.04. If you’re not familiar with it, GNOME Sushi is a file preview tool similar to Quick Look on macOS. Select a file in Nautilus, press space and a floating preview window appears. It works with images, video and audio files, PDFs, plain text files and more. GNOME’s Sushi isn’t preinstalled in Ubuntu but many users install it themselves as it makes it easier to find specific files when rooting through folders filled with samey-seeming documents, audio files and video clip. —Well, except it doesn’t (or rather, […]
If you haven’t check in with Ubuntu’s app prompting feature for a while, there’s more reason to do so in the latest release. Recent improvements to the snap-focused security feature, which Canonical’s Oliver Calder has shared an update on, aims to “empower users” by letting them grant apps system and hardware access at runtime rather than retrospectively. Android or iOS use similar prompts, showing screen modals asking if users if they want to “allow Acme App to access the camera” with options to deny or “only while using the app”. Nifty stuff on mobile, but on a desktop? Well, Canonical […]
If you’re still running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), heads up: Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) ended this month and your system is no longer receiving security updates. Having debuted in April 2016, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS received five years of standard support with a further 5 years of security coverage available through ESM by enabling Ubuntu Pro. ESM for 16.04 ended April 2026, meaning action is needed to stay protected. The most straightforward thing to do is to upgrade to a more recent LTS release – but there’s no direct route from 16.04, however. Instead, you’ll need to upgrade in stages: […]
AI features are coming to Ubuntu in 2026, though Canonical has made clear that the distro is not becoming an AI product. In a community post, Jon Seager, VP of engineering at Canonical, says the company is “ramping up its use of AI tools in a focused and principled manner” this year, with a bias toward local inference and open-weight models whose licence terms match Canonical’s values. AI features in Ubuntu will take one of two forms. Implicit features improve existing capabilities using on-device AI models, for things like text-to-speech and speech-to-text to bolster accessibility. Ubuntu will become a context-aware […]
Grab your diary and jot down the date, as Ubuntu 26.10 ‘Stonking Stingray’ is going to be released on 15 October, 2026. The Ubuntu 26.10 release date and those of other notable milestones in the next development cycle have now been shared by Canonical but, given the nature of development, should be considered tentative – plans can and do change. The most significant date in the 26.10 schedule, besides the final release, is that of feature freeze on August 10, 2026. This is the date at which (in theory) new features stop being added so that the focus can move to […]
Canonical has released Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ‘Resolute Raccoon’ – the first LTS in Ubuntu’s history to ship without an Xorg desktop session. It runs on the latest Linux 7.0 kernel with the GNOME 50 desktop, and includes new video player and system monitor apps. Deb package management features are available in App Center. Support-wise, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS receives a minimum of 5 years of updates, and an additional 5 years of security coverage with Ubuntu Pro. For a full rundown of what’s changed since Ubuntu 25.10, see my features overview. If you’re upgrading from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS my deeper-dive on […]
Framework’s new 13 Pro laptop is the company’s first to ship as certified for Ubuntu, who say you can buy it knowing you’ll get “guaranteed support right out of the box”. Framework hardware have been popular with Linux users for years, not just for the company’s ethos around upgradeable and repairable hardware but their kernel contributions and financial support for open-source projects and developers. Specs wise, the new Framework 13 Pro is powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 or AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processors. It uses LPCAMM2 memory (modular LPDDR5X), available with up to 64GB (higher densities will […]
If you plan to upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ‘Resolute Raccoon’ from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, you’re going to inherit two years worth of improvements. As an LTS-to-LTS jump, you don’t simply benefit from what’s new in Ubuntu 26.04, but everything else added in the 3 interim releases prior, namely Ubuntu 24.10, 25.04 and 25.10. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS does plenty of things that 24.04 didn’t, but drops several features too It adds up to a mammoth set of changes across the full stack, running right from the lower-level foundations up to the apps and desktop environment that run on top. Plus, […]
The Ghostty terminal is now packaged in the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS repositories – meaning for those on the new long-term support release, it’s only an apt install away. Ghostty is a fast, open-source terminal emulator for macOS and Linux (Windows support is seemingly trapped between planes), made by Mitchell Hashimoto. It’s picked up millions of users since its launch in December 2024, and has been available on Ubuntu via a community-maintained PPA, DEB and Snap packages for a while. This is its first appearance in the Ubuntu repos proper. What makes Ghostty different? “Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform […]
Further to Ubuntu Pro features being added to the desktop Security Center, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS also makes it easier to opt-in to Canonical’s (free for home users) subscription to get extended security updates, right from the wizard shown after installation. The first slide in the distro’s Welcome tool (package namegnome-initial-setup, with Ubuntu-specific modifications) is Enable Ubuntu Pro. The tool opens the first time a user logs in after installing the OS. Signposting the feature in the Welcome tool makes it easier to enrol your system in Ubuntu Pro: The flow is presented simply: either select ‘Enable Ubuntu Pro’, or choose […]
Ubuntu 26.04's sudo-rs now includes a keypress toggle for password feedback. Switch between visible asterisks and silent input without editing a config file.
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS raises its minimum RAM requirement to 6GB, the first increase since 2019. Systems with less memory still work, but the experience may suffer.
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ships with two new extensions installed and active by default, both adding new search capabilities to the GNOME Shell Overview. The first new extension is Web Search Provider. This lets you initiate a web search on Google straight from the GNOME Shell Overview. ‘Initiate’ is the important term here as search terms made in GNOME Shell are not sent anywhere directly. Before you raise an eyebrow: this is not a revival of the Shopping Lens furore. That saw local file and app searches typed in Ubuntu’s then-Unity desktop piped off to third parties (anonymised, but still dodgy […]
Canonical’s engineers have announced the fourth and final monthly snapshot of Ubuntu 26.04, ahead of next month’s all important beta release. Ubuntu 26.04 Snapshot 4, like all other monthly snapshots, not a blessed build intended for mainstream usage. It’s a “throwaway artifact” that enables the distro’s engineers to fine-tune and hone a new automated build system. Compared to the January release of snapshot 3, there’s more ‘of note’ packed inside of this one, like the Linux 6.19 kernel and more GNOME 50 beta components (Mutter, Files, Settings), though the new Showtime video player is not included – but is coming. […]