What’s New in 26.04

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is the most significant system upgrade since 24.04 LTS. Whether you’re jumping directly from the previous LTS (24.04) or transitioning smoothly from the interim release 25.10, 26.04 brings a wealth of noteworthy changes. This article systematically covers all the important differences to help you evaluate the necessity of upgrading and prepare for migration.

26.04 LTS vs 24.04 LTS Detailed Comparison

This is the comparison most users care about — the two LTS versions span a full two-year development cycle, and the changes are substantial:

26.04 LTS vs 25.10 Brief Comparison

If you’re upgrading from the interim release 25.10, the magnitude of changes is much smaller, since 25.10 is essentially a “technical preview” of 26.04:

Important Changes in Detail

GNOME 50 Desktop Environment

GNOME 50 is the most substantial update since the GNOME 40 series introduced its new interaction paradigm. GNOME 50 in Ubuntu 26.04 brings the following core improvements:

Redesigned System Settings — The System Settings application has been completely overhauled, with a clearer category hierarchy and more modern visual design. Every settings page has been re-laid out, making key options easier to find.

Improved Notification System — The notification center adds grouping capabilities and fine-grained Do Not Disturb controls. You can set notification priorities per application so important messages no longer get buried in trivial notifications.

Smoother Animations — Window switching, workspace sliding, app launch animations, and other effects have been re-tuned to maintain 60fps smoothness across various hardware.

Multi-Monitor Enhancements — Independent wallpaper settings, independent scaling ratios, and smarter window memory make the multi-monitor experience significantly better.

File Manager Improvements — Nautilus 50 supports tab drag-and-drop reordering, improved search performance, and more complete archive file previews.

Wayland-Only Mode

Ubuntu 26.04 has made an important decision: the default Ubuntu desktop session no longer offers an X11 backend, using Wayland as the default display protocol. This means:

• The default Ubuntu desktop session no longer offers an X11 backend
• All graphical applications run through the Wayland protocol by default
• Legacy applications that still need X11 will run through the XWayland compatibility layer
• Other desktop environments such as KDE, Xfce, and MATE may still offer an X.org session as an option

Advantages of Wayland over X11:

APT 3.1 and Dracut

Ubuntu 26.04 also includes two base-system changes that are easy to miss during migration:

• APT 3.1 improves terminal output and the dependency solver. It adds troubleshooting tools such as apt why and apt why-not, while removing the legacy apt-key workflow. (The history-info and history-list history subcommands belong to APT 3.2+ and are not available in the APT 3.1 that ships with 26.04.)
• Dracut is now the default initramfs infrastructure, replacing initramfs-tools. If you use encrypted disks, remote boot, special storage drivers, or custom initramfs hooks, verify compatibility before upgrading.

Security Center

Security Center is part of the Ubuntu 26.04 desktop security experience. The official release notes currently confirm security-state visibility and a control surface for enabling or disabling experimental Home directory permission prompting:

• Security-state visibility — View relevant system security state in one place
• Permission prompting toggle — Enable or disable the experimental Home directory permission prompting feature
• Integration with prompting-client — Use the additional seeded snap to handle permission prompts

For firewall, automatic update, or Ubuntu Pro management, continue to use the dedicated ufw, Software Updater, and Ubuntu Pro documentation.

ARM64 Official Desktop Support

Ubuntu 26.04 provides an official generic ARM64 desktop installation ISO, primarily for VMs, ACPI + EFI ARM64 platforms, and some Snapdragon Windows-on-Arm devices:

• Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M2, M3, M4 series) can get a full Ubuntu desktop experience through virtualization solutions like UTM or Parallels
• Raspberry Pi still uses separate Ubuntu Desktop for Raspberry Pi images, and the 26.04 desktop image is based on the desktop-minimal seed
• Whether other ARM development boards can use the generic ARM64 Desktop ISO depends on firmware, UEFI/ACPI support, and vendor enablement
• Combined with the Asahi Linux project, bare-metal installation on Apple Silicon Macs is also progressively improving

ARM64 uses Ubuntu’s shared repository ecosystem, but full desktop usability on real hardware still depends on kernel, graphics, and firmware support.

NTSYNC and Gaming Performance Improvements

The Ubuntu 26.04 kernel includes the NTSYNC module — a feature that implements Windows NT synchronization primitives (such as Mutex, Semaphore) at the kernel level. This is significant for Linux gaming:

• Wine/Proton game performance improved by 5-15% — Windows games run more smoothly on Linux
• Reduced stuttering and frame rate fluctuation — Micro-stutters in games are noticeably reduced
• Steam Deck compatibility layer benefits — Based on the same technology stack

In addition to NTSYNC, Ubuntu 26.04 also integrates:

• Updated graphics driver stack
• Improved GameMode integration, automatically optimizing CPU scheduling and GPU performance
• Out-of-the-box Steam installation support
• Kernel-level scheduler optimizations that are friendlier to gaming workloads

Migration Notes

Upgrading from 24.04 LTS

1. Back up your data — This is the most important step. Cross-LTS upgrades are usually smooth, but unexpected issues can always occur
2. Check third-party PPAs — Some third-party repositories for 24.04 may not yet support 26.04 and will be automatically disabled during the upgrade
3. NVIDIA drivers — If you use an NVIDIA GPU, you may need to reinstall drivers after upgrading (recommended: ubuntu-drivers autoinstall)
4. X11 application compatibility — Verify that your critical applications support Wayland, especially remote desktop and screen sharing tools
5. Snap applications — Some Snap apps may need to be manually updated to their latest versions
6. Third-party repository signing — Scripts that still use apt-key need to migrate to the current signing-key configuration model
7. Custom initramfs scripts — Configurations that rely on initramfs-tools hooks need separate Dracut compatibility testing

Upgrade command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade
sudo do-release-upgrade

Upgrading from 25.10

Upgrading from 25.10 to 26.04 is usually very smooth since the software stack differences between the two are minimal. Use the same sudo do-release-upgrade command.

Fresh Installation

If your disk space allows, or if you want a “clean” system, a fresh installation is always the safest option. Download the ISO image from ubuntu.com , create a bootable USB drive, and follow the installation wizard.