Release Highlights

Version Overview

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, codenamed Resolute Raccoon, was released on April 23, 2026. It is Canonical’s latest long-term support release, with standard support until April 2031 and Ubuntu Pro/ESM coverage until 2038.

Core Highlights

GNOME 50 Desktop Environment

Ubuntu 26.04 moves from GNOME 46 in 24.04 LTS to GNOME 50. Highlights include improved accessibility, a Reduced Motion option, a more reliable Files app, hardware-accelerated remote desktop, HDR recording and sharing, better VRR and fractional scaling, and Sysprof installed by default for performance analysis.

Wayland-only Desktop Session

The Ubuntu Desktop session now runs only on the Wayland backend. X11 applications can still run through XWayland, and other desktop sessions such as KDE, Xfce, MATE, and i3 can still use X.org. NVIDIA graphics are fully supported on Wayland in 26.04, though the official known issues still document suspend/resume corruption on some NVIDIA desktop systems under Wayland.

Default Application Changes

• Papers replaces Evince as the document/PDF viewer
• Loupe replaces Eye of GNOME as the image viewer
• Ptyxis replaces GNOME Terminal as the default terminal emulator
• Resources replaces System Monitor and Power Statistics
• Showtime replaces Totem as the default video player
• Software & Updates is no longer installed by default, but can be installed with sudo apt install software-properties-gtk
• App Center can install third-party .deb packages and has more complete Snap management
• Startup Applications is no longer installed by default; regular autostart toggles moved to Settings > Applications

Security and Cryptography

Ubuntu 26.04 focuses heavily on security: TPM-backed Full Disk Encryption is more production-ready, Security Center surfaces TPM/FDE and Secure Boot state, sudo-rs and rust-coreutils are now default implementations, OpenSSH 10.2 enables hybrid post-quantum key exchange by default, OpenSSL moves to 3.5 LTS, and Secure Boot, OVMF, AppArmor, identity services, and Web/TLS defaults have all been hardened.

ARM64 and Hardware Enablement

26.04 provides an official generic ARM64 Desktop ISO for VMs, ACPI + EFI platforms, and Snapdragon Windows-on-Arm devices. Linux 7.0 also brings Intel Panther Lake / Xe3 / NPU support, EtherCAT modules, ARM64 Livepatch, and a real-time kernel in the main archive.

Gaming and Graphics

The NTSYNC driver improves performance potential for Windows games running through Wine/Proton. GNOME 50 also improves NVIDIA desktop smoothness, remote desktop stability, VRR, fractional scaling, and HDR recording/sharing.

Kernel and Core Components

Server and Developer Components

Repository Additions and Optional Software

• Ghostty is available in the 26.04 universe repository as a preview package and can be installed with sudo apt install ghostty; Ptyxis remains the default terminal.
• CUDA and ROCm compute stacks are now available from the 26.04 repositories for AI/ML developers; production systems should still check the NVIDIA/AMD vendor support matrices.

Important Compatibility Changes

• Ubuntu Desktop now recommends a 2 GHz dual-core CPU, 6 GB RAM, and 25 GB storage.
• systemd has removed cgroup v1 support, and 26.04 is the last Ubuntu release with compatibility for System V service scripts.
• APT 3.1 removed apt-key; third-party repositories should use the current signing-key management model.
• Ubuntu now uses Dracut as the default initramfs infrastructure, replacing initramfs-tools; the older tooling remains supported and can still be selected if required.
• AMD64 users can opt into amd64v3 architecture-variant packages for better optimization on newer hardware.
• linux-firmware has been split into smaller vendor-related packages, so updates usually no longer require downloading one large firmware package.
• GNOME removed PreLogin and PostSession scripts; enterprise environments can migrate to pam_exec or systemd.
• GNOME Online Accounts removed Google Drive mounting integration in Files.
• Apache2 now enables MemoryDenyWriteExecute=yes by default, which breaks the JIT path for libapache2-mod-php; php-fpm is recommended instead.

Upgrading from Older Versions

Upgrading from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

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

26.04.1 was released on August 27, 2026, the point at which automatic upgrade prompts for 24.04 LTS open. The automatic prompt is expected about two weeks after the release (early September 2026); in the meantime, sudo do-release-upgrade -d works immediately.

Upgrading from Ubuntu 25.10

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

Detailed Release Notes

For the complete release notes, see Ubuntu 26.04 Release Notes .