Canonical has made Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS available to users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. This marks the start of the broader rollout of Resolute Raccoon to existing systems. The first point release itself was released over a month ago, but Canonical delayed offering the upgrade due to issues with system tools rewritten in Rust.
Users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS will now be offered the upgrade to 26.04.1 via the Update Manager. According to The Register, Canonical was waiting for backports to resolve regressions in a recent version ofrust-coreutils. That package is part of a broader effort within Ubuntu to reimplement traditional system components in Rust.
Wayland takes over for good
One of the most significant changes in Ubuntu 26.04 is the complete switch from the default GNOME desktop to Wayland. With GNOME 50, Ubuntu is thus finalizing its move away from X.org as the default graphical environment. According to The Register, other desktops, including Cinnamon and Unity, can still use X11.
Among other things, Wayland is expected to offer better support for multiple displays, touch controls, gestures, and variable refresh rates. Fractional scaling and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) are no longer treated as experimental features.
It’s worth noting that, in tests with some older Nvidia GPUs, The Register actually had a positive experience with GNOME 50 and Wayland. The same hardware still caused issues under Ubuntu 24.04.
Canonical has also replaced several default applications. Papers is the new document viewer, Loupe is used for images, Ptyxis is the default terminal, and Resources serves as the system monitor. In the App Center, deb and snap packages are now offered within the same interface.
More focus on AI and developers
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS includes updated toolchains for Python, Rust, Ruby, Go, PHP, and Perl, among others. More notably, Canonical is integrating support for GPU computing more explicitly into the distribution itself.
Nvidia CUDA is being distributed directly through the Ubuntu software repositories for the first time. Nvidia DOCA-OFED, designed for high-performance networking, is available via an official PPA. AMD ROCm has also been added to the repositories. This platform is used to accelerate AI, machine learning, and HPC workloads on AMD Instinct and Radeon GPUs.
With this move, Canonical aims to make the installation and management of software for AI workloads less dependent on separate installation procedures from hardware vendors.
More components in Rust
There are also significant changes in the area of security. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS includes more system components written in memory-safe programming languages. These include new kernel drivers and subsystems written in Rust.
In addition, sudo-rs and parts of uutils are included. These are Rust-based alternatives to traditional Unix tools such as sudo and ls. The existing GNU versions remain available to prevent compatibility issues. Regressions related to these new Rust components were, in fact, one of the reasons for postponing the upgrade from Ubuntu 24.04.
Canonical has also enabled hybrid post-quantum key exchange by default and removed support for a number of deprecated cryptographic algorithms.
TPM encryption now generally available
Full-disk encryption tied to the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is no longer experimental and can be configured directly from the installer. Administrators can then use the Security Center to check the encryption status, recovery options, and Secure Boot, among other things.
Ubuntu 26.04 also supports confidential computing with Intel Trust Domain Extensions and AMD SEV. Livepatch, which allows kernel updates to be applied without rebooting the system, is now available for Arm64 for the first time.
For identity management, authd offers support for external identity providers. This allows organizations to link Ubuntu systems to Microsoft Entra ID, Google IAM, and other services that support OIDC, among others.
Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS will receive five years of regular security updates. With Ubuntu Pro, this support can be extended to ten years, and with Legacy Support, ultimately up to fifteen years.