Home / distros

Ubuntu 25.10 ("Questing Quokka") released & Available to Download

Post By Linux Social Post a Comment

 


Ubuntu 25.10, codenamed "Questing Quokka", is here. This release
continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and
greatest open-source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use
Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle,
partnering with the community and our partners, to introduce new
features and fix bugs.

Ubuntu 25.10 introduces GNOME 49 with media and power controls on the lock
screen, HDR brightness settings, and enhanced accessibility features in line
with the European Accessibility Act. New apps include Loupe, a modern image
viewer, and Ptyxis, a lightweight terminal emulator.

Built on the Linux 6.17 kernel, this release brings nested virtualization on
Arm, early Intel TDX host support for confidential computing, and enhanced
support for TPM-backed full disk encryption with passphrase support, recovery
key management and better integration with firmware updates. Network Time
Security (NTS) is enabled by default for more secure time synchronization.

Developer experience advances with updated toolchains for Python 3.13.7 and
availability of 3.14 RC3, GCC 15, Rust 1.85, Go 1.25, OpenJDK 25, and
previews of .NET 10 and Zig.

Ubuntu 25.10 also debuts Rust-based implementations of sudo and coreutils
for improved memory safety, and adopts the new RVA23 profile as the
baseline for RISC-V, paving the way to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.

What's New features in 25.10 ?
Updated Packages
Linux kernel 6.17🐧
This release delivers the newest 6.17 Linux kernel. Due to the final upstream release occurring after Kernel Freeze, the kernels shipped with the release images will be based on 6.17-rc7. Updates for all Questing Quokka kernels are scheduled for release in the subsequent week to incorporate the final upstream 6.17 release.
Highlights for this release:
  • The linux-modules-extra-* packages have been deprecated (LP#2042831 13). All the kernel modules are now shipped by the linux-modules-<version>-<flavor> packages.
  • linux-generic for arm64 will provide via stubble broader compatibility for arm64 desktop platforms that utilize UEFI for booting (LP#2121352 6).
  • The foundation for Intel TDX Host Support was merged upstream on Linux 6.16 with additional improvements included in 6.17. The Ubuntu 6.17 kernel will ship with early support for kexec/kdump for TDX-enabled hosts (LP#2121873 3).
  • From 25.10, the Ubuntu RISC-V kernel (linux-riscv) will only support hardware that implements the RVA23S64 ISA profile. Systems that don’t satisfy this requirement will not be able to run 25.10. The RISC-V kernel in 24.04 will continue to support boards with RVA20 processor cores.
  • Other features can be found in the Linux 6.17 upstream 15 changelog.
systemd v257.9
The init system was updated to systemd v257.9. See the upstream changelog 18 for more information about individual features.
sudo-rs and sudo
sudo-rs is the default sudo provider on Ubuntu from 25.10 onwards. 0.2.8 release includes support for older Linux kernels < 5.9, sudoedit, support for NOEXEC and AppArmor profile switching. The Ubuntu release also includes various bug fixes picked from the main upstream branch.
sudo (original sudo maintained by Todd C. Miller) has been upgraded to the latest version 1.9.17p2. The binary files are now renamed with the .ws suffix. Additionally, sudo-ldap package has been removed, please switch to using LDAP authentication via PAM.
Please see Ubuntu Server Docs 9 for configuring default sudo provider and differences between sudo-rs and sudo.ws.
rust-coreutils and gnu-coreutils
The core utilities of the operating system are now provided by the rust-coreutils 4 package. We just updated to the latest version of it: 0.2.2, which features incredible performance improvements to base64 amongst other things.
As rust-coreutils are not necessarily fully compatible yet, we are providing the old utilities by the side, so you can switch back and forth between them. We are also keeping a list of these diversions here 8.
Netplan v1.1.2ubuntu3 :globe_with_meridians:
Adds support non-standard OVS setups, e.g. inside snap environments.
Toolchain Upgrades :hammer_and_wrench:
  • GCC :cow: GCC is updated to 15.2, binutils to 2.45, and glibc to 2.42
  • Python :snake: is updated to 3.13.7 while 3.14 is now available
  • LLVM :dragon: defaults to version 20 while 21 is now available
  • Rust :crab: toolchain defaults to version 1.85 while 1.88 is now available
  • Golang :rat: is updated to 1.24
  • OpenJDK :coffee: defaults to 21 (LTS), while version 25 (LTS) and an early access snapshot of version 26 are now available
  • .NET 10 :unicorn: now available
  • Zig :zap: is available for the first time in Ubuntu, defaults to version 0.14.1.
  • And Ubuntu Toolchains has a new homepage 29
OpenJDK
OpenJDK 21 is still the default. OpenJDK 25 (LTS) is now available. An early access snapshot of OpenJDK 26 is also included. Support for OpenJDK LTS versions 17, 11 and 8 is being maintained. OpenJDK with CRaC version 25 is also made available, while versions 17 and 21 continue to be supported.
The devpack-for-spring snap 1 now supports development environment setup, by automating the installation and configuration of development tools (OpenJDK, container runtime, IDEs etc.) selected by the user. The Maven and Gradle plugins for Rockcraft 2 have been extended to support native images compiled by GraalVM.
GraalVM Community Edition v25 is available through the graalvm-jdk snap 1, while GraalVM CE v21 continues to be supported. The snap is now available on arm64 too.
.NET
.NET versions 8 and 9 continue to be supported.
The .NET 10 RC1 SDK and runtimes are now included. Following its general availability in November, the final release will be provided as a subsequent package update.
Alternatively, .NET 10 is available on the latest/beta channel of the official .NET snap. It will be promoted to the latest/stable channel upon final release in November.
Support for the PowerShell snap has been expanded to include the arm64, s390x, and ppc64el architectures, broadening its availability across platforms.
Default configuration changes :gear:
Ubuntu Desktop
Installer
New TPM-Backed disk encryption 9 features include:
  • Passphrase support and management
  • Regeneration of the recovery key
  • Better integration with firmware updates
When you enable Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware and additional media formats during installation, screen recording will be hardware accelerated for supported hardware.
The installer has also seen plenty of accessibility fixes.
Updates
When system updates are available, the Software Updater window no longer pops up unprompted, stealing the keyboard focus. Instead, a notification shows up with options to open the Software Updater or to install all updates directly.
An icon in the system tray reminds you that updates are available even after dismissing the notification. It also provides a quick way to apply all the updates or inspect them in the Software Updater.
Enterprise
authd 3: Ubuntu’s cloud authentication solution:
  • Supports device registration with EntraID
  • authctl is a new command line tool to manage authd
  • Many improvements and important bug fixes such as UID/GID handling
Wayland
  • The Ubuntu Desktop session now runs only on the Wayland back end. The Ubuntu on X.org session is no longer available 14 because GNOME Shell can no longer run as an X.org session.
  • Suspend-resume support is now enabled in the proprietary Nvidia driver so as to prevent corruption and freezes when waking an Nvidia desktop.
GNOME :footprints:
  • GNOME Shell and related components have been updated to GNOME 49 68.
  • You can now set an application to start automatically after login in Settings → Apps.
  • Fractional scaling factors are now optimized so as to minimize blur.
  • The default monospace font size has been reduced to match the default user interface font size. The monospace font is used in terminals and similar applications.
New default applications
  • The Image Viewer app is now provided by Loupe 8 instead of Eye of GNOME (EOG). Loupe is written in Rust and powered by the Glycin library.
  • The Terminal app is now provided by Ptyxis 20 instead of GNOME Terminal.
Security Center
Ubuntu Insights
Ubuntu Insights 15 is being developed as a replacement for Ubuntu Report 2 and gives you more control over the non-personally identifying system metrics that you choose to share with Canonical. The metrics collection is opt-in.
In this release, Ubuntu Insights introduces periodic metric collection and replaces Ubuntu Report integration in GNOME Initial Setup.
Note: Any consent that you previously granted to Ubuntu Report will not be carried over to Ubuntu Insights.
Dracut
Ubuntu Desktop 25.10 now uses Dracut as its default initial ramdisk infrastructure, replacing initramfs-tools. Dracut uses systemd in the initial ramdisk and supports new features like Bluetooth and NVM Express over Fabrics (NVMe-oF). Ubuntu Server installations continue to use initramfs-tools while we port the remaining hooks. The original initramfs-tools remains supported and you can switch between the two implementations if required. For details about the switch, see [Spec] Switch to Dracut 2.
Updated Applications
Updated Subsystems
Support for new Intel® integrated and discrete GPUS
This release brings full support for Intel® Core™ Ultra Xe3 integrated Intel® Arc™ graphics, and Intel® Arc™ Pro B50 and B60 “Battlemage” discrete GPUs. Further Intel® Graphics related features are now available by changes in various components:
  • Via the Linux Kernel 2 v6.17:
    • Initial support for Intel’s next-gen client platform codenamed Panther Lake
    • Enhanced IOMMU and PCIe subsystem for improved GPU virtualization and passthrough.
    • Improved multi-GPU configuration support for Intel hardware.
  • Via Mesa 25.2.3:
    • VK_KHR_shader_bfloat16 enabled in Intel ANV Vulkan driver for Battlemage and Panther Lake** (GFX125+).
    • Completed OpenCL 2.0 coarse grain buffer SVM support in Iris driver.
    • Improved color fast-clear handling and multi-engine surface usage for Intel Vulkan (ANV) driver.
  • Via intel-media-driver 25.3.0:
    • Panther Lake Upstream decoding and VP9 encoding support
  • Via intel-compute-runtime 25.31:
    • Enabling a Level Zero device unified shared memory (USM) pool as a performance change.
    • A performance-minded change for Xe2 graphics to ensure Level Zero events are always allocated in the local device memory.
  • Via level-zero 1.24
    • Update Level Zero Loader and Headers to support v1.13.1 of L0 Spec
  • Via level-zero-raytracing 1.1.0:
    • Ray Tracing Acceleration Structure (RTAS) Extensions
Ubuntu Foundations
Cryptography
Libraries
OpenSSL has been updated to 3.5.3 (It includes security patches from 3.5.4). The most notable updates are:
  • Support for server side QUIC (RFC 9000).
  • Support for PQC algorithms (ML-KEM, ML-DSA and SLH-DSA).
  • The default TLS supported groups list has been changed to include and prefer Hybrid PQC KEM groups.
Package Management: APT 3.1
APT has been updated to 3.1.6, the latest release, including many new features:
  • The new solver is now the default. For more insight, see the post “How we delivered the new APT solver in 25.10 5”
  • The apt why and apt why-not commands have been added that tell you why the solver installed or could not install a package.
  • Repositories can now be configured with Include and Exclude directives. In the Include case, only these packages are included; in the Exclude case, these packages are excluded from the repository. This allows you to restrict a repository to specific packages.
  • The apt history-list and apt history-info commands are included as an early preview easter egg. Enjoy!

Download

Post a Comment for "Ubuntu 25.10 ("Questing Quokka") released & Available to Download"

Post a Comment