From my independent monitoring, Ubuntu Linux had a pretty great year. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS shipped and has been well received across enterprises, Canonical engineers have been focusing more on performance optimizations for Ubuntu, and there has been other interesting changes like their new commitment to always ship the latest upstream Linux kernel version as of Ubuntu release time. Plus they have continued with various GNOME desktop improvements, Ubuntu on servers continues with steady traction, and all-around was a pretty exciting year for the Ubuntu camp.

In reliving some of the interesting (and controversial) moments for Ubuntu in 2024, here is a look back at the most popular Ubuntu news articles on Phoronix for the calendar year. Enjoy. As always, if you enjoy all the daily original Linux/open-source content on Phoronix please consider [1]joining Phoronix Premium with operations remaining difficult for web publishers due to the state of the ad industry and rampant ad-block use.

[2]Ubuntu Looking At Discontinuing Its Source ISOs

Ubuntu's install media (ISO) generation recently broke the assembly of source ISOs. These are the ISOs containing all of the source code packages to Ubuntu Linux with the original motivation of helping GPL license compliance and ensuring the code is easily accessible. But the usefulness in practice is limited and now instead Ubuntu developers are considering the discontinuing of source ISOs.

[3]Ubuntu Looking At Applying Low-Latency Optimizations To Its Generic Kernel

Ubuntu has long provided a "low-latency" kernel build intended for industrial embedded systems and other latency sensitive environments. Ahead of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Canonical is looking at applying those low-latency optimizations to their generic kernel build.

[4]Ubuntu 24.10 Now Defaults To Wayland On NVIDIA

With Ubuntu 24.10 due for release in October one of the expressed planned changes has been NVIDIA defaulting to using Wayland rather than X11 for the default desktop session. As of this past week the change is now in place for Ubuntu 24.10 daily users that will find Wayland-by-default when using the official NVIDIA Linux graphics driver.

[5]Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Will Aim To Ship With The Linux 6.8 Kernel

As some terrific news, Canonical laid out their kernel plans for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and they are being ambitious with plans to ship the in-development Linux 6.8 kernel as their default kernel on this next long-term support Ubuntu desktop/server distribution.

[6]Ubuntu 24.04 Beta Delayed Due To XZ Nightmare

The Ubuntu 24.04 beta won't be happening tomorrow as planned but has been pushed back by one week due to the XZ security nightmare and wanting to rebuild packages out of an abundance of caution.

[7]Ubuntu Generic vs. Low-Latency Linux Kernel Benchmarks For HPC & Desktop

With Ubuntu looking at applying their low-latency optimizations to their generic kernel builds in order to eliminate maintaining their existing "lowlatency" kernel option, I decided to run some fresh benchmarks looking at the performance impact of their low-latency kernel against their "generic" default kernel used on Ubuntu Linux systems.

[8]Ubuntu Maker Canonical Announces New Collaboration With Qualcomm

Following yesterday's news of Canonical launching Ubuntu Pro For Devices, the latest mobile/embedded news in the Ubuntu space this week is Canonical partnering with Qualcomm.

[9]Ubuntu 24.04 Supports Easy Installation Of OpenZFS Root File-System With Encryption

For those wondering about the OpenZFS root file-system support for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, it's in-place with the Ubuntu desktop installer. Not only is it still there but now there's also the ability to easily setup Ubuntu atop an OpenZFS encrypted root file-system.

[10]Canonical To Work On Improving Snap Support Across Linux Distributions

It looks like 2024 could bring improved support for the Snap app sandboxing/packaging format across Linux distributions to better the overall experience of this Flatpak alternative outside the confines of Ubuntu.

[11]Ubuntu Hoping To Remove Qt 5 Before Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

Ubuntu developer Simon Quigley laid out the plans for hoping Ubuntu packages will move from Qt 5 to Qt 6 so that by the time of the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS cycle in early 2026 that the older version of this graphical toolkit can be removed.

[12]Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Aims For A Nice Desktop Provisioning Experience

In addition to exploring low-latency changes for the "generic" kernel image, frame pointers by default, and possible x86-64-v3 optimizations, another area being invested into feature work for this next long-term support release is on the desktop provisioning side. Building off work of their new Ubuntu desktop installer and unifying the installation tech that has already been used by Ubuntu Server, Canonical is hoping for a nice desktop provisioning experience in facilitating automated installations, managed desktop setups within enterprises, and OEM/ODM deployments.

[13]Ubuntu Talks Up A RISC-V Octa-Core Laptop

Ubuntu maker Canonical put out a news release today around the DC-ROMA RISC-V Laptop II that is an octa-core RISC-V laptop shipping soon with Ubuntu Linux.

[14]Ptyxis Becomes Ubuntu's Recommended Replacement To GNOME Terminal

While the Ubuntu desktop has been offered the newer GNOME Console as an alternative to GNOME Terminal, there's been a recent fondness around Ptyxis and apparently is becoming the recommended replacement to GNOME Terminal for the Ubuntu camp.

[15]Real-Time Kernel Now Available On Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Similar to the real-time kernel for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Canonical announced today the availability of their new real-time "RT" kernel for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. But like with the existing Ubuntu RT kernels, this real-time support is limited to Ubuntu Pro subscriptions.

[16]Netplan 1.0 Is Ready To Go For Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

After years being used by Ubuntu Server/Cloud, Ubuntu 23.10 began making use of Canonical's Netplan declarative network configuration software and now Netplan is fully ready to take on all duties with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. After seven years of development, Netplan 1.0 is ready for primetime use from servers to desktops.

[17]GNOME Shell & Mutter Broke Their Good Faith With Ubuntu

GNOME Shell and Mutter had been covered by Ubuntu's GNOME MicroReleaseException "MRE" policy that allows for new point releases to ship rather easily as stable updates to existing Ubuntu Linux releases. But breaking the camel's back is GNOME 46.1 shipping explicit sync support. Due to landing a "significant new feature" into a point release, the GNOME Shell and Mutter are no longer covered by this exception.

[18]Ubuntu 24.04 LTS To Ship With Some Extra GNOME Performance Optimizations

In addition to the GNOME triple buffering patches that still haven't been merged to Mutter's mainline branch, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and upstream Debian are slated to currently carry a few extra performance optimizations.

[19]Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Leaning Toward Low-Latency Kernel Optimizations By Default

Last month it was noted on Phoronix that Canonical's kernel team is looking at folding their low-latency kernel optimizations into their generic kernel builds. Right now Ubuntu maintains a separate "lowlatency" kernel flavor with Kconfig tweaks in the name of low-latency responsiveness as an alternative to their "generic" kernel default, but for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS it continues looking like they'll move forward with this change of incorporating the changes into their default kernel build.

[20]Canonical Moves To Shipping Very Latest Upstream Kernel Code For Ubuntu Releases

Following decisions like exploring -O3 package builds for Ubuntu Linux, another newly-announced change by Canonical I must applaud is their decision to commit to shipping the very latest upstream kernel code at release time.

[21]Ubuntu Considers Replacing initramfs-tools With Dracut

As a possible change for Ubuntu 25.04, Canonical is evaluating the use of Dracut to replace initramfs-tools for initrd generation on Ubuntu Linux.

[22]Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Downloads Now Available

The release ISOs for Ubuntu 24.04 "Noble Numbat" are now available! Ubuntu 24.04 is an exciting Long Term Support (LTS) update with this new Linux distribution release being powered by the Linux 6.8 kernel, making use of Netplan for networking on the desktop, features the modernized desktop OS installer, various performance optimizations, and a ton of new features.

[23]Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS Delayed To End Of Month

Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS was scheduled to ship this week but has now been delayed to the end of August in order to address some high profile upgrade bugs.

[24]Canonical Looking At Including Performance Tools In Ubuntu 24.04 By Default

A proposal has been laid out by Canonical engineers to include various performance tooling in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS by default to help in those trying to squeeze out greater performance gains out of their hardware/software and/or debugging/profiling issues. The proposal wants to "make Ubuntu absolutely great for performance engineers" but would mean somewhat significant size increases to the Ubuntu desktop and server ISOs.

[25]Ubuntu 24.10 To See More Polishing, NVIDIA Wayland By Default & New Welcome Wizard

Oliver Smith who is serving as the Interim Engineering Director for the Ubuntu Desktop team at Canonical has shared some roadmap plans around Ubuntu 24.10. With this being the first post-LTS release following last month's Ubuntu 24.04 Long Term Support, they are more free to innovate this cycle and they have a lot of great plans for enhancing the Linux desktop experience.

[26]Ubuntu 24.04 Beta Now Available For Testing

The Ubuntu 24.04 beta release is now available for testing ahead of the official release later this month for this new Long Term Support release of Ubuntu Linux.

[27]Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS Released With Linux 6.5 HWE Kernel

Canonical has released the Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS images today as the latest point release for this ongoing Long-Term Support series ahead of the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS debut in April.

[28]Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Desktop Installer Adds New Accessibility Options

The Ubuntu 24.04 LTS desktop installer has rolled out accessibility options built into the initial GUI for helping enable additional features.

[29]Ubuntu Blog Talks Up Rust Schedulers, Potential For Micro-Kernel Design Future

Ubuntu/Canonical has for a while now promoted the prospects of Rust programming within the Linux kernel and one of their kernel engineers, Andrea Righi, wrote a Rust-written Linux scheduler with promising results that leverages eBPF for dynamically loading it at run-time. While Ubuntu isn't yet committing to using it as part of their distribution, appearing on the Ubuntu blog today was more praise for the work and even talking about the potential for a "micro-kernel design" in the future via leveraging Rust and eBPF.

[30]Ubuntu Will Be Skipping Non-Critical Linux Kernel Updates For September

With the exception of critical security issues/bugs, Canonical will be skipping over shipping stable release updates for the Linux kernel in Ubuntu until early October.

[31]Canonical Makes More Snap Improvements Ahead Of Ubuntu 24.10

Oliver Smith as the Interim Engineering Director for the Ubuntu desktop provided an update around recent efforts on Ubuntu 24.10.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/phoronix-premium

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Discontinue-Source-ISOs

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Low-Lat-Generic-Kernel

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.10-GDM-Wayland-NVIDIA

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-Will-Use-Linux-6.8

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-Beta-Delayed

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Generic-LL-Kernel

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Qualcomm-2024-Partners

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenZFS-Ubuntu-24.04-LTS

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Better-Cross-Distro-Snaps

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Hopes-Removing-Qt-5

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-Provisioning

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/news/DC-ROMA-RISC-V-Laptop-II

[14] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Ptyxis-Recommended

[15] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-LTS-Real-Time

[16] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Netplan-1.0-Ready-For-Ubuntu-24

[17] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-MRE-Over-Mutter-Shell

[18] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-More-GNOME-Perf

[19] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-2404-Low-Latency-Generic

[20] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Releases-Fresher-Kernels

[21] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Considers-Dracut-Initrd

[22] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-LTS-Download

[23] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04.1-LTS-Delay

[24] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-Perf-Tools-Propose

[25] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.10-Roadmap

[26] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-Beta-Test

[27] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-22.04.4-LTS-Released

[28] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-Installer-Access

[29] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Rust-Scheduler-Micro

[30] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Skipping-Kernel-SRU-Fix

[31] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.10-Better-Snaps