'Questing Quokka' enters UI freeze as Ubuntu 25.10 nears release
(2025/09/11)
- Reference: 1757572206
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/09/11/ubuntu_2510/
- Source link:
The Quokka is a small, furry, and perpetually smiling marsupial from Australia. It's very cute – and now it's freezing.
Ubuntu "Questing Quokka" – which will be 25.10 – was already [1]in Feature Freeze but now it's also [2]in UI Freeze .
We've kept you informed of the plans since what we [3]dubbed the Pudgy Puffin back in April, and while most of those things are coming true, there are also some last-minute changes.
[4]
We knew the plan was that [5]Questing would swap GNU coreutils for Rust . Well, [6]the new sudo-rs is now in place .
[7]
[8]
There's been a lot of recent development activity in the Rust Coreutils project. [9]Version 0.2 appeared on September 6. As Linux benchmarking site [10]Phoronix reports , the big gains are in performance. Until recently, the new Rusty tools were about ten times slower than the traditional GNU versions implemented in C, but as of this release, they have leapfrogged the older versions and are now 50 percent faster. This probably won't make much visible difference to most people in daily use, but safer and faster sounds like a good combination.
This version [11]has been included in what Ubuntu calls a [12]pocket . Since then, though, a new [13]version 0.2.2 appeared, just yesterday at the time of writing.
[14]
The [15]work-in-progress release notes contain some more nuggets of info. The TPM-backed full-disk encryption, which we [16]covered in July , seems to have made it in, because there's at least one [17]outstanding bug . Although it has yet to see a finished release, the latest builds use kernel 6.17. This means there's a small risk that Questing will ship with a release candidate kernel, and get updated to the final version post-release. Questing is only an interim release, with a mere nine months of support ahead – its end of life is July 2026, a few months after 26.04, the next LTS release.
Back in July, we [18]looked at systemd 258 , a major and slightly delayed release. Agent P's team is still working on it: [19]release candidate 4 appeared recently. That's too late for Questing, which will still use systemd 257.
For a taste of what's coming, although it hasn't reached alpha yet, [20]daily builds are available. A beta is expected in about a week, and the final [21]release is scheduled for October 9.
Gnomic utterances, prophesying X
From its beginnings 21 years ago, Ubuntu releases were synced with the semi-annual releases of the GNOME desktop, so that a new version of Ubuntu would always come with the freshest GNOME. The default edition of Questing will use GNOME 49, and back in June we reported that this was [22]planned to be Wayland-only .
Well, it seems that this decision from the GNOME team was maybe a little premature. The [23]GNOME 49 release candidate is out, and it contains a surprise. Its developers have [24]re-enabled X11 in the GDM login screen.
[25]Ubuntu users left waiting after Canonical's servers take weekend off
[26]Linux Mint 22.2 polishes the desktop, but kernel updates are the real deal
[27]Linux Lite relief: 7.6 keeps it simple, shiny, and mostly slim
[28]Ubuntu 24.04.3: Noble Numbat point release slips out quietly
The provisional Questing release notes link to the [29]GNOME 49 Alpha release announcement , which mentions some significant changes. The new [30]Showtime movie player replaces Totem. [31]Papers , which appeared [32]back with GNOME 48 , now replaces the Evince document viewer. Perhaps less visibly for most people, the new [33]Manuals replaces the old [34]Devhelp documentation browser.
The new [35]Ptyxis terminal emulator looks likely, too. This is GPU-accelerated, like the Ghostty terminal emulator we [36]looked at in January – but unlike that, or the popular [37]Alacritty , which we last saw in [38]CachyOS , Ptyxis is closely integrated with GNOME.
[39]
If you don't get on with GNOME, and many do not, other desktops are available in alternate Ubuntu flavors. For instance, a new version of the Budgie desktop, [40]version 10.9.3 , just appeared. Although it's only a minor point release, this is the first in a year, and judging from the Budgie flavor's [41]file manifest , it might have just made it under the wire. Budgie is built from some of the GNOME foundations, and this version aligns those with GNOME 49, which has meant forking a couple of components that have now been subsumed into GNOME Shell.
Most of Ubuntu's alternative desktops still support good old X.org, and X11 does seem to be refusing to die. The controversial [42]XLibre fork is now up to its [43]11th release . We're not expecting Ubuntu to adopt it in the foreseeable future, but a [44]growing list of distros either do or are working on it. ®
Get our [45]Tech Resources
[1] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2025-August/001378.html
[2] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2025-September/001379.html
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/04/ubuntu_2504_beta/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/19/ubuntu_2510_rust/
[6] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/sudo-rs-is-now-default-for-questing-quokka/66497
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.2.0
[10] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Rust-Coreutils-0.2
[11] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2025-September/043437.html
[12] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/pocket/43331
[13] https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.2.2
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/questing-quokka-release-notes/59220
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/ubuntu_tpm_fde/
[17] https://bugs.launchpad.net/snap-pc/+bug/2104316
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/25/systemd_258_first_rc_here/
[19] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/releases/tag/v258-rc4
[20] https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/
[21] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/questing-quokka-release-schedule/36462
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/12/ubuntu_2510_to_drop_x11/
[23] https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gnome-49-rc-released/31234
[24] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/merge_requests/314
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/08/canonical_server_outage/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/05/linux_mint_222/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/linux_lite_76/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/08/ubuntu_24043_quietly_slips_out/
[29] https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gnome-49-alpha-released/29720
[30] https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/Showtime/
[31] https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/Papers/
[32] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/18/gnome_48_beta/
[33] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/manuals
[34] https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/Devhelp/
[35] https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/ptyxis-ubuntus-leap-gpu-powered-terminals
[36] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/08/ghostty_1/
[37] https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty
[38] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/23/cachyos_arch_linux/
[39] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[40] https://github.com/BuddiesOfBudgie/budgie-desktop/releases/tag/v10.9.3
[41] https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-budgie/daily-live/20250908/questing-desktop-amd64.manifest
[42] https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver
[43] https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/releases/tag/xlibre-xserver-25.0.0.11
[44] https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/wiki/Are-We-XLibre-Yet%3F
[45] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Ubuntu "Questing Quokka" – which will be 25.10 – was already [1]in Feature Freeze but now it's also [2]in UI Freeze .
We've kept you informed of the plans since what we [3]dubbed the Pudgy Puffin back in April, and while most of those things are coming true, there are also some last-minute changes.
[4]
We knew the plan was that [5]Questing would swap GNU coreutils for Rust . Well, [6]the new sudo-rs is now in place .
[7]
[8]
There's been a lot of recent development activity in the Rust Coreutils project. [9]Version 0.2 appeared on September 6. As Linux benchmarking site [10]Phoronix reports , the big gains are in performance. Until recently, the new Rusty tools were about ten times slower than the traditional GNU versions implemented in C, but as of this release, they have leapfrogged the older versions and are now 50 percent faster. This probably won't make much visible difference to most people in daily use, but safer and faster sounds like a good combination.
This version [11]has been included in what Ubuntu calls a [12]pocket . Since then, though, a new [13]version 0.2.2 appeared, just yesterday at the time of writing.
[14]
The [15]work-in-progress release notes contain some more nuggets of info. The TPM-backed full-disk encryption, which we [16]covered in July , seems to have made it in, because there's at least one [17]outstanding bug . Although it has yet to see a finished release, the latest builds use kernel 6.17. This means there's a small risk that Questing will ship with a release candidate kernel, and get updated to the final version post-release. Questing is only an interim release, with a mere nine months of support ahead – its end of life is July 2026, a few months after 26.04, the next LTS release.
Back in July, we [18]looked at systemd 258 , a major and slightly delayed release. Agent P's team is still working on it: [19]release candidate 4 appeared recently. That's too late for Questing, which will still use systemd 257.
For a taste of what's coming, although it hasn't reached alpha yet, [20]daily builds are available. A beta is expected in about a week, and the final [21]release is scheduled for October 9.
Gnomic utterances, prophesying X
From its beginnings 21 years ago, Ubuntu releases were synced with the semi-annual releases of the GNOME desktop, so that a new version of Ubuntu would always come with the freshest GNOME. The default edition of Questing will use GNOME 49, and back in June we reported that this was [22]planned to be Wayland-only .
Well, it seems that this decision from the GNOME team was maybe a little premature. The [23]GNOME 49 release candidate is out, and it contains a surprise. Its developers have [24]re-enabled X11 in the GDM login screen.
[25]Ubuntu users left waiting after Canonical's servers take weekend off
[26]Linux Mint 22.2 polishes the desktop, but kernel updates are the real deal
[27]Linux Lite relief: 7.6 keeps it simple, shiny, and mostly slim
[28]Ubuntu 24.04.3: Noble Numbat point release slips out quietly
The provisional Questing release notes link to the [29]GNOME 49 Alpha release announcement , which mentions some significant changes. The new [30]Showtime movie player replaces Totem. [31]Papers , which appeared [32]back with GNOME 48 , now replaces the Evince document viewer. Perhaps less visibly for most people, the new [33]Manuals replaces the old [34]Devhelp documentation browser.
The new [35]Ptyxis terminal emulator looks likely, too. This is GPU-accelerated, like the Ghostty terminal emulator we [36]looked at in January – but unlike that, or the popular [37]Alacritty , which we last saw in [38]CachyOS , Ptyxis is closely integrated with GNOME.
[39]
If you don't get on with GNOME, and many do not, other desktops are available in alternate Ubuntu flavors. For instance, a new version of the Budgie desktop, [40]version 10.9.3 , just appeared. Although it's only a minor point release, this is the first in a year, and judging from the Budgie flavor's [41]file manifest , it might have just made it under the wire. Budgie is built from some of the GNOME foundations, and this version aligns those with GNOME 49, which has meant forking a couple of components that have now been subsumed into GNOME Shell.
Most of Ubuntu's alternative desktops still support good old X.org, and X11 does seem to be refusing to die. The controversial [42]XLibre fork is now up to its [43]11th release . We're not expecting Ubuntu to adopt it in the foreseeable future, but a [44]growing list of distros either do or are working on it. ®
Get our [45]Tech Resources
[1] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2025-August/001378.html
[2] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2025-September/001379.html
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/04/ubuntu_2504_beta/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/19/ubuntu_2510_rust/
[6] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/sudo-rs-is-now-default-for-questing-quokka/66497
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.2.0
[10] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Rust-Coreutils-0.2
[11] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2025-September/043437.html
[12] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/pocket/43331
[13] https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.2.2
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/questing-quokka-release-notes/59220
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/ubuntu_tpm_fde/
[17] https://bugs.launchpad.net/snap-pc/+bug/2104316
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/25/systemd_258_first_rc_here/
[19] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/releases/tag/v258-rc4
[20] https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/
[21] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/questing-quokka-release-schedule/36462
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/12/ubuntu_2510_to_drop_x11/
[23] https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gnome-49-rc-released/31234
[24] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/merge_requests/314
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/08/canonical_server_outage/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/05/linux_mint_222/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/linux_lite_76/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/08/ubuntu_24043_quietly_slips_out/
[29] https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gnome-49-alpha-released/29720
[30] https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/Showtime/
[31] https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/Papers/
[32] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/18/gnome_48_beta/
[33] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/manuals
[34] https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/Devhelp/
[35] https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/ptyxis-ubuntus-leap-gpu-powered-terminals
[36] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/08/ghostty_1/
[37] https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty
[38] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/23/cachyos_arch_linux/
[39] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMKdtprfVMhPMUteye5FwQAAAFg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[40] https://github.com/BuddiesOfBudgie/budgie-desktop/releases/tag/v10.9.3
[41] https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-budgie/daily-live/20250908/questing-desktop-amd64.manifest
[42] https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver
[43] https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/releases/tag/xlibre-xserver-25.0.0.11
[44] https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/wiki/Are-We-XLibre-Yet%3F
[45] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: RIP Charlie Kirk
Shirley Knot
DV that? Fucking cunt. Have another one.
Re: RIP Charlie Kirk
Sorry that handle is already taken.
1) Is he the guy who once said "gun deaths are unfortunately worth it to keep the second amendment"?
2) What does he have to do with this article?
Egg on face
m4r35n357
Just to reiterate Liam's link showing exactly how determined the GnomeWreckers are to spite X11 users, https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/merge_requests/314
Nice bit of planning, dickheads! Enjoy life at IBM.
Interesting uses of Rust
VoiceOfTruth
sudo-rs is touted as a replacement for 'common uses of sudo'. It is not a drop in replacement.
Rust coreutils, from the website: 'This project aims to be a drop-in replacement for the GNU utils. Differences with GNU are treated as bugs.'. But, 'While all programs have been implemented, some options might be missing or different behavior might be experienced.'
What I see here is things being rewritten in Rust, but then lacking certain features. If somebody happens to be using those features, what then?
RIP Charlie Kirk
Our politics may not be the same; murder is not the answer.
Peace and love all <3