It wasn’t too long ago that new Ubuntu releases were major happenings in the Linux world, as it was the default Linux distribution for many, both old and newcomers, in the desktop Linux space. These days, Ubuntu release hit a little different, with Canonical’s focus having shifted much more to the enterprise, and several aspects of the distribution being decidedly unpopular, like the snap package management system.
Still, Ubuntu is probably still one of the most popular, if not the most popular, distributions out there, so any new release, like today’s Ubuntu 24.0 LTS, is still a big deal.
Ubuntu Desktop brings the Subiquity installer to an LTS for the first time. In addition to a refreshed user experience and a minimal install by default, the installer now includes experimental support for ZFS and TPM-based full disk encryption and the ability to import auto-install configurations. Post install, users will be greeted with the latest GNOME 46 alongside a new App Center and firmware-updater. Netplan is now the default for networking configuration and supports bidirectionality with NetworkManager.
↫ Utkarsh Gupta on ubuntu-announce
Of course, all the various other Ubuntu editions have also seen new releases: Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Cinnamon, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu Unity, and Xubuntu. Yes, that’s a long list. They all mostly share the same improvements as Ubuntu’s main course, but paired with the latest versions of the respective desktop environments instead.
Except for Kubuntu. Unlike just about any other major distribution released over the last few months, such as Fedora 40 only a few days ago, Kubuntu does not ship with the new KDE Plasma 6, opting for Plasma 5.27.11 instead. There simply wasn’t enough time between the release of Plasma 6 and the Ubuntu feature freeze, so they made the – in my opinion – understandable call to stick to Plasma 5 for now, moving Plasma 6 to the next release later this year.
I feel like most of this discussion happened over at the Fedora story already.
Shipping without Plasma 6 does feel unfortunate. As an LTS release, this could delay the transition not just to the new KDE version but to Wayland. I do not use Wayland yet on most of my systems ( side-effect of DE choice mostly ) but I am looking forward to it going mainstream if only to cut down on stories and forum posts complaining that it is not ready. I fear too many people on Plasma 5.x will prolong this.
I do not have a good sense if people using Ubuntu LTS releases are more or less likely to be a source of complaints. On the one hand, they are conservative. On the other, perhaps they are less likely to be gaming on NVIDIA hardware. Not sure.
All that said, it could be a good thing for the same reasons. Wayland on NVIDIA will make big leaps forward in the next month or so. Both Wayland KDE and NVIDIA generally should be in pretty solid shape in time for the fall release of Ubuntu 24.10. Making fewer waves in this Ubuntu release may provide calmer waters in the months ahead of the larger changes Ubuntu 24.10 will bring. The LTS crowd will not have to follow suit until things are well and truly baked.
Regardless of all the Wayland aspects, this highlights the struggle that distros have with adopting KDE as a primary desktop. GNOME times its releases well to coordinate with the cadence of the major distributions. That is true of Red Hat obviously but it dovetails very reliably with Ubuntu as well. Rolling releases like EndeavourOS can move to KDE without much drama ( and recently did ) but a distro like Ubuntu will face the same kinds of KDE timing issues over and over again in the future. GNOME is a much more sensible DE choice from a distro project management perspective. Fedora is actively talking about KDE but they will face the same challenges as Ubuntu.
It is hard to see what KDE can do about it really as they are somewhat beholden themselves to the Qt release schedule and it is hard to imagine the needs of Linux distros doing much to influence that.
Perhaps COSMIC will come and save us all. Who knows, it may even unify some of the floating vs tiling discord as well.
tanishaj,
I agree with this. although I use debian and mint on my personal computers.
I’m not sure if there’s a specific kind of user correlated to nvidia, but they are the most popular. I personally chose nvidia for cuda over anything to do with gaming. The raytracing is pretty cool, but once again I use it more for blender than gaming, haha.
I’m glad they’re replacing network manager,, which I didn’t like, although I have yet to try Netplan.
A new installer…I don’t recall any issues with the old one and I rarely pay much attention to it. Hopefully the new one is just as good (ie so I don’t have to pay much attention to it either, haha).
In my opinion not including Plasma 6 was a mistake, beyond that i feel that this being a LTS release, this is something to praise. Having access to such polished and modern operating system for free, as in speech and beer, people likely don’t even realize it and take it for granted. Too bad more people doesn’t use it, rather sticking with Microsoft and Apple products that threat them like shit. But OK i personally am still grateful that i have this choice.
> Having access to such polished and modern operating system for free, as in speech and beer, people likely don’t even realize it and take it for granted.
Amen!
As we speak, I am writing a SQL Dialect transpiler, sourcing the grammars and function APIs from various sites on the internet. Power went down, no internet for 2 hours — and I got stuck.
While waiting I have been remembering the time when I had to purchase my Turbo Pascal Student Edition for 120 Deutsche Mark on 6 floppy disks and every API/specification was available in printed books only which you had to purchase one by one.
Then Linux came out and provided all this knowledge, those tools and the help for FREE! Free like in “free beer” but also liberating like in “enable you”.
What a time to be alive!
KDE 5.27 is the LTS release. It makes sense that Ubuntu LTS would package this. Also, the KDE 4 and KDE 5 transitions were disasters, so this comes from lessons learned in the past.
Eventually, KDE will get on a standard release schedule, which makes it easier for distributions to package the newest version in six month release cycles.
One can always fire up Fedora 40 to see all that oppressing issues.
Funny, a Ubuntu LTS Release is a non-event. 6 comments to date, all are about KDE.
Remember to verify your downloads.
e.g. xubuntu are asleep at the wheel and don’t mention verification at all on their downloads section.
https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/24.04/release/
The other flavours, if you dig a little:
Remember to verify your downloads: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/
For the love of all that is holy bring back that edit button time window…
tux2bsd,
I commented on other facets, not just KDE, but as these desktops become more mature I agree they tend to become less interesting in general. Sometimes uneventful is good although it may be hard to recapture the excitement of new experiences.
Perhaps one day you will understand what a generalised comment is.
tux2bsd,
I get the feeling “generalized” is being retconned here 🙂
The comment is extremely specific, explicitly counting all “6 comments to date” preceding yours, so I don’t think you should fault me for applying it to mine.
“Funny, a Ubuntu LTS Release is a non-event. 6 comments to date, all are about KDE.”
Anyway, I do agree there’s been a great deal of focus on KDE. Many of us would have liked to see LTS go with KDE 6, it just wasn’t meant to be this time around. Personally I have a preference for LTS releases over short term releases, but this could pose a dilemma for a couple of years.