Ubuntu 25.10, code-name Questing Quokka, was officially released today!

This is a new short term release with 9 months support until July 2026. New features include the latest Linux Kernel 6.17, GNOME Desktop 49, and more.

Thanks to Kernel 6.17, the new release features Attack Vector Controls, making easy to manage CPU vulnerability mitigations. It also added AMD SmartMux support for hybrid laptops, nested virtualization on Arm, and better support for AMD processors with mix of classic and dense cores.

Other Kernel changes include Raspberry Pi RP1 PCI device support, touch Bars support on x86 MacBook Pros, new drivers for Lenovo Legion Go S gaming handheld, and more. See more in kernelnewbies.

For Ubuntu Desktop, the installer improved TPM-Backed encryption with passphrase support and regeneration of the recovery key. And, Software Updater window will no longer pop up unprompted. Instead, it shows an icon in system tray, reminding that updates are available.

system tray icon reminding updates are available

Due to upstream (meaning GNOME 49), “Ubuntu on Xorg” session is no longer available, though the GDM login screen still supports loading other Xorg desktop sessions, e.g., XFCE, MATE, and Cinnamon.

Ubuntu 25.10 introduced 2 new default apps. It replaced Gnome Terminal with new default Ptyxis container-focused terminal emulator, and replaced Eye of Gnome (EOG) with touch-friendly Loupe image viewer which is written in Rust and powered by the Glycin library, which also handles the desktop wallpaper.

New default Ptyxis terminal emulator

Thanks to Gnome 49, it also added support changing the display brightness in the Quick Settings when HDR is enabled. And, these new HDR brightness controls support external displays, and allow multiple displays to be adjusted at the same time.

per-monitor brightness control

Other desktop changes include:

• Improve Remote Desktop support with multi-touch and relative mouse input, and ability to have additional virtual monitors.
• New Accessibility menu in login screen.
• Audio playback and power control in lock screen.
• Move “Do Not Disturb” to Quick Settings menu.
• Add option to disable Super (Windows logo key) shortcut key.
• Support relative dials on tablet pads.
• Add configuration for pointing stick (aka TrackPoint).
• Hardware accelerated video encoding for Camera app.
• Enable suspend-resume support in the proprietary Nvidia driver.
• Drop “Startup Applications” in favor of new Auto-start option in Settings -> Apps.
• Use Dracut as its default initrd infrastructure (replacing initramfs-tools)

Besides new Kernel and Gnome 49, Ubuntu 25.10 now uses sudo-rs as the default sudo provider. It is a memory safe implementation of sudo and su, written in Rust. For end user, there’s no visual difference as it works just like before.

In addition, the release now use Rust based core utilities. This change however may cause potential issues. In my case, it caused issue (fixed now) discovering other multi-boot operating systems on my computer.

As well, there are updated toolchains, including GCC 15.2, binutils 2.45, glic 2.42, Python 3.13.7 (Python 3.14 also available), LLVM 20 (21 is available), Ruest 1.85 (1.88 is also available), Golang 1.24, OpenJDK 21 (25 and 26 EA are also available), Zig 0.14.1, and .NET 10 preview.

For more about Ubuntu 25.10, see the official announcement and release note.

Get Ubuntu 25.10

The official images for desktop, server, and WSL are available to download in Ubuntu website via the link below:

For choice, you may get Ubuntu 25.10 from this page, or choose a download mirror that near to you.

For Ubuntu 25.04 users, the upgrade channel is not ready at the moment of writing. Try installing all updates via Software Updater utility, then run update-manager -c to check if upgrade is available.