Canonical has released Ubuntu 25.10 Questing Quokka. There are some important changes in this release.
Ubuntu 25.10 comes with the GNOME 49 desktop environment, making Wayland the only option available to session users. It does not support X11/Xorg sessions. Ubuntu 25.10 comes with Linux kernel 6.17 based on 6.17-RC7. It includes the Mesa 25.2.3 driver with support for Intel Core Ultra Xe3 integrated Intel Arc graphics and Intel Arc Pro B50 and B60 “Battlemage” discrete GPUs.
Proprietary Nvidia driver now supports suspend-resume by default to reduce freezes and corruption when waking from sleep. Fractional scaling has been improved to reduce blur. Ubuntu’s default monospace font size has been reduced to match the UI font size in terminals and similar apps.
The update changes some default apps. The Ptyxis terminal emulator is now the default terminal, replacing GNOME Terminal. Loop Image Viewer replaces Eye of GNOME as the default image viewer. Ubuntu now uses sudo-rs, a new Rust implementation of the sudo tool. The initramfs-tool has been replaced by Dracut, which uses sytemd for the default initial ramdisk infrastructure. It supports new features like Bluetooth and NVM Express over Fabrics (NVMe-OF). Crony is the new default time-daemon in Ubuntu 25.10, replacing systemd-timesyncd, and uses the Ubuntu Network Time Security (NTS) server by default. Apps can be set to auto-start on boot from Settings > Apps.
Images Courtesy: canonical blog
Ubuntu’s software updater window won’t pop up or steal keyboard focus when a system update is available. The OS will display a notification, with options to open the software updater or install all updates directly.
An icon in the system tray reminds you that updates are available even after you dismiss the notification. It also provides a quick way to apply or inspect all updates in Software Updater. Ubuntu 25.10 brings experimental support for TPM-backed Full Disk Encryption (FDE) for added security.
Ubuntu 25.10 Ubuntu 25.10 will receive updates for 9 months, until July 2026. you can do Download it from the official website. If you want more technical details about Ubuntu 25.10, please visit Release Notes of Quokka’s Discovery On Ubuntu Discourse.
Here are the system requirements for Ubuntu 25.10
- 2 GHz dual-core processor or better
- 4 GB system memory
- 25 GB free hard drive space
- Either a USB port or a DVD drive for installer media
Canonical also confirmed that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is called Resolute Raccoon.
Windows 10 will be out of support in 5 days from now. If your computer can’t be upgraded to Windows 11, you can try Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora or any distro you want.
