Ubuntu 25.04 'Plucky Puffin' Arrives With Linux 6.14, GNOME 48, and ARM64 Desktop ISO (canonical.com) 51
Canonical today released Ubuntu 25.04 "Plucky Puffin," bringing significant upgrades to the non-LTS distribution including Linux kernel 6.14, GNOME 48 with triple buffering, and expanded hardware support.
For the first time, Ubuntu ships an official generic ARM64 desktop ISO targeting virtual machines and Snapdragon-based devices, with initial enablement for the Snapdragon X Elite platform. The release also adds full support for Intel Core Ultra Xe2 integrated graphics and "Battlemage" discrete GPUs, delivering improved ray tracing performance and hardware-accelerated video encoding.
Networking improvements include wpa-psk-sha256 Wi-Fi support and enhanced DNS resolution detection. The installer now better handles BitLocker-protected Windows partitions for dual-boot scenarios. Other notable changes include JPEG XL support by default, NVIDIA Dynamic Boost enabled on supported laptops, Papers replacing Evince as the default document viewer, and APT 3.0 becoming the standard package manager. Ubuntu 25.04 will receive nine months of support until January 2026.
For the first time, Ubuntu ships an official generic ARM64 desktop ISO targeting virtual machines and Snapdragon-based devices, with initial enablement for the Snapdragon X Elite platform. The release also adds full support for Intel Core Ultra Xe2 integrated graphics and "Battlemage" discrete GPUs, delivering improved ray tracing performance and hardware-accelerated video encoding.
Networking improvements include wpa-psk-sha256 Wi-Fi support and enhanced DNS resolution detection. The installer now better handles BitLocker-protected Windows partitions for dual-boot scenarios. Other notable changes include JPEG XL support by default, NVIDIA Dynamic Boost enabled on supported laptops, Papers replacing Evince as the default document viewer, and APT 3.0 becoming the standard package manager. Ubuntu 25.04 will receive nine months of support until January 2026.
Snaps (Score:5, Insightful)
The next improvement I would suggest is to get rid of snaps. In my opinion, it has become a failed experiment that needs to be abandoned.
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Re:Snaps (Score:4, Informative)
I've yet to play with the new version but the telemetry is an option that you have to enable during the installation process.
I sort of wish we did have better telemetry so that we could more accurately know how many people are using desktop Linux and which distros they're using. Plus, if we know the hardware profile, we could tweak what's supported. I will say that volunteers, Ubuntu/Lubuntu members are not given access to any of that information.
There are also bug reports that can be automated. I'd not call that telemetry but some folks might be irked by it.
As for Snaps... Well, that's a touchy subject. I, as a person, do not really care where my software comes from - so long as it works. I don't use many AppImages but I do have a bunch of Flatpaks installed because that was the easiest way to get a bunch of emulators for old game consoles.
For clarity, I was an Official Ubuntu and Lubunt Member. It just gave me better access to the devs as I did daily testing of Lubuntu. My bandwidth availability changed and so I've stopped doing so until I finally get fiber. Then I'll resume testing. I am not currently a member - and you can't be a Lubuntu Member without being an Ubuntu Member (for permission reasons), which is why I was both. I'm really not a huge fan of the GNOME desktop environment.
Huh... Well, that ended up longer than I expected.
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do not really care where my software comes from - so long as it works.
Isn't this very issue Linux so famously talked about in 2014? That just making the software easy to get regardless of the distro you are running is a key part of desktop Linux succeeding?
At least with Windows I get an exe or an msi and run it and it will install (usually), Linus even pointed out the guy who manages a windows version of his diving software has an easier time deploying it than he does.
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I can say that I generally have no trouble installing the software I want to use.
I do some retro gaming that requires other software, but that's pretty easy as well.
I much prefer that it updates automatically, with the rest of the system.
Re: Snaps (Score:2)
Snaps don't work well at all, so by your own logic, you should care.
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People say that but the number of support requests are low and I have never had a problem with one.
I'm an admin at linux.org and we might get one Snap question every six months or so. We get more complaints from people who don't use them than we get actual questions. You can also check sites like askubuntu.com to see how many questions they get about Snaps not working.
Re:Snaps (Score:5, Interesting)
As for Snaps... Well, that's a touchy subject. I, as a person, do not really care where my software comes from - so long as it works. I don't use many AppImages but I do have a bunch of Flatpaks installed because that was the easiest way to get a bunch of emulators for old game consoles.
I'm somewhat concerned about the bloat issue - too many Snaps and you start duplicating stuff that should be there only once and shared as libraries. If you only have a few Snaps it isn't too bad; but if Ubuntu starts moving everything to Snaps, as I think they plan to, it could get out of hand.
Also, in my admittedly limited experience with Snaps, I can't hold updates on only one program. If I want to not update a Snap - and that's a common thing for me - I think my only option is to pause updates on ALL Snaps. That definitely won't work for me.
I have no problem with Flatpaks and Appimages, even though they still cause extra bloat. I think that's because I choose specific standalone executables for specific reasons. I may want two different versions of a program, or a program version that's not supported on my current distro version. I may just want to test-drive something without installing deps that don't always uninstall cleanly. The only practical solution there is standalone executables.
With Mint, I have the best of both worlds. If I need a Snap, I can install it. If I want to run a Flatpak or an Appimage, I can. And if I want to stick with tried-and-true Apt, I can do that too. Life is good - except for the latest version of Thunderbird, which sucks ass and for which I have yet to find a way to revert to 115.
Re: Snaps (Score:3)
Flatpaks are also not all monolithic. They have dependencies on other flatpaks and they get updated independently. That keeps down the bloat.
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For what it's worth, I think you can 'hold' Snaps but I've never tried.
I'm a fan of keeping my software up to date.
Also, I can understand not wanting bloat but disk space is absurdly cheap these days and we're not talking about a lot of disk space overall.
If I had one complaint about Snaps, it would be that the server providing them is closed source. That's a valid complaint, as far as I'm concerned.
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They did until they didn't. If they were so nice there wouldn't be so many attempts at replacing them. Take off the rose coloured glasses, apt and deb are far from perfect.
Re: Snaps (Score:3)
Fortunately, it's so shitty even Ubuntu and GNOME kool aid drinkers hate it.
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The next improvement I would suggest is to get rid of snaps. In my opinion, it has become a failed experiment that needs to be abandoned.
Canonical seems committed to snaps. Their argument is that it saves time for maintainers (one build for many/most releases). And it also moves them into the store model where there is potential revenue upside for Canonical (Apple and Google, as obvious examples, make a lot of money from their stores). If I had to choose between the two reasons, I would say it is more about the money (it is always about the money).
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They may be but I see people moving away from them because of it. It's not a good technology, it has all the problems of Flatpak but a few more because Canonical doesn't play nice with others.
And it only "saves time for maintainers" because maintainers have few packages to maintain, instead relying on devs to make their own snaps.
In addition to the inefficiencies, it's also inherently less secure than the regular apt-type packaging system, each package relying on the good will and hard work of a likely alre
Re: Snaps (Score:2)
Yes, I hugely prefer Flatpaks to Snaps, and I dislike Flatpaks.
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They fork software from upstream Debian, which does not force snap.
e.g. I am happy with firefox-esr but if you need bleeding edge, Mozilla has its own deb repository.
https://support.mozilla.org/en... [mozilla.org]
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Mozilla ESR repository works just fine. I've been using it for a near decade, even before snaps, as I wanted more control as to when I'd shift versions and prefer the slower pace of ESR.
I began shifting to Linux Mint about 5 years ago and the same Mozilla ESR repo works great there as well.
Re:Snaps (Score:5, Interesting)
Snapdragon X-Elite Support? (Score:2)
Already up to the PP release again. (Score:2)
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I am so old that I remember when Ubuntu was cool (Score:2)
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In storage, I have an official Ubuntu install disk
I was there when Ubuntu launched and never remember it being cool. It seemed from the start to be a dumbed down Linux for Windows transfer students. Not that there's anything wrong with that on the surface, it just wasn't the cool option for the uber-nerds that were already running Linux for years. I know when I first tried it I was immediately put off by the concept of having no actual root user. That seemed so outside the norm that it sent me into a "not standards compliant" tizzy that seemed rational at
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Well, Oldhat and Fedora were, except for corporate out of the loop, by then.
I was a Debian / FreeBSD dude a the time Ubuntu came out, though still piddled around with SuSE too.
Re: I am so old that I remember when Ubuntu was co (Score:5, Interesting)
What was cool about Ubuntu was that you got everything working without dicking around because it provided binary drivers. It also NEVER had no real root user, EVER. I too have their original distributed install CD somewhere. You could always just give root a password and then log in as them.
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What was cool about Ubuntu was that you got everything working without dicking around because it provided binary drivers. It also NEVER had no real root user, EVER. I too have their original distributed install CD somewhere. You could always just give root a password and then log in as them.
The default setup didn't allow logging in as root, which irked me terribly on principal. I remember having to fight to get the root account to the point where I could actually use it.
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The default setup didn't allow logging in as root, which irked me terribly on principal. I remember having to fight to get the root account to the point where I could actually use it.
Do you mean remotely? I do think they had ssh configured to not allow root logins. For local logins it was just passwd root and go.
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The default setup didn't allow logging in as root, which irked me terribly on principal. I remember having to fight to get the root account to the point where I could actually use it.
Do you mean remotely? I do think they had ssh configured to not allow root logins. For local logins it was just passwd root and go.
No. I always just sudo or su for remote root access. I don't remember specifics, as I'm old enough to have been through the install routine too many times to remember every specific instance, I just remember being annoyed that root wasn't already set to go from install. It was the first distro I had ever run into where that was the case, and I was far more used to distros where root was the *ONLY* account set up by default, and you had to go out of your way to set up your user account.
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>"What was cool about Ubuntu was that you got everything working without dicking around"
Except that was the case with other distros as well. I know, I was using them.
But it is good you said "was cool", because now with Snaps, not having important native packages, and other messy stuff, what is cool is Linux Mint.
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Ubuntu wasn't the only one, but it was the easiest when it came out. At the time rpm was the home of dependency hell, and the cure was apt. This was also (obviously) before GNOME 3, Unity, snap, systemd, and all the other things I hate or have hated about Ubuntu. I haven't run it in years.
I use Devuan with root on ZFS on both my laptop and desktop. I am not only dodging snap, I am dodging systemd too. Before this I was using Mint, before that Pop!OS, and I think maybe before that it was Ubuntu with snap rem
Re: I am so old that I remember when Ubuntu was c (Score:2)
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I can remember when Ubuntu was a great distro. Then came Gnome 3 and SystemD, and that killed it.
Download servers are struggling - use bittorrent! (Score:2)
Looks like the servers which provide the Ubuntu downloads are struggling....
So... Use bittorrent instead if you can: https://ubuntu.com/download/al... [ubuntu.com]
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>"Or wait a few days, it's not like your life depends on it."
Or go here, instead: https://linuxmint.com/download... [linuxmint.com] :)
Of course, it won't be as "fresh" (since it is LTS) but it will be far less annoying.
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And no snaps or telemetry.
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it's really easy to build Linux on Debian (Score:2)
You unpack the kernel source package and run some scripts, and you get debs. I am running 6.14.2 on Devuan 5. The only problem was that I had to build a newer ZFS first since even the version in backports was too old, but that wasn't hard either.
Puffin??? (Score:2)