Ubuntu News Archives


1,649 Ubuntu open-source and Linux related news articles on Phoronix since 2006.

Canonical Looking At Including Performance Tools In Ubuntu 24.04 By Default
Canonical Looking At Including Performance Tools In Ubuntu 24.04 By Default

A proposal has been laid out by Canonical engineers to include various performance tooling in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS by default to help in those trying to squeeze out greater performance gains out of their hardware/software and/or debugging/profiling issues. The proposal wants to "make Ubuntu absolutely great for performance engineers" but would mean somewhat significant size increases to the Ubuntu desktop and server ISOs.

7 March 2024 - Ubuntu 24.04 Performance Tools - 34 Comments
Ubuntu Blog Talks Up Rust Schedulers, Potential For Micro-Kernel Design Future
Ubuntu Blog Talks Up Rust Schedulers, Potential For Micro-Kernel Design Future

Ubuntu/Canonical has for a while now promoted the prospects of Rust programming within the Linux kernel and one of their kernel engineers, Andrea Righi, wrote a Rust-written Linux scheduler with promising results that leverages eBPF for dynamically loading it at run-time. While Ubuntu isn't yet committing to using it as part of their distribution, appearing on the Ubuntu blog today was more praise for the work and even talking about the potential for a "micro-kernel design" in the future via leveraging Rust and eBPF.

26 February 2024 - Rust Kernel Scheduler - 55 Comments
Snaps & Ubuntu Core Desktop Talked Up At FOSDEM 2024
Snaps & Ubuntu Core Desktop Talked Up At FOSDEM 2024

Canonical engineer Till Kamppeter was at FOSDEM 2024 last weekend in Belgium to talk up the Snap packaging format spearheaded for Ubuntu Linux as well as their ongoing work around Ubuntu Core Desktop for providing an all-Snap based operating system.

7 February 2024 - Ubuntu Snaps - 52 Comments
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Leaning Toward Low-Latency Kernel Optimizations By Default
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Leaning Toward Low-Latency Kernel Optimizations By Default

Last month it was noted on Phoronix that Canonical's kernel team is looking at folding their low-latency kernel optimizations into their generic kernel builds. Right now Ubuntu maintains a separate "lowlatency" kernel flavor with Kconfig tweaks in the name of low-latency responsiveness as an alternative to their "generic" kernel default, but for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS it continues looking like they'll move forward with this change of incorporating the changes into their default kernel build.

6 February 2024 - Ubuntu 24.04 Low-Latency - 34 Comments
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Aims For A Nice Desktop Provisioning Experience
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Aims For A Nice Desktop Provisioning Experience

In addition to exploring low-latency changes for the "generic" kernel image, frame pointers by default, and possible x86-64-v3 optimizations, another area being invested into feature work for this next long-term support release is on the desktop provisioning side. Building off work of their new Ubuntu desktop installer and unifying the installation tech that has already been used by Ubuntu Server, Canonical is hoping for a nice desktop provisioning experience in facilitating automated installations, managed desktop setups within enterprises, and OEM/ODM deployments.

4 February 2024 - Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop Provisioning - 13 Comments
Ubuntu Generic vs. Low-Latency Linux Kernel Benchmarks For HPC & Desktop
Ubuntu Generic vs. Low-Latency Linux Kernel Benchmarks For HPC & Desktop

With Ubuntu looking at applying their low-latency optimizations to their generic kernel builds in order to eliminate maintaining their existing "lowlatency" kernel option, I decided to run some fresh benchmarks looking at the performance impact of their low-latency kernel against their "generic" default kernel used on Ubuntu Linux systems.

30 January 2024 - HPC Workloads + More - 44 Comments
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Will Aim To Ship With The Linux 6.8 Kernel
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Will Aim To Ship With The Linux 6.8 Kernel

As some terrific news, Canonical laid out their kernel plans for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and they are being ambitious with plans to ship the in-development Linux 6.8 kernel as their default kernel on this next long-term support Ubuntu desktop/server distribution.

27 January 2024 - Ubuntu 24.04 With Linux 6.8 - 32 Comments
Ubuntu Looking At Discontinuing Its Source ISOs
Ubuntu Looking At Discontinuing Its Source ISOs

Ubuntu's install media (ISO) generation recently broke the assembly of source ISOs. These are the ISOs containing all of the source code packages to Ubuntu Linux with the original motivation of helping GPL license compliance and ensuring the code is easily accessible. But the usefulness in practice is limited and now instead Ubuntu developers are considering the discontinuing of source ISOs.

4 January 2024 - Ubuntu Source ISOs - 22 Comments
Ubuntu Touch OTA-3 Focal Brings PinePhone Images, Initial Snap Support
Ubuntu Touch OTA-3 Focal Brings PinePhone Images, Initial Snap Support

Ubuntu Touch OTA-3 Focal is out today as the UBport's latest release of this Ubuntu mobile adaptation for smartphones and tablets. This is the third release to be based on their Ubuntu 20.04 LTS base, which is quite aging at this point but still better off than their earlier 16.04 LTS foundation.

29 December 2023 - Ubuntu Touch - 15 Comments
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS To Enable Frame Pointers By Default For Better Profiling/Debugging
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS To Enable Frame Pointers By Default For Better Profiling/Debugging

Canonical has decided for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS that they will now enable frame pointers by default when building packages. There will still selectively be some packages where they decide to disable frame pointers due to the performance overhead, but the focus on this change is to improve the out-of-the-box debugging and profiling support on the Linux distribution.

13 December 2023 - Ubuntu + Frame Pointers - 26 Comments
Ubuntu Linux Evaluating x86-64-v3 Based Build - AVX & Newer Intel/AMD CPUs
Ubuntu Linux Evaluating x86-64-v3 Based Build - AVX & Newer Intel/AMD CPUs

Canonical is experimenting with x86_64 micro-architecture feature levels! They have produced an experimental build of Ubuntu Server using x86_64_v3 for requiring basically Intel and AMD CPUs with AVX capabilities. But they aren't yet committing to it as a default or when such a change may materialize.

12 December 2023 - x86_64_v3 Ubuntu - 95 Comments
Lubuntu 24.04 LTS Aiming For Optional Wayland Session, Default in 24.10
Lubuntu 24.04 LTS Aiming For Optional Wayland Session, Default in 24.10

Lubuntu as the Ubuntu Linux spin featuring the lightweight LXQt desktop has shared some of their plans for the upcoming Lubuntu 24.04 LTS release. As part of this release due out in April they are aiming to have an optional Wayland session in place although they don't expect to make it the default until Lubuntu 24.10.

10 December 2023 - LXQt + Ubuntu - 12 Comments
Ubuntu 23.10 Is Maxing Out Zstd Compression For Its Kernel Build
Ubuntu 23.10 Is Maxing Out Zstd Compression For Its Kernel Build

Dimitri John Ledkov of the Ubuntu kernel team has written about some of the improvements made for the default kernel build on Ubuntu 23.10. Ubuntu's Linux kernel build is now using much less disk space, lower RAM use, and much faster initrd generation.

16 November 2023 - Ubuntu 23.10 Kernel Optimizations - 22 Comments
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Committing Fully To Netplan For Network Configuration
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Committing Fully To Netplan For Network Configuration

The Canonical-developed Netplan has served for Linux network configuration on Ubuntu Server and Cloud versions for years. With the recent Ubuntu 23.10 release, Netplan is now being used by default on the desktop. Canonical is committing to fully leveraging Netplan for network configuration with the upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release and in turn also marking the Netplan 1.0 release.

14 November 2023 - Ubuntu + Netplan - 38 Comments
One Of Ubuntu's Great Features Has Been Broken For One Month
One Of Ubuntu's Great Features Has Been Broken For One Month

One of the great niche features of Ubuntu Linux has been the Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA that's been maintained by Canonical for providing daily kernel builds of the Linux Git kernel state as well as of all point releases and release candidates. Sadly it's now been broken for one month for this very convenient feature.

13 November 2023 - Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA - 26 Comments
Ubuntu's Mir Working On Hybrid Graphics / Multi-GPU Support
Ubuntu's Mir Working On Hybrid Graphics / Multi-GPU Support

Canonical continues investing in Mir as their Wayland compositor and set of platform abstraction interfaces to make it easier for IoT and other "smart" devices to run atop Ubuntu Core. Most recently the Mir developers have been working to partially re-architect their graphics platform handling to better handle multiple GPU/display devices.

23 October 2023 - Mir Hybrid Graphics - 30 Comments
Ubuntu 23.10 Desktop ISOs Re-Released Following Translation Snafu
Ubuntu 23.10 Desktop ISOs Re-Released Following Translation Snafu

Hours after Ubuntu 23.10 was released last Thursday it was discovered Ubuntu 23.10 ISOs contained malicious user translations for those using the Ukrainian translations within the Ubuntu Linux desktop installer. Canonical suspended the desktop ISOs until the translations could be fixed and ISOs re-spun. That's now happened and this afternoon Ubuntu 23.10 images are back online.

16 October 2023 - Ubuntu 23.10 - 27 Comments
Canonical's Snap Store Hit By Malicious Apps
Canonical's Snap Store Hit By Malicious Apps

Stemming from reports of several fake crypto apps appearing in Canonical's Snap Store that aimed to steal user funds, temporary restrictions have been put in place while Canonical investigates the security matter.

30 September 2023 - Bad Apps - 62 Comments
Linux 6.5 Now Powering Ubuntu 23.10
Linux 6.5 Now Powering Ubuntu 23.10

Just as anticipated, the Linux 6.5 kernel has landed in the Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic archive as the default kernel powering this next Ubuntu distribution release due out in October.

16 September 2023 - Ubuntu 23.10 + Linux 6.5 - 4 Comments
Ubuntu 23.10's Firefox Snap Enabling Wayland By Default
Ubuntu 23.10's Firefox Snap Enabling Wayland By Default

While the Ubuntu desktop has been using the GNOME Wayland session by default, Ubuntu's default Firefox browser build within its Snap confinements has continued relying upon XWayland. But the Firefox Snap beginning with Ubuntu 23.10 is now enabling the native Wayland support by default.

16 September 2023 - Firefox Snap + Native Wayland - 30 Comments
Ubuntu 23.04 & 22.04.3 Installs Haven't Been Following Their Own Security Best Practices
Ubuntu 23.04 & 22.04.3 Installs Haven't Been Following Their Own Security Best Practices

It turns out that Ubuntu Linux installations of Ubuntu 23.04, 22.04.3 LTS, and installs done since April 2023 that accepted the Snap version update haven't been following Ubuntu's own recommended security best practices for their security pocket configuration for packages. A new Subiquity release was issued today to fix this problem while those on affected Ubuntu installs are recommended to manually edit their /etc/apt/sources.list file.

15 September 2023 - Security Pocket Issue - 9 Comments
Ubuntu 23.10 Restores ZFS File-System Support In Its Installer
Ubuntu 23.10 Restores ZFS File-System Support In Its Installer

When Canonical rolled out their new Flutter-based Ubuntu Linux desktop installer it lacked support for ZFS root file-system installations. Canonical has been quiet about their (Open)ZFS intentions after years of offering it as an Ubuntu install option with their prior installer, but for Ubuntu 23.10 this support is being restored.

13 September 2023 - Ubuntu 23.10 + ZFS - 32 Comments
Ubuntu 23.10 Adding Experimental TPM-Backed Full Disk Encryption
Ubuntu 23.10 Adding Experimental TPM-Backed Full Disk Encryption

As an experimental feature for next month's Ubuntu 23.10 release, Canonical is introducing initial support for TPM-based full disk encryption to make use of your system's Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The downside though is this extra security relies on Snaps, including for the kernel and GRUB bootloader.

7 September 2023 - TPM-Backed FDE - 49 Comments
Canonical Releases LXD 5.17 With OpenZFS 2.2 Delegation Support
Canonical Releases LXD 5.17 With OpenZFS 2.2 Delegation Support

LXD 5.17 is now available as the system container and virtual machine manager, which since last month has been reigned into control by Canonical and maintainership being limited to Canonical engineers. With this new LXD release there is ZFS delegation support as found with the upcoming OpenZFS 2.2.

26 August 2023 - LXD 5.17 - 21 Comments
Ubuntu Delays Transition To Snap'ed CUPS Print Server
Ubuntu Delays Transition To Snap'ed CUPS Print Server

Since 2021 among other Snap'ing efforts for converting formerly Ubuntu DEB packages to Canonical's Snap sandboxed app packaging format has been the CUPS print server. The plan was to replace the Debian-packaged CUPS with the Snap-based CUPS for Ubuntu 23.10 but now that is being pushed back to next year.

25 August 2023 - Debian Packaging Wins - 53 Comments

1649 Ubuntu news articles published on Phoronix.