Powered by the latest and greatest Linux kernel 6.14, Canonical has unveiled Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin), dedicated to Steve Langasek, a Debian developer and long-term member of Ubuntu’s release team, who passed away on January 1, 2025.
Under the hood, systemd v257.4 arrives with vital upstream changes and the removal of some legacy functionalities. Notably, Ubuntu’s build no longer offers utmp support, and System V service scripts are on the fast track to deprecation.
Additionally, Netplan (1.1.2), Ubuntu’s network configuration utility, introduces WPA-PSK-SHA256 Wi-Fi support and routing policy configuration on the NetworkManager backend. Plus, “systemd‑networkd‑wait‑online” now waits for DNS resolvers to be reachable before declaring an interface “up,” making network‑dependent services a bit more reliable.
Developers will find an array of toolchain updates. GCC leaps to version 14.2 (a preview of v15 is also in place), binutils reaches 2.44, and glibc upgrades to 2.41. Additionally, Python 3.13.3, LLVM 20, Rust 1.84, and Go 1.24 bring fresh features to the table, fueling faster and more powerful software builds.
The desktop side receives a refined GNOME environment, with GNOME 48 unveiling triple buffering support for smoother graphics in Wayland sessions. The new Ubuntu Desktop installer also introduces a simplified dual-boot process for systems with BitLocker-secured Windows partitions.
Key applications get bumped to modern versions: Firefox 137, LibreOffice 25.2, Thunderbird 128, and GIMP 3.0 are all available, while the Fish shell makes its big Rust‑rewritten debut in version 4.
Under the hood, BlueZ 5.79, Cairo 1.18, NetworkManager 1.52, PipeWire 1.2.7, Poppler 25.03, xdg‑desktop‑portal 1.20, and NVIDIA 570 round out subsystem upgrades. Notably, the libva library is now in Main, enabling VA‑API video acceleration right after install with sudo apt install va-driver-all.
Continuing with the apps, Evince steps aside to make room for Papers as the default PDF viewer, now based on GTK 4 and partially rewritten in Rust. On a related note, Ubuntu continues transitioning away from certain older libraries, with cryptographic components like OpenSSL 3.4.1 and GnuTLS 3.8.9 integrating key security improvements.
There’s some good news for gamers, too. They will benefit from NVIDIA Dynamic Boost, enabled by default on supported laptops, shifting power dynamically between CPU and GPU for peak performance when plugged in.
For Intel fans, full support for Core Ultra Xe2 and Arc B580/B570 GPUs is available, alongside hardware-accelerated AVC, JPEG, HEVC, and AV1 encoding, ray-tracing speed-ups in apps like Blender, CCS optimizations in the Compute Runtime, and oneAPI Level Zero Ray Tracing enhancements for AI and ML workloads.
Moreover, this release brings many subsystem enhancements. BlueZ 5.79 refines Bluetooth pairing and low-energy support, while Cairo 1.18 improves 2D rendering efficiency. NetworkManager 1.52 better manages Wi-Fi roaming and fallback behavior, and PipeWire 1.2.7 strengthens audio/video handling with lower latency and richer codec support.
On the containerization side, the Docker ecosystem in Ubuntu 25.04 comes with Docker 27.5 and containerd 2.0. For data-centric workloads, MySQL jumps to its first official long-term support version—8.4 LTS—while PostgreSQL upgrades to version 17 with new SQL/JSON functionalities and an improved memory management system. For web developers, PHP is now available in its latest version, 8.4.
Last, but definitely not least, the APT package manager jumps to v3.0, introducing an automatic pager for commands like show and list, a new dependency solver that kicks in when needed, and migration from GnuTLS to OpenSSL for TLS connections. Note that apt-key is gone, so scripts should switch to managing keys directly via gpgv.
If you are eager to try out all Plucky Puffin’s new features, the installation ISO images are available for download here. The official release announcement is here.
Additionally, installation ISO images for the 25.04 version of all official Ubuntu spins are also available and can be downloaded from the following links: Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Unity, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu Cinnamon, Ubuntu Kylin, and Xubuntu.
Ubuntu 25.04 will be supported for nine months, until January 2026, making it a short‑term release for users who like to stay on the cutting edge. Consequently, those who require long-term stability should stick with Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS, which is supported until at least 2029.
