Canonical Previews Ubuntu Desktop 25.10

Ubuntu Desktop 25.04 is barely a month old, but Canonical is already talking up what we can expect from the next release, Ubuntu Desktop 25.10.

“As the Ubuntu 25.10 development cycle begins, I’m excited to share what’s on the horizon for Ubuntu Desktop,” Canonical’s Jean Baptiste Lallement writes. “Questing Quokka, the final interim release before the next LTS, focuses on modernizing and expanding the desktop experience, platform support, and enterprise capabilities.”

Here are some of the key focus areas for this coming release of Ubuntu Desktop.

Gnome 49. Where the current release ships with the Gnome 48 desktop environment, 25.10 will of course deliver the next version, which will include updated shell extensions, a refreshed user interface and new applications, including Loupe, a modern image viewer, Ptyxis, a new terminal emulator, an unnamed new video player, and a new system monitor.

Display improvements. Ubuntu 25.10 should include variable refresh rate (VRR) support in Mutter, the Wayland display server, X11 window manager, and compositor library, plus improved support for Nvidia GPUs.

RISC-V desktop support. Canonical hopes this will be the first Ubuntu version with a fully functional desktop session on RISC-V architecture, including support for key applications like Firefox and Thunderbird.

TPM-backed Full Disk Encryption (FDE). Partially implemented now, this feature should be complete in 25.10 with the addition of recovery key management during installation, key regeneration post-installation, PIN support, and recovery key confirmation prompt before firmware updates.

Deeper integration with Entra ID. Ubuntu 25.10 will be able to register directly with Entra ID, enabling policy enforcement.

Ubuntu on WSL improvements. In August, Ubuntu will ship refreshed 24.04 images for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that are aligned with the 24.04.3 LTS point release. And then Canonical will 22.04 and 20.04 images to the new image format, bringing consistency and improved performance across all supported Ubuntu WSL versions.

Desktop documentation. Canonical is planning a major revamp of its documentation with the goal of making it more accessible and discoverable for users and developers alike.

The Feature Freeze for Ubuntu 25.10 August 14, followed by the User Interface Freeze on September 4, the Beta Release on September 18, and then the Final Release on October 9. There’s a more detailed schedule on the Ubuntu Discourse.