Hello World, 

As you probably know,  Ubuntu 24.10 has been released on October 10, 2024.   This is the latest Ubuntu release that is made available.   This release is a short term release (STR) and will be supported for the next 9 months.    We have installed it in our lab and we can see that each new releases of Ubuntu go around 2 main aspects.  The first one is the Gnome Desktop version that will be used.  The other is the snap technology and which application will be converted from traditional package to snap package.  

In this post, we will provide a quick overview of Ubuntu 24.10. 

Overview

Again, there are a lot of information, reviews and posts about Ubuntu 24.10 and what’s new.. We do not want to repeat the same information and we will not go into details in this post.  We will look at some of the points that we think are interesting in this release….  

We were not really planning in publishing a post about Ubuntu 24.10 release.  This a short term release and there is probably a lot of information about that release on internet already.  However, one thing that makes Ubuntu 24.10 special is that this release celebrates the 20th anniversary of the distribution.  

What’s New in this release ? 

The Ubuntu releases might not look exciting and they do not always introduces great features.  However, so far, each new iteration is improving the previous one.  Improvements can be look’n feel or new features.   Even if some choices are not always well accepted (i.e. snap, Ubuntu Pro & Updates), Ubuntu remains quite popular.  So, Ubuntu 24.10 is providing the following notable new features 

• Gnome 47 which brings refreshed applications, new color accents and improved usability

• Latest Kernel It includes the Linux 6.11 kernel, providing enhanced performance and hardware support.  

• Wayland by Default: Ubuntu 24.10 switches to Wayland by default for NVIDIA hardware, ensuring better performance and compatibility.

• Security Enhancements: Significant improvements to software security, including the introduction of kdump-tools for automatic kernel crash dumps.

Additionally, to celebrate the 20th anniversary,  Ubuntu 24.10 includes some special accent colors and wallpapers that remember you what Ubuntu used to look alike. 

New Kernel Release Policy  

Ubuntu 24.10 introduces a new kernel release policy that aims to provide users with the latest and greatest features and hardware support right from the release date.  This simply means that Ubuntu will try to provide the bleeding edge kernel version which support more hardware and recent drivers.  This will ensure that more recent features and improvement will be available with the latest Ubuntu Operating System.   

This new policy reflects Canonical’s commitment to delivering cutting-edge technology and maintaining high performance for its users.

Gnome 47 and Remote Desktop 

Gnome 46 introduced remote desktop support through the RDP protocol.  If you want to test this feature and obtain more information, you can check this post (Testing Gnome 46 Remote Login Feature).    Gnome 46 is a great addition but more work needs to be done to make perfectly usable.  One of the issue or shortcoming that came with Gnome 46 RDP was that you could not reconnect to a previous session.   

It seems that Gnome 47 fixes this issue.  Remote desktop support has been upgraded to include persistent remote login sessions. In other words, if you’re disconnected from a remote session, it will now continue running, allowing you to log back in and pick up right where you left off. Your system remains in the same state, ensuring uninterrupted workflow.  

We have not tested yet this feature but we will and come back with some new information  🙂 

xRDP Version in Ubuntu 24.10  

xRDP package software that has been made available in Ubuntu repository for Ubuntu 24.10 is the version 0.9.24.   The version is quite recent but this is not the latest one.  This version also include a small bug related to clipboard feature.   You can keep running this version or you can decide to upgrade to the latest version. As you probably know by now, we have developed a small script that automate the installation of xRDP package and allows you to install the latest available version of the package (i.e. 0.10.x)

We will need to update the script in order to include support for Ubuntu 24.10 and automate the installation.  We are not expecting any major changes in the way the xRDP software is working against Ubuntu 24.10.  The xrdp-installer-1.5.2 script (which include support for Ubuntu 24.10) will be released in a few days…. 

Final Notes

Voila ! This is it for this post… 

Ubuntu 24.10 is not a revolution but more an evolution of the existing Ubuntu releases.  The new Gnome 47 seems to be more fluid and it’s a real pleasure to work with this version.   The new flutter installer Wizard is really nice and does the job quite well.  The new Software center provide a refreshing experience even do most of the applications proposed/offered seems to be Snap format applications.  Yes, you have some debian packages available as well but they seems harder to find….  

All in all, we have no real complains with this release.  Again, these Short term releases are preparing the way for the next long term release that is due in 2026.  

Till next time 

See ya