Ubuntu – Ubuntu 25.04 is almost there

Griffon

Hello World, 

As you probably know,  Ubuntu 25.04 is about to be released in April 2025.  Canonical is targeting April 17th, 2025 to release the next iteration of Ubuntu Operating System.  This release is a short term release (STR) and will be supported for the next 9 months.    We have installed it in our lab (dev branch) and we have tested it.  We encountered some issues but this was expected since the dev branch is not targeting production environment. 

Let’s see what Ubuntu 25.04 can offer and how this release will shape the future releases…. 

Overview

Again, there is probably a lot of information, reviews and posts about Ubuntu 25.04 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….  

As you probably know,  Ubuntu 25.04 is a short term release (STR) which simply means that this release will get a limited support in time.  Ubuntu 25.04 will be supported for the next 9 months.  After this period, you will need to upgrade to Ubuntu 25.10 in order to keep receiving security updates which will be also a STR release… 

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 25.04 is providing the following notable new features 

  • Gnome 48 which brings refreshed applications, new color accents and improved usability

  • Latest Kernel It includes the Linux 6.14 kernel, providing enhanced performance and hardware support.  

  • Wayland Improvements: Ubuntu 24.10 switches to Wayland by default for NVIDIA hardware, ensuring better performance and compatibility. Ubuntu 25.04 bring some new improvements and provide better HDPI support

  • New version of Systemd, netplan have been included in this release

  • Some default applications are replaced by new one (PDF viewer)

  • Snaps package and snap technology is still present in Ubuntu 25.04.   
  • and more…… 

If you want to view all the changes made in this release,  you can have a look at the release notes here

Gnome 48 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.  

Gnome 48 remote desktop functionality didn’t seem to work with the Ubuntu 25.04 Dev Branch version…until recently.  We have tested the functionality again beginning of April 2025 and it seems that the functionality is back.   We like this addition and prove to be useful even if there are still missing feature…

xRDP Version in Ubuntu 25.04  

xRDP package software that has been made available in Ubuntu repository for Ubuntu 25.04 is the version 0.10.1.   The version is quite recent but this is not the latest one.  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. 0.10.3)

We will need to update the script in order to include support for Ubuntu 25.04 and automate the installation.  We are not expecting any major changes in the way the xRDP software is working against Ubuntu 25.04.  The xrdp-installer-1.5.4 script (which include support for Ubuntu 25.04) will be released in April 2025 …. 

Final Notes

Voila ! This is it for this post… 

Ubuntu 25.04 is not a revolution but more an evolution of the existing Ubuntu releases.  This interim release do provide some changes that might not be visible right away but should provided improved user experience and stability.  The Gnome Desktop 48 is becoming more and more stable and workable.  The Wayland display server is also working as expected.   If Wayland is becoming the standard solution for most Linux Distribution, xrdp might not be useable in the future.  xrdp software still rely on Xorg display server and as far as we know, there is not yet any news or activities about Wayland Support. 

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

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