Canonical releases Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Resolute Raccoon

The 11th long-term supported release of Ubuntu delivers deep silicon optimization and state-of-the-art security for enterprise workloads.

April 23, 2026

Today Canonical announced the release of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, codenamed “Resolute Raccoon,” available to download and install from ubuntu.com/download.

Resolute Raccoon builds on the resilience-focused improvements introduced in interim releases, with TPM-backed full-disk encryption, improved support for application permission prompting, Livepatch updates for Arm^®– based servers, and Rust-based utilities for enhanced memory safety. This release brings native support for industry-leading AI/ML toolkits like NVIDIA CUDA and AMD ROCm, making Ubuntu 26.04 LTS the ideal platform for AI development and production workloads. 

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS sets the example for providing best-in-class resilience while simultaneously embracing innovation and the advancement of open source. By combining optimizations for silicon, the kernel, and the cloud with the latest upstream features, we’re delivering on our goal to bring the very best of open source to Ubuntu on whichever platform you choose.

Jon Seager, VP of Ubuntu Engineering at Canonical

Made for accessibility and productivity

With the latest GNOME Desktop environment and a modernized set of default applications, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS fully embraces Wayland, completing the upstream shift from X.org. This shift delivers smoother visuals, per-monitor scaling, native touch and gesture support, removing screen tearing and optimizing performance across platforms, including support for the latest NVIDIA production drivers.

Resolute Raccoon delivers a broad set of accessibility fixes across the Shell and default applications to ensure compliance with global regulations and provide the best possible experience from day one. This release also introduces a unified software management experience in the App Center, featuring improved support for Debian packages to provide a more cohesive and robust way to manage applications.

Like all Ubuntu releases, the 26.04 LTS ships with an updated set of language toolchains and compilers, ensuring developers can build modern applications without reaching for third-party repositories.

Harmony with the silicon

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is the first Ubuntu release to natively distribute NVIDIA CUDA as part of its software repositories. In addition, users can install NVIDIA DOCA-OFED for high performance networking through an official PPA starting with this Ubuntu release. 

The AMD ROCm software platform is also now available in Ubuntu’s repositories. AMD ROCm is an open software ecosystem for hardware-accelerated AI, machine learning, and HPC workloads on AMD Instinct and AMD Radeon GPUs, giving those workloads the long-term support and simplified developer experience that Ubuntu is known for.

With AMD ROCm software now delivered through a trusted Ubuntu package supply chain, organizations can enable powerful AI capabilities across data center servers, while developers can seamlessly build and deploy across AMD Radeon and Ryzen™ processor-based laptops and desktops, with one-click access from Canonical’s repositories. Installs and updates are simple, reliable, and fully validated to work together.

Andrej Zdravkovic, Senior Vice President and Chief Software Officer, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Starting with this release, Canonical Livepatch now extends its rebootless kernel patching capability to Arm64 for the first time. For organizations running Ubuntu on Arm64 server and edge hardware, this means critical kernel updates can be applied without service interruption.

As agentic AI and always-on workloads move into production, minimizing downtime is a necessity. With Canonical’s Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, organizations can address critical vulnerabilities in real time while systems remain fully operational with Kernel Livepatch, which was developed through close collaboration between Arm and the upstream Linux community to advance secure and scalable AI infrastructure.

Bhumik Patel, Director of Server Ecosystem Development, Cloud AI Business Unit, Arm

Ubuntu now fully supports RVA23, the baseline standard for RISC-V. This ensures that teams innovating on RISC-V can take full advantage of the platform, including in mixed-architecture environments.

Furthermore, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS delivers both guest and host support for confidential computing on both Intel® Trust Domain Extensions and AMD SEV, enabling confidential AI use cases with silicon-level encryption. 

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS provides the strongest foundation for our confidential computing stack. It allows us to deploy a single securely designed image for all our verifiably private AI workloads across Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA hardware, with no platform-specific changes required.

Jules Drean, Co-founder, Tinfoil

Kernel to cloud performance optimization

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is built on Linux 7.0, continuing Canonical’s commitment to shipping the latest upstream kernels at the time of release. 

One of the most significant additions for hardware compatibility is support for Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 3 processors (codenamed Panther Lake). Linux 7.0 introduces targeted optimizations for Intel Xe3 integrated graphics and the integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit), enabling strong AI performance alongside improved power efficiency.

For industrial and embedded use cases, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS integrates the IgH EtherCAT Master module and Generic Ethernet driver into the kernel. EtherCAT is a real-time industrial networking protocol, and the IgH Master driver brings microsecond-level timing precision natively into the OS, removing a significant integration burden for engineers building motion control systems, robotics platforms, or complex factory automation.

With optimized images across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Oracle Cloud, developers and enterprises can rely on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS for their most demanding public cloud workloads.

Enterprise security and manageability

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is the first LTS to expand the number of memory safe system components. In practice, this means new kernel drivers and subsystems written in Rust, as well as sudo-rs and uutils coreutils bringing memory-safe reimplementations of foundational system tools such as sudo, ls, cp, and mv.

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is an exciting example of what becomes possible when a major Linux distro makes a serious, sustained commitment to memory safety. By adopting Rust across the kernel, sudo, and core system utilities, Canonical is raising the security baseline for millions of enterprise users worldwide. The Rust Foundation is proud to support the language ecosystem that makes this kind of infrastructure work possible, and we look forward to seeing Ubuntu 26.04 LTS set a new standard for production-grade Linux.

Dr. Rebecca Rumbul, Executive Director & CEO, the Rust Foundation

TPM-backed full-disk encryption is now generally available in the Ubuntu installer. By tying encryption to TPM chip embedded hardware, disk encryption is bound to a specific device, significantly raising the bar for physical access attacks, while simultaneously improving user experience.

Enterprise workstation provisioning is simplified with the integration of Landscape into the Ubuntu Desktop installer. This provides a pathway for enterprise users to self-provision their own Ubuntu workstation with Canonical’s systems management tool, available with an Ubuntu Pro subscription. 

This LTS release introduces a more user-friendly applications permissions prompting experience in preview mode, with early integration into the Security Center for ease of management.

Authd, the open source service allowing authentication through cloud identity providers, is also available from official Ubuntu repositories. This tool allows organizations to authenticate Ubuntu devices against Entra ID, Google IAM and any standard-compliant OIDC identity provider, without the need for additional infrastructure.

Rounding out its enterprise features, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS delivers an updated WSL experience that integrates cloud-init and Ubuntu Pro for WSL, enabling seamless, large-scale management and security compliance through Landscape.

Next steps

• Get started with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
• Read the full release notes 
• Learn more at the upcoming Ubuntu Summit

About Canonical

Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, provides open source security, support and services. Our portfolio covers critical systems, from the smallest devices to the largest clouds, from the kernel to containers, from databases to AI. With customers that include top tech brands, emerging startups, governments and home users, Canonical delivers trusted open source for everyone. 

Learn more at canonical.com