After 6 frenzied months of development the final stable Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release has arrived and is available for download.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (codenamed ‘Noble Numbat’) includes a rich array of new features ranging from an enhanced desktop installer and a the latest GNOME desktop to gaming improvements and a new Linux kernel.

As a long-term support release Ubuntu 24.04 LTS gets 5 years of select apps updates, security fixes, kernel upgrades, and other buffs, and a further 5 years of extended security coverage via Ubuntu Pro.

Canonical today releases the latest LTS version of Ubuntu. In addition to upgrades to the GNOME UI, this release, version 24.04 codenamed ‘Noble Numbat’, includes some important features and improvements under the hood, including security capabilities, greater compatibility with IBM hardware architecture and support for newer versions of commonly used programming languages. There is also .NET 8 support throughout the lifecycle of this LTS version.

What end users will certainly notice is the latest version of the (more or less standard) Linux UI GNOME, version 46. Further improvements are mainly under the hood. The Linux 6.8 kernel used offers the possibility to ‘stack’ or combine security modules, with each module contributing its own functionality. Other improvements include improved hardware compatibility and optimized power management for laptops.

The kernel features improved syscall performance, support for nested KVM on ppc64el, and access to the new copy-on-write bcachefs file system. This should prevent unnecessary copies of data and improve efficiency. In addition, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS has integrated features of a low-latency kernel into the standard kernel, which should reduce delays when scheduling kernel tasks.

Frame pointers are enabled by default on all 64-bit architectures, to give administrators easier access to flame graphs that help identify bottlenecks and improve the performance of the software in use.

Support for .NET 8

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS comes with support for programming languages ??such as Python 3.12, Ruby 3.2, PHP 8.3 and Go 1.22, and puts extra emphasis on the user experience of .NET, Java and Rust developers. A notable addition is the support of .NET 8. This version is supported throughout the lifecycle of both Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and 22.04 LTS, allowing developers to upgrade their applications to newer .NET versions before upgrading their Ubuntu release.

Additionally, this .NET support has been extended to the IBM System Z platform, demonstrating Ubuntu’s commitment to supporting diverse hardware architectures. This provides more flexibility and continuity for developers who rely on the .NET framework for their software development.

Canonical and Intel have joined forces for this version to integrate Intel QuickAssist Technology (IQT). Intel QAT allows users to accelerate encryption and compression, thereby reducing CPU usage. This should improve the performance of networking and storage applications on Intel Xeon Scalable processors of the fourth generation and newer.

Custom Developer UIs for Desktop

For the first time, Ubuntu Desktop uses the same installation technology as Ubuntu Server. This means that desktop administrators can now use image customization tools like autoinstall and cloud-init to create custom UIs for developers. The user interface of this tool has also been given a makeover with a modern design built in Flutter, Google’s open-source UI framework.

Canonical says it plans to continue investing in Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) as a premier platform for developers and data specialists. The paid Ubuntu Pro Active Directory Group Policy client now includes enterprise proxy configuration, privilege management, and remote script execution for those managing mixed Windows and Ubuntu environments. Starting with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu on WSL supports cloud-init so users can run scripts and metadata during virtual machine startup.

Maximum twelve years of support

An Ubuntu LTS version is maintained for ten years: five years of standard support and an additional 5 years of Extended Security Maintenance (ESM). It is possible to receive an additional two years of support for a fee. Usually an LTS version of Ubuntu is released every two years. Smaller releases take place in between. In short, a new version is released every year in April and October.

The beta version of Noble Numbat has been available since April 11. This is later than planned, due to the backdoor that was found in the widely used compression tool xz . Canonical said it chose to do this to ensure the safety of users. The company announced that all beta version binary packages created after the backdoor commit to xz-utils (February 26) would be removed and rebuilt. This allowed Canonical to guarantee that no binary in the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS builds would be affected by the threat.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS can be downloaded here .