Today, the Kubuntu development team announced some of their plans for the upcoming Kubuntu 24.04 LTS release and beyond.
As you may know, Canonical will launch its 10th Ubuntu LTS release this year, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS a.k.a. the Noble Numbat, and most of the official Ubuntu flavors will follow suit and also offer an LTS (Long Term Support) release, including Kubuntu, of course.
One of the cool changes in the upcoming Kubuntu 24.04 LTS release will be the switching to the Calamares universal graphical installer by default. Lubuntu is the only official flavor already using Calamares and now Kubuntu will be the second starting with the Noble Numbat series.
Some of the advantages of using Calamares over the Ubuntu Desktop Installer include the ability for the Kubuntu devs to adapt it to provide the very best experience to their users by adding or removing features, an advanced partitioning feature, branding support, and an overall faster installation experience for users.
“We value stability over new features.” – Simon Quigley, Kubuntu Member”
For Kubuntu 24.04 LTS, the devs decided to stick with the now well-tested KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment, more specifically with the latest KDE Plasma 5.27 LTS series. While they won’t ship Kubuntu 24.04 LTS with the upcoming KDE Plasma 6 series, they do plan to offer it as an update by the end of the year.
The bad news is that KDE Plasma 5 has been marked as End-Of-Life (EOL) upstream, which means that no further updates are planned. However, the KDE Project does not rule out releasing additional updates if there are security problems or severe bugs.
“At Kubuntu, we value a stable, reliable, and trustworthy user experience, especially in light of our upcoming Long Term Support release. We agree that Plasma 6 is a great step forward, but are prioritizing stability over new features with this release,” Simon Quigley, Kubuntu Member.
And to make sure Kubuntu 24.04 will stay as stable as possible until a Plasma 6 upgrade is released, the team hired Scarlett Gately Moore, an experienced KDE developer, to make sure Kubuntu users will enjoy a bug-free Plasma desktop experience.
“We’re thrilled to announce that we have agreed to contract Scarlett Gately Moore for a three-month period. With a preliminary budget allocated, Scarlett will play a crucial role in delivering key projects: the [Kubuntu] 24.04 LTS release, updating the Kubuntu Installer to Calamares, and preparing an Alpha of Plasma 6 targeting the [Kubuntu] 24.10 release.”
So, as you can see, Kubuntu 24.10, which will be released in October 2024, will be the first Kubuntu release to ship with the KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment by default.
Last updated 5 hours ago