Canonical, the company responsible for Ubuntu, is all set for their next big release, Ubuntu 24.10, aptly named the “Oracular Oriole”. The release has been scheduled precisely, with the date set as the 10th of October, 2024.
The 41st installation in the Ubuntu series, the “Oracular Oriole”, is an intermediary release that will be receiving software updates as well as security upgrades for a period of nine months, concluding in July 2025. This version is perfect for those Ubuntu users who prefer to operate on the cutting edge and would gladly exchange the stability offered by Ubuntu LTS for newer technological innovations.
There has been no official confirmation from Canonical yet, but it seems that the development phase for Oracular Oriole began on April 25th, 2024, coinciding with the release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat), starting with the toolchain upload.
The official release schedule has been published online. Jeremy Bícha, a developer, proposed this schedule in a mailing list discussion just the day before, pointing to the 19th of September for the beta release and the 10th of October for the final release.
Other interesting dates in the Oracular Oriole release schedule include two Ubuntu Testing Weeks on June 27th and August 22nd respectively, the Feature Freeze stage on August 15th, the Kernel Freeze stage on September 26th, and the Final Freeze stage and Release Candidate on October 3rd.
Ubuntu 24.10 is expected to ship with the upcoming GNOME 47 desktop environment, which should be out in late September 2024, and will most likely be powered by the upcoming Linux 6.10 kernel series, which should arrive in mid or late July 2024.
To be honest, I was hoping for Linux kernel 6.11, but considering the fact that Ubuntu 24.10’s kernel freeze development stage is set for September 26th and that the final Linux 6.11 kernel release looks to arrive on September 15th or September 22nd, it doesn’t look like a match to me.
Other noteworthy features that should be included in Ubuntu 24.10 include Wayland by default for NVIDIA GPUs, improved messaging for Snap app refreshes, more App Center polishing and support for installing third-party DEB files, OEM configuration alternative for the Ubuntu installer for Hyper-V images and Raspberry Pi.
On the flavor side of things, Lubuntu 24.10 will ship with the LXQt 2.x series desktop environment by default (hopefully with LXQt 2.1 as it will bring full Wayland support), and Kubutnu 24.10 is expected to ship with the latest KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment series by default.
Until then, we’re waiting for the daily build ISOs to appear on the official servers to take the upcoming Ubuntu 24.10 “Oracular Oriole” release for a spin. We’re also waiting for Canonical to announce some of the core components that will be included in the upcoming Ubuntu release.
Last updated 4 hours ago