Canonical and Intel have recently expanded support for the Intel Graphics Preview to include Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, providing users with access to cutting-edge support for newer Intel GPUs. This move ensures that long-term support (LTS) users can also benefit from improvements previously available only in more recent Ubuntu releases.
Starting with Ubuntu 25.04, users have enjoyed full support for Intel’s Core Ultra integrated GPUs and the discrete Arc GPUs. However, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS offered only basic capability for these newer GPUs. Most of the necessary support had been back-ported in the earlier Ubuntu 24.04.2 release.
To enhance experience on Ubuntu 24.04, users can now opt into the Intel Graphics Preview, which enables a comprehensive functionality within userspace packages crucial for AI, compute, and media stacks. This update promises significant enhancements for applications that utilize Intel Embree, such as Blender, leading to notable improvements in ray tracing rendering performance.
It is essential to note that this Intel Graphics Preview is intended for testing and validation and does not provide the stability guarantees offered by the main Ubuntu repositories. Canonical has advised users to stick with the official variants if reliability is the highest priority. A future release, Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, will incorporate updates from Ubuntu 25.04 to ensure better support for these GPUs.
For those interested in testing the Intel Graphics Preview on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, more detailed instructions are available on the Intel Graphics Preview GitHub page.