Fancy testing some pre-release Ubuntu this holiday season? You’re in luck! Ubuntu 26.04 Snapshot 2 is now available for download—an early release, timed for the developers’ convenience before the Christmas break.
Canonical’s Utkarsh Gupta mentioned that this early drop allows time to address any issues before the holidays. While some may find this news underwhelming, it offers eager Ubuntu fans a distraction from holiday gatherings.
This is the second of five snapshots scheduled for release before March 2026, following which the beta, release candidate, and final stable version will be rolled out.
For those familiar with the recent daily builds, there’s not much new in this snapshot. If you’ve already upgraded to 26.04 or used a daily build recently, you won’t find significant differences—primarily low-level updates and library tweaks. More visible changes, including enhancements from GNOME 50 and new default applications, are expected in the coming year.
Canonical introduced these monthly snapshots during the Ubuntu 25.10 development cycle as a way to refine their automated build and testing processes. They are essentially snapshots of development on the current date and labeled as “throwaway artifacts” by the engineers, meaning they are not guaranteed to be more or less stable than daily builds. Notably, snapshots are also produced for all variations of Ubuntu, so users of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Cinnamon, and others can opt for their preferred flavor.
The next snapshot, Snapshot 3, is anticipated for late January 2026, with the final stable release of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS scheduled for April 23, 2026.
If you want to explore Snapshot 2, you can download it from the Ubuntu CD Image server. However, please note that there is no Raspberry Pi image available for this snapshot—use Snapshot 1 if that’s your platform.
Keep in mind: since 26.04 is still in development, stability isn’t assured. Just continue to install updates, and you won’t need to reinstall for upcoming snapshots or the final release.