(I’m posting this in the “Lubuntu” category, but feel free to move this to “Support & Help” if you feel that is more adequate).
I have a VM that is running “Lubuntu 24.04.4 LTS (Noble Numbat)”.
Today (16th May 2026), I ran the “Lubuntu Update” (as I usually do) - available from “Start” → “Preferences” → “Lubuntu Update”.
That showed me there were updates for some components and programs / applications (as usual). The unusual part is that, at the end of that update, the following dialog box appeared in my desktop:
Here’s the text of that dialog box, to make it searchable:
Lubuntu Update
An upgrade to Lubuntu 26.04 is available! Would you like to install this upgrade now?
[ Upgrade Now ] [ Remind me later ] [ Decline upgrade ]
Isn’t it too early for that dialog box to appear, considering that I’m now running “Lubuntu 24.04.4 LTS”? I thought that, under these circumstances, an upgrade would only be offered for the first point release of “Lubuntu 26.04 LTS” (so, only when “Lubuntu 26.04.1” eventually gets released, probably in August of this year).
In my “Software Sources”, in the “Updates” tab, I have the following (as you can see, in the lower part of the screen, for “Release upgrade” - “Show new distribution releases:” - I have selected “Long term support releases only”):
First of all, thanks for your feedback and for linking to that “Lubuntu 26.04 LTS anouncement” discussion topic. Having said that, that topic actually confirms my expectation, in particular the following paragraph written by @guiverc :
So, as you can see , @guiverc has written the following (here I’m putting those sentences in two “Scenarios” for easier understanding of the contrast):
[ Scenario 1 ] - "Upgrades from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS are offered after the release of Ubuntu 26.04.1; that’s scheduled for [late] August, so it’s not quite six months (six months away is Ubuntu 26.10). "
[ Scenario 2 ] - “Ubuntu 25.10 reaches EOL in three months; so the upgrade from it has to open before that date, it’s expected, as I stated in days or weeks, or as Ian suggested a couple of weeks. It’ll happen before it reaches EOL at minimum.”
My case is in “[ Scenario 1 ]”: I’m using Lubuntu 24.04 LTS (“Noble Numbat”). So I was expecting (and I still expect) that upgrades to Lubuntu 26.04 LTS (“Resolute Raccoon”) would only be offered after the release of “Lubuntu 26.04.1” (first point release of “Lubuntu 26.04”) that is scheduled to happen in August 2026
If I were using Lubuntu 25.10 (“Questing Quokka”) instead (that version will reach “EOL” - End Of Life - in July 2026), then I would be in “[ Scenario 2 ]” and, in that case, I would consider normal that I got offered now (May 2026) the upgrade to Lubuntu 26.04
I hope I’ve made it now clearer why I’m (still) confused for getting the “dialog box”, in Lubuntu 24.04 LTS, “inviting” me to upgrade to Lubuntu 26.04 LTS
I saw your post last night, and quickly looked at https://changelogs.ubuntu.com then on a (24.04/noble) system I had running checked and I couldn’t re-create it. Whilst I ensured I’d updated all packages, the box hasn’t been rebooted in 90 days & its logged into an Xfce/Xubuntu session, and I have no desire to quit that session, but running lubuntu-update was acting just like I’d expect there.
This morning I’ve booted a system that runs a cleaner (less modified) Lubuntu 24.04 LTS, updated it fully, rebooted & it acted as I’d expect too.
I saw no offer to upgrade, but neither of those tests are ideal; last night it was on a box with lots of [up to 90day] older software running let alone different desktop running, and this mornings wasn’t used for long enough that background tasks could maybe trigger whatever caused what you saw.
I’ll do some more exploration tonight (its in the evening that I use that cleaner system) and see if the offer to upgrade triggers, but I’ve not seen it yet.
( You have checked it’s running noble and not questing; I’ve changed a VM before myself and forgotten to update it’s name )
That’s a great observation! My answer is: I’m not sure First, it seems that “Unsupported updates” option (in the “Updates” tab of “Software Sources”) is selected / checked / “turned on” by default in Lubuntu, at least judging from the following “Lubuntu” subreddit discussion (about “Lubuntu 20.04 LTS”), from almost 5 years ago (started on 29th November 2021):
The “Unsupported updates” option is a way of referring to focal-backports. ie. it’s a mechanism to get backported (from subsequent releases) software into your system meaning you have later (or newer) software, but the security & other support that exists for them only applies to users of subsequent releases (so you’re not getting that benefit until you release-upgrade to a later release).
If you want to get the latest software available then use it; if you’re happy with the software released for Ubuntu/Lubuntu 20.04 LTS with full security support; don’t include it.
I’d love to give an example of a package that differs with/without that option enabled; but sorry on the top of my head I cannot think of one. I really don’t think you’ll lose out either way.
… particularly the following section from that web page:
Install updates from:
(…) 3. “Unsupported updates (…)”. New versions of packages which have been backported to an older release. Packages may contain new features, may introduce new interfaces, and bugs. Such updates are not supported by Canonical on the release they have been backported to but they have been tested by members of the Ubuntu community. For more information on backports, visit UbuntuBackports
So, like I said, I’m not sure if that “Unsupported Updates” checkbox should also have this “side effect” of offering Lubuntu 24.04 LTS (“Noble Numbat”) users to upgrade to “Lubuntu 26.04 LTS” (“Resolute Raccoon”) before the release of “Lubuntu 26.04.1” (first point release of “Lubuntu 26.04”) that is scheduled to happen in August 2026
Anyway: thank you very much, @paddylandau, for that tip!
That’s a great tip. Thanks! At least, for now, it’s NOT offering again to upgrade to Lubuntu 26.04, when I do a “Lubuntu Update”, regardless whether I have the “Unsupported Updates” checkbox ticked or un-ticked. Let’s see if this behavior changes eventually.
I saw no appearance of any upgrade in the ~2.5 hours I used the system last night.
I had pre-release and unsupported updates on for about half that time too, and was forcing lubuntu-update to re-scan many times; but the rest of the time I was just using the system as I normally do.
I found no answers, and have no suggestions on why this happened sorry (if there are logs that show edits made to https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release-lts sorry I don’t know about them, so can’t check)
After an update of 24.04 LTS in VirtualBox some minutes ago I surprisingly got the same dialog box as @ricmarques did. So this seems to be not too rare.
There is a thread in ‘Support and Help’ opened by @louis_nichols who had followed this unusual invitation to upgrade to 26.04 LTS and finally got an issue with the task bar.
I don’t think my case applies here. I started my upgrade on my own using do-release-upgrade. I usually update only from the command line, so tend to completely ignore any such notifications. So I don’t know if there was one in my case. I wouldn’t have seen it.
But yeah, I do have the missing/invisible panel issue
I’ve just turned my ‘cleaner’ box off; it was used four about 4 hours tonight, and I got no offers to upgrade, but my install is on metal/hardware, and you have noted
I’ve finally had the update to 26.04 appear on a secondary machine running a pretty clean Lubuntu 24.04 LTS @arraybolt3
I let the lubuntu-update apply upgrades, and after it was done it told me of the 26.04 release & gave me options relating to that.
My normal procedure is to apply upgrades at terminal before I do anything with the GUI, so the lubuntu-update tool won’t find anything to upgrade anyway; and it wasn’t (I suspect anyway) thus looking, finding & offering me an upgrade???
( I could be completely wrong, as I’ve not looked at any code; just a few days of end-user type experience )
I just received on a 24.04 (noble) machine that has a /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades set to
Prompt=never
the chance to upgrade to 26.04?? which if accepted just quietly-fail, so the question is asked again later…
If an upgrade is attempted on that machine the error message is
guiverc@d780-noble:~$ sudo do-release-upgrade
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
In /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades Prompt
is set to never so upgrading is not possible.
so in that case lubuntu-update should NOT be offering me an update in my opinion; OR reporting that upgrade is available (if it is, but the NEVER which needs to be changed first), instead of the current quiet-exit & the question returns later.
First, it seems that “Unsupported updates” option (in the “Updates” tab of “Software Sources”) is selected / checked / “turned on” by default in Lubuntu, at least judging from the following “Lubuntu” subreddit discussion (about “Lubuntu 20.04 LTS”), from almost 5 years ago (started on 29th November 2021):