Ubuntu Desktop 25.10 - The Questing Quokka Roadmap

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Questing Quokka As the Ubuntu 25.10 development cycle begins, I’m excited to share what’s on the horizon for Ubuntu Desktop. Questing Quokka, the final interim release before the next LTS, focuses on modernizing and expanding the desktop experience, platform support, and enterprise capabilities.

Below are the key items for the cycle and what we’re aiming to deliver by the time 25.10 ships in October.

:desktop_computer: Desktop Experience

Gnome 49 & New Core Apps

This release will feature Gnome 49, with updated shell extensions and a refreshed user interface, aligned on Gnome upstream.

Additionally, it will include two new applications: Loupe, a modern image viewer, and Ptyxis, a new terminal emulator, aiming to modernize the default application set.

Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support

Work is underway to finalize VRR support in Mutter, enhancing visual smoothness for users with compatible monitors, especially for gamers.

Wayland on Nvidia

We’re working closely with the upstream Gnome and Nvidia communities to polish the Wayland experience on Nvidia GPUs.

RISC-V Desktop Support

The goal is to achieve a fully functional desktop session on RISC-V architecture, including support for main applications like Firefox and Thunderbird.

:closed_lock_with_key: TPM-backed Full Disk Encryption (FDE)

Ubuntu Desktop’s TPM-backed Full Disk Encryption is nearing completion in the 25.10 release. Key improvements include recovery key management, where users will be able to view, save, or print their recovery key during installation. Post-installation, the Security Center will allow for regeneration of the key. Furthermore, the installer will display passphrase entropy, and PIN support will be added. To prevent data loss, a warning will prompt users to confirm they have their recovery key before proceeding with firmware updates.

:lock: Permissions & Prompting

We’re continuing our work to improve permission prompting in the desktop stack. We’ll focus on reducing prompts and improving default settings for a smoother user experience. We’re also improving the integration with Gnome Shell to ensure a smooth and intuitive experience.

:toolbox: Installer & Provisioning

Landscape integration is coming to the Ubuntu Desktop installer. This will allow enterprise admins to download autoinstall configuration files directly from Landscape at provisioning time, streamlining device enrolment and management workflows.

:cloud: Cloud Authentication & Device Management

This cycle brings deeper enterprise integration with Microsoft Entra ID device registration. Ubuntu devices will be able to register directly with Entra ID enabling policy enforcement.

:window: Ubuntu on WSL

Our WSL experience also continues to evolve with the release of refreshed 24.04 images in August aligned with the 24.04.3 LTS point release.

We’re planning to migrate 22.04 and 20.04 images to the new image format, bringing consistency and improved performance across all supported Ubuntu WSL versions.

:books: Desktop Documentation

A new desktop documentation strategy is taking shape. Our goal is to consolidate and revamp the current Ubuntu Desktop documentation experience, making it more accessible and discoverable for users and developers alike.

:wheelchair: Accessibility

Accessibility remains a core part of our mission. As we prepare for the European Accessibility Act (EAA) enforcement deadline in June 2025, we’re auditing and improving our accessibility support across the stack to ensure compliance and usability for all.

:date: Release Timeline

Key milestones for Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing Quokka” include:

  • Feature Freeze: August 14, 2025
  • User Interface Freeze: September 4, 2025
  • Beta Release: September 18, 2025
  • Final Release: October 9, 2025

For a detailed schedule, refer to the Questing Quokka Release Schedule.

I’ll continue to share progress updates throughout the cycle. As always, feedback and contributions from the community are welcome, especially if you want to help shape any of the features above.

Stay tuned as the Questing Quokka embarks on its journey!

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Nice to see some love given to the default application set! Has there been any thought given to replacing the system monitor with a more modern and featureful application, such as Mission Center?

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We also plan to replace the system monitor. We are currently evaluating Mission Center and Resources but haven’t made a decision yet.
We will replace the video player as well.

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Hey there,

Mission Center project lead here. Feel free to reach out in case you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks!

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Both Resources and Missioncenter are FLATPAK.
Will Ubuntu change its mind about flatpaks?

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ogra@styx:~$ snap info mission-center
name:      mission-center
summary:   Monitor your CPU, Memory, Disk, Network and GPU usage
publisher: Calota Romeo (kicsyromy)
store-url: https://snapcraft.io/mission-center
license:   GPL-3.0+
description: |
  **Monitor your CPU, Memory, Disk, Network and GPU usage**
  
  
  Features:
   * Monitor overall or per-thread CPU usage
   * See system process, thread, and handle count, uptime, clock speed (base and current), cache
   sizes
   * Monitor RAM and Swap usage
   * See a breakdown how the memory is being used by the system
   * Monitor Disk utilization and transfer rates
   * Monitor network utilization and transfer speeds
   * See network interface information such as network card name, connection type (Wi-Fi or
   Ethernet), wireless speeds and frequency, hardware address, IP address
   * Monitor overall GPU usage, video encoder and decoder usage, memory usage and power consumption,
   powered by the popular NVTOP project
   * Monitor system fans
   * See a breakdown of resource usage by app and process
   * Supports a minified summary view for simple monitoring
   * Use hardware accelerated rendering for all the graphs in an effort to reduce CPU and overall
   resource usage
   * Uses GTK4 and Libadwaita
   * Written in Rust
  
  
  
  Limitations (there is ongoing work to overcome all of these):
   * Intel GPU monitoring is only supported for Broadwell and later GPUs; and does not support VRAM,
   power, or temperature monitoring
   * When using Linux Mint/Cinnamon, launched applications may not show up in the "Applications"
   section (Upstream issue: https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/issues/12015)
snap-id: Th1BlgSBbtQD5R2pkl1W4kr28euQ7tvg
channels:
  latest/stable:    1.0.0 2025-05-03 (11) 43MB -
  latest/candidate: ↑                          
  latest/beta:      ↑                          
  latest/edge:      ↑                          
ogra@styx:~$
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A lot of great things on the list here! VRR support would be appreciated, but especially progress on TPM-backed FDE is something I am looking forward to. Just to double check: this will finally allow usage of TPM-backed FDE in conjunction with proprietary Nvidia drivers?

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Mission Center also has a Snap release, though TBH that’s likely mostly irrelevant anyways, as applications shipped by default usually get packaged natively (apt/dpkg/deb).

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I’d love to see a better Nvidia Wayland Experience and Better Snaps permissions.

Right now VLC snap doesen’t have access to the snap folder, which is the one where OBS Studio snap exports videos by default, so you just get an error when you try to open a video from it with the VLC Snap, which is a very bad experience.

Also the Steam snap doesen’t add desktop icons and icons to the Gnome app launcher, and on the Steam Snap you get alot less performance and FPS than on the native Steam or Flatpak stem, so that needs to be figured out too, otherwise you are just shipping broken apps and a broken Linux experience.

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Interestingly there are several topics in this forum where people did test the steam snap vs Deb/flatpak and had significantly higher FPS rates with the snap when measuring… You should check which snap channel the mesa runtime snap uses when you appear to have such issues (there are kisak and obiaf channels for the mesa snap)

EDIT: here is an example thread (there are various others with even more detail and links to YouTube videos as well)

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Here is a link of a youtube video proving exactly what I’m saying, instead of a post that I should blindly believe. At minute 9:23 he shows a side by side comparison of fps in the steam snap and the steam .deb, and he talks about his experience with the steam snap vs the steam .deb, and also there is a full live stream where he tested ubuntu 25.04 and you will see all the issues he had with the games on the Steam snap.

https://youtu.be/Wmzu2nwweIY?t=593

He also wasn’t able to launch Cyberpunk with the steam snap, and I can confirm that too, some games just don’t open with the steam snap in my experience too, and I get less fps with the steam snap in every single game that I play, and I’ve tested that on two computers, one with a RTX 4060 and one with a RX 580.

And all of these issues get solved with the Steam .deb, performance is higher.

I’m not a hater of Snap, but it has to get better because it clearly has some issues, and I want the snap package to get better, but I just find it disappointing that one of the major Linux distros has been shipping snap packages for years now and they still have these major issues, I just wonder how you haven’t been able to fix all these basic issues in all those years.

As I’ve already said even steam snap issues aside, the VLC snap cannot even read videos from the DEFAULT SNAP FOLDER, which is also the default output folder that OBS snap outputs the recorded videos, how is this even an issue?
Imagine being a beginner using Ubuntu, you run into this issue and you won’t know how to solve it (and you can’t even solve it right now), and you’ll just get frustrated (rightfully so) and uninstall Linux and never using it again, and you will also think that Linux is a broken OS, which is not true.

I just want to see Ubuntu and Snaps getting better, because with the right work on it Ubuntu could just be the “ultimate” distro that is perfect for most people.

Also why the new default ubuntu store app doesen’t support flatpaks? It’s just a shame as snap doesen’t have all the applications that are available on flathub, and beginners will not know that and they will not find the software that their looking if it doesen’t have a snap version.

You can still push snaps first but still have a flathub implementation on the ubuntu store, like the one with the deb files, but with the ability to actually update the apps.

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Yes! This is planned for this cycle. Basically, ubuntu-driver (automatically invoked at installation time) should detect that you have a Nvidia card and needs proprietary drivers and will install them as snap components for your kernel to recognize and load them. Of course, any feedback once this is implemented is hilighly appreciated given the number of different use cases around those! Stay tuned :slight_smile:

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In a comment on my bug 2110195

Dan Bungert (dbungert) wrote on 2025-05-09:
boot-managed-by-snapd shows up in TPMFDE cases. The TPMFDE build for the iso is known broken, …
How do I know if the TPMFDE problem is fixed?

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Well not sure if this is correct to ask here, but since I have latest edge core desktop with TPM already working, but no recovery key shown… Is there a way to get it or does it need to reinstall to get? Second I have Optimus hybrid system no Nvidia yet so will it eventually detecte and install/sign drivers or again reinstall?

I know this might be wrong section to ask since I am using experimental development preview version

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Right, so we have two people testing with two completely contradicting results which is likely related to hardware or OS version differences someone would have to identify.
The person that regularly posts these stats does them every few months though and they usually show positive results, but he’s likely testing on an LTS install which might be the actual difference …

Not sure what you refer to as “the default snap folder”, there is no such thing as a shared default folder.
Sharing of data/files has to happen through the home directory by design …
If an app does not use the home dir for this its defaults should be fixed to do so if it is required that its files are being read by other snaps.
In this particular example case a bug should be filed against the OBS snap to tell the packager to make it use some ~/OBS-exports folder or such in its default settings.

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I’m talking about the /home/snap folder

the two guys testing (the one in the post and the one of the youtube video) are both using a Nvidia gpu, same as me, and me and the guy of the youtube video both get less performance on the steam snap, how is this not an issue?
I’m not creating an imaginary issue just to waste everyone’s time, there’s also video proof of this issue.

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You mean the $HOME/snap folder I guess (there is no /home/snap) … this isn’t for sharing anything (it is in fact the exact opposite, it exists for snaps that do not have the home interface connected to store their data safely without other snaps to have the ability to access that data)

What makes you think this ? I’m personally simply seeing the exact opposite and the regular tests done and documented (with hard test data) by a community member here on the forum underline my experience …

I have not said that there is not a problem but that the test environments seem to differ and it needs to be researched in what way they do to identify a problem with the setups of these people so the snap can be adapted for these cases …

PS: If you want to go on discussing, we should do this in a new topic, I feel we are slightly de-railing from an actual roadmap discussion here…

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They’re referring to an issue that SAMTIME (a YouTuber) had when trying out Ubuntu. OBS saved the output file to ~/snap/obs-studio/1302/output.mkv. They then tried to play this video, but VLC couldn’t access the file since it was in OBS Studio’s private snap home folder.

Source: https://youtu.be/3d7SzX0SK24?si=LpjrYnNYdV40Yl1_&t=258

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Right, if this would be a common use-case the OBS snap packages default should be changed to store these files in an accessible path like $HOME/OBS/ or some such … and someone should file an issue at:

https://github.com/snapcrafters/obs-studio/issues

(or send a PR to achieve this, OBS is team maintained by the snapcrafters team)

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That’s great to hear! Looking forward to giving it another try.