I have to say I am extremely happy to hear about desktop documentation rewamp. If I could give you my opinion I would say that there should be a section entirely dedicated to newcomers who wishes to transition from Windows/Macos as it seems more and more people are interested in joining the free software wagon.
Also quick question: could we hope for a gtk4 update of the ubuntu utility apps like software updater, software sources, etc…? They are starting to feel really outdated. Rounded corners and green buttons would improve them so much.
25.10 is shaping up to be a great release (not that that’s not almost always the case!).
I do have some things to ask though:
Is Ubuntu Core Desktop planned for the next LTS?
Currently when trying to open a JAR file by default it will try to open it with the archive manager. That’s not necessarily the problem itself, rather that before you had the possibility to select the Runtime Environment from the Open With… submenu when you had one installed, now it does not appear at all. Could this be fixed in 25.10? I am having this problem on 25.04 but also had it on 24.10. Perhaps it does not treat is as an executable file (as it seems to lack the allow execute checkbox in properties)?
Would it be possible to replace the currently played 4.10-6.06 startup sound to the one from 6.10 and up? I know a lot of people would love to see it included. That would be this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKOL-ct6VbU, I know it’s not that essential but it would be a nice comeback for 25.10. And I made sure to post it on the (correct) Desktop roadmap this time, last time I posted this request on the foundations roadmap .
Hello.
Is there a possibility that the following innovations will be implemented in the next releases:
Built-in Firewall (no matter which one). At the moment we are additionally installing GUFW so that the user can see that he has a firewall like in macOS and Windows, this is necessary because our clients are increasingly forcing engineers to switch to Linux, and they work only with graphical utilities, so they have no experience with the terminal, and they don’t need it.
It will be nice if this solution is manageable.
Will there be support for a native solution for managing NDES/SCEP and Cloud PKI certificates?
Will there be some kind of profile support, like in macOS?
For example, creating a WiFi profile, when the profile is pre-configured, the delete button is grayed out, and WiFi is authenticated via a certificate?
Kinda had my doubts it was still being maintained since it only opens up once for me, and I reported this issue back in December, and there was no response
Just tested candidate, and the same thing I reported still exists
> snap info obs-studio| grep -i "installed: "
installed: 31.0.3 (1308) 603MB -
> obs-studio --version
OBS Studio - 30.0.2
> flatpak run com.obsproject.Studio --version
OBS Studio - 31.0.3
IIRC the obs-studio snap has been community maintained, and I don’t think there is anyone currently spending time on it, which is regretable.
If there is anyone interested in taking a look, please reach out and I can try to connect you with the previous maintainer and get you up to speed on the Snapcrafters org/processes.
Hi @berengerekunst, I’m the technical author working on Desktop documentation now. I think adding migration guides is an excellent suggestion, thanks!
From your experience, are there any particular areas that people tend to struggle with at first? I can think of issues like using an app store to install applications, adjusting to a new file system layout, replacing their applications with Linux alternatives, learning where to find different configuration options.
But I haven’t used Windows or macOS on my system in a long while. I appreciate any tips.
I can only speak from my own experience but If I were to switch from windows/macos to linux today, my first instinct would be to know:
whether my apps are supported or whether there are good alternatives
how to maintain my system up to date without the fear of destroying it
My main problem with the current desktop doc started when I realized that it doesn’t mention “apt” at all for software installation (to find apt, we have to go to the server doc). I can imagine that it comes from the assumption that desktop users are not willing to use command line tools and want to do everything via graphical interfaces and I am not sure that’s quite right, especially if the graphical alternatives we recommend feel as outdated as synaptic does. I would clearly consider having a doc that teaches newcomers not only how they can use their system but also how it works underneath the surface, as it would help demystify the fact that Linux is complicated.
So the newcomers corner should act as an introduction explaining:
Ubuntu and its release cycle
Packages format and when to use which one (snap/deb/appimage):
Install update and remove snaps (via app center or snap command)
Install update and remove deb packages (via apt command)
A list of apps or configurations for the most common user categories (office, developer, gamer, artist, etc)
Filesystem
Administrator vs Regular Users
A brief introduction of the terminal and why it exists
A lexicon of the common terms used in the Ubuntu ecosystem
Of course, these are just some random ideas and I would be happy to discuss them further.
The support volunteer community also has an interest in identifying patters of common questions and matching those to current documentation. Join us on Matrix: Ubuntu Discourse Team. You are invited to join us for our weekly Thursday video chat hosted by @Community-Team. Or just PM to @moderators or @staff (or to me) here on Discourse.
The Support and Help area has a whole set of tags for new-user questions to help you find the common questions. See the “start here” page to find the tags, and feel free to browse those tagged questions.
Have alook at your own bugtracker too at least once a season.
Sad that it takes so long to fix a simple typo bug in an area, which you declared a priority.
Thanks @berengerekunst and @ian-weisser. I’m taking notes and I’ll use your suggestions when writing the migration guides.
Because my 25.10 plan is already set and there’s a lot to do to bring the Desktop documentation up to standard, I consider this idea a stretch goal in the 25.10 cycle. Great if I can make it, but it’s possible I’ll only get to it before 26.04.
In either case, I’ll update you as soon as I have something, and thanks again for your help!
Are there any more information available regarding the cloud authentication and device management part? I’m interested in knowing more about the integration with MS Entra ID and what the integration consist of. I can’t see anything in the daily build as of now, but it might not come until August-September?
We are actively working on authd; ubuntu’s cloud authentication daemon. You can read more about it on its documentation. It currently supports MS Entra ID, Google Identity and generic OIDC.
It is available via a supported PPA for 24.04 at the moment so we have a quicker development cycle. It will be available in the official Ubuntu repository during the development cycle of 26.04.
Hello guys!
Still no information about the possibility of certificate distribution and management using SCEP/NDES, or some cloud PKI, or Landscape, or Intune?
I’m asking in the context of a native solution, not manual configuration using a third-party tool like certmonger.
It would be nice to see Ubuntu package GitHub - microsoft/edit: We all edit. and maybe even include it by default. At least from a first glance, it seems a lot nicer of a terminal text editor for average users than nano (not to even mention vim). The Linux binary is ~213KB, so the size should be plenty reasonable for a default install, even on a cut-down server install image.
Have you considered creating a snap package for it yourself (you do not need Canonical developers to do this, this is what snap packages are for and they are rather easy to package), there is a vscode snap that you could use as a blueprint …
(note that for default inclusion a package needs to show sustained support and some maturity since we need to support it for 12 years in the LTS releases, this thing is only a few months old yet)
My understanding is that it is going to be shipped as a part of Windows, and given all the various LTSB and similar versions of Windows, I think it’s safe to conclude that it will see support for a long time.
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