Representatives from the Ubuntu Flavors along with various Canonical and community leads met on January 12th 2026 to discuss the upcoming release of Ubuntu 26.04 Resolute Raccoon among other desktop and flavor developments:
Introductions
@ilvipero kicked off both sessions with a few reminders of the basic rules of flavor sync meetings.
-
What?
A flavor sync meeting is a recurring meeting between parties involved in the development and release of Ubuntu and Ubuntu flavors. It happens every 2 months, therefore we have 3 flavor sync meetings for each Ubuntu release. We usually have 2 sessions for each meeting, to accommodate time zones. -
Who?
Ubuntu flavors, Ubuntu developers, upcoming flavors, derivatives, and anyone interested is welcome to join the flavor sync meetings. Quick note, the meetings are focused on the challenges and issues of the upcoming release of Ubuntu. In order to give everyone time to speak, we need to be aware of time constraints. If a topic appears to be very complex and time consuming, we can move it to Discourse discussion or schedule a separate meeting. -
How?
Ubuntu flavor sync meetings are not streamed nor recorded. This is done on purpose to encourage honest, sometimes difficult questions and conversations. Highlights of the flavor sync meetings are posted on the Ubuntu Discourse, to encourage ongoing conversation around the topics discussed and relevant to the development of Ubuntu releases.
More information about the Ubuntu flavor sync meetings can be found on this announcement post .
Discourse updates
- Ubuntu Discourse - 3 level categories finally here!
Release updates
-
Release progressing well and stable.
-
Workload increased by changes to the iso tracker.
-
Upcoming milestones 24.04.04 - increased activity. Noble images that are failing are being tracked.
-
26.04 re-qualification completed. 2 flavors have not re-qualified (MATE and Unity). They will be regular flavors, not LTS.
Flavors round table
Ubuntu Budgie
-
@fossfreedom questions around dracut and changes around that. Questions on what needs to be done from flavors. More help needed to make it happen.
- The goal is to have dracut by default. Server was done last cycle, desktop is being worked on right now. @bdrung is actively working on this.
-
@fossfreedom a key package, lightdm (universe) is sitting under Canonical without activity for a long time. Should flavors look elsewhere or is it intended to be maintained? A statement from Canonical would be welcome.
-
@utkarsh will find information, chat with @robert.ancell and follow up.
-
@Conan_Kudo mentions this is a broader problem. 25 currently open pull requests, waiting for someone to do something. PRs to bring lightdm to wayland have been waiting for a long time.
-
@jibel agrees with the concerns and Canonical should make a statement regarding the decision on lightdm.
-
Interested parties should continue the discussion at: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/current-status-of-lightdm
-
Ubuntu Studio
- Release going ok, packages submitted that need review.
- Minizip-ng is in the ubuntu queue and is important for the flavor. Prerequisite for fixing blender. No major issues expected for this package to be added.
- @Conan_Kudo thinks it would be good to ask Debian developers and see if they agree to a transition at their level.
- @teward ward agrees that this should be worked together with Debian developers to fix it at their level.
- @eeickmeyer will open the conversation to get Debian to transition to zlibng and minizipng, while in parallel work with Blender developers to get a snap ready to be seeded, as a fallback.
- Fedora Changes for reference: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/ZlibNGTransition and https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/MinizipNGTransition
- @dbungert recommends to start a discussion at Canonical as well and ensure this is well communicated to stakeholders.
Edubuntu
- Edubuntu looking good.
Kubuntu
-
@mike-mikowski discusses about CVE and fixes required: CVE-2024-57966 is not fixed. It is fixed in debian, opensuse, mageia any many more distros (stable and rolling versions) kubuntu is the only one with a open report https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-57966
-
@rbasak and @teward mention that security updates can be contributed by ubuntu contributors. The path is defined, but if help is needed, Mike can reach out.
- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/UpdateProcedures
- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/UpdatePreparation
- Side suggestion by @itzswirlz in the CVE tracker, consider creating a filter for all kernel packages to make these things easier to find.
Ubuntu Cinnamon
-
Cinnamon transitions caused some theming issues.
-
.@itzswirlz submiotted some PRs in the ubuntu yaru repos, but those are not being merged
- Mauro Gaspari pointed out that there is a matrix room yaru:ubuntu.com, and the team has a discord server as well.
-
@itzswirlz is trying to find software that does not require libadwaita for theming consistency.
- @ilvipero recommended to chat with @fossfreedom as Ubuntu Budgie has gone through similar transitions.
-
Gnome screenshot is no longer maintained.
-
@itzswirlz is looking for information around lightdm and potentially alternatives.
- @Conan_Kudo and @ilvipero suggested him to speak with David Mohammed.
Get involved!
Ubuntu Flavor Sync Meetings take place every 2 months on the second Monday of January, March, May, July, September, November. There are two sessions, 3PM UTC and 10PM UTC, to best accommodate our global community.
All are welcome to join and participate in the discussion!