Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS Release Notes

Flavors & Remixes Ubuntu Studio
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Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS Beta Release Notes

THESE RELEASE NOTES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Ubuntu Studio shares some of the same desktop features as Kubuntu. Please see the Kubuntu release notes for additional information.

Getting Ubuntu Studio 26.04

Download a Disk Image

Bootable images for standard PCs/laptops

Instructions for burning the image to a USB flash drive can be found on the Burning ISO Howto. NOTE: This ISO image exceeds 4.0GB and will not write correctly to a DVD. We recommend using a USB flash drive of 8GB or greater as installation media.

Check SHA256SUM for the Downloaded ISO

It is recommended to check your image file so your installation goes smoothly. Compare your SHA256 checksum with the correct ones found alongside the images.

Upgrading to Ubuntu Studio 26.04

Upgrades to 26.04 from 25.10 are usually enabled within two weeks after release and you should receive a notification if you are running Ubuntu Studio 25.10 that an upgrade is available when they are ready. If you do not receive a notification about a month after the release of Ubuntu Studio 26.04, make sure you have plasma-distro-release-notifier installed.

To upgrade automatically, click on the notification icon in your system tray.

To manually upgrade, press Alt+Space to invoke KRunner, and type the following:

do-release-upgrade -f DistUpgradeViewKDE

Alternatively, you can do this from the Konsole terminal:

do-release-upgrade

If you wish to upgrade early, simply add a -d after do-release-upgrade. Note that this is not supported and could break your system.

Changes for This Release

(compared to 25.10 Questing Quokka)

Highlights

  • Ubuntu Studio Installer and Audio Configuration completely rewritten in Python with dual GTK4 and Qt6 UI backends. The application automatically detects your desktop environment and launches the appropriate interface. Both tools now support internationalization with translations for 21 languages including Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Czech, Estonian, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
  • Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration now includes FFADO support for FireWire audio devices and PipeWire buffer/sample-rate configuration via dropdown menus instead of text entry.
  • New Borealis sound theme replaces the previous Ocean sound theme. This is the sound theme Ubuntu Studio used clear back in the early (7.10 Gutsy Gibbon) days, and now it’s back!
  • New wallpapers for the Resolute Raccoon cycle with a refreshed visual identity across all themes. We would have done a wallpaper contest but infrastructure issues and other time constraints took prescedent.
  • Live session improvements: The screensaver and lock screen are now inhibited during the entire live session, fixing a long-standing annoyance where the screen would lock and prompt for a non-existent password.
  • SDDM theme refinements with improved login box colors and updated activity spinner.
  • Splash screen busy widget replaced with a spinning Ubuntu Studio logo.
  • GTK 2 package removal continues: phasex, alsa-tools-gui, mudita24, invada-studio-plugins-lv2, ir.lv2, and xsynth-dssi have been removed as GTK 2 is no longer supported in upstream Debian. It’s likely all GTK 2 packages will be removed by 26.10’s release.
  • Haruna removed in favor of VLC as the default media player.
  • jack-keyboard removed in favor of vmpk (Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard).

New Packages

  • Loopino — A lightweight audio sampler plugin (LV2/CLAP/VST2) for loading, trimming, and looping audio files with drag-and-drop support and on-the-fly recording.
  • DistroAV (formerly OBS-NDI) — Network audio/video for OBS Studio using NDI technology (available in the repositories, not installed by default).
  • snd-hdspe — DKMS kernel driver for RME HDSPe MADI, AES, RayDAT, AIO, and AIO Pro PCIe sound cards. (available in the repositories, not installed by default)
  • Plasma PipeWire Settings — A Plasma applet for managing PipeWire configuration directly from the system tray.
  • Plasma Window Title Applet — Displays the active window title in a KDE Plasma panel for users who prefer a traditional desktop layout (used in the macOS-like theme).

Audio

  • PipeWire continues as the default audio server with improved integration
  • RaySession upgraded to 0.17.4 (from 0.14.x), with numerous bugfixes
  • Patchance upgraded to 1.3.2, including the new 1.3.0 feature release and subsequent bugfixes
  • Geonkick upgraded to 3.7.0
  • BChoppr upgraded to 1.12.8
  • Loopino 0.5.0 added as a new audio plugin
  • harpwise upgraded to 6.34.4

Graphics

  • Blender upgraded to 5.0.1

Video

  • OBS Studio upgraded to 32.1.0
  • FreeShow upgraded to 1.5.9 (snap)
  • QPrompt upgraded to 2.0.1 with full Qt6/KF6 port
  • DistroAV 6.1.1 added for NDI support in OBS Studio (in repositories)

Desktop Environment & Theming

  • Orchis KDE theme updated with patches to fix decoration shade mismatch and disable transparency/blur in solid Kvantum themes
  • Updated wallpapers and visual identity for Resolute Raccoon
  • Desktop theme metadata converted from .desktop to .json format for Plasma 6 compatibility
  • Menus now include translations

Current Version of Main Multimedia Packages

Version numbers to be finalized at release.

A Note About TLP (Tuned for Linux Power)

Many people prefer using tlp for power management on Linux-based laptops, usually after following many guides online. However, installing tlp will result in a conflict against power-profiles-daemon, which is installed in Ubuntu Studio.

power-profiles-daemon is required by the KDE Plasma desktop environment and is the preferred choice for power management on Ubuntu Studio. Uninstalling it will result in uninstallation of ubuntustudio-desktop-core which may result in the auto-removal of the entire desktop environment.

For power management in Ubuntu Studio, please do not attempt to install tlp as we cannot support it. Instead, use the built-in Power Profiles, which are in the Power Management menu in the system tray.

For fine-tuning of CPU power usage, cpupower-gui is also installed by default.

Known Problems

Support

Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS (Resolute Raccoon) will be supported for 3 years until April 2029.

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