This is my account of using the Ubuntu computer operating system, as well as other free software.
On we acquired a used Dell PC to run the Linux-based Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. Because of the success in using Ubuntu, on we reformatted the remaining Windows XP computer and installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on it, going Windows-free.
I haven't missed Windows at all, in fact I have been far better off without it. Linux is free, works better, is more stable and doesn't run viruses or spyware. It does everything I want to do and has been a perfect solution for my computing needs.
Over the years I have used Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Debian, Pop!_OS and Ubuntu Cinnamon, as well as tested Ubuntu Unity, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Puppy Linux and many others. Reviews of those are all here, along with write-ups on applications and other software tested.
I do these write-ups primarily for myself, mostly so I can remember my own "how-to" instructions, as well as pros and cons found, but I post them here to help out anyone looking for information.
I also write for Full Circle magazine and my reviews can be found there. Each archived Full Circle article is also linked from the equivalent article here.
Lubuntu 25.10 came out on , the same day as the other Ubuntu flavours. This is the middle of three interim releases and is supported for nine months until . This development cycle is leading to the next LTS version, which will be Lubuntu 26.04 LTS, scheduled to be out in .
Lubuntu 25.04 marks the 14th LXQt release, the 28th since Lubuntu became an official Ubuntu "flavour" and the 31st overall Lubuntu release since that very first one, Lubuntu 10.04. Once again the official release announcement does not take credit for those first three Lubuntu releases prior to it becoming an official flavour, but those of us who tried out Lubuntu 10.10 know the score!
According to the official release announcement the developers state, "our focus this release can be put quite simply: stabilize, refine, and refresh." Those all sound like laudable goals. They also noted that they would "port as much software as reasonable from Qt 5 to Qt 6" and also "get Lubuntu fully prepared for Wayland".
Installation
I downloaded Lubuntu 25.04 via BitTorrent using Transmission from the official source. As always, I did a command line SHA256 sum check on it to make sure it was a good download and dropped it into a USB stick equipped with Ventoy 1.1.05. It booted up perfectly, which was expected, as Lubuntu is officially listed supported by Ventoy.
The Lubuntu 25.04 ISO file was 3.3 GB to download, which is 6% smaller than the last version, Lubuntu 24.10 was at 3.5 GB.
System requirements
Since the release of Lubuntu 18.10 the project announced that it would no longer publish any minimum system requirements.
New
This release uses the LXQt 2.1.0 desktop and the latest Qt toolkit, version 6.8.3.
There is an updated version of the Calamares installer, now at version 3.3.14. The installer providers fewer options than the last version used in Lubuntu 24.10, due to issues with additional options and the third party packages. The devs said, "we needed to err on the side of stability (there's a reason that comes before refinement), and we continue to have full confidence in our Release Management team. We did what was best for users, and that resulted in functionality inconsistent with 24.10". They also noted, "our remedy to this is going to be fairly simple: over the coming weeks, we will be thoroughly testing a fix for this issue, in a way that absolutely works for all testcases, no exceptions, to the same standards we would use to release. At this point, at the discretion of the Lubuntu, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu Unity Release Management teams, respectively, we may release a respin, or 25.04.1. If we do not respin, the fix will be available in a PPA. This information is still unclear, but what is clear, is that we intentionally value stability over refinement, especially this cycle."
The developers have also changed the way the minimal installation works. In the past it consisted of a full installation and then a script that used APT to remove the non-desired packages, which resulted in a slower installation process. This has now been changed to a separate installation squashfs file instead. It is worth noting that the minimal installation does not include snapd to enable Snap packages.
This release does introduce the LXQt Fancy Menu, which is a tuned version of the previous menu system.
Again "not new" in this release is the display server used, which remains at X11 rather than a Wayland-based one. The last release, Lubuntu 24.10, and this one were each intended to have Wayland support, but it was not included. The devs said: "again on the point of 'stability comes first,' we decided to delay Wayland one last cycle. This is the last time we are delaying this." They also committed that, "Lubuntu 25.10, Questing Quokka, will indeed ship with Miriway as the default Wayland compositor, backed by a deb-based Mir 2.20". If for some reason that slips again that would leave the LTS to introduce Miriway instead, something I am sure they want to really avoid. The LTS is almost never the place to bring in something this big and this new.
This sounds about half way between a plea and a threat:
We are committed to shipping a fully-Wayland stack as default for Lubuntu 26.04 LTS, and continue to make it a priority to iron out any of the remaining issues. This being said, we would appreciate the support from upstream LXQt in ensuring any existing Mir(iway) compatibility patches are merged, and any new patches we provide in the coming months are promptly merged. We have a member of our team who is also a member of upstream LXQt, and would be more than happy to provide additional support and review hands to finally resolve this point of friction.
The Lubuntu devs also note that their default media player, VLC 3.0.21 still has not been updated to Qt 6, which needs to happen for Wayland compatibility and also to finish removing the last of Qt 5 from the distribution. It is expected that VLC 4.0 will be based on Qt 6. If the VLC devs do not get that new version completed in time, then the Lubuntu devs note that Lubuntu may have to ship with a different media player instead.
There also has been work done improving translation support for languages other than English on Lubuntu.
Like all the Ubuntu 25.04 releases, Lubuntu uses Linux kernel 6.14 and systemd 257.4 as the initialization system. Lubuntu has been using systemd since 15.04, so this is the 21st release over ten years using it, with no issues.
One thing that is new in Lubuntu 25.04 and not at all welcome is that the live session will not mount drives, just like Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 and Xubuntu 25.04. As with those distributions this makes it pretty useless as a rescue disk and also makes doing screenshots and getting them out of the live session more difficult.
Settings
Lubuntu 25.04 is code named "Plucky Puffin" and so it has a new puffin-themed default wallpaper. This may well be the nicest Plucky Puffin wallpaper in the Ubuntu universe, too. There are 21 wallpapers provided, including the new, simple and elegant SDDM Ocean, the classic Lubuntu Friends-dark plus many Lubuntu wallpapers from recent releases.
Other settings include 19 window themes, 11 icon themes, 15 LXQt themes, two cursor themes, nine GTK3 and six GTK2 themes, giving a wide range of user customization.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Lubuntu 25.04 are:
* Indicates the same version as used in Lubuntu 24.10 ** supplied as a Snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
One of the advantages of reviewing Lubuntu is that the release announcement typically tends to have a lot of information. Unfortunately in this case, while it is very extensive, it misses some important information, like applications added and removed. Lubuntu 25.04 removes the ImageMagick command line image editor and also the Quassel IRC client. I am not sure that there ever was a good user case for including ImageMagick in the first place. As far as IRC clients go, the use of IRC seems to have peaked almost 20 years ago and is not now in widespread use, if indeed it ever was. An IRC client can always be added from the repositories if desired.
The Kcalc desktop calculator from KDE has also been swapped out for Qalculate! 5.5.1 instead.
As in the past, LibreOffice 25.2.2.2 is supplied complete, less only LibreOffice Base, the office suite's database application. Base is probably the least used component of the suite, but it can be added from the repositories, if it is needed.
Lubuntu 25.04 does not come with an email client, image editor, video editor or web cam application, although there are good choices for these in the repositories, too.
Conclusions
Lubuntu 25.04 is a good, solid release, with very little new, beyond nice wallpaper and a small application shuffle. Full Qt 6 and Wayland conversions remain only future goals for now.
It will be interesting to see whether that Wayland option indeed appears by the next LTS version, Lubuntu 26.04 LTS, due out in .
Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 was released on and is the middle one of three interim releases that will lead to the next LTS version, which will be Ubuntu Cinnamon 26.04 LTS, scheduled for a year from now, in .
Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 is the 12th release overall and its fifth as an official Ubuntu flavour. As an interim release it has nine months of support until .
There are some changes to report in this new version, including a new desktop version and changes to the suite of applications included.
Installation
I downloaded the ISO file from the official website via BitTorrent, using Transmission. Once I had the file, I carried out an SHA256 sum check on it from the command line. This simple check is always a good idea to make sure you have an uncorrupted ISO file to work with.
This ISO file was 4.8 GB in size, which is actually 200 MB (4%) smaller than the last release, Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.10, which was 5.0 GB. This is the second release in a row to shave 200 MB off the ISO file, too, so Ubuntu Cinnamon is shrinking over time. There is some information on where that extra space was saved, as well.
I dropped the Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 ISO file onto a USB stick, equipped with Ventoy 1.1.05 and booted it up for testing from there.
System requirements
There are none listed, but it is probably safe to assume that it is the same as Ubuntu 25.04, a minimum of:
2 GHz dual core processor
4 GB of RAM
That recommended 4 GB of RAM is probably a bit minimal for web browsing here in and 8 GB is probably more realistic.
New
This release uses the Cinnamon 6.4.8 desktop, which is an upgrade from the last few releases, which employed 6.0.4. This new desktop version includes some overall user interface modernization. Also the nightlight configuration is now in the display settings, the main menu can be controlled using the numberpad arrow keys, the power applet supports more devices and their labels, plus that the user's profile picture can now be displayed with the user applet.
The Linux kernel is now version 6.14 and the systemd 257.4 initialization system. Because Ubuntu Cinnamon has only been around since 19.10, all its releases have used systemd right from the start.
The Yaru-Cinnamon theme has received some updates as well.
One thing that is not new in this release is that the live session version of Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 will not mount any drives, including USB drives, just like in the last two releases, Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.10 and 24.04 LTS. This prevents using it as a rescue disk and also makes doing screenshots more complicated. That required uploading my screenshots to a cloud service as a .zip file and downloading them to my laptop, rather than simply putting them on a USB stick. Most of the other Ubuntu flavours, other than Xubuntu 25.04, do not do that as it serves no useful purpose.
As far as reducing the size of the ISO file goes, the release notes also state, "some extra, unnecessary packages were removed, most notably language packs. You only need to install the language pack of your choice. This decreases the image size a little". There are some other places where space has been saved as well, covered below in settings and applications.
Settings
Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 introduces some changes to the amount of user customization included, compared to the last release. There are now three different mouse pointer themes (down one); 32 window colour themes, including many dark themes (down three); 26 icon themes (down seven) and 32 desktop themes, which set the panel colours (up four).
Since this release is code-named "Plucky Puffin" there is also a new puffin-themed default wallpaper. The number of wallpapers provided has changed over the last three releases from 43 in 24.04 LTS, down to 15 in 24.10 and now up to 48 in this one, including reintroducing a number of previously deleted Debian logo ones. At first glance it may seem unusual to include Debian wallpapers, but there is some legitimacy there, as Ubuntu Cinnamon is ultimately a child of Debian.
As in past desktop versions, in Cinnamon 6.4.8 the bottom panel still can be adjusted in size over a large width range and the icons on the panel automatically size to fit. The menu continues to be adjustable in size by mouse drag, too, from default to much larger size.
Overall the range of user customization available is quite extensive and gives a lot of control as to how the resulting desktop looks.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 are:
* indicates same application version as used in Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.10 ** supplied as a Snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager *** only present in the live session version, not in the normal installation
There have been several changes in the default application mix provided this time. The release notes state that the Alacritty terminal emulator has been removed in favour of GNOME Terminal, which was already included, thus removing one application redundancy. Also the neofetch hardware and software configuration display command line application has been replaced with fastfetch instead, for whatever value those have for anyone. Not announced is that the Image Magick command line image editor has also been removed. This was redundant with the much more user-friendly GIMP image editor anyway. These all contribute to a net reduction in size for the ISO file, too.
As can be seen from the lack of asterisks, many of the applications have received new versions, many of which are from GNOME 48.
Ubuntu Cinnamon uses the Cinnamon desktop's own Nemo file manager, now updated to version 6.4.5, which has a new "actions" sub-menu. Since it is not configured for bulk file renaming, a standalone bulk file renamer, such as GPRename is recommended.
Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 includes the LibreOffice 25.2.2.2 office suite, which is complete, except for LibreOffice Base, the database program. It is probably the least-used part of LibreOffice, but it can be installed if needed.
Even though it is being slowly reduced, the list of default applications in Ubuntu Cinnamon is extremely long and includes has just about anything a desktop user could want, except perhaps a video editor. There are, however, still a lot of applications included that duplicate other installed applications, like two IRC clients, two image viewers and two software package managers, plus the 19 games, too. There is a "minimal installation" option which now additionally omits the Evince PDF viewer, GNOME Disks, GNOME Font Viewer, GNOME Photos, the Nemo Fileroller (archive manager) extension and the Synaptic package manager.
As an alternative, "do-it-yourself" minimal installation I offer up this "clean-up" command, updated for 25.04. Feel free to use it if you like, to get rid of all the games, unneeded applications and other duplication that comes with Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04:
since that is a Snap package now. This is just my list, so feel free to add or subtract anything.
Conclusions
Overall Ubuntu Cinnamon is a great distribution that is being slowly refined over time, without any major changes. I have to admit that I am currently using it and like it a lot. Probably like most users, I don't think that much needs changing, other than one or two bug fixes.
Ubuntu Cinnamon 25.04 is a good release with some evolutionary improvements over 24.10 and this probably indicates that we can expect further small updates in the final interim release before the next LTS arrives. That LTS will be Ubuntu Cinnamon 26.04 LTS, expected in .
My last look at Xubuntu was a review of Xubuntu 24.10 Minimal, the version that comes with almost no applications, but this time I thought we would get back to looking at the full Xubuntu Desktop version and the "bigger picture".
So what has changed in Xubuntu 25.04? Not a lot as we shall see! But that is a story in itself.
Xubuntu 25.04 came out on and is the 39th Xubuntu release. It comes with nine months of support, running until .
This is the second of three interim releases which will lead to the next LTS version, Xubuntu 26.04 LTS, due out in . At least in theory the interim releases are testbeds to try out new ideas (if any) for incorporation into the LTS version.
While this review covers Xubuntu Desktop, which is the ISO file with a normal suite of applications, Xubuntu Minimal is still available for users who want to choose their own applications.
Installation
I downloaded Xubuntu 25.04 from the official source using the Transmission BitTorrent client and then carried out an SHA256 sum check from the command line to ensure I had a good download.
I tested Xubuntu 25.04 using a USB stick equipped with Ventoy 1.1.05, by just dropping the ISO file onto the stick. Ventoy officially supports Xubuntu and it booted up and it worked fine.
For web browsing, 8 GB of RAM is probably a more realistic minimum these days, but more RAM is always better.
New
Xubuntu 25.04 brings the Xfce 4.20 desktop, for which the developers did "a gazillion of bug fixes and did various minor improvements". It also includes one updated application from GNOME 48 and a few from MATE 1.26. The Linux kernel is version 6.14 and the initialization system is now systemd 257.4. It is worth noting that Xubuntu has been using systemd since 15.04, so this is the 21st release over the past ten years and with no noted issues.
As far as moving towards replacing X11 with Wayland, this release notes that "early Wayland support has been added, but is not available in Xubuntu". So close ... but not quite here yet.
Not at all new, but a still an annoyance in Xubuntu live sessions, is that once again in this release all drives are locked out and will not mount. This makes Xubuntu 25.04 useless as a rescue disk and also makes doing screenshots for a review and getting them off the live session much more difficult, as I normally just save them to a USB stick. I had to sign into a cloud service, upload the screenshots and then download them to my laptop. I can't think of any good reason to lock USB devices and all other drives out of a live session. Can you?
The lack of anything new in this release, beyond bug fixes, points towards the next LTS being not much different from the last one. Xubuntu users will probably be happy with that move as most seem think that there is nothing much that needs fixing. In many ways that is the story of most of the Ubuntu flavours these days. Most work well, are quite stable, not adding much in the way of new features and the user base for each flavour likes the way they work and isn't looking for any changes. It may sound boring, but this is a sign of success!
Settings
Xubuntu 25.04 still uses Greybird as its default window colour scheme. There are still a total of six window themes provided in the "Appearance" manager: Adwaita, Adwaita-dark, Greybird, Greybird-dark, High Contrast and Numix. The separate Window Manager also has 12 window title bar themes: Default (which is, oddly, not the default), Daloa, Default-hdpi, Default-xhdpi, Greybird, Greybird-accessibility, Greybird-compact, Greybird-dark, Greybird-dark-accessibility, Kokodi, Moheli and Numix. There are now six icon themes, four fewer than in the last release, with Elementary Xfce the new default, replacing Elementary Xfce Dark.
There is a new default Xubuntu 25.04 wallpaper for this release, once again designed by Pasi Lallinaho, who has done all the release wallpapers since Xubuntu 9.04. This one is an abstract night landscape. Xubuntu 25.04 comes with ten other additional wallpapers provided, or you can easily download any old Xubuntu ones you like or just use your own. Even though this release is code named "Plucky Puffin" there are no puffin-themed wallpapers.
Just like all the Xubuntu releases since 14.04 LTS, this one employs the Whisker Menu as its menu system. The Whisker Menu used to be able to be resized, but in the last two releases, Xubuntu 24.04 LTS and Xubuntu 24.10 it was no longer resizable. That shortcoming has been fixed in this release and once again the menu may now be resized from its previous fixed size. This is a welcome feature fixed in the Xfce 4.20 desktop.
* indicates same application version as used in Xubuntu 24.10
The supplied default mix of applications has not changed in this release, although most of them have newly updated versions supplied.
The list of applications included in the full Xubuntu Desktop ISO is very extensive, with pretty much everything a desktop user might need except perhaps a webcam client or video editor. If this list has a lot of stuff you think you may want to remove after installation, you can always use the Xubuntu Minimal ISO instead and then add what you want. For most experienced users that may be a better plan, particularly if you have a checklist.
It is worth noting that Xubuntu is the only Ubuntu derivative, other than Ubuntu Cinnamon, which still comes with a CD/DVD burning application by default. Optical drives started disappearing on new laptops in about , 14 years ago. Once included with all releases, since then most of the rest of the Ubuntu pack have dropped optical drive burners from their default application list. It will be interesting to see if and when the Xubuntu Team makes that same move.
Conclusions
Xubuntu 25.04 is a nice, solid release with very little new included, aside from the bug fixes included with the Xfce 4.20 desktop and some refreshed applications. On the whole I think Xubuntu fans will like what they see here, as there is no "learning curve" from recent releases and most users are not looking for big changes anyway.
The next version out will be Xubuntu 25.10, the third and final interim release, due out on . That release will be the last chance to introduce anything new before the next LTS arrives.
Kubuntu 25.04 marks 20 years of Kubuntu! The very first Kubuntu release was 5.04, out on .
Kubuntu 25.04 came out on and comes with nine months of support, until . This is Kubuntu's 41st release and the second one with the new Qt-based Plasma 6 desktop.
This release is the middle of three interim releases in this development cycle that will lead to the next LTS version, which will be Kubuntu 26.04 LTS, due out in .
Installation
I downloaded the Kubuntu 25.04 ISO file via BitTorrent from the official source and did a command line SHA256 sum check, to confirm that the file integrity was good. This is a very quick check to do and worth the trouble it can save running a bad ISO.
This Kubuntu ISO file is 4.7 GB in size, the same size as the last release, Kubuntu 24.10.
I dropped the ISO file onto a USB stick equipped with a new download, Ventoy 1.1.05 and it booted up without any problems, which was expected, as it is listed as officially supported by Ventoy.
4096 MiB RAM (system memory) for physical installs
2048 MiB RAM for virtualised installs
25 GB (8.6 GB for minimal) of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
3D acceleration-capable GPU with at least 256 MB of VRAM
1024x768 or higher resolution display
USB flash drive or DVD drive or for the installer media
Internet access is helpful
That recommended 4 GB of RAM is probably underpowered for web browsing today and 8 GB or greater is a more realistic amount.
New
Kubuntu 25.04 uses the Qt 6.8.3 toolkit, KDE Frameworks 6.12.0, has fresh applications from KDE Gear 24.12.3 and features the KDE Plasma 6.3 desktop. Like all the Ubuntu 25.04 series of releases, Kubuntu 25.04 comes with Linux kernel 6.14 and uses systemd 257.4 as its initialization system.
The KDE Plasma 6 desktop replaced Plasma 5 starting with the last release, Kubuntu 24.10. Waiting until the first interim release of the new development cycle means the new desktop version will go through development and testing over these three interim releases before it is used in the next LTS, which will be Kubuntu 26.04, due out in . This ensures that the LTS version, which most users run, is as bug-free and as stable as possible. So far Plasma 6 seems pretty flawless, but this conservative development approach is always the safest bet.
This release is the second to make a Wayland display server session the default, although the venerable X11 server is available at boot-up if needed. Since Ubuntu has been using Wayland for a while now, Kubuntu is being cautious in following and so far the transition seems to be quite smooth. Wayland does provide some advantages, besides just being more modern, like eliminating screen flicker issues.
Other than new application versions, this Kubuntu release introduces almost nothing new. That points to the next interim release and the subsequent LTS being very similar to 25.04. Most Kubuntu users will probably consider that a good thing, as Kubuntu is working pretty flawlessly these days, most users seem pretty happy with it and don't see a need for changes.
Settings
Kubuntu has always given users a wide range of choices and Kubuntu with the Plasma 6 desktop maintains that philosophy. Kubuntu 25.04 comes with five global themes, four application styles, five Plasma styles, five window colour schemes, three window decoration styles, two icon sets, eight cursor styles, three system soundscapes, three splash screens (including "none"), two login screens and ten boot splash screens. As always, those are just the installed options, as most of the settings pages have one-button downloads to retrieve many more.
Kubuntu 25.04 has 68 pre-installed desktop widgets, one more than in the last release. These widgets are small applications that can be added to the desktop, like clocks and weather reports. Hundreds more of them can be downloaded for installation, limited only by your tolerance for desktop clutter.
As with most Kubuntu releases, this one has a new default wallpaper, Nuvole by Krystian Zajdel. It has both light and dark wallpaper modes which swap automatically when you change the window colour scheme. There are 47 wallpapers provided, two more than the last release, including some nice general Kubuntu logo ones. Many of the included ones are from past Kubuntu releases. As is usually the case with Kubuntu, the developers have ignored the code name cliche for this family of Ubuntu releases, "Plucky Puffin", and there are no puffin wallpapers.
Applications
Some of the applications included with Kubuntu 25.04 are:
* indicates same application version as used in Kubuntu 24.10 ** supplied as a Snap, so version depends on the upstream package manager
As can be seen, almost all applications provided have been updated to their KDE Gear 24.12.3 versions. There was only one unannounced change in the application mix provided, the deletion of the Konversation IRC client. This probably makes sense as the default applications should be things a majority of users would want and use. IRC saw its peak use in 2006 and is probably only used by a small number of people today. If you want it, you can certainly still install it from the repositories.
As is usually the case, LibreOffice 25.2.2.2 is supplied complete, missing only LibreOffice Base, the office suite's database application. Base is probably the least used component of the suite, but it can be added from the repositories, if needed.
As in past releases, Kubuntu 25.04 does not include a webcam application, an image editor or video editor by default, although there are many options in the repositories if you need those things.
Conclusions
Kubuntu 25.04 has very little new beyond updated application versions. As the middle release of three in this development cycle, I think this points to the next LTS, Kubuntu 26.04 LTS due out in , not having lot of change over the last LTS. So far the most notable introductions in this development cycle are the Plasma 6 desktop and the use of the Wayland display server, which both appeared in the previous release.
Overall I think Kubuntu fans will like what they see in both 25.04 and also in how this development cycle is going. Both point to just incremental changes that just give more of what makes Kubuntu popular: lots of user choice and a very polished experience.
Out on , Ubuntu 25.04 is the second of three interim releases in this development cycle leading to the next LTS, which will be Ubuntu 26.04, expected in .
This release brings a lot that is new behind the scenes, but only a few items that most desktop users will notice.
This is Ubuntu's 42nd release and the 16th with the current modified GNOME 3 desktop. As an interim release, it is only supported for nine months, until .
Code named Plucky Puffin, this is the second Ubuntu release with a "P" code name. The previous one was Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin, which was released on , 13 years ago. Since there are 26 letters in the English alphabet and two Ubuntu releases per year, the letters naturally repeat on a 13 year cycle.
Installation
I downloaded Ubuntu 25.04 from the official source using Transmission to retrieve the BitTorrent. As always, I carried out an SHA256 sum check to ensure that the ISO file download was good. This is always a good practice and avoids trouble later with installation and running.
This release has increased 10% in size over the previous one, Ubuntu 24.10, which was 5.7 GB, to a 6.28 GB download this time.
I tested Ubuntu 25.04 from a USB stick, using Ventoy 1.0.99, which worked fine.
4096 MiB RAM (system memory) for physical installs
2048 MiB RAM for virtualised installs
25 GB (8.6 GB for minimal) of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
3D acceleration-capable GPU with at least 256 MB of VRAM
1024x768 or higher resolution display
USB flash drive or DVD drive or for the installer media
Internet access is helpful
Overall this means that Ubuntu 25.04 should run fine on hardware designed for Windows 7 or later, although I suggest at least 8 GB of RAM as a working minimum, especially for web browsing.
New
This release does not have a lot new for desktop users, but there is much new behind the scenes.
It is based on GNOME 48 and that means it includes the new user "wellness" settings selector, where you can choose to get alarms if you are spending too much screen time. However, there is no setting for "not enough screen time".
There is also a new Preserve Battery Health setting that allows you to set laptop battery charging parameters to extend the life of your battery.
This release uses (mostly) the GNOME 48 desktop which adds Canonical-developed triple buffering patches to provide higher performance and smoothness on lower-powered devices.
Also used is a new geolocation service, BeaconDB, for automatic calculation of things like time zones, weather and night light features.
This releases uses Linux 6.14, which is part of Ubuntu's new policy of using more recent Linux kernels for more up-to-date hardware support and to bring newer features sooner. It also employs the systemd v257.4 initialization system. Systemd has now been used on Ubuntu since Ubuntu 15.04, so this release completes ten years and 21 releases without any issues. Despite the naysayers, systemd has been a big success.
The Ubuntu Flutter-based installer has been improved, especially when adding Ubuntu to a drive with a BitLocker encrypted Windows partition already installed.
Ubuntu 25.04 also introduces a new developer-aimed feature, prepackaged developer tools as Snap packages, called devpacks. The first one introduced is a new devpack-for-spring snap with the latest Spring Framework and Spring Boot projects, including Spring Framework 6.1 and 6.2, plus Spring Boot 3.3 and 3.4.
This version also includes improved ARM architecture support, including for Snapdragon devices, with an official generic ARM64 desktop ISO. There is also new support for Intel Core Ultra 200V series processors with built-in Intel Arc GPUs and Intel Arc B580 and B570 Battlemage discrete GPUs.
There are also confidential computing improvements, which prevent unauthorized access to virtual machines.
The AppArmor package now includes many new profiles for applications and now has a bwrap profile (bwrap-userns-restrict) to create user namespaces and sandbox creation, before transitioning to a tighter profile that denies capabilities for the processes running inside the bwrap sandbox.
The JPEG XL image format is now supported without the need for any additional packages.
There is also now initial support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) monitors, although it is not enabled by default, plus also grouped notifications.
Ubuntu 25.04 enables NVIDIA Dynamic Boost by default on supported laptops that have NVIDIA GPUs. This feature dynamically shifts power between the CPU and GPU depending on the system workload. In gaming this gives more performance, by allowing more power to be provided to the GPU.
There are many behind-the-scenes changes to packages and toolchains that most desktop users will probably not notice, including:
APT 3.0 remains the default package manager for DEB packages
binutils 2.44
BlueZ 5.79 Bluetooth
Cairo 1.18.4
GCC 15
glibc 2.41
Golang 1.24
LLVM 20
Mesa 25.0 graphics drivers
MySQL 8.4 LTS
MySQL Shell 8.4.4
.NET 8 & 9 available
Netplan v1.1.2
NetworkManager 1.52
Nvidia 570
OpenJDK 21, with versions 24 GA and 25 early access snapshots available
OpenSSH 9.9
OpenSSL 3.4.1
PHP 8.4
PostgreSQL 17
Poppler 25.03 PDF rendering
Python 3.13.3
QEMU 9.2.0 machine emulator and virtualizer
Rust 1.84
Samba 4.21
Squid 6.13
SSSD 2.10.1
Valkey 8.0.2
xdg-desktop-portal 1.20
Settings
Ubuntu continues to only have a few choices for user customization. There are still just two window themes: light and dark, although there is a choice of ten highlight colours. It sounds like not much choice, but it really is sufficient to keep most users happy.
Since this release is code-named Plucky Puffin, it comes with a new puffin-themed light wallpaper, which changes to a dark wallpaper when the window colour theme is changed from light to dark. There is a total of 11 wallpapers provided, of which six are puffin-themed. All the provided wallpapers are quite elegant and tastefully done.
Pro tip: Some people like Ubuntu, but don't like the Ubuntu dock (launcher) taking up screen space. It is actually very easy to disable, which returns it to the bottom of the "switcher" page in the default GNOME-style instead and off your desktop. Just install the GNOME Shell Extensions package via:
$ sudo apt install gnome-shell-extensions
Then open the extensions controller from the main menu, select "Ubuntu Dock - off" and it is gone. It can be re-enabled from the same interface at any time. You can note that the plugged-in drives and trash, which normally appear on the dock, can be found on the GNOME Files (nautilus) file manager sidebar.
Applications
As in recent Ubuntu releases, if you install the default minimal installation you will get only Firefox, Nautilus, GNOME Text Editor and not much more, although any desired applications can easily be added from the repositories. The ISO file includes the extended selection of applications, though, in case you would rather do the full installation. The live session boots up to the extended selection. The choice between the two installation options is really a trade-off between spending your time adding the applications that you do want, rather than removing ones you don't want. My personal choice would be to go for the default minimal installation and then use a checklist to add what I want, using APT from the command line, as it can be done in a single command, if you are organized.
Some of the applications included with the full 25.04 extended selection installation are:
* indicates same application version as used in Ubuntu 24.10 ** supplied as a Snap, so the version depends on the upstream package manager *** indicates included on the ISO for boot-up, but not included in a full installation
Once again, the application collection in this release is a mix of GNOME versions, this time mostly from GNOME 48, with a few holdovers from GNOME 43, 46 and 47.
The only change to the suite of applications this time around is the substitute of GNOME Papers in place of Evince as the default PDF viewer. Papers is actually a new fork of Evince, but uses the GTK4 toolkit and is partially written in the Rust programming language. In testing it, it works just fine.
In the way of application improvements, GNOME Camera can now scan QR codes, GNOME Calendar has speed improvements and GNOME Text Editor has a streamlined header bar with a single options menu.
Conclusions
Ubuntu 25.04 is another solid release with no obvious flaws and we expect no less from Ubuntu these days. The next release will be the last of the three interim releases of this development cycle. Ubuntu 25.10 is due out and should bring the last of the expected changes to be incorporated in the next LTS, which will be Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, due out in .
