This distro will come on a USB 3.x/2.x Flash Drive. We use Kingston and Sandisk USB drives.

Version 24.04.1 Noble Numbat - Release Date: August 29, 2024 (Release Notes)

Due to its size Ubuntu 24.04 will come on a DL-DVD.  If you are using an older system please check to make sure it will support a dual layer dvd.

About Ubuntu

Support lifespan

Maintenance updates will be provided for 5 years until June 2029 for Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Cloud, and Ubuntu Core. All the remaining flavours will be supported for 3 years.

New features in 24.04 LTS

Updated Packages

Year 2038 support for the armhf architecture

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS solves the Year 2038 problem 1.2k that existed on armhf. More than a thousand packages have been updated to handle time using a 64-bit value rather than a 32-bit one, making it possible to handle times up to 292 billion years in the future.

Linux kernel

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS includes the new 6.8 Linux kernel that brings many new features.

systemd v255.4

The init system was updated to systemd v255.4. 

Netplan v1.0

The network stack was updated to Netplan version 1.0 323. Supporting simultaneous WPA2 & WPA3, Mellanox VF-LAG for high-performance SR-IOV networking and VXLAN improvements. It also provides a stable libnetplan1 API 39 and a new netplan status --diff sub-command to find differences between configuration and system state.

Toolchain Upgrades

• GCC is updated to the 14, binutils to 2.42, and glibc to 2.39.
• Python now defaults to version 3.12
• OpenJDK now defaults to LTS version 21
• LLVM now defaults to version 18
• Rust toolchain defaults to version 1.75
• Golang is updated to 1.22
• .NET 8 is now default

Ubuntu Desktop

Installer and Upgrades

• We’ve taken the first steps towards a more general “provisioning” approach that encompasses a “device bootstrap” stage followed by a “first boot initialization” and a “desktop welcome” step.

  • This means the ubuntu-desktop-installer is now part of the larger ubuntu-desktop-provision project and has been renamed to ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap.
  • It comes with an improved UI design that is customizable via a central configuration file. Default image assets automatically follow the customized accent color, or can be swapped out entirely according to the needs of flavors or OEM providers.

• In order to enable advanced users to benefit from subiuity’s/cloud-init’s autoinstall capabilities, we’ve added a dedicated page that allows side-loading an autoinstall.yaml from a network URL during the installation.

• We are reintroducing support for ZFS guided installations, enhancing the flexibility and choices available for your storage management needs. This is a new implementation in the Subiquity-based installers, and is without encryption by default. The encrypted ZFS guided option will be developed in a future release.

• Starting with Ubuntu 23.10, TPM-backed full-disk encryption (FDE) is introduced as an experimental feature, building on years of experience with Ubuntu Core. On supported platforms, you no longer need to enter passphrases at boot manually. Instead, the TPM securely manages the decryption key, providing enhanced security against physical attacks. This new feature streamlines the user experience and offers additional layers of security, especially in enterprise environments. However, the traditional passphrase-backed FDE is still available for those who prefer it. We invite users to experiment with this new feature, although caution is advised as it’s still experimental.

Updated Applications

• Firefox 84 124
  • Firefox is a native Wayland application 477 for this Ubuntu release
• LibreOffice 24.2 110 
• Thunderbird 115 “Supernova” 169 
  • Thunderbird is now provided as a Snap package only

Updated Subsystems

• BlueZ 5.72 96
• Cairo 1.18 54
• NetworkManager 1.46 60
• Pipewire 1.0.4 158
• Poppler 24.02 54
• xdg-desktop-portal 1.18 46

See the release notes for a more comprehensive list of updates in 24.04

Minimum System Requirements

• 2 GHz dual core processor
• 4 GiB RAM (system memory)
• 25 GB of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
• VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution