Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’ is released on October 13th, and as you’d expect from a new version of Ubuntu, it’s packed with new features.
As a short-term release, Ubuntu 24.10 gets 9 months of ongoing updates, security patches, and critical fixes. It’s not long, but Ubuntu 25.04 is released in April of next year (6 months later) and all users on 24.10 can upgrade to 25.04 directly.
But enough about releases to come, and more on this one.
In this post I run through the best Ubuntu 24.10 features, changes, and enhancements. Keep in mind that everything you read about below is still (somewhat) subject to change until final release.
Ubuntu 24.10 doesn’t make any major changes to its Flutter-based installer since last release.
There was talk about extending ‘provisioning’ by moving user account setup to after the base system was installed. That hasn’t happened in 24.10: from an end-user perspective the flow from start to finish remains the same.
There are low-level changes, fixes, and package updates but nothing “showy”.
But things have changed for users of the “preinstalled” ARM image, e.g., on Raspberry Pi. This now uses GNOME Initial Setup for the full configuration flow, from picking language, timezone, creating a user account, and setting a password.
GNOME 47
Ubuntu is a GNOME-based Linux distribution and Ubuntu 24.10 includes GNOME 47, the latest release.
GNOME 47 features a bunch of changes. The most “headline” grabbing of these is accent colour support, enabling users to choose the colour (from a predefined selection) that buttons, toggle switches, sliders, and other UI elements use.
“Er, Ubuntu already had that” you say — 410 points, correct!
Ubuntu has supported accent colours since 2022, having added its own solution. But now that GNOME 47 supports them natively, Ubuntu 24.10 migrates over to this upstream implementation. This will ensure consistency and compatibility in GNOME and associated apps.
Another big visual change affects dialogs used through the UI and by apps. GNOME 47 gives them a new look, with floating buttons, and smart layout adaptions to make them usable on narrower displays.
Other GNOME 47 enhancements include:
- Improved UI layout on low-resolution displays
- Hardware encoded screen recording
- Better GTK rendering on older hardware
- Persistent remote login sessions
Ubuntu 24.10 carries patches for GNOME Shell and Mutter that are not (currently) included upstream. These offer improved stability, performance, and hardware support.
Nautilus
Also released as part of GNOME 47 is a new version of Files, aka the Nautilus file manager. This has some major differences to previous editions.
The sidebar has been restructured. Bookmarks for local folders, e.g., Downloads, Music, Videos, etc now sit further down the sidebar, groped in their own section, which the Trash bookmark is moved to the top most section.
Bookmarks can now be removed by right-clicking on them and selecting ‘remove’. Adding them back is easy: find the folder and drag it on the sidebar. Nautilus sidebar entries can now be re-ordered using drag and drop too.
Internal hard drives are now shown in the sidebar.
These were previously accessed by clicking on the “Other Locations +” entry, which also provided a way to connect to remote shares/mounts. That entry is now gone. To connect to, manage, and browse remote connections there’s a new dedicated “Network” view.
Nautilus search sees a notable change in GNOME 47. When you initiate a file search across folders or drives which are not indexed (or are a remote share) a ‘contextual info’ button appears in the toolbar.
GNOME says this “added context helps users understand why certain searches might be slower or incomplete. It also allows users to update their search settings to get the best experience”.
Rounding out the improvements is the ability for apps to use Nautilus as the file picker for opening/saving files rather than the GTK file picker. This offers a faster, modern, and thumbnail-rich way to sort through files — the Firefox snap app is already making use of it!
Disk Usage Analyser
If you’re an avid user of Disk Usage Analyser (aka baobab ) you’ll notice it’s received a small revamp to bring its UI inline with other modern GNOME apps. The initial list height is now more sensible, it uses updated icons, and a restyled path/location bar.
New & Improved Settings
Also arriving courtesy of GNOME 47 are a clutch of new options in the Settings app (which also benefits from a bit of pruning and polish): –
- Activate windows on hover now available in Accessibility
- Input source previews in Keyboard to view a layout visually before choosing it
- New suspend times in Power settings for mobile devices
GNOME Online Accounts also picks up a set of improvements, including: –
- IMAP/SMTP email account details auto-complete based on address
- Microsoft 365 account now supports e-mail, calendar and contacts
- WebDAV account set up now auto discovers available services
- Kerberos accounts use less power on an ongoing basis
Of course there’s more to the new GNOME 47 release beyond the changes above but while Ubuntu is a GNOME-based Linux distribution it does not include, ship, or offer every component, option, and app.
Ubuntu Dock Snap App tweaks
Ubuntu Dock now shows progress bars on snap app icons if the app is updating in the background.
This is less abrupt that the previous approach which would see the icon vanish for the dock for a few seconds, then just as starkly re-appear.
Also changed in the Ubuntu Dock extension that ships in Ubuntu 24.10 is the context menu. This appears when you right-click on icon in the dock.
It now has a small header label at the top with the app name so you know which app the menu belongs to, I guess!
And if you right-click on a snap app in the dock there’s now an extra option at the bottom: ‘details’.
Clicking this opens the app page listing in App Center where (surprise) you can see more details about it — doesn’t appear on DEB apps installed from App Center, though.
Ubuntu Anniversary Touches
As Ubuntu 24.10 is the 20th anniversary release of Ubuntu (Ubuntu 4.10 ‘Warty Warthog’ being the first in October 2004) this release includes a collation of celebratory touches.
On the boot screen you’ll see a new ’20th anniversary’ word mark. This carries over the login screen too.
Also playing tribute to that first formative release:
- ‘Warty’ brown accent colour (turns the top bar light)
- Ubuntu 4.10 startup sound plays on login (can be disabled)
- Remastered version of original Ubuntu 4.10 wallpaper
- New package of upscaled Ubuntu LTS wallpapers in the repo
A cute set of touches — but are they the only ones? ;)
New wallpapers
Every new version of Ubuntu ships with its own distinctive desktop background, and Ubuntu 24.10 being named ‘Oracular Oriole’ offers a wallpaper bearing a bird encased in circles with arcane symbols. It’s pretty nice, I think.
Desktop Security Center App
And the Security Centre app I first reported on earlier this year is now preinstalled. For now, its primary function is enable those who want to exert greater control over snap apps the ability to do so using Canonical’s new Prompting Client tool.
More features are planned for the Security Center in future Ubuntu releases, including the integration of firewall configuration controls (a long-requested feature by many Ubuntu users) and making it easier to enrol in Ubuntu Pro for additional security updates.
NVIDIA Wayland
Ubuntu 24.10 defaults to Wayland on devices NVIDIA GPUs for the first time. Canonical engineers feel confident that the experience is robust enough for everyday usage – not perfect, though. Anyone finding things sub-par can select a regular X session from the login screen.
Fingerprint Support
Fingerprint readers on laptops (and keyboard, I guess) have been a long-standing bug-bear on Linux. Some work out of the box, most require some manual cajoling, and a handful won’t work at all.
Well, Ubuntu 24.10 ships wit ha new versions of fprintd and libfprint that support a wider range of fingerprint drivers and devices. So if your digit-scanning device wasn’t working in earlier version it may – fingers crossed – be working now.
SysProf & Kdump-Tools Preinstalled
Furthering Canonical’s effort to include performance profiling and debugging tools for developers out-of-the-box, Ubuntu 24.10 now ships with the Sysprof utility preinstalled, in both default and expanded installations.
This isn’t an “end-user” utility. Its role is to help developers analyse the performance of software and system processes by capturing and displaying data on how it uses resources whilst running. Those insights can help in trying to optimise software or debugging an issue.
Additionally, kdump-tools is now part of default seed. This CLI tool enables the systems to capture kernel crash dumps – useful if needing to diagnose/debug system issues by assessing the state of the kernel at the time of a crash.
However, I don’t think kdump-tools is enabled by default in Ubuntu 24.10, just preinstalled. If this is something you need (most people don’t) be sure to turn it as/when required.
APT 3.0
APT 3.0 is included in Ubuntu 24.10, which I’m pretty amped about!
If you regularly use apt commands this upgrade is something you won’t fail to notice.
APT 3.0 has offers much improved ‘UI’, making use of colour, columns, and padding and spacing. It reorders output too, with removals now listed last (so you don’t overlook something vital being uninstalled).
Anyone switching from Arch or Fedora (whose package managers were already rather spiffy) will find this improved APT UI far easier to scan and understand.
Linux Kernel 6.11
Ubuntu 24.10 runs on the latest and greatest Linux kernel 6.11 release, only making it in thanks to Canonical’s new kernel selection policy.
Linux 6.11 offers a stack of changes, ranging from new hardware support, security fixes, and expanded support for ARM and RISC-V chipsets, to a sizeable performance boost to the EXT4 file system, and better power efficiency for newer AMD systems.
Ubuntu 24.10 also offers the Mesa 24.2 graphics drivers series, and the latest NVIDIA Graphics Drivers in the 550.x production branch and 560.x new feature branches.
Power Profiles Daemon 0.22
As I reported on recently, a new version of Power Profiles Daemon is included in Ubuntu 24.10. Although this is “invisible” to most, it’s the package that enables the ‘power mode’ options in Quick Settings to work.
The latest updatepacks many improvements, especially for users on AMD hardware as the AMD P-State integration enables setting Dynamic Power Management (DPM) clock speeds on power saving mode, and support for adjusting display backligh] based on battery percentage.
Software & Utilities
Ubuntu 24.10’s default installation includes a minimal set of software, with the following versions included:
- GNOME Terminal 3.54.0
- Text Editor 47
- Evince 46.3.1
- Calculator 47
- Disk Utility 46.1
- Eye of GNOME 47
- Clocks 46
- System Monitor 47
For a complete out-of-the-box experience the Ubuntu 24.10 expanded installation also offers:
- LibreOffice 24.8.1
- Shotwell 32.7
- Transmission 4.06
- Rhythmbox 3.4.7
- Remmina 4.35
- Calendar 47
- Totem 43
- Snapshot 47
Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird provided as snap applications, so get ongoing updates as and when released. The versions which ship on the ISO will be the latest versions at the time the ISO is created, which right now isFirefox 130 and Thunderbird 128.
Updated subsystems:
- BlueZ 5.77
- Cairo 1.18.2
- NetworkManager 1.48
- Pipewire 1.2.3
- Poppler 24.08
- xdg-desktop-portal 1.18
Also of note, iw replaces wireless-tools.
Updated toolchain includes:
- gcc 14.1
- binutils 2.43
- glibc 2.40
- Python 3.12.6
Plus others.
Download Ubuntu 24.10
Ubuntu 24.10 is released on October 13, 2024. This is the date you can download the stable release from the Ubuntu website, image servers, and official mirrors, or, upgrade to it from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS if you explicitly opt-in (the upgrade is not offered it by default)
Not that you need to wait until them, of course: the Ubuntu 24.10 Beta is released tomorrow!
Overall, Ubuntu 24.10 is shaping to up to be a solid release. Anyone who doesn’t need the assurance of long-term support will find few reasons to not upgrade: it’s everything you know and love about Ubuntu, but just even better.