The beta release of Ubuntu 25.04 “Plucky Puffin” has been announced, marking a milestone in the development process as the package base has been completely frozen. Developers have now shifted their focus to final testing and bug fixes. The release, categorized as an intermediate release with updates planned for 9 months, is set for April 17. Test images are now available for Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, UbuntuKylin, Ubuntu Unity, Edubuntu, and Ubuntu Cinnamon.
Key changes in this release include:
- The desktop environment has been updated to prepare for the upcoming GNOME 48 release, which will bring support for HDR, triple buffering, a new notification layout, and global shortcuts. The configurator has also been enhanced, focusing on memory consumption and performance improvements.
- Ubuntu Desktop now uses ‘Papers’ as the default PDF viewer instead of Evince. Papers is a fork of Evince, rewritten in Rust and based on GTK4.
- The ‘xdg-urminal-exec’ tool is now included by default, simplifying the process of changing the default terminal emulator with the Ctrl+Alt+T key combination.
- With the discontinuation of the Mozilla Location Service, location data is now sourced from the ‘beacondb’ database, which contains information on well-known wireless access points.
- System startup sound effects have been disabled by default in this release.
- The installer on Ubuntu Desktop now offers a mode for replacing existing Ubuntu installations. Users can now install Ubuntu alongside other operating systems in encrypted partitions and configure disk partitions more extensively. Additionally, Ubuntu can be installed on a drive with Windows systems using encrypted BitLocker.
/Reports, release notes, official announcements.