The Ubuntu Release Team officially announced the Beta release of Ubuntu 25.10, codenamed Questing Quokka. The installation images for Ubuntu 25.10 Desktop, Server, WSL, Cloud products and official Ubuntu flavours are available for download.
This exciting milestone marks the last preview before the final release ships on Thursday, October 9, 2025. If you install the Beta today and keep it up to date, it will automatically become the final stable version.
Prior to the Beta, the Release Team also successfully published monthly development snapshots, including Questing Snapshot 3 on July 31, 2025 and Questing Snapshot 4 on August 28, 2025.
Table of Contents
A Secure and Modern Desktop Experience
Ubuntu 25.10 focuses on modernization and security. You will notice some major changes right away, especially concerning the desktop environment.
Say Goodbye to Xorg for GNOME
Ubuntu is moving forward with the modern graphics stack. Consequently, the default Ubuntu session is now provided by Wayland exclusively.
The option "Ubuntu on Xorg" is no longer visible on the login screen (GDM).
This change aligns with GNOME’s roadmap and helps deliver a more secure and modern desktop experience.
However, if you still rely on X11, do not worry! X11 applications should run transparently on the Wayland session using XWayland.
Initramfs is Replaced with Dracut
Dracut is replacing initramfs-tools as the default initramfs generator. For new installations of Ubuntu 25.10, especially desktop and minimal desktop variants, Dracut is now the preferred tool for generating the initial ramdisk environment.
New Core Apps and Kernel Power
The desktop experience feels refreshed. Ubuntu 25.10 features the GNOME 49 alpha shell stack. Furthermore, the team is updating the default applications. You will now find two new core applications included:
- Loupe, a modern image viewer.
- Ptyxis, a new terminal emulator.
Finally, the Canonical Kernel Team is targeting the Linux 6.17 kernel for the release. The Beta currently ships a current 6.17 (rc) kernel. This modern kernel brings the latest hardware support.
$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu25.10 6.17.0-4-generic #4-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Sep 8 16:09:17 UTC 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Security Features
Ubuntu 25.10 introduces two major security features:
1. Experimental TPM-Backed Full Disk Encryption (FDE)
Ubuntu 25.10 is preparing to complete TPM-backed FDE. This feature uses your computer’s Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip as a digital guardian. The disk only unlocks if the TPM verifies that your system’s software and firmware are untampered.
Because security is critical, the installer generates and manages a vital recovery key. You must write down or save this key, because it helps you bypass the TPM if you change critical hardware or forget your passphrase. You can even add an optional passphrase for a fantastic double layer of protection.
A significant improvement is the planned support for proprietary drivers, like Nvidia, to work smoothly with TPM/FDE by the end of the development cycle.
Important Note: This FDE feature is experimental in Ubuntu 25.10, so the team does not recommend it for production use where data recovery is critical.
2. Adopting Rust for Core Utilities
Ubuntu is also focusing on making core system tools safer. Therefore, Ubuntu 25.10 is adopting sudo-rs as the default sudo implementation. The "rs" means this new version is written in the Rust programming language. Rust uses strong memory safety guarantees, which makes it much harder to write code that could be unsafe.
For most daily tasks, you should not notice a difference; your sudo commands will work as before. However, this switch significantly boosts system resilience and safety.
Under the Hood: Server and Core Changes
The Beta brings fundamental changes affecting server and foundation packages:
- Time Daemon Switch: Chrony (version v4.7) replaces
systemd-timesyncdas the new default time daemon. Chrony comes pre-configured to use Ubuntu Network Time Security (NTS) servers by default. - Simplified Kernel Modules: The
linux-modules-extra-*packages have been removed, simplifying the build infrastructure. Now, all kernel modules ship via the standardlinux-modulespackages. - Raspberry Pi Desktop: Raspberry Pi desktop images now use the "desktop-minimal" seed. This change significantly reduces the installed application list, removing apps like LibreOffice and Thunderbird to save approximately 777MB of space.
Try Ubuntu 25.10 Beta Today!
The Beta images for Ubuntu Desktop, Server, WSL, and all official flavours (like Kubuntu and Ubuntu Studio) have been released for testing on September 18, 2025.
You can download the Ubuntu 25.10 Beta images now at the following links:
The Ubuntu Desktop operating system powers millions of PCs worldwide. We encourage you to participate in testing and provide feedback through Launchpad bug reports or the Ubuntu Discourse. Your efforts truly help improve Ubuntu.
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