Download Download Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat)

Ubuntu Desktop vs Server Install Image

The desktop image allows you to try Ubuntu without changing your computer at all, and optionally install it permanently later. This type of image is what most people will want to use. You need at least 1GB of RAM to install from this image.

The server installation image allows you to permanently install Ubuntu on a computer for use as a server. It will not install a graphical user interface.

What is new

20 years in the making. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS brings together the latest advances from the Linux ecosystem into a release built to empower open source developers and deliver innovation for the next 12 years.

The road to Noble Numbat has proven to be an exciting journey through successive ambitious interim releases, experimenting with new approaches to security (and tackling last-minute CVEs), developing our core desktop apps, and continuing our commitment to performance and compatibility across of a wide range of hardware supported by the brand new Linux 6.8 kernel.

• New desktop installer with auto-install support
• New App Center and Firmware Updater applications
• GNOME 46 with support for quad screen tiles
• Advanced Active Directory Group Policy Object support for Ubuntu Pro users
• Experimental support for TPM-backed Full Disc Encryption and ZFS encryption

Thinking about provisioning again

Addressing the basic problem of “how do I get Ubuntu on this machine?” is still one of our biggest priorities. While Ubuntu today comes pre-installed on millions of desktops, laptops and workstations around the world thanks to our partnerships with OEMs such as Dell, HP and Lenovo, more than ten times as many users install the operating system themselves each year. Here’s what we’re adding to simplify Ubuntu installations.

Unite the stack

Over the course of recent interim releases, we’ve adjusted the underlying technology stack of the desktop installer to use the same Subiquity backend as Ubuntu Server, creating a consistent code base across both platforms to deliver feature parity and easier maintenance. This is complemented by a brand new front end built in Flutter that has been significantly iterated over the past year to improve access to accessibility options, increase clarity of user experience and deliver a polished and improved experience.

Additional encryption options

As part of this migration, we’ve brought back ZFS Guided Installation as a file system option and added support for ZFS encryption. We’ve also added improved guidance for dual-boot setup, especially in relation to BitLocker. A big request from users has been support for hardware-assisted full disk encryption, and it appears for the first time in an experimental form in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. This implementation has certain limitations at launch that limit its use to those devices that only require a generic kernel without third-party drivers or kernel modules, and currently does not support firmware upgrades. We intend to expand the hardware compatibility of this feature over time within the lifecycle of this release, with support for NVIDIA drivers as the first priority.

Integrated auto-installation

One of the most exciting new additions is that the auto-installation support appears in the graphical installer. Users or businesses looking to create a custom, repeatable, automated installation flow can now provide the address of a local or remote autoinstall.yaml file and let Subiquity take over from there.

Check out this Getting Started Guide to see how easy it is to automate user creation, install multiple apps, and configure your file system in a format you can use across multiple machines.

This brings us a number of steps closer to the long-term goal of zero-touch provisioning, and we plan to add additional support for SSO authentication to access protected autoinstall files in an enterprise environment at a later date.

New core apps

The new features don’t stop once you’ve installed Ubuntu Desktop. The new App Center (also based on flutter) is another notable highlight, giving app discovery a modern and more performant look with clearer categories and application management functionality. Since its initial launch, App Center now has a new rating service that allows users to vote on the quality of their apps and see an overall score from other users. These scores, combined with the other rich metadata available from the Snap Store, will make it easier for us to provide additional discovery mechanisms such as top lists, most popular or recently updated.

Although the App Center defaults to a snap-centric view to enable us to deliver these usability features, you can still use it to find and install deb packages via the search toggles.

As part of the new App Center development, we’ve distributed firmware updates in their own dedicated app. This not only provides a richer experience managing firmware, but also improves performance since the old Ubuntu software has to run permanently in the background to check for new firmware on previous releases.

GNOME 46

Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 LTS continues our commitment to deliver the latest and greatest GNOME with version 46. This release brings a number of performance and usability improvements, including file manager search and performance, extensible notifications, and consolidated settings options for easier access.

As usual, Ubuntu builds on the excellent foundation of GNOME with a number of extensions and additions. The color picker allows users to tailor desktop highlights to their liking, triple buffering improves performance on Intel and Raspberry Pi graphics drivers, and the addition of the Tiling Assistant extension enables quad screen tile support for better workspace management.

Consistent networking across desktops and servers with Netplan 1.0

In Ubuntu 23.10, we included Netplan as the default tool for configuring desktop networking, unifying the stack across server and cloud where Netplan has been standard since 2016. This change enables administrators to consistently configure their Ubuntu environment regardless of platform. With the recent release of Netplan 1.0, all platforms also benefit from new features around wireless compatibility and usability improvements such as netplan status – diff.

It is important to note that Netplan does not replace NetworkManager and will not affect workflows that prefer the previous configuration methods. NetworkManager has two-way integration with Netplan, meaning that changes made to either configuration are updated and reflected in both.

You can read the full release notes here.