Development today opened on Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing Quokka”, the next short-term release of Ubuntu, due for release in October.
Canonical engineer Utkarsh Gupta fired the figurative starting pistol for developers in a post to the Ubuntu mailing list, announcing the opening, and the enabling of auto-sync.
“As usual, we expect a large influx of builds and autopkgtests in this initial period, which will cause delays. Please help fixing any breakage that occurs,” Gupta adds.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since the Ubuntu 25.04 release, but the dedicated devs who spent 6 months diligently shaping that release don’t get much time for a breather. They’ll need to maintain a steady pace to get Questing Quokka past the finish line.
For us non-developers, news that development has formally kicked off starting block means, mile-by-mile, we’ll start to learn more about where Plucky Puffin’s mammalian successor is heading.
Ubuntu 25.04 daily builds start to be produced a week or so after development opens. I will (obviously) let you know when those are available to download and test.
The early stretch of each release cycle focuses on foundations and firm footings. Once in place, newer technologies, packages and features can start to be added.
What to expect in Ubuntu 25.10?
Ubuntu 25.10 is almost certain to ship with GNOME 49 and the Linux 6.17 kernel (or newer). Updated drivers, apps, and tooling? They’re also a given.
Beyond that? Canonical plans to switch the CUPS stack to a snap version in Ubuntu 25.10, re-trying after a stalled effort to do it back in 2023.
The plan is also migrate to Rust-based coreutils in 25.10, and rename the current version to gnu-coreutils so people can switch back if they need to.
Further refinements to the installation experience are also likely, building on the (rather notable) changes that landed in Ubuntu 25.04.
We may also see the desktop Security Center apps graduate its experimental—if rather annoying—Prompting feature to stable, an effort to further improve the security of snap apps.
Might we see even bigger changes than those?
Possibly!
After all, Ubuntu 25.10 is the final short-term support release before the next long-term release (Ubuntu 26.04). It’s the last chance to add major, controversial and/or future-focused changes to allow for thorough testing.