Ubuntu support for RISC-V continues to be a focus for Canonical, which aims to establish the distro as the de-facto Linux OS on the emerging processor architecture.
With Ubuntu 25.10 requiring RVA23-capable RISC-V hardware (which adds Vector and Hypervisor extensions to better rival ARM and Intel chips) it’s also focusing on ensuring that the Ubuntu desktop itself works well – including its apps.
Flutter, the open-source UI toolkit developed by Google, is Ubuntu’s preferred ‘choice’ for building its own apps (the Snap-based App Center, Security Center, firmware utilities, and OS installer all use it).
But Flutter does not currently support RISC-V.
That’s beginning to change.
Flutter RISC-V Support WIP
Canonical’s Valentin Haudiquet has submitted two pull requests to the upstream Flutter repository that add RISC-V support: one to get the toolkit working on RISC-V, and the other to support cross-compiling of a Flutter engine for RISC-V from regular Intel/AMD systems.
The proposed patches do work: screenshots shared by Haudiquet show Ubuntu’s App Center and Security Center running successfully on an Ubuntu RISC-V desktop setup – though there’s still work to be done to improve their performance.
Haudiquet also notes in his progress report that “depending on the outcome” of the pull request Ubuntu “might still need to build and distribute that engine” itself.
Regardless of what upstream decide, this effort underscores Canonical’s commitment to both improving the Ubuntu desktop experience on all supported platforms and its place within the wider open-source community.
We love to see it.