It was expected that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ‘Resolute Raccoon’ would ship with Linux Kernel 6.20 (likely to be renamed Linux 7.0), and today Canonical’s Paolo Pisati made it official.
Kernel engineer Pisati confirms the aim is to ‘target’ the Linux 6.20 kernel in Ubuntu 26.04 (barring any unforeseen upstream issues/asteroid impacts/etc).
The timeline works well: Linux 7.0 is projected to to release on Sunday April 5th, 2026, with Ubuntu 26.04 arriving on April 23 and its final kernel freeze set for April 16.
Canonical unveiled a new approach to kernel selection in Ubuntu last year, designed to ship the absolute latest kernel version even if it is still in development and a few weeks out from a stable release (though, stars aligning, that’s not the case).
We saw this work with Ubuntu 25.10, which shipped with Linux 6.17 despite the kernel only stabilising the week prior. In years past, Ubuntu would’ve played it safe with 6.16 or 6.15 (depending on what had seen a stable release when the kernel freeze deadline hit).
This cadence strategy pays off for all users, not just those who run the latest release. Hardware enablement (HWE) updates backport newer kernels to the previous LTS — Ubuntu 25.10’s Linux 6.17 kernel is coming to 24.04 LTS in the next few weeks.
Currently, Ubuntu 26.04 daily builds run the Linux 6.18 release from November. When 6.19 releases, it’ll automatically roll out to Resolute dailies thanks to Canonical’s kernel engineering changes.
But the final stable release will ship with Linux 6.20/7.0 (version number to be confirmed by Linus Torvalds), ensuring new LTS users are booting with the latest hardware support, performance boosts and security enhancements.