Fancy testing some pre-release Ubuntu over Christmas? You’re in luck: Ubuntu 26.04 Snapshot 2 is now available for download – a week earlier than expected.
Canonical’s Utkarsh Gupta says the early drop will “give ourselves some time to fix anything that might break” before elves staff disappear for Christmas. Smart decision for them, and gives Ubuntu fans something to do besides argue with relatives over the holiday.
This is the the second of 5 snapshots being released between now and March 2026 (then comes the beta, RC and final stable release).
Boring as it may be to hear, there isn’t much “new” to unwrap in Ubuntu 26.04 Snapshot 2. If you’ve taken a daily build for a spin recently (or installed/upgraded to 26.04 and are up-to-date), there’s no reason to seek out this snapshot specifically.
What changes there are, are modest: low-level plumbing, library updates, etc. Expect to see more user-facing changes – GNOME 50, the new default apps, expanded Security Center, etc – arrive in the new year. For now, everything remains foundational.
Canonical began publishing monthly Ubuntu snapshots for the Ubuntu 25.10 cycle as a means to test and refine its new automated build and testing systems. They aren’t anything special, merely a snapshot of development on the date they were made.
Canonical’s engineers continue to call these “throwaway artefacts”. If testing, go in knowing they are not more (or less) tested than any other daily build.
Snapshots do get produced for all flavours, not just the main edition. If you prefer Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Cinnamon et al you can opt to sample a snapshot of those instead.
Ubuntu 26.04 Snapshot 3 is due for release around towards the end of January 2026.
The final, stable release of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is released on Thursday, April 23 2026.
If you want to the try the snapshot you can download it from the Ubuntu CD Image server. Note: there’s no Raspberry Pi IMG for Snapshot 2 – use Snapshot 1 if you need it.
If you choose to install (rather than just test) keep in mind that 26.04 is in development so stability isn’t a guarantee. Just keep installing updates to ride the release wave (you won’t have to reinstall Snapshot 3, beta, etc) until April’s release.