Canonical’s engineers have announced the fourth and final monthly snapshot of Ubuntu 26.04, ahead of next month’s all important beta release.
Ubuntu 26.04 Snapshot 4, like all other monthly snapshots, not a blessed build intended for mainstream usage. It’s a “throwaway artifact” that enables the distro’s engineers to fine-tune and hone a new automated build system.
Compared to the January release of snapshot 3, there’s more ‘of note’ packed inside of this one, like the Linux 6.19 kernel and more GNOME 50 beta components (Mutter, Files, Settings), though the new Showtime video player is not included – but is coming.
Announcing the release of Snapshot 4, Canonical’s Utkarsh Gupta notes Ubuntu 26.04 is now in feature freeze, so reminds testers to “…to start squashing all the bugs you’d like to see fixed for the 26.04 LTS final release”.
As the Ubuntu 26.04 beta is released in just under a months time on March 26, this is the final monthly snapshot. Daily builds will continue to be produced right up until the final , stable release of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is released on Thursday, April 23 2026.
You can download the new snapshot ISO from the Ubuntu CD Image server, then flash it to a USB and boot it to test the latest changes.
All Ubuntu flavours produce snapshots. If you prefer Ubuntu with a Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Cinnamon or other spin, you can grab the respective ISO to trail those.
Whether you install it to disk is up to you, but as it’s not stable it’s not strictly advised. If you do, just continue to install updates between now and April and you will have the final stable release.