// ITS FOSS — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
Ubuntu 26.10 Has Come Out as a Rust-Packed Interim Release
The title says that because, until now, the core utilities in Ubuntu were not fully Rust. cp, mv, and rm had stayed on the GNU versions over compatibility issues. They have since moved to the Rust-based uutils implementation, taking the distro even further in its oxidation process.
Ubuntu 26.10, codenamed "Stonking Stingray", is an interim release, which means it brings newer software than the earlier LTS while only getting nine months of support, ending in July 2027.
Although our features roundup covered a lot of ground, there were some changes that it missed. 😅
Well, we start with the kernel powering this interim release, Linux 7.3, which offers support for recent Snapdragon X2 Elite laptops along with several older Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus machines from Lenovo, HP, and Acer.
Gamers will be glad to know that the first chunk of Valve engineer Natalie Vock’s VRAM overcommit work has also landed in this kernel. Games on graphics cards with too little video memory should run better, as some of the data can now be offloaded to regular system RAM.
You already know that this Linux release is shaping up to be one of the most performance-focused releases in years.
Ubuntu is also moving to the NVIDIA 615 driver series, which replaces 595 and 610 and ships open kernel modules only, supporting Turing and newer GPUs.
The rustification we talked about earlier also extends to OpenPGP, where Sequoia PGP, a Rust-based implementation built by former GnuPG developers, has landed in the main archive. Its sq and sqv tools now sit alongside GnuPG's gpg and gpgv.
For the desktop environment, Ubuntu 26.10 has GNOME 51, with its range of upgrades such as a fingerprint manager in the Users panel, DNS search domains in the Network settings, and a count badge in Files when you drag multiple items.
There's also the Ubuntu Tiling Assistant that shows a Windows-11-like interface for the built-in snappable window layouts.