Ubuntu 24.04 Will Use Linux Kernel 6.8 — If All Goes to Plan! – Tipsbeginners

Ubuntu developers recently shared word on the Linux kernel version Ubuntu 24.04 LTS will use — and I’ll admit: it’s not the one I guessed!

Ubuntu 24.04 is a long-term support release (LTS) and last year’s Linux kernel 6.6 is also a LTS release — ergo, there’s a clear synergy there that should mean the latter ships in the former.

But Ubuntu developers are feeling much bolder!

Their plan is to ship the Linux 6.8 kernel in Ubuntu 24.04.

Now, Linux 6.8 is in active development right now (February 4) but it should see a stable release in March, giving Ubuntu’s engineers plenty of time to buff the edges, iron out wrinkles, patch in their own tweaks, and ensure things are ticking over nicely in time for release.

And while Ubuntu 24.04 daily builds use Linux 6.7 at the time of writing, testers willing to brave choppy waters can add Canonical’s unstable kernel PPA to install an experimental Linux kernel 6.8 build in Noble right now.

— but please: don’t add that PPA idly incase things break, you cry, and blame me.

Linux 6.8 in Noble? Natural Fit

Although Linux kernel 6.8 is not a long-term support release I’m stoked to hear it’s planned for inclusion in Ubuntu 24.04 — and I doubt I’m alone in that.

I think think most of us would love to see every Ubuntu release ship with the newest kernel possible, and for an LTS (which will be used for years to come) recency is even more important.

Using Linux 6.8 will see Ubuntu 24.04 kick off on a solid footing, offering support for the very latest hardware and access to all of the latest features.

Among which, Linux kernel 6.8 is set to offer stable Intel Meteor Lake graphics, the ability to enable/disable IA32 emulation at boot time, support Intel Shadow Stack, and more.

Ubuntu devs will add their tweaks, including an updated Apparmor/stacking LSM patch set and use the latest GCC with frame pointers enabled by default, a change Canonical says “will be a huge win for performance engineering and the default developer experience”.

There’s a desire to ship low-latency features by default in 24.04 too. This would make Ubuntu better suited “out of the box” for music creation, video editing, gaming, and other general high-responsive workloads — but nothing’s been confirmed/announced yet!

In all, another reason to look forward to the release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS in April — but you can expect to hear about a few other tantalising developments before then as well! 😉