01 Oct

Lubuntu Stonking Beta Released!

Thanks to all the hard work from our contributors, Lubuntu 26.10 Beta has been released. With the codename Stonking Stingray, Lubuntu 26.10 will be the 31st release of Lubuntu, the seventeenth release of Lubuntu with LXQt as the default desktop environment.

Support lifespan

With Lubuntu 26.10 being an interim release, it will follow the standard non-LTS support period of nine months, which means Lubuntu 26.10 will be supported until July 2027. Please note that Lubuntu 26.10 is still in Beta, and is not officially supported until its scheduled release on October 15, 2026.

You can download Lubuntu 26.10 Beta here. If you would like to upgrade your existing Lubuntu 26.04 LTS installation, please visit our manual page describing the process.

Notable Changes

LXQt

LXQt 2.4 is now shipped by default. More information on its release can be found here: 2.4.0

Wayland

While our default display server for desktop sessions is still X11, an experimental Wayland session is now available out of the box. It uses the Miriway Wayland compositor. To try it out, click the “Session” drop-down in the upper-left corner of the login screen, and select “Lubuntu (Wayland)”.

Additionally, the login screen uses Miriway and Wayland internally. This is not expected to cause issues for users who rely on X11, and will help us develop better Wayland support in future releases.

Note that some features of Lubuntu will not work when using the Wayland session, and that there are substantial theming issues. It is unlikely either of these things will change when Lubuntu 26.10 is released, but our developers are working on improving this.

There are no plans to drop X11 support in Lubuntu at the moment.

Known issues

Common Release Notes

Please also check the Ubuntu Release Notes for more common issues and bugs affecting all Ubuntu flavors.

What is Lubuntu?

Lubuntu is an official Ubuntu flavor which uses the Lightweight Qt Desktop Environment (LXQt). The project’s goal is to provide a lightweight yet functional Linux distribution based on a rock-solid Ubuntu base. Lubuntu provides a simple but modern and powerful graphical user interface, and comes with a wide variety of applications so you can browse, email, chat, play, and be productive. You can find the following major applications and toolkits installed by default in this release:

You can find a variety of other applications installed which aim to enhance your experience while staying out of the way of your normal workflow. New features and bugfixes in core Ubuntu components can be found here.

Lubuntu Manual

The Lubuntu Team has been hard at work in polishing the Lubuntu Manual to make it easy for new and experienced users alike to use their system more productively. The manual can be found at manual.lubuntu.me. We want to thank Lyn Perrine for all the hard work she has put into the Lubuntu Manual. Thank you!

Versions of the Lubuntu Manual:

While the documentation for previous releases will be kept in the Git repository, they will not be published anywhere.

Want an easy way to access the manual? Just double-click the “Lubuntu Manual” icon on the desktop.

Lubuntu Project

How can I help?

We can always use more help! No matter your skill level or your technical experience, there’s something you can help with that can make a huge difference in Lubuntu. Join us on our Matrix chat and talk to us there. Whether you know another language, have some spare time to help us test Lubuntu, are good at writing documentation, or just want to stay “in the know,” that is the place to be. More information about contributing can be found here. If you want to contribute to Lubuntu but do not feel you have the time or skills, consider buying a t-shirt or donating to Lubuntu. Another great method to get involved is bug reporting. If you notice an issue, please file a bug using the instructions on the Lubuntu Wiki. Don’t want to file a bug? Let us know what the problem is (in detail, enough that we can reproduce it) and we can assist you in filing one or do it ourselves.

Contributors

We would like to thank the following contributors for dedicating their time to Lubuntu this cycle. Thank you!

We’d also like to thank previous (and hopefully future!) contributors to the Lubuntu project. We wouldn’t be where we are today without you!
 

We also wanted to give a special mention to Julien Lavergne, our Project Lead Emeritus and Founder. Without you, the Lubuntu project would not exist. Thank you.

Global Team

The Lubuntu Global Team has been created to foster communities in non-English languages and locales. An up-to-date list of our communities can be found on our Links page, but the existing groups include: Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Chinese, German, Japanese, Arabic, and French. If you would like to start a language group, join our development channel and talk with the Global Team. At minimum, you should have a few interested drivers of the community, and at least one administrator that speaks English.

Please give our beta a try.

Please help test our Lubuntu 26.10 Beta, and if you do encounter any issues, please report them on Launchpad or the bug tracker (see here for clues) and feel free to add a report via a reply on Lubuntu 26.10 issue tracker.

Thank you for helping testing Lubuntu 26.10 Beta, and ensuring Lubuntu 26.10 is a great release !