Author Archives: Aaron Rainbolt

10 Oct

Lubuntu 24.10 (Oracular Oriole) Released!

Wake up and hear the birds sing! Thanks to the hard work from our contributors, Lubuntu 24.10 has been released. With the codename Oracular Oriole, Lubuntu 24.10 is the 27th release of Lubuntu, the 13th release of Lubuntu with LXQt as the default desktop environment.

Download and Support Lifespan

With Lubuntu 24.10 being an interim release, it will follow the standard non-LTS support period of nine months; this means that Lubuntu 24.10 will be supported until July 2025. Our development focus going forward will be on Lubuntu 25.04 and future releases, so only critical bugfixes and security updates will be provided.
If you choose to use Lubuntu 24.10, we STRONGLY recommend upgrading to 25.04 soon after it is released, but before Lubuntu 24.10 hits end of life. The Lubuntu Update application will assist you in upgrading your system when it becomes necessary.

Installation

You can download Lubuntu 24.10 here. If you would like to upgrade your existing 24.04 installation, please visit our manual page describing the process. Common Ubuntu instructions can be found here.

New in Lubuntu 24.10

LXQt 2.0 and Qt 6

Lubuntu 24.10 is the first release of Lubuntu to ship with a primarily Qt 6-based environment. Previous LXQt releases used Qt 5. Due to this upgrade, modern Qt 6-based apps such as the latest versions of VirtualBox, qBitTorrent, and more will now be themed similar to the rest of the desktop. Qt 5 app theming also still works, allowing you to continue to use apps that haven’t caught up with Qt 6 yet.
Lubuntu-specific applications (namely Lubuntu Update and the Lubuntu Installer Prompt) have also been updated to use Qt 6. The Calamares installer continues to use Qt 5 however. We expect to switch Calamares to using Qt 6 for Lubuntu 25.04

Kvantum Theming

For a while now, Lubuntu has been using the Breeze theme from KDE Plasma. While this has worked well enough for a while, it has had some incompatibilities with LXQt crop up before, and this cycle it happened again. Rather than continuing to make a KDE component work where it wasn’t really designed to, Lubuntu 24.10 now ships with Kvantum theming. Kvantum’s lead developer is also one of the primary developers of LXQt, so we expect no major incompatibilities going forward.
Our new theme, aptly named “Lubuntu”, is based upon Kvantum’s KvArc theme and is modified to look more similar to Lubuntu’s prior theming.

What happened to Wayland?

Readers who have kept up with our blog probably remember that we wanted to offer Wayland as an option in 24.04 and switch over to using Wayland by default in 24.10. Sadly this did not go according to plan. LXQt 1.4 and LXQt 2.0 both turned out to be too painful to use in a Wayland environment for us to be comfortable shipping Wayland by default, and we did not have time to implement them as an option. LXQt 2.1 is expected to ship with full Wayland support, so we will be trying to make Wayland happen for Lubuntu 25.04.

Artwork

Lubuntu 24.10 ships with a stunning new wallpaper and login screen. A special thank you to our Lubuntu art team for this lovely creation.

Common Release Notes

Please also check the Ubuntu Oracular Oriole [24.10] 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:
  • LXQt 2.0.0
  • Qt 6.6.2
  • Mozilla Firefox as shipped in the snap package, the version present on the ISO is version 130.0
  • LibreOffice 24.8.1.2
  • VLC 3.0.21
  • Featherpad 1.5.1
  • Discover Software Center 6.1.5
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:
Need help quickly? The Lubuntu Manual can be accessed via the “Lubuntu Manual” desktop icon.

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 IRC, Matrix, or Telegram chats 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 would also like to thank the following past members for their dedication to the project. Without you, Lubuntu would not be what it is today. 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. We now have multiple languages available in the support section of our Discourse forum.
22 Feb

Lubuntu 22.04.4 LTS is Released!

Thanks to all the hard work from our contributors, Lubuntu 22.04.4 LTS has been released. With the codename Jammy Jellyfish, Lubuntu 22.04 is the 22nd release of Lubuntu, the eighth release of Lubuntu with LXQt as the default desktop environment.

Support lifespan

Lubuntu 22.04 LTS will be supported for 3 years until April 2025. Our main focus will be on this and future releases.

What’s The Difference Between Lubuntu 22.04 LTS And This Release?

Lubuntu 22.04.4 is a set of images produced for convenience so that a fresh install of the latest Lubuntu LTS does not require as many updates after install. If you do system updates regularly, you are already running Lubuntu 22.04.4 LTS, and if you install Lubuntu on a system using a Lubuntu 22.04 LTS image and do system updates, that system will also then be running Lubuntu 22.04.4 LTS.

This Lubuntu 22.04.4 media also contains the updated HWE 6.5 kernel stack (from Lubuntu 23.10). This enables newer hardware to function more smoothly. Prior 22.04 22.04 media contained only the 5.15 GA kernel stack or now-outdated HWE kernel stacks.

What is Lubuntu?

Lubuntu is an official Ubuntu flavor which uses the LXQt desktop environment. The project’s goal is to provide a lightweight yet functional Linux distribution based on a rock-solid Ubuntu base. Lubuntu provides a simple, 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:

  • LXQt 0.17.0 – more information here.
  • Qt 5.15.3
  • Mozilla Firefox will be shipped as a Snap package with version 122 and will receive updates throughout the support cycle of the release.
  • The LibreOffice 7.3.7 suite.
  • VLC 3.0.16, for viewing media and listening to music.
  • Featherpad 1.0.1, for notes and code editing.
  • Discover Software Center 5.24.7, for an easy, graphical way to install and update software.

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.

Please note: The change of firefox to snap package, results in the browser being slower to start. It does not impact execution or subsequent runs during that session. The reason for this is because setting up the confined environment in which snaps run takes time. This is noticeable on first run especially with live media having improved significantly when compared to prior Lubuntu 22.04 LTS media. The confined environment provides significant security and privacy benefits.

If you’d like to use LXQt 1.4 on your existing, or new Lubuntu 22.04.4 LTS install, then please see how to upgrade it with the use of the Lubuntu Backports PPA.

Upgrading Lubuntu to 22.04 LTS

Notice about upgrading from Lubuntu 20.04 LTS with LXQt

If you are upgrading from Lubuntu 20.04 LTS that has LXQt, this new version uses a different Openbox settings configuration file. If you have customized ~/.config/openbox/lxqt-rc.xml you will want to copy that file to ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml. New installations are not impacted by this change.

New installs of Lubuntu 22.04 LTS no longer include the programs trojita, fcitx and k3b, which will cause those applications to be removed from your existing system on upgrade, unless you mark them as manually installed using the procedure we’ve documented here. You should do this for each of the programs you use, before you perform the upgrade.

For more information about upgrading please visit our manual page that describes the process. In addition, more information about upgrading releases in Ubuntu and all the flavors for the 22.04 release, can be found here.

Where can I download it?

You can download Lubuntu 22.04.4 LTS on our downloads page.

Installer

Lubuntu uses the Calamares system installer in place of the Ubiquity installer that most other flavors use. 22.04 ships with Calamares 3.2.61. For a full/erase disk install, we have added the option of a swapfile by default. The swapfile size is initially set to 512 MB. The option for no swap is still available as a dropdown selection.

For a full description of the new features and fixes, see the upstream announcements for 3.2.61.

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 book 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!

All existing URLs now redirect to https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/. Going forward, the tip of the master branch (WIP documentation for the next release) can be found at https://manual.lubuntu.me/master/, and documentation for Lubuntu 22.04 LTS can be found at https://manual.lubuntu.me/lts/. While the documentation for previous releases will be kept in the Git repository, they will not be published anywhere.

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 any of our chat platforms (preferably Matrix) 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!

In addition, we would also like to recognize some very active contributors on our Discourse forum.

Thank you for contributing to the Lubuntu community!

Global Team

The Lubuntu Global Team has been created to foster communities in non-English languages and locales, and includes Hans Möller, Noumeno, and Jyoti Gomes as the initial drivers of the project. An up-to-date list 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.

We now have multiple languages available in the support section of our Discourse forum.

Resolved Bugs

The original Lubuntu 22.04 LTS media when used to install with a btrfs file-system usually resulted in an unbootable system due to this bug. This did not affect upgraded systems, impacting only new installs using BTRFS file-systems and 22.04 media; this issue will not impact new installs of Lubuntu 22.04.4 LTS.

The lubuntu-update-notifier did not prompt users when configuration files conflicted with installed versions. In addition, if lubuntu-update-notifier was interrupted during an upgrade there was no mechanism to handle that. Further information can be found on our Discourse post.

Libreoffice online help was previously not usable due to a confinement issue with the firefox snap, snapd, and this issue. This has now been resolved.

Known Bugs

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

25 Jan

Lubuntu 23.04 Reaches End-of-Life – Upgrade to 23.10 Now

Lubuntu 23.04 has reached end-of-life as of today, January 25, 2024. It will no longer receive software updates (including security fixes) or technical support. All users are urged to upgrade to Lubuntu 23.10 as soon as possible to stay secure. You can upgrade to Lubuntu 23.10 without reinstalling Lubuntu from scratch by following the official upgrade procedure. Alternatively, you can download Lubuntu 23.10 or Lubuntu 22.04 and do a clean installation if you prefer.

Nine months ago, on April 20th, 2023, Lubuntu 23.04 was released. It shipped a number of new features including an enabled-by-default X compositor (Picom), PipeWire, a new default screensaver, and the latest (at the time) version of LXQt. While the innovation and stability Lubuntu 23.04 provided served us well, it is now time to move on. We are now focusing our support efforts on Lubuntu 23.10 and later, as well as on Lubuntu 22.04 LTS. Lubuntu 23.04 will no longer receive bug or security fixes from the Lubuntu team. Additionally, as the underlying Ubuntu 23.04 packages Lubuntu uses have reached end-of-life, Lubuntu 23.04 will no longer receive updates for any core applications, utilities, or OS components.

Lubuntu features two different types of releases – Long Term Support (LTS) releases and interim releases. Interim releases are supported for only nine months after release, and are primarily for users who are willing or able to upgrade or reinstall frequently in order to get the best that Lubuntu has to offer. Lubuntu 23.04 was an interim release, and is being dropped from Lubuntu support accordingly.

Note that users of Lubuntu 22.04 LTS do not have to take any action at this time. LTS releases are supported for three years from the date of release. We will continue to support Lubuntu 22.04 LTS until April 2025.

If you are still running Lubuntu 23.04, we strongly recommend that you upgrade to Lubuntu 23.10 as soon as possible. You can read about what’s new in Lubuntu 23.10 here. Alternatively, if you are unable to use Lubuntu 23.10, or if you would like to use our LTS releases and avoid frequent upgrades, you can install Lubuntu 22.04 from scratch and enjoy another year of updates and support before having to upgrade again.

Thank you to everyone who uses Lubuntu! If you have problems reinstalling or upgrading, feel free to ask for help via our official support channels. We’re happy to help users having upgrade problems even after Lubuntu 23.04’s end-of-life date. You can find a list of places to reach us by visiting our Links page. We can also be reached via IRC at #lubuntu on Libera.Chat.