The Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing Quokka” beta arrives with some decisions that will surprise long-time users—largely in a good way for most, but with a few gotchas for power users.
The latest interim on the road to the next LTS point release of Ubuntu is now available for download and testing, bringing a number of important improvements, in particular hardware support and security coverage.
A firmer position on privacy and metrics
Retiring Ubuntu Report for Ubuntu Insights.
Ubuntu is retiring the Ubuntu Report, in favour of the consent-based system statistics sharing called Ubuntu Insights. The standard is intended to provide Canonical with a more complete sense of real-world usage — for example, what sort of hardware mixes people have, or which installation choices and session types are popular — without capturing anything that identifies a person. That distinction is crucial: when Ubuntu debuted opt-in metrics tracking in 2018, just over two-thirds of users opted in, with Canonical saying that it offered proof that transparent, purpose-limited data collection can engender trust.
From a practical standpoint, expect a first-run prompt that explains what is collected and why. For those among us under particularly stringent compliance requirements, the opt-in approach and prescriptive scoping will make setting policies simple. And because the goal is aggregate telemetry and not user profiles, there isn’t anything here that’s tied to targeted advertising or behavioral tracking.
Switching to Dracut and what it means for initramfs
Under the hood, Ubuntu 25.10 changes the default initramfs generator from initramfs-tools to Dracut, which is in widespread use in Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
This is a really big deal, despite how mundane it sounds. Its modularity also makes it easier to build boot images that work consistently across diverse hardware, storage stacks and encryption situations, and it has a shorter feedback loop for fixes and features because there are more distributions using it as an upstream project.
For the vast majority of desktop users, this change is hidden — your systems will simply boot. Things get interesting for admins that run their own hooks or if they maintain complicated storage layouts. Dracut expresses logic in a nice modular way; porting these old initramfs-tools scripts would be more of an exercise towards bespoke behavior (like one-off networking on early boot or LUKS setups that were non-standard) and fit within the clear module intentions of Dracut. The benefit is a more straightforward, predictable boot pipeline that looks the same on laptops, workstations and servers.
Default apps receive a GNOME-era refresh
It also rearranges a few defaults so they line up better with where GNOME 49 is heading. This means a stronger focus on newer libadwaita-based applications that are built with performance, accessibility and consistency in screen densities in mind. Long-time hands might also spot a few replacements for some long-familiar stalwarts, as Ubuntu integrates the slimmed-down app set from upstream.
Why change now? Recent GNOME releases have brought faster startup times, better touch and HiDPI behavior, and cleaner design throughout core utilities. It saves maintenance work for Ubuntu, helps to avoid forks that turn into code deserts and provides users with the same polished experience GNOME ships by default. If you were sticking to legacy tools, those are still around in the archives, but your new box experience now should have a more modern GNOME stack there.
Performance and polish improvements you can expect
With Dracut’s smaller initramfs and upstream GNOME improvements, testers can look forward to faster cold boots on certain hardware as well as a more responsive session when using integrated graphics. Canonical usually updates the toolchain, and Mesa in point releases too — it goes a long way to ensure that new GPUs and Wi-Fi chipsets just work without post-install fiddling. While the precise kernel + driver concoction may shift before release, already this beta should feel nicely consistent across hybrid-graphics laptops and recent AMD platforms.
On the packaging side of Ubuntu, we keep trawling the debs/Snap balance. Background updates and staged rollouts limit breakages, while desktop-first snaps — like browsers or editors — get the advantage of sandboxing and seamless updates. For developers, this means less surprise when moving projects between machines or CI runners that follow the interim channel.
Who should test this beta and what to watch for
Interim Ubuntu releases are supported (security updates et al.) for nine months, and they offer some fresh kernels (4.16 instead of 4.15), toolchains and GNOME features.
That’s the beta worth testing if you take on disk encryption at scale, craft your boot logic (like most admin folks do), or depend on particular GNOME extensions — those are the pieces that would likely surface any regressions or behavioral changes.
As is the case with all beta software, be sure to install on non-production hardware or in a virtual machine initially. Take notes on what breaks, hardware oddities, extension hiccups or app compatibility issues and feed it back through Canonical’s usual bug routes. The quicker word of those reports finds its way, the better the final release will be for all.
Bottom line: Ubuntu 25.10’s beta isn’t a huge, flashy overhaul, but it does include some big changes.
A more open telemetry model, modernized boot process and a refreshed default app set collectively make for a release that feels cleaner, quicker and more in step with where the Linux desktop is going.
