Ubuntu 24.04 LTS “Noble Numbat”: Best New Features

This article showcases the best features of the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release.

Canonical announced the release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, code named “Noble Numbat” on April 25, 2024.

Being a “Long term support” release, a lot is at stake. All the features, packages, modules are carefully chosen so that it remains stable until five years, i.e. July 2029. Overall, the feature set mostly at behind the scene, making it a more secure and stronger release.

In the following section, we will touch upon the best key features of this version, primarily focussing on the desktop variant.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS: Best New Features

Linux Kernel

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS features the latest mainline Kernel 6.8 which is available at the moment as per the schedule of this release. Linux Kernel 6.8 brings latest CPU, GPU and other hardware line-up updates. Key features include Intel GPU Xe driver, improved task scheduler, protection mode for block devices and more. You can learn more about the features of this Kernel in our feature guide.

Desktop Installer Updates

Perhaps the most visual change you notice is the new Ubuntu desktop installer. The new Ubuntu installer, which debuted earlier, received massive change across the installation steps. It also brings subtle nice graphics to give a new look and feel right from the beginning of the installation.

Here’s a quick tour of the installation screens. So, the first screen surprisingly shows you an accessibility screen, which is neat. I don’t remember any other Linux distro installation gives you accessibility options at the very beginning. This is cool.

Second, Ubuntu 24.04 offers you with two installation options. A standard “interactive installation” like before and an automated installation. If you choose automated installation, you need to specify an YAML file URL of yours, which the installer will use to install Ubuntu. This is very helpful for those enterprises who want to deploy custom installation of Ubuntu in bulk.

The interactive installation options give you two new options. A minimal install option with basic stuff such as web browser and minimal utilities. The Extended selection option installs a complete Ubuntu desktop with LibreOffice and other essential apps.

It’s worth mentioning that the desktop Ubuntu ISO size officially crossed 5 GB+ in this release, which is I feel massive. Remember, we used to have ~2 GB ISO images? That said, the minimal install option takes about ~8 GB of disk space for the default install.

These are the highlight improvements of the installer.

GNOME 46

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS features the latest and greatest GNOME 46 desktop environment. GNOME 46, which was released a few days back from now, brings several performance upgrades to its core modules and native apps.

Key highlights include, a Global search in Files which allows you to find files faster. Also, Files brings performance improvements, and you should feel it snappier than before.

In addition, the settings app undergone a facelift with many items are reorganized in their respective portals. Key updates on the settings app:

• A new System page is introduced which combines the date & time, region, users, about pages separately. For this result, those individual pages are now removed. Here’s a side by side comparison.
• The app page is revamped to show the list of apps in the default view, which includes the default app section.
• You can now customize the secondary click option when supported by your Mouse. This is one of the settings is implemented from GNOME Tweaks tool.
• The mouse test window is revamped with clicks and scrolls, and it looks stunning.
• The remote login moves away from the sharing panel to the system panel.

If you are keen to learn more about the GNOME 46 features, visit our dedicated release highlights page.

New App Center

Canonical introduces a new software app “App Center” in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, replacing GNOME Software. The new app looks similar to GNOME Software, but it customized to be used for Ubuntu and favours Snap packages.

The App Center lists only apps from Ubuntu’s Snap store. Surprisingly, none of the apps listed shows the type whether it is a native debian package or Snap. And of course, you can’t see any Flatpak apps or configure it to list Flatpak apps at the moment.

In addition, you can also upgrade Ubuntu directly from the App Center and view system snap packages and a status of your Ubuntu system.

It feels like a closed garden, since only a few apps available as Snap, considering Flathub which has the largest collection of open-source apps.

Netplan

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS includes Netplan 1.0, a powerful tool for managing networks that works on both Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server. This new version has many improvements for complicated networking settings, better integration with NetworkManager, new commands for the CLI, and better instructions.

It works like a wrapper around NetworkManager and lets you create, edit, and apply configurations with NetworkManager.

NVMe-Over-TCP Drives for installation

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS now supports root file-system setups on NVMe-over-TCP scenarios for remote drives.

This was under development for many months, which is the extension of NVMe over TCP/IP networks using standard Ethernet. NVMe/TCP can be used to create large NVMe storage pools for use in data centers.

Performance tools

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS brings various performance tools into Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to enhance hardware/software performance, aid in debugging/profiling issues, and make Ubuntu an excellent choice for performance engineers. The suggested tools include bpfcc-tools, bpftrace, trace-cmd, sysroute, iproute2, and others, with a “performance-tools” metapackage for easy installation.

This is the main reason for the ISO size being over 5 GB which I stated above. For instance, bpfcc-tools alone add 43MB to the ISO and 206MB to the install size, while bpftrace adds another 80MB and 367MB.

Nonetheless, it’s a great addition for those mad about the performance of Ubuntu on modern hardware.

Flavour updates

Ubuntu LTS release is incomplete without our community flavours!

As always, all the official Ubuntu flavours bring their latest versions and improvements in this release.

Here’s a quick summary:

Kubuntu 24.04 LTS: If you are a fan of KDE Plasma, you might be disappointed to know that Plasma 6 is not available in this release due to many regressions. So, you are stuck with KDE Plasma 5.27+ version in Kubuntu 24.04. However, you might expect Plasma 6 as a backport PPA at a later stage of the LTS lifecycle.

Xubuntu 24.04 LTS will feature Xfce 4.18 version, which is the current release at the moment. Other than that, Ubuntu Budgie, MATE and others did not have any major release in the recent past. So, all the Ubuntu 23.10 updates will carry over to the new LTS release.

Application Updates

The key Ubuntu apps and packages are also bumped up to their new version:

• LibreOffice 7.6
• Firefox (snap) 124
• Python 3.12.2

Download

Final release ISO images & torrents for this release are present in the below table for the base version and all flavours.

Closing notes

These are the basic desktop updates for this release. There are many improvements for Ubuntu server, cloud images and other areas. You can read about those in detail in the official change log (link below).

For the Ubuntu desktop users, it would be a stable release without many fancy features. The performance feels faster than the earlier Ubuntu releases, including the Firefox Snap. The team definitely worked on the perceived slowness of Ubuntu.

Via Change log

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