The previous version of Lubuntu, like the rest of the official flavors, was an LTS. Canonical and its partners are more conservative in these releases, as could already be seen in a Kubuntu 24.04 that maintained, for the third consecutive version, Plasma 5.27.x. Those supported for nine months are called interim, that is, "provisional" releases that are supported for a shorter time and in which they risk more. Lubuntu 24.10 has benefited For this.
Available since a few hours ago, Lubuntu 24.10 Oracular Oriole includes important changes, since they have raised its graphical environment to that of LXQt 2.0, and they have also uploaded the library on which Qt6 is based. All -buntu share the same base, and the main difference is precisely in these components in which Lubuntu 24.10 has advanced so much.
What's new in Lubuntu 24.10
- Supported for 9 months, until July 2025.
- Linux 6.11.
- LXQt 2.0.0, where most of the changes remain:
- LXQt Panel has a new default app menu called Fancy Menu, which includes “Favorites,” “All Apps,” and improved search.
- QTerminal is the only application whose port to Qt6 will be published separately, as complications occurred due to the removal of legacy encodings in Qt6. Until then, its Qt5 1.4.0 version can be used.
- Full support for Wayland has been added to LXQt Runner and LXQt Desktop Notifications.
- Fancy Menu is added as the application's new default menu. (The old menu remains, but it is no longer the default menu).
- Added Wayland support for positioning the panel using the shell layer.
- Qt 6.6.2.
- What it shares with Plasma, like the Discover software store, is now at v6.1.5.
- Applications updated to new versions, such as LibreOffice 24.8.1.2 and Firefox 130 which will be updated after installing the operating system.
- APT 3.0, with new image.
- Open SSL 3.3.
- systemd v256.5.
- Netplan v1.1.
- OpenJDK 21 by default, but OpenJDK 23 available as an option.
- .NET 9.
- GCC 14.2.
- binutils 2.43.1.
- glubc 2.40.
- Python 3.12.7.
- LLVM 19.
- Rust 1.80.
- golang 1.23.
Wayland will have to wait and new theme
Work was being done on Wayland for a long time, and although it seemed close last April — for 24.04 — the goal was to reach the newly released 24.10. There was no time for that either. Both LXQt 1.4 and 2.0 had problems using Wayland, so they have decided not to use it by default in Oracular Oriole. LXQt 2.1 is expected to include full Wayland support and they will try again in Lubuntu 25.04.
As for the theme, until recently they have been using a KDE Plasma theme. It worked well, but in the past there were some incompatibilities with LXQt that have reappeared. The decision has been made to use the themes from Kvantum, whose main developer is also one of the main developers of LXQt. The new theme, simply called “Lubuntu”, is based on KvArch, the Kvantum theme, and has been modified to look like the old theme.
Now available
Lubuntu 24.10 It is now available, and can be downloaded from the following button. In case it fails, its official page is lubuntu.me. Updates from the same operating system will be activated in the next few hours/days.