Ubuntu Budgie 24.10 now available with a refined desktop

Strange enough, while Ubuntu 24.10 was unveiled yesterday, the Budgie flavor was uncovered on October 7th. Ubuntu Budgie 24.10 (Oracular Oriole) arrives as a Standard Release that gets nine months of support, both from Canonical and distro maintainers. While an internal Wayland-based distro is already undergoing testing, the aforementioned release only refines the Budgie desktop and prepares the distro for its shift to the communication protocol that aims to replace X11.

Without further ado, these are the highlights of Ubuntu Budgie 24.10:

• Applets and mini-apps receive multiple translations, while the third-party budgie-sysmonitor-applet gets new sensors and changes, being updated to 0.10.2.
• Version 10.9.2 of the Budgie desktop comes with multiple fixes, improved interaction with Terminal-based apps, as well as support for libxfce4windowing 4.19.3 in vapi.
• Updated Welcome app for both 24.04 and 24.10 users.
• Default terminal Tilix was replaced with xfce4-terminal due to the lack of an active maintainer.

In addition to the above, Ubuntu Budgie 24.10 also comes with updated wallpapers (including the anniversary LTS backgrounds), support for JXL image files (JPEG-XL) alongside Apple HEIF images, and drops the X11 plank dock. 

While Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS users will not be prompted to upgrade automatically, they can choose to do so manually. However, that will shorten the support period of their current setup and might also reduce its stability.

Those who are just getting started, as well as those who are thinking about entering the Linux world, might want to grab Nathan Clark's Linux for Beginners: Why You're Not Using Linux Yet and How to Overcome Command Line Fear. This book is available for free with Kindle Unlimited, $2.99 to buy in Kindle format, and $19.99 when choosing the paperback version.