UWN Issue 959 August 23-29 2026.

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 959 for the week of August 23 - 29, 2026.

In this Issue

  • Stonking Stingray (to be 26.10) is in Feature Freeze
  • Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS released
  • Ubuntu Stats
  • Hot in Support
  • Other Meeting Reports
  • Upcoming Meetings and Events
  • Ubuntu Circles! (LoCo) News
  • Event Report - Pyday Namibe - Angola 2026
  • UbuCon Asia 2026 @ COSCUP: Event Report
  • Ubuntu Circles! (LoCo) Events
  • Checkbox 7.4.0 stable release
  • First look: Lustre for Charmed HPC
  • What happened to Ubuntu(Preview)?
  • Making local LLM behaviour visible with OpenTelemetry and COS Lite
  • Other Community News
  • Ubuntu Cloud News
  • In the Press
  • In the Blogosphere
  • Other Articles of Interest
  • Featured Audio and Video
  • Updates and Security for Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04, and 26.04
  • And much more!

General Community News

Stonking Stingray (to be 26.10) is in Feature Freeze

Paride Legovini alerts developers that Ubuntu stonking entered feature freeze on 20 August 2026. We’re reminded this changes the focus of development to bug fixing. Paride gives links and more to remind people about freeze exceptions, if required.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2026-August/001397.html

Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS released

Utkarsh Gupta, on behalf of the Ubuntu Release team, announces the release of Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS. We’re given details of the release, the flavors that also have releases, and more; including links to download it for our new installs. A note is included for existing users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS warning them that rust-coreutils backports will be completed prior to them being offered an upgrade.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-26-04-1-lts-released/86808

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

  • Open: 137502 (+53)
  • Critical: 306 (0)
  • Unconfirmed: 73241 (+54)

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started, please see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

Translations

  • Swedish: 99.99% (38/1202)
  • Albanian: 94.12% (22406/0)
  • Ukrainian: 89.05% (41729/1115)
  • German: 87.01% (49519/288)
  • French: 85.92% (53644/6451)

Hot in Support

Ubuntu Community Discourse Trending Top 5 Threads

Find more support at: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/support-and-help/306

Ask Ubuntu Top Questions

Ask (and answer!) questions at: https://askubuntu.com/

Other Meeting Reports

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Times shown are UTC unless otherwise specified. For more details and further dates please visit: https://ubuntu.com/community | https://discourse.ubuntu.com/upcoming-events

Ubuntu Circles! (LoCo) News

Event Report - Pyday Namibe - Angola 2026

Filipe Malaquias gives us an event report for PyDay Namibe; held on August 23, 2026 by the Python Angola Community, ASM Tour, and Okukulisa. Along with some photos, details of who presented the topics of some of the talks, and more are presented. The sponsors (ASM Tours, and Okukulisa) are highlighted, with thanks given to the Port of Namibe Authority.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/event-report-pyday-namibe-angola-2026/86702/

UbuCon Asia 2026 @ COSCUP: Event Report

Aaditya Singh provides us with an event report on UbuCon Asia 2026 which was co-located with COSCUP in Taipei Taiwan (August 8-9, 2026). This is a somewhat extensive report, containing photos, that walks us through the day’s events and more. Thanks are given to a number of people including Khairul Aizat Kamarudzzaman, Aaditya Yadav, and Sailesh Singh (when a laptop died), the Ubuntu Community Donations that helped fund travel, organizers, and more.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubucon-asia-2026-coscup-event-report/86733

Ubuntu Circles! (LoCo) Events

The following LoCo team events are currently scheduled in the next two weeks:

Looking beyond the next two weeks? Visit the respective Circles!/LoCo Team calendar to browse upcoming events.

Please also see:

The Hub

Checkbox 7.4.0 stable release

Massimiliano Girardi informs us of Checkbox 7.4.0 being available via PPA or snap (stable channel). We’re briefly told of changes, given a list of the changes and fixes. We’re given a reminder on updates and advised that any testing sessions we have should be closed, and more.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/checkbox-7-4-0-stable-release/86624

First look: Lustre for Charmed HPC

Dominic Sloan-Murphy tells us the HPC team is developing a new lustre-server charm. We’re reminded why this is useful, with links so we can learn more too. The post then moves to the approach taken with the lustre-server charm. This is a detailed post, with many links: (including to demos), where we can find this charm, where issues can be reported: the Ubuntu HPC Matrix channel, weekly Ubuntu HPC community call, and more.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/first-look-lustre-for-charmed-hpc/86680

What happened to Ubuntu(Preview)?

Carlos Nihelton informs us that the Ubuntu team has deprecated the Microsoft Store application format, which is the reason [newer] apps are harder to find on the Microsoft Store. We’re given some details of how the Microsoft Store works, and thus why users can find different apps based on their login. Next covered is the default Ubuntu app found on the Microsoft Store, and the wsl.exe --install method (unchanged except for Ubuntu(Preview)). Carlos reminds us of the tar-based distribution method now used & introduced in late 2024. We’re told of benefits, and given links for more, too.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/what-happened-to-ubuntu-preview/86714

Making local LLM behaviour visible with OpenTelemetry and COS Lite

Shardul Deshpande touches on local large language models and poor experiences, with the purpose of this post being exploring “signals through OpenTelemetry and bring[ing] them together in COS Lite and Tempo”. This is a detailed post, and whilst the example uses specific tools, the ideas should adapt to other architectures. Flowcharts are provided to help us understand, with many links, too.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/making-local-llm-behaviour-visible-with-opentelemetry-and-cos-lite/86709

Other Community News

German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB):The Ubuntu User Workspace (UNA)

This Github link (in German) tells us of the Ubuntu User Workplace (UNA); which is a new research workstation tool found at Technical Information Library (TIB) locations. The link, to the readme page covering Biblio PC web application, gives us details of how we can use it, with it intended to be used with Ubuntu.

https://github.com/TIBHannover/BiblioPC

Ubuntu Cloud News

In the Press

Canonical backs quest to translate mountains of C into safe Rust with AI

Liam Proven writes about Canonical’s “co-funding a three-year PhD project investigating whether” AI can “translate large C codebases into” Rust. With a link to Jon Seager’s blog on the topic [see UWN 958], we’re given details on this subject; Liam provides comment that he appreciates this evidence based approach being used here.

https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/08/24/canonical-backs-quest-to-translate-mountains-of-c-into-safe-rust-with-ai/5290959

In the Blogosphere

Ubuntu 24.04 gets a big open-vm-tools update

Joey Sneddon informs us of a major update to open-vmtools that is rolling out to users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. With a link to the SRU update by Lena Voytek, we’re told it’s a “full backport from Ubuntu 26.04 LTS”. Links are provided, with Joey providing some discussion on its benefits.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/ubuntu-2404-open-vm-tools-update

OpenSSL 4.0.2 Released with Important Security and Bug Fixes

Marcus Nestor alerts us to OpenSSL 4.0.2 being released that fixes a number of security vulnerabilities. We’re given the CVEs fixed (numerous) with some discussion on each. Marcus also tells us of the release of OpenSSL 3.6.4, OpenSSL 3.5.8, OpenSSL 3.4.7, and OpenSSL 3.0.22 with their fixes, and provides a link to the project’s GitHub page.

https://9to5linux.com/openssl-4-0-2-released-with-important-security-and-bug-fixes

Happy 35th Birthday, Linux!

Marcus Nestor wishes Linux “Happy Birthday” as it was 35 years ago on August 25, 1991 that Linus Torvalds made his famous “announcement” on the comp.os.minix newsgroup.

https://9to5linux.com/happy-35th-birthday-linux

LibreOffice 26.8 Open-Source Office Suite Officially Released, This Is What’s New

Marcus Nestor writes this time about the release of LibreOffice 26.8 by the Document Foundation. We’re told it’s a major cross-platform update, and also told of some of the highlights we’ll find in this release, in some detail too. This is a somewhat lengthy post, but Marcus did say it was a major update. We’re given links so we can download it in binary or source tarball format.

https://9to5linux.com/libreoffice-26-8-open-source-office-suite-officially-released-this-is-whats-new

Hands-on with Ubuntu’s new AI voice typing feature

Joey Sneddon informs us of his trial of Ubuntu’s new AI voice typing ‘Myna’ feature. Joey reminds us it’s a feature we’ll find in Ubuntu 26.10, with his trial using an ‘early build’. We’re told how it’ll work and of the GNOME extension, reminded the extension is not a GNOME Project supported extension, but that it’s useful in telling you when Myna is listening. An embedded video shows us Joey’s words appearing in a text editor as a dictation demonstration. Links are given for more details, as well as some commentary on the topic. We’re also reminded that this feature is optional & not a default.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/testing-ubuntu-ai-voice-dictation

Other Articles of Interest

Featured Audio and Video

Ubuntu OnAir: Mir Office Hours 26th August 2026

Agenda: Actions from previous meeting, Mike: question about generating manpages, Mir 2.29 Release, Miriway 26.08: Mir 2.29 API changes and Snap moves to base: core26 @alan_g, Rust Mir APIs: @matthew-kosarek, Marius: Hardware layers for nested setups?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX1rFYYpXI8 | Notes: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/mir-office-hours-2026-08-26-15-15utc/86410/2

Updates and Security for Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04, and 26.04

Security Updates

Ubuntu 22.04 Updates

End of Standard Support: April 2027

Ubuntu 24.04 Updates

End of standard support: April 2029

Ubuntu 26.04 Updates

End of Standard Support: April 2031

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