The expected arrival of Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS has been pushed back. If you were eagerly anticipating its release, there’s been a delay of one week.
Canonical’s Utkarsh Gupta announced that an “unfortunate incident” occurred during the creation of the Ubuntu 24.04.2 images for flavors, resulting in some being built without the new HWE kernel (Linux 6.11).
The primary purpose of the second Ubuntu point release is the inclusion of a new kernel version. This ensures that the latest long-term support release can boot and support current hardware. While the main Ubuntu ISO included the correct kernel, the flavor images also need to be updated simultaneously.
The Ubuntu installer images are being rebuilt with the proper kernel. Each ISO needs to be retested, and there isn’t enough time to complete this before the original release date of February 13th. Consequently, the team decided to delay the release by one week.
The revised release date for Ubuntu 24.04.2 is February 20th, 2025.
Interestingly, the initial point release was also delayed, as was the beta release earlier in the Noble development cycle.
To prevent similar issues in the future, Gupta stated that the engineering team at Canonical plans to conduct a retrospective analysis.
While this delay might be disappointing for users planning a new Ubuntu 24.04 LTS installation, the Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS ISO remains available for download (with Linux kernel 6.8).
The new HWE stack, featuring Linux 6.11 and a newer Mesa, has begun rolling out to existing Ubuntu 24.04 users, along with an updated base-files package. This update changes the Ubuntu version number to 24.04.2 LTS in the Settings > System panel.
While waiting for the official ISO images, updating the kernel directly offers the quickest solution, followed by manually downloading and installing the updated packages as a more involved approach.
Method 1: Updating Kernel Directly
Step 1: Open your terminal.
Step 2: Update the package list by using the following command.
sudo apt update
Step 3: Upgrade your system to install the latest kernel and related packages.
sudo apt full-upgrade
Step 4: Reboot your system.
sudo reboot
Method 2: Manual Package Download and Installation
Step 1: Identify the updated packages. The key packages include the new kernel (linux-image-*), kernel headers (linux-headers-*), and potentially updated graphics drivers (mesa-*).
Step 2: Download the packages. You can find these packages on the Ubuntu package archive Ubuntu Packages. Search for the packages corresponding to your system architecture and the 24.04 release.
Step 3: Install the downloaded packages.
sudo dpkg -i /path/to/downloaded/package1.deb /path/to/downloaded/package2.deb ...
Replace /path/to/downloaded/package1.deb with the actual path to each downloaded .deb file.
Step 4: Resolve any dependency issues. If you encounter dependency errors during installation, run the following command to attempt to resolve them.
sudo apt-get install -f
Step 5: Reboot your system.
sudo reboot
Despite the slight delay, the updated release is just around the corner, giving us something to anticipate next week. This ensures a smoother experience for users with newer hardware.