Canonical Releases Official Ubuntu Desktop and Xubuntu RISC-V Images Ahead of 26.10 Launch

Canonical has taken a significant step forward in bringing the open-source RISC-V architecture into the mainstream desktop computing ecosystem. With the development cycle of Ubuntu 26.10 underway, the company has begun producing official riscv64 desktop images, making the installation of a full graphical operating system on modern RISC-V hardware considerably more straightforward than ever before.

Experimental versions of these upcoming Ubuntu 26.10 ISOs are currently available for testing and evaluation. These early builds target the SpacemiT K3 hardware platform, representing the fruits of a close collaborative engineering effort between Canonical and silicon vendor SpacemiT. Out of the gate, testers have two distinct flavors to choose from. One ISO ships with the standard GNOME desktop environment, providing the quintessential modern Ubuntu experience, while the other is built around a lean Xubuntu minimal configuration, catering to developers and hardware setups that prioritize efficiency.

Valentin Haudiquet of Canonical announced the availability of these new images via official community channels, emphasizing that both ISOs are firmly categorized as "experimental" and carry "no official support" at this early stage. Because these are pre-release builds, they do not yet work flawlessly and contain known issues. These bugs and rough edges are actively being addressed by engineers as part of the stabilization cycle leading up to the final release of Ubuntu 26.10, which is scheduled to arrive on October 15, 2026.

Why are there two images?

The decision to offer two distinct desktop variants stems from the unique realities of the current RISC-V hardware and software landscape. RISC-V hardware adhering to the modern RVA23 baseline specification remains relatively new and is actively maturing. Consequently, many software developers who want to experiment with, test, or develop for the RISC-V architecture do not yet have physical developer boards on their desks. Instead, they rely heavily on emulation tools like QEMU.

Running a full-fledged desktop environment like GNOME inside an emulator can be resource-intensive, with load times stretching up to thirty minutes in certain virtualized environments. To alleviate this bottleneck and provide a responsive testing mechanism, the lighter Xubuntu minimal image offers a much quicker, more resource-friendly alternative for developers working within emulated environments.

On actual physical hardware, however, the narrative is markedly different. The GNOME image is reported to deliver a remarkably performant desktop experience. Given the recent, rapid leaps and bounds in RISC-V hardware capabilities and silicon maturity, this performance milestone is an encouraging indicator for the future viability of the architecture as a daily driver.

Reaching this stage has required extensive foundational engineering across various layers of the Ubuntu stack. Part of this monumental effort involved adding robust RISC-V support to Flutter, a crucial component since many modern Ubuntu applications—including the operating system’s graphical installer—rely on the framework. Despite these advances, a few desktop snaps are not yet fully RISC-V ready, most notably the App Center, which continues to undergo porting and optimization work.

Furthermore, engineering teams had to implement critical modifications to livecd-rootfs to properly handle device trees. Ubuntu’s underlying build pipeline also required significant adaptation to successfully generate the brand-new riscv64 ISOs from scratch, ensuring they integrate seamlessly into Canonical’s automated release infrastructure.

But weren’t RISC-V tablets sold with Ubuntu on?

The introduction of these new ISOs marks a major evolution in how Canonical supports the architecture, but it is not the first time Ubuntu has targeted RISC-V. Server-grade installation images for the architecture have been available for several years. Advanced users and administrators could previously download these server images and manually install a graphical desktop environment on top of them. This long-standing practice continued even after Canonical raised the Instruction Set Architecture profile requirement to RVA23, a decision made to focus engineering efforts exclusively on newer, higher-performance silicon boards.

Despite the availability of server images, official installation images featuring a preinstalled desktop environment directly from Canonical were previously non-existent. Over the past few years, various hardware partners have worked closely with Canonical to establish Ubuntu RISC-V support. Many of these companies have successfully manufactured and commercialized RISC-V tablets, laptops, and single-board computers that ship with Ubuntu preinstalled out of the box. However, because official desktop ISOs were lacking, these manufacturers were frequently forced to build, maintain, and host their own custom recovery and installation images for their customers.

The arrival of official desktop images resolves this historical gap. Developers and enthusiasts can now acquire official desktop images for modern 64-bit RISC-V hardware designed around the RVA23 baseline and beyond, downloading them directly from the exact same infrastructure used for traditional Intel, AMD, and Arm64 architectures.

For users who prefer the stability of a Long Term Support release, Canonical has also made an Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS riscv64 desktop ISO available. While this LTS build provides a stable foundation, it does not yet include support for the SpacemiT K3 board, though Haudiquet has indicated that support for the K3 will be arriving for the LTS branch soon.

Developers and hardware enthusiasts interested in testing the bleeding edge can download the experimental Ubuntu 26.10 desktop RISC-V image directly from the daily builds folder on Canonical’s official CD image repository. Those looking for the lighter footprint can find the corresponding Xubuntu 26.10 RISC-V image located within the Xubuntu daily minimal build archives.