We are proud to announce version 24.10.1 of Subiquity, supported on Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS, and Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS. Subiquity 24.10.1 is included in the Ubuntu 24.10 live-server ISO, and is now live on the stable channel as a snap refresh for the other supported ISOs. Also, Ubuntu Desktop Bootstrap on Ubuntu 24.10 includes this same version of Subiquity.
What's new in Subiquity 24.10.1
Snap channels now used, and changes to how feature releases work
Since Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, the release model for Subiquity was to release new features in the devel release, and merge those new feature updates along with bug fixes in the chronologically following LTS point release. This model was used up to, and including, Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS.
Starting in 24.10, Snap tracks are now implemented, and a longer-lived maintenance branch will exist per Snap track. For example, Subiquity on 24.10 tracks the 24.10/stable channel, which means that the Subiquity refresh functionality to look for installer updates now looks at 24.10/stable instead of latest/stable. This model will also be applied to Ubuntu 24.04.2 and later releases.
Further, updates to these stable releases will follow the process documented in the Policy on 3rd-party software sources included by Ubuntu . This means that updates for existing Ubuntu releases will be more focused on bug fixes, and only selected feature updates will be backported, in line with Ubuntu Stable Relase Updates.
When installing from a track managed release, users interested in testing new features or have other reason to use a different version can control the installer version with the channel config in autoinstall, along with the kernel command line option subiquity-channel, or the snap refresh command line.
New releases will continue to be issued to latest/stable, which pre-24.10 install ISOs will continue to look at by default. latest/edge remains the location in which the latest development builds are published.
Reduction in ISO size and install speed improvement
Install ISOs with Subiquity installers are now smaller than previous releases due to improvements in how the Linux kernel, and associated firmware packages, are included in the ISO.
This also makes the install faster - in previous ISOs, the kernel is installed with apt after the install image is rsynced to the target system, and now the kernel is included in the install image, skipping that apt step.
Installing an OEM kernel, or specifying a custom kernel to install by way of autoinstall remains supported in Ubuntu 24.10 and later ISOs. This works by removing the preinstalled kernel in favor of the configured one.
Example ISO sizes, reflecting both kernel location and other release changes:
| Ubuntu 24.04.1 | Ubuntu 24.10 | |
|---|---|---|
| Server | 2.6GiB | 2.0GiB |
| Desktop | 5.7GiB | 5.3GiB |
Prototype NVMe-over-TCP support
Ubuntu 24.10 has prototype support for NVMe-over-TCP. Please see the Introducing the NVMe/TCP PoC with Ubuntu Server 24.10 discourse post about it for details.
Kernel crash dumps by default
Starting with Ubuntu 24.10, kernel crash dumps will be enabled by default on supported machines. Please see the section on kernel crash dumps in the Ubuntu Server documentation for details on minimum system requirements.
The behavior for pre-24.10 ISOs will remain disabled by default, even with a refresh to the latest Subiquity version. The enablement behavior can be manually configured via the new kernel-crash-dumps autoinstall section.
Improved autoinstall validation tooling
We have introduced a new autoinstall validator that can be used to pre-validate autoinstall data. The new autoinstall validator performs similar validation compared to what is done in the installer environment, with the goal of improving the overall experience when iterating on or debugging different autoinstall configurations. Please see the new Autoinstall Validation how-to guide for usage details and current limitations.
Bugfixes
Subiquity extends and includes all fixes found in Subiquity 24.08.1 and earlier releases.
- LP: #2083322 (PR: #2094) - Fix an issue where, when preserving some partitions on a disk, partitions that were intended to be deleted would be accidentally preserved.
- LP: #2081738 (PR: #2092) - Fix an issue with the symptom "Partition ... is not in list" where available free space was not able to be used.
- LP: #2073378 (PR: #2031) - Fix more cases of an issue where guided partitioning scenarios would be offered when using a MSDOS partition table and we don't have enough additional primary partitions remaining for that install to be successful.
- LP: #2080608 (PR: #2083) - Support match directives with
use_gap. - LP: #2080918 (PR: #2085) - Fix a UI crash that could occur when cloud-config was supplied with invalid top-level keys
- (PR: #2050) - Fix an issue where, when doing autoinstall, arbitrary disk selection would be inconsistent across different installs to the same hardware.
- (PR: #2048) - Fix and issue where the back button wasn't available when reaching the storage screen and no disks were visible. If a disk can be added dynamically, this back button allows rescanning for the disks and continuing the install.
Known issues
- ZFS with Encryption on Ubuntu 24.10 will fail to activate the cryptoswap partition. This affects both new installs and upgrades. We expect to address this post-release with an archive update.
New Contributors
- @aim-nara made their first contribution in #2012
- @upils made their first contribution in #1990
- @GlitchWitch made their first contribution in #2059
- @binli made their first contribution in #2081
Full Changelog: 24.08.1...24.10.1
