Malte Steiner is going to show art works from 2017 - 2026 at his exhibition Assorted Realities at XM3 Aalborg (DK) from 24. June - 27. June 

The GStreamer team is pleased to announce another bug fix release in the new stable 1.28 release series of your favourite cross-platform multimedia framework!

This release only contains bug fixes as well as a number of security fixes. It should be safe to update from 1.28.x, and we recommend you do so at your earliest convenience.

Highlighted bugfixes:

• Various security fixes and playback fixes
• audioaggregator: fixes for conversion of in-progress buffers when input caps change
• audioresample: more armv7 fixes
• camerabin: Fix caps negotiation failure when starting video capture
• Debug logging performance improvements
• fmp4mux: Fix draining in chunk mode after partial GOPs were drained
• gldownload: fix handling of directly imported dmabufs from glupload
• matroskamux: Write ReferenceBlock for non-keyframe video in BlockGroups
• rtp2: session: add "stats" property
• rtspsrc2: handle parse errors with TCP interleaved more gracefully where the server just drops data
• rtspsrc2: implement support for SRTP, authentication, HTTP tunnelling, keep alive, stream selection, TLS validation, latency configuration
• st2038combiner: only forward video pad segment, fixing issues for cases where the ST2038 segment differs
• Wavpack audio: Various channel and channel-mask related fixes
• webrtc, sdp: set level in negotiated caps only if level asymmetry not allowed, fixing an H.264 negotiation regression with higher resolutions
• androidmedia: add various new codec mime / profile mappings (WMV, VC1, AC3/EAC3/AC4, AAC, H265) and support decoding FLAC
• d3d12decoder: Fix decoding on Qualcomm GPUs on ARM64 Windows
• wasapi2src: fix hang when using loopback-target-pid (regression from 1.26)
• cerbero: update to Rust 1.96, plus glib-networking OpenSSL backend fixes
• Various bug fixes, build fixes, memory leak fixes, and other stability and reliability improvements

See the GStreamer 1.28.4 release notes for more details.

Binaries for Android, iOS, Mac OS X and Windows will be available shortly and will be published on the Downloads page.

TMS (Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen and Malte Steiner) are performing their piece Occurrences at Linux Audio Conference 2026 at University Maynooth Ireland 19. June 2026
and a concert 15. August 2026 at Sydhavnens Festival Aarhus (DK)

The GStreamer team is pleased to announce another bug fix release in the new stable 1.28 release series of your favourite cross-platform multimedia framework!

This release only contains bug fixes as well as a number of security fixes. It should be safe to update from 1.28.x, and we recommend you do so at your earliest convenience.

Highlighted bugfixes:

• Various security fixes and playback fixes
• applemedia: vtdec stability, MoltenVK integration and planar video format handling fixes
• audioresample: Fix regression on armv7hf
• bpmdetect: Fixes for stereo and multi-channel modes
• devicemonitor: wait for start thread to finish when listing devices so all the info is there for e.g. v4l2 provider
• fallbacksrc: Add fallback-source and enable-dummy properties
• nvidia: fix cudaconvert performance regression and nvdec device creation regression
• opengl: add GBRA swizzle support, and fix glcolorconvert vertical flip issue on crop
• rtspsrc: include user-agent property in HTTP tunnel requests and fix mikey regression
• threadshare: add leaky mode to dataqueue-based elements
• v4l2: fix negotiation error when trying to force stateful decoders to output dmabufs
• webrtcsink: Add support imx8mp vpuenc_hevc hardware H.265 encoder
• cerbero: Extend gst-plugins-rs melding to Darwin platforms for smaller binary sizes and static linking improvements
• inno Windows installer fixes, including silent install mode via the command line
• macOS: provide script to allow uninstalling the package; relocate absolute paths to Python.framework in wheels
• Various bug fixes, build fixes, memory leak fixes, and other stability and reliability improvements

See the GStreamer 1.28.3 release notes for more details.

Binaries for Android, iOS, Mac OS X and Windows will be available shortly and will be published on the Downloads page.

For as many speakers as someone can cram into a surround sound system, humans still (generally) only have two ears to listen to those sounds with. This means that, for recording purposes, it’s possible to create incredibly vivid three-dimensional sounds with just two microphones, provided that there’s an actual physical replica of a human ear attached to each microphone. This helps ensure that all the qualities of the sounds are preserved in a way a real human would experience them, and as [David Green] demonstrates, these systems don’t need to be very expensive.

This build doesn’t just use models of human ears for recording sounds through. The silicone ears are mounted on a styrofoam mannequin head as well, which provides some sound isolation between the two microphones, much like a real human head. The ears are mounted in appropriate locations with the microphones installed inside, and the entire microphone apparatus is positioned on a PVC rig with a camera so that binaural audio will be recorded for anything [David] points it at.

Although he had some issues interfacing two microphones using 19th-century technology instead of soldering everything together, the build still eventually came together, and only for around $70 USD. However, this build is a bit dated now, so prices may have changed by now. It’s still a great way to produce realistic stereo sound without breaking the bank, but it’s not the only way of getting this job done.

This project is perhaps the single most passive-aggressive thing we’ve ever seen on this site: rather than tell someone directly to ‘shut up’, [Blytical]’s speech jammer lets you hack their brain from across the room to stop them from speaking. It’s also a bit of an object lesson in why you shouldn’t just copy reference implementations without careful study — by his own implementation, [Blytical] was forced to learn a lot more than he intended going into this project.

The brain hack behind it is called ‘delayed auditory feedback’: by feeding their speech back to the target with a short delay — only 50 to 200 ms — it creates a confounding effect that is apparently very difficult to speak through. The array of ultrasound transducers is used to accurately aim the audio by serving as an inaudible, low-spread carrier wave, as we saw in another project this year. A shotgun mike picks up the audio from the speaker you wish to harass, and an array of audio processing circuitry takes care of the rest.

That’s where problems happen, as [Blytical] admits he just tossed some reference implementations onto a PCB without bothering to think too hard about what he was doing. It’s the datasheet version of vibe coding, and it usually goes about as well — sometimes perfectly, but rarely without a lot of troubleshooting. That troubleshooting is really, really hard when you don’t quite understand why things were laid out the way they were on the datasheet. We don’t blame [Blytical], you can learn a lot when you bite off more than you can chew. The fact that he risked this failure mode rather than do the whole thing in software with a Pi says good things about how he’s conducting his education.

It’s a shame, though, because we’ve been waiting to see another one of these speech jammers in action for quite some time. Perhaps someone will try again; the ultrasonic array portion seems solved, so if the delay circuit was the problem, perhaps a tiny tape loop would suffice.

Ubuntu Studio’s web presence has been spread across several Canonical-hosted systems for a long time: the main website on an old Canonical web server, the Ubuntu Community Help Wiki at help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio, and the Ubuntu Developer Wiki at wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio. Those platforms served their purpose, but each had become a poor fit for how the project actually works today.

What’s Moving

The main Ubuntu Studio website has already moved away from Canonical hosting and onto its current home. That move was driven by necessity: Canonical shut down the old web server that had hosted the site, so Ubuntu Studio needed a new home for its primary web presence. This has been a mostly transparent process and most users would never have noticed a difference.

The Community Help Wiki — the place where users have always gone to find answers about audio configuration, hardware support, the Audio Handbook, and getting started with Ubuntu Studio — is being mirrored and maintained directly on ubuntustudio.org at /help/. Every page you’re used to is coming with us: the Pro Audio Intro, the Ubuntu Studio Audio Handbook and all its chapters, the FAQ, hardware support information, terminal basics, troubleshooting guides, and community information. Most of this is outdated now, and we need help to bring it up to modernization.

The Developer Wiki — home to the team’s internal processes, release planning, testing documentation, artwork resources, and packaging and development notes — is moving to ubuntustudio.org at /wiki/. The full section structure is preserved: Testing, PR & Support, Artwork, Packaging/Development, Documentation, and Organization are all there. This information is also outdated.

Why Now

The website move and the wiki move do not have exactly the same origin.

For the main website, the trigger was straightforward: Canonical shut down the old web server that hosted it. Ubuntu Studio had to move the site in order to keep a public home on the web.

For the help and developer wikis, the issue was the editing experience and maintenance burden. The old MoinMoin-based wiki workflow is cumbersome, slow, and awkward to work with. Its markup is not standard Markdown, which makes editing, reviewing, and migrating content more difficult than it should be. Over time, that friction made it harder to keep pages current, fix outdated instructions, and encourage casual contributors to improve documentation.

Meanwhile, ubuntustudio.org has been running on WordPress for some time, and the team has been using GitHub for development work. By routing our documentation through a GitHub repository — using the Git it Write plugin to publish markdown directly to WordPress — we get something we’ve never really had before: a documentation workflow that fits naturally alongside our other development work. Pull requests, issue tracking, version history, and a low barrier to entry for new contributors all come with it.

What This Means for Contributors

If you’ve ever wanted to fix something on the old wiki and been put off by the process, this is your opening. The content lives in a public GitHub repository. Find the file, fix the text, open a pull request. That’s it.

The content is organized into buckets that map to the old wiki structure:

• help/content/support/ — support pages (FAQ, hardware, audio configuration, etc.)
• help/content/handbook/ — the Audio Handbook and Pro Audio Intro
• help/content/community/ — IRC, mailing lists, joining the team
• help/content/reference/ — resources, links, wiki guide
• wiki/content/ubuntu-studio/ — developer wiki pages

If you’re editing a page that has outdated information, and there’s plenty of it, particularly around the old PulseAudio/JACK workflow that predates PipeWire — this is the place to update it.

What Isn’t Changing

The old wiki pages at help.ubuntu.com and wiki.ubuntu.com aren’t going anywhere immediately. Canonical maintains those as part of Ubuntu infrastructure, and they’ll continue to exist. Our goal isn’t to break any existing bookmarks or search results, it’s to have a home where we can keep things current.

We’re also not rewriting the documentation wholesale. The content of the mirrored pages is as faithful to the originals as it can be, with updates where the old guidance referred to software or workflows that no longer apply to current Ubuntu Studio releases.

Where to Find Everything

• Help pages: ubuntustudio.org/help/
• Developer wiki: ubuntustudio.org/wiki/
• GitHub repository: github.com/UbuntuStudio-Official/ubuntustudio-website

If you find something wrong, missing, or out of date — open a pull request, or file an issue and let the team know.

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS, code-named “Resolute Raccoon.” This marks Ubuntu Studio’s 38th release.

This Long-Term Support (LTS) release is supported for 3 years, through April 2029.
An Ubuntu Studio LTS arrives once every two years. This is more than a routine update: it is a long-horizon milestone for creators, educators, studios, and production systems that prioritize dependability.

This release reflects months of development, packaging, design, testing, and community feedback, all focused on making Ubuntu Studio production-ready from first boot.
Whether you record music, edit video, design graphics, or publish layouts, the goal is simple: stay out of your way and let your creativity lead. That shows up in practical improvements across this release, from desktop layout choice and modernized setup tools to updated defaults and day-to-day polish.

For full technical details, known issues, and upgrade instructions, please see the Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS Release Notes.

You can download Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS from the download page.

Why This LTS Is Special

• You can trace a clear through-line across recent LTS cycles: 20.04 LTS was the last Xfce-based LTS and set up the desktop transition, 22.04 LTS stabilized the Plasma era, and 24.04 LTS introduced the new Subiquity/Flutter installer generation and PipeWire 1.0 maturity.
• Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS builds on that foundation with practical workflow improvements instead of a single marquee feature: three selectable desktop layouts, fully rewritten Installer and Audio Configuration tools (Python with GTK4 and Qt6 frontends), and broader translation coverage.
• It also brings forward ideas that were future-looking in earlier cycles, especially minimal-install flexibility and easier post-install workflow selection, while adding production-focused updates like FFADO support, easier PipeWire tuning, and new default additions such as Loopino and Plasma PipeWire Settings.
• As with prior Ubuntu Studio LTS releases, this cycle carries a three-year support window, through April 2029.

Major Highlights

Three desktop layouts, one familiar home

This release includes three selectable desktop layouts:

• The classic Ubuntu Studio top-panel layout
• A macOS-like layout with global menu and dock
• A Windows-like bottom-panel layout

Creators coming from different platforms get a familiar starting point and a faster path to feeling at home.

The default layout for new installs was selected by community vote. For background on the design direction, see Coming to 26.04 LTS: Three Layouts.

Installer and configuration tools modernized

Ubuntu Studio Installer and Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration were completely rewritten, with modern interfaces and desktop-aware behavior.

This is more than a visual refresh. Both tools were rebuilt from the ground up in Python with dual GTK4 and Qt6 frontends, and automatically select the interface that best matches your desktop environment.

Internationalization also took a major leap forward: both tools now include translations across 21 languages, helping more creators configure their systems comfortably in their preferred language.

Audio production gets more powerful

Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration now includes built-in support for FFADO FireWire devices and simpler PipeWire tuning through menus instead of manual entry.

For musicians and engineers using professional FireWire interfaces, FFADO support improves compatibility with legacy-but-still-essential studio hardware without extra manual setup.

PipeWire sample-rate and buffer controls are now easier to access and adjust quickly, making low-latency tuning far more approachable for both new and experienced users.

Better defaults for creators

VLC is now the default media player, offering broad format compatibility and a familiar, dependable playback experience for day-to-day media review.

vmpk now replaces jack-keyboard, giving MIDI-focused users a more modern and flexible virtual keyboard workflow.

More quality-of-life improvements across the release

Beyond the headline features, this release includes several practical improvements that make daily use smoother:

• Live sessions now inhibit lock screen/screensaver to prevent interruptions during testing or demos
• SDDM and splash visuals were refined for a cleaner login and boot experience
• Desktop menus include translation coverage improvements
• Theme metadata updates improve Plasma 6 compatibility and consistency
• Key workflow tools were substantially updated, including QPrompt, RaySession, and Patchance

New in 26.04 LTS

• Three selectable desktop layouts with community-voted default

• Rewritten Installer and Audio Configuration tools with expanded language support.

• Improved audio workflow controls, including FFADO support and easier PipeWire tuning

• New packages:

  • Loopino — A lightweight creative audio sampler with drag-and-drop sample loading, on-the-fly recording, a full ADSR envelope, filters, and effects. Available as a standalone application, CLAP plugin, and VST2 plugin, making it a flexible addition to any audio production workflow.

  • DistroAV — Formerly known as obs-ndi, DistroAV brings NDI (Network Audio/Video) support to OBS Studio, enabling high-quality, low-latency multi-track audio and video streaming over a local network. A natural fit for live streaming and networked A/V production setups. Not installed by default; install it by running sudo apt install distroav in a terminal.

  • snd-hdspe — An updated ALSA kernel driver for RME HDSPe PCIe sound cards (MADI, AES, RayDAT, AIO, and AIO Pro). This maintained fork of the original driver brings compatibility with newer kernels and expands hardware control through standard ALSA interfaces, giving professional RME users a reliable path forward. Not installed by default; if you have supported RME hardware, install it by running sudo apt install alsa-hdspe-dkms in a terminal.

  • Plasma PipeWire Settings — A KDE Plasma 6 panel widget for adjusting PipeWire quantum and sample rate on the fly, without touching configuration files. It is included by default and shown in the system tray by default, pairing with Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration so the most common adjustments are always within reach.

  • Plasma Window Title Applet — A Plasma 6 panel applet that displays the active window title. Used in the macOS-like desktop layout to complete the global-menu experience.

• Notable package changes:

  • Skanpage replaces Skanlite for scanning, offering multi-page document scanning and straightforward saving to common formats.

  • rubberband-lv2 replaces rubberband-ladspa, providing high-quality time-stretching and pitch-shifting as an LV2 plugin aligned with the broader move away from LADSPA.

  • Minimal installation workflow with modular post-install creative tool selection

• Quality-of-life polish across live session behavior, translations, and desktop consistency

Minimal Install: Your Studio, Your Way

One topic we often see in community discussions is package “bloat”: some users want everything preinstalled, while others prefer to start lean and add tools only as needed.

Both approaches are fully supported.

If you want a lightweight starting point, choose the minimal install option during installation. This option has been available since 24.10. You will get the Ubuntu Studio desktop experience, theming, and core configuration, then add only the workflows you want using Ubuntu Studio Installer (audio, video, graphics, photography, and publishing).

If you want a complete creative workstation out of the box, the full install remains available.

You can also start from any official Ubuntu flavor and add Ubuntu Studio workflows without reinstalling.

Special Notes

The Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS disk image (ISO) exceeds 4 GB and cannot be reliably written to some file systems such as FAT32, and may not be readable when burned to a standard DVD.

We recommend using a compatible file system for downloads and creating a bootable USB stick.

Minimum installation media requirements:

• Dual-Layer DVD or 8 GB USB drive

Release images are available here.

Featured Creative Apps

Ubuntu Studio 26.04 LTS ships with a strong cross-discipline toolkit for creators working in audio, video, graphics, and publishing.

Highlights include:

• Blender 5.0.1
• Kdenlive 25.12.3
• Krita 6.0.1
• GIMP 3.2.2
• Ardour 9.0.0
• OBS Studio 32.1.0

For the complete software version list and source package references, see the release notes.

Whether your work is audio engineering, filmmaking, digital painting, motion graphics, podcasting, or publishing, the full Ubuntu Studio stack is ready to support it.

Upgrade Notes

Upgrades from Ubuntu Studio 25.10 are expected to be enabled shortly after release. Upgrades from Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS are expected to be enabled with the release of 26.04.1 LTS in August 2026.

Detailed upgrade instructions are available in the release notes.

Known Issues

Ubuntu Studio shares KDE Plasma and core Ubuntu components with other Ubuntu flavors. Some known issues overlap with Kubuntu and Ubuntu:

• Kubuntu release notes
• Ubuntu release notes

Additionally, on first login for a newly created user, a reboot prompt for applying audio-production group configuration is expected behavior (tracked at Launchpad bug #2063899).

Thank You

Ubuntu Studio is built by a volunteer community of developers, testers, artists, translators, documenters, and users. Thank you to everyone who tested pre-releases, reported bugs, submitted improvements, and helped shape this LTS.

In Memory of Steve Langasek

We want to give special recognition to Steve Langasek, who passed away in January 2025.

Known to many as vorlon, Steve’s impact on Ubuntu, Debian, Ubuntu Studio, and the wider Linux community is difficult to overstate. His work, guidance, and support helped countless contributors and projects over many years.

In Ubuntu community tributes, he has been remembered as “a great mind, mentor and conscience.” If you have not read it yet, Remembering and thanking Steve Langasek is a powerful reflection on his legacy.

For this cycle in particular, Steve was responsible for the codename “Resolute Raccoon,” as noted during the community codename activity at Guess the release 26.04 – R. We are honored to carry that name in this release and dedicate this moment of thanks to his memory.

Contributors

Special thanks this cycle go to many familiar contributors from prior releases, including:

• Eylul Dogruel: artwork and visual design
• Ross Gammon: upstream Debian development and testing
• Sebastien Ramacher: upstream Debian development
• Dennis Braun: upstream Debian development
• Rik Mills: Plasma and Kubuntu collaboration
• Scarlett Moore: Plasma and Kubuntu collaboration
• Aaron Rainbolt: Plasma and Kubuntu collaboration
• Michael Mikowski: Plasma and Kubuntu collaboration
• Len Ovens: testing and workflow insight, support and help
• Mauro Gaspari: tutorials, promotion, and documentation
• Utkarsh Gupta: Ubuntu Release Team support and collaboration
• Florent “Skia” Jacquet: Ubuntu Release Team support and collaboration
• Michael Hudson-Doyle: Ubuntu Release Team support and collaboration
• Erich Eickmeyer: project leadership, packaging, and direction

And to everyone in the Ubuntu Studio community: thank you for your trust, your feedback, your patience, and your passion.

Support Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Studio is built by volunteers, but volunteer work still comes with real costs.

As outlined in Ubuntu Studio Needs Donations, the project is now covering additional monthly expenses due to a web hosting provider change. This release cycle also included a large amount of development work, including fixing long-standing bugs and rewriting both Ubuntu Studio Installer and Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration from the ground up.

If Ubuntu Studio helps your creative work, your teaching, your studio, or your community, please consider supporting the project financially. Donations help keep the infrastructure running and make it easier to keep improving the tools, packaging, and user experience that go into each release.

You can support Ubuntu Studio here:

https://ubuntustudio.org/contribute/

Get Involved

Ubuntu Studio is a community project driven by volunteers. If you would like to contribute your time through packaging, documentation, testing, user support, or promotion, we would love your help:

https://ubuntustudio.org/contribute/

I didn’t have time yet to blog about liquidsfz-0.4.1, which was released two weeks ago, so here is a quick overview of the bigger changes.

The .sfz parser was made more robust, which means that broken .sfz files (there are some files out there which load fine in sforzando but have questionable syntax) can be loaded with a best-effort strategy. These files now produce warnings instead of an error.

Three different problems were fixed that could in some situations cause audible clicks, so updating from a previous version is recommended. A few smaller fixes (and two new opcodes) improve compatibility with more .sfz files. Finally, some improvements were made to the LV2 plugin.

• liquidsfz-0.4.1 source code
• precompiled statically linked linux 64bit binary
• full list of changes (github release)