How to Try Ubuntu 26.10 Stonking Stingray Daily Build in 2026

Ubuntu 26.10 “Stonking Stingray” ships 15 October 2026, but the daily-live ISO has
been public for months — since 28 May 2026. The current daily image is feature-frozen
(20 August), UI-frozen (10 September), and converging on the final ISO. If you want to
test it now, here’s the full playbook: where to download, how to put it in a VM, and
how to upgrade an existing 26.04 LTS install via do-release-upgrade -d.

Important: Ubuntu 26.10 is an interim release with 9 months of support (until
July 2027). Daily builds are explicitly not for production. Test in a VM or on a
secondary machine.

Where to get the daily build

The daily-live ISO is hosted on the Ubuntu CD image server:

https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/stonking/daily-live/current/

That URL gives you:

• 64-bit PC (AMD64) desktop image — the one most people want; ~6 GB
• 64-bit ARM (ARMv8 / AArch64) desktop image
• RISC-V 64-bit desktop image (for RVA23-compliant hardware)
• Server images, netboot tarball, WSL image

The current/ folder always serves the most recent ISO to pass automated checks; the
pending/ folder has newer images that haven’t been signed off yet.

Figure: AI-generated mockup of the cdimage download page. The real page lists current
and pending daily builds; canonical URLs above are the actual source-of-truth.

You can also pick a specific build:

https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/stonking/daily-live/20260829/

That’s the format [YYYYMMDD] for the build date. Once 26.10 is final, the canonical
URL will move to https://releases.ubuntu.com/26.10/.

What’s actually inside the daily build (as of feature freeze)

• Kernel: Linux 7.3-rc1 (will become 7.3 final or near-final by 15 October)
• Desktop: GNOME 51
• Default toolchain: updated gcc, glibc, rustc
• Multimedia: GStreamer 1.30 with first Rust plugins
• Snap-only Flameshot is one of the system utilities now; the App Center is moving
  to package-agnostic behaviour

Option 1: install in a virtual machine (recommended for testers)

The fastest way to evaluate 26.10 is a fresh VM. Either:

Using quickemu (a single command)

quickemu is a wrapper around QEMU that handles UEFI, SPICE, and download-and-launch
in one shot:

# Install quickemu
sudo apt install quickemu

# Download the daily ISO manually first (URL above), then:
quickemu --vm "ubuntu-26.10-daily-desktop-amd64.iso"

This auto-launches a VM with sensible defaults (4 cores, 4 GB RAM, VirtIO disk) and
opens a SPICE viewer window. Snapshots, USB passthrough, and 9p file sharing are
available via --snapshot, --usb, and --sharedir.

Using virt-manager (more manual)

sudo apt install virt-manager qemu-system-x86
virt-manager

Create a new VM, choose “Local install media”, point at the daily ISO, set 4+ GB RAM
and 25+ GB disk. Inside the installer, the standard Ubuntu subiquity flow runs — the
same installer that 26.04 LTS uses, with a slightly newer version of the daemon.

Option 2: dual-boot on real hardware (advanced)

If you want a real-hardware install on a separate partition:

1. Download the daily ISO from the URL above.
2. Write to USB:
   
   Bash

   Copy

   sudo dd if=ubuntu-26.10-daily-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX status=progress

   Replace /dev/sdX with your USB device (verify with lsblk first — picking the wrong
   device overwrites it). Or use ventoy to keep the USB stick usable for multiple ISOs.

3. Boot from USB, choose “Install Ubuntu” (not “Try Ubuntu” — though you can try first
   to validate Wi-Fi / GPU drivers before committing).
4. At the “Installation type” step, pick “Install alongside” or manual partitioning
   for a separate root partition.

Real-hardware testing of daily builds is genuinely useful — file bugs against the
Launchpad tracker if you find regressions
in GPU, Wi-Fi, or sleep/wake.

Option 3: upgrade from Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

This is the most asked-about flow. It works, but it’s one-way: you cannot go back
to 26.04 LTS without reinstalling. And once on 26.10, your support window is the
interim 9-month window (until July 2027), not the LTS 5-year window.

Figure: AI-generated mockup of sudo do-release-upgrade -d. The real command produces
a long apt-style download + install run before rebooting into the new release.

Steps:

1. Make a full backup of anything irreplaceable. timeshift is the easiest
   system-snapshot tool, but rsync to an external drive also works.

2. Apply all current 26.04 LTS updates first:

   Bash

   Copy

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt full-upgrade -y
   sudo reboot

3. Trigger the upgrade. The graphical upgrade path (Update Manager) won’t offer
   26.10 to a 26.04 LTS user yet — Canonical deliberately holds off until 26.04.1 to
   keep LTS users on a stable path. To upgrade now you have to use the command line
   with the -d (development) flag:

   Bash

   Copy

   sudo do-release-upgrade -d

   The -d flag is required because 26.10 isn’t yet a “stable” target — once
   15 October hits, drop -d.

4. Walk through the prompts. The tool will:

   • Fetch the new release manifest
   • Compute the package delta (this can be hundreds of MB on 26.04 → 26.10)
   • Disable third-party PPAs (re-enable after the upgrade with sudo apt update)
   • Ask you to confirm removal of obsolete packages
   • Download and install the new packages
   • Prompt for reboot

5. Reboot and verify. After the first boot into 26.10:

   Bash

   Copy

   lsb_release -a        # should show 26.10
   uname -r              # kernel should be 7.3-something-rc or final
   gnome-shell --version # should report GNOME 51

6. Re-enable any third-party PPAs you need. During the upgrade they’re disabled
   for compatibility reasons.

Option 4: clean install on real hardware

For a machine you’ve decided to repurpose, the simplest path is a clean install from
the final ISO after 15 October. By then:

• The “current” daily URL will redirect to the final release page
• https://releases.ubuntu.com/26.10/ will list the stable ISO
• do-release-upgrade from 26.04 LTS without -d will become the supported path

For most desktop users, clean install is preferable to in-place upgrade because:

• No leftover config from the old release
• No risk of partial-upgrade state
• Easier to set up encrypted /etc with TPM-backed FDE from scratch
• Faster overall (the upgrade path does a lot of state validation)

Don’t do this

• Don’t run 26.10 daily builds as your primary OS. Canonical explicitly warns
  daily builds are not for production; package updates can break image builds and
  leave you with a half-updated system.
• Don’t try to upgrade from 24.04 LTS to 26.10 directly. LTS-to-LTS is the
  supported path. 24.04 → 26.04 LTS, then if you want, 26.04 → 26.10.
• Don’t mix PPAs across the upgrade. Third-party repos get disabled; re-enable
  them one at a time after the upgrade and resolve any conflicts individually.

Verification

After installing (any of the three options), check the install is correct:

# Release identification
cat /etc/os-release | grep -E "VERSION|VERSION_CODENAME|ID"
# Should show VERSION="26.10 (Stonking Stingray)" and VERSION_CODENAME=stonking

# Kernel
uname -r
# Should be 7.3.x — final version depends on the 7.3 release timeline

# Desktop
echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
# Should print "wayland" — 26.10 is Wayland-default

# Disk encryption (if you set up TPM-backed FDE)
sudo cryptsetup status luks-$(lsblk -o NAME,TYPE | grep crypt | awk '{print $1}' | head -1)

The final release path (after 15 October)

Once 26.10 is stable:

• Final ISO at https://releases.ubuntu.com/26.10/
• 26.04 LTS users on the LTS track stay there; HWE in 2027 brings them the same kernel
• 25.10 users: EoL already passed (July 2026); you’ve either gone to 26.04 LTS or are
  on 26.10 already
• New users: clean install of 26.10 if you want the latest, 26.04 LTS if you want 5
  years of support

The companion feature-overview article covers what actually changed in 26.10 versus
26.04 LTS — worth a read before you commit to either path.