Interview with Shuttleworth and Seager.
As Zorin is based on Ubuntu it can give us some ideas in which direction they are moving. Even that we might see these developments only with Zorin 19 or 20.
On the desktop, Shuttleworth is aware that desktop Linux fragmentation is a serious problem: "If we want Linux to be a true global alternative, we need to do something that has a lot of heft behind it, and we need not to tear each other down."
That's not to say Shuttleworth is no longer a Linux desktop-believer: "I would like to be part of open source winning the desktop." While Ubuntu 26.04 will continue to use GNOME for its default desktop, he had good things to say about the American Linux PC company System76 and its new Rust-based COSMIC desktop. In fact, System76 presented a COSMIC session at the Ubuntu Summit.
Specifically, for 2026 and beyond, Canonical aims to create a more transparent, accessible, and community-driven Ubuntu build process by consolidating documentation and communication channels, making it easier for new contributors to find paths to involvement.
Finally, Ubuntu is adopting the memory-safe Rust language. Seager said the engineering team is focused on replacing key system components with Rust-based alternatives to enhance safety and resilience, starting with Ubuntu 25.10. He stressed that resilience and memory safety, not just performance, are the principal drivers: "It's the enhanced resilience and safety that is more easily achieved with Rust ports that are most attractive to me". This move is echoed in Ubuntu's adoption of sudo-rs, the Rust implementation of sudo, with fallback and opt-out mechanisms for users who want to use the old-school sudo command.
The new Ubuntu will also feature more Flutter-based apps. Flutter is a Google platform that uses the open-source Dart programming language. Flutter enables developers to create multiple-operation system apps for almost any platform from a single codebase. In Ubuntu 26.04, this capability will include the Ubuntu App Store, the Installer, and the Security Center.