Canonical has upped the ante for IoT, edge, and embedded devices, with Ubuntu Core 26. This latest release includes a few game-changing features, such as live kernel patching, enhanced hardware protection, over-the-air (OTA) updates that are now smaller by a whopping 90 percent, up to 15 years of support, and more precise builds.

"Ten years ago, Ubuntu Core pioneered a new OS security model, where every component is strictly confined, transactionally updated, and independently verifiable," said Jon Seager, VP of Ubuntu Engineering at Canonical, on the official Canonical blog. Seager continues, "Today, that approach is reflected in emerging industry standards. With Ubuntu Core 26, we continue to deliver the foundation that critical infrastructure operators need to meet the Cyber Resilience Act, run attested, immutable edge AI workloads, and manage devices securely at scale."

Not only has the update size for base snaps dropped from 16MB to just a scant 1.5MB, but all initramfs-based installations now see a dramatically reduced install time, which is a boon for those who have to deploy Ubuntu Core on hundreds or thousands of devices.

"Scaling AI to the extreme edge requires every millisecond of performance and every byte of bandwidth to be used effectively," said Mohammed Dogar, VP of Embedded Processing Product Group at Renesas. He continues, "By integrating Ubuntu Core with our RZ family of MPUs, our joint customers will benefit from accelerated boot times and a significantly reduced base image footprint. These optimizations will enable them to deploy sophisticated AI workloads on highly resource-constrained hardware without compromising speed or security."

You can download (or build) Ubuntu Core 26 from the official site now.