Testing first set of 25.10 RC

Development Discussion
1

Testing Questing RC

First of all, please take notice: This is a Release Candidate and not the final product.

Version -> Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2025 22:40:37 UTC <-
https://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/milestones/475/builds/341983/downloads

Testing 25.10 RC on ASUS F3T laptop:

Bugs in pre-install and install dialog:

  1. connect to wifi -> choice does not stay highlighted, just like the 24.04 installer.
    Not clear if it accepted the choice or not.
    ( It accepted, but not staying highlighted is somewhat confusing)

  2. system problem detected while trying to connect to WiFi
    I had to try three times before it finally connected, just like the 24.04 installer

  3. Dialogs are flashing like crazy, just like the 24.04 installer

  4. the installer takes four times the installtime of the 22.04 installer (80 minutes instead of 20 minutes) and this was a minimal install.

Startup:

first reboot is pretty slow, second reboot is quite fast (<30s on a dual turion)

Memory (RAM) consumption

idle desktop after boot ± 800 MB (= without buffers/caches)

WiFi

Good: Works like a charm and the RF on/off switch now works flawlessly.

Localization

Good: localization is only applied after the second reboot but it works !

Appcenter

Good: it is not flashing anymore
Bad: it is slow as molasses, responsetime on keypresses is several seconds and it pegs the CPU like crazy. The graphical load is extreme ( and no, it is not swapping ) .
After I disabled the compositor, responsetime went back to normal and CPU usage too.
Also bad: It is unclear if the app to be installed is a snap or standard deb.
Also bad: It doesn't show icons at all.

Firefox

Good: Pretty snappy on this old beast, even though it's a snap, and even playing youtube vids without problem.

Conclusion

Besides the troubles above, 25.04 works like a charm, but the appcenter is not there yet.

The most problematic is the installer, it worries me a lot.

Flutter, with its graphical glitches and crashes, is not yet ready for primetime.
Using it as an installer language seems to me a dubious choice.
And on top of that: running it in a snap, parallel to a diskchecker, is in my opinion complete madness.

As I commented in the testing of 24.04, should this installer end up in the release, we are in for a lot of complaints and bugreports.

I will also test this snapshot on my Toshiba. I'll keep you posted.

4 Likes
"Call for testing: first set of 25.10 RCs ready!" ... including "Ubuntu MATE"! :-)
2

Testing 25.10 RC on Toshiba Sattelite laptop:

Pre install screen

pre-install screen crashed out with a "we don't know what happened, see the log" error.
Logwindow stayed completely blank so I closed the window and started the installer.
I refrained to connect to internet to avoid any potential problems and chose a minimal install.

installing:

OMG!! It installed fast !! (25 minutes)

That is a lot faster than installing 24.04 did on this same laptop (which took hours).
25 minuts may seem slow but keep in mind that this old beast is still running on a classical harddisk and is pretty slow (and partly damaged) to begin with.

When invoking the installer, it immediately popped up an error which I answered with 'report' (good luck without an internet connection). It continued without complaints nevertheless.

The installer had no flickering window and no glitches, pretty amazing !

Firefox:

no problem whatsoever, snappy as could be :wink:

Appcenter

No problem whatsoever, works flawlessly on this old craptop. :slight_smile:
Quite a progress since 24.04, I didn't expect that. Amazing. :clap:

Localization

Failed to localize directory names ofcourse, because I had no internet connection during install.
An update of both the system and the languagepacks did not change that.

However, creating a new user did in fact create localized directory names.
This is a quite a leap forward since 24.04 :slight_smile:

All in all, this was a much better experience than expected and much better than the 24.04 install. :+1: :+1: :+1:

4 Likes
3

Hi, @tkn :slight_smile:

Those tests you've done look very interesting! :slight_smile: I confess that I'm confused about one thing, though: apparently, you're assuming that the "first set of 25.10 RC" is the (same as) "Snapshot 4". May I ask why are you making that (apparent) assumption? Did you find any information that makes you think that is the case? I ask that because, as far as I can tell, they are definitely two different images:

Am I missing and/or am I misunderstanding something? :confused:

3 Likes
4

Good catch ! :slight_smile:

I confused two different posts of you both regarding the coming 25.10 release.
That would be this post:
"Questing Snapshot 4 released"

and this post:
"Call for testing: first set of 25.10 RCs ready!" ... including "Ubuntu MATE"! :-)

Which I obviously merged in my mind.

To make things clear. I tested the Release Candidate and NOT the snapshot 4
I followed this link:
https://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/milestones/475/builds/341983/downloads

Which gave me this ISO:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/daily-live/20251005/questing-desktop-amd64.iso

Origin: Ubuntu
Label: Ubuntu
Suite: questing
Version: 25.10
Codename: questing
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2025 22:40:37 UTC
Architectures: amd64 i386
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Description: Ubuntu Questing 25.10

I will re-edit and correct my post to minimize further confusion :slight_smile:

Thanks for the update :+1:

3 Likes
5

Additional Info

Notification area probably no longer shows non-ayatana indicators in 25.10 RC.

It was already known that transmission-gtk no longer shows an indicator in the notification area.
But I was quite surprised that transmission-qt also no longer shows an indicator since this Ubuntu-MATE release.
The option is there in transmission-qt but the notification area won't accept nor display it.

This is for me a definite showstopper.

Does anyone know if anything has changed with respect to indicators ?

2 Likes