Ubuntu beta arrives with GNOME 50, sans Google Drive support • The Register
Ubuntu beta arrives with GNOME 50, sans Google Drive support • The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/31/ubuntu_2604_beta/
Publish Date: 2026-03-31 08:20:00
Source Domain: www.theregister.com
Canonical has just released the beta of the next Ubuntu LTS – but what’s grabbed the attention of many is that it features GNOME 50 as its default desktop environment. And GNOME 50 no longer supports Google Drive.
This will be a significant downside not just for Ubuntu – the world’s most popular Linux distro, which runs on a significant number of web servers and developer environments – but for any and all distros that have updated to the GNOME 50 desktop.
Since there’s no official Linux client from Google, this is a serious omission. There are third-party tools that let Linux connect, including Rclone, the FUSE connector google-drive-ocamlfuse, and the paid-for Insync, but all require extra work.
When we looked at GNOME 50, we praised its integration with cloud groupware, and only later learned about the Google Drive issue. We’ve asked Canonical to comment.
In the meantime, the Ubuntu team is continuing to gear up to unleash Resolute Raccoon, and the next LTS is getting a test run in the form of the 26.04 beta. It has also announced some of the directions that 26.10 will take in six months, some of which we suspect will be less welcome than others.
Ubuntu’s Resolute GNOME – note that sudo turns the Ptyxis terminal window’s top bar red, and now it shows asterisks
There are some pleasingly round numbers in Ubuntu 26.04. It uses the still-not-yet-final kernel 7.0, and as we mentioned, the desktop version will use the recently released GNOME 50 – so that means no X11 session is available, although X11 apps still work fine under the Wayland-only GNOME desktop using Xwayland. Nvidia users get driver version 590, and everyone using a GUI gets Mesa 26. Kubuntu 26.04 users get KDE Plasma 6.6, and Xubuntu 26.04 comes with Xfce 4.20.7.
The loading screen has a new boot spinner animation, and the default Yaru theme makes text very slightly…
