Canonical has just announced that its Livepatch service now supports computers with Arm64 processors. For those who are not familiar, Livepatch allows users to apply important kernel updates without any service interruption or rebooting. While home users will benefit from this, it’s even more important for critical machines that absolutely should not be going offline at all.
The feature is available as part of Ubuntu Core 26 for Arm64 and Ubuntu Core 20 and onwards for AMD64. According to Canonical, this will improve the security of systems that aren’t security-maintained daily or weekly, and it helps organizations work towards Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) compliance.
If you are familiar with Ubuntu, you probably know that most packages can be updated without having to restart the system. There is one big exception to this, and that’s the kernel; it typically requires you to reload the system to boot into the new kernel. With Livepatch, Canonical has done something so that you don’t need to restart to begin using the new kernel.
Aside from Ubuntu Core 26, users with Arm64 chips running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS can also use Livepatch. If you want to learn more about Livepatch, check out its product page. There, you can also find a button to join Ubuntu Pro (it’s free for several home devices) so that you can enable Livepatch.
By linking your computer to Ubuntu Pro, you will also extend the life of your Ubuntu install from five years to ten years.
If you are running Ubuntu, let us know in the comments if you have been looking forward to this feature on your ARM-based computer. If you’ve had a compatible AMD64 machine for a while and never used this feature, let us know why in the comments!
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