Ubuntu developers they have the green light to make Dracut the default in Ubuntu 25.10, a fundamental change to the way Ubuntu boots that was planned for this development cycle but missed the deadline.
What is Dracut?
Dracut is the tool used by Red Hat-based distributions, such as Fedora, to create the initial RAM file system (initramfs) at boot time. The initramfs is a minimal temporary file system that loads drivers and sets up the necessary components needed to load the main operating system.
According to Ubuntu engineers, the initramfs-tools system has some limitations that dracut does not have.
Why is Ubuntu changing?
Ubuntu used initramfs-tools, a scripting system originally created for Debian. While it works fine, Canonical engineers say there are several reasons why it's time for a change.
Ubuntu uses systemd, but initramfs-tools does not. This adds a degree of inconsistency and complexity that could easily be avoided by using dracut, which uses systemd in the boot environment.
Dracut uses modules (it is easier to maintain or extend), supports newer technologies (such as NVMe over Fabrics, also known as NVMe-oF, which is useful in servers and the cloud1) and is actively developed, which is always welcome.
For Ubuntu, this change will make the distribution's boot process more consistent, simplify maintenance, and ensure that new and emerging hardware features are more easily exploited.
For end users, this change will not be noticeable. The tool will be used to build initramfs which is something most of us don't need to use or configure. So the boot process for the user will not change.
This change will only be released in Ubuntu 25.10. If you are running a stable version of Ubuntu (24.04 LTS or 25.04), the boot process will not change. It will not change until you install or upgrade to version 25.10, when it is released in October.
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
