Ubuntu Budgie is the official flavor pairing Ubuntu with the Budgie desktop, an environment that originated in the Solus project and emphasizes a clean, modern layout with an applet-driven panel and the Raven sidebar for notifications and quick settings. The flavor's maintainers add considerable polish of their own, shipping a collection of optional applets, layout presets that reshape the desktop toward different conventions, and careful theming, so users can rearrange the furniture without hunting through third-party extensions. Beneath the surface it is ordinary Ubuntu: the shared package archive over APT, Snap availability, the April and October cadence, and long-term-support releases for stability-minded users. Budgie sits between heavyweight desktops and minimal window managers, drawing on GNOME technologies without adopting GNOME's workflow. The flavor suits people who want something contemporary but conventional. A short session in an OpenFactory browser VM reveals whether Budgie's balance suits you.
Select a version of Ubuntu Budgie to try online:
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Need Ubuntu Budgie for more than a quick browser preview?
The buttons above launch an ephemeral browser VM, perfect for kicking the tires. Paid plans unlock the things you'd actually use it for:
- ✓Persistent VMs you can SSH into and customize
- ✓Snapshots, your own packages, a downloadable ISO
- ✓Fleet deployment to your own machines (on-prem or cloud)