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The Ubuntu Remote Desktop AWS image (formerly ‘Ubuntu VNC Desktop’) has been updated with major changes. The marketplace listing now uses an updated image of Ubuntu 25.10 Questing Quokka. This release marks a major shift in the underlying software used to access the remote desktop. With this Ubuntu release all x11 support was dropped by Canonical in favor of Wayland. As such, this image will now use Gnome Remote Desktop to provide the graphical interface. This means that support for the VNC protocol will be dropped and users will need to now use a RDP client to connect to their running instances. Browser based access remains the same as before. IMPORTANT: Please see the updated usage instructions for the steps now required to access your instances. There may be an additional login step.

After launching the AMI, users can access the instance through the command line using SSH or visually using a RDP client or their web browser.

For browser-based viewing of your instance, no additional software is required. Just open your browser and enter the public IP address of your instance in the address bar. Once connected, you will see an Apache Guacamole login screen where you can enter the username ubuntu and the password, which is the instance id of the running instance. Once logged in to the running session, you may need to then log in to the ubuntu user with the default password “password”. You may then change the ubuntu user’s password to something more secure as you would normally. IMPORTANT: You will still need to use the instance id as the password to first log in to the Guacamole RDP session.

To connect to the instance with RDP, you will need to install a RDP client of your choice. Then, use its public IP to connect to the running instance. The username is ubuntu and the password is the instance id of the running instance. Once logged in to the running session, you may need to then log in to the ubuntu user with the default password “password”. You may then change the ubuntu user’s password to something more secure as you would normally. IMPORTANT: You will still need to use the instance id as the password to first log in to the RDP session.

Due to several changes introduced by Canonical in Ubuntu 25.10, there will be delays for updating the Ubuntu VNC Desktop AWS AMIs to the latest Ubuntu release. Due to the dropping of X11 support in favor of Wayland, a significant portion of the software stack deployed on Panoptesoft’s images needs to be completely changed. There have also been bugs in the new Rust based coreutils (uutils) and sudo-rs shipped with Ubuntu 25.10 that are affecting some of our deployment pipeline.

Work is ongoing to make these changes and ensure that the end user experience remains the same as possible. New images will be released to the marketplace in the coming weeks and any updates in regards to significant changes to the images will be documented here.

New versions of all active AWS Marketplace images have been updated with package updates as well as an improvement in boot times at startup of an instance.

AWS Marketplace listings have been updated to the latest Ubuntu 24.10 Oracular Oriole release where required. The older 22.04 LTS AMIs have been temporarily restricted due to a security vulnerability in a critical software package until the issue is resolved. In the meantime, please check out Panoptesoft, LLC’s listings for the newer 24.04 LTS release if you want to use an LTS release. Please also note that the ARM versions of all AMI’s may be temporarily restricted to GPU backed instance types due to a bug with the mesa display driver.

Panoptesoft recently removed several AMIs based on older Ubuntu releases (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver, Ubuntu 19.04 Disco Dingo, and Ubuntu 19.10 Eoan Ermine). These releases are either no longer supported by Canonical or require security updates for package versions beyond what is available in the supported official repositories.

Existing customers using these images can continue to do so, but are encouraged to update to a newer, supported release such as Ubuntu 20.10 VNC Desktop AMI or Ubuntu 20.04 VNC Desktop AMI.

The first version of the Ubuntu 20.10 (ARM) VNC Desktop AMI has been released on the Amazon Marketplace.

This image contains Ubuntu Desktop 20.10 Groovy Gorilla (ARM64) using the default GNOME desktop environment. Please note that this AMI is for ARM based instance types only. See our other listings for x86 instance types. VNC is already installed and configured to launch at startup so you can access the instance graphically. The image provides full OpenGL (with GLX) support for running 3D applications.

The Marketplace listing is pre-configured, so you can quickly get started with this AMI with the click of a button; all you need is an AWS account.

The first version of the Ubuntu 20.04 VNC Desktop AMI has been released on the Amazon Marketplace.

This image contains Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa (x86_64) using the default GNOME desktop environment. VNC is already installed and configured to launch at startup so you can access the instance graphically. The image provides full OpenGL (with GLX) support for running 3D applications. The image can be launched on CPU only or GPU backed instance types. The correct settings will automatically be loaded depending on the hardware, and any instances with NVIDIA GPUs will use official NVIDIA drivers. This allows you to fully utilize the GPU instances for any graphics intensive applications.

The Marketplace listing is pre-configured, so you can quickly get started with this AMI with the click of a button; all you need is an AWS account.

The first version of the Ubuntu 19.10 VNC Desktop AMI has been released on the Amazon Marketplace.

This image contains Ubuntu Desktop 19.10 Eoan Ermine (x86_64) using the lightweight XFCE desktop environment. VNC is already installed and configured to launch at startup so you can access the instance graphically. The image provides full OpenGL (with GLX) support for running 3D applications. The image can be launched on CPU only or GPU backed instance types. The correct settings will automatically be loaded depending on the hardware, and any instances with NVIDIA GPUs will use official NVIDIA drivers. This allows you to fully utilize the GPU instances for any graphics intensive applications.

The Marketplace listing is pre-configured, so you can quickly get started with this AMI with the click of a button; all you need is an AWS account.