Ubuntu 26.10 ships with a Rust-based OpenPGP

Ubuntu 26.10 includes a Rust-based OpenPGP implementation, and plans to phase out the C-based GnuPG.

The Sequoia PGP is part of the default seed, with the sq package in the main repo and officially supported. It’s said to provide a “modern, and memory-safe OpenPGP implementation”.

Ubuntu isn’t making this the distribution’s default OpenPGP toolchain yet. Rather, it’s included alongside the regulargpg-agent and dirmngrpackages.

But the goal is for Sequoia PGP to become Ubuntu’s default, with sq and sqv replacing gpg and gpgv.

Canonical says adopting Sequoia will enable Ubuntu to maintain OpenPGP interoperability and benefit from a “more maintainable and memory-safe foundation”.

It’s one of several Rust-related changes in the new Ubuntu release, with 26.10 also shipping a full set of Rust-based core utilities out-of-the-box, completing work that started in 25.10. GNU-versions of cp, mv, and rm are now provided by uutils.

Canonical’s engineers have plans to ‘oxidise’ more core packages in future releases. The company is now a gold sponsor of the Trifecta Tech Foundation.

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