Canonical has expanded its Hardware Enablement (HWE) program to include virtualization components, offering Ubuntu 26.04 LTS users access to newer versions of QEMU, libvirt, edk2 (OVMF firmware), and SeaBIOS on a 6-month refresh cadence without needing third-party repositories. The stack is particularly useful for confidential computing workloads using AMD SEV-SNP or Intel TDX, where kernel support alone isn't sufficient and waiting for the next LTS isn't practical. Installation is done via a helper package (`ubuntu-helper-virt-hwe`) that manages switching between HWE and non-HWE virtualization stacks.
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Enable virtualization HWE stack on Ubuntu 26.043 Impressions