Ubuntu on this estateUbuntu LTS, including on every GPU node.

Ubuntu is the distribution third-party software is actually tested against. If a vendor ships one Linux build, it is an Ubuntu LTS build, and that single fact decides more deployments than any technical merit either way.

7 minute read · Linux distributions · From 2,79$/mo

In one line

Ubuntu

The one every vendor tests against. Predictable LTS dates, and the only Linux here that GPU nodes run.

On the menu

  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (noble)
  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (jammy)

Installed from the upstream image, unmodified, with no agent and no vendor account on it. What you get on first boot is what upstream published.

The facts a chooser compares

Release cadence
LTS every two years, in April
Support window
Five years standard on LTS
Package manager
APT / dpkg, plus snap
Init
systemd
C library
glibc
GPU stack
CUDA 12.4, PyTorch, TensorFlow preloaded

Machines it runs on

And what the cheapest one costs.

Every price on this estate is the price. No setup fee, no minimum term and no first-month discount that doubles in the second.

How it gets there

Pick the image in the configurator, pay, and it boots.

No ticket, no identity documents, no call. The image list is on the configurator itself, one field below the plan, and a virtual machine is live in about fifty-five seconds.

The GPU case, which is not really a choice

GPU nodes here run Ubuntu 24.04 with CUDA 12.4, PyTorch 2.5, TensorFlow 2.18, JupyterLab and the Hugging Face inference server already on the disk. That is not a preference; half the general-purpose distributions cannot run the CUDA stack without a fight, and an accelerator billed by the second is the worst possible place to have that fight.

Whole cards are passed through, never a time-sliced fraction, and the host is sized so the accelerator is the bottleneck rather than the loader.

LTS or nothing

Only the LTS releases are offered. Interim releases have a nine-month support window, which means a server built on one is an unplanned migration inside a year, and there is no honest reason to sell that to somebody.

24.04 is the default. 22.04 stays available because a large amount of production tooling is pinned to it and will be for years.

Ubuntu against Debian, honestly

They share a package base and most of the commands. The differences that actually decide it: Ubuntu has vendor packages, firmware and drivers arranged for you, plus snap, which some people want and some people remove within the first minute. Debian has none of that and moves more slowly.

If a supplier’s documentation says Ubuntu, run Ubuntu. If nothing is telling you what to run, Debian is the quieter machine.

What is not in the image

No monitoring agent, no telemetry package, no vendor repository beyond Ubuntu’s own, and no cloud agent reporting to us. The image comes from upstream and the first thing added to it is your key.

Questions people actually ask

Which Ubuntu do GPU nodes use?

24.04 LTS with the CUDA stack preloaded. A custom image is possible on request if your pipeline needs a specific container base.

Can I remove snap?

Yes, it is your machine with full root. If you would rather it had never been there, Debian is the same package base without it.

Do you offer interim releases?

No. Nine months of support is an unplanned migration inside a year and we would rather not sell it.

What it is genuinely good at

  • Vendor support. Commercial software, driver packages and installation documentation assume it, and that removes an entire category of problem.
  • Fixed, published LTS dates, which makes a five-year plan something you can actually write down.
  • The only image here that GPU nodes run, because the CUDA stack is built and tested against it.

Choose a different one if

  • Debian You want the same package base without snap, without the vendor layer, and with a slower and quieter release.
  • AlmaLinux Your vendor certifies against Enterprise Linux specifically rather than "Linux".

That list is here because a page that cannot name a situation where something else is the right answer is an advertisement. Every image on this estate is included in the price of the machine, so there is nothing to sell you here — only the one that fits.

Versions and support dates are checked against upstream when they change. Last revised 30 июля 2026.

Every price on this estate is published in full, in one place. See the whole catalogue