Ubuntu 24.04 included .NET version has a lower version than 22.04

[johan-lindqvist]

Description

The specification for installed software on the 22.04 ubuntu image has these .NET versions of the SDK installed:

.NET Core SDK: 6.0.428, 7.0.410, 8.0.404

And the 24.04 ubuntu image only has:

.NET Core SDK: 8.0.111

Is the 24.04 image supposed to have an older version pre-installed?

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 12
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025

Image version and build link

20250105.1.0

Is it regression?

No

Expected behavior

The newer runner image should have a newer version of included software

Actual behavior

The newer runner image has a lower version of included software

Repro steps

N/A

[hemanthmanga]

Hi @johan-lindqvist, Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We are looking into this issue and will update you on this issue after investigating.

[kerbou]

@johan-lindqvist I believe it's the number refers to the .NET SDK version installed. I recall having read an earlier announcement stating that ubuntu-24.04 would only include .NET SDK 8.1xx, not higher feature bands such as 8.3 and 8.4 (8.2xx is out of support, FYI).

Read about .NET SDK feature bands here

The 8.1xx feature band is a smaller distribution which is probably why it's the one being shipped by default now on 24.04.

Check out this page for downloading .NET Core 8 - it actually contain multiple versions of the .NET SDK which will be installed on your machine allowing for app development and other stuff

https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/8.0

TL;DR; --> .NET Core 8 and .NET SDK 8 is not the same thing. The neutral word here is 'confusing' 🙄

Your workaround would be to use the setup-dotnet action in your workflow to install the .NET SDK you need for your workflow to complete succesfully

[Kielek]

@kerbou, both .NET SDK 8.1xx and 8.4xx will be supported until the end of life of .NET8.
Still, it is not clear to me what is the reason behind taking the 8.1xx version.

[lanni-energinet]

@Kielek

Tldr: There is no other package available

Canonical releases https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/dotnet-sdk-8.0, they have for whatever reason decided to only release 100 featureband (I would speculate that the underlying reason would be to ensure the most stable and most supported band)

When dotnet is available in distro package repo then Microsoft wont release packages on packages.microsoft.com
Source: dotnet/core#9258

See the difference here:
https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/24.04/prod/pool/main/d/
VS
https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/22.04/prod/pool/main/d/

[Kielek]

@lanni-energinet, thanks for explanation!

[johan-lindqvist]

@hemanthmanga @kerbou thanks for the explanation, makes sense with what @lanni-energinet said about only 100 featureband being available.

We already use setup-dotnet so we're managing. I was just confused why there was a downgrade between the ubuntu versions and thought it was a mistake.