As I write this, the Tampa Bay Lightning are down 2-1 against the Montreal Canadiens in Game 4 of the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Finals. Check the calendar: it’s late April and time for my bi-annual spring sports update and Ubuntu upgrade!
Ubuntu
Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute Raccoon) was released a few days ago. As usual, after running my pre-upgrade backup scripts, I kicked off the sudo do-release-upgrade which, despite this being an LTS release (and jump to the 7.x Linux kernel), only took about 22 minutes to download and apply all the updated packages (maybe part of that is due to my new Frontier fiber service). Re-applying my changes to the two affected config files (upsmon and resolved) only took a few additional minutes. I also had to make a few modifications to the .vimrc files for my mouse-based editing (like right-click paste) to work.
I’m basically copy/pasting this next bit from my Plucky upgrade in April 2025. I don’t understand why a PHP version upgrade always seems to remove the old/existing packages and not re-install all of the same newer replacements. This always breaks my WordPress and Piwigo sites (which use both PHP and MySQL). Simply installing the two missing packages (libapache2-mod-php8.5 and php8.5-mysql) with apt-get install, re-applying my changes to the .ini files, and restarting Apache resolved the problem but it’s still annoying that this doesn’t happen automatically.
(Oooh, the Lightning just tied the game with a power play goal! )
The only other post-upgrade issue I had was with phpSysInfo not being able to access some system utilities like uptime, /proc/cpuinfo, etc. It took a little back-and-forth chat with Copilot, but the AI chatbot was eventually able to direct me to the proper solution with some changes to my Apache config. Everything else seems to be stable but I’ll continue to monitor over the next few days.
Football
I didn’t really follow the NFL Draft this year since both the Browns and the Bucs didn’t have any exciting first round picks. The Bucs missed the playoffs last year but we still have Baker Mayfield. The Browns finished 5-12 and fired head coach Kevin Stefanski, so I assume 2026 will be another exercise in futility with a new coach and the continued QB drama. I did find it interesting that Ohio native Penn State quarterback Drew Allar was picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the draft. I enjoyed watching him play for the Nittany Lions these past few years and now I have to root against him.
Basketball
The Cavs are back in the NBA playoffs after finishing the regular season 2nd in the Central Division and 4th in the Eastern Conference. After a strong 2-0 start in round 1 against the Toronto Raptors, they dropped both games in Canada and come home for game 5 on Wednesday with the series tied 2-2.
Baseball
Despite my big Spring Training trip last month, I typically don’t get into the early baseball season due to the overlap of the NBA and NHL playoffs. But the Rays are back in Tropicana Field this season after spending last season outdoors in the smaller Spring Training home of the New York Yankees here in Tampa. New roof, new turf, and lots of other upgrades (if you can afford them). I actually went to see the Rays and Twins yesterday and the stadium looks nice. I still dislike indoor, air conditioned baseball, but I still love baseball and it was nice to see some newness at the Trop. All of those repairs were of course contractually obligated with their lease (and probably paid for with insurance after the hurricane damage) but despite that fact the new owners still want to move across the bay to Tampa and build a new stadium for the cool cost of $2.3 billion. One month into the new season and the Rays are just over .500 and in 2nd place in the AL East, just behind, of course, the Yankees. The Guardians, meanwhile, have a win percentage just below the Rays (but still over .500) and are in 1st in the AL Central. They play the Rays in Cleveland this week.
Hockey
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the Lightning are back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the 9th year in a row (and the 12th time in the past 13 years). They’ve lost in the first round for the past 3 years, so everyone here is hopeful this is the year push further (and no Panthers this year!). The Bolts were on fire before the Olympic break but then had a tough run when the season resumed and then slumped slightly again near the end and just could not catch up with Buffalo. They finished 2nd in the Atlantic Division (3rd in the Eastern Conference) and now face the Montreal Canadiens in the first round.
(Another power play goal put the Bolts up 3-2 late in the 3rd and they ended up winning game, so the series is now tied 2-2 and heading back to Tampa)
Mark your calendar and meet me back here in October for Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) and fall sports!
I haven’t watched TV over an antenna since I was a kid in the 80s … my parents never got cable, we were strictly a local channels household. In this modern age of multiple TVs, wireless streaming/casting, and mobile devices, I couldn’t imagine hooking up an antenna to a single television, so I started looking at options and came across the