Enabling Ubuntu's TPM encryption switches you to a snap kernel that blocks deb kernel packages

Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR: Rediscovering that on Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04, ticking “Use hardware-backed disk encryption” in the installer silently gives you a snap-based system (snap kernel and bootloader, like Ubuntu Core) instead of a normal deb-based one. On a modern laptop, this quietly breaks hardware enablement, in my case the webcam, with no supported way to fix it, without re-installing with play LUKS instead.

I got my hands on a Dell Latitude 7450, certified with Ubuntu 22.04 (this Ubuntu blog post on the certification process is worth a read), and decided to try a newer LTS version. Ubuntu 26.04 was out but really new, so I ended up on 24.04. I downloaded ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso, ticked the encrypt-the-disk checkbox using TPM (I had to disable third-party drivers for that, that should have been the warning sign), and found myself with a system where the camera was not working.

hardware on bare.systems

Enabling Ubuntu's TPM encryption switches you to a snap kernel that blocks deb kernel packages