diff --git a/.github/workflows/r.yml b/.github/workflows/r.yml
index e6809ef5a9a94..6d7e04aa7f580 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/r.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/r.yml
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ jobs:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
         r: ["4.4"]
-        ubuntu: [20.04]
+        ubuntu: [22.04]
         force-tests: ["true"]
     env:
       R: ${{ matrix.r }}
diff --git a/ci/scripts/r_test.sh b/ci/scripts/r_test.sh
index fe9d18edb8cbb..f4ee923b35e6f 100755
--- a/ci/scripts/r_test.sh
+++ b/ci/scripts/r_test.sh
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ SCRIPT="as_cran <- !identical(tolower(Sys.getenv('NOT_CRAN')), 'true')
   if (requireNamespace('reticulate', quietly = TRUE) && reticulate::py_module_available('pyarrow')) {
       message('Running flight demo server for tests.')
       pid_flight <- sys::exec_background(
-          'python',
+          'python3',
           c(
               '-c',
               paste0(
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index 7cde5b59f9797..c05d7d2e49251 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -1531,8 +1531,6 @@ services:
         tz: ${TZ}
         r_prune_deps: ${R_PRUNE_DEPS}
         r_duckdb_dev: ${R_DUCKDB_DEV:-}
-        ubuntu: ${UBUNTU}
-        python: ${PYTHON}
     shm_size: *shm-size
     environment:
       <<: [*common, *ccache, *sccache]