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KDE’s upcoming Plasma Login Manager will make its first official appearance in Plasma 6.6 (scheduled for release on February 17), explicitly designed as a successor to the long-standing SDDM, which has been used by KDE Plasma for years.

Raspberry Pi Imager, a tool that helps users easily write OS images to an SD card for booting a Raspberry Pi, has just released version 2.0.5, now available for download.

Six months after switching to immutable design with its major 25 release, a Debian-based Deepin 25.0.10 ISO has been officially released as a feature-enhanced, bug-fix release, powered by Linux kernel 6.12.

Two months after the major 25 release, MX Linux has rolled out MX-25.1 “Infinity,” a new point update that refreshes installation media across all supported editions and restores one of the project’s long-standing distinguishing features: dual init support.

Snap Store, a centralized application repository for distributing snap packages operated by Canonical, allows developers to publish applications with relatively low barriers to entry, while users can install and update software automatically through a single trusted channel. However, that trust is now under strain.

The inability to use Adobe Creative Cloud on Linux is often cited as a major barrier for many users considering a switch to the platform. But perhaps, just perhaps, there has already been a breakthrough in that direction.

Although the Plasma 6.6 desktop has not yet been released (scheduled for February 17), KDE developers have already begun work on version 6.7, as some early details about its planned features are emerging.

Raspberry Pi Imager, a tool that helps users easily write OS images to an SD card for booting a Raspberry Pi, has just released version 2.0.4, now available for download.

The GNOME Project has officially released GNOME 48.8, a maintenance update for the old-stable GNOME 48 desktop environment series.

Nginx Proxy Manager, a popular web-based and user-friendly reverse proxy management interface for Nginx, has just released version 2.13.6. Although this is only a patch release to a minor version, it actually delivers some fairly significant improvements.

The Wine Project, a compatibility layer that enables Linux and macOS users to run Windows applications, has officially released version 11.0. The headline change is the completion of the new WoW64 architecture, which is now fully supported and considered feature-complete.

Zorin, a Linux distro that positioned itself as a familiar and accessible entry point for users leaving Windows, continues to move with growing confidence toward reaching a broader user base. I say this because the most recently published information on the subject is impressive.

A month after releasing version 146, Mozilla has launched Firefox 147, the latest update to its popular open-source web browser, now available for download.

Fastfetch, a widely adopted tool by Linux enthusiasts for showcasing a sleek summary of system information right in the terminal, has just launched version 2.57.

Parrot OS, a versatile Debian-based Linux distro designed for ethical hackers and cybersecurity pros, which released its major 7.0 version last month, has published its roadmap for 2026.

Over three weeks after its beta and four months since the 22.2 “Zara” release, Linux Mint 22.3 “Zena” is now available for download, as the status has been changed from “Being tested” to “Approved for stable release,” and the installation ISOs are now being synchronized across the mirrors.

KDE developers continue preparing Plasma 6.6, and although there are over a month to go before the final stable release (scheduled for February 17, 2026), the team posts weekly updates on the KDE Blogs about what changes to expect from this version. After I covered some of them recently, now we have a new batch to look at.

Budgie Desktop 10.10 has been released, delivering its first full migration from X11 to Wayland and marking the end of a development spanning more than a decade (the initial 10’s release came out in December 2015). With that said, with the new 10.10 release, Budgie 10 series now enters maintenance mode as the project shifts its primary focus toward the upcoming Budgie 11.

The KDE desktop has long been known for offering nearly limitless customization, but one option has always felt oddly missing: the ability to adjust frame border intensity and contrast for Breeze-themed UI elements, letting users make frames more subtle or more pronounced according to their preference.

Linux Mint 22.3 “Zena” is expected to arrive any moment now. Its beta landed in mid-December, and the final ISO is currently marked as “Being tested.” The headline change is the updated Cinnamon 6.6 desktop environment, which LMDE 7 users already have access to.

Exciting news for all Linux enthusiasts betting on ARM64 architecture. Ubuntu has taken a step toward making Steam available on ARM64, opening public testing of a new Steam Snap build for ARM.

The European Commission has opened a public call for evidence on a forthcoming European Open Digital Ecosystems Strategy. The consultation, which runs from January 6 to February 3, 2026, invites feedback from developers, companies, public administrations, academia, and civil society.

The European Commission has opened a public call for evidence on a forthcoming European Open Digital Ecosystems Strategy. The consultation, which runs from January 6 to February 3, 2026, invites feedback from developers, companies, public administrations, academia, and civil society.

Brave Browser, which recently reached more than 100 million users worldwide, has rolled out a major overhaul of its built-in adblocking engine, cutting memory consumption by 75 percent and delivering a measurable performance boost across desktop and mobile platforms. The changes are live starting with Brave v1.85, with further optimizations scheduled for v1.86.

Brave Browser, which recently reached more than 100 million users worldwide, has rolled out a major overhaul of its built-in adblocking engine, cutting memory consumption by 75 percent and delivering a measurable performance boost across desktop and mobile platforms. The changes are live starting with Brave v1.85, with further optimizations scheduled for v1.86.

Omarchy, a preconfigured Arch Linux setup packaged as a distro that ships with a Hyprland tiling window manager and a curated set of defaults and developer tools, has announced the release of version 3.3.

The Nitrux team has announced the release of Nitrux 5.1, an immutable, systemd-free Debian-based Linux distro that bets on AppImage-based software delivery and ships with Hyprland as its default desktop environment.

IPFire, a free, open-source Linux-based hardened firewall designed to be deployed as a dedicated firewall/router system for protecting network environments, has issued IPFire 2.29 Core Update 199.

Gentoo closed out 2025 by publishing a comprehensive year-end report with two highlights that were mostly interesting. Here they are.

Some projects keep surprising me with their “solutions,” and this is one of those cases. A proposal under review by developers from GNOME and Mozilla could change how middle-mouse-button paste behaves on Linux and other Unix-like systems.

There’s no doubt that 2026 will bring plenty of new Linux releases, with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS likely being the most anticipated, set to arrive at the end of April. But this article isn’t about the usual names that tend to dominate the conversation year after year.

Today, Manjaro Linux has officially pushed a new stable update, marking the release of Manjaro 26, code-named Anh-Linh. The headline change is the move to Plasma 6.5 and GNOME 49, both now configured to use Wayland by default.

Archboot, a guided, user-friendly, menu-driven installer for Arch Linux that automates much of the traditional manual installation process (while still allowing advanced users to intervene when needed), has added the COSMIC desktop environment as a new selectable option.

Less than a week after the previous 0.53 release, Hyprland, a favorite among fans of eye-pleasing tiling window compositors, has just rolled out version 0.53.1 as a small maintenance update focused exclusively on stability and correctness.

After 7 years since the last stable 2.4.4 release in October 2018, Icecast 2.5 is now available for this open-source streaming media server designed to deliver live and on-demand audio content over the internet.

Those of you who remember the fledgling of the Linux desktop will probably smile with a hint of nostalgia as you read this news. It takes us back more than 25 years, thanks to MIDesktop, a modern fork of KDE 1, which just released its first public development preview, bringing the late-1990s KDE desktop experience back to life on current Linux systems.

Five months after the previous 3.9 release, IceWM, a lightweight window manager for X Window System, favored for its minimal resource usage and high configurability, has released its latest version, 4.0.

Micro, a modern terminal-based text editor designed to be easy to use while still offering features typically associated with full graphical editors, released 2.0.15, marking the project’s first release since version 2.0.14, which shipped in August 2024.

According to the recently published Flathub’s 2025 Year in Review, the platform closed 2025 with its strongest year to date, recording more than 435 million total downloads during the year.

Shotcut, a popular open-source video editor, has released version 25.12, introducing one of its most significant image-quality upgrades to date with full 10-bit CPU video processing and expanded linear color handling.

As we’re about to say goodbye to 2025, I decided to look back at the year through the lens of Linux and open source, and recall for our readers the most significant developments it brought to the ecosystem. I’ll start with something fundamental, of course: the Linux kernel.

As we’re about to say goodbye to 2025, I decided to look back at the year through the lens of Linux and open source, and recall for our readers the most significant developments it brought to the ecosystem. I’ll start with something fundamental, of course: the Linux kernel.

Haruna, a Qt-based media player developed as part of the KDE ecosystem and built on top of MPV, has released version 1.7. The most visible changes center on playlists, as the player now supports advanced sorting and grouping, making larger music collections easier to navigate.

Here’s something to help you relax and have some fun while you wait for the New Year. SuperTux 0.7 Beta 1, a free and open-source 2D side-scrolling game featuring Tux, the Linux penguin, as its main character, is here marking the project’s first major release in four years, following version 0.6.3 issued in December 2021.

Nearly two months after the previous 0.52 release, Hyprland, a favorite among fans of eye-pleasing tiling window compositors, has just rolled out version 0.53.

Orbitiny Desktop has released Pilot 8, its eighth consecutive (and most extensive) pre-release update on the road to the upcoming stable 1.0 version. The release introduces a long-requested graphical system-wide installer and follows a near-complete rewrite of the desktop’s internal architecture, while preserving Orbitiny’s original portable-desktop design.

QNX, a real-time operating system for embedded systems, has released the initial version of its Self-Hosted Developer Desktop, introducing a native development environment that runs directly on QNX 8.0. The new setup is designed to eliminate the long-standing reliance on cross-compilation by enabling developers to build and test software entirely within QNX.

Fish, a popular user-friendly command-line shell, has announced version 4.3, a new release that builds on the 4.0 series.

Debian has officially promoted loong64 to a supported architecture, following more than 2 years of development in Debian Ports. With this change, loong64 is expected to ship as a fully supported architecture in the upcoming Debian 14 release, codenamed Forky, provided the remaining integration work proceeds as planned.

A GitHub repository maintained by Rockchip has been disabled following a DMCA takedown request filed by a contributor to the FFmpeg project. The company was informed about the problem nearly two years ago, but despite repeated assurances, it has still taken no action to resolve it. In the end, the expected happened.

Over the years, I’ve often thought that, despite how fast-moving the desktop Linux ecosystem is, there’s not much left that could truly surprise me. Yet I keep being proven wrong, and that’s a good thing. Winux, one of the newest additions to the scene, is a clear example.

Although Wayland has largely replaced Xorg, and most major Linux distributions and desktop environments have either already dropped support for the aging display protocol or are in the process of doing so, efforts to extend Xorg’s life or replace it with similar alternatives continue. Recent examples include projects such as XLibre Xserver and Wayback. And now, a new name is joining this group: Phoenix.

The GStreamer team has released the tenth bug-fix update, 1.26.10, of its cross-platform open-source multimedia framework for the stable 1.26 series.

Over seven months after its previous 1.4.2 bugfix release, the popular open-source vector graphics editor Inkscape has issued its latest version, 1.4.3, as the third maintenance update to the 1.4 series, which includes roughly 124 bug and crash fixes.

I know this isn’t the kind of news Linux fans were hoping to read on Christmas Day, but unfortunately, on a day meant for faith, kindness, and hope, others are choosing to act in exactly the opposite way.

Here is some news that both excited me and gave me pause. In its annual 2025 retrospective, published today, Arch-based CachyOS, widely popular among Linux gamers and heavily focused on performance optimization, reveals plans I did not expect: an expansion into the server space.

Kitty, one of the most feature-rich, GPU-accelerated, and highly efficient cross-platform terminal emulators, has just unveiled its latest update, version 0.45.

The Watchtower project has been officially archived and is no longer under active maintenance. The GitHub repository was switched to read-only status on December 17, 2025, marking the end of development for one of the most widely used Docker container auto-update tools.

Lua, a lightweight, high-level scripting language designed for embedding into other applications, has just rolled out version 5.5.

QEMU, a popular open-source machine emulator and virtualizer, has officially released version 10.2 (following a four-release candidate cycle) as the second point update to the 10.x series.

QEMU, a popular open-source machine emulator and virtualizer, has officially released version 10.2 (following a four-release candidate cycle) as the second point update to the 10.x series.

postmarketOS, an Alpine-based Linux distro designed to run on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, has published its 25.12 release, concluding a six-month development cycle with updates to the distribution’s base system, package management, user interfaces, and device support.

En enero 2026 mageia 10 alfa!!

Built on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, elementary OS 8.1 has been released just in time for Christmas, and is now available for download, marking the first point update in the 8.x series.

Raspberry Pi Imager, a tool that helps users easily write OS images to an SD card for booting a Raspberry Pi, has just released version 2.0.3, now available for download.

After eleven months in development following its previous 0.8 release, Clapper, an open-source media player for Linux built on GTK4 and GStreamer, has just released version 0.10.

After eleven months in development following its previous 0.8 release, Clapper, an open-source media player for Linux built on GTK4 and GStreamer, has just released version 0.10.

Chimera Linux, a still-in-development systemd-free, rolling release distro written from scratch that incorporates FreeBSD’s tools and libraries to provide a unique, lightweight, and modular experience, unveiled its latest set of installation ISOs powered by Linux kernel 6.18.

The Open Source Initiative, a nonprofit organization that promotes and protects open source software, has published its annual ranking of the most viewed open source licenses in 2025, reflecting the preferences and priorities of developers, organizations, and open source communities worldwide.

The team behind Immich, a popular open-source, self-hosted photo and video management platform, has released version 2.4. One of the most visible changes affects shared albums on the web, where users can now enable an option to display the asset owner’s name directly on thumbnails.

Over seven months after the previous 1.16.1 release, Flatpak, a universal Linux packaging system for distributing desktop applications in sandboxed environments, has released version 1.16.2 as the second bugfix update in the 1.16 series.

Valve has rolled out a new Steam client update dated December 19, and it’s already being automatically distributed to users.

The Mageia development team has outlined its initial plans for Mageia Linux 10, including a tentative release schedule and a review of the status of key software components as the distribution prepares to enter its next development phase.

Debian developers now have an official way to publish and test add-on package repositories, as the Debusine project has opened its repository feature in public beta.

Debian developers now have an official way to publish and test add-on package repositories, as the Debusine project has opened its repository feature in public beta.

The Arch Linux project has reached an important infrastructure milestone by making its official Windows Subsystem for Linux image fully reproducible.

Systemd v259 has been released, delivering one of the most wide-ranging updates in recent cycles while preparing users and distributions for more disruptive changes planned for v260.

VLC Media Player 3.0.23, codenamed “Vetinari,” has been released as the twenty-fourth update in the long-running VLC 3.0 branch.

Mabox Linux, a lightweight, rolling-release Linux distribution based on Manjaro and designed around the Openbox window manager, has released version 25.12.

KDE developer Ivan Čukić has launched KDE Ni! OS, a playful proof-of-concept that explores how immutable Linux could fit into the KDE ecosystem. The project was inspired by talks at this year’s Akademy conference, where immutable KDE distributions were a key topic.

Over five months after its previous 2025.3 version, the Rhino Linux team has unveiled its latest release, 2025.4, on its Ubuntu-based rolling-release distribution, which features a custom desktop environment (Unicorn) built around the Pacstall package manager.

Emmabuntüs is a Linux distribution based on Debian (previously on Ubuntu) that focuses on refurbishing and extending the life of older computers, while making Linux usable for beginners, nonprofits, schools, and people with disabilities, particularly visually impaired users.

The Sparky team has rolled out the latest ISO images, 2025.12, its third semi-rolling update of the year—for all enthusiasts of this lightweight Linux distro, based on Debian’s upcoming “Forky” testing branch.

Fresh is a newly released open-source TUI text editor written in Rust, designed to combine modern usability features with a command-line workflow. What sets it apart from similar applications is that it targets developers who want IDE-style functionality while remaining entirely inside the terminal.