In October, we made the jump to a new epoch, the final chapter of our Usr-Merge saga. With the new epoch, we started using a new package repository, named Polaris, after the North Star. This unlocked our ability to remove Usr-Merge compatibility symbolic links from packages, update our systemd package, and more. You'll notice that the Solus Software Center is a thing of the past. While it was a popular program among users, it had problems, the first of which being it was written in Python 2. While it could have been ported to Python 3, this would have taken considerable effort, not just in porting, but also in testing. Even with that, it sometimes had reliability issues, and it had no support for Flatpaks. By switching to GNOME Software and KDE Discover, we are using ready-made and supported solutions to graphical package management.
As always, the new major release has some new features. Support for webcam devices has been greatly improved (via Zbar and V4L2 Viewer). Old (yet still quite useful) EmelFM2 file manager as well as uHexen2 (port of Raven Software's Hexen II source) have been added. GPAC (multimedia framework) is now available as a downloadable extension. You can find BlockOut II (3D tetris game) and PySol (a huge collection of solitaire card games) as parts of the 4MLinux Game Pack. And finally, hundreds of lines of code have been changed to ensure that all the 4MLinux build scripts do their job. And yes, 4MLinux is now fully able to reproduce itself from sources.
AV Linux (AVL) and MX Moksha (MXM) 25 have been released after a long and laborious development period. There are now two flavors of Enlightenment for the E-curious; AV Linux remains with Enlightenment 0.27.1 and the new addition 'MX Moksha' comes with Moksha 0.4.1 from the popular Bodhi Linux project. Features at a glance: made with love on a base of MX Linux 25 and Debian 'Trixie'; new first-run setup wizard; low-latency preempt Liquorix kernel with threaded IRQs; enhanced hardware support provided by MX Linux 'ahs' repository; powerful MX Linux Tools, including MX-Snapshot; efficiently low RAM consumption with attractive compositing and unrivaled display scaling; Enlightenment desktop environment 0.27.1 with newly added optional Enlightenment apps and modules; right-click desktop menu....
Our free and locally developed operating system Pardus released its new major version, Pardus 25 'Bilge' on November 24, the Teachers' day. The 'Bilge' code name (meaning 'wise') was chosen as an inspiration from our wise teachers who impart knowledge and guide new generations. Updated system tools and new applications: About Pardus provides quick access to system and hardware information with easy sharing options; Pardus iOS Device Connector enables seamless access to iPhone and iPad devices; Pardus Domain Joiner allows integration with Windows Active Directory domains. Pardus 25 uses Xfce 4.20.2 and GNOME 48.4 as its desktop environments.
We are pleased to announce the general availability of Rocky Linux 10.1. Notable new features and changes: systemd soft-reboot enables userspace-only reboots, permitting rapid patching in many scenarios; furthering the post-quantum cryptography progress made in Enterprise Linux 10.0, Rocky Linux 10.1 now prioritizes post-quantum over classical algorithms in OpenSSL and enables post-quantum algorithms in more libraries and policies including GnuTLS; you can now scrub mounted XFS filesystems with xfs_scrub and shrink XFS filesystems with xfs_growfs in some scenarios; upgraded software - .NET 10, Node.js 24, OpenJDK 25, Valkey 8, Go Toolset 1.24, LLVM Toolset 20, Rust Toolset 1.88; Rocky Linux 10.1 VisionFive2 images will not be published until issues in the riscv64 6.12.0-124.8.1 kernel build have been fixed.
Russian developer NTC IT ROSA announces the release of the ROSA Fresh 13.1 operating system. While the previous release was aimed at enthusiasts and testing cutting-edge technologies, the new version 13.1 is designed for a wide range of users. Priorities during development included stability, expanded hardware compatibility, and ease of use in everyday tasks. This version will serve as the technological foundation for the upcoming corporate release of ROSA Chrome 13. The developers' key focus was ensuring trouble-free operation of the hardware immediately after installation. Thanks to the implementation of an automatic ACPI table correction mechanism and updated open-source drivers, the system now correctly supports sound, touchpads, Wi-Fi and displays, even on specific devices. Specifically, sound now works out of the box on Xiaomi MiBook 14 laptops, and key components (the keyboard, touchpad and sound) now work on the latest MacBook models with Intel processors.
AlmaLinux 10.1 also includes support for the Btrfs filesystem, which has already been available in AlmaLinux OS Kitten since early September. Btrfs support encompasses both kernel and userspace enablement, and it is now possible to install AlmaLinux OS on a Btrfs filesystem from the very beginning. Initial enablement was scoped to the installer and storage management stack, and broader support within the AlmaLinux software collection for Btrfs features is forthcoming. In addition to Btrfs support, AlmaLinux OS 10.1 includes numerous other improvements to serve our community. We have continued to extend hardware support both by adding drivers and by adding a secondary version of AlmaLinux OS and EPEL to extend support of x86_64_v2 processors.
Totally rebuilt from scratch; based on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS; new custom Linux kernel, version 6.17.8; we did a lot of optimizations reducing the ISO image size (by about 5GB), mainly keeping the same tools; the virtual machine size has been optimized as well from 33GB to 15.7GB; removed snap; new system installer (Calamares); new forensic file manager (PCManFM has been replaced by a customised version of Thunar); the 'RAM saturation workaround' feature has been integrated in the system adapting logrotate in live and installed mode; full system update; firmware updates; fix winSuperMem and AutoTimeliner tools; fixed VM image that didn't work on some VMware versions; fix bootloader problem on MBR systems (it was due to a bug in the old Ubiquity installer); removed unmaintained tools; added many new tools; improved some computer vision tools; updated menus; the naming convention for the release has been changed, specifying year and month (25.11).
Ultramarine 43 brings some gas-fired polish and a few surprise features. Budgie has been our (rather acclaimed) Flagship for a couple years, but over the last year we've noticed ourselves recommending other editions, this is (obviously) not a great endorsement for Budgie. Budgie was chosen as Ultramarine's Flagship for a pretty silly reason, simply because Fedora didn't have it yet. This has changed, and better options have emerged. KDE Plasma's 6.0 release made Plasma into a highly polished, modern experience, and it's only gotten better since. KDE and the Fedora KDE SIG put an insane amount of effort into Plasma, from its 5-Minute-Bugs initiative to dropping X11 support before GNOME. In Ultramarine 43 we are retiring the Flagship brand and recommending the Plasma edition.
This release presents among other things the new Linux kernel 6.8.0-88 and the latest upgrade of the web browser google-chrome-stable (version 142.0.7444.175-1). In addition, Starbuntu has improved the home-brewed installation app of its own file system.