Artix Linux 20260402 lands with a new window system and audio server

One of the Linux distros that offer a very wide area of customization is Artix, which is based on Arch but comes with several options for both the init system and desktop environment. The latest update, labeled 20260402, provides the following choices: KDE Plasma 6.6, Xfce 4.20, Cinnamon 6.6, LXQt 2.3, MATE 1.28, and LXDE 0.11.1 in the window manager department and OpenRC, Dinit, s6, and Runit when talking about the default init system. 

According to the official release notes, these are the highlights of Arch Linux 20260402:

• Support for user services when using dinit and OpenRC.
• While Xorg is still packaged and available for setup, the default X server is now XLibre.
• The default audio system bundled in the ISO images is PipeWire, which replaces PulseAudio.
• KDE Plasma users can choose to go with Wayland or XLibre.
• The 6.19.10 Linux kernel.

In addition to the above, all flavors get the latest versions of the included apps and core components. While minimalists can grab the base profiles installable from the command line, fully-loaded community editions with plenty of apps included for a complete desktop environment are also available.

The long list of ISO files available for download can be found on this page, where those interested can find four images for each of the flavors being maintained at this time. Each image corresponds to one of the four init systems mentioned in the first paragraph.