Linux / Unix

While sporting a wide range of fixes and tweaks as usual, the latest PrismLinux update, labeled 2026.05.05, also comes with a redesigned installer, GNOME 50 support, version 7.0 of the Linux kernel, xLibre migration, as well as a KDE Plasma-based LiveCD with Wayland and auto-login enabled by default.

Anbernic has refreshed its RG34XX SP handheld with a new model. Apparently more than just a visual refresh, the new Metallic Blue variant also brings a metallic finish to the RG34XX SP that was missing from its existing four colour options.

The Lenovo G02 is a new handheld designed to emulate retro games. Featuring a 4.5-inch IPS display, the Lenovo G02 comes in multiple colours with more than a passing resemblance to the Anbernic RG40XX V.

With a new exploit, Sony’s console can become a capable gaming PC. Using the PS5 on Linux hack, Digital Foundry evaluated the performance of several PlayStation games. The ports exhibited similar frame rates, but memory limitations led to stuttering in Pragmata.

OmniOS r151058, only supporting upgrades from r151054 and r151056, is now available with improved IPv6 support, GMAC signing in SMB 3.1.1, ZFS improvements, better hardware support, load-balancing for individual logical units via mpathadm, as well as many other tweaks and fixes.

The latest stable version of this distro ships with the Steam client installer alongside Lutris Launcher, Gaming, Heroic Launcher, Moonlight GameStream, and more. These components allow the user to run several Epic Games titles, Battle.net games, Xbox Game Pass remote play, and more.

In late April 2026, modder Andy Nguyen released PS5-Linux for PlayStation 5 consoles running firmware 3.xx and 4.xx. With Linux installed, the system can essentially work like a regular PC, which also opens the door to emulation, and that's what another modder just showed off.

Amid accusations of vibe coding, questionable licensing and open-source practices, unwanted telemetry and unfair paywalling, many users are moving away from Booklore.

Valve may already have stacks of the Steam Machine waiting in warehouses. An insider noticed that the company has been importing shipments of “Game Consoles.” It recently hinted that, despite concerns about a high price, an update on the mini PC's release date would come soon.

While users of the KDE version get Plasma 6.6, those rocking Fedora 44 Workstation can enjoy GNOME 50. All flavors of the Fedora 44 update also feature multiple under-the-hood changes, including an updated Anaconda installer and components, NTSYNC enabled by default for select packages, and so on.

After months of testing and improvements, security engineer and modder Andy Nguyen has finally released PS5-Linux, allowing users to turn their console into a functional Linux gaming PC.

Significant Steam Machine price hikes were apparently under consideration at Valve. An insider describes how the memory shortage forced the company to reconsider its release date MSRP. There are conflicting reports on whether the mini PC will ship soon after the Steam Controller or late in 2026.

Targeting home servers, umbrelOS 1.7.0 comes with home screen shortcuts, a built-in text editor, and advanced networking controls, as well as no less than 17 new language translations. Like previous versions, this new release also sports a web-based user interface and an online app store.

The Steam Controller is in the spotlight, but Valve hasn’t forgotten about the Steam Deck 2. A programmer for the company reassured followers that the gaming handheld exists. A release date before 2028 is unlikely, but its specs may borrow the more comfortable layout of the new controller.

Framework recently revealed the Framework Laptop 13 Pro with a new chassis, Intel Panther Lake processors, PCIe Gen 5 storage, and a 74 Wh battery. The company is marketing the Laptop 13 Pro as an Apple MacBook Pro alternative. It appears that the Framework Laptop 13 Pro is indeed attracting MacBook Pro users.

Although a minor update, Mauna Linux 25.2 comes with quite a few changes. The list includes updated firmware packages, OnlyOffice 9.3.1, GIMP 3.2.2, and Calamares 3.4.2, as well as updated system apps, all on top of an up-to-date Debian 13.4 Trixie base with the 6.12.73/6.17.8 AHE kernels.

Valve Engineer Natalie Vock introduced a new VRAM optimization for Linux earlier in April 2026. This tweak has now been tested with a 4GB GPU, and there are some notable performance improvements in some games.

Valve has quietly published the first official Proton 11 beta with ARM64 and FEX emulation baked in, and the enthusiast community has wasted no time. Thanks to the Rocknix Linux distro, YouTuber ETA Prime has demoed native Steam running on three ARM-based Android handhelds, with Hollow Knight: Silksong cruising past 100 FPS on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

Rocknix now has support for Steam, allowing select Android handhelds to natively run Steam games. The feature is still in beta and has some kinks, but should get better as time goes on.

Valve has still not confirmed pricing or availability for the Steam Machine. In the meantime, the developer of EmuDeck is selling an alternative called Playnix, which should outperform the Steam Machine thanks to an AMD Radeon RX 9600 XT 16 GB GPU.

Denuvo aims to curb piracy, but it can also frustrate legitimate buyers. Pragmata Steam Deck and Linux players who update their PCs may not be able to run the game. The DRM has a 5-machine activation limit per 24 hours, and these changes count toward that restriction.

The last release before moving to Fedora 44, the Fedora 43-based RakuOS 2026.04.15 adds COSMIC to the list of available desktops. The other two choices are KDE Plasma and GNOME. Additionally, this update comes with a new live ISO installation experience and fully rewritten Rust core desktop apps.

Six months after the release of version 18, Zorin OS gets updated to 18.1. In this refresh, the Ubuntu-based distro offers better Windows app detection, tiling window improvements, and updates for the desktop panel, which now works seamlessly with right-to-left scripts, enhancing the experience for Arabic, Hebrew, or Urdu users.

The second update to last year's Trixie version of Raspberry Pi arrives as version 6.2 and focuses on small updates and bug fixes but also irons out one possible security flaw: passwordless sudo is now disabled by default. However, this change will not affect existing installations of Raspberry Pi OS.

France's government is shifting from using Windows to Linux. The change comes as part of an effort to abandon non-European digital services and reduce technological reliance on outside countries, specifically the United States.

Although the recently discovered vulnerabilities in Firefox 140.9.1 have apparently not been exploited yet, Tails 7.6.1 comes to ensure that won't happen in the future either. This emergency release includes Tor Browser 15.0.9 and Tor client 0.4.9.6, as well as some refreshed firmware packages for improved hardware support.

Opera has pushed version 130 to the stable desktop channel with a Chromium 146.0.7680.178 base, multiple crash fixes, interface cleanups, and Threads and Twitch sidebar access for Early Bird users.

Chrome Beta 148.0.7778.4 is now available on Android through Google Play, adding Web Serial API support, SharedWorker on Android, and a broader set of Chrome 148 web-platform changes.

Morbid Metal is a new 3D hack-n-slash game from Screen Juice that combines the fast-paced, heavy-hitting combat from the likes of Warframe with traditional roguelite mechanics and challenging boss fights from games like Elden Ring. It has officially launched in Early Access, and it supports the Steam Deck on day one with very lightweight system requirements.

Arch-based and systemd-free distro Artix Linux is back with update 20260402, a refresh that comes with two major changes. First, it replaces Xorg Server with XLibre as the default display server. Second, it moves from PulseAudio to PipeWire when it comes to the default audio system.

After more than a year since the release of its predecessor, Netrunner 26 arrives with a new base (Debian Stable 13 Trixie), Plasma 6.3.6 and KDE 6.13.0, multiple updates for the specific components such as Samba-mounter and Artwork, yt-dlp GUI Statcher7, better hardware support, and much more.

With RAM prices having risen sharply in recent months, YouTuber PortalRunner set out to try an unusual hardware experiment: He wanted to find out whether a PC could somehow run with RAM replaced – or even with no RAM at all. The result is certainly interesting, but still far from anything practical for everyday use.

Version 2.1 of CuerdOS keeps the focus on stability, efficiency, and performance. This distro comes with much more than just updated packages, bringing a self-hosted repository, catalog reductions, Fastcompmgr instead of XFWM4 and GtkLock replacing Swaylock-fancy, the 6.18.9 kernel, UFW enabled by default, and more.

The Polish lightweight distro 4MLinux returns with version 51.0, which includes Firefox 149 and Chrome 146, LibreOffice 26.2, improved support for ZX Spectrum and Atari music thanks to the AY/YM emulation library, as well as many updated firmware packages and apps, alongside the usual set of tweaks and fixes.

The Slimbook Creative Linux notebook returns, and the new edition promises even better performance thanks to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 in a lighter chassis. With a keyboard with RGB lighting and a 180 Hz QHD display, the laptop is also suitable for Linux gaming enthusiasts.

A recent benchmark by the YouTube channel NJ Tech compares gaming performance between Windows 11 and CachyOS. Early results suggest Linux is closing the gap, and in some cases, even pulling ahead in modern AAA titles.

PocketBook has released its latest Onyx Boox alternative in the US. Priced to undercut Onyx Boox's equivalent 10.3-inch E Ink tablets, the PocketBook InkPad One also includes a stylus for note-taking purposes.

On the path to the planned April 23 release, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS beta is here with the new GNOME 50 desktop and several new default apps, including the Resources system monitor, not to mention the latest release candidate version of the yet-to-be-released Linux kernel 7.0. New GPU drivers and plenty of package updates are also included.

Looking back at the first BackTrack Linux release, which arrived two decades ago as Kali's ancestor, the update 2026.1 features a classic theme directly inspired by its looks. Additionally, there are several new tools included, such as WPProbe, Fluxion, and GEF, while the Discord community can still enjoy the Kali 13th Birthday Event.

German-made ML4W OS is another piece of code based on Arch Linux, and its latest version, labeled 2.12.0, comes with multiple package updates, as well as several system elements replaced with Quickshell widgets. Only available for 64-bit machines, it comes in a 2.4 GB ISO file.

Replacing version 250407, ExLight 260322 comes with the kernel 6.19.8-amd64-exton and its list of highlights includes the Enlightenment 0.27.1 environment, Calamares 3.3.14-1, Refracta Snapshot, as well as a generous list of updated packages. The base used is Debian 13.4 Trixie.

Based on Debian 13.4 Trixie while leaving out systemd/libsystemd0 and elogind/libelogind0, antiX 26 is now available with five init systems, plenty of updated packages and several window managers. With support for both 64-bit and 32-bit hardware, it comes in two versions, namely Full and Core.

Thanks to Asahi Remix 43, Mac users with Apple silicon can enjoy Fedora Linux 43 on their machines. In addition to RPM 6.0 and the DNF5 backend, the list of exclusive features for Apple hardware includes Mac Pro support and 120 Hz refresh for MacBook Pro 14/16, as well as support for M2 Pro/Max MacBook microphones.

Once built upon Ubuntu, Brazil-based Br OS is now using Debian as its foundation, and the latest update is less than a day old. While there is no official news yet, it is safe to assume that version 13.4 takes the whole experience one step forward with updated apps, a new kernel, and maybe also a few surprises.

With version 3.2, Peropesis continues to deliver a fresh yet old-school Linux experience by relying exclusively on the command line interface. This update comes with multiple refreshed packages, such as gnutls 3.8.12, git 2.53.0, ruby 4.0.1, Lua 5.5.0, and more. The 64-bit live ISO size is now 410 MB.

Based on the Debian testing "Forky" repository as of March 14, 2026, SparkyLinux 2026.03 “Tiamat” comes with the Linux kernel 6.19.6, Firefox and Thunderbird 140.8.0esr, Calamares 3.4.2, and more. The list of versions available includes LXQt, MATE, and MinimalGUI (Openbox), as well as MinimalCLI (text mode).

Codenamed "Phoenix Pulsar" and packing the LTS Linux kernel with version 6.18, GLF OS 25.11 also includes the Nvidia driver 590.48 and a generous list of new built-in apps. The list includes pieces of code such as KCalc, Thunderbird, digiKam, the in-house developed Nix-Firewall-Management app, and more.

Baptized after the second-largest moon in our solar system, the Titan release of EndeavourOS also carries the 2026.03.06 version number. In addition to the Linux 6.19 kernel and KDE Plasma 6.6, it also comes with Firefox 148 and Calamares 26.03, as well as multiple minor tweaks and fixes.

The latest update of LinuxHub Prime is 3.1.5, and its highlights include Conky support, an improved live ISO image that now features an option to change screen resolution, updated Welcome and Config apps, better error handling for Calamares, updated Plymouth, and more.

While home users have nothing to do with such a piece of code, professionals managing servers should be interested in Univention Corporate Server 5.2-5, the latest update of the Debian-based behemoth that now features a restore option for deleted user accounts, faster changes to group memberships, and more.