The Slackware-based PorteuX 2.5 distribution, inspired by Slax and Porteus and designed to be super fast, small, portable, modular, and immutable, is out today with various updates and changes. Powered by the latest and greatest **Linux 6.18** kernel series (with SYSRQ support), PorteuX 2.5 ships with no less than eight editions featuring the **GNOME 49.2** , **KDE Plasma 6.5.4** , **Cinnamon 6.6** , **LXQt 2.3** , **COSMIC 1.0** , **Xfce 4.20** , LXDE 0.11.1, and MATE 1.28.2 desktop environments. Some interesting highlights of the PorteuX 2.5 release include support for some Realtek network cards, the **NVIDIA 590.48.01** graphics driver, improved handling of cheatcodes, improved overall stripping, improved support for NTFS3 partitions, improved KVM support, and support for **Flatpak apps**. “On the first run, the user should provide a valid path where the Flatpak files will be stored, for example: sudo flatpak /mnt/sda1 (or flatpak –force-setup /mnt/sda1 if re-setup is required). The setup will configure the path and add the Flathub repository. After that, usage follows the standard Flatpak workflow,” said the devs. The LXQt edition received a patch to inform the windowing system (X11 or Wayland). The LXDE edition received some changes as well, such as better Openbox defaults, a fix for volume plugin freezes, and a fix for LXDE panel items not changing their color when switching between dark and light themes. Among other noteworthy changes, PorteuX 2.5 improves Vulkan support for a better Steam gaming experience, improves timezone support when using UTC, fixes the `/.cache` directory creation, fixes an issue with `zram` cheatcode not working when set in `/porteux/porteux.cfg`, and adds the ensurepip package. Of course, there are also the usual updated packages based on upstream updates, bug fixes, and other changes, so check out the release notes on the _project’s GitHub page_ for extra reading. You can download PorteuX 2.5 from the same location as Slackware Current flavors. ### _Related_

Inkscape 1.4.3 has been released today as the second maintenance update to the **Inkscape 1.4** series of this open-source, cross-platform, and free SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) editor for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Coming seven months after **Inkscape 1.4.2**, the Inkscape 1.4.3 release improves PDF import, ungrouping of big groups, converting of strokes to paths, patterns, and gradients to no longer be lost, aligning on a circle or arc to be more reliable, and the Text on Path feature to also work with rectangles. Inkscape 1.4.3 also lets you access pasting options from the right-click menu on canvas, updates the Measure tool to snap again at its end point for more accurate measurements, and updates the LPE dialog to offer to convert Line, Polyline, or Polygon SVG objects to paths before applying a path effect to them. Starting with this release, the buttons in the Commands bar (e,g, Copy, Paste, Open, etc.) will show up one by one when resizing the Inkscape window instead of waiting for the window to get big enough to show the second half at once, and the current layer is now the default choice where you have last selected an object. Also, you can now make small changes to how Inkscape looks without needing to modify the full theme file, the results from path operations will no longer end up at the bottom of the object stack, and the Split Path operation was improved to better handle nested shapes. Among other changes, Inkscape 1.4.3 improves JPEG/JPG export on Windows, fixes a problem with user interface text showing up as rectangles instead of letters on macOS if certain fonts are installed, and makes the option to change the current page when selecting an object on it optional. Of course, numerous bugs were addressed since Inkscape 1.4.2, including a bug that sometimes made it impossible to make gradients and patterns fully opaque, as well as more than 20 crash and freeze issues that prevented users from opening certain files or exporting certain objects. For more details about the changes implemented in this release, check out the _release notes_. Meanwhile, you can download Inkscape 1.4.3 from the _official website_ as an AppImage universal binary format that you can run on virtually any GNU/Linux distribution without installing anything on your computer. ### _Related_

The GStreamer project released GStreamer 1.26.10 as the tenth maintenance update to the latest **GStreamer 1.26** series of this popular and powerful open-source, free, and cross-platform multimedia framework. Coming three weeks after **GStreamer 1.26.9** , the GStreamer 1.26.10 release introduces support for FLAC audio in DASH manifests, support for a custom Sony XDCAM video variant to mxf, multichannel and surround sound handling improvements to the OPUS encoder (opusenc), and splitmuxsrc seeking improvements. GStreamer 1.26.10 also brings HLS/DASH stream selection handling improvements to fix disabling and re-enabling of audio/video streams with adaptivedemux2, as well as robust recording mode space left estimation fixes for streams that start with a timestamp offset in qtmux. Various bugs were fixed in this release, including fixes for 6.1 and 7.1 channel layouts and support of encoding and decoding of 32-bit audio, fixes for handling of odd height buffers, fixes for frame completion callbacks for firmware 14.3 or later, and fixes for regressions where buffers were no longer writable in pad probe callbacks. On top of that, it brings fixes and improvements to the curlhttpsrc element, makes the maximum allowed block size large enough to support 4K uncompressed video, adds Python bindings for GstApp, and improves the Windows installer. Of course, there are also various memory leak fixes, as well as stability and reliability improvements, so check out the _release notes_ for more details about the changes included in this new GStreamer release. Meanwhile, you can download the GStreamer 1.26.10 source tarball right now from the _official website_ if you fancy compiling it from sources; otherwise, you should install it from your distro’s stable repositories. _Image credits: logo by the GStreamer project_ ### _Related_

QEMU 10.2 has been released today as the latest stable version of this open-source machine emulator and virtualization software, a release that brings new features and improvements for next-generation emulation. Coming four months after **QEMU 10.1** , the QEMU 10.2 release introduces live update support via a new ‘cpr-exec’ migration mode, which allows for reduced resource usage when updating virtual machines, and potential for re-using existing state/connections throughout update. For ARM architectures, QEMU 10.2 introduces support for a new ‘amd-versal2-virt’ board model, and improvements to existing ‘AST2600’/’AST2700’/’AST1030’ and ‘xlnx-zynqmp’ boards, as well as support for the FEAT_SCTLR2, FEAT_TCR2, FEAT_CSSC, FEAT_LSE128, FEAT_ATS1A, FEAT_RME_GPC2, FEAT_AIE, FEAT_MEC, and FEAT_GCS CPU features. For HPPA architectures, QEMU 10.2 brings emulation support for an HP 715/64 workstation, as well as emulation support for the NCR 53c710 SCSI controller and HP LASI multi-I/O chip. For PowerPC architectures, it brings support for PowerNV11 and PPE42 CPU/machines, as well as FADUMP support for pSeries. For RISC-V architectures, this release brings numerous emulation fixes and improvements for various components, for s390x architectures it brings virtio-pci performance improvements via irqfd, and for LoongArch architectures it promises support for MSGINT irqchip in TCG mode and HW Page Table Walk in TCG mode. Among other changes, QEMU 10.2 promises performance improvements via switching to io_uring for QEMU’s main loop, 9pfs shared file system support for FreeBSD hosts, lots of fixes and improvements for user-mode emulation, and Replay Protected Memory Block (RPMB) emulation support to the eMMC device model. The devs also note that the minimum supported version of Rust is now 1.83, which is available in Debian Bookworm as the rustc-web package except for the mips64el architecture, which requires Debian Trixie or newer. For Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 LTS hosts, it’s available in the rust-1.83 package, noting the fact that the RUSTC and RUSTDOC environment variables must point to /usr/bin/rustc-1.83 and /usr/bin/rustdoc-1.83, respectively. For a complete list of changes, check out the _release notes_. Meanwhile, you download QEMU 10.2 as a source tarball from the _official website_ if you fancy compiling it from sources (otherwise, you must wait until the new release arrives in the stable software repositories of your GNU/Linux distribution to update). ### _Related_

The developers behind the Debian-based ParrotOS ethical hacking and penetration testing distribution announced today the general availability of Parrot 7.0 (codename Echo) as a major update with a new base and new features. Based on the latest **Debian 13 “Trixie”** operating system series and powered by Linux kernel 6.12 LTS, the Parrot 7.0 release ships with **KDE Plasma** as the default desktop environment on Wayland, which was tweaked to make it as lightweight as possible, along with a classic terminal green style across the entire system. New hacking tools have been included in this release, such as ConvoC2, a Red Teamer’s tool to exploit MS Teams, goshs, a SimpleHTTPServer written in Go, evil-winrm-py, a Python-based tool for executing commands on remote Windows machines, and AutoRecon, a multi-threaded network reconnaissance tool. Parrot 7.0 also ships with bpf-linker, a simple BPF static linker, PKINITtools, a set of tools for Kerberos PKINIT and relaying to AD CS, Chisel, an open-sourced tool written in Go for passing through firewalls, BloodHound.py, a Python-based ingestor for BloodHound, and TruffleHog, a secrets scanning tool. For the first time, due to community request, an “AI Tools” category has been included in the Parrot Security edition, featuring HexStrike AI, an AI-driven penetration testing and security assessment tool. “Our mission remains to include and sponsor the development of tools designed to test the security of LLM prompts and play with prompt engineering techniques,” said the Parrot Security devs. “AI-driven automation might seem handy, but the actual “Cybersecurity AI Revolution” will only come from the proper strategies and tools to secure such family of technologies.” Among other changes, Parrot 7.0 updates the parrot-tools metapackage to pre-install many more tools, offers a pre-assembled rootfs tarball for **RISC-V** , rewrites the Parrot Updater tool in Rust with a GUI, updates the Docker and WSL images, and introduces a new script to convert Debian installations to Parrot. Check out the _release notes_ for more details. Meanwhile, you can download Parrot 7.0 as Home and Security live editions for 64-bit systems right now from the _official website_ , where you’ll also find a pre-packaged Docker image, VM images, a Raspberry Pi image, and a RISC‑V edition. Existing **Parrot 6** users can upgrade to the Parrot 7.0 release, and they’ll be able to keep the MATE desktop environment by default. However, the devs recommend performing a clean installation as the best option for stability and performance, especially for those coming from an older Parrot release. ### _Related_

Pinta 3.1 has been released today as a major update to this open-source, free, and cross-platform paint program written in GTK# for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows. Coming more than eight months after **Pinta 3.0** , the Pinta 3.1 release implements a new axonometric grid under View > Canvas Grid, a new Cells effect, a polygon selection mode to the Lasso Select tool, a Radius Percentage parameter to the Twist effect, and a revamped canvas widget to improve performance. Pinta 3.1 also updates the Gradient tool with handles for adjusting the gradient length and direction, updates the Dithering effect to use Pinta’s current palette in addition to the effect’s preset color palettes, and updates the Splatter brush to repeatedly draw while holding the mouse down. Starting with this release, the selection outline is now animated for improved visibility, the selection of an area on the canvas is now being projected and highlighted on the rulers, and random seed values for effects can now be directly controlled, in addition to using the Reseed button. Moreover, Pinta 3.1 adds a right-click menu for layers, which contains actions that can be applied to the selected layer, updates the Text tool with support for using Ctrl+Backspace to delete words, and adds support for displaying keyboard shortcuts on all toolbar button tooltips. Among other noteworthy changes, Pinta 3.1 moves the View menu from the hamburger menu to a dedicated button, adds a warning message to notify users that an image with multiple layers is being flattened when it’s saved to a format that doesn’t support layers, and draws transparent palette colors against a checkerboard pattern for improved visibility. Furthermore, this release removes the blend mode parameter from the Clouds effect, adds support for color picking to `SimpleEffectDialog` for add-in developers, updates the “About” dialog to include links to the issue tracker and discussion forum, and updates the dependencies to require GTK 4.18 and libadwaita 1.7 or later. This is also the first release of Pinta to offer an AArch64 (ARM64) installer for Windows users, while the macOS version now features an updated application icon to better match the platform’s icon style guidelines. Pinta 3.1 also improves the handling of negative angle values in the Rotate / Zoom Layer dialog. There are also numerous bug fixes, so check out the release notes on the _project’s GitHub page_ for more details about the changes included in Pinta 3.1, which you can download from the same location as a source tarball. You can also install Pinta as a Flatpak or Snap app from _Flathub_ and _Snap Store_. ### _Related_

postmarketOS 25.12 was released today as the latest version of this Linux-based operating system for mobile devices, bringing new features, support for new devices, and updated components. Based on **Alpine Linux 3.23** , postmarketOS 25.12 comes with some components from the **GNOME 49** __ desktop environment with out-of-the-box support for connecting to MTP devices, and KDE Plasma Mobile 6.5.3 with better Waydroid integration, a faster loading lockscreen, homescreen improvements, and the Plasma Camera app. postmarketOS 25.12 also features the Phosh 0.51 mobile UI, which brings improvements to automatic brightness, more adaptive Rust portals, thumbnail previews for the file chooser portal, support for multiple media players on the lock screen, as well as new scaling options and a typing indicator pop-up for the Stevia keyboard. Moreover, the Phosh mobile settings app has been updated to display an initial set of settings from the postmarketOS tweaks app, and users can now configure terminal layout shortcuts in Phosh’s mobile settings. Sxmo, the fourth mobile UI supported by postmarketOS 25.12, has been updated to Sxmo 1.18.1, a release that adds support for the i3 and River window managers, and a new Quick Actions menu, while replacing the `callaudiod` daemon with WirePlumber for switching to “Phone call” audio mode. Among other changes, this release comes with mobile-config-firefox 5.1.0, the mobile and privacy-friendly configuration for current standard and extended support releases of Firefox, which features an `about:mobile` page to allow users to manually toggle the options that are set by mobile-config-firefox. Last but not least, postmarketOS 25.12 introduces support for the Lenovo ThinkSmart View tablet, improves webcam/camera support on the Acer Chromebook Tab 10 tablet, improves call audio on the _OnePlus 6_ smartphone, and improves support for Fairphone 5, **Librem 5** , and **PinePhone** devices. Check out the _release announcement page_ for more details about the changes included in postmarketOS 25.12, which you can download from the _official website_ for your device. Existing users running **postmarketOS 25.06** should check out the official wiki on _upgrading their installations to a newer postmarketOS release_. _Image credits: postmarketOS_ ### _Related_

Raspberry Pi’s Tom Dewey released Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.3 today as the second update to the major **Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0** series of this cross-platform utility for installing **Raspberry Pi OS** and other operating systems to a microSD card. Coming two weeks after **Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.2** , the Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.3 release implements bottleneck detection and real-time progress updates showing network, decompression, or write-bound status, improves drive filtering and system identification logic on Linux, and enhances async I/O support across all platforms. Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.3 also adds detailed write timing breakdown for hypothesis testing and performance analysis, adds CA certificate bundle detection for AppImage compatibility on Linux distributions with non-standard CA paths, and adds support for NVMe over Fabrics (BusTypeNvmeof) bus type on Windows. Moreover, this release introduces a timeout mechanism for critical operations like BLKDISCARD and writing to the end of the device, enhances storage bus type recognition and device classification, enhances title display with offline status indication in the main window, and improves text wrapping and marquee scrolling in the UI. Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.3 also implements comprehensive network monitoring across all platforms to detect connectivity changes and automatically retry OS list fetching, adds automatic fallback and retry logic when restoring network connections, and adds rpi-imager:// URI scheme for deep-linking to custom OS repositories. Among other changes, this release introduces a confirmation dialog with a security delay for remote repository URLs, adds CurlFetcher and CurlNetworkConfig for improved network operations with better error handling, and enables file:// protocol support in cURL configuration for local repository testing. Among other noteworthy changes, Raspberry Pi Imager now shows the custom repository host in the window title bar with punycode encoding to prevent IDN homograph attacks, adds a sticky language preference that remembers user selection across sessions, and enhances Wi-Fi configuration for open networks using key_mgmt=NONE. Last but not least, this release also refines cloud-init user data and network configuration generation, adds a debug option to skip end-of-device operations for users with problematic cards, and implements a mechanism to detect and handle counterfeit storage devices that may hang during I/O operations. Check out the release notes on the _project’s GitHub page_ for more details about the changes implemented in Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.3, which you can download right now from the same location as a universal AppImage binary for 64-bit and ARM64 (AArch64) systems, as both GUI and CLI variants. ### _Related_

The elementary OS team released today elementary OS 8.1 as the latest stable version of their Ubuntu-based distribution using the modern Pantheon desktop environment. Based on **Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (Noble Numbat)** and powered by Linux kernel 6.14, elementary OS 8.1 makes the Wayland-based Secure Session introduced in **elementary OS 8.0** the default, with the X11-based Classic Session as a fallback option for those who encounter issues with the Wayland-based session. The Wayland session supports fractional display scaling, better support for multi-monitor setups, updated password authentication dialogs that prevent other windows from stealing focus by dimming the rest of the screen when opened, and new AppArmor profiles to improve support for Flatpak apps. Another great new feature in elementary OS 8.1 is support for ARM64 (AArch64) devices that boot with UEFI. This means that elementary OS 8.1 can be installed on M-series **Apple Silicon** computers, as well as devices where you can load UEFI-supporting firmware, such as **Raspberry Pi** single-board computers. Two new apps are present in this release, including Monitor, an app for monitoring system resources and processes, and Maps, an app that gives you quick access to maps all across the world. Maps is a fork of the “Atlas Maps” app by Steffen Schuhmann, and it can handle `geo://` URI links. elementary OS 8.1 also brings updates to the Dock with support for background apps and workspaces, the ability to show multiple running dots for apps with multiple open windows, a Pressure Reveal feature that makes it easier to select app controls at the bottom of the screen, and support for the Multitasking view. The AppCenter package management tool received support for app add-ons, support for percentage-based app ratings from ODRS (GNOME Open Desktop Ratings), support for app screenshots intended for elementary OS, support for games that support controllers, and much faster and reliable app updates. “Installed apps are now sorted by release date instead of alphabetically, the Releases dialog got a slight redesign and you can now see recent releases for all installed apps, and we’ve adjusted where the version number and store origin labels appear to clean up their layout,” said elementary OS founder Danielle Foré. There are also many accessibility improvements in elementary OS 8.1, as well as dark mode support for the lock screen, increased text color contrast in Terminal and transparent elements, redesigned Bluetooth settings, redesigned folder icons, and revamped notifications with rounded corners and blur-behind effect. Last but not least, the System Settings app has been update with two new Network settings for reducing background data usage when connected to a metered network and automatically connecting to a network when available, and there’s now a new “Prevent Sleep” toggle in Quick Settings. Several of the default apps have been updated as well, including Files, which now supports the `admin://` URI protocol for opening a path as an administrator, Music, which now comes with new features for managing the queue, Terminal, which now uses a more modern tab bar widget, and Code, which can now clone Git repos via the projects menu in the sidebar. Under the hood, elementary OS 8.1 is powered by Linux kernel 6.14 and uses the Mesa 25.0.7 graphics stack, which means that you will not only get improved performance for your machine but also better support for new hardware, including webcams, gamepads, USB network devices, joysticks, microphones, and Wi-Fi devices. Check out the _full announcement_ for more details about the changes included in elementary OS 8.1, which you can download right now as a live ISO image from the _official website_. Unfortunately, elementary OS does not currently offer an automated method for upgrading between major versions. ### _Related_

**The 271st installment of the 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup is here for the week ending on December 21st, 2025, keeping you updated with the most important things happening in the Linux world. If you missed last week’s 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup, catch up with everything GNU/Linux/Open Sourcehere.** ## Thank you! I would like to thank everyone who sent us donations; your generosity is greatly appreciated. I also want to thank all of you for your continued support by commenting, liking, sharing, and boosting the articles, following us on social media, and, last but not least, sending us feedback. This week, we got lots of software updates for Scribus, OpenShot, LibreOffice, OpenZFS, fwupd, NVIDIA graphics driver, Kdenlive, Darktable, Ventoy, MPV, and GnuCash, as well as new distro releases including SparkyLinux 2025.12, Emmabuntüs Debian Edition 6, and Linux Mint 22.3 Beta. On top of that, I tell you all about Armbian Imager and show you how to install Linux kernel 6.18 LTS on Ubuntu. Below, you can check out this week’s hottest news and access all the distro and package downloads released this past week in the 9to5Linux weekly roundup for December 21st, 2025. ## Hot news of the week * Scribus 1.6.5 open-source desktop publishing app is out with various changes * SparkyLinux 2025.12 “Tiamat” arrives with Debian Forky base, Linux kernel 6.17 * OpenShot 3.4 open-source video editor is here with new effects and features * Emmabuntüs Debian Edition 6 is now available based on Debian 13 “Trixie” * Flatpak 1.16.2 Linux app sandboxing framework enables VA-API for Intel Xe GPUs * Meet Armbian Imager, the official flashing utility for Armbian Linux, beta out now * LibreOffice 25.8.4 is now available for download with more than 70 bug fixes * Linux kernel 6.17 reaches end of life, it’s time to upgrade to Linux kernel 6.18 LTS * Linux Mint 22.3 “Zena” Beta is available for download with Cinnamon 6.6 * NVIDIA 590 Linux graphics driver is out with more Wayland improvements * OpenZFS 2.4 arrives with Linux 6.18 LTS support, quotas, uncached IO, and more * Firefox will ship with an “AI Kill Switch” to completely disable all AI features * Fwupd 2.0.19 Linux firmware updater supports the Lenovo Sapphire Folio keyboard * Kdenlive 25.12 video editor adds new docking system, Welcome screen, and more * Tutorial: How to install Linux kernel 6.18 LTS on Ubuntu 25.10 and Ubuntu 25.04 * Darktable 5.4 open-source RAW image editor improves camera support * Ventoy 1.1.10 bootable USB creator is out with support for AerynOS * MPV 0.41 open-source video player arrives with improved Wayland support * GnuCash 5.14 open-source accounting software adds support for US bonds ## Linux distributions released this week * EasyOS 7.1 * Bluestar Linux 6.18.1 * Linuxfx 11.25.12 * TUXEDO OS 20251218 * KDE neon 20251218 * RELIANOID 7.8.0 * Alpine Linux 3.23.2 * Mabox Linux 25.12 * Rhino Linux 2025.4 * Rhino Linux 2025.4 * Emmabuntüs DE6-1.00 * CentOS Stream 10-20251215 * SparkyLinux 2025.12 KDE Plasma * SparkyLinux 2025.12 Xfce * SparkyLinux 2025.12 LXQt * SparkyLinux 2025.12 MATE * SparkyLinux 2025.12 MinimalGUI * SparkyLinux 2025.12 MinimalCLI ## Linux apps, drivers, desktops, and kernels released this week * MPV 0.41 * GnuCash 5.14 * DBeaver 25.3.1 * Ventoy 1.1.10 * Darktable 5.4 * ALSA 1.2.15.1 * Chromium 143.0.7499.169 * fwupd 2.0.19 * OpenZFS 2.4 * NVIDIA 590.48.01 * Linux kernel 6.18.2 LTS * Linux kernel 6.17.13 * Linux kernel 6.12.63 LTS * Mesa 25.3.2 * Mozilla Firefox 146.0.1 * systemd 259 * Mir 2.25.2 * Mozilla Thunderbird 146.0.1 * BIND 9.20.17 * Exim 4.99.1 * XZ Utils 5.8.2 * Ruby 3.4.8 * Chromium 143.0.7499.146 * Blender 5.0.1 * LLVM 21.1.8 * OpenShot 3.4 * LVM2 2.03.38 * util-linux 2.41.3 * exfatprogs 1.3.1 * Scribus 1.6.5 ## Coming up next week * elementaryOS 8.1 * Shotcut 25.12 * postmarketOS 25.12 * …and hopefully many other exciting Linux news and releases! ### _Related_

**GnuCash** 5.14 has been released today as the latest stable version of this open-source, free, and cross-platform double-entry accounting software for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows systems. Highlights of GnuCash 5.14 include support for US Bonds (usbonds) on the New Finance::Quote module to get prices for series E, EE, or I bonds, a new Postponed column to the Scheduled Transactions list for postponing scheduled transaction instances, and the removal of the Bulgarian Lev (BGN) currency as it’s replaced by EUR from January 1st, 2026. This release also adds support for changing the Transaction report only when “Show only subtotals” is selected, improves the algorithm behind autoclearing transactions to handle up to 30 uncleared transactions in an account reasonably quickly, and improves stale account balances and the grand total during transaction import. Among other changes, GnuCash 5.14 fixes crashes in processing invoices and creating of multi-commodity transactions due to premature destruction of the account tree view, fixes the overly-narrow text boxes in the options dialogs, and removes China Merchants Bank from quote sources. The About dialog has been updated as well to allow users to select the version information and the configured paths, while it now uses the environment variable names for user directory labels instead of capitalized versions of the variables in gnc-filepath-utils. Starting with this release, GnuCash now resets the GUI component session when saving a new file, including ‘Save As’ of an existing book, and resets the managed GUI components to the new session prior to clearing the old session. Last but not least, GnuCash 5.14 improves some translatable strings, improves the XML backend to speed up parsing of node text and of GUIDs, replaces the deprecated g_binding_get_target and increases the GNU C Library (Glibc) version to 2.68, and brings a variety of memory leak fixes and efficiency improvements. Check out the release notes for more details about the changes included in this update. Meanwhile, you can download GnuCash 5.14 right now from the _official website_ as a source tarball, install it from _Flathub_ as a Flatpak app, or install it from your distro’s stable software repositories. ### _Related_

MPV 0.41, an open-source and free media player that supports a wide range of media file formats, is now available for download with new features and improvements. Coming nine months after **MPV 0.40** , the MPV 0.41 release brings ambient light support on Linux using sysfs ALS, tablet input support for Wayland, color representation protocol support for Wayland, clipboard writing support for Wayland, and improved default color management for gpu-next and handling on Wayland. MPV 0.41 also introduces a clipboard backend for X11, a new context_menu.lua script for right-click context menus, Vulkan hardware decoding as preferred over other APIs, libplacebo-based gpu-next by default instead of gpu, as well as a native AAudio backend for modern, HNI-free audio output on Android. Among other noteworthy changes, this release reverts the `--prefetch-playlist` option’s default back to ‘no’, reduces swapchain-depth to 2 by default, adds osd and scaled flags to the screenshot commands, enables hardware-accelerated FFV1 (FF Video Codec 1) by default, and adds an auto-multiplexer-passthrough option. Last but not least, MPV 0.41 brings support for the `--desktop` path expansion, adds an option to vo_gpu_next to control output colorspace metadata more precisely, adds built-in helpers to register MPV as a media app on Windows, and adds support for showing percentage progress for the `--stream-dump` option. There are also many minor enhancements like the ability to handle flipping videos if the displaymatrix indicates so, support for only loading the needed hardware decoding drivers when using vo=dmabuf-wayland, improved HDR support on Wayland, and the ability to enforce DVB-S/T for old formats of the channels.conf file. Check out the release notes on the project’s _GitHub page_ for more details about the changes included in MPV 0.41, which you can download as a source tarball from the same location. You’ll also be able to install this release from the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution in the coming days. ### _Related_

Ventoy 1.1.10 open-source bootable USB solution has been released today as a maintenance and feature update that supports new distro releases and improves support for existing distributions. Highlights of Ventoy 1.1.10 include support for the **AerynOS** distributions, support for the musl libc environment for Ventoy2Disk.sh, improved boot support for the EXT4 file system, improved Wayland support for the LinuxGUI program, improved Windows boot support in F2 mode, and improved boot support with Kylin Server V11. This release comes a week after Ventoy 1.1.09, a release that added experimental support for the Btrfs file system, improved boot support for **openSUSE Leap 16** , and an updated persistence plugin to work on Arch Linux, and two weeks after Ventoy 1.1.08, a release that added support for the FreeBSD 15 operating system. You can download the latest Ventoy release from the _official website_ as a binary package that you can run on virtually any GNU/Linux distribution or as a standalone ISO image that you can write a USB flash drive and boot on any computer. Ventoy is also available as a binary package for Windows systems. Ventoy is a multi-boot USB creator that supports ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD(x), and EFI files, numerous operating system types and platforms, including Linux, Unix, ChromeOS, VMware, Windows, WinPE, etc., and many hardware architectures, including x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI, and MIPS64EL UEFI. The best thing about Ventoy is that you just put the images on the drive and it takes care of the rest, allowing you to boot them directly without installing or writing anything. You can learn more about Ventoy and its capabilities from the official website. ### _Related_

Darktable 5.4 has been released today as the latest version of this open-source, free, and cross-platform RAW image editor for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows systems. Coming more than eight months after Darktable 5.2.1, the Darktable 5.4 release adds base support for new cameras, including Canon EOS R1, Canon EOS R5 Mark II, Canon PowerShot D10 (DNG), Canon PowerShot S100V, Canon PowerShot S2 IS (DNG), Fujifilm FinePix HS33EXR, and Fujifilm X-E5 (compressed). The list of newly supported cameras continues with Kodak DCS Pro SLR/c, Kodak P712, Leica D-Lux 8, Leica M EV1 (DNG), Leica Q3 Monochrom (DNG), Leica X-E (Typ 102) (DNG), Nikon Z fc (14bit-uncompressed, 12bit-uncompressed), OM System OM-5 Mark II, Olympus SP550UZ, and Olympus SP565UZ. Also supported are the Panasonic DC-S1M2 (3:2), Panasonic DC-S1M2ES (3:2), Ricoh GR IV (DNG), Ricoh GX200 (DNG), Sony DSC-RX1RM3, and Sony ZV-1M2 cameras. On top of that, Darktable 5.4 adds white balance presets for the Canon EOS R5 Mark II, Nikon D2H, and Nikon Z5_2 cameras. This release also adds noise profiles for the Canon EOS R1, Canon EOS R5 Mark II, Fujifilm X-E5, Fujifilm X-M5, Nikon Z fc, and Sony ILCA-99M2 cameras, and updates the color matrix for the Canon EOS 2000D/1500D/Rebel T7/Kiss X90, Nikon Z 7, Nikon Z5_2, and Sony ILCE-1M2 cameras. Check out the _release notes_ on the project’s GitHub page for more details. Meanwhile, you can download Darktable 5.4 as a universal AppImage binary from the _official website_ , which you can run on virtually any GNU/Linux distribution without installing anything on your personal computer. ### _Related_

**Linux 6.18 LTS** is now the latest stable and long-term supported (LTS) kernel series, and Ubuntu users can install it on their machines via the official Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA archive. Here’s how! **Linux kernel 6.18 LTS** was released on November 30th, 2025, with new features like support for the Rust Binder driver, a new dm-pcache device-mapper target to enable persistent memory as a cache for slower block devices, and a new `microcode=` command-line option to control the microcode loader’s behavior on x86 platforms. To install Linux 6.18 on **Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing Quokka)** or **Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin)** systems, we will use the official Linux kernel packages from the Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA archive built by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, which can be installed manually or via the Mainline Kernels utility. However, I must warn you that **these kernels are produced with no warranty. The Ubuntu Kernel Team will NOT offer support for these kernels in case you have issues, and they will NOT be held responsible for any damages these kernels may cause due to improper installation or use.** ## Method 1: Install Linux kernel 6.18 LTS on Ubuntu with the “Mainline Kernels” tool The easiest way to install Linux kernel 6.18 LTS on your Ubuntu computer is by using a graphical tool called Mainline Kernels, which you can install from _this PPA_ by running the commands below in the Terminal app. Open the Terminal app and run the following commands to install the Mainline Kernels tool: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cappelikan/ppa sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade sudo apt install -y mainline Once the Mainline Kernels tool is installed, you can open it from the applications menu of your Ubuntu system. The tool will quickly check the availability of all kernel versions from Canonical’s Mainline Kernel PPA archive and will list Linux kernel 6.18 at the top. Click on the “6.18” entry to select it and then click on the big “Install” button on the right to install the new kernel on your Ubuntu machine. Wait for the installation to complete and then reboot your computer. The advantage of using this method is that you will receive new kernel versions (e.g., Linux 6.18.1, 6.18.2, etc.) when they are released upstream. Even better, the Mainline Kernels tool can inform you of new Linux kernel versions if you enable the notification feature in the tool’s settings. ## Method 2: Install Linux kernel 6.18 LTS on Ubuntu via CLI The second method is recommended for experienced users who know what they’re doing and don’t want to use the Mainline Kernels tool from the first method above. This method can be used as a fallback method when the Mainline Kernels tool fails to show the latest kernels from the Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA archive. This method implies that you must manually download and install the Linux 6.18 LTS kernel packages for your specific architecture (64-bit (amd64), AArch64 (ARM64), ARMhf, PowerPC 64-bit Little Endian (ppc64el), or IBM System z (s390x)) from the official _Ubuntu mainline kernel PPA archive_ and install them on your system via the command line. For example, to install Linux kernel 6.18 LTS on a 64-bit (amd64) Ubuntu system, download the packages listed below in a folder in your Home directory. Once you have downloaded all the kernel packages in the respective folder, you can install them all at once by running the `sudo dpkg -i *.deb` command. linux-image-unsigned-6.18.0-061800-generic_6.18.0-061800.202511302339_amd64.deb linux-modules-6.18.0-061800-generic_6.18.0-061800.202511302339_amd64.deb linux-headers-6.18.0-061800-generic_6.18.0-061800.202511302339_amd64.deb linux-headers-6.18.0-061800_6.18.0-061800.202511302339_all.deb ## Going back to Ubuntu’s default kernel or another installed kernel If, for some reason, you experience issues with Linux kernel 6.18 LTS and you want to go back to Ubuntu’s default kernel or another kernel that’s installed on your system, press the Esc key when your computer boots, go to the “Advanced options” boot entry, and select a different kernel version from the list of available kernels. ### _Related_

Kdenlive 25.12 was announced as part of the **KDE Gear 25.12** open-source software suite as a hefty update to this open-source non-linear video editor for Linux, BSD, macOS, and Windows. Highlights of Kdenlive 25.12 include a new, more flexible docking system that lets you group widgets together or easily show/hide them on demand, along with the ability to save each layout in its own file for sharing, as well as saving it inside the project file so you can easily continue editing from where you left off. This release also introduces a Welcome Screen to make it easier for newcomers to set up Kdenlive, adds a vertical layout and optional safe areas to improve editing of 9:16 videos, and redesigns the monitor view of audio tracks with the addition of a minimap on top to intuitively zoom parts of the audio. Among other changes, Kdenlive 25.12 reorganizes the menus to make them more intuitive and align closer to some of the professional video editing software out there. For example, all file-related actions like Render and the Project Settings have been regrouped in the File menu. “There might be a few adjustments in the upcoming releases, but the most important changes are in,” said the devs. “Our long-time users may be confused initially (hopefully not for long, though), but we tried to follow some of the conventions in the professional editing world.” Some improvements were also implemented to the timeline, as the term Guides has been renamed to Markers for consistency and to avoid confusion. As such, Markers can now have a duration that is displayed in the timeline, and users can drag them in the timeline from the Markers list. On top of that, Kdenlive 25.12 fixes a project corruption that occurred when copy-pasting a sequence or project file between projects, fixes a render failure on Windows when the username contains special characters, and fixes more than 15 crash reports. This release also fixes the VA-API support in the AppImage bundle, allowing for faster decoding and rendering time. Under the hood, Kdenlive 25.12 ships with the latest and greatest **FFmpeg 8.0** open-source multimedia framework, as well as support for the Qt 6.10.1 open-source application framework. Check out the _release announcement page_ and the _full changelog_ for more details. Meanwhile, you can download Kdenlive 25.12 as a universal AppImage binary that you can run on virtually any GNU/Linux distribution without installing anything or as a Flatpak app from the _official website_. ### _Related_

Fwupd developer Richard Hughes released fwupd 2.0.19 today as the nineteenth maintenance update to the **fwupd 2.0** series of this open-source Linux firmware update utility. Fwupd 2.0.19 looks like a small update that only adds support for upgrading the firmware on the Lenovo Sapphire Folio keyboard, two new commands to the `fwupdtool` command to calculate and find CRCs, and support for allowing systems to use the udev event source without using systemd. This release also improves the `fwupdmgr get-history` command to always show the correct new firmware version, respects the `fwupdmgr --force` command when installing firmware, and improves the updating of the Intel GPU FWDATA section. Several bugs were addressed as well, including an integer underflow when parsing a malicious PE file, a regression when enumerating the Dell-dock status component, and the fuzzer timeout when parsing a Synaptics-RMI SBL container. Check out the release notes on the project’s _GitHub page_ for more details about the changes included in fwupd 2.0.19, which you can download as a source tarball from the same location. Of course, it is recommended that you install fwupd from the stable software repositories of your GNU/Linux distribution. ### _Related_

After the _controversial news_ shared earlier this week by Mozilla’s new CEO that **Firefox** will evolve into “a modern AI browser,” the company now revealed it is working on an AI kill switch for the open-source web browser. On Tuesday, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo was named the new CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the beloved Firefox web browser used by almost all GNU/Linux distributions as the default browser. In his message as new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo stated that Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software while remaining the company’s anchor, and that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions. What was not made clear is that Firefox will also ship with an AI kill switch that will let users **completely** disable all the AI features that are included in Firefox. Mozilla shared this important update earlier today to make it clear to everyone that Firefox will still be a trusted web browser. “Something that hasn’t been made clear: Firefox will have an option to completely disable all AI features. We’ve been calling it the AI kill switch internally. I’m sure it’ll ship with a less murderous name, but that’s how seriously and absolutely we’re taking this,” said Firefox developer Jake Archibald on _Mastodon_. In addition, Mozilla said that all the AI features that are or will be included in Firefox will also be opt-in. “ _I think there are some grey areas in what ‘opt-in’ means to different people (e.g. is a new toolbar button opt-in?), but the kill switch will absolutely remove all that stuff, and never show it in future. That’s unambiguous._ “ Personally, I do hope Firefox will remain the same web browser I’ve been using for the past 20 years. As long as AI remains opt-in and it’s not shoved down our throats, I have no problem with that. The upcoming release, **Firefox 147** , is expected on January 13th, 2026, with support for the XDG Base Directory Specification. ### _Related_

NVIDIA released today the NVIDIA 590.48.01 graphics drivers for NVIDIA GPUs on Linux, BSD, and Solaris systems as the first stable release in the **NVIDIA 590** series. The NVIDIA 590.48.01 graphics driver improves support for **Wayland** users by raising the minimum supported Wayland version to 1.20 and fixes a bug that prevented the PowerMizer preferred mode drop-down menu in the nvidia-settings control panel from functioning correctly on Wayland systems. It also improves support for Vulkan apps by boosting the performance of recreating Vulkan swapchains, which helps prevent stuttering when resizing Vulkan application windows, and fixes several issues that prevented Vulkan apps from working on the Venus VirtIO virtual GPU. On top of that, NVIDIA 590.48.01 fixes a bug that could cause system freezes on PREEMPT_RT kernels, fixes a bug that caused incorrect DPI reporting for some monitors, such as the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9, and fixes several bugs that prevented EGL platform multisample configurations from working. Starting with this release, the NVIDIA graphics driver raises the minimum supported Xorg Server version to 1.17 (video driver ABI version 19) and the minimum supported GNU C Library (glibc) version to 2.27. The NVIDIA 590.48.01 graphics driver is available for download from the _official website_ as binary installers for 64-bit and AArch64 (ARM64) GNU/Linux distributions. You will also be able to install the new version from the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution. Binaries are also available for 64-bit FreeBSD systems, as well as 32-bit and 64-bit Solaris systems. NVIDIA 590.48.01 is considered a “New Feature” branch version, which means that you should be careful when installing it as there may be experimental features that won’t work as expected for production. It also looks like the NVIDIA 590 graphics driver series will drop support for NVIDIA GeForce 10 Series GPUs, including GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, GeForce GTX 1070, GeForce GTX 1060, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, GeForce GTX 1050, GeForce GT 1030, and GeForce GT 1010. _Image credits: NVIDIA Corporation_ ### _Related_

OpenZFS 2.4 has been tagged today on GitHub as the latest stable version of this open-source advanced file system and volume manager for Linux and FreeBSD systems. Supporting kernels from Linux 4.18 up to the latest **Linux 6.18 LTS** , OpenZFS 2.4 introduces many exciting changes, such as support for setting default user/group/project quotas, direct IO fallback to a light-weight uncached IO when unaligned, and a new algorithm designed to reduce vdev fragmentation. OpenZFS 2.4 also features better encryption performance using AVX2 for AES-GCM, extends `special_small_blocks` to land ZVOL writes on special vdevs and allows non-power-of-two values, and adds the `zfs rewrite -P` command to preserve logical birth time when possible for minimizing incremental stream size. On top of that, this release allows ZIL on special vdevs when available, adds an `-a|--all` option that scrubs, trims, or initializes all imported pools, adds a `zpool scrub -S -E` command to scrub specific time ranges, introduces new dedup optimizations and fixes, and supports release topology restrictions on special/dedup vdevs. There are also multiple gang blocks improvements and fixes, as well as support for FreeBSD systems from versions 13.3 and later to 14.0 and later. Check out the release notes on the _project’s GitHub page_ for more details about the changes included in OpenZFS 2.4, which you can download from the same location. OpenZFS is an advanced file system and volume manager that was originally developed for Solaris systems. The project is now maintained by the OpenZFS community, and it’s designed to support Linux and FreeBSD systems alike with support for many advanced features that you won’t find on other filesystems. Highlights of OpenZFS include protection against data corruption, support for high storage capacities, hardware-accelerated native encryption, efficient local or remote replication, space-saving with transparent compression, efficient storage with snapshots and copy-on-write clones, and continuous integrity verification. _Image credits: Logo courtesy of the OpenZFS project_ ### _Related_

The Linux Mint team has published today the ISO images of the beta version of the upcoming Linux Mint 22.3 release, which can be downloaded (for testing purposes) from the official mirrors. The biggest change in Linux Mint 22.3 (codename Zena) is the brand-new **Cinnamon 6.6** desktop environment, which features a redesigned application menu applet with configurable Places and Bookmarks, support for symbolic category icons, better Wayland support, as well as several other visual changes. Cinnamon 6.6 also introduces updated Settings with a new Thunderbolt module for managing your Thunderbolt devices, modernized keyboard handling, many enhancements to the virtual keyboard, as well as updates to the Sound, NetworkManager, Workspace Switcher, Printer, and Window List applets. Linux Mint 22.3 also introduces **new System Information and System Administration tools** , the ability to pause file operations in the Nemo file manager, per-app panel notification indicators, an always-on Night Light feature, the ability to pause snapshots in the Timeshift backup tool, and more. Under the hood, Linux Mint 22.3 beta is based on **Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (Noble Numbat)** , and it’s powered by the Linux 6.14 kernel series, just like the previous release, **Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara”** , which will make upgrading from Linux Mint 22.2 to Linux Mint 22.3 a breeze. Without further ado, you can download the beta version of Linux Mint 22.3 “Zena” as Cinnamon, Xfce, and MATE editions right now from the official mirrors linked below, but keep in mind that this is a pre-release version that **should not be installed or used for production work**. An official announcement will be made by the Linux Mint team on their blog in the coming days when all the official download mirrors are synced to offer the beta ISOs. Just like with the previous releases in the Linux Mint 22 series, Linux Mint 22.3 is a long-term support version that will receive security updates until 2029. `Download Linux Mint 22.3 Beta Cinnamon` `Download Linux Mint 22.3 Beta Xfce` `Download Linux Mint 22.3 Beta MATE` ### _Related_