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Version 8.1 of elementary OS has been released. Notable changes in this release include making the Wayland session the default, changes to window management and multitasking, as well as a number of accessibility improvements. The 8.1 release is the first to be made available for Arm64 devices, which should allow users to run elementary on Apple M-series hardware or other Arm devices that can load UEFI-supporting firmware, such as some Raspberry Pi models. See the blog post for a full list of changes.

Arnd Bergmann began his 2025 Linux Plumbers Conference session on the future of 32-bit support in the Linux kernel by saying that it was to be a followup to his September talk on the same topic. The focus this time, though, was on the kernel's "high memory" abstraction, and when it could be removed. It seems that the kernel community will need to support 32-bit systems for some time yet, even if it might be possible to remove some functionality, including support for large amounts of memory on those systems, more quickly.

The BPF verifier works, on a theoretical level, by considering every possible path that a BPF program could take. As a practical matter, however, it needs to do that in a reasonable amount of time. At the 2025 Linux Plumbers Conference, Mahé Tardy and Paul Chaignon gave a detailed explanation (slides; video) of the main mechanism that it uses to accomplish that: state pruning. They focused on two optimizations that help reduce the number of paths the verifier needs to check, and discussed some of the complications the optimizations introduced to the verifier's code.

Manjaro Linux is a fast, user-friendly, desktop-oriented operating system based on Arch Linux. Key features include intuitive installation process, automatic hardware detection, stable rolling-release model, ability to install multiple kernels, special Bash scripts for managing graphics drivers and extensive desktop configurability. Manjaro Linux offers Xfce as the core desktop options, as well as KDE, GNOME and a minimalist Net edition for more advanced users. Community-supported desktop flavours are also available.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (binutils, curl, gcc-toolset-13-binutils, git-lfs, httpd, httpd:2.4, keylime, libssh, mod_md, openssh, php:8.3, podman, python3.12, python3.9, python39:3.9, skopeo, tomcat, tomcat9, and webkit2gtk3), Fedora (mingw-glib2, mingw-libsoup, and mingw-python3), Mageia (roundcubemail), Oracle (git-lfs and mod_md), and SUSE (glib2, kernel, mariadb, and qemu).

Besgnulinux is a lightweight, desktop Linux distribution based on Debian's "stable" branch. Using the JWM window manager, it is designed to be fast, lightweight and easy to use, suitable for older and low-specification computers. Besgnulinux comes with the Calamares system installer, the Brave web browser, and over 40 custom-built tools to control the systems settings as well as the desktop's look-and-feel.

Regata OS is a Brazilian Linux distribution based on openSUSE, focusing on desktop and gaming needs. Its main characteristics include a Regata OS store for installing applications and games, out-of-the-box integration with Google Drive, support for a gaming mode via the Vulkan graphics API, an extensive library of games in the Regata OS Game Access portal, support for configuration of hybrid graphics in notebooks, and easy transfer of files between a computer and a smartphone. The distribution's user interface is KDE Plasma.

elementary OS is an Ubuntu-based desktop distribution. Some of its more interesting features include a custom desktop environment called Pantheon and many custom apps including Photos, Music, Videos, Calendar, Terminal, Files, and more. It also comes with some familiar apps like the Epiphany web browser and a fork of Geary mail.

Version 6.20 of the Incus container and virtual-machine management system has been released. Notable changes in this release include a new standalone command to add IncusOS servers to a cluster, qcow2-formatted volumes for clustered LVM, and reverse DNS records in OVN. See the announcement for a full list of changes.

Talos is a specialist Linux-based operating system for running Kubernetes, an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling and management of containerised applications. Minimal, immutable and hardened, it does not offer any shell or interactive console; instead, all system management is done via remote Application Programming Interface (API) calls, where messages sent from a client application are protected with mutual Transport Layer Security TLS (mTLS) authentication. Talos also delivers atomic updates, thus maintaining the Linux and Kubernetes versions up-to-date. Talos is developed in the USA by Sidero Labs, Inc.

Version 17.1 of the GDB debugger is out. Changes include shadow-stack support, info threads improvements, a number of Python API improvements, and more, including: "Warnings and error messages now start with an emoji (warning sign, or cross mark) if supported by the host charset. Configurable." See the NEWS file for more information.

Version 4.3.0 of the security-oriented Qubes OS distribution has been released. Changes include more recent distribution templates, preloaded disposable virtual machines, and the reintroduction of the Qubes Windows Tools set. See the release notes for more information.

Ian Jackson (along with Sean Whitton) has posted a manifesto and status update to the effect that, since Git repositories have become the preferred method to distribute source, that is how Debian should be distributing its source packages.

Everyone who interacts with Debian source code should be able to do so entirely in git.

That means, more specifically:

1. All examination and edits to the source should be performed via normal git operations.
2. Source code should be transferred and exchanged as git data, not tarballs. git should be the canonical form everywhere.
3. Upstream git histories should be re-published, traceably, as part of formal git releases published by Debian.
4. No-one should have to learn about Debian Source Packages, which are bizarre, and have been obsoleted by modern version control.

This is very ambitious, but we have come a long way!

At Open Source Summit Japan 2025, Erin McKean talked about the challenges to producing good project documentation, along with some tooling that can help guide the process toward success. It is a problem that many projects struggle with and one that her employer, Google, gained a lot of experience with from its now-concluded Season of Docs initiative. Through that program, more than 200 case studies of documentation projects were gathered that were mined for common problems and solutions, which led to the tools and techniques that McKean described.

John Paul Adrian Glaubitz has announced that loong64 is now an official architecture for Debian, and will be part of the Debian 14 ("forky") release "if everything goes along as planned". This is a bit more than two years after the initial bootstrap of the architecture.

So far, we have manually built and imported an initial set of 112 packages with the help of the packages in Debian Ports. This was enough to create an initial chroot and set up the first buildd which is now churning through the build queue. Over night, the currently single buildd instance already built and uploaded 300 new packages.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, dropbear, mediawiki, php8.4, python-mechanize, rails, roundcube, usbmuxd, and wordpress), Fedora (cef, chromium, fonttools, gobuster, gosec, mingw-libpng, moby-engine, mqttcli, nextcloud, pgadmin4, python-unicodedata2, uriparser, and util-linux), Mageia (php and webkit2), Oracle (binutils, curl, gcc-toolset-13-binutils, gimp, git-lfs, kernel, openssh, php:8.3, podman, python-kdcproxy, python3.12, python3.9, skopeo, and webkit2gtk3), Red Hat (rsync), Slackware (php), SUSE (alloy, busybox, chromedriver, chromium, coredns-for-k8s, duc, firefox, kernel-devel, libpng16, libruby3_4-3_4, mariadb, netty, php8, python311-tornado6, rsync, taglib, and xen), and Ubuntu (linux-oracle-5.4, linux-raspi, linux-realtime-6.14, and linux-xilinx).

ELEGANCE is a French, general-purpose desktop Linux distribution based on Manjaro Linux. It uses the Cinnamon desktop environment. The distribution offers a rich variety of software for everyday use, including for office work (LibreOffice, Calibre), entertainment (VLC, Rhythmbox, Kodi), graphics (Gimp, Krita), gaming (Steam), audio recording (Audacity, OBS Studio), audio mixing and editing (Ardour, LMMS, Kdenlive), and design (LeoCAD FreeCAD et KiCAD). ELAGANCE is sponsored by Tux N Mix, an organisation created by a group of Linux enthusiasts in 2019.

Mauna Linux is a Brazilian desktop Linux distribution based on Debian's "stable" branch. The project offers a set of live images with four desktop environments - Cinnamon, LXQt, MATE and Xfce, plus a separate "Christian Edition" which includes the Bible and various applications meant for use in churches. Some of the distribution's main features include the Calamares system installer, a software store with hundreds of applications maintained by Debian and Mauna Linux, a software manager and updater, and an out-of-the box support for the Portuguese language. The goal of Mauna Linux is to develop a distribution that is easy to use, practical and robust, and which would complement the existing Linux user communities in Brazil and abroad.

The 6.19-rc2 kernel prepatch is out for testing. "I obviously expect next week to be even quieter, with people being distracted by the holidays. So let's all enjoy taking a little break, but maybe break the boredom with some early rc testing?"

Version:6.19-rc2 (mainline) Released:2025-12-21 Source:linux-6.19-rc2.tar.gz Patch:full (incremental)