The team behind the lightweight Debian-based Linux distro Sparky announced the release of version 7.7, the seventh update in the Sparky 7 “Orion Belt” series, based on and fully compatible with the stable Debian 12 branch.
This release integrates the Linux kernel 6.1 LTS by default while providing other kernel options (6.14, 6.12 LTS, and 6.6 LTS) in the Sparky repositories. Meanwhile, ARM devices benefit from the 6.12 LTS kernel.
In addition, desktop environments such as KDE Plasma 5.27.5, LXQt 1.2, MATE 1.26, and Xfce 4.18 have all been refreshed. Office productivity also sees a boost with LibreOffice 7.4.7 (alongside version 25.2 available in Debian backports), while the latest browsers and email clients—namely Firefox 128.9.0esr and Thunderbird 128.9.0esr—are also on board.
Another improvement worth mentioning is the fix to the Sparky CLI Installer issue that previously disrupted installations when choosing a desktop other than the default.
Additionally, Sparky 7.7 is offered in multiple editions. On PCs, users can select from several environments (Xfce, LXQt, MATE, KDE Plasma, MinimalGUI/Openbox, or MinimalCLI). ARM-based devices are likewise supported, offering Openbox and CLI editions for both ARMHF and ARM64 architectures.
For those already running Sparky 7, simply keeping the system up to date will suffice; a complete reinstall is unnecessary. However, new ISO images are readily available from Sparky’s download section for anyone looking to perform a fresh installation.
The release announcement provides detailed information about all changes in Sparky 7.7.
