Welcome to 2026, dear Linuxiac readers. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and enjoyed special moments with the people you care about. Now, refreshed and recharged, we’re ready to step into the new year and see what 2026 has in store.
Even though only a few days have passed, the Linux and open-source community has already been impressively active over the holidays. Here are the highlights.
Linux Distributions
In the first days of 2026, two distributions released updates. As always, I’ve covered each one in the articles below.
- Manjaro 26 Released With Plasma 6.5 and GNOME 49 on Wayland
- Devuan 6.1 Point Release Ships With Debian 13.2 Updates
Software Updates
Apart from the distro releases, here’s a quick summary of the latest open-source software updates that made the news.
- IceWM 4.0 Window Manager Brings Smarter Navigation and HiDPI Enhancements
- Hyprland 0.53.1 Released With Stability and Crash Fixes
- Hyprland 0.53 Lands With Window Rule Rewrite and Dozens of Fixes
- Archboot Adds COSMIC Desktop as a New Install and Rescue Option
- Archinstall 3.0.15 Brings COSMIC Desktop
- Orbitiny Desktop Pilot 8 Delivers Its Biggest Release Yet
- Micro Text Editor 2.0.15 Released After More Than a Year of Development
- Shotcut 25.12 Video Editor Delivers Full 10-Bit CPU Video Processing
- Haruna 1.7 Media Player Brings Smarter Playlists
- Icecast 2.5 Streaming Media Server Brings Web UI Enhancements
- SuperTux 0.7 Beta Lands With Massive World Redesigns
- SDL 3.4 Brings Native PNG Support and Expanded GPU Rendering Features
Must-Reads You Can’t Miss
There was also some notable news from the Linux and FOSS community this week. Here are the highlights.
- 2025’s Linux and Open-Source Moments That Shaped the Year
- Two Linux Distributions I’m Watching Closely in 2026
- With a Touch of Nostalgia, MiDesktop Brings KDE 1 Back to Life
- Flathub Sees Over 435 Million Downloads in 2025
- KDE Plasma 6.6 Improves Accessibility, Wayland Usability, and UI Polish
Tutorials That Make a Difference
During the holidays, I put together a guide for Pop!_OS 22.04 users who want to upgrade to the recently released 24.04 and take advantage of the new COSMIC desktop environment, along with all the other improvements this release brings.
Hardware Updates
And finally, there’s a new open-source powered device worth checking out.
That’s all for this week. If you missed our previous wrap-up from the last 52 week of 2025 (Dec 22–28), you can catch up here, where you’ll find Parrot OS 7.0, elementary OS 8.1, Qubes OS 4.3, Fish Shell 4.3, OpenMediaVault 8 NAS, Inkscape 1.4.3, QEMU 10.2, Kitty Terminal 0.45, Pinta 3.1 Image Editor, Ruby 4.0, Winux Tries to Mimic Windows While Staying Fully Linux, CachyOS Plans New Server Edition, and more.
Be sure to keep an eye on Linuxiac for the latest updates from the Linux and open-source world.
Have a great week ahead and a bright, peaceful 2026!
