Welcome to week twelve of Linuxiac’s 2025 Weekly Roundup—your trusted authority for all things Linux & open source. Here’s a summary of all the major Linux and FOSS highlights during the past week (March 17 – 23).
Linux Distributions
On the Linux distributions front, we covered the latest EndeavoursOS Mercury Neo update, plus the eye-pleasing Elementary OS 8.0.1, security-focused Kali 2025.1a, and Rescuezilla 2.6, designed for system rescue tasks.
- EndeavourOS Mercury Neo ISO Lands with Updated Packages
- Elementary OS 8.0.1 Brings Bug Fixes, UI Tweaks, and Performance Boosts
- Plasma 6 Finally Lands in Kali Linux 2025.1a
- Rescuezilla 2.6 Released with Secure Boot Fixes and Updated Hardware Support
Software Updates
Apart from the distro releases, here’s a summary of the latest open-source software updates that earned a spot in our Linux & FOSS news this past week.
- GNOME 48 Desktop Environment Released, Here’s What’s New
- GIMP 3.0 Released: A Major Overhaul After Seven Years in Development
- Hyprland Celebrates Its Third Birthday with v0.48
- Wine 10.4 Improves Vulkan Video Decoder
- PhotoPrism AI-Powered Photos App Rolls Out Major Usability Upgrades
- Calibre 8.0 Brings Major Kobo Upgrade and KEPUB Support Arrive
- Git 2.49: Faster Packing, Smarter Cloning, and More
- Miracle-WM 0.5 Released with Drag-and-Drop Tiling
- Vivaldi Browser 7.2 Boosts Performance with Faster Address Bar
- Blender 4.4 Released: Animation & Rigging Get a Major Overhaul
- PeerTube 7.1 Expands Podcast 2.0 and Apple Podcast Support
- MuseScore Studio 4.5 Notation App Released
Must-Reads You Can’t-Miss
Three exciting things happened this past week: First, a new open-source initiative, EU OS, to develop a Linux distro specifically for Europe’s public sector was announced. Then, the iconic Pebble watches made a comeback. Finally, the Linux kernel might soon be getting some cool new features—more on all this below.
- EU OS Is a New Community-Led Linux Alternative for Europe’s Public Sector
- Pebble is Back: Introducing Two Open-Source Smartwatches
- Linux Kernel Might Get Smarter Reboots
Well, that was all. If you missed last week’s news, you can catch up by checking out our previous weekly wrap-up, where you’ll find Debian 12.10, SystemRescue 12, KDE Plasma 6.3.3, PipeWire 1.4.1, Audacity 3.7.2, DXVK 2.6, Kitty 0.40, Rust Takes Root in Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora Linux 43 to Feature RPM 6, uBlock Origin is the Most Popular Firefox Add-on, and more.
Needless to say, keep an eye on Linuxiac—it’s the perfect way to stay updated on all the latest from Linux and Open Source.
I wish you a great week ahead!
