Welcome to week thirty-eight of Linuxiac’s 2025 Weekly Roundup—your go-to source for all things Linux & Open Source. Here’s a look at the biggest Linux and FOSS highlights from the past week (Sep 15 – 21).
Linux Distributions
This week brought a bunch of noteworthy releases, including a few beta versions from some big names in the field. Here’s what I’ve prepared for you.
- Ubuntu 25.10 Beta Released with Linux Kernel 6.17 and GNOME 49
- Zorin OS 18 Beta Launches with a Redesigned Desktop
- LMDE 7 “Gigi” BETA Released for Testing Ahead of Stable Launch
- Bluefin LTS Released: Immutable Desktop on CentOS Stream 10
- Tails 7.0 Brings Debian 13, GNOME 48, and Major App Updates
- DietPi 9.17 Released with Faster Backups and Roon Server Early Access
- SparkyLinux 2025.09 “Tiamat” Released with Debian “Forky” Base
Software Updates
Apart from the distro releases, here’s a summary of the latest open-source software updates that earned a spot in our news.
- GNOME 49 Desktop Environment Released, This Is What’s New
- Systemd 258 Drops cgroup v1, Raises Kernel Baseline to 5.4
- Firefox 143 Now Available for Download
- Thunderbird 143 Brings Bug Fixes Across Windows, macOS, and Linux
- VLC’s First Update in a Year to Introduce Qt6 and Windows ARM64 Support
- IPFire 2.29 Core Update 197 Firewall Adds OpenVPN 2.6
- Rspamd 3.13 Launches with Redis-Backed Multiclass Bayes
- Vivaldi Browser 7.6 Launches With Fully Customizable Tab Bar
- JDK 25 LTS Released with TLS Key Exporters, Improved Debugging
Must-Reads You Can’t Miss
There was also some exciting news from the Linux and FOSS ecosystem, so stay tuned and don’t miss out. Here are the highlights.
- Debian’s APT Adds Native History Parsing to Track Past Operations
- Linux Kernel Multikernel Project Opens Up, Initial Patches Ready for Review
- Jonathan Riddell Leaves KDE After 25 Years with Mixed Emotions
- Git Heads Toward 3.0 with Rust as a Hard Dependency
- After Arch Linux, Mageia Faces Infrastructure Outage
- Linus Torvalds Tinkers with GuitarPedal
- AMD Ends AMDVLK Development, Shifts Focus to RADV Vulkan Driver
- Next-Gen AV2 Video Codec Announced by AOMedia
- Libxml2 Maintainer Steps Down
Hardware Updates
For anyone in the market for a Linux-powered phone that stays true to open-source principles and puts privacy first, there’s an option worth checking out.
Well, that was all. If you missed our previous wrap-up for the week of Sep 8 – 14, you can catch up by checking here, where you’ll find Garuda Linux, KDE Plasma 6.4.5, VirtualBox 7.2.2, Hyprland 0.51, Budgie Desktop 10.9.3, Samba 4.23, Wine 10.15, PipeWire 1.4.8, LibreOffice 25.2.6, Bcachefs Transitioning to DKMS Packaging, Ubuntu 25.10 Switches to Dracut, 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.
Wishing you a fantastic week ahead!
