Welcome to the 5th week of Linuxiac’s 2026 Weekly Roundup, your go-to source for everything Linux and open source. Here are the top Linux and FOSS highlights from January 26 to February 1.
Linux Distributions
This week brought five important updates in the Linux world, and I’ve covered each one in the articles below.
- AerynOS January 2026 Snapshot Updates GNOME, KDE Plasma, and COSMIC
- Linux Lite 7.8 Is Out With App Rewrites and GTK4 Transition
- DietPi 10.0 Released With Debian 12 Requirement and Software Changes
- GParted Live 1.8 Released With Linux Kernel 6.18
- Emmabuntüs DE 5 1.05 Brings Accessibility Improvements Based on Debian 12
Software Updates
Apart from the distro releases, here’s a quick summary of the latest open-source software updates that made the news.
- VirtualBox 7.2.6 Released With Stability Fixes Across Windows, Linux, and macOS
- COSMIC Desktop 1.0.4 Improves File Manager, App Store, and Overview Mode
- The Second Plasma 6.6 Beta Released Ahead of February Launch
- GStreamer 1.28 Brings Vulkan Video AV1 and VP9 Decode Plus H.264 Encode
- Transmission 4.1 BitTorrent Client Released With Major Improvements
- Shotcut 26.1 Video Editor Brings Long-Awaited Hardware Video Decoding
- Budgie Desktop 10.10.1 Released With Better Wayland Support
- Immich 2.5 Released With Free Up Space, Web Backups
- Proton 10.0-4 Brings Compatibility Boost With Dozens of Games Now Playable
- TigerVNC 1.16 Released With Wayland Desktop Sharing Support
- NotepadNext 0.13 Code Editor Adds Autosave Timer and New Workspace Option
- Calibre 9.0 E-Book Manager Released With New Bookshelf View
- Vivaldi Browser 7.8 Brings Drag and Drop Tab Tiling and Smarter Pinned Tabs
- OPNsense 26.1 Open-Source Firewall Released With Threat Intelligence Feeds
- Krita 5.2.15 Released With Crash Fixes and Tablet Improvements
- OpenSSL 3.6.1 Released With High Severity Security Fixes
- Godot 4.6 Open-Source Game Engine Released With Workflow Improvements
- GParted 1.8 Partition Editor Improves FAT Handling
Must-Reads You Can’t Miss
There was also some notable news from the Linux and FOSS community this week. Here are the highlights.
- Linux Kernel Quietly Formalizes What Happens If Linus Torvalds Steps Away
- After Years of Waiting Jellyfin Finally Lands on Samsung Tizen TVs
- COSMIC Desktop Is Preparing a Striking New Visual Feature
- Xfce Begins Work on xfwl4, a Rust-Based Wayland Compositor
- Solseek TUI Package Manager Is Now Officially Available in Solus
- cpx Introduced as a Faster, Modern Replacement for Linux cp
- European Open Source Awards 2026 Honor Linux Kernel Maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman
- Systemd Creator Lennart Poettering Joins New Linux Integrity Startup
- Plasma 6.7 Will Introduce a Global Shortcut to Clear Notification History
- LastSignal Is a New Open-Source Dead Man’s Switch You Can Self-Host
- SUSE VP Jeff Mahoney Publishes Draft Governance Proposal for openSUSE
- GeForce NOW Releases Native Linux App Beta, Now Available for Download
That’s all for this week. If you missed our previous wrap-up from Week 4 of 2026 (Jan 19 – 25), you can catch up here, where you’ll find MX Linux 25.1, CachyOS, GNU Guix 1.5, GIMP 3.0.8, COSMIC Desktop 1.0.3, Myrlyn Package Manager 1.0, Bottles 61, Linux Distros I Recommend for Those Switching from Windows, KDE Plasma Login Manager Won’t Support Systemd-Free Linux or BSD Systems, ReactOS Celebrates 30 Years, 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!
