Sparky is a lightweight, Debian-based Linux distribution that provides a user-friendly and customizable computing experience. It aims to be fast, stable, and easy to use, making it suitable for both older hardware and new systems.
Still supporting old x86 (32bit) machines, Sparky 7.0 “Orion Belt” came out a few days ago, based on the stable Debian 12 “Bookworm,” bringing many new features and updates, the most noteworthy of which are:
- Linux kernel 6.1 LTS
- Firefox 102.12.0ESR & Thunderbird 102.12
- LibreOffice 7.4.5
- LXQt 1.2, KDE Plasma 5.27, Xfce 4.18, MATE 1.26, and Openbox 3.6.1
Just a few days later, in keeping with the tradition of naming their releases thematically after things related to constellations, the upcoming Sparky Linux 8, now testing/semi-rolling, has been given a mysterious codename: “The Seven Sisters.”
So, let’s get a little astronomy. The current stable Sparky 7 release codename, “Orion Belt,” is an asterism (term for a group of stars) in the constellation Orion.
Totally in the same spirit, the “Seven Sisters” (Electra, Taygete, Maia, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope) is an asterism and an open star cluster in the constellation Taurus.
But, of course, there are more important things in the upcoming Sparky 8. Building upon the solid foundation of the next stable Debian 13 “Trixie” (currently in testing), this release promises an exciting evolution in performance, features, and user experience.
In this light, the new Sparky 8 repos are already set. So, hopefully, just like the seven sisters of Greek mythology, Sparky Linux 8 will be able to captivate users with its individuality. If you can’t wait to give it a shot, there’s an easy way to do it.
To switch from the current stable Sparky 7 to rolling Sparky 8 based on the testing Debian 13 branch, change Debian repos from “bookworm” to “trixie” in the “/etc/apt/sources.list” file. Next, change Sparky repos from “orion” to “sisters” in “/etc/apt/sources.list.d/sparky.list.”
Finally, execute the spu command (short of Sparky Upgrade), wait for the operations to complete, and reboot the system. You can also find detailed information on how to do it in the official Sparky upgrade documentation.
