Canonical’s engineers have announced the fourth and final monthly snapshot of Ubuntu 26.04, ahead of next month’s all important beta release. Ubuntu 26.04 Snapshot 4, like all other monthly snapshots, not a blessed build intended for mainstream usage. It’s a “throwaway artifact” that enables the distro’s engineers to fine-tune and hone a new automated build system. Compared to the January release of snapshot 3, there’s more ‘of note’ packed inside of this one, like the Linux 6.19 kernel and more GNOME 50 beta components (Mutter, Files, Settings), though the new Showtime video player is not included – but is coming. […]

You're reading Ubuntu 26.04 Snapshot 4 is now available to download, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Canonical today released LXD 6.7 as the latest feature update to this system container and virtual machine manager commonly used in Ubuntu Linux environments...

The fourth and final monthly snapshot of Ubuntu 26.04 "Resolute Raccoon" is now available for testing. This alternative to the Ubuntu 26.04 daily ISOs is a monthly test release that also helps exercise the Ubuntu Linux release automation processes...

Ubuntu 26.04 will show asterisks when you type your sudo password, as Canonical adds a patch to its Rust-based sudo-rs. Here's what changed and why.

You're reading Ubuntu 26.04 ends a 40-year old sudo tradition, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

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Bluestar Linux is a GNU/Linux distribution that is based on Arch Linux. The Bluestar distribution features up to date packages, a full range of desktop and multimedia software in the default installation and a live desktop DVD.

On recent builds of Ubuntu 26.04 when being prompted by sudo for the password, password feedback is now enabled by default to show asterisk (*) characters when inputting your password. Traditionally sudo has not provided password feedback in the name of security to not divulge the length of your password in case anyone is looking/capturing your screen. But upstream sudo-rs has now changed the default behavior in the name of an improved UX...

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 'Resolute Raccoon' has a new default wallpaper. It keeps the purple gradient but drops the sharp geometric angles. Download a high-res copy.

You're reading Ubuntu 26.04 ‘Resolute Raccoon’ default wallpaper unveiled, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Microsoft has published a new version of its open-source DirectX Shader Compiler. Besides adding Shader Model 6.9 production support, making this DX Compiler update interesting to us are the SPIR-V back-end improvements and enhancing interoperability with Vulkan drivers...

Omarchy is an Arch-based Linux distribution featuring the Hyprland tiling window manager. It ships with what a modern software developer would need to be productive immediately, including Neovim, Spotify, Chromium, Typora, Alacritty, LibreOffice and Zoom. The distribution boots into a text-mode system installer that downloads the latest packages from the Arch Linux repositories during installation to build a complete Hyprland desktop.

For those curious how far Intel laptop CPU performance has evolved over the past nearly two decades, here are power and performance numbers when re-benchmarking all of the Intel-powered laptop CPUs I have on hand that are still operational from Penryn to Panther Lake. A ThinkPad from 2008 with the Core 2 Duo T9300 "Penryn" was still firing up and working with the latest upstream Intel open-source Linux driver support on Ubuntu 26.04 development. On a geo mean basis over the past 18 years from Penryn to Panther Lake, the performance was at 21.5x in over 150 benchmarks. At the most extreme was a 95x difference going from Intel's 45nm Penryn to the 18A Panther Lake.

The Harbour Masters team recently released a big upgrade for SpaghettiKart, their Mario Kart 64 fan-made PC port with a bunch of new features.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

The Linux kernel continues seeing more open-source kernel drivers emerge for supporting different AI accelerators / NPUs. The newest open-source driver breaking cover today is from NXP and is for enabling their Neutron neural processing unit...

BRGV-OS is a rolling-release Linux distribution based on Void and featuring a customised GNOME desktop with variety of unique themes. It offers out-of-the-box support for English and Romanian languages. The project aims to facilitate developers, researchers and users to transition from Windows or macOS to Linux by maintaining familiar operational habits and workflows. BRGV-OS was originally created for Banca de Resurse Genetice Vegetale (BRGV), a gene bank research institute in Suceava, Romania, and is now also available to the general public.

While the Linux 7.0 feature merge window ended this past weekend and that next kernel release won't debut as stable until April, there are already features out on the horizon that are being positioned for likely merging into the Linux 7.1 kernel assuming no issues appear or objections raised by Linus Torvalds. One of the features already looking like it will be submitted for Linux 7.1 is supporting extended attributes on sockets...

The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The product ships with several Internet applications, including web browser, IRC client, mail client and instant messenger, all pre-configured with security in mind and with all traffic anonymised. To achieve this, Incognito uses the Tor network to make Internet traffic very hard to trace.

Fwupd/LVFS lead developer Richard Hughes of Red Hat today released Fwupd 2.0.20 with continuing to advance firmware updating on Linux systems...

Merged yesterday to Mesa 26.1 for the open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver "NVK" is ZCULL support for more efficient rendering and bringing some small performance gains to this open-source NVIDIA driver stack...

Legends of Rock is coming later this year from the developer of Dude, Where Is My Beer? that sees you build up and manage your own band.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Coming from Limited Run Games, MARVEL MaXimum Collection will be a bundle of retro classic Marvel titles "from the golden age of gaming".

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Topdeck Automat gives you hundreds of cards to build a deck where your printer droid spits them out at random - sounds like quite a fun mixture.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

BlueOnyx is a server distribution based on AlmaLinux OS. It is the mission of BlueOnyx to provide a fully-integrated Internet hosting platform that includes web, e-mail, DNS and file transfer services from a simple, user-friendly web-based interface that is easily installed on commodity hardware or virtual private server.

Verminsteel is a new announcement from Glass Bottom Games that will see you hack and slash your way through hordes of fascists and take down their leaders.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Merged to Mesa 26.1-devel this week is a minor improvement to the Intel "ANV" Vulkan driver providing some slight enhancements to DirectX 12 games running on Linux by way of Valve's Steam Play with VKD3D-Proton...

AlmaLinux as one of the leading, modern and community-minded alternatives to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) continues enjoying very nice growth. In their 2025 Year In Review they provided a look at their growth with now having more than two million systems per week checking in for software updates...