KDE Linux is a user-focused, general-purpose Linux distribution. It is built by KDE and it is meant to showcase the best implementation of everything KDE has to offer, using the most advanced technologies. The distribution's base packages come from Arch Linux, while everything else is either compiled by the kde-builder tool or included as Flatpak packages. KDE Linux does not come with any traditional package manager, but supports installing Flatpak, Snap or AppImage applications. As it has an immutable base, system updates involve replacing the operating system image with an entirely new one.

PimersusOS is desktop Linux distribution based on Debian's "Stable" branch and featuring the Xfce desktop. It was built around the Pimersus web browser, a WebKit-based browser that incorporates advanced privacy and security features, including ad blocking, phishing protection and web tracking shield. The distribution aims to be lightweight, efficient and suitable for older computers.

With Steam Next Fest - February 2026 nearly over, Valve recently revealed some of the most popular choices amongst gamers.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Vendefoul Wolf is a set of lightweight, Devuan-based Linux distributions featuring various popular desktop environments, including Budgie, Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, LXQt, Trinity and Xfce. As the init software, it offers a choice between SysV and runit. Some of the distribution's other main features include the LibreWolf web browser, the Calamares system installer, an application store, and its own repository of software packages. Besides the main edition, Vendefoul Wolf also produces various community spins with alternative desktops and window managers.

Puppy Linux is yet another Linux distribution. What's different here is that Puppy is extraordinarily small, yet quite full-featured. Puppy boots into a ramdisk and, unlike live CD distributions that have to keep pulling stuff off the CD, it loads into RAM. This means that all applications start in the blink of an eye and respond to user input instantly. Puppy Linux has the ability to boot off a flash card or any USB memory device, CDROM, Zip disk or LS/120/240 Superdisk, floppy disks, internal hard drive. It can even use a multisession formatted CD-RW/DVD-RW to save everything back to the CD/DVD with no hard drive required at all.

Another month is done and finished and what a month it was huh? February 2026 had some fun games arriving, so here's what was most popular on Steam Deck.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Valve released an update for Proton Experimental for February 27th, their testing ground for getting more Windows games running on Linux / SteamOS systems.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Linux Q83 is a desktop Linux distribution based on Debian's "Stable" branch. Depending on the edition, it comes either with the Cinnamon desktop environment (a fork of GNOME created by Linux Mint), or COSMIC (a modern graphical desktop interface written in the Rust programming language, developed by System76). The distribution is available for Raspberry Pi and Radxa Orion O6 single-board computers, as well as standard desktops and workstations. Linux Q83 also comes with its own lightweight and resource-efficient web browser called W3.

AfagOS, a sister project of AgarimOS, is a Void-based Linux distribution featuring a vanilla KDE Plasma desktop. Like all distributions based on Void, it uses the XBPS package manager with the OctoXBPS graphical frontend and the Topgrade meta-updater. The distribution is free of systemd, using the runit init system instead.

AgarimOS is a desktop Linux distribution based on Void. It comes in several popular desktop flavours, including Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE and Xfce, all with a limited set of applications in their default states. Like its parent, AgarimOS does not use the systemd service manager, relying instead on the runit init scheme. It employs the XBPS package management system, together with a graphical front-end called OctoXBPS. The distribution also includes various optimisations, custom themes and some interesting software selection, such as the WezTerm terminal emulator, the Neofetch system information utility, the hBlock ad blocker, and the aria2 download tool.

Arch Linux is an independently developed, x86_64-optimised Linux distribution targeted at competent Linux users. It uses 'pacman', its home-grown package manager, to provide updates to the latest software applications with full dependency tracking. Operating on a rolling release system, Arch can be installed from a CD image or via an FTP server. The default install provides a solid base that enables users to create a custom installation. In addition, the Arch Build System (ABS) provides a way to easily build new packages, modify the configuration of stock packages, and share these packages with other users via the Arch Linux user repository.

A big set of kernel patches look like they will be submitted for the Linux 7.1 kernel cycle this spring to optimize the scheduler HRTICK timer and in turn allowing it to be enabled by default...

GNOME OS is an experimental, immutable Linux distribution that ships the latest in-development GNOME desktop, core applications and stack. It serves as a reference for developers and testers. It is designed around the modern systemd and GNU-based userland built from the Freedesktop SDK. Initially, GNOME OS used a library and set of utilities called OSTree to deploy the root filesystem and manage updates, but later migrated to "systemd-sysupdate" which offers enhanced immutability, auto-updating, adaptability, factory reset, uniformity and other modernised security properties. GNOME OS can be loaded as a live image in Boxes, VirtualBox, QEMU and other virtualisation software, but it can also be installed on a standard x86_64 hardware. The distribution does not support traditional package management; however, additional software applications can be installed via the Flatpak utility which is supported out of the box.

ArchBang Linux is a lightweight distribution based on Arch Linux. Using the labwc Wayland compositor, it is fast, up-to-date and suitable for both desktop and portable systems. Besides GreenBANG, the project also develops a distribution called SwayBang featuring the Sway Wayland compositor.

There's been a recent lull in activity around the open-source Linux driver for ASUS devices with the HID interface used for supporting various features. But developer Denis Benato who has worked on the ASUS Armoury Linux driver and the like is working on advancing the ASUS HID driver for Linux systems...

During the last month on Phoronix there were 289 original open-source/Linux-related news articles and another 20 featured articles as in Linux hardware reviews and multi-page benchmark articles. There was a lot of interesting software and hardware happenings the past month but standing out the most was the Linux 7.0 merge window developments and the ramp of Intel Panther Lake Linux testing...

After hearing last month that GNU Hurd is "almost there" with x86_64 support, it was exciting to kickoff today by seeing a developer headline "The 64-bit Hurd is Here!" GNU Hurd 64-bit support is now said to be ready but SMP support for multiple processor cores and the like remain still in development...

Last July Intel sadly ended their Clear Linux distribution amid cost-cutting measures at the company. Clear Linux for a decade served at the forefront of Linux performance innovations and was consistently the fastest out-of-the-box Linux x86_64 distribution until Intel ended the Linux distribution without any advanced notice for its users. Intel had kept up the ClearLinux.org website online to download the final releases and access other technical content and forum discussions, etc. Sadly, that too was recently taken offline...

AV Linux is a versatile, Debian-based distribution featuring a large collection of audio and video production software. Additionally, it also includes a custom kernel with IRQ threading enabled for low-latency audio performance. AV Linux can be run directly from a live DVD or a live USB storage device, though it can also be installed on a hard disk and used as a general-purpose operating system for everyday tasks.

Dr.Parted Live is a bootable GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian's "Testing" branch. It is a live image featuring a lightweight Openbox window manager and useful applications for disc partitioning as well as data backup, restore and recovery.

Kiro is an Arch Linux-based distribution with the goal of being an intuitive and customisable ISO image builder. It provides a simple way to build a custom Arch-based installation medium with a choice of packages, settings and scripts. Kiro uses the Xfce desktops, includes the Calamares system installer, and has a modular structure.

Oreon is a desktop-oriented live Linux distribution based on AlmaLinux, attempting to combine the stability and security of an enterprise Linux distribution with user-friendly features for desktop and laptop users. Its main features include GNOME desktop with a custom Oreon theme, ten years of support, and access to thousands of packages from AlmaLinux and Oreon-specific repositories.

blendOS is an Arch Linux-based, rolling-release distribution which automates installing software from supported distributions (Arch Linux, Fedora and Ubuntu) into containers. blendOS tries to make software management in across containers feel native and provides access to the user's home directory for each container.

Calam Arch Installer is an Arch-based Linux distribution created to facilitate the installation of an Arch Linux system to a hard disk. It is also a full-featured live Linux system with Xfce as the preferred desktop. The Calamares system installer offers a choice of several popular desktop environments and window managers, including Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, GNOME, i3, KDE Plasma, MATE, Openbox and Xfce. The distribution also offers support for both BIOS and UEFI boot, as well as hard disk encryption with LUKS.