Bug fixes arrive in GIMP 3.2.4, the latest maintenance update for the current 3.2.x stable series. Assorted improvements made since GIMP 3.2.2 dropped in March include a variety of layer workflow tweaks, like ensuring certain actions, like ‘Layers to Image Size’ and ‘Resize Layer to Selection’ only on raster layers (not vector, linked or text layers). Similarly, the team says they “caught more cases where tools would accidentally rasterize link, text, and vector layers”. A layer naming issue broke what GIMP devs refer to as “the principle of least surprise”, so that’s been resolved. In earlier builds opening an XCF […]
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Your mouth can (probably) say things quicker than your hands can type, yet voice typing is rarely used as a primary input method on desktop – yet most of us think nothing of using it on mobile. That’s despite speech-to-text being available on desktop OSes for decades, natively and through dedicated apps. It never caught on because it was inaccurate and slow and typically hidden away as an assistive feature. (And because a lot of what you do at a keyboard is navigation and that is less efficient to speak, unless ‘arrow down, arrow down, arrow down’ is some trendy […]
Thunderbolt is a new open source AI client from the Mozilla-owned MZLA Technologies aimed at enterprises who want to run self-hosted chatbots on their own infrastructure. MZLA Technologies is the for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that develops and maintains the Thunderbird email client. It says Thunderbolt was created with the support of a grant from Mozilla. Terrible name aside (Intel owns a trademark for ‘Thunderbolt’ which Apple markets heavily, so it’s not the best choice for clarity), the LLM that MZLA Technologies asked to write their press release says that Thunderbolt is a “sovereign AI client” for organisations who want their own AI infrastructure. […]
Linux Mint has confirmed it is switching to a longer development cycle, in order to give the team more time to ‘fix bugs and improve the desktop’. As a result, the Linux Mint 23 release is now slated to launch in December 2026. It will, among other planned changes, use the same installer as LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) as this offers better OEM install, SecureBoot and LVM/LUKS support. Project lead Clement Lefebvre intimated that upending the distro’s standard twice-yearly release model was needed in February, noting that “…one of our strengths is that we’re doing things incrementally and changing […]
The first point release to Zorin OS 18 is now available for download, arriving six months and some 3.3 million downloads after the original launch. Zorin OS 18.1 is a point release update. It’s still based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS-based but adds a variety of desktop refinements, updated software and a new kernel (courtesy of the recent Ubuntu HWE from Canonical). A new Zorin OS Lite also launches today. This nimble edition is aimed at older, lower-spec hardware and is based around a customised Xfce desktop rather than the GNOME Shell desktop the main edition uses. If you already run […]
Installing Opera GX on Linux is now easier, with official packages available on the Canonical Snap Store and Flathub. Opera GX made its debut Linux release in March 2026, with the gaming-centric web browser porting over many of the novel features that have helped to make it a modest hit on Windows and macOS. That includes CPU, RAM and network controls provided, background sounds, themes and eye-candy like web shaders. A ‘Hot Tabs Killer’ feature automatically nukes tabs which use excessive resources (other browsers have similar features with more tactile names like ‘tab sleep’). You can install Opera GX on […]
Ever wondered what a GTK4/libadwaita version of Linux music player Rhythmbox might look like? A new app in development imagines just that. Tributary is billed as a “high-performance, Rhythmbox-style media manager written in pure Rust with GTK4 and libadwaita”. It’s more than a way to play local audio files. Tributary can also access and stream music from Jellyfin, Plex, DAAP/iTunes shares, and Subsonic/Navidrome setups, and makes it easy to browse and play internet radio stations – all from a UI that looks like a GTK4 Rhythmbox. Explaining his decision to create ‘yet another music player’ (no longer a historical meme […]
Quick Lofi is a GNOME Shell extension that puts a lofi radio player in your top bar. If you’ve ever opened a new browser tab to load a “lofi beats to study to” stream on YouTube — lofi girl, perhaps – to act as an ambient backdrop to work to, the appeal will be evident. If not, all you need to know is that mellow, lyric-free, low-tempo sounds are reputedly ideal for focus. A wedge of research backs up the benefits of playing background music (or ambient noise or frequencies, including binaural beats) when studying. A 2022 study showed students who […]
Linus Torvalds has released Linux 7.0, the kernel version that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS runs on. Linux 7.0 includes a new standardised filesystem error reporting system, faster swap performance and hardware video decoding for a crop of Rockchip ARM64 single-board computers. On the quirky side, Rock Band 4 Bluetooth controller support is now included. The shiny new version number does not, however, signify anything special. Linus has always been upfront that kernel version numbers tick up when the minor number gets a tad unwieldy, not because a ‘milestone’ has been reached. That said, there is plenty in this release worth talking […]
The Ghostty terminal is now packaged in the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS repositories – meaning for those on the new long-term support release, it’s only an apt install away. Ghostty is a fast, open-source terminal emulator for macOS and Linux (Windows support is seemingly trapped between planes), made by Mitchell Hashimoto. It’s picked up millions of users since its launch in December 2024, and has been available on Ubuntu via a community-maintained PPA, DEB and Snap packages for a while. This is its first appearance in the Ubuntu repos proper. What makes Ghostty different? “Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform […]
Amazon is dropping support for Kindle older models from 20 May, 2026, meaning owners of pre-2013 models will be unable to download new books or set up a device that has been factory reset — deregistering a device will effectively ‘brick’ it. While no company can support all of their products forever (one could argue a company the size of this one could, mind), most of the devices impacted, listed below, have not received firmware updates for over a decade, and most lost on-device access the Kindle Store. The following 2012 or earlier Kindles are affected, as of 20 May, […]
A new version of Miracle-wm, a tiling window manager built around the Wayland compositor Mir, has been released with a new WebAssembly plugin system and Rust API. Developer Matthew Kosarek, an engineer at Canonical who created miracle-wm as a personal side project, says the new plugin system in v0.9 release will allow for greater window management, animation and configuration, thus making miracle-wm “truly hackable”. He also shared a video overview of the changes in the latest update: A new Rust API for writing plugins is supported in Miracle 0.9, with documentation available for fans of the memory-safe language to swot over; […]
A clutch of new features are available in Dynamic Music Pill, the slick now playing and media controller extension for GNOME Shell. The “big” new addition is lyrics support. When you listen to a track with synced lyrics in a compatible player, you can view those lyrics by opening the applet controller and clicking on the album art inside of it: The lyrics are shown in a freely scrollable widget, with the active line bolder in white for more emphasis. You can scroll up and down whilst tracks are playing. If you click a lyric line, your music player jumps […]
Little Snitch is now on Linux. See which apps are making network connections, block unwanted ones and find out how chatty your system really is.
Firefox recently added a free built-in VPN to its desktop browser, but access to the feature is rolling out gradually. It hit my Ubuntu machine last night – and I’m last to be invited to anything, so I thought I’d write a quick rundown of what it actually does, what it doesn’t, and how to set it – assuming you have it. If you’re waiting for it to roll out to you, there’s no special update or download to look out for as this is a progressive rollout feature – Mozilla enables it remotely, in stages. There was no fanfare […]
Further to Ubuntu Pro features being added to the desktop Security Center, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS also makes it easier to opt-in to Canonical’s (free for home users) subscription to get extended security updates, right from the wizard shown after installation. The first slide in the distro’s Welcome tool (package namegnome-initial-setup, with Ubuntu-specific modifications) is Enable Ubuntu Pro. The tool opens the first time a user logs in after installing the OS. Signposting the feature in the Welcome tool makes it easier to enrol your system in Ubuntu Pro: The flow is presented simply: either select ‘Enable Ubuntu Pro’, or choose […]
A couple of new icons have been added to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, to ensure the Resolute Raccoon’s new default apps sport a Yaru-ified look in keeping with the rest of the distro. Ubuntu’s new default system monitor tool Resources gains a new icon. In the Ubuntu 26.04 beta, the app was still sporting its upstream icon. That didn’t look out of place per se, but shape did not conform to the Yaru icon template (circle, squircle or upright rectangle). That’s now fixed. Still identifiably a system monitor, but uses the round template with less busy scale markings and simpler gauge […]
Skyscraper is a free, open-source Bluesky terminal client written in Rust. Browse, post and reply without leaving the command line - here's how to run it on Ubuntu.
March 2026 meted out a sizeable set of Linux software releases, including updates to FOSS stalwarts GIMP, digiKam, Krita and Blender. Major new releases were covered with dedicated articles, including Firefox 149 with free built-in VPN, the ‘biggest ever release’ of OpenShot video editor, the new GIMP 3.2.0 release, a bump to terminal tool Ghostty 1.3 and the Opera GX for Linux launch. A busy month, but those weren’t the only app updates of note. Below, I run through other releases made in March. While these didn’t get dedicated articles at the time, they offer new features, fixes or changes […]