The latest update to Calibre, the popular open-source ebook manager, features an AI-powered writing game. Calibre v9.15’s “Create Your Own Adventure” mode, per the release notes, lets you build a fictional world and hand control of it to an AI who will manage it in real time base … | Continue reading
Edit, Microsoft’s open-source command-line text editor, added syntax highlighting, improved regex handling in Find & Replace and new editing shortcuts in its v2.0.0 update. Microsoft open-sourced Edit last year. It’s a small, cross-platform CLI text editor with VS Code-style keyb … | Continue reading
In the mood for testing? The fourth monthly snapshot of Ubuntu 26.10 is now available for download. It’s not just unusual for Ubuntu to release a monthly snapshot the same month as a beta release, but this is the second monthly snapshot published this month: Ubuntu 26.10 Snapshot … | Continue reading
Miracle-wm gains a ‘fancy’ new overview mode inspired by GNOME Shell its latest update, v0.11.0. For those unfamiliar, miracle-wm is a a tiling window manager built around the Wayland compositor Mir, with ambitions to become as slick as things like hyprland. The new overview mode … | Continue reading
GNOME 51 is out, bringing FIDO2 passkey login, a Reduced Motion option and frame scheduling changes that make UI animations and scrolling feel smoother. Core apps pick up improvements too. The desktop Maps app gains offline area downloads and live transit data, Papers now lets yo … | Continue reading
A new beta of Orion for Linux, the native WebKitGTK port of Kagi’s iOS and Mac web browser, is out. Orion Beta v0.4.3 continues to flesh out the browser’s feature set to reach parity with its Apple kin. You can now customise the toolbar. A context menu option was present in earli … | Continue reading
Firefox 156 is out with faster start-up times for its built-in PDF viewer and lower CPU usage when viewing large JPEG images. As you browse the web you (pretty much always) see images smaller than their native resolution. To wit, if I embed a 4K JPEG in this post, for example, yo … | Continue reading
Conflux is a new Linux icon set that aims to be both beautiful but neutral – I think it succeeds at both. The author of Conflux said they struggled to find a “modern-looking” icon pack for their desktop, deigning many as overly stylistic, outdated or, in some cases, poorly design … | Continue reading
Shotwell 33 is out, the first stable version of the photo manager for GNOME desktops to use GTK4. A GTK4 port of Shotwell has been in the works since 2025. It’s the first big toolkit port the image tool has since since it migrated to GTK3 in 2012 (v0.12.0). Yet despite the leap, … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 26.10 completes the distro’s move to Rust-based core utilities, with the commands previously held back due to security issues now migrated to memory-safe versions. cp, mv and rm were held back on their GNU versions in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS while TOCTOU (time-of-check to time-of … | Continue reading
Canonical has pulled the Ubuntu 24.04.5 desktop ISO because of a bug that crashes the installer when users select the extended install options. The fifth point release to 24.04 landed on 10 September, bringing updated OS installers powered by the Linux 7.0 kernel. But many of tho … | Continue reading
An option pick a default terminal is to GNOME Settings, as the image above, teased by developer Ignacy Kuchciński last week, shows. Those of you who don’t use the command line often enough to care about what terminal is set as your system default, may be surprised to hear you can … | Continue reading
Two new apps are coming to Linux Mint later this year: a new calendar and eBook reader. A redesigned document hub will also be included to make it easier to find and manage files on your device. The new apps are part of the distro-agnostic XApp Project family (which, incidentally … | Continue reading
GIMP 3.2.6 has arrived, a new maintenance update in the 3.2.x series that made a splash earlier this year. You won’t find any major new features, but plenty of improvements – not least in font handling. GIMP say font loading is faster, with start-up times, Text tool typing and cl … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 26.10 is getting a newer kernel than planned: Canonical has switched its target from Linux 7.2 to Linux 7.3. You're reading Ubuntu 26.10 will now ship with Linux 7.3, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission. | Continue reading
The fifth (and final planned) point release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is now available to download. Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS brings refreshed installation media (ISOs) that includes of the software updates, bug fixes and security patches released since the last ISO was produced. This cuts do … | Continue reading
You can now give the Ubuntu desktop a ‘Liquid Glass’ makeover using a new GNOME Shell Extension that written with ‘significant’ help from AI. Its developer, Ryosuke Watanabe, said they loved the look of Liquid Glass – Apple’s new design material that gives UI elements light-bendi … | Continue reading
A new version of BleachBit, an open-source system cleaning tool, is out. BleachBit 6.0.4 brings everything I mentioned in my spot on the BleachBit 6.0.4 beta release, including macOS support for the first time – albeit in an early state, and including a Cleaner for Safari and a c … | Continue reading
Love Firefox enough to drop $200 on a branded keyboard? Tough, it’s sold it. It’s a full-sized, 108-key mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches, and has a unique keycap colour scheme and branding: a Firefox logo on the super/meta key and new Firefox mascot Kit on Esc. It work … | Continue reading
The official wallpaper for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.10 ‘Stonking Stringray’ release has been revealed, alongside artwork bearing the official mascot. No huge surprises to see the standard formula hole. The distro’s designers have, once again, opted for a dark purple/aubergine backd … | Continue reading
Photos is a new(ish) image viewer and organiser for KDE Plasma aiming to give Gwenview a run for its pixels. Linux distributions that use KDE Plasma typically ship Gwenview, which has been the KDE image app for over 25 years. It’s a solid, feature-filled and Qt-based tool that an … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 26.10 daily builds now include an amd64-v3 installer, allowing you to try out a CPU-optimised package set from the off, without any post-install reconfiguration. The distro began building amd64v3 packages as an opt-in archive last year, though Ubuntu 26.04 LTS continues to … | Continue reading
Firefox’s redesign will be enabled for all users in Firefox 157, out the end of September – barring any last minute hiccups, of course. Mozilla’s engineers have been working on Nova since March. The original pitch showed lots of round UI elements, floating toolbars, framed web co … | Continue reading
Sushi, the spacebar preview utility for Nautilus file manager, has been ported to GTK4 for GNOME 51. For anyone unfamiliar with it, Sushi is like Quick Look on macOS: you highlight a file (image, music, video, document, etc) in Nautilus, press the spacebar and an instant preview … | Continue reading
Firmware updates on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS have got smaller, as Canonical has backported the split Linux firmware packages it introduced in 26.04. To make the change in noble, the linux-firmware package is now a meta-package that pulls in all of the individual firmware packages. Functi … | Continue reading
The third, and potentially final, monthly snapshot of Ubuntu 26.10 is available for download. There were no monthly snapshots of the ‘Stonking Stingray’ in August or July, and the Ubuntu 26.10 beta release is due on 24 September. This could be the final snapshot of the cycle, tho … | Continue reading
Vivaldi 8.2 rolled out today (3 September 2026) and lets you do quick and private math calculations directly in the address bar. This may prove useful when you don’t want to open to a new tab or a calculator app. I’ve often narrowed my eyes at an online checkout page after applyi … | Continue reading
Audacity 4.0 has been released with a new Qt user interface, a new clip editing model and project file format – as well as a swathe of smaller improvements. The Qt port of Audacity is more than a superficial – some would say much-needed – facelift, as the toolkit switch brings na … | Continue reading
Canonical recently joined the Linux Foundation’s Open Secure AI Alliance to help make open-source security tools for AI systems and autonomous agents. The alliance formed in July 2026 in response to the security breach at Hugging Face, when OpenAI models undergoing a safety test … | Continue reading
Arduino's VENTUNO Q is now up for pre-order, priced from $299. The development board comes with Ubuntu preinstalled and is built around Qualcomm's Dragonwing IQ8 platform. You're reading Arduino’s VENTUNO Q went up for pre-order, sold out, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not rep … | Continue reading
LibreOffice 26.8 was download more than 1 million times in its first week of release, which The Document Foundation say is the highest first-week figure of any release of the free office suite. Released on 26 August, LibreOffice 26.8 saw 1,031,162 downloads from the official webs … | Continue reading
August saw a number of slew of notable Linux app updates, and in this post I roundup a few that might have passed you by. But unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock you’ll have already heard about Firefox 153, the big OpenShot 4.0 release with colour grading and the latest upda … | Continue reading
Firefox 155 is out, the first to arrive as part of the browser’s new twice-monthly release schedule. This update brings Firefox’s AI-powered Smart Window browsing mode to users in the USA, Canada and France. It’s still opt-in (for now), and is powered by your choice of AI model f … | Continue reading
Getting is planning to ‘sunset’ IRC as an official support method, and some long-time users aren’t happy. The recently Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS release announcement didn’t include a link to the Ubuntu Support IRC channel under its “if you have a question” section – though, from looking … | Continue reading
If you’re wondering why you can’t do a directly upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 from 24.04 yet, despite the Resolute Raccoon’s first point release being live, there is a reason. Canonical’s Oliver Reiche said in the mailing list announcement for Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS that upgrades will be d … | Continue reading
OpenShot 4.0 sees the open-source video editor add colour grading tools, a recording dock for audio and screen capture and new AI effects. Plus, Qt 6 and better Wayland support on Linux. You're reading OpenShot 4.0 gains colour grading tools, recording dock & Qt 6 port, a blog po … | Continue reading
A new version of open-source ebook manager Calibre is out – and it lets you create custom book covers using generative AI. Calibre 9.14, released August 28, lets you edit metadata for any book in your library and click an “AI Generate button” to make new ebook covers in “styles s … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS is now available to download, the first of 5 point releases scheduled for the ‘Resolute Raccoon’ in the 3 years. The release doesn’t add new features, but brings a refreshed installation image (.iso) that includes all of the bug fixes, security patches and pack … | Continue reading
If you’ve installed Chromium or Google Chrome as a Flatpak, you’ve installed an unofficial, community-maintained package done independently of the search giant – that could be about to change. Chromium’s build system is now able to generate Flatpak packages of the browser itself, … | Continue reading
AI-powered voice typing is coming to Ubuntu in Myna, a speech-to-text feature that lets you talk into any valid text field. It’s still a work in progress, but I grabbed an early build to see how it’s shaping up. With Ubuntu 26.10 now entering its freeze, the user-facing pieces of … | Continue reading
The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 26.8, a major new version of the open-source office suite for Windows, macOS and Linux. Among the changes is a new Paragraph Composer. This improves the way Writer handles justified text. In many word processors, justified text is … | Continue reading
Ubuntu’s Desktop Icons NG (DING) extension has a little-known way to bring order to a chaotic desktop: stacks. Stacks groups multiple files of the same type into a collapsible icon. Images in one stack, PDFs in another and so on. Folders aren’t grouped, and your files don’t get m … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 26.10, codenamed ‘Stonking Stingray’, entered feature freeze on 20 August – though the formal announcement arrive later than usual. From this point onwards, development focus shifts from landing major changes to improving them, along with the rest of the package set, ahead … | Continue reading
A major update to open-vm-tools, a package that integrates Linux virtual machines with VMware hypervisors, is rolling out to users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. “Without SRUing the newer version users get issues running on more recent hypervisors”, Canonical’s Lena Voytek explained in a b … | Continue reading
A decades-old bug on Ubuntu’s Launchpad marked as invalid at the weekend lead to an impromptu reunion for many of Canonical’s former engineers. Bug #1589796 was filed in 2016 by a user who’d spent £700 on Ubuntu phone and tablet hardware but, on visiting the official website, fou … | Continue reading
Postcard is a new email client for GNOME that has echoes of Geary. The app is the work of a solo developer, gxanshu on GitHub, who is upfront about using AI coding tools to bring his “modern mail client” to life. Postcard is built in Python with GTK4/libadwait. It uses imaplib an … | Continue reading
A new project file format is in the works for GIMP, as the existing one can’t handle larger, complex projects. The famed FOSS image editor has used a binary .xcf format since 1997 for saving projects and allowing them to be opened elsewhere, for editing, with layers, effects and … | Continue reading
You can bring Ubuntu’s clock, calendar and weather app icons to life with the Dynamic Calendar, Clocks and Weather Icons [Reborn] GNOME Shell extension – which has been updated with new icon styles. The extension already provided Yaru, Adwaita, Paprius, Big Sur and other icon sty … | Continue reading