OmegaLinux Next Deep Blue Sea

Tossing Lubutnu for Arch, Chilean distro offers much for those with limited resources

The LDXE desktop on the latest OmegaLinux release is clean and functional.

By Larry Cafiero

For today’s Distro of the Week, we’re going to go south of the border – way south, apparently – and take a look at the latest version of Chile’s OmegaLinux, a distro which has shed its Lubuntu roots in February, basing itself on Arch and featuring the LXDE desktop environment.

With this combination, OmegaLinux is designed for lightweight performance and is ideal for older hardware, while all but flying on newer ones. But we’re getting ahead of the story.

Installing OmegaLinux

The system requirements for OmegaLinux are tailored for older equipment, which of course means that newer equipment, for the most part, would find them easy to handle. The minimum system requirements are 1 GB or more of RAM, a 1.5 GHz single-core 64-bit CPU or better, and 15 GB of storage.

The ISO weighs in at a fairly light 1.7 GB as well. Downloading it on to a USB drive was relatively quick and once we rebooted the hardware, LXDE provided a clean desktop for the live version. With no desktop icon allowing the user to install, it was a dive into the menu where we found an install icon in the System section of the menu.

The LXDE menu sits on the lower left of the screen in OmegaLinux.

A Calamares installer pops up and after putting in our location, keyboard settings, disk partition preferences, put in a login/password, and then check everything for safe measure, the install was underway. About 10 minutes later, we were asked to reboot and were ready to go.

Perhaps a downside of having a light ISO like OmegaLinux is the amount of software available on the distro immediately after the install. After doing a customary update on the distro post-install, the proverbial pickings are rather slim.

OmegaLinux includes a variety of tools – Vim is the surprise here, along with Htop – as well as some standard software staples like the Firefox web browser , but from there it drops off dramatically. So it’s off to . . . well, the command line to add software via the standard Arch package manager, or pacman for short.

So we added a plethora of software: the LibreOffice suite, Thunderbird email client, VLC media player and GIMP, most notably, using the command line and we were on our way.

Kicking the tires

Once we got OmegaLinux to where we wanted it, using the distro was phenomenally simple. True to its Arch roots, the distro was nimble and quick, and multitasking was a breeze. The LXDE desktop environment took a little getting used to – I know, that’s a “me” problem – but overall the performance of the distro gets high marks.

One thing that deserves special mention is the OmegaLinux Tutorial, a brief series of windows that allow the new user a small, yet important, insight into the distro. From here, users are instructed in the various ways to modify their systems to their liking.

A fastfetch screen in the terminal shows relevant hardware information in OmegaLinux.

But back to OmegaLinux’s performance: At its multitasking best, OmegaLinux barely scratched the surface of RAM use, coming in an nearly 1 GB of RAM, which made the day-to-day chores and shenanigans of computer use completely enjoyable. Whether it was writing this article in LibreOffice while resizing the photos in GIMP, all the while listening to music via VLC, the distro behaved quite well across the board.

OmegaLinux also worked flawlessly with online programs as well, as transfers to Google Docs and Google Disk were straightforward.

The final word

Despite not exactly having a wealth of software at its immediate disposal – and some may argue that this is a good thing because users can design their own Linux systems from the ground up – OmegaLinux is still a solid distribution which should probably have a good run under its new Arch base.

But taking OmegaLinux from a Lubuntu base to an Arch base is not without a drawback or two. That said, the LXDE desktop environment is easily adaptable and understandable – especially for Xfce users – for new users dipping their proverbial toe into the Linux waters. However, the leap of faith that the OmegaLinux folks are asking new users to make regarding changing the base distro is significant, and time will tell if it is the right call.

The OmegaLinux Tutorial is helpful to new users of both the distro and LXDE.

In short, they’re trading the stability of the Ubuntu-based Lubuntu for the faster updates– and the possibility of errors and crashes that may follow – and streamlined system borne of Arch.

Nevertheless, OmegaLinux may not be for the faint of heart when it comes to being a gateway to Linux, and beginners may want to try something more simple before graduating to this distro.

Conversely, for those who have been around the block a time or two in the Linux realm – and even the most seasoned greybeards among you – would be pleased with the phenomenal performance of this distro on various levels.

In the final analysis, OmegaLinux is a solid distro that uses few resources while providing much to the user. In an age where RAM is at a premium, price-wise, and hardware is generally used for much longer than expected, distros like OmegaLinux are nothing short of a blessing. This lightweight distribution is ideal for users looking to revitalize older PCs without the need for high-end specifications while working remarkably well on newer hardware as well.

Give OmegaLinux a shot by visiting its download page and picking up an ISO.

Do you have a distro you think would make a great feature for Distro of the Week? Don’t be shy—let me know! Email me at larry.cafiero@gmail.com and I’ll make an effort to make your choice available to the wider public … No suggestion is too mainstream!

Bits & Bobs: Gnome 51 ready for testing

By Larry Cafiero

Marcus Nestor on 9 to 5 Linux reported on Friday that Gnome has released the alpha version of Gnome 51 for public testing “to give the community a first taste of the new features and enhancements.”

According to the article, “highlights of Gnome 51 ‘A Coruña’ include a new API to generate QR codes, support for the input capture portal to integrate with the clipboard, improved screencasting by minimizing stage paints and buffer copies, support for elogind as libsystemd provider, and support for saving and restoring monitor brightness.”

The article continues with Gnome 51 also removes support for legacy NVIDIA graphics drivers on Wayland. The Nautilus file manager – called Files – now shows a count badge for selected items when dragging multiple files, advertises notification categories for files, as well as mount and unmount operations, enhances the view reloading performance, and shows the correct starred status in the Recents view.

In addition, the Gnome Control Center – now called Settings – “received quite the attention during this cycle with an ‘Auto Rotate’ option for devices with an accelerometer and center-aligned snapping for horizontal edges in the Display section, and the ability to disable the touchpad in the Mouse section while a mouse is plugged in.”

Hannah Montana Linux reborn

It’s a girl!

Mark Tyson at Tom’s Hardware reported on Sunday that Hannah Montana Linux – after nearly two decades – is making a comeback, complete with about 18 years of security patches.

“Say whaaaat? Hannah Montana Linux is back,” the article states. “The distro made as a tribute to the noughties Disney Channel sitcom for tweens and teens, featuring the eponymous secret pop star, was basically abandoned in 2009. Now it’s back, with a modern kernel and about 18 years of patches, with the release of the Hannah Montana Linux v26.0 remaster by developer Noah Cagle.”

Thanks, Noah!

The article continues: “Little is known about why the original Hannah Montana Linux was developed, released, and almost immediately abandoned. The version available via Archive.org. This the only known release, identified as Hannah Montana Linux x86 basic edition 202201. It is still available if you’d like to test out a frozen-in-time HM-themed version of Kubuntu. You can grab it as a 691.7MB download via the link provided. Be warned that it is now ‘basically unusable,’ though, according to Cagle, due to being insecure and for its poor software support.”

But bringing the distro up to date was no easy task for Cagle, basing the new edition on Debian from the original distro’s Kubuntu roots.

“Fast forward to the present day, and Cagle’s HML26 release solves all the issues with the old distro. Browsing the modern web is possible and safe, finding and installing software is easy, and the dev has even made the terminal look pretty,” says the article.

Want to give it a shot? Download Hannah Montana Linux 26.0 on its download page.

6 Linux desktops … we still use

Dipan Saha of Make Use Of wrote an article Saturday which was a bit confusing, but warrants mentioning anyway.

Under the headline, “Everyone forgot about these 6 Linux desktops, but they might be better than what you use now,” we understand the point he is making, but the six desktop environments he mentions are hardly forgotten, and some users – me included – go out of their way to seek them.

Like Xfce, for example. Saha describes the desktop environment as “built with modularity in mind. You can use the desktop as is or strip it out for something completely custom — without breaking it. This modular approach makes Xfce a bit of a unicorn, and also happens to make it quite lightweight.”

Interesting. As an Xfce user for years, bordering on a decade now, and looking at the army of Xfce users around the world, I am sure that this one is far from forgotten. In fact, for Distro of the Week, I lean toward using the Xfce version of the distro if it’s available.

Saha also mentions Openbox, a window manager, which he descibes as “distinct in being a very stable, finished project. It has been in maintenance mode for quite some time now. It’s a rock-solid option for folks who know exactly what they’re doing and don’t mind sacrificing a few features for stability.”

Funny, because my daily driver – BunsenLabs Carbon – is basically Debian with the Openbox window manager, and as a daily driver, it’s usually in the forefront of my mind.

In any case, what I think Saha was trying to say is that the rest of the cast of characters – including MATE, LXQt, Budgie, and Deepin Desktop Environment – are not “forgotten” so much as not used as often as the Gnome/KDE Plasma juggernaut rolls on in the Linux universe. And Saha is right when he says in the headline that they “might be better” than the desktop environment you’re using now.

However these desktop environments – and Openbox window manager – are hardly forgotten and continue to be viable options in the Linux realm.

And that’s all for today. Don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return on Friday.

Bits & Bobs: Ultramarine 44 released

By Larry Cafiero

Marcus Nestor at 9 to 5 Linux reported on Friday about the release of Ultramarine 44 seven months after Ultramarine 43.

According to the article, “Jaiden Riordan released Ultramarine 44 today as the latest version of this GNU/Linux distribution built on top of Fedora Linux and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop environment by default.”

Based on Fedora 44, Ultramarine 44 comes with its default desktop, KDE Plasma 6.7.

“Apart from the KDE goodies, Ultramarine 44 also brings some love to the standalone Gnome, Xfce, and Budgie editions with upgrades to the latest Gnome 50, Xfce 4.20, and Budgie 10.10 desktop environments series,” the article continues.

While KDE Plasma edition is the recommended Ultramarine flavor for newcomers, “the team did some great improvements to the Gnome Edition, such as enabling the minimize and maximize buttons on all windows by default and adding calculator support to the overview search,” the article says.

New Arch Linux released

The latest Arch Linux ISO is out, according to Bobby Barisov in Linuxiac on Friday.

Included with the ISO is Linux kernel 7.0.14, Archinstall 4.4, systemd 261.1, fresh firmware and an updated core package.

“Arch Linux’s July 2026 ISO snapshot is now available for download, providing a fresh installation medium with Linux kernel 7.0.14 and updated packages from the distribution’s rolling repositories,” the article states.

While this is not a new “version” of Arch, “the monthly ISO images are intended mainly for new installations, delivering a more current starting point so users do not need to pull in as many updates right after the first boot,” the article continues.

This month’s image includes Linux kernel 7.0.14 and “[t]he Linux LTS kernel in the repositories has been updated to version 6.18.37. The firmware stack has also been refreshed with linux-firmware 20260622, covering AMDGPU, Intel, NVIDIA, Realtek, Broadcom, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Radeon, Atheros, and other supported hardware.” the article says.

KDE Linux offers ‘Developer Mode’

Michael Larabel at Phoronix reported on Wednesday that KDE Linux provides users a “Developer Mode” in its latest iteration.

“With the start of the new month comes a new progress report on the KDE Linux distribution for the prior month,” the article states. “Even with KDE developers being busy to ship Plasma 6.7 in June, they still accomplished a lot when it comes to KDE Linux.”

With that said, “KDE Linux has rolled out an initial ‘developer mode’ for showing various developer tools and options that are otherwise concealed by default to ease the end-user experience,” the article says. “Simply running toggle developer mode from the Konsole is all that’s needed to enable this initial developer mode.”

This makes for a clean experience for users that are not developers but where they may occasionally want to toggle additional features for helping to debug problems. “For now this toggle developer mode is quite basic but may be built upon in the future for further customizing the developer experience,” the article says.

And that’s all for today. Don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return on Monday.

Distro of the Week: LazyLinux Xfce

Armenian offering based on Void checks all boxes, and the distro’s anything but ‘lazy’

This pizza-eating sloth greets viewers to LazyLinux Xfce.

By Larry Cafiero

Sometimes you have a list of distros to choose from and you put them in a neat order to write about on a weekly basis. And sometimes a distro just proverbially falls out of the sky and into your lap.

This week’s Distro of the Week is definitely the latter.

From Armenia – of all places – and based on Void Linux – of all distros – is the latest version of LazyLinux.

LazyLinux features a modified version of the Xfce 4.20 desktop environment and, according to Distrowatch, aims to be “user friendly and usable right after installation.”

According to the LazyLinux download page, “LazyLinux is a pre-configured distro from Hadrut, Armenia, based on Void Linux featuring XFCE desktop and latest kernel version to provide a stable and user-friendly experience. It comes with a large number of software preinstalled for almost any purpose.”

Installing LazyLinux

The ISO for the Xfce version of Lazy Linux – it also comes in an OXWM window manager version – weighs in at a hefty 6 GB. While it downloads onto a USB drive, we should mention that the distro requires a minimum of 2 GB of RAM and 10 GB of disk space, but for optimal performance, 4 GB of RAM and a solid-state drive are recommended.

The Xfce 4.20 desktop environment in LazyLinux allows the traditional menu in the upper left.

Once we’re finished there, we boot into the live version of the USB stick. The user is greeted with a somewhat humorous desktop display of a sloth grinning back at the user while eating pizza and drinking what one can only assume is LazyLinux cola. However, the Xfce 4.20 desktop environment provides only one icon – Install – and we oblige.

LazyLinux provides a standard Calamares installer, complete with adding your location, keyboard, disk setup, login/password and once that’s all squared away, the install starts. The download took a little longer than usual, but after it was completed, we rebooted. Updating the system for good measure we were on our way.

Kicking the tires on LazyLinux

The immediate look of LazyLinux – pizza-eating sloth excluded – provides the user with various options. The Xfce 4.20 desktop environment comes with a wide variety of additions to the upper panel. On the right is the stock Xfce drop-down menu, and moving leftward there are icons for the workspace, Search, Thunar File Manager, Ghosty terminal, and then icons for Zed, the Zen Browser, and the Brave web browser to conclude the icons on the left of the panel.

In the center of the panel are a variety of icons as well, including separate monitors for WiFi, disk drive, RAM, and disk use. On the right and filling out the icons are a language icon, Clipman clipboard manager, on-screen keyboard, WiFi network connection, Cortile tiling manager, a remote device monitor, Bluetooth, Volume, Battery monitor, Weather monitor, and Date/Time.

A lot to deal with for one panel, but I digress, although the Weather monitor icon bears special mention as a welcome addition.

The size of the ISO becomes evident when the user looks at the amount of software included in the initial download. In a nutshell, there are a wide variety to choose from, and when I say “to choose from,” I actually mean that specifically. As previously mentioned, two web browsers – Zen and Brave – are available. The distro provides an email client – Aerion – to its long list of included software.

The fastfetch command in the terminal provides information in LazyLinux.

But wait, there’s more. The VLC media player and GIMP image editor are also included on the initial download as is a variety of Void-based tools to configure the LazyLinux experience to the user’s liking.

For the first time in quite awhile, there was no need to add any software to the original install, which in and of itself is a feather in LazyLinux’s cap. While I would have preferred LibreOffice, we wrote the article using the available OnlyOffice, which performed admirably.

The Void Linux base on LazyLinux is clearly evident, since all the software and hardware react quickly and efficiently to a wide range of requests made by the user. Although I was a few steps away, rhetorically speaking, from the Firefox/Thunderbird “confort zone,” the software included in the distro performed swiftly and adequately. Multitasking on this distro is very simple and almost carefree, and multitasking issues were completely non=existent.

Lastly, even using two new browsers – new to me, anyway – LazyLinux handled online programs like Google Docs and Google Drive easily and effortlessly.

The last word

This is the first Void Linux-based distro that Distro of the Week has tested, and the Void base of LazyLinux passes with flying colors. As an aside, it urges an uptick in trying vanilla Void in an upcoming Distro of the Week.

Listening to Suzanne Vega on VLC media player on LazyLinux.

Further, to call LazyLinux “lazy” is a complete misnomer. This sole Linux offering from Armenia checks all the boxes for speed, efficiency, and multitasking, and surpasses each with flying colors. Being based on Void Linux, LazyLinux inherits the speed, simplicity, and robustness of its parent distribution.

That said, LazyLinux is easily useable for new users dipping their toes in the proverbial Linux waters, despite being “burdened” – for lack of a better word – with a virtual tsunami of software and tools at the user’s disposal.. Both intermediate users and “greybeards” would have a field day with the amount of tools and setups available in the LazyLinux download.

Don’t take my word for it. Give it a shot. You can download LazyLinux from its download page and give it a try.

Bits & Bobs: Best Arch-based distro?

By Larry Cafiero

Hand it to Dibakar Ghosh at HowToGeek.com for taking the time to do this, and while the story is a couple of weeks old, it bears repeating today. Ghosh took the time to test nine – count ‘em, nine – Arch-based distros – in the middle of the AUR hubbub, no less – and provide readers with a list of ninth to first.

“Most Arch-based distros either preserve that minimalism while reducing complexity, or they go all-in on power, performance, and extra features,” Ghosh writes. “After testing many options, these nine stood out—and here’s how I’d rank them according to my needs and workflow.”

Because it seems that there are many distro based on Arch, the usual suspects appear in the story, with plausible explanations regarding why Ghosh has ranked them as he did. While I have no argument with the rankings as such – and it includes a couple I would have never considered at all – I still think that Manjaro, for all its recent turmoil, is still the best distro of the lot, and he ranks it at number five.

Seriously?

So what did he rank first? Not a chance – read the article. It’s worth the few minutes of your time

KDE Plasma 6.8 taking shape

Fun fact: The release of KDE Plasma 6.8 in October is scheduled to coincide with the 30^th anniversary of the founding of KDE. That said, we thought we’d check in on developments in the Wayland-only desktop environment.

Sven Bauduin at PC Games Hardware wrote an update earlier this month about it, in which he wrote that the major development is the departure of X11 for just Wayland.

“With Plasma 6.8, the login screen will only offer the Plasma Wayland session,” Bauduin writers. “KDE also plans to remove X11-specific code from Plasma Shell, System Settings and device configuration in this release. That makes Plasma 6.7 the last version expected to ship with a dedicated X11 session. It is scheduled for mid-June 2026, while Plasma 6.8 is currently expected around October 14, 2026.”

According to KDE developer David Edmundson, all is not lost for those who depend on the X11 window system to operate their software.

“Wayland support remains present,” writes Edmundson is his blog. “You can keep using your X11 applications, and our XWayland application support is second-to-none.

Edmundson continues to say that if you use KDE applications on another desktop environment, this change will have no effect. He reassures users that “KDE applications will continue to work in X11 for the foreseeable future.”

First Kernel 7.2 release candidate

Marcus Nestor at 9 to 5 Linux reported on Sunday that Linus Torvalds announced on Sunday the general availability of the first Release Candidate (RC) of the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel series for public testing and early adopters.

Two weeks have passed since the release of Linux kernel 7.1 and the opening of the merge window for Linux kernel 7.2 for contributors to submit their patches, which means that it’s now time to test drive the Release Candidate (RC) versions during the next couple of months, every Sunday afternoon,” the article states.

During this two-week merge window, the Linux 7.2 kernel received many new features and improvements, most notably support for devres-based management of ACPI notify handlers, initial HDMI 2.1 FRL support to the AMDGPU driver, initial CRI platform support for the Intel Xe driver, and Intel CPU model number support for Panther Lake R series.

“Linux 7.2 also promises to introduce support for the ‘zerocopy’ library to the Rust support to make zero-cost memory manipulation effortless, new hwcaps for the 2025 dpISA extensions for the AArch64 (ARM64) architecture, and enable large folios by default for the Btrfs file system,” the article says.

And that’s all for today. Don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return on Friday.

Bits & Bobs: Pssst … want to save $60?

By Larry Cafiero

On Thursday, Sourav Rudra at It’s FOSS on Thursday gave the entire Linux universe a tip – a $60 saving tip, from the looks of it.

It seems that the new Brave web browser, called Origin, “is Brave’s stripped-down browser, built for people who never touch most of what the company packages with Brave Browser,” the article states. “It drops the AI assistant, the rewards program, the crypto wallet, and the VPN, leaving the ad and tracker blocking in place.”

But don’t let that fool you into thinking that Origin is a half-baked browser, because according to the article, “you still get regular security upgrades, Chromium-specific patches, and general browser updates.”

Here’s the kicker: For most users, Brave Origin costs $59.99 for a one-time license purchase for use across Windows, Android, macOS, and iOS. However, people running a Linux distro on their computer do not have to pay a dime or sign up for an account.

The article takes you through the paces of using Origin, as well as providing ways to download it – for free – on to your given Linux distro. This article is worth a read.

KaOS 2026.06 released with Dinit

Marcus Nestor of 9 to 5 Linux reported Wednesday that KaOS “has officially released KaOS Linux 2026.06 today as the first ISO snapshot of this independent distribution using Dinit as the default init system instead of systemd.”

As mentioned earlier, the KaOS Linux devs have decided to move away from systemd and the KDE Plasma desktop environment after more than 12 years of using them by default. In February, they dropped KDE Plasma for a Niri/Noctalia setup, but they were still working on replacing systemd with another init system.

“As of today, they have succeeded in delivering a stable ISO image that users can use to install the distribution without using systemd as the default init system,” the article states. “The replacement is Dinit, a modern and lightweight init system and service manager designed as a fast, dependency-based alternative to systemd.”

But apparently, KaOS isn’t completely systemd-free, according to the developers: “A move away from systemd as an init system is completed. KaOS now uses dinit > turnstile > seatd for the system startup, seats & services. This does not mean the system is systemd-free, a much-reduced systemd is still in use mainly for udev & tmpfiles,” the KaOS Linux development team was quoted in the article.

GIMP 0.54 goes on a test-drive

Well, this was inevitable. Someone makes and flatpaks software from 30 years ago, and someone else gives it a test drive and writes about it.

As we reported on Monday, a developer has revived an older version of GIMP – otherwise known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program – specifically, version 0.54 from 1996 and “Flatpak’ed” it for use by modern Linux desktops.

Christine Hall at FOSS Force took the bait and gave it a test run because, well, it was there. Hall got it up and running on her Linux Mint rig, and Hall’s impression – overall – is that it should have stayed in the past.

“Playing around with it was fun — in a frustrating sort of way — but it mainly served to remind me how much better computing is now than it was back in the days when I was working in DOS with Windows for Workgroups sitting on top,” the article concludes.

And that’s all for today. Don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return on Monday.

Mabox 26.04 Openbox

Manjaro-based distro works well overall, appeals to more experienced users on the Linux spectrum

The Openbox desktop on Mabox 26.04 shows a clean look.

By Larry Cafiero

With all the hubbub around the Arch AUR – and since Manjaro is based on Arch – we thought we’d throw caution to the wind and give an Arch-based distro a shot. Today, Distro of the Week travels to Poland to review Mabox 26.04, a Manjaro-based distro with the Openbox window manager.

Installing Mabox 26.04

The Mabox 26.04 ISO is an average 3 GB and downloaded in about 10 minutes. Once we put it on USB drive, the live version came up fairly quickly. On the live USB, there’s an option to choose either open source or proprietary drivers. With the Openbox window manager providing a wide variety of menu items – three separate windows, thanks to Conky (which we’ll get to later), we finally found the download icon on the small panel on the upper left.

Downloading Mabox consists of a Calamares installer, which consists of the standard time zone, keyboard, disk setup, and login/password. Once the user confirms everything, the installation gets underway. About 10 minutes later, the install was complete, and we are off to the races.

The menu on Mabox 26.04 provides access to a wide variety of sotware.

After updating the distro upon rebooting, the user looks at what might be considered a unique desktop layout. First of all, once again there are three – count ‘em, three – separate menus, which can be modified by the Conky manager. We dropped the photo menu in the lower right, and the two menus which appeared on the lower left, and leaving only the Conky in the upper right.

Once the Conky was sorted, Mabox’s Openbox window manager had a left panel on the top, complete with icons for web browser, terminal and other important programs, and the panel on the right featuring the desktops, the WiFi, Volume, Update, Photo, Time, and Power Button. Once we got the desktop the way we wanted it, with the single System Info window in the upper right,we were ready to go.

Test-driving Mabox 26.04

First things first: While the ISO is 3 GB, the fact that the only signiicant daily-use program that was included was Firefox ESR. With a plethora of Arch- and Manjaro-based tools included in the original download, the availability of software drops off significantly. Perhaps that’s by design – some distros purposely do not include software so users can build their own system to their liking and taste.

So it was off to use Pacman – avoiding AUR for the time being – to add a few software morsels to make daily life easier, specifically the LibreOffice suite of software, GIMP, VLC and Thunderbird, which – as an aside – should be standard issue on any Linux distribution.

The fastfetch option in the terminal provides a wide range of information on Mabox 26.04.

Once we settled in with all the software required, the daily use of Mabox almost became second nature. With Arch-via-Manjaro rumbling underneath the hood, most of the daily chores, online and offline, became completely manageable, and the distro was userful overall. Surfing the web with Firefox while reading and sending emails on Thunderbird were both effortless, and using LibreOffice to write this article while listening to a little Bruce Springsteen on VLC can best be described as uncomplicated.

In true Manjaro fashion, Mabox 26.04 handled multitasking issues with normal Arch fashion, which specifically was both quick and effortless. The distro played nicely with online programs like Google Docs and Google Drive, and swapping documents and photos between each of the programs and the hardware was a breeze.

The last word

Despite the original desktop being a bit “busy” – for lack of a better term – the strength behind Mabox 26.04 is certainly its malleable nature. A few clicks on a variety of menus created the desktop that I was comfortable with, and once the desktop and hardware was set up, it was a rather pleasant week using this distro.

Despite this, beginners may want to avoid Mabox 26.04, although this distro is almost custom made for intermediate and advanced users. The reason beginners may want to avoid it is because of the interface, which can be a little intimidating at first. But for even the most adventurous beginners, Mabox might be an option, if for no other reason that the Manjaro base of the distro provides a wide variety of options and its community is wide and helpful.

Listening to a little Bruce Springsteen on VLC media player while using Mabox 26.04 last week.

Overall, Mabox 26.04 presents itself in a better-than-average fashion. The Openbox configuration strikes a nice balance between form and function, like useful keyboard shortcuts, a clean tint2 panel, and the customized jgmenu system that provides a clean, organized application menu. The wide variety of Mabox tools puts system configuration well within easy reach without being overwhelming.

If you’re looking for a new distro and you have a little bit of Linux experience, Mabox 26.04 may be for you. Visit the Mabox page and see for yourself.

Bits & Bobs: Talk to me, Ubuntu says

By Larry Cafiero

On Friday, Sourav Rudra on It’s FOSS reported that Canonical’s new AI tool wants to hear from you, literally.

The new AI tool is called Myna, and runs entirely on local hardware. It’s set for its debut with Ubuntu’s next release, which will be 26.10 scheduled for October.

According to the article, Jean-Baptiste Lallement, Canonical’s Director of Engineering for Ubuntu Desktop, posted the announcement, saying that voice dictation has become a common feature across modern platforms.

“For Ubuntu 26.10, the initial version of Myna is expected to be a desktop dictation tool built around Gnome and Wayland with a push-to-talk mechanism gatekeeping when your microphone accepts input.,” the article states.

The article also states that using Myna requires holding a hotkey, speaking, and letting go. A small activity indicator shows while it is listening, and the transcribed text lands wherever the cursor was sitting when dictation started.

PorteuX 2.7 released

Marcus Nestor at 9 to 5 Linux reported on Saturday that PorteuX, a Slackware-based distro, released its latest version – version 2.7 – with a wide variety of improvements.

“Coming almost four months after PorteuX 2.6, the PorteuX 2.7 release is powered by the latest and greatest Linux 7.1 kernel series, and features the latest KDE Plasma 6.7, Gnome 50.2, Xfce 4.20, LXQt 2.4, Cinnamon 6.6.8, Cosmic 1.0.16, MATE 1.28.2, and LXDE 0.11.1 desktop environments as standalone flavors,” the article states.

In addition, the article outlines how PorteuX 2.7 improves support for webcams, bumps overall performance by improving build and linker flags, improves NVIDIA GPU detection in the Xfce flavor, improves keyboard layout selection in the MATE flavor, improves the NetworkManager applet, and adds Noto fonts to fix some missing symbols.

Various packages also have been updated to their latest version based on upstream releases, so check out the release notes on the project’s GitHub page for extra reading.

GIMP 0.54 revived and Flatpaked

From the “that’s-great-but-why” desk, Michael Larabel on Phoronix reports on Saturday that a developer has revived an older version of GIMP – otherwise known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program – specifically, version 0.54 from 1996 and “Flatpak’ed” it for use by modern Linux desktops.

“What makes this version of GIMP from 1996 notable is that it was the last to use the Motif toolkit,” according to the article. It continues to state that GIMP 0.54 can now easily work on modern Linux desktops – complete with the Motif toolkit – thanks to a port to Flatpak for easy packaging and distribution.

The article also maintains the GIMP 0.54 port is hosted on the Gnome.org GitLab by developer balooii. “GIMP 0.54 isn’t useful in 2026 in practice besides those nostalgic over the old days with Motif and friends in the era before the GTK toolkit,” the article says. “I tried out this Flatpak’ed GIMP 0.54 and indeed was working out fine on a 2026 Linux distribution.”

And that’s all for today. Don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return on Friday.

Bits & bobs: KDE Plasma prepares its ‘adios’ to X11 with newest version

By Larry Cafiero

It’s been coming for awhile now, but now that it’s here, it still has to sting for the X11 fans out there. But KDE has released the latest version of the Plasma desktop environment – 6.7 for those of you keeping score at home – and of the many “improvements” to it is the imminent abandonment of X11 for Wayland.

In other words, it’s the last KDE Plasma version with X11 support, with the next version, 6.8, being Wayland-only.

Nevertheless, the highlights of the new desktop environment are plenty, according to the announcement on KDE’s announcement page. First and foremost, Oxygen and Air themes have been updated from older KDE versions and make a return to the latest version.

Other KDE Plasma 6.7 highlights include a revamped Plasma Big Screen mode for mirroring the desktop on a big screen television, support for per-screen virtual desktops, a full-featured print queue viewer app, a global push-to-talk feature, Wayland session restore, and a “multi-GPU swapchain” feature for Vulkan support.

Also, according to 9 to 5 Linux, “KDE Plasma 6.7 also brings support for typing characters that aren’t on your physical keyboard, a dedicated setup UI for configuring shared printers on Windows networks, the ability to exclude windows from screen recording using permanent window rules, and a Plasma Panel switch to instantly go from light mode to dark mode.”

However, if you really must insist on keeping X11 around – and I know there are some of you out there – fear not: Bobby Barisov ran a story on the Linuxiac site on Thursday proclaiming that “[i]f you are a KDE user who still depends heavily on X11 and is concerned about what happens after Plasma 6.8 drops the X11 session, there is some good news. SonicDE is an emerging X11-focused desktop project based on forked KDE Plasma components with a simple goal: to preserve and enhance KDE’s X11-specific components.”

For those interested in SonicDE, there’s a page with more information here.

Arch AUR registrations blocked

According to Christine Hall at FOSS Force on Tuesday, “Arch has evidently stopped new AUR registrations for the time being while maintainers scrub malware and users debate how to harden the popular community repository.”

“Although things seem to be quieting down a bit — we’ve heard no new reports of newly discovered poisoned packages since early Sunday — there is news to report,” the article states. “It appears that AUR maintainers who’ve been working overtime to remove malware-laden packages and delete their committers’ accounts, have now blocked new AUR registrations.”

But fear not, Arch and Arch-based distro users: According to an article on It’s FOSS by Souray Rudra on Thursday, “ yay, the most popular AUR helper for Arch Linux, just put out a release aimed at tackling that mess on the user level, introducing two new features that make it easier to spot a risky package before you install it and to automate the review work yourself.”

Instructions on how to get yay up and running on your Arch or Arch-based distro are included in the article.

Meanwhile, like FOSS Force, we’re keeping an eye on this situation as well, and we’ll let you know something when we know something ourselves.

And that’s all for today. Some might argue that it’s too much. Either way, don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return on Monday.

Mocaccino 26.06 KDE Plasma

Linux distro from Italy, based on Gentoo, hits all the right marks

By Larry Cafiero

While it’s been a slow June so far – unless you’re an Arch user – this week we’ve spun the proverbial wheel and it looks like we’re going to test-drive Italy’s MocaccinoOS 26.06, released by its developers earlier this month.

MocaccinoOS is an independently developed Linux distribution based on – wait for it – Gentoo via Sabayon, using a custom-built package manager called Luet. The main features are both minimalism and a small footprint, as well as ease of use with support for the most important cloud technologies.

MocaccinoOS is offered in several variants, including live images with Gnome, KDE Plasma, MATE and Xfce desktop environments, as well as a command-line only “Minimal Desktop” version. For purposes of this review, we’re test-driving the KDE Plasma version.

The system requirements for MocaccinoOS are fairly low. The distro requires a minimum of 2 GB RAM at a minimum and a 64-bit processor, although more would be welcome for the distro to run efficiently.

Installing MocaccinoOS

The installation of MocaccinoOS is fairly simple, with the ISO weighing in at an average 2.4 GB. After roughly 10 minutes of download time, we were ready to place the ISO onto a USB drive. It all starts with the the distro’s version of the Calamares installer.

The installer asks for the standard Calamares details, like language, time zone, keyboard layout, and disk partition options (always go for “erase disk” unless you are experienced, and maybe a little adventurous). Once that’s done it’s time to set up a login/password after which it provides some software options to include in the installation.

These options include web browser – we chose Chromium and Brave – and Office software, which we opted for LibreOffice. If you’re a gamer, it offers software options for games like Steam and Lutris, before finally offering development options.

The About screen on MocaccinoOS 26.06 provides the user with valuable hardware information.

Then the installer will ask you if all that you’ve entered is what you really want. Once you agree to what you’ve put in to Calamares, if’t off to the races.

The install takes roughly 20 minutes, which is a little long. Once the user sees the “all done” window, he or she can click the restart box and hit close, and the MocaccinoOS distro takes care of the rest by rebooting into your newly downloaded distro.

The KDE Plasma 6.6.5 desktop environment welcomes the user upon reboot. Once you do an update – here again, because the distro is based on Gentoo via Sabayon, the rules are a tad different (remember Luet?) – the user is ready to delve into what MocaccinoOS has to offer.

Let’s talk installed software: At first blush, the software installation provided by MocaccinoOS is fairly adequate. Not only did it download the Chromium and Brave web browsers we checked in Calamares, but it may have been overkill since the distro comes with Firefox ESR. While this particular version is KDE-based, there’s a plethora of KDE tools available, like the Dolphin file manager, Discover software installer, and the Konsole terminal, to name a few.

Outside of the software checked off in Calamares, like the LibreOffice suite and the additional browsers, the distro – to its credit – included the VLC media player on the original install.

Time to hit up Discover for an email client, namely Thunderbird, and we also downloaded GIMP for good measure.

Taking MocaccinoOS for a spin

Once we had Mocaccino 26.06 KDE Plasma up to the way we wanted it, it was showtime.

As advertised, MocaccinoOS is both lightweight and modular, and works well with all applications. The Luet package manager is supposed to simplify software management, and after getting used to typing “luet” instead of “apt,” it worked flawlessly. The distro’s layered architecture allows for smoother upgrades and easier management of system packages.

Listening to a cool sounds of Norah Jones on the VLC media player on MocaccinoOS 26.06

Ease of use almost becomes an understatement with MocaccinoOS. The distro worked well while putting it through its day-to-day paces. Email and writing assignments were handled flawlessly, and resizing photos in GIMP went without a hitch. Listening to music on the VLC media player helped during the week. All of which is to say that the multitasking of normal daily use seemed to be nothing to the distro, and the distro rarely went above 3 GB of RAM usage at this reviewer’s busiest times.

Additionally, MocaccinoOS played nicely with online programs like Google Docs and Google Drive, and swapping documents and photos between each of the programs and the hardware was a breeze.

The final word

MocaccinoOS 26.06 KDE Plasma is an ideal distro for a wide variety of users. For beginners it checks all the proverbial boxes for ease of use, and the distro’s website is full of information should he or she run into problems.

For more experienced users, the wide variety of available tools augmented by the relatively small footprint of the distro itself is cause to consider this version, not to mention that the distribution’s support for cloud technologies and containerization might be a plus for developers and system administrators.

Using the neofetch command on Konsole, a user can get vital hardware information.

The Luet package manager takes a little getting used to, but that’s more of a “me” problem than that of a new or experienced user. In fact, arguably a new user – taking a little time with Luet – could master the package manager easily.

MocaccinoOS is a rarified breath of fresh air, as far as Linux distribution go. The distro addresses both modern computing needs while maintaining a user-friendly approach.

See for yourself: Download a MocaccinoOS ISO at the distro’s download page.