Category: Debian

Bits & Bobs: Six best distro for kids

Compiled by Larry Cafiero

Linux Stans presented an interesting article on Thursday rating the six best Linux distro for kids today, which came up with some fascinating results.

Long gone are the days of Qimo 4 Kids, if you remember that distro. Qimo – pronounced “chemo,” as in the cancer treatment – “used to be one of the most recommended kids’ distros around, thanks to its cartoon-style interface and lightweight Xfce desktop,” according to the article.

However, Qimo for Kids officially shut down in January 2016, and its last release is based on Ubuntu 10.04.

Once again, the rankings are interesting and very sensible in a way. Are we going to give them to you here? No way. Read the article, because again it holds a lot of good information. Nice work, Linux Stans.

Stonking Stingray ready for testing

Marcus Nestor of 9 to 5 Linux reported on Thursday that Canonical had released Snapshot 3 of the upcoming Ubuntu 26.10 – code named Stonking Stingray – release as the third development milestone targeting early adopters and application developers who want to test their apps.

“Development of Ubuntu 26.10 (codename Stonking Stingray) kicked off on April 30th, 2026, with the usual toolchain upload, based on the Ubuntu 26.94 LTS (Resolute Raccoon) release, which means that it’s powered by Linux kernel 7.0 and uses the GNOME 50 desktop environment. In time, these will be updated to newer versions,” the article states.

Currently Ubuntu 26.10 Snapshot 3 is also using Linux kernel 7.0, just like the previous two Snapshots, but this one moved to Gnome 51 Beta. Canonical is still working on upgrading these stacks, which will probably happen closer to the beta release, while they work on new features and improvements.

“These include a complete desktop experience on RVA23-compliant hardware, improved driver management, improved multimedia support, a new, simplified installation experience, a new onboarding experience, on-device speech-to-text voice interaction, a package-agnostic App Center, and much more,” according to the article.

The final release of Ubuntu 26.10 is expected to be powered by the Linux 7.2 kernel series, which should be out in late August, along with the upcoming Mesa 26.2 graphics stack and the GNOME 51 desktop environment series, the article says.

FOSS Force interviews Stallman

Kudos to Christine Hall of FOSS Force for wrangling this interview with Free Software Movement founder Richard Stallman last week.

In a wide-ranging interview – and by “wide-ranging” we mean long, but interesting – Stallman discusses GNU, Linux, the open-source split, large language models, SaaS, digital surveillance, and why software freedom remains a moral issue.

“Richard Stallman needs no introduction, especially for an audience that reads FOSS Force,” the article begins. “Without him, the free software movement would at the very least be much different, and the four software freedoms would possibly still be waiting for someone to give voice to them. There would also be no GPL, the first general-purpose copyleft license, written long before there was such a thing as open source. Speaking of that, without Stallman there would also likely be no open source, although I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t see that as such a bad thing.”

The article is in a Q-and-A format in which Hall asks important questions and gets relevant answers from Stallman. It is definitely worth a read.

CERN switches some systems to Debian

Michael Larabel of Phoronix reported on Wednesday that after being a long-time Red Hat institution, CERN is transitioning some of their systems to Debian.

“CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, besides being well known for its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is known among longtime Linux users as a RHEL/CentOS shop,” the article starts. “CERN formally even co-maintained the Scientific Linux RHEL derivative with other educational/research institutions in the past. So to much surprise now, CERN is transitioning to Debian Linux for industrial accelerator-control computers.”

The article also states that CERN discussed this at a Debian conference in Switzerland this past weekend. Historically, CERN used their Red Hat-based Scientific Linux for about a decade before moving to CentOS in 2015.

“Now after a decade with CentOS, they are moving on and embracing Debian for a portion of their systems,” the article says.

But an update on the article cleared up CERN’s position, stating that “CERN has clarified that their focus with the migration is on their industrial accelerator-control computers while data centers and experimental computing remain on RHEL/AlmaLinux.”

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 with news over the week next Saturday.

Bits & Bobs: Happy Birthday, Debian

Compiled by Larry Cafiero

Marcus Nestor in 9 to 5 Linux on Sunday wrote about Debian Linux turning 33 years old on Sunday.

“That’s right, it’s been 33 years since the late Ian Murdock announced the Debian Project on August 16th, 1993, and the initial release of Debian GNU/Linux a month later on September 15th, in an attempt to develop the so-called ‘Universal Operating System,’ ” the article states.

Debian is being used 33 years later by millions of users around the world, “either directly by using the Debian GNU/Linux operating system or by using one of its numerous derivatives, such as the very popular Ubuntu or Linux Mint distributions,” the article states.

Parties are taking place in multiple locations across Bolivia, Brazil, Germany, India, Indonesia, and Turkey.

“Without further ado, we would like to wish the team behind the Debian Project a big Happy Birthday!” the article says.

Gnome 51 beta released for testing

Michael Larabel on Phoronix on Saturday reported that Gnome 51 Beta has been released with a wide range of changes.

“The beta release of Gnome 51 is now available for testing,” the article states. “This cycle for the beta milestone is mostly a wide collection of minor improvements throughout the vast package set.”

Gnome 51.beta’s updates include the following:

– The Gnome Control Center added a new fingerprint management UI to the users area.

– Gnome Initial Setup gained support for systemd-homed accounts.

– Gnome Shell now honors the “reduced-motion” setting for those wanting reduced motions/visuals. There is also SVG-based cursor support in the same format handled by KDE.

– The Mutter compositor now supports the background blur effect on Wayland and various other improvements.

– Gnome Software improved the performance of icon loading and PackageKit repositories refine.

– GTK now supports the ext-background-effect Wayland protocol, reworked GDK frame-clock to improve precision and reduce frame drops, and other enhancements.

– The GVFS daemon added auto-unmount support for idle backends.

– Various small refinements to the Nautilus file manager.

Tuxedo OS releases beta for testing

Bobby Borisov on Linuxiac reported on Sunday that Tuxedo OS has released a beta version open for testing, marking the distro’s move away from Ubuntu to Debian Testing.

“In July, the company revealed that Ubuntu would no longer serve as the distribution’s foundation, ending the model under which Tuxedo combined an Ubuntu LTS base with newer kernels, graphics components, browsers, and KDE software maintained on top,” the article explained.

According to the article, Tuxedo maintained “that approach became increasingly difficult as Ubuntu LTS releases aged. Newer software depended on libraries that were unavailable or too old in the base. Additionally, the company cited Canonical’s growing emphasis on Snap as another reason for seeking greater independence.”

The replacement base distro has become Debian Testing, “which Tuxedo plans to use permanently instead of moving to Debian Stable when the current Testing branch becomes Debian 14 ‘Forky,’ ” the article continues. “The company calls this approach ‘Continuous Debian,’ allowing Tuxedo OS to keep its hybrid model while using a much newer package base.”

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 with news over the week on Friday.

Bits & Bobs: KDE Plasma 6.8 adds server-side shadows

By Larry Cafiero

Bobby Borisov on Linuxiac reported on Friday that KDE Plasma 6.8 will improve the visual consistency of applications by adding server-side shadows to windows that do not draw them on their own.

The article reports that the upcoming KDE Plasma 6.8 release, which is scheduled for mid-October, introduces a Kwin feature enabling the window manager to add server-side drop shadows to applications that lack their own.

“Window shadows can generally be drawn either by the compositor or by the application itself,” the article explains. “Many GTK applications use client-side decorations and render their own shadows, while Qt applications commonly ask the compositor to draw both the window decoration and its shadow.”

Some applications do neither, resulting in windows with square corners, no shadow, and a visually inconsistent appearance compared to the rest of the Plasma desktop.

“This new functionality, recently merged into KWin for Plasma 6.8, fixes this issue,” the article continues. “According to KWin developer Vlad Zahorodnii, it lets users force compositor-drawn shadows on these windows, helping third-party applications integrate more fluently with Plasma.”

Plasma 6.8 automates this workaround with a new window rule, “Window manager draws titlebar, frame, and shadows,” which replaces the older “No titlebar and frame” option and delivers a more direct way to request compositor-side decorations or shadows for individual applications.

No GPL left for FreeBSD 16 release

Christine Hall at FOSS Force reported on Wednesday that with the release of FreeBSD in December 2027, the last of the GPL-based code will have been removed from the base system, giving the green light to create your own proprietary software system.

Actually, this is a technicality built atop another technicality, according to Hall.

“The removal of GPL code is important because a lot of BSD people have a different view on ‘software freedom’ than the rest of us,” the article states. “To many in the BSD crowd, ‘freedom’ means the freedom to make the software proprietary, as Steve Jobs did to create NeXTSTEP and OS X. To create a proprietary operating system out of a BSD operating system, GPL code must be removed because GPL code can’t be released under a proprietary license.”

Heady stuff. We’ll definitely keep an eye on this one.

DebConf26 starts today in Argentina

If you happen to be in the neighborhood of Santa Fe, Argentina, today, DebConf26 starts today at 9 a.m,, local time, and runs through Saturday.

Located at the Facultad de Ingeneria en Ciencias Hidricas at Ciudad Universitaria UNL in Santa Fe, DebConf is the Debian Project’s developer conference. In addition to a full schedule of technical, social and policy talks, DebConf provides an opportunity for developers, contributors and other interested people to meet in person.

The DebConf26 schedule can be found here.

DebConf has taken place annually since 2000 in locations as varied as Canada, Finland, and Mexico.

Previous Debian Conferences have featured speakers from around the world. They have also been extremely beneficial for developing key Debian software components, including the new Debian Installer, and for improving Debian’s internationalization.

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: Debian 13 gets sixth update

By Larry Cafiero

Marcus Nestor at 9 to 5 Linux on Saturday reported that the Debian Project announced the availability of Debian 13.6, as the sixth update of the Debian 13 Trixie operating system series.

“Coming less than two months after Debian 13.5, the Debian 13.6 release is here to provide users with updated ISOs for those who want to deploy the latest Debian 13 ‘Trixie’ operating system series on new hardware without downloading lots of updates after the installation or those who had issues with the previous ISO releases,” the article states.

Number-wise, the article states that the Debian 13.6 release includes a total of 124 bug fixes for miscellaneous packages and 120 security updates. Details about these security updates and miscellaneous bug fixes can be found on the release announcement page.

“Debian 13.6 installation images are available for download . . . for 64-bit (amd64), AArch64 (arm64), RISC-V 64-bit (riscv64), PowerPC 64-bit Little Endian (ppc64el), IBM System z (s390x), and ARMhf (armhf) hardware architectures,” the article says.

The article also says that existing Debian 13 “Trixie” users “should update their installations only by running the sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade commands in a terminal emulator or virtual console. Of course, you can also use a graphical package manager like Synaptic Package Manager to update your Debian system.”

Questing Quokka reaches end of life

Also from Marcus Nestor at 9 to 5 Linux is the news on Friday that Ubuntu 25.10 – more informally known as “Questing Quokka” – has reached the end of life on Friday, and his article urges those using Ubuntu 25.10 to upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 at their earliest convenience.

“This is your friendly reminder that Ubuntu 25.10 ‘Questing Quokka’ reached the end of its supported life today, July 9th, 2026, and it is no longer supported by Canonical with software and security updates,” the article says.

According to the article, Ubuntu 25.10 was released on October 9th, 2025, “and, since it’s not an Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) release, it only received support for nine months, until July 2026.” As of July 9th, 2026, Canonical will no longer provide software and security updates to Ubuntu 25.10 systems, “which means that, in time, your installations will become vulnerable to all sorts of threats and attacks.”

Therefore, the article highly recommended that you upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Resolute Raccoon, “which will receive software updates and security patches for five years or up to 10 years with a free Ubuntu Pro account,” the article concludes.

‘Frosted Glass’ comes to Cosmic DE

Michael Larabel at Phoronix on Friday reported that computer maker System76 has had their Pop_OS! developers create a “frosted glass” look for their Cosmic desktop environment, which is featured in the Pop_OS! System.

“System76 developers have for the past number of weeks been working on developing a ‘frosted glass’ appearance for the Cosmic desktop environment featured on their Pop!_OS Linux distribution,” the article states. “For Pop!_OS users this frosted glass feature is now available and will become more widespread for other Linux distributions once the next Cosmic release is formally tagged.”

According to the article, “System76 CEO Carl Richell shared today that the ‘frosted glass’ option is now available for Pop!_OS 24.04 users. Once updating to the latest updates, via Settings / Desktop / Appearance is now a ‘Frosted Glass’ option under Style.”

The article also says that Cosmic developers plan to tag their next release next week, after which this frosted glass feature should propagate to the Cosmic packages on other Linux distributions.

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.