Itâs fair to say that 2025 delivered plenty of wins for Ubuntu and the wider Linux ecosystem. Wayland is no longer âon the wayâ, but settled in and feeling comfortable (for most of us); gaming on Linux is practically mainstream at this point (thanks to Valve); and Ubuntuâs desktop team continued to think big with app/tooling changes, encryption focus, and more. Still, one shouldnât lose sight of how far things have come already. In a chronically online world, attention is forever fixated on whatâs new, whatâs next, and (outrage industrial complex) what is the absolute worst. Mindfulness isnât a meme; [âŚ]
Got time for a final blast through smaller Linux app updates to round out 2025? There will be plenty of big new releases to look forward to in 2026, no doubt. But before we race head on in to another year, I wanted to give one last glance back at software updates that landed in December but which, as ever, I didnât give a full article to⌠âŚBut didnât want to leave out either. Clapper 0.10.0 Clapper media player hit 0.10.0 this month, continuing to expand its âenhancer plugin systemâ. MPRIS, Server, and Discoverer features are now enhancer plugins. A [âŚ]
A new version of Shotcut video editor is out, rounding out whatâs proven to be a bumper month for Linux video editing enthusiasts thanks to big updates to Flowblade, OpenShot and Kdenlive. The headline feature in Shotcut 25.12 is full 10-bit video support in the CPU pipeline. Until now, editing 10-bit clips in this MLT-based tool involved trade-offs: using GPU effects and filters, or opting for basic CPU filters that lack transitions or compositing. Now, you donât need to. Most CPU filters, transitions, and other editing/blending options have been updated to to handle 10- and 12-bit sources, though a few remain [âŚ]
A new GNOME Shell extension rethinks the app grid (aka the app picker, app drawer, launcher screen â what do you call it?) by making it scroll vertically instead of horizontally. Yâknow, the way it did before GNOME 40 changed it. GNOME 40âs switch to horizontal app grid scrolling in 2021 irked a few of its mice-favouring aficionados. Their main gripe? A vertical mouse scroll wheel to move horizontally feels off. The app grid does have clickable buttons (and supports swipe gestures and keyboard arrow keys too). But GNOME Shell is malleable; the way it is out of the box [âŚ]
Following on from its beta release in September, the Pinta 3.1 release is now available for download with new features and plenty of fixes. Pinta is, as Iâm sure you know, a modest open-source and cross-platform image editor. It began life as a pseudo-clone of Paint.NET (the former being written in Mono, an open-source implementation of Microsoftâs .NET, which the latter was made in). These days, itâs very much its own thing, serving as a simple yet capable raster graphics editor sitting below The GIMP in complexity, but above no-frills Tux Paint type offerings. Pinta 3.1 brings a variety of [âŚ]
A new version of Turntable, the standalone music scrobbling tool and desktop ânow playingâ controls for Linux, is out with a couple of notable new features. Given the app is a conduit for relaying your listening habits, this update adds âwrapped year-in-reviewâ style recap of your hither logged listening habits. Well, kinda. Turntableâs developer, Evan Paterakis, says the year-end recap feature is an âexperimentâ so far from perfect. This is because the app doesnât track your listening habits itself, merely relays it to your preferred service. Since âdifferent services provide different levels of information and assets and almost none provide [âŚ]
Ghostty, the fast GPUâaccelerated terminal, now operates under a nonâprofit funding model through fiscal sponsorship with Hack Club. Hereâs what it means.
Want to run COSMIC desktop on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS? A new (unofficial) PPA makes it easy to. Follow the steps in this guide, learn about the caveats and how to 'undo'.
A new version of Ubuntu-based Linux distribution elementary OS is available to download. The elementary OS 8.1 âCirceâ release is built atop a Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS base and runs the Linux 6.14 kernel by default. A raft of improvements to the Pantheon desktop environment, core apps, and the wider user experience are included. Danielle Fore, the elementary team lead, says this release follows through on the teamâs release goals for OS 8, improve support for devices and inclusivity, and address feedback from its users â âwith over 1,100 issue reports fixedâ, she says. November 2024 saw the release of elementary OS 8.0 [âŚ]
Add an animated Santa desktop pet to Ubuntu with Gnomelets GNOME extension. See Santa walk on windows, jump and roam your screen. Works with GNOME 45+.
A new look app menu, expanded search abilities in the file manager and a modern on-screen keyboard are among new features in Linux Mint 22.3, which just hit beta. Linux Mint 22.3 âZenaâ is the fourth and final update in the Linux Mint 22 branch, building on the many changes the Linux Mint 22.2 âZaraâ delivered in early autumn. Linux Mint 22.3 is based on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, so inherits all of the foundational goodies from its upstream kin, including Linux 6.14 kernel (with access to the Ubuntu HWE updates â Linux kernel 6.17 and Mesa 25.2 are due in the coming weeks). [âŚ]
Canonical confirms Ubuntu 26.04 LTS will ship with Linux kernel 6.20 (7.0) in April, bringing latest hardware support and performance improvements to users.
Kdenlive has issued an end-of-year update, and it brings configurable layouts and a smarter way to handle vertical video projects. Kdenlive 25.12.0 introduces a new docking system, which the editorâs developers describe as âmore flexibleâ. You can group widgets you want together and quickly show or hide them. Layout can be saved as a file (making them shareable) as well as part of the project file itself. The latter change could prove incredibly handy for those working on different kinds of edits, as it means any customised/re-arrange layout is restored whenever the project is reopened. âThe downsideâ, Kdenlive devs note, [âŚ]
Free video editing software OpenShot has issued its yearly update, and itâs packing a pretty sizeable changelog. OpenShot 3.4 claims (as seemingly every release of this open source video editor does) it is âone of our largest updates weâve ever doneâ Developer Jonathan Thomas touts an âoverall 32% speed up in performance, lower memory utilization, many new video effects and features, many bugs and crashes fixed, and an experimental timeline for those brave enough to test [it]â. For most, the performance gains are the headline draw. The underlying libopenshot core sees improvements in many areas, including masking, cropping and clip [âŚ]
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