Linux Mint’s switch to a longer development cycle – its next major release is arriving at Christmas – has a knock on effect for people trying to install it on newer hardware that requires a newer kernel. So a solution has been announced. A set of updated ISO images, dubbed HWE (Hardware Enablement), have been published to “address compatibility issues with brand new hardware”, according to project lead Clement Lefebvre. The new Linux 22.3 image contains Linux 6.17 kernel and the team will, from this point on, publish new HWE ISOs each time the a new kernel arrives in the […]
Someone has hacked their PlayStation 5 to run Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and used it to play GTA V Enhanced on Steam at a smooth 60fps at 1440p – and now you can too. The feat was pulled off by security engineer Andy Nguyen, who announced a public release of his ps5-linux project this week to more people can turn their “…PS5 Phat console on 3.xx and 4.xx [Firmware] into a fully functional Linux PC gaming device”. Obviously, this is all unofficial. The project exploits a patched hypervisor vulnerability to give Linux direct access to the PS5’s hardware – which with its […]
Canonical made it easier to opt-in to additional security coverage in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, by adding Ubuntu Pro settings to its desktop Security Center application – and it works great. The range of options is the same as in Software & Updates > Ubuntu Pro tab – that app is no longer preinstalled in 26.04 – but the presentation and layout is less cramped. More room is available for concise explanations of the settings and switches. Click to enable Ubuntu Pro and use the ‘enable with Ubuntu One account’ option to authenticate via your web browser. If you have an […]
April 2026 has been and gone, but not before delivering an array of Linux software updates, including new versions of popular FOSS video editor Kdenlive and Oracle’s virtualisation offering VirtualBox. We also got Firefox 150 with GTK emoji picker support and split tab improvements, and a modest bug fix update to the GIMP image editor, albeit resolving an annoying on-canvas text tool quirk. Below, I list other notable Linux app releases to arrive in April. While these didn’t merit a dedicated article (hey, it was a busy month with the release of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS), they still brought nifty new […]
If you’re still running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), heads up: Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) ended this month and your system is no longer receiving security updates. Having debuted in April 2016, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS received five years of standard support with a further 5 years of security coverage available through ESM by enabling Ubuntu Pro. ESM for 16.04 ended April 2026, meaning action is needed to stay protected. The most straightforward thing to do is to upgrade to a more recent LTS release – but there’s no direct route from 16.04, however. Instead, you’ll need to upgrade in stages: […]
AI features are coming to Ubuntu this year, Canonical has announced – though it adds that the distro is not becoming an AI product. In a community post, Jon Seager, VP of engineering at Canonical, says the company will be “ramping up its use of AI tools in a focused and principled manner” in 2026, with a bias toward local inference and open-weight models whose licence terms vibe with Canonical’s values. AI features in Ubuntu will introduced in to the desktop, but taking one of two forms. Ubuntu aims to become a context-aware OS, with agentic workflow integrations and endpoints […]
Mozilla has attracted kudos since it added a free built-in VPN to its Firefox web browser, not least because of the generous 50 GB a month usage limit. Now it’s set to add another sweetener: server location choice. Mozilla began rolling out VPN integration in Firefox 149 for Windows, macOS and Linux to users in the UK, USA, France and Germany as a privacy shield: it hides your real IP address when browsing by routing traffic through a secure proxy server hosted by Fastly. Canada was added to that list with Firefox 150. The only hard requirement is that users must be […]
Launchpad, the home of Ubuntu development, has Canonical updated the site’s homepage back in 2024, but many of the pages that the distro’s developers actually use or reference on a regularly basis have remained largely untouched for the best part of a decade. Now that’s starting to change. Canonical UX designer Enzo Deng has announced that the company has “begun […] a complete redesign of the series page” for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, describing it as the start of “the journey of modernizing the Launchpad user experience”. Save for a line telling us that the company has heard that Launchpad’s interface […]
Grab your diary and jot down the date, as Ubuntu 26.10 ‘Stonking Stingray’ is going to be released on 15 October, 2026. The Ubuntu 26.10 release date and those of other notable milestones in the next development cycle have now been shared by Canonical but, given the nature of development, should be considered tentative – plans can and do change. The most significant date in the 26.10 schedule, besides the final release, is that of feature freeze on August 10, 2026. This is the date at which (in theory) new features stop being added so that the focus can move to […]
Canonical has released Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ‘Resolute Raccoon’ – the first LTS in Ubuntu’s history to ship without an Xorg desktop session. It runs on the latest Linux 7.0 kernel with the GNOME 50 desktop, and includes new video player and system monitor apps. Deb package management features are available in App Center. Support-wise, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS receives a minimum of 5 years of updates, and an additional 5 years of security coverage with Ubuntu Pro. For a full rundown of what’s changed since Ubuntu 25.10, see my features overview. If you’re upgrading from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, my deeper-dive on […]
Framework’s new 13 Pro laptop is the company’s first to ship as certified for Ubuntu, who say you can buy it knowing you’ll get “guaranteed support right out of the box”. Framework hardware have been popular with Linux users for years, not just for the company’s ethos around upgradeable and repairable hardware but their kernel contributions and financial support for open-source projects and developers. Specs wise, the new Framework 13 Pro is powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors or an AMD Ryzen AI 300 series chips It uses LPCAMM2 memory (modular LPDDR5X), available with up to 64GB, though […]
Ubuntu has announced the codename for Ubuntu 26.10 is “Stonking Stingray”. As codenames go it’s certainly unique. The distro gives each release a codename that pairs an adjective with an animal, the latter of which becomes the release mascot. This tradition dates back to the first Ubuntu release in 2004 (dubbed ‘Warty Warthog’). What does the Ubuntu 26.10 codename mean? Stonking is a strange choice as it’s (to my knowledge) mainly used here in the UK as an informal term for something huge or exceptionally good. Interim (short-term) releases often use colourful codenames (Wiley Werewolf, Disco Dingo, Groovy Gorilla) so […]
If you plan to upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ‘Resolute Raccoon’ from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, you’re going to inherit two years’ worth of improvements. As an LTS-to-LTS jump, you don’t simply benefit from what’s new in Ubuntu 26.04, but everything else added in the 3 interim releases prior, namely Ubuntu 24.10, 25.04 and 25.10. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS does plenty of things that 24.04 didn’t, but drops several features too It adds up to a mammoth set of changes across the full stack, running right from the lower-level foundations up to the apps and desktop environment that run on top. Plus, […]
Firefox 150 is released this week with an enhanced Split View features, multi-tab sharing and a clutch of welcome PDF editor improvements. Split View debuted in Firefox 149 last month, letting you easily view two web-pages side-by-side in a single tab (no more juggling windows). In Firefox 150, you can right-click a link on a web page and choose Open Link in Split View to, well, do precisely that. Firefox’s Split View feature now includes an option to Reverse Tabs in the context menu (three dots at the bottom of a focused split). And when creating a new Split View without a […]
Firefox 150 is released this week with an enhanced Split View features, multi-tab sharing and a clutch of welcome PDF editor improvements. Split View debuted in Firefox 149 last month, letting you easily view two web-pages side-by-side in a single tab (no more juggling windows). In Firefox 150, you can right-click a link on a web page and choose Open Link in Split View to, well, do precisely that. Firefox’s Split View feature now includes an option to Reverse Tabs in the context menu (three dots at the bottom of a focused split). And when creating a new Split View without a […]
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