ConnexionOrion browser for Linux axed months after beta launch
Kagi has announced that it is ending the development of the Orion web browser for Linux. The native GTK port of Orion for Linux was announced in 2025 and a public beta launched earlier this year. The goal was feature parity with the macOS build. Recent beta releases edged closer to realising it but, alas, fell short – and that’s where things will stay. At least officially. Kagi says it plans to open source the Orion for Linux codebase, as well its WIP port of Orion for Windows. This could enable the FOSS community the opportunity to step up and […]
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I roundup of Linux software update from September, including updates to FOSS video editors OpenShot and Shotcut, Fooyin music player and more.
The beta release of Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stringray) is now available for download – a week later than planned. Ubuntu 26.10 Beta runs on the Linux 7.3 kernel (release candidate) and ships the GNOME 51 desktop. Lower-level changes include a complete set of Rust core utilities and better handling of low-memory situations. Beta builds are not final or stable, but generally more reliable than earlier snapshots. Users and developers alike can test the new release and report any bugs they find so any fixes can land in time for the final, stable release of Ubuntu 26.10, out on 15 October […]
Ubuntu 26.10 adds a Rust-based OpenPGP implementation, Sequoia PGP, to default installs. GnuPG is still included, but Canonical plans to 'phase' it out.
Canonical has released a test build of Ubuntu 26.10 with early support for laptops using Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 chips. The new preview ISO is built on the Ubuntu 26.10 Beta and Canonical’s Tobias Heider says the aim is to find bugs in the upcoming release early and get feedback from users. He expects ‘most’ of the work will be present in the final release, out 15 October. Among new X2-powered devices able to run the Ubuntu 26.10 Snapdragon Concept image are the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (gen 11), HP EliteBook X G2q and the ASUS Zenbook A14/A16. Ubuntu’s support […]
Blanc is a new open-source web browser that swaps a traditional, always-visible tab strip and address toolbar for a minimal floating ‘island’. A dynamic pill sits top the of the browser’s window (not over the web page, which feels a missed trick) so that the site address and site security info is visible, and provide quick buttons to open new tab, navigate back/forward and favouriting sites. It’ll expand as-needed, from where you can open, manage and switch between tabs, type web addresses, run searches or sift through your browsing history and bookmarks. Click the island to open it or press […]
VLC 3.0.24 is out, billed as the video player’s ‘biggest security release ever’ with more than 130 fixes across the app and its bundled libraries. VideoLAN president Jean-Baptiste Kempf says the bulk of security flaws patched by the update are “hard to exploit in practice” but adds that not all of them are ‘harmless’. He encourages users to update. No major new user-facing features arrive in this update to the open-source media player, but improvements do. VLC 3.0.24 supports ATRAC3 and ATRAC9 decoding (the former used by Sony MiniDiscs the latter for PSP-era audio), CEA-708 closed captions in MP4 files and, by […]
It’s taken longer than expected, but users can now upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 from 24.04 directly, without command-line workarounds. Canonical has finally flipped the switch on in-place upgrades for LTS systems. A notification will let users know that a new LTS is available, which can be actioned right away, ignored or ‘remind me later’d. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS was released on 23 April 2026, and direct upgrades from Ubuntu 25.10 were enabled a few weeks after the ISO downloads went live. However, upgrades from 24.04 LTS to 26.04 LTS were not. Canonical only officially gives LTS-to-LTS upgrades the go-ahead once the […]
Destroy Any Website is a browser-based run-and-gun that lets you run amok on any public-facing website – with an array of destructive weapons. You take command of a character and run, jump and jetpack around website site elements using traditional WASD controls, taking aim with your mouse to score points by blasting your chosen online target to literal tiny pieces. There’s even a competitive multiplayer mode that you pick a website, share a code with a pal and then race against each other to reach a target destruction score, replete with scoreboard to keep tabs on. It’s made by Hugo […]
gThumb’s big GTK4 and Vala rewrite is officially stable and available for download. I previewed the gThumb 4.0 alpha back in May, remarking on how much of a difference the UI refresh makes to the app – the long-serving photo manager looks like an entirely new app. Every part of gThumb’s interface benefits from the port to GTK4/libadwaita, backend performance is improved by using newer versions of libraries and desktop integration catches up – on GNOME, the modern file chooser with icon thumbnails is used. Greater use of padding and spacing gives everything – editing tools, file properties, settings, etc […]
A new look Firefox 157 has arrived with what Mozilla describe as the browser’s “biggest visual refresh in years”. The latest stable update uses the new Nova theme by default. The ‘modernised’ look makes core UI elements rounder and more colourful as subtle pastel gradients tint the window chrome on Windows, macOS and – albeit opt-in there – Linux. We got our first look at Nova back in March when tech blogger Söeren Hentzschel shared internal Mozilla mockups of the planned changes. Things moved fast; Nova went from idea to implementation rapidly. But the amount of changes planned were toned down. […]
The refrain goes that ‘Linux Mint looks dated’, yet the Cinnamon desktop is highly customisable – something a new transformation pack shows to eye-catching effect. Silent Horizon is a Linux Mint makeover script that installs a set of customdesklets, panel applets, a wallpaper, Plank dock theme and minor Cinnamon layout tweaks. It’s the work of ~PersianVibeCoder – yes, their actual username – who says Silent Horizon helps to create a “calm, minimal desktop with little details that make it feel alive”. It is those “little details” which add more dynamism than your typical ‘makeover pack’. Take the weather and system […]
Era is a new Rust-based calendar app for GNOME that describes itself as “beautiful and performant”. And you don’t need to schedule a date to try it; a beta release is available to install from Flathub. At first glance, Era looks like GNOME’s Calendar (which got a big update in the GNOME 51, notably in ways you feel rather than see). But then, how could it not? There are only so many ways to arrange a grid of numbers in boxes with room for coloured event labels. Functionally, Era covers the same ground: you can browse dates, add, edit and […]
A revived Banshee music player is now available on the Snap store, making it possible to use it on modern Linux desktops decades after its last stable release. Packaged by Alan Pope (aka popey), this new Banshee snap lets you run the old Banshee 2.6.2 release – the final stable one from 2014 – on modern Linux desktops. Not merely a code repack; the Snap Store description says the snap build features ‘compatibility fixes and restores selected online services’. It does notes that not all ‘historical’ services may work, though. Is it an official continuation? No. Think: ‘reanimated corpse’ rather […]
Ubuntu 26.10 offers a new way to tile your apps, with a layout picker sliding in from the top of the screen when you move a window. This “dropzone” concept for quick tiling will be familiar to users of Windows 11 users or those who’ve tried the Tiling Shell extension for GNOME Shell – they do, broadly, the same thing. When you drag a window a layout picker with a small set of preset layouts drop zones moves in from the top of the display. You drag your window up over a layout zone (a ‘ghost’ preview of where the […]
The Ubuntu 26.10 beta, which had been due on 24 September, has been pushed back to 1 October. Canonical’s Matthieu Clemenceau, announcing the delay, said “unforeseen infrastructure issues” require pushing the release back by one week. The exact issue isn’t detailed, but Clemenceau did add that the company expects to resolve the cause shortly and that it doesn’t expect any impact on the final, stable Ubuntu 26.10 release date. That’s still set for 15 October, 2026. While it’s only a bump of a week, it does mean the wider Ubuntu community gets less than two weeks to test the Stonking […]