9to5Linux

SparkyLinux 8.2 Released with Support for Linux Kernel 6.19, Updated Packages

Based on and fully compatible with the Debian 13 “Trixie” repositories, SparkyLinux 8.2 ships with Linux kernel 6.12.69 LTS, along with support for Linux 6.19.1 and 6.6.125 LTS kernels, which users can install from the SparkyLinux repositories if they need support for some hardware that’s not supported by the default kernel.

KDE Says Plasma Desktop Will Never Force Users to Use systemd

This comes after the developers of the KaOS Linux independent distro announced that they decided to replace the KDE Plasma desktop environment with a Niri/Noctalia setup to move away from systemd, saying that “Plasma pretty much demands systemd, and will be fully mandatory soon.“

9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: February 15th, 2026

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KaOS Linux Drops KDE Plasma After 12 Years for Niri/Noctalia to Escape systemd

After using the KDE/Plasma desktop environment by default for more than 12 years since its initial release under the name of KdeOS, the KaOS Linux distribution will no longer ship with its unique Plasma desktop setup, as the devs do not want to use the systemd init system anymore in the distro.

Vim 9.2 Is Out with Comprehensive Completion, Wayland Support, and More

Coming two years after Vim 9.1, the Vim 9.2 release introduces full Wayland support (including clipboard support), XDG Base Directory Specification support on Linux, the ability to complete words directly from registers, support for fuzzy matching during insert-mode completion, and a new built-in interactive tutor plugin.

REMnux 8 Linux Toolkit for Malware Analysis Is Out to Celebrate 15th Anniversary

REMnux 8 is here as a major release that comes more than 5 years after REMnux 7.0 to celebrate the project’s 15th anniversary, introducing AI capabilities, a new, more resilient installer, new and updated tools, and a base OS bump as the distribution is now based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat).

GNOME 49.4 Released with Improvements for Nautilus, GNOME Shell, and Mutter

Coming a month after GNOME 49.3, the GNOME 49.4 release is here to fix screen time tracking with idle inhibitors, fix tab focus behavior in the Quick Settings menu, prevent the recreation of the default folders after they were removed, disable tone mapping with HDR, and fix screen sharing of monitors with no framerate.

LinuxGizmos.com

BPI-R4 Pro Router Board Delivers MT7988A SoC with Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Capability

The BPI-R4 Pro was first introduced in May 2025 and is offered in two variants. The “8X” model provides 8GB of DDR4 memory, while the “4E” variant includes 4GB of DDR4. Both versions feature 8GB of eMMC storage, 256MB of SPI-NAND flash, and a microSD card slot for additional storage.

Low-Cost BeaglePlay SBC Gains Fully Upstream PowerVR Graphics with Vulkan 1.2

BeaglePlay, introduced in 2023, is built around the Texas Instruments AM625, a quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC that integrates a PowerVR Rogue AXE-1-16M GPU. With recent upstream driver progress, the board can now run Vulkan 1.2 using entirely mainline components, without proprietary binaries or out-of-tree kernel patches.

Ezurio Carbon AM62 Targets Industrial Linux with TI Sitara AM62x

Carbon AM62 integrates up to a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor clocked at up to 1.4GHz, alongside a Cortex-M4F and Cortex-R5F for real-time and management tasks, plus a dual-core programmable real-time unit subsystem for deterministic I/O workloads.

Bit-Brick K1 Pro Adds 6 TOPS NPU and Dual NVMe to Compact SBC

On the compute side, RK3576 combines quad Cortex-A72 cores clocked up to 2.2GHz with quad Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.8GHz. Graphics are handled by a Mali-G52 MC3 GPU, and the SoC integrates a 6 TOPS INT8 NPU with support for INT4, INT8, INT16, FP16, BF16, and TF32 precisions.

xSDR packs 2×2 MIMO, Artix-7 FPGA, and 3.8 GHz tuning into M.2 2230 form factor

The LMS7002M supports dual-channel transmit and receive paths with channel bandwidths from 0.5 MHz to 90 MHz. Sample rates range from 0.1 MSPS up to 122.88 MSPS in SISO mode, and above 80 MSPS in MIMO configurations.