SparkyLinux is a very interesting distribution based on Debian that is very fast and lightweight in nature. It provides users with a customizable experience out of the box.
With a recent announcement, the developers have released the first update of 2024 for their rolling releases of SparkyLinux that aims to offer various improvements.
Let’s dive in and see what’s on offer.
🆕 SparkyLinux 2024.01: What’s New?
Based on the latest packages from the Debian and Sparky testing repos (January 17, 2024), SparkyLinux 2024.01 uses the Linux kernel 6.6.11 as a powerful base to provide better hardware support, networking improvements, and more.
Then there are the installer updates; where Calamares 3.3.1 is now used for the conventional variants of SparkyLinux. Similarly, the Sparky CLI installer sees a few tweaks such as a progress output being shown when files are being copied, and the removal of installation on XFS file system.
The desktop installer now includes more browser options that include Librewolf, iron, Midori, Opera (stable), and a couple of others.
On the audio/video side of things, the PipeWire audio server replaces PulseAudio, thanks to PipeWire 1.0.1 being implemented.
The desktop environments offered with SparkyLinux now feature many recent releases such as LXQt 1.4.0, MATE 26.0, Xfce 4.18, and KDE Plasma 5.27.10.
And to wrap it up, the application suite also sees an upgrade, with the following highlights:
- VLC 3.0.20
- Openbox 3.6.1-11
- Thunderbird 115.6.0
- LibreOffice 7.6.4~rc1
- Firefox 115.6.0esr (121.0.1 in Sparky repos)
For getting more insights into this release, you may go through the official release notes.
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📥 Download SparkyLinux 2024.01
You can get this release of SparkyLinux from the official website (Rolling) where you will find the following variants; LXQt, MATE, Xfce, KDE Plasma, MinimalGUI and MinimalCLI.
⚙️ Upgrade from Older Release
Fire up the terminal app on your SparkyLinux system and run the following command:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgradeRunning this will upgrade all the packages, including the new ones as required by the upgrade process.
You can also head over to the official wiki if you run into any troubles or for more information.
💬 Will you be trying out this release? Please let us know below!
