Starting this month, openmamba is making use of artificial intelligence tools to support some maintenance activities: monitoring upstream updates, creating new packages, drafting communications such as this announcement, and other infrastructure-related tasks. The entire process remains coordinated and supervised by Silvan Calarco, the creator and sole (human) maintainer of the distribution.

KDE Plasma 6.6.2

Maintenance update for KDE Plasma 6.6.2, openmamba’s main desktop environment, bringing bug fixes and stability improvements. All core components are included: plasma-workspace, plasma-desktop, plasma-nm (networking), plasma-pa (audio), plasma-systemmonitor, plasma-firewall, plasma-vault, plasma-browser-integration and many more.

KDE Frameworks 6.23.0

KDE Frameworks 6.23.0 updates the set of foundational libraries on which all KDE applications are built, with improvements and fixes across more than 70 modules. Also notable is Kirigami 6.23.1, the UI framework for convergent desktop/mobile applications.

KDE Gear 25.12.3

The largest update batch this month is the KDE Gear 25.12.3 suite, bringing bug fixes and stability improvements across the entire KDE application ecosystem. Over 150 applications are involved, including:

• Dolphin (file manager), Kate (text editor), Konsole (terminal)
• Okular (document viewer), Gwenview (image viewer), Ark (archive manager)
• Kdenlive (video editor), Kwave (audio editor), K3b (CD/DVD burner)
• KMail / Kontact / KOrganizer / KAddressBook (full PIM suite)
• Kleopatra / KGpg (GPG key and certificate management)
• KDEConnect (Android/iOS device integration)
• Elisa (music), Dragon (video), PlasmaTube (YouTube), AudioTube (YouTube Music)
• NeoChat (Matrix), Tokodon (Mastodon), Konversation (IRC)
• Calligra (office suite), GhostWriter (Markdown editor), Arianna (ebook reader)
• Merkuro (calendar), KBackup (backup), Filelight (disk usage)
• Itinerary / KTrip (travel and public transport), Kasts (podcasts)
• IsoimageWriter (write ISO images to USB), Keysmith (2FA token generator)

Security

• ClamAV 1.5.2 — open source antivirus update with new signatures and security fixes
• Tailscale 1.96.0 — WireGuard-based VPN with two-factor authentication
• iptables 1.8.13 — essential Linux firewall configuration tool
• OpenVAS Scanner 23.40.5 / GVM-libs 22.36.0 — Greenbone professional vulnerability assessment suite

System

• systemd 259.3 — system and service manager update
• e2fsprogs 1.47.4 — ext2/3/4 filesystem utilities
• nfs-utils 2.8.6 — updated NFS client and server support
• Postfix 3.11.0 — new major release of the mail transfer agent
• Memcached 1.6.41 — high-performance distributed in-memory caching system
• Fastfetch 2.60.0 — fast system information tool (modern neofetch alternative)
• Conky 1.22.3 — lightweight desktop system monitor
• snapd 2.74.1 — Snap package support

Communication and Internet

• Signal Desktop 8.1.0 — desktop client for the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging service
• Brave 1.87.192 — Chromium-based browser with built-in ad and tracker blocking
• Evolution 3.58.3 — GNOME mail, contacts and calendar client
• Rclone 1.73.2 — cloud storage sync tool (Google Drive, S3, Dropbox and many more)
• Streamlink 8.2.1 — stream video from various services into your preferred local player

Multimedia

• GStreamer Bad Plugins 1.28.1 — update to the extended GStreamer plugin set
• OpenEXR 3.4.6 — HDR image format for professional computer graphics
• dcadec 0.2.0 — DTS Coherent Acoustics decoder with HD extensions support
• ncpamixer 1.3.11 — terminal audio mixer for PulseAudio

Development

• Rust (rustc) 1.94.0 — Rust compiler update
• Go 1.26.1 — new major release of the Go programming language
• NASM 3.01 — new major release of the x86 assembler with Intel syntax
• fish 4.5.0 — new major release of the user-friendly interactive shell
• git-lfs 3.7.1 — Git extension for versioning large files
• ccache 4.13 — compiler cache to speed up recompilation
• docker-buildx 0.32.1 — Docker CLI plugin for advanced builds with BuildKit
• pnpm 10.31.0 / yarn 4.13.0 — updated Node.js package managers
• apache-maven 3.9.13 — project management tool for Java projects
• Vim 9.2.0112 — update to the classic text editor

Graphics and Creativity

• Glaxnimate 0.6.0 — vector animation editor (Lottie/SVG format)
• Gobby 0.6.0 — real-time collaborative text editor
• PCB 4.3.0 — printed circuit board design editor

openmamba Internal Tools

• autodist 1.8.2 and distromatic 2.5.0 — updates to the build system and repository management tools

Installation Media

Updated openmamba rolling installation media are available. They can be downloaded from the download page.

• livecd rolling (x86_64, 2.6 GB — March 6, 2026) — KDE Plasma desktop with basic software
• livedvd rolling (x86_64, 3.6 GB — March 7, 2026) — KDE Plasma desktop with full software suite
• livecd-light rolling (x86_64 and i586, 2.4/2.1 GB — March 9, 2026) — lightweight LXQt desktop for low-resource systems
• rootfs-base rolling — base system tar.xz archive, available for x86_64, aarch64 and i586

The Docker images on Docker Hub have also been updated for x86_64, aarch64 and i586 architectures.

After a period of packaging and testing openmamba is ready to ship the KDE Plasma 6 mega release upgrade to all users.

The next snapshots of livecd and livedvd live and installation media, which will be available within a couple of days, will already be provided with KDE Plasma 6.

In a few days the KDE Plasma 6 upgrade will be made available also to current installations of the openmamba rolling O.S. since several tests have shown that the upgrade process should be smooth for everybody.

After receiving and applying the upgrade the system needs to be rebooted. In some uncommon cases rebooting using the normal interface from the Plasma menu might not work, if you encounter this problem we suggest to close all running applications and issue a “sudo reboot” command from a terminal window.

Users using the default Plasma session will be automatically switched from X11 to Wayland graphical backend, which is now the default and recommended type of desktop session to use with KDE Plasma and openmamba.

Users can anticipate the upgrade by temporary enabling the “openmamba miscellaneous packages repository [unstable]” in discover Settings.

If you encounter any problem you may use the forum or the other openmamba support channels to ask for help.

Enjoy!

openmamba provides a new web service on the src.openmamba.org site where the recipes (.spec files), patches and additional files representing the over 5500 source packages with which the distribution in format is created and maintained are easily consultable. tracks. The service, based on the Gitea platform, in addition to the RPMs also hosts openmamba’s internal projects.

Other activities completed in 2023:

• the obsolete arm architecture (armel soft-fp) was abandoned to concentrate current and future developments on the two main architectures x86_64 and aarch64; the i586 (x86 32bit) architecture is still maintained in particular to provide the compatibility subsystem for 32-bit applications on installations for x86_64, used for example for Wine and the Steam video games platform;
• last September the migration to a flat root filesystem hierarchy was completed, i.e. eliminating duplicates of the *bin and lib* folders in the root folder (/) and in /usr; this operation has caused some problems in the updates in various phases, however leading to greater maintainability and future stability of the systems successfully updated or installed from scratch after September 2023;
• the constant maintenance and development by the sole maintainer in recent years has brought the distribution to an update level between 85 and 90% (repology) with stability, security and modernity benefits found on the Plasma and LXQt desktop targets;
• the main repository of the rolling distribution has been renamed from devel to base.

In the next future:

• the KDE Plasma environment will need to be updated to be based on Qt6 following the upstream schedule;
• the new package management on src.openmamba.org opens up renewed possibilities for collaborative development also considering that the platform provides functionality for each package for reporting problems, for drafting documentation in Wiki format and for managing Pull Requests; the currently centralized development mechanisms based on the webbuild interface and the autospec and autodist layers could be enhanced using tools such as tito and mock; at the moment there are no precise plans and these developments will depend on any interest and availability found.

Happy 2024 wishes.

Silvan

openmamba is now available for the aarch64 (aka arm64) architecture, which is added to the x86_64, i586 e arm (armel) supported architectures.

This makes openmamba potentially compatible with present and future devices based on 64-bit ARM architecture that have a standard GNU/Linux kernel.

At the same time the openmamba rolling diskimg-raspberrypi for aarch64 image file is available for download, ready to be flashed on a microSD and used with a Raspberry Pi 4 (and technically also with Raspberry Pi 3). The image provides the LXQt desktop environment with support for automatic partition resizing on first boot. Production of the image file that the KDE Plasma environment provides will follow shortly.

Advanced users can use the rootfs-base and rootfs-light for aarch64 images (and soon rootfs) by installing a suitable kernel to run all variants of openmamba on other 64-bit ARM-based devices.

The porting of the applications is still in progress and I invite users to write in the forum in case you need that particular applications are made available for aarch64 with higher priority.

Silvan

The openmamba project officially closes after ten years of life.

Website, services and repositories will continue to be available for an indeterminate period.

The maintainer and founder of the project wishes to thank all the people that in the years have supported and believed in this project.

S.C.