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Sparky 2024.02 Update Fixes a Minor Yet Significant Issue

SparkyLinux adds much-needed refinements.

SparkyLinux is a lightweight distro based on Debian that offers a high degree of customizability.

It offers a stable edition and a semi-rolling release.

Almost a month after SparkyLinux 2024.01 release, we now have a new point release for the semi-rolling edition featuring some important tweaks and improvements.

So, let's check those out!

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🆕 SparkyLinux 2024.02: What's New?

a screenshot of sparkylinux 2024.02 with neofetch output and about lxqt app open

Equipped with Linux kernel 6.6.13, this release features upgraded packages from the Debian and Sparky testing repositories until February 11, 2024. There are also a few other Linux kernel options available from the Sparky repos; 6.7.4, 6.6.16-LTS, 6.1.77-LTS, 5.15.148-LTS.

The SparkyLinux 2024.02 release focuses on providing some much-needed improvements, over providing new features. We start off with the CLI installer that now sees support for XFS and Btrfs making a comeback.

Support for those file systems had to be dropped due to the GRUB bootloader not playing nice; that has now been fixed. Then there's the ability to not set a root password, when you choose that, the user password will be used instead.

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For Sparky Backup, memtest86+ was added to the live EFI boot menu, a new UEFI firmware configurator for the live EFI GRUB menu. In addition, the ability to create EFI-compatible ISOs even if you don't have GRUB-EFI debs in your home/offline directory.

That sounds pretty exciting! 🤩

And, a couple more important bits:

  • PipeWire 1.0.3 package handles the audio/video department
  • Inclusion of GRUB 2.12
  • Fixes for Sparky Tray that have resulted in quick access to a few system tools

You can go through the official release notes to learn more about this release.

📥 Download SparkyLinux 2024.02

You can head over to the official website to get the latest ISO. It houses various variants such as LXQt, MATE, Xfce, KDE Plasma, MinimalGUI and MinimalCLI.

⚙️ Upgrade from Older Release

If you are already running an older release, then just run this command in the terminal to get the latest update:

 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

For more info, you can refer to the official wiki.

💬 What do you think of this release? Let us know below!


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