News: 0001615406

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

RBOS 2026-02-22 As Latest Linux Live ISO To Showcase Wayland

([Operating Systems] 5 Hours Ago RebeccaBlackOS)


While these days nearly every major desktop Linux distribution is using Wayland or at least making it available, a decade ago before reaching that maturity one of the options for showing off the potential of Wayland was the oddly-named [1]RebeccaBlack OS . With "RBOS" it shipped the very latest Wayland components and different desktop and toolkit options to easily try out Wayland-based environments from a live Linux environment. Released overnight was a surprise update to RBOS.

Around fourteen years ago [2]RebeccaBlack OS made it easy to try out Wayland as well as for [3]easily running into Wayland's different bugs and limitations of the time . But in more recent years with most Linux desktop distributions successfully shipping Wayland, the usefulness of RBOS hasn't been as significant as during the early days of this alternative to the X.Org Server.

RebeccaBlackOS 2026-02-22 is now available though and it has re-based against Debian Trixie as its OS base while continuing to ship the very latest Wayland libraries, a variety of toolkits with Wayland support enabled, and different desktops/compositors like Weston, GNOME Shell, KDE Plasma, Wayfire, Sway, LXQt, and more.

The new ISO release has a number of improvements including various console changes for allowing a VT-less kernel build, log-in manager improvements, switching to the Linux 6.19 kernel for the latest kernel drivers, DRM Panic QR code support, Qt 6.10, and more.

Those wanting to try out the new RebeccaBlack OS release for a leading-edge Wayland experience can grab the new ISOs via [4]SourceForge .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/RebeccaBlack

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/MTA3Njk

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/review/wayland_rebecca_88

[4] https://sourceforge.net/projects/rebeccablackos/files/2026-02-22/


A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it,
realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't
see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio
group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing
that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit,
it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing.
I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical
work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator
Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth
dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to
another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets
the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter
motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why
the wire going to it is so large.
Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas
electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is
British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water,
British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and
I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks
secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke.
-- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School

[Ummm ... IC circuits? Integrated circuit circuits?]