It's been an exciting weekend for Linux distribution released with new versions of Endeavour OS, CachyOS, Solus and now a new NixOS release.

With the Linux 6.18 kernel likely being released later today, here is a look at some of the features on the table for the next kernel cycle, Linux 6.19. The list is based on changes queued in various "-next" branches ahead of the Linux 6.19 merge window. There's always the possibility of last minute change of plans or objections raised by Linus Torvalds, but this should provide an early look at some of the features more than likely to be merged for Linux 6.19.

Ahead of the FreeBSD 15.0 stable release expected to be announced next week, the FreeBSD project today published their Q3-2025 status report to outline their various development accomplishments from July through September.

With the upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel cycle there are yet more Rust kernel bindings being introduced and other additions to make it possible to write more Linux kernel drivers within the Rust programming language. Among the new Rust additions expected for Linux 6.19 are making it possible to write Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) bus drivers in Rust.

Queued up via the Linux kernel's RDMA development Git tree is "BNG_RE" as the next-generation RoCE driver from Broadcom.

A new SoC vendor and in turn new SoC/platform support is set to premiere in the Linux 6.19 kernel with the initial Black Sesame Technologies C1200 support.

The Genode OS Framework 25.11 release was issued this weekend as the newest update to this original open-source operating system effort built around a micro-kernel design and various novel design approaches.

Making for an exciting holiday weekend night is the Algol 68 programming language front-end "ga68" being merged into the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) codebase. After COBOL language support landed in GCC 15 earlier this year, next year's GCC 16 release is adding support for the half-century old Algol 68 programming language.

In addition to the releases today of updated Endeavour OS and CachyOS, Solus 4.8 is out as the latest version of another desktop Linux distribution popular with enthusiasts.

In addition to the release today of a big refresh to Endeavour OS, CachyOS is out with their latest ISO refresh for this additional Arch Linux powered desktop OS. CachyOS for its November 2025 refresh brings installer improvements, now installs additional packages for media acceleration when capable Intel graphics are detected, handling for Bcachefs with its DKMS module, and other improvements.

With the Linux 6.18 stable kernel release expected to take place tomorrow on 30 November, here is a reminder about some of the new hardware support and other interesting features coming in this next stable version of the Linux kernel.

For those looking to improve their clipboard management experience on the GNOME desktop, Copyous is a new GNOME Shell extension serving as a new clipboard manager.

Endeavour OS is one of the popular desktop Linux distributions built around Arch Linux providing a nice out-of-the-box experience. Since their last ISO refresh back in March there hadn't been much news from the project nor any new ISO releases for this rolling-release distro. But thankfully today they are back in the saddle with a new ISO release, Endeavour OS 2025.11.24 "Ganymede".

With the Linux Vendor Firmware Service serving more than 135 million downloads for Linux users updating their system and device firmware, LVFS has been working to get more hardware vendors to contribute either engineering resources or directly contributing annual dues as sponsors. Framework Computer is now the first one to have executed an agreement under these new sponsorship efforts.

While there have been a number of Intel Linux engineers laid off over roughly the past year, other Linux kernel engineers opting to pursue employment opportunities elsewhere amid the ongoing challenges and restructuring at the company, and shifts in their open-source strategy, there's some good news as we work toward the 2025 holidays. Intel is currently hiring for two more experienced Linux kernel software engineers.

Niri 25.11 is now available as the latest feature release for this Rust-written, scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor.

KDE developers have been busy ending out the month of November with a number of new features and fixes queued up for next year's Plasma 6.6 desktop release.

Wine 10.20 is out as the newest bi-weekly development release of this open-source software enabling Windows applications and games to run on Linux. This is also with Wine 11.0 stable quickly approaching.

As some additional enticing Linux kernel patches posted this week for review, an updated patch series is working to optimize code generation during context switching.

This Black Friday is an in-depth look at the current performance of the open-source NVIDIA Linux driver stack with the Nouveau kernel driver (the Nova driver not yet being ready for end-users) paired with the latest Mesa NVK driver for open-source Vulkan API support. With that NVK Vulkan driver is also looking at the OpenGL performance using the Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan driver used now for OpenGL on modern NVIDIA GPUs rather than maintaining the Nouveau Gallium3D driver. Plus the Rusticl driver for OpenCL compute atop the NVK driver. This fully open-source and latest NVIDIA Linux driver support was compared to NVIDIA's official 580 series Linux driver. Both RTX 40 Ada and RTX 50 Blackwell graphics cards were tested for this thorough GPU driver comparison.