Sparky 2026.09

Key points

SparkyLinux 2026.09 "Tiamat" is available: new ISO images of the semi-rolling line, based on Debian's "Forky" testing branch, with packages updated as of 21 September 2026.

New edition: Sparky Labwc

• A new edition with the lightweight Labwc compositor on Wayland, similar to Openbox, which uses X11.
• It is a MinimalGUI image that lets you install any desktop through the CLI installer. It ships without applications that need administrator privileges, such as APTus, Synaptic, Gufw and Calamares.

Versions

• Linux kernel 7.2.6; 7.2.7, 6.18.53 LTS and 6.12.111 LTS are also in the Sparky repositories.
• Firefox 140.16.0esr (156.0.1 available in the repositories) and Thunderbird 140.14.0esr.
• KDE Plasma 6.7.4, LXQt 2.4.0, Xfce 4.20.1, MATE 1.26.1, Openbox 3.6.1 and Labwc 0.20.2.
• LibreOffice 26.8.0, Calamares 3.4.3, Python 3.14 and GCC 16.

Editions

• For amd64: LXQt, KDE Plasma, MATE, Xfce, MinimalGUI (Openbox on X11 and Labwc on Wayland) and MinimalCLI (text mode).

Installing

• On UEFI machines installation needs an internet connection, and Calamares is recommended.
• On older 64-bit machines with BIOS or UEFI, the CLI installer can be used:

sudo sparky-installer

• The live user's password is live; the root password is empty.

Existing users

• Anyone on the Sparky rolling edition only needs to update; there is no need to reinstall.

Summary by DistroNews, based on the original post.