Linux Lite 8.0 is now available, rebuilt atop Ubuntu 26.04 and with its custom helper apps rewritten around GTK4.It arrives almost exactly two years after we looked at Linux Lite 7, itself two years after Linux Lite 6.0. The regularity of the release cycle is a sign of its maturity: the project is now 14 years old.Version 8 is based on Ubuntu 26.04 Resolute Raccoon, but it eliminates the vexed question that many distros pose: which desktop to use. Linux Lite uses version 4.20 of the Xfce desktop, which in our opinion is an excellent choice.
While Ubuntu continues to pile on the pounds, this release of Linux Lite is slightly smaller than its predecessor – the download is 410 MB less. As ever, it includes neither Snap nor Flatpak, which should help users to keep it slim and light.
Each major version number of Linux Lite is rebased on a new LTS version of Ubuntu, and will be followed by point releases – very similarly to Linux Mint. Linux Lite 8.x sees some substantial changes, although to be fair, some of these first appeared late in the 7.x release series. The default web browser is now Mozilla Firefox – Google Chrome has got the boot. We can't help but wonder if this is at least in part inspired by Google silently embedding a 4 GB LLM, or perhaps the restrictions that stopped uBlock Origin working from 2024.
