[valtam]

Release Announcement

Linux Lite 8.0 RC2 is now available for testing.

This RC2 closes a small set of install-time and post-install bugs that surfaced during RC1 testing. Please retest the install paths you use most — fresh install, OEM, and report anything off in this Thread.

See below for more details.
A full write-up with images will be in the Final Forum announcement on 1st June.

Linux Lite 8.0 Final will be released on 1st June, 2026.


Linux Lite 8.0 - RC2
================

Base: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (Resolute)
Desktop: XFCE with LightDM
Codename: Hematite
Kernel: Linux 7.0.0-g6e9e6ef4c595-2_amd64 (Linux Lite Advanced Performance Kernels)


CHANGES FROM RC1
--------------------------------

- Calamares fixes.

- Lite Distro Builder fixes.

- Kernel 7.1.0-rc1-linuxlite_7.1.0-rc1-1linuxlite_amd64 available from Lite Kernel Manager. We built an RC1 kernel because 7.1 has many useful new features, including:

Beginning to retire Intel 486 CPU support from the mainline kernel
Intel FRED enabled by default (boosts Panther Lake, Diamond Rapids, Zen 6)
AMD CPPC performance priority and dynamic/raw EPP handling
12 new SoCs plus additional ARM and RISC-V hardware platforms mainlined
32-bit ARM real-time (RT) kernel builds now supported in mainline
Beginning removal of Russia's Baikal CPU support
Intel QAT Zstd support and QuickAssist Gen6 hardware improvements
x86_energy_perf_policy tool gains Intel Panther Lake SoC slide support
AMD SBI driver and new SMCA bank types preparing for EPYC Venice
HIGHMEM and other LoongArch improvements
Workaround for Arm C1-Pro processor erratum
Experimental pKVM protected guest support with KVM
x86/x86_64 aligned with other architectures for custom restart handlers
Idle SMT sibling improvements for sched_ext
Intel LASS (Linear Address Space Separation) deemed production-ready
WQ_AFFN_CACHE_SHARD workqueue improvement for many-core LLC CPUs
Some changes may negatively impact 32-bit systems as 64-bit is prioritised
AMDGPU DC support for GCN 1.1 "Sea Islands" APUs (Kaveri); now default over Radeon driver
New AMD hardware support added to AMDGPU
Intel Nova Lake P graphics enablement
Intel Xe driver gains user-space interface for VRAM pressure/OOM handling
New Coreboot framebuffer DRM driver
Ryzen AI NPU power estimate and per-process memory queries via AMDXDNA
ARM64 NEON-accelerated CRC64-NVMe
Revamped T10 PI data integrity for better read performance
New in-kernel NTFS file-system driver introduced
Fixes and minor changes to Paragon's NTFS3 driver
exFAT reduces file fragmentation plus various fixes
Fixes for XFS, EXT4, and F2FS
JFS data integrity hardening
RAID fixes and IO_uring enhancements
Many Apple HFS/HFS+ fixes
FSMOUNT_NAMESPACE support
Intel IRDMA gains "GEN4" hardware support
Removal of ISDN, ham radio, and other old network drivers (~138K LOC dropped)
UDP-Lite retired
IPv6 can no longer be built as a standalone module
Many MediaTek MT76 WiFi improvements
Support for RTL8157 5Gbit, RTL8125cp, and other new networking hardware
Lenovo Yoga Fan driver (covers Yoga, Legion, Flex, Slim, IdeaPad)
Apple SMC power driver for M-series MacBook battery/power metrics
Sound bus keepers support, advancing Apple Silicon audio
Improved ThinkPad Trackpoint doubletap handling
New Bitland MIFS WMI driver for Chinese laptops
More TUXEDO Computers and Uniwill OEM features
Steam Deck OLED audio finally fixed after two years
Suspend/resume support for legacy ISA sound cards
Various USB device additions
Audio support for Line6 POD HD PRO and NexiGo N930W webcam
Removal of obsolete bus mouse and PCMCIA drivers
Mainline Lenovo Legion Go drivers
More Sony Rock Band hardware via HID
Sensor monitoring for additional ASUS motherboards
New RealSense 3D depth camera and NVIDIA Tegra media drivers
PCIe M.2 power sequencing driver for M.2 Key-E
Removal of old IBM PC110 touchpad driver
Hung task detector counter resettable via /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_detect_count without reboot
Various memory management and scheduler improvements
HRTIMER high-resolution timer overhaul
More crypto optimisations enabled by default
MMC subsystem changes (previously rejected from 7.0) merged
Sheaves performance regression fixed
Child auto-reap and PIDFD auto-kill flags for clone3()
Removal of unnecessary memory clobbers
user.* xattrs on sockets (for GNOME/systemd)
Experimental Rust inlining helper option
Raised minimum required Rust version

- NEW application, Lite Menu Sorter. An application designed to sort categories alphabetically when they become out of sort order.

- NEW application, Lite Time Date. An application to set the date and time, with optional NTP sync for your region.

- Lite Core - added Samba removal.

- Fastfetch fixed.

- Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird - we are now hosting these applications, which means the thorn in my side - PPA'S and the mess they can cause are no where to be found in Linux Lite 8.0 RC2.

- Btop replace Htop.

- Keyboard layout chosen during install is now actually applied to the installed system. RC1 wrote the locale but not the keymap, so users picking French/German/etc. would reboot into US/QWERTY. The most visible failure mode was a numeric password being rejected on first login because the install-time and post-reboot keymaps differed. Fixed for every locale.

- BTRFS and XFS filesystems added (by request) These are niche filesystems (both commonly used on servers and storage-heavy systems). Out of the 2 if you have to use one on your desktop or laptop, I'd go with XFS.

- FIX - OEM first-boot autologin tick is now honoured. Ticking "Log in automatically" in the OEM firstboot wizard previously had no effect after reboot.

- FIX - The factory user is now removed on first reboot after OEM firstboot completes.

- A systemd ordering cycle was silently skipping the cleanup unit on RC1.

- Linux Lite archive keyring rolled to a new RSA 4096 key. Fresh installs ship the new key automatically. 7.x users running:

Code:

lite-series-upgrade

to Linux Lite 8.0 also pick it up via the in-package fallback if their network is offline mid-upgrade.

- FIX - GRUB live boot menu, restored centred Linux Lite branding above the menu and tightened the rule rendering.

- New / improved in Lite Driver Manager. A range of Broadcom WiFi chips (BCM4311–BCM4360, including BCM4352) are now offered the proprietary driver as an installable option. The default selection stays "Do not use the device" so the in-tree driver keeps your card working unless you opt in:

Working hardware section

All detected network, graphics, multimedia, and wireless hardware now appears in a collapsible "Working hardware" panel below the action list — so you can see at a glance that Lite Driver Manager has detected your card, even when no driver action is needed.

Unrecognised hardware section.

Any device with no driver bound at all is highlighted up top so you can post a copy-paste line on the forum if you need help.

- Branded application icons - 26 Lite apps received refreshed icons (Driver Manager, Software, Updates, System Monitor, etc.) in their proper Papirus theme sizes and styles.

Dirty Frag Vulnerability - We will patch this in 8.0 Final (already tested on RC2 with 7.0.0-g6e9e6ef4c595-2_amd64 Kernel) for now, read the article and decide if you want to mitigate this.

Source: https://ubuntu.com/blog/dirty-frag-linux...-available

Post-install

Open a Terminal:

Step 1 – block the modules:

Code:

echo "install esp4 /bin/false" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/dirty-frag.conf
echo "install esp6 /bin/false" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/dirty-frag.conf
echo "install rxrpc /bin/false" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/dirty-frag.conf

Code:

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

Step 2 – unload modules:

Code:

sudo rmmod esp4 esp6 rxrpc 2>/dev/null

Step 3 – confirm the modules aren’t loaded:

Code:

grep -qE '^(esp4|esp6|rxrpc) ' /proc/modules && echo "Affected modules are loaded" || echo "Affected modules are NOT loaded"

Step 4 – Reboot


BIOS Settings (important)

CSM: Enabled
Secureboot: Disabled

RECOMMENDED PARTITION LAYOUT

Code:

GPT
8MB EXT4 FLAGS - bios-grub (no mountpoint)
512MB FAT32 mountpoint /boot/efi FLAGS - boot
rest-of-partition EXT4 mountpoint / FLAGS - none

or:

If you want to erase the entire disk (BIOS & UEFI supported) choose Erase Disk and everything will be partitioned for you.

Known Issues:

Please list them here, this WILL BE the last release before the Final so please, hunt down those bugs and let's squash them!

We'd particularly value bug reports on:


Non-English locale installs (verify your keyboard layout works post-reboot).

OEM install + firstboot path (verify user is gone and your autologin choice took).

Lite Driver Manager on machines with Broadcom WiFi or NVIDIA GPUs.


Huge thank you to our Sponsor:



Presale.Codes has presale password information that helps fans, ticket brokers, ticket flippers, concierge desks, personal and virtual assistants and anyone who needs a presale code to find it and use it ASAP. Click the here to learn more.

Downloads:

Release Name: Linux Lite 8.0 RC2
Size: 2.6Gb (DVD, USB)

Download Linux Lite 8.0 RC2 from Sourceforge:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-l...s/8.0/rc2/

HTTP & HTTPS:

Download Linux Lite 8.0 RC2 from one of the mirrors: (some may still be syncing)

China - https://mirrors.sjtug.sjtu.edu.cn/linuxliteos/isos/
Ecuador - http://mirror.ueb.edu.ec/linuxliteos/isos/
Ecuador - https://mirror.cedia.org.ec/linuxliteos/isos//
Germany - http://mirror.alpix.eu/linuxliteos/isos/
Germany - https://mirror.alpix.eu/linuxliteos/isos/
Greece - http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/linux/linuxlite/isos/
Greece - https://fosszone.csd.auth.gr/linuxlite/isos/
Hong Kong - http://mirror-hk.koddos.net/linuxlite/isos/
Hong Kong - https://mirror-hk.koddos.net/linuxlite/isos/
Netherlands - https://mirror.koddos.net/linuxlite/isos/
New Caledonia - http://mirror.lagoon.nc/linuxlite/linuxlite/isos/
Singapore - https://mirror.freedif.org/LinuxLiteOS/isos/
Sweden - http://ftpmirror1.infania.net/linuxlite/isos/
Sweden - https://mirror.accum.se/mirror/linuxliteos.com/isos/
United Kingdom - https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/repo...lite/isos/
United Kingdom - https://mirror.vinehost.net/linuxlite/isos/
USA - http://mirror.clarkson.edu/linux-lite/isos/

Checking the MD5SUM of the Linux Lite ISO:

Open a Terminal on Linux Lite and do:

Code:

md5sum linux-lite-8.0-rc2-64bit.iso

MD5SUM:

Code:

f7351bf7c9d1efcbca97ae4494bfcfa8

Check that it matches the exact characters in sequence above.


Checking the SHA256 of the Linux Lite ISO:

Open a Terminal on Linux Lite and do:

Code:

sha256sum linux-lite-8.0-rc2-64bit.iso

SHA256:

Code:

d16431792ae0e8f172a4a10bc2502bfd0c366ab106caa3c58e46ff8729b91e4a

Check that it matches the exact characters in sequence above.


TORRENT (Fastest way to download the RC - please help to Seed, thank you)

https://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-l...t/download

64bit Torrent - linux-lite-8.0-rc2-64bit.iso.torrent
Size: 2.6Gb (DVD, USB)
Hash:

Code:

8ca917a3cfcb18ce1862f4f36c1a6b0866ddcced

Live USB/DVD/VirtualBox/Vmware:


Recommended Computer Requirements:

1.5 Ghz Dual Core Processor or greater
4GB ram
40GB HDD/SSD/NVME
VGA, DVI, DP or HDMI screen capable of 1366x768 resolution
DVD drive or USB port for the ISO image
Disable Secure Boot

Login to the live desktop is automatic.

As this is a RC release, there are bound to be bugs etc. Please help make the final stable for other people by participating in this RC. Please report any bugs and feedback in this thread.


Thank you

Jerry and the team.