The Sparky Linux team has released Sparky Linux 5.5. It brings a set of updated packages including GCC 8 and Linux Kernel 4.18.6. It also contains some minor bug fixes.

Sparky Linux 5.5 with codename Nibiru is a stable snapshot in distribution’s 5.x series. This series is based on Debian Buster branch and follows a rolling release model.

An older version of Sparky Linux Plasma Edition

The main highlights of Sparky Linux 5.5 release can be summarized as,

• system updated from Debian testing repos as of September 17, 2018
• Linux kernel 4.18.6 (4.18.8- & 4.19-rc4-sparky are available at Sparky “unstable” repos)
• the Calamares installer updated up to version 3.2.1
• Thunar daemon is deactivated in the MinimalGUI Live (Openbox), due to a problem of automounting new partitions created by Calamares
• GCC 7 compiler has been removed, the system uses GCC 8 as default
• removed packages: libpam-gnome-keyring, vim, imagemagick, systemd-ui, sparky-gexec, xterm (Openbox)
• also removed from LXQt media: lxtask, leafpad, notepqdqq
• added new packages: seahorse, rxvt-unicode (Openbox), qps (LXQt), featherpad (LXQt)
• the Calamares and Advanced Installer remove Cryptsetup packages now (Calamares removes the packages if the system is not installed on an encrypted disk/partition)
• a terminal emulator used by Sparky tools has been changed from xterm to rxvt-unicode with pseudo-transparency (Openbox)
• small fixes

You can also read Sparky Linux 5.5 release announcement in projects official website.