March was another stellar month for Linux software updates, with big improvements to essential privacy tools like KeePassXC, creative apps such as Shotcut and DigiKam, and many more — updates that didn’t warrant dedicated articles on this blog.
Why?
..Well, sometimes it’s an update making small changes that it’s hard to say much1 about. Other times I’m just deathly late to hearing about it (which is why new tips via the contact form are super appreciated – you help me catch the things I miss).
For those of us on fixed-release Linux distributions like Ubuntu, even small app updates can include bug fixes, improve desktop integration, or add a niche yet nifty feature that is worth upgrading for — be it from a PPA, Flatpak, Snap, AppImage or compiling things by hand!
Rather than skip those updates entirely I’m continuing my Linux App Release Roundup series – a monthly curated recap that runs through recent software updates. This way, I keep you informed but without bombarding you with a barrage of brief posts!
Preamble done; on to what you came for…
KeePassXC 2.7.10
Open-source password manager KeePassXC saw a sizeable update this month, adding some significant improvements and new features – including the ability to import passwords from Proton Pass (using an unencrypted .json file).
KeePassXC 2.7.10 lets users adjust font sizes in the UI, glean password strength through new icons, see character count in the password generator dialog, and more easily discover weak and/or reused credentials.
Elsewhere, this update includes a new ‘mixed case’ password generation option which, as you’d imagine, creates super-strong passwords with both uppercase and lowercase letters – annoying to remember and type, but with a password manager you don’t have to!
Other changes in KeePassXC 2.7.10:
- Expire password entries from context menu
- Use shortcuts to copy fields in Auto-Type dialog
- View file attachments in-app
- Show entry background colour as column
- KeePass2 TOTP settings support
- CSV file import issues resolved
- HTML export now available in CLI mode
- Secure entry mode added in macOS version
- Misc crash and bug fixes
Keen to kick the tyres on those changes?
KeePassXC 2.7.10 is available to download from the official website for macOS, Windows, and Linux — Linux users can get official AppImage, Flatpak, or Snap packages, and those on Ubuntu (or users of Ubuntu-based distros) can add an official PPA.
ExpressVPN
VPNs are big business, and while ExpressVPN isn’t one I personally use I am pleased to see it release an official desktop Linux app. ExpressVPN already worked on Linux via CLI, it just didn’t offer a GUI Linux app download, as Proton VPN, Mullvad, et al do.
“With the new GUI, Linux users will now be able to take control of their online experience with a couple of clicks on the mouse. It also incorporates light and dark modes and is available in 17 languages, offering flexibility and accessibility,” say the team.
The app includes toggles and tick-boxes for various common VPN options, including a ‘Network Lock’ kill switch and, new in this release, an advanced kill switch to ensure if the VPN fails/disconnects, no network activity can take place.
There’s also split tunnelling (choose which apps use the VPN, and which bypass it); various protection toggles to block, among other things, trackers, malware, adult content, etc; VPN protocol options; auto-connect; choice of server location, and more.
ExpressVPN’s new Linux app provides a GUI but a CLI mode is still available (and also updated) so those who prefer that method can continue to use. The CLI can be used alongside the GUI without, the company say, any conflicts.
The new ExpressVPN Linux app is available to download as a beta right now. It supports a wide range of Linux distributions, including Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and later, but to use it an ExpressVPN subscription/plan is (obviously) required.
Refine 0.5.5
More settings were added to new GNOME desktop settings utility Refine in March, including new options to adjust the layout of window buttons (including the ability to enable/disable maximise and minimise buttons, less applicable on Ubuntu).
Elsewhere, the tool renames its “Middle Click Paste” setting to “Middle Click to Paste Text”, and adds a subtitle to explain what it does, and restores the ability to set a document font (which was temporarily removed in an earlier update).
Refine is free, open-source software designed for the GNOME desktop and Linux distributions that ship a vanilla version – it works on Ubuntu just dandy but a few options aren’t applicable or won’t work due to the modifications Ubuntu makes.
• Get Refine on Flathub
MPV 0.40
A major update to mpv, the open source command line video player (and used by some GUI apps to render video) made it out in March.
MPV 0.40.0 is a fairly well-timed release for those upgrading to Ubuntu 25.04 as it adds native HDR support when using direct rendering (DRM) or dmabuf-wayland on Linux and HDR metadata – which compliments GNOME 48’s HDR support nicely!
Wayland’s wp-color-management-v1 protocol is also supported in mpv 0.40.x, and NVIDIA RTX Video HDR support added (although that relies on specific hardware and may not work in all cases, driver-dependant).
A slew of other Wayland-related enhancements feature also, including xdg-activation, native clipboard access, IME usage via text-input-v3, and a --wayland-internal-vsync option added.
Other changes:
- Improved autocompletion and visual styling in the console
- New selection menu in the OSC when right-clicking buttons
mpv://protocol support in mpv player- New command menu, with common actions easily accessible
- Blu-ray, DVD and CDDA stream support improvements
- Various new and improved scripting capabilities
See the MPV 0.40 release notes on GitHub for a comprehensive look at the changes which makeup the new MPV 0.40 release, or to download source code to compile it on your preferred Linux distribution or desktop OS of choice.
MPV 0.40 requires ffmpeg v6.1 or newer and libplacebo v6.338.2 or newer to build – Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and above satisfies both requirements, though various PPAs are floating around with newer packages for older releases, if required.
PipeWire 1.4
PipeWire is the modern stack that handles audio and video streams on Ubuntu (and other Linux distributions). This month it got a big update with many interesting sounding—heh!—changes included.
Among the highlights in PipeWire 1.4 is the addition of MIDI 2.0 support (though few, if any, Linux DAWs are primed to make use of this yet) and RISC-V CPU support with assembly optimisations (though few, if any, run Linux distros on RISC-V chips as daily-drivers).
Bluetooth functionality in PipeWire 1.4 gets bettered with the addition of Broadcast Audio Profile (BAP) support, and there’s compatibility with hearing aids using the Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) protocol.
For developers, PipeWire 1.4 adds some new APIs, including a JACK control interface and a Telephony D-Bus API compatible with Ofono, and there’s a new FFmpeg-based video conversion plug-in for the PipeWire video adapter.
PipeWire 1.4 is included in Ubuntu 25.04.
Blender 4.4
Every new version of open-source 3D modelling, compositing and video editing powerhouse Blender is big news, and Blender 4.4 goes hard on bug fixes – over 700 issues filed by users reportedly resolved in the release, which is great!
Features are what most people want, and Blender 4.4 duly obliges with a vast array of new ones across the software’s expansive toolset.
Highlights include:
- Action slots allow animating multiple elements
- Animation pose library given big UI overhaul
- New sculpt brush type: Plane
- New F-Curve Noise modifier algorithm in Graph Editor
- Video Sequencer now supports editing text directly from the preview
- Video Sequencer adds H.265/HEVC and exports to BT.709 colour space
- Rewritten CPU compositor with faster performance for many nodes
- Glare node revamped to provide better control
- Horizontal scrollbars now auto-hide in editors
- Window decorations now follow theme colours on Windows 11 & macOS
Of note, the minimum driver version required on Intel GPUs has been bumped to 31740.8+ on Linux, but it will run regardless.
For more detail on the makeup of Blender 4.4 check out the fancy release landing page notes or dive in to the comprehensive text-based change log.
Blender is free, open-source software available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Older versions can be installed on Ubuntu from the repos, but to install the latest version use the Blender Snap, or download a binary from the official website.
digiKam 8.6
An update to open-source, Qt-based photo manager digiKam landed with improved AI features.
The underlying framework powering the software’s ‘face detector’ feature got rewritten for digiKam 8.6, a worthwhile effort that improves performance, reduces false positives, and allows for a new face matching algorithm to be used.
Auto-tagging of features within photos also sees improvements due to an engine rewrite, including new classifiers and an option to set an Auto Tagging confidence threshold. The feature now uses YOLOv11 Nano, YOLOv11 XLarge, and EfficientNet B7 models.
Sticking with AI, digiKam’s Image Quality Sorter has been renamed to Image Quality Scanner. The feature still works as before: letting AI determine the ‘aesthetic quality’ of images and adding a flag to bring them to your attention.
Other changes include improved red eye correction, GPU accelerated video playback, internal and bundled components uplifts, and a batch of bug fixes and general tune-ups.
digiKam 8.6 is free, open source software available for Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon) and Linux and available to download from the KDE website.
CrossOver 25
Following the release of Wine 10.0 comes a bottled commercial offering from CodeWeavers in the form of CrossOver 25 —CodeWeavers is the biggest financial contributor to the open source Wine project, for those about to mouth a ‘how very dare they…’.
CrossOver 25 carries over the changes and improvements the Wine 10.0 release delivered, plus an update to Wine Mono 9.4.0, vkd3d 1.14 and MoltenVK 1.2.10.
The bulk of other changes focus on the Mac side, where CrossOver has more appeal. This release includes DXMT, a Metal-based implementation of D3D11 for macOS that offers better performance for lower spec Macs compared to wined3d, DXVK and D3DMetal.
There’s also an update to D3DMetal 2.1 to bridge compatibility for games on Mac’s with Apple silicon, including Street Fighter 6, Need for Speed Heat, Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition, Teardown, Age of Wonders 4, and The Last of Us Part 1.
Slink over to the CrossOver website to learn more about it, how it differs to regular Wine, and (more importantly) how to buy and install it.
Shotcut 25.03
A sizeable update to Shotcut, a free and open source video editor for Linux, macOS and Windows based on MLT, slipped out this month with, as ever, a slew of improvements in tow.
Release highlights include an option to copy only the current filter in a stack so you can paste it on to another clip; clips on the timeline with a filter applied are badged with an icon to indicate it; and a ‘Toggle Filter Overlay’ option has been added available in the Player menu.
Other changes in Shotcut 25.03 include:
- New 360: Cap Top & Bottom & 360: Equirectangular Wrap video filters
- Text style preset added to Subtitle > Generate Text on Timeline
- Not In a Bin smart bin adde dto the Playlist
- ITU-R BT.2020 video mode
- Colour grading filter reduces range of gamma and gain
- Faster project opening when view mode is set to ‘icons’ (bug in 25.01)
- Assorted crash, bug and performance fixes
See the official Shotcut 25.03 release post for more details on these and other changes, and to download the latest version for Windows, macOS or Linux – the latter available in a choice of standalone AppImage, official Flatpak (on Flathub), and Snap builds.
That’s it for this roundup. While it’s not a comprehensive itinerary of every app update issued in March, I have written about these apps in the past or think their changelogs may be of interest to other users.
Until next time!
- As I’ve explained before, a certain search engine penalises sites if they pump out too many short articles — unless they’re part of its news publisher partnership. ↩︎