February 2026 delivered a fresh batch of Linux app releases, with updates to VLC, GIMP, Vivaldi, and VirtualBox among the many that filtered out.
I covered some of the month’s biggest releases with fully-featured articles, like Firefox 148 with AI ‘kill switch’, a more capable ONLYOFFICE 9.3 productivity suite and Typhoon’s Qt 6 port.
They weren’t the only ones of note.
Below, I roundup a fleet of February’s other software releases. Some updates were more of the modest maintenance variety, while others were more substantial new features.
Ardour 9.2 finally arrived
Ardour, the open-source digital audio workstation (DAW), saw its first major release since 2024, adding a stack of features users have requested “over a long period of time”, like Region FX, pianoroll windows, cue recording and more.
Ardour 9.0 landed in early February, with a v9.2 hot fix release issued a few weeks later.
Region FX enables plugins to be applied to individual audio regions, with the effect (and any automation) tracking that region wherever it gets moved on the timeline. All processing happens at disk-read time, so there’s no additional DSP load.
Dedicated pianoroll windows make it easier to edit tracks away from the main timeline. Double-click on a MIDI region to edit it in a floating window or in a bottom pane. There’s also a new note brushing feature – press shift + drag to fill a pattern of notes.
If you’ve wanted to use Ardour as a looper, the new Cue Recording feature in Ardour 9.x lets you record directly into cue slots, and whatever you capture plays back immediately at the next quantisation point. You have the option to pre-set the recording length or stop manually.
The default recording format has shifted to RF64, which sounds more of a show-stopper than it is. If you’ve never hit the 4GB WAV ceiling, the format shift won’t change anything, but if you have, you can say “finally”.
Other additions include a realtime perceptual analyser for overlaying frequency spectra across multiple tracks and busses; keyboard-driven automation editing; and mixer strip import/export across sessions.
The Ardour 9.2 hot fix sorted out issues with broken editor bottom-pane behaviour, and also added a couple of other changes: MIDI note chasing (locate mid-note and it plays from there), and faster quick note duplication using the ctrl + d shortcut.
Ardour is free to download as source code, but you’ll need to pay to access official binaries for Linux, macOS and Windows. Ardour is also available on Flathub (not verified), and the Snap Store. If you run Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Ardour 9.0 is in the repos.
Lutris 0.5.20 landed with fixes
Lutris, the open-source game manager that makes it easier to install and launch games from multiple stores/sources in one place, made its first stable release of the year in February.
The headline addition? Steam Family support. Games shared through Steam’s family sharing feature will now appear with the rest of your library. Another new source is the ZOOM Platform, a DRM-free store in the same mould as GOG.
There’s a new option to hide games from specific sources from also appearing in the main Games view, which is useful if you want to keep your GOG or Steam libraries separate.
Double-clicking .lutris installer files will now run them directly, and Itch.io authentication makes use of API keys, rather than username/password.
Lutris makes Proton-GE (via umu) the default for its Wine runner. Umu keeps it up to date automatically, so you don’t need to manage Proton versions yourself. And Esync, Fsync, and DXVK settings are now correctly passed through to Proton.
On the emulation side, Lutris 0.5.22 adds an Azahar runner for Nintendo 3DS, and updates TIC-80, mGBA, EasyRPG, Rosalie’s Mupen GUI, Ruffle and 86Box runners. Commodore 64 ROM importing is in, and you can set an emulator BIOS file location (used by libretro) in Preferences.
Lutris is available to install on Ubuntu from Flathub, though unofficial sources are available too.
SaveDesktop saves more things
SaveDesktop, a tool that backs up and restores your desktop configuration (wallpaper, icons, themes, keyboard shortcuts, installed Flatpak apps, etc), is handy for those tend to set up their systems in a similar way.
February saw SaveDesktop 4.0 released. It adds custom folder support to backups, so you’re no longer limited to only backing up things SaveDesktop already knows about. If you’ve got a custom folder full of AppImages, or a set of obscure dot files, you can loop ’em in.
A redesign of the Flatpak apps picker makes it easier to understand which app is which as it now shows app names rather than Flatpak ID (e.g., “io.github.joeysneddon.myamazingapp”). It also backs up selected apps with their user data, rather than treating them separately.
The other big new addition is the ability to sync selected configuration items across different devices, so that archives remain consistent between machines. This is vital if you try to maintain the same setup on more than one system.
Since backup is only one half, there’s improvements to import. The item selection dialog now only shows what’s actually in the archive you’re restoring from, rather than showing everything – and leaving it to you to find out something isn’t there!
SaveDesktop is available on Flathub, or the project GitHub.
Bazaar stocks more goodies
Bazaar, the Flathub-focused desktop tool, saw several updates in February. Among which, it dropped its transactions sidebar in favour of a new Library Page. You now get a single place from which to manage installs, track active tasks and uninstall installed apps. Tidier.
You can now cancel transactions mid-way through; you can hold Shift skips confirmation prompts (if you know what you’re doing, of course), and search results are better too as they are based on Flathub’s own rankings rather than Bazaar’s.
Many Flatpak apps make use of shared runtimes. These need to be downloaded alongside the app, but only if not already available. Bazaar makes it easier to see runtime sizes (click the install download size pill), so you’re not wondering why that 5MB IRC client is taking a while to install…
This update also fixes end of life (EOL) runtime detection, which had apparently been broken prior to now. As such, apps like Lutris – covered above – and OBS might flash an EOL runtime warning they weren’t showing before. Keep that in mind.
Bazaar is free, open source software. The latest release can be installed (obviously) from Flathub.
Zen Browser added live folders
Zen, the privacy-focused Firefox-based fork with a heady dose of unique features (like tab splits, which are heading to Firefox proper since good ideas are contagious), has rebased atop the newest Firefox 148 update.
But there’s an interesting new feature addition: live folders.
If you remember Firefox’s old live bookmarks – a feature I made heavy use of up until its removal in Firefox 64 in 2018 – live folders are basically RSS feeds. It sound s like they only work for GitHub-based tasks (issues, pull requests), but update as new items come in.
To add a live folder in Zen 1.19b or later, you apparently click the + button in the sidebar and choose Live Folder. However, that option doesn’t show up for me. Maybe I’m doing something wrong? Live folders are mentioned in the release notes, though.
Elsewhere, dragging a tab onto another tab and holding for a split second will not prompt you to open a split-tab. In use this feels a more intuitive way to create side-by-side tabs. Holding shift when you click Un-split keeps focus on the current tab, rather than jumping to the un-split one.
Zen is free, open source software. it’s available to download for Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Gradia annotator tweaked its UI
Gradia, the GTK4/libadwwaita image annotation tool for making screenshots look good, saw a small but tidy update in February.
The text recognition and upload provider buttons are now always visible, making them easier to find without mousing through menus.
A back button has been added in crop mode, making it possible to back out of a crop rather than commit and undo, while a revamped background switcher gives translations more breathing room.
If you had issues exporting transparent JPG, those are resolved in this version, as is the censor tool stretching when dragged out of bounds.
Gradia is available on Flathub and the Snap Store.
If you hear about a software update you think I should cover, the contact form is always open!