The development team behind Artix Linux has released today the Artix Linux 2026.04 ISO refresh for this Arch Linux-based, systemd-free distribution, which features multiple editions and init systems.
The Artix Linux 2026.04 release promotes XLibre as the default display server instead of Xorg Server, which can now be installed manually if you don’t want to use XLibre. For the KDE Plasma edition, users can choose between using Wayland or XLibre.
This release also ships with PipeWire as the default audio system instead of PulseAudio, support for user services when using either the OpenRC or Dinit init systems, Linux 6.19 as the default kernel, and all the latest versions of included applications and core components.
All settings have been updated as well to the newest releases of their respective desktop environments and applications. Artix Linux 2026.04 ships with KDE Plasma 6.6, Xfce 4.20, Cinnamon 6.6, LXQt 2.3, MATE 1.28, and LXDE 0.11.1 desktop environments with OpenRC, Dinit, s6, and Runit init systems.
“As usual, we provide a wide range of installation desktops and init systems, suited to all levels of Linux experience: from base profiles installable from the command-line to the fully-equipped community editions which offer a complete desktop setup,” said the devs in the release notes.
You can download Artix Linux 2026.04 right now from the official website as live ISO images with the aforementioned desktop environments and init systems for 64-bit machines. Of course, these new ISO images are here only for new deployments or those who want to reinstall their Artix Linux systems.
Since Artix Linux follows a rolling release model, existing users need only to update their installations by running the sudo pacman -Syu command in a terminal emulator or by using a graphical package manager on your favorite desktop environment, such as Plasma Discover or one of the many pacman GUIs.
Why would anybody? It’s actively advertising that it’s using a replacement for X11 created by a MAGA, anti-vaxx dipshit whose claim to ultra-niche fame was making a fucking mess of Xorg by recklessly churning out PRs, accordingly getting barred from contributing, and throwing a bitch fit and spinning his removal into some incoherent Red Hat conspiracy theory.
Here’s the raw level of competence you can expect when you trust XLibre’s developer to reimplement a decades-old mountain of low-level spaghetti. (For anybody who’s never written C/C++, this is something you would – generously – learn in the first half-hour of learning the language. Making a typo is semi-understandable. Being confused when confronted by it and having it directly explained to you is fucking insane given the nature of the project.)
Using XLibre is an option, as is using anything in the Linux world.
So is using Atrix.