Alpine Linux 3.23 brings Linux 6.18 kernel, KDE Plasma 6.5, GNOME 49, and APK tools 3.0

Alpine Linux 3.23 has been released, marking the latest update to this security-focused, lightweight Linux distribution. This release introduces the Linux 6.18 kernel, which brings modern driver support and upstream improvements to all users. Updated desktop environments are included: KDE Plasma 6.5.3, GNOME 49, LXQt 2.3.0, and Sway 1.11 broaden graphical interface options.

Beyond desktop enhancements, Alpine 3.23 refreshes a wide array of core development and runtime packages. These include GCC 15, LLVM 21, Node.js 24.11 LTS, Rust 1.91, Valkey 9.0, ZFS 2.4.0-rc4, Crystal 1.18, Docker 29, .NET 10.0, Go 1.25, ISC Kea 3.0, OpenJDK 25, Perl 5.42, PHP 8.5, PostgreSQL 18, and Qt 6.10.

Following these software upgrades, the APK package manager has advanced to version 3. Existing users can upgrade seamlessly from v2, though administrators relying on the libapk library should review for possible breaking changes. For kernel management, linux-stable now replaces linux-edge, mirroring the linux-lts configuration but tracking stable instead of long-term releases. Systems running linux-edge will receive linux-stable as an automatic replacement.