OpenMandriva ROME 26.09: A Long-Overdue Release After Technical Woes and Alleged Sabotage

At the end of September, the OpenMandriva crew rolled out a new version of their distribution — ROME 26.09. It is a noticeably larger update than usual: the previous ROME release, 24.12, dates back to December 2024, so plenty of changes had piled up in the meantime.

A Bumpy Road to Release

The release did not slip for no reason. According to the developers, it was held up by a range of technical issues, as well as a reported attempt to sabotage their platform. In the end, the long-overdue version finally reached users and closed the drawn-out gap between releases.

What's New

Among the headline changes is an expanded set of applications tied to artificial intelligence. On top of that, the distribution now ships with support for Snap packages, broadening the ways to install software alongside OpenMandriva's usual packaging.

Performance also gets special attention. The build leans on PGO (profile-guided optimization) and LTO (link-time optimization) — techniques that help the compiler generate more efficient code based on runtime profiles and whole-program analysis at link time. For a distribution historically keen on aggressive optimizations and modern architectures, this is a natural move.

ROME is OpenMandriva's rolling branch, which receives fresh package versions gradually rather than in fixed major releases. Even so, periodic snapshots like 26.09 are handy for anyone who wants to install the system in an up-to-date state right away.

Source: Phoronix