Love your flashy lights, your colourful RBG LEDs covering your computer and your desk? How about controlling them from Linux? OpenRGB is your friend.

Supporting both Windows and Linux it brings the mess of vendors and their highly specific applications under one free and open source roof. It's a fantastic project and one that I love to see become bigger and better. Set colours and effect modes, setup profiles for them, get a tidy command line interface and a sleek UI and much more.

Here's what's new in the latest release:

• Settings have been consolidated into a new file OpenRGB.json, using JSON format
• Settings tab allows enabling and disabling devices from the user interface
• Configuration files are stored in an XDG-compliant configuration directory (%APPDATA%\OpenRGB or ~/.config/OpenRGB)
• Speed up detection by limiting I2C/SMBus detectors to specific PCI IDs
• Dark theme for Windows
• Linux binary lower cased, improved Debian packages, and providing them with release
• Fixed profile loading, deleting

Support for devices was expanded with this release too with these newly added:

• EVGA GPU (V1 and partial V2 - 1xxx and 2xxx series) support
• New SteelSeries devices - Apex Pro TKL, Old Apex
• Philips Wiz support
• Linux LED sysfs support
• Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB support
• Sony DualShock 4 support
• Logitech G213 support
• ASUS Mice support - ROG Gladius II Core, ROG Gladius II, and ROG Gladius II Origin
• HyperX Fury Ultra mousemat support
• SteelSeries Apex M750
• ASUS TUF gaming laptops on Windows (already supported via Faustus on Linux)
• Cooler Master ARGB controller support

There's plenty of other enhancements to existing supported hardware and bug fixes too of course.

You can grab OpenRGB from GitLab .

Continuing to move through their library of classic RPGs starting with the first Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, there's now the 2.6 Beta available for Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Eventually this update will also be coming to Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition too.

This is a massive upgrade for the tech behind the game, as well as solving numerous bugs and other issues. To try it, which is currently only on Steam until it's ready for everyone, you can opt into it by going into the Properties -> Beta tab and selecting "road_to_2.6".

What's new for BGII:EE in the 2.6 update? Some highlights:

• Changed to 64 bit executables; 32 bit operating systems are no longer supported
• Hundreds of bug fixes including many spell fixes
• Improved pathfinding
• Improved multiplayer stability
• Added Adventurers of Neverwinter content to all games
• Added French text localization to Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

Plus plenty of other assorted fixes and improvements to existing features. The full list can be seen here .

Beamdog are looking for feedback on how your testing went if you do try the 2.6 Beta update. They need to know if you can Launch and Save + Load it correctly without issues and they want this tested on Linux too.

You can leave a comment on this Steam announcement post . Once ready, it will be up on the GOG store as usual too.

Continuing to be seriously impressive, the 1.14 update to the deep survival game Vintage Story is officially out now after multiple testing builds.

As mentioned recently , Vintage Story is the survival game for those of you who love the blocky style of Minecraft but want something deeper, something much more complex and exciting. This is actually a pretty large update to the base game bringing with it a character customization system so you can make it all feel a little bit more personal. Coming with it is also the Steel Age which adds in lots of new blocks, more metal working objects, a more expansive body temperature system, new shader effects and so much more it's hard to really sum it up correctly.

Take a look at their new highlights:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Honestly, I find it difficult to go back to Minecraft after spending a good few hours in this. Minecraft has its place, thanks to the simplicity it can get you easily into it and create and good for a younger audience too but Vintage Story is just a whole 'nother level of survival.

See the full changelog here .

You can buy it from Humble Store and the official site . I suggest you do, it's awesome. A community member is also hosting a server for Linux fans, check that out on our forum .

The Wine compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux and other systems has a new development release up, the first Release Candidate for Wine 6.0.

Marking the beginning of a code freeze period, where the Wine team will now be focusing on stability rather than chucking in new features to make Wine 6.0 as good as it can be.

The highlights of Wine 6.0 RC1 are as follows:

• Gecko engine update.
• WindowsCodecs and QCap libraries converted to PE.
• Faster font initialization at process start.
• Support for named pipes with empty names.

Also noted are 53 bugs fixed. Some are really old that are getting a second look to confirm they've been fixed, others are quite fresh that were only fixed recently. These include issues marked as solved for: Battlefield 1, 4 and V, Foundation, Burnout Paradise, The Rockstar Game Launcher, Mod Organizer 2, World of Tanks, SWTOR and plenty more.

See the release notes here .

DOSBox Staging is the fork of the original emulator with an aim to modernize it and give it some more advanced features, with the latest release out now.

An important project because DOSBox itself is a vital bit of free and open source software, one that has enabled us not to lose out on thousands of classic games. Ensuring that it keeps working on modern systems using modern features with DOSBox Staging is awesome.

This release is a big one covering many parts of it enhancing "the quality of audio emulation (GUS, built-in MIDI, PC speaker), improved support for PowerPC and POWER8 architectures, and a healthy mix of usability, documentation, code quality improvements". They go into a lot more detail in the lengthy release notes , which make for an interesting read.

I'm a huge retro fan, which regular readers will know quite well by now. So with the inclusion of built-in GLSL shaders to emulate the visual look of an analog CRT monitor, I couldn't be happier with this release. Seems like it works quite well too:

Jazz Jackrabbit (Holiday Hare 1995 Edition) - showcasing crt-fakelottes-flat, source: DOSBox Staging

Even if I don't want to play it like that now, it's interesting for historical purposes. Perhaps more interestingly though, is that they've even added in integer scaling (pixel-perfect) option for OpenGL, which should make playing the classics just that little bit nicer especially on Linux as it allows for a resizable window now too.

The Lost Vikings (1993) with integer scaling, source: DOSBox Staging

Plenty of other exciting features included for retro gamers, worth taking a look.

See the release notes of 0.76.0 here and on GitHub .

Did you know you can use DOSBox with Steam Play on Linux? Thanks to Boxtron , another open source project, you can run almost any game on Steam that uses DOSBox quite easily.

Manjaro Linux, the middle-ground distribution for those who want regular updates but don't want to go to Arch directly has a brand new release out.

For users who run Manjaro already, you just need to run updates as normal since it's something of a semi-rolling distribution that keeps updates flowing in. For new users, this releases serve as the entry point with new downloadable media with all the latest customizations sorted.

Manjaro Linux 20.2 'Nibia' updates all editions and desktops available, with their GNOME 3.38 update being "possibly the biggest update" they've done so far. GNOME 3.38 was released back in September , bringing with it some great enhancements like better multi-monitor support.

Pictured - Manjaro Xfce 20.2

The Manjaro Application-Utility saw plenty of work with it letting you easily pick your favourite browsers, office suites, password managers and they've added in two window tiling options with Pop-shell and the touch friendly Material-shell. I'm a huge fan of the Pop-shell so it's nice to see that in.

With this update their flagship Xfce edition pulls in Xfce 4.14, which they continue to say "only a few can claim to offer such a polished, integrated and leading-edge Xfce experience". For the KDE edition they've upgraded to the Plasma 5.20 desktop which much like the GNOME update, has a vast amount of improvements like better Wayland support.

For the internals they're defaulting now to Linux Kernel 5.9, with Kernel 5.4 available with minimal-ISO downloads for older hardware support if needed. Their installer, Calamares, also now supports encrypted systems without encrypted /boot partition.

Find it on the Manjaro website .

Evil Empire and Motion Twin have announced that Dead Cells is getting a brand new DLC in early 2021 and it seems they have a lot more coming to Dead Cells.

They've managed to sell over 3.5 million copies now, more than they ever expected and so they will continue supporting it. They mentioned with the previous DLC that they had at least 2 years worth of content coming and "that's still the plan". However, they indicate they probably have a lot more to come and we can expect to see more regular updates next year along with the Christmas Update 21 due "in a few weeks". Update 21 will have a new weapon, a new monster, a lore room, new skins, a new diet option and a few other bits. Something of a stocking filler until the DLC is ready.

As for the Fatal Falls DLC, see their new teaser:

Watch video on YouTube.com

It's looking like at release Fatal Falls will be around $4.99. Their DLC packs "help support the development of Dead Cells, i.e. allowing the free updates to keep dropping" while Motion Twin (since Dead Cells is handled by their newer company Evil Empire) work on a new game.

You can also see some teaser shot from the upcoming Fatal Falls below:

You can pick up Dead Cells from Humble Store , GOG and Steam . Absolutely recommended. Amazing game!

Epic Games have rolled out the latest major upgrade to Unreal Engine 4 while work continues on Unreal Engine 5.

This latest release with Unreal Engine 4.26 surprisingly has quite a lot of Linux issues sorted, along with dropping OpenGL in favour of Vulkan on the desktop now. It's a change that's not really surprising, with Vulkan being the future along with it being needed for Stadia which is quickly expanding its list of available titles.

We’re pleased to announce that Unreal Engine 4.26 is ready for download! This release brings new tools that extend your ability to create believable real-time environments and characters for games, film & TV, visualization, and training & simulation; continued advancements to our virtual production toolset; higher-quality media output; improved design review tools; and much, much more.

Epic Games

Watch video on YouTube.com

We've rounded up the other Linux specific fixes for you here:

• Automation - Bug Fix: Fixed Linux packaging failure resulting from Lumin key being copied locally into Gauntlet.
• Core - New: Removed unnecessary target dependencies for ShaderCompileWorker on Linux.
• UnrealBuildTool - Bug Fix: Fixed retry in Linux when linking batch files.
• Bug Fix: Resolved an issue with Linux with the SegFault in source filtering and notification manager when closing QAGame Clear Regional Lists at the pre-exit instead of during the global dtor.
• New: Building with a -gbd-index with Clang v9 or above now cuts symbol loading time by more than half (45 seconds to 17 seconds).
• New: Added the No Relative Mouse Mode command-line option to support remote VNC.
• New: Lld linker is now supported with Clang v9 and above.
• Bug Fix: Implemented GetWindowUnderCursor for Unix Platform.
• Bug Fix: Updated README.md for Linux build.
• Bug Fix: Fixed SegFault in source filtering and notification manager when closing QAGame Clear RegionalLists at pre-exit instead of during global dtor when many objects / modules have been freed. Call RemoveAll on FilterCollection->GetSourceFilters updated in PreExit instead of global dtor when many objects / modules have been shut down.
• Bug Fix: For Unix, fixed FUnixPlatformMemory::GetStats() that always returned 0 when memory was over 10.24gigs.
• Bug Fix: UE no longer hard codes c14 in LinuxToolchain as the default c standard.
• Bug Fix: Added SP_OPENGL_SM4_REMOVED to IsDeprecatedShaderPlatform(). This fixes assert when getting shader stats (called from FShaderCookerStats::Initialize).
• Bug Fix: Added error messagebox when vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceSupportKHR fails (no present support).
• Bug Fix: For Linux Vulkan, fixed amdgpu mesa crash where drawinstance call is outside render pass enabling shader complexity view.
• Bug Fix: Update translucent rendering fix to use BeginRenderingTranslucency.
• Bug Fix: Honor UE4's Mono-build environment using Build.sh .
• Bug Fix: Fixed BC6H/BC7 texture formats not being available for Linux.
• Bug Fix: Fixed submenus closing causing main context to close.
• Bug Fix: Fixed focus issue where Windows with never activate policy were being set to active.
• New: Updated Linux SDL2.0.10 to SDL2-2.0.13-13784. Also we removed Epic opengl and emscriptem changes. Source snapshot for SDL 2.0 (Updated Wed Apr 29, 2020) https://www.libsdl.org/hg.php .
• New: Enabled ssse3 by default for Linux x86.
• New: Build ShaderConductor for Linux Script now uses v16 Clang 9.0.1, and works around incorrect llvm-tblgen location. This also adds declspec guid -fms-extensions for build error.
• New: Updated Linux SDL2.0.10 build files to SDL2-2.0.13-13784.
• New: Added support for multithreading in forked processes. Use -PostForkThreading when SupportsMultithreading() is false to allow multithreading in forked processes. Forked processes do not inherit threads from the master, so this keeps the master process in single thread mode but transforms the RunnableThreads into real threads on the forked version. Use FForkProcessHelper::CreateForkableThread to use this feature. ForkableThreads will behave correctly according to the environment they are called in (singlethread, multi thread, forkable). SyncEvents created in -PostForkThreading environments are real events on the master process (Win, Unix platform only).
• New: Added TaskGraph.ForkedProcessMaxWorkerThreads cvar to directly control the number of worker threads spawned on forked processes that enable multithreading.
• New: TaskGraph can now be multithreaded on a forked server with -PostForkThreading. To do this the TaskGraph needs to be shut down and recreated entirely by the forked process for the switch to occur. The functionality can be disabled via "TaskGraph.EnableForkedMultithreading 0" if needed.
• New: Linux AArch64 libs for FreeType2 v2.10.0, ICU 64.1, and HarfBuzz 2.4.0 now include BuildForLinuxAArch64.sh cross compilation scripts. This also adds LinuxAArch64 back to installed engine builds.
• New: Added bGdbIndexSection bool to LinuxToolChain.
• New: Changed default linux directory permissions to 775 from 755 to make working with them easier.
• New: You can now use msbuild in mono for Linux when using an installed copy and mono >= 5.0.
• New: Linux directory watcher optimizations and fixes for cases where we're running with "virtual" layers in the platform file (i.e. pak files).
• New: Added a skip linux UE4_DO_ROOT_PRIVILEGE_CHECK check for programs.
• New: Updated to new LLVM V17 Clang 10.0.1 toolchain.
• New: Moved to using llvm-objcopy for objcopy and strip.
• New: Installed Linux builds now assume a bundled toolchain.
• New: Added support on Mac and Linux for user-defined .unrealrc files that allow developers to specify environment variables for UBT and UAT scripts. .unrealrc files in the home and the workspace directory will be applied before the editor, UnrealBuildTool, UnrealAutomation tool, etc are run.
• New: Added support for VK_KHR_image_format_list, VK_KHR_shader_atomic_int64 and VK_KHR_driver_properties support for Linux; added gpu crash extension support on Linux for AMD and NVIDIA.

Full release notes available here .

Mesa 20.3.0 is the latest and greatest when it comes to Linux open source graphics, bringing with it new hardware support, performance improvements and more. Mesa drivers are what power the likes of Intel and AMD on Linux with the latest Vulkan and OpenGL support whereas NVIDIA have their own proprietary driver.

As always, with it being a brand new release if you're concerned about stability you might want to wait for the first point release with Mesa 20.3.1.

Lots new with this version like the 'V3DV' Vulkan driver for the Raspberry Pi now being available, new extension support, big improvements to the Zink driver (OpenGL implementation on top of Vulkan), new hardware support across both AMD and Intel for the latest chips and some upcoming stuff, the Panfrost driver for Mali GPUs was extended quite a lot too and much more. You can see the release notes here , although they're quite technical and not great reading unless you really know what to look for.

Need to learn more about Mesa drivers? See the official site .