Linux Lite 8.0 sheds Chrome, slims down, and finds its name fits better than ever
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Linux Lite 8.0 sheds Chrome, slims down, and finds its name fits better than ever
Firefox is in, Snap and Flatpak are still out, but a default AI helper may raise eyebrows
Liam Proven
Liam<br>Proven
Published<br>wed 10 Jun 2026 // 15:05 UTC
Linux Lite 8.0 is now available, rebuilt atop Ubuntu 26.04 and with its custom helper apps rewritten around GTK4.<br>It arrives almost exactly two years after we looked at Linux Lite 7, itself two years after Linux Lite 6.0. The regularity of the release cycle is a sign of its maturity: the project is now 14 years old.<br>Version 8 is based on Ubuntu 26.04 Resolute Raccoon, but it eliminates the vexed question that many distros pose: which desktop to use. Linux Lite uses version 4.20 of the Xfce desktop, which in our opinion is an excellent choice.
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While Ubuntu continues to pile on the pounds, this release of Linux Lite is slightly smaller than its predecessor – the download is 410 MB less. As ever, it includes neither Snap nor Flatpak, which should help users to keep it slim and light.
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Each major version number of Linux Lite is rebased on a new LTS version of Ubuntu, and will be followed by point releases – very similarly to Linux Mint. Linux Lite 8.x sees some substantial changes, although to be fair, some of these first appeared late in the 7.x release series.<br>The default web browser is now Mozilla Firefox – Google Chrome has got the boot. We can't help but wonder if this is at least in part inspired by Google silently embedding a 4 GB LLM, or perhaps the restrictions that stopped uBlock Origin working from 2024.
The default Linux Lite 8 desktop, with its friendly and helpful Welcome screen front and center<br>Liam Proven
One of the benefits of Linux Lite for less experienced or technical users, who don't know where to go to do things like changing system settings, installing drivers, and so on, is its selection of handy pre-installed helper applications. The release notes list 15 of these that have been rewritten for this version, and now they use GTK4.<br>The announcement also mentions "end-to-end GTK4 theming." That sounds great, but there's always a cost, and this time, it is that GTK4 no longer supports what the GNOME developers consider tired old UI metaphors like menu bars. So the new Lite apps have fondleslab-style hamburger menus instead, and the primary or default button appears in the title bar. Even years after GNOME 40, we find that a bizarre and unintuitive location.<br>Some of these custom apps are important tools. For instance, Lite Terminal replaces Xfce Terminal. The announcement says it is a "super light, responsive built from the ground up terminal. Beautiful font rendering, predictive auto-complete, a slew of right click options," and calls out "a title bar that turns light red when you are in sudo" (which the new GNOME terminal Ptyxis does too). That's all good, but this vulture would rather just have a menu bar that responds to keyboard controls.<br>The Lite Software app now replaces the venerable Synaptic. It's true, there's been little visible development in Synaptic for years, but we don't find Lite Software capable enough to replace it: for instance, it can only sort by name, not by any other columns – such as whether packages are installed or not, or by version. These changes mean that the new GTK4 apps aren't consistent with the rest of Xfce and its traditional menu bar/toolbar layout. Personally, this vulture doesn't care much about performance or appearance or fonts or themes; we care much more about a consistent working UI that can be driven by the keyboard alone. These GNOME-isms creeping in, such as disappearing menu bars, are not welcome – any more than they are in Linux Mint.<br>Google Chrome has been ousted, but AI hasn't. There's a new MyAI function in Firefox (rather than as a standalone app), which offers a choice of local LLM tools. The announcement devotes over 100 words and eight big screenshots to this, saying:<br>Yes, we understand that AI is a polarising topic. With an estimated 1.2 billion people using it, we felt a responsibility to provide the option, but in a way that respects people's choice rather than forcing it on them.
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So, yes, points for awareness, but we still feel that generative AI is a profoundly and irredeemably unethical and harmful technology – even privacy-centric local models with open weights burned huge amounts of resources in their training, using material from people who never got offered the choice of consent. We are saddened to see it installed by default in any FOSS-adjacent product. Saying that, we did appreciate the note at the end:<br>If you don't want it:<br>`sudo apt purge myai`<br>Right click, Delete Bookmark in the Toolbar in Firefox.<br>Good for the team for that concession. The docs also clearly state that it doesn't support Secure Boot:<br>Secure Boot is not...