Collabora Launches Apertis v2026 Based on Debian 13 (Trixie)
April 07, 2026
News
Collabora has announced the release of Apertis v2026, a modernized foundation for industrial embedded designs. The release is based on Debian 13 (Trixie) and offers updated system libraries, development tools, compilers, and core services, alongside a new default Wayland compositor, a reworked SDK, and enhanced packaging pipelines.
According to the press release, this is the first release built on Debian 13 (Trixie), integrating all upstream modifications from the latest Debian release. A detailed look at the changes can be found in the Apertis v2026.0 release notes. The release solves build issues and guarantees all packages can be built from source via OBS.
The release ships the latest LTS kernel, Linux LTS 6.18 and adds contributions including more support for Rockchip and MediaTek SoCs families.
Weston is the reference implementation of a Wayland compositor and provides a flexible and standards-based graphical foundation. Having Weston be the default compositor offers benefits such as:
- A well-supported and widely adopted Wayland implementation
- Support for multiple shell configurations (such as desktop and kiosk use cases)
- Easier extensibility and long-term maintainability through a strong upstream community
Collabora suggests that the shift to Weston modernizes the graphical stack and better positions Apertis for future graphical and HMI constraints in industrial environments.
With Apertis v2026, Collabora introduced a reworked SDK image that enhances designer capability for building, testing, and integrating Apertis-based systems.
Goals of the SDK Image Rework:
- Cleaner separation between host and target tooling to improve cross-compilation workflows
- Better alignment of SDK contents with the Debian Trixie base and current image policies
- Improved usability as a development sandbox for package maintenance and image customization
Also introduced with Apertis v2026 are improvements in ci-package-builder developed to improve how Debian-derived packages are managed across Apertis releases.
New Pipeline Benefits:
- Automatically track changes from Debian as packages evolve upstream
- Identify relevant updates, including security fixes and targeted improvements
- Backport selected changes to older Apertis releases in a controlled and auditable way
- Reduce manual effort when maintaining multiple stable release branches
Due to the rebase process, the infrastructure and tooling are more predictable and easier to track including improvements across the entire process, from the planning stage to tracking progress during the rebase itself. Per the press release, the tooling supports testing critical stages such as bootstrapping and image generation, while prioritizing the set of packages needed to build the target images.
These tools can be found in:
- https://gitlab.apertis.org/infrastructure/apertis-infrastructure/-/tree/main/rebase-scripts?ref_type=heads
- https://gitlab.apertis.org/infrastructure/germinate/
- https://gitlab.apertis.org/infrastructure/rebase-image-test
For more information, visit collabora.com.
Chad Cox. Production Editor, Embedded Computing Design, has responsibilities that include handling the news cycle, newsletters, social media, and advertising. Chad graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in Cultural and Analytical Literature.
