Linux

If you were asked to pick the most annoying of the various Microsoft Windows interfaces that have appeared over the years, there’s a reasonable chance that Windows 8’s Metro start screen and interface design language would make it your choice. In 2012 the software company abandoned their tried-and-tested desktop whose roots extended back to Windows 95 in favor of the colorful blocks it had created for its line of music players and mobile phones.

Your new project really could use a block device for Linux. File systems are easy to do with FUSE, but that’s sometimes too high-level. But a block driver can be tough to write and debug, especially since bugs in the kernel’s space can be catastrophic. [Jiri Pospisil] suggests Ublk, a framework for writing block devices in user space. This works using the io_uring facility in recent kernels.

TLDR: use korgalore to bypass mailing list delivery problems

Just a short overview of Chimera Linux’s new installer and some additional linux news.

Following the December launch of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS and the first major COSMIC desktop release, System76 software engineers have continued making improvements to their Rust-based desktop environment.

A lot of HID subsystem updates have been queuing up ahead of the Linux 6.20~7.0 merge window in February. There is a lot of new hardware support on the way along with quirks for some existing hardware support ranging from laptop keyboard issues to enabling support for more PS4/PS5 guitars under Linux.

LWN has had a number of articles on immutable distributions, such as Bluefin and Bazzite, in recent years. These distributions have taken a variety of approaches, including using rpm-ostree, filesystem snapshots, and bootable container (bootc) images. But those approaches, especially the latter, lead to extra complexity for a user attempting to install new software, instead of just using the existing package manager. AshOS (Any Snapshot Hierarchical OS) is an experimental AGPL-3-licensed “meta-distribution” that tried a different approach more in line with traditional package management. Although the project is no longer updated, it remains usable, and can still shed some light on a potential alternate path for users worried about adopting bootc-based approaches.

Six months after switching to immutable design with its major 25 release, a Debian-based Deepin 25.0.10 ISO has been officially released as a feature-enhanced, bug-fix release, powered by Linux kernel 6.12.

A change proposal has been cleared by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee “FESCo” for providing a nice out-of-the-box experience for Windows on ARM laptops namely the recent Snapdragon X1 laptops and will also be important for the upcoming Snapdragon X2 laptops too.

A proposal has been laid out for a new X.Org Server “main” Git branch to house their development going forward and cleaning up the development lapses over the past few years. Ultimately the hope is for having a new cleaned-up X.Org Server and XWayland Git branch for shipping new releases in 2026.

Last year Valve contractor Timur Kristóf managed to improve the AMDGPU driver enough for old GCN 1.0 Southern Islands and GCN 1.1 Sea Islands GPUs that with Linux 6.19 AMDGPU is now the default for those GPUs with better performance, RADV Vulkan out-of-the-box, and other benefits. He isn’t done though improving the old GCN 1.0/1.1 era GPU support on this modern AMDGPU kernel driver - a new patch series posted today brings some power management fixes.

Snap Store, a centralized application repository for distributing snap packages operated by Canonical, allows developers to publish applications with relatively low barriers to entry, while users can install and update software automatically through a single trusted channel. However, that trust is now under strain.

Two months after the major 25 release, MX Linux has rolled out MX-25.1 “Infinity,” a new point update that refreshes installation media across all supported editions and restores one of the project’s long-standing distinguishing features: dual init support.

Mozilla announced today in a blog post that it is now offering an RPM package of the Firefox open-source web browser for RPM-based GNU/Linux distributions, with an initial focus on the Firefox Nightly releases.

The MX Linux team announced today the general availability for download of MX Linux 25.1 as the first update in the MX Linux 25 “Infinity” series of this Debian-based distribution featuring Xfce, KDE Plasma, and Fluxbox flavors.

A developer has submitted a draft to the KDE team for KWin to hook up a full Plasma VR mode and it looks pretty awesome. As it’s currently a draft, it needs plenty more work before being accepted but the idea behind it and how it looks has me quite interested.

https://github.com/ryzendew/Linux-Affinity-Installer

an article explaining why GNOME should support SSD, but also arguing against the reasons often given for why they shouldn’t

For the past few years, generation of user documentation at docs.kde.org was not working. After a few months on working on the related issue, we finally managed to make it functional again and it once again displays the documentation for almost 150 applications!

The Amarok Development Squad is happy to announce the immediate availability of Amarok 3.3.2, the second bugfix release for Amarok 3.3 “Far Above the Clouds”!

Ahead of the Linux 6.19-rc6 kernel release due out later today are two USB fixes for Apple M1 / M2 Macs running the mainline kernel. These Apple USB fixes are also marked for back-porting to the stable Linux kernel series.

A new BSD on the block is ChaosBSD that intends to serve as a testing distribution for unfinished and broken drivers not suitable for upstreaming to FreeBSD proper.

With the Linux 6.19-rc6 kernel release due out later today there will be a number of sound fixes/workarounds to note from the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X gaming handheld to several newer laptops seeing fixes for their audio support.

Synex is a Linux distribution that’s been around for some months as a Debian-based, minimalistic Linux distribution out of Argentina focused on the needs of small and medium businesses. Making it a bit more intriguing for some now is that with their new release based on Debian 13 is a server edition and they have added native OpenZFS file-system support for new installations.

The inability to use Adobe Creative Cloud on Linux is often cited as a major barrier for many users considering a switch to the platform. But perhaps, just perhaps, there has already been a breakthrough in that direction.

In an interview with PC Gamer, Kiciński and managing director Maciej Gołębiewski were asked whether GOG had plans to focus more on Linux going forward, given a growth in pro-Linux and anti-Windows sentiment among some PC players.

As part of the GNOME Foundation funded Digital Wellbeing project, the GNOME Shell for GNOME 50 has merged options to prevent unlocking the desktop session past their bed time. The intent here is on rounding out GNOME’s parental controls functionality.

Although the Plasma 6.6 desktop has not yet been released (scheduled for February 17), KDE developers have already begun work on version 6.7, as some early details about its planned features are emerging.

A patch for the open-source exFAT file-system driver for Linux can boost the sequential read performance by about 10% in preliminary tests.

If we combine these two sets of data^1 we obtain a fascinating result^2.

Hi everyone! I’m happy to share that my first first-author paper has been accepted to a conference recently about side-channel attacks on the Linux page cache.

The EndeavourOS team announced today the general availability for download of EndeavourOS Ganymede Neo as the latest stable snapshot of this Arch Linux-based distro featuring the KDE Plasma desktop environment.

The Linux kernel patches talked about at the start of the year for more easily changing the boot logo of Tux are now queued into a “for-next” branch and thus expected to be submitted for the upcoming Linux 6.20~7.0 kernel cycle. Those wanting to replace the Tux icon with an alternative logo during the Linux kernel boot process could already patch the file manually but this new code allows for an easy replacement via Kconfig options.

The Fedora Project announced plans to migrate the Fedora Games Lab spin to the KDE Plasma desktop environment with the upcoming Fedora Linux 44 release, due out in April 2026.

Running Linux-based operating systems on smartphones has come a long way. We now have several Linux-powered smartphones on the market that cater to different use cases. Some pack in flagship-level performance, while others try to be a value-for-money proposition.

The GNOME Project announced today the alpha version of the upcoming GNOME 50 desktop environment series for public testing to give the community a first taste of the new features and enhancements.

Collabora shares with us today a new project that lets you install and run the Debian GNU/Linux operating system on the open-source OpenWrt One router.

Just some coverage of a few systems from Jesse at distrowatch. Sadly, neither MenuetOS nor Sparky CDE go anywhere due to issues.

There are two kinds of people today; those who see AI as a threat to craftsmanship, and those who see it as a tool to get work done faster. The debate is loud, ideological, often emotional, and certainly inconclusive.

More than two years after the release of GRUB 2.12, GRUB 2.14 shipped today as the newest feature release of this widely-used bootloader on Linux systems and elsewhere.

The GNOME Project has officially released GNOME 48.8, a maintenance update for the old-stable GNOME 48 desktop environment series.

A few months ago, Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara” was introduced with many useful changes, like Linux kernel 6.14, support for accent colors on XDG Desktop Portal XApp, blur effects on the login screen, and an improved Software Manager.

CtrlAssist v0.4.0 introduces demultiplexing functionality along with enhancements to the system tray and rumble targeting. The updated README now features FAQ and Cookbook sections with practical examples, such as the “Double Agent Tag Team” scenario, where a single assist controller uses a demux to help multiple primary players across separate mux instances, and the “Couch Co-Op Swap” scenario, in which two players take turns assisting each other using toggle mode, with force feedback following the currently active controller by default.

Wine fans have a reason to smile today. Wine 11.0 is finally here, and it is a big deal for anyone running Windows software on Linux. After a full year of work, more than six thousand code changes, and hundreds of bug fixes, Wine is moving forward in a way that feels like a turning point. This release tightens up major subsystems, improves performance, expands hardware support, and carries a big win for compatibility. If you have been waiting for Wine to feel smoother and a little less fussy, 11.0 might be the moment you jump back in.

Building off today’s release of Wine 11.0 for enabling countless Windows applications and games to run well under Linux and being the basis of Valve’s Proton for Steam Play, Hangover 11.0 is now available. Hangover is the open-source project that pairs Wine with either the FEX-Emu or Box64 emulators for enabling x86 32-bit and 64-bit Windows games/apps to run on native ARM64 Linux systems.

The Wine Project, a compatibility layer that enables Linux and macOS users to run Windows applications, has officially released version 11.0. The headline change is the completion of the new WoW64 architecture, which is now fully supported and considered feature-complete.

There. That’s out of the way. I recently installed Linux on my main desktop computer and work laptop, overwriting the Windows partition completely. Essentially, I deleted the primary operating system from the two computers I use the most, day in and day out, instead trusting all of my personal and work computing needs to the Open Source community. This has been a growing trend, and I hopped on the bandwagon, but for good reasons. Some of those reasons might pertain to you and convince you to finally make the jump as well. Here’s my experience.

As expected, Wine 11.0 stable was officially released today. This is a big step forward for this open-source software to run Windows games and applications on Linux and other platforms. Wine also serves as the basis for Valve’s Steam Play (Proton) that has been critical to the recent successes of Linux gaming.

In StatCounter’s latest US numbers, which cover through October, Linux shows up as only 3.49%. But if you look closer, “unknown” accounts for 4.21%. Allow me to make an educated guess here: I suspect those unknown desktops are actually running Linux. What else could it be? FreeBSD? Unix? OS/2? Unlikely.

Do you know which is the most popular GNOME extension out there?

The MX Linux team announced today the general availability of the beta version of the upcoming MX Linux 25.1 release of this Debian-based distribution featuring Xfce, KDE Plasma, and Fluxbox flavors.

Zorin, a Linux distro that positioned itself as a familiar and accessible entry point for users leaving Windows, continues to move with growing confidence toward reaching a broader user base. I say this because the most recently published information on the subject is impressive.

Wine project leader Alexandre Julliard relayed on the mailing list today that the plan is to release Wine 11.0 stable tomorrow, 13 January.

In open-source circles there are many situations, such as bug reports, demos, and tutorials, when one might want to provide a play-by-play of a session in one’s terminal. The asciinema project provides a set of tools to do just that. Its tools let users record, edit, and share terminal sessions in a text-based format that has quite a few advantages compared to making and sharing videos of terminal sessions. For example, it is easy to use, offers the ability to search text from recorded sessions, and allows users to copy and paste directly from the recording.

Auto-CPUFreq 3.0 released this weekend as the newest version of this Linux user-space tool to help you extend your laptop battery life by automatically applying CPU speed and power optimizations. When all goes according to plan, Auto-CPUFreq means extending your battery life without compromises to the user experience.