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Do a presentation at NTLUG.
What is the Linux Installation Project?
Real companies using Linux!
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Show Descriptions... (Show All)
(Two Column)
- Linux Plumbers Conference registration open
Registration for the 2025 Linux Plumbers Conference (Tokyo,December 11 to 13) isnow open. LPC tickets often sell out quickly, so it would be best notto delay if you intend to attend.
- [$] Fighting human trafficking with self-contained applications
Brooke Deuson is the developer behindTrafficking Free Tomorrow, a nonprofit organization thatproduces free software to help law enforcement combat human trafficking. She isa survivor of human trafficking herself.She spoke at RustConf 2025 about hermission, and why she chose to write her anti-trafficking software in Rust.Interestingly, it has nothing to do with Rust's lifetime-analysis-based memory-safety —instead, her choice was motivated by the difficulty she faces getting policedepartments to actually use her software. The fact that Rust is staticallylinked and capable of cross compilation by default makes deploying Rust softwarein those environments easier.
- Varnish 8.0.0 and bonus project news
Version8.0.0 of Varnish Cachehas been released. In addition to a numberof changes to varnishd parameters, the ability to access someruntime parameters using the Varnish Configuration Language, and otherimprovements, 8.0.0 comes with big news; the project is forming anorganization called a foreningthat will set out formal governance for the project.
The move also comes with a name change due to legal difficulties insecuring the Varnish Cache name:
The new association and the new project will be named "The VinylCache Project", and this release 8.0.0, will be the last under the"Varnish Cache" name. The next release, in March will be under the newname, and will include compatility scripts, to make the transition assmooth as possible for everybody.
I want to make it absolutely clear that this is 100% a mess of mymaking: I should have insisted on a firm written agreement about thename sharing, but I did not.
I will also state for the record, that there are no hard feelingsbetween Varnish Software and the FOSS project.
Varnish Software has always been, and still is, an important andvalued contributor to the FOSS project, but sometimes even friends canmake a mess of a situation.
- [$] New kernel tools: wprobes, KStackWatch, and KFuzzTest
The kernel runs in a special environment that makes it difficult to usemany of the development tools that are available to user-space developers.Kernel developers often respond by simply doing without, but the truth isthat they need good tools as much as anybody else. Three new tools for thetracking down of bugs have recently landed on the linux-kernel mailinglist; here is an overview.
- Security updates for Monday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (cups, kernel, and mysql-selinux and mysql8.4), Debian (cjson, jetty9, and shibboleth-sp), Fedora (bustle, cef, checkpointctl, chromium, civetweb, cups, forgejo, jupyterlab, kernel, libsixel, linenoise, maturin, niri, perl-Cpanel-JSON-XS, python-uv-build, ruff, rust-busd, rust-crypto-auditing-agent, rust-crypto-auditing-client, rust-crypto-auditing-event-broker, rust-matchers, rust-monitord, rust-monitord-exporter, rust-secret-service, rust-tracing-subscriber, rustup, tcpreplay, tuigreet, udisks2, uv, and xwayland-satellite), Oracle (cups, gdk-pixbuf2, kernel, mysql-selinux and mysql8.4, and php:8.2), Red Hat (kernel, kernel-rt, and multiple packages), Slackware (cups, kernel, and patch), and SUSE (busybox, busybox-links, chromedriver, chromium, cups-filters, curl, go1.25, jasper, java-11-openj9, java-17-openj9, java-1_8_0-openjdk, kernel, kernel-devel, kubo, libssh-config, orthanc-gdcm, python-aiohttp, python-eventlet, python-h2, and xen).
- Kernel prepatch 6.17-rc6
The 6.17-rc6 kernel prepatch is out fortesting. "But really, none of it is very large. So everything seems slated for anormal release in two weeks.Please do keep testing, so that we don't get complacent."
- [$] Creating a healthy kernel subsystem community
Creating welcoming communities within open-source projects is a recurringtopic at conferences; those projects rely on contributions from others, somaking them welcome is important. The kernel has, rather infamouslyover the years, been an oft-cited example of an unwelcoming project, thoughthere have been (and are) multiple efforts to change that with varyingdegrees of success. Hans de Goede talked about such efforts within hiscorner of the kernel project in a talk (YouTube video) atOpenSource Summit Europe.
- Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by Debian (cups, imagemagick, libcpanel-json-xs-perl, and libjson-xs-perl), Fedora (checkpointctl, chromium, civetweb, glycin, kernel, libssh, ruff, rust-secret-service, snapshot, and uv), Mageia (curl), Red Hat (kernel), SUSE (cups, curl, perl-Cpanel-JSON-XS, regionServiceClientConfigAzure, regionServiceClientConfigEC2, regionServiceClientConfigGCE, trivy, and xen), and Ubuntu (cups, node-cipher-base, and qemu).
- Six stable kernels patching the VMScape Spectre variant
The VMScapevulnerability is a Spectre variant that "allows a malicious KVM guest toleak sensitive information such as encryption/decryption keys from auserspace hypervisor such as QEMU". Greg Kroah-Hartman has announcedthe 6.16.7, 6.12.47, 6.6.106, 6.1.152, 5.15.193, and 5.10.244 stable kernels, which add amitigation for the hardware bug.
- [$] A policy for Link tags
The Git source-code management system stores a lot of information aboutchanges to code — but it does not hold everything that might be of interestto a developer who needs to investigate a specific change in the future.Commits in a repository are the end result of a (sometimes extended)discussion; often, that discussion will result in changes to the code thatare not explained in the changelog. For some years now, many maintainershave followed the convention of applying a Link tag to commits that pointsback to the mailing-list posting of the change. Linus Torvalds has beenexpressing his dislike for this convention for a while, though, and itstime appears to be coming to an end.
- Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (python3.12-cryptography), Debian (chromium, hsqldb1.8.0, and imagemagick), Fedora (bustle, cef, maturin, rust-busd, rust-crypto-auditing-agent, rust-crypto-auditing-client, rust-crypto-auditing-event-broker, rust-monitord, rust-monitord-exporter, rustup, tuigreet, and wireshark), Oracle (kernel, microcode_ctl, and python3.12-cryptography), Red Hat (httpd:2.4 and multiple packages), SUSE (coreutils, curl, dpkg, ffmpeg-4, glib2, gnutls, go1.23-openssl, go1.24-openssl, go1.25-openssl, grub2, ImageMagick, jbigkit, kernel, libxslt, Mesa, opensc, opera, perl-JSON-XS, polkit, postgresql16, protobuf, python311, python311-deepdiff, sqlite3, ucode-intel, and warewulf4), and Ubuntu (bind9 and libxml2).
- How FOSS Projects Handle Legal Takedown Requests (F-Droid)
The F-Droid project has someadvice for free-software projects on how to deal with takedownrequests.
As part of our legal resilience research, we spoke with a range of legal experts, software freedom advocates, and maintainers of mature FOSS infrastructure to understand how others manage these moments. In this article, we share what we learned, and how F-Droid is incorporating these lessons into its own approach.
- [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for September 11, 2025
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: Space Grade Linux; KDE's new distribution; Rug pulls and forks; Dependency tracker; Kernel configuration; Framework 12 laptop. Briefs: npm security; high-memory; Anaconda WebUI; OpenSUSE bcachefs; 32-bit Firefox; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
- [$] How many ways are there to configure the Linux kernel?
There are a large number of ways to configure the 6.16Linux kernel. It has 32,468 different configuration options on x86_64,and a comparable number for other platforms. Exploring the ways the kernel canbe configured is sufficiently difficult that it requires specialized tools.These show thenumber of possible configurations that options can be combined in has6,550 digits. How has that number changed over the history of the kernel, andwhat does it mean for testing?
- OpenSUSE disables bcachefs
The openSUSE project has announcedthat the bcachefs filesystem will be disabled in its kernel builds startingwith 6.17; bcachefs users will have to make other arrangements. "Thecurrent 6.16.* is NOT affected. Neither is Slowroll (for now)."
- Jonathan Riddell Leaving KDE Development After 25 Years
Prominent KDE developer Jonathan Riddell who was formerly involved with Kubuntu and then KDE Neon, served for a while on KDE Plasma release management, and other significant contributions over the years announced he's stepping away from the KDE world...
- Chromium 140.0.7339.80 Security Update Released: Critical Vulnerability Fixes for Linux Users
The Chromium 140.0.7339.80 security update has rolled out across major Linux distributions, delivering critical vulnerability fixes that strengthen browser security for millions of open-source desktop users. Released on September 12, 2025, this latest Chromium browser update addresses four significant security flaws while maintaining the performance and compatibility that makes Chromium the foundation for numerous web browsers in the Linux ecosystem.
- Select Qualcomm X Elite Laptops Seeing IRIS Video Acceleration On Linux
Adding to the list of feature caveats around the different Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptops and the varying Linux state is video acceleration support. But patches were posted this week by a Linaro engineer enabling hardware accelerated video playback for two X Elite laptop models...
- FLYDIGI APEX 5 Controller Support Landing In Linux 6.17
The input subsystem fixes for the week were sent out on Saturday ahead of the Linux 6.17-rc6 kernel due out later today. Notable with this batch of "fixes" is enabling support for the high-end FLYDIGI APEX 5 gaming controller...
- 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: September 14th, 2025
The 257th installment of the 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup is here for the week ending on September 14th, 2025, keeping you updated with the most important things happening in the Linux world.
- Jetway B420UADN1 Compact Box PC with Intel N97, DDR5, and Configurable Security
Jetway has unveiled the B420UADN1, a fanless compact box PC built around Intel’s Alder Lake-N platform. Designed for industrial and embedded use, the system combines silent operation with high-speed networking, modern display interfaces, and broad OS support. The system is equipped with the Intel Processor N97, a quad-core SoC with a 12 W TDP. It […]
- Vibe Coding Has Turned Senior Devs Into 'AI Babysitters'
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Carla Rover once spent 30 minutes sobbing after having to restart a project she vibe coded. Rover has been in the industry for 15 years, mainly working as a web developer. She's now building a startup, alongside her son, that creates custom machine learning models for marketplaces. She called vibe coding a beautiful, endless cocktail napkin on which one can perpetually sketch ideas. But dealing with AI-generated code that one hopes to use in production can be "worse than babysitting," she said, as these AI models can mess up work in ways that are hard to predict. She had turned to AI coding in a need for speed with her startup, as is the promise of AI tools. "Because I needed to be quick and impressive, I took a shortcut and did not scan those files after the automated review," she said. "When I did do it manually, I found so much wrong. When I used a third-party tool, I found more. And I learned my lesson." She and her son wound up restarting their whole project -- hence the tears. "I handed it off like the copilot was an employee," she said. "It isn't." Rover is like many experienced programmers turning to AI for coding help. But such programmers are also finding themselves acting like AI babysitters -- rewriting and fact-checking the code the AI spits out. A recent report by content delivery platform company Fastly found that at least 95% of the nearly 800 developers it surveyed said they spend extra time fixing AI-generated code, with the load of such verification falling most heavily on the shoulders of senior developers. These experienced coders have discovered issues with AI-generated code ranging from hallucinating package names to deleting important information and security risks. Left unchecked, AI code can leave a product far more buggy than what humans would produce. Working with AI-generated code has become such a problem that it's given rise to a new corporate coding job known as "vibe code cleanup specialist." TechCrunch spoke to experienced coders about their time using AI-generated code about what they see as the future of vibe coding. Thoughts varied, but one thing remained certain: The technology still has a long way to go. "Using a coding co-pilot is kind of like giving a coffee pot to a smart six-year-old and saying, 'Please take this into the dining room and pour coffee for the family,'" Rover said. Can they do it? Possibly. Could they fail? Definitely. And most likely, if they do fail, they aren't going to tell you. "It doesn't make the kid less clever," she continued. "It just means you can't delegate [a task] like that completely." Further reading: The Software Engineers Paid To Fix Vibe Coded Messes
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Internet Archive Ends Legal Battle With Record Labels Over Historic Recordings
The Internet Archive has reached a confidential settlement with Universal Music Group and other major labels, "ending a closely watched copyright battle over the nonprofit's effort to digitize and stream historic recordings," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. From the report: The case (PDF), UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Internet Archive, targeted the Archive's Great 78 Project, an initiative to digitize more than 400,000 fragile shellac records from the early 20th century. The collection includes music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, and has been made available online for free public access. Record labels including Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and Capitol Records had sought $621 million in damages, arguing the Archive's streaming of these recordings constituted copyright infringement. The Internet Archive, based in San Francisco's Richmond District, describes itself as a digital library dedicated to providing "universal access to all knowledge." Its director of library services, Chris Freeland, acknowledged the settlement in a brief statement. "The parties have reached a confidential resolution of all claims and will have no further public comment on this matter," he wrote.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- How California Reached a Union Deal With Tech Giants Uber and Lyft
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: In roughly six weeks, three California Democrats, a labor head and two ride-hailing leaders managed to pull off what would have been unthinkable just one year prior: striking a deal between labor unions and their longtime foes, tech giants Uber and Lyft. California lawmakers announced the agreement in late August, paving a path for ride-hailing drivers to unionize as labor wanted, in exchange for the state drastically reducing expensive insurance coverage mandates protested by the companies. It earned rare public support from Gov. Gavin Newsom and received final approval from state lawmakers this week. The swift speed of the negotiating underscores what was at risk: the prospect of yet another nine-figure ballot measure campaign or lengthy court battle between two deeply entrenched sides, according to interviews with five people involved in the talks. Their accounts shed new light on how the deal came together: how the talks started, who was in the room, and the lengths they went to in order to turn around such a quick proposal -- from taking video meetings while recovering from surgery to the unexpected aid of one lawmaker's newborn baby. "This was really quite fast," said Ramona Prieto, Uber's chief policy expert in Sacramento. "It wasn't like this was months of negotiating." The landmark proposal is only the second time a state has reached such a framework for Uber and Lyft drivers, after Massachusetts did so in 2024. And unlike Massachusetts, it came together without reverting to a ballot fight. California already saw its most expensive ballot measure effort to date in 2020, when Uber and Lyft spent more than $200 million backing an initiative to bar app-based workers from being classified as traditional employees, known as Proposition 22. Its passage sparked a legal challenge from labor leaders that wasn't resolved until July 2024, when California's Supreme Court affirmed the ballot measure's constitutionality. [...] But the compromise still faces hurdles ahead. A recent lawsuit has raised fresh scrutiny of how the deal came together and what truly motivated it. Further criticism from those left out of the negotiating room is putting dealmakers on the defense as they try to sell it more widely. Plus, the final deal isn't what some labor leaders hoped when they first set out to strengthen drivers' rights in 2019. [...] And while the deal allows gig workers to unionize, that doesn't guarantee the necessary 10 percent of the state's 800,000 ride-hailing drivers actually will. Many who drive for Uber and Lyft do so part-time, and labor leaders acknowledge the challenge of organizing a disparate population that doesn't have a space to meet one another.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Airlines Sell 5 Billion Plane Ticket Records To the Government For Warrantless Searching
404 Media: A data broker owned by the country's major airlines, including American Airlines, United and Delta, is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples' movements, including by the FBI, Secret Service, ICE, and many other agencies, according to a new contract and other records reviewed by 404 Media. The contract provides new insight into the scale of the sale of passengers' data by the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), the airlines-owned data broker. The contract shows ARC's data includes information related to more than 270 carriers and is sourced through more than 12,800 travel agencies. ARC has previously told the government to not reveal to the public where this passenger data came from, which includes peoples' names, full flight itineraries, and financial details. "Americans' privacy rights shouldn't depend on whether they bought their tickets directly from the airline or via a travel agency. ARC's sale of data to U.S. government agencies is yet another example of why Congress needs to close the data broker loophole by passing my bipartisan bill, the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act," Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- TikTok Deal 'Framework' Reached With China
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. and China have reached a tentative "framework" agreement on TikTok's U.S. operations, with Presidents Trump and Xi set to finalize details Friday. "It's between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon," he said. The update comes two days before TikTok parent company ByteDance faces a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform's U.S. business or potentially be shut down in the country. The deadline may need to be pushed back yet again to get the deal signed. CNBC reports: Both President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Friday to discuss the terms. Trump also said in a Truth Social post Monday that a deal was reached "on a 'certain' company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save." Bessent indicated the framework could pivot the platform to U.S.-controlled ownership. China's lead trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, confirmed the framework deal was in place and said the U.S. should not continue to suppress Chinese companies, according to Reuters.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Microsoft's Office Apps Now Have Free Copilot Chat Features
Microsoft is adding the free Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and agents to Office apps for all Microsoft 365 business users today. From a report: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote are all being updated with a Copilot Chat sidebar that will help draft documents, analyze spreadsheets, and more without needing an additional Microsoft 365 Copilot license. "Copilot Chat is secure AI chat grounded in the web -- and now, it's available in the Microsoft 365 apps," explains Seth Patton, general Manager of Microsoft 365 Copilot product marketing. "It's content aware, meaning it quickly understands what you're working on, tailoring answers to the file you have open. And it's included at no additional cost for Microsoft 365 users." While this free version of Copilot will rewrite documents, provide summaries, and help create slides in PowerPoint, the $30 per month, per user Microsoft 365 Copilot license will still have the best integration in Office apps. The Microsoft 365 Copilot license is also not limited to a single document, and can reason over entire work data.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Hard Drive Shortage Intensifies as AI Training Data Pushes Lead Times Beyond 12 Months
Lead times for high-capacity hard drives have exceeded 52 weeks as AI workloads drive unprecedented demand for warm storage that sits between fast SSDs and offline tape archives, according to TrendForce. Western Digital notified customers of price increases across its entire hard drive portfolio citing demand for "every capacity" in its product line. The shortage stems from AI infrastructure requirements including training datasets, model checkpoints and inference logs that consume petabytes of storage space. These files are too large for primary SSD storage but must remain accessible for quick retrieval. Hard drive manufacturers have not significantly expanded production capacity in approximately a decade. Cloud service providers are evaluating QLC SSDs for cold data storage despite costs remaining four to five times higher per gigabyte than mechanical drives. Memory suppliers are developing SSD products specifically for this intermediate storage tier.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- President Calls for Six-Month Corporate Reporting Cycle, Citing Cost Savings
President Donald Trump called Monday for companies to report earnings every six months instead of quarterly. Trump posted on social media that semi-annual reporting would save money and let managers focus on running companies. The SEC mandated quarterly reports in 1970. Trump made similar comments in 2018 that prompted SEC public comment but no regulatory changes. Critics argue quarterly reporting increases costs and encourages short-term thinking. Supporters say frequent disclosures maintain investor trust and reduce market manipulation risks. Further reading: The Renewed Bid To End Quarterly Earnings Reports.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Toxic Fumes Are Leaking Into Airplanes, Sickening Crews and Passengers
Toxic fumes from jet engines are leaking into aircraft cabins at an accelerating rate, reaching 108 incidents per million departures in 2024 compared to 12 in 2014, a Wall Street Journal investigation found. The fumes contain neurotoxins and carbon monoxide that have caused brain injuries in crew members. JetBlue flight attendant Florence Chesson suffered permanent neurological damage after inhaling engine oil vapors in 2018, diagnosed by neurologists as equivalent to an NFL linebacker's concussion. The surge is driven by Airbus A320 aircraft, particularly the A320neo model introduced in 2016. WSJ reports Airbus loosened maintenance requirements under airline pressure despite knowing the changes would increase incidents. The FAA received over 700 fume event reports from major U.S. airlines in 2024. Most commercial jets except Boeing's 787 use a "bleed air" system that pulls cabin air through engines.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- A Third of UK Firms Using 'Bossware' To Monitor Workers' Activity, Survey Reveals
A third of UK employers are using "bossware" technology to track workers' activity with the most common methods including monitoring emails and web browsing. From a report: Private companies are most likely to deploy in-work surveillance and one in seven employers are recording or reviewing screen activity, according to a UK-wide survey that estimates the extent of office snooping. The findings, shared with the Guardian by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), are based on responses from hundreds of UK managers and suggest there has been a recent growth in computerised work surveillance. In 2023, less than a fifth of people thought they were being monitored by an employer, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found. The finding that about a third of managers report their organisations are monitoring workers' online activities on employer-owned devices is probably an underestimate, as roughly the same proportion said they don't know what tracking their organisations do. Many monitoring systems are aimed at preventing insider threats and safeguarding sensitive information as well as detecting productivity dips. But the trend appears to be causing unease. A large minority of managers are opposed to the practice, saying it undermines trust with staff and invades their personal privacy, the CMI found.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Apple Ships iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26 With 'Liquid Glass' UI Overhaul
Apple released iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26 today, introducing Liquid Glass, a translucent design language that represents the biggest visual redesign since iOS 7 in 2013. The new interface elements dynamically refract and reflect background content across all three platforms. iOS 26 requires iPhone 11 or later and second-generation iPhone SE or newer. iPadOS 26 runs on the same hardware as iPadOS 18 except the 7th-generation iPad. macOS Tahoe 26 supports all Apple silicon Macs, the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, 2020 and later iMac, and 2019 and later Mac Pro. The transparent menu bar on macOS increases perceived display size. iOS 26's adaptive Lock Screen time display resizes around notifications and Live Activities. Desktop icons, folders, app icons and widgets support light, dark, tinted, and clear appearances across all systems. iOS 26 adds Visual Intelligence for on-screen content analysis through screenshot button combinations. Live Translation operates across Messages, FaceTime and Phone on all platforms, translating text and audio in real-time on-device. The Camera app received streamlined navigation and lens cleaning hints for iPhone 15 and later models. iPadOS 26 brings Mac-style windowing and multitasking. Apps support free-form placement and menu bars. The Phone app and new Apple Games app arrived on iPad. macOS gained the Phone app through Continuity, including Call Screening and Hold Assist features. Spotlight executes hundreds of actions without opening applications and automatically assigns quick keys to frequent actions. Apple Intelligence expands across all systems. The Shortcuts app gained intelligent actions for text summarization and image generation. The Wallet app tracks orders across platforms, while Apple Music introduced AutoMix for song transitions.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- AI's Economic Boost Isn't Showing Up in US GDP, Goldman Says
AI is transforming corporate America, yet the boom remains understated in government growth statistics, according to Goldman Sachs. From a report: Analysts at Goldman pointed to the scale of the boom in a Saturday note: "Revenue at US companies providing AI infrastructure has risen by $400 billion since 2022, which at first glance seems to suggest that AI has been a meaningful driver of economic growth recently." But official numbers tell a different story. AI technology has lifted real US economic activity by about $160 billion since 2022, or 0.7% of GDP, the analysts calculated. Yet only around $45 billion, or 0.2% of GDP, of AI-spurred growth has been recorded in official statistics. That leaves roughly $115 billion uncounted, according to the analysts. That gap highlights the difference between what companies report and what the government measures due to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis method for calculating growth.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Anthropic Finds Businesses Are Mainly Using AI To Automate Work
Businesses are overwhelmingly relying on Anthropic's AI software to automate rather than collaborate on work, according to a new report from the OpenAI rival, adding to the risk that AI will upend livelihoods. From a report: More than three quarters (77%) of companies' usage of Anthropic's Claude AI software involved automation patterns, often including "full task delegation," according to a research report the startup released on Monday. The finding was based on an analysis of traffic from Anthropic's application programming interface, which is used by developers and businesses. [...] On the whole, Anthropic found businesses primarily use Claude for administrative tasks and coding, the latter of which has been a key focus for the company and much of the AI industry. Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI developers have released more sophisticated AI tools that can write and debug code on a user's behalf.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- 'USB-A Isn't Going Anywhere, So Stop Removing the Port'
An anonymous reader shares a column: After nearly 30 years of USB-A connectivity, the market is now transitioning to the convenient USB-C standard, which makes sense given that it supports higher speeds, display data, and power delivery. The symmetrical connection is also smaller and more user-friendly, as it's reversible and works with smartphones and tablets. I get that USB-C is inevitable, but tech brands should realize that the ubiquitous USB-A isn't going anywhere soon and stop removing the ports we need to run our devices. [...] It's premature for brands to phase out USB-A when peripheral brands are still making compatible products in 2025. For example, Logitech's current wireless pro gaming mice connect using a USB-A Lightspeed dongle, and most Seagate external drives still use USB-A as their connection method. The same can be said for other memory sticks, keyboards, wireless headsets, and other new devices that are still manufactured with a USB-A connection. I have a gaming laptop with two USB-A and USB-C ports, and it's a constant struggle to connect all my devices simultaneously without needing a hub. I use the two USB-A ports for my mouse and wireless headset dongles, while a phone charging cable and portable monitor take up the USB-Cs. This setup stresses me out because there's no extra space to connect anything else without losing functionality.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Shifts Android Security Updates To Risk-Based Triage System
Google has restructured Android's decade-old monthly security update process into a "Risk-Based Update System" that separates high-priority patches from routine fixes. Monthly bulletins now contain only vulnerabilities under active exploitation or in known exploit chains -- explaining July 2025's unprecedented zero-CVE bulletin -- while most patches accumulate for quarterly releases. The September 2025 bulletin contained 119 vulnerabilities compared to zero in July and six in August. The change reduces OEM workload for monthly updates but extends the private bulletin lead time from 30 days to several months for quarterly releases. The company no longer releases monthly security update source code, limiting custom ROM development to quarterly cycles.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Dems wave hands, stomp feet about ICE using mobile face recognition app
Secretive app + unreliable tech + Trump administration policies = ANGRY LETTER
A group of senators has penned a sternly-worded letter to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) saying that they're very worried about the agency's use of facial recognition in its mission to cleanse the nation of immigrants with improper documents. …
- Careless engineer stored recovery codes in plaintext, got whole org pwned
Cautionary tale from the recent SonicWall attacks
Failing to encrypt sensitive data leaves you wide open to attack. During the recent SonicWall attack spree, intruders bypassed multi-factor authentication (MFA) in at least one case, because a user's recovery codes were left sitting in a plaintext file on their desktop.…
- Engineer turned a vape into a web server
Breathe deep on internet fumes
Discarded vapes are becoming the new cigarette butts in pollution terms, but a hacker has found a novel way to repurpose the chips they contain to build a web server.…
- Half of tech firms plotting restructures as AI hype bites
Study also finds M&A and changes to operating model on the way for sector
More than half of tech companies are considering a complete restructure or changing their operating model in response to AI, according to research from the consulting sector.…
- Smart-blooded super soldiers: Coming soon from DARPA
We remind the world yet again that science fiction is usually a warning, not an aspiration
Look to science fiction and you'll find plenty of pathways to create super soldiers. There's cloning or genetic engineering. If that fails, you could try in-utero enhancements, or maybe some cybernetic augmentation. DARPA has a different idea for the real world: inject 'em up with super blood.…
- 'Powerful but dangerous' full MCP support beta for ChatGPT arrives
Wow this is dangerous' says Django co-creator, while others call feature a 'game-changer
OpenAI has added a beta of Developer mode to ChatGPT, enabling full read and write support for MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools, though the documentation describes the feature as dangerous.…
- Even fantasy money can buy a lot of power – just ask Larry Ellison
As doubts grow over who will pay to stuff Oracle's cloud pipeline, the octogenarian spreads his wings
Opinion When does imaginary money come before real? If you had bought Oracle shares on Tuesday last week and sold them on Friday, you might have some real cash. But everything else lives in a gray area.…
- China turns the screws on Nvidia with antitrust probe
Chip giant accused of breaching conditions of $6.9B Mellanox takeover
China has dealt Nvidia another blow, finding the chipmaker in violation of the country's anti-monopoly Law and escalating a long-running regulatory headache into a full investigation.…
- Bharti big shots storm BT boardroom after £3.6B raid
Sign 'relationship agreement' as Bharti Mittal and Vittal take non-exec directorships
BT - Britain's former state-owned telecoms monopoly - has confirmed that execs from Bharti Global, its largest shareholder, are joining the board with immediate effect.…
- After deleting a web server, I started checking what I typed before hitting 'Enter'
Student thought she had the hang of this 'Linux' thing and its kooky CLI
Who, Me? It's Monday morning, and a week of possibilities presents itself to IT pros everywhere. Which is why The Register brings you another edition of Who, Me? It's the reader-contributed column in which we remind you what not to do with your day, your week, and your career, by sharing stories of your worst workplace mistakes and the contortions you made to survive them.…
- 15 ransomware gangs ‘go dark’ to enjoy 'golden parachutes'
PLUS: China's Great Firewall springs a leak; FBI issues rare 'Flash Alert' of Salesforce attacks; $10m bounty for alleged Russian hacker; and more
Infosec In Brief 15 ransomware gangs, including Scattered Spider and Lapsus$, have announced that they are going dark, and say no more attacks will be carried out in their name.…
- Data destruction done wrong could cost your company millions
Doing a simple system reset may not be enough to save you from fines and lawsuits
With the end of Windows 10's regular support cycle fast approaching, and a good five years since the COVID pandemic spurred a wave of hardware replacements to support remote work, many IT departments are in the process of refreshing their fleets. But what they do with decommissioned systems is just as important as the shiny new ones they buy.…
- It's time mobile devs started to think seriously about foldable smartphones
The hardware is now compelling, sales are rising, and there's the chance to create a new experience
hands on Folding smartphones have been with us for six years without winning much market share, but after two weeks using Samsung's latest model, and recent reports of surging sales in the category, it feels to me like dual-screened devices are something developers now need to consider.…
- Bring back your old Mac: 5 ways to refresh the OS on elderly Apples
Newer OSes for unsupported kit, and new browsers for older OSes. There's always a way
Any day now, a new version of Apple's macOS is due to launch, and it will exclude the bulk of the Intel-powered models the company has ever sold. However, there are multiple ways to breathe new life into Macs that go back as far as 10 or even 15 years.…
- HybridPetya: More proof that Secure Boot bypasses are not just an urban legend
Although it hasn't been seen in the wild yet
A new ransomware strain dubbed HybridPetya was able to exploit a patched vulnerability to bypass Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Secure Boot on unrevoked Windows systems, making it the fourth publicly known bootkit capable of punching through the feature and hijacking a PC before the operating system loads.…
- CISA program gave out $20k+ payments to unqualified employees, auditor says
The OIG says the Cyber Incentive program was rife with 'fraud, waste, and abuse'
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) mismanaged a program designed to retain skilled security professionals so badly that auditors have concluded it left the agency "unable to adequately protect the Nation from cyber threats." …
- Your call is very important to us – which is why we're connecting you to a human
Gartner survey of Fortune 500 corps shows very few are planning to replace human support staff
ai-pocalypse You'll be able to talk to a human when you need help for many years to come. A new Gartner study shows that fears about AI replacing humans with bots in call centers are unfounded, at least among Fortune 500 companies.…
- All your vulns are belong to us! CISA wants to maintain gov control of CVE program
Get ready for a fight over who steers the global standard for vulnerability identification
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) nearly let the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program lapse earlier this year, but a new "vision" document it released this week signals that it now wants more control over the global standard for vulnerability identification.…
- Fork that: Three alternative kernels show devs don't need Linux
Managarm, Asterinas, Xous – where disaffected code whisperers could go
Between Rust, new file systems, clashes between developers, systemd absorbing its functionality, and more, rumors of possible Linux forks are being muttered again. But there is another, better way.…
- Google lands £400M MoD contract for secure UK cloud services
Deal promises sovereign datacenters, AI, and cybersecurity to strengthen communication links with US
The UK's Ministry of Defence has signed a £400 million ($540 million) contract with Google sovereign cloud to support security and analytics workloads.…
- Terminators: AI-driven robot war machines on the march
Science fiction? Battle bots already used in Ukraine
Opinion I've read military science fiction since I was a kid. Besides the likes of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, and David Drake's Hammer's Slammers books, where people held the lead roles, I read novels such as Keith Laumer's Bolo series and Fred Saberhagen's Berserker space opera sf series, where machines are the protagonists and enemies. Even if you've never read war science fiction, you certainly at least know about Terminators. But what was once science fiction is now reality on the Ukrainian battlefields. It won't stop there.…
- Proxmox delivers datacenter manager beta that makes it a more viable VMware contender
One console to manage multiple clusters is table stakes, but some users are betting on mixed environments
Open source virtualization suite Proxmox has taken an important step towards becoming a stronger contender for those considering VMware alternatives by commencing beta testing for a datacenter management tool that can control multiple hardware clusters.…
- Security: Why Linux Is Better Than Windows Or Mac OS
Linux is a free and open source operating system that was released in 1991 developed and released by Linus Torvalds. Since its release it has reached a user base that is greatly widespread worldwide. Linux users swear by the reliability and freedom that this operating system offers, especially when compared to its counterparts, windows and [0]
- Essential Software That Are Not Available On Linux OS
An operating system is essentially the most important component in a computer. It manages the different hardware and software components of a computer in the most effective way. There are different types of operating system and everything comes with their own set of programs and software. You cannot expect a Linux program to have all [0]
- Things You Never Knew About Your Operating System
The advent of computers has brought about a revolution in our daily life. From computers that were so huge to fit in a room, we have come a very long way to desktops and even palmtops. These machines have become our virtual lockers, and a life without these network machines have become unimaginable. Sending mails, [0]
- How To Fully Optimize Your Operating System
Computers and systems are tricky and complicated. If you lack a thorough knowledge or even basic knowledge of computers, you will often find yourself in a bind. You must understand that something as complicated as a computer requires constant care and constant cleaning up of junk files. Unless you put in the time to configure [0]
- The Top Problems With Major Operating Systems
There is no such system which does not give you any problems. Even if the system and the operating system of your system is easy to understand, there will be some times when certain problems will arise. Most of these problems are easy to handle and easy to get rid of. But you must be [0]
- 8 Benefits Of Linux OS
Linux is a small and a fast-growing operating system. However, we can’t term it as software yet. As discussed in the article about what can a Linux OS do Linux is a kernel. Now, kernels are used for software and programs. These kernels are used by the computer and can be used with various third-party software [0]
- Things Linux OS Can Do That Other OS Cant
What Is Linux OS? Linux, similar to U-bix is an operating system which can be used for various computers, hand held devices, embedded devices, etc. The reason why Linux operated system is preferred by many, is because it is easy to use and re-use. Linux based operating system is technically not an Operating System. Operating [0]
- Packagekit Interview
Packagekit aims to make the management of applications in the Linux and GNU systems. The main objective to remove the pains it takes to create a system. Along with this in an interview, Richard Hughes, the developer of Packagekit said that he aims to make the Linux systems just as powerful as the Windows or [0]
- What’s New in Ubuntu?
What Is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is open source software. It is useful for Linux based computers. The software is marketed by the Canonical Ltd., Ubuntu community. Ubuntu was first released in late October in 2004. The Ubuntu program uses Java, Python, C, C++ and C# programming languages. What Is New? The version 17.04 is now available here [0]
- Ext3 Reiserfs Xfs In Windows With Regards To Colinux
The problem with Windows is that there are various limitations to the computer and there is only so much you can do with it. You can access the Ext3 Reiserfs Xfs by using the coLinux tool. Download the tool from the official site or from the sourceforge site. Edit the connection to “TAP Win32 Adapter [0]
- A months of ad-free OSNews: were closing in on the fundraising goal, and need your help to get there
Its been a little over a month since OSNews went completely ad-free for everyone. I can say the support has been overwhelming, with the accompanying fundraiser currently sitting at 67% of the €5000 goal! Of course things slowed down a bit after the initial week of one donation after the next, so Im throwing out this reminder that without your support, OSNews cant exist doubly so now that Ive removed any and all advertising. Help us reach that 100%! So, what can you do to support OSNews? By being entirely free from the corrupting influence of advertising, I have even less desire to chase views, entrap users with slop content, game search engines with shitty SEO spam, or turn on the taps of AI!-generated trash to spew forth as much articles! and thus views as possible. This also means that OSNews is one of the few technology news websites remaining that is not part of a massive corporate media conglomerate, so theres no pressure from corporate! to go easy on advertisers or write favourable stuff about corporates friends. Youd be surprised to learn how many technology sites out there are not independent. The response to OSNews no longer having any advertising has been overwhelmingly positive unsurprisingly and that has taken away any reservations I might have had about taking this step. In a world where so many websites are disappearing, turning into corporate mouthpieces, or becoming glorified content farms, OSNews can keep on doing what it does, independent of any outside influence, thanks to the countless contributions from all of you. Thank you.
- Apple releases version 26 of all of its operating systems
Its release day for all of Apples operating systems, so if youre fully or only partway into the ecosystem, youve got some upgrades ahead of you. Version 26 for macOS, iOS and iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS, and HomePod Software have all been released today, so if you own any device running any of these operating system, its time to head on over to the update section of the settings application and wait for that glass to slowly and sensually liquefy all over your screens. Do put a sock on the doorknob.
- Writing an operating system kernel from scratch in Zig
I recently implemented a minimal proof of concept time-sharing operating system kernel on RISC-V. In this post, I’ll share the details of how this prototype works. The target audience is anyone looking to understand low-level system software, drivers, system calls, etc., and I hope this will be especially useful to students of system software and computer architecture. Finally, to do things differently here, I implemented this exercise in Zig, rather than traditional C. In addition to being an interesting experiment, I believe Zig makes this experiment much more easily reproducible on your machine, as it’s very easy to set up and does not require any installation (which could otherwise be slightly messy when cross-compiling to RISC-V). ↫ Uros Popovic This is not the first, and certainly not the last, operating system implemented from scratch as a teaching exercise, both for the creator itself, as well as for others wanting to follow along. This time its developed for RISC-V, and in an interesting twist, programmed in Zig (no Rust for once!).
- Microsoft to force-install Copilot onto Windows PCs with Office 365 installed
And the beatings continue until AI! improves. Except if you live in the European Union/EEA, that is. Windows devices with the Microsoft 365 desktop client apps will automatically install the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. This app installation takes place in the background and would not disrupt the user. This app installation will start in Fall 2025. ↫ Microsoft support document Basically, if you have Microsoft 365 desktop applications installed read my article about some deep Microsoft lore to figure out what that means Microsoft is going to force-install all the Copilot stuff onto your computer, whether you like it or not. Thanks to more robust consumer protection legislation in the European Union/EEA, like the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, this force-install will not take place there. Administrators managing Office 365 deployments get an option to opt-out through the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center, but Im not sure if regular users can use this method as well. Remember, when youre using Windows (or macOS, for that matter), you dont own your computer. Plan accordingly.
- The idea of /usr/sbin has failed in practice
It may be arcane knowledge to most users of UNIX-like systems today, but there is supposed to be a difference between /usr/bin and /usr/sbin; the latter is supposed to be for system binaries!, not needed by most normal users. The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard states that sbin directories are intended to contain utilities used for system administration (and other root-only commands)!, which is quite vague when you think about it. This has led to UNIX-like systems basically just winging it, making the distinction almost entirely arbitrary. For a long time, there has been no strong organizing principle to /usr/sbin that would draw a hard line and create a situation where people could safely leave it out of their $PATH. We could have had a principle of, for example, programs that dont work unless run by root!, but no such principle was ever followed for very long (if at all). Instead programs were more or less shoved in /usr/sbin if developers thought they were relatively unlikely to be used by normal people. But relatively unlikely is not never, and shortly after people got told to run traceroute and got command not found when they tried, /usr/sbin (probably) started appearing in $PATH. ↫ Chris Siebenmann As such, Fedora 42 unifies /usr/bin and /usr/sbin, which is kind of a follow-up to the /usr merge, and serves as a further simplification and clean-up of the file system layout by removing divisions and directories that used to make sense, but no longer really do. Decisions like these have a tendency to upset a small but very vocal group of people, people who often do not even use the distribution implementing the decisions in question in the first place. My suggestions to those people would be to stick to distributions that more closely resemble classic UNIX. Or use a real UNIX. Anyway, these are good moves, and Im glad most prominent Linux distributions are not married to decisions made in the 70s, especially not when they can be undone without users really noticing anything.
- Google decides to significantly harm Android security to please lazy OEMs
Google continues putting nails in the coffin that is the Android Open Source Project. This time, theyre changing the way they handle security updates to appease slow, irresponsible Android OEMs, while screwing over everyone else. The basic gist is that instead of providing monthly security updates for OEMs to implement on their Android devices, Google will now move to a quarterly model, publishing only extremely severe issues on a monthly basis. The benefit for OEMs is that for most vulnerabilities, they get three months to distribute (most) fixes instead of just one month, but the downsides are also legion. Vulnerabilities will now be out in the wild for three months instead of just one, and while theyre shared with OEMs privately!, were talking tends of thousands of pairs of eyes here, so privately! is a bit of a misnomer. The dangers are obvious; these vulnerabilities will be leaked, and they will be abused by malicious parties. Another massive downside related to this change is that Google will now no longer be providing the monthly patches as open source within AOSP, instead only releasing the quarterly patch drops as open source. This means exactly what you think it does: no more monthly security updates from third-party ROMs, unless those third-party ROMs choose to violate the embargo themselves and thus invite all sorts of problems. Extending the patch access window from one month to three is absolutely insane. Google should be striving to shorten this window as much as possible, but instead, theyre tripling it in length to create a false sense of security. OEMs can now point at their quarterly security updates and claim to be patching vulnerabilities as soon as Google publishes them, while in fact, the unpatched vulnerabilities will have been out in the wild for months by that point. This change is irresponsible, misguided, and done only to please lazy, shitty OEMs to create a false sense of security for marketing purposes.
- China is selling its Great Firewall censorship tools to countries around the world
Were all aware of the Chinese Great Firewall, the tool the Chinese government uses for mass censorship and for safeguarding and strengthening its totalitarian control over the country and its population. It turns out that through a Chinese shell company called Geedge Networks, China is also selling the Great Firewall to other totalitarian regimes around the world. Thanks to a massive leak of 500 GB of source code, work logs, and internal communication records, we now have more insight into how the Great Firewall works than ever before, leading to in-depth reports like this one from InterSecLab. The findings are chilling, but not surprising. First and foremost, Geedge is selling the Great Firewall to a variety of totalitarian regimes around the world, namely Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Myanmar, and another unidentified country. These governments can then ask Geedge to make specific changes and ask them to focus on specific capabilities to further enhance the functionality of the Great Firewall, but what it can already do today is bad enough. The suite of products offered by Geedge Networks allow a client government unprecedented access to internet user data and enables governments to use this data to police national and regional networks. These capabilities include deep packet inspection for advanced classification, interception, and manipulation of application and user traffic; monitoring the geographic location of mobile subscribers in real time; analyzing aggregated network traffic in specific areas, such as during a protest or event; flagging unusual traffic patterns as suspicious; creating tailored blocking rules to obstruct access to a website or application (such as a VPN (Virtual Private Network) or circumvention tool); throttling traffic to specific services; identifying individual internet users for accessing websites or using circumvention tools or VPNs; assigning individual internet users reputation scores based on their online activities; and infecting users with malware through in-path injection. ↫ The Internet Coup: A Technical Analysis on How a Chinese Company is Exporting The Great Firewall to Autocratic Regimes Internet service providers participate in the implementation of the suite of tools, either freely or by force, and since the tools are platform-agnostic it doesnt matter which platforms people are using in any given country, making international sanctions effectively useless. It also wont surprise you that Geedge steals both proprietary and open source code, without regards for licensing terms. Furthermore, China is allowing provinces and regions within its borders to tailor and adapt the Great Firewall to their own local needs, providing a blueprint for how to export the suite of tools to other countries. With quite a few countries sliding ever further towards authoritarianism, Im sure even places not traditionally thought of as totalitarian are lustfully looking at the Chinese Great Firewall, wishing they had something similar in their own countries.
- Everything about Psion, in one place
Celebrate classic Psion machines with us, from the original Organiser, through the Series 3 and Series 5, all the way to the netBook. Get help with your classic palmtop computer, or help to develop software and hardware that will bring these devices into the 21st Century. ↫ Psion Community website A brand new one-stop shop for everything related to keeping Psion machines going. A library of all the software, lists of all the ROM images, tons of development resources, and much more.
- Java 25’s new CPU-time profiler
More than three years in the making, with a concerted effort starting last year, my CPU-time profiler landed in Java with OpenJDK 25. It’s an experimental new profiler/method sampler that helps you find performance issues in your code, having distinct advantages over the current sampler. This is what this week’s and next week’s blog posts are all about. This week, I will cover why we need a new profiler and what information it provides; next week, I’ll cover the technical internals that go beyond what’s written in the JEP. I will quote the JEP 509 quite a lot, thanks to Ron Pressler; it reads like a well-written blog post in and of itself. ↫ Johannes Bechberger Theres also a third entry detailing queue sizing, and a fourth entry going into the removal of redundant synchronisation.
- UTF-8 is a brilliant design!
The first time I learned about UTF-8 encoding, I was fascinated by how well-thought and brilliantly it was designed to represent millions of characters from different languages and scripts, and still be backward compatible with ASCII. Designing a system that scales to millions of characters and still be compatible with the old systems that use just 128 characters is a brilliant design. ↫ Vishnu Haridas On a slightly related note, if you are ever bothered or annoyed by text online rendering as unknown squares, you most likely are just missing the proper fonts to render them. At least on most Linux and BSD systems, all you need to do is install the entire set of Noto fonts, including those for every single non-Latin script. Assuming your package manager has sane naming conventions, itll most likely come down to something like sudo dnf install google-noto* or whatever your systems install package command is, and after installing a whole slew of font files, your system will now be able to render virtually every script under the sun. After installing this massive font set, you can do things like write and render in hieroglyphics, write Ea-nāṣirs name the way its supposed to, and render all kinds of other scripts and symbols without ever having to look at one of those blank squares ever again.
- How open is open-source! VTubing?
Im not really into the niche of virtual YouTubers! people who post YouTube videos and/or stream using a virtual avatar but to each their own, and if this technology enables people to remain anonymous while doing what they love on YouTube or Twitch, Im all for it. Since these virtual avatars also do things like face-tracking, theres a whole cottage industry of software tools to make this all work, but Adrian asie! Siekierka decided to take a look at where the training data used to make such face-tracking work actually comes from. One day, some years ago, I decided to look at the data used to train OpenSeeFace. OpenSeeFace is the most popular open source face tracking solution for virtual YouTubers. It is supported by both open source and commercial model rendering tools; in particular, VTube Studio allows using it as an option for webcam tracking. ↫ Adrian asie! Siekierka The results of the investigation are not exactly great. Much of the data used by OpenSeeFace comes with serious restrictions on commercial use, and many of the underlying datasets contain images that you would need consent for from the people inside the image to actually use. On top of that, a lot of these data sets seem to have just scraped the internet for images of faces without asking anyone of the people in those images for consent, which raises a whole number of troubling issues. I find this a very interesting topic of discussion, if only because youd be hard-pressed to argue that the average cartoon-esque virtual avatars even remotely resemble real human faces, so its not like youre going to suddenly run into your own face somewhere on YouTube or Twitch, but plastered into another person. On the other hand, the underlying datasets still contain a ton of peoples faces without those peoples consent, and even for those that did give consent, theres often a commercial use restriction which earning revenue on YouTube or Twitch might violate. Its a fascinating microcosm of a whole slew of issues were dealing with right now, neatly contained in a relatively small niche.
- SkiftOS: a hobby operating system with its own kernel, UI, browser engine, and more
Who doesnt love a desktop-oriented hobby operating system to start off the weekend? SkiftOS is a hobbyist operating system built from the ground up with a focus on modularity, simplicity, and modern design principles. Driven by a dissatisfaction with the fragmented user experiences prevalent in contemporary operating systems, SkiftOS strives for deep integration and a cohesive aesthetic. This project is a labor of love—an artistic pursuit rather than a commercial product. ↫ SkiftOS gitHub page Reading through the GitHub page and SkiftOS actual website, it reminds me so, so much of the desktop-oriented hobby operating systems of the early 2000s, like AtheOS, SkyOS, and others. It has its own microkernel, C++ core library, package manager, reactive UI framework, an entire desktop environment, and even a browser engine. This operating system is remarkably complete in the features that it already offers, especially considering its hobby status. The desktop environment is called Hideo, and its remarkably beautiful when you consider were talking about a hobby operating system. It comes with a variety of applications, too, mostly covering the basics weve come to expect from a desktop operating system, like a text editor, archive manager, task manager, image viewer, media player, a file manager, and so on. Meanwhile, the browser engine is called Vaev and is highly experimental, but its existence illustrates just how broad this project really is. I havent been able to find some time to run it yet, but if youre interested, they advise you to run it using qemu. While running it on real hardware is technically possible, its not advisable due to the alpha state of the operating system.
- You can actually stop Windows Explorer from flashbanging you in dark mode
One of the most annoying things I encountered while trying out Windows 11 a few months ago was the utterly broken dark mode; broken since its inception nine years ago, but finally getting some fixes. One of the smaller but downright disturbing issues with dark mode on Windows 11 is that when Explorer is in dark mode, it will flash bright white whenever you open a new window or a new tab. Its like the operating system is throwing flashbangs at you every time you need to do some file management. Luckily, it turns out theres a fix, as Neowin details. Windows 11 is turning four in a couple of months, but Microsoft still has not fixed this annoying and, for some people, legitimately life-threatening bug (there is a reason why we have seizure warnings in games, movies, etc). As such, users have to take things into their hands and come up with custom solutions. One such solution is a simple Windhawk mod that fixes what a nearly four-trillion-dollar company still wont figure out. ↫ Taras Buria at Neowin This made me check out Windhawk, and it seems like an awesome project for people forced to use Windows. It is basically a package manager for various small mods, fixes, and changes for Windows, allowing you to mix and match exactly what you need. This way, you can easily fix the little niggles that bother you, all from a central location. The list of available mods is quite long already, and browsing through it, Ive already seen quite a few things Id be applying in a heartbeat if I were to be using Windows. Every mod comes with its source code included, ensuring you can check that it does exactly what it says it will do, and of course, you can contribute your own mods as well.
- Apples assault on standards
We often focus on Googles detrimental effects on the web, but in doing so, we often tend to forget the other major player who is quite possibly even more damaging to the web than Google can even dream to be. Without a counterweight, network effects allow successful tech firms to concentrate wealth and political influence. This power allows them to degrade potential competitive challenges, enabling rent extraction for services that would otherwise be commodities. This mechanism operates through (often legalised) corruption of judicial, regulatory, and electoral systems. When left to fester, it corrodes democracy itself. Apple has deftly used a false cloak of security and privacy to move the internet, and web in particular, toward enclosure and irrelevance. This post makes the case for why Apple should be considered a corrupted, and indeed incompetent, autocrat in our digital lives. It continues to abusing a unique form of monopoly to extract rents, including on the last remnants of open ecosystems it tolerates. Worse, Apples centralisation through the App Store`entrenches the positions of peer big tech firms, harming the prospects of competitors in turn.`Apple have been, over the course of many years, poisonous to internet standards and the moral commitments of that grand project. ↫ Alex Russell at Infrequently Noted I have nothing more to add.
- Windows/386s check for buggy 386 chips survived until Windows 8.1
A version of Windows thats often overlooked, and often probably entirely unknown, is Windows/386. When Microsoft released 2.x, they did so in two very different variants: Windows/286 and Windows/386. The former would run on anything from a 8088 and up, but wouldnt make use of any of the new features of the 386, while the latter, as its name implies, was optimised for the 386 and introduced a ton of advanced features to the platform. Windows/386 laid the groundwork for the much more successful Windows 3.x and 9x, but weirdly enough, its never really been studied all that well to understand how it works and what its doing under the hood. That has changed now, as Will CaptainWillStarblazer! Klees, whom we already know for his amazing work to allow RISC Win32 applications to run on x86, has delved deep into Widnows/386 with a ton of reverse-engineering to uncover many of its secrets. Theres so many amazing findings in here, I honestly have no idea where to even start or what to highlight, so Im picking two things that I think are quite entertaining. First, Windows/386 does a number of checks to determine if your PC can run it, and one of the checks it does concerns defending against early buggy 386 steppings!. It turns out that this exact check for buggy steppings in early 386 processors survived in Windows all the way up until Windows 8.1, which is wild to think about. A second fascinating finding is that a crucial component of Windows/386 finds its origins in an unusual place: Xenix, Microsofts UNIX implementation. Finally, it begins loading the Virtual DOS Machine Manager (VDMM) into memory from the file WIN386.386. This file is not an OS/2 Linear Executable like the 386 files from later versions of Windows (that format did not yet exist), rather it is the 32-bit x.out executable format from Xenix-386 (thank you, Michal Necasek!), which makes sense as it was the only 32-bit executable format that Microsoft would have a linker for at the time (and interoperated well with Microsoft’s OMF-based tools, such as MASM). ↫ Will CaptainWillStarblazer! Klees at Virtually Fun Theres a fun detail about the 386 version of Xenix: it was ported to the 386 by a company we all came to hate deeply: SCO. The technology world is far smaller than we often seem to think. Apparently Xenix for the 386 was the first fully 32bit operating system for the x86 architecture, illustrating that once, a long, long time ago, SCO was an actually capable, innovative company. The work by Klees and his extremely detailed write-up are a joy to read, so head on over and have some fun.
- Deluxe Paint on the Commodore Amiga
VisiCalc on the Apple II. Lotus 1-2-3 on the IBM PC. Aldus PageMaker on the Macintosh. Deluxe Paint on the Amiga. The computer industry loves a “killer app,” that unique piece of software that compels consumers to purchase new computer hardware just for the privilege of running it. I can personally attest to Deluxe Paint as it compelled even my technophobic mother to buy into its potential. ↫ Christopher Drum Even though I knew what Deluxe Paint for the Amiga was, I never really delved any deeper into what, exactly, it was capable of. Drum does a great job setting up an emulated Amiga environment to go back in time to his childhood, and see what its like to use Deluxe Paint today, in 2025. It turns out it can do things I never thought it could, like create 3D perspective effects, with optional antialiasing even (even though the latter takes multiple minutes to render). In fact, it even has tools to create animations, allowing you to brush across different frames automatically, or even create movement paths in a 3D space by defining start and endpoints for a brush movement. Combine all of these tools, and you can create things like animated doors opening and closing with a clear 3D effect. Its quite neat. Its no secret the Amiga was far ahead of its time, but its still awe-inspiring to see it in action like this.
- Qt Creator 17 Ushers in a Fresh Look and Stronger CMake Integration
by George Whittaker
In June 2025, the Qt team officially rolled out Qt Creator 17, marking a notable milestone for developers who rely on this IDE for cross-platform Qt, C++, QML, and Python work. While there are many changes under the hood, two of the spotlighted improvements are its updated default visual style and significant enhancements in how CMake is supported. Below, we’ll explore these in depth, assess their impact, and offer guidance on how to adopt the new features smoothly.
What's New in Qt Creator 17: A Snapshot
Before zooming into the theme and CMake changes, here are some of the broader enhancements in version 17 to set context:
The “2024” theme set (light and dark variants) — which first appeared in earlier versions — becomes the foundational appearance for all new installs.
General polish across the UI: icon refreshes, more consistent spacing, and better contrast.
Projects now bind run configurations more tightly to the build configurations. That means selecting a build (e.g. Debug vs Release) also constrains which run configurations apply.
Upgraded C++ tooling (with LLVM 20.1.3), improved QML formatting options, enhanced Python (pyproject.toml) support, and refinements in version control & analysis tools.
With that backdrop, let’s dive into the theme and CMake changes in more detail.
A Refreshed Visual Identity: Default “2024” ThemesWhat Has Changed
Qt Creator 17 makes the “2024” light and dark themes the standard look & feel for new installations. These themes had been available previously (since Qt Creator 15) but in this version become the out-of-the-box configuration.
Other visual adjustments accompany the theme change:
Icons throughout the IDE have been reviewed and updated so they align better with the new theme style.
UI consistency is improved: spacing, contrast, and alignment between interface elements have been refined so that the environment feels more cohesive.
Why These Changes Matter
A theme isn't just aesthetics. The look and feel of an IDE affect user comfort, readability, efficiency, and even fatigue. Some benefits include:
Improved clarity for long coding sessions: better contrast helps in low-ambient light or for users with visual sensitivity.
Consistency across elements: less jarring visual transitions when switching between parts of the interface or when using external themes/plugins.
Reduced setup friction: since the “2024” theme is now default, many users won’t need to hunt down or tweak theme settings just to get a modern, usable look.
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- Windows 11 Powers Up WSL: How GPU Acceleration & Kernel Upgrades Change the Game
by George Whittaker Introduction
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has gradually become one of Microsoft’s key bridges for developers, data scientists, and power users who need Linux compatibility without leaving the Windows environment. Over recent versions, WSL2 brought major improvements: a real Linux kernel running in a lightweight virtualized environment, much better filesystem behavior, nearly full system-call compatibility, etc. However, until recently, certain high-performance workloads, GPU computing, video encoding/decoding, and very up-to-date kernel features, were either limited, inefficient, or unavailable.
In Windows 11, Microsoft has taken bold strides to remove many of these bottlenecks. Two of the most significant enhancements are:
The ability for WSL to tap into the GPU for acceleration (compute, video hardware offload, etc.), reducing reliance on CPU where the GPU is much more suited.
More seamless Linux kernel upgrades, allowing users to run newer kernel versions inside WSL2, bringing performance, driver, and feature improvements faster.
This article walks through each thing in detail: what has changed, why it matters, how to use it, what limitations still exist, and how these developments shift what’s possible with WSL on Windows 11.
What WSL Was, and Where It Needed Improvement
Before diving into recent changes, it helps to understand what WSL (especially WSL2) already provided, and where it lagged.
WSL1: Early versions translated Linux system calls to Windows equivalents. Good for basic command-line tools, scripts, but limited in compatibility with certain networking, kernel module, filesystem, and performance-sensitive tasks.
WSL2: Introduced a real Linux kernel inside a lightweight VM (Hyper-V or a similar backend), better system-call compatibility, better performance especially for Linux tools, and much improved behavior for things like Docker, compiling, etc. Still, heavy workloads (e.g. ML training, video encoding, hardware-accelerated graphics) were constrained by CPU support, lack of passthrough of GPU features, older kernels, etc.
So developers were pushing Microsoft to allow more direct access to GPU functionality (CUDA, DirectML, video decoding), and to speed up how kernel updates reach users.
GPU Acceleration in WSL on Windows 11: What It Means
GPU acceleration here refers to WSL’s ability to offload certain computation or video tasks from the CPU to the GPU, enabling faster, more efficient execution. This includes:
Compute workloads - frameworks like CUDA (for NVIDIA), DirectML, etc., so that things like deep learning, scientific computing, data-parallel tasks run much faster. Microsoft now supports running NVIDIA CUDA inside WSL to accelerate ML libraries like PyTorch, TensorFlow.
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- Harnessing GitOps on Linux for Seamless, Git-First Infrastructure Management
by George Whittaker Introduction
Imagine a world where every server, application, and network configuration is meticulously orchestrated via Git, where updates, audits, and recoveries happen with a single commit. This is the realm GitOps unlocks, especially potent when paired with the versatility of Linux environments. In this article, we'll dive deep into how Git-driven workflows can transform the way you manage Linux infrastructure, offering clarity, control, and confidence in every change.
GitOps Demystified: A New Infrastructure Paradigm
GitOps isn't just a catchy buzzword, it's a methodical rethink of how infrastructure should be managed.
It treats Git as the definitive blueprint for your live systems, everything from server settings to application deployments is declared, versioned, and stored in repositories.
With Git as the single source of truth, every adjustment is tracked, reversible, and auditable, turning ops into a transparent, code-centric process.
Beyond simple CI/CD, GitOps introduces a continuous reconciliation model: specialized agents continuously compare the actual state of systems against the desired state in Git and correct any discrepancies automatically.
Why Linux and GitOps Are a Natural Pair
Linux stands at the heart of infrastructure, servers, containers, edge systems, you name it. When GitOps is layered onto that:
You'll leverage Linux’s scripting capabilities (like bash) to craft powerful, domain-specific automation that dovetails perfectly with GitOps agents.
The transparency of Git coupled with Linux’s flexible architecture simplifies debugging, auditing, and recovery.
The combination gives infrastructure teams the agility to iterate faster while keeping control rigorous and secure.
Architecting GitOps Pipelines for Linux EnvironmentsStructuring Repositories Deliberately
A well-organized Git setup is crucial:
Use separate repositories or disciplined directory structures for:
Infrastructure modules (e.g., Terraform, networking, VMs),
Platform components (monitoring, ingress controllers, certificates),
Application-level configurations (Helm overrides, container versions).
This separation helps ensure access controls align with responsibilities and limits risks from misconfiguration or accidental cross-impact.
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- How DevOps Teams Are Redefining Reliability with NixOS and OSTree-Powered Linux
by George Whittaker
This article explores how modern DevOps teams are redefining stability and reproducibility in production environments by embracing truly unchangeable operating systems. It delves into how NixOS’s declarative configuration model and OSTree’s atomic update mechanisms open the door to systems that are both resilient and transparent. We'll explain the advantages, technologies, comparisons, and real-world use cases fueling this shift.
The Paradigm Shift: From Mutable Chaos to Immutable Assurance
Why the change happened: The traditional model, logging into servers, tweaking packages, and patching in place, has led to unpredictable environments, elusive bugs, “snowflake” systems, and configuration drift as environments diverged over time. Immutable infrastructure treats machines like fungible artifacts: if you need change, you don’t fix the running system, you replace it.
Key benefits:
Reliability at scale: Automated, reproducible deployments, no divergence across servers.
Simplified rolling back: If something breaks, spin up the previous, working version.
Security by design: Core systems are read-only, reducing the attack surface.
Immutable Foundations in ActionNixOS: The Declarative, Version-Controlled Linux
How it works: System configuration, including packages, services, kernels, is expressed in the Nix language in a config file. Rebuilding produces a new system “generation,” which can be booted or rolled back.
Why DevOps teams love it:
Reproducibility: Exact environments can be rebuilt from config files, promoting parity across development, CI, and production.
Speed and consistency gains: In one fintech case, switching to NixOS reduced deployment times by over 50 percent, erased environment-related incidents, shrank container sizes by 70%, and cut onboarding time dramatically.
Edge readiness: Ideal for remote systems or stateless servers rebuilt nightly to ensure fleet consistency with easy rollback.
Personalization meets immutability: With tools like Home Manager, even user-specific configurations (like dotfiles or shell preferences) can be managed declaratively, and consistently reproduced across machines.
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- From Novice to Pro: Mastering Lightweight Linux for Your Kubernetes Projects
by George Whittaker Introduction: Why Lightweight Matters for Kubernetes Devs
When running Kubernetes clusters for development, the operating system’s footprint can make or break performance and agility. Heavy, general-purpose Linux distributions waste memory and CPU cycles on components you’ll never use, while lightweight, container-focused distros keep your nodes lean and optimized. For developers experimenting with k3s, MicroK8s, or full-blown Kubernetes clusters, lightweight Linux offers faster spin-ups, lower overhead, and environments that better simulate production-grade setups.
In this guide, we’ll take a look at the best lightweight Linux options for Kubernetes developers, compare their strengths, and walk through code examples for quick setup. Whether you’re spinning up a local test cluster or building a scalable dev lab, this breakdown will help you pick the right base OS and make the most of your Kubernetes workflow.
Key Considerations for Dev-Focused Kubernetes Nodes
Before diving into individual distros, it’s important to understand what really matters when pairing Linux with Kubernetes:
Minimal Resource Usage: A slim OS footprint leaves more CPU and RAM for pods and workloads.
Container Runtime Compatibility: Built-in or easy-to-install support for containerd, CRI-O, or Docker ensures smooth cluster bootstrapping.
Init System Support: Compatibility with systemd or OpenRC impacts how Kubernetes services are managed.
Immutable vs. Mutable: Immutable systems like Fedora CoreOS or Talos enhance reliability but restrict tinkering, while Alpine and Ubuntu Core offer more flexibility for on-the-fly customization.
Developer Friendliness: A distro should integrate seamlessly with kubectl, Helm, CI/CD agents, and debugging workflows.
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- Containers in 2025: Docker vs. Podman for Modern Developers
by George Whittaker Introduction
Container technology has matured rapidly, but in 2025, two tools still dominate conversations in developer communities: Docker and Podman. Both tools are built on OCI (Open Container Initiative) standards, meaning they can build, run, and manage the same types of images. However, the way they handle processes, security, and orchestration differs dramatically. This article breaks down everything developers need to know, from architectural design to CLI compatibility, performance, and security, with a focus on the latest changes in both ecosystems.
Architecture: Daemon vs. DaemonlessDocker's Daemon-Based Model
Docker uses a persistent background service, dockerd, to manage container lifecycles. The CLI communicates with this daemon, which supervises container creation, networking, and resource allocation. While this centralized approach is convenient, it introduces a single point of failure: if the daemon crashes, every running container goes down with it.
Podman’s Daemonless Approach
Podman flips the script. Instead of a single daemon, every container runs as a child process of the CLI command that started it. This design eliminates the need for a root-level service, which is appealing for environments concerned about attack surfaces. Containers continue to run independently even if the CLI session ends, and they can be supervised with systemd for long-term stability.
Developer Workflow and CLIFamiliar Command Structure
Podman was designed as a near drop-in replacement for Docker. Commands like podman run, podman ps, and podman build mirror their Docker equivalents, reducing the learning curve. Developers can often alias docker to podman and keep using their existing scripts.
Run an NGINX container
Docker
docker run -d --name web -p 8080:80 nginx:latest
Podman
podman run -d --name web -p 8080:80 nginx:latestGUI Options
For desktop users, Docker Desktop remains polished and feature-rich. However, Podman Desktop has matured significantly. It now supports Windows and macOS with better integration, faster file sharing, and no licensing restrictions, making it appealing for enterprise environments.
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- Rising from the Ashes: How AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux Redefined the Post-CentOS Landscape
by George Whittaker
When Red Hat announced the abrupt end of traditional CentOS in late 2020, the Linux ecosystem was shaken to its core. Developers, sysadmins, and enterprises that relied on CentOS for years suddenly found themselves scrambling for answers. Out of that disruption, two projects, AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux, emerged to carry forward the legacy of CentOS while forging their own identities. This article dives into how these two distributions established themselves as reliable, enterprise-grade options for developers and organizations alike.
The Fall of CentOS: An Industry Shockwave
For over a decade, CentOS was the backbone of countless servers, from small web hosts to enterprise data centers. It provided a stable, free, and RHEL-compatible platform, perfect for developers and administrators building and maintaining critical infrastructure.
That stability came to an end when Red Hat pivoted CentOS to a rolling-release model, CentOS Stream. Instead of offering a downstream, binary-compatible version of RHEL, Stream became a preview of future RHEL updates. This move caused widespread frustration:
Organizations that built production environments around CentOS suddenly faced shortened support lifecycles.
Developers who depended on a “set-and-forget” environment now had to deal with the unpredictability of a rolling release.
Compliance-driven industries were left in limbo, as running on an unsupported OS could trigger security and regulatory risks.
This disruption created a vacuum, and the Linux community quickly stepped up to fill it.
The Birth of AlmaLinux and Rocky LinuxAlmaLinux: Community-Driven, Enterprise-Ready
Shortly after the CentOS announcement, CloudLinux, a company with deep experience in server environments, launched AlmaLinux. The first stable release landed in March 2021. True to its name, “alma” meaning “soul”, the project’s mission was clear: to embody the spirit of CentOS while maintaining community governance. The non-profit AlmaLinux OS Foundation now oversees the project, ensuring it remains free and open for everyone.
Rocky Linux: A Tribute and a Promise
At almost the same time, Gregory Kurtzer, one of the original CentOS founders, unveiled Rocky Linux, named in honor of CentOS co-founder Rocky McGaugh. From the beginning, Rocky positioned itself as a 1:1 binary-compatible rebuild of RHEL, mirroring CentOS’s original mission. Its governance structure, managed by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF), ensures that the project remains rooted in community oversight rather than corporate ownership.
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- Why GNOME Replaced Eye of GNOME with Loupe as the Default Image Viewer
by George Whittaker A Shift in GNOME’s Core Applications
For over two decades, Eye of GNOME (often shortened to EOG) was the silent workhorse of the GNOME desktop environment. It wasn’t flashy, but it did exactly what most people expected: double-click a picture, and it opened instantly. Yet, with the arrival of GNOME 45 in late 2023, a new name appeared in the lineup of “core” apps: Loupe. From that moment forward, Loupe became the official default image viewer on GNOME desktops, displacing EOG.
This decision wasn’t made lightly. GNOME has been steadily refreshing its default applications in recent years, Gedit was replaced by GNOME Text Editor, and Cheese gave way to Snapshot. Loupe is the continuation of this modernization trend. Eye of GNOME is still available in repositories for those who want it, but the GNOME team has shifted its endorsement to Loupe as the better long-term solution.
What Loupe Brings to the Table
Loupe isn’t just a reskin of EOG. It was built from scratch with today’s hardware, design standards, and security expectations in mind. At first glance, the interface looks minimal, but there’s more happening beneath the hood than many realize.
Rust-Powered Foundation – Unlike Eye of GNOME’s decades-old C codebase, Loupe is written in Rust. This choice immediately grants it memory safety, helping avoid whole categories of crashes and vulnerabilities. For an app that regularly opens untrusted files, this is an important safeguard.
GPU-Accelerated Image Handling – Instead of pushing all rendering to the CPU, Loupe leverages the GPU. Panning across a large image or zooming into a 50-megapixel photo feels fluid, even on high-resolution displays.
Touch-Friendly Navigation – GNOME has been preparing for a future that includes more touch devices. Loupe fits right in, supporting pinch-to-zoom, two-finger swipes to move between images, and smooth transitions that feel natural on both touchscreens and trackpads.
Streamlined Metadata View – Instead of burying photo information behind a separate dialog, Loupe integrates an optional sidebar. With a click, you can see dimensions, file size, EXIF data, and even location details without leaving the main view.
Security Through Sandboxing – Image decoding is handled in isolated processes using a new backend called Glycin. If a corrupt or malicious image tries to crash the decoder, it won’t take the entire viewer down with it.
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- Ptyxis: Ubuntu’s Leap Into GPU-Powered Terminals
by George Whittaker
For decades, the humble terminal has been one of the most unchanging parts of the Linux desktop. Text streams flow in monochrome grids, and while the underlying libraries have evolved, the experience has remained more or less the same. Ubuntu, however, is preparing to rewrite this narrative. The distribution is adopting Ptyxis, a fresh terminal emulator designed for modern computing, and one of its standout qualities is that it leans on the GPU for rendering rather than relying solely on the CPU.
This shift is more than cosmetic. It represents a rethink of how command-line tools should perform in an era of container-heavy development, high-DPI displays, and demanding workloads. Let’s unpack what makes Ptyxis a different breed of terminal, why Ubuntu is betting on it, and what it means for everyday users and power developers alike.
The Origin Story of Ptyxis
Ptyxis is not an accidental side project. It was initially prototyped under the name GNOME Prompt by Christian Hergert, a well-known GNOME contributor also behind GNOME Builder. Early experiments showed there was space for a terminal designed from scratch with today’s GNOME ecosystem and GPU pipelines in mind.
To avoid conflicts with existing software, the project was later rebranded as Ptyxis. The application has since matured rapidly, and major distributions such as Fedora and Ubuntu have committed to it. Ubuntu introduced it in experimental form in 24.10, and by the upcoming Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing Quokka”, it is expected to replace the aging GNOME Terminal as the default choice.
A New Kind of Terminal ExperienceGPU Acceleration as the Core
Traditional terminals typically rely on CPU-bound rendering stacks, often through libraries like Cairo and Pango. This works fine until you throw thousands of lines of log output or try to run full-screen text-based UIs that push rendering to its limits. Ptyxis sidesteps these bottlenecks by shifting the drawing work to the graphics processor, taking advantage of Vulkan or OpenGL backends supplied by GTK4.
The result is immediately noticeable: smooth scrolling, responsive updates, and consistent performance even with massive amounts of text on screen. It’s not just about speed, either, offloading rendering to the GPU reduces CPU strain, leaving headroom for the processes you’re actually running.
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- KDE Plasma 6 on Wayland: the Payoff for Years of Plumbing
by George Whittaker Why this release cycle feels different
For most of the last decade, talk about Wayland on KDE sounded like a promise: stronger security, modern graphics, fewer legacy foot‑guns, once the pieces land. With Plasma 6, those pieces finally clicked into place. Plasma 6.1 delivered two changes that go straight to how frames hit your screen, explicit synchronization and smarter buffering, while 6.2 followed with color‑management and HDR work that makes creators and gamers care. Together, they turn “Wayland someday” into a desktop you can log into today without caveats.
The frame pipeline finally behavesExplicit sync: the missing handshake
On X11/older Wayland setups, graphics drivers and compositors often assumed when work finished (“implicit sync”), which is fine until it isn’t, especially on NVIDIA, where that guesswork frequently produced flicker or glitches. Plasma 6.1’s Wayland session speaks the explicit sync protocol instead. Now the compositor and apps exchange fences that say “this frame is done,” reducing visual artifacts and making delivery predictable. If you run the proprietary NVIDIA driver, this is the change you’ve been waiting for: NVIDIA added explicit‑sync support in the 555 series, and XWayland 24.1 gained matching support so many games and legacy X11 apps benefit as well.
What you’ll notice: fewer one‑off hitches, less tearing in XWayland content, and a general sense that motion is “locked in” rather than tentative, particularly with the 555.58+ drivers.
Dynamic triple buffering: fewer “missed the train” stutters
Traditional double buffering is cruel: miss a vblank by a hair and your framerate can fall in half. KWin 6.1 added triple buffering that only kicks in when the compositor predicts a frame won’t make the next refresh, letting another frame be “in flight” without permanently increasing latency. One of KWin’s core developers outlined how it activates selectively, tries not to add avoidable lag, and works regardless of GPU vendor. It sounds simple; it feels like the end of random judder during heavy scenes.
VRR/Adaptive‑Sync polish
Variable refresh is no longer a roulette wheel. KDE’s devs chased down stutter/flicker under Adaptive‑Sync, and those fixes landed in the same timeframe as Plasma 6.1. If your monitor supports FreeSync/G‑Sync Compatible and the GPU stack is sane, frame pacing is noticeably calmer.
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