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1825 Monetary Lane Suite #104 Carrollton, TX
Do a presentation at NTLUG.
What is the Linux Installation Project?
Real companies using Linux!
Not just for business anymore.
Providing ready to run platforms on Linux
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(Two Column)
- [$] A look at MinIO alternatives: Ceph and Garage
MinIO is a popular object-storage server that offered compatibility with the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)API. In December 2025, the company behind the project (also named MinIO)announcedthat the project was in maintenance mode and would not accept new changes; itwas archivedcompletely in February 2026. MinIO users have been hunting for alternativessince then, but the array of choices can be baffling. While many other projectsaim to fill the space, their strengths and areas of focus tend to vary. Two ofthe alternatives—Ceph and Garage—are particularly compelling,and both offer solid S3 compatibility.
- Podman 6.0 released
Version 6.0.0 of the Podmancontainer-management tool has been released. Notable new featuresinclude the ability to set multiple static IP addresses forcontainers, improvements in network isolation that make Podman morecompatible with Docker, changes to the way Quadletcommands function, many new options for many existing podmancommands, and arewrite of Podman's configuration file handling. There are manybreaking changes; see the releasenotes for a full list of all new features, changes, and bug fixes.
- [$] Hardening the kernel with allocation tokens and bootpatch-SLR
There is a lot of work going into eliminating exploitable bugs from thekernel and preventing the addition of new ones. Even if this work ismaximally successful, though, there is no chance that the kernel will befree of these bugs anytime soon. Thus, there is also ongoing interest inhardening the kernel to make the existing bugs more difficult to exploit.The upcoming 7.2 kernel release will include a change to how dynamicallyallocated structures are placed in memory to make them harder to overwrite,while a project to randomize structure layout at boot time has a ratherlonger timeline.
- Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (libpng, libsolv, libtasn1, libxml2, libxslt, python3.14, tigervnc, and vim), Debian (cloud-init, postgresql-13, and yelp), Mageia (nats-server), Oracle (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, bind9.18, cockpit, compat-openssl11, dnsmasq, dovecot, evince, expat, flatpak, freerdp, gimp, golang, grafana, grafana-pcp, httpd, jmc, jq, kernel, libsndfile, libsoup, libtiff, mod_http2, mysql:8.0, nginx, nginx:1.24, openexr, php:8.2, poppler, pyOpenSSL, python-markdown, redis:7, samba, thunderbird, tigervnc, unbound, and vim), Red Hat (libpng, libpng12, and libpng15), SUSE (apptainer, bind, crun, freeipmi, ghc-crypton-x509-store, ghc-crypton-x509-system, google-guest-agent, google-osconfig-agent, GraphicsMagick, gstreamer-plugins-bad, hamlib, iproute2, java-1_8_0-openjdk, kubevirt1, libarchive, libheif, libpng15, mbedtls, mbedtls-2, openssl-1_1, python-biopython, python-PyJWT, tar, webkit2gtk3, and xen), and Ubuntu (ffmpeg, libdbi-perl, and perl).
- [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for June 25, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: Free-threaded Python; AUR attacks; Fedora 2FA; 7.2 merge window; BPF arenas; BPF coroutines; BPF JIT; RMR and BRMR; OSPM. Briefs: Tor deprecations; GIMP 0.54.1 flatpak; Mastodon 4.6; Systemd v261; Xfce on Wayland; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
- [$] Fedora: 2FA, or not 2FA, that is the question
Compromised accounts are one of the most common ways that attackerscan sneak malware into the open-source supply chain. One way toreduce account compromise is for projects to require two-factorauthentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA), but that iseasier said than done. However, Fedora is currently discussing putting2FA requirements in place soon, following an an alleged accountcompromise that led to an AI agent causing a number of problemsfor the project. After some discussion, Fedora will begin by requiringpackagers in the "provenpackager"group to enable 2FA within the next three months or so.
- [$] A helper library for BPF arenas
BPF arenas are areas of memory (potentially shared with user space)where programs have free reign to build theirown data structures, unburdened by the verifier's bounds checks. Many of thosedata structures are potentially usable in multiple programs. Emil Tsalapatisbrought his work on libarena, a library containing generic utilities for use inBPF arenas, to the 2026Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPFSummit. Although the library is already available as part of the kernel, itis still in its early stages and he has more work planned.
- [$] Reports from OSPM 2026, day two
The Power Managementand Scheduling in the Linux Kernel Summit, which still goes by thehistorical acronym OSPM, was held in Cambridge, UK, in mid-April. As hasbecome traditional, the presenters at that event have since writtensummaries of their sessions, and this work has kindly been made availableto LWN for publication. The second day's sessions covered a wide range oftopics, including device frequency scaling, using time-slice duration forCPU selection, scheduling domains on multi-cluster Arm systems, the LAVDscheduler, and more.
- Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (corosync, firefox, kernel, kernel-rt, libpq, memcached, postgresql, postgresql16, postgresql:13, postgresql:16, python-urllib3, python3.14-urllib3, redis:6, skopeo, and vim), Debian (beets, gst-plugins-bad1.0, imagemagick, libmatio, python-urllib3, and u-boot), Fedora (chromium, coturn, frr, grout, materialx, perl-Crypt-DSA, and yt-dlp), Mageia (opensc, perl-Archive-Tar, and podofo), Oracle (fence-agents, libpq, mysql:8.4, and postgresql:16), Red Hat (firefox, libpng, libpng12, libpng15, libreoffice, nginx:1.24, thunderbird, tigervnc, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Slackware (libarchive), SUSE (amazon-ssm-agent, ansible-core, apache2, bind, bitcoin-qt6, containerized-data-importer, curl, distribution, docker-stable, dovecot24, dracut, editorconfig-core-c, exiv2, firefox, freeipmi, freerdp, ghc-aws, ghc-crypton-asn1-encoding, ghc-crypton-asn1-parse, ghc-crypton-asn1-types, ghc-crypton-pem, glib-networking, go1.25, go1.26, google-guest-agent, graphite2, hamlib, helm, himmelblau, ignition, ImageMagick, kernel, ldns, libarchive, libcaca, libheif, libinput, libjxl, libsolv, libzypp, zypper, LibVNCServer, libxslt, libyang, mcphost, mozjs128, ncurses, nginx, opensc, openssl-3, openvswitch, papers, perl-HTML-Parser, perl-HTTP-Daemon, perl-Protocol-HTTP2, podman, postgresql14, postgresql15, postgresql16, postgresql17, python-aiohttp, python-ecdsa, python-paramiko, python-PyJWT, python-starlette, rekor, sqlite3, strongswan, tiff, tomcat, tomcat10, tomcat11, unbound, webkit2gtk3, xwayland, and zypper, libzypp, libsolv), and Ubuntu (libcap2, libnfs, libvncserver, libxml2, and mysql-8.0).
- Kraid: A new compiler for Panfrost
Collabora has merged Kraid into Mesa, a ground-up Rust rewrite of the Panfrost shader compiler for Arm Mali GPUs. The existing compiler, originally built for Bifrost-era hardware, had accumulated too many structural limitations to fix incrementally. Kraid replaces it with a cleaner IR, a new SSA-based register allocator, and an encoder derived from Arm-provided XML rather than years of hand-reverse-engineered descriptions.
- Linux 7.2 Staging Still Working To Tame The Realtek RTL8723BS "Beast Of A Driver"
Way back in 2017 for the Linux 4.12 kernel the Realtek rtl8723bs WiFi driver was added to the kernel's staging area. Nearly a decade later, it's still being cleaned-up to suit the more rigorous non-staging area of the kernel in the formal networking subsystem. For Linux 7.2, the staging pull request is once again dominated by clean-ups to this Realtek WiFi driver...
- QuadRF uses Raspberry Pi 5 for 4×4 MIMO SDR, RF visualization, and scalable phased-array support
Crowd Supply recently featured QuadRF, a 4×4 MIMO software-defined radio platform designed for spatial RF visualization, beamforming, and phased-array experimentation. The platform includes four coherent transmit/receive channels, swappable dual-polarization antennas, an integrated Raspberry Pi 5, and a browser-based interface for viewing nearby wireless activity. QuadRF uses four coherent antennas to measure differences in signal arrival […]
- 'Fingerprints' of Black Hole's Event Horizon Detected For First Time
Researchers say they detected the first gravitational-wave "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon by analyzing the final moments of the powerful GW250114 merger. The findings support Einstein's general relativity and may eventually help probe frame dragging and quantum fluctuations near black holes. Phys.org reports: For the new research published in Nature, an international team of researchers analyzed data from the strongest gravitational wave ever recorded, known as GW250114, detected by the LIGO observatory in January 2025. By isolating the last burst of waves -- known as "direct waves" -- from this black hole merger, the scientists said they were able to extract information from closer to an event horizon than ever before. "This black hole horizon concept normally appears in science fiction," lead study author Sizheng Ma of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada told AFP. "But now we are really able to touch the region around the horizon with gravitational data," he added. "Sometimes I cannot believe this is really happening." The last stage of two black holes merging is like a spoon stirring a glass of water, Ma explained. The resulting swirl in space creates the ripple of gravitational waves that travel at the speed of light in all directions. If the metaphorical spoon is stirring close enough to the black hole's event horizon, "this offers us a chance to decode the physics around that region," Ma said. By supporting the theory of general relativity, the results "proved that Einstein was correct again," he added. The scientists emphasized that more research was needed to decipher what can be gleaned about event horizons using this method. But they did detect information about how black holes twist space around themselves as they rotate -- a phenomenon known as "frame dragging." "This is similar to pushing a glass into a table and twisting it, so that the tablecloth winds up around it," Maximiliano Isi, a gravitational wave astrophysicist at Columbia University, told AFP. In the future, the scientists hope to find signs of tiny changes known as quantum fluctuations. "In this way, we can really probe this near-horizon region to look for new physics," including searching for a deviation from general relativity, Ma said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Spain To Require Carriers To Keep Mobile Networks Live During Power Outages
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Spain will require mobile networks to have backup systems that maintain connectivity when power outages occur. Per a royal decree that will be approved by the end of 2026, mobile network operators (MNOs) and infrastructure companies will need to install batteries or other backups to keep service active for at least four hours during a blackout. The mobile network rules will apply to businesses that serve at least 500,000 users or generate upwards of 50 million euros ($56.9 million) in annual revenue. The decree will stipulate that half of the population will need to be covered by this failsafe within the first year, then 65 percent in the second year and three quarters in the third. [...] The decree will require other key infrastructure elements to remain up and running for a certain period after a power outage. For instance, control centers that could impact all of Spain if they were to go offline will need to remain in service for at least 24 hours. Emergency call centers will also need to have plans in place to maintain operations, as Reuters notes. The move is in response to the widespread blackout across the Iberian peninsula in 2025, which left more than 50 million people without power. Experts called it "the most severe and unprecedented blackout that had occurred in Europe in the past 20 years."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Polestar Banned From Selling Cars In US From Model Year 2027
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from autoevolution: The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security denied Polestar an authorization under the Connected Vehicle Rule. Polestar will continue to sell its existing inventory of Polestar 3 and 4 crossovers in the United States and will continue to offer support to customers and access to its service network. But no new 2027 models will set wheels on American soil. The Connected Vehicle Rule is a regulation that restricts the import and sale of vehicles equipped with Vehicle Connectivity Systems (VCS) and Automated Driving Systems (ADS) tied to foreign adversaries, primarily from China and Russia. Polestar is owned by Chinese auto giant Geely, which has also been the parent company of Swedish brand Volvo since 2010. However, Volvo has recently been granted authorization to sell connected vehicles in the United States. The rule, set out by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), classifies modern vehicles as mobile data centers and is designed to protect national security by keeping sensitive driver data and vehicle control systems out of the hands of foreign governments. Michael Lohscheller, Polestar CEO, confirms that the company is well aware that the automotive industry is entering a new phase, based on regional dynamics. So, Polestar will shift its strategy to its biggest market as it is preparing its exit from the U.S. market. The report notes that Polestar sold 5,384 cars in the U.S. in 2025, with 60,119 units sold globally.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Trump Administration Asks OpenAI To Stagger Release of New Model
The Trump administration has reportedly asked OpenAI to stagger the release of GPT-5.6 over security concerns. The model will initially be offered to a small group of partners, with the government "approving access customer by customer during this preview period," reports The Information. The request came from conversations with the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the report said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Linux Foundation Launches Akrites To Coordinate AI-Driven Open Source Security
BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Foundation has announced Akrites, a new initiative to coordinate vulnerability disclosure and remediation for critical open source software as AI dramatically speeds up vulnerability discovery. Founding members include AWS, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Red Hat, NVIDIA, IBM, Cisco, JPMorganChase, and others. Akrites will provide a shared Security Incident Response Team (SIRT), a standardized coordinated vulnerability disclosure process, and act as a "maintainer of last resort" for abandoned but widely used packages. The goal is to reduce duplicate reports, avoid conflicting patches, and help upstream maintainers address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. As AI makes it easier to find security flaws, can a coordinated industry effort help protect open source, or does it risk giving large corporations too much influence over the ecosystem? "Akrites is the largest coordinated effort in history to create systems and deploy tooling that leverages the collective power of the community to make everyone safer," the Linux Foundation said in an open letter. "Akrites participants will contribute engineering resources; work to build and ship fixes; or fund the engineers who do. Some companies have contributed mightily already. The reality is, collectively, we need to contribute more."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Apple Raises Prices On Macs, iPads, and More By Hundreds of Dollars
Apple has sharply raised prices across its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups as surging AI-driven demand creates a global memory and storage shortage. Increases range from $30 for the HomePod mini to $1,300 for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable." The Verge reports: On Thursday, the company adjusted the price of its new MacBook Neo, which will now start at $699 instead of $599, while the base MacBook Air will jump to $1,299 from $1,099, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is getting an increase as well, going from $1,699 to $1,999. Meanwhile, the iPad Air will now start at $749 instead of $599, while the iPad Pro is increasing to $1,199 from $999. As spotted by MacRumors, the M4 Max Mac Studio will now cost $2,499, a big jump from $1,999. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio is now priced at $5,299, up from $3,999. Apple is even raising the prices of its HomePod, which now costs $349 instead of $299, as well as bumping the price of the HomePod mini to $129 instead of $99. The Apple TV also now costs $199 instead of $129.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- LastPass Says Hackers Stole Customer Support Case Data During Klue Breach
LastPass says hackers stole customers' personal information, support case records, and sales data by breaching market research partner Klue. The password manager told TechCrunch that its own systems and password vaults were unaffected. However, the hackers used their access to obtain "reams of data about LastPass customers," the report says. From the report: In a blog post that shared information about the incident, LastPass said the hackers took customers' names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses, as well as customer support case data and sales-related data. It's not yet known what was in the contents of customer support tickets, although they likely contain fragments of potentially private or sensitive information. Customers typically contact customer service when they are having a billing issue or need assistance in gaining access to their accounts. Past incidents involving customer support tickets have included credentials and government-issued identity documents. The last data breach LastPass reported was in 2022, when hackers stole the company's entire store of customer password vaults.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Anthropic Says Alibaba Must Be Punished For Largest Claude Cloning Attack
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has accused the Chinese firm Alibaba of launching the largest attack yet attempting to clone Claude, as China races to match the capabilities of Anthropic's leading model following Mythos' release and subsequent restriction from foreign markets. Ars obtained a June 10 letter sent to Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) one day ahead of a Senate committee hearing on "AI and the American Dream." In the letter, Anthropic shared "new, confidential evidence of the largest campaign to illicitly extract Claude's capabilities we have ever measured." The attacks occurred between April 22 and June 5, when "operators afliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba's AI lab" allegedly generated "more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts," Anthropic said. Violating Claude's terms of service and access restrictions, this campaign "targeted some of Claude's most valuable capabilities, such as agentic reasoning, software engineering, and long-horizon tasks." According to Anthropic, Alibaba evaded detection by "using obfuscation techniques and proxy networks." As Chinese demand for reliable obfuscation techniques increases, Anthropic warned there's already "a growing circumvention economy" to fuel an ever-expanding web of future distillation attacks. [...] "Alibaba is governed by an independent board, none of whom has any military affiliation," Alibaba said. "Its products and services are built for retail, logistics, and enterprise information technology -- not weapons, defense, or intelligence." Anthropic appears unconvinced, however, that Alibaba isn't working with the Chinese government. In the letter, Anthropic warned that without stronger interventions, these distillation attacks will "help China reach Mythos Preview-level capabilities sooner." To keep the US ahead of China, Anthropic recommended that Congress pass legislation with three objectives. First, antitrust laws must be updated to allow AI firms to share information about evolving Chinese tactics to deter more threats. Second, the US needs more export controls on chips to hamstring Chinese access to advanced compute so that they simply can't train on US model outputs. That could make conducting distillation attacks pointless, Anthropic suggested. Finally, Congress should pass laws penalizing Chinese labs' "bad behavior" so that it's "more difficult and costly" to rely on distillation attacks to advance Chinese models. Penalties could include limiting Chinese firms from accessing US models or advanced US chips or from relying on data centers outside of China, Anthropic suggested.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Ford Rehires 350 Engineers After AI Fails To Preserve Expertise or Train Juniors
After Ford's automated quality-control systems and AI tools fell short, the automaker hired 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to mentor younger staff and reprogram the underperforming technology. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters on a call Wednesday. "Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles." Bloomberg reports: Those engineers were "at the heart" of Ford's efforts to turn around quality problems, said Kumar Galhotra, chief operating officer. They now run mandatory meetings that rigorously troubleshoot quality problems and they have reprogrammed AI tools to head off glitches before they happen. "We had been relying more and more on automated quality systems" and not getting the desired results, Galhotra said. "We brought back technical specialists" and "they hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor." The return of the veteran engineers at Ford cuts against the prevailing wisdom -- and fear -- that AI will replace all kinds of knowledge workers. But Ford found the machines couldn't replace experience. "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product," Poon said. But "we recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals." As a result of the efforts of the old hands, Ford vaulted above quality stalwarts such as Toyota and Honda on JD Power's bellwether survey that measures the quality of a car during the first three months of ownership. Only luxury brands Porsche and Genesis topped Ford this year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Micron Locks In Historically High Memory Prices For Five Years
Micron has signed 16 "strategic customer agreements" (SCAs) that include a floor price the company says comes with "a very robust gross margin for Micron, well above our peak quarterly margins in any past cycle." Most of the deals run through 2030 and cover about 40% of Micron's revenue. The Register reports: Micron CEO, president and chairman Sanjay Mehrotra explained the SCAs in prepared remarks delivered during the company's Q3 earnings call. He explained that Micron has signed 16 SCAs, most of them covering 2026 to 2030, and that they involve a commitment to buy a certain quantity of product and pay for it in a pricing band that has a floor and a ceiling price. The floor price covers the historically high gross margins mentioned above, and the ceiling price means those who commit to an SCA are insulated if memory prices go even higher. The CEO said 16 customers have signed SCAs and then explained why it's worth locking into the deals even though they bake in such high margins. "Our customers are recognizing that supply shortages in memory and storage will take considerable time to improve," he said. "Even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, we currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand." Even massive efforts to build new chip fabs aren't much help, he said, because the increasing complexity of new memory types means it takes longer to build factories -- and when they come online there still won't be enough capacity to build both the high-bandwidth memory needed for AI and other types of NAND and DRAM. "Supply is structurally constrained in its growth and ability to meet industry demand, despite our comprehensive efforts to increase supply," he said. Don't assume that SCAs mean your suppliers get price certainty, because Mehrotra said the deals will account for 40 percent of Micron revenue -- meaning the company is reserving most of its inventory to sell at prices it can negotiate. The CEO did have a little good news in the form of predictions that Micron's DRAM output in 2026 will "grow in the low- to mid-20s percentage range, slightly above our prior outlook." He also revealed that the SCAs see customers pay up front, which helps Micron to fund its fab expansions.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- 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]
- In memory of the man who put red and green squiggles under words
Every little thing in a graphical user interface that we take for granted today, no matter how small, was thought up by someone, at some point. Case in point: the little red squiggly lines underneath misspelled words. In one form or another, these are everywhere now, and have just become a regular staple of every single text editing field we encounter every single day and dont stop to think about. Still, they were invented by someone, and we happen to know exactly who that was: Tony Krueger. In early versions of Word, the Spell Check feature was something that you explicitly invoked, and then you had to sit and wait while the program looked for all your potentially-misspelled words, and then showed them to you one at a time for a decision on what to do for each one. Word did introduce an Auto Spell Check feature to run spell check when the user was idle, so that when you hit the Spell Check button, the results were ready to go. However, the Auto Spell Check was still a blocking operation. As a result, a lot of users turned it off because it always seemed to decide “Now would be a good time to spell-check the document” just as you wanted to do something, forcing you to wait for the spell check pass to complete before you could, say, save and exit. Tony made the spell checker much more unobtrusive so that it didn’t interfere with your foreground work. And when it found a problem, instead of waiting for you to trigger a spell check, it immediately drew red squiggles under potentially-misspelled words (and later green squiggles under potential grammatical errors). ↫ Raymond Chen at The Old New Thing Tony Krueger passed away recently, after, among other things, having worked on an dizzying number of Microsoft Word releases. Imagine coming up with something that seems to basic and elementary to us now, and seeing it spread pretty much everywhere. I wonder what it must feel like to have invented something that seems so simple, most people dont even realise they use it every single day.
- KDE is going to fix network shares
Ive had my share of issues with network shares on any operating system, but since I mostly use KDE these days I found this deep dive into how, exactly, network shares work in KDE quite interesting. It turns out that while network shares in KDEs Dolphin mostly work, it does involves a few layers that sometimes dont interact well with each other, leading to really curious and annoying problems with mounted shares not appearing, permission issues, and so on. The biggest cause of problems is when using a non-KDE application in KDE that also happens to use a non-KDE save/open dialog. Such a non-KDE save/open dialog wont be able to see any network shared mounted by KDE, and sadly, quite a few applications youre likely to use on a KDE installation use non-KDE open/save dialogs, like Blender, GIMP, LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, Inkscape, Audacity, DaVinci Resolve, and more. Thats one hell of a list of applications to offer inconsistent or outright broken access to network shares youve set up and mounted in KDE. Luckily, this issue seems to be getting a ton of attention soon. All is not lost. Happily, KDE just received an investment of over €1.2 million from the Sovereign Tech Fund, and it includes funding for improvements to KDE’s network share handling! ↫ Nate Graham The project is in the planning phases at the moment, but theyre considering a whole slew of possible changes, fixes, and workarounds to make this stupid and annoying problem just go away. In 2026, nobody should be dealing with manually editing /etc/fstab or getting frustrated over supposedly disappearing network shares.
- Xfces new Wayland compositor sees first alpha release
The developer working on Xfwl4, the Wayland compositor for Xfce, has published the new compositors very first alpha release. Considering its only been six months or so of work, its impressive to see the effort reach this state already. The end goal of xfwl4 is to behave as closely as possible to an Xfce desktop running on an X server. Ideally a user could switch between the two without even knowing there’s a difference. In reality, of course, it won’t be quite that seamless, and there’s still more work to be done to get as close as possible to that ideal. This is a first solid cut at it, at the very least. ↫ Brian Tarricone Being the very first alpha release, it wont surprise you theres a few things missing or broken at this point. Still, if youre brave, you can download and build the release and try it out.
- Valve opens Steam Machine waitlist
Valve officially made the Steam Machine available (sort of but not really) today, and if you were hoping for the president of the Yacht Collectors Club to have found a loophole through the RAM and storage crisis, Ill be the bearer of bad news: the base Steam Machine model with 512GB of storage and no controller costs $1049 or €1039. Its clear that this price is significantly higher than Valve had originally anticipated, as the company dedicates the first part of its press announcement to this sticker shock. Steam Machine,`like our other hardware products, is made up of many components that we source from manufacturers around the world. The price at which we sell our hardware is a direct result of the cost of these components. We felt like we had a good understanding of how those costs might change over time when we first started sourcing them for Steam Machine back in 2023. That understanding was born from the many years of data we all have about the evolution of PC hardware prices – primarily, that it tends to get cheaper over time as new technology arrives. Over the past year or so, that has changed quickly and significantly, most visibly for RAM and storage components. There are a variety of reasons, all of which are affecting hardware products everywhere. The overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable. So the prices were sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or, more accurately, it reflects the price of the components as weve secured them over the past 6 months. Price wasnt the only thing impacted by all of this: availability was as well. There were periods where we found we couldnt source some of our components at all, at any price. More than anything else, this has impacted the number of units weve been able to produce for launch. ↫ Valve press announcement As Valve mentions, availability is also going to be an issue, and thus theyve had to settle on a complex reservation and lottery system. Between now and 25 June, you can sign up for a model, after which the entire pool of reservations will be randomised to determine a waitlist order. As machines become available, they will simply go down the list from first to last as determined by that randomisation. In other words, you cant just go out and buy one right away. At this price and for the hardware the Steam Machine contains an AMD Zen 4 CPU with 6c/12t up to 4.8 Ghz, a custom RDNA3 GPU, and 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 8GB of DDR6 video RAM youre probably better off sticking with what you already have. Until the AI! bubble pops and prices come down again, that is. Thanks, AI! techbros. Everybody despises you.
- A tale of two path separators
In macOS, you can apparently create files and directories in the Finder with names that include slashes. If you then go into the terminal and take a look with ls, youll see that the slashes are actually colons. I don’t understand all the nuances, but I know this is a side-effect of the fact that macOS has not one but`two`path separators: the slash (/) and the colon (:). The two separators are used in different contexts, and the system will translate between them as needed. These two separators reflect the two parent systems of modern macOS:`classic Mac OS`and the`Unix-like NeXTSTEP. When they were joined together, Apple’s engineers had to build a file system that was compatible with both the classic Mac’s file system (the Mac OS Extended File System, aka HFS+), and with NeXTSTEP’s file system (the Unix file system, aka UFS). Among other differences, these systems had different path separators: HFS+ used a colon, while UFS used a slash. ↫ Alex Chan (article from 2021) I had no idea macOS worked this way, but it makes sense considering the platforms dual history. Whats interesting is that when Apple moved to APFS almost a decade ago, this duality in path separators remained, most likely for backwards compatibility reasons. In a sense, this is somewhat similar to Windows supporting both backward and forward slashes, with the former being a leftover from DOS, and the latter an addition (to Windows) from the UNIX world. None of that beats Windows when using the Japanese or Korean locale, though. Because Japanese and Korean Windows use different codepages than Windows in the Americas and Western Europe, these versions of Windows render the backslash as the yen sign (¥) and and won (₩) sign respectively. As such, something like the Program Files directory actually renders like C:¥Program Files¥ and C:₩Program Files₩. Similar issues occurred in other Windows locales as well, but the impact of this in Japan and South Korea were so widespread that people just expect it to be that way, even if its easily fixed today. I cant find if Windows 11 still uses ¥/₩ in Japan/South Korea, since the last references of it I can quickly uncover all point to Windows 10.
- Apple internals: Swift in the kernel
Apples Swift has become the de-facto language for Apples own developers for a while now, and it seems that with the new operating system releases from the company unveiled during WWDC, Switch is now also being used in the kernel. Naturally I dropped what I was doing and went grepping through the iOS 27 kernelcache. Alas, nothing came of it. All is not lost though: I found the Embedded Swift runtime in macOS 27, sitting in`com.apple.kec.pthread`of all places. Then I went poking around the root filesystem and it turns out Apple gave the whole effort a name: KernelKit. Lets dissect it. ↫ Josh Maine Its still quite limited at this time, which makes sense you dont want to be too crazy with the core of the operating system that runs on god knows how many PCs, smartphones, and other devices. Its also entirely contained within a few kexts as embedded runtimes, and the XNU kernel itself remains entirely C and C++.
- I stored a website in a favicon!
Every website has a favicon. Its that little icon in your browser tab. Usually you upload it once and then never think about it again. But. A favicon is just an image. An image is just pixels. And pixels are just bytes. So of course I wondered if I could store something inside one. ↫ Tim Wehrle I love it when people do something useless just for fun.
- What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000
I mean, this is preaching to the choir, but lets go anyway. I liked the UIs of the entire era from 3.0 to 2000, really. Im mostly using Windows 2000 as an example here because it runs so well in QEMU/KVM and that allows me to easily take screenshots. Some of the following will sound absolutely trivial, but I think its worth pointing out. ↫ movq.de blog Just a series of observations about how much better graphical user interfaces were back in the 90s and early 2000s. Weve lost so many affordances based on both common sense and scientific study, and what we ended up with is a confusing, inconsistent mess. It doesnt really matter where you look user interface design has deteriorated since the early 2000s, a decline that only accelerated thanks to the arrival of the iPhone, where consistency is a dirty word, and the web, where the advertising people took prominence over the design people. I just want my buttons to look like buttons man.
- To study how chips really work, MIT researchers built their own operating system
A fascinating novel approach by researchers at MIT, called Fractal, to study in-depth how processors actually work. A team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) decided to build something different. Fractal, an operating system kernel written from the ground up, treats the hardware itself as the object of study. Its first major use, a deep look at branch predictors — a CPU’s way of guessing what code to run next, before it knows for certain, so it doesn’t have to waste time waiting to find out — inside Apple’s M1 processor, has already turned up findings that prior work missed, including the first evidence that a class of speculative attack known as “Phantom” affects Apple Silicon. “We’re using hardware in ways it wasn’t designed for,” says Joseph Ravichandran, the MIT PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) who led the project. “It’s not even obvious that this is a possible thing you could do with the hardware. But we found a way to pull all these different primitives off. It’s like a microscope. If you’ve got a hand magnifying glass, you can see a little bit. But if you had an electron microscope, now we’re really talking. That’s what Fractal is. The electron microscope of operating systems.” ↫ Rachel Gordon at MIT News While Fractal is small, its creators also added POSIX system calls, a C library, vim, GCC, a shell, and more. This way, it feels more familiar, and makes it easier for researchers to get started with the tool. Fractal is open source and hosted on GitHub, it has its own website, and theres a detailed research paper with more in-depth information.
- AmigaOS 2: the greatest upgrade
Five years after releasing the Amiga 1000, Commodore was about to launch the Amiga 3000, their first real high-end Amiga. With a 68030 processor, on-board SCSI and a slightly updated graphics chipset, all in a sleek desktop case, the Amiga was truly ready for the era of professional 32-bit computing. But Moores law wasnt the only thing thad had been pressuring Commodore since the release of the Amiga 1000: The desktop metaphor had matured even further, and the competition had been hard at work. IBM had launched OS/2, Windows 3.0 had turned Microsofts offering from a proof of concept into something actually usable, and new players had entered the scene among them NeXTStep, with its polished 3D look. It was time to bring AmigaOS, too, into the 1990s. ↫ Carl Svensson Its interesting theres a lot of focus on the first version of the Amiga operating system and the third one, but you dont hear a lot about AmigaOS 2.x. It turns out this is rather odd, because as Svensson details, this version came with an absolute ton of changes and improvements, from an entirely new widget toolkit to a brand new file system, and so much more. The new widget toolkit and accompanying style guide also ensured that the operating system looked, felt, and behaved consistently. Remember when we cared about that? Theres so much more cool features, though, like command history, line editing, universal clipboard support and more just for the CLI, as well as something called Commodities. These were tiny little programs managed from a central location, which didnt even need a GUI to work. Commodities included by default were things like ClickToFront, a focus-follows-mouse option, and more. Oh and of course, BASIC was replaced by ARexx. The list just keeps going, and you should really read Svenssons article.
- Fedora Governance Changes Take Effect as Project Refines Leadership, Policy, and Contributor Oversight
by George Whittaker
A series of Fedora governance updates are now taking effect, marking another step in the project's ongoing effort to modernize decision-making processes, improve transparency, and better support Fedora's growing contributor community. The changes come as the Fedora Council and other leadership bodies continue refining how one of the Linux world's largest community-driven projects is managed.
While these updates may not be as visible as a new desktop environment or kernel release, they play a critical role in shaping Fedora's future direction, community initiatives, and long-term sustainability.
How Fedora Governance Works
Fedora's governance structure is built around several key organizations that guide different aspects of the project.
These include:
The Fedora Council, which oversees strategic direction FESCo (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), responsible for technical and engineering decisions Mindshare, which focuses on community outreach and contributor engagement Various Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and working groups that manage specific initiatives and technologies
Together, these groups help coordinate thousands of contributors spread across the globe.
Greater Focus on Strategic Planning
Recent Fedora Council discussions have emphasized long-term planning and governance modernization. One major area of focus has been defining clearer processes for evaluating and managing new initiatives through what Fedora leaders call an Innovation Lifecycle framework.
The proposed framework aims to:
Better evaluate experimental projects Establish clearer entry and review phases Define expectations for community initiatives Improve oversight as projects mature
The goal is to create a more predictable path for new ideas while maintaining Fedora's culture of innovation.
Refining Contributor Representation
Another governance topic receiving significant attention involves contributor participation and voting eligibility.
Fedora leadership has been examining questions such as:
What defines an active contributor? How should voting rights be determined? How can elections remain fair while staying inclusive? How should dormant accounts be handled?
These discussions stem from concerns that existing systems may not always accurately reflect current contributor activity.
While no single solution has been finalized, governance bodies are actively working toward policies that balance openness with accountability.
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- The Growth of Vulnerability Management: The Rise of Agentic AI Pentesting
by Malana VanTyler
Cybersecurity shifts fast. Manual penetration tests remain valuable, especially for nuanced attack paths and business-logic issues, but they are expensive, point-in-time, and difficult to run continuously. By the time a report is delivered, the environment may have already changed. Automated scanners improved coverage and frequency, but most still rely on known signatures, templated checks, and shallow validation. They can find obvious issues, but they rarely match the adaptive reasoning, chaining, and persistence of a skilled attacker.Platforms like XBOW help security teams move toward continuous validation by running AI-driven tests that mimic large-scale human attackers. This shift moves the focus from periodic assessment and reactive patching toward ongoing exposure management and earlier prevention.
From Automation to Agency
To appreciate the value of these modern platforms, it’s important to separate traditional automation from what is called “agentic” AI. Earlier AI pentesting tools mostly worked like advanced “if-then” systems, running preset scripts and looking for known patterns. While useful to automate some tasks pentesters perform, these tools lack the ability to pivot.
If a standard tool hits a non-standard login portal, it generally stops. An agent platform, however, can identify and adapt to the obstacle, reason through potential bypasses, and attempt alternative tactics.
This core differentiator is the “agent,” a specialized model capable of goal-oriented planning. These platforms employ real-time attack path analysis tools. They identify a low-severity vulnerability and assess whether it could be exploited to gain access
to a high-value asset. This approach imitates how an advanced attacker moves laterally within a system. The result is a clearer and more realistic view of the organization’s real risk compared to just listing bugs in a spreadsheet without context.
Comparing Methodologies: Strategy and Execution
When comparing platforms in this area, the industry is shifting focus from just ticking off features to demonstrating how effectively those features can be used. Modern platforms, including XBOW, focus on high-fidelity testing that avoids disrupting production environments while still proving that a vulnerability is reachable.
Three main architectural approaches have emerged as standouts:
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- Linux Kernel 7.1 Officially Released with New NTFS Driver, Intel FRED, and Major Code Cleanup
by George Whittaker
The Linux kernel development team has officially released Linux Kernel 7.1, marking the first major update in the 7.x series. Announced by Linus Torvalds on June 14, 2026, the release introduces a mix of new features, hardware improvements, filesystem enhancements, and large-scale code cleanup efforts that continue modernizing the Linux platform.
While Linux 7.1 is not a long-term support (LTS) release, it delivers several significant changes that will eventually make their way into many Linux distributions over the coming months.
A Brand-New NTFS Driver Arrives
One of the most significant additions in Linux 7.1 is a completely rewritten in-kernel NTFS filesystem driver.
The new implementation has reportedly been under development for several years and replaces older code with a modern design built around Linux’s current storage infrastructure. The driver utilizes technologies such as iomap and folios, which improve efficiency and simplify future maintenance.
Benefits include:
Improved NTFS write performance Better handling of large files More modern filesystem architecture Easier future development and maintenance
For users who regularly exchange data between Linux and Windows systems, this is one of the most important improvements in the release.
Intel FRED Enabled by Default
Linux 7.1 also enables Intel Flexible Return and Event Delivery (FRED) by default on supported hardware.
FRED is a newer CPU mechanism designed to improve how processors handle interrupts and exceptions. By replacing older methods with a more streamlined approach, FRED aims to improve performance and reduce complexity in low-level CPU operations.
The feature primarily benefits newer Intel platforms, including upcoming processor generations.
Graphics Drivers Continue to Improve
Graphics support remains a major focus of kernel development, and Linux 7.1 delivers additional improvements for both Intel and AMD hardware.
Highlights include:
Performance enhancements for Intel Arc GPUs Continued work on Intel Battlemage graphics Updates for AMD Radeon hardware Expanded GPU reliability monitoring infrastructure through DRM-RAS support
These updates help improve gaming, desktop performance, and workstation workloads across modern Linux systems.
Steam Deck OLED Audio Fixes Land Upstream
Linux gamers receive a welcome improvement in this release as audio support fixes for the Steam Deck OLED have finally been merged into the mainline kernel.
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- Canonical Launches ARM Laptop Certification Program to Boost Ubuntu’s Next Generation of Mobile Computing
by George Whittaker
Canonical is expanding its hardware certification efforts with a new focus on ARM-powered laptops, a move that reflects the growing momentum behind ARM architecture in the personal computing market. As ARM processors become increasingly common in laptops thanks to their impressive balance of performance, battery life, and efficiency, Canonical aims to ensure that Ubuntu users receive a seamless experience on this emerging class of hardware.
The initiative represents another step in Ubuntu’s long-standing effort to provide reliable Linux support across a wide range of devices while strengthening relationships with hardware manufacturers.
Why ARM Laptops Matter More Than Ever
For years, x86 processors from Intel and AMD dominated the laptop market. However, the landscape has changed significantly as ARM-based systems have become more powerful and capable.
Modern ARM laptops offer several advantages:
Longer battery life Lower power consumption Reduced heat output Always-on connectivity capabilities Competitive performance for everyday workloads
As manufacturers increasingly invest in ARM hardware, Linux distributions face growing pressure to ensure compatibility matches what users expect from traditional x86 systems. Canonical has already spent years supporting ARM across cloud, server, IoT, and embedded environments, making laptops a natural next step.
What the Certification Program Does
The new certification effort builds upon Canonical’s existing Ubuntu Certified Hardware program, which validates systems through extensive testing covering both hardware and operating system functionality. Certified devices undergo comprehensive verification to ensure Ubuntu operates correctly across critical components and daily workflows.
Testing typically includes:
Wireless networking Audio functionality Graphics performance Bluetooth support USB device compatibility Power management Suspend and resume behavior Firmware integration Security features such as TPM support
The goal is to eliminate the uncertainty that Linux users sometimes face when purchasing new hardware.
Creating a Better Ubuntu Experience on ARM
Historically, Linux support on ARM laptops has varied significantly between devices. Some systems work exceptionally well, while others require manual configuration, custom kernels, or vendor-specific patches.
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- Btrfs Snapshot Deletion Gets Faster as Developers Tackle One of the Filesystem’s Biggest Pain Points
by George Whittaker
The Btrfs filesystem continues to receive significant performance tuning, and one of the latest areas of focus is snapshot deletion performance. While Btrfs snapshots have long been praised for their speed, flexibility, and efficient use of storage, deleting large numbers of snapshots has historically been one of the filesystem’s most resource-intensive operations.
Recent kernel development efforts are helping address that problem by improving metadata handling, reducing lock contention, and streamlining internal cleanup processes. The result is faster snapshot removal and less disruption on systems that rely heavily on snapshots for backups, rollbacks, and system recovery.
Why Snapshot Deletion Has Been Challenging
Btrfs is a copy-on-write (CoW) filesystem that stores data and metadata in a highly interconnected structure. This design enables many advanced features, including:
Instant snapshots Subvolumes Checksumming Compression Efficient data sharing between snapshots
However, the same architecture that makes snapshots so efficient to create can make them more complex to remove. When a snapshot is deleted, Btrfs must determine which blocks are still referenced by other snapshots and which can be safely reclaimed. On systems with many snapshots, this process can generate significant metadata activity.
Recent Performance Improvements
Developers have been working to reduce overhead associated with Btrfs metadata operations, which directly impacts snapshot cleanup performance.
Recent kernel updates include:
Reduced lock contention during extent tree operations More efficient extent buffer traversal Improved handling of internal filesystem structures Reduced contention during metadata searches General transaction and cleanup optimizations
These changes help the filesystem spend less time waiting on internal locks and more time performing actual cleanup work.
Less Impact During Cleanup Operations
One common complaint among Btrfs users has been elevated I/O activity during large snapshot deletion jobs.
On systems that maintain dozens, or even hundreds, of snapshots, cleanup operations could temporarily increase:
Disk activity CPU usage I/O wait times Metadata processing workloads
Recent improvements are designed to make these operations less disruptive by reducing bottlenecks inside the filesystem's metadata management code.
For users running backup servers, NAS appliances, or snapshot-heavy desktop systems, these optimizations can improve overall responsiveness while cleanup tasks run in the background.
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- How Digital Software Is Powering Innovation in Modern Product Design
by Will Jones
By enabling digitized production design, this digital software is freeing up businesses and individuals across numerous industries to work smarter, not harder.
To design a new product or tool is often a lengthy, labor-intensive process. Even the most successful and streamlined physical design process is intensive and iterative by nature; it is the process of taking something that begins as little more than an idea and turning it into reality. Inherently, that is going to take a great deal of translation, as well as trial and error. When working with real-world, physical elements, this also makes for a costly endeavor, as each new trial effort may prove essential to the long-term success of the design, but still has adverse financial effects. Dassault Systèmes offers CAD software to help businesses stay on top of advancements in their industries.
Before digital design software became widely adopted, engineers and designers often relied heavily on hand-drawn technical sketches and manual drafting methods during product development. Revising a design could require redrawing entire sections of a project, making the process both time-consuming and resource-intensive. Modern digital design systems have significantly changed these workflows by allowing teams to make rapid adjustments, automate calculations, and store detailed design information within a single platform. This shift has contributed to the broader adoption of digital tools across industries seeking more streamlined development processes.
Fortunately, though, in this new world of ever-advancing technological tools, the design process doesn’t have to be fraught with issues and obstacles anymore, thanks to systems such as CAD software. This new software is now enabling businesses to design smarter, faster, and more accurately by digitizing product development processes and improving collaboration across engineering and manufacturing teams.
Digital Design as the Foundation of Innovation
Digital software allows engineers to create precise digital models that can then serve as the foundation for product development. Compare this to the physical alternative, which has long been a well-thought-out sketch of the product in question. Even the most comprehensive of sketches is only going to be dealing with two dimensions, and is likely to leave room for confusion or error based on the interpretation of the subjective rendering.
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- GNOME Files Supercharges Search with Faster Results, Smarter Filters, and Better File Discovery
by George Whittaker
The GNOME project continues refining one of its most frequently used applications: GNOME Files (formerly known as Nautilus). Recent development efforts have focused heavily on improving the file manager’s search capabilities, making it easier to locate documents, media files, and folders across increasingly large storage volumes.
For many Linux users, file search has become one of the most important daily workflows. As personal data collections grow and SSDs make local storage faster than ever, GNOME developers are investing in tools that help users find information more quickly and efficiently. GNOME Files already relies on indexing technologies such as Tracker (now GNOME LocalSearch) to deliver fast results, and recent improvements are building on that foundation.
A Redesigned Search Experience
One of the most noticeable improvements is a redesigned search interface that makes searching feel more integrated into the overall file management experience.
Recent GNOME development previews introduced:
A cleaner search popover Inline result previews Improved keyboard navigation Faster access to search filters Better visibility of search options within the file manager interface
These refinements reduce the number of clicks required to narrow down results and help users locate files without leaving their current workflow.
Smarter Filtering Options
Search filters have become increasingly important as users store larger collections of documents, images, videos, and audio files.
GNOME Files has been expanding its filtering capabilities, allowing users to narrow searches more effectively based on:
File type Media category Search location Recent activity Indexed metadata
Earlier updates expanded support for additional audio and video file formats, making it easier to locate multimedia content directly from the search interface. This is particularly useful for users managing large media libraries.
Improved Search Performance
Fast search results are just as important as accurate ones.
GNOME Files continues leveraging the GNOME indexing framework to provide near-instant search results while minimizing system overhead. The file manager works closely with the LocalSearch indexing service to locate files quickly without repeatedly scanning entire drives.
This approach provides several benefits:
Faster file discovery Reduced CPU usage during searches Better scalability on large storage volumes More responsive user experience
For desktop users who frequently work with thousands of files, these performance gains can significantly improve productivity.
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- NixOS 26.05 ‘Yarara’ Released with Systemd Initrd by Default and Major Infrastructure Updates
by George Whittaker
The NixOS project has officially released NixOS 26.05, codenamed “Yarara,” continuing the distribution’s unique approach to Linux system management through declarative configuration, atomic upgrades, and reproducible deployments. The release introduces several important platform-level changes, modernized infrastructure components, and continued refinement of the Nix ecosystem.
As one of the most distinctive Linux distributions available today, NixOS continues attracting developers, DevOps engineers, and advanced Linux users who value predictable system behavior and highly reproducible environments.
What Makes NixOS Different?
Unlike traditional Linux distributions that install packages directly into shared system locations, NixOS is built around the Nix package manager, which stores software in isolated, versioned paths and generates complete system configurations declaratively.
This architecture provides several advantages:
Atomic system upgrades Reliable rollback capabilities Reproducible environments Easier infrastructure automation Reduced dependency conflicts
These features have helped NixOS gain popularity among developers managing complex systems and cloud infrastructure.
Systemd-Based Initrd Becomes the Default
One of the most significant changes in NixOS 26.05 is the move to a systemd-based Stage 1 initrd by default. The older scripted implementation is now deprecated and scheduled for removal in NixOS 26.11.
The initrd (initial RAM disk) is responsible for preparing the system during early boot before the main operating system loads.
According to the release notes:
Systemd now handles Stage 1 initialization by default The previous scripted implementation remains temporarily available Users can still revert using boot.initrd.systemd.enable = false Long-term migration toward the systemd-based approach is encouraged
This change is expected to improve consistency and simplify maintenance across modern NixOS deployments.
Continuing the Twice-Yearly Release Cycle
NixOS continues its established release cadence of publishing stable versions twice per year—typically around May and November. The 26.05 “Yarara” release follows the previous 25.11 “Xantusia” release and continues the project's steady development rhythm.
The 26.05 development cycle involved extensive staging, package testing, and release management work coordinated through the NixOS community.
Large-Scale Package and Infrastructure Updates
Like previous NixOS releases, 26.05 includes a massive collection of package updates across the software ecosystem.
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- GNOME 51 Development Officially Begins as ‘A Coruña’ Cycle Gets Underway
by George Whittaker
The GNOME Project has officially opened the development cycle for GNOME 51, the next major release of one of Linux’s most widely used desktop environments. Following the recent launch of GNOME 50 “Tokyo,” developers are already shifting focus toward the next chapter of the desktop’s evolution, which will carry the codename “A Coruña.”
While it’s still very early in the process, the release schedule is now taking shape, giving Linux users and developers an early look at what to expect over the coming months.
GNOME 51 “A Coruña” Is Now in Development
The new release is named A Coruña, after the Spanish city that will host GUADEC 2026, the annual GNOME Users and Developers European Conference. The event serves as one of the most important gatherings for GNOME contributors, where future desktop plans, technologies, and development priorities are discussed.
As soon as GNOME 50 was finalized, development work for GNOME 51 officially began, continuing GNOME’s well-established six-month release cadence.
Release Schedule Already Published
The GNOME team has outlined the preliminary roadmap for the GNOME 51 cycle.
Current milestone dates include:
GNOME 51 Alpha: June 27, 2026 GNOME 51 Beta: August 1, 2026 GNOME 51 Release Candidate (RC): August 29, 2026 GNOME 51 Final Release: September 16, 2026
These milestones provide time for:
Feature integration Public testing Bug fixing Performance optimization Final stabilization before release
As always, dates may shift slightly depending on development progress.
Still Too Early for Major Feature Announcements
Because the development cycle has only just started, GNOME developers have not yet revealed a finalized feature list. Most major design discussions and merge requests are still in their early stages.
However, several areas are already attracting attention.
Wayland Improvements Are Likely a Major Focus
One of the biggest transitions in recent GNOME history happened with GNOME 50, which completed the project’s move away from X11 by removing remaining X.Org support from the desktop environment.
Because GNOME is now fully committed to Wayland, many observers expect GNOME 51 to focus heavily on:
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- Alpine Linux Experiments with Systemd Compatibility While Keeping Its Lightweight Identity
by George Whittaker
Alpine Linux, one of the most recognizable non-systemd Linux distributions, is reportedly experimenting with an optional systemd compatibility layer, a move that has sparked intense discussion across the Linux community.
For years, Alpine has stood apart from mainstream Linux distributions by avoiding both glibc and systemd, instead relying on:
musl libc BusyBox OpenRC as its init system
Now, growing software compatibility pressures, especially around desktop applications, containers, and enterprise tooling, appear to be pushing Alpine developers to explore new approaches.
Why Alpine Linux Avoided Systemd for So Long
Alpine Linux built its reputation around simplicity, security, and minimalism. Unlike many mainstream distributions, Alpine intentionally avoided systemd in favor of the lighter and more modular OpenRC init system.
This design philosophy made Alpine extremely popular for:
Containers and Docker images Embedded systems Lightweight virtual machines Security-focused deployments
Its tiny footprint and reduced dependency chain became major advantages in cloud and container environments.
The Compatibility Problem Is Growing
Despite Alpine’s popularity, avoiding systemd has increasingly created compatibility challenges.
Many modern Linux applications now assume the presence of:
libsystemd systemd APIs glibc-specific behaviors
This has become particularly problematic for:
Desktop software Proprietary enterprise applications Monitoring agents Certain gaming and multimedia tools AI and container orchestration software
Historically, Alpine users often relied on:
Compatibility layers like gcompat Flatpak containers Docker workarounds Manually patched packages
The growing complexity of those workarounds appears to be one reason compatibility discussions are intensifying.
What the Experimental Compatibility Layer Actually Means
Importantly, Alpine Linux is not replacing OpenRC with systemd.
Instead, the project appears to be exploring:
Optional compatibility packages libsystemd support Improved API compatibility for software expecting systemd components
Experimental efforts already exist in the broader ecosystem. For example, unofficial projects have packaged portions of systemd, particularly libsystemd, for Alpine systems specifically to satisfy software dependencies without running full systemd services.
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