Linux

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

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

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

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

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

For those of you still not satisfied with the Firefox fork ecosystem, we propose to you Konform Browser. Yes, it’s another one about privacy and security with a canine logo. But I do think we have something to bring to the table.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve resisted immutable distros if only because I felt it wasn’t “how linux should be.” That’s probably not even my view because I’ve only used Linux for 3 years, so I’m not some greybeard. I think its been an attitude in online Linux circles that I read and kind of got morphed into.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul Kehrer and Alex Gaynor, maintainers of the Python cryptography module, have put out some strongly worded criticism of OpenSSL. It comes from a talk they gave at the OpenSSL conference in October 2025 (YouTube video). The post goes into a lot of detail about the problems with the OpenSSL code base and testing, which has led the cryptography team to reconsider using the library. “The mistakes we see in OpenSSL’s development have become so significant that we believe substantial changes are required — either to OpenSSL, or to our reliance on it.” They go further in the conclusion:

When I check my battery, it says “Librewolf is currently blocking sleep and screen locking (Playing audio)”. This happens even when there is no audio playing. What’s causing this, how do I fix it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

VoidLink includes an unusually broad and advanced array of capabilities.

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

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

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

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

🚩UPDATE: If you can’t stand that avatar icon in the menu, just right click the Mint logo and select configure. 👍

This release is a preview of KDE’s upcoming Plasma 6.6, due to be released on February 17th. We need testers to trial run the new desktop environment and report bugs before we make it available to the general public

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

TL;DR: Since April 2025, The NixOS Foundation and Framework are officially partnering to improve NixOS support on Framework devices. This formalizes earlier community efforts, enabling selected community members to contribute to testing, documentation, and support for current and future hardware.

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