The Nix Governance Crisis Nix is a declarative package manager, builds packages in isolation from each other, and strongly focuses on reliability (as in, “one package cannot break other packages”). The project is currently undergoing a governance crisis that resulted in the resignation of the head of the NixOS Foundation (Eelco Dolstra) and even a fork supported by some of the biggest Nix contributors. ...
Fedora Workstation 40 has been released I’m always in an awkward spot when talking about new versions of distributions; usually, the user-exciting part is done in the desktop environment, and as a result, the changelog looks like a “let’s remind everyone what the new GNOME version includes”. Fedora 40 does have GNOME 46 out of the box, which brought: notification grouping by application, shortcuts for opening new app instances from the dashboard, Tap to Click enabled out of the box, and Remote Login options. All the core applications have also been upgraded to the latest version. ...
We Were Extremely Close to a Linux Disaster Imagine if all Linux desktops and servers based on Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora were compromised and thus remotely accessible by an organized malicious developer group, most likely linked to a foreign intelligence. Scary. Well, it almost happened! A backdoor was recently added to the xz project, used by the vast majority of Linux distributions to compress/decompress files. The malign code managed to get through all reviews and even got to the unstable versions of Debian, Ubuntu, and Arch; it was mostly due to “unreasonable luck” that Microsoft developer Andres Freund discovered it. He reposted on Mastodon the following words by Damien Miller: ...
GNOME 46 Released! This version is codenamed “Kathmandu”, the Capital city of Nepal. What’s new? Firstly, there’s a new global search function within the Files applications. You enter a query and see all matches from the “configured search locations”, meaning that the exact folders to search in will be customizable. This will also search within the file contents and allow filtering based on file type and modification date. Even better, you will be able to search within the Files preferences to find specific settings. ...
COSMIC’s getting close to Alpha! Yes, I said that last month too, but it’s gradual work that will take some time! The release is currently planned around late May, following a delay due to the decision to include some core applications in the alpha too. Meanwhile, we have some new goodies to talk about! First of all, the team has finished hybrid graphics support. The Battery applet will tell you when the GPU is being used, and which applications are using it so that you can close them to save battery life. You can also now minimize and restore windows (take than, GNOME!). ...
KDE MegaRelease 6 Is Out! The KDE MegaRelease 6 includes releases of Plasma 6, KDE Frameworks 6, and multiple KDE applications ported to Qt6. It’s the biggest release of KDE software we’ve seen in multiple years, and it has been ongoing work since 2019. On a personal note, I’ve been working on this for years too, and I’m extremely excited to share the new features with you. Qt6 and Wayland by default KDE Plasma 6 now uses Wayland by default, thanks to the work of the Wayland team who managed to fix all blockers and many of the existing issues with that session. Of course, KDE 6 software is also based on Qt6, which brings performance improvements, extra stability, and bugfixes. ...
System76’s COSMIC DE almost ready! Good news: COSMIC is getting closer and closer to an alpha version. There’s even discussion within the Fedora community around creating a new Fedora SIG based on this desktop, through Fedora Atomic Desktop images; even better, this project would probably contribute to upstream COSMIC as well. While we wait for everything to be ready… what’s new? Well, the screenshot utility - pictured above - has been fully implemented. It supports taking screenshots of specific windows or certain screen areas. Floating Windows Stacks were also completed; this feature allows you to “pair tiled windows together across applications like tabs in a web browser”. Design is completed for “OSD”, those popups that appear when you e.g. change the volume, brightness, toggle airplane mode, and so on. ...
You can try out Plasma 6 with KaOS! KaOS is a rolling distribution that focuses on providing a great KDE Plasma experience. The team has just released a new release that replaced the good old Plasma 5 with the 6 version. If you’re a bit confused (Plasma 6 has already been published and I didn’t tell you about it?), remember that this is based on “RC2”, the second beta of the KDE MegaRelease. The stable version is still planned at the end of February. We can also look at the rest of the components in KaOS 2024.01: ...
Roblox now funds Blender development too It’s always nice to see big companies use part of their profits to donate to the open-source projects they rely on. The latest example is Roblox, who decided to become a Corporate Silver Member of the Blender Community, meaning they will be paying at least €12K/year to the project. Other Silver Corporate members are Activision and Steam; whereas Gold and Patrons include Meta, Google, AMD, AWS, Epic, Volkswagen, and Adobe. ...
GNU Project to support private and secure online payments Did you know that GNU has a microtransaction and electronic payment system? It’s called “GNU Taler”, and it’s developed by Luxembourg-based company Taler (along with the GNU community). The project provides the ability to pay anonymously, but the payees are always identified; these are the words of none other than Richard Stallman, who’s known for being skeptical about digital payments. Note that GNU Taler achieves this without making any use of cryptocurrencies or blockchain. ...
