This week's Linux and FOSS news:

LINUX NEWS

Linux kernel 6.15 reaches EOL, upgrading to 6.16 is recommended:
https://9to5linux.com/linux-kernel-6-15-reaches-end-of-life-its-time-to-upgrade-to-linux-kernel-6-16

KDE Plasma 6.5 will include "KISS" (a new initial system setup wizard, allowing initial user creation for OEM installs, selecting keyboard layout and time zone), scrollable panels, faster thumbnail generation, other improvements:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-KISS-Initial-Setup-Wizard

Tails 6.19 released with update Tor Browser, Tor client and Thunderbird:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/8/tails-6-19-updates-tor-browser-and-tor-client-with-key-fixes/

Ubuntu 25.04 gets AMD SEV-SNP host support:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-SEV-SNP-Host-Ubuntu-25.04

Ubuntu 25.10 new wallpaper, mascot artwork revealed:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/08/ubuntu-25-10-wallpaper-mascot-artwork

LibreELEC 12.2 released with Kodi 21.2 "Omega", improved Raspberry Pi support, other fixes and improvements:
https://betanews.com/2025/08/17/libreelec-12-2-arrives-with-kodi-21-2-omega-and-better-raspberry-pi-support/

Chromium received HDR video playback support on Wayland:
https://news.itsfoss.com/chromium-native-hdr-support-wayland/

Systemd 259 will have higher system requirements, including Linux kernel >= 5.10, glibc >= 2.34, python >= 3.9.0, etc.:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/systemd-259-Requirements

Phosh 0.49.0 released with option to eclude days without events in upcoming-events, phrosh portal used when possible, option to start pomodoro timer on shell unlock, etc.:
https://phosh.mobi/releases/rel-0.49.0/

(FOSS news in comments)

Linux Security EXPOSED! The Truth About polkit on openSUSE Tumbleweed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFSVEdrCWwM

This week's Linux and FOSS news:

LINUX NEWS

Archinstall 3.0.9 released with option to set up a Bluetooth connection, change LUKS iteration time, U2F authentication support, --skip-boot option to bypass installation of a bootloader, etc.:
https://9to5linux.com/arch-linux-installer-gets-u2f-authentication-and-bluetooth-support

More malware discovered in the AUR (google-chrome-stable package), has been removed:
https://news.itsfoss.com/arch-linux-spark-rat/

Ubuntu 25.10 will include experimental TPM-backed full disk encryption option:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-25.10-TPM-FDE

Ubuntu Server 25.10 will include wcurl in the default installation instead of wget, byobu and screen will also be removed:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/08/ubuntu-server-25-10-replaces-wget-with-wcurl

Tails 6.18 released with support for WebTunnel bridges (to allow Tor network connections to be disguised as ordinary web traffic), updated Tor Browser and Thunderbird:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/7/tails-6-18-released-with-webtunnel-bridges-and-updated-tor-browser-and-thunderbird/

GNOME AI assistant Newelle reaches version 1.0 milestone, includes option to execute terminal commands, search on the web, file management, document editing and more, supports various online and offline models:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-AI-Assistant-1.0

KDE Plasma 6.5 will include automatic day/night theme switching, option to set Global Theme from the "Quick Settings" area of system settings, bug fixes and improvements:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Theme-Day-Night-Auto-Switch

Android Linux Terminal app (running Debian) now supports GUI, running GUI desktop apps:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/7/new-updates-for-android-s-linux-terminal-unveil-the-plan-to-turn-it-into-a-true-desktop-os/

Linux is used by 3% of gamers according to the Steam Survey:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-Survey-July-2025

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This week's Linux and FOSS news:

LINUX NEWS

Debian 13 will include initial RISC-V support, with limited board support for now:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-13-RISC-V-Ready

GNOME introduces Foundry, a development tool which extract's Builder's functionality into a library and CLI tool:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-Builder-Foundry-2025

KDE Plasma 6.5 will be able to send notications about low printer ink level, will include Pointer Warp support for Wayland:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Plasma-6.5-Low-Printer-Ink

OBS Studio Snap app rebased on Core24 instead of Core22, built for official OBS Project PPA instead of unofficial, unmaintained OBS Studio Portable, better Intel GPU support:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/07/obs-studio-snap-update-core24-plugins

KaOS 2025.07 available with Qt5-based KDE Frameworks removed from default install, Plasma 6.4, updated packages, Phonon uses MPV as default backend instead of VLC:
https://betanews.com/2025/07/24/kaos-linux-gets-a-modern-makeover-and-a-big-under-the-hood-upgrade/

Fedora considers reducing the scope that BIOS systems can hold up a release:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-Non-UEFI-BIOS-Scope

New migration tool Operese available, for migrating files and settings from Windows 10 to a Kubuntu installation:
https://betanews.com/2025/07/22/saying-no-to-windows-11-just-got-easier-operese-automatically-transfers-your-windows-10-files-and-settings-to-linux/
(It's a pretty cool concept overall, but I think giving KDE Plasma for Linux newcomers isn't really the best idea, because the tons of customization options, and occasional bugs here and there might scare away some Windows users. I would rather give them Zorin OS with their customized version of GNOME, or Linux Mint / LMDE with Cinnamon. (No, I'm not a KDE hater, I think it's a great option for those who want to fully customize their desktop experience, or the PewDiePie type of guys who already adopted the mindset of tweaking around, playing around with the options, not wanting to go back to Windows when encountering a bug, but it's not for every newcomer.))

Wayback 0.1 released as a first preview release:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Wayback-0.1-Released

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One of the dumbest design decisions of #GTK is to have "warp scrolling" the default primary mouse button behavior.

Previously, if you middle-clicked the scrollbar, it would jump to that position within the buffer. Primary click moved up/down by page. GTK 3 reversed this for no reason.

There are some limited scenarios where jump scrolling is desired, but you should never break a standard UX convention without a tremendous benefit. There wasn't one.

This week's Linux and FOSS news:

LINUX NEWS

Debian 13 final freeze set for 27 July, official release for 9 August:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-13.0-Release-Date-Aug-9

KDE Plasma 6.4.3 released with improved automatic screen scale calculator on Wayland, accessibility improvements, bug fixes:
https://9to5linux.com/kde-plasma-6-4-3-improves-the-automatic-screen-scale-calculator-on-wayland

KDE Plasma 6.5 will include rounded bottom corners for windows:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Rounded-Bottom-Corners
(Rounded corners are everywhere. You can't escape them lol)

Plasma Bigscreen sees active development again, thanks to Plasma Mobile contributor Espi:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/07/plasma-bigscreen-revival-kde-tv

Clear Linux OS shutting down due to financial issues of Intel:
https://community.clearlinux.org/t/all-good-things-come-to-an-end-shutting-down-clear-linux-os/10716
("Rest assured that Intel remains deeply invested in the Linux ecosystem, actively supporting and contributing to various open-source projects and Linux distributions to enable and optimize for Intel hardware." Shutting down Clear Linux OS isn't the only thing affecting Linux though. See next linked article.)

Intel WMI Slim Bootloader "SBL" firmware update driver for Linux being orphaned due to departures:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-SLM-Driver-Orphaned

Linux Mint monthly report: Linux Mint 22.2 planned with HWE kernel, fingerprint authentication, theme updates, accent color support, improved libAdwaita compatibility, improved Wayland support; LMDE 7 planned with Debian 13 base, OEM support; blog comment moderation made more strict to eliminate politics:
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4860

Hyprland 0.50 released with new render scheduling, legacy renderer dropped, explicit sync support always used by default, "no screenshare" option to black out any window during screen-sharing:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Hyprland-0.50-Released

Slackware turns 32:
https://ostechnix.com/celebrating-slackware-linux-32nd-anniversary/

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This week's Linux and FOSS news:

LINUX NEWS

openSUSE considering to drop 32-bit ARM support, announced a survey to ask users whether they still rely on 32-bit ARM hardware support:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/openSUSE-Deciding-32-bit-ARM
(I think it's a good thing that at least they ask their users directly, and don't just drop the proposal if there's a strong pushback like what Fedora did.)

KDE Frameworks 6.16 released with improved recognition of the most powerful GPU, support for showing the newest files first in open/save dialogs, inertial scrolling (a.k.a. kinetic scrolling) for all scrollable views in all QtQuick-based KDE applications when scrolled using a touchpad, etc.:
https://9to5linux.com/kde-frameworks-6-16-improves-plasmas-ability-to-detect-the-most-powerful-gpu

Ubuntu 24.10 reaches EOL, upgrading to 25.04 is recommended:
https://9to5linux.com/ubuntu-24-10-oracular-oriole-reached-end-of-life-upgrade-to-ubuntu-25-04

Ubuntu 25.10 will ship with a fully functional desktop session on RISC-V:
https://9to5linux.com/canonical-plans-for-a-fully-functional-desktop-session-on-risc-v-with-ubuntu-25-10

Ubuntu changes boot process on Raspberry Pi, to improve system recovery and reliability:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/07/ubuntu-raspberry-pi-boot-process-change

Fedora proposal raised to include Zstd-compressed Initrd by default for space savings and faster boot:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-43-Initrd-Zstd-Compress

Parrot OS 6.4 released with Linux kernel 6.12 LTS, new Goshs and ConvoC2 tools, updated hacking tools, Firefox 140 ESR, etc.:
https://9to5linux.com/ethical-hacking-distro-parrot-os-6-4-is-out-with-linux-kernel-6-12-lts-new-tools

Rhino Linux 2025.3 released with RPK2 package manager, new UBXI KDE Desktop package based on Plasma 6:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/7/rhino-linux-2025-3-debuts-rpk2-package-manager-and-kde-plasma-6-option/

Bottles project faces funding issues, asks for donations:
https://news.itsfoss.com/bottles-need-support/

Phosh 0.48.0 released with new lockscreen plugin to interact with all running media players that use the MPRIS protocol, Cell Broadcast dialogs enabled by default, bug fixes, GTK4 preps, etc.:
https://phosh.mobi/releases/rel-0.48.0/

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Since migrating between storage devices is my new hobby, apparently, I now moved my /home directory back onto my SSDs in RAID1. The four HDDs in RAID10 are now my games drive. Nice and fast again. All devices are 1 TB.

What's cool about RAID10 is that it can be converted to RAID0 in-place. So when I out of game space and I don't care about keeping the install directories safe (mods, etc.), I can just double my capacity. Neat!

I’m lining up episodes of The IT Guy Show covering X11 and Wayland — their quirks, legacy, and the future of the Linux desktop.

If you’ve worked with either (or both!), or just have strong real-world opinions on the state of display servers in Linux, I’d love to have you on.

Reach out or if you want, nominate someone awesome!

This week's Linux and FOSS news:

LINUX NEWS

KDE Plasma 6.4 released, with revamped UI for Spectacle, per-virtual-desktop custom tile layouts, new HDR calibration wizard, support for new Wayland protocols, improved KRunner, etc.:
https://9to5linux.com/kde-plasma-6-4-desktop-environment-officially-released-this-is-whats-new

KDE Plasma development will focus on Wayland support, X11 support is only secondary, only critical bugs will be fixed, unless someone pays to fix less critical issues:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Wayland-Is-The-Future

Flathub reaches 3 billion total downloads:
https://ostechnix.com/flathub-3-billion-downloads/

Wine package on Arch becomes pure WoW64, dependency on multilib repository is dropped:
https://ostechnix.com/arch-linux-wine-wow64-transition/

Wine 10.10 released with updated Mono engine, expanded capabilities for generating Windows Runtime metadata in the Windows Interface Definition Language (WIDL) tool, bug fixes for video games, etc.:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/6/wine-10-10-released-with-updated-mono-engine-and-bug-fixes-for-several-games/

Linux kernel 6.16 RC2 released with driver fixes, bcachefs improvements etc.:
https://ostechnix.com/linux-kernel-6-16-rc2-released/

NVIDIA 575.64 Linux driver released with a few bug fixes:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-575.64-Linux-Driver

XLibre 25.0 released with code clean-ups, new Xnamespace extension, Xnest ported to xcb, fixes for several CVEs, etc.:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/XLibre-25.0-Released

Security fixes for X.Org and XWayland:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/X.Org-Server-21.1.17
https://www.phoronix.com/news/XWayland-24.1.8-X.Org-21.1.8

(FOSS news in comments)

This week's Linux and FOSS news:

LINUX NEWS

Ubuntu 24.10 will reach EOL on July 10, upgrading to 25.04 is recommended:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/06/ubuntu-24-10-oracular-oriole-eol-july-2025

Ubuntu 25.10 (shipping GNOME 49) will remove GNOME X11 session:
https://9to5linux.com/ubuntu-25-10-questing-quokka-to-remove-the-gnome-on-xorg-x11-session

Linux Mint 20 reached EOL, upgrading to 22 is recommended:
https://news.itsfoss.com/linux-mint-20-eol/

Linux Mint 22.2 adds out-of-the-box fingerprint authentication support with Fingwit app:
https://9to5linux.com/linux-mint-22-2-will-feature-fingerprint-authentication-with-fingwit-app

Nitrux drops the Plasma-based NX desktop for Hyprland, due to the discontinuation of Plasma LTS released:
https://9to5linux.com/nitrux-linux-drops-its-kde-plasma-based-nx-desktop-for-hyprland
(It's a bit weird choice that they ditched a full DE for a standalone compositor, which is tiling in fact, and requires editing some config files manually, not sure if DE users want that.)

Kali Linux 2025.2 released with revamped Kali Menu, GNOME 48, KDE Plasma 8.3, 13 new tools (including Azurehound, binwalk3, bloodhound-ce-python etc.):
https://9to5linux.com/kali-linux-2025-2-released-with-revamped-kali-menu-13-new-hacking-tools

GNOME 49 Alpha 0 available with preparations for disabling X11 by default:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-49-Alpha-0-Packages

Sway 1.11 released with explicit sync support, support for the ext-image-copy-capture-v1 and ext-image-capture-source-v1 protocols for improved screen capture, support for the alpha-modifier-v1 protocol for setting an alpha multiplier for a surface, etc.:
https://9to5linux.com/sway-1-11-tiling-wayland-compositor-adds-support-for-explicit-synchronization

(More Linux and FOSS news in comments)

#LinuxGaming is about to change in a "Bazaar" way! @jorge

#Bazzite #Linux #DesktopLinux #videogames #emulation #flatpak

https://gardinerbryant.com/linux-software-management-is-about-to-change-with-bazaar