It's no secret that Firefox has been steadily losing ground over the past decade or so. Despite efforts to revitalize this once beloved titan of the internet, the market share just hasn't returned, and Mozilla's recent choices haven't been helping the cause. That being said, Mozilla hasn't given up, and after many false starts, it seems like current leadership is ready to give it a go at regaining ground.The recently introduced built-in Firefox VPN feature is an example of this, as are the (admi...
In 2019, I watched a fellow writer almost lose her life’s work.We were working in an advertising agency. Like most writers who end up in advertising, we were both secretly working on our novels. One afternoon, after lunch, I noticed her pacing around the office, rifling through her bag, checking every desk. Her irritation quickly turned into panic.Her pen drive was missing.Hours later, on the verge of tears, she told us why this particular pen drive mattered: it held the only copy of her manuscr...
If you are a regular reader of ours, then you know that Proton is one of the privacy-focused services we usually vouch for. I have been using their various services personally for quite a while now, and I can confidently say that they know what they are doing.Of course, I am just a random person on the internet yapping about how good it is. If you haven't ever tried their offerings, then you can decide for yourself, as they have launched two new services that could make your move away from Big T...
The open source office space has turned unusually dramatic this week, with multiple conflicts unfolding at the same time.First, there is a new entrant called Euro-Office. While it is being presented as a European alternative, it is essentially a fork of ONLYOFFICE. That has not gone down well. ONLYOFFICE has accused Nextcloud of violating its license, turning what could have been a routine fork into a full-blown controversy. And then there is the situation around LibreOffice. The Document Found...
TDF's Membership Committee has removed all Collabora staff and partners from membership in one move, covering over 30 developers. This includes, per Collabora's own count, seven of LibreOffice's all-time top ten core committers.To make things more complicated, this is only the latest in a series of departures. Several of TDF's original founders have already stopped being members over recent years, and of the remaining active founders, three of the last four are now paid TDF staff who aren't writ...
A contributor named Faeiz Mahrus put forward a change proposal for Fedora 45 that would change how per-user environment variables are managed on the system. Right now, Fedora handles this through shell-specific RC files: ~/.bashrc for Bash users, ~/.zshrc for Zsh users.These files are responsible for things like adding ~/.local/bin and ~/bin to your $PATH, which is the list of directories your system searches when you run a command.The problem Faeiz pointed to was that Fedora ships a number of a...
Almost two weeks ago, someone on GNOME's Discourse forum asked whether the missing Google Drive support in GNOME 50 was a bug or a deliberate decision.GNOME developer Emmanuele Bassi replied, confirming that Drive was no longer supported.He went on saying that libgdata, the library that coordinates communication between GNOME apps and Google's APIs, has gone without a maintainer for nearly four years. Furthermore, GVFS dropped its libgdata dependency about ten months ago, and GNOME Online Accoun...
Almost two weeks ago, someone on GNOME's Discourse forum asked whether the missing Google Drive support in GNOME 50 was a bug or a deliberate decision.GNOME developer Emmanuele Bassi replied, confirming that Drive was no longer supported.He went on saying that libgdata, the library that coordinates communication between GNOME apps and Google's APIs, has gone without a maintainer for nearly four years. Furthermore, GVFS dropped its libgdata dependency about ten months ago, and GNOME Online Accoun...
There is a new open source office suite. It’s called Euro-Office.As the name suggests, it is a European effort and is primarily meant for European organizations and governments.Before you get too excited, let me clarify that it is not your typical office suite like LibreOffice that you install on desktop systems. It is designed more for providing collaborative document portals for organizations.In other words, it’s an online office suite that can be deployed within an organization and accessed v...
When it comes to open-source office suites, we're not short on options, despite what it may seem at first glance. Yet, without a doubt, two names stand head and shoulders above all others. LibreOffice and ONLYOFFICE sit unchallenged as the most popular office solutions built and distributed on open principles. Both are solid in their own rights, and both have loyal communities that swear by them and no others. But between the two, which one is right for you?In this article, we'll have a closer l...
Ubuntu MATE creator Martin Wimpress has announced that he no longer has the passion he once had, nor the time, to work on the project:As another development cycle passes, I find myself lacking the time I once had to work on Ubuntu MATE. And, to be frank, I don’t have the passion for the project that I once had. When I have time to tinker, my interests are elsewhere.He is now looking to handover the project:I’m interested in handing over the reins to contributors who do have the time and energy t...
PINE64 has built a reputation for delivering open source hardware to people who actually care about what runs on their devices. From single-board computers like the ROCKPro64 and the RISC-V powered STAR64 to Linux smartphones like the PinePhone, the company has been pretty consistent.One of their offerings is the PineTime, which is a compact, inexpensive open source smartwatch that has been around since 2019. It started as a community side project, inspired partly by the simplicity of the old Pe...
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS "Resolute Raccoon" is not out yet, but its release notes have an unexpected change that missed my eyes completely. Canonical has bumped the minimum RAM requirement for Ubuntu Desktop to 6 GB for this upcoming LTS release.While it is a major shift for desktop users, on the server side, things remain far more flexible. Ubuntu Server's documentation lists a minimum of 1.5 GB for ISO installs, with a suggested minimum of 3 GB to account for real-world workloads.Ubuntu 26.04 LTS syst...
If you’ve recently dipped your toes into the world of immutable Linux distributions like Fedora Silverblue, openSUSE MicroOS, or even the Steam Deck, you'll encounter this issue eventually. You try to perform a basic task, like adding a custom script to /usr/bin or creating a global configuration directory, and the terminal throws an error: Read-only file system.It’s a frustrating moment. You chose an immutable OS for the stability, the atomic updates, and the "unbreakable" nature of the system....
If you’ve recently dipped your toes into the world of immutable Linux distributions like Fedora Silverblue, openSUSE MicroOS, or even the Steam Deck, you'll encounter this issue eventually. You try to perform a basic task, like adding a custom script to /usr/bin or creating a global configuration directory, and the terminal throws an error: Read-only file system.It’s a frustrating moment. You chose an immutable OS for the stability, the atomic updates, and the "unbreakable" nature of the system....
There is a new merge on the Wayland GitLab repo. This new merge (of an old pull request) adds xdg-session-management protocol to Wayland. This is a big development and certainly a feature Linux users will enjoy.As per the brief message in merge request:For a variety of cases it's desirable to have a method for negotiating the restoration of previously-used states for a client's windows. This helps for e.g., a compositor/client crashing (definitely not due to bugs) or a backgrounded client decidi...
For years, many Ubuntu users have felt that traditional .deb packages were being gradually sidelined in favor of the Snap ecosystem.It started quietly. Double-clicking a downloaded .deb file would open it in Archive Manager instead of the installer. Then came controversial changes. Apps like Chromium, Thunderbolt and Firefox began defaulting to Snap packages, even when users tried installing them via the apt command in the terminal.It continued further as Ubuntu introduced its new Snap Store. In...
For regulars in the open source space, Ubuntu is kind of a household name that introduced many to the diverse world of Linux, where you have all kinds of flavors. Want some work done? You have Fedora. Want to earn the rights to say "I use Arch, btw," and get work done? You have Arch Linux.We are now weeks away from Ubuntu's next long-term support release, and Canonical have now provided everyone with a beta build for testing purposes. Let's see what it delivers.Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Beta: A Functiona...
Canonical engineer Julian Andres Klode, who works on Ubuntu's secure boot signing, has put forward a proposal on Ubuntu's community forums to significantly cut down the GRUB bootloader for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.10.The proposal takes aim at GRUB's parsers, which Julian describes as a "constant source of security issues," and proposes cutting a number of features from signed builds to reduce the attack surface in the pre-boot environment.What is meant to get the axe? On the filesystem side, Btrfs...
Canonical engineer Julian Andres Klode, who works on Ubuntu's secure boot signing, has put forward a proposal on Ubuntu's community forums to significantly cut down the GRUB bootloader for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.10.The proposal takes aim at GRUB's parsers, which Julian describes as a "constant source of security issues," and proposes cutting a number of features from signed builds to reduce the attack surface in the pre-boot environment.What is meant to get the axe? On the filesystem side, Btrfs...
Age verification has suddenly become the most heated topic in the Linux world and it’s not slowing down anytime soon.Distributions are already picking sides. Void and Garuda Linux have outright rejected the idea. The privacy-focused Android distro GrapheneOS isn’t entertaining it either. Meanwhile, Fedora is exploring whether an Apple-style API could be a compromise, though whether that satisfies anyone is another question.Right in the middle of this, systemd introduced an optional birthDate fie...
Dylan M. Taylor is not a household name in the Linux world. At least, he wasn’t until recently.The software engineer and longtime open source contributor has quietly built a respectable track record over the years: writing Python code for the Arch Linux installer, maintaining packages for NixOS, and contributing CI/CD pipelines to various FOSS projects.But a recent change he made to systemd has pushed him into the spotlight, along with a wave of intense debate.At the center of the controversy is...
In my scenario, I had downloaded VidBee video downloader in AppImage format on my Fedora Linux. It was integrated well with the system with GearLeaver.However, one day, it suddenly stopped opening. I could see the icon in GNOME search but clicking on it did not do anything. The app was not opening. My instinct was to jump in the terminal, go to the directory where AppImage file for this application was located and run it like a bash file. Yes, that's a legit way to run AppImages from the termina...
Age verification laws don't seem to be stopping. California, Colorado, and Brazil, all have some version of the same requirement where OS providers must collect age data at account setup and expose it to apps through a real-time API.Governments call it child safety, but plenty of people in the open source space call it something else entirely. The reactions have ranged from protest distros to a systemd fork to a BSD project that straight up banned users in affected regions.Now, Fedora's Project ...
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), GrapheneOS has made its position on age verification laws clear; it won't comply, regardless of where the demand comes from.The team goes on to state that its OS and services will remain available worldwide, with no personal information, identification, or account ever required. And if that means its devices can't be sold in certain regions, then the project is fine with that outcome.GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring per...
Age verification is sadly here to stay, as the politicians pushing these laws don't seem to care much about what people actually think. Open source projects have been left to deal with the fallout, either by starting compliance work, taking a public stance, or outright blocking users from affected regions.Garuda Linux is one of the latest projects that has had to address this publicly via an official statement, answering the age verification question directly.Age verification can't touch thisAs ...
Age verification is sadly here to stay, as the politicians pushing these laws don't seem to care much about what people actually think. Open source projects have been left to deal with the fallout, either by starting compliance work, taking a public stance, or outright blocking users from affected regions.Garuda Linux is one of the latest projects that has had to address this publicly via an official statement, answering the age verification question directly.Age verification can't touch thisAs ...
Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu, one of the most widely used Linux distributions around. Beyond just shipping an OS, the company provides long-term security maintenance and support for a massive portfolio of open source packages, and its products span everything from desktop and server to cloud infrastructure and IoT.It has been pushing Rust into Ubuntu's core for a while now. We covered how Ubuntu 25.10 replaced sudo with sudo-rs, the memory-safe Rust rewrite of the classic tool, and how...
LLMs and AI agents are everywhere right now, and if you've been putting off learning this stuff, Humble Bundle has a new Packt collection that makes it hard to justify waiting any longer.The LLM and Agentic AI Career Accelerator Bundle packs 23 eBooks into one library, covering Python basics, deep learning, RAG pipelines, agentic frameworks, Model Context Protocol, and more. You can get in for as little as $3, though the full 23-book set unlocks at $18.All books come in PDF and ePub formats, so ...
LibreOffice is the go-to for people who want a capable, no-nonsense office suite that does not phone home or push subscriptions in their face. It handles everything from text documents and spreadsheets to presentations and databases, and it does so without asking for money or peddling AI.Needless to say, keeping an open source project of this scale running is not free, even if the software itself is. The developers have now decided to make that point a little more obvious.What is it?The Document...
systemd is the init system and service manager that most major Linux distributions ship with by default. It boots the system, manages services, and has taken on more responsibilities over the years than a lot of people think it should. For some, running a distro that avoids it entirely is a feature.The project's latest move has not helped its reputation among the skeptics. Last week, developers merged a pull request adding a birthDate field to its user records, tied to age verification laws in C...
Systemd powers most modern Linux distributions, and with it comes a family of powerful ctl commands like systemctl .These tools help you manage services, inspect logs, control system time, and dig deep into how your Linux system behaves under the hood.But how well do you really know them?This crossword puzzle is a fun way to test your familiarity with common systemd ctl commands. Whether you're a beginner trying to remember commands or an experienced user brushing up your knowledge, this challen...
For many Linux users, partitioning is the most nerve-wracking part of installation. It’s that moment where you double-check everything, hoping you don’t wipe the wrong drive or end up with a layout you’ll regret later.I like to think of a disk as a cabinet. The fixed “drawers” are partitions, and if one turns out to be too small, fixing it later means resizing, moving things around, and hoping nothing breaks in the process.But what if partitions were not like the fixed drawers? What if they were...
Most consumer routers give you a locked-down firmware, a few years of updates if you are lucky, and a web UI that makes you miss the terminal.Routers powered by OpenWrt are a breath of fresh air here, as they give users a full Linux system, a proper package manager, support for VPNs, and the freedom to actually configure their network the way they want.CZ.NIC, the organization behind the Czech Republic's national domain registry, which also does network security research, has the Turris line of ...
Germany has strictly standardized its digital document requirements. The Deutschland-Stack (in Deutsch), the country's new sovereign digital infrastructure framework, names just two document formats that public administrations are allowed to use: ODF and PDF/UA.Proprietary document formats from Microsoft like .doc, .ppt, and .xls are not included.What's happening?The framework is published by Germany's Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation, and it covers every ...
If you have not been living under a rock, then you most likely know that age verification has been all over tech news lately, and the conversation surrounding it is a mess with a lot of information and misinformation flowing around.For people who are trying to understand what's going on, the TLDR is that laws in regions like California, Colorado, and Brazil now require operating systems to report age signals to apps and app stores.systemd, the init system and service manager used by most major L...
If you want to backup your data on Linux, there's no shortage of reliable options that offer some pretty good functionality. We have Déjà Dup that handles the basics well if you just want a simple GNOME app that protects your files without much fuss. Timeshift takes a different angle; it snapshots your system so you can roll back after a bad update, though it's not really designed for personal data backups.For users who want more control, Borg and Restic have been the standards for years. Both a...
In the previous newsletter, I discussed how various distros are handling the age verification laws. At the end of the article, I speculated that we would see a few existing or new distros coming up with "no age verification" as their unique feature. Guess what? We have a new distro called Ageless Linux which is created specifically to refuse compliance with OS-level age verification laws.But it's more than just a distro; the project also maintains a tracker of where various distros and organizat...
Fedora Asahi Remix is a collaboration between the Fedora Asahi SIG and the Asahi Linux project that has brought Fedora Linux to Apple Silicon Macs. While I have personally never used it, I have seen its development progress consistently.Each release has closed more hardware gaps, brought the experience closer to what you would expect on native hardware, and stayed in sync with mainline Fedora. Its latest release keeps that momentum going.🆕 Fedora Asahi Remix 43: A Packed ReleaseSource: Fedora Ma...
The Linux Foundation has announced $12.5 million in grants to strengthen open source software security. The funding will be managed by Alpha-Omega and the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), two of its security-focused initiatives.The idea behind this move is to tackle the growing problem of AI tools generating security findings (both legit and hallucination ones) at a scale open source maintainers simply cannot keep up with.We already know that many open source projects don't have the re...
GNOME has had quite a journey so far, consistently evolving according to the community's needs, gaining both loyal users and ardent haters. Each release has brought steadier foundations, a more coherent design language, and a growing set of applications built around the same visual identity.What it offers is fairly compelling. GNOME is built around a Wayland-first approach, with a consistent design system through Libadwaita, a decent attempt at accessibility, and a core app suite that handles mo...
Manjaro has long been one of the more popular Arch-based Linux distributions, known for making Arch Linux more accessible to everyday users. But it has been losing ground for years, both in terms of user trust and active contributors, and the complaints about its direction have only gotten louder.Now, things have hit a breaking point, with calls for a fork if the current leadership does not budge.A Manjaro team member going by the handle "Aragorn" has published the "Manjaro 2.0 Manifesto" on the...
A new Linux distro has appeared.Not surprisinhg. We get new Linux distributions almost every month, sometimes even every week.This one is based on Debian. Again, not surprising. Debian has long been the mother of countless Linux distros.But the interesting part isn’t the base. It’s the reason this distro exists.It was created as a symbol of resistance.That’s also not new in the Linux world. Many distros have been born out of disagreement or protest. For example, Void Linux emerged during the hea...
Kagi is best known for its privacy-focused search engine, but the company has been quietly building out a broader ecosystem of tools for people who would rather pay for software than be the product.One of those tools is Orion, a web browser built on WebKit, the same engine that powers Safari, with a strong focus on privacy and customization.Unlike most browsers you will come across on Linux, Orion is not a Chromium derivative or a Firefox fork. It is a fresh build that has earned a reputation fo...
Amidst all the chaos in the world, some significant moves are being orchestrated that could potentially have detrimental effects on people's privacy and right to choose. Google's Developer Verification program falls under the latter.Starting September 2026 (in certain regions), any app installed on a certified Android device will need to come from a developer who has gone through Google's new verification process. This applies regardless of where the app comes from: the Play Store, a third-party...
We all know Linux gives us a world of freedoms we couldn't possibly have on Windows, but have you ever stopped to think about that freedom in real, qualitative terms? After all, when most people say they can't switch to Linux, it's usually because of something they just can't do without Windows or macOS or Android (which itself is Linux, even if most don't consider it such).So, let's take a closer look at some of the things you can do on/with a Linux system that you just can't typically do on Wi...
Here is the big news. Google plans to bring its flagship Chrome browser for ARM64 Linux devices. The release is set for the second quarter (April-June) of 2026.Which means you should be able to use Google Chrome on Raspberry Pi and other single board computers and laptops with Snapdragon processors. Google highlighted this in the announcement:Launching Chrome for ARM64 Linux devices allows more users to enjoy the seamless integration of Google’s most helpful services into their browser. This mov...
If rumors and Reuters are to be believed, SUSE Linux us up for sale again. Again because it has changed owners several times in the past. IBM bought Red Hat Linux for $34 billion 6 years ago. It would be interesting to see who grabs SUSE. I hope it's not Microsoft.By the way, not seeing new articles from It's FOSS in your feed reader? That's because there is an ongoing issue with the RSS feed as I am migrating to FeedPress. Please bear it with me.Here are other highlights of this edition of FOSS...
If Reuters report is to be believed, SUSE Linux is again up for sale in the market with a price tag of $6 billion.This is about enterprise-oriented SUSE Linux. openSUSE, on the other hand, is community-managed but heavily funded by SUSE. I like to think of SUSE Linux as Red Hat and openSUSE as Fedora. So any decision taken by SUSE Linux impacts openSUSE, more directly than indirectly. We will have to see what direction it takes if SUSE is sold again.Notice how I am reusing the word 'again'? That...
There is simply no shortage of terminals for Linux. And yet we keep on seeing new terminals coming up almost every year.The regular terminal works but then there are terminals like Kitty and Ghostty that provide modern features and customization. In the same regard, foot is also a good terminal worth having a look. It is not a new project. It has been an active player for sevaeral years and yet not many Linux user have heard of it.Foot terminalFoot is a fast and lightweight Wayland-native termin...
Linux gaming has been getting some wins lately, and while most of it is thanks to the hard work of countless open source contributors and community members, Microslop, err, Microsoft's unhealthy obsession has also been driving people towards the platform.There is also another side to this, where developments outside the platform affect it.Steam, which is among the key drivers of that growth, has a new client update that offers many useful upgrades.What do you get?The most relevant fixes for Linu...
I am of the belief that age verification laws are multiplying like a virus; these have seemingly popped up out of nowhere and are being lobbied for hard by many politicians and lawmakers.Brazil's Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent takes effect on March 17, 2026, and explicitly names operating systems and app stores as entities that must implement age verification.California's Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043), signed in October 2025 and effective January 1, 2027, requires OS providers...
The US states of California, Colorado and Illinois are passing new age verification laws that require operating systems, including Linux and BSD distributions, to implement age attestation during account setup and provide an API for apps to query user age brackets. This is 'intended to help' apps filter content for minors, but it relies on self-reported ages without mandatory ID checks. Similar proposals exist in New York and Brazil. While enforcement on community-driven distros remains unclear,...
Microcontrollers are small, low-power chips built to accomplish specific tasks like reading sensors, controlling motors, and responding to inputs. You can find them inside washing machines, TV remotes, medical devices, industrial equipment, and practically anything with a circuit board that is not a fully fledged computer.Because of their limited resources, they typically run either bare-metal firmware or a lightweight real-time operating system (RTOS) like Zephyr or Eclipse ThreadX.And now, som...
Firefox's Proton design has been around since 2021, and it is starting to show its age. The interface is flat, uses a lot of gray, and feels very dated in 2026. You either live with it or you go out of your way to install a theme from the add-ons store.Neither option feels particularly appealing when practically every other mainstream browser and several Firefox forks, have put real thought into what people expect from a modern web browser.On top of that, its AIness and lack of genuinely user ex...
What started as age gates on adult websites has quietly crept into app stores and operating systems.
Age verification is the new pandemic.
Javelin, their kernel-level anti-cheat solution, might be heading to Linux.
Ubuntu may not be perfect, but the amount of hate it receives from Linux users is often exaggerated. Here's why the criticism deserves a rethink.
