Linux is one of the most flexible operating systems that you can use today. From how it looks to its internal functions, you can customize just about anything on a Linux PC. Here are some simple, yet powerful programs that you can use to improve your Linux experience.

Mozilla, which in 2023 received about 75 percent of its revenue from royalties paid by Google and other search providers for search engine usage in Firefox, worries that the US Justice Department’s proposed ban on the very same Google Search payments would be rather harmful.

The developers of the lightweight LXQt desktop environment have showcased some of the major changes coming to the LXQt 2.2 release, which is due in mid-April.

GStreamer 1.26 multimedia framework is a major update featuring H.266 support, enhanced closed captions, new analytics tools, improved Vulkan integration, and more.

Back in 2010, Rackspace and NASA launched a project called OpenStack, which was meant to become an open-source option for running an AWS-style cloud inside of private data centers. The two companies then moved OpenStack to the OpenStack Foundation, which has steadfastly shepherded the project through its many ups and downs.

The Zstandard (Zstd) compression code sadly hasn’t been regularly synced with the latest upstream Linux kernel sources but a patch posted this evening goes ahead and syncs the in-kernel Zstd code against the Zstd 1.5.7 state…

SUSE is double-downing on its Rancher/StackState cloud native technologies in its drive to become a cloud native corporate power.

Shotcut 25.03 Beta is out today as the newest test release for this open-source video editing solution…

When interacting with windows displayed on your monitor, you’re using a Windows Manager (WM). All major operating systems have one, whether it’s macOS or Windows. Many Linux distros will ship with a WM, depending on the Desktop Environment (DE). It’s easier than you think to move between WMs on Linux, but that’s the beauty of this open-source platform.

To strengthen the open-source community, the Linux Foundation and the Open Infrastructure Foundation (OpenInfra) have announced plans for OpenInfra to join the Linux Foundation as a member foundation.

KDE Plasma 6.3.3 arrives with improvements to the UI, system, and apps, including better DRM handling, smoother updates, and refined animations.

Chudo-Yudo Games are working on Machine Mind, an interesting mixture of strategy and action genres blended together. There’s a demo available to try with Linux support, along with an expanded playtest.

Unlike Wine, which requires command-line knowledge and manual configuration, some programs provide a user-friendly graphical interface that streamlines the entire process. One such program is PlayOnLinux. Let’s find out what it is and whether it’s still a viable way to handle Windows applications on Linux.

If you’re an Ubuntu 24.04 LTS user regularly experiencing issues with connecting to audio devices, there’s an important update to the Bluetooth stack rolling out this week.

Released today ahead of a potential Proton 10.0 release for re-basing Valve’s Steam Play tech atop the recent Wine 10.0 release, DXVK 2.6 is out today as the newest iteration of this Direct3D 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 implementation atop the Vulkan API for enhancing the Linux gaming experience…

Artist formerly known as OpenStack to huddle under same umbrella as the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. The votes are in, confirming that the Open Infrastructure Foundation intends to join the Linux Foundation.

Charles Choi has announced
the release of the Casual
Make: a menu-driven interface, implemented as part of the Casual
suite of tools, for Makefile
Mode in GNU Emacs.

Emacs supports makefile editing with make-mode which has a mix of
useful and half-baked (though thankfully obsoleted in 30.1)
commands. It is from this substrate that I’m happy to announce the
next Casual user interface: Casual Make.

Of particular note to Casual Make is its attention to authoring and
identifying automatic variables whose arcane syntax is
un-memorizable. Want to know what $> means? Just select it in the
makefile and use the . binding in the Casual Make menu to identify
what it does in the mini-buffer.

Casual Make is part of Casual
2.4.0, released on March 12 and is available from MELPA. The 2.4.0 update to
Casual also includes documentation in the Info format for the first time.

Ahead of tomorrow’s availability of the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPUs in retail channels, today the embargo lifts on being able to deliver Ryzen 9 9950X3D reviews and performance benchmarks.

The PicoCalc is a compact and modular computing platform designed to recreate the experience of early personal computers. Running on 260KB of memory, it allows users to code in BASIC, explore Lisp, interact with a UNIX-like environment, and run retro games and digital music.

Debian-based Sparky semi-rolling 2025.03 update is out now featuring Linux kernel 6.12 LTS, Xfce 4.20, LXQt 2.1, and more.