It's FOSS turns 14 tomorrow. Incidentally, my son turns 1 tomorrow as well. Two milestones the same day call for celebration, right?
But there is something important that I wanted to share with you and it relates to the future of It's FOSS.
The thing is that Google Search is gone. Not broken but gone. What replaces it is an AI that reads the web, summarizes it, and hands you the answer directly. No links. No clicks. No visits to the sites that actually wrote the content.
For the past two decades, a quiet but fair deal powered the open web: you search, you click, we earn a little from ads, and we use that to keep writing. That deal is over. Google now takes our content, serves the answer, and the publisher gets nothing. Not even a visit.
Since the launch of ChatGPT, It's FOSS has already lost 80% of its Google search traffic. And it's alarming now.
I built It's FOSS because I love Linux and open-source software. Not to get rich. I built it because I wanted a place where people could learn Linux for free, stay informed, and feel part of a community that actually cares about what open-source software means. For years, that worked. Ad revenue kept the lights on. We kept creating informational content that helped Linux users all around the world.
That model is now broken, and no tweak to our content strategy will fix it. This is not an algorithm we can optimize around.
The big publishers will survive this. They have corporate backing, licensing deals, and investors to absorb the losses. We don't. What we have is you.
If It's FOSS has ever helped you, fixed a problem, taught you something new, saved you a frustrating hour, this is the moment to return the favor. You want us to continue for 14 more years, right?
Becoming a Plus member keeps this alive:
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To mark 14 years of It's FOSS (and my son's first birthday), I'm offering $30 off the lifetime membership this week. This one-time payment also solidifies the trust you have in It's FOSS and keeps us going in the age of AI slop.
Not in a position to subscribe? A one-time donation helps too. Every contribution, whatever the size, is a vote for keeping It's FOSS alive, keeping the open web alive.
I've spent years writing about open source because I believe software freedom matters, using a free operating system matters. I still do. But this freedom also needs people willing to sustain the communities that talk about it.
I'm asking you to be one of those people.
📰 News That Matter
Proton has given us some back-to-back updates. There's an encryption overhaul that makes uploads up to 3x faster and downloads up to 2x faster, thanks to a cryptography rewrite. News on how a native GUI client for Linux is in the works, and an official CLI offering for Drive that works on Linux, Windows, and macOS.
A lot has landed in the DocSpace 3.7 release. You get AI-generated files, DeepSeek, xAI and Google AI support, a complete rework of form filling rooms that now handle PDF creation, room tagging, bulk deletion, and new admin controls.
Similarly, Collabora have introduced CODE 26.04, possibly their biggest release yet. It includes AI assistance across all three editors, a reworked document comparison tool in Writer, per-user sheet views in Calc, 14 new spreadsheet functions, and a follow-me presentation mode in Impress. Yeah... AI everywhere.
Need to send a large file without uploading it to someone else's server first? CheezyPizza does it browser to browser over WebRTC, with no account, no size cap, and no middleman.
Not open source software but Melia is a new Linux desktop email client that takes privacy seriously in ways most clients don't bother with. Tracking pixels are neutralized, incoming emails are verified against SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and senders whose display names don't match their addresses get flagged automatically.
If you find Linux Mint running slowly, try disabling animations and window effects. It may improve the performance a yiny bit and tiny bits help when you are struggling with performance.
Bambu Lab has been on a path to vendor lock-in, and even after outcry from the community over some of its recent moves, they don't seem to be learning anything.
If you are on a GNOME setup, then you can enable certain user interface settings on the Resources app to display important usage and hardware-related details in the sidebar at all times.
Go into the "Preferences" menu via the hamburger button (looks like three lines), then under the "General" tab, look for these options and enable them:
There have been many instances of the open source community striking back at projects that locked down. We have a puzzle that will test your knowledge of such occurrences.
Can you help this Arch user? 🤣
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On June 7, 1954, Alan Turing, the mathematician who conceived the theoretical blueprint for modern computers and helped crack Enigma cipher at Bletchley Park, reportedly took his own life at age 41.
His work helped shorten World War II and laid the foundation for every computer running today.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: A newcomer is asking which web browsers his fellow FOSSers are using. Care to contribute?
FOSS Weekly #26.24: Dank Linux Review, BitWarden Alternative, Mint Tips (And an Important Message)
There are ways to transfer files over the internet. Twenty years ago, it was FTP for technically advanced people and emails for lazy people. (And Torrents for legally challenged people),
Then came Dropbox and other cloud services and things have moved in that direction.
But sharing large files through cloud services has its own quirks. Most services either have strict size limits, require account creation, or quietly store your data on their servers even when encryption is involved.
This is where Cheezy Pizza comes in.
What does Cheezy Pizza do?
CheezyPizza is an open source, browser-based file transfer app that uses WebRTC to transfer files directly between two browsers.
This means there is no server in the middle, no login, no installation required. Just open the site, share a link, and the transfer happens peer to peer.
It is actually a fork of FilePizza, which is a pretty solid tool but has its limitations. Like large files would fail, and there is no way to pause or resume a transfer if something goes wrong.
This is the reason why Jeevan forked it into Cheezy Pizza and started adding the features he needed.
Here's what Cheezy Pizza does differently than File Pizza:
Large file support: It works reliably for files larger than 10 GB. However, some browsers may restrict this.
Pause and resume feature: Interrupted transfers pick up from the last byte, with progress saved via OPFS or IndexedDB. It happens on the downloader side only.
Flow control: High/low watermarks on the WebRTC data channel prevent fast senders from overwhelming the receiver.
SHA-256 verification:files are checked before being written to disk.
Project repo mentions that all WebRTC communications are encrypted using DTLS.
The project is being actively developed, with more features planned.
The idea is simple. You upload the file to the Cheesy Pizza web interface. You can password protect the file, if you want.
You can choose to password protect the transfer as well
And then you get links, short and full URLs, both can be used. There is also a QR code generated for ease.
I uploaded Omarchy ISO file of around 7 GB and shared it with my teammate Sreenath, who is a few thousand kilometers (or miles) away from me. When he started the download, I could see the status changed to file transfer as my file was now being uploaded.
Initially, the file transfer was in a few KBps but soon it the speed increased into few hundred KBps, and then it peaked at around 7 MBps, I think. It took 2-3 minutes to reach the max speed.
On the downloader side, the browser shows a notification about persistent data storage.
It also shows that the downloader can close the tab and resume the transfer later.
To test the pause resume feature, Sreenath closed his browser a few times and opened the link again. CheezyPizza correctly recognized the the file was being downloaded earlier.
Earlier inerrupted file download can be resumed
At the other end, it showed me, the uploader, several interrupted transfers.
Password protect the transfer
By the way, the file transfer can be password protected, too. Just add a password while initializing the file upload and share the password with the downloader.
Uploader need to stay online
🚧
The pause-resume feature only works at the downloader's end. If the uploader closes the browser before it was downloaded completely, the link will be dead. If there were several downloaders and at least on of them completed the download, that downloader will continue to seed to incomplete downloaders, but no new downloads may be initiated. This is a bummer.
When I, as the uploader, closed the browser tab, things were lost and it could not be resumed.
Worth a bite?
Many large file transfer (and cloud storage) services store data on their servers, even if it is encrypted. If you want a peer-to-peer alternative, Cheezy Pizza is worth trying.
FilePizza does the same job, of course, but Cheezy Pizza adds a few extra toppings to that -- and no, it's not pineapple.
The pause and resume feature is a nice touch, but if the uploader closes the tab, everything falls apart and that is a problem.
I am not sure whether Cheezy Pizza supports self-hosting, but there is a Docker mention in the README and since it is web-based, self-hosting should be possible.
By the way, if you want to share files between devices on the same network, a local file transfer tool like LocalSend works well for that.
Would you use a service like Cheezy Pizza for large file transfers over the internet? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Tired of File Size Limits? This Open Source Tool Sends Large Files Directly Browser to Browser
I use ProtonMail for all official communication related to It's FOSS. Around 2020, I took their Visionary plan and switched from Google Workspace for the @itsfoss.com emails.
The bundled offer of email, VPN, calendar, drive and password manager is a good ecosystem in its own. I am happy with their offering and continuous feature additions and improvements. Well, for the most part,
One thing that I am still missing after all these years is the canned response feature.
The lack of saved replies
If you have ever used Gmail, you probably would have heard of the 'canned response' feature.
The idea is simple and it solves a major problem for people who get emails that often need similar replies. A canned response lets you save template responses. It lets you insert the template response in the email. Here, you can quickly modify it and hit the send button.
Without this feature, I have the usual responses saved in my knowledge base. I have to open that, go to the appropriate response section, copy it and then paste it in Proton Mail, modify the message if needed and then hit the send button.
This could have been fine if it was a once-a-day activity. But if I have to do it multiple times a day, I surely lose time in it. This is especially frustrating because I am aware of the existence of the canned response feature.
It's like being forced to use the mouse when you know the same thing can be quickly done through keyboard shortcuts easily and quickly.
I give you an example. I receive multiple press releases and software coverage requests a day. Often, the reply is similar, with only a little modification needed. Imagine if I could compose the repetitive reply in 2-3 clicks:
0:00
/0:06
I think this feature is more than ten years old and is available for free to all Gmail users. I don't see a reason why ProtonMail cannot offer it.
There are a few more things that can help us ProtonMail users save some time
In Gmail, if you are replying to an email and type Hi its predictive text feature already suggests the responder's name. It does save a few keystrokes.
Now that is Google but I am sure ProtonMail can work on providing a similar feature without intrusing our privacy.
How come? Well, Proton does provide a deep search option where messages are downloaded to the system and then you can search through email content. By default, you can only search through the email subject and sender. This way, the Proton server doesn't see your messages and yet you can do a full search.
Perhaps something on that line to make our lives more convenient? I don't know how technically challenging it could be, that's why it's just a suggestion.
Another convenient feature would be to make their AI integration more useful. ProtonMail has integrated its (private) Lumo AI but I don't find it helpful.
Perhaps it can be utilized to provide predective text? If not that, at least it can be used to compose replies to emails?
For now, it provides a few options: Write for me, proofread, shorten, expand and a couple of options on changing the tone of the message.
The Write for me feature needs full prompts on what to write. If it could read the reply, locally in the browser, and suggest a response, that would be good. Basically, a "compose a reply" option here.
I know, not everyone is a fan of AI and many find it repulsive but if Proton has to become a real private alternative to Google Workspace, it has to offer the cutting edge tools and features. And AI is the hottest buzzword that can raise a shoe company's stocks 800% in a single day.
Come on, good people at Proton. Give us lazy users the boon of template response 😄
Microsoft has released its own version of Coreutils to bring Linux commands to Windows command prompt. If you can't beat them, join them? This is a big move from the company that once called Linux a "cancer".
KDE Linux is shaping up well, as May's progress update shows the project dropping its AUR dependency, switching to kde-builder for a faster and more distro-agnostic build system, and replacing KWalletManager with the newer KeepSecret app.
Valve brought the Steam Deck OLED back after months of absence and quietly raised prices by nearly 50% to cover rising component costs. People bought them anyway. North America sold out overnight, and if you've been waiting for prices to normalize, don't.
M5Stack's CardputerZero is a credit card-sized Linux computer built around a Raspberry Pi Compute Module Zero, with a 46-key keyboard, 1.9-inch display with HDMI out up to 1080p, 8MP Sony camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, and a 1,500mAh battery.
AlmaLinux Day is coming to Los Angeles on July 18, scheduled the day before SIGGRAPH 2026 to catch the VFX and studio crowd before the larger conference kicks off.
Here are other highlights of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
A new tool that feels like a reverse WSL.
Software that feels open source, but isn't.
Getting the fastest Arch Linux download mirrors.
And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
GitHub Copilot's metered billing went live this week. What was a predictable monthly subscription is now usage-based, with each request priced dynamically by model and context.
The thing is that you cannot avoid AI specially if you are working as a sysadmin or DevOps. The best way is to use AI as a tool to assist you in your workflow. There is this new book that guides you to build intelligent automation using LLMs, RAG, and AI agents for monitoring, troubleshooting, and system administration. You don't want to be left behind, after all.
Your Arch mirror list from install day is probably not your fastest option anymore. reflector lets you pull the most recently synced HTTPS mirrors by country in one command. rate-mirrors benchmarks them and picks the fastest without you needing to specify anything.
Want to try Alpine Linux without touching your main system? The installation process is text-based and a bit different from what most distros do, so running it in VirtualBox first makes sense.
Steam is proprietary. So are Obsidian, Warp, Docker Desktop, and the Snap Store backend. Thirteen tools that regularly fool Linux users into assuming otherwise, with open source alternatives listed.
Desktop Linux is mostly neglected by the industry but loved by the community. For the past 13 years, It's FOSS has been helping people use Linux on their personal computers. And we are now facing the existential threat from AI models stealing our content.
If you like what we do and would love to support our work, please become It's FOSS Plus member. It costs less than the cost of a McDonald Happy Meal a month, and you get an ad-free reading experience with the satisfaction of helping the desktop Linux community.
ZimaBoard was the device I began my homelab journey with a couple of years ago. I tried their latest device, ZimaCube 2 and shared the experience in this review. If money is not a problem and you are looking for the comfort of owning a homelab, Zima devices are worth it.
Jan AI came close to replacing Ollama for Bhuwan with its one-click model downloads, built-in cloud provider support, and local API server. But performance-wise, it disappointed.
✨ Apps and Projects Highlights
WSL runs Linux inside Windows. Winpodx does the opposite. It spins up a Windows container using Podman and streams individual Windows apps to your Linux desktop via FreeRDP.
In GNOME, if you have multiple keyboard layouts enabled, click on the keyboard layout button in the quick settings panel and click the "Show Keyboard Layout" button to get a quick overview of that layout.
That chance encounter sparked a friendship that led Ada to write what is now recognized as the world's first computer program, over a decade before the word "computer" referred to anything other than a person doing sums.
So when IceWhale offered me the newer version for review, I was curious to see how much had actually changed.
Not much specification-wise. Here's why. If you compare the spec sheets of the ZimaCube Pro (original) and the ZimaCube 2 Pro side by side, you will find the same Intel Core i5-1235U processor, the same 16 GB DDR5 RAM, the same 256 GB system SSD, and the same six SATA bays. The core hardware of the Pro tier has not changed between generations.
What IceWhale actually did with the ZimaCube 2 lineup is more subtle. The real generational leap happened at the entry level of ZimaCube. The new $799 Standard model replaces the old N100-based unit with a proper Intel Core i3, Thunderbolt 4, and DDR5, which is a substantial and much needed step up. Intel N100 was not the best choice even two years ago.
The Pro, meanwhile, got refinements, especially on the cooling and fan noise side, along with a more mature ZimaOS. The Pro version is not a new machine, it's just a better-tuned version of the same one.
💡
If you already own a ZimaCube Pro or Creator version, there is no compelling hardware reason to upgrade. If you are buying for the first time, ZimeCube 2 is an excellent Homelab device for beginners. I'll share why in this review.
With that said, here is everything I learned from almost a month of use.
ZimaCube Pro v2 Specifications
The ZimaCube 2 is available in three models:
ZimaCube 2 Standard ($799): Intel Core i3-1215U, 8 GB DDR5, 256 GB system SSD, 2.5GbE networking
ZimaCube 2 Creator Pack ($2,499): Everything in Pro, plus NVIDIA RTX Pro 2000 GPU, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB system SSD
The unit I have for this review is the Pro, and I added an NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada (16 GB VRAM) via one of the PCIe slots bringing it close to Creator Pack territory. This gives local AI capabilities to my otherwise Homelab device.
Again, the Pro specs are essentially identical to the original ZimaCube Pro. The i5-1235U, 16 GB DDR5, 256 GB SSD all unchanged. The ZimaCube 2 lineup's real generational upgrade happened at the base model ($799 Standard with i3), not the Pro tier.
Key specs for the Pro version:
CPU: Intel Core i5-1235U, 10 cores
RAM: 16 GB DDR5-4800 (expandable to 64 GB)
System Storage: 256 GB PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD
Drive Bays: 6x SATA (3.5"/2.5") + 4x M.2 NVMe slots
OS: ZimaOS (default), but you can install Proxmox, Unraid, TrueNAS, Ubuntu, and others
What else in the Box?
The accessory bundle is generous and thoughtful. You get:
Four heatsinks for the M.2 NVMe drive slots
A couple of screwdrivers so you can actually open and configure the device without hunting for tools
Plenty of screws for hard disks and SSDs
A high-quality Cat6 UTP cable for networking
A power cable matching your region (a small but sensible touch since they ship worldwide)
Fan noise is handled a lot better now
One of the major complaints I had with the previous ZimaCube was the fact that the tower cooler fan was annoyingly loud. I could not work without my Bose QuietComfort headphones on. I am a little picky about keeping the work environment quiet.
ZimaCube Pro v2 is noticeably quieter than the original generation. That is a real improvement and definitely worth acknowledging.
It is still not an absolute silent device. There is still a faint, constant, low-level whirring from the fans that you may hear in a quiet room if you are standing too close to it and the device is under load. You'll only notice it if you want to notice it. My TerraMaster NAS operates in near-silence by comparison.
Where you place this device matters. A dedicated server spot away from your workspace: no problem. On your desk in a home office, you might notice it.
The ZimaOS Experience: Still the heart of this device
ZimaOS is the backbone of ZimaCube and all other Zima devices. The good news is that it has matured considerably since the original ZimaOS that was released with the previous ZimaCube.
The interface is familiar: a clean web UI accessible from any browser on the local network, a file manager, and an app store for one-click deployment of self-hosted software. The applications run in Docker containers underneath, but you do not need to know Docker to install or use them.
The storage manager continues to be one of the strongest features.
Disk management, merging storage pools, and setting up RAID are all handled through a graphical interface that makes things a lot easier.
I migrated two drives from my original ZimaCube: a 1 TB SSD and a 500 GB SSD.
A note on RAID for anyone in a similar situation: yes, ZimaCube 2 supports RAID and the ZimaOS GUI makes creating a RAID array incredibly easy.
📋
I don't have HDDs in my setup. I have some SSDs of 500 GB and 1 TB. A couple of them are used for testing new devices such as this. I would like to expand my disk collection but the storage pricing has gone up to three times what it was a year ago.
But with mismatched drive sizes, RAID is wasteful. A 1 TB + 500 GB RAID 1 mirror gives you only 500 GB of usable space, wasting the rest.
So I skipped RAID and went with a practical split setup instead:
500 GB SSD dedicated to app data (persistent storage for all Docker-based apps)
1 TB SSD for actual user data and files
Moving the application and container data between disks is effortless thanks to the storage manager.
ZimaCube has 256 GB of built-in storage. But it starts filling up quickly as you install more (Docker) applications and add user data.
This is why I moved the app data to a 500 GB SSD and the user data to a 1 TB SSD. This way, the built-in storage is free. Once migrated, applications like Immich and others use the dedicated drive without needing to manually configure storage volumes in every app.
ZVM (Zima Virtual Machines) is also available, letting you run other operating systems directly on ZimaCube from the browser. It comes with a trial of Windows in a VM by default. Not useful to me but I guess it extends the functionality and offering of ZimaCube.
ZimaOS has many little gems that are not well advertised. For example, there is an option to enable UPS settings. In the event of a power failure, if you have added a UPS in the set up, you can choose to gracefully power off the ZimaCube if the power is not restored in the given time frame. This saves the disks and data from a prolonged power failure.
ZimaOS has power setting options for UPS
Many self-hosted applications are required to be configured with username and password at installation/deployment time. In such cases, ZimaOS shows the default credentials used under the Tips section. It is accessible when you click on the three vertical dots on the app.
💡
ZimaOS has a tiered structure now. The free tier covers core features, Thunderbolt support, developer mode, up to 4 disks, and 3 members. ZimaOS+ adds unlimited disks and unlimited users for a one-time $29 lifetime license. Every ZimaCube and other official Zima devices ship with this lifetime license included. You don't need an annual subscription, or forced cloud dependency.
ZimaOS still has room to grow!
The GUI hits its limits more often than the marketing suggests. Some things still require dropping into a terminal, which is fine for Linux users but undercuts the "easy homelab for everyone" pitch for less technical users.
For example, I installed Ollama-Nvidia from the app store. But there was no further information on using it. Since I have used Ollama in the past and I also have experience with ZimaOS, I figured out that it has to be accessed via the terminal of the Docker application.
When I ran Ollama commands, there was no visible output while the model downloaded or installed. It appeared to do nothing and then it was done. For anyone unfamiliar with CLI tools, this will cause confusion.
Thankfully, Open WebUI now directly downloads models from Ollama so a separate Ollama server is not mandatory anymore. But for agentic AI flow, I think Ollama is still better suited.
💡
ZimaCube also has a mobile client that lets you sync any folder on your phone directly to your drives. For quick photo backup before setting up something like Immich, it works out of the box.
Jellyfin as a media server
While ZimaOS does makes self-hosting open source software easier, individual applications do require occasional tweaking and configuration changes.
For example, I installed Jellfin Nvidia GPU version as I have added the RTX 2000 Ada. When I tried streaming a 4K video file, the GPU was not used at all. It started consuming 90% of the CPU.
It's because Jellyfin still needed configuration changes and I had to enable the hardware transcoding with NVIDIA NVENC.
And once I did that, the CPu consumption was at the minimum. GPU was consumed but not much as NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada is way too powerful for video transcoding.
The point I am trying to make here is that individual apps may require setting and configuration changes of their own.
Immich is a self-hosted Google Photos alternative and ZimaCube is an excellent host for it. The combination covers the full use case: mobile photo backup via the Immich app, face recognition, smart albums, CLIP-based semantic search, and a clean timeline interface in the browser.
With a GPU present, Immich's machine learning tasks like facial recognition, smart search run noticeably faster than on a CPU-only setup. I forgot to benchmark this data. Sorry for that 😦
The ZimaCube mobile client provides basic folder sync as an alternative if Immich feels like too much setup for your needs. Simple photo backup from your phone can be done without any additional app configuration. Although, it was buggy in my experience and I would prefer relying on PhotoPrism instead.
Using ZimaCube 2 for local AI
This is where ZimaCube Pro v2 genuinely separates itself from a typical NAS as no traditional NAS manufacturer gives you a PCIe slot for a GPU. ZimaCube does, and that changes what the machine can be.
I shared my experience with Ollama earlier but then you don't necessarily need Ollama all the time. Open WebUI, AnythingLLM works well too.
Anyways, the runtime experience is a different story. Once Ollama is running and models are pulled, things are smooth. With the RTX 2000 Ada's 16 GB VRAM, 7B and 13B parameter models run entirely in VRAM with no memory spillover. Response times are fast enough for real use: comfortable for chat, fast for summarization tasks, very fast for coding assistance.
For everyday tasks like text summarization, Q&A, quick coding help, 7B to 13B models are the practical sweet spot. They are fast, fit cleanly in 16 GB VRAM, and the quality is more than adequate. Larger models in the 32B+ range will start to push the memory limits, though quantized versions can still run well.
I tried Deepseek-r1, qwen and llama primarily. I wanted to use Kimi but Ollama only has it in cloud mode and that fails the point of setting up a local AI.
I used AnythingLLM as an AI assistant for my private notes. It helps me find and create quick tips for the newsletter and social media. Setting up AnythingLLM was a struggle too.
On the agentic AI side, I rely on Nanoclaw as it is super easy to setup. ZimaOS only offers OpenClaw which is more popular but not something I prefer. Setting up Hermes Agent is easier as it has graphical interface.
Let's be clear. Without a GPU, local AI on ZimaCube is CPU inference. Functional but slow and limited to smaller models. The PCIe slot is what makes the real difference here but then you have to spend on a small form factor GPU as not all GPUs will fit in the ZimaCube.
Linux is still not getting the place it deserves
There were two main concerns that I raised in the previous ZimaCube review: it's fan was too noisy and the Zima client was not available for Linux.
Built on ZeroTier, Zima client allows you to use your ZimaOS device from anywhere in the world. You have to enable remote access option for this.
This way, even if your ZimaCube is on your home network, behind a NAT, you can access it from another location, city or country. This makes your homelab available outside the home network.
The problem is that you need to install the Zima Client application on your system and this application is still available only for Windows and macOS.
Two years and we still don't have Zima Client for Linux and as a Linux user, I am surely disappointed.
What I am using ZimaCube Pro v2 for
I have a few Zima devices in my setup. I started my homelab journey with the ZimaBoard, a smaller SBC type of device that came with CasaOS. It was upgraded to ZimaBoard 2 and it runs continuously in my setup and powers my Home Assistant and Jellyfin servers.
ZimaCube 2 runs the same operating system and thus I could use it for all my homelab need and remove ZimaBoard from the picture, but I chose not to do so.
I use ZimaCube 2 as a combination of NAS and local AI. It has more power and thus also consumes more power. I usually turn the ZimaCube off at the end of the day and keep it running during my working hour.
Photo backup and management with Immich is the primary use case. My full photo library lives here now.
Then I use Local AI inference with Ollama and Open WebUI. Running Qwen and a few other models for summarization, knowledgebase assistant helps (with Anything LLM on my laptop).
File storage for important documents. ZimaCube is one node in my backup strategy.
Is it worth getting?
ZimaCube 2 Pro is priced at $1299. There is an increase in price because SSDs, RAMs cost more (all thanks to the AI craze).
If you already own a ZimaCube Pro, there is genuinely no hardware reason to upgrade. The processor, RAM, and storage are the same. It is not worth the cost of switching just for a more silent fan.
If you are buying for the first time, the ZimaCube 2 Pro is the one to go for. The standard ZimaCube 2, priced at $799, also provides more value now.
Some people may think that it is better to build a PC in the same or cheaper price but than not everyone would want to do that. Devices like ZimaCube serve a niche of people who want to own a homelab without spending too much time dealing with the hardware, networking and the operating system.
These days, you need more than just a NAS, You need that hardware to do more than just storing data. And ZimaCube brings NAS, self-hosting and local AI together. It gives you PCIe expansion, Thunderbolt 4, and an approachable homelab OS in the same box. For the right kind of user, that combination has no real alternative.
For me, ZimaCube is an integral part of my home setup, and it stays that way.
Microsoft just shipped coreutils for Windows. Yes, you read that right.
ls. grep. cat. cp. find. The same commands that have powered Unix and Linux systems for over 50 years are now available natively on Windows, maintained by Microsoft itself.
In case you are not already familiar, coreutils are the foundational utilities that every Linux and macOS system relies on for basic file operations, text processing, and shell scripting. They are the foundation of Unix computing. Tens of millions of scripts, pipelines, and workflows depend on them every day.
And now Microsoft is shipping and maintaining a build of them for Windows.
This is not WSL. You do not need a Linux subsystem running in the background. These "Linux commands" run natively on Windows, with the exact same flags and behavior as on Linux.
Microsoft's ultimate goal seems to make moving between Linux, macOS, WSL, containers, and Windows completely frictionless. Write a script once. Run it anywhere.
The Rust-based Windows coreutils is a work in progress
The package bundles uutils/coreutils (a modern Rust rewrite of GNU coreutils), findutils, and grep into a single multi-call binary. Every command supports standard flags. Same commands, same pipelines, no translation needed.
The project is still in preview and there are only a handful of commands. Since some commands have the same name in Linux and Windows, there is a possibility of conflict. Some don't fit in Windows environment.
Commands like dir, expand, more, paste, whoami conflict too directly with existing Windows built-ins. kill and timeout are unavailable due to Windows lacking POSIX signals. dd, dircolors, shred, sync, and uname were dropped as not useful on Windows. A longer list of POSIX-only commands like chmod, chown, chroot, mkfifo, id, who, and others are simply not applicable to the Windows environment. Who is surprised? Not me.
So, what commands are available as part of Windows coreutils then? The official GitHub repo does a better job at it:
Notice that there are separate columns for command prompt and PowerShell. Some commands would work in the default command prompt but not in the advanced PowerShell and vice versa.
Clearly, this is a work in progress and there should be more improvement on them in the near future.
Testing Linux commands on Windows
I booted into my Windows partition just to test it out. It's been months since I last logged in to the Windows and thus had to update the system with multiple reboots.
Sob story aside, I downloaded the .exe file for the Coreutils and installed it. Yes, these coreutils are offered in a single .exe file.
You can see a very brief demo of running some Linux commands in Windows command prompt. Some commands result in error as they are not supported yet.
A move for the agentic AI era?
See, the entire point of bringing Coreutils to Windows is to keep developers on the Microsoft platform. If they can use Linux commands and the tools their workflows depend on without leaving Windows, they have fewer reasons to switch to a Linux desktop. That is the same argument I made when WSL 2 was released years ago.
But this move goes beyond WSL, and in my opinion, it is not primarily aimed at developers, at least not in the direct sense.
Microsoft made several announcements at Build 2026 yesterday. One of them was bringing OpenClaw to Windows.
Now, OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent framework that lets autonomous agents run on your own machine. These agents rely on Linux commands, Python scripts, and similar tools to get things done. OpenClaw exploded in popularity earlier this year, so much so that people were buying Mac Minis just to run it locally.
These days, every operating system wants to be AI-ready. Development itself is increasingly happening through AI agents rather than purely by hand.
With OpenClaw coming to Windows, the ability to run Linux commands natively is no longer just a developer convenience, it becomes critical infrastructure for running AI agents.
That is what makes this announcement bigger than it looks. Microsoft is not just courting developers; it is positioning Windows as a serious platform for the agentic AI era.
The big news is that Linux distros are getting a standard Projects folder alongside Documents, Music, and Downloads. Most people already create one manually, but now it's official, and apps can start using it as a default location too. So it's more than just 'mkdir Projects", it has actual use.
Although, I am curious what kind of icon this new Projects directoy will get 😄
Here are other highlights of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
Firefox quietly using Brave's ad blocker.
A series of new Ubuntu releases.
Warp terminal going open source.
Hackers hijacking a package and publishing it to PyPI.
And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
📰 Linux and Open Source News
Firefox 149 has quietly shipped Brave's open source adblock-rust engine with no mention in the release notes. It's disabled by default with no UI, but can be enabled via about:config.
MinIO's GitHub repo has been archived again after going into maintenance mode last year. If you're running it in production, then it is time for a change.
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS "Resolute Raccoon" is out. You get GNOME 50, Linux kernel 7.0, Wayland-only, five new default apps, deb packages back in App Center, and post-quantum crypto out of the box.
It's flavors have also gotten releases, and we have already checked out what Kubuntu 26.04 and Lubuntu 26.04 offer.
A flaw in Elementary Data's GitHub Actions workflow let an attacker push a backdoored version to PyPI in under ten minutes. If you have elementary-data 0.23.3 installed, you got work to do.
LVFS, the service behind Linux firmware updates, has one full-time developer and no security team. Vendors consuming millions of downloads without contributing now face download quotas and feature restrictions until they sponsor the project.
Fedora 44 is out after a two-week delay. It is powered by Linux 6.19, includes GNOME 50 and Plasma 6.6, has NTSYNC for better Windows game performance, and a completely refreshed Games Lab spin.
AI is coming to Ubuntu, and Canonical's approach is local-first with open-weight models delivered via snaps.
There is a petition asking for a native Linux version of a 3D architectural modeling program Rhino 3D. If you can, please sign it. This may result in bringing a mainstream app to Linux, which may help grow Linux adoption.
🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings
GSConnect is the GNOME extension that brings KDE Connect to your desktop, letting you share files, sync notifications, use your phone as a trackpad, and mount Android folders over Wi-Fi.
Forgot your Ubuntu root password? You can boot into recovery mode, use the dpkg repair option to get a root shell, and reset it with passwd. Work only on systems with a root password set.
LeafKVM is an open source KVM-over-IP device in a CNC aluminum case, built on Rust and Buildroot.
Tired of AI fluff and misinformation in your Google feed? Get real, trusted Linux content. Add It’s FOSS as your preferred source and see our reliable Linux and open-source stories highlighted in your Discover feed and search results.
WSL9x is a project that does the opposite of what you'd expect. Instead of running Linux apps on Windows, it runs a modern Linux kernel 6.19 inside Windows 95, 98, or ME
Resharing the terminal customization video for the new readers. It's a detailed, step by step tutorial on how to make your terminal look as beautiful as the ones you see in our screenshots.
You can use the Vitals GNOME Shell extension to add more system monitor readings to the GNOME top panel. Click on Vitals in the top panel, and select the values you want in the panel.
Deselect the ones you don't need to hide them from the panel. Do note that the hidden ones are still visible when you are in the drop-down view. Hidden or not, these values are all still accessible in the dropdown view of the extension.
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On May 2, 1983, Microsoft introduced its two-button Microsoft Mouse alongside the new Microsoft Word processor. Despite manufacturing around 100,000 units for IBM and IBM-compatible PCs, the company sold only 5,000 before eventually finding success with a much-improved version.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: Pro FOSSer Dan is in a limbo where an update broke file thumbnails on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
And I am working on a complete overhaul of the It's FOSS Plus portal. Stay tuned for that.
FOSS Weekly #26.18: Ubuntu's AI Move, New Entry in Home Directory, New Ubuntu Terminal, Fedora 44 Release and More Linux Stuff
If you are using a rolling release distro like Arch, you might have noticed that your home directory now has a new member, a new folder called "Projects".
For as long as I remember, Linux has always had a set of default folders under the home directory. Usually they are Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos and Downloads. Templates, Desktop and Public folders are also there.
Now we have a new addition in the form of "Projects".
Projects directory for your ...well...projects
The purpose of the Projects directory is simple. It gives you a place to keep your project files, the kind of files that do not necessarily go in Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos. For example, your coding projects, your 3D printing and CAD projects etc.
Why it is more than 'just another directory'
The addition of a standard Projects directory is not just about keeping your home folder organized. It has bigger implications.
For starters, it gives applications a predictable place to store project-related files. Just like image-related apps often default to the Pictures folder and video tools save into Videos, development tools, CAD software, hardware design suites applications could use Projects as their natural default.
This can also improve interoperability between tools. An IDE could offer to create repositories in Projects by default. Build tools could assume a sensible project workspace, and installation guides or README instructions could refer to a common location instead of telling users to create arbitrary folders like ~/dev, ~/code, or ~/projects.
Sandboxed applications such as Flatpak apps may also benefit because a standardized location is easier to recognize and grant permissions for.
Not to forget, backup tools, synchronization services could treat the Projects directory as a meaningful category of data, same as Documents or Pictures.
In other words, this is not 'just another directory'. It provides better desktop workflows. A small standardization like this may quietly improve usability across the Linux desktop over time.
This was an 11-year-old "request"
And interestingly, this isn’t a brand new idea. The concept has existed for over a decade.
Currently XDG user dirs does not specify a directory for environments of projects. For software projects these usually include source code, version control, compiled binaries, test artefacts and downloaded dependencies. As they are much more than downloads and usually kept indefinitely, they do not fit in there. The benefit of defining a projects folder would be that when writing a README or install script for a project, one could automatically download the source to the user defined location, set up the build environment and install from there.
Don't like the new Projects directory? Just delete it. The xdg-user-dirs utility will not try to create it again. The default location for this directory will be moved to your home directory.
Power users, who want more control, can edit the ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs configuration file and modify it to control what goes where.
The road ahead for this change
This new standard directory change came with the release of xdg-user-dirs version 0.20. As I mentioned earlier, people using rolling release distros might already have this change. You can see a screenshot of EndeavorOS:
As GNOME contributor Matthias notes, support for GLib will be added in the coming months so that Flatpak, desktops and applications can make use of the Projects directory.
I am looking forward to it. You?
I have always created a dev directory in my home directory. This is where my coding related project files are located. It's better than keeping them under Documents because technically, these are not documents.
I think that I am not the only one who does this. I guess most of us have a projects or dev directory under Home.
Including a standard Projects directory is a good move. Not only does it remove the guesswork about where to keep such files, various applications can also take advantage of this new directory.
It may look like a small addition, but standardizing something many Linux users already do can improve workflows, application behavior, and even documentation over time. For a simple extra folder, “Projects” could have surprisingly large impact.
Linux is Getting a New Default Folder in Your Home Directory
Ubuntu 26.04 is releasing today. As a long-term support release, it will be supported till at least 2031, making it an important upgrade for many users.
If you’re currently on Ubuntu 24.04 or even 25.10, you probably have a few questions about upgrading. Should you do it now? Is it worth it? I’ve addressed those in a dedicated article.
On a related note, Fedora 44 faced another delay but is now expected to release tomorrow, April 24.
Here are other highlights of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
A young Polish developer fixing 20 year old Linux bug.
A new privacy-first cloud service.
Russian CPUs being dropped from Linux.
And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
📰 Linux and Open Source News
Linux 7.1 is dropping support for Baikal SoCs, the Russian ARM-based processors that were intended to give Russian state enterprises a domestic alternative to Intel and AMD.
Cal.com, the open source Calendly alternative, has gone closed source. The stated reason is that AI can now scan public repos and find exploitable vulnerabilities far faster than before.
A 20-year-old bug in the Enlightenment E16 window manager, introduced in 2006, was found and fixed this month by a 21-year-old graduate student who daily drives the 1999-era window manager.
MZLA Technologies, the Mozilla subsidiary behind Thunderbird, has launched Thunderbolt, an open source, self-hostable AI client aimed at organizations that can't send sensitive data to third-party AI services.
Elsewhere in the world of Mozilla, Firefox's new mascot Kit generated more drama than any browser mascot should've. A Reddit post used they/them pronouns to introduce the cartoon Firefox character; someone noticed a few weeks later, and the predictable cycle followed.
If you're already using Tuta for email and calendar and have been wondering where the cloud storage was, it's now in closed beta. Tuta Drive uses the same post-quantum hybrid encryption as the rest of the suite, is hosted in Germany, and is zero-knowledge by design.
Chapter 7 of our Terminal Basics series covers everything you need to know about the cp command for copying single files, multiple files, renaming during a copy, using -r for directories, and handling overwrites safely with -n and -i.
If your Linux Mint desktop feels a bit plain and you have RAM to spare, we have covered nine Cinnamon extensions and built-in effects worth trying for anyone who wants to make the desktop feel a bit more alive.
Compiling your own kernel sounds intimidating, but it's mostly a long sequence of well-defined steps. The journey involves fetching and verifying the source, configuring with menuconfig, building and installing modules, headers, and the kernel itself.
Linux gamers rejoice! A gaming console has been announced that runs an Arch-based distro.
Tired of AI fluff and misinformation in your Google feed? Get real, trusted Linux content. Add It’s FOSS as your preferred source and see our reliable Linux and open-source stories highlighted in your Discover feed and search results.
Managing a handful of containers from the terminal is fine until it isn't. Pods is a clean Adwaita-native GUI for Podman and Docker that handles the everyday tasks.
📽️ Videos for You
And I share the new features in Ubuntu 26.04 in this video along with my opinions on (some of) them. Please watch it here.
In many Linux terminal emulators like GNOME Terminal, Ptyxis, etc. You can press CTRL+SHIFT+F to open a search interface for going through your scrollback history. This typically contains options for matchcase, whole words, and regular expressions.
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On April 21, 1988, Tandy Corporation announced it would clone IBM's PS/2, which was made possible only because IBM had opened up the license to its proprietary MCA bus patents after years of trying to lock competitors out.
The PS/2 was IBM's attempt to retake control of the PC market it had accidentally given away by publishing open hardware specs in 1981. It failed completely.
Within four years IBM was a minor player in its own market, and by 2005 it had exited PC manufacturing entirely, selling the division to Lenovo.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: FOSSers are deliberating whether CAMM2 memory will be the next thing in computer hardware.
FOSS Weekly #26.17: Ubuntu 26.04 Release, Firefox Controversy, Positive News on Age-verification and More Linux Stuff
Ubuntu 26.04 is releasing today. It is natural to have questions about a new release, specially for beginners.
I have tried to answer those frequently asked questions about Ubuntu 26.04 here. I hope it helps clear your doubts if you had any. And if you still have questions, feel free to ask in the comment section below.
What are the system requirements for Ubuntu 26.04?
Ubuntu 26.04 requires a 2 GHz dual core processor or better, a minimum of 6 GB RAM and at least 25 GB of free disk space. These stats for the default GNOME version. KDE and Xfce flavors may work with 4 GB RAM.
If you are dual booting it with Windows, you should at least give it 50 GB or even 100 GB. 25 GB will be filled way too soon.
How long will Ubuntu 26.04 be supported?
It is a long-term support (LTS) release and like any LTS release, it will be supported for five years. Which means that Ubuntu 26.04 will get security and maintenance updates until April 2031. Flavors get supported for three years only.
You can enable Ubuntu Pro, free for personal use, and get extended support for five more years. This will give you just security and maintenance updates; new features and software versions will mostly not be available.
There is also the option for legacy add-on for Ubuntu Pro that will add five more years to extend the life.
These extensions are suitable for people who do not seek new features as much and happy to have a computer that works for most of their day to day need of browsing internet, manage photos and document etc.
There are other options in "Ubuntu 26.04"?
Ubuntu has various flavors based on the desktop environments they provide. Kubuntu is with KDE, Lubuntu is with LXQt, Xubuntu is with Xfce desktop. I hope you are familiar with the concept of desktop environments. This is what determines how your Linux system looks by default.
Where can I download Ubuntu 26.04?
You can get the ISO image of Ubuntu 26.04 GNOME from its website. You have both direct download and torrent options. Other official flavors will be available on their official websites.
Note: if you don't see the option to download Ubuntu 26.04, you can get it from the daily build page.
Can I download Ubuntu 26.04 via torrent?
Yes. you can. If you have an inconsistent or slow internet, you can download Ubuntu ISO image via torrent as well. Just go to the Ubuntu download page and look for alternative downloads. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see the torrent options.
How can I install Ubuntu 26.04?
Just like any other version. You download the ISO, make a live USB and use it to install Ubuntu on your system. You can dual boot it as well. The detailed steps are demonstrated in our Ubuntu installation guide.
Can I install KDE or some other desktop environment on Ubuntu 26.04?
Yes, you can. Linux gives you the flexibility to install the desktop environment of your choice. However, I recommend that if you have a fresh Ubuntu install where you don't have important data, it is better to install the official flavor instead. This is because some times, desktop environment elements conflict with each other. So if you want KDE, go for Kubuntu.
I am already using Ubuntu. Can I upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04?
Yes. Ubuntu allows you to upgrade from one version to the next or one long-term support (LTS) version to next. If you are already using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or 25.10, you will have the option to upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
If you are using Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, you'll have to upgrade to 24.04 LTS first and then upgrade to 26.04.
Please check your Ubuntu version. If you are using any version other than 22.04, 24.04 or 25.10, chances are that it has reached end of life. A fresh install will make more sense.
Why don't I see the upgrade to 26.04 option?
A new Ubuntu release is gradually rolled out to users. You'll see it eventually, just keep your system upgraded.
If you cannot wait, you can force update manager to look for "development release" and that should give you the option to upgrade to 26.04 immediately.
Should I wait or upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 right away?
In my experience, a new Ubuntu release often brings up bugs and issues that have gone unnoticed in the testing phase. If you easily get annoyed and don't want to troubleshoot, I would advise upgrading for a few week from the release. If you want to take it even more slow and comfortable, you can wait till the first point release of Ubuntu 26.04.1. Most of the discovered bugs are fixed by then.
Do I need to back up before upgrade?
Upgrading from existing Ubuntu version to new version is generally safe. In my 17 years of Ubuntu usage, I have never experienced a broken system while upgrading it.
That said, it is not impossible to encounter issues. It's rare but rare events do happen. So, if you have important data, make a backup with timeshift or simply copy the data on an external disk.
Before upgrading, if these things have not been backed up, I copy most of the contents from the home directory to my SanDisk external SSD (partner Amazon link) shown in the picture below. SSD with USB 3 or Thunderbolt have very good copying speed.
That is up to your technical abilities and convenience. Personally, I feel that a fresh install works better, specially if you have been upgrading to newer versions for the past several versions. Still try the upgrade first and if you feel it is sluggish, you can go for a fresh install.
Remember that you'll lose your data on the disk if you go for a fresh install. So, please make a backup of your important data on an external disk.
If I upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 can I downgrade to 25.10 or 24.04?
No, you cannot. While upgrading to the newer version is easy, there is no option to downgrade. If you want to go back to Ubuntu 24.04 or 25.10, you’ll have to do a fresh install of the desired version.
Should I be concerned about Wayland only Ubuntu 26.04?
That is really up to you. If you are using a software that is important to your workflow and that software does not support Wayland, then you will have issues.
While it is still possible to install the legacy Xorg display server on KDE, GNOME 50 has completely removed Xorg support. As far as I know, you cannot use Xorg on GNOME 50 or higher anymore.
So, please check which applications are essential for your workflow and then check from their website or forum to verify if they support Wayland or not. Make a decision accordingly if you have to keep on using 24.04 or switch to 26.04.
How do I know if Ubuntu 26.04 supports all my wifi and printer drivers?
While a newer version brings newer kernel that supports more hardware, it is not unheard to encounter wifi connectivity issues.
More questions?
I have tried to answer the common doubts an Ubuntu beginner usually have about a new release. This is coming from seventeen years of using Ubuntu and fourteen years of running this website. But then I am not a beginner anymore and I may not be able to think of all the questions a new Ubuntu user might have. So, if you still have doubts, please ask them in the comments and I'll try to help you out.
The big new, and it’s good, is coming from France. The government’s digital agency DINUM is moving its workstations from Windows to Linux, with every French ministry required to submit a plan by Autumn 2026 to reduce dependence on non-European software.
Two very different directions. Both worth paying attention to.
Here are other highlights of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
A new Linux kernel release.
France replacing Windows with Linux.
Microsoft locking out open source developers.
And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by Aiven.
Aiven just launched a permanent free tier for OpenSearch, offering a fully managed, persistent playground for your projects. With 4GB RAM and 20GB storage, it’s specifically engineered for the memory-heavy demands of AI: support for k-NN indexing, vector search, and RAG pipelines.
No credit card required and no trial limits. What else can you ask for?
Two related kernel AI stories this week. First, Linux has shipped an official AI coding assistants policy where AI help is allowed, but every patch needs a human accountable for it. Second, Greg Kroah-Hartman has been running what looks like an AI-assisted fuzzer on the kernel in a branch he calls "clanker."
A bug report filed in 2005 asking for per-screen virtual desktops in KDE has finally been addressed. The feature lets each monitor show a different virtual desktop independently rather than all switching together.
Linux 7.0 landed this week with a wide spread of improvements. Intel gets Nova Lake audio and better Arc GPU temperature reporting. AMD gets early Zen 6 performance profiling support and GPU groundwork for future hardware.
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
Session has lost all its paid developers and is running on volunteers. Donations are keeping the infrastructure alive until July 8, but development is effectively frozen unless they reach their $1 million donation goal.
And if you are absolutely new to Linux, it helps to start with the basics first. Not commands, but the kind of foundational things that make your early terminal experience far less confusing.
Once you get comfortable with the essentials, you might start exploring distributions more deeply. But not all rolling release distros are made equal. Arch gives you everything and expects you to handle it. Manjaro smooths the edges. Void is independent and leans stable. Gentoo compiles everything. Which one would you go for?
And somewhere along that journey, you’ll inevitably hit the classic fork in the road: Vim or nano. Nano works exactly like you'd expect a text editor to work, with controls visible on screen. Vim, on the other hand, runs on modes, muscle memory, and a learning curve that takes real commitment.
📚 Linux eBook bundle (ending this week)
No Starch Press needs no introduction. They have published some of the best books on Linux. And they are running an ebook bundle deal on Humble Bundle.
Plus, part of your purchase supports Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner
At some point every homelab stops being manageable by memory alone. Our roundup of dashboard tools is the answer to that.
Tired of AI fluff and misinformation in your Google feed? Get real, trusted Linux content. Add It’s FOSS as your preferred source and see our reliable Linux and open-source stories highlighted in your Discover feed and search results.
Firefox has a native color picker called Eyedropper that helps you know the exact hex color code of a specific color on a webpage. It is available inside Menu -> More Tools -> Eyedropper.
You can also right-click on an empty place in the toolbar and select "Customize Toolbar..."
Here, drag and drop the "Developer" tool to the toolbar. Now, you can access the Eyedropper from this button as well.
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On April 16, 1959, John McCarthy gave the first public presentation of LISP at MIT. The list-processing language he built from scratch became the foundation of artificial intelligence programming and introduced concepts like garbage collection still used today.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: One of our regular FOSSers has posted about Hardware Freedom Day 2026; are you celebrating?
This quiz is simple. You'll be presented with a few Linux distros and their details. The twist is that they might not be a real thing. They could just be a fragment of my imagination.
Of course, this is valid only at the time when I created this quiz. The way we move in Linux world, there could be some new distros coming up right after I publish this quiz 😃
🚧
Some browsers block the JavaScript-based quiz units. Disable your ad blocker to enjoy the quizzes and puzzles.
Linus Torvalds created two of the most widely used tools in modern computing: the Linux kernel and Git.
Git, of course, is a version control system primarily used by programmers.
But Theena makes a strong case that Git and plain text are the best tools a writer can use. Not just for backup but for building a writing practice that is truly their own..
At its core, the argument is about breaking free from platform dependency, long-term preservation, and treating your body of work as something worth designing around rather than just storing somewhere convenient.
Here are other highlights of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
sudo tips and tweaks.
Apt's new version has useful features.
Opera GX arriving as a gaming browser for Linux.
A Linux driver proposal to catch malicious USB devices.
And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
Tired of AI fluff and misinformation in your Google feed? Get real, trusted Linux content. Add It’s FOSS as your preferred source and see our reliable Linux and open-source stories highlighted in your Discover feed and search results.
Not open source software but Opera GX, the gaming-focused Chromium browser that's been on Windows and macOS for years, has finally landed on Linux. Sourav took the early access build for a spin and tested the features it's known for, like GX Control for capping RAM and CPU usage while gaming and GX Cleaner for cleaning up junk data.
The Linux kernel is finally dropping i486 support, queued for Linux 7.1. The first patch removes the relevant Kconfig build options, with a fuller cleanup covering 80 files and over 14,000 lines of legacy code still to follow.
Proton has launched two new things: Proton Workspace, a bundled suite of all their services aimed at businesses looking for a privacy-first alternative to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, and Proton Meet, an end-to-end encrypted video conferencing tool using the open source MLS protocol.
A proposal has been submitted to the Linux kernel mailing list for a new HID driver called hid-omg-detect that passively monitors USB keyboard-like devices for suspicious behavior.
Another proposal, but for Fedora was recently struck down. It looked to move per-user environment variable management from shell RC files into systemd.
YOUR support keeps us going, keeps us resisting the established media and big tech, keeps us independent. And it costs less than a McDonald's Happy Meal a month.
Support us via Plus membership and additionally, you:
✅ Get 5 FREE eBooks on Linux, Docker and Bash ✅ Enjoy an ad-free reading experience ✅ Flaunt badges in the comment section and forum ✅ Help creation of educational Linux materials for everyone
No Starch Press needs no introduction. They have published some of the best books on Linux. And they are running an ebook bundle deal on Humble Bundle.
You can copy a file in Nautilus by pressing Ctrl+C, then press Ctrl+M to paste it as a symbolic link instead of an actual copy. This is a handy way to create a symlink without ever needing to open a terminal!
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🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
In this members-only crossword, you will have to name systemd's ctl commands.
An appropriate meme on the OS-level age verification topic.
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On April 8, 1991, a small team at Sun Microsystems quietly relocated to work in secret on a project codenamed "Oak", a programming language that would eventually be renamed Java and go on to become one of the most widely used languages in the world, powering everything from Android apps to enterprise software.
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.
Here are other highlights of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
Things you can do Linux but not on Windows
Chrome on ARM Linux (aka Raspberry Pi).
A new web browser for Linux users.
GNOME 50 and Fedora Ashahi releases
And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
📰 Linux and Open Source News
GNOME 50 is here and X11 is not. Wayland is all the way in this new release. Upcoming distros like Ubuntu 26.04 and Fedora 44 will have it. Rolling distros like Arch should also get it soon.
Google has officially announced Chrome for ARM64 Linux, with a release targeted for Q2 2026. That means Raspberry Pi users, Snapdragon laptop owners, and anyone else running ARM hardware will get the Chrome experience on Linux.
Although, not open source, Kagi's Orion browser has made it to Linux as a public beta, and it's genuinely interesting because it's one of the browsers on the platform not built on Chromium or Firefox's engine. It is based on WebKit and works okayish on GNOME.
Fedora Asahi Remix 43 arrives with Mac Pro support. In case you did not know, Asahi is the project bring Linux to Apple's Silicon processors.
AI companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta etc have put $12.5M into Open Source Security, managed by Linux Foundation. This is funny in a way. They are putting together a fund to fix the problem their AI tools created in the first place.
YOUR support keeps us going, keeps us resisting the established media and tech, keeps us independent. And it costs less than a McDonald's Happy Meal.
Opt for the Plus membership to:
✅ Get 5 FREE eBooks on Linux, Docker and Bash ✅ Enjoy an ad-free reading experience ✅ Flaunt badges in the comment section and forum ✅ To support creation of educational Linux materials
A clean beginner's guide to Markdown covering the core syntax: headings, text formatting, links, images, lists, and block quotes. It comes with a downloadable cheat sheet and a few recommendations for online editors if you want to try it without installing anything.
Windows users have been conditioned to ask, "But can Linux do X?" This piece by Roland flips it around and asks what Linux can do that Windows can't. The answers range from practical (live sessions, moving installs between machines, reviving old hardware) to genuinely impressive (swapping kernels, choosing filesystems, replacing every layer of your stack).
📚 eBook bundle on AI
Inside this 20+ eBook library, you’ll gain expert insights from practical lessons like Learn Python Programming, 4E and the LLM Engineer's Handbook. These massively efficient tools save you time and effort so you can prioritize other important tasks and systems.
Your purchase supports the World Central Kitchen organization.
👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner
If your Raspberry Pi homelab is freezing up under load, the default 200 MB swap is probably the first thing worth looking at.
✨ Apps and Projects Highlights
If your GNOME top panel has turned into a wall of icons, Veil is worth a look. It's a shell extension that lets you hide panel items behind a toggle arrow.
📽️ Videos for You
You could move away from Google today if you wanted to, and DuckDuckGo is one of the good ones to consider.
In Nautilus file manager, you can press CTRL+F to start a search in the current directory and CTRL+SHIFT+F to search across the other system folders. To go even further, you can add new search locations via the Search settings.
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And, if you use the shortcut CTRL+ALT+O after selecting a file or folder, you can go to it's location in the file manager. Do note that this works in the Search and Recent pages of the file manager.
🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
Do you know the brain behind Debian? This Ian Murdock quiz will test your knowledge.
🤣 Meme of the Week: We must protect it at all costs!
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On March 17, 1988, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement over the look and feel of the Windows GUI. Apple's argument was that Windows borrowed too heavily from the Macintosh interface it had debuted in 1984. The case dragged on for years before a judge ruled that Apple had only limited rights to the design elements in question.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: One of our regular Pro FOSSers is having an issue with CUPS on antiX Linux; can you help?
FOSS Weekly #26.12: GNOME 50 Release, Fedora for Apple, New Ageless Linux, Manjaro Drama and More
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 heated systemd controversy, offering a system that avoided systemd entirely.
The new distro, called Ageless Linux, follows a similar idea. It’s essentially Debian Linux but without age verification.
It started with California, and states like Colorado, New York, and Illinois have proposed similar legislation. Reports also suggest that Brazil may be moving in the same direction.
What makes this development even more interesting is that Meta, the company behind Facebook, reportedly lobbied heavily for these laws.
Until now, governments mainly pressured social media platforms to verify users’ ages to prevent young children and teenagers from accessing certain services.
Meta’s proposal shifts that responsibility. Instead of every app or website verifying a user’s age individually, the operating system would verify it once.
Then, through an API exposed by the OS or its app store, applications could simply ask the system for the user’s age or age category.
In other words, your operating system becomes the age gatekeeper for every app you install.
And that idea has sparked a lot of debate in the tech community especially among Linux and open-source developers.
Why age verification is 'incompatible' with Linux ecosystem?
At first glance, age verification sounds reasonable. Governments argue that it helps protect children from harmful online content. But many developers and privacy advocates see serious problems with pushing this responsibility to the operating system.
The biggest concern is privacy. Linux distributions traditionally collect little to no personal information about users. Unlike Apple and Microsoft, you are not forced to create an online account before using an operating system. Introducing age verification could mean that operating systems must store or process sensitive identity data, something many Linux projects have deliberately avoided for decades.
Some critics suspect the push is less about child safety and more about control, warning that once operating systems begin verifying identity or age, it becomes easier to expand such systems to regulate broader online activity.
Another issue is security risk. If operating systems start storing age or identity information, it creates a new type of data that could potentially be misused, leaked, or exploited. Even if only age categories are shared with apps, it still introduces a form of system-level user profiling.
There is also a philosophical concern. Many of us in the open-source world believe an operating system should remain a neutral tool, not a platform that enforces identity verification or government regulations.
Because of these concerns, some developers and users see OS-level age verification as a step toward turning operating systems into identity gatekeepers, which runs against the long-standing Linux ethos of user freedom and minimal to no data collection.
The project positions itself as a statement against OS-level age verification. Instead of building systems that identify and categorize users by age, Ageless Linux sticks to a much simpler idea: an operating system should run software, not act as a digital identity checker.
Ageless Linux is a registered operating system under the definitions established by the California Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043, Chapter 675, Statutes of 2025). We are in full, knowing, and intentional noncompliance with the age verification requirements of Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.501(a).
In practical terms, Ageless Linux is basically Debian with the age-verification pieces removed or avoided. The goal isn’t to reinvent Linux, but to ensure that users who oppose these laws still have a distribution that does not participate in age-verification frameworks.
More than just another Linux distro actually
I am glad that Ageless Linux did not stop at "Debian without age verification". Browsing the website, it seems they are more of a project that stands against age verification.
So it’s not just a distro; it’s becoming a full-fledged portal documenting and opposing age-verification laws.
In addition to that, they also have an ambitious hardware project that is "designed to satisfy every element of the California Digital Age Assurance Act's regulatory scope while deliberately refusing to comply with its requirements."
This hardware is basically a $12 RISC-V ARM board. They have named it "Ageless Device" and the aim is to give it to children in schools.
And I’m glad they are not restricting themselves to just a distro, but are moving toward becoming a non-profit organization that educates people about the potential dangers of age verification turning into surveillance infrastructure.
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.
Launching Chrome for ARM64 Linux devices allows more users to enjoy the seamless integration of Google’s most helpful services into their browser. This move addresses the growing demand for a browsing experience that combines the benefits of the open-source Chromium project with the Google ecosystem of apps and features.
But there is Chromium available already
Many FOSS purists prefer Chromium over Chrome, as it is the open-source project that serves as the foundation for Google Chrome. In fact, many Linux distributions, even on non-ARM devices, ship Chromium as the default browser.
However, Chromium is not the same as Chrome. DRM playback support is often limited, Google account sync typically requires workarounds to function properly, and several proprietary features are missing. It is undoubtedly a solid browser, but it doesn’t offer the same level of mainstream convenience and integration that users are accustomed to with Google Chrome.
Took a real long time due to Google's apathy towards Linux
Chromium has been available for ARM devices for years but Google did not care for offering Chrome for Linux users. Emphasizing on Linux because Google quickly released Chrome for Apple's ARM devices in 2020 itself and it was followed by Windows ARM devices in 2024.
This is when Chromebook with ARM perocessors have been in existence since 2012. Google's Chromebook run a cutsomized version of Linux in the form of ChromeOS. And these Chromebooks had Chrome browser. Surely, not much was required for bringing Chrome to Linux ARM devices.
Thank you, NVIDIA?
The announcement blog has an interesting mention of NVIDIA.
Last year, NVIDIA introduced the DGX Spark, an AI supercomputing device that packs its Grace Blackwell architecture into a compact, 1-liter form factor. Google is partnering with NVIDIA to make it easier for DGX Spark users to install Chrome.
So, was it NVIDIA who pushed/inspired Google to work on bringing Chrome to Linux ARM devices? Maybe.
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 Weekly:
EA slowly moving towards Linux.
Firefox's redesign has been leaked.
Linux Mint keyboard shortcut video.
MidnightBSD saying no to age verification.
And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
📰 Linux and Open Source News
EA is hiring an anti-cheat engineer to bring Javelin to ARM64, and tucked into the job listing is a mention of exploring Linux and Proton support in the future. After ditching Linux for Apex Legends in 2024, it's a surprising turn. But I wouldn't hold my breath on this.
Firefox's Proton UI has been around since 2021 and honestly looks it. Leaked internal mockups show Mozilla is working on something called "Nova," a significant visual overhaul. Tabs, the address bar, and the toolbar are merged into a single floating strip; rounded corners are everywhere; flat grays are out in favor of gradients, and the private window gets a full dark-purple makeover.
MidnightBSD has updated its license to bar residents of Brazil and California from using the project, with Colorado, Illinois, and New York on the list if their respective pending age verification bills pass.
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
The age verification laws spreading across US states are making distro maintainers uncomfortable, and responses are all over the place. Ubuntu and Fedora are working on minimal local APIs to tick the compliance box without doing anything too invasive. MidnightBSD is outright banning people from using it (as mentioned above).
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Wordcloud is a Python tool that turns any list of words into a visual word cloud image, right from the terminal. You can feed it a text file, tweak the resolution, swap the font, change the background color, or use a mask image to shape the output around a custom silhouette.
Some practical privacy tips that don't require a computer science degree or a paranoia spiral. Our article covers the basics well, from securing your email and browser to picking better cloud storage and messaging apps.
Ever wanted a desktop that looks like it belongs on r/unixporn? We have an i3 customization guide that covers a lot, from basic keybindings and color schemes to transparent status bars and per-workspace app assignments.
GSConnect is the GNOME-friendly way to link your Android phone and Linux machine, built on top of KDE Connect. Once paired, you can transfer files, share the clipboard, get phone notifications on your desktop, and use your phone as a remote mouse.
FRANK OS is a full desktop operating system, complete with a Start menu, overlapping windows, Alt+Tab switching, and a ZX Spectrum emulator, running on an RP2350 microcontroller.
On GNOME, first install Tiling Shell. Then, when you right-click on the titlebar of a window, you get various tiling options. Do keep in mind that not all apps will support this.
🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
Match Linux apps with their functions in this puzzle. And yes, fresh new puzzles are coming soon 😄
🤣 Meme of the Week: Winslop doesn't know what consent means.
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On March 9, 1955, a program called "Director" was demonstrated on MIT's Whirlwind computer—automatically managing system resources while user code ran. It's considered one of the earliest rudimentary operating systems ever created.
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's because this is not the first time SUSE Linux has been sold.
Long history of changing hands
SUSE was founded in 1992 and provided the distribution along with support and services to enterprises. In fact, it was the first company to market Linux to enterprises.
It was a good run until Attachmate purchased Novell in 2011 for a hefty $2.2 billion. SUSE was part of Novell and thus Attachmate took the ownership of the project.
And then in 2014, Micro Focus acquired Attachmate for $2.35 billion and thus once again SUSE saw a new owner.
Come 2018 and a private equity group EQT bought Micro Foucs for $2.535 billions. Needless to say, SUSE was part of the deal.
Except for the first one, the rest of the deals were for the parent company, not necessarily for SUSE. However, the current report suggests that EQT is only selling SUSE this time for approximately $6 billion.
Red Hat is often considered SUSE’s closest competitor, as both primarily focus on enterprise customers. In 2019, IBM acquired Red Hat for $34 billion, making it one of the largest software acquisitions in history. Since then, Red Hat has become a central pillar of IBM’s hybrid cloud strategy, helping drive growth in areas where IBM had been struggling to maintain momentum.
Who could buy SUSE?
We can only guess, and if it were up to me, here are a few big names that could take advantage of SUSE:
Amazon: Although Amazon has its own Linux distros for deploying AWS internally
IBM: It already has Red Hat in its kitty. Getting SUSE means near monopoly in enterprise Linux. But this could also be blocked by regulators.
Oracle: Oracle has its own Oracle Linux for enterprise. With SUSE, it can expand its business.
Broadcom: They have already gotten VMWare and thus they already have one foot in the enterprise Linux market. With SUSE, they will only consolidate their position.
Microsoft: They have Azure but that's primarily for cloud servers. For a company like Microsoft, $6 billion is not a huge amount. They can expand their enterprise offering with SUSE.
These are all guesses. For all we know, an unknown player could enter the scene, or it might not be sold at all.
Your turn now. What do you think of SUSE being in the market again. Which company should buy it?
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, several have begun addressing the laws through compliance planning, rejection, or exclusion strategies.
Aaron Rainbolt, Ubuntu Community Council Member and contributor to Whonix, said:
We're currently looking into how to implement an API that will comply with the laws while also not being a privacy disaster...
elementary OS seems to be relying on Ubuntu's implementation too. Danielle Foré, elementary's lead developer and founder, was also in the same discussion expressing their willingness to address the issue before the law comes into effect.
The Fedora community is exploring non-intrusive implementations, such as a local API or an /etc/ file populated during setup to provide age brackets to apps without online verification or data sharing. Former project leader Jef Spaleta mentioned that it is not telemetry but a minimal adjustment to meet legal requirements.
System76, Linux system manufacturer and the company behind Pop!OS, noted that the laws do not mandate robust verification, only self-attestation and warned that non-compliance could lead to restricted app access for users. They are also considering minimal changes to provide age signals, focusing on avoiding unintended consequences like a "nerfed internet."
If there is any solace in these two laws, it’s that they don’t have any real restrictions. There is no actual age verification. Whoever installed the operating system or created the account simply says what age they are. They can lie. They will lie. They’re being encouraged to lie for fear of being restricted to a nerfed internet.
Some distros are resisting
The bold step came from DHH and his Omarchy Linux as it outright rejected compliance, with DHH stating that he had no plans to respond to the "retarded" California law.
MidnightBSD has taken a firm stance against compliance by updating its license to explicitly exclude California residents from using it for desktop purposes starting January 1, 2027. The project's lead stated this is a temporary measure until a better solution emerges, emphasizing the impracticality of age verification for open-source OSes.
What about the rest?
There are no official statements from Linux Mint yet, so any conclusion here is merely speculative. Given its close alignment with Ubuntu, I think it will follow whatever direction Ubuntu takes, possibly adopting the same shared API approach.
Arch Linux has remained publicly silent on the issue as well. Some forum discussions briefly appeared in my web search results but they seem to be removed, leaving no clear indication of the project’s stance. SUSE has also not made any public comments so far. Since the legislation originates in the U.S., European-focused distributions like SUSE may not feel immediate pressure to respond.
Meanwhile, discussions in the NixOS community suggest that they are waiting to see what larger distributions decide. That is not surprising. Much of the Linux ecosystem ultimately traces back to Debian, Arch, Ubuntu, and Red Hat (Fedora). Whatever technical approach these major players adopt will likely influence dozens of downstream distributions.
And we should also see a few existing or new distros coming up with "no age verification" as their unique feature that distinguishes them from the rest. After all, Linux community is known to take a stance, right?
How Linux and BSD Distros Are Responding to the New Age Verification Laws
