Linux NewsKDE Plasma 6.6.2 Released With Dozens of Bug Fixes
KDE Plasma 6.6.2 is a March bugfix update that addresses crashes in KWin, enhances Discover, and improves various desktop components.
[$] Free software needs free tools
One of the contradictions of the modern open-source movement is that projects which respect user freedoms often rely on proprietary tools that do not: communities often turn to non-free software for code hosting, communication, and more. At Configuration Management Camp (CfgMgmtCamp) 2026, Jan Ainali spoke about the need for open-source projects to adopt open tools; he hoped to persuade new and mature projects to switch to open alternatives, even if just one tool, to reduce their dependencies on tech giants and support community-driven infrastructure.
Garrett: To update blobs or not to update blobs
Matthew Garrett examines the factors that go into the decision about whether to install a firmware update or not. I trust my CPU vendor. I don't trust my CPU vendor because I want to, I trust my CPU vendor because I have no choice. I don't think it's likely that my CPU vendor has designed a CPU that identifies when I'm generating cryptographic keys and biases the RNG output so my keys are significantly weaker than they look, but it's not literally impossible. I generate keys on it anyway, because what choice do I have? At some point I will buy a new laptop because Electron will no longer fit in 32GB of RAM and I will have to make the same affirmation of trust, because the alternative is that I just don't have a computer.
Security updates for Tuesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (containernetworking-plugins, gnutls, kernel, libpng, and skopeo), Debian (firefox-esr, php8.2, and spip), Fedora (erlang and python-pillow), Red Hat (go-toolset:rhel8, golang, and yggdrasil), SUSE (cups, fluidsynth, gvfs, haproxy, libsoup, libsoup-3_0-0, mozilla-nss, python-azure-core, and shim), and Ubuntu (git and mailman).
Stop! These 4 Linux distros are not as safe as you think for beginners
If you're new to Linux, you might accidentally spoil your experience if you try to install any of these Linux distros.
Intel Rendering Toolkit & OpenVINO AI GPU Performance On Intel Panther Lake's Xe3 B390
Over the past month I have been running a lot of Linux benchmarks on Intel's new Panther Lake using the Core Ultra X7 358H and its Xe3-based Arc B390 Graphics. The Arc B390 on Linux has been quite interesting with its OpenGL and Vulkan graphics performance compared to prior generations of Intel graphics plus the Intel Compute Runtime / OpenCL performance too. In today's article are more benchmarks of the latter in looking at the Intel Rendering Toolkit and OpenVINO AI performance on the Xe3 B390 Panther Lake graphics compared to prior Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake.
3 lessons I learned after replacing my Windows PC with a Linux laptop
The journey has a lot of surprises, but ultimately worth it.
GNOME Mutter 50.rc Released With Better NVIDIA Performance, SDR-Native & Better HDR
There is two weeks to go until the GNOME 50 stable release while out today is the release candidate of Mutter 50. This Mutter 50.rc release brings some exciting last-minute enhancements to this Wayland compositor...
FOSS Force’s Top Ten for February, 2026
Here’s what people were reading the most on FOSS Force during the month of February, 2026. The post FOSS Force’s Top Ten for February, 2026 appeared first on FOSS Force.
KDE Plasma 6.6.2 Improves Support for High-Resolution Mice on Remote Desktops
KDE Plasma 6.6.2 is now available as the second maintenance update to the latest KDE Plasma 6.6 desktop environment series with more bug fixes.
Sovereign Tech Fellowship Opens Up To Community Managers, Technical Writers
Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency announced a new and expanded Sovereign Tech Fellowship program that is now open to community managers and technical writers, beyond just FOSS maintainers from the prior round...
Apple Announces "Fusion Architecture" With M5 Pro & M5 Max
Apple announced today the new Fusion Architecture with the M5 Pro and M5 Max SoCs that also feature a next-generation GPU...
Our Fundraising Drive: Like Listener-Supported Radio, Without Breaking Into Programming
Our Independence 2026 Drive has slowed a bit, but readers like Charlie are still going out of their way to keep distro reviews, app coverage, and independent FOSS reporting alive here at FOSS Force. The post Our Fundraising Drive: Like Listener-Supported Radio, Without Breaking Into Programming appeared first on FOSS Force.
Intel Adapting Linux's LAM In Preparing For ChkTag
Last year AMD and Intel as part of the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group announced ChkTag for x86 memory tagging across processors to better fight buffer overflows and use-after-free errors. In preparing for ChkTag with future processors, Intel has begun adapting their Linear Address Masking (LAM) support to more nicely jive with it...
Filesystem Searching with Clapgrep and Recoll
Clapgrep and Recoll edge out grep for filesystem searches thanks to straightforward graphical user interfaces.