Linux NewsMoving Away from Non-Sovereign Tech
A good plan – and FOSS – can pave the way to the security, simplicity, and local financial benefit of tech sovereignty.
A Visual Diff and Merge Tool
Use Meld to visually compare files and directories, resolve complex three-way merge conflicts, and audit your code repositories via a visually appealing, color-coded, side-by-side interface.
Teaching a Rasp Pi Model B to Speak
bitVox, a small voice assistant built on a 2011 Raspberry Pi Model B, separates hardware control, speech processing, intent routing, and skills into plain Linux processes, allowing you to read, test, and modify one piece at a time.
Why the Powerful ss Command Is Gradually Replacing netstat
We take a close look at the Socket Statistics utility ss and show why it is better than netstat for forensics, troubleshooting, and other networking tasks.
In the news: KDE Linux Drops AUR; California May Exempt Linux from Its Age-Verification Law; Another Logic Bug Found in Linux Kernel; Ubuntu Core 26 Offers Game-Changing Enterprise Features; Flooding the Linux Kernel Security Mailing List; Top Priorities for Open Source Pros Seeking a New Job; Container-Based Fedora Hummingbird Designed for Agent-First Builders; and Linux Kernel Developers Considering a Kill Switch.
Exploring the Firefox AI Kill Switch and Mozilla's Default Behavior with Trackers and Ads
Firefox 148 introduced an option called "Block AI enhancements." What does that mean, is it really a "kill switch" for AI, and does Firefox live up to its reputation as a browser that exists beyond corporate control? We decided to start up Wireshark and find out.
Run Apps from Old or Different Linux Installations
If you want to run an app from a different distribution or architecture or one that needs different libraries, we show you some tricks to make this work on your Linux machine.
Git 2.55 Lands with Big Speedups for Large Linux Repositories
Git 2.55 adds Linux support for its built-in FSMonitor daemon, helping large repositories avoid costly working-tree scans.
Kali Linux 2026.2 Released with GNOME 50, KDE Plasma 6.6, and New Tools
Kali Linux 2026.2 ethical hacking and penetration testing distribution is now available for download with GNOME 50 and KDE Plasma 6.6 desktop offerings, new tools, Kali NetHunter uUpdates, and more.
Wine 11.12 Released With Wayland Fractional Scaling & Other Wayland Enhancements
Wine 11.12 fell off the bi-weekly release rhythm with not making it out last Friday, but it managed to ship today. Wine 11.12 brings fractional scaling support to its Wayland driver and various other enhancements...
Kali Linux 2026.2 Released with GNOME 50, KDE Plasma 6.6, Kernel 6.19
Kali Linux 2026.2 arrives with major desktop updates, new tools, faster VM boots, and APT source changes.
[$] The rest of the 7.2 merge window
Linus Torvalds released 7.2-rc1 and closed the 7.2 merge window on June 28; by that time, 13,412 non-merge commits had found their way into the mainline. That makes this the busiest merge window since the 6.7 development cycle in 2024 (15,418 commits, including 2,800 for the entire bcachefs development history). Just under half of those commits arrived after LWN's summary of the first half of the merge window was written. As usual, the commits in the latter part of the merge window were more heavily focused on fixes, but there were still a lot of new features and significant changes merged as well.
You Can Spend Up to $11,944 on Purism's Librem 16 Linux Laptop
The laptop starts at $2,899 and scales up to an eye-watering $11,944 for a custom config.
Next Bcachefs Release Aims To Include Rust Code In The Kernel Module
The Bcachefs file-system already makes use of the Rust programming language in the user-space tools for this CoW file-system and they have been planning to make use of Rust within the kernel module too. Beginning in the next Bcachefs release, v1.38.7, they are looking at beginning to include Rust code now in their kernel driver...
[$] Xsnow "protestware" in Debian
The xsnow application, which generates an animated snowfall effect (and other pleasant diversions) for X11 desktops, does not seem like an obvious channel for political statements. Nevertheless, xsnow's maintainer seems to have included a political protest in the program: an Easter egg that is triggered when the program's language is set to Russia ("ru"). One user has complained that this functionality should be removed from the Debian xsnow package, but Debian does not seem to have any rules that forbid such a feature outright.