Linux NewsUbuntu Plans Gradual AI Features Built Around Local Inference
Canonical plans to introduce AI features to Ubuntu gradually, prioritizing local inference and providing clear interfaces for cloud services.
Canonical is ‘ramping up’ AI in Ubuntu this year
AI features are coming to Ubuntu this year, Canonical has announced – though it adds that the distro is not becoming an AI product. In a community post, Jon Seager, VP of engineering at Canonical, says the company will be “ramping up its use of AI tools in a focused and principled manner” in 2026, with a bias toward local inference and open-weight models whose licence terms vibe with Canonical’s values. AI features in Ubuntu will introduced in to the desktop, but taking one of two forms. Ubuntu aims to become a context-aware OS, with agentic workflow integrations and endpoints […]
pgBackRest is no longer maintained
David Steele, maintainer of the popular pgBackRest backup and restore project for PostgreSQL, has archived the project and announced that it is no longer being maintained. After a lot of thought, I have decided to stop working on pgBackRest. I did not come to this decision lightly. pgBackRest has been my passion project for the last thirteen years, and I was fortunate to have corporate sponsorship for much of this time, but there were also many late nights and weekends as I worked to make pgBackRest the project it is today, aided by numerous contributors. Every open-source developer knows exactly what I mean and how much of your life gets devoted to a special project. Since Crunchy Data was sold, I have been maintaining pgBackRest and looking for a position that would allow me to continue the work, but so far I have not been successful. Likewise, my efforts to secure sponsorship have also fallen far short of what I need to make the project viable.
Why are there so many Linux terminals?
There are dozens of terminals. All of them can run the same commands. But Linux users will still go to war for their favorite ones. Why?
[$] Zig explores structured concurrency
Version 0.16.0 of the Zig programming language was recently announced, and with it an expanded version of the new Io interface that we covered in December. The new interface is based on an idea called structured concurrency that makes writing correct concurrent applications easier. Zig's implementation of the idea is more explicit and verbose than other languages, however, which could offer an opportunity to explore the consequences of different designs.
The future of AI in Ubuntu
Jon Seager, VP engineering for Canonical, has posted an update on "what Canonical and Ubuntu will do (or not) to incorporate AI" that explains what part AI will play in the future of the company and its distribution. The bottom line is that Canonical is ramping up its use of AI tools in a focused and principled manner that favours open weight models with license terms that feel most compatible with our values, combined with open source harnesses. AI features will be landing in Ubuntu throughout the next year as we feel that they're of sufficient maturity and quality, with a bias toward local inference by default. AI features in Ubuntu features will come in two forms: first as a means of enhancing existing OS functionality with AI models in the background, and latterly in the form of "AI native" features and workflows for those who want them. This year Canonical has begun a more deliberate push toward education and developing competence with AI tools. We are not setting shallow metrics
Niri 26.04 released
Version 26.04 of the niri scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor has been released. The most notable change in this release, as the "most requested niri feature by far", is support for the blur effect using the Wayland protocol's ext-background-effect. This release also features optional configuration includes, screencasting support enhancements, and a number of improvements for input devices. In short, background blur turned out to be a massive undertaking. Not because of the blur algorithm itself (by the way, if you want to learn about different blurs, including the widely used Dual Kawase, I highly recommend this blog post), but because window background effects in general required a lot of thinking and additions to the code, especially to make them as efficient as possible. This is one of the most complex niri features thus far. LWN covered niri in July 2025.
Valve Confirms Steam Controller Release Date, $99 Price
Valve just announced that their new Steam Controller will be going on sale on 4 May. Pricing in the US is at $99 USD...
Security updates for Monday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (java-25-openjdk, kernel, osbuild-composer, thunderbird, webkit2gtk3, and wireshark), Debian (chromium, distro-info-data, libde265, mbedtls, and thunderbird), Fedora (awstats, bind9-next, bpfman, buildah, calibre, cef, chromium, composer, corosync, coturn, cups, curl, dnsdist, doctl, erlang, fido-device-onboard, flatpak-builder, freetype, glab, goose, jq, kea, libarchive, libcap, libcgif, libgsasl, libinput, libmicrohttpd, libpng, libpng12, libpng15, mapserver, mbedtls, micropython, minetest, mingw-exiv2, mingw-libpng, mingw-LibRaw, mingw-openexr, mingw-python3, moby-engine, mupdf, nginx, nginx-mod-brotli, nginx-mod-fancyindex, nginx-mod-headers-more, nginx-mod-modsecurity, nginx-mod-naxsi, nginx-mod-vts, opam, openbao, opensc, openssh, openssl, opkssh, perl-Net-CIDR-Lite, pgadmin4, pie, podman, pspp, pypy, python-biopython, python-cairosvg, python-cbor2, python-cryptography, python-flask-httpauth, python-msal, python-pillow, python-pydico
Kdenlive 26.04 Video Editor Brings Timeline and Workflow Improvements
Kdenlive 26.04 is now available, offering enhanced timeline navigation, improved transitions, better audio capture, updated subtitle features, and a new Heatmap effect.
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Reaches End of Standard ESM Support
With the end of standard ESM support for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, users must now choose between a staged upgrade or extended paid security coverage.
Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus Provides Exceptional Value For Linux Users
After looking at the new Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor earlier this month with its nice performance evolution for Arrow Lake on Linux, today we are looking at the other new Intel desktop CPU offering: the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus that retails for just $219 USD.
Beda and McLuckie Reunited and Securing AI at Stacklok
After Kubernetes, Heptio, and VMware, the Kubernetes co‑creators are betting that securing AI workflows and agents is the next big infrastructure problem — but they’re doing it with a VMware‑inspired hybrid open source play. The post Beda and McLuckie Reunited and Securing AI at Stacklok appeared first on FOSS Force.
With Linux 7.1 The Mainline Kernel Now Supports Real-Time "RT" On ARM
The Linux 7.1 mainline kernel will allow building a real-time "PREEMPT_RT" kernel for the ARM architecture with no longer needing any out-of-tree patches...
XWayland 24.1.11 Brings Crash Fixes
Red Hat's Olivier Fourdan announced today the availability of XWayland 24.1.11 that brings a few bug/regression fixes...