Linux NewsKeep Android Open
Google has announced that, soon, anyone looking to develop Android apps will have to first register centrally with Google.
AerynOS 2026.02 Alpha Released: Advancing a Modern Atomic Linux Vision
by George Whittaker The developers behind AerynOS have released AerynOS 2026.02 Alpha, the latest development snapshot of the independent Linux distribution previously known as Serpent OS. This new release continues the project’s rapid evolution, bringing updated packages, improved build tools, and new installation options while the system remains in an early testing stage. Although still labeled as an alpha-quality release, the new ISO gives enthusiasts and developers a chance to explore the direction AerynOS is taking as it builds a modern Linux platform from scratch. A Modern Atomic Approach AerynOS aims to rethink how Linux distributions handle updates and package management. The project focuses on atomic-style updates, meaning system changes are applied as a complete transaction rather than individual package installs. This approach helps reduce the risk of partially completed updates leaving a system in a broken state. Unlike some atomic distributions, however, AerynOS does not r
CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements (404 Media)
This 404 Media article looks at how the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) is using location data from phones to track the location of people of interest. Specifically, CBP says the data was in part sourced via real-time bidding, or RTB. Whenever an advertisement is displayed inside an app, a near instantaneous bidding process happens with companies vying to have their advert served to a certain demographic. A side effect of this is that surveillance firms, or rogue advertising companies working on their behalf, can observe this process and siphon information about mobile phones, including their location. All of this is essentially invisible to an ordinary phone user, but happens constantly. We should note that the minimal advertising shown on LWN is not delivered via this bidding system.
I tried using "open-source Windows," but it still doesn't measure up to the real thing
What if all your Windows apps and drivers could natively run on a free OS?
AMD DPTCi Driver Posted For Linux To Better Enhance Ryzen Gaming Handhelds
A request for comments (RFC) patch series was posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list to introduce the AMD Dynamic Power and Thermal Configuration Interface "DPTCi" driver. With this driver it would provide better upstream Linux kernel support for tuning the power / performance / thermals of modern Ryzen-powered gaming handheld devices. Though don't get too excited right away as the driver was assembled in part by AI that is already causing a bit of a ruckus on the LKML due to lack of disclosure...
Google Chrome Moving To A Two-Week Release Cycle
Google announced today that beginning later this year they are moving the Chrome web browser from its four week release cycle down to a two week release cadence...
KDE 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.