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FOSS
Kernel, distros, and the wider free and open source software world.
664 stories archived
Ubuntu Touch’s big update: updated browser, notch support + more
Notch support, a screenshot editor and a more modern web browser engine are among changes arriving with the latest update to Ubuntu Touch, the community-run mobile operating system based on Ubuntu. With many devices supported by Ubuntu Touch, like Fairphone and Volla handsets, using a notch cutout at the top of the display to house cameras, the new v24.04-2.0 update adds support for them, adapting the top panel indicators to cleanly space around them. Ubuntu Touch 24.04-2.0 also gains support for printing documents from handsets. Users can set this up via System Settings > Printing. It requires downloading some extra […] You're reading Ubuntu Touch’s big update: updated browser, notch support + more , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Wayfire 0.11 released
Version 0.11 of the wlroots -based Wayfire Wayland compositor has been released. Notable changes include better fractional scaling, per-output ICC profiles , support for additional Wayland protocols, and more.
[$] A report from Debian's new DFSG team
The DFSG, Licensing & New Packages Team (usually shortened to "DFSG team") was created in October 2025 as part of the ftpmaster team split . Its job is to review packages in the new queue for compliance with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), among other things, before the packages are allowed to enter the Debian archive . The change was long in coming, and some questions remained after the split whether it was the right move. Andrew McMillan provided an overview of the team's activities and its current status during DebConf26 . While it may be too early to say with certainty, his report suggests that the new division of duties is working out well.
CachyOS Outperforming Windows 11, Slight Advantage Over Ubuntu & Fedora On AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470
A recent mini PC being benchmarked at Phoronix is the BOSGAME VTA-439 that employs the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 Gorgon Point SoC. With the BOSGAME mini PC having shipped with Microsoft Windows 11, here are some comparison benchmarks of the out-of-the-box Windows 11 performance up against Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 44 while also tossing the rolling-release, highly-optimized Arch Linux based CachyOS into the benchmarking mix.
A GrapheneOS Privacy Feature Just Became the Basis for a Federal Indictment
Samuel Tunick faces up to five years in prison after the passcode he gave CBP agents wiped his phone.
We finally revived our Firefox add-on (10 years late)
The official OMG! Ubuntu add-on for Firefox is back – albeit far later than planned (sorry about that). If you’ve used our Chrome extension over the last decade, this add-on will be familiar as it’s the same thing, just in Firefox. Same look and (almost) the same features because it’s the same code (albeit with API name swaps and manifest tweaks). This isn’t the first time this blog has offered a Firefox add-on. Our old one broke in 2017 and though we intended to fix it, a decade happened to fly straight past us. Like the Chrome version, it provides […] You're reading We finally revived our Firefox add-on (10 years late) , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
AMD P-State Linux Driver Patches Can Boost 1%-Low FPS Gaming Performance By 31%
A set of patches posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list implement per-core Energy Performance Preference (EPP) boosting for recently-busy CPUs. This feature is designed to have a dramatic impact for Linux gaming and helping especially with the 1% low frame-rates improving by 31.8% on the Valve Steam Deck...
KDE Developer Fixing Long-Standing Bug Over Very Long Small-File Copy Times
Since 2014 there has been a KDE bug report titled Ridiculously slow file copy (multiple small files). With the Dolphin file manager or other KIO-based KDE programs, copying many small files can be much slower than using the cp command directly or other copying programs like rsync, Finally that issue is in the process of being resolved for addressing very slow copy times when dealing with many small files on the KDE Plasma desktop...
Linux's crypto_rng Abstraction Layer Next On The Chopping Block
In addition to the deprecation and stripping down of AF_ALG, another piece of the Linux kernel crypto code steaming ahead toward removal is the crypto_rng abstraction layer...
ASUS Laptop Whisper Mode Support Being Worked On For Linux
ASUS laptops support a feature called "Whisper Mode" that intentionally slows down the fan speed and lowers the CPU clock speed in order to keep the device running cool and quiet. The open-source ASUS Armoury Linux kernel driver is now seeing patches to properly support this Whisper Mode on Linux...
OpenUK Wants Britain to Stop Giving Away Open Source Creations
They point to MCP, built by two engineers in London, that ended up under US-based governance.
Mission Center update adds battery, partition and power draw stats
A new version of Linux system monitoring app Mission Center is available for download, adding new hardware stats, first-run setup prompt and bug fixes. Mission Center 1.2.0 adds a new Battery page in the Performance tab, surfaces per-partition usage details on the Disk page with free and used space and adds a graph to the bottom of the CPU page that can optionally show temperature, power draw or CPU frequency. The Memory page now shows compression (zRAM/zswap) stats, while the GPU page lets you switch the middle graph between Encode/Decode activity, power draw, clock speeds or temperature (depending on what […] You're reading Mission Center update adds battery, partition and power draw stats , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
AMD PMF Testing Tool Slated For Linux 7.3
Looking to be added to the Linux kernel source tree for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle is test_amd_pmf, a small testing application for exercising the AMD Platform Management Framework (PMF) interfaces and dumping various system data points...
[$] Hazard pointers for the kernel
The kernel's read-copy-update (RCU) subsystem ensures that data will not be deleted until it is known that there are no threads holding references to it. RCU works well and is widely used throughout the kernel, but it can increase memory use and add significant delays before unused kernel objects are cleaned up. Hazard pointers are an alternative approach to lockless data updates that offers better performance, for some situations at least. The kernel community is currently considering a hazard-pointer implementation by Mathieu Desnoyers and Paul McKenney.
Mysterious 16-Tile & 32-Tile AMX Implementations Talked Up For More Performance
Last October on Phoronix we were first to point out there being some mysterious intrigue around a new x86 implementation from a "corporate entity other than Intel/AMD" with the developer involved not elaborating on the matter. Now that same developer has posted another semi-cryptic message to the Linux kernel mailing list to talk about 16-tile and 32-tile Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) implementations. To date Intel only has 8-tile AMX...
Fwupd 2.1.7 Released With Many Bug Fixes
Fwupd 2.1.7 is out today as the newest update to this open-source firmware updating utility that pairs with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) for offering a nice firmware upgrade story on Linux systems...
GNU Binutils 2.47 released
Version 2.47 of GNU Binutils has been released. In addition to the usual bug fixes there are some notable new features in this release including added support for a number of RISC-V standard extensions, a command-line option ( -M annotate ) which displays the symbol for undefined instructions for AArch64, and more. The 32-bit s390 target has been deprecated with this release.
FireDragon Browser Swoops in With New Wings
It's been rewritten from scratch to provide some good gains.
Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Aiming To Be One Of The Best Upgradeable Linux Laptops
Back in April, Framework Computer announced the Framework Laptop 13 Pro as a ground-up re-design of their modular/upgradeable laptop. This new Framework Laptop 13 Pro features a much larger battery (74Wh), LPCAMM2 memory support, a full CNC aluminum chassis, haptic touchpad, and a new power-optimized touch display. Paired with the very efficient Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" SoCs, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro ends up being an incredible offering from the hardware perspective.
Security updates for Monday
Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, hplip, and linux-6.1), Fedora (firefox, GitPython, google-osconfig-agent, lego, libgit2, libreswan, libwebsockets, moby-engine, p11-kit, pam, python-idna, rust-libgit2-sys, skopeo, systemd, trafficserver, webkitgtk, and xrdp), Mageia (giflib, graphite2, libnfs, vorbis-tools, wget, and yelp), Red Hat (firefox, thunderbird, and webkit2gtk3), and SUSE (amazon-ecs-init, chromedriver, ffmpeg-7, ffmpeg-8, firefox, google-osconfig-agent, gpg2, java-17-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, kernel, libsrt1_5, nginx, perl-HTTP-Date, perl-XML-Bare, proftpd, python-pyasn1, python-soupsieve, python313-astropy, python313-urwid, systemd, thunderbird, and trivy).
Ubuntu To Provide Virtualization HWE Stack For Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Ubuntu has long provided hardware enablement "HWE" stacks for Ubuntu LTS releases to provide a newer kernel and Mesa drivers and more for better supporting new/modern hardware on the long-term support Ubuntu Linux releases. With Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Canonical will also now be providing a virtualization HWE stack for shipping newer virtualization / confidential computing features...
AMD "Low Power" CPU Core Type Patches Queued Ahead Of Linux 7.3
Last month I wrote bout new AMD Linux patches introducing a new "low power" CPU core type as an alternative to their standard performance cores and dense efficiency cores. That work now is poised to land with the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel...
Wayfire Wayland Compositor Closing In On v1.0 Release
The Wayfire modular and extensible Wayland compositor formally used by default on Raspberry Pi SBCs is nearing its v1.0 release. Wayfire 0.11 was released on Sunday for this Compiz-inspired, wlroots-powered compositor with that being their hopeful last planned version before Wayfire 1.0 releases...
FreeBSD Developing New NTSYNC Driver For Accelerating Windows NT Sync Primitives
The FreeBSD project published today their Q2-2026 status report that highlights all of their interesting open-source development initiatives for the past quarter. A lot is happening including FreeBSD seeing an AMD ROCm port and also their own NTSYNC driver being created...