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FOSS
Kernel, distros, and the wider free and open source software world.
663 stories archived
Postcard is a new email client for GNOME, built with AI
Postcard is a new email client for GNOME sporting a modern design reminiscent of Geary. The app is the work of a solo developer, gxanshu on GitHub, who is upfront about using AI coding tools to bring this “modern mail client” to life. Postcard is written in Python with GTK4/libadwaita. It uses imaplib and smtplib for networking, a local SQLite index for searching, WebKitGTK for rendering HTML and libsecret for keeping passwords safe. It’s also open source, so the code is inspectable. Visually, Postcard should look familiar to fans of the Geary email client, as it uses a similar multi-column design: folders […] You're reading Postcard is a new email client for GNOME, built with AI , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
KDE Plasma 6.8 Lands Some Enticing Performance Optimizations This Week
This Week in Plasma is out with its latest issue to highlight interesting developments in the trek towards Plasma 6.8...
OpenZFS 2.4.4 Released With Linux 7.2 Support, Dozens Of Fixes
OpenZFS 2.4.4 is out today as the newest stable point release for this ZFS file-system implementation for Linux and FreeBSD systems...
Wine 11.16 Released With VA-API Hardware Decoding, Better ARM64 Support
Wine 11.16 is out today as the newest bi-weekly development release for this software enabling Windows games and applications to run on Linux and other platforms...
Proton 11.0-2 Enables More Titles With Steam Play / Linux Gaming
Just in time for those that enjoy their Linux / Steam Play gaming on weekends, Valve and CodeWeavers today released Proton 11.0-2 as the newest stable release of this Wine 11.0 downstream that powers Steam Play for running Windows games gracefully on Linux...
AMD Posts Massive Patch Series For Enabling UALink In The Linux Kernel
Whether coincidental or intentional, AMD engineers tend to drop interesting, feature patches for the open-source/Linux space on Friday afternoons. Hitting the kernel mailing list minutes ago were two patch series sent out by AMDGPU maintainer Alex Deucher for introducing UALink infrastructure...
Linux 7.3 Lands Improvements For Voodoo 3 / 4 / 5 & Vintage Atari Computers In 2026
At a time when Linux continues dropping older hardware drivers due to the influx of AI/LLM-generated bug reports and patches for hardware extremely unlikely to be used with modern versions of the mainline Linux kernel, Voodoo graphics cards and vintage Atari computers are seeing some reprieve with the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel release...
Framework Laptop 16 With GeForce RTX 5070 12GB, One-Piece Keyboard & Haptic Touchpad
While the past few weeks have been quite busy with the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro testing with that all-new laptop model and paired with Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake", at the same time Framework Computer has begun shipping some updated components for the Framework Laptop 16 laptop. If looking for a bit more GPU compute power hor larger form factor than the 13-inch model, the Framework Laptop 16 can now be equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 GPU as well as a haptic touchpad and one-piece keyboard for improving the input experience.
Nginx Dark Mode Support For Error Pages Remains Elusive
In early 2025 I wrote about the upstream Nginx web server rejecting dark mode support for its error pages on the basis of wanting to keep the default error pages simple and developers arguing the extra HTML tag for the dark mode styling as superfluous. Following a lot of public backlash for being against offering native dark mode handling by default, Nginx stakeholders were polled and largely came out in favor of supporting the functionality but more than one year later it remains elusive from upstream Nginx...
[$] Considering the OpenMDW license
The open-source world has been struggling for a few years now to understand how to approach large language models (LLMs) and the licensing applied to them. What constitutes "freedom" with respect to a black box filled with numerical weights? The process taken by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in the development of its Open AI Definition was controversial at best, as was its output. Now, the Linux Foundation's Mike Dolan has brought a new license to the OSI for approval. It is called the OpenMDW ("Open Model, Data, and Weights"), and it aims to clarify licensing for the distribution of LLMs and related materials, but consensus is proving hard to find for this license as well.
Intel Computer Vision Sensing Driver Now Ready For Nova Lake
The main set of media subsystem updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.3 merge window. Notable this round is the Intel Computer Vision Sensing "CVS" driver merged the previous cycle now supporting next-gen Nova Lake platforms...
Linux 7.3 Cleans Up Stack Randomization, Ensures It Happen As Early As Possible
Merged this week for the Linux 7.3 kernel was a big clean-up to the stack randomization code for better security on Linux systems and helping unify some of the architecture-specific code...
Intel Compute Runtime 26.31.39395.13 Continues Prepping For Crescent Island, OpenCL LEO
Intel today released the Compute Runtime 26.31.39395.13 open-source GPU compute stack update for Windows and Linux systems. Big ongoing trends for the Intel Compute Runtime continue to be preparing for upcoming Crescent Island and Nova Lake Xe3P graphics hardware as well as building out their new OpenCL LEO driver...
Linux 7.3 Ready With CXL Type-2 Driver Support For AMD Solarflare NICs
With the mainline Linux 7.2 kernel there is now the basic support in place for CXL Type-2 accelerator drivers within the CXL core subsystem code. The first in-tree Type-2 driver with the Linux kernel is for the new AMD Solarflare NIC hardware...
Linus Torvalds Endures A Debug Session From Hell, "Enormously Helped" By AI
It's pretty rare to see Linus Torvalds author patches himself pertaining to the open-source Linux graphics drivers, but waking up this morning I was surprised to see he authored and committed an Intel Xe kernel graphics driver change himself. It ended up being after he encountered a "debug session from hell" but was ultimately helped by AI in fixing a bug that had been irking him...
Canonical is Funding a PhD to Automate C to Rust Translation for Ubuntu
The three-year project aims to translate hundreds of thousands of lines of C into Rust.
Intel Mesa Linux Drivers Now Treating Nova Lake S / U / H / HX As Stable
Intel's open-source Mesa drivers for Iris Gallium3D (OpenGL) and ANV (Vulkan) on Linux are no longer treating next-gen Nova Lake processors with integrated graphics as experimental and off-by-default. With today's Mesa 26.3-devel code, the Intel driver code across Nova Lake's S, U, H, and HX product families are considered stable and enabled by default...
GIMP is (finally) working on a new project file format
A new project file format is in the works for GIMP, as the existing one can’t handle larger, complex projects. Since 1997, the famed FOSS image editor has used the binary .xcf format to save projects so layers, effects and anything else can be edited and adjusted again – which doesn’t happen in a flat file export to JPEG or PNG. But, writing in a recent development update, the team has said it’s finding “more and more limitations” in the current format. And with major new features, like animation and multi-page documents, on GIMP’s near-term roadmap, it’s begun working on a […] You're reading GIMP is (finally) working on a new project file format , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Linux 7.3 Network Changes Merged But Developers "Completely Overwhelmed" Due To AI/LLMs
All of the networking subsystem feature updates were merged today for the Linux 7.3 kernel's merge window. There are a lot of wired and wireless networking improvements this cycle but also a ton of bug fixes -- including many not so important fixes spun up by AI/LLM agents. The networking subsystem maintainers admit now they are "completely overwhelmed" due to this code churn from the output of AI large language models...
[$] A look at the Quickshell desktop-component toolkit
Quickshell is a toolkit for building desktop components, such as toolbars or menus. It uses QML , which is a declarative language for designing GUI applications. Quickshell helps developers create graphical tools for common desktop use cases with a focus on ease of development. It offers a convenient method for writing user interfaces and has been adopted by a number of projects, such as caelestia-shell and DankMaterialShell , that provide desktop environments for minimal window managers like Sway and niri .
Rust 1.98 Adds Algebraic Floating-Point Methods Akin To "-ffast-math"
Rust 1.98 released today and is headlined the debut of new algebraic floating-point methods...
KMSCON 10.0.2 Brings asciicast Playback Support, Bug Fixes
KMSCON 10.0.2 debuted today as the latest update to this leading user-space terminal emulator for Linux systems. KMSCON is built around Linux's KMS/DRM interfaces and the most viable alternative to date for in-kernel VTs...
KDE Software Now Has Stable Btrfs Snapshot Integration With KIO-Snapshot 1.0
With today's release of KIO-Snapshot, KDE software now has stable integration of Btrfs file-system snapshots...
Dynamic clock, calendar and weather icons extension adds new styles
You can bring Ubuntu’s clock, calendar and weather app icons to life with the Dynamic Calendar, Clocks and Weather Icons [Reborn] GNOME Shell extension – which has been updated with new icon styles. The extension already provided Yaru, Adwaita, Paprius, Big Sur and other icon styles, built-in (the dynamic versions don’t depend on the icon sets themselves), so you can see real-time clock, date and weather info on app icons that look like their static equivalents. The latest update, v9, released this week (17 August 2026), adds two new icon styles, Stylish and Pure: In my screenshot above, you can […] You're reading Dynamic clock, calendar and weather icons extension adds new styles , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.