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FOSS
Kernel, distros, and the wider free and open source software world.
491 stories archived
This app lets you manage Nothing & CMF earbuds on Linux
Adjusting active noise cancellation (ANC) on Nothing or CMF earbuds means taking out your phone, opening the official mobile app and twiddling a setting there. EarA, a new open-source tool, aims to nix that palaver. It’s a GTK4 app (with a CLI for those who prefer the terminal), and lets you change settings on earbuds like the Nothing Ear (a) and CMF Buds 2, from your Linux desktop. Noise control/ANC levels can be switched with a click. There are toggles to disable personalised ANC and in-ear detection and use low latency. Gesture behaviours (on supported devices) can be set as […] You're reading This app lets you manage Nothing & CMF earbuds on Linux , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
We added a manual dark mode toggle to the site (cos you asked)
You may have noticed OMG! Ubuntu looking a little cleaner lately. Earlier this month, Sam and I finally rolled out a refreshed site backend, along with some changes to the bits you look at when you come here. Boring stuff to read about, I know. But a few of the changes were done because readers asked for them, so I wanted to quickly mention them. Firstly, the mobile homepage is now more info-dense. Recent posts appear in a compact list, so you can see more of the latest articles at a glance rather than needing to scroll (and scroll, and […] You're reading We added a manual dark mode toggle to the site (cos you asked) , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
RISC-V Has A Nice Portable Performance Optimization With Linux 7.4
The RISC-V architecture changes were merged today for the Linux 7.4 kernel with one nice optimization standing out...
Gelly is a GTK desktop music player for Jellyfin and Navidrome
If you run your own music streaming server via Jellyfin or Navidrome/Subsonic, you’ll want a decent desktop player – Gelly is a solid choice for GNOME. It bills itself as “native, lightweight music player” for the aforementioned streaming servers (and compatible ones). It’s written in Rust and GTK4/libadwaita and, as a good players should, it lets you browse, play and control music playback. Having only recently set-up Jellyfin on my Raspberry Pi 4 (replacing an installation of dust), seeing this on the Flathub front page was a stroke of good timing. Installing Navidrome on Ubuntu is moderately easy too, just […] You're reading Gelly is a GTK desktop music player for Jellyfin and Navidrome , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Fedora Linux 45 Shipping Next Week On 3 November
Fedora 45 is ready to ship! It will be formally released on Tuesday, 3 November...
F2FS Adds Opt-In Multi-Grain Timestamps With Linux 7.4, Other Improvements
The F2FS (Flash Friendly File-System) improvements have been merged for Linux 7.4 to further enhance this flash-optimized solution...
[$] Containers as a recognized kernel object
The foundation of the design for containers in the kernel is that there isn't one; there is no container abstraction that the kernel recognizes. Instead, the kernel provides a long list of components — namespaces, control groups, sandboxing mechanisms, and more — along with a note that says, in effect, "some assembly required". There have been attempts ( repeatedly ) over the years to turn containers into first-class objects with kernel support, but they have never gotten far. Now Josef Bacik is making a try with a concept that he calls "cells".
openEuler New Releases Come With a Heavy Dose of AI and Agents
openEuler is pushing for a developer focused Linux distro with AI at its core. From PolyMind to Witty, the AI agents are part of the package.
NVIDIA Vera Single vs. Dual Socket CPU Performance
For those curious how NVIDIA Vera is scaling between single and dual socket deployments, here are some benchmarks I carried out a while back exploring the power and performance from one to two Vera CPUs.
Linux 7.4 Networking Brings Hardware Pacing Offload, New Drivers & More Performance
The many Linux wired and wireless networking driver improvements were merged this week for the ongoing Linux 7.4 merge window....
Is Ubuntu Eyeing Immutability? Canonical Restarts Core Desktop and Eyes a Firmware Change for LTS
Core Desktop could run apps that can’t run natively in a sandbox, while linux-firmware-hwe is proposed as a safeguard against newer firmware causing problems.
AMD's ROCm HRX Loom v0.1 Released For Targeting AMD CPUs, GPUs & NPUs
At this year's AMD Advancing AI event Hyperloom was announced among the ROCm improvements to expect. Hyperloom aims for agentic workload optimizations and more with quote powerful abilities if everything works out right. As part of the latest round of ROCm advancements, the Loom SDK v0.1 release was released today...
FAT32 File-System Seeing As Much As 265x Improvement With Linux 7.4
A change merged for Linux 7.4 is showing some mighty big speed-ups for the FAT32 file-system...
Graphics/NPU Driver Changes Already Begin Queuing Up For What Will Be Linux 7.5
Since last week drm-misc-next pull requests have already been sent out to DRM-Next to begin staging new feature code for what's intended for the Linux 7.5 kernel cycle kicking off at the end of the year...
KSMBD Adds New Options With Linux 7.4
A number of improvements to KSMBD, the in-kernel SMB3 file server, were merged for the Linux 7.4 kernel...
Ghostty 1.4 released with big improvements
A major new release of Ghostty, the open-source terminal emulator, has been released. Ghostty 1.4.0 brings a varied set of changes after 7 months of development. There are welcome performance optimisations on Linux and macOS, a more capable SHH implementation and an easier way to rearrange tab splits – dragging them! This update to the Zig-based app offers complete Kitty graphics protocol support (including animation and relative placements) – the first terminal besides Kitty to do so. If you use TUI tools or script to render images in the terminal, this is a major feat. Performance sees scores of improvements […] You're reading Ghostty 1.4 released with big improvements , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
GXVK: 3Dfx Glide API Implemented Atop Vulkan For Modern Usage
The open-source D7VK project that implements the Direct3D 7 / 6 / 5 / 3 APIs atop the Vulkan API for faster, modern performance is out with a new release. This new D7VK 2.4 release came as a bit of a surprise since it was just last month D7VK announced its maturity status and more or less in maintenance mode. But brought up in today's D7VK 2.4 announcement is an even bigger surprise: there's now an implementation of the 3Dfx Glide API atop Vulkan...
[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 29, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition: Front : Python JIT; Kernel clean up; Rust panics; Future Rust features; Northstar browser; 7.4 merge window; Smaller kernel stacks. Briefs : KeePassXC 2.8.0; Redox ring buffers; Rust in systemd; Quotes; ... Announcements : Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
A report from the LPC sched_ext microconference
The Linux Plumbers Conference blog has a report from the sched_ext microconference held in Prague. Three main topics dominated the discussions Priority inversion and how to handle it in sched_ext : lock holder and lock waiter preemption, time slice extension, and making proxy execution work together with BPF schedulers. Paravirtualized scheduling : letting the host and guest schedulers cooperate across the VM boundary, with sched_ext as the policy engine on the host. Device and topology-aware scheduling : using hardware feedback (Intel HFI), device/accelerator locality and cache topology to drive task placement.
Ubuntu Core Desktop ‘accelerating’ development ahead of 27.04
Canonical has announced it’s ‘accelerating’ development of Ubuntu Core Desktop, its immutable, snap-based version of its desktop OS. Ubuntu Core Desktop was announced in 2023 and made available in preview for enthusiasts to try. But a lack of of obvious progress and direction (not to mention up-to-date builds) had left many wondering if Canonical was running cool on the idea. Now, things are finally kicking up a gear, says Jon Seager, VP of Engineering at Canonical. A newly-formed Ubuntu Core Desktop team within the company will work on bringing Ubuntu Core Desktop into shape, with builds available ahead of the […] You're reading Ubuntu Core Desktop ‘accelerating’ development ahead of 27.04 , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Linux Kernel Developers Considering Removal Of KGDB Debugging Functionality
Merged to the kernel all the way back in Linux 2.6.26 in 2008 was KGDB for improving the kernel debugging experience. KGDB works in conjunction with the GNU Debugger (GDB) to debug the kernel in a similar fashion to user-space debugging. KGDB requires the use of a second computer connected via serial or network cable. KGDB isn't widely used in recent years and a patch was floated today to remove it from the Linux kernel...
System76 Introducing AMD-Powered Linux Small PC
System76 began teasing today the new Thelio Prime Desktop as an AMD-powered Linux mini PC that will begin shipping in November...
Canonical Reviving Their Immutable Ubuntu Core Desktop
Canonical engineers back in 2023 outlined plans for Ubuntu Core Desktop as their immutable Linux desktop. They made some good initial progress but since 2024 it went rather silent. Now they are reviving Ubuntu Core Desktop as their immutable desktop OS offering and with grand plans for the future...
CachyOS vs. Fedora 45 vs. Ubuntu 26.10 Performance On AMD Ryzen 9
With the recently released Ubuntu 26.10 and the nearly-released Fedora Workstation 45, Phoronix readers have begun inquiring about fresh benchmarks looking at how they stack up against the performance-optimized, Arch Linux based CachyOS. Up today are our first CachyOS vs. Fedora 45 vs. Ubuntu 26.10 benchmarks on an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D2 desktop system.