Scribus 1.6.4 Update: 21/04/2025
A new release of the free desktop publishing progran, Scribus 1.6.4 is out. The package provides tools for professional layout of printed materials, includes tools for generating PDF's and supports separate colour profiles, CMYK, spot colours and ICC. The program is written using the Qt toolkit and is licensed under the GPLv2+ license. Ready-made binary builds are prepared for Linux (AppImage), macOS and Windows.
The new version disables encoding of custom fonts when inserting them into a PDF. New Python functions have been implemented for scripts to determine page sizes, page element boundaries, minimum and maximum distances between words, and locked layers. Problems with PDF import and export have been resolved. Compilation problems, when using new versions of the poppler library have been fixed.
At the same time, the experimental branch of Scribus 1.7 is being developed, which includes porting to Qt 6, adding support for a dark theme, converting icons to SVG format, adding a new implementation of dockable toolbars, and redesigning the colour selection panel.
https://www.scribus.net/scribus-1-6-4-released/
Bastille 0.14 Released: 21/04/2025
Bastille 0.14.20250420 has been released, a system for automating the deployment and management of applications running in containers isolated by the FreeBSD Jail mechanism. The code is written in the Shell and does not require external dependencies to work and is distributed under the BSD license.
To manage containers, a command-line utility called bastille is provided, which allows you to create and update Jail environments based on the selected FreeBSD version, as well as perform typical operations with containers, such as starting/stopping, building, cloning, importing/exporting, converting, changing settings, managing network access, and setting resource consumption limits.
You can deploy Linux environments (Ubuntu and Debian) in a container, running them using Linuxulator. Advanced features include running typical commands in several containers at once, nested templates, snapshots, and backups. The root partition in the container is mounted in read-only mode. The environment for running containers can be created both on physical servers or Raspberry Pi boards, and in the AWS EC2, Vultr, and DigitalOcean cloud services.
The repository offers about 80 templates for quickly launching containers of typical applications, which host programs for servers (nginx, mysql, wordpress, asterisk, redis, postfix, elasticsearch, salt, etc.), developers (gitea, gitlab, jenkins jenkins, python, php, perl, ruby, rust, go, node.js, openjdk) and users (firefox, chromium). The creation of container stacks is supported, allowing you to use one template in another.
https://github.com/BastilleBSD/bastille/releases/tag/0.14.20250420
Mox Mail Server 0.0.15 is now available: 21/04/2025
The Mox 0.0.15 project has been released. It develops a comprehensive solution for ensuring the operation of mail servers, including all components necessary for sending and receiving email. It offers its own implementations of SMTP and IMAP4 servers, a system for filtering unwanted content, as well as web interfaces for the administrator and users. The project code is written in Go and is distributed under the MIT license.
The goal of the project is to create an “all-in-one” solution that allows you to easily launch a working mail server without labor-intensive setup and without the need to interface with various separate services and applications. It is assumed that due to the complications in deploying and maintaining mail servers, consumers prefer centralized email providers, thereby destroying the very idea of e-mail as a decentralized service formed from many proprietary mail servers.
Mox allows you to set up a secure mail server for your domains in 10 minutes, supporting a modern protocol stack and not requiring the installation of additional dependencies. Updating the software on the mail server comes down to downloading a new version of mox and restarting. Receiving and updating TLS certificates is done automatically. A web interface can be used to configure and perform maintenance tasks, and a configuration file is provided for advanced configuration.
To eliminate security issues arising from low-level memory management, Mox uses the Go language. Manual and automated compatibility testing with popular mail servers and clients, unit and fuzz testing, and comprehensive code documentation are used to maintain the high quality of the code base.
Release of CRUX 3.8: 22/04/2025
After two and a half years of development, the release of the independent lightweight Linux distribution CRUX 3.8 is ready. It has been developed since 2001 in accordance with the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) concept and is aimed at experienced users. The goal of the project is to create a simple and transparent distribution for users, based on BSD-like initialization scripts, having a maximally simplified structure and containing a relatively small number of ready-made binary packages. CRUX supports a ports system that allows you to install and update applications like in Gentoo. The size of the iso image, prepared for the x86-64 architecture, is 1.7 GB.
The new release features updated versions of system components, including Linux kernel 6.12, glibc 2.40, gcc 14.2.0, binutils 2.43.1, sysvinit 3.14. The package includes new packages nvme-cli, rdfind, libbsd, libcap-ng, libxcrypt. The X-server-based environment (xorg-server 21.1.16, Mesa 25.0) continues to be supplied by default, but the ability to use the Wayland protocol has been implemented as an option. The ISO image is compiled in a hybrid representation suitable for booting from DVD and USB media. UEFI support is provided during installation.
https://lists.crux.nu/archives/list/crux@lists.crux.nu/thread/Y4YDTGZFVILVVYEOZMSXF4XDWQHQTYJ6/
Monado 25.0.0 Released: 22/04/2025
The Monado 25.0.0 project has been released, developing an open implementation of the OpenXR standard. The OpenXR standard was prepared by the Khronos consortium and defines a universal API for creating virtual and augmented reality applications, as well as a set of layers for interacting with VR equipment. Monado provides a runtime that fully complies with the OpenXR requirements, which can be used to work with virtual and augmented reality on smartphones, tablets, PCs and any other devices. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the free Boost Software License 1.0, compatible with the GPL.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/monado/monado/-/releases/v25.0.0
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0: 23/04/2025
After a year and a half of development, the OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 distribution is released. The project is being developed by the community after Mandriva SA transferred project management to the non-profit, “OpenMandriva Association”.
Live builds for the x86_64 architecture with KDE (full 3.2 GB, reduced 2.4 GB in variants with X11 and Wayland), GNOME (3.2 GB), Cosmic (3 GB), Xfce (2.5 GB) and LXQt (2.3 GB), as well as a build for servers (1.6 GB) are available for download. Both general builds for any x86_64 systems and builds with optimizations for AMD Ryzen, ThreadRipper and EPYC processors are available. For servers, an option for boards based on the ARM64 architecture is additionally supplied. Users of the continuously updated OpenMandriva ROME branch, which provided access to the innovations being developed for the OpenMandriva Lx 6 branch, have already received all the necessary updates.
Release of nginx 1.28.0: 23/04/2025
After a year of development, a new stable branch of the high-performance HTTP server and multi-protocol proxy server nginx 1.28.0 has been published, which has absorbed the changes accumulated in the main branch 1.27.x. In the future, all changes in the stable 1.28 branch will be associated with the elimination of serious errors and vulnerabilities. Soon, the main branch nginx 1.29 will be formed, where the development of new features will continue. For ordinary users who do not need to ensure compatibility with third-party modules, they recommend that you use the main branch, on which releases of the commercial product Nginx Plus are formed every three months. The nginx code is written in C and is distributed under the BSD license.
According to W3Techs, nginx is used by 33.8% of the million most visited sites (in April last year, this figure was 34.3%, the year before - 34.5%). Apache's share has decreased over the year from 30.1% to 26.3%, and Microsoft IIS's share has decreased from 5% to 4%. Node.js's share has increased from 3.2% to 4.4%, and LiteSpeed's share from 12.9% to 14.6%.
https://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx-announce/2025/B4BO3E3RWAVPF3AKYIRX3WEA56G5MZO3.html
QEMU 10.0.0 Released: 24/04/2025
The QEMU 10.0.0 project is ready. As an emulator, QEMU allows you to run a program compiled for one hardware platform on a system with a completely different architecture, for example, to run an ARM application on an x86-compatible PC. In virtualization mode in QEMU, the performance of code execution in an isolated environment is close to the hardware system due to direct execution of instructions on the CPU and the use of the Xen hypervisor or the KVM module in Linux, or the NVMM module in NetBSD.
The project was originally created by Fabrice Bellard to enable x86-based Linux binaries to run on non-x86 architectures. Over the years, full emulation support has been added for 14 hardware architectures, with over 400 emulated hardware devices. More than 2,800 changes from 211 developers were made during the preparation of version 10.0.
https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2025-04/msg04027.html
Release of MyLibrary 4.0: 24/04/2025
The release of the MyLibrary 4.0 home library cataloger has been announced. The program code is written in C++ and is available under the GPLv3 license. The graphical user interface is implemented using the GTK4 library. The program is adapted to work in Linux and Windows. For Arch Linux users, a ready-made package build script is available in the AUR. For Windows users, an experimental installer is available.
MyLibrary catalogs book files in fb2, epub, pdf, djvu formats, both directly accessible and packed into archives (zip, 7z, jar, cpio, iso, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2, tar.xz, rar), and creates its own database without changing the original files or changing their location. The integrity of the collection and its changes is monitored by creating a database of hash sums of files and archives.
Various operations with the collection are possible: update (the entire collection is checked and the hash sums of the available files are compared), quick update (without recalculating the hash sums), export and import the collection database, add books to the collection and remove books from the collection, add folders with books to the collection, add archives with books to the collection, copy books from the collection to an arbitrary folder, move books from the collection to the collection. Manual editing of records about books in the database is available. A bookmark mechanism has been created for quick access to books. You can create custom notes to books. An interface for creating and connecting plugins is also available. You can open documentation for the MLBookProc and MLPluginIfc libraries (included in the project), if they were created during the build process.
https://github.com/ProfessorNavigator/mylibrary/releases/tag/v4.0
Debian Project Leader Election Results Revealed: 25/04/2025
The results of the annual Debian Project Leader election have been announced. 387 developers took part in the vote , which is 35.1% of all participants eligible to vote (last year the turnout was 35.8%, the year before 28%, the historical maximum in 2000 was 62.25%, the minimum in 2016 was 27.56%). This year, four candidates for the post of leader took part in the elections. Andreas Tille won and was re-elected for a second term.
Andreas Tille has been a Debian package maintainer for 26 years and is the author of the Debian Med project, which aims to optimize the distribution for medical and life sciences. In addition to development, Andreas also mentors newcomers who want to join the development team. Andreas maintains 1,627 packages and is the project's number one downloaded developer.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2025/04/msg00008.html
Microsoft up to their old tricks: 25/04/2025
Microsoft has made a change to the binary builds of the Microsoft C/C++ Extension (ms-vscode.cpptools) that blocks work in forks of the open source code editor VS Code (Visual Studio Code). The extension is proprietary and is used to add support for C/C++ languages to VS Coe . After updating to version 1.24.5, users of the VS Codium and Cursor editors, which is based on VS Code, faced the inability to continue using the add-on from Microsoft.
Initialization of the add-on ended with an error stating that the Microsoft C/C++ Extension package can only be used in Microsoft Visual Studio, Visual Studio for Mac, Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, Team Foundation Server, and related Microsoft products and services. To resume working with C/C++ projects, users are forced to roll back to an older version and disable automatic installation of add-ons in the settings.
Prior to this, Microsoft added a license agreement in September 2020 prohibiting the use of binary builds of the add-on in third-party products. Until now, this requirement remained a formality and did not lead to blocking. In addition, the terms of use of the VS Code add-on store prohibited connections from forks, but the developers of the Cursor fork used a proxy to bypass it.
Some of the Microsoft C/C++ Extension code remains under the MIT license, and the restrictions apply only to extended binary assemblies distributed through the Microsoft app store under a separate proprietary license. Only the TypeScript component is open source, while the Runtime, which forms the core functionality, is proprietary and supplied in binary form.
The developers of the Cursor project have released an update that temporarily solves the problem, and in the future they decided to abandon the use of proprietary add-ons Remote access, Pylance, C/C++ and C#. The next version is planned to include open alternative add-ons developed by the community. The developers of the VS Codium project are planning a similar transition to open analogues.
https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/2300
KDE Improves Wayland Support and Makes UI Changes: 26/04/2025
Nate Graham, a quality assurance developer for the KDE project, has published the latest KDE development report. Among the changes being developed for the KDE Plasma 6.4 release is: Improved Wayland support. The KWin composite manager uses a stable version of the Wayland ext-data-control protocol, which is necessary for the clipboard working, (previously, the wlr-data-control-unstable-v1 protocol was used). In the Wayland-based environment, the ability to use relative positioning on graphic tablets has been added, in which the stylus position is determined relative to the previous position, and not the absolute position on the tablet surface. The ability to control the graphic cursor using the keyboard has been adapted for working with Wayland. They aslo added labels for recently installed programs to the Kickoff application menu. Then they added a warning that is displayed when trying to access the microphone from an application if the microphone is set to silent mode in the settings. KMenuEdit now has the ability to configure selected applications to always run on the discrete GPU. A new section “Animation” has been added to the configurator, where the animated effects settings have been moved. General effects not related to the visualization of the transition from one state to another have been left in the “Desktop effects” section. Changed handling of notifications when opening applications in full-screen mode. Instead of ignoring non-critical notifications when working with full-screen programs, the “do not disturb” mode is now automatically enabled. The difference is that after exiting full-screen mode, a warning about missed notifications will be shown. If desired, the new behavior can be disabled in the settings. The system tray now shows information about the unconfigured weather widget. In the panel settings dialog, two separate buttons in the header have been converted into menus, which has solved the problem with the dialog stretching on localized systems due to too long words on the buttons. The user management page now displays a warning when attempting to delete a user with an active session. If you confirm the operation, the files of that user will not be deleted. A warning has been added to the system tray settings that is displayed when attempting to disable the clipboard management service. The design of dialogs for setting up widgets for the clock, dictionary, timer, and displaying a slide show of selected images has been modernized. They aslo increased the space between the “Configure” and “Pin” buttons in the “Digital Clock” widget window and more.
https://blogs.kde.org/2025/04/25/this-week-in-plasma-multiple-major-wayland-and-ui-features/
MinC: 26/04/2025
The MinC (MinC Is Not Cygwin) project develops a minimalistic kernel (285Kb) and toolkit based on MinGW, allowing you to rebuild and run standard OpenBSD utilities in Windows, similar to how the Cygwin package allows you to use GNU utilities in Windows. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the BSD license. It supports Windows versions from Windows XP to Windows 11.
After installing MinC, the user gets an environment that emulates OpenBSD in Windows and provides performance close to native execution. Work is provided by means of the libtrace and libposix libraries that translate the functions and system calls necessary for OpenBSD applications into a format for work on top of Windows. For building programs, typical libraries libc, libdl, libsocket and libutil from OpenBSD are provided.
https://minc.commandlinerevolution.nl/english/home.html
The seventh alpha release of COSMIC: 26/04/2025
System76, the company that develops the Linux distribution Pop!_OS, has published the seventh alpha version of the COSMIC desktop environment, written in Rust. ISO images with the latest version of COSMIC, built on top of alpha builds of the future Pop!_OS 24.04 distribution for systems with NVIDIA ( 3.3 GB ) and Intel/AMD ( 2.9 GB ) GPUs, are offered for testing. Ready-made packages other OS's are also being formed.
In addition to using the Rust language, COSMIC features include hybrid window tiling and stacked window pinning (window grouping similar to browser tabs), which can be enabled in conjunction with virtual desktops. The project is also developing a Wayland-based 'cosmic-comp', composite server. The first stable release of COSMIC was originally scheduled for the first quarter of 2025, with no new dates specified. It is assumed that the next release will be assigned beta status.
https://blog.system76.com/post/cosmic-alpha-7-never-been-beta
OpenBSD 7.7 Released: 28/04/2025
The release of OpenBSD 7.7 has been announced. The OpenBSD project was founded by Theo de Raadt in 1995 after a conflict with the NetBSD developers, as a result of which Theo's access to the NetBSD CVS repository was denied. After that, Theo de Raadt and a group of like-minded people created a new open operating system based on the NetBSD source tree, the main development goals of which were portability ( 13 hardware platforms are supported ), standardization, correct operation, proactive security and integrated cryptographic tools. The size of the full installation ISO image of the OpenBSD 7.7 base system is 746 MB.
In addition to the operating system itself, the OpenBSD project is known for its components, which have become widespread in other systems and have established themselves as some of the most secure and high-quality solutions. Among them: LibreSSL ( a fork of OpenSSL), OpenSSH , the PF packet filter , the OpenBGPD and OpenOSPFD routing daemons, the OpenNTPD NTP server, the OpenSMTPD mail server, the tmux text terminal multiplexer, the identd daemon with the implementation of the IDENT protocol, the BSDL alternative to the GNU groff package - mandoc, the CARP (Common Address Redundancy Protocol) protocol for fault-tolerant systems, a lightweight http server, and the OpenRSYNC file synchronization utility.
https://www.mail-archive.com/announce@openbsd.org/msg00556.html
qBittorrent 5.1 Released: 28/04/2025
The qBittorrent 5.1 torrent client has been released. It is written using the Qt toolkit and is being developed as an open alternative to µTorrent, with an interface and functionality similar to it. qBittorrent features include: an integrated search engine, the ability to subscribe to RSS, support for many BEP extensions, remote control via a web interface, a sequential download mode in a specified order, advanced settings for torrents, peers and trackers, a bandwidth planner and IP filter, an interface for creating torrents, and support for UPnP and NAT-PMP. The project code is written in C++ and is distributed under the GPLv2+ license. Builds are generated for Linux, Windows and macOS.
4MLinux 48.0 released: 29/04/2025
4MLinux 48.0 is now available, a minimalist user distribution that is not a fork of other projects and uses a graphical environment based on the JWM window manager. 4MLinux can be used both as a Live environment for playing multimedia files and solving user tasks, and as a system for recovery and a platform for running mini-servers. A live image (x86_64, 1.6 GB) with a graphical environment and a stripped-down console build (x86_64, 16.1 MB) are available for download.
https://4mlinux-releases.blogspot.com/2025/04/4mlinux-480-stable-released.html
Deluge 2.2 Released: 29/04/2025
After almost three years of development, the release of the multi-platform BitTorrent client Deluge 2.2 has been published. It is written in Python (using the Twisted framework), based on libtorrent and supports several types of user interface (GTK, web interface, console version). The project code is distributed under the GPL license.
Deluge operates in client-server mode, where the user shell runs as a separate process, and all BitTorrent operations are managed by a separate daemon, which can be launched on a remote computer. Among the application's features are: support for DHT (distributed hash table), UPnP, NAT-PMP, PEX (Peer Exchange), LSD (Local Peer Discovery), the ability to encrypt the protocol (BitTorrent Protocol Encryption), support for working through a proxy, compatibility with WebTorrent, the ability to selectively limit the speed for certain torrents, and a sequential download mode.
https://github.com/deluge-torrent/deluge/releases/tag/deluge-2.2.0
The Genode Project has released OS Sculpt 25.04: 29/04/2025
The release of the Sculpt 25.04 project is presented, that develops an operating system based on Genode OS Framework technologies, which can be used by ordinary users to perform everyday tasks. The source code of the project is distributed under the AGPLv3 license. A system image of 32 MB in size is offered for download, which can be used on a PC, PinePhone smartphone and MNT Reform laptop. It supports Intel processors and graphics subsystems with enabled VT-d and VT-x extensions, as well as ARM systems with VMM extensions.
https://genode.org/news/sculpt-os-release-25.04
openSUSE Leap 16 Beta Released: 30/04/2025
Beta testing of the openSUSE Leap 16 distribution has begun. It is based on the technologies of the next major branch of the commercial SLES 16 distribution, which is moving to the new SLFO (SUSE Linux Framework One) platform, previously known as ALP (Adaptable Linux Platform). openSUSE Leap 16 will retain the features of a classic distribution using traditional packages, and for those who need an atomically updated system with basic filling in read-only mode, the openSUSE Leap Micro edition should be used. Builds for x86_64, ARM64, s390x and PowerPC architectures are available for testing . The release is scheduled for October 2025.
https://news.opensuse.org/2025/04/30/leap-16-enters-beta/
DragonFly BSD 6.4.1 Released: 30/04/2025
Two and a half years after the publication of release 6.4, the DragonFly BSD 6.4.1 operating system was released, created in 2003 with the purpose of alternative development of the FreeBSD 4.x branch. Among the features of DragonFly BSD, one can highlight the HAMMER file system, support for loading “virtual” system kernels as user processes, the ability to cache data and FS metadata on SSD drives, context-aware variant symbolic links, the ability to freeze processes while saving their state on disk, and a hybrid kernel using lightweight threads (LWKT).
The DragonFly BSD 6.4.1 release is a corrective one and only fixes some accumulated bugs. For example, an issue in the pkg package manager was fixed, where the df-latetest.conf configuration files were deleted during an update. A memory leak in the IDE/NATA driver was fixed, which caused the kernel to panic. Problems with working on UEFI-only systems were solved. The ca_root_nss package was updated, which resolved problems with pkg working with the Avalon repository over HTTPS.
Nival interactive has published the code for Blitzkrieg: 01/05/2025
Nival has released the source code for the 2003 real-time strategy military game Blitzkrieg. The code is written in C and C++ and is released under a license that permits non-commercial use and modification. The repository includes the single-player version of the game, as well as related game data, map editors, and development tools. A build for the Windows platform is supported.
https://github.com/nival/Blitzkrieg
Redis Returns to Open Source License: 02/05/2025
Redis Ltd announced a change in the project's licensing policy. Starting with the release of Redis 8.0, the project's code has become available under the free AGPLv3 license. The transition to an open license was made possible by the return of Salvatore Sanfilippo, the creator of the Redis DBMS, to the company. After leaving Redis Ltd, Salvatore developed a set of vector extensions (Vector Sets), which he was ready to contribute to Redis, but wanted the code he created to be provided under an open license. Salvador was able to convince his colleagues of the advisability of restoring the open nature of the project and improving interaction with the community.
Rowan Trollope, director of Redis Ltd, said the move to proprietary licenses last year had served its purpose, with AWS and Google forking the code, co - developing it and sharing their past work. However, the change in licenses had damaged the relationship with the community, which the company would now try to repair by reverting to shipping code under a free license.
Along with the announcement of the license change, Redis 8.0 was released. However, despite the announcement of the release availability, the repository currently only contains a release candidate, and the link to download Redis 8.0 on the project website leads to a page with a general description of the installation process. The release notes also only list 8.0-RC1 so far.
KDE Stops Forming LTS Releases: 02/05/2025
At a meeting of KDE project developers in Graz (Austria), a decision was made to wind up the long-term support program for releases (LTS) of the KDE Plasma desktop environment. Instead of maintaining LTS branches by the KDE project, this task will be delegated to distribution developers, who, if they wish to supply outdated code, will have to independently track bug fixes in packages with old versions of KDE Plasma. In its current form, long-term support from KDE does not cover the entire product - the LTS branch is available only for the desktop, but is not formed for frameworks and applications. Thus, the main work of maintaining long-term support for KDE as a product consisting of many components, most of which do not have LTS status, was already taken on by distributions.
For their part, instead of creating separate LTS branches, KDE developers will slightly extend the maintenance cycle of regular releases and will publish an additional corrective release for each significant branch (there will be six intermediate updates instead of five). The issue of extending the development cycle is under discussion - instead of three, it is proposed to release two major releases per year with a longer maintenance period, which will allow each release of KDE Plasma to be considered a mini-LTS. The transition to a longer development cycle has been postponed until all the problems with Wayland are resolved, but the developers intend to return to this discussion in 4 months at the Akademy conference.
https://pointieststick.com/2025/05/01/notes-from-the-graz-plasma-sprint/
Intel Opens iaprof: 02/05/2025
Brendan Gregg, one of the developers of the DTrace dynamic debugging system, now working at Intel and developing tools for performance analysis based on eBPF in the Linux kernel, announced the open source code of the iaprof ( AI Flame Graphs ) toolkit. The toolkit is designed to analyze information about the performance of Intel GPUs and its visualization. The code is written in C and is open under the Apache 2.0 license.
The supported hardware platforms include Intel Arc graphics cards based on the Battlemage microarchitecture (B-series), Max-series datacenter GPUs, and various Intel Xe2 graphics cards, including those based on the Lunar Lake iGPU. The system requires a Linux kernel with up-to-date drivers for the Intel GPU (Intel Battlemage requires kernel 6.15 and the Xe driver, while Intel Max Series requires kernel 5.15 and the i915 driver). The Linux kernel must be compiled with the Intel driver-specific EU Stall and EU Debug interfaces .
The collected profiles reflect execution unit delays, CPU status, and GPU core information. The collected information allows you to link GPU performance metrics to the code running on the CPU.
https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2025-05-01/doom-gpu-flame-graphs.html
Debian Project Launches Public Vote on AI Model Openness Criteria: 03/05/2025
The Debian project has announced a general resolution (GR) vote among project developers to approve the criteria for accepting machine learning models into the main repository of the project. At this stage, the discussion phase has been launched, thereafter, the collection of votes will begin (the start date of the vote has not yet been determined). About a thousand developers involved in maintaining packages and supporting the Debian infrastructure have the right to vote.
AI models distributed under open licenses, but without providing source material and tools for training the model, are proposed to be recognized as incompatible with the Debian criteria defining free software ( DFSG , Debian Free Software Guideline). If the proposal is approved, such models will not be able to be included in the main repository of the project (“main”). The possibility of supplying such models to “non-free” repositories is not considered in the launched vote.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2025/05/msg00000.html
Linux Kernel Devs on Track to Remove i486 Support: 03/05/2025
Ingo Molnar, the maintainer of the x86 architecture, locking mechanism and task scheduler in the Linux kernel, has put up for discussion a set of patches that remove support for 486 processors (M486, M486SX, AMD ELAN) and the initial series of 586 processors from the kernel. The kernel is proposed to leave only the ability to work with x86 processors that support the CX8 (CMPXCHG8B) instruction and the TSC (Time Stamp Counter) register, which appeared in the Pentium CPU.
It is noted that in order to support the 486 CPU, the kernel has to contain code that emulates the CX8 (compare and exchange 8 bytes) and TSC (CPU cycle counter used in the task scheduler) operations. Such code complicates the kernel, makes maintenance difficult, and sometimes becomes a source of problems, the analysis of which takes time from developers. The end of support for 486 will allow removing 14104 lines of code from the kernel, which will significantly simplify some functions in the kernel by eliminating layers that emulate CX8 and TSC, and will allow getting rid of the math-emu library that emulates the FPU.
The 486 systems that remain in use make little use of current Linux kernels. Specialized 486 processor variants for embedded systems, such as the Intel Quark, support CX8 and TSC and are unaffected by the change. Older original 486 CPUs are generally still used with legacy distributions that ship older versions of the Linux kernel. Modern Linux distributions have long since stopped supporting 32-bit x86 systems or have switched to using the X86_PAE build option, which requires CX8 support.
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250425084216.3913608-1-mingo@kernel.org/
BleachBit 5.0.0 Released: 05/05/2025
BleachBit 5.0.0 that frees up disk space by deleting unnecessary files, is out. The program offers a list of recommended components for deletion, from which the user can exclude certain items. The program supports console and graphical interfaces and can run on Linux and Windows. The code is written in Python using PyGTK and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Ready-made packages are compiled for popular Linux distributions.
BleachBit allows you to clean caches, logs and temporary files of various applications, remove unused locales and files with rpm and deb packages left after installation, optimize internal databases of browsers, mail clients and package managers. The program also supports the “shredder” mode, which allows you to overwrite individual files or all free space on the drive to prevent recovery of files deleted by applications.
The new version adds the ability to select the interface language in the settings. They improved operation in multi-user systems and on Linux, cleaning of Librewolf, Microsoft Edge and Geary, deletion of temporary Bash files was implemented. They improved cleaning of logs after rotation and damaged “.desktop” files. There are ready-made packages for Fedora 41/42, CentOS 9 and Ubuntu 24.10/25.04.
https://www.bleachbit.org/news/bleachbit-500
New versions of s6-rc: 05/05/2025
The s6-rc 0.5.6.0 service manager is out. It is designed to manage the launch of initialization scripts and services. The system supports initialization scripts compatible with sysv-init and can import dependency information from sysv-rc or OpenRC. The code is written in C and is distributed under the ISC license.
The s6-rc service manager includes a set of utilities for starting and stopping long-running processes (daemons) or immediately terminated initialization scripts. During operation, parallel launch of non-intersecting services is ensured and a repeating sequence of script execution is guaranteed for different launches. All state changes are processed taking into account dependencies, for example, when a service is launched, the dependencies necessary for its operation will be automatically launched, and when stopped, the dependent services will also be stopped.
Unlike other service managers, s6-rc supports proactive (offline) construction of a dependency graph for an existing set of services, which allows performing resource-intensive dependency analysis separately, rather than during loading or state changes. At the same time, the system is not monolithic and is divided into a series of separate and replaceable modules, each of which, in accordance with the Unix philosophy, solves only a specific task. The s6-rc project adheres to the philosophy of minimalism and consumes a minimum of resources.
Instead of runlevels, s6-rc offers the concept of bundles, which allows grouping services by arbitrary features and tasks. To improve the efficiency, a compiled dependency database is used, created by the s6-rc-compile utility based on the contents of directories with files for starting/stopping services. The s6-rc-db and s6-rc-update utilities are offered for parsing and manipulating said database.
https://skarnet.org/lists/skaware/2164.html
Open WebUI Switches to Restrictive License: 06/05/2025
The Open WebUI project, which develops a platform for deploying large language models on its own hardware and interacting with them via a web interface, has switched to a restrictive license that prohibits renaming. Initially, the project was supplied under a BSD-3 license, but starting with the release of 0.6.6, restrictive changes were added to the license text. In addition, the project introduced a mandatory signing of an agreement on the transfer of property rights for community participants wishing to transfer their changes.
When installing or distributing copies of Open WebUI, the user is now required to preserve the original branding, name, and logo. The only exceptions are for developers who submitted changes before the license change, commercial license holders, and installations that have fewer than 50 users per month. These conditions do not meet the criteria for an open OSI license, so the project can now be considered proprietary, despite the word “Open” in its name. Code released before version 0.6.6 remains under the BSD license.
https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/commit/f0447b24ab5c8e3de7d84221823f948ec5c2b013
GNOME SDK Adds Support for Blueprint Interface Language: 06/05/2025
The GNOME SDK includes a compiler called blueprint-compiler, which allows you to use Blueprint markup to define your application interface. Blueprint support in the GNOME SDK will allow you to use this interface description language in GNOME applications without manually installing additional dependencies. Blueprint is currently included in the nightly builds of the GNOME SDK and will be included in releases starting with the fall release of GNOME 49.
Blueprint simplifies the creation of interfaces using the GTK4 library and is distinguished by the use of a simple declarative syntax that replicates the model of GTK widgets, supporting standard templates, types and handlers. Unlike the GTK ui file format, Blueprint does not use XML markup, which is perceived as overloaded and inconvenient for manual editing.
Thanks to its readable syntax, the Blueprint format allows you to do without the use of specialized visual interface editors. At the same time, Blueprint does not require changes to GTK and is positioned as an add-on that compiles markup into the standard XML format for GtkBuilder. The functionality of Blueprint is fully consistent with GtkBuilder, only the method of presenting information differs. The toolkit code is written in Python and is distributed under the LGPLv3 license.
Official Fedora, AlmaLinux, and Arch Linux builds for WSL released: 07/05/2025
Microsoft has announced the formation of official builds with Fedora Linux for the WSL subsystem (Windows Subsystem for Linux). At the end of April, similar builds began to be published for Arch Linux and AlmaLinux. For Arch Linux, such builds are planned to be updated once a month, and for the rest as new releases are released.
Fedora, AlmaLinux, and Arch Linux builds are included in the list of Linux distributions distributed via the WSL repository and offered for quick installation in WSL. Other distributions in the WSL list include Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, openSUSE Leap, openSUSE Tumbleweed, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Kali Linux, and Oracle Linux. To install the builds, simply run the “wsl –install distribution” command in Windows, such as “wsl –install FedoraLinux-42”, “wsl –install archlinux”, or “wsl –install AlmaLinux-9”.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/fedora-linux-is-now-an-official-wsl-distro/
Ubuntu 25.10 and sudo: 07/05/2025
Canonical intends to use the Rust-based equivalent of sudo by default in the autumn release of Ubuntu 25.10. In March, a similar decision was made to replace GNU Coreutils with uutils. Initiatives to replace zlib and ntpd with zlib-rs and ntpd - rs are under consideration ], as well as to use Sequoia instead of GnuPG in the APT package manager.
sudo-rs is designed to be as compatible as possible with the classic sudo and su utilities, allowing sudo-rs to be used as a transparent replacement for sudo in most usage scenarios. For users who do not wish to switch to uutils and sudo-rs, Ubuntu 25.10 will provide an option to fall back to the classic coreutils and sudo system utilities.
The replacement of system components is part of an initiative to improve the quality of the system environment by delivering programs that are initially developed with safety, reliability, and correctness in mind. Delivering utilities written in Rust will reduce the risk of memory, such as accessing a memory area after it has been freed and going beyond the buffer boundaries. If the experiment is considered successful, Rust utilities will be used by default in the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS branch.
https://trifectatech.org/blog/memory-safe-sudo-to-become-the-default-in-ubuntu/
Release of Puzzle 2502: 08/05/2025
The lightweight distribution Puzzle 2502 has been released, providing a pre-configured and ready-to-use LWDE (Lightweight Wayland Desktop Environment) desktop based on the Labwc composite server. The distribution is built on Arch Linux, using its own repository. The project may be useful for enthusiasts who want to create their own environment for switching from LXDE to environments using Wayland. A build for the x86_64 architecture (511 MB) is available for download .
https://wiki.puppyrus.org/users_os/puzzle
Mesa 25.1 Released: 08/05/2025
After three months of development, the release of the free implementation of the OpenGL and Vulkan APIs - Mesa 25.1.0 - has been presented. The first release of the Mesa 25.1.0 branch has an experimental status - after the final stabilization of the code, the stable version 25.1.1 will be released.
Mesa 25.1 adds support for the Vulkan 1.4 graphics API in the ANV drivers for Intel GPUs, RADV for AMD GPUs, NVK for NVIDIA GPUs, Asahi for Apple GPUs, Turnip for Qualcomm GPUs, the lavapipe software rasterizer (lvp), and in emulator mode (vn). The PanVK driver for ARM Mali GPUs supports Vulkan 1.2, and the v3dv (Broadcom VideoCore GPU for Raspberry Pi 4+) and dzn (Vulkan implementation on top of Direct3D 12) drivers support Vulkan 1.0.
Mesa also provides full OpenGL 4.6 support for the iris (Intel Gen 8+ GPUs), radeonsi (AMD), Crocus (older Intel Gen4-Gen7 GPUs), zink, llvmpipe, virgl ( virgil3D virtual GPU for QEMU/KVM), freedreno (Qualcomm Adreno), d3d12 (OpenGL layer on top of DirectX 12), and asahi (AGX GPU used in Apple's M1 and M2 chips). OpenGL 4.5 support is available for AMD (r600) and NVIDIA (nvc0) GPUs. OpenGL 3.3 support is available in the softpipe (software rasterizer) and nv50 (NVIDIA NV50) drivers. OpenGL 3.1 is supported in the panfrost (ARM Mali GPU) and v3d (Broadcom VideoCore GPU) drivers.
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-announce/2025-May/000802.html
Release of Clonezilla Live 3.2.1: 09/05/2025
The release of the Linux distribution Clonezilla Live 3.2.1 has been published. It is designed for fast disk cloning, in which only used blocks are copied. The tasks performed by the distribution are similar to the proprietary product Norton Ghost. The size of the ISO image of the distribution is 484 MB (amd64).
The distribution is based on Debian GNU/Linux and uses the code of such projects as DRBL, Partition Image, ntfsclone, partclone, udpcast. It is possible to boot from CD/DVD, USB Flash and over the network (PXE). LVM2 and FS ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, btrfs, f2fs, nilfs2, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, UFS, minix, VMFS3 and VMFS5 (VMWare ESX) are supported. There is a mode of mass cloning over the network, including the transmission of traffic in multicast mode, allowing simultaneous cloning of the source disk to a large number of client machines. You can to clone from one disk to another, as well as to create backup copies by saving the disk image to a file. Cloning is possible at the level of entire disks or individual partitions.
https://sourceforge.net/p/clonezilla/news/2025/05/-stable-clonezilla-live-321-28-released/
Release of Lazarus 4.0: 09/05/2025
After a year and a half of development, the release of the integrated development environment Lazarus 4.0 has been published. It is based on the FreePascal compiler and performs tasks similar to Delphi. The environment is designed to work with the release of the FreePascal compiler 3.2.2. Ready-made installation packages with Lazarus are prepared for Linux, macOS and Windows.
https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,71050.0.html
New version of Raspberry Pi OS: 09/05/2025
The developers of the Raspberry Pi project have presented a new version of the Raspberry Pi OS distribution 2025-05-06 (Raspbian), based on Debian 12 and the Linux 6.12 kernel. About 35 thousand packages are available in the repository. The desktop environment is based on the labwc composite server, which uses the wlroots library from the Sway project. Three builds have been prepared for download - a reduced one ( 494 MB ) for server systems, with a basic desktop ( 1.1 GB ) and a full one with an additional set of applications (2.7 GB), available for 32- and 64-bit architectures. Additionally, an update has been formed for the legacy edition of Raspberry Pi OS, based on the Linux 6.1 kernel and Debian 11.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/a-new-raspberry-pi-os-release/
KDE reworks new file creation dialogues and fixes KWin crashes: 10/05/2025
Nate Graham, a quality assurance developer for the KDE project, has published the latest KDE development report. The development of the KDE Plasma 6.4 branch, scheduled for release on June 17, has been moved to a soft freeze, which limits the acceptance of changes to implement new features. There is a list at the following link:
https://blogs.kde.org/2025/05/10/this-week-in-plasma-inhibit-sleep-while-transferring-files/
New Director of GNOME Foundation Appointed: 10/05/2025
The GNOME Foundation, the organization that oversees the development of the GNOME desktop environment, has announced a new CEO. The CEO is responsible for the governance and development of the GNOME Foundation as an organization, as well as for interacting with the Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and members of the organization. Steven Deobald, a GNOME user since 2002 and experienced in business development, organizing collaborative development, and managing open source projects such as XTDB and Endatabas, has been confirmed as the new CEO. As CEO, Steven aims to increase transparency, improve collaboration among project participants, and ensure the financial sustainability of the organization.
The decision to include the Showtime video player in the GNOME 49 release was also announced, which will be shipped under the name GNOME Video Player and will be used by default instead of the Totem video player (GNOME Videos). The program features a minimalist interface, displayed over the content and hidden during viewing. It supports standard controls, full-screen mode, changing the playback speed, showing subtitles and creating screenshots.
OpenSearch 3.0 is now available: 11/05/2025
The OpenSearch Software Foundation, a non-profit organization controlled by the Linux Foundation, has released the OpenSearch 3.0 project, which develops a fork of the Elasticsearch search, analysis, and data storage platform and the Kibana web interface. Companies such as Amazon, SAP, Uber, Aryn, Atlassian, Canonical, DigitalOcean, and NetAp are participating in the development of the fork. The code is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
OpenSearch includes the OpenSearch storage and search engine, the OpenSearch Dashboards web interface and data visualization environment, and a set of add-ons for machine learning, SQL support, notification generation, cluster performance diagnostics, traffic encryption, role-based access control (RBAC), authentication via Active Directory, Kerberos, SAML and OpenID, single sign-on (SSO) implementation and detailed logging for auditing.
https://opensearch.org/blog/opensearch-3-0-enhances-vector-database-performance/
GNU M4 Macro Processor Release 1.4.20: 11/05/2025
Four years after the last update, the GNU M4 macro processor 1.4.20 was released, used as a wrapper for forming the sendmail configuration and generating configure scripts in the Autoconf toolkit. M4 allows dynamically generating text based on templates, passing the input text through itself and substituting the result of executing the macros specified in this text. Both native and ready-made functions can be called from macros, for example, for including files, performing arithmetic operations, manipulating string data, and running system commands.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/m4-announce/2025-05/msg00000.html
Shotcut 25.05 Released: 12/05/2025
The release of the Shotcut 25.05 video editor, developed by the author of the MLT project and using that framework for video editing, has been published. Support for video and audio formats is implemented via FFmpeg. You can use plugins with video and audio effects compatible with Frei0r and LADSPA. Features of Shotcut include the ability to multi-track editing with video composition from fragments in various source formats, without the need for their preliminary import or re-coding. There are built-in tools for creating screencasts, processing images from a web camera and receiving streaming video. The code is written in C++ using the Qt framework and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Ready-made builds are available for Linux (AppImage , flatpak and Snap), macOS and Windows. There are a lot of fixes, Improvements and new features, listed at the URL below.
https://shotcut.org/blog/new-release-250511/
Planka Project Switches to Non-Free License: 12/05/2025
Planka, a self-hosted Kanban board service for teamwork and tracking tasks, has switched to a proprietary license. The project initially used the Expat/MIT license, switched to the AGPLv3 license in 2023 and now uses the proprietary Fair Use License, based on the Sustainable Use License. The license change was made in the second Planka 2.0 release candidate, so the 2.0 branch will be proprietary.
The author of the project was considering changing the license to closed. The developers assure us that “for the majority of users of the community version of the product nothing will change”, keeping silent about the fact that the new license has not been approved by the OSI organization and the FOSS Foundation, since it does not correspond to the definition of Open Source and the criteria of Free Software.
The Fair Use License allows the use and modification of the source code only for personal use, for training purposes, or to support internal company processes. Using the code base to create paid products or to run services offered to third parties (for example, providing other legal entities with access to a deployed instance of Planka) is prohibited without purchasing a separate commercial license.
Meanwhile, for more than two years (since the Planka project switched to the AGLPv3 license), the 4gaBoards fork has been actively developed, continuing to use the Expat/MIT license. The fork implements a number of new features that are absent in Planka, including: extended interface customization options (collapsing columns, displaying as a list); tools for integration with external services (including authorization methods and synchronization); a sidebar for navigation between projects and boards; board templates.
https://github.com/plankanban/planka/releases/tag/v2.0.0-rc.2
Oracle Releases New Free Solaris 11.4 CBE Edition: 14/05/2025
Oracle has released Solaris 11.4.81 CBE (Common Build Environment), a variant of the Solaris 11.4 operating system aimed at open source developers and personal use. CBE simplifies access to current versions of programs and updates for those who want to use Solaris, for free. This is the second release of the CBE series - the first was published in 2022. Unlike the main Solaris 11.4 builds, where the license allows free use for testing, development and use in personal projects, the CBE edition is distinguished by the use of a continuous publication model for new versions and is close to the Solaris 11.4 SRU (Support Repository Update) edition.
The build includes new versions of programs, extended functionality and bug fixes available at the time of the release. A separate iso image has been prepared for download, and the ability to switch to using CBE after installing regular Oracle Solaris 11.4 builds is provided. To switch to CBE, simply connect the pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release repository in the IPS package manager and run the “pkg update” command. The code for the open Solaris components is available in their GitHub repository, and individual packages can be downloaded from pkg.oracle.com.
https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris/post/announcing-a-new-oracle-solaris-environment-for-developers
Nobara 42 is released: 14/05/2025
The Nobara 42 has been released, based on Fedora Linux 42 and including additional fixes to resolve issues with launching computer games, streaming, and performing content creation tasks. Nine installation images are available for download : the official one with a stylized KDE, additional ones with pure GNOME and KDE environments, Steam-HTPC for the KDE-based Steam Deck and Steam-Handheld for wearable devices, as well as separate builds of the first four images with proprietary NVIDIA drivers.
The project aims to provide a ready-to-use user environment that does not require any additional post-installation steps and addresses the main issues that Fedora users face. The distribution comes with proprietary components commonly used on workstations, such as multimedia codecs and drivers, as well as packages that are not in the standard Fedora repository, such as OBS Studio, Steam, Lutris, and additional Wine dependencies.
Among the extended fixes offered by the distribution are the delivery of patches to the Linux kernel to reduce lag in games ( Zenify ), solve problems with OpenRGB, use the amdgpu driver with older GPUs, support for the Steam Deck console and the Microsoft Surface devices, improve compatibility with ASUS laptops, eliminate SimpleDRM incompatibility with NVIDIA drivers, support for Lenovo Legion laptops, enable ashmem and binder for Waydroid and fix problems when using Wayland with the Nouveau driver.
The latest releases of Mesa and Wine, compiled from the core project repositories, are included. SELinux has been replaced with AppArmor. Patches have been added to Glibc, Flatpak, SDL2, Mutter, and xwayland. The Blender package now includes support for FFmpeg and the HIP ray tracing library. Additional dependencies have been installed for Davinci Resolve. A large selection of patches for OBS Studio is included, including patches to resolve issues with screen capture for games using OpenGL and Vulkan, as well as patches for hardware encoding of H.264 and H.265/HEVC on AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel systems. The RPMFusion repository is enabled by default.
https://nobaraproject.org/2025/05/13/may-132025/
The Tor Project has introduced Oniux: 15/05/2025
The developers of the Tor project have introduced the Oniux utility, designed to force traffic of individual applications through the Tor network. In its purpose, Oniux resembles the previously available torsocks program and differs in that it uses network namespaces provided by the Linux kernel for isolation, instead of replacing standard library functions via the LD_PRELOAD mechanism. The utility code is written in Rust and is distributed under Apache 2.0 and MIT licenses.
Oniux allows you to create an isolated container for any application, the traffic from that, is forcibly redirected through the Tor network only. To send traffic, a tunnel is created based on onionmasq, which looks like a virtual network interface (TUN) inside the container. Access to network interfaces available in the main environment is blocked at the isolation level of the network stack in a separate namespace.
Compared to torsocks, the new utility is not limited to replacing library functions and blocks possible channel leaks (for example, redirection through torsocks can be bypassed by directly accessing kernel system calls). The program also protects against leaks caused by errors in configuring a SOCKS proxy that routes traffic to the Tor network. The price of more rigid isolation is the loss of multiplatform compatibility - Oniux can only run on Linux.
The Oniux utility is self-sufficient and does not require a separate background Tor process to run. Interaction with the Tor network in Oniux is built using a library developed by the Arti project, while torsocks is based on CTor and uses a SOCKS proxy. The Oniux utility can be useful for running applications and services that are critical from the point of view of ensuring privacy.
Usage is reduced to adding a call to the “oniux” utility before launching the desired program. For example, to send a request via curl over Tor, you can run the command “oniux curl URL”, and to send any requests through Tor within a session with a command interpreter - “oniux bash”. Isolation of graphical applications is also supported.
https://blog.torproject.org/introducing-oniux-tor-isolation-using-linux-namespaces/
Whonix 17.3 is released: 15/05/2025
Whonix 17.3 is available, aimed at providing guaranteed anonymity, security and protection of private information. The distribution is based on Debian GNU/Linux and uses Tor to ensure anonymity. The project's developments are distributed under the GPLv3 license. Virtual machine images in ova format for VirtualBox (2.3 GB with Xfce and 1.5 GB with console only) are prepared for download.
A special feature of Whonix is the division of the distribution into two separately launched components - Whonix-Gateway with the implementation of a network gateway for anonymous communications and Whonix-Workstation with a desktop. The components are separate system environments supplied inside one boot image and launched in different virtual machines. Access to the network from the Whonix-Workstation environment is performed only through the Whonix-Gateway, which isolates the working environment from direct interaction with the outside world and allows the use of only fictitious network addresses. This approach allows protecting the user from leakage of a real IP address in the event of a hacked web browser or exploitation of a vulnerability that gives the attacker root access to the system.
Whonix-Workstation comes with the Xfce desktop environment by default. The package includes programs like VLC, Tor Browser, Thunderbird+TorBirdy, Pidgin, etc. The Whonix-Gateway package includes a set of server applications, including Apache httpd, ngnix, and IRC servers that can be used for hidden Tor services. You can forward tunnels over Tor for Freenet, i2p, JonDonym, SSH, and VPN. If desired, the user can use only Whonix-Gateway and connect their regular systems through it, including Windows, which allows for anonymous access for workstations already in use.
https://forums.whonix.org/t/whonix-17-3-9-9-point-release/21589
Grml 2025.05 Released: 16/05/2025
The grml 2025.05 Live distribution has been released, offering a selection of programs for system administration , such as data recovery after a failure or incident analysis. The distribution is based on Debian GNU/Linux and celebrated its twentieth anniversary last year. The graphical environment is built using the Fluxbox window manager. The Zsh command shell is offered by default. The size of the full iso image is 960 MB , the minimal one is 536 MB.
https://blog.grml.org/archives/423-Grml-new-stable-release-2025.05-available.html
KDE news: 17/05/2025
Nate Graham, a quality assurance developer for the KDE project, has published another KDE development report. Additionally, it was announced that the KDE Plasma 6.4 branch has entered beta testing and the code base has been frozen from making functional changes (only accepting patches). The release of KDE Plasma 6.4 is scheduled for June 17. The KWin composite manager has implemented the ability to enable extended dynamic range brightness for screens that do not support HDR, on which HDR is simulated by changing the backlight brightness they also added a setting to limit the maximum color depth and implemented widget for HDR calibration. Applications using XWayland are given the ability to control the keyboard and mouse pointer without prompting for confirmation. This feature is disabled by default, as it reduces the security level of the system. The overview mode in the System Monitor app has been redesigned, with a GPU load indicator and free space charts for individual drives. They added text titles for audio input and output devices to the volume control widget. A progress indicator (spinner) has been added to the basket widget.
https://blogs.kde.org/2025/05/17/this-week-in-plasma-hdr-calibration-wizard/
Debian 12.11 Released: 17/05/2025
The eleventh corrective update of the Debian 12 distribution has been generated, which includes accumulated package updates and fixes to the installer. The release includes 81 updates with fixes for stability issues and 45 updates with fixes for vulnerabilities.
In this release we can note the update to the latest stable versions of the dpdk, nvidia-graphics-drivers, nvidia-settings, openssl, postgresql-15 and wireless-regdb packages. The pidgin-skype (Skype is no longer available) and viagee (can no longer connect to Gmail) packages have been removed.
For downloading and installing “from scratch” installation builds of Debian 12.11 are prepared. Systems installed earlier and maintained in the current state receive updates present in Debian 12.11 through the standard update installation system. Security fixes included in new Debian releases are available to users as updates are released through the security.debian.org service.
At the same time, the first release candidate of the installer for the next major release of Debian 13 “Trixie” was built. The release of Debian 13 is expected in the summer of 2025. There are currently 257 critical errors blocking that release (For comparison, at a similar stage of development, Debian 12 had 258 critical errors, and Debian 11 had 185).
https://www.debian.org/News/2025/20250517
Release of GNU Taler 1.0: 18/05/2025
The GNU Project has released the free electronic payment system GNU Taler 1.0. The assignment of the version number 1.0 is related to the readiness of the platform for the implementation of working payment services and the stabilization of the software interfaces, for which backward compatibility will be ensured in the future. Points of sale using the payment service based on GNU Taler can now be legally established in Switzerland and used by individuals and legal entities to perform transactions in Swiss francs.
It is stated that using GNU Taler to sell goods in Switzerland is now legal and users' assets are protected from potential risks (customers' deposited assets are not subject to deposit insurance, but are kept in a separate bank account). Since the system has just been launched and there are no stores accepting payments via GNU Taler, the service currently has the status of a public beta version. The developers of GNU Taler encourage business owners in Switzerland to begin implementation. The organization Taler Operations AG was created to support and maintain the payment system .
The GNU Taler code is written in Python and distributed under the AGPLv3 and LGPLv3 licenses. It includes basic components that allow you to work with a bank, an exchange point, a trading platform, a wallet, and an auditor. The system allows you to identify sellers for tax reporting, but provides anonymity for buyers. The development is funded by grants from the European Commission and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).