Fossery Tech  

This week's Linux and FOSS news:

LINUX NEWS

GNOME Mutter 50 Alpha Released With X11 Backend Removed:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-Mutter-Shell-50-Alpha

GNOME 50 Will Make Sure You Don't Use Your Computer Past Your Bedtime:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-50-Screen-Lock-Bedtime

KDE Plasma 6.6 Beta Released With Plasma Login Manager, Plasma Setup:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Plasma-6.6-Beta

Budgie 11 Desktop Being Developed With The Qt6 Toolkit:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Budgie-11-Using-Qt6

Linux Mint 22.3 “Zena” released!:
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4981

EndeavourOS Linux gets an upgraded release with Ganymede Neo:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/endeavouros-linux-gets-an-upgraded-release-with-ganymede-neo/

Tails 7.4 adds new language-saving feature, drops BitTorrent, updates core apps, and more:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/1/tails-7-4-adds-new-language-saving-feature-drops-bittorrent-updates-core-apps-and-more/

Debian Libre Live 13.3 Images Released For Avoiding Non-Free Firmware:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Libre-Live-13.3

GYESME: A New Design-Led Downstream Of GNOME Being Explored:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GYESME-GNOME-Downstream
(Interesting project, I like the concept to make GNOME more flexible while keeping the overall user experience. I don't really get why GNOME wants to tie itself to Systemd. Also, supporting ather design systems like the KDE/Qt ecosystem would be nice (if they mean that), I face theming issues all the time with programs written for KDE, which make some programs unusable for me, while other than the theming, they would be great for my use case. I'm curious whether this project will shape up as an actual, daily drivable desktop in the future.)
(I don't really get what they mean about "Defaults are protected more aggressively than options." though. It sounds like they want to limit customization, while in the rest of the description, they emphasize flexibility. 🤔 Or maybe I'm just interpreting it in the wrong way.)
(But other than that I like their mindset of listening to feedback, adapting direction accordingly.)

(more Linux and FOSS news in comment)

#WeeklyNews #News #Linux #LinuxNews #GNOME #KDE #LinuxMint #EndeavourOS #Tails #DebianLibre #Budgie #GYESME #GNOME50 #KDEPlasma #TailsOS #LinuxDistro #DistroRelease #DesktopEnvironment #LinuxDesktop #DesktopLinux #FosseryTech

GNOME Mutter 50 Alpha Released With X11 Backend Removed

In preparing for the GNOME 50 Alpha release, the '50.alpha' tags just occurred for the Mutter compositor and GNOME Shell

Jan 18 at 9:56amWeb
Show threadFossery Tech  Jan 18

(more Linux news in original post)

Synex Server: A New Debian Based Linux Distro With Native ZFS Installation Support:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Synex-Debian-With-ZFS

Fedora Games Lab Approved To Switch To KDE Plasma, Become A Better Linux Gaming Showcase:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-Games-Lab-Overhaul-2026

Goverlay for managing tools like MangoHud gets a major new release and it's finally on Flathub:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/goverlay-for-managing-tools-like-mangohud-gets-a-major-new-release-and-its-finally-on-flathub/

Proton Experimental brings updates for MonoGame, Rockstar Launcher and more:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/proton-experimental-brings-updates-for-monogame-rockstar-launcher-and-more/

Upcoming exFAT Linux Driver Patch Can Boost Sequential Read Performance By ~10%:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/exFAT-Faster-Seq-Reads-10p

Patches Positioned Ahead Of Linux 7.0 Cycle For Easy Custom Boot Logo In Place Of Tux:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.0-Custom-Boot-Logo

libvirt 12.0 Released - Bhyve ARM64 Support & Other Improvements For The BSD Hypervisor:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/libvirt-12.0

GRUB 2.14 Bootloader Released With EROFS Support, Shim Loader Protocol:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GRUB-2.14-Released

D7VK version 1.2 brings more Direct3D 6 improvements and a little Direct3D 5 too:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/d7vk-version-1-2-brings-more-direct3d-6-improvements-and-a-little-direct3d-5-too/

Wine 11.0 Brings Ntsync Support, Complete WoW64 + Other Changes:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/01/wine-11-0-released

Hangover 11.0 Released: Wine + FEX/Box64 Pairing For Windows x86 Apps On ARM64 Linux:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Hangover-11.0-Released

Linux 6.19-rc5 Brings Fix For Newer NVIDIA GPUs, Logitech HID++ For Anywhere 3S & Fixes:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.19-rc5-Released

First .NET 10 Servicing Update Now Available in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/01/dotnet-10-0-1-update-ubuntu-24-04-lts

Bcachefs Ships Latest User-Space Utilities With bcachefs-tools 1.35:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/bcachefs-tools-1.35

Even more AMD ray tracing performance improvements heading to Mesa on Linux:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/even-more-amd-ray-tracing-performance-improvements-heading-to-mesa-on-linux/

Auto-CPUFreq 3.0 Released To Help You Extend Laptop Battery Life On Linux:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Auto-CPUFreq-3.0

LLMinus Working On AI/LLM-Powered Merge Conflict Resolution For The Linux Kernel:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/LLMinus-RFC-v2

(FOSS news in comments)

#WeeklyNews #News #Linux #LinuxNews #Synex #FedoraGamesLab #Goverlay #Proton #exFAT #LinuxKernel #Libvirt #GRUB #D7VK #Wine #Hangover #Bcachefs #Mesa #AMD #AutoCPUFreq #Auto_CPUFREQ #FosseryTech

Synex Server: A New Debian Based Linux Distro With Native ZFS Installation Support

Synex is a Linux distribution that's been around for some months as a Debian-based, minimalistic Linux distribution out of Argentina focused on the needs of small and medium businesses

Show threadFossery Tech  Jan 18

(Linux news in original post)

FOSS NEWS

Firefox 147 Arrives with XDG Support on Linux, Auto-PiP + More:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/01/firefox-147-released

Odysee banned in the EU (among many other sites) for "spreading Russian propaganda":
https://www.europereloaded.com/from-sanctions-to-overblocking-a-personal-vodafoneziggo-case-study/
https://www.nlconnect.org/files/pages/2025/12/NLconnect-Reference-List-EU-Media-Sanctions-v-15-12-25.pdf
(Looks like the same nonsensical "we need to protect someone from something, so limit digital freedom of everyone" mindset, as with the age verification crap...)
(Yeah, just prevent regular users too from accessing the site who aren't even interested in that political crap. Good job, morons... What you'll do next? Block all decentralized platforms, because "freedom is dangerous to people", or what?)
(I usually avoid including political things in these weekly news posts, but I thought it must be included, because it can potentially affect everyone in the EU. I'm not affected yet, because so far Vodafone seems to be the only one blocking the site, I use a different ISP, but since it's a law, other ISPs will probably be forced to comply too (unless it will be handled as GDPR that they don't actually care who complies). VPN will probably be a solution to get around the ban, hopefully they won't ban that too, like the UK wants...)

Thunderbird 147.0: new folder path option & localization preferences added:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/1/thunderbird-147-0-new-folder-path-option-and-localization-preferences-added/

Joplin 3.5 refines Markdown editing, adds case insensitive tags & boosts syncing & sharing:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/1/joplin-3-5-refines-markdown-editing-adds-case-insensitive-tags-and-boosts-syncing-and-sharing/

OBS Studio 32.1 Beta is out with a new Audio Mixer, WebRTC Simulcast support and more:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/obs-studio-32-1-beta-is-out-with-a-new-audio-mixer-webrtc-simulcast-support-and-more/

NewPipe 0.28.1 update improves playback, metadata, and SoundCloud support:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/1/newpipe-0-28-1-update-improves-playback-metadata-and-soundcloud-support/

VLC adds native Arm support on Windows, improving playback on Snapdragon devices:
https://betanews.com/article/vlc-adds-native-arm-support-on-windows/

Shotcut 26.1 Beta Video Editor Adds New Hardware Decoder Options:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Shotcut-26.1-Beta

(more FOSS news in comment)

#WeeklyNews #OpenSource #FOSSNews #FOSS #Firefox #Odysee #Thunderbird #Joplin #OBS #OBSStudio #NewPipe #VLC #Shotcut #Browser #ContentCreation #WebBrowser #EmailClient #FosseryTech

Firefox 147 Released with 20-Year Old Linux Bug Fix

Firefox 147 released with XDG directory support ending a 20-year Linux bug, auto Picture-in-Picture, better AMD video performance, and new web standards.

OMG! Ubuntu
Show threadFossery Tech  Jan 18

(more Linux and FOSS news in previous posts of thread)

Lumo 1.3: Introducing Projects, a better way to organize and create:
https://proton.me/blog/lumo-1-3
(Looks like some chat folders mixed with "custom GPT" thing. I played around with it, created a project for FosseryWeb, wrote some prompt "aliases" to the "Instuctions" field for common tasks like collecting info for cheatsheets and converting cheatsheets from Markdown to HTML using an HTML template file. It works perfectly, can be pretty handy to shorten long prompts. It can also handle aliased followup prompts, and "variables" inside prompts, which can be provided with value when using the alias. Pretty cool stuff.)

OpenXcom Extended takes over from OpenXcom for the classic X-COM / UFO: Enemy Unknown:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/openxcom-extended-takes-over-from-openxcom-for-the-classic-x-com-ufo-enemy-unknown/

Forgejo v14.0 adds inline issue search, new file editor, stronger actions trust:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/1/forgejo-v14-0-adds-inline-issue-search-new-file-editor-stronger-actions-trust/

CVE-2026-0915: GNU C Library Fixes A Security Issue Present Since 1996:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Glibc-Security-Fix-For-1996-Bug

Whisper.cpp 1.8.3 Delivers A "12x Performance Boost" With Integrated Graphics:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Whisper-cpp-1.8.3-12x-Perf

UPBGE 0.50 launches with GPU skinning, faster add object, 2D filter overhaul, and more:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/1/upbge-0-50-launches-with-gpu-skinning-faster-add-object-2d-filter-overhaul-and-more/

Intel Releases Open3D 0.19 With Experimental Cross-Platform GPU Support Using SYCL:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Open3D-0.19-Released

Linus Torvalds' Latest Open-Source Project Is AudioNoise - Made With The Help Of Vibe Coding:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Vide-Coding

OpenProject 17.0 brings real-time document collaboration, improved meetings, and much more:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/1/openproject-17-0-brings-real-time-document-collaboration-improved-meetings-and-much-more/

European Commission gathering feedback on the importance of open source:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/european-commission-gathering-feedback-on-the-importance-of-open-source/
(Gathering feedback about FOSS, after banning Odysee, a FOSS platform. How ironic...)

FreeBSD 15.1 Aims To Have KDE Desktop Installer Option:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-15.1-KDE-Desktop-Option

ReactOS Receives Fix For A Very Annoying Usability Issue:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/ReactOS-Folder-Changes-Refresh

Haiku OS Pulls In Updated Drivers From FreeBSD 15:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Haiku-December-2025

#WeeklyNews #OpenSource #FOSSNews #OpenSourceNews #FOSS #AI #FosseryTech

Introducing Projects with Lumo 1.3 | Proton

Lumo’s latest update adds Projects, dedicated encrypted spaces for any task, designed to boost productivity while saving time.

Proton