[11:43] schestowitz[TR2][11:43] schestowitz[TR2]While Valve's specific reasons for picking Arch Linux for Steam Deck remain unknown, it's pretty easy to guess why it was picked. Mainly, it's a particularly lightweight distribution maintained since March 2002, which lends itself well to gaming with minimal performance overhead. A more intensive Linux distribution may not have been the ideal base for SteamOS 3, which is targeted at handhe [11:43] schestowitz[TR2] lds like Steam Deck first.
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[11:44] schestowitz[TR2][11:44] schestowitz[TR2]At the beginning of the month, we introduced you to some of the changes expected to be included in the upcoming Mint 22.1 release.
[11:44] schestowitz[TR2]Today, Clement Lefebvre, lead of the Linux Mint project, shared another dose of updates in his monthly report, covering the work completed in September and upcoming plans for the project. Here are the highlights.
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[11:45] schestowitz[TR2][11:45] schestowitz[TR2]The core Plasma team remains deep in bug-fixing mode until Plasma 6.2.1, with lots of bugs fixed this week! This is the second-to-last week of development before the repos are frozen, and were cranking away like mad to get 6.2 in great shape. And it is indeed in very good shape so far. The worst issues were still seeing are related to notifications freezing and being mis-rend [11:45] schestowitz[TR2] ered, caused by recent changes made to fix another significantly less severe issue. So in the worst-case scenario, we can simply revert the changes before the final 6.2 release if we dont manage to fix the regressions in time.
[11:45] schestowitz[TR2]Something I hope we can prove to the world is that were capable of keeping Plasma stable over the long haul at the same time that we add features and refine the UI. Plasma 6.2 offers us a good opportunity for it!
[11:45] schestowitz[TR2]
[11:46] schestowitz[TR2][11:46] schestowitz[TR2]Both Ubuntu 24.10 and Fedora 41 are in beta testing, and both should arrive in the middle of October with GNOME 47 as their default desktop environments. You can't fully judge GNOME 47 from Ubuntu "Oracular Oriole," though. Canonical tweaks the GNOME desktop environment a little with some pre-installed extensions to make it a little more familiar to long-term Ubuntu users. For inst [11:46] schestowitz[TR2] ance, Ubuntu's default GNOME desktop has desktop icons, notification icons in the top panel, a permanent dock along the left screen edge, and a tool to assist with tiling windows. Fedora eschews these changes and ships a largely unmodified version, so it's much closer to the stock appearance.
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[11:47] schestowitz[TR2][11:47] schestowitz[TR2]Specifically, Valve is generously providing support for two major initiatives: the development of a build service infrastructure and the creation of a secure signing enclave.
[11:47] schestowitz[TR2]By backing these projects on a freelance basis, Valve enables the Arch team to focus on these essential improvements without being limited by the volunteer time constraints that often challenge open-source projects.
[11:47] schestowitz[TR2]
[11:47] schestowitz[TR2][11:47] schestowitz[TR2]Whilst responding to another LQ members query about a suitable distro for a family member to self-manage, I came across Peppermint OS.
[11:47] schestowitz[TR2]The distro was to be installed on an elderly 10 year old laptop with 4GB of RAM.
[11:47] schestowitz[TR2]
[11:49] schestowitz[TR2][11:49] schestowitz[TR2]Within the first couple weeks of nonstop designing and test fits, Zibartas had a helmet model that consisted of 130 individual parts and where airflow was a major priority. Similar to a motorcycle helmet, the inner layer is comprised of soft fabric overlayed on top of a rigid, yet porous, helmet shell. Two fans near the front bring in fresh air from the outside and help prevent the transpa [11:49] schestowitz[TR2] rent visor layer from becoming too foggy due to the wearers breathing. Raised just above this shell is a secondary set of 3D-printed accent pieces that give the helmet its finer details/form.
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[11:51] schestowitz[TR2][11:51] schestowitz[TR2]Almost half a year after the major 7.0 release, the highly anticipated FFmpeg 7.1 Peter release is finally here, bringing a host of updates and optimizations. Here they are.
[11:51] schestowitz[TR2]One of the standout advancements in this latest version is the maturation of the VVC (Versatile Video Coding) decoder. Initially introduced as an experimental feature in version 7.0, the VVC decoder has undergone extensive optimizations and is now stable enough for broad adoption.
[11:51] schestowitz[TR2]
[11:51] schestowitz[TR2][11:51] schestowitz[TR2]After a five-year hiatus, RTorrent, a command-line BitTorrent client, has made a significant comeback with the release of version 0.10. According to the dev, Thanks to a 3rd party sponsoring development, and recent changes in my personal life, Ive started actively developing rtorrent.
[11:51] schestowitz[TR2]For the unfamiliar, RTorrent is a lightweight and powerful command-line BitTorrent client for Linux/Unix systems. Its written in C++ and interacts through a text-based interface, making it particularly suitable for remote or server-based setups, where graphical user interfaces are not needed or desired.
[11:51] schestowitz[TR2]
[11:53] schestowitz[TR2][11:53] schestowitz[TR2]Firstly, Firefox will now temporarily remember when users grant websites permissions, such as geolocation access. These temporary permissions are designed to protect your privacy by automatically removing themselves after one hour or when you close the tab. This ensures that websites dont retain unnecessary access to your information longer than needed.
[11:53] schestowitz[TR2]
[12:03] schestowitz[TR2][12:03] schestowitz[TR2]Today, Void Linux announced it is officially bidding farewell to Python 2. While Python 2 reached its end of life in 2020, the distro still depended on over 200 packages.
[12:03] schestowitz[TR2]Now, thanks to the dedicated efforts of Void contributors who have updated, patched, or removed these packages, the distribution is ready to embrace Python 3 fully.
[12:03] schestowitz[TR2]