Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 20/08/2023: Budgie 10.8 Desktop and Linux 6.5 RC7



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Going Linux ☛ Going Linux #444 €· Welcome to Linux! - Desktops

        We review some of the most popular Linux desktop environment options. Included are KDE Plasma, Gnome, Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE, LXDE, Budgie, Pantheon and Deepin.

        Episode Time Stamps
        00:00 Going Linux #444 €· Welcome to Linux! - Desktops
        01:18 Bill broke KDE on his computer
        02:08 Larry fixed a 13 year old laptop with LXLE
        09:29 Definition: Linux desktop environments

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux mailing lists ☛ Linux 6.5-rc7
        So it's Sunday afternoon, just not in the usual timezone where I do
        these releases, since I've been traveling.
        
        

        But apart from the timezone difference, everything looks entirely normal. Drivers (GPU, networking and sound dominate - the usual suspects, in other words) and architecture fixes. The latter are mostly arm devicetree fixlets, but also some x86 cleanups and fallout from the embargo last week.

        Not a huge amount of patches, and I really get the feeling that a lot of maintainers are on vacation. But I will be optimistic and also blame it all being quiet on things working fairly well.

        So I think this will be the last rc unless something nasty comes up. Do keep testing,

        Linus
    • Graphics Stack

      • Mike Blumenkrantz: Yep

        Finally a default value for gl_PointSize.

        Long-term fans of the blog will recall that I’ve previously raged against the insane concept that pointsize must be written many times prior. In fact, it remains the second most blogged about topic in SGC history right behind

        Big Triangledescriptor management, the topic that modern graphics-related blogs must cover above all others.

        Finally with maintenance5 we can be freed from these unjust shackles that have bound us for so long. No more* shall complex logic be unnecessarily injected into the compiler stack to add senseless writes to this output.
        * except all that code still has to exist and run to handle drivers that don’t support maintenance5

        Beyond the obvious benefit of having a fixed default pointsize (sanity), let’s check out some other benefits.

        Shader Reduction

        Previously all zink-emitted shaders would have a pointsize write, even those that were never used for drawing points. This resulted in unnecessary shader i/o at the hardware level. Nobody wants unnecessary shader i/o at the hardware level.

        Now, however, it’s possible to use heuristics during linking to delete all unnecessary pointsize writes any time there is no XFB emission.

        How much performance improvement will this yield?

    • Applications

      • Linux Links ☛ 8 Best Free and Open Source Search Engines for Big Data

        Big Data is an all-inclusive term that refers to data sets so large and complex that they need to be processed by specially designed hardware and software tools.

      • Linux Links ☛ 7 Best Free and Open Source Linux Speed Reading Tools

        The software featured in this group test is based on spritzing. Read text without moving your eyes, and therefore rapidly increase your reading speed.

      • Sparky GNU/Linux ☛ Penguins’ eggs

        There is a new application available for Sparkers: Penguins’ eggs What is Penguins’ eggs? penguins-eggs is a console tool, under continuous development, that allows you to remaster your system and redistribute it as live images on usb sticks or via PXE. It supports: Debian, Devuan, Ubuntu and major derivatives: Linuxmint, KDE neon, etc.

      • Make Use Of ☛ 10 Ways to Secure Your Samba Server on Linux

        SMB (Server Message Block) protocol is a cornerstone of file and printer sharing in connected environments. However, the default configuration of Samba can pose significant security risks, leaving your network vulnerable to unauthorized access and cyberattacks.

        If you're hosting a Samba server, you need to be extra cautious with the configurations you have set in place. Here are 10 critical steps to ensure your SMB server remains secure and protected.

        Linux is great for hosting servers. However, whenever you're dealing with servers, you have to tread carefully and be extra aware as Linux servers are always a lucrative target for threat actors.

        It is paramount that you put sincere effort into fortifying your network and hardening your Linux servers. Besides properly configuring Samba, there are a few other measures you should take to ensure your Linux server is safe from the crosshair of adversaries.

    • Instructionals/Technical

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • 9to5Linux ☛ Budgie 10.8 Desktop Released with New Trash Applet, Budgie Menu Improvements

        Budgie 10.8 comes with a new applet called Budgie Trash Applet that was previously available as a third-party applet, but not it comes pre-installed by default with the new Budgie release. Apart from the usual functionality of such an applet, the Budgie Trash Applet also features support for restoring trashed files.

        Another interesting change in Budgie 10.8 is support for the StatusNotifier specification in the System Tray Applet, which enables applications to show their icons and menus in the system tray area in a modern way that is expected from a desktop environment in 2023.

      • Beta News ☛ Budgie 10.8 takes Linux desktop experience to new heights
        Exciting news, y’all! Budgie 10.8 has landed, and the Linux desktop environment is packed with features that promise to transform how we interact with our desktops.

        First off, the Budgie Menu has received quite the makeover. If you've ever scratched your head wondering why certain apps are in the 'Other' category, you're not alone. The team listened to feedback, and now, applications have found more fitting categories. Plus, there’s a nifty fix for non-Latin text crashes, thanks to a switch to C for the Application Indexer's fuzzy scoring function. And, let's say goodbye to the Utilities category; its apps have found a new home in System Tools.

      • Linuxiac ☛ Budgie Desktop 10.8 Released, Here’s What’s New
        Budgie Desktop is a modern, user-friendly desktop environment for Linux operating systems built on GNOME technologies. It is designed to provide a clean, elegant user interface while lightweight and efficient.

        Initially developed by the Solus Project, the desktop has gained popularity and has been widely adopted by other Linux distributions. Currently, it is developed by the Buddies of Budgie organization.

        Nearly seven months after version 10.7 was released at the beginning of the year, Budgie 10.8 is here, so let’s see what’s changed.

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Are we transparent enough?
          For me this was surprising, so I would like to raise a few questions here that might as well be answered with: "sure, we are", and I just did not see it because I am a bit out of touch with KDE development news (and modern ways of communication in general). Personal and biased opinion follows. But here are the questions first:

          Are we handling such a prominently user-facing (as in in your face) changes transparently enough?

          How do we decide for such (as in groundbreaking) new defaults?

          Have the users (as in many of them) been asked?

          So, now for the personal opinion...

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Top 10 Best Linux Server Distros for Powerful Performance

      Linux servers are renowned for their robustness, enhanced security features, and ability to handle heavy traffic, making them an optimal choice for businesses and organizations. These servers offer dynamic versatility and scalability, allowing diverse customization options and the ability to adapt to varying load conditions.

    • BSD

    • SUSE/OpenSUSE

      • DaemonFC (Ryan Farmer) ☛ I Managed to Make Fallout 4 Work in openSUSE Leap.

        So, openSUSE Leap 15.5 being an enterprise-like system with slow moving releases, it’s been something of a chore to set up for a laptop, especially one where I occasionally want to play Windows games.

        Even after installing the vulkan packages and Wine Stable 8.0, and the media codecs from the “Packman” repository with “opi”, when I launched Fallout 4 Game of the Year Edition this time, I ended up with no voices and no soundtracks.

        When I ran it with wine Fallout4.exe, it complained that it could not find a Windows Media Audio codec for gstreamer.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • CNX Software ☛ Setting up a private LoRaWAN network with WisGate Connect gateway

        In this guide, we’ll explain how to set up a private LoRaWAN network using the Raspberry Pi CM4-based RAKwireless’ WisGate Connect gateway and Docker or Portainer to install NodeRED, InfluxDB, Grafana, and other packages required to configure our gateway. The WisGate Connect is quite a versatile gateway with Gigabit and 2.5Gbps Ethernet plus several optional wireless connectivity options such as LoRaWAN, 4G LTE, 5G, WiFi 6, Zigbee, WiFi HaLoW, and more that can be added through Mini PCIe or M.2 sockets, expansion through WisBlock IO connectors and a 40-pin Raspberry Pi HAT connector. We’ll start by looking at the gateway features in detail, but if you already know all that, you can jump to the private LoRaWAN network configuration section.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

  • Leftovers

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Spelling misatkes (cough)

      I’m trying to train myself to stop misspelling these words:

      • acknowlege → acknowledge
      • discernable → discernible
      • existance → existence
      • eshew → eschew
      • maintanance → maintenance
      • vaccum → vacuum
      • vechile → vehicle

      My success rate thus far is hovering around… 50%? I’m at the point now where I remember both spellings, but forget which one I’m supposed to be using.

    • UNIX Cop ☛ What is Web Security and Why It Is Important for Your Website? [Ed: Linkspam disguised as article? This is very poorly done SEO stuny.]

      Businesses of all kinds are finding it increasingly challenging to protect their customers’ financial and private details as technology advances.

    • Zach Oglesby: Change

      As the old saying goes, “The only constant in life is change.” My life has been ruled by it, moving around as a kid, life in the military, and the same old stuff we all deal with as we age and grow.

      For the last 15 years, my wife has been the only constant in my life. We met in Delaware while I was stationed there. We fell in love, got married, and I scooped her away from the only home she had ever known to go live in Spain with me.



Recent Techrights' Posts

NVIDIA's Crisis Has Only Just began
NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) is set to open in the red tomorrow
IBM Has Destroyed Red Hat and Hashicorp, Insiders Say It's the Usual From IBM:
Bluewashing is a death wave
Techrights Was Right About Slop Destroying Development Communities and Projects
Slop does not improve your project. It kills the community. Without community, what is left? A 'botfarm'?
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXXI - Harassment Law and "Things Are Unfairly Asymmetric" (Exploring the Boundaries of Death Threats and Various Threats From America)
the sort of "technofascism" that our country must learn to confront rather than facilitate
 
The Economy is Fine! (If Only for China!)
The future is slop! If not, then it's China's fault! It's "sabotaging" the "Western hey hi" in this "hey hi arms race!"
"IT" as "Musical Chairs" (on the Deck of The Titanic)
Each generation will get worse for "IT"
Salesforce in Trouble, Debt Nearly Quadrupled in 9 Months
Salesforce is perishing in a deep pool of debt
"Microsoft is Next IBM"
The words of a Microsoft insider and responses to that
IRC is Decentralised
Bye, Microsoft Teams/Skype
Links 15/11/2026: Murdoch's "WSJ Buries Stephen Miller's Racism" and "America Has Entered a New Age of Propaganda"
Links for the day
In the UK, GNU/Linux Usage Soared During Microsoft Downtime
since the massive outage GNU/Linux usage soared to over 10%
Google Slop About Richard Stallman Shows Stallman Was Right, LLMs are BS Generators
Google slop is the "new Google"
Spouse of Garrett Needs to Get "Several Firearms" to Feel Safe Amid Divorce (Garrett Has a "Girlfriend" Now)
Seems like Isis and my wife have a lot in common when it comes to Garrett
Vista 11 is Small
Can Microsoft survive the fall of Windows?
Six Richard Stallman and FSF Talks This Month (FSF Staff at Ohio State University)
Dr. Stallman's talks in Ecuador are well timed because of the collapse of the LLMs (slop) pyramid scheme
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 14, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, November 14, 2026
Gemini Links 15/11/2026: "The Bastards Can Never Win" and "The Last Low-Tech Generation"
Links for the day
Links 14/11/2026: Wuhan Corruption and "Aid Isn’t Reaching Ebola’s Epicenter"
Links for the day
Rahul Kumar Has Turned tecadmin.net Into a Slopfarm That Promotes Slop and Microsoft (as Usual)
Slop promoting slop - a death knell of once-active "Linux" sites
Large-Scale Layoffs - Not Just PIPs - at Red Hat and IBM This Month
Mainstream media has quit covering mass layoffs
Links 14/11/2026: "The Claude Delusion" and "The Microsoft Outage is a Warning for the World"
Links for the day
Ethics in Perspective, Free Software and Morality
top clients of Jeffrey Epstein are one happy family
Richard Stallman (RMS) at Universidad Central del Ecuador (Guayaquil), Cuenca, Campus Sur Universidad Politecnica Salesiana (Quito), and Ohio State University
Long live the message and mission of RMS
They Paid Workers in 'Shares' (That Lost Almost Half Their Value in One Month)
Welcome back 1999 or 2007
The Register MS Made Millions of Pounds by Participating in the Slop Hype Campaign (It's Still Doing It), Now It Admits That It's Just a Bubble
the slop frenzy played a role in the Microsoft meltdown
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXX - Pyramid Schemes (Planned Plunder) and Canceled/Botched Surgeries Aren't "Funny", They Cause Serious Harm and Distress
We were right about Microsoft
Links 14/11/2026: "OpenAI Is Sustaining Enormous Losses" and Slop "Loses the Popular Vote"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 13, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, November 13, 2026
Gemini Links 14/11/2026: Code of Conduct, Back to Gemini, and Gemlog to Inbox
Links for the day
Slop Promotion, Including Paid-for Slop Promotion for So-called 'Linux' Foundation (Its Clients Are Slop Companies)
We've noticed a lot of this lately in "It's FOSS" and to a lesser degree in "FOSS Force"
Gemini Links 13/11/2026: Productivity Metrics and Antenna Outage
Links for the day
The Real Issue With The Register MS is Not the Politics of Some Staff's "Tweets", It's That The Register MS Publishes Fake Articles for Sponsors (50,000 Pounds Minimum)
AWS and Google each pay millions for fake articles which beget journalistic bias too (they literally pay the salaries of the 'reporters')
Microsoft Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): We Need Accountability Because Many People Die and It's Because of Microsoft Diehards or People Bribed by Microsoft to Deploy Microsoft Where Lives Are at Risk
They're trying to save face right now
What the Media Misses: It's Not an NVIDIA Issue, Super Micro Computer Inc Also Fell From $45 to $26 in the Period NVIDIA Lost 33% of Its Faked 'Value', NVIDIA is Collapsing Like Intel
History goes in circles
It's Not About China or Sex, It's About Corruption at NVIDIA and a Pyramid Scheme Perpetrated Under the Guise of "Hey Hi Revolution" (That Wasn't, It's Manufactured and Hyped by Bribes, Subsidised by Multi-Trillion-Dollar Loans, People's Pension Funds and More)
What's at stake here is a lot bigger than the "Ponzi hub" of Jensen Huang
No, You're Not a "Most Valuable Company" When Everything is Down for Half a Day in the Entire Planet
Still down, still no explanation (maybe they too aren't sure)
Waste of Money: Giving More Money to Toothless Regulators That Don't Even Examine Evidence
Shame in SRA
"Techrights Statement on Phoronix" Still Valid Five Years Later
Our position as stated in early 2022 has not changed
Vista 11's 'Growth' Has Stalled, It's Measured at Only 17.9% in the US This Year
That helps put in perspective Microsoft's attempt to discard almost 30% of its remaining workforce
"NVIDIA is Enron" (Subsidising the Pyramid Scheme That It Profited From), Microsoft is Next to be Down for the Count
Microsoft increasingly looks like the "next NVIDIA"
Richard Stallman Travels to South America to Give Talks About Free Software in Spanish, FSF Raises Money
The FSF is raising money (goal is $400,000) and the FSF has just mentioned the upcoming talks by the FSF's founder
United States Adding ~300 Billion in Government Debt Per Month, Wall Street Shaves Off Trillions in 'Value' in Less Than One Week
cushioning "assets" by helping them fake "value"
Microsoft: Pay Us for the Stuff That's Offline and We Cannot Fix
Learn to take control of the technology that you rely on
Links 13/11/2026: "Copyright-Strike-for-Hire" and "Stevie Wonder Photo Lawsuit"
Links for the day
The Slop Bubble (or Pyramid Scheme) Relied on Trust and Patience (Being Patient as Losses Grow and Debt Explodes, Trusting the Roadmap of Cheaters and Frauds)
Remember that it all began with trust
Anthropic's IPO Depends on $895.4 Billion in Debt (Money It Doesn't Have, It Loses Over 100 Billion Dollars Per Reporting Period), NVIDIA Has Just Lost Almost 2 Trillion Dollars In Value and Its Debt Trebled in Three Months
This coming week will be very, very entertaining for slop critics/sceptics to watch
At Microsoft, "Buyouts" or "Global Voluntary Separation Agreement" (GVSA) Not Much Different From Layoffs (Severance Shockingly Low)
From what we are able to gather, many people are leaving Microsoft 'voluntarily'
Is Microsoft the Next Fake-Valued Corporation to Lose 35% in "Market Value"? Is Slop Bringing Microsoft Down?
Will NDAs prevent people talking or journalists finding out the true cause?
Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) the Latest of Many to Quit Linux Development Over Linus Torvalds' Obsession With Slop (Linus Wants to Work With Bots, Not Humans Who Understand Whatever Code They Write)
Linus caught the 'brain virus'
Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Continue in November 2026
IBM's CEO is "a Palliative Care Doctor Who Slides [IBM] Gently Into the Night"
Microsoft Asks 60,000 Workers to Leave, Some Leave, Services Go Down
Microsoft laid off about 40,000-50,000 people in past years
Gemini Links 13/11/2026: Roku Exits the Smart Home Market and Poor Reporting/Journalism Regarding Slop Plagiarism
Links for the day
Links 13/11/2026: "Apple Support Community Forums to Permanently Close" and "The Slop Market is Getting Nervous"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 12, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, November 12, 2026