GNU/Linux and BSD Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 02, 2025

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Montana Linux ☛ Video: Multisystem 2 Update

• Kernel Space

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Linus Torvalds still uses an AMD RX 580 from 2017 — also ditches Apple Silicon for an Intel laptop

    Despite the rapid pace of GPU evolution and the hype around AI hardware, Linus Torvalds — the father of Linux — is still using a 2017-era AMD Radeon RX 580 as his main desktop GPU here in 2025. The Polaris-based graphics may be almost a decade old, but it’s aged remarkably well in Linux circles thanks to robust and mature open-source driver support. Torvalds' continued use of the RX 580, therefore, isn’t just boomer nostalgia. It's a statement of practicality, long-term support, and his disdain for unnecessary complexity.

• Applications

  • HowTo Geek ☛ 3 Game-Changing Linux Apps to Try This Month (August 2025)

    I'm always on the lookout for better software to get the most out of my Linux computers. Here are a few free and open source apps I've come across recently that I think are worth giving a try, whether you spend most of your time browsing the web, using a terminal, or modifying files.

    If you have a website that stay open perpetually on your Linux desktop, and if you sometimes wish you had the site as a dedicated app instead of a tab in your browser, then Ferdium might be for you. It's an app that keeps instances of websites (which Ferdium calls "services") saved and contained, so that you can use them as if they're dedicated apps rather than just sites you're visiting in your browser.

    Wish you had a YouTube desktop app? Add YouTube as a service. Want an Outlook app on Linux? Add an Outlook web mail service. Want to chat on Discord but just don't feel like installing the Discord app? Add a Discord service. Each is sandboxed for privacy, and you can manipulate them in interesting ways, like doing a split view with each app visible in its own column.

  • Barry Kauler ☛ Geany version 2.1 compiled

    I am very interested in the Zig language, and Geany 2.1 has added syntax highlighting for Zig. Debian Trixie has geany 2.0, which doesn't support Zig, and they are on hard-freeze so won't be upgrading it.
    

    I attempted to backport the Zig highlighting, but to no avail.
    

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Bleeping Computer ☛ Kali Linux can now run in Apple containers on macOS systems

    Cybersecurity professionals and researchers can now launch Kali Linux in a virtualized container on macOS Sequoia using Apple's new containerization framework.

  • Apple Introduces Native Containerization: Run Kali Linux Seamlessly On macOS

  • BSD

    • Dan Langille ☛ Using a sparse git checkout to build vuxml files

      This post shows how I used a git spare checkout to build vuxml files without having the whole ports tree present.

  • Fedora Family / IBM

    • Red Hat Official ☛ Single-instance Oracle Database on OpenShift Virtualization

      This article details Red Hat's engineering efforts to support running a single-instance Oracle Database 19c on Red Bait OpenShift Virtualization.

    • Fedora Project ☛ Fedora Community Blog: Infra and RelEng Update – Week 31, 2025

      This is a weekly report from the I&R (Infrastructure & Release Engineering) Team. We provide you both infographic and text version of the weekly report. If you just want to quickly look at what we did, just look at the infographic. If you are interested in more in depth details look below the infographic.