today's leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 02, 2025,
updated Aug 05, 2025

• Graphics Stack

  • libinput 1.29.0

    libinput 1.29.0 is now available.
    
    
    libinput now provides an interactive libinput debug-tablet-pad tool that
    complements the existing libinput debug-tablet tool. As the name implies it
    is for debugging events from tablet pads.
    
    
    The new repeat key filtering introduced in this cycle was too aggressive and
    ended up filtering events if 4 or more keys were pressed simultaneously.
    (4 is the minimum, some keyboards have a larger kernel-internal event buffer and
    didn't exhibit the bug until more keys were held down). This is fixed now.
    
    
    Finally, devices with the high-resolution wheel events disabled via a quirk had
    those events unintentionally re-enabled by the high-resolution fixes added in
    RC2, triggering duplicate events. This is fixed now, kernel events are
    discarded and only emulated high-resolution wheel events are processed.
    
    
    Since this is the release now, here's again a list of notable changes since
    libinput 1.28:
    - High-resolution scroll wheels have better heuristics to avoid inadvertent
      scrolls. This should also help with not-so-high-resolution scroll wheels which
      can skip those heuristics now, resulting in better responsiveness.
    - Virtual devices (e.g. uinput) are now detected in libinput and some internal
      heuristics are disabled for those (e.g. tablet smoothing)
    - Tablet tools with an fixed eraser button (almost all these days) can now
      configure that eraser button to be a regular button instead.
    - Jumping cursors on Asus "ASUE..." touchpads have lost their excitement and
      are no longer jumping.
    - libinput now uses a plugin pipeline internally. This prepares the way for
      public plugins, planned for libinput 1.30.
    - mtdev is now an optional dependency
    - libinput debug-tablet-pad is a new tool for interactive tablet pad debugging
    - a lot of internal code modernization, making the code nicer to work on and
      test cases easier to write
    
    
    Many thanks to our contributors Araz Abdyev, Benjamin Tissoires, Borui Wang,
    Jan Engelhardt, José Expósito, K900, Kacper Piwiński, Peter Hutterer, Ryan
    Hendrickson, Sebastian Lövdahl, Subhaditya Nath, Wren Turkal, Yang Kun,
    cptpcrd, gudvinr, tokyo4j.
    
    
    As usual, the git shortlog is below.
    
    
    Peter Hutterer (9):
          plugin: ignore high-resolution wheel events from disabled wheels
          meson.build: change from config.set10() and #if to config.set() and #ifdef
          utils: allow strv_join on a null string
          util: add two macros for clearing a line
          util: add a clamp macro
          tools: add a debug-tablet-pad tool
          tools: add missing AttrIsVirtual handling for listing quirks
          evdev: move the SYN_REPORT 1 filtering to the touchpad backend
          libinput 1.29.0
    
    
    

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • 9to5Linux ☛ Arch GNU/Linux Installer Gets U2F Authentication and Bluetooth Support

    Archinstall 3.0.9 Arch GNU/Linux installer rolls out with Bluetooth support, U2F authentication support, and other changes. Here's what's new!

  • BSD

    • DragonFly BSD Digest ☛ DragonFly DRM updated

      DRM in DragonFly has been updated to match GNU/Linux vers. 4.20.17.   See the commit message for the newly-supported video chipsets. I waited to post this cause there’s a few setup details that may or may not affect you when you try it.

  • Open Hardware/Modding

    • CNX Software ☛ Tonybot educational humanoid robot is programmable with Arduino, Scratch, and Python

      While child-sized humanoid robots like the Unitree R1 have come down in price, not everybody has a spare $6,000 to throw around to play with robots, and smaller models like the Tonybot are more affordable for educational purposes. The Tonybot offers 17 degrees of freedom, relies on high-voltage bus servos and anti-blockage servos, and has a separate ESP32 expansion board for extra modules.

Update

More on Arch:

• New Arch Installer Update Adds U2F Authentication and Bluetooth Support

  Arch Linux is known for its DIYness and minimalism. It's designed for users who value freedom, control, and building their system from the ground up.

  However, this flexibility traditionally came at the cost of convenience, especially for newcomers. That changed with the introduction of the Arch Installer (archinstall), an official guided installation tool designed to streamline the setup process without sacrificing Arch’s core philosophy.

  Now, with its latest release, Arch Installer brings a pair of practical features that improve both security and usability.