GNU/Linux, BSD, and Hardware Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 25, 2025

• HowTo Geek ☛ How and Why I Run 4 Operating Systems on My PC

  Are you someone like me whose entire life revolves around their desktop PCs? Do you work, study, game, and watch movies all from a single computer? If yes, having separate OSes for each of your workflows might help you become more organized and productive. Here’s a complete breakdown of how I benefit from running a quad-boot PC.

  Why a PC Running a Single OS Wasn’t Cutting It for Me

  I know it might not be fashionable anymore, but I'm a desktop-first user. While everyone's working on laptops and smartphones, chasing compact form factors and portability, I prefer working at my desk, sitting on a chair, having a big screen (maybe two) to look at, and a beefy system powering it all!

• Cloudflare ☛ Supporting the future of the open web: Cloudflare is sponsoring Ladybird and Omarchy

  At Cloudflare, we believe that helping build a better Internet means encouraging a healthy ecosystem of options for how people can connect safely and quickly to the resources they need. Sometimes that means we tackle immense, Internet-scale problems with established partners. And sometimes that means we support and partner with fantastic open teams taking big bets on the next generation of tools.

  To that end, today we are excited to announce our support of two independent, open source projects: Ladybird, an ambitious project to build a completely independent browser from the ground up, and Omarchy, an opinionated Arch Linux setup for developers.

• Desktop/Laptop

  • ZDNet ☛ How much RAM does your Linux PC really need in 2025? I did the math so you don't have to

    I'm not going to start this with a "back in the day" because it's too easy and obvious. Besides, it's time to live in the now, and today's rules and needs are not the same as they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago.

    Modern Linux is powerful, flexible, stable, and secure. With the exception of some of the more lightweight Linux distributions, it's also far more resource-dependent (just like all modern operating systems).

    Consider this: The minimum system requirements for Ubuntu Desktop today include just 4GB of RAM. I've run Ubuntu on a virtual machine with only 3GB of RAM. Although those Ubuntu virtual machines are used only for testing purposes, the 3GB of RAM does pretty well. But I would never suggest you should get by with such a small amount.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • TuMFatig ☛ Migrate a KVM virtual machine to OmniOS bhyve

    Because I am replacing my GNU/Linux KVM machine with an OmniOS bhyve server, and I don’t want to reinstall all my VMs, I went for migrating those. And because I am not aware of vMotion-like feature between those two platforms, I just used the shell.

  • MWL ☛ 102: My Chief Goon

    I’m at EuroBSDCon in Croatia teaching TLS and SMTP, so here’s a snippet from my TLS tutorial. Let’s say I create a public key pair. I keep one key of the pair. The other key I give to my chief goon, Vizzini, before I dispatch him out into the world.

• Games

  • Game Rant ☛ Best Linux Games Available For Free On Steam

    Thanks to Steam offering native Linux support for quite a large number of games and with things like Proton and Lutris promoting long-term support for Linux-based operating systems, that catalog is only expanding.

    Linux users interested in free games on Steam have some incredible options, ranging from highly competitive online shooters to more casual-friendly titles that allow players to tackle the game at their own pace.

• Desktop Environments (DE)/Window Managers (WM)

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • The Register UK ☛ Linux's love-to-hate projects drop fresh versions: systemd 258 and GNOME 49

      The other new release that's just fallen from the tree is GNOME 49, codenamed "Brescia" after the venue for this year's GUADEC conference.

      We mentioned some of the changes in Brescia when we reported on Ubuntu 25.10's feature freeze. To recap, several established GNOME accessories are being retired. They're being replaced with newer apps, designed around the new Gtk4 "building blocks" we discussed looking at the latest Linux Mint. Typically, being designed around Gtk4 means simpler, more phone-like user interfaces. Say goodbye to the Totem video player, Evince document viewer, and Devhelp manual browser. In their places, welcome Showtime, Papers, and Manuals. There's a new terminal emulator called Ptyxis, which replaces GNOME Console – itself quite new, debuting with GNOME 42.

• Open Hardware

  • Raspberry Pi and ESP32

    • CNX Software ☛ Raspberry Pi CM0 castellated module features Raspberry Pi RP3A0 System-in-Package

      Raspberry Pi CM0 is a yet-to-be-officially-announced castellated Compute Module based on the Raspberry Pi RP3A0 SiP (System-in-Package) found in the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3E (CM3E). Since most Raspberry Pi products are announced under a strict embargo, I’m always surprised when I find new Raspberry Pi hardware that was never formally introduced. But it seems to happen from time to time for products targeting business customers specifically. The CM3E Compute Module was one example, and the CM0 appears to be another.

    • CNX Software ☛ DuckyPad Pro 20-key ESP32-S3 macropad supports up to 3700+ macros using duckyScript language

      The duckyPad Pro is an ESP32-S3-based open-source macropad with 20 mechanical keys, rotary encoders, and powered by the duckyScript engine, for macro scripting and automation beyond QMK/VIA.