GNU/Linux and BSD Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 05, 2025,
updated Nov 07, 2025

• XDA ☛ I went from Windows to Linux... then back again, and the grass isn't always greener

  Ever since I actually learned the fundamentals of Linux through my education, the prospect of using it full-time has been attractive. I don't really like Windows, I just tolerate it more than anything. I'm used to the settings menu quirks, the broken updates, and invasive telemetry and bloat. The promise of escaping all of that for what sounded like an OS-utopia sounded divine.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • The Ask Noah Show ☛ Ask Noah Show Episode 465: Ask Noah Show 465

    This week Steve describes what happens when you put Ai in a vacuum cleaner, give it a task, then break the charger. We catch up on your feedback questions, and of course the weekly news!

• Applications

  • ZDNet ☛ My top 5 screen-recording apps for Linux - and they're all free

    Desktop screen recordings are a way of life for some. Perhaps you're a PC support specialist, or you enjoy bragging about your highly configured desktop environment, or you offer tutorials for gaming or other purposes. Whatever the need, you're going to want to have a piece of software that makes grabbing those screen recordings easy.

    Your desktop of choice might include a tool for taking screenshots and even screen recordings, but that might not be flexible enough for you. For example, the Pop!_OS screenshot tool only allows taking still pictures, and the GNOME version isn't a stand-alone app.

• Games

  • Godot Engine ☛ Dev snapshot: Godot 4.6 dev 3

    Rocking a new look!

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • BSD

    • FreeBSD ☛ FreeBSD Officially Supported in OCI Runtime Specification v1.3

      This inclusion in the OCI runtime spec represents a watershed moment for FreeBSD, solidifying its position as a first-class platform for modern cloud-native workloads. Official OCI support means that FreeBSD users can now leverage the full ecosystem of container tools and orchestration platforms with confidence, knowing they’re working with a standardized, vendor-neutral specification. For organizations already running FreeBSD in production, this opens doors to containerized application deployment strategies that align with industry standards, making FreeBSD an even more compelling choice for cloud infrastructure, edge computing, and enterprise deployments.

  • SUSE/OpenSUSE

    • ZDNet ☛ SUSE Enterprise Linux 16 is here, and its killer feature is digital sovereignty

      Lots of companies are announcing AI this and AI that, but few of them offer more than new AI lipstick on an old pig when you look at them closely. Then, there's what SUSE is doing with its release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16 (SLES 16), available today. This new version is positioned as an AI-ready operating system tailored to the demands of today's hybrid cloud, data center, and edge computing environments.

      SLES 16's most significant AI component is a technology preview of a built-in model context protocol (MCP) host. MCP has become the agentic generation of AI-powered applications. Developed as an open standard by Anthropic in late 2024, MCP is built to seamlessly and securely connect large language models (LLMs) and AI agents to the vast, ever-changing landscape of real-world data, tools, and services.

      Additionally, the release features built-in support for GPU acceleration, the latest Nvidia CUDA toolkit, and enhanced container and Kubernetes management for large-scale, compute-intensive deployments. In short, it's an AI-ready Linux distribution.

Update

In LWN:

• OCI Runtime Specification 1.3 adds FreeBSD

  Version 1.3 of the Open Container Initiative (OCI) Runtime Specification has been released. The specification covers the configuration, execution environment, and lifecycle of containers. The most notable change in 1.3 is the addition of FreeBSD to the specification, which the FreeBSD Foundation calls "a watershed moment for FreeBSD":

  The addition of cloud-native container support complements FreeBSD's already robust virtualization capabilities, particularly the powerful FreeBSD jails technology that has been a cornerstone of the operating system for over two decades. In fact, OCI containers on FreeBSD are implemented using jails as the underlying isolation mechanism, bringing together the security and resource management benefits of jails with the portability and ecosystem advantages of OCI-compliant containers.