GNU/Linux, BSD, and Devices

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 06, 2025

• Kernel Space

  • Klara ☛ ZFS Enabled Disaster Recovery for Virtualization

    OpenZFS provides a slew of features that make it uniquely well suited as a reliable storage back end for virtualization, and for disaster recovery functionality with extremely tight RTO and RPOs. If you are not familiar how ZFS can provide Recovery Point Objectives of only a few minutes, you might be interested in our previous article on the topic.

    Let's look at how you can use ZFS to build resilient infrastructure for your VMs that is able to instantly roll back from attacks such as ransomware. This approach forms the backbone of a reliable disaster recovery plan for virtualization, minimizing downtime after failures. We’ll also cover how VMs can be replicated offsite to allow you to get your infrastructure back up and running from a disaster in only a few minutes.

• Applications

  • It's FOSS ☛ FOSS Weekly #25.45: Rust in Apt, Devuan 6, Modular Router, FSearch, Workspace Mastery and More GNU/Linux Stuff

    Like it or not Rust is everywhere, just like autumn.

  • Announcing Istio 1.28.0

    We are pleased to announce the release of Istio 1.28. Thank you to all our contributors, testers, users and enthusiasts for helping us get the 1.28.0 release published! We would like to thank the Release Managers for this release, Gustavo Meira from Microsoft, Francisco Herrera from Red Hat, and Darrin Cecil from Microsoft.

  • Reproducible Builds: Reproducible Builds in October 2025

    Welcome to the October 2025 report from the Reproducible Builds project!

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

  • University of Toronto ☛ Some notes on duplicating xterm windows

    I have a long-standing shell function in my shell that attempts to do this (imaginatively called 'spawn'), but this is only available in environments where my shell is set up, so I was quite interested in the whole area and did some experiments. The good news is that xterm's 'spawn-new-terminal' works, in that it will start a new xterm and the new xterm will be in the right directory. The bad news for me is that that's about all that it will do, and in my environment this has two limitations that will probably make it not something I use a lot.

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • GNOME ☛ Jordan Petridis: DHH and Omarchy: Midlife crisis [Ed: Totally changes the headlines that DHH wrote to incite against a straw man. Jordan Petridis is a pro-Hamas spinner, not a reasonable person.]

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • BSD

    • Undeadly ☛ In -current, chromium (and derivatives) gain VA-API support

      Following the previous reverted attempt [see earlier report], Robert Nagy (robert@) committed VA-API [hardware-assisted video - see previous report] support to the chromium and ungoogled-chromium ports. The iridium port can be expected to follow on next update.

  • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

    • Ubuntu ☛ Edge Networking gets smarter: AI and 5G in action

      The brief showcases how to build a strong foundation for edge AI and networking by using a Dell PowerEdge XR8000 ruggedized edge network+compute platform consisting of two server sleds powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Both sleds are running Canonical’s software infrastructure stack, which combines Ubuntu, MicroCloud, and Canonical Kubernetes. On the first sled, MicroCloud hosts two VMs: Airspan Control Platform (ACP) manages the 5G radio units, and Druid Raemis provides the cloud-native 5G core orchestrated by Canonical Kubernetes. The second sled hosts Ecrio’s iota-e platform, also managed by Canonical Kubernetes, which enables AI-powered real-time image-recognition, voice, video, and messaging services. These capabilities support critical business processes such as worker coordination in industrial settings, emergency response in healthcare, and secure team communications in remote or hazardous environments.

    • XDA ☛ I turned Ubuntu 24 into Windows 11, and it looks surprisingly good [Ed: Ubuntu 24? When was Ubuntu 11 released?]

      I've been using Ubuntu for a long time, from when I installed it for the first time in my college days to learn programming. It gives me the stability and open-source freedom that's not possible on Windows or macOS. Also, it's one of the distros that runs well on my older laptop, gives me total control over what gets installed, and doesn't force me with unnecessary prompts (also, it's free).

      However, I am an avid Windows user and, in addition to Ubuntu, also spend a considerable amount of time on Windows 11 for my work. To be honest, I prefer Windows 11's interface to Ubuntu's because of my long-time familiarity with the OS.

      Considering that, I decided to give my Ubuntu 24 a makeover and see how close I could get it to look like Windows 11. Of course, I wasn't expecting a perfect replica, but the end results turned out better than I expected.

  • Open Hardware/Devices

    • Hackaday ☛ SolidWorks Certification… With FreeCAD?

      There are various CAD challenges out there that come with bragging rights. Some, like the Certified Solid Works Professional Exam (CWSP) might actually look good on a resume. [Deltahedra] is apparently not too interested in padding his resume, nor does he have much interest in SolidWorks, and so decided to conquer the CWSP with FreeCAD in the name of open source — and to show us all how he did it. 

    • Hackaday ☛ Hacking Buttons Back Into The Car Stereo

      To our younger readers, a car without an all-touchscreen “infotainment” system may look clunky and dated, but really, you kids don’t know what they’re missing. Buttons, knobs, and switches all offer a level of satisfying tactility and feedback that touchscreens totally lack. [Garage Builds] on YouTube agrees; he also doesn’t like the way his aftermarket Kenwood head unit looks in his 2004-vintage Nissan. That’s why he decided to take matters into his own hands, and hack the buttons back on.

    • Raspberry Pi ☛ Celebrating the UK’s National Engineering Day 2025

      Celebrate National Engineering Day and inspire young people to learn coding and AI skills to shape our future

    • Raspberry Pi ☛ Casio FX9000P RAM replacement

      “I’d used the RP2040 before, in Pico form, in other projects and had bought a supply of RP2040 ICs for embedding on PCBs,” he recalls. “I contemplated building a replacement using a RAM chip, but the problem with that is the size of the original ICs. There just wasn’t room. RP2040 is small and would just about fit on a PCB that sat in the footprint of the original RAM chip.”

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Kevin Boone ☛ Kevin Boone: The 2nd-generation Nokia 105: a smarter dumb phone

    I’m currently trying out the 2nd-generation Nokia 105 4G. Although it looks like a classic dumb phone from the 90s, it’s actually quite capable. It’s certainly something that ought to be on a de-Googler’s radar, anyway.

    Note
    This article is about the 2024/5, 2nd-generation Nokia 105 4G, and not the earlier models that have had similar labels. In particular, this is most definitely not an Android phone.