GNU/Linux and BSD Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 17, 2026

• Desktop/Laptop

  • HowTo Geek ☛ Why I refuse to buy another Windows PC

    I grew up using Windows and laptops. Now, both of those feel like things of the past. While I can't say for sure that I'm done with laptops, if I do get another one someday, I know it won't come with Windows.

    [...]

    Until I was 18, Windows was practically the only operating system I knew. I had encountered Linux, but that was isolated to a live CD and an old PC to play around with. There were no smartphones or tablets at the time. Windows is where I lived.

    I switched to using Linux full-time around 2009, when I was in college. Aside from a brief flirtation with Windows 7, I've been away from Windows ever since.

    Whenever I do sit down at a Windows computer, I'm surprised by how much hasn't changed. It's prettier now, don't get me wrong, and some of the apps are better, but it feels like an illusion that's only surface level.

• Server

  • Kubernetes Blog ☛ The Invisible Rewrite: Modernizing the Kubernetes Image Promoter

    Every container image you pull from registry.k8s.io got there through kpromo, the Kubernetes image promoter. It copies images from staging registries to production, signs them with cosign, replicates signatures across more than 20 regional mirrors, and generatesSLSA provenance attestations. If this tool breaks, no Kubernetes release ships. Over the past few weeks, we rewrote its core from scratch, deleted 20% of the codebase, made it dramatically faster, and nobody noticed. That was the whole point.

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

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • CubicleNate ☛ Kontainer | Distrobox Container Mangager Built for KDE Plasma

      Kontainer is a KDE-native GUI for managing Distrobox containers, enhancing user experience by simplifying container management. It integrates well with the desktop environment and facilitates the installation and operation of applications from different GNU/Linux distributions. While similar to BoxBuddy, Kontainer offers a more integrated feel, though lacks a feature for directly running applications.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • BSD

    • Stefano Marinelli ☛ Why I Love FreeBSD

      When I first laid eyes on the FreeBSD Handbook, back in 2002, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Six years of Linux, a relationship I've written about elsewhere, across various distributions, had trained me to hunt for documentation in fragments: often incomplete, often outdated, sometimes already stale after barely a year. Here was an operating system that came with a complete, accurate, up-to-date (as much as possible), detailed manual. I was already a convinced believer in Open Source, but I found myself reasoning in very practical terms: if the team behind this OS puts this much care into its documentation, imagine how solid the system itself must be. And so I decided to give it a try. I had a Sony Vaio with no room for a dual boot. I synced everything to a desktop machine with more space, took a breath, and made a decision: I'd install FreeBSD on that laptop and reinstall Linux when the experiment was over.

      Spoiler: FreeBSD never left that machine.

  • SUSE/OpenSUSE

    • OpenSUSE ☛ openSUSE Releases Updated Legal Classification Model [Ed: Slop slop slop]

      The Cavil-Qwen3.5-4B model represents the latest iteration of Cavil, which leverages curated datasets designed to enhance automated legal text classification. The update underscores the growing role of community-driven open-source Artificial Intelligence.

  • Arch Family

    • GamingOnLinux ☛ Manjaro Linux looks like it's in trouble with the release of the "Manjaro 2.0 Manifesto" | GamingOnLinux

      At one point it seemed like Manjaro Linux would be the most popular Arch-based distribution, but after many missteps it appears to be at breaking point.