GNU/Linux and Android Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 08, 2026

• Server

  • Kubernetes Blog ☛ Kubernetes v1.36: More Drivers, New Features, and the Next Era of DRA

    Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) has fundamentally changed how platform administrators handle hardware accelerators and specialized resources in Kubernetes. In the v1.36 release, DRA continues to mature, bringing a wave of feature graduations, critical usability improvements, and new capabilities that extend the flexibility of DRA to native resources like memory and CPU, and support for ResourceClaims in PodGroups.

• Graphics Stack

  • Collabora ☛ Optimizing memory access in NIR

    A complete breakdown of Mesa’s NIR compiler detailing how it optimizes shader memory access with SSA promotion, deref analysis, copy propagation, and store elimination to reduce memory traffic and improve GPU performance.

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

  • Hackaday ☛ How To Better Enjoy VR On Linux

    Linux folks are used to having to roll many of their own solutions, and better Linux desktop usability is a goal of the WayVR project, which aims to provide desktop control and app launching from within a VR session.

    VR applications can already stream from Linux to standalone headsets with projects like WiVRn, but what WayVR does is let one launch programs and access desktop screens within VR. Put another way, instead of the headset being limited to acting as a pseudo-monitor that only receives the output of an already-running VR application, the headset and controllers can now be used to interact with one’s computer as if one were physically sitting at it. Controls and user interface are highly flexible and help users to do anything they need — including clicking, typing, and launching applications. It’s a considerable step forward for convenience and general usability.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • David Bushell ☛ Unscrewing lightbulbs

    OPNsense is the only non-Debian operating system in my homelab. I manage it entirely via the web GUI. The 26.1 update had quite a few significant changes. My DHCP setup was considered “legacy” and my firewall rules required a manual migration.

    Despite dumbening my smart home my lightbulbs still demand a WiFi connection. I program them myself to avoid Home Assistant and proprietary apps. Turns out I hard-coded IP addresses (discovery protocols are a joke.) Despite having dynamic IPs they remained stable until the OPNsense 26.1 DHCP update.

    I had no easy way to identify each light. Why would they name themselves anything useful? That’s how I ended up unscrewing the bulbs one by one to see which MAC address fell off the network. I gave them static IPs on a VLAN for future me to appreciate.

  • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • James G ☛ How I use my phone

      Indeed, many of my blog posts start off as notes that I have written while out and about in the world; having a tool to hand to capture notes quickly is invaluable to me. I could use a notebook, but I prefer using a phone.

    • HowTo Geek ☛ I tried these 5 command line tools on my Samsung phone—here's the ones that are worth using

      From the day I ditched my old LG phone, I've been a regular user of Samsung phones. This year, I made the switch to Linux Mint as a daily driver on my PC, and that gave me the idea to try running a few of my favorite Linux apps on my Galaxy Z Fold.

      So I launched a hobby project to experiment with the command line, some of my favorite command line tools (you can call them Linux apps if you like, but that's not really accurate), and make a few weird projects from my Android device instead of my computer.