Applications: Melia, PDFi, and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jun 09, 2026

• OMG Ubuntu ☛ Proton Drive client is (finally) coming to Linux

  Proton has confirmed it is working on a Proton Drive client for GNU/Linux desktops. The announcement slipped out as part of a broader platform update. Proton has rebuilt Drive around a new shared SDK, with a single codebase powering its official apps on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and web (rather than separate implementations as before). It’s this unified approach that makes it easier for the Swiss-based company to add new features and integrations across all its official apps – and make an official client for Linux, which is being build on the SDK “from the ground up”, they say.

• It's FOSS ☛ Meet Melia: A Privacy-First, Modern Desktop Email Client Made Just for Linux

  It is not an open source software but ticks a lot of other boxes for anyone looking for an alternative desktop email client on Linux.

  Every once in a while, a project comes that is very adamantly heavy on its principles and it is always a breath of fresh air in a world where corporate greed forms the basis of all the services we use.

  [...]

  I am not saying that they are not good but there is always scope for improvement and new features. And Melia does just that. It brings some additional features, a privacy enthusiast will appreciate.

• Lee Yingtong Li ☛ PDFi: Low-level PDF inspector and editor

  PDFi is a simple tool for displaying the low-level structure of a PDF file in an interactive tree view. Arbitrary values can be modified or deleted.

  The motivation for PDFi is to allow modifying a PDF file in a precise, minimally invasive way; for example, to remove a portion of text or a watermark, without affecting the rest of the PDF file. Most naïve approaches to doing this involve converting the PDF file into a more editable file format, which introduces complexity and dependencies. For example, using Inkscape requires converting the PDF to SVG internally. Text rendering then becomes dependent on having the original font available for use by the system's text renderer. Alternatively, the original text can be rendered to paths, which greatly increases the file size and removes machine readability. Both approaches have large, undesirable side effects on the PDF file structure.

• LWN ☛ rsync 3.4.4 released with regression fixes

  Andrew Tridgell has announced the release of rsync 3.4.4 with fixes for the regressions introduced in the 3.4.3 release.

• 3 unheard-of Linux tools that fix everyday command-line annoyances

  Terminal tools are magnetic to shell-focused users. They look cool, and we're always driven to make our workflows faster and more efficient. I have three tools you've probably never heard of, but they solve persistent niggles you've yet to fix.

  Ouch is a unified archiver tool that takes the guesswork out of extracting zip-like formats. ISD (Interactive Systemd) makes managing systemd services as simple as pushing buttons. Topgrade provides one channel to upgrade via the dozens of package managers you probably have. If you've used Linux, you've had these problems at some point, so take a look.