Linux, BSD Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 27, 2026

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Pivot to AI ☛ I’m doing a Recovering After GenAI webinar — today, 17:00 UTC!

    The first event went beyond Jitsi/8×8’s free tier, so this session will be held on Kim’s Zoom account, which you can just use with a web browser on desktop. I think you still need the app on a phone. The session link will be on the site.

  • Jupiter Broadcasting ☛ We Got a Buzz | LINUX Unplugged 677

    Block's Buzz is an open, self-hostable workspace for humans, Hey Hi (AI) agents, chat, and code; and it may be the most Linux-friendly vision for what comes next.

• Kernel Space / File Systems / Virtualization

  • Hellacheap ☛ Maybe we should revisit microkernels

    Better security, better reliability, better modularity. Better security because in a muicrokernel system a bug in one driver only gives an attacker access to that subsystem (or maybe even that driver), as opposed to having unlimited access to the whole system like is the case with mainstream operating systems today. Better relaibility becasue a crash in one subsystem only crashes that subsystem instead of crashing everything; if windows were a microkernel system then the crowdstrike bug would have just stopped some IT security staff from getting telemetry instead of being front page news. If linux were a microkernel system then the linux kernel team wouldn't be responsible for merging every driver for every hardware device, and wouldn't be responsible for vetting code that they would have to become experts on the inner workings of every chip supported by the linux kernel to properly vet.

• • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Barry Kauler ☛ Tray power-applet now beeps when low

      Someone requested this recently, and I was reminded when my laptop suddenly died today.

      The battery level indicator in the tray does start to flash when very low; however, I didn't notice it. The sudden death is not graceful; my Zenbook loses its date setting and I have to reset it. Logging into gmail, have to revalidate with a message to my phone.

    • Distro Watch ☛ Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

      [...] If you know of any more Linux-themed games, let us know in the comments! [...]

    • [Old] Piotr Chmolowski ☛ Switching to Linux After 19 Years on macOS

      Despite all the negativity above, I’m actually quite happy with how this experiment turned out.

      If you do a similar type of programming work, you should consider giving it a try. However, if you rely on UI-heavy apps – video, photo, or sound editing – you’ll be disappointed.

    • BSD

      • DragonFly BSD Digest ☛ Lazy Reading for 2026/07/26

        Tiny computer mini-theme. A Minimal Syntax For Quantum Text, the methods used to generate the different-every-printing novel Subcutanean.  The book itself has been linked here before.  (via) Li’l Factory AB, a tiny fiction publisher.  (via) Asterism Books, another oddities publisher.  (via) The Virtual OS Museum, emulated computer setups, pre-prepared as GNU/Linux VM images.

      • Ruben Schade ☛ All my FreeBSD boxes are now on 15.1

        I’ll admit, I feel slight trepidation over what will change in each new Linux distro release, and bone-chilling fear over what Apple will be shoving into the next macOS. FreeBSD (and NetBSD, and the tooling I get from OpenBSD) incrementally improve over time and make my life better with each release and update. This isn’t a mistake; this is a deliberate decision by all parties involved, and is appreciated.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • Rich Trouton ☛ Fixing automatic login issues on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

        This setup has worked reliably for a few years now, until the automatic login process quit working out of the blue this week. When I did some research, I saw that I was not the only person who had problems with this: [...]