8 Linux Tools IT Operations Engineers Should Master
Some are tried-and-true and others are newer, but all eight of these Linux tools should be in IT operations engineers' tool belt.
Tux Machines
Do you waddle the waddle?
Do you waddle the waddle?
The Sovereign Tech Agency is well known for funding open source projects through its Sovereign Tech Fund program, and it provided over €24.6 million EUR in funding to support more than 60 open source projects globally, including big names like Python Software Foundation, FreeBSD, Eclipse Foundation, OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF), and Drupal.
KDE Plasma 6.6.5 is mostly a bugfix release, improving performance for NVIDIA GPU users who experience issues introduced by the NVIDIA 595 graphics driver, and improving the login and lock screen experience by addressing a Plasma Login Manager crash when connecting and disconnecting multiple monitors and a startup failure when using certain graphics hardware.
Coming two months after LibreOffice 25.8.6, the LibreOffice 25.8.7 release is packed with more fixes to address various bugs, crashes, and other annoyances reported by users in an attempt to improve the overall stability and reliability of this popular open-source, free, and cross-platform office suite.
Fwupd 2.1.3 is here about two weeks after fwupd 2.1.2 with support for SHIFT6mq and SHIFTphone 8 modular smartphones, support for Redfish bearer token authentication, support for several XMC SPI chips, and support for parsing JCat files in libfwupd without using libjcat.
Coming about a month after GStreamer 1.28.2, the GStreamer 1.28.3 release introduces hardware-accelerated H.265 encoding support for NXP i.MX 8M Plus SoCs to the webrtcsink element, a leaky mode to the dataqueue-based elements, and fallback-source and enable-dummy properties to the fallbacksrc element.
The cancellation of RightsCon 2026 is a stark reminder that when opportunities for civic engagement are neutralized, so are stakeholders’ voices. In this case, civil society was denied the ability to meet in person in Lusaka last week to share ideas and opportunities for how to address some of the most urgent digital challenges of our time.
It’s not enough just to get everyone online—people need to be able to take full advantage of their access. That’s why, in Africa, where the connectivity discussion has traditionally focused on coverage, there’s a recent shift toward making access growth meaningful.
DeepComputing has launched the DC-ROMA RISC-V Mainboard III for the Framework Laptop 13, a modular RISC-V platform based on the SpacemiT K3 processor. The board combines an eight-core RISC-V CPU, up to 60 TOPS of AI acceleration, LPDDR5 memory, and compatibility with the Framework Laptop 13 ecosystem.
Milk-V has introduced the Jupiter2, a compact RISC-V single-board computer based on the SpacemiT Key Stone K3 processor. Similar to the recently announced Sipeed K3 Pico-ITX platform, the board combines eight X100 RISC-V CPU cores with an eight-core A100 AI subsystem rated for up to 60 TOPS, LPDDR5 memory, and high-speed networking interfaces including 10GbE SFP+.
For more details, read our changelog.
Internet freedom has declined for 15 consecutive years. Beyond surveillance, the erosion of privacy and anonymity, and information manipulation, governments are targeting specific sites and services, or attacking infrastructure itself, causing shutdowns and deliberate disruptions for internet users. But how do we know when the internet is censored and how?
Some are tried-and-true and others are newer, but all eight of these Linux tools should be in IT operations engineers' tool belt.