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?
Today, 21 May, marks the 15th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)—a day dedicated to getting everyone talking, thinking, and learning about digital access and inclusion for people with disabilities.
The NULLHOP MeshToad V3 is a Meshtastic-compatible LoRa radio module for Linux systems that allows computers to operate as Meshtastic nodes using meshtasticd. The device connects over USB and supports platforms ranging from Raspberry Pi boards to mini PCs and other Linux hosts.
Hardkernel has introduced the ODROID-H5, a new x86 single-board computer based on Intel’s Core i3-N300 processor. The board updates the ODROID H-series with onboard 10GbE networking, four M.2 expansion slots, DDR5 memory support, and a revised HSIO configuration intended for storage, networking, and accelerator expansion.
AlmaLinux Day will take place on Saturday, July 18th, 2026, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM at the E-Central DTLA Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, covering hot topics like cloud rendering economics, GPU pipelines, Linux infrastructure, and the use of open-source within the professional visual effects, animation, and post-production industries.
Highlights of Agama 21 include the ability to reuse existing LVM volume groups and logical volumes, support the systemd-boot bootloader to adhere to the UAPI Boot Loader Specification, and the ability to detect if you’re installing openSUSE Tumbleweed, openSUSE Slowroll, or openSUSE Leap 16.1 without a desktop environment.
Powered by the latest and greatest Linux 7.0 kernel series, patched against the Copy Fail, Dirty Frag, Fragnesia, and ssh-keysign-pwn vulnerabilities, and featuring CachyOS patches, Nitrux 6.1 ships with Hyprland 0.55.1 featuring Lua-based configuration, the Vicinae Raycast-inspired focused launcher, and updates to Waybar, Hyprlock, and Wlogout.
Coming almost a month after Tails 7.7, the Tails 7.8 release is a small update but an important one, as it ships with an updated Debian kernel patched against recent security vulnerabilities that could allow an application in Tails to gain administrative privileges, such as Copy Fail, Dirty Frag, or Fragnesia.
Firefox 152 continues to modernize the Firefox settings by adding icons in front of each subcategory, renaming the Home section to “Home and startup”, and moving the Sync section under the General section.
HPLIP 3.26.4 adds support for new printers, including HP LaserJet Pro MFP 3106sdw and HP LaserJet Pro MFP 3105sdw, HP Envy 6500e series and HP Envy 6500 series, as well as HP OfficeJet Pro 9730, HP OfficeJet Pro 9730e, HP OfficeJet Pro 9720, HP OfficeJet Pro 9720e, HP OfficeJet Pro 8130e All-in-One, and HP OfficeJet Pro 8130 All-in-One series.
Highlights of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.2 include an optional command-line AI assistant called goose that can be installed from the extensions repository for faster and more responsive access to insights and commands, color output support to the RHEL command-line assistant, and customer-controlled security in image mode.
This comes as great news after Dell and Lenovo announced earlier this month their support for the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS), which provides a portal for device firmware updating on Linux-based operating system via the fwupd software.
Some are tried-and-true and others are newer, but all eight of these Linux tools should be in IT operations engineers' tool belt.