today's leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 03, 2025,
updated May 03, 2025

• GNU/Linux and BSD

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

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • This Week in GNOME ☛ This Week in GNOME: #198 Two More Weeks...

        Update on what happened across the GNOME project in the week from April 25 to May 02.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • BSD

    • Undeadly ☛ Call for testing and comment: Make the installer prefer >1G disks

      You can tell it's right after a release is cut when new ideas are fielded in patches to tech@. One such small but potentially important change that is being aired now is a change to the installer to suggest the larger one when several disks are available. Klemens Nanni (kn@) describes the motivation for the change as [...]

    • FreeBSD ☛ The Hidden Costs of Stagnation: Why Running EOL Software is a Ticking Time Bomb

      In the world of infrastructure and systems administration, one of the most persistent myths is the idea that “if it works, don’t touch it.” Stability is often mistaken for security, and the longer a system runs without incident, the greater the temptation to leave it undisturbed. But this approach, while comforting in the short term, invites long-term risks that can quietly accumulate into catastrophic failures.

      This article explores why regularly updating your systems and avoiding end-of-life (EOL) software is not just good practice — it is essential for operational security, maintainability, and resilience.

  • Debian Family

    • Ben Hutchings: FOSS activity in April 2025

    • TecAdmin ☛ Debian 13 ‘Trixie’: What’s New in the Next GNU/Linux Powerhouse

      Debian is a popular GNU/Linux system loved by many for being stable, free, and flexible. The next big release, Debian 13, codenamed “Trixie”, is coming in 2025, and it’s packed with exciting updates. Let’s dive into what makes Trixie special, from new features to better hardware support, all explained in simple words.

• Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

  • Rodrigo Ghedin ☛ Another way to be part of the fediverse/ActivityPub

    I’ve been thinking of ActivityPub more as an extra layer for existing websites to become “social,” eliminating the middleman (like Twitter, for example), rather than a direct replacement for social networks like Twitter. Instead of posting on a blog and then writing a tweet (to follow the example) announcing the blog post, the blog post itself is published directly to the timelines of those who follow you on Twitter. This is impossible on Twitter/X, but perfectly feasible with ActivityPub.

  • Events

    • Hackaday ☛ Supercon 2024: Turning Talk Into Action

      Most of us have some dream project or three that we’d love to make a reality. We bring it up all the time with friends, muse on it at work, and research it during our downtime. But that’s just talk—and it doesn’t actually get the project done!

  • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

    • The Register UK ☛ Open Document Format turns 20, but Microsoft Office still reigns supreme [Ed: The Register misframes the issue here; in many ways]

      It's been 20 years since the Open Document Format (ODF) became a standard, marking a milestone in the push for open, vendor-neutral file formats — and the beginning of a long but largely unsuccessful attempt to loosen Microsoft Office's grip on the desktop.

      Back when the consumer internet was young, there were concerns about US-based private companies dominating applications and data. Microsoft Office ruled the roost, and if you wanted to open a file created by it, you had to be running a copy of the suite yourself.

      Sun Microsystems (remember them?) came up with OpenOffice, chiefly by building on the codebase of StarOffice, a suite it picked up in 1999 after acquiring German developer Star Division. At the time, some reports joked that the deal cost less than kitting out Sun staff with Microsoft Office licenses, though the real motive was likely strategic as much as financial.

  • Content Management Systems (CMS) / Static Site Generators (SSG)

    • Bob Monsour ☛ 1 + 1: Celebrating 2 years of the 11ty Bundle

      When does 1 + 1 equal 2? Well, in javascript, if those '1's are numbers, then yeah, it does equal 2. But when the '1's are strings, then it equals 11. And that brings us to the fact that today is the 2nd birthday of the launch of 11tybundle.dev.