GNU/Linux and Hardware Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 08, 2026

• Desktop/Laptop

  • Jasper Tandy ☛ Jasper is blogging: I love the clipboard; it's my favourite part of an OS, and it's so under-used.

    I love the clipboard; it's my favourite part of an OS, and it's so under-used. On my laptop, I use Launchbar, which has a brilliant built-in clipboard manager that I have come to rely on. The last week of data entry would've been hellish without it. What I tend to do is copy an entire entry's worth of fields to my clipboard in reverse order, then cmd-opt-v (paste and remove from clipboard history), tab to the next field, repeat until all fields are filled in. It saves so much jumping around between my trackpad and keyboard.

• Graphics Stack

  • Possible "RDNA 4M" iGPU spotted in Linux patches

• Benchmarks

  • Intel Arc B390 Panther Lake iGPU Impresses in Linux Performance Tests

    Intel's Arc graphics solutions initially had a rough start to life on the Linux side of things, but it seems as though the tide is changing. Phoronix recently tested the new Panther Lake Intel Arc B390 iGPU in the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, comparing the new iGPU to the venerable Radeon 890M in the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, and, surprisingly, Intel's iGPU consistently outpaces the Radeon iGPU, which isn't a surprise if you've been keeping track of early benchmarks on Windows. The publication tested the new Xe3 integrated graphics in an MSI Prestige 14 running the latest Mesa 26.0 drivers on Linux Kernel version 6.19 on Ubuntu 26.04.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Barry Kauler ☛ Script to run an app as any user

    There was a struggle reported recently on the forum, an app tried to run chromium, but failed.
    

  • Slackware Family

    • OpenJDK updates (Slackware packages)

      Last weekend I uploaded updates for OpenJDK based Java versions 8, 11 and 17, and added a new version 21 to the repository. Specifically, my repository now offers: openjdk (version 8): updated to 8u482_b08 for Slackware 15.0 and newer, using the icedtea 3.38.0 framework.

  • Fedora Family / IBM

    • Fedora 43 templates available for Qubes OS 4.3

      The following new Fedora 43 templates are now available for Qubes OS 4.3: [...]

  • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

    • Ubuntu Handbook ☛ “Fix” Giant Cursor Issue for Flatpak Apps in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

      For Ubuntu 24.04 and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with default GNOME desktop, here’s a quick fix for unusual cursor issue in some Flatpak app windows. This is Gnome upstream bug which has been fixed, but not backported for current Ubuntu LTS releases with old Gnome desktop environments.

  • Open Hardware/Modding

    • CNX Software ☛ Olimex HoT aims to be lightweight, easier-to-use alternative to Home Assistant

      Olimex HoT (Home of Things) is a lightweight Smart Home solution designed to run on low-end hardware (128MB RAM, 128MB flash) and interface with nodes running ESPHome. It can serve as an easier-to-use alternative for people who don’t need all the bells and whistles provided by powerful home automation frameworks such as Home Assistant or OpenHAB. Home Assistant open-source home automation software is great, but it requires a system with at least 2GB of RAM, and 4GB of RAM is often recommended for most users. There’s also a steep learning curve.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Legendary backdoored Windows dev codes demos and games for ancient ‘War Games’ monitor — interfaces with the HP1345a vector display using an ESP32 microcontroller

      The ancient HP1345a vector display is now usable with a PC to USB serial connection and code shared on Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub .