GNU/Linux Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 26, 2026

• CG Channel ☛ World Machine ‘Dragontail Peak’ now runs on macOS and Linux

  World Machine Software has begun its ‘Dragontail Peak’ series of releases for World Machine: the latest major version of the terrain-generation software for games and VFX work.

  The first build, World Machine 4059, introduced ‘true 3D terrain’ – terrain based on Vector Displacement Maps (VDMs) rather than heightfields, making it possible to generate overhangs.

• Kernel Space / File Systems / Virtualization

  • University of Toronto ☛ Maybe assigning TCP connection to Linux traffic control 'flows'

    The good news is that I managed to figure out a syntax that tc would accept. The bad news is that I don't know if it does what I want, because I'm not sure how you see what connections are assigned to what flows.

    I'll put forward two variations of tc-flow(8) commands. To start with, I'll set the stage. We start with our bandwidth limited class that will have a tc-sfq(8) qdisc below it, straight from the first entry: [...]

  • Barry Kauler ☛ EasyClone copy user-installed kernel modules

    EasyClone was discussed somewhere in the forum. Ah, yes, recall, it was in relation to the graphical installer:

    https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=17171

    If the person has booted up Easy from a usb-stick, got it all setup nicely, used it for awhile, then decides would like to install to internal drive of the computer, EasyClone is optionally used to copy selectively the setup of the currently-running Easy to the new installation. Like for example, browser configuration, history, bookmarks.

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

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • Ubuntu Handbook ☛ GNOME Added Support Resizing / Moving Screenshot Selection via Keyboard

      GNOME, the popular GNU/Linux Desktop, finally added keyboard navigation support for its built-in screenshot UI in the main branch. Meaning if everything goes well, the next Ubuntu 26.10, Fedora 45 Workstation and other GNU/Linux with GNOME 51, will be able to use keyboard arrow keys to move or resize the screenshot selection area.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Debian Family

    • Packaging and enabling upstream functional tests

      Back when I was working at Canonical on the Ubuntu phone project, test-driven development was the default and natural way to work. One thing I noticed and genuinely liked was how Ubuntu and Debian ship functional tests alongside many of their packages. Not only build-time unit tests hidden in the CI pipeline, but installable test binaries that you can run against the actual packages on an actual system. They are named *-tests or *-test, and they live in the archive next to the production packages.

  • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

    • It's FOSS ☛ Ubuntu 26.10 "Stonking Stingray": All the New Features So Far

      As usual, Canonical is using an interim release to test features headed for the next LTS. Her, we keep a track of the features as they are added.

      Every two years, Canonical puts out a Long Term Support release that gets five years of security updates, which can be stretched further with Ubuntu Pro. In between those LTS releases, Canonical ships an interim version every six months, and each one is supported for nine months.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • [Old] Kuroshi ☛ Moving Away From OPNsense - A Story of Simplicity

      This is a story from the past. A story of excitement, joy, frustration, denial, and acceptance. A story pulled from the depths of my notes archive, a draft left unfinished almost two years ago, discovered through my journey in notetaking. This is a true story, slightly skewed by time.

      The story ends about two years ago, and begins far before that. It informed my decisions about my thoughts around my homelab, my hobbies, my time, and myself. It is not a deep story, and indeed it is technical in nature, but the conclusions have ripple effects which reached my entire homelab and beyond. The morale of this story resonates deeply with me, and while I have always believed what this story has taught me, it gives a new appreciation to the way I choose to run my home network.

      This is the story of my experience with OPNSense.