FOSS Weekly #25.39: Kill Switch Phones, LMDE 7, Zorin OS 18 Beta, Polybar, Apt History and More Linux Stuff
There were two smartphone launches recently, both with hardware kill switches. One is the Murena-powered HIROH Phone, and the other is the Furi Labs FLX1s. FLX1s uses a Debian based operating system.
Now, these are not necessarily for everyone, and they sure are not cheap. I mean, they might not be as expensive as iPhones or Samsung Galaxy S series, but they are surely in the mid-range.
These are more suited for journalists and activists who have to protect sensitive data and hence the kill switch. That doesn’t mean a privacy aware regular Joe (or Jane) cannot opt for them. It’s just that lack of some mainstream features could cause frustration. What do you think?
💬 Let’s see what you get in this edition:
- Apt receiving a much-needed upgrade.
- Lots happening in the open source space.
- An early look at LMDE 7 and Zorin OS 18.
- And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
📰 Linux and Open Source News
- OBS Studio 32.0 introduces a new plugin manager.
- Apt is finally getting support for a history command.
- The eBPF Foundation has awarded $100K in research grants.
- Git 3.0 might make Rust mandatory, though this is not yet final.
- LMDE 7 beta is here with a Debian 13 base and lots of new bits.
- Zorin OS 18 beta is here with a fresh design and many new features.
- A new proposal has been floated to make Linux multi-kernel friendly.
Sourav Rudra
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
A coalition of open source organizations has called out predatory practices.
Sourav Rudra
If you are around South Korea, then you should definitely attend this year’s Open Source Summit Korea!
🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings
- Learn how to make the best out of Polybar in Xfce.
- If you have ever wondered what an immutable distro is, then we have got you covered.
- These distros and tools offer Hyprland preconfigured.
Sourav Rudra
👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner
Cool down your Raspberry Pi in style with these mini PC cases.
Abhishek Prakash
Also explore some must know Ollama commands to manage local AI models.
✨ Project Highlight
Net Commander is a new project from Elelab that brings network troubleshooting, Wi-Fi surveys, SSH jumping, CIDR calculations, and more into VS Code.
The author had reached out to us, but we haven’t tested the plugin extensively yet.
elelabdev
📽️ Videos I Am Creating for You
Explore DuckDuckGo’s lesser known features in our latest video.
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💡 Quick Handy Tip
In GNOME’s Nautilus file manager, you can drag and drop a tab from one window to another Nautilus window, just like browsers. Or, drag it out to open it as a new window.
See below to learn how. 👇
🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
🧩 Quiz Time: Open source is full of forks; can you match the projects with their community-based forks/alternatives?
Abhishek Prakash
🤣 Meme of the Week: The contempt is real, people. ☠️
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On September 22, 1986, a U.S. federal judge ruled that computer code could be copyrighted, giving software the same legal protections as books and other written works.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: One of our regular FOSSers has a question about terminals. Can you help?
Manuel_Jordan
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