FOSS Weekly #26.35: Performance Boost in Kernel 7.3, Omarchy Rising, Kernel, Root Demystifed, and More
Linux 7.3’s merge window is still open, but what’s already confirmed looks like the foundation for one of the more performance-heavy releases in a while. Btrfs direct I/O is pushing close to 95% of theoretical throughput, EXT4 is hitting 2.19 million IOPS on fast NVMe, and a KSM memory bug that caused 700ms freezes is fixed down to under 2ms.
Canonical is co-funding a three-year PhD at the University of Bristol to build a system that can translate large C codebases into Rust automatically. The test cases are AppArmor and snap-confine, both already running in production on Ubuntu, picked specifically because they’re complex.
While not FOSS, TeamSpeak has been consistent in supporting Linux as a platform. It is now getting the ability to make direct calls between users without requiring a server.
Proton Mail’s new Categories feature is live and works similar to how Gmail tabs do, sorting incoming mail into Primary, Social, Promotions, Newsletters, and two optional categories. The difference is that Proton sorts by metadata only since it can’t read your email contents.
A one-line kernel bug in the Intel Xe driver was causing GDM to restart endlessly on Battlemage G21 cards. Tracking it down took Linus Torvalds 18 kernel boots and 24 debug patches.
There seems to be an official Flatpak package in early development for the Chromium browser.
This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by Linux systems vendor, Star Labs.
Star Labs computers are designed for Linux from the ground up, so things just work – without hunting for drivers or relying on vendor-specific software. With open-source coreboot firmware and more control over the hardware you own, Linux gets the preferred treatment over Windows here.
It’s FOSS readers get 5% off with code ITSFOSS. Reserve yours today.
Explore More
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
You might have already heard about Omarchy’s recent cash infusion; here’s a quick run-down:
Ten tech founders have each written a million-dollar check for the Omacom Foundation, a nonprofit that DHH is in the middle of setting up to fund Omarchy and the open-source ecosystem around it.m
The first beneficiary is Vaxry from Hyprland, who will receive funding under an exclusive 3-year sponsorship.
The entire episode has (once again) divided the Linux community, as some people dislike DHH for his (right-leaning) political views, while the supporters don’t agree with the usual (left-leaning) political views of most Linux-related organizations. Guess politics spoils a lot of things.
🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings
You might have come across the term “Linux is just a kernel”. Here’s what it means.
Another basic but essential concept you should know about the root user, as a desktop Linux user.
Serious about perfect document formatting? Why not try your hand at AsciiDoc? It’s a plain text format that converts cleanly to HTML or PDF, and this guide covers everything from installation and basic syntax to customizing your output with CSS and XSLT.
GNOME’s default look is clean, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Our list covers 17 extensions for changing how the desktop actually looks, from blur effects and animated window close transitions to wallpaper slideshows and a proper desktop clock widget.
Desktop Linux is mostly neglected by the industry but loved by the community. For the past 14 years, It’s FOSS has been helping people use Linux on their personal computers. And we are now facing the existential threat from AI models stealing our content.
If you like what we do and would love to support our work, please become It’s FOSS Plus member. It costs $49 a year (less than the cost of a McDonald’s burger a month), and you get an ad-free reading experience with the satisfaction of helping the desktop Linux community. And there are also free Linux ebooks.
Join It’s FOSS Plus
👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner
Would you be interested in a newly announced $42 USB dongle that can turn your phone into a keyboard, mouse, and SSH terminal?
If that’s not your thing, why not check out MNT Research’s mini PC case designed to take the same mainboard as the MNT Reform laptop?
✨ Apps and Projects Highlights
weathr is a Rust CLI tool that shows your current weather as animated ASCII art, complete with a house, clouds, birds during the day, stars and fireflies at night, and weather-appropriate animations for rain, snow, fog, and thunderstorms.
📽️ Videos for You
Learn to tweak the KDE file manager in this video on our YouTube channel.
💡 Quick Handy Tip
In GNOME, File Roller lets you open up compressed archives to check out what is inside before actually unzipping anything. If you only need a single item, you can just grab and extract that specific file or folder instead of unpacking the whole thing.
Here’s the unofficial Flathub listing if you want to get it installed quickly.
🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
Confident that your container knowledge is enough to beat this crossword?
I laughed harder than I should have on “Microslop”.
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On August 29, 1990, the UK’s Computer Misuse Act took effect, one of the world’s first laws targeting computer fraud. It followed the 1984 Prestel hack, where two men accessed Prince Philip’s mailbox but couldn’t be prosecuted under existing forgery law.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: Pro FOSSer Neville is asking fellow FOSSers whether they do anything to customize their desktop environment. Go on, share your riced-up setups in that thread!
