# Twtxt is an open, distributed microblogging platform that
# uses human-readable text files, common transport protocols,
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# Learn more about twtxt at  https://github.com/buckket/twtxt
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# This is an automated Yarn.social feed running feeds v0.1.0@72e53a9
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# nick        = osnews
# url         = https://feeds.twtxt.net/osnews/twtxt.txt
# type        = rss
# source      = https://www.osnews.com/feed/
# avatar      = https://feeds.twtxt.net/osnews/avatar.png#3p5yfurwkedxleuxxmsg42t4rymmahtgcy5prxx34eu4w2o6vwva
# description = 
# updated_at  = 2024-04-24T17:58:53Z
#
2024-02-23T12:35:40Z	**The Plop boot managers**
I wrote different boot managers. Three boot managers are available as download. The Plop Boot Manager 5, PlopKexec and the new boot manager PBM6. The new boot manager is under development. ↫ Elmar Hanlhofer I had never heard of the three Plop boot managers, written by Elmar Hanlhofer, but they seem like quite the capable tools. First, Plop Boot Manager 5 is the most complete version, but it’s also quite outdated by now, with its last release stemming from 2013. That being said, it’s in ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138640/the-plop-boot-managers/)
2024-02-24T11:10:25Z	**Windows-as-a-nuisance: How I clean up a “clean install” of Windows 11 and Edge**
I frequently write about Windows, Edge, and other Microsoft-adjacent technologies as part of my day job, and I sign into my daily-use PCs with a Microsoft account, so my usage patterns may be atypical for many Ars Technica readers. But for anyone who uses Windows, Edge, or both, I thought it might be useful to detail what I’m doing to clean up a clean install of Windows, minimiz ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138645/windows-as-a-nuisance-how-i-clean-up-a-clean-install-of-windows-11-and-edge/)
2024-02-26T22:37:52Z	**Some OpenBSD features that aren’t widely known**
In this blog post, you will learn about some OpenBSD features that can be useful, but not widespread. They often have a niche usage, but it’s important to know they exist to prevent you from reinventing the wheel. ↫ Solène Rapenne Written by Solène Rapenne, who also happens to be an OpenBSD developer, so a great source for information like this. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138651/some-openbsd-features-that-arent-widely-known/)
2024-02-27T10:37:52Z	**A history of the tty**
It’s one of those anachronisms that is deeply embedded in modern technology. From cloud operator servers to embedded controllers in appliances, there must be uncountable devices that think they are connected to a TTY. I will omit the many interesting details of the Linux terminal infrastructure here, as it could easily fill its own article. But most Linux users are at least peripherally aware that the kernel tends to identify both serial devices and terminals as TTYs, assigning them filesy ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138653/a-history-of-the-tty/)
2024-02-27T10:41:56Z	**Microsoft wants to update your Windows 11 PC without forcing you to reboot**
If there’s one thing Windows users hate about Windows, it’s Windows updates interrupting your workflow or gaming session with a popup asking you to restart your PC finish installing the latest security update. It happens at least once a month, because that’s how often Microsoft rolls out security updates to Windows PCs. This may soon be a thing of the past, as the company is now test ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138655/microsoft-wants-to-update-your-windows-11-pc-without-forcing-you-to-reboot/)
2024-02-28T20:36:55Z	**Meta will start collecting “anonymized” data about Quest headset usage**
Meta will soon begin “collecting anonymized data” from users of its Quest headsets, a move that could see the company aggregating information about hand, body, and eye tracking; camera information; “information about your physical environment”; and information about “the virtual reality events you attend.” In an email sent to Quest users Monday, Meta notes that it currently collects “the data  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138650/meta-will-start-collecting-anonymized-data-about-quest-headset-usage/)
2024-02-28T20:47:45Z	**Tumblr and WordPress owner is striking deals with OpenAI and Midjourney for training data, says report**
Speaking of collecting data, here’s another major content player signing a deal to sell your content to “AI” companies. The owner of Tumblr and WordPress.com is in talks with AI companies Midjourney and OpenAI to provide training data scraped from users’ posts, a report from 404 Media alleges. The report, based on an anonymous so ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138659/tumblr-and-wordpress-owner-is-striking-deals-with-openai-and-midjourney-for-training-data-says-report/)
2024-02-28T21:25:03Z	**New Wear OS devices run two operating systems**
Wear OS smartwatches have a dual-chipset architecture inclusive of a powerful application processor (AP) and ultra low-power co-processor microcontroller unit (MCU). The architecture has a powerful AP capable of handling complex operations en-masse, and is seamlessly coupled with a low power MCU. The Wear OS hybrid interface enables intelligent switching between the MCU or the AP, allowing the AP to be suspended when not needed to preserve  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138661/new-wear-os-devices-run-two-operating-systems/)
2024-02-28T21:43:39Z	**KDE Plasma 6 released**
KDE Plasma 6 has been released – and this is an important release with two massive low-level stack upgrades. With Plasma 6, our technology stack has undergone two major upgrades: a transition to the latest version of our application framework, Qt, and a migration to the modern Linux graphics platform, Wayland. We have done our best to ensure that these changes are as smooth and unnoticeable to the users as possible, so when you install this update, you will see the same familiar desktop  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138663/kde-plasma-6-released/)
2024-03-01T00:40:56Z	**HDMI Forum rejects open-source HDMI 2.1 driver support sought by AMD**
One of the limitations of AMD’s open-source Linux graphics driver has been the inability to implement HDMI 2.1+ functionality on the basis of legal requirements by the HDMI Forum. AMD engineers had been working to come up with a solution in conjunction with the HDMI Forum for being able to provide HDMI 2.1+ capabilities with their open-source Linux kernel driver, but it looks like those efforts  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138666/hdmi-forum-rejects-open-source-hdmi-2-1-driver-support-sought-by-amd/)
2024-03-01T00:47:12Z	**HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors**
HP launched a subscription service today that rents people a printer, allots them a specific amount of printed pages, and sends them ink for a monthly fee. HP is framing its service as a way to simplify printing for families and small businesses, but the deal also comes with monitoring and a years-long commitment. Prices range from $6.99 per month for a plan that includes an HP Envy printer ( ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138668/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/)
2024-03-01T00:52:08Z	**Microsoft announces super resolution DirectX API**
We’re thrilled to announce DirectSR, our new API designed in partnership with GPU hardware vendors to enable seamless integration of Super Resolution (SR) into the next generation of games. Super Resolution is a cutting-edge technique that increases the resolution and visual quality in games. DirectSR is the missing link developers have been waiting for when approaching SR integration, providing a smoother, more efficient experience t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138670/microsoft-announces-super-resolution-directx-api/)
2024-03-01T10:48:00Z	**Wikipedia no longer considers CNET a “generally reliable” source after “AI” scandal**
Remember last year, when we reported that the Red Ventures-owned CNET had been quietly publishing dozens of AI-generated articles that turned out to be filled with errors and plagiarism? The revelation kicked off a fiery debate about the future of the media in the era of AI — as well as an equally passionate discussion among editors of Wikipedia, who needed to figure ou ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138673/wikipedia-no-longer-considers-cnet-a-generally-reliable-source-after-ai-scandal/)
2024-03-01T22:16:48Z	**MenuetOS 1.50.00 released**
MenuetOS has released two new versions recently, version 1.49.60 on 5 February, and 1.50.00 on 1 March. Aside from the usual bugfixes and updates, these two new versions bring, among other things, new screensavers, a musical chord calculator, and support for UEFI booting thanks to Easyboot. MenuetOS is a small operating system written entirely in assembly, available in both 32bit and 64bit versions for x86. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138672/menuetos-1-50-00-released/)
2024-03-01T22:51:04Z	**Google Messages is blocking RCS texts on rooted Android phones**
Rooting an Android phone is no longer as popular as it was a few years ago. Plus, if you root your phone now, you will run into several issues, like Google Wallet and banking apps not working, as the device will fail the Play Integrity API test. It makes sense for Google to block banking apps and payment functionality on rooted phones for safety and security reasons. But the company is now taking things a s ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138685/google-messages-is-blocking-rcs-texts-on-rooted-android-phones/)
2024-03-02T10:25:58Z	**Why I use Firefox**
Questions like “Which browser should I use?” regularly come up on the r/browsers subreddit. I sometimes respond to these posts, but my quick replies usually only contain one or two points. To be honest, until recently I wasn’t even sure myself why I use Firefox. Of course it’s a pretty good browser, but that doesn’t explain why I’ve stubbornly stayed loyal to Firefox for more than a decade. After giving it a bit more thought, I came up with the following reasons. ↫ Šime Vidas There’s really no v ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138687/why-i-use-firefox/)
2024-03-02T10:30:54Z	**Apple silicon: a little help from friends and co-processors**
So far in this series, I have looked in broad terms at how the CPU cores in Apple silicon chips work, and how they use frequency control and two types of core to deliver high performance with low power and energy use. As I hinted previously, their design also relies on specialist processing units and co-processors, the subject of this article. ↫ Howard Oakley Another excellent read from Howard Oakley. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138689/apple-silicon-a-little-help-from-friends-and-co-processors/)
2024-03-02T10:39:11Z	**Apple walks back decision to disable home screen web apps in the EU**
Following the release of the second beta version of iOS 17.4, it emerged that Apple had restricted the functionality of iOS web apps in the EU. Web apps could no longer launch from the ‌Home Screen‌ in their own top-level window that takes up the entire screen, relegating them to a simple shortcut with an option to open within Safari instead. The move was heavily criticized by groups like Open Web ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138692/apple-walks-back-decision-to-disable-home-screen-web-apps-in-the-eu/)
2024-03-03T21:10:45Z	**Redox gets massive performance boost**
Redox has published the summary of development covering February, and there’s quite a few interesting leaps forward this month. First and foremost, the operating system got a major file read/write speed boost by implementing records in RedoxFS. The migration to UNIX-format paths is ongoing, Boxedwine is currently being ported, and more and more programs are getting ported, including complex applications like Audacity, Celestia, KiCad and Neothesia. There’s a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138695/redox-gets-massive-performance-boost/)
2024-03-03T21:21:05Z	**Supermium: up-to-date Chromium for Windows XP, Vista, and 7**
Modern browsers don’t really support older versions of Windows anymore, so anyone running Windows XP, 2003, Vista, and even Windows 7 and 8 are losing access to secure and capable browsers. While running those older versions of Windows on production machines isn’t exactly advised, they’re still great fun as retrocomputing platforms and to keep older Windows games accessible using period-correct hardware. As such, th ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138697/supermium-up-to-date-chromium-for-windows-xp-vista-and-7/)
2024-03-04T12:46:56Z	**NixBSD: unofficial NixOS fork with a FreeBSD kernel**
NixBSD is an attempt to make a reproducible and declarable BSD, based on NixOS. Although theoretically much of this work could be copied to build other BSDs, all work thus far has been focused on building a FreeBSD distribution. ↫ NixBSD Github page It was only a matter of time before someone would try and build this. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138700/nixbsd-unofficial-nixos-fork-with-a-freebsd-kernel/)
2024-03-04T20:26:05Z	**An Apple district manager’s Macintosh Portable in 1989-91 (featuring GEIS AppleLink and a look at System 7.0 alpha)**
A few months ago I introduced you to one of the more notable Apple pre-production units in my collection, a late prototype Macintosh Portable. But it turns out it’s not merely notable for what it is than what it has on it: a beta version of System 6.0.6 (the doomed release that Apple pulled due to bugs), A ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138703/an-apple-district-managers-macintosh-portable-in-1989-91-featuring-geis-applelink-and-a-look-at-system-7-0-alpha/)
2024-03-04T23:27:23Z	**Rust for embedded systems: current state, challenges and open problems**
Embedded software is used in safety-critical systems such as medical devices and autonomous vehicles, where software defects, including security vulnerabilities, have severe consequences. Most embedded codebases are developed in unsafe languages, specifically C/C++, and are riddled with memory safety vulnerabilities. To prevent such vulnerabilities, RUST, a performant memory-safe systems langu ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138705/rust-for-embedded-systems-current-state-challenges-and-open-problems/)
2024-03-05T15:50:39Z	**European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls**
The European organisation for crash testing and car safety, Euro NCAP has announced that starting in 2026, cars will need physical controls in their interiors to gain the highest safety ratings. “The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138708/european-crash-tester-says-carmakers-must-bring-back-physical-controls/)
2024-03-05T16:10:44Z	**Facing reality, whether it’s about Apple or the EU, is a core requirement for good management**
Baldur Bjarnason has written an excellent piece to explain why, exactly, companies like Apple seem wholly incapable of working with the EU, instead of against it. He argues – quite effectively – that Apple, and US tech punditry in general, simply do not understand the EU, nor are they willing to spend even 10 minutes to understand it, which is reall ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138710/facing-reality-whether-its-about-apple-or-the-eu-is-a-core-requirement-for-good-management/)
2024-03-05T16:20:27Z	**Running CP/M on the C128**
I owned a C64 and was familiar with the C128, but this one was odd. It wasn’t running any games, color graphics or playing music. Instead, it was connected to a monochrome monitor which always displayed either a weird command line prompt or what seemed to be some boring professional writing software. I soon came to find that it was running CP/M and WordStar, one of the first word processors for microcomputers. My daily obsessive visits to the computer shop led to some friendship wi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138715/running-cp-m-on-the-c128/)
2024-03-05T17:56:04Z	**Microsoft kills Windows Subsystem for Android**
Well, that was a short run. Announced with much fanfare in 2021, Microsoft has announced it’s already killing Windows Subsystem for Android, Microsoft’s solution to run Android applications on Windows 11. Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android™️ (WSA). As a result, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all applications and games dependent on WSA will no longer be supported beginning March 5, 2025. Until then, technic ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138718/microsoft-kills-windows-subsystem-for-android/)
2024-03-06T14:50:16Z	**Windows to add gobs of “AI” to Explorer**
According to my sources, AI Explorer is the blockbuster AI experience that will separate AI PCs from non-AI PCs. It’s described as an “advanced Copilot” with a built-in history/timeline feature that turns everything you do on your computer into a searchable moment using natural language. It works across any app and allows users to search for previously opened conversations, documents, web pages, and images. For example, you could type, “Find me that list ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138724/windows-to-add-gobs-of-ai-to-explorer/)
2024-03-06T20:36:09Z	**Google announces measures to fight spam in its search results**
Every day, people turn to Search to find the best of what the web has to offer. We’ve long had policies and automated systems to fight against spammers, and we work to address emerging tactics that look to game our results with low-quality content. We regularly update those policies and systems to effectively tackle these trends so we can continue delivering useful content and connecting people with high-qual ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138729/google-announces-measures-to-fight-spam-in-its-search-results/)
2024-03-06T20:32:30Z	**FreeBSD 13.3 released**
FreeBSD 13.3 has been released, and as this is a point release of the stable branch, it’s not a major shake-up or overhaul of the platform. We’ve got the usual updated versions of LLVM, clang, OpenSSH, and so on, and there’s a number of stability fixes to native and LinuxKPI-based WiFi drivers. Of course, there’s much more, so head on over to the release notes for the full details. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138727/freebsd-13-3-released/)
2024-03-06T22:52:29Z	**Adding systemd to postmarketOS**
You heard it here first folks: systemd is coming to postmarketOS! As a mobile oriented OS, our main goal has always been to work for everyone. From technical folks to casual users. postmarketOS should have all the benefits you expect from a Linux based distribution, such as being free software, respecting your privacy, getting updates until your device physically breaks, respecting your attention and not shoving advertisements in your face. Your phone should be a tool y ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138732/adding-systemd-to-postmarketos/)
2024-03-07T00:35:07Z	**The future that never was**
Just before the end of 1989, Microsoft made available the first pre-release version of the long promised 32-bit OS/2 2.0, which was intended to be the first mass-market 32-bit PC operating system. This was accompanied by a press release detailing the $2,600 OS/2 2.0 Software Development Kit (SDK). Unfortunately, the December 1989 pre-release of OS/2 2.0 may not have survived to the present day. But in June 1990, Microsoft shipped the second pre-release of the OS/2 2.0 SDK. And th ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138737/the-future-that-never-was/)
2024-03-07T00:29:02Z	**Google’s changes to comply with the DMA**
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) comes into force this week for companies who have been designated. Today, we are sharing some more details about the changes we are making to comply, following product testing we announced earlier this year. ↫ Oliver Bethell on the official Google blog This is Google’s overview of the changes it’s implementing to comply with the DMA, some of which the company already announced months ago. Google’s changes d ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138735/googles-changes-to-comply-with-the-dma/)
2024-03-07T21:38:06Z	**Fedora Workstation 41 to no longer install GNOME X.org session by default**
Fedora Workstation has long defaulted to using GNOME’s Wayland session by default, but it has continued to install the GNOME X.Org session for fallback purposes or those opting to use it instead. But for the Fedora Workstation 41 release later in the year, there is a newly-approved plan to no longer have that GNOME X.Org session installed by default. ↫ Michael Larabel Expect more and m ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138751/fedora-workstation-41-to-no-longer-install-gnome-x-org-session-by-default/)
2024-03-07T21:43:42Z	**A peculiarity of the X Window System: windows all the way down**
Every window system has windows, as an entity. Usually we think of these as being used for, well, windows and window like things; application windows, those extremely annoying pop-up modal dialogs that are always interrupting you at the wrong time, even perhaps things like pop-up menus. In its original state, X has more windows than that. Part of how and why it does this is that X allows windows to nest insi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138753/a-peculiarity-of-the-x-window-system-windows-all-the-way-down/)
2024-03-10T13:09:21Z	**The Apple curl security incident 12604**
When this command line option is used with curl on macOS, the version shipped by Apple, it seems to fall back and checks the system CA store in case the provided set of CA certs fail the verification. A secondary check that was not asked for, is not documented and plain frankly comes completely by surprise. Therefore, when a user runs the check with a trimmed and dedicated CA cert file, it will not fail if the system CA store contains a cert that can ver ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138761/the-apple-curl-security-incident-12604/)
2024-03-10T21:59:51Z	**Accessibility improvements in GTK 4.14**
GTK 4.14 brings various improvements on the accessibility front, especially for applications showing complex, formatted text; for WebKitGTK; and for notifications. ↫ Emmanuele Bassi Excellent improvements that, if you listen to those that need these improvements, are sorely needed in GTK 4. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138772/accessibility-improvements-in-gtk-4-14/)
2024-03-10T21:57:04Z	**Everything there is to know about Windows 1.x**
Here you can find everything there is to know about the first version of Windows. ↫ David Simunič And they truly mean everything. This is an exceptional amount of information about Windows 1.0. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138770/everything-there-is-to-know-about-windows-1-x/)
2024-03-10T21:54:30Z	**House panel unanimously approves bill that could ban TikTok**
A powerful House committee advanced a bill on Thursday that could lead to a nationwide ban against TikTok on all electronic devices, renewing lawmakers’ challenge to one of the world’s most popular social media apps and highlighting unresolved fears that TikTok may pose a Chinese government spying risk. The measure that sailed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee would prohibit TikTok from  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138756/house-panel-unanimously-approves-bill-that-could-ban-tiktok/)
2024-03-11T12:51:47Z	**Better, faster, stronger time zone updates on Android**
From the beginning, time zone rules were a component in Mainline, called Time Zone Data or tzdata module. This integration allowed us to react more quickly to government-mandated time zone changes than before. However until 2023 tzdata updates were still bundled with other Mainline changes, sometimes leading to testing complexities and slower deployment. In 2023, we made further investments in Mainline’s infrastructure and dec ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138774/better-faster-stronger-time-zone-updates-on-android/)
2024-03-11T13:09:06Z	**Linux Kernel 6.8 released**
Highlights of Linux kernel 6.8 include LAM (Linear Address Masking) virtualization and guest-first memory support for KVM, a basic online filesystem check and repair mechanism for the Bcachefs file system introduced in Linux kernel 6.7, support for the Broadcom BCM2712 processor in Raspberry Pi 5, AMD ACPI-based Wi-Fi band RFI mitigation feature (WBRF), zswap writeback disabling, fscrypt support for CephFS, a new Intel Xe DRM driver, and a multi-size THP (Transparent Huge Pages)  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138777/linux-kernel-6-8-released/)
2024-03-11T21:50:33Z	**Image-scraping Midjourney bans rival “AI” firm for scraping images**
On Wednesday, Midjourney banned all employees from image synthesis rival Stability AI from its service indefinitely after it detected “botnet-like” activity suspected to be a Stability employee attempting to scrape prompt and image pairs in bulk. Midjourney advocate Nick St. Pierre tweeted about the announcement, which came via Midjourney’s official Discord channel. ↫ Benj Edwards So “AI” companies ar ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138781/image-scraping-midjourney-bans-rival-ai-firm-for-scraping-images/)
2024-03-11T23:04:05Z	**Messy ToS update allegedly locks Roku devices until users give in**
Roku customers are threatening to stop using, or to even dispose of, their low-priced TVs and streaming gadgets after the company appears to be locking devices for people who don’t conform to the recently updated terms of service (ToS). This month, users on Roku’s support forums reported suddenly seeing a message when turning on their Roku TV or streaming device reading: “We’ve made an important updat ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138783/messy-tos-update-allegedly-locks-roku-devices-until-users-give-in/)
2024-03-12T11:10:03Z	**Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU66 released**
Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU 66 is now available via ‘pkg update’ from the support repository or by downloading the SRU from My Oracle Support Doc ID 2433412.1. Highlights of the changes in this release are given in the release announcement and important information to read before installing it is provided in the Readme linked from the above support document. This blog post provides more details about selected new features and interface changes in this SRU, as well a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138788/oracle-solaris-11-4-sru66-released/)
2024-03-12T12:40:29Z	**European Commission’s use of Microsoft 365 infringes data protection law for EU institutions and bodies**
Following its investigation, the EDPS has found that the European Commission (Commission) has infringed several key data protection rules when using Microsoft 365. In its decision, the EDPS imposes corrective measures on the Commission. ↫ European Data Protection Supervisor You often hear people state that EU rules and regulati ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138790/european-commissions-use-of-microsoft-365-infringes-data-protection-law-for-eu-institutions-and-bodies/)
2024-03-13T15:57:44Z	**Intel continues prepping the Linux kernel for X86S**
Nearly one year ago Intel published the X86S specification (formerly stylized as “X86-S”) for simplifying the Intel architecture by removing support for 16-bit and 32-bit operating systems. X86S is a big step forward with dropping legacy mode, 5-level paging improvements, and other modernization improvements for x86\_64. With the Linux 6.9 kernel more x86S bits are in place for this ongoing effort. ↫ Michael Larabel I doubt we’ll  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138808/intel-continues-prepping-the-linux-kernel-for-x86s/)
2024-03-13T17:01:33Z	**MNT Reform review: brutalist hardware, familiar software**
There’s a channel on YouTube called The Proper People. It’s two guys who travel all over the United States (and in a few cases, elsewhere too) exploring abandoned buildings, and recording both the exteriors and interiors for posterity, since many of these buildings suffer from massive decay and are often slated for demolition. These buildings have histories and stories that otherwise would be lost to time. They are incre ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138608/mnt-reform-review-brutalist-hardware-familiar-software/)
2024-03-15T14:45:06Z	**Secure by design: Google’s perspective on memory safety**
Google’s Project Zero reports that memory safety vulnerabilities—security defects caused by subtle coding errors related to how a program accesses memory—have been “the standard for attacking software for the last few decades and it’s still how attackers are having success”. Their analysis shows two thirds of 0-day exploits detected in the wild used memory corruption vulnerabilities. Despite substantial investments to impr ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138837/secure-by-design-googles-perspective-on-memory-safety/)
2024-03-15T14:35:09Z	**Nanos: a kernel designed to run one application in a virtualized environment**
Nanos is a new kernel designed to run one and only one application in a virtualized environment. It has several constraints on it compared to a general purpose operating system such as Windows or Linux – namely it’s a single process system with no support for running multiple programs nor does it have the concept of users or remote administration via ssh. ↫ Nanos GitHub page The p ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138835/nanos-a-kernel-designed-to-run-one-application-in-a-virtualized-environment/)
2024-03-15T14:56:52Z	**Loongson 3A6000: a star among Chinese CPUs**
Computing power has emerged as a vital resource for economies around the world. China is no exception, and the country has invested heavily into domestic CPU capabilities. Loongson is at the forefront of that effort. We previously covered the company’s 3A5000 CPU, a quad core processor that delivered reasonable performance per clock, but clocked too low to be competitive. Now, we’re going to look at Loongson’s newer 3A6000 CPU. The 3A6000 is also  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138839/loongson-3a6000-a-star-among-chinese-cpus/)
2024-03-16T13:54:39Z	**An actual look at Microsoft OS/2 2.0**
This release marks the last time that Microsoft would release an OS/2 beta to developers, instead with the runaway success of Windows 3.0, Microsoft would remove resources from the constrained OS/2, and refocus both on Windows 3.1, and Windows NT. Thanks to one of my Patrons – Brian Ledbetter, the much-sought Microsoft OS/2 2.0 Pre-Release 2 is now available! So obviously the first thing to do was to re-create the original magical screenshot. ↫ neozeed at Vi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138842/an-actual-look-at-microsoft-os-2-2-0/)
2024-03-17T13:32:27Z	**Fuzzing Ladybird with tools from Google Project Zero**
While Ladybird does an okay job with well-formed web content, I thought it would be useful to throw some security research tools at it and see what kind of issues it might reveal. So today we’ll be using “Domato”, a DOM fuzzer from Google Project Zero, to stress test Ladybird and fix some issues found along the way. The way this works is that Domato generates randomized web pages with lots of mostly-valid but strange HTML, CSS ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138853/fuzzing-ladybird-with-tools-from-google-project-zero/)
2024-03-17T22:23:52Z	**Google adds “real-time, privacy-preserving URL protection” to Chrome**
For more than 15 years, Google Safe Browsing has been protecting users from phishing, malware, unwanted software and more, by identifying and warning users about potentially abusive sites on more than 5 billion devices around the world. As attackers grow more sophisticated, we’ve seen the need for protections that can adapt as quickly as the threats they defend against. That’s why we’re excited to  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138855/google-adds-real-time-privacy-preserving-url-protection-to-chrome/)
2024-03-17T22:30:47Z	**Hackintosh is (almost) dead**
It’s true that latest macOS 14 (Sonoma) still supports the latest generations of Intel Macs and it’s very likely that at least one or two major versions will still be compatible. But there’s one particular development that is de-facto killing off the Hackintosh scene. In Sonoma, Apple has completely removed all traces of driver support for their oldest WiFi/Bt cards, namely various Broadcom cards that they last used in 2012/13 iMac / MacBook models. Those Mac models are not sup ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138858/hackintosh-is-almost-dead/)
2024-03-19T13:02:10Z	**TrueNAS CORE 13 is the end of the FreeBSD version**
Bad news from BSD land – the oldest vendor of BSD systems is changing direction away from FreeBSD and toward Linux. NAS vendor iXsystems has been busy this year, but apart from some statements in online user communities, it hasn’t been talking about the big news. Back in 2022, we covered TrueNAS CORE 13, the new release of its FreeBSD-based turnkey OS for NAS servers, and in that article we mentioned its new product, the Debian-base ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138867/truenas-core-13-is-the-end-of-the-freebsd-version/)
2024-03-19T15:06:10Z	**There is no EU cookie banner law**
You know those modal screens that interrupt your groove when you are surfing? There are no laws forcing websites to use them. They use them because they choose to. ↫ Bite code! Cookie banners are not only not required, they’re not even needed, and most implementations you encounter today are illegal anyway. You can use session cookies and anonymous stats cookies without needing any user approval. Companies like to use these cookie banners because they want to make y ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138870/there-is-no-eu-cookie-banner-law/)
2024-03-19T21:05:30Z	**How to write a QML effect for KWin**
In order solve that problem, we started looking for some options and the most obvious one was QtQuick. It’s a quite powerful framework and it’s already used extensively in Plasma. So, in Plasma 5.24, we introduced basic support for implementing kwin effects written in QML and even added a new overview effect. Unfortunately, if you wanted to implement a QtQuick-based effect yourself, you would still have to write a bit of C++ glue yourself. This is not great beca ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138875/how-to-write-a-qml-effect-for-kwin/)
2024-03-19T21:24:43Z	**OSNews sponsorships**
Did you know we offer sponsorships at OSNews? A weekly sponsorship puts your display ad on our site for a week. We will make an introductory post at the start of the week, and a thank you post at the end of the week, which will both make it to our RSS feed and social accounts. OSNews gets about 450,000 visits per month with more than 32,000 registered users, spread out over North America and Europe. In addition, for any sponsorship you buy, you can opt to give a free weekly sponsorship to an ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138877/osnews-sponsorships/)
2024-03-20T18:14:08Z	**Trusting content on the KDE Store**
A global theme on the KDE third party store had an issue where it executed a script that removed user’s data. It wasn’t intended as malicious, but a mistake in some shell parsing. It was promptly identified and removed, but not before doing some damage to that user. This has started a lot of discourse around the concept of the store, security and upstream KDE. With the main question how can a theme have access to do this? ↫ David Edmundson That ‘some damage’ was p ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138884/trusting-content-on-the-kde-store/)
2024-03-20T20:59:52Z	**GNOME 46 released**
GNOME 46 has been released, and its packs a ton of new features and improvements. One of the headline improvements is the new global search feature. Files comes with a new global search feature in GNOME 46. The feature is simple: activate it by clicking the new search button, or by using the Ctrl+Shift+F shortcut, then enter your query to search all your configured search locations. Global search is a great way to jump directly into search, without having to think about where the items you want  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138890/gnome-46-released/)
2024-03-20T20:54:50Z	**Java 22 released**
Java 22 ships the final versions of the Foreign Function and Memory API as well as the Unnamed Variables and Patterns API. Plus Java 22 brings region pinning for the G1 garbage collector, statements before super(…) are in preview phase, a class-file API preview, support to launch multi-file source code programs, the latest work on the Java Vector API, Stream gatherers in preview, the second preview for structured concurrency programming, and various other additions. ↫ Michael Larabel at Phoronix Y ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138888/java-22-released/)
2024-03-20T23:17:48Z	**Chuwi MiniBook X (2023): a lot of laptop for very little money**
What if the kind of laptop you’re looking for just isn’t available from any of the major or even minor manufacturers? You know exactly what you want out of a laptop, and while quite a few fulfill many of your requirements, the requirement that matters most just isn’t being made. It’s not a case of “too expensive” or “too cheap” – simply nobody will sell it to you. From HP, Dell, Apple, down to smaller and loca ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/136891/chuwi-minibook-x-2023-a-lot-of-laptop-for-very-little-money/)
2024-03-21T16:10:49Z	**United States files antitrust lawsuit against Apple**
For many years, Apple has built a dominant iPhone platform and ecosystem that has driven the company’s astronomical valuation. At the same time, it has long understood that disruptive technologies and innovative apps, products, and services threatened that dominance by making users less reliant on the iPhone or making it easier to switch to a non-Apple smartphone. Rather than respond to competitive threats by offering lower smar ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138900/united-states-files-antitrust-lawsuit-against-apple/)
2024-03-22T16:51:04Z	**Qualcomm says most Windows games should ‘just work’ on its unannounced Arm laptops**
In a 2024 Game Developers Conference session titled “Windows on Snapdragon, a Platform Ready for your PC Games,” Qualcomm engineer Issam Khalil drove home that the unannounced laptops will use emulation to run x86/64 games at close to full speed. Those laptops may be coming fast. Qualcomm has confirmed it will launch Snapdragon X Elite systems this summer, and unannounc ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138903/qualcomm-says-most-windows-games-should-just-work-on-its-unannounced-arm-laptops/)
2024-03-22T19:53:14Z	**Switch emulator Suyu hit by GitLab DMCA, project lives on through self-hosting**
Switch emulator Suyu—a fork of the Nintendo-targeted and now-defunct emulation project Yuzu—has been taken down from GitLab following a DMCA request Thursday. But the emulation project’s open source files remain available on a self-hosted git repo on the Suyu website, and recent compiled binaries remain available on an extant GitLab repo. While the DMCA takedown request has no ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138905/switch-emulator-suyu-hit-by-gitlab-dmca-project-lives-on-through-self-hosting/)
2024-03-22T20:33:07Z	**Haiku in February: tons of small fixes and improvements**
Haiku published its latest monthly activity report, and this one is a veritable grab bag of a whole bunch of small fixes, improvements, and changes – there’s really no tent pole features or major improvements this month. Going through the list, the items that jump out at me are updated ping and traceroute applications and work on improving FFmpeg, but there’s so much more in there, so be sure to read the whole thing. At t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138908/haiku-in-february-tons-of-small-fixes-and-improvements/)
2024-03-22T21:11:43Z	**Mozilla drops Onerep after CEO admits to running people-search networks**
The nonprofit organization that supports the Firefox web browser said today it is winding down its new partnership with Onerep, an identity protection service recently bundled with Firefox that offers to remove users from hundreds of people-search sites. The move comes just days after a report by KrebsOnSecurity forced Onerep’s CEO to admit that he has founded dozens of people-search netwo ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138910/mozilla-drops-onerep-after-ceo-admits-to-running-people-search-networks/)
2024-03-22T22:01:35Z	**Android 15 Developer Preview 2 rolling out to Pixel**
Android 15 adds “UI elements to ensure a consistent user experience across the satellite connectivity landscape.” A system-level “Auto-connected to satellite” notification conveys how “You can send and receive messages without a mobile or Wi-Fi network” with a shortcut to “Open Messages” or get more information. Meanwhile, note the status bar icon at the right. Speaking of Google Messages, “Android 15 provides support for SMS/ M ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138914/android-15-developer-preview-2-rolling-out-to-pixel/)
2024-03-23T12:33:15Z	**Picotron: a fantasy workstation for making pixelart games, animations, music, demos and other curiosities**
Picotron is a Fantasy Workstation for making pixelart games, animations, music, demos and other curiosities. It has a toy operating system designed to be a cosy creative space, but runs on top of Windows, MacOS or Linux. Picotron apps can be made with built-in tools, and shared with other users in a special 256k png cartridge  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138918/picotron-a-fantasy-workstation-for-making-pixelart-games-animations-music-demos-and-other-curiosities/)
2024-03-23T12:39:57Z	**Atari Falcon030: impressive, but too late to the party**
So looking back, it is obvious that neither Atari or Commodore would really be able to succeed in the long-term, although perhaps one of them could have become the 3rd “also-ran”. For a while, Atari really thought they could be that third choice and some of their late-model computers have some impressive innovations. With that preamble over with, let’s talk about the last Atari computer: the Falcon030. ↫ Paul Lefebvre In my  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138920/atari-falcon030-impressive-but-too-late-to-the-party/)
2024-03-23T13:59:47Z	**Feds ordered Google to unmask certain YouTube users. Critics say it’s ‘terrifying.’**
Federal investigators have ordered Google to provide information on all viewers of select YouTube videos, according to multiple court orders obtained by Forbes. Privacy experts from multiple civil rights groups told Forbes they think the orders are unconstitutional because they threaten to turn innocent YouTube viewers into criminal suspects. ↫ Thomas Brewster at Forbes  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138923/feds-ordered-google-to-unmask-certain-youtube-users-critics-say-its-terrifying/)
2024-03-23T14:39:00Z	**‘Even stronger’ than imagined: DOJ’s sweeping Apple lawsuit draws expert praise**
The Department of Justice’s antitrust division has come into its own, having filed its third tech monopoly lawsuit in four years. The accumulated experience shows up in the complaint, according to antitrust experts who spoke with The Verge about the complaint filed Thursday accusing Apple of violating antitrust law. The DOJ describes a sweeping arc of behaviors by Apple, arguin ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138925/even-stronger-than-imagined-dojs-sweeping-apple-lawsuit-draws-expert-praise/)
2024-03-23T16:19:57Z	**Doctorow on the antitrust case against Apple**
The foundational tenet of “the Cult of Mac” is that buying products from a $3t company makes you a member of an oppressed ethnic minority and therefore every criticism of that corporation is an ethnic slur. Call it “Apple exceptionalism” – the idea that Apple, alone among the Big Tech firms, is virtuous, and therefore its conduct should be interpreted through that lens of virtue. The wellspring of this virtue is conveniently nebulous, which a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138931/doctorow-on-the-antitrust-case-against-apple/)
2024-03-23T21:05:32Z	**Some personal news**
I’ve got two bits of related news that will affect the future of OSNews. The first bit of news kind of led to the second bit of news. You don’t have to care much about former, but the latter will be important for where OSNews will be going from here on out. First, after 14 years, I’ve effectively quit my job as a translator – I am self-employed so there’s no dramatic clearing of my desk of being led out by security, which is probably a little bit of a letdown to some of you. The translation in ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138936/some-personal-news/)
2024-03-24T19:54:50Z	**Digital wallets and the “only Apple Pay does this” mythology**
I hope what you take away from this post is that while Apple Pay is a great way to pay for things and that Apple did a great job mainstreaming digital wallets like this, what they do is not unique in the industry. DPANs are great for making it harder to track one person’s purchases across multiple merchants and they make customers less at risk in the event of a data breach of payment card info. ↫ Matt Birchler Th ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138941/digital-wallets-and-the-only-apple-pay-does-this-mythology/)
2024-03-24T20:05:13Z	**The Mind Khadas: a modular PC**
I saw this on a Linus Tech Tips video today, and it’s pretty neat: the Khadas Mind is a tiny computer powered by an Intel Core i5-1340P or Core i7-1360P, but it has a souped-up PCIe connector at the bottom that allows you to hook it up to all kinds of other devices, like a graphics card, a dock, and so on. It looks slick and quite user-friendly, and according to the LTT video, the company intends to release the specs for the connector so that third parties can hook into it ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138945/the-mind-khadas-a-modular-pc/)
2024-03-24T20:35:14Z	**Hyprland crash course**
For the past week I have been configuring hyprland and using it as my daily driver. Coming from major Desktop Environments like KDE or Gnome, this was definitely quite challanging, specially when implementing features that we take it for granted on these DEs, like screen sharing or screenshot annotating. In this post I will be going through all the tools and scripts I have been creating to configure this amazing Window Manager to my liking. ↫ xd1.dev Like I mentioned in my MNT Reform rev ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138947/hyprland-crash-course/)
2024-03-25T09:14:00Z	**Sources: iOS 18 lets users customize layout of home screen app icons**
While app icons will likely remain locked to an invisible grid system on the Home Screen, to ensure there is some uniformity, our sources say that users will be able to arrange icons more freely on iOS 18. For example, we expect that the update will introduce the ability to create blank spaces, rows, and columns between app icons. ↫ Joe Rossignol at MacRumors It’s 2024 and iOS’ Springboard is slo ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138952/sources-ios-18-lets-users-customize-layout-of-home-screen-app-icons/)
2024-03-25T12:18:23Z	**Floorp Firefox fork makes it modifications closed source due to forks**
Recently, a few people suggested I give the browser Floorp a try, a Firefox fork with some additional UI changes and additions. Since it was based on Firefox ESR, however, I saw no point in even trying it, because I prefer to be on the latest Firefox release. It seems I accidentally made the right choice, since yesterday the developers behind Floorp decided to take their modifications closed s ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138954/floorp-firefox-fork-makes-it-modifications-closed-source-due-to-forks/)
2024-03-25T12:47:14Z	**EU opens non-compliance investigations against Alphabet, Apple and Meta under the Digital Markets Act**
It turns out Apple, Facebook, and Google were not as clever with their malicious compliance with the European Union’s DMA, as the European Commission has opened investigations into their compliance plans. Especially Apple, who has been most public about its malicious compliance, seems to be the target. Today, the Commission has ope ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138956/eu-opens-non-compliance-investigations-against-alphabet-apple-and-meta-under-the-digital-markets-act/)
2024-03-25T21:54:07Z	**“Temporary” disk formatting UI from 1994 still lives on in Windows 11**
Windows 11 has done a lot to update and modernize long-neglected parts of Windows’ user interface, including many Settings menus and venerable apps like Notepad and Paint. But if you dig deep enough, you’ll still find parts of the user interface that look and work like they did in the mid-’90s, either for compatibility reasons or because no one ever thought to go back and update them. Former Mic ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138970/temporary-disk-formatting-ui-from-1994-still-lives-on-in-windows-11/)
2024-03-25T21:58:29Z	**C64 OS gets hidden files, here’s how it works**
Version 1.06 is a more modest release than 1.05 or 1.04. But I think that’s okay. v1.06 includes one new Application, three new Utilities and new features and improvements to several existing Apps and Utilities, and even some new low-level features in the KERNAL and libraries. This latest release makes use of a combination of all of the above to provide a handy new feature for users and a potentially powerful and useful feature for developers ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138973/c64-os-gets-hidden-files-heres-how-it-works/)
2024-03-25T22:06:10Z	**SysV init 3.09 released**
Most of the Linux world has moved to systemd by now, but there are still quite a few popular other init systems, too. One of those is the venerable SysV init, which saw a brand new release yesterday. The biggest improvement also seems like it’ll enable a match made in heaven: SysVinit, but with musl. On Linux distributions which use the musl C library (instead of glibc) we can now build properly. Specifically, the hddown helper program now builds on musl C systems. ↫ SysVinit 3.09 re ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138976/sysv-init-3-09-released/)
2024-03-26T10:58:25Z	**Google’s first Tensor processing unit: architecture**
In Google’s First Tensor Processing Unit – Origins, we saw why and how Google developed the first Tensor Processing Unit (or TPU v1) in just 15 months, starting in late 2013. Today’s post will look in more detail at the architecture that emerged from that work and at its performance. ↫ The Chip Letter People forget that Google is probably one of the largest hardware manufacturers out of the major technology companies. Sadly, we ra ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138978/googles-first-tensor-processing-unit-architecture/)
2024-03-26T11:04:26Z	**Run Windows 95 to XP, Mac OS 8.6 to 10.4 in your browser**
Complete desktops contain all operating system components as well as Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. Where possible, I have tried to include built in file transfer programs (Web Publishing Wizard, Web Folders), useful system tools (System File Checker, System Restore) and certain wizards (Network Setup Wizard, Internet Connection Wizard). As a result, some of the desktops are quite large and can take some time to ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138982/run-windows-95-to-xp-mac-os-8-6-to-10-4-in-your-browser/)
2024-03-26T15:32:52Z	**Sega Saturn architecture: a practical analysis by Rodrigo Copetti**
Welcome to the 3D era! Well… sorta. Sega enjoyed quite a success with the Mega Drive so there’s no reason to force developers to write 3D games right now. Just in case developers want the extra dimension, Sega adapted some bits of the hardware to enable polygon drawing as well. Hopefully, the result didn’t get out of hand! ↫ Rodrigo Copetti These in-depth analyses by Copetti are always a treat, and the ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138988/sega-saturn-architecture-a-practical-analysis-by-rodrigo-copetti/)
2024-03-26T15:27:26Z	**Friends don’t let friends export to CSV**
I worked for a few years in the intersection between data science and software engineering. On the whole, it was a really enjoyable time and I’d like to have the chance to do so again at some point. One of the least enjoyable experiences from that time was to deal with big CSV exports. Unfortunately, this file format is still very common in the data science space. It is easy to understand why — it seems to be ubiquitous, present everywhere, it’s human-r ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138986/friends-dont-let-friends-export-to-csv/)
2024-03-26T22:52:17Z	**Canonical expands Long Term Support to 12 years starting with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS**
Today, Canonical announced the general availability of Legacy Support, an Ubuntu Pro add-on that expands security and support coverage for Ubuntu LTS releases to 12 years. The add-on will be available for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS onwards.  Long term supported Ubuntu releases get five years of standard security maintenance on the main Ubuntu repository. Ubuntu Pro expands that commitm ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138992/canonical-expands-long-term-support-to-12-years-starting-with-ubuntu-14-04-lts/)
2024-03-26T23:04:08Z	**Google launches Arm-optimized Chrome for Windows, teases Snapdragon X Elite boost**
Following testing in Canary earlier this year, Google today announced that the Arm/Snapdragon version of Chrome for Windows is now rolling out to stable.  Google says this version of Chrome is “fully optimized for your PC’s hardware and operating system to make browsing the web faster and smoother.” People that have been testing it report significant performance improvem ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138996/google-launches-arm-optimized-chrome-for-windows-teases-snapdragon-x-elite-boost/)
2024-03-26T23:05:55Z	**Plasma 5: the early years**
With KDE’s 6th Mega Release finally out the door, let’s reflect on the outgoing Plasma 5 that has served us well over the years. Can you believe it has been almost ten years since Plasma 5.0 was released? Join me on a trip down memory lane and let me tell you how it all began. This coincidentally continues pretty much where my previous retrospective blog post concluded. ↫ Kai Uwe It took them a few years after the release of Plasma 5.0, but eventually they won me over, and I’m now ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138994/plasma-5-the-early-years/)
2024-03-27T11:49:11Z	**Happy birthday APFS, 7 years old today**
Seven years ago, on 27 March 2017, Apple introduced one of the most fundamental changes in its operating systems since Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah was released 16 years earlier. On that day, those who updated iOS to version 10.3 had their iPhone’s storage silently converted to the first release of Apple File System, APFS. Six months later, with the release of macOS 10.13 High Sierra on 25 September, Mac users followed suit. ↫ Howard Oakley The migration from HF ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138998/happy-birthday-apfs-7-years-old-today/)
2024-03-27T12:01:36Z	**Infinite Mac: turning to the dark side**
About a year ago I came across the Previous emulator – it appeared to be a faithful simulation of the NeXT hardware and thus capable of running NeXTStep. While including it in Infinite Mac would be scope-creep, NeXT’s legacy is in many ways more relevant to today’s macOS than classic Mac OS. It also helped that it’s under active development by its original creator (see the epic thread in the NeXT Computers forums), and thus a modern, living codebase². Pre ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139000/infinite-mac-turning-to-the-dark-side/)
2024-03-27T15:49:01Z	**FuryGpu: a hardware GPU implemented on an FPGA**
FuryGpu is a real hardware GPU implemented on a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ FPGA, built on a custom PCB and connected to the host computer using PCIe. Supporting hardware features equivalent to a high-end graphics card of the mid 1990s and a full modern Windows software driver stack, it can render real games of that era at beyond real-time frame rates. ↫ FuryGpu A really cool project, undertaking by a single person – who also wrote the Windows ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139007/furygpu-a-hardware-gpu-implemented-on-an-fpga/)
2024-03-27T19:53:09Z	**Why x86 doesn’t need to die**
Hackaday recently published an article titled “Why x86 Needs to Die” – the latest addition in a long-running RISC vs CISC debate. Rather than x86 needing to die, I believe the RISC vs CISC debate needs to die. It should’ve died a long time ago. And by long, I mean really long. About a decade ago, a college professor asked if I knew about the RISC vs CISC debate. I did not. When I asked further, he said RISC aimed for simpler instructions in the hope that simpler hardware imple ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139009/why-x86-doesnt-need-to-die/)
2024-03-27T19:57:47Z	**Qualcomm quietly demos Baldur’s Gate 3 and Control on Snapdragon X Elite laptops**
If you read my scoop last week, I bet you’ve been wondering — how well could a Snapdragon chip actually run Windows games? At the 2024 Game Developers Conference, the company claimed Arm could run those titles at close to x86/64 speed, but how fast is fast? With medium-weight games like Control and Baldur’s Gate 3, it looks like the target might be: 30 frames per second at ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139014/qualcomm-quietly-demos-baldurs-gate-3-and-control-on-snapdragon-x-elite-laptops/)
2024-03-27T23:45:27Z	**Phil Spencer wants Epic Games Store and others on Xbox consoles**
In an interview with Microsoft’s CEO of Gaming during the annual Game Developers Conference, Spencer told Polygon about the ways he’d like to break down the walled gardens that have historically limited players to making purchases through the first-party stores tied to each console. Or, in layperson terms, why you should be able to buy games from other stores on Xbox — not just the official storefront. Sp ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139017/phil-spencer-wants-epic-games-store-and-others-on-xbox-consoles/)
2024-03-27T23:48:21Z	**Microsoft’s new era of AI PCs will need a Copilot key, says Intel**
Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and AMD have all been pushing the idea of an “AI PC” for months now as we head toward more AI-powered features in Windows. While we’re still waiting to hear the finer details from Microsoft on its big plans for AI in Windows, Intel has started sharing Microsoft’s requirements for OEMs to build an AI PC — and one of the main ones is that an AI PC must have Microsoft’s Copilot  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139020/microsofts-new-era-of-ai-pcs-will-need-a-copilot-key-says-intel/)
2024-03-28T11:16:35Z	**Writing GNOME applications with Swift**
Swift is well-suited for creating user interfaces thanks to the clean syntax, static typing, and special features making code easier to write. Result builders, combined with Swift’s closure expression syntax, can significantly enhance code readability. Adwaita for Swift leverages these Swift features to provide an intuitive interface for developing applications for the GNOME platform. ↫ The Swift blog It seems the Swift project is actively trying to move b ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139022/writing-gnome-applications-with-swift/)
2024-03-28T11:27:13Z	**ARM64EC (and ARM64X) explained**
Probably the most confused looks I get from other developers when I discuss Windows and ARM64 is when I used the term “ARM64EC”.  They ask is the same thing as ARM64?  Is it a different instruction set than ARM64?  How can you tell if an application is or ARM64 ARM64EC? This tutorial will answer those questions by de-mystifying and explaining the difference between what can be called “classic ARM64” as it existed since Windows 10, and this new “ARM64EC” which was introduc ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139025/arm64ec-and-arm64x-explained/)
2024-03-28T11:34:14Z	**lEEt/OS: graphical shell and multitasking environment for DOS**
lEEt/OS is a graphical shell and partially posix-compliant multitasking operating environment that runs on top of a DOS kernel. The latest version can be downloaded from this site. lEEt/OS is tested with FreeDOS 1.2 and ST-DOS, but it may also work with other DOS implementations. It can be compiled with Open Watcom compiler. 8086 binaries are also available from this site. ↫ lEEt/OS website I had never heard o ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139027/leet-os-graphical-shell-and-multitasking-environment-for-dos/)
2024-03-28T16:25:18Z	**Oregon’s governor signs right-to-repair law that bans ‘parts pairing’**
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has now signed one of the strongest US right-to-repair bills into law after it passed the state legislature several weeks ago by an almost 3-to-1 margin. Oregon’s SB 1596 will take effect next year, and, like similar laws introduced in Minnesota and California, it requires device manufacturers to allow consumers and independent electronics businesses to purchase the nec ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139032/oregons-governor-signs-right-to-repair-law-that-bans-parts-pairing/)
2024-03-28T19:55:06Z	**How Apple plans to update new iPhones without opening them**
Unboxing a new gadget is always a fun experience, but it’s usually marred somewhat by the setup process. Either your device has been in a box for months, or it’s just now launching and ships in the box with pre-release software. Either way, the first thing you have to do is connect to Wi-Fi and wait several minutes for an OS update to download and install. The issue is so common that going through a lengthy downloa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139034/how-apple-plans-to-update-new-iphones-without-opening-them/)
2024-03-29T01:01:10Z	**Copilot is finally gone from Windows Server 2025 and admins rejoice**
After the Windows Server 2025’s launch, a Windows insider posted a screenshot on X showing Copilot running on Windows Server 2025, Build 26063.1. The admins discovered the feature in shock and wondered if it was a mistake from Microsoft’s part. A month later, the same Bob Pony broke the news that most admins wanted to see: Copilot is gone in Windows Server 2025’s Build 26085. ↫ Claudiu Andone This ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139037/copilot-is-finally-gone-from-windows-server-2025-and-admins-rejoice/)
2024-03-29T12:20:58Z	**Proxmox gives VMware ESXi users a place to go after Broadcom kills free version**
One alternative to ESXi for home users and small organizations is Proxmox Virtual Environment, a Debian-based Linux operating system that provides broadly similar functionality and has the benefit of still being an actively developed product. To help jilted ESXi users, the Proxmox team has just added a new “integrated import wizard” to Proxmox that supports importing of ESX ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139040/proxmox-gives-vmware-esxi-users-a-place-to-go-after-broadcom-kills-free-version/)
2024-03-29T13:04:48Z	**The Apple Jonathan: a very 1980s concept computer that never shipped**
In the middle of the 1980s, Apple found itself with several options regarding the future of its computing platforms. The Apple II was the company’s bread and butter. The Apple III was pitched as an evolution of that platform, but was clearly doomed due to hardware and software issues. The Lisa was expensive and not selling well, and while the Macintosh aimed to bring Lisa technology to the masses ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139042/the-apple-jonathan-a-very-1980s-concept-computer-that-never-shipped/)
2024-03-29T14:39:21Z	**Ubuntu will manually review Snap Store after crypto wallet scams**
The Snap Store, where containerized Snap apps are distributed for Ubuntu’s Linux distribution, has been attacked for months by fake crypto wallet uploads that seek to steal users’ currencies. As a result, engineers at Ubuntu’s parent firm are now manually reviewing apps uploaded to the store before they are available. The move follows weeks of reporting by Alan Pope, a former Canonical/Ubuntu staffer on ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139044/ubuntu-will-manually-review-snap-store-after-crypto-wallet-scams/)
2024-03-29T18:24:00Z	**Intel “Family 6” CPU era coming to an end soon**
Since the mid-90’s with the P6 micro-architecture for the Pentium Pro as the sixth-generation x86 microarchitecture, Intel has relied on the “Family 6” CPU ID. From there Intel has just revved the Model number within Family 6 for each new microarchitecture/core. For example, Meteor Lake is Family 6 Model 170 and Emerald Rapids is Family 6 Model 207. This CPU ID identification is used within the Linux kernel and other operating systems for i ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139060/intel-family-6-cpu-era-coming-to-an-end-soon/)
2024-03-29T18:31:30Z	**A used ThinkPad is a better deal than a new cheap laptop**
Since the technology industry and associated media outlets tend to focus primarily on the latest and greatest technology and what’s right around the corner, it sometimes seems as if the only valid option when you need a new laptop, phone, desktop, or whatever is to spend top euro on the newest, most expensive incarnations of those. But what if you need, say, a new laptop, but you’re not swimming in excess disposable in ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/138939/a-used-thinkpad-is-a-better-deal-than-a-new-cheap-laptop/)
2024-03-29T18:28:07Z	**Monogon OS: a new kind of Linux operating system**
Monogon OS is an open-source, secure, API-driven and minimal operating system unlike any other. It is based on Linux and Kubernetes, but with a clean userland rebuilt entirely from scratch. It is written in pure Go and eliminates decades worth of legacy code and unnecessary complexity. It runs on a fleet of bare metal or cloud machines and provides users with a hardened, production ready Kubernetes, without the overhead of traditional  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139062/monogon-os-a-new-kind-of-linux-operating-system/)
2024-03-29T20:57:05Z	**Backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma leading to SSH server compromise**
After observing a few odd symptoms around liblzma (part of the xz package) on Debian sid installations over the last weeks (logins with ssh taking a lot of CPU, valgrind errors) I figured out the answer: The upstream xz repository and the xz tarballs have been backdoored. At first I thought this was a compromise of debian’s package, but it turns out to be upstream. ↫ Andres Freund I don’t normally repor ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139064/backdoor-in-upstream-xz-liblzma-leading-to-ssh-server-compromise/)
2024-03-30T13:57:33Z	**Ext2 filesystem driver now marked as deprecated**
It’s the ext2 filesystem driver that will be marked as deprecated in the upcoming 6.9 Linux kernel. The main issue is that even if the filesystem is created with 256 byte inodes (mkfs.ext2 -I 256), the filesystem driver will stick to 32 bit dates. Because of this, the driver does not support inode timestamps beyond 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038. ↫ Michael Opdenacker Kernel developer Ted T’so did state that if someone wants to add supp ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139068/ext2-filesystem-driver-now-marked-as-deprecated/)
2024-03-30T22:53:39Z	**NetBSD 10.0 released**
NetBSD 10.0 has been released, and it brings a lot of improvements, new features, and fixes compared to the previous release, 9.3. First and foremost, there are massive performance improvements when it comes to compute and filesystem-bound applications on multicore and multiprocessor systems. NetBSD 10.0 also brings WireGuard support compatible with implementations on other systems, although this is still experimental. There’s also a lot of added support for various ARM SoCs and boards, in ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139072/netbsd-10-0-released/)
2024-03-31T03:26:20Z	**Maptwin: an 80s-era automotive navigation computer**
A couple of years ago, I imported a Japanese-market 4×4 van into the US; a 1996 Mitsubishi Delica. Based on the maps I found in the seat pocket and other clues, it seems to have spent its life at some city dweller’s cabin in the mountains around Fukushima, and only driven occasionally. Despite being over 25 years old, it only had 77,000 km on the odometer. The van had some interesting old tech installed in it: what appears to be a  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139077/maptwin-an-80s-era-automotive-navigation-computer/)
2024-03-31T15:00:05Z	**Windows 11 may get a highly requested Start menu redesign, here is how to try it**
In October 2023, we published a recap of the top 10 features Windows 11 users want for the redesigned Start menu. Number 6 was the ability to switch from list view to grid view in the “All Apps” list, which received over 1,500 upvotes in the Feedback Hub. Six months later, Microsoft finally appears to be ready to give users what they want. PhantomOfEarth, the ever-giving s ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139086/windows-11-may-get-a-highly-requested-start-menu-redesign-here-is-how-to-try-it/)
2024-03-31T15:12:22Z	**Servo: tables, WOFF2, and more**
This month, after surpassing our legacy layout engine in the CSS test suites, we’re proud to share that Servo has surpassed legacy in the whole suite of Web Platform Tests as well! ↫ Servo blog Another months, another detailed progress report from Servo, the Rust browser engine once started by Mozilla. There’s a lot of interesting reading here for web developers. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139090/servo-tables-woff2-and-more/)
2024-03-31T15:08:08Z	**Redox: significant performance and correctness improvements to the kernel**
This year, there have been numerous improvements both to the kernel’s correctness, as well as raw performance. The signal and TLB shootdown MRs have significantly improved kernel memory integrity and possibly eliminated many hard-to-debug and nontrivial heisenbugs. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of work to be done optimizing and fixing bugs in relibc, in order to improve compatibili ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139088/redox-significant-performance-and-correctness-improvements-to-the-kernel/)
2024-03-31T15:17:18Z	**Open source is about more than just code**
As some of the dust around the xz backdoor is slowly starting to settle, we’ve been getting a pretty clear picture of what, exactly, happened, and it’s not pretty. This is a story of the sole maintainer of a crucial building block of the open source stack having mental health issues, which at least partly contributes to a lack of interest in maintaining xz. It seems a coordinated campaign – consensus seems to point to a state actor – is then started  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139070/open-source-is-about-more-than-just-code/)
2024-04-01T14:04:47Z	**The hearts of the Super Nintendo**
Every computer has at least one heart which beats the cadence to all the other chips. The CloCK output pin is connected to a copper line which spreads to most components, into their CLK input pin. If you are mostly a software person like me, you may have never noticed it but all kinds of processors have a CLK input pin. From CPUs (Motorola 68000, Intel Pentium, MOS 6502), to custom graphic chips (Midway’s DMA2, Capcom CPS-A/CPS-B, Sega’s Genesis VDP) to audio chips  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139099/the-hearts-of-the-super-nintendo/)
2024-04-01T14:10:15Z	**Microsoft to separate Teams and Office globally amid antitrust scrutiny**
Microsoft will sell its chat and video app Teams separately from its Office product globally, the U.S. tech giant said on Monday, six months after it unbundled the two products in Europe in a bid to avert a possible EU antitrust fine. The European Commission has been investigating Microsoft’s tying of Office and Teams since a 2020 complaint by Salesforce-owned competing workspace messaging ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139101/microsoft-to-separate-teams-and-office-globally-amid-antitrust-scrutiny/)
2024-04-01T14:46:56Z	**A deep dive into email deliverability in 2024**
On October 3, 2023, Google and Yahoo announced upcoming email security standards to prevent spam, phishing and malware attempts. Outlook.com (formerly Hotmail) is also enforcing these policies. With the big 3 Email Service Providers (ESP) in agreement, expect widespread adoption soon. Today’s threats are more complex than ever and more ESPs will begin tightening the reigns. Failure to comply with these guidelines will result in emails being ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139103/a-deep-dive-into-email-deliverability-in-2024/)
2024-04-01T21:16:52Z	**libmui: classic Mac OS and GS/OS widget library for Linux**
This is a contender for the World Record for Feature Creep Side Project. It is pretty high in the contender list as it’s a bolt on to another contender for the World Record for Feature Creep Side Project (the MII Apple //e emulator). It is a library that duplicate a lot of a Macintosh Classic “Toolbox” APIs. It is not a complete implementation, but it is enough to make a few simple applications, also, all the bits I n ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139108/libmui-classic-mac-os-and-gs-os-widget-library-for-linux/)
2024-04-01T21:42:41Z	**GCC 10 ported to QNX 6.5 SP1**
Way back in the day, back when I wasn’t even working at OSNews yet, I used to run QNX as my desktop operating system, together with a small number of other enthusiasts. It was a struggle, for sure, but it was fun, exciting, and nobody else was crazy enough to do so. Sadly, the small QNX desktop community wasn’t even remotely interesting to QNX, and later Blackberry when they acquired the company, and eventually the stand-alone Neutrino-powered version of QNX disappeared beh ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139111/gcc-10-ported-to-qnx-6-5-sp1/)
2024-04-02T08:51:13Z	**Fedora change proposal suggests switching the main Fedora Workstation release to KDE Plasma**
I have been assured by the main author of the proposal itself that this is very much not an April Fools joke, but of course, there’s still the very real possibility we’re being led on here. Still, I’m taking the risk and treating this as a serious change proposal for Fedora, even though it’s likely to cause some controversy in the wider Fedora commun ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139116/fedora-change-proposal-suggests-switching-the-main-fedora-workstation-release-to-kde-plasma/)
2024-04-02T20:36:43Z	**Apple wouldn’t let Jon Stewart interview FTC Chair Lina Khan, TV host claims**
Before the cancellation of The Problem with Jon Stewart on Apple TV+, Apple forbade the inclusion of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan as a guest and steered the show away from confronting issues related to artificial intelligence, according to Jon Stewart. ↫ Samuel Axon at Ars Technica Just when you thought Apple and Tim Cook couldn’t get any more unlikable. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139126/apple-wouldnt-let-jon-stewart-interview-ftc-chair-lina-khan-tv-host-claims/)
2024-04-02T20:28:43Z	**Redis’ license change and forking are a mess that everybody can feel bad about**
Redis, a tremendously popular tool for storing data in-memory rather than in a database, recently switched its licensing from an open source BSD license to both a Source Available License and a Server Side Public License (SSPL). The software project and company supporting it were fairly clear in why they did this. Redis CEO Rowan Trollope wrote on March 20 that while Redis and ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139113/redis-license-change-and-forking-are-a-mess-that-everybody-can-feel-bad-about/)
2024-04-02T22:03:38Z	**Discord turns to ads**
Quests are a way for players to discover games and earn rewards for playing them on Discord. We started experimenting with them over the last year, and millions of you opted in and completed them. We’ve heard great feedback from developers who partnered with us to create them and from many of you who completed one. If you didn’t see firsthand, the “May the 4th” Fortnite Quest is a great example. Now, we’re opening up sponsored Quests to more game developers. ↫ Peter Sellis That’s a lot of  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139128/discord-turns-to-ads/)
2024-04-02T22:07:03Z	**Microsoft is working on an Xbox AI chatbot**
Microsoft is currently testing a new AI-powered Xbox chatbot that can be used to automate support tasks. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the software giant has been testing an “embodied AI character” that animates when responding to Xbox support queries. I understand this Xbox AI chatbot is part of a larger effort inside Microsoft to apply AI to its Xbox platform and services. ↫ Tom Warren at The Verge I’m convinced. T ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139130/microsoft-is-working-on-an-xbox-ai-chatbot/)
2024-04-02T22:34:10Z	**Microsoft announces prices for the Windows 10 Extended Security Update program**
Windows 10 is reaching end of support on October 14, 2025, so if you’re still using Windows 10 – and let’s face it, if you’re somehow forced to still use Windows, better 10 than 11 – your time is running out. Luckily, end of support is a bit of a nebulous term when it comes to Microsoft products, and many among you, especially those managing larger fleets of systems, will kno ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139132/microsoft-announces-prices-for-the-windows-10-extended-security-update-program/)
2024-04-03T11:06:42Z	**Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ checkout system consisted of 1000 people in India watching you shop**
Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with “Just Walk Out” technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president of grocery stores says they’re moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with. Just over half of Amazon Fresh stores ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139138/amazons-just-walk-out-checkout-system-consisted-of-1000-people-in-india-watching-you-shop/)
2024-04-03T10:58:48Z	**The rise and fall of 3M’s floppy disk**
Even with that said, those gray-hairs will frequently claim that of the many makers of floppies out there, 3M made the best ones. Given that, I was curious to figure out exactly why 3M became the most memorable brand in data storage during the formative days of computing, and why it abandoned the product. ↫ Ernie Smith I do not remember if I ever held any particular views on which brand of floppy disk (or diskettes, as we called them) was the best. We had a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139136/the-rise-and-fall-of-3ms-floppy-disk/)
2024-04-03T11:18:08Z	**How Stability AI’s founder tanked his billion-dollar startup**
It was Stability’s armada of GPUs, the wildly powerful and equally expensive chips undergirding AI, that were so taxing the company’s finances. Hosted by AWS, they had long been one of Mostaque’s bragging points; he often touted them as one of the world’s 10 largest supercomputers. They were responsible for helping Stability’s researchers build and maintain one of the top AI image generators, as well as break important new ground on generative audio, video and 3D  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139140/139140/)
2024-04-03T19:57:15Z	**KDE 6 release: D-Bus and Polkit galore**
The SUSE security team restricts the installation of system wide D-Bus services and Polkit policies in openSUSE distributions and derived SUSE products. Any package that ships these features needs to be reviewed by us first, before it can be added to production repositories. In November, openSUSE KDE packagers approached us with a long list of KDE components for an upcoming KDE6 major release. The packages needed adjusted D-Bus and Polkit whitelistings du ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139143/kde-6-release-d-bus-and-polkit-galore/)
2024-04-03T20:06:17Z	**Improvements to static analysis in the GCC 14 compiler**
I work at Red Hat on GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection. For the last five releases of GCC, I’ve been working on -fanalyzer, a static analysis pass that tries to identify various problems at compile-time, rather than at runtime. It performs “symbolic execution” of C source code—effectively simulating the behavior of the code along the various possible paths of execution through it. This article summarizes what’s new with -fa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139147/improvements-to-static-analysis-in-the-gcc-14-compiler/)
2024-04-03T20:37:03Z	**Tribblix image structural changes**
We’ve talked about Tribblix before on OSNews – it’s a distribution of illumos, built by Peter Tribble. In his latest blog post, Tribble details some of the changes he’s made to the live ISO and other images for the most recent release. All along, there’s been an overlay (think a group package) called base-iso that lists the packages that are present in the live image. On installation, this is augmented with a few extra packages that you would expect to be present  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139150/tribblix-image-structural-changes/)
2024-04-04T18:11:44Z	**Microsoft Edge will let you control how much RAM it uses soon**
Microsoft is working on a new feature for its Edge browser that will let you limit the amount of RAM it uses. Leopeva64, who is one of the best at finding new Edge features, has spotted a new settings section in test builds of the browser that includes a slider so you can limit how much RAM Edge gets access to. ↫ Tom Warren at The Verge Isn’t it the operating system’s job to manage memory? It seems very archa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139153/microsoft-edge-will-let-you-control-how-much-ram-it-uses-soon/)
2024-04-04T19:19:39Z	**Microsoft Exchange breach from 2023 was Microsoft’s fault**
In May and June 2023, a threat actor compromised the Microsoft Exchange Online mailboxes of 22 organizations and over 500 individuals around the world. The actor—known as Storm-0558 and assessed to be affiliated with the People’s Republic of China in pursuit of espionage objectives—accessed the accounts using authentication tokens that were signed by a key Microsoft had created in 2016. This intrusion compromised seni ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139155/microsoft-exchange-breach-from-2023-was-microsofts-fault/)
2024-04-04T21:24:15Z	**AMD unveils their Embedded+ architecture, Ryzen Embedded with Versal together**
One area of AMD’s product portfolio that doesn’t get as much attention as the desktop and server parts is their Embedded platform. AMD’s Embedded series has been important for on-the-edge devices, including industrial, automotive, healthcare, digital gaming machines, and thin client systems. Today, AMD has unveiled their latest Embedded architecture, Embedded+, which combines the ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139159/amd-unveils-their-embedded-architecture-ryzen-embedded-with-versal-together/)
2024-04-04T21:37:55Z	**Qt 6.7, Qt Creator 13 released**
Earlier this week, Qt 6.7 was released with a whole slew of new features and improvements. Reading through the various highlights, there’s further improvements to Qt Graphs, first released with Qt 6.6 and still under active development, better SVG support, variable fonts and icon font support, and much more. There’s also a variety of new examples and demo applications, and of course, Qt 6.7 supports all the latest operating system releases. One feature that truly stood o ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139161/qt-6-7-qt-creator-13-released/)
2024-04-04T22:18:03Z	**Roku gets patent for injecting ads through HDMI**
Oh boy. Roku has an… Interesting new patent. Thought you could avoid the ads infesting every “smart” TV you buy now by using external devices through HDMI? Disclosed herein are system, apparatus, article of manufacture, method and/or computer program product embodiments, and/or combinations and sub-combinations thereof, for ad insertion by a display device coupled to a media device via a high-definition media interface (HDMI) connection ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139164/roku-gets-patent-for-injecting-ads-through-hdmi/)
2024-04-05T10:26:39Z	**PCIe 7.0 draft 0.5 spec available: 512 GB/s over PCIe x16 on track for 2025**
PCIe 7.0 is is the next generation interconnect technology for computers that is set to increase data transfer speeds to 128 GT/s per pin, doubling the 64 GT/s of PCIe 6.0 and quadrupling the 32 GT/s of PCIe 5.0. This would allow a 16-lane (x16) connection to support 256 GB/sec of bandwidth in each direction simultaneously, excluding encoding overhead. Such speeds will be handy for  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139166/pcie-7-0-draft-0-5-spec-available-512-gb-s-over-pcie-x16-on-track-for-2025/)
2024-04-05T10:55:23Z	**FFmpeg 7.0 released**
A new major release, FFmpeg 7.0 “Dijkstra”, is now available for download. The most noteworthy changes for most users are a native VVC decoder (currently experimental, until more fuzzing is done), IAMF support, or a multi-threaded ffmpeg CLI tool. This release is not backwards compatible, removing APIs deprecated before 6.0. The biggest change for most library callers will be the removal of the old bitmask-based channel layout API, replaced by the AVChannelLayout API allowing such features a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139168/ffmpeg-7-0-released/)
2024-04-05T11:14:07Z	**OpenBSD 7.5 released**
OpenBSD 7.5 has hit the streets (or servers and workstations), and it comes with a metric ton of improvements and new features. Of course, the kernel has been improved in countless ways, from symmetric multiprocessing improvements to a new font usable as a console font. The graphics drivers have been updated to match Linux 6.6.19, and drivers for the Apple display coprocessor were added. Furthermore, a whole slew of additional ARM boards and SoC are now supported, and new drivers for a var ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139171/openbsd-7-5-released/)
2024-04-05T18:22:40Z	**Setting up a YubiKey on Linux is a mess, and it really shouldn’t be**
One of the things I’ve always wanted to experiment with on my computers is logging in and authenticating things like sudo requests with a hardware tool – a fingerprint reader, a smart card, or a USB hardware security device like a YubiKey. There’s really no solid reason for me to want this other than that it just feels cool and futuristic to me (yes, even in this, the year of our lord 2024). I have  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139174/setting-up-a-yubikey-on-linux-is-a-mess-and-it-really-shouldnt-be/)
2024-04-06T20:10:24Z	**An IRC client in your motherboard**
I made a graphical IRC client that runs in UEFI. It’s written in Rust and leverages the GUI toolkit and TrueType renderer that I wrote for axle’s userspace. I was able to develop it thanks to the vmnet network backend that I implemented for QEMU. I’ve published the code here. ↫ Phillip Tennen Words are not enough. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139177/an-irc-client-in-your-motherboard/)
2024-04-06T20:51:37Z	**The Rise and Fall of Silicon Graphics**
Clark founded Silicon Graphics Inc on the 9th of November in 1981, and he left Stanford early in 1982 to pursue building the company full time with just $25000 in funding (around $85000 in 2024) from a friend and the contents of his own accounts. Accompanying Clark in this adventure were Kurt Akeley, Dave Brown, Tom Davis, Mark Grossman, Marc Hannah, Herb Kuta, Rocky Rhodes, and Abbey Silverstone. While SGI knew they would deal in computers outfitted with  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139179/the-rise-and-fall-of-silicon-graphics/)
2024-04-07T19:56:21Z	**WinBtrfs: an open-source btrfs driver for Windows**
WinBtrfs is a Windows driver for the next-generation Linux filesystem Btrfs. A reimplementation from scratch, it contains no code from the Linux kernel, and should work on any version from Windows XP onwards. It is also included as part of the free operating system ReactOS. ↫ WinBtrfs GitHub page If you’re running a distribution that defaults to Btrfs, or you actively choose to use it on other distributions, and you also happen to du ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139182/winbtrfs-an-open-source-btrfs-driver-for-windows/)
2024-04-07T20:07:09Z	**Outlook is Microsoft’s new data collection service**
With Microsoft’s rollout of the new Outlook for Windows, it appears the company has transformed its email app into a surveillance tool for targeted advertising. Everyone talks about the privacy-washing campaigns of Google and Apple as they mine your online data to generate advertising revenue. But now it looks like Outlook is no longer simply an email service; it’s a data collection mechanism for Microsoft’s 801 external partners a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139184/outlook-is-microsofts-new-data-collection-service/)
2024-04-07T20:14:15Z	**Microsoft blocks even more customization apps in Windows 11 version 24H2**
Users recently noticed that third-party apps for customizing the user interface no longer work in the upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2. Not only does Microsoft not allow you to run those apps, but it even blocks you from upgrading to newer builds. StartAllBack, a popular tool for tweaking the taskbar and Start menu in Windows 11, was among the first to fail on 24H2. Sadly, it is not the  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139186/microsoft-blocks-even-more-customization-apps-in-windows-11-version-24h2/)
2024-04-08T12:31:45Z	**Just how much faster are the GNOME 46 terminals?**
Over the GNOME 46 cycle, VTE has seen a lot of performance improvements. Christian Hergert mentioned some of them in his blog posts about VTE and about his work in GNOME 46. But how much did the performance actually improve? What should you, the user, expect to feel after installing a fresh Fedora 40 update and launching your favorite terminal? Let’s measure and find out! ↫ Ivan Molodetskikh The short version is that the improvements a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139192/just-how-much-faster-are-the-gnome-46-terminals/)
2024-04-08T12:46:46Z	**Microsoft adds driver to Windows that prevents changing the default browser using the registry**
There are various ways you can change the default browser and similar defaults on Windows, but oneof the ways many third-party tools do this is by editing the relevant registry strings. It turns out that Microsoft is not particularly happy with this, as they’ve recently introduced a new driver specifically designed to prevent this from happenin ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139194/microsoft-adds-driver-to-windows-that-prevents-changing-the-default-browser-using-the-registry/)
2024-04-08T20:05:06Z	**SmolBSD: make your own BSD UNIX MicroVM**
SmolBSD is a tiny BSD UNIX (NetBSD) system creation tool, primarily aimed at building modern, lightweight, fast micro VMs. SmolBSD can start a service in (way) under a second, giving it the ability to be used as a virtualized container, thus reducing attack surface and actually isolating workflows. ↫ SmolBSD website Neat. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139197/smolbsd-make-your-own-bsd-unix-microvm/)
2024-04-08T20:58:04Z	**Google launches new Find My Device network on Android**
Today, the all-new Find My Device is rolling out to Android devices around the world, starting in the U.S. and Canada. With a new, crowdsourced network of over a billion Android devices, Find My Device can help you find your misplaced Android devices and everyday items quickly and securely. Here are five ways you can try it out. ↫ Erik Kay on the Google blog This old Android feature has basically been updated to be the same  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139199/google-launches-new-find-my-device-network-on-android/)
2024-04-08T21:51:21Z	**Intel’s ambitious Meteor Lake iGPU**
Intel and AMD both tried to ship iGPUs fast enough to compete with low end discrete cards over the past 10 years with mixed results. Recently though, powerful iGPUs have been thrown back into the spotlight. Handhelds like Valve’s Steam Deck and ASUS’s ROG Ally demonstrated that consumers are willing to accept compromises to play games on the go. AMD has dominated that market so far. Valve’s Steam Deck uses AMD’s Van Gogh APU, and the ROG Ally uses the newer Phoen ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139201/intels-ambitious-meteor-lake-igpu/)
2024-04-09T12:21:39Z	**Embedding the Servo web engine in Qt**
I’ve been talking about Servo, the Rust browser engine project originally started at Mozilla, for a while now, and while the project’s still got a long way to go, it’s definitely a serious contender to become a competitive browser engine in the future. It seems it’s starting to get some traction already, as The KDAB Group is working on bringing Servo to Qt. At KDAB we managed to embed the Servo web engine inside Qt, by using our CXX-Qt library as a bridge be ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139205/embedding-the-servo-web-engine-in-qt/)
2024-04-09T13:05:18Z	**Google launches Axion processors, new Arm-based CPUs for the data centre**
Built using the Arm Neoverse™ V2 CPU, Axion processors deliver giant leaps in performance for general-purpose workloads like web and app servers, containerized microservices, open-source databases, in-memory caches, data analytics engines, media processing, CPU-based AI training and inferencing, and more. Axion is underpinned by Titanium, a system of purpose-built custom silicon microcont ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139209/google-launches-axion-processors-new-arm-based-cpus-for-the-data-centre/)
2024-04-09T13:14:11Z	**Ten years ago, Windows XP received its final update**
Exactly ten years ago, on April 8, 2014, Microsoft released the final security patch for Windows XP. The day marked the end of the road for one of the most iconic Windows versions ever released. ↫ Taras Buria at Neowin I never liked Windows XP. Compared to the operating systems I was using at the time – BeOS, Mandrake Linux 8.x – Windows XP felt kind of like a bad joke I wasn’t in on. It looked ridiculous, didn’t seem to offer an ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139212/ten-years-ago-windows-xp-received-its-final-update/)
2024-04-09T19:05:01Z	**Google details privacy and security features of its new Find My Device network**
Yesterday, I posted an item about the updated Find My Device network Google launched for Android, but I forgot to link to an additional blog post by Google about the various security and privacy precautions they’ve taken. One aspect in particular stands out as something new that Apple’s Find My network doesn’t do (yet): This is a first-of-its-kind safety protection that makes ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139218/google-details-privacy-and-security-features-of-its-new-find-my-device-network/)
2024-04-09T19:59:29Z	**Beeper leaves beta, acquired by Automattic**
If you haven’t already heard of Beeper, welcome! Beeper is a universal chat app for Android, iOS and desktop. Our goal is to build the best chat app on earth. Beeper is built on an open source chat protocol called Matrix. Over time, we’ll help people migrate from proprietary, siloed chat networks to an open standard for chat. If you’re interested in learning about this, we’ve written more about our intentions. ↫ Beeper team Beeper is just great. B ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139220/beeper-leaves-beta-acquired-by-automattic/)
2024-04-09T22:50:34Z	**HP 200LX and related palmtops**
The HP 200 LX was a successful palmtop computer introduced in 1994. HP continued to sell it through 1999, an unusually long run for a 1990s computer model. In this blog post, we’ll dig into this largely forgotten form factor and why it became such a quiet success. ↫ Dave Farquhar These devices are incredibly cool, but I disagree that they disappeared, as the blog post states. Just recently I reviewed my main laptop, a very small Chuwi MiniBook (2023) with the N100, and in ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139222/hp-200lx-and-related-palmtops/)
2024-04-09T23:08:26Z	**iXsystems: focusing on Linux makes more sense than FreeBSD**
A few weeks ago we talked about how iXsystems, the company behind TrueNAS CORE and SCALE, has all but confirmed that its FreeBSD-based CORE product will be put in maintenance mode, while the Linux-based SCALE product will get all the attention and focus from here on out. In an interview with Blocks & Files, the company gave more insight into this choice. “We had a huge chunk of our engineering staff spending time im ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139225/ixsystems-focusing-on-linux-makes-more-sense-than-freebsd/)
2024-04-10T15:02:46Z	**“Why does part of the Windows 98 Setup program look older than the rest?”**
Well, this is something I never knew. Over on the retrocomputing section of StackExchange, someone asked why the second phase of the Windows 98 installation looked decidedly different from the third phase, even though they’re both graphical phases (the first phase is textual). The answer turns out to be both surprising, and entirely predictable. The first phase is a DOS program called DOS ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139231/why-does-part-of-the-windows-98-setup-program-look-older-than-the-rest/)
2024-04-10T15:05:22Z	**Microsoft may want to add a dedicated Windows 11 button for ads and promos**
The company is seemingly contemplating on whether to add a new “Recommended” button on the Taskbar. Interestingly, it is unfinished at the moment, or perhaps Microsoft is just not sure if it should proceed with this button at all. ↫ Sayan Sen at Neowin The beatings will continue until morale improves. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139234/microsoft-may-want-to-add-a-dedicated-windows-11-button-for-ads-and-promos/)
2024-04-10T21:19:10Z	**Microsoft details new features coming in Windows Server 2025**
Microsoft recently held a streaming event in which it detailed a lot of the new features and changes coming in Windows server 2025, and has now followed that up with a blog post, as well. There’s a lot to go over here, and I’m anything but a Windows Server specialist, so I’ll highlight some of the thing I’m certain will be welcomed by Windows Server administrators. First and foremost, the biggest improvement: h ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139236/microsoft-details-new-features-coming-in-windows-server-2025/)
2024-04-10T21:40:21Z	**EU’s new tech laws are working; small mobile browsers gain market share**
Independent browser companies in the European Union are seeing a spike in users in the first month after EU legislation forced Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and Apple to make it easier for users to switch to rivals, according to data provided to Reuters by six companies. The early results come after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act, which aims to remove unfair competition, took effect on ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139238/eus-new-tech-laws-are-working-small-mobile-browsers-gain-market-share/)
2024-04-10T22:39:54Z	**How does the classic Win32 ListView handle incremental searching?**
The classic Win32 ListView supports incremental search: You can start typing the name of an item to search for it. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. ↫ Raymond Chen Gather ’round, children, Mr Chen is telling a story. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139244/how-does-the-classic-win32-listview-handle-incremental-searching/)
2024-04-11T17:44:22Z	**So it begins: Microsoft starts showing full-screen ads about the end of Windows 10 support**
We are about 18 months away from the end of mainstream Windows 10 support, but Microsoft thinks it is time to start nagging warning Windows 10 users about the inevitable. Users on Reddit report spotting a new full-screen ad with a notification that Windows 10 is about to reach its end of life in October 2025, even though it is still getting new features ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139251/so-it-begins-microsoft-starts-showing-full-screen-ads-about-the-end-of-windows-10-support/)
2024-04-11T18:20:21Z	**Humane AI pins review confirm what we already expected: it’s useless trash**
I didn’t want to spend too much time on this thing, but I feel like we can all use a good laugh at a stupid product hyped only by the tech media. The Verge reviewed the Humane AI pin, and entirely predictably, it’s a complete and utter trashfire. But until all of that happens, and until the whole AI universe gets better, faster, and more functional, the AI Pin isn’t going to feel remot ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139253/humane-ai-pins-review-confirm-what-we-already-expected-its-useless-trash/)
2024-04-11T20:46:24Z	**GNU Hurd ported to AArch64, and more Hurd news**
Hurd, the kernel that is supposed to form the basis of the GNU operating system, is perpetually a research project that doesn’t get anywhere close to being a replacement for Linux, but that doesn’t mean the project doesn’t make progress and has a place in the world of operating systems. Their most recent major improvement has been porting GNU Hurd to AArch64, spearheaded by Hurd developer Sergey Bugaev. Since then, however, I have been (so ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139255/gnu-hurd-ported-to-aarch64-and-more-hurd-news/)
2024-04-12T00:11:42Z	**Android 15 Beta 1 is here, but details are still under wraps**
After two months of developer previews, Google has finally released Android 15 Beta 1. While the beta usually offers more user-facing changes, Google is still pretty light on details with this build, giving us only a few more details on what we can expect. Instead, the company is pointing to Google I/O for more details, which will take place on May 14 this year, basically confirming that this is when we will get ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139261/android-15-beta-1-is-here-but-details-are-still-under-wraps/)
2024-04-12T00:18:03Z	**OpenBSD is a cozy operating system**
With the recent release of OpenBSD 7.5, I decided to run through my personal OpenBSD “installer” for laptop/desktop devices. The project is built off of the dwm tiling window manager and only installs a few basic packages. The last time I updated it was with the release of 7.3, so it’s been due for an minor rework. While making these minor changes, I remembered how incredibly easy the entire install process for OpenBSD is and how cozy the entire operating system ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139263/openbsd-is-a-cozy-operating-system/)
2024-04-12T10:29:44Z	**Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers**
Discord has shut down the Discord servers for the Nintendo Switch emulators Suyu and Sudachi and has completely disabled their lead developers’ accounts — and the company isn’t answering our questions about why it went that far. Both Suyu and Sudachi began as forks of Yuzu, the emulator that Nintendo sued out of existence on March 4th. ↫ Sean Hollister at The Verge This is exactly what p ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139267/discord-is-nuking-nintendo-switch-emulator-devs-and-their-entire-servers/)
2024-04-12T10:14:04Z	**DwarfFS: a read-only compression file system**
DwarFS is a read-only file system with a focus on achieving very high compression ratios in particular for very redundant data. DwarFS also doesn’t compromise on speed and for my use cases I’ve found it to be on par with or perform better than SquashFS. For my primary use case, DwarFS compression is an order of magnitude better than SquashFS compression, it’s 6 times faster to build the file system, it’s typically faster to access files on Dwa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139265/dwarffs-a-read-only-compression-file-system/)
2024-04-12T14:45:14Z	**Do not use Kagi**
For quite a while now, you might have noticed various people recommending a search engine called “Kagi”. From random people on the internet, to prominent bloggers like John Gruber and David Pierce, they’ve all been pushing this seemingly new search engine as a paid-for alternative to Google that respects your privacy. Over the past few months to a year, though, more and more cracks started to appear in Kagi’s image, and I’ve been meaning to assemble those cracks and tie a bow on them. Well, it turns ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139270/do-not-use-kagi/)
2024-04-12T14:41:15Z	**Amazon virtually kills efforts to develop Alexa Skills, disappointing dozens**
There was a time when it thought that Alexa would yield a robust ecosystem of apps, or Alexa Skills, that would make the voice assistant an integral part of users’ lives. Amazon envisioned tens of thousands of software developers building valued abilities for Alexa that would grow the voice assistant’s popularity—and help Amazon make some money. But about seven years after launchi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139273/amazon-virtually-kills-efforts-to-develop-alexa-skills-disappointing-dozens/)
2024-04-12T22:31:25Z	**Microsoft tests ads in the Start menu**
Building on top of recent improvements like grouping recently installed apps and showing your frequently used apps, we are now trying out recommendations to help you discover great apps from the Microsoft Store under Recommended on the Start menu. This will appear only for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel in the U.S. and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations). This can be turned off by going to Settings > Personalizatio ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139276/microsoft-tests-ads-in-the-start-menu/)
2024-04-13T20:34:46Z	**VMS Software guts its community licensing program**
VMS Software, the company developing OpenVMS, has announced some considerable changes to its licensing program for hobbyists, and the news is, well, bad. The company claims that demand for hobbyist licenses has been so high that they were unable to process requests fast enough, and as such, that the program is not delivering the “intended benefits”. Despite this apparent high demand, contributions from the community, such as writing ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139246/vms-software-guts-its-community-licensing-program/)
2024-04-14T20:32:53Z	**KDE’s Kate on all platforms**
Kate, KDE’s programming-focused text editor, is, of course, a Qt application, and is also available on a variety of other platforms. Christoph Cullmann, one of the developers of Kate, published a short blog post with screenshots of Kate running on the three biggest platforms – Linux/BSD, Windows, and macOS. Sadly, while Haiku gets a mention, there’s no screenshot of the Haiku version of Kate. Still, it’s interesting to see the family resemblance. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139281/kdes-kate-on-all-platforms/)
2024-04-14T20:41:09Z	**Linux 6.10 to merge NTSYNC driver for emulating Windows NT synchronization primitives**
Going through my usual scanning of all the “-next” Git subsystem branches of new code set to be introduced for the next Linux kernel merge window, a very notable addition was just queued up… Linux 6.10 is set to merge the NTSYNC driver for emulating the Microsoft Windows NT synchronization primitives within the kernel for allowing better performance with Valve’s ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139283/linux-6-10-to-merge-ntsync-driver-for-emulating-windows-nt-synchronization-primitives/)
2024-04-15T13:58:17Z	**Why good external SSDs are faster with Apple silicon**
After several days testing the latest Express 1M2 enclosure from OWC, I have changed my recommendations for the best external SSDs. Previously I had chosen the relatively reliable Thunderbolt 3 up to 3 GB/s, even though few drives ever seemed capable of achieving that up to. If you’re still needing good performance with an Intel Mac, that makes sense. But if you need best performance with an Apple silicon Mac, you’re far bette ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139285/why-good-external-ssds-are-faster-with-apple-silicon/)
2024-04-15T18:42:31Z	**Apple’s mysterious fisheye projection**
If you’ve read my first post about Spatial Video, the second about Encoding Spatial Video, or if you’ve used my command-line tool, you may recall a mention of Apple’s mysterious “fisheye” projection format. Mysterious because they’ve documented a CMProjectionType.fisheye enumeration with no elaboration, they stream their immersive Apple TV+ videos in this format, yet they’ve provided no method to produce or playback third-party content using this projection ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139288/apples-mysterious-fisheye-projection/)
2024-04-15T18:50:36Z	**GestureX: control your Linux machine with hand gestures**
GestureX enables you to control your Linux PC using hand gestures. You can assign specific commands or functionalities to different hand gestures, allowing for hands-free interaction with your computer. ↫ GestureX GitHub page I personally see no use for any of this, but I’m sure there are some interesting accessibility uses for technology like this, which in and of itself make it a worthwhile endeavour to work on. Do note ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139290/gesturex-control-your-linux-machine-with-hand-gestures/)
2024-04-15T20:47:26Z	**Radxa ROCK 5 ITX: a first look**
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the ROCK 5 ITX coming soon and since then, samples of the Rockchip RK3588-based Radxa ROCK 5 ITX have been landing on doorsteps (or service points, screw you, UPS) of a lucky group of people and somehow I was one of those, so here’s a first look at Radxa’s latest Single Board Computer in a Mini ITX form-factor! It’s going to be a photo-heavy post and I make no apologies for that, it’s a very nice-looking PCB, with the black and gold co ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139295/radxa-rock-5-itx-a-first-look/)
2024-04-15T20:59:58Z	**Framework’s software and firmware have been a mess, but it’s working on them**
Framework puts a lot of effort into making its hardware easy to fix and upgrade and into making sure that hardware can stay useful down the line when it’s been replaced by something newer. But supporting that kind of reuse and recycling works best when paired with long-term software and firmware support, and on that front, Framework has been falling short. Framework will need to ste ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139298/frameworks-software-and-firmware-have-been-a-mess-but-its-working-on-them/)
2024-04-15T21:04:42Z	**Fedora intends to fully embrace “AI”, but doesn’t address sourcing or its environmental impact**
All weekend, I’ve been mulling over a recent blog post by Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller, which he wrote and published on behalf of the Fedora Council. Fedora (the KDE version) is my distribution of choice, I love using it, and I consider it the best distribution for desktop use, and not by a close margin either. As such, reading a blog post  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139293/fedora-intends-to-fully-embrace-ai-but-doesnt-address-sourcing-or-its-environmental-impact/)
2024-04-16T12:36:53Z	**Google’s Generic Kernel Image now required on all Android form factors**
New TVs that launch with Android TV 14 or later on Linux kernel 5.15 or higher will be required to meet Google’s Generic Kernel Image (GKI) requirements in order to pass certification! This means that GKI is now enforced on all major Android form factors with AArch64 chipsets: handhelds, watches, automotive, & televisions. ↫ Mishaal Rahman What this means is that all the major Android form fa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139304/googles-generic-kernel-image-now-required-on-all-android-form-factors/)
2024-04-16T12:56:07Z	**Reproducing the printer hack of Windows 95**
During my daily web crawl I encountered a very interesting gif that I haven’t seen in a long time. It was a hack of an unspecified version of Windows 95, which showed how to bypass the login screen with the help of the menu and printing dialog. However, after a brief check, I found a fair amount of people stating that “just hitting the cancel” button would do the same. Sharp-eyed viewers would notice that it was the very first action taken in the ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139308/reproducing-the-printer-hack-of-windows-95/)
2024-04-16T19:29:26Z	**They’re looting the internet**
This is the state of the modern internet — ultra-profitable platforms outright abdicating any responsibility toward the customer, offering not a “service” or a “portal,” but cramming as many ways to interrupt the user and push them into doing things that make the company money. The greatest lie in tech is that Facebook and Instagram are for “catching up with your friends,” because that’s no longer what they do. These platforms are now pathways for the nebulous concept of “co ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139310/theyre-looting-the-internet/)
2024-04-16T21:38:53Z	**Ubuntu 24.04 supports easy installation of OpenZFS root file-system with encryption**
So with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is the ability to continue with a standard EXT4 file-system install, an encrypted file-system using LVM, or using OpenZFS with/without encryption. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS also has the ability to enjoy hardware-backed full-disk encryption with TPM as another new experimental option. Or, of course, the Ubuntu desktop installer continues supporting ma ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139317/ubuntu-24-04-supports-easy-installation-of-openzfs-root-file-system-with-encryption/)
2024-04-17T08:33:29Z	**A better, more compact UI for Firefox**
Proton is Firefox’s new design, starting from Firefox 89. Photon is the old design of Firefox which was used until version 88. Proton’s overall feel is good, but there were a few things I didn’t like and wanted to improve.That’s why this project was born, and Lepton to denote light theme layer. Lepton’s photon styled is preserve Photon’s feeling while keep Original Lepton’s strengths. ↫ Firefox UI Fix GitHub page I do not like the current Firefox user inter ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139322/a-better-more-compact-ui-for-firefox/)
2024-04-17T08:33:29Z	**A better, more compact UI for Firefox**
Proton is Firefox’s new design, starting from Firefox 89. Photon is the old design of Firefox which was used until version 88. Proton’s overall feel is good, but there were a few things I didn’t like and wanted to improve.That’s why this project was born, and Lepton to denote light theme layer. Lepton’s photon styled is preserve Photon’s feeling while keep Original Lepton’s strengths. ↫ Firefox UI Fix GitHub page I do not like the current Firefox user inter ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139322/a-better-more-compact-ui-for-firefox/)
2024-04-17T16:59:52Z	**Framework lays out plan to improve its firmware and software development cycle**
Only two days ago we were talking about the software and firmware issues at Framework, and today the company’s CEO has announced they’re taking some pretty big steps to address these problems. When building products to last, it’s not enough to design the hardware to be repairable, upgradeable, and customizable. The overall longevity of devices as complex as modern notebooks a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139328/framework-lays-out-plan-to-improve-its-firmware-and-software-development-cycle/)
2024-04-17T17:10:58Z	**Microsoft installs Copilot “AI” app on Windows Servers by accident, it claims**
Do you administer Windows Server machines, and were you surprised to find a Windows Copilot application on your servers, that neither you nor your users installed? Well, it turns out that Microsoft installed this application alongside an update to the Edge browser – but the company claims this is in error, and the application will be removed in a future update. Updates to Edge bro ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139330/microsoft-installs-copilot-ai-app-on-windows-servers-by-accident-it-claims/)
2024-04-17T22:15:01Z	**LXQt 2.0.0 released, completes move to Qt 6**
LXQt, the lightweight Qt desktop environment, has released a major new version, which brings with it a whole slew of very important changes and upgrades, with two main focal point. First and foremost, the desktop environment is now using Qt 6 across the board, meaning the transition from Qt 5 to Qt 6 is now complete. To support themes and the LXQt File Dialog for Qt5-based apps you can install libqtxdg-3.12.0, lxqt-qtplugin-1.4.1, and libfm-qt-1 ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139332/lxqt-2-0-0-released-completes-move-to-qt-6/)
2024-04-17T22:27:57Z	**Linus Torvalds really prefers tabs**
Linus Torvalds really doesn’t like spaces – as in, tabs vs. spaces – and got a little annoyed that a commit removed a hidden tab because it “apparently showed breakage in some third-party kernel config parsing tool”. So, Torvalds decided to add some hidden tabs to trigger breakages like this, and is threatening to add more hidden tabs if necessary. It wasn’t clear what tool it was, but let’s make sure it gets fixed. Because if you can’t parse tabs as whitespace, ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139334/linus-torvalds-really-prefers-tabs/)
2024-04-18T09:02:39Z	**Broadcom says “many” VMware perpetual licenses got support extensions**
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan this week publicized some concessions aimed at helping customers and partners ease into VMware’s recent business model changes. Tan reiterated that the controversial changes, like the end of perpetual licensing, aren’t going away. But amid questioning from antitrust officials in the European Union (EU), Tan announced that the company has already given support extensions for ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139345/broadcom-says-many-vmware-perpetual-licenses-got-support-extensions/)
2024-04-18T10:53:35Z	**COSMIC continues march towards alpha release**
COSMIC, System76’s Rust-based desktop that’s going to replace GNOME in Pop!\_OS, is nearing its alpha release, and the Linux OEM has published another blog post detailing the latest progress it’s made. First and foremost, theming support has been further refined by adding support for theming GTK applications (both GTK3 and 4) and flatpak applications. If the user has enabled global themes, these themes will be applied automatically whenever s ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139347/cosmic-continues-march-towards-alpha-release/)
2024-04-18T19:39:23Z	**Google is combining its Android and hardware teams – and it’s all about “AI”**
AI is taking over at Google, and the company is changing in big ways to try to make it happen even faster. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced substantial internal reorganizations on Thursday, including the creation of a new team called “Platforms and Devices” that will oversee all of Google’s Pixel products, all of Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos, and more. The team will be run by R ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139349/google-is-combining-its-android-and-hardware-teams-and-its-all-about-ai/)
2024-04-18T21:32:51Z	**GTK: graphics offload revisited**
We first introduced support for dmabufs and graphics offload last fall, and it is included in GTK 4.14. Since then, some improvements have happened, so it is time for an update. ↫ GTK Development Blog This one’s for the ones smarter than me. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139351/gtk-graphics-offload-revisited/)
2024-04-18T22:10:09Z	**Microsoft shows banner in Settings app to push users from local accounts to Microsoft Accounts**
In this week’s Windows 10 Build 19045.4353 announcement blog post, there was this little gem in the changelog. This update starts the rolls out of account-related notifications for Microsoft accounts in Settings > Home. A Microsoft account connects Windows to your Microsoft apps. The account also backs up all your data and helps you to manage y ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139354/microsoft-shows-banner-in-settings-app-to-push-users-from-local-accounts-to-microsoft-accounts/)
2024-04-19T15:05:24Z	**Corporatism and fascism are two sides of the same coin**
Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China, following an order from the country’s internet watchdog which cited national security concerns. ↫ Juliana Liu at CNN Over the recent months, as Apple had to change some of its business practices to comply with the European Union’s new Digital Markets Act, a still-ongoing process, Apple fans, spearheaded by John Gruber, have pushed Apple to leave the Europe ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139357/corporatism-and-fascism-are-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/)
2024-04-19T15:00:56Z	**DuckDuckGo launches “AI” chat**
DuckDuckGo AI Chat is a private AI-powered chat service that currently supports OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and Anthropic’s Claude chat models. ↫ DuckDuckGo’s new “AI” chat feature I guess I have to find another search engine. ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139360/duckduckgo-launches-ai-chat/)
2024-04-19T20:23:09Z	**Porting 8-bit Sonic 2 to the TI-84+ CE**
It all started in fall of 2022, when I was watching This Does Not Compute’s video on the history of graphing calculator gaming. Around the 5 minute mark, he offhandedly mentions the kind of processors TI’s graphing calculator line uses. Most of them use the Z80, the 89 and 92 use the M68K, and the Nspire line uses an ARM-based processor. That really piqued my interest, since I already knew the processors that Sega’s retro game consoles used: The Z80 for t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139363/porting-8-bit-sonic-2-to-the-ti-84-ce/)
2024-04-20T10:30:44Z	**Firefox nightly now available for Linux on ARM64**
Linux distributions running on ARM have had to roll their own Firefox builds for the architecture since forever, and it seems that Mozilla has taken this to heart as the browser maker is now supplying binary ARM builds of Firefox. They come in either a tarball or a .deb package installable through Mozilla’s apt repository. Do note, though, that Mozilla does not give the same kinds of guarantees for the ARM build of Firefox as they do  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139369/firefox-nightly-now-available-for-linux-on-arm64/)
2024-04-20T15:23:53Z	**Haiku’s Genio IDE introduces symbol outline feature**
Genio, the Haiku OS integrated development environment (IDE), is receiving another exciting update in preparation for the upcoming summer release. The update focuses primarily on improving the Language Server Protocol (LSP) stack and introduces a cool new feature: Symbol Outline. Symbol Outline allows Genio to retrieve the list of symbols defined in a source file from the language server. This list can be sorted, nodes can be exp ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139372/haikus-genio-ide-introduces-symbol-outline-feature/)
2024-04-20T18:16:52Z	**Microsoft wants to hide the ‘Sign out’ button in Windows 11 behind a Microsoft 365 ad**
Microsoft is not done adding more odd stuff into its operating system. Following the not-so-great reception of new Start menu ads in one of the recent Beta builds, Microsoft is bringing even more ads, which, besides being slightly annoying, come at the cost of existing features. In build 22635.3500, the Sign Out button is now hidden behind a menu with a Microsoft  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139374/microsoft-wants-to-hide-the-sign-out-button-in-windows-11-behind-a-microsoft-365-ad/)
2024-04-20T21:00:18Z	**Miracle-wm 0.2.0 released**
Miracle-wm is a Wayland compositor built atop of Mir, and its core is a tiling window manager like i3 and sway. It intends to offer more features compared to those, though, gunning more for swayfx. The project, led by Canonical’s Matthew Kosarek, recently released version 0.2.0, which comes with a bunch of improvements. It supports sway/i3 IPC now, so that it can function in conjunction with Waybar, a very popular tool in the build-it-yourself Wayland window manager space. There’ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139378/miracle-wm-0-2-0-released/)
2024-04-21T21:48:42Z	**Microsoft now lets you download app executables directly from the Microsoft Store website**
Microsoft is on a roll with updating its app store on Windows 10 and 11. Following the recent release of performance upgrades and improved algorithms, the company announced big changes in how the web version of the Microsoft Store works. Now, every user can download app executables directly from the website using new “installers for web.” ↫ Taras Buria a ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139383/microsoft-now-lets-you-download-app-executables-directly-from-the-microsoft-store-website/)
2024-04-21T21:47:02Z	**Lunatik: a framework for scripting the Linux kernel with Lua**
Lunatik is a framework for scripting the Linux kernel with Lua. It is composed by the Lua interpreter modified to run in the kernel; a device driver (written in Lua =)) and a command line tool to load and run scripts and manage runtime environments from the user space; a C API to load and run scripts and manage runtime environments from the kernel; and Lua APIs for binding kernel facilities to Lua scripts. ↫ Lun ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139381/lunatik-a-framework-for-scripting-the-linux-kernel-with-lua/)
2024-04-21T22:25:44Z	**Niri 0.1.5 released**
Earlier this year, we talked about Niri, a very unique tiling window manager for Wayland that scrolls infinitely to the right. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and while it seems polarising, I think it’s absolutely worthy of a dedicated niche. The project’s got a major new release out, and there’s a lot of improvements here. First and foremost, virtually all animations have been overhauled, and new ones have been added for almost every kind of interaction. The videos on the release pa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139385/niri-0-1-5-released/)
2024-04-22T11:20:54Z	**Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges**
One of the remarkable characteristics of the Super Nintendo was the ability for game cartridges (cart) to pack more than instructions and assets into ROM chips. If we open and look at the PCBs, we can find inside things like the CIC copy protection chip, SRAM, and even “enhancement processors”. ↫ Fabien Sanglard When I was a child and teenager in the ’90s, the capabilities of the SNES cartridge were a bit of a legend. We’d talk about what certain games would ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139387/inside-the-super-nintendo-cartridges/)
2024-04-22T11:43:27Z	**New version of Tiny11 Builder lets you debloat any Windows 11 build or version**
The maker of Tiny11, a third-party project that aims to make Windows 11 less bloated with unnecessary parts, released a new version of Tiny11 Builder, a special tool that lets you create a custom Windows 11 image tailored to your needs and preferences. The latest release makes it much easier to create a lightweight Windows 11 ISO without worrying about installing a system mod ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139389/new-version-of-tiny11-builder-lets-you-debloat-any-windows-11-build-or-version/)
2024-04-22T17:42:43Z	**Facebook opens its Android-based Quest operating system to other VR device makers**
Today we’re taking the next step toward our vision for a more open computing platform for the metaverse. We’re opening up the operating system powering our Meta Quest devices to third-party hardware makers, giving more choice to consumers and a larger ecosystem for developers to build for. We’re working with leading global technology companies to bring this new ecosyste ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139391/facebook-opens-its-android-based-quest-operating-system-to-other-vr-device-makers/)
2024-04-22T21:27:57Z	**Paying for it doesn’t make it a market**
Cory Doctorow, nailing it as usual. If you care about how people are treated by platforms, you can’t just tell them to pay for services instead of using ad-supported media. The most important factor in getting decent treatment out of a tech company isn’t whether you pay with cash instead of attention – it’s whether you’re locked in, and thus a flight risk whom the platform must cater to. ↫ Cory Doctorow I’m sick and tired of the phrase “if you’re not payi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139393/paying-for-it-doesnt-make-it-a-market/)
2024-04-22T23:14:47Z	**What we learned inside a North Korean internet server**
A misconfigured North Korean Internet cloud server has provided a fascinating glance into the world of North Korean animation outsourcing and how foreign companies might be inadvertently employing North Korean companies on information technology (IT) projects. The incident also underlines how difficult it is for foreign companies to verify their outsourced work is not potentially breaking sanctions and ending up on computers ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139397/what-we-learned-inside-a-north-korean-internet-server/)
2024-04-23T11:58:33Z	**Making a flute controlled mouse**
There is something about surprising interfaces: clapping to switch on lights is more fun than a flipping a switch. Pressing a panic-button to order a pizza is more fun than ordering via an app. Recently I came across this surprising interface: a flute controlled mouse cursor for a first person shooter. I recognize a good idea when I see one, and immediately wanted replicate the idea and make it freely available. So I got to work. ↫ Joren Six I don’t think I have ever  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139399/making-a-flute-controlled-mouse/)
2024-04-23T12:41:44Z	**Tribblix SPARC milestone 30 released**
Tribblix, the unique ilumos distribution – think Solaris – has a new SPARC milestone. It’s one of the few platforms still actively supporting SPARC, so even if the amount of users might be slim, I think it’s an important contribution to the ecosystem. The application software here roughly corresponds to m34 on x86 systems, although the underlying illumos is still closer to m25/m26. Note that there are no functional illumos changes from the m28 sparc release  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139401/tribblix-sparc-milestone-30-released/)
2024-04-23T12:47:51Z	**NetBSD 9.4 released**
Hot on the heels of NetBSD 10.0 comes NetBSD 9.4, a minor release in the previous release branch. NetBSD 9.4 is primarily a bug and security fix release, however, there are some new features, such as support for more MegaRAID controllers, ZTE MF112 and D-Link DWM222 USB 3G modems, and improved CPU feature detection for newer AMD/Intel devices. All users of netbsd-9 should upgrade if they are not following the stable branch. ↫ NetBSD 9.4 release announcement A very important note here is that ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139403/netbsd-9-4-released/)
2024-04-23T17:49:23Z	**Fedora 40 released with KDE Plasma 6 and GNOME 46**
It’s a big day for Fedora users such as myself – and especially for Fedora KDE users, also such as myself. Fedora 40 has been released today, and while the main focus is always on the GNOME release – although not everyone is happy about that – the various other spins, in Fedora parlance, have also seen major updates. Most prominently among them is the KDE spin, which ships with KDE’s recent megarelease, KDE Plasma 6. Starting at the ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139405/fedora-40-released-with-kde-plasma-6-and-gnome-46/)
2024-04-23T22:47:24Z	**The man who killed Google Search**
These emails — which I encourage you to look up — tell a dramatic story about how Google’s finance and advertising teams, led by Raghavan with the blessing of CEO Sundar Pichai, actively worked to make Google worse to make the company more money. This is what I mean when I talk about the Rot Economy — the illogical, product-destroying mindset that turns the products you love into torturous, frustrating quasi-tools that require you to fight the company’s intentions t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139407/the-man-who-killed-google-search/)
2024-04-23T22:54:36Z	**Logitech adds ChatGPT to its computer mice**
Did you know there’s one surefire way to know when a technology has truly jumped the shark? When they start adding it to computer mice. In today’s fast-paced, technology-enabled world, everyone is learning to work differently with breakthroughs in Generative AI. Mastering prompt building enhances your efficiency and creativity. That’s why we developed the Logi AI Prompt Builder, a time and click-saving solution. Rephrase, summarize, and create cu ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139409/logitech-adds-chatgpt-to-its-computer-mice/)
2024-04-24T08:43:55Z	**OpenBSD as a daily driver**
I always like it when I can link to an article written by an OSNews, and this time it’s even relevant to me as I’m exploring OpenBSD myself. OSNews reader and silver Patreon supporter Morgan has written an article about using OpenBSD as a daily driver. OpenBSD is forever tied in first place with Void Linux as my favorite desktop OS. This is particularly funny because OpenBSD isn’t “just a desktop OS”; in its purest form, the base installation without any installed packages, it ma ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139413/openbsd-as-a-daily-driver/)
2024-04-24T12:51:51Z	**How I tricked iOS into giving me EU DMA features**
In iOS 17.4, Apple introduced a new system called eligibilityd. This works with countryd (which you might have heard about when it first appeared in iOS 16.2) and the Apple ID system to decide where you physically are. The idea is that multiple sources need to agree on where you are, before giving you access to features such as those mandated by the Digital Markets Act. ↫ Adam Demasi The way Adam Demasi managed to convince Apple his v ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139416/how-i-tricked-ios-into-giving-me-eu-dma-features/)
2024-04-24T17:41:17Z	**US Senate passes TikTok ban bill**
A bill that would force China-based company ByteDance to sell TikTok — or else face a US ban of the platform — is all but certain to become law after the Senate passed a foreign aid package including the measure. It now heads to President Joe Biden, who already committed to signing the TikTok legislation should it make it through both chambers of Congress. The House passed the foreign aid package that includes the TikTok bill on Saturday. ↫ Lauren Feiner at The Verg ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139418/us-senate-passes-tiktok-ban-bill/)
2024-04-24T17:58:05Z	**Snapdragon X Plus will bring ARM to ‘even more’ Windows laptops**
While it’s still yet to debut, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite is looking like a big deal for ARM-powered Windows machines and, now, it’s getting a more affordable cousin in the Snapdragon X Plus. Announced today, Snapdragon X Plus is based on the same Oryon CPU as Snapdragon X Elite, just with a bit less power. The chip has 10 cores to the Elite’s 12, and is also clocked down from the Elite’s 3.8GHz to 3.4GH ... ⌘ [Read more](https://www.osnews.com/story/139421/snapdragon-x-plus-will-bring-arm-to-even-more-windows-laptops/)