echo "Happy New Year"New year, new me? Nope... Same old me, same old It's FOSS.
But I do have plans to make some new changes on It's FOSS. You know, add some freshness gradually. I'll introduce these changes when they are available through this newsletter.
For starters, you'll notice a subtle change in the new section of the newsletter. I am including context to the news article. This way, you will have the important updates at quick glance. And you will click to read a news article only when it interests you.
This is a small change but helps increase the usefulness of the newsletter. There will be many such small but effective changes. Keep an eye for them 😄
I hope you start the year 2026 on a happy note, and improving your Linux skills is one of your new year resolutions 💪🐧
We are aiming for 100 new lifetime Plus subscribers this holiday season. I thought that we would reach the goal before year end itself, but that did not happen.
But I have faith in readers like you. You won't let us down. Your support is what keep It's FOSS going for the past 13 years.
If you think It's FOSS is doing great work, please support us by opting for a Plus membership. You also get 5 eBooks on Linux, Docker and Bash scripting.
Our lifetime membership option is available for $89 (instead of $149). This special price is applicable for at least one more week. Hopefully, we will cross the mark of 100 new lifetime supporters.
Reminder for your season's gift 🎁: If you are a Plus member, you'll find a Docker eBook and a couple more in the Pro member resource page.
Here's the highlight of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
- Co-creator of Go being furious over AI.
- Distros that could grow big in 2026.
- Hyprland dot file collection.
- NXP SBC experience.
- New year themed quizzes.
- And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
- This week of FOSS Weekly is supported by Packt.
Upgrade Your Ubuntu Knowledge in 2026
Master Ubuntu from the inside out. Written by Ubuntu Core developer Ken VanDine, this comprehensive book takes you from installation to advanced workflows. It covers desktop customization, security hardening, containers, and development environments. Perfect for power users ready to unlock Ubuntu’s full potential. You get insider knowledge that will transform the way you use Ubuntu Linux.
📰 Linux and Open Source News
Here's a summary of the news this week.
CachyOS is looking to offer a dedicated server edition with many bells and whistles. It will be interesting to see if it can offer similar performance boost on servers, too. Although, using a rolling release distro on servers is unconventional.
If you have an older NVIDIA GPU on Arch Linux, pay attention. Arch Linux recently switched to the NVIDIA 590 driver, which dropped support for Pascal (GTX 10xx) and older GPUs (GTX 900) on Linux. This decision has upset some users.
Not everything is being dropped. The 'universal operating system' Debian has embraced LoongArch processors with official loong64 support. Now loong64 will receive the same build, release, and security processes as Debian's other primary architectures. In case you didn't know, loong64 is the 64-bit architecture associated with LoongArch, an instruction set developed by Loongson, a Chinese processor manufacturer.
Hyprland released version 0.53 with crash recovery and safe mode features. Makes Hyprland more attractive to use, I think.
The NTFSPlus driver is now only NTFS in the Linux kernel; it should prevent any confusion going forward.
Open-source bootloader U-Boot has joined the Software Freedom Conservancy in a surprise late-2025 move.
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
Co-creator of Go, Rob Pike, lashed out over an AI slop email he got that thanked him for his contributions. Afterall, an automated, AI-generated email, sent by an AI agent will definitely not feel like appreciation.
Abhishek Prakash
🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings
We have a list of interesting new distributions that may see bigger userbase in 2026. Please note that this list deliberately excludes newer versions of established distros like Ubuntu 26.04, Fedora 44 etc.
Roland Taylor
There is an unofficial PPA to get COSMIC on Ubuntu, but do it only if you really want to test it.
Sourav Rudra
You can take your Hyprland setup to the next level easily with these dotfiles shared by communities and compiled by us. Even if you don't use Hyprland, you can at least look at beautiful desktop screenshots ;)
Neville Ondara
Still not comfortable with the terminal? We have a series of tutorials written in practical, hands-on manner to help you explore the Linux command line as a beginner. Start your 2026 with this?
Abhishek
👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner
I tested out an industrial-grade SBC, and it made me realize how the needs of a tinkerer differ from those of a commercial-grade consumer.
Abhishek Prakash
✨ Apps and Projects Highlights
As we bid goodbye to 2025, these are some of the Linux apps Sourav discovered and loved in the previous year.
Sourav Rudra
This new GNOME extension allows you to bring back vertical scrolling to the app grid.
📽️ Videos for You
I am running a bit late for this week's video. I would blame it on holiday season instead of my laziness. While the new video is likely to be published on Saturday, you can surely take advantage of this evergreen terminal customization video that has crossed 100K views on YouTube. This is also our most-viewed video of the year 2025.
💡 Quick Handy Tip
When you press CTRL+C on a file or folder, GNOME copies both the file itself and its path to the clipboard.
- Paste into a file manager with
CTRL+V→ The file is copied. - Paste into a text editor with
CTRL + Vor into the terminal withCTRL+SHIFT+V→ The full path is pasted.
Remember, the context decides the paste!
🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
Start 2026 with some new year themed puzzles:
- Play the new year countdown command quiz
- Match commands with your new year intentions
- Open the open source almanac for 2026
Abhishek Prakash
🤣 Meme of the Week: Yeah, I am starting 2026 with some copium. 😝
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On January 3, 1983, Time magazine broke tradition and named the personal computer its "Machine of the Year" (formerly "Man of the Year"), making it the first non-human recipient of the award since its inception in 1927 and highlighting how PCs were rapidly transforming workplaces, homes, and communication by connecting people to networks, databases, and electronic mail.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: An interesting debate is going surrounding whether discussing proprietary software should be allowed on a FOSS forum.
xahodo
❤️ With love
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