There are two kinds of people today; those who see AI as a threat to craftsmanship, and those who see it as a tool to get work done faster. The debate is loud, ideological, often emotional, and certainly inconclusive.
The coding world is seeing a paradigm shift as AI is steadily slipping into the development workflow, not by force, but by usefulness. It writes boilerplate, spots bugs, suggests patterns, and frees human minds for harder problems.
And this is not only for Gen Z, even the aging developers have started embracing it. The latest example being Linus Torvalds, who worked on a fun side project during the holidays and took help of AI for the Python-based visualizer.
Abhishek Prakash
Here's the highlight of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
- Pacman's Rust counterpart in works.
- Dash to Dock tweaking guide.
- Multiple live distros on one USB.
- FOSS Android app of the month.
- And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
📰 Linux and Open Source News
Here's a summary of the news this week.
Fedora 44 is on track to ship KDE's new Plasma Login Manager. While it is still in the experimental stage, the on-ground progress appears to be good enough for the FESCo to vote in favor of it.
A recent research report shows that Linux kernel bugs hide for 2+ years on average. This was led by a researcher at Pebblebed who analyzed 125,183 bugs from 20 years of Linux kernel development history (on Git). Just a reminder that bugs do not necessarily mean vulnerabilities.
The European Union seems to be testing the open source waters with their latest call for evidence. They are pitching for a measured approach to open source, covering fields like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, open hardware, internet technologies, and industrial applications.
There are whispers that the ALPM project could one day replace Pacman, but nothing is set in stone as of now. The developers recently published a year-end report that got people talking.
auto-cpufreq 3.0 is a packed release that has arrived with better battery handling, CPU turbo control, support for battery charging thresholds for ASUS laptops, and several bug fixes.
Microsoft has open-sourced its visual development tool for building Windows application interfaces. But that's not all; there is a 2.0 release planned that will be delivering a complete interface overhaul.
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
Fedora could really use a better way to install GNOME Shell Extensions. I have said that in the past, but this time, the proposal came from a Fedora developer.
Sourav Rudra
Why should you opt for It's FOSS Plus membership:
✅ 5 FREE eBooks on Linux, Docker and Bash
✅ Ad-free reading experience
✅ Badges in the comment section and forum
✅ Supporting creation of educational Linux materials
🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings
Dash to Dock is one of the most downloaded GNOME extensions out there. Explore what kind of tweaks you can achieve with it.
Seeing that there is a new ArchBang Linux release, why not distrohop and try it out by installing it?
Window tiling is looking big in 2026, and we are all for it.
Learn to pretty print a JSON file in the Linux terminal. This can be useful for quickly going through minified JSON files.
By the way, did you know that you can do some level of PDF editing with LibreOffice? I know, most people are not aware of it.
👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner
Amazon Kindle is soo 2025, why not build your own eBook reader?
Pulkit Chandak
You can use Ollama on Ubuntu to run AI locally on Ubuntu.
✨ Apps and Projects Highlights
StoryPad can be your wingman through daily life. Check it out, you won't be disappointed!
Sourav Rudra
📽️ Videos for You
Ventoy is an amazing tool. Saves the trouble of formatting the USB just for the sake of putting another distro on it. Learn how you can have multiple distros on one live USB in this video.
💡 Quick Handy Tip
In Linux file managers like Dolphin and Nautilus, you can hold the Control key and drag a file to another folder to copy it. I know this is extremely basic but you'll be surprised that many people don't know about it.
🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
Can you guess all these essential Ubuntu shortcuts? The reward for that is the dopamine hit you will get after you beat this puzzle.
Ankush Das
🤣 Meme of the Week: It feels like I entered some dystopian timeline.
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On January 15, 1986, the National Science Foundation opened the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, creating a groundbreaking hub for high-performance computing research that would later gain widespread recognition as the birthplace of the Mosaic web browser, which helped popularize the World Wide Web.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: There's a discussion going on over Zena OS. Do you have any insights to add?
I have simplified the login process for members. Just click the clearly labeled 'log in' button. That's it. Enjoy It's FOSS.
