It's FOSS reader Mišo Oroz shares how he migrated a small transport and logistics company in, Bergamo, Italy to Linux and open source to reduce cost and ordinary technical problems. This is the kind of positive stories we need to hear more.
Another positive news is that Rune, a Go-based IDE for Linux and macOS, went GPLv3 this week with no CLA requirements, with contributors keeping copyright over their work. The more interesting part is the revenue-sharing plan. Accepted contributions earn credits, and a slice of eligible service revenue gets split among contributors based on those credits.
Check out the features in newly released GNOME 51. Arch-based distro users should get it in the next few weeks, hopefully. Upcoming major releases like Ubuntu 26.10 and Fedora 45 will also offer it.
Ubuntu has completed its coreutils migration to Rust, with cp, mv, and rm finally making the jump. Earlier, an audit commissioned by Canonical found 113 problems across two rounds, 44 of which got assigned CVEs, and the vast majority are now resolved.
Mirko Brombin, the creator of Bottles, recently got Microsoft 365 installing, signing in, and launching Word on Linux using unreleased software that he is currently working on. Don't get your hopes too high, though. It's all experimental.
The Linux kernel is finally moving ahead on some of the 32-bit ARM platform removals that have been on the table for years. Initially, thirteen patches target Linux 7.4, covering old hardware like the Acorn RiscPC, SA1100 boards, OMAP24xx, and various STM32 microcontrollers.
Leaving VMware just got harder thanks to Broadcom quietly revoking public access to VDDK, the SDK that backup and migration tools use to read VMware virtual disks.
This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by Uruky.
Search without ads or tracking. Uruky is a paid and private search engine focused on personal search customization, not an ecosystem.
EU-based. No surveillance capitalism.
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
Bruce Schneier and EFF's Cindy Cohn have written a strong piece on how mass surveillance has outlived its terrorism justification. Instead, it's being used to breach constitutional rights and carry out systemic abuse.
Bruce Schneier
🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings
This time I have another LibreOffice hack to share with you. If you are bothered by having to manually right-click document pages to extract images, you can extract all the images by saving your documents as HTML.
Ubuntu's default sudo timeout is 15 minutes, but one line in visudo is all it takes to change it.
Done with Trello? We have tested and compared seven open source alternatives, with a pick for each use case. Kan if you're migrating an existing Trello board; Fizzy if you want something deliberately minimal; Vikunja if you need the full self-hosted package.
Sooner or later, you will see a keyring popup in most Linux distributions. Perhaps it's a good time to learn what this actually is.
Abhishek Prakash
Desktop Linux is mostly neglected by the industry but loved by the community. For the past 14 years, It's FOSS has been helping people use Linux on their personal computers. And we are now facing the existential threat from AI models stealing our content.
If you like what we do and would love to support our work, please become It's FOSS Plus member. It costs $49 a year (less than the cost of a McDonald's burger a month), and you get an ad-free reading experience with the satisfaction of helping the desktop Linux community. And there are also free Linux ebooks.
👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner
MAKERphone 2.0 is a DIY bar phone kit you assemble without needing to solder anything. It is ESP32-S3 powered, supports 4G LTE, and has swappable modules for IR, camera, speaker, and sensors, as well as a headphone jack.
Abhishek Prakash
✨ Apps and Projects Highlights
Paperweight scans your inbox locally to build a picture of every mailing list, forgotten account, and known data breach tied to your email address.
Pulkit Chandak
📽️ Videos for You
I also did a video review of the Immurok fingerprint reader on our YouTube channel. It is more than just a regular fingerprint reader, as it lets you use sudo, SSH and even TOTP authentication. See it in action in the video or read the review.
💡 Quick Handy Tip
In KDE Plasma, without losing focus of the current window, you can:
- Move a background window:
Meta + Left-click - Resize background window:
Meta + Right-click - Move a window to and fro from the background:
Meta + Middle click
There are other actions you can assign to it as well. The settings are available under Window Management -> Window Behavior -> Window Actions. You can see the available options above.
🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
Did you know that Z shell (Zsh) is older than Linux? Perhaps you can test more of your Zsh knowledge in the latest quiz.
Abhishek Prakash
Seems like the action of a Windows user ;)
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On September 14, 1959, Bank of America officially adopted ERMA, letting computers read checks via magnetic-ink account numbers. Developed at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), this innovation automated banking and launched the magnetic ink character recognition tech still used on checks today.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: Laura, one of our regular FOSSers is celebrating Software Freedom Day along with other FOSSers; why don't you join them?
If this helped you, consider supporting It's FOSS
It's FOSS has been helping people use Linux for the past 14 years. Help us stay independent from big tech. Become a Plus member, enjoy ad-free reading and get 5 eBooks.
