OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based specialist operating system (and a fork of pfSense) designed for firewalls and routers. It is developed by Deciso B.V. in the Netherlands. Some of the features of OPNsense include forward caching proxy, traffic shaping, intrusion detection, two-factor authentication and easy OpenVPN client setup. The project's focus on security brings a number of unique features, such as the option to use LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL (selectable in the GUI). OPNsense also includes an update mechanism that delivers important security updates in a timely fashion.
Br OS is a Brazilian Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. It is designed as an intuitive, easy-to-use, general-purpose operating system for web navigation and content creation, providing a selection of useful applications for daily use.
In addition to Blender 5.0 supporting HDR on Linux when using the Vulkan API and with Wayland, another important high dynamic range (HDR) milestone landed this week into Blender: the ability to both import and export HDR videos...
Liya is an Arch Linux-based, rolling release distribution. The project uses the Calamares system installer to set up the distribution which offers users the Cinnamon desktop environment, Pamac graphical package manager, and OnlyOffice. The system is intended to be easy to use, easy to explore, and distraction-free.
With the Linux 6.16 stable kernel potentially being released this coming Sunday, the Linux 6.17 merge window is quickly approaching. Btrfs maintainer and SUSE engineer David Sterba sent out the Btrfs pull request already of new feature code for this copy-on-write file-system in Linux 6.17...
For those making use of Open Virtual Machine Firmware (OVMF) such as for UEFI booting of VMs with KVM+QEMU, the upcoming Linux 6.17 kernel is set to offer a convenient new driver to help in debugging the system boot when needed...
Pogocache 1.0 was released today as a fast open-source caching software that aims for low latency and great CPU efficiency. Pogocache supports Memcache / Valkey / Redis / HTTP / Postgres wire protocols while claiming to offer much better throughput and lower latency than these caching alternatives...
Cloud Hypervisor is the open-source, Rust-based VMM started originally by Intel engineers but under the stewardship of the Linux Foundation has evolved into a nice multi-vendor initiative with the likes of Microsoft, Cyberus, Arm, and others all contributing. Even with Intel's cutbacks due to their ongoing corporate restructuring, the Cloud Hypervisor project is thriving as a multi-vendor open-source project for a security-focused hypervisor...
The newest open-source Linux kernel driver being worked on for the growing accelerator "accel" subsystem is a new hardware driver courtesy of Arm for enabling their Ethos U65 and U85 NPUs...
Thunderbird 141 open-source email client is now available for download with a new 'Archive' action for email notifications and other changes. Here's what's new!
A big update to OBS Studio Snap package is available to test, with Canonical rebasing the software on top of Core24 and switching the source code it is built from.
The bump to the Snap core is needed as the latest OBS Studio 31.1 release drops support for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, as Canonical software engineer Vanda Hendrychová notes:
“Until now the snap has been running on core22; however, official builds of OBS Studio version 31.0 and subsequent releases are only available for Ubuntu 24.04 and later.We have upgraded the base snap to core24 in order to ensure close alignment with […] upstream.”
This shift will make it easier to maintain the Snap, but it’s not without a caveat: OBS Studio Portable includes “popular third-party plugins out-of-the-box”. The updated version, being built from vanilla source code, does not.
Users can continue to install plugins in the Snap manually, but Hendrychová notes that “OBS Studio plugins are shared libraries, they must be built with the same library versions as those present in the snap”.
To workaround this, she suggests using an Ubuntu 24.04 LXD container for building custom plugins.
Better Intel GPU Support
Intel GPU acceleration is improved in the new build – and AI plugins are planned!
Intel GPU hardware acceleration is improved in this new version due to the inclusion of packages from the Intel Graphics PPA, which is also maintained by Canonical.
Additionally, AI plugins “optimized for Intel hardware” are reportedly going added in a later release. I expect these to be Intel OpenVINO plugins that Audacity offers.
Anyone with hardware able to make use of them should keep an eye out, as they includes features like noise suppression, audio ‘super resolution’, and music generation.
How to test the improvements
Community users are being asked to test the rebased, retooled OBS Studio Snap by installing it from the candidate channel. Those with a stable version installed can switch by running snap refresh obs-studio --channel latest/candidate.
Should testing go fine, the update will roll out to all user on the stable channel in the coming weeks.
The OBS Studio Snap package is, like many apps on the Snap Store, not maintained by its upstream developers, but Ubuntu community members who work under the umbrella of ‘Snapcrafters‘. The OBS Studio offer an official DEB and Flatpak on Flathub.
If you plan on testing this update, and you need or want to report issues you find, you should do so by opening an issue on the Snapcrafters GitHub page for the OBS Studio Snap package.
The crew working on enhancing the FreeBSD laptop support is hoping to have an install option within the installer of FreeBSD 15 that will easily provide a KDE Plasma based desktop environment...
The first release candidate of Python 3.14 is now available for testing as what will be this year's big feature update to this popular scripting language...
Death Road to Canada is a lot of fun and so I have great expectations for the next game from Rocketcat Games, which is a spiritual sequel named Space Dingus.
The Fedora project is seeking feedback from its user and developer community over potentially updating its release criteria to no longer block on optical media boot issues (DVD images) as well as whether to continue honoring dual boot issues for Intel-based Macs as release-blocking...
While downstream Ubuntu is the most popular Linux option for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X powered "Windows on Arm" laptops, that's because of their concept images containing a number of "hacked packages" to lead to a decent user experience. But for upstream Debian Linux the prospects of running it on Snapdragon X Elite/Plus laptops is less than ideal with a number of problems persisting -- similar to other Linux distributions focused on running the mainline Linux kernel and other upstream software...
IPFire is a Linux distribution that focuses on easy setup, good handling and high level of security. It is operated via an intuitive web-based interface which offers many configuration options for beginning and experienced system administrators. IPFire is maintained by developers who are concerned about security and who update the product regularly to keep it secure. IPFire ships with a custom package manager called Pakfire and the system can be expanded with various add-ons.
Connexion
OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based specialist operating system (and a fork of pfSense) designed for firewalls and routers. It is developed by Deciso B.V. in the Netherlands. Some of the features of OPNsense include forward caching proxy, traffic shaping, intrusion detection, two-factor authentication and easy OpenVPN client setup. The project's focus on security brings a number of unique features, such as the option to use LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL (selectable in the GUI). OPNsense also includes an update mechanism that delivers important security updates in a timely fashion. 
Br OS is a Brazilian Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. It is designed as an intuitive, easy-to-use, general-purpose operating system for web navigation and content creation, providing a selection of useful applications for daily use. 
Liya is an Arch Linux-based, rolling release distribution. The project uses the Calamares system installer to set up the distribution which offers users the Cinnamon desktop environment, Pamac graphical package manager, and OnlyOffice. The system is intended to be easy to use, easy to explore, and distraction-free. 
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IPFire is a Linux distribution that focuses on easy setup, good handling and high level of security. It is operated via an intuitive web-based interface which offers many configuration options for beginning and experienced system administrators. IPFire is maintained by developers who are concerned about security and who update the product regularly to keep it secure. IPFire ships with a custom package manager called Pakfire and the system can be expanded with various add-ons.