QuillOS: Alpine-based Linux distribution optimised for Kobo e-readers Any computing device will inevitably get a custom operating system - whether based on an existing operating system or something entirely custom - and of course, Kobo e-readers are no exception. QuillOS is an Alpine Linux-based distribution specifically developed for the unique challenges of e-readers

QuillOS: Alpine-based Linux distribution optimised for Kobo e-readers – OSnews

#Mobile

Haiku gets new Go port There's a new Haiku monthly activity report, and this one's a true doozy. Let's start with the biggest news. The most notable development in November was the introduction of a port of the Go programming language, version 1.18. This is still a few years old (from 2022; the current is Go 1.25), but it’s far newer than the previous Go port to Haiku (1.4 from 2014); and unlike the previous po

Haiku gets new Go port – OSnews

#Haiku

Rethinking sudo with object capabilities Alpine Linux maintainer Ariadne Conill has published a very interesting blog post about the shortcomings of both sudo and doas, and offers a potential different way of achieving the same goals as those tools. Systems built around identity-based access control tend to rely on ambient authority: policy is centralized and errors in the policy con

Rethinking sudo with object capabilities – OSnews

#PrivacySecurity

One too many words on AT&T’s $2000 Korn shell and other Usenet topics Unix has been enormously successful over the past 55 years. It started out as a small experiment to develop a time-sharing system (i.e., a multi-user operating system) at AT&T Bell Labs. The goal was to take a few core principles to their logical conclusion. The OS bundled many small tools that were

One too many words on AT&T’s $2000 Korn shell and other Usenet topics – OSnews

#Unix

COSMIC Desktop reaches first stable release System76, creator of Pop!_OS and prominent Linux OEM, has just announced the release of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS - normally not something I particularly care about, but in this case, it comes with the first stable release of COSMIC Desktop. COSMIC is a brand new desktop environment by System76, written in Rust, and after quite some time in deve

COSMIC Desktop reaches first stable release – OSnews

#DesktopEnvironments

Windows 3.1’s infamous “Hot Dog Stand” colour scheme was not a joke I'm sure most of us here are aware of the bright red-and-yellow colour scheme called "Hot Dog Stand", included in Windows 3.1. While it's not the only truly garish colour scheme included in Windows 3.1, its name probably did a lot to make it stand out from the others. There's been a ton of speculati

Windows 3.1’s infamous “Hot Dog Stand” colour scheme was not a joke – OSnews

#Windows

Using “AI” to manage your Fedora system seems like a really bad idea IBM owns Red Hat which in turn runs Fedora, the popular desktop Linux distribution. Sadly, shit rolls downhill, so we're starting to see some worrying signs that Fedora is going to be used a means to push "AI". Case in point, this article in the Fedora Magazine: Generative AI systems are cha

Using “AI” to manage your Fedora system seems like a really bad idea – OSnews

#FedoraCore

FreeBSD debates sunsetting power64/power64le support I have some potentially devastating news for POWER users interested in using FreeBSD, uncovered late last month by none other than Cameron Kaiser. FreeBSD is considering retiring powerpc64 prior to branching 16, which would make FreeBSD 15 the last stable version to support the architecture. (32-bit PowerPC is already dropped a

FreeBSD debates sunsetting power64/power64le support – OSnews

#FreeBSD

US government switches to Times New Roman because Calibri is “woke” Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department’s official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a “wasteful” sop to diversity. While mostly framed as a matter of cl

US government switches to Times New Roman because Calibri is “woke” – OSnews

#ClownCar

What do Linux kernel version numbers mean? If you're old enough, you no doubt remember that up until the 2.6.0 release of the Linux kernel, an odd number after the first version number indicated a pre-release, development version of the kernel. Even though this scheme was abandoned with the 2.6.0 release in 2003 and since then every single release has been a stable release, it seems the ghosts of

What do Linux kernel version numbers mean? – OSnews

#Linux