BrianFagioli writes: Little Snitch, the well known macOS tool that shows which applications are connecting to the internet, is now being developed for Linux. The developer says the project started after experimenting with Linux and realizing how strange it felt not knowing what connections the system was making. Existing tools like OpenSnitch and various command line utilities exist, but none provided the same simple experience of seeing which process is connecting where and blocking it with a click. The Linux version uses eBPF for kernel level traffic interception, with core components written in Rust and a web based interface that can even monitor remote Linux servers.

During testing on Ubuntu, the developer noticed the system was relatively quiet on the network. Over the course of a week, only nine system processes made internet connections. By comparison, macOS reportedly showed more than one hundred processes communicating externally. Applications behave similarly across platforms though. Launching Firefox immediately triggered telemetry and advertising related connections, while LibreOffice made no network connections at all during testing. The early release is meant primarily as a transparency tool to show what software is doing on the network rather than a hardened security firewall.

"It's finally time," writes Phoronix — since "no known Linux distribution vendors are still shipping with i486 CPU support."

"A patch queued into one of the development branches ahead of the upcoming Linux 7.1 merge window is set to finally begin the process of phasing out and ultimately removing Intel 486 CPU support from the Linux kernel."

More details from XDA-Developers: Authored by Ingo Molnar, the change, titled "x86/cpu: Remove M486/M486SX/ELAN support," begins dismantling Linux's built-in support for the i486, which was first released back in 1989. As the changelog notes, even Linus is keen to cut ties with the architecture: "In the x86 architecture we have various complicated hardware emulation facilities on x86-32 to support ancient 32-bit CPUs that very very few people are using with modern kernels. This compatibility glue is sometimes even causing problems that people spend time to resolve, which time could be spent on other things. As Linus recently remarked: 'I really get the feeling that it's time to leave i486 support behind. There's zero real reason for anybody to waste one second of development effort on this kind of issue'..."

If you're one of the rare few who still keep the decades-old CPU alive, your best bet will be to grab an LTS Linux distro that keeps the older version of Linux for a few more years.

"Canonical is no longer pretending that 4GB is enough," writes the blog How-to-Geek, noting Ubuntu 26.04 LTS "raises the baseline memory to 6GB, alongside a 2GHz dual-core processor, and 25GB of storage..." Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) set the floor at 1GB — a modest ask when it launched more than a decade ago in 2014. Then came the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) that pushed the number to 4GB, surviving quite well in the era of 16GB being considered standard for mid-range laptops.... Ubuntu's new minimum requirement lands in an interesting spot when compared against Windows 11. Microsoft's operating system requires just 4GB RAM, although real-world usage often tells a different story. Usually, 8GB is considered the sweet spot to handle modern apps and multitasking.
The blog OMG Ubuntu argues this change is "not because Ubuntu requires 2GB more memory than it did, but more the way we compute does." it's more of an honesty bump. Components that make up the distro — the GNOME desktop and extensions, modern web browsers (and the sites we load in them) and the kinds of apps we use (and keep running) whilst multitasking are more demanding... The Resolute Raccoon's memory requirements better reflect real-world multitasking.

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS can be installed on devices with less than 6GB RAM (but not less than 25GB of disk space). The experience may not be as smooth or as responsive as developers intend (so you don't get to complain), but it will work. I installed Ubuntu 26.04 Beta on a laptop with just 2 GB of memory — slow to the point of frustration in use, but otherwise functional.

If you have a device with 4 GB RAM and you can't upgrade (soldered memory is a thing, and e-waste can be avoided), then alternatives exist. Many Ubuntu flavours, like Lubuntu, have lower system requirements than the main edition. Plus, there's always the manual option using the Ubuntu netboot installer to install a base system and then built out a more minimal system from there.

Valve's March 2026 Steam Survey shows Linux gaming usage jumping to a record 5.33% share -- more than double macOS's 2.35%. Phoronix reports: Steam on Linux was never above 5% and easily an all-time high for the Linux gaming marketshare, especially in absolute numbers. It was a massive 3.1% spike in March while macOS also jumped surprisingly by 1.19% to 2.35%. The Steam Survey numbers show Windows losing 4.28%, down to 92.33%.

Part of the jump at least appears to be explained by Valve correcting again the Steam China numbers. Month over month they report a 31.85% drop to the Simplified Chinese language use and English use increasing by 16.82% to 39.09%. Other languages also showed gains amid the massive decline in Simplified Chinese use.

The latest numbers for March show around a quarter of the Linux gamers are running Steam OS. Due in part to the Steam Deck APU being a custom AMD product and the popularity of AMD hardware on Linux for its open-source nature, AMD CPU use by Steam on Linux gamers remains just under 70%.

It's FOSS interviewed a software engineer whose long-running open source contributions include Python code for the Arch Linux installer and maintaining packages for NixOS. But "a recent change he made to systemd has pushed him into the spotlight" after he'd added the optional birthDate field for systemd's user database: Critics saw it not merely as a technical addition, but as a symbolic capitulation to government overreach. A crack in the philosophical foundation of freedom that Linux is built on. What followed went far beyond civil disagreement. Dylan revealed that he faced harassment, doxxing, death threats, and a flood of hate mail. He was forced to disable issues and pull request tabs across his GitHub repositories...


Q: Should FOSS projects adapt to laws they fundamentally disagree with? Because these kinds of laws are certainly in conflict with what a lot of Linux users believe in.

A. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, the answer is yes — at least for any distribution with corporate backing. The small independent distributions are much more flexible to refuse as a protest.

If we ignore regulations entirely, we risk Linux being something that companies are not willing to contribute to, and Linux may be shipped on less hardware. I'm talking about things like Valve and System76 (despite them very vocally hating these laws). That does not help us; it just lowers the quality of software contributions due to less investment in the platform and makes Linux less accessible to the average person. We need Linux and other free operating systems to remain a viable alternative to closed systems.

Q. Do you think regulations like these will reshape desktop Linux in the next 5-10 years where we might have "compliant Linux" and "Freedom-first Linux"?

A. Unfortunately, yes, to some degree this is likely. I imagine the split will be mostly along the lines of independent distributions and those with corporate backing.

We're already seeing it as far as which distributions plan on implementing some sort of age verification and which ones are not, and that sucks. I'd rather nobody have to deal with this mess at all, but this is the reality of things now. As I said in the previous response, the corporate-backed distributions really have no choice in the matter. Companies are notoriously risk-adverse, but something like Artix or Devuan? Those are small and independent enough where the individual maintainers may be willing to take on more risk.

I was actually thinking about what this would look like if we added it to [Linux system installer] Calamares and chatting about that with the maintainers before that thread got brigaded by bad actors posting personal information and throwing around insults. I completely support the freedom for the distro maintainers to choose their risk tolerance. If the distribution is based out of Ireland or something (like Linux Mint) without these silly laws in the jurisdiction the developer operates in, I think that we should leave it up to them to make a choice here.
They think the installer should have a date picker with a flag to disable it, and "We can even default it to off, and corporate distributions using Calamares or those not willing to take the risk could flip it on if they need to. That way if maintainers of the distributions do not wish to collect the birth date, they won't have to, and no forking is required to patch it out."

Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman tells The Register that AI-driven code review has "really jumped" for Linux. "There must have been some inflection point somewhere with the tools..." "Something happened a month ago, and the world switched. Now we have real reports." It's not just Linux, he continued. "All open source projects have real reports that are made with AI, but they're good, and they're real." Security teams across major open source projects talk informally and frequently, he noted, and everyone is seeing the same shift. "All open source security teams are hitting this right now...."

For now, AI is showing up more as a reviewer and assistant than as a full author of Linux kernel code, but that line is starting to blur. Kroah-Hartman has already done his own experiments with AI-generated patches. "I did a really stupid prompt," he recounted. "I said, 'Give me this,' and it spit out 60: 'Here's 60 problems I found, and here's the fixes for them.' About one-third were wrong, but they still pointed out a relatively real problem, and two-thirds of the patches were right." Mind you, those working patches still needed human cleanup, better changelogs, and integration work, but they were far from useless. "The tools are good," he said. "We can't ignore this stuff. It's coming up, and it's getting better...." [H]e said that for "simple little error conditions, properly detecting error conditions," AI could already generate dozens of usable patches today.

The sudden increase in AI-generated reports and AI-assisted work has also spurred a parallel push to build AI into the kernel's own review infrastructure. A key piece of that is Sashiko, a tool originally developed at Google and now donated to the Linux Foundation.
Kroah-Hartman said some patches are being generated with AI now. "You have a little co-develop tag for that now. We're seeing some things for some new features, but we're seeing AI mostly being used in the review."

"The systemd project merged a pull request adding a new birthDate field to the JSON user records managed by userdb in response to the age verification laws of California, Colorado, and Brazil," reports the blog It's FOSS.

They note that the field "can only be set by administrators, not by users themselves" — it's the same record that already holds metadata like realName, emailAddress, and location: Lennart Poettering, the creator of systemd, has clarified that this change is "an optional field in the userdb JSON object. It's not a policy engine, not an API for apps. We just define the field, so that it's standardized iff people want to store the date there, but it's entirely optional. "

In simple words, this is something that adds a new, optional field that can then be used by other open source projects like xdg-desktop-portal to build age verification compliance on top of, without systemd itself doing anything with the data or making it mandatory to provide. A merge request asking for this change to be repealed was struck down by Lennart, who gave the above-mentioned reasoning behind this, and further noted that people were misunderstanding what systemd is trying to do here.
"It enforces zero policy," Poettering said. "It leaves that up for other parts of the system."

BrianFagioli writes: Opera GX has officially landed on Linux, bringing its gamer-focused browser experience to Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE-based systems. The browser includes GX Control for limiting RAM and network usage, a Hot Tabs Killer to shut down resource-heavy tabs, and built-in sidebar integrations for Discord and Twitch. Opera says this is not just a one-off port, but a long-term effort with ongoing updates and community engagement. "PC gaming has long been associated with a single dominant platform, but that's changing," says Maciej Kocemba, Product Director at Opera GX. "Bringing GX to Linux users -- who are renowned for the control they like to exert over their tools -- means gamers and developers can manage browser resources, customize their setup, and keep their system performing exactly the way they want."

Linux gaming "has gotten to the point where some people claim that Linux runs their games better than Windows does," according to the Android site XDA Developers. And there's a new surprise on ProtonDB, an "unofficial" community website with crowdsourced data about videogame compatability with the Linux software/gaming compatability layer Proton: On ProtonDB, one operating system had reigned supreme since 2021: Arch Linux. And I say 'had,' because its streak has just been ended by [Arch-based] CachyOS in an upset that has slowly grown over the past two years. As reported on Boiling Steam, the number of reports coming from CachyOS has topped that of Arch Linux, which held the crown for the most number of reports since 2021...

[T]his isn't really a statement that CachyOS is the best gaming distro out there; however, it's seemingly attracting the largest number of gamers who are invested in testing games on Proton and reporting their performance, which is a pretty big milestone if you ask me.

Last week System76 CEO Carl Richell criticized age-verification laws for operating systems — but he now sees a "real possibility" Colorado's law might exclude open-source.

Phoronix reports that the System76 CEO met with the state Senator who co-authored Colorado's bill, and then posted on X.com that the Senator "suggested excluding open source software from the bill." Richell: This appears to be a real possibility. Amendments are expected... It's my hope we can move fast enough to influence excluding open source.. No illusions, it's an uphill battle, but we have an open door to advocate for the open source community.
Vague language has been a recurring problem with new state age-verification legislation. Richell pointed out later that "In one proposed bill, Garmin would have to verify the age of their watch customers at device setup." Richell also sees New York's bill as "unlikely to be applicable to Linux distributions," since its language calls for "commercially reasonable age assurance" that free operating systems could use — and Richell isn't sure one exists as described by the bill. "As written today, it's extremely broad and vague and that makes it scary."

Richell answered several follow-up questions about operating system age-verification laws. "What about California?" someone asked... Richell: We hope to make sensible, strong arguments for excluding open source which then becomes a standard for other states. It's going to be difficult.

Q: Open source is not the only target to exclude. Please ensure that the bill is amended so that it does not require applications that have no possible use for the age bracket to ask about it.

Richell: We discussed this as well. I proposed that apps that do not require age to modify app behavior or access by some other legislation be barred from reading age brackets to better protect privacy.

BrianFagioli writes: Google says it will finally release Chrome for ARM64 Linux in the second quarter of 2026, bringing the company's full browser to a platform that has existed for years without official support. Until now, Linux users running Arm hardware have largely relied on Chromium builds or unofficial packages if they wanted something close to Chrome. Google says the new build will include the same features found on other platforms, including Google account syncing, Chrome Web Store extensions, built-in translation, Safe Browsing protections, and Google Password Manager.

The timing reflects how ARM hardware is becoming more common across the Linux ecosystem, from developer laptops to AI systems. Google also pointed to NVIDIA's DGX Spark, a compact AI supercomputing device built on the Grace Blackwell architecture, which will support installing Chrome through NVIDIA's package management tools. For many Linux users, the announcement feels like a "finally" moment, as ARM64 Linux systems have been widespread for years despite the absence of an official Chrome build.

Private equity firm EQT AB is reportedly exploring a sale of SUSE that could value the open-source Linux pioneer at up to $6 billion, roughly doubling the valuation since EQT took the company private in 2023. Reuters reports: EQT "has hired investment bank Arma Partners to sound out a group of private equity investors for a possible sale of the company, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential matters. The deliberations are at "an early stage and there is no certainty that EQT will proceed with "a transaction, the sources said. [...] The potential deal comes amid a broader selloff in software stocks, which has disrupted mergers and acquisitions activity. Investors are "concerned that new artificial intelligence tools could displace many existing software products, weighing on technology "valuations and making deals harder to price.

Some investors, however, see Luxembourg-headquartered SUSE as a potential beneficiary of AI adoption, arguing that demand for enterprise-grade infrastructure software is likely to grow as companies build and deploy more AI applications. The company generates about $800 million in revenue and more than $250 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and could fetch between $4 billion and $6 billion in a sale, the sources said.

System76 isn't the only one criticizing new age-verification laws. The blog 9to5Linux published an "informal" look at other discussions in various Linux communities. Earlier this week, Ubuntu developer Aaron Rainbolt proposed on the Ubuntu mailing list an optional D-Bus interface (org.freedesktop.AgeVerification1) that can be implemented by arbitrary applications as a distro sees fit, but Canonical responded that the company does not yet have a solution to announce for age declaration in Ubuntu. "Canonical is aware of the legislation and is reviewing it internally with legal counsel, but there are currently no concrete plans on how, or even whether, Ubuntu will change in response," said Jon Seager, VP Engineering at Canonical. "The recent mailing list post is an informal conversation among Ubuntu community members, not an announcement. While the discussion contains potentially useful ideas, none have been adopted or committed to by Canonical."

Similar talks are underway in the Fedora and Linux Mint communities about this issue in case the California Digital Age Assurance Act law and similar laws from other states and countries are to be enforced. At the same time, other OS developers, like MidnightBSD, have decided to exclude California from desktop use entirely.
Slashdot contacted Hayley Tsukayama, Director of State Affairs at EFF, who says their organization "has long warned against age-gating the internet. Such mandates strike at the foundation of the free and open internet."

And there's another problem. "Many of these mandates imagine technology that does not currently exist." Such poorly thought-out mandates, in truth, cannot achieve the purported goal of age verification. Often, they are easy to circumvent and many also expose consumers to real data breach risk.

These burdens fall particularly heavily on developers who aren't at large, well-resourced companies, such as those developing open-source software. Not recognizing the diversity of software development when thinking about liability in these proposals effectively limits software choices — and at a time when computational power is being rapidly concentrated in the hands of the few. That harms users' and developers' right to free expression, their digital liberties, privacy, and ability to create and use open platforms...

Rather than creating age gates, a well-crafted privacy law that empowers all of us — young people and adults alike — to control how our data is collected and used would be a crucial step in the right direction.

"In November Steam on Linux use hit an all-time high of 3.2%," reports Phoronix. And then in December Steam on Linux jumped even higher, to 3.58%.

But January's numbers settled a little lower, at 3.38%. And last Monday the February numbers were released, showing Steam on Linux at... 2.23%? Like with prior times where there are wild drops in Linux use, the Steam Survey shows Simplified Chinese use running up by 30% month over month. Whenever there is such significant differences in language use tends to be a reporting anomaly and negatively impacting Linux. Valve often puts out corrected/updated figures later on, so we'll see if that is again the case for this February data.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the blogIt's FOSS: Greg Kroah-Hartman has updated the projected end-of-life (EOL) dates for several active longterm support kernels via a commit. The provided reasoning? It was done "based on lots of discussions with different companies and groups and the other stable kernel maintainer." The other maintainer is Sasha Levin, who co-maintains these Linux kernel releases alongside Greg. Now, the updated support schedule for the currently active LTS kernels looks like this:

— Linux 6.6 now EOLs Dec 2027 (was Dec 2026), giving it a 4-year support window.

— Linux 6.12 now EOLs Dec 2028 (was Dec 2026), also a 4-year window.

— Linux 6.18 now EOLs Dec 2028 (was Dec 2027), at least 3 years of support.

Worth noting above is that Linux 5.10 and 5.15 are both hitting EOL this year in December, so if your distro is still running either of these, now is a good time to start thinking about a move.