Jolla is "trying again with a new crowd-funded smartphone," reports Phoronix: Finnish company Jolla started out 14 years ago where Nokia left off with MeeGo and developed Sailfish OS as a new Linux smartphone platform. Jolla released their first smartphone in 2013 after crowdfunding but ultimately the Sailfish OS focus the past number of years now has been offering their software stack for use on other smartphone devices [including some Sony Xperia smartphones and OnePlus/Samsung/ Google/ Xiaomi devices].
This new Jolla Phone's pre-order voucher page says the phone will only produced if 2,000 units are ordered before January 4. (But in just a few days they've already received 1,721 pre-orders — all discounted to 499€ from a normal price between 599 and 699 €). Estimate delivery is the first half of 2026. "The new Jolla Phone is powered by a high-performing Mediatek 5G SoC," reports 9to5Linux, "and features 12GB RAM, 256GB storage that can be expanded to up to 2TB with a microSDXC card, a 6.36-inch FullHD AMOLED display with ~390ppi, 20:9 aspect ratio, and Gorilla Glass, and a user-replaceable 5,500mAh battery." The Linux phone also features 4G/5G support with dual nano-SIM and a global roaming modem configuration, Wi-Fi 6 wireless, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, 50MP Wide and 13MP Ultrawide main cameras, front front-facing wide-lens selfie camera, fingerprint reader on the power key, a user-changeable back cover, and an RGB indication LED. On top of that, the new Jolla Phone promises a user-configurable physical Privacy Switch that lets you turn off the microphone, Bluetooth, Android apps, or whatever you wish.

The device will be available in three colors, including Snow White, Kaamos Black, and The Orange. All the specs of the new Jolla Phone were voted on by Sailfish OS community members over the past few months. Honouring the original Jolla Phone form factor and design, the new model ships with Sailfish OS (with support for Android apps), a Linux-based European alternative to dominating mobile operating systems that promises a minimum of 5 years of support, no tracking, no calling home, and no hidden analytics...

The device will be manufactured and sold in Europe, but Jolla says that it will design the cellular band configuration to enable global travelling as much as possible, including e.g. roaming in the U.S. carrier networks. The initial sales markets are the EU, the UK, Switzerland, and Norway.

Linus Torvalds recently defended Windows' infamous Blue Screen of Death during a video with Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips, where the two built a PC together. It's FOSS reports: In that video, Sebastian discussed Torvalds' fondness for ECC (Error Correction Code). I am using their last name because Linus will be confused with Linus. This is where Torvalds says this: "I am convinced that all the jokes about how unstable Windows is and blue screening, I guess it's not a blue screen anymore, a big percentage of those were not actually software bugs. A big percentage of those are hardware being not reliable."

Torvalds further mentioned that gamers who overclock get extra unreliability. Essentially, Torvalds believes that having ECC on the machine makes them more reliable, makes you trust your machine. Without ECC, the memory will go bad, sooner or later. He thinks that more than software bugs, often it is hardware behind Microsoft's blue screen of death. You can watch the video on YouTube (the BSOD comments occur at ~9:37).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge's Sean Hollister If you wrote off the Steam Frame as yet another VR headset few will want to wear, I guarantee you're not alone. But the Steam Frame isn't just a headset; it's a Trojan horse that contains the tech gamers need to play Steam games on the next Samsung Galaxy, the next Google Pixel, perhaps Arm gaming notebooks to come. I know, because I'm already using that tech on my Samsung Galaxy. There is no official Android version of Hollow Knight: Silksong, one of the best games of 2025, but that doesn't have to stop you anymore. Thanks to a stack of open-source technologies, including a compatibility layer called Proton and an emulator called Fex, games that were developed for x86-based Windows PCs can now run on Linux-based phones with the Arm processor architecture. With Proton, the Steam Deck could already do the Windows-to-Linux part; now, Fex is bridging x86 and Arm, too.

This stack is what powers the Steam Frame's own ability to play Windows games, of course, and it was widely reported that Valve is using the open-source Fex emulator to make it happen. What wasn't widely reported: Valve is behind Fex itself. In an interview, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais, one of the architects behind SteamOS and the Steam Deck, tells The Verge that Valve has been quietly funding almost all the open-source technologies required to play Windows games on Arm. And because they're open-source, Valve is effectively shepherding a future where Arm phones, laptops, and desktops could freely do the same. He says the company believes game developers shouldn't be wasting time porting games if there's a better way.

Remember when the Steam Deck handheld showed that a decade of investment in Linux could make Windows gaming portable? Valve paid open-source developers to follow their passions to help achieve that result. Valve has been guiding the effort to bring games to Arm in much the same way: In 2016 and 2017, Griffais tells me, the company began recruiting and funding open-source developers to bring Windows games to Arm chips. Fex lead developer Ryan Houdek tells The Verge he chatted with Griffais himself at conferences those years and whipped up the first prototype in 2018. He tells me Valve pays enough that Fex is his full-time job. "I want to thank the people from Valve for being here from the start and allowing me to kickstart this project," he recently wrote.

Steam's November 2025 survey shows Linux gaming climbed to its highest share in a decade "thanks to the success of the Steam Deck, the underlying Steam Play (Proton) software, and now further excitement thanks to the upcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame," writes Phoronix's Michael Larabel. From the report: A decade ago in the early Steam days the initial use was around 3% and back then the Steam user-base in absolute terms was much smaller than it is today. Back in October Steam on Linux finally re-crossed that 3% threshold after for years being stuck in a 1~2% rut. Now the Steam Survey results were published minutes ago for November and they continue an upward trend for Linux.

Steam on Linux is up to 3.2%, an increase of 0.15% for the month. One year ago Steam on Linux was at 2.03% last November, 1.91% for November 2023, and a decade ago for November 2015 was at just 0.98%. [...] Due to AMD APUs powering the Steam Deck, AMD CPUs continue to power nearly 70% of Linux gaming systems. Meanwhile under Windows, AMD has around a 42% CPU marketshare.

From the blog 9to5Linux: Linux kernel 6.18 is now available for download, as announced today by Linus Torvalds himself, featuring enhanced hardware support through new and updated drivers, improvements to file systems and networking, and more. Highlights of Linux 6.18 include the removal of the Bcachefs file system, support for the Rust Binder driver, a new dm-pcache device-mapper target to enable persistent memory as a cache for slower block devices, and a new microcode= command-line option to control the microcode loader's behavior on x86 platforms. Linux kernel 6.18 also extends the support for file handles to kernel namespaces, implements initial 'block size > page size' support for the Btrfs file system, adds PTW feature detection on new hardware for LoongArch KVM, and adds support for running the kernel as a guest on FreeBSD's Bhyve hypervisor.

"By my count, Linux has over 11% of the desktop market," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols: In StatCounter's latest US numbers, which cover through October, Linux shows up as only 3.49%. But if you look closer, "unknown" accounts for 4.21%. Allow me to make an educated guess here: I suspect those unknown desktops are actually running Linux. What else could it be? FreeBSD? Unix? OS/2? Unlikely. In addition, ChromeOS comes in at 3.67%, which strikes me as much too low. Leaving that aside, ChromeOS is a Linux variant. It just uses the Chrome web browser for its interface rather than KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or another Linux desktop environment. Put all these together, and you get a Linux desktop market share of 11.37%...

If you want to look at the broader world of end-user operating systems, including phones and tablets, Linux comes out even better. In the US, where we love our Apple iPhones, Android — yes, another Linux distro — boasts 41.71% of the market share, according to StatCounter's latest numbers. Globally, however, Android rules with 72.55% of the market. Yes, that's right, if you widen the Linux end-user operating system metric to include PC, tablets, and smartphones, you can make a reasonable argument that Linux, and not Windows, is already the top dog operating system...

If you add Chrome OS (1.7%) and Android (15.8%), 23.3% of all people accessing the U.S. government's websites are Linux users. The Linux kernel's user-facing footprint is much larger than the "desktop Linux" label suggests.
The article lists reasons more people might be switching to Linux, including broader hardware support and "the increased viability of gaming via Steam and Proton" — but also the rise of Digital Sovereignty initiatives. (One EU group has even created EU OS.")

And finally, "not everyone is thrilled with Windows 11 being turned into an AI-agentic operating system."

In October Zorin OS claimed it had 100,000 downloads in a little over two days in the days following Microsoft's end of support for Windows 10.

And one month later, Zorin OS developers now claim that 780,000 people downloaded it from a Windows computer in the space of a month, according to the tech news site XDA Developers. In a post on the Zorin blog, the developers of the operating system Zorin OS 18 announced that they've managed to accrue one million downloads of the operating system in a single month [since its launch on October 14]. While this is plenty impressive by itself, the developers go on to reveal that, out of that million, 78% of the downloads came from a Windows machine. That means that at least 780,000 people on Windows gave Zorin OS 18 a download...

[I]t's easy to see why: the developers put a heavy emphasis on making their system the perfect home for ex-Windows users.

Another highly influential Linux kernel engineer, David Hildenbrand, is leaving Red Hat after a decade of major contributions to memory management, virtualization, and VirtIO. His recent kernel patch updates his maintainer info to a kernel.org address, signaling his departure. He hasn't yet said where he's headed next. Phoronix reports: David Hildenbrand serves as a reviewer for the HugeTLB code, s390 KVM code, and memory management reclaim code. He also serves as an upstream maintainer for the Linux kernel's core memory management code, Get User Pages (GUP) memory management code, kernel samepage merging (KSM), reverse mapping (RMAP), transparent hugepage (THP), memory advice (MADVISE), VirtIO memory driver, and VirtIO balloon driver.

Hildenbrand had been employed by Red Hat the past decade in Munich working on QEMU/KVM virtualization, Linux kernel memory management, VirtIO, and related low-level areas. Just this year alone so far in 2025 he's authored or been mentioned on more than one thousand mainline Linux kernel patches.

Linux kernel maintainers "are grappling with how to integrate AI-generated contributions without compromising the project's integrity," reports WebProNews: The latest push comes from a proposal by Sasha Levin, a prominent kernel developer at NVIDIA, who has outlined guidelines for tool-generated submissions. Posted to the kernel mailing list, these guidelines aim to standardize how AI-assisted patches are handled. According to Phoronix, the v3 iteration of the proposal [posted by Intel engineer Dave Hansen] emphasizes transparency and accountability, requiring developers to disclose AI involvement in their contributions. This move reflects broader industry concerns about the quality and copyright implications of machine-generated code.

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, has weighed in on the debate, advocating for treating AI tools no differently than traditional coding aids. As reported by heise online, Torvalds sees no need for special copyright treatment for AI contributions, stating that they should be viewed as extensions of the developer's work. This perspective aligns with the kernel's pragmatic approach to innovation. The proposal, initially put forward by Levin in July 2025, includes a 'Co-developed-by' tag for AI-assisted patches, ensuring credit and traceability. OSTechNix details how tools like GitHub Copilot and Claude are specifically addressed, with configurations to guide their use in kernel development... ZDNET warns that without official policy, AI could 'creep' into the kernel and cause chaos...

The New Stack provides insight into how AI is already assisting kernel maintainers with mundane tasks. According to The New Stack, large language models (LLMs) are being used like 'novice interns' for drudgery work, freeing up experienced developers for complex problems... The Linux kernel's approach could set precedents for other open-source projects. With AI integration accelerating, projects like those in the Linux Foundation are watching closely... Recent kernel releases, such as 6.17.7, include performance improvements that indirectly support AI applications, as noted in Linux Compatible.

Linux kernel developers are moving toward enabling Microsoft C Extensions (-fms-extensions) by default in Linux 6.19, with Linus Torvalds signaling no objection. While some dislike relying on Microsoft-style behavior, the patches in kbuild-next suggest the project is ready to "bite the bullet" and adopt the extensions system-wide. Phoronix reports: Rasmus Villemoes argued with Kbuild: enable -fms-extensions that would allow for "prettier code" and others have noted in the past the potential for saving stack space and all around being beneficial in being able to leverage the Microsoft C behavior: "Once in a while, it turns out that enabling -fms-extensions could allow some slightly prettier code. But every time it has come up, the code that had to be used instead has been deemed 'not too awful' and not worth introducing another compiler flag for. That's probably true for each individual case, but then it's somewhat of a chicken/egg situation. If we just 'bite the bullet' as Linus says and enable it once and for all, it is available whenever a use case turns up, and no individual case has to justify it..."

The second patch is kbuild: Add '-fms-extensions' to areas with dedicated CFLAGS to ensure -fms-extensions is passed for the CPU architectures that rely on their own CFLAGS being set rather than the main KBUILD_CFLAGS. Linus Torvalds chimed in on the prior mailing list discussion and doesn't appear to be against enabling -fms-extensions beginning with the Linux 6.19 kernel.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For years now, Valve has been slowly improving the capabilities of the Proton compatibility layer that lets thousands of Windows games work seamlessly on the Linux-based SteamOS. But Valve's Windows-to-Linux compatibility layer generally only extends back to games written for Direct3D 8, the proprietary Windows graphics API Microsoft released in late 2000. Now, a new open source project is seeking to extend Linux interoperability further back into PC gaming history. The d7vk project describes itself as "a Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 7 [D3D7], which allows running 3D applications on Linux using Wine."

The new project isn't the first attempt to get Direct3D 7 games running on Linux. Wine's own built-in WineD3D compatibility layer has supported D3D7 in some form or another for at least two decades now. But the new d7vk project instead branches off the existing dxvk compatibility layer, which is already used by Valve's Proton for SteamOS and which reportedly offers better performance than WineD3D on many games. D7vk project author WinterSnowfall writes that while they don't expect this new project to be upstreamed into the main dxvk in the future, the new version should have "the same level of per application/targeted configuration profiles and fixes that you're used to seeing in dxvk proper." And though d7vk might not perform universally better than the existing alternatives, WinterSnowfall writes that "having more options on the table is a good thing in my book at least." The report notes that the PC Gaming Wiki lists more than 400 games built on the aging D3D7 APIs, spanning mostly early-2000s releases but with a trickle of new titles still appearing through 2022. Notable classics include Escape from Monkey Island and Hitman: Codename 47.

A maintainer of Debian's Advanced Package Tool (APT) "has announced plans to introduce hard Rust dependencies into APT starting May 2026," reports the blog It's FOSS. The integration targets critical areas like parsing .deb, .ar, and tar files plus HTTP signature verification using Sequoia. [APT maintainer Julian Andres Klode] said these components "would strongly benefit from memory safe languages and a stronger approach to unit testing."

He also gave a firm message to maintainers of Debian ports: "If you maintain a port without a working Rust toolchain, please ensure it has one within the next 6 months, or sunset the port."

The reasoning is straightforward. Debian wants to move forward with modern tools rather than being held back by legacy architecture... Debian ports running on CPU architectures without Rust compiler support have six months to add proper toolchains. If they can't meet this deadline, those ports will need to be discontinued. As a result, some obscure or legacy platforms may lose official support. For most users on mainstream architectures like x86_64 and ARM, nothing changes. Your APT will simply become more secure and reliable under the hood.
It's FOSS argues that "If done right, this could significantly strengthen APT's security and code quality."

And the blog Linuxiac also supports the move. "By embedding Rust into APT, the distro joins a growing number of major open-source projects, such as the Linux kernel, Firefox, and systemd, that are gradually adopting Rust. And if I had to guess, I'd say this is just one of the first steps toward even deeper Rust integration in this legendary distribution, which is a good thing."

"During the past two years or so I have been slow-rolling an effort to port the Linux kernel to WebAssembly," reads a surprising post on the Linux kernel mailing list. I'm now at the point where the kernel boots and I can run basic programs from a shell. As you will see if you play around with it for a bit, it's not very stable and will crash sooner or later, but I think this is a good first step. Wasm is not necessarily only targeting the web, but that's how I have been developing this project... This is Linux, booting in your browser tab, accelerated by Wasm.
Phoronix warns that "there are stability issues and it didn't take me long either to trigger crashes for this Linux kernel WASM port when running within Google Chrome."

"It finally happened," writes the GamingOnLinux site: Linux gamers on Steam as of the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for October 2025 have crossed over the elusive 3% mark. The trend has been clear for sometime, and with Windows 10 ending support, it was quite likely this was going to be the time for it to happen as more people try out Linux...

Overall, 3% might not seem like much to some, but again — that trend is very clear and equates to millions of people. The last time Valve officially gave a proper monthly active user count was in 2022, and we know Steam has grown a lot since then, but even going by that original number would put monthly active Linux users at well over 4 million.
Additional details from Phoronix: The only time Steam on Linux use was close to the 3% mark was when Steam on Linux initially debuted a decade ago and at that time the overall Steam user-base was much smaller than it is today. Long story short, thanks to the ongoing success of Valve's Steam Deck and other handhelds plus Steam Play (Proton) working out so well, these October numbers are the best yet... a hearty 0.41% increase to Linux... landing its overall marketshare at 3.05%. Windows meanwhile was at 94.84% (falling below 95% for the first time in a while) and macOS at 2.11%. For comparison, in October 2024 Steam on Linux was at 2.00%.

The Linux-specific data shows SteamOS commanding around 27% of all the Linux installs at large. SteamOS most notably being on the Steam Deck hardware.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: SUSE is making headlines with the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16, the first enterprise Linux distribution to integrate agentic AI directly into the operating system. It uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to securely connect AI models with data sources while maintaining provider freedom. This gives organizations the ability to run AI-driven automation without relying on a single ecosystem. With a 16-year lifecycle, reproducible builds, instant rollback capabilities, and post-2038 readiness, SLES 16 also doubles down on long-term reliability and transparency.

For enterprises, this launch marks a clear step toward embedding intelligence at the infrastructure level. The system can now perform AI-assisted administration via Cockpit or the command line, potentially cutting downtime and operational costs. SUSE's timing might feel late given the AI boom, but its implementation appears deliberate -- balancing innovation with the stability enterprises demand. It's likely to pressure Red Hat and Canonical to follow suit, redefining what "AI-ready" means for Linux in corporate environments.

Nearly nine in ten Windows games can now run on Linux systems, according to data from ProtonDB compiled by Boiling Steam. The gains came through work by developers of WINE and Proton translation layers and through interest in hardware like the Steam Deck.

ProtonDB tracks games across five categories. Platinum-rated games run perfectly without adjustment. Gold titles need minor tweaks. Silver games are playable but imperfect. Bronze exists between silver and borked. Borked games refuse to launch. The proportion of new releases earning platinum ratings has grown. The red and dark red zones have thinned. Some popular titles remain incompatible, however. Boiling Steam noted that other developers appear averse to non-Windows gamers.

Thursday Ubuntu-maker Canonical "officially launched Canonical Academy, a new certification platform designed to help professionals validate their Linux and Ubuntu skills through practical, hands-on assessments," writes the blog It's FOSS: Focusing on real-world scenarios, Canonical Academy aims to foster practical skills rather than theoretical knowledge. The end goal? Getting professionals ready for the actual challenges they will face on the job. The learning platform is already live with its first course offering, the System Administrator track (with three certification exams), which is tailored for anyone looking to validate their Linux and Ubuntu expertise.

The exams use cloud-based testing environments that simulate real workplace scenarios. Each assessment is modular, meaning you can progress through individual exams and earn badges for each one. Complete all the exams in this track to earn the full Sysadmin qualification... Canonical is also looking for community members to contribute as beta testers and subject-matter experts (SME). If you are interested in helping shape the platform or want to get started with your certification, you can visit the Canonical Academy website.
The sys-admin track offers exams for Linux Terminal, Ubuntu Desktop 2024, Ubuntu Server 2024, and "managing complex systems," according to an official FAQ. "Each exam provides an in-browser remote desktop interface into a functional Ubuntu Desktop environment running GNOME. From this initial node, you will be expected to troubleshoot, configure, install, and maintain systems, processes, and other general activities associated with managing Linux. The exam is a hybrid format featuring multiple choice, scenario-based, and performance-based questions..."

"Test-takers interested in the types of material covered on each exam can review links to tutorials and documentation on our website."

The FAQ advises test takers to use a Chromium-based browser, as Firefox "is NOT supported at this time... There is a known issue with keyboards and Firefox in the CUE.01 Linux 24.04 preview release at this time, which will be resolved in the CUE.01 Linux 24.10 exam release."

"Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems," writes longtime Slashdot reader jrepin. "Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.5." From the announcement: This fresh new release is all about fine-tuning, fresh features, and a making everything smooth and sleek for everyone. The new version brings automatic light-to-dark theme switching based on the time of day. You can configure which global themes it switches between. You can also configure whether you want the wallpaper to switch between its light and dark versions based on the color scheme, the time of day, or be always light or dark.

Next up is a "Pinned clipboard items" feature, which lets you save text you use regularly into the clipboard. Breeze-themed windows will now have the same level of roundness in all four corners, even the bottom one. Flatpak Permissions page has been transformed into a general Application Permissions page, where you can configure applications' ability to do things like take screenshots and accept remote control requests. The utility that reads the level of ink or toner from your printer now informs you when it's running low or empty.

For the gamers out there, you can now see more relevant info about game controllers on System Settings' Game Controller page. Artists among you can now configure any rotary dials and touch rings on your drawing tablet. Users sensitive to color can now make use of a grayscale color filter, which desaturates or removes color systemwide.

Plasma 6.5 implements support for an experimental version of the Wayland picture-in-picture protocol that promises to allow apps like Firefox to eventually display proper PiP windows that stay above others automatically. Support for "overlay planes" was added, which can reduce CPU usage and power draw when displaying full-screen content using a compatible GPU. You can read more about these and many other new features in the Plasma 6.5 release announcement and complete changelog.

"Windows 10 is officially dead," writes Slashdot user darwinmac, "and the vultures are circling. Or maybe they are liberators, depending on your point of view." Neowin reports: Of all the projects trying to poach Windows users, Zorin Group might be the most aggressive, launching its biggest OS upgrade, Zorin OS 18, on the very day Windows 10 died. In a recent post on X, Zorin Group celebrated the launch of version 18, claiming that it hit 100,000 downloads in "a little over 2 days". The company called it its "biggest launch ever" and claimed that over 72% of those downloads came from Windows...

Zorin OS 18 now includes an updated version of WINE 10 for better support of Windows software. On top of that, there's also an expanded database that helps when it detects a Windows installer. The system checks the file and suggests the best way to run over 170 popular apps, whether that means installing a native Linux version, using the web-based alternative, or firing it up through WINE.
The article also notes LibreOffice's creators have been presenting Linux as a secure and cost-effective alternative since June, and "We have also seen initiatives like The "End of 10" Campaign by KDE, making the case for Linux and providing guides and info on how to switch."

Roughly 200,000 Linux-based Framework laptops shipped with a signed UEFI shell command (mm) that can be abused to bypass Secure Boot protections -- allowing attackers to load persistent bootkits like BlackLotus or HybridPetya. Framework has begun patching affected models, though some fixes and DBX updates are still pending. BleepingComputer reports: According to firmware security company Eclypsium, the problem stems from including a 'memory modify' (mm) command in legitimately signed UEFI shells that Framework shipped with its systems. The command provides direct read/write access to system memory and is intended for low-level diagnostics and firmware debugging. However, it can also be leveraged to break the Secure Boot trust chain by targeting the gSecurity2 variable, a critical component in the process of verifying the signatures of UEFI modules.

The mm command can be abused to overwrite gSecurity2 with NULL, effectively disabling signature verification. "This command writes zeros to the memory location containing the security handler pointer, effectively disabling signature verification for all subsequent module loads." The researchers also note that the attack can be automated via startup scripts to persist across reboots.