Late Night Linux

Discord’s new age gating policy might be a real opportunity for open source but it’s not clear that we have anything that can compete, the complex and bizarre tale of an AI agent writing a blog post attacking a FOSS maintainer, why we lost some trust in a major tech publication, the Firefox AI kill switch arrives, and a quick KDE Korner.   News Piss up at The Shipwrights Arms (just next to London Bridge station) on Saturday 27th June from 6pm until late Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally Discord Voluntarily Pushes Mandatory Age Verification Despite Recent Data Breach Hackers Expose Age-Verification Software Powering Surveillance Web I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here’s What I Actually Handed Over. An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – More Things Have Happened An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward The obnoxious GitHub OpenClaw AI bot is … a crypto bro Editor’s Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations Sorry all this is my fault Firefox 148 Now Available With The New AI Controls / AI Kill Switches   KDE Korner 4 A quick anti-FUD FAQ to debunk “the KDE is forcing systemd!” hoax KDE endorses the UN’s Open Source Principles Plasma 6.6                   Automox Turnkey Results Endpoint management tailored to your specific environment. Know the plan. Trust the result. Learn more at www.automox.com     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

The professional-grade audio workstation Ardour has a great new version, LinkedIn does a shocking but not surprising amount of browser fingerprinting, Firefox is getting a button to turn off the AI nonsense, a new way to prevent slop “contributions” to your project, another tale of someone failing to switch to Linux, and why we should talk more about why open source software can be better than proprietary alternatives. With guest host Kevin from Linux Dev Time.   News/discussion Ardour 9.0 — What’s new Linkedin-extension-fingerprinting AI controls are coming to Firefox Introducing Vouch: explicit trust management for open source I went back to Linux and it was a mistake                 Automox Turnkey Results Endpoint management tailored to your specific environment. Know the plan. Trust the result. Learn more at www.automox.com     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Pricing and release dates for the new Steam hardware are delayed, Xfce is getting a new Wayland compositor that’s written in Rust but it might take a while, the Sudo dev could do with sponsorship, Lennart Poettering and friends are cooking up something (but it’s not exactly clear what that is), KDE Linux is progressing nicely, and more. With guest host Kevin from Linux Dev Time.   News Steam Hardware: Launch timing and other FAQs Xfwl4 – The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor Xfwl4 (Xfce’s Wayland Compositor) FAQ Xubuntu Development Update February 2026 Sudo’s maintainer needs resources to keep utility updated Ikea’s new Matter smart home devices are having connection problems Introducing Amutable Busy months in KDE Linux               Automox Turnkey Results Endpoint management tailored to your specific environment. Know the plan. Trust the result. Learn more at www.automox.com     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Malware in the Snap store highlights the risks of modern package management, but users accidentally ending up with a totally different desktop environment shows the perils of the older approach. Plus the UK government wants to do more age-gating, and we hear about a project to get kids into Free Software.   News Malware Peddlers Are Now Hijacking Snap Publisher Domains Linux Mint user gets Gnomed It looks like they followed these instructions to install Proton VPN (including selecting gdm) They aren’t alone AWS flips switch on Euro cloud as customers fret about digital sovereignty UK government rolls back key part of digital ID plans Lords back UK social media ban for under-16s Under-16 social media ban would expand age-gating for millions and silence young people UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs   Mission:Libre Carmen tells us about her project that aims to get kids into Free Software.               Automox Turnkey Results Endpoint management tailored to your specific environment. Know the plan. Trust the result. Learn more at www.automox.com     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Wikipedia is 25 years old and has found a good way to deal with the AI scraping problem, the Python Software Foundation funds the security work they had planned, curl’s bug bounty program is ending, Raspberry Pi has new underwhelming hardware, and European AWS hasn’t won Félim over. Plus a reminder about the upcoming OggCamp event, and a call for participation.   News Wikipedia celebrates 25 years of knowledge at its best (and does deals with more AI companies) Wikipedia volunteers spent years cataloging AI tells. Now there’s a plugin to avoid them Anthropic invests $1.5 million in the Python Software Foundation and open source security The end of the curl bug-bounty Introducing the Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2: Generative AI on Raspberry Pi 5 Raspberry Pi Flash Drive available now from $30: a high-quality essential accessory AWS flips switch on Euro cloud as customers fret about digital sovereignty   OggCamp 2026 OggCamp crew lead Andy Piper tells us about the upcoming unconference. Call for volunteer crew Call for papers Check out Andy’s podcast               Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

We cover your feedback including follow-up on old tablets as clocks, Firefox alternatives, and moving off Gmail. Plus building synths in Rust, FOSS isometric diagrams, a powerful network analysis tool for Android, and some cool ambient music in discoveries.   Discoveries CAW FossFlow Félim’s bad diagram Blade Runner Radio LUX on Bandcamp Network Survey               Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Hype is really starting to build for Valve’s upcoming Steam hardware and other great gaming news, Stack Overflow is losing to LLMs, old men like Félim don’t want to lose middle click paste, our optimism about Google continuing to release Android source code was misplaced, and Bose demonstrates how to kill a product.   News The Steam Machine’s Price Might Have Just Leaked And It’s Not What We Hoped For Canonical Builds Steam Snap For Ubuntu ARM64 Leveraging FEX Revised Steam Survey For December 2025 Puts Linux Gaming Marketshare At 3.58% GeForce NOW coming to Linux Stack Overflow graph GNOME dev gives fans of Linux’s middle-click paste the middle finger Google will now only release Android source code twice a year Bose open-sources its SoundTouch home theater smart speakers ahead of end-of-life               Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

It’s that time of year where we look back at our 2025 predictions, and make some new ones for 2026.   Will mentioned The Enshittifinancial Crisis and an article about solar panels.               Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

It’s our 2025 review of Linux and open source news including great gaming news, the impact of AI, the disappointments from Mozilla, the year of Wayland on the desktop, the politics of open source, Intel’s lack of interest, and wins for KDE.   Gaming Steam Machine, controller, VR headset incoming from Valve Steam Deck LCD production is ending   AI bullshit Open source devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries Wikimedia Foundation bemoans AI bot bandwidth burden ardour.org has banned 1.2M distinct IP addresses for trying to slurp from our git repository Introducing CC Signals: A New Social Contract for the Age of AI You should enforce your own existing licenses against AI mass crawling Anubis guards gates against hordes of LLM bot crawlers FSF calls Anubis malware It seems like the AI crawlers learned how to solve the Anubis challenges   Mozilla Updates on Mozilla’s Leadership and Growth Planning Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox An update on our Terms of Use Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic Investing in what moves the internet forward When I say that I can’t recommend third-party forks of either Firefox or Chrome for real world use, this kind of thing is why Firefox is fine. The people running it are not Mozilla Slammed Over Battery-Draining “Garbage” AI in Firefox Firefox Adds CoPilot Chatbot, New Tab Widgets in Nightly Builds Introducing AI, the Firefox way: A look at what we’re working on and how you can help shape it Rewiring Mozilla: Doing for AI what we did for the web Mozilla’s next chapter: Building the world’s most trusted software company   Wayland Fedora 43 Cleared To Ship With Wayland-Only GNOME GNOME Dropping X11 Support May Complicate Next Ubuntu LTS Ubuntu 25.10 drops support for GNOME on Xorg Ubuntu 25.10 and Fedora 43 to drop X11 in GNOME editions An update on the X11 GNOME Session Removal Wayback Is Now Hosted On FreeDesktop.org Wayback 0.3 released! GNOME Mutter Now “Completely Drops The Whole X11 Backend” KDE Going all-in on a Wayland future   Politics The price of software freedom is eternal politics Framework flame war erupts over Linux controversy PSF Gets a Donor Surge After Rejecting Anti-DEI Federal Grant   Intel All good things come to an end: Shutting down Clear Linux OS Intel’s Open-Source Strategy Is Changing At Odds With The Ethos Of Open-Source The Death Of Clear Linux, Other Intel Linux Engineering Setbacks In 2025   KDE KDE Highlights from 2025                   Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Good news for custom Android ROMs, Rust is here to stay in the kernel, an open source success story in Germany, and a new version of elementary OS is out. Plus discoveries is back including better Firefox history, migrating from Windows to Linux, automating telescopes, turning old tablets into clocks, and more.   News Good news for custom ROMs: Google just released the Android 16 QPR2 The (successful) end of the kernel Rust experiment New Linux Patch Confirms: Rust Experiment Is Done, Rust Is Here To Stay Goodbye, Microsoft: Schleswig-Holstein relies on Open Source and saves millions elementary OS 8.1 Available Now   Discoveries Better History Operese commodore64 is back!? Making History: Signing the Commodore Contract + C64 Ultimate Production Update PiFinder Fullscreen Clock Clasp             Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

The Steam machine will use an older HDMI standard because of arbitrary rules, more details about running X86 Windows games on Arm Linux, and the Steam Controller lives on. Plus Calibre is adding “AI”, and we laugh at another LLM.   News Why won’t Steam Machine support HDMI 2.1? Digging in on the display standard drama Steam Machine today, Steam Phones tomorrow Remember Google Stadia? Steam finally made its gamepad worth rescuing Talk to your Fedora system with the linux-mcp-server! Calibre adds AI “discussion” feature Because the Calibre ebook library software just acquired AI garbage it has *already* been forked AI and GNOME Shell Extensions               Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Arduino’s new ToS has some people worried, some projects are starting to move away from GitHub for technical reasons, Raspberry Pi has a new model and prices are going up because of RAM costs, great news for OpenPrinting, old text adventure games get open source, and Joe’s foldable phone breaks in an unexpected way.   News Arduino’s new terms of service worries hobbyists ahead of Qualcomm acquisition Migrating from GitHub to Codeberg Migrating Dillo from GitHub 1GB Raspberry Pi 5 now available at $45, and memory-driven price rises Sovereign Tech Agency is investing in OpenPrinting Preserving code that shaped generations: Zork I, II, and III go Open Source               1Password Extended Access Management Take the first step to better security by securing your team’s credentials. Find out more at 1password.com/latenightlinux and start securing every login.   Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

KDE Plasma is finally moving on from X11, Tuxedo Computers abandons their Arm laptop project, Mozilla completely loses the room, but there might be a glimmer of hope.   News Going all-in on a Wayland future Help us reach the inflection point Discontinuation of ARM Notebook with Snapdragon X Elite SoC Linux Device Trees For Cancelled Products? Don’t “Waste Time” Rewiring Mozilla: Doing for AI what we did for the web Mozilla’s ‘Rewiring’ to AI – Saving the Web or Saving Itself? Servo Announces Sponsorship Tiers To Get More Organizations Backing This Browser Engine                 Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Ubuntu get 15 years of support, Google finally releases Android source code and backs down on “sideloading”, more steps to move on from X11, IKEA launches a range of Matter IoS gear, and more.   News Canonical expands total coverage for Ubuntu LTS releases to 15 years with Legacy add-on The wait is over: Android 16 QPR1’s source code is now available on AOSP Google will let expert Android users to sideload all apps GNOME Mutter Now “Completely Drops The Whole X11 Backend” PSF Gets a Donor Surge After Rejecting Anti-DEI Federal Grant Introducing Blender Lab IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products Ikea’s new smart home collection is entirely Matter-compatible   KDE Korner Help us reach the inflection point Google Summer of Code 2025 Conclusion – KDE Mentorship             Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

We are excited and enthusiastic about Valve’s new Linux hardware, and then angry and disappointed about Mozilla’s latest nonsense.   News Steam Machine, controller, VR headset incoming from Valve Say hi to Kit Introducing AI, the Firefox way: A look at what we’re working on and how you can help shape it Mozilla Connect thread End of Japanese community Web API for AI Agents           Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

What we all learned at the recent Ubuntu Summit including open source as a counter to insular nationalism, Canonical taking RISC-V very seriously, TPM-backed full disk encryption getting a lot easier, what the post-AI-bubble will probably look like, and more.   We mentioned the Rubik Pi 3.           Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Mark Shuttleworth recently spoke to us about what he’s apprehensive and excited about in the tech world, and more. Plus in the news: Ubuntu Unity needs help to survive, the Python Software Foundation turns down a large government grant, Fedora allows AI contributions, SUSE goes all in on AI, and KDE hits its fundraising goal.   News Linux Matters Regarding Ubuntu Unity and a call for help The Python Software Foundation has withdrawn a $1.5 million proposal to US government grant program Fedora agrees policy allowing AI-assisted contributions SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16 – AI-Ready, Long-Term Support SUSE Goes Agentic: The First Linux That Thinks for Itself Awesome fundraiser news: €53,000 raised!   Mark Shuttleworth Joe sat down with Mark at the recent Ubuntu Summit to discuss what he’s apprehensive and excited about in the tech world, what we should look forward to in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, and more.             1Password Extended Access Management Take the first step to better security for your team by securing credentials and protecting every application — even unmanaged shadow IT. Learn more at 1password.com/latenightlinux   Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code LATENIGHTLINUX for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.     Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Intel is contributing less to open source and it could easily backfire, Qualcomm buys Arduino and we have concerns, KDE turns 29, Germans are doing excellent work moving towards Linux, and good news for those running Linux on an Amiga.   News Intel rethinking how it contributes to open source community Intel’s Open-Source Strategy Is Changing At Odds With The Ethos Of Open-Source Qualcomm to Acquire Arduino Arduino’s got a new job: selling chips for its new owner Happy Birthday to KDE Schleswig-Holstein waves auf Wiedersehen to Microsoft stack Linux Patches Enable PCI Support For The Amiga 4000           Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code Linux25 for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.       Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

An AWS outage takes down a lot more sites and services than it should have, the new Ubuntu release has some surprisingly bad bugs, the Xubuntu website is compromised, Discord proves that uploading IDs is a bad idea, and Framework disappoints by sponsoring the baddies.   News Major AWS outage across US-East region breaks half the internet Ubuntu 25.10 lands: Rustier and Wayland-ier, but Flatpak is broken WireGuard bug Xubuntu website got hacked and is serving malware (trojan) Confirmation from Sean Discord says 70,000 users may have had their government IDs leaked in breach Framework flame war erupts over Linux controversy             Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code Linux25 for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.       Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

The Google Photos clone Immich finally has a stable release and Joe is impressed with it, we hope an open source printer crowdfunder works out, Amazon launches a Linux-based OS to replace Android on its streaming devices, Graham gives us an update on his Home Assistant hardware, and more.   News/discussion v2.0.0 – Stable Release of Immich #22546 This open-source printer you can repair yourself is powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero W Amazon launches Vega OS, its Android replacement for Fire TV with no sideloading Amazon’s Vega OS launch trick: cloud-streamed apps Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition Open Home Foundation Jobs           Tailscale Tailscale is an easy to deploy, zero-config, no-fuss VPN that allows you to build simple networks across complex infrastructure. Go to tailscale.com/lnl and try Tailscale out for free for up to 100 devices and 3 users, with no credit card required. Use code Linux25 for three free months of any Tailscale paid plan.       Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes             See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here