Linux is a free and open source operating system. Linux is hidden away inside billions of consumer devices — everything from Android phones to smart toasters — and most servers run it, but it’s also a desktop operating system you can use for any kind of computer task. We cover the big news about major distros like Ubuntu and Mint, computers that run Linux out of the box, hacker boards like Raspberry Pi, and the latest moves by Microsoft to integrate Ubuntu into Windows 10.
As XDA reports, the Arch-based Linux distro’s April update now “automatically configures fingerprint readers for ‘sudo’ prompts” and “detects specific Intel CPUs for better power saving,” among other new features and fixes. CachyOS users can run the command “sudo pacman -Syu” to update to the latest release.
[CachyOS]
While hyping up its couch keyboard, Framework CEO Nirav Patel showed images of how people use its computers in the living room. It gave me a Leo DiCaprio moment as I noticed a photo from my time testing Bazzite on the Framework Desktop. How about a photo credit, Nirav?
An update to the AMDGPU kernel graphics driver for Linux adds a “power module” that Windows uses to manage display features like backlight and self-refresh, Phoronix reports. The patch should improve power management for displays on Linux devices, potentially leading to fewer display issues and better battery life, especially on laptops.
France’s Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM) has announced its “exit from Windows in favor of workstations running on the Linux operating system,” as XDA reports. It’s part of a broader shift away from non-European tech — in January, France’s government also launched its own videoconferencing platform to replace Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet.
As OMG Ubuntu points out, the new minimum is in place beginning with version 26.04, scheduled for release on April 23rd. You’ll still be able to install Ubuntu on systems with less RAM, if you can stomach it, but a lighter Linux distro might be a better pick, like Linux Mint or Lubuntu.
The chip that was originally released 37 years ago in 1989 will no longer have kernel support on Linux 7.1, as Phoronix reports. Of course, anyone still hanging onto an i486 can always stick to a long-term support (LTS) Linux kernel version. Meanwhile, Microsoft no longer supports some CPUs from less than a decade ago.
Steam’s hardware and software survey says Linux users more than doubled from 2.23 percent in February, jumping to a record high of 5.33 percent of Steam users. Linux has been steadily gaining popularity on Steam over the past several months, previously peaking at 3.58 percent in December.
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If your laptop is stranded on Windows 10, the solution isn’t a new laptop. It’s a new operating system.
Benchmark test results from Phoronix show KDE Plasma 6.6 consistently outperforming GNOME 50 on Ubuntu 26.04 while using both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards. While these results could vary based on distro and hardware, gamers might want to opt for KDE over GNOME as the desktop environment for their next Linux gaming PC.
Linux gaming is getting better every day, but I’m not sure that anyone had this on their 2026 bingo card. Support for guitar controllers is being baked directly into the Linux 7.0 kernel, including some licensed models, such as the PDP RiffMaster and CRKD Gibson SG.
One year on Linux, two distros, a few tears, four desktop environments, and zero regrets about leaving Windows.
GamingOnLinux points out that while Valve’s December 2025 Steam hardware survey originally showed a slight drop in Linux users to 3.19 percent, the data has now been amended.
The updated results put Linux usage at 3.58 percent, yet another record high for the third consecutive month. Could 2026 finally be the year of Linux?
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At the opening of a new Johannesburg office, Canva’s Global Marketing Lead for Affinity, Liam Fisher, commented to TechCentral that native Linux support for Affinity is one of the top requests, and it’s “being discussed seriously internally.”
A lack of professional creative apps is one of Linux’s biggest drawbacks, so it could be a huge win if it ever actually happens.
At least, according to a new trove of benchmark data collected by Gamers Nexus, which compares game performance on one of the most popular gaming Linux distributions.
They tested several different GPUs, too, so you can get an idea of how your PC might perform if you leave Windows behind.
Nathan is jumping to Linux, pushed to the brink by AI agents and Copilot, tempted by the promise of better gaming through Bazzite. This is it, guys.
captobie:
...,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017,2018,2019,2020,2021,2022,2023,2024, 2025 will be the year of Linux!
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I don’t like where Windows is going. Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable. Time to give it a shot.
Bazzite can get you so close to the dream of PC gaming everywhere.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, have surprisingly never met before. That all changed at a recent dinner hosted by Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich.
The worlds of Linux and Windows finally came together in real life, and Dave Cutler, Microsoft technical fellow and Windows NT lead developer, was also there to witness the moment and meet Torvalds for the first time. “No major kernel decisions were made,” jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.
Someone posted a Hacker News link to a demo of HNTerm, a command line tool that lets you browse that site using the MacOS or Linux Terminal. Here’s the GitHub link.
There are other similar tools, as this comment points out, but it’s a fun reminder that Terminal can do more than things like tweaking how long notifications stick around or adjusting your Mac’s power schedule.
[hnterm.ggerganov.com]
The long-term plan to gain access, and the backdoor’s careful design have experts agreeing that “Jia Tan” was probably not a lone wolf. Security researcher Costin Raiu tells Wired the XZ Utils attack is far more “cunning” than anything he’d seen previously.
Others have looked into when Tan submitted their code. Most uploads were linked to China’s time zone, while several were (perhaps accidentally) in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, and they continued working on notable Chinese holidays.
Red Hat urgently warned this week that recent beta versions of Fedora operating systems contained malicious code for backdoor access. Debian issued a similar warning.
A blog post from security firm Deepfactor points out that Microsoft developer Andres Freund notified the Linux security Openwall Project after stumbling on the exploit. On Mastodon, Freund said discovering it “really required a lot of coincidences,” starting with him probing curiously high CPU usage by an SSH process.
Update March 7th, 11PM ET: We have more details on the XZ Utils backdoor attempt right here.
