341: GNOME 50, Manjaro 2.0 Manifesto, Blender 5.1, Fedora Asahi, Samba, & more Linux news

[01:00:00:02 – 01:00:47:10]
This week in Linux, we have a jam packed show. First, we’re going to be talking about GNOMEs latest release with GNOME 50. There’s also a new release with Blender and GIMP as well as Samba and many more. Plus, we’re also going to be talking about a new effort from the Linux Foundation related to ai slop in terms of pull requests for various different open source projects. And we’re also going to be talking about Manjaro and they have a little bit of a potential turmoil or drama that’s happening right now because of the Manjaro 2.0 Manifesto. We’re going to talk about that and much more because we have so much to cover on this week in Linux, the weekly news show that keeps you up to date with what’s going on in the Linux and Open Source world. Now let’s jump right into Your Source for Linux GNews.

[01:00:47:10 – 01:00:51:12]
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[01:01:10:09 – 01:01:33:02]
Brand new version of Linux is most widely used desktop environment has arrived and that is GNOME 50. The GNOME project has officially announced GNOME 50 and this release brings many new features like enabling variable refresh rate and fractional scaling by default. It also expands parental controls and add support for hardware accelerated remote desktop sessions.

[01:01:33:02 – 01:01:52:26]
First, let’s talk about variable refresh rate or VRR because this is likely the most exciting update for users since it means you no longer need to use command tweaks like G settings or distro patches for the distro to have by default for you to be able to use VRR in GNOME. You just get it by default with GNOME 50.

[01:01:52:26 – 01:02:27:20]
For those unfamiliar VRR changes the display refresh rate to sync to whatever is showing on screen. This means if you’re playing a game, then it will offer faster rendering or if you’re just looking at static content on a webpage and it will use a lower refresh rate for that. And you won’t even need to worry about like they will just automatically switch back and forth because if you don’t need it, why use it and that sort of thing. There’s also low latency cursor support in this release. So that means your mouse cursor will move at your monitors maximum refresh rate when VRR is active, even if the app you’re using is rendering at a low rate.

[01:02:27:20 – 01:03:09:00]
Now, before GNOME 50 came out, it was possible to use VRR, but it was in an experimental status. And now with 50, it has moved to default. In addition to VRR, another display feature that received upgrade from being set experimental is fractional scaling. And alongside this is a setting to enable legacy app scaling for X11 apps running on Whelan. Of course, not all apps will be able to support this because this could, you know, this could be an application that is super ancient with like 40 year old. Who knows? Because that’s how old X is. Actually, X is a little older than that. But anyway, it used, they still might work in general through X Whelan, but they might look a bit weird with potentially oversized or blurry visuals.

[01:03:09:00 – 01:03:38:06]
But fractional scaling is really great to see because if you don’t have it and you have a high definition monitor or high resolution monitor, it can be very annoying to have really small visuals on the screen. So fractional scaling is very important because it used to have an option where you could just do 100% or 200% and that’s not always the right option depending on your monitor, how big the size of the screen is, how much resolution you have and that sort of stuff. So fractional scaling is very important and really, really good to see it being added to GNOME 50.

[01:03:38:06 – 01:04:13:15]
The next big news item for GNOME 50 is that GDM now runs entirely on Whelan for its own sessions, which means X11 support has been removed. This is known to be coming in this release as they announced it back in GNOME 48, but they, you know, there are still bound to be people who will have an issue with this. So just letting you know now for those of you who run multiple desktops, it will still be possible for desktop environments that ship their own X11 sessions to be reused with alongside GNOME and a per user X server type of way. So plasma XFC and others can continue with X11 if you want to.

[01:04:13:15 – 01:05:09:08]
Now let’s talk about power profiles. I leave my devices on the low power battery saver mode when I’m using a laptop because I want to stretch the battery as far as I can, as you typically would want that right. You want the battery to last as long as possible. And I typically only turn on balanced or performance modes when I have to like the laptop plugged into the outlet. But have you ever enabled the performance mode when you’re plugged in and then forget to disable it when you unplug? Well, this can cause your body to drain faster than it would normally would. And I have experienced this many times. And now GNOME has a solution. Well, it’s sort of a indicator as they’ve added for GNOME 50. So GNOME 50 now shows an icon in the top panel to indicate which power profile you are on when you are not on the standard balance mode. So if you’re on standard or the standard balance, you will not see an icon. But if you’re on the battery saver, it will tell you on you’re on that. And if you’re on performance, it will also tell you have a different icon.

[01:05:09:08 – 01:05:23:23]
Directly on documents so you can easily add signatures and you can even add text annotations. The new text annotations are bound to be useful for many people because you know, sometimes PDF forms are sent to you and they’re not actually editable. This will make it more accessible.

[01:05:34:02 – 01:05:40:20]
And PDF forms because they you can just basically overlay it and like superimpose the answers rather than having to deal with the forms not working. So this is a really good. So this is a really good addition to the to this app.

[01:05:40:20 – 01:05:43:11]
So this is a really nice addition to see.

[01:05:43:11 – 01:06:35:12]
So the new file manager also received a lot of updates and most of them are just small tweaks here and there. But there is one thing that I wanted to point out and that is that they made a change to their batch renaming feature. Now, batch renaming is a really cool feature to have. And I do like the way that they do it for the most part inside of GNOME. But they’ve made a change that adds a highlight text that I’m not really a fan of. I don’t like this because, well, I understand the value of the idea offers, but I would be typing this manually each time anyway because of how the battery name works in GNOME. So why do I need to highlight what I’m typing? But let’s say you are like, you have like an excessively large file name or something like that. So let’s say you are typing and it’s hard to see it. But even then, the way this highlights makes it harder to read because it’s black text on green background. And it’s just not great.

[01:06:35:12 – 01:06:57:19]
request some padding being added to these highlighting or make the color options have more contrast or, you know, just have like only one side like the old side being highlighted rather than the new one or something like that or any of these combinations, whatever you want. Just something that’s a little bit more easier to read because if it’s supposed to highlight, it’s supposed to make it easier. And this does the opposite in my opinion.

[01:06:57:19 – 01:07:29:24]
Now I do think battery name is a great functionality to have. And if you haven’t ever used it, you definitely should because I think you’ll find a lot of great use cases for it. I use it quite often, but I’d rather use a dedicated tool that offers more benefits than being able to rename files recursively rather than just an active folder like this one. So if you are looking for a batch rename tool, I actually made a video about that for Kree name, which you can find in the show notes. But also there’s a Cisco is another option, which is a great tool for battery naming as well.

[01:07:29:24 – 01:08:16:03]
past few releases, Nome has been working on various wellness related features like the digital wellbeing system, accessibility features and Nome 50. They focused on expanding parental controls with Nome 50. Parents can set daily screen time limits and bedtime schedules for child accounts, which once reached the results and they screen automatically locking. And for the kiddos, notifications are shown to them as they get close to their limits and time extensions can be granted if needed by a parent. By default, this may not come with your distro because it requires a specific package in order to use these features. But if your distro doesn’t ship it, you can manually add it by installing the package. Malcontent dash GUI, which is kind of hilarious. The tool to limit a user is called malcontent.

[01:08:16:03 – 01:08:48:01]
Speaking of accessibility, Nome 50 introduces several new developments for assistive tech. First, the Orca screen reader has received many significant improvements. A new preference window with a revamped design to make it more consistent with other Nome apps. All settings are now global, eliminating the need to save settings on a per application basis, such as like if you have a web browser and you switch to another web browser, that can get annoying. So you can do a global system now. But also settings can set up a new application basis if you want to do that.

[01:08:48:01 – 01:08:59:28]
also now automatic language switching. It has been added for both web content and app UI. Browse mode has been extended to all document content and sticky mode has been adjusted to automatically turn on for

[01:08:59:28 – 01:09:01:01]
electron apps,

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Braille support has also been enhanced. And mouse review can now be used in Wayland sessions.

[01:09:06:01 – 01:09:19:27]
50 also includes the introduction of a new reduced motion option, and this can be enabled in the seeing section of the accessibility settings, and this adjusts interface animations to reduce any discomfort or distraction for those sensitive to motion.

[01:09:19:27 – 01:09:51:08]
Nome 50 also supports hardware accelerated remote desktop sessions with video encoding being offloaded to the GPU using Vulcan and VA API. This has been requested by many people who use the remote desktop feature, and this should result in smoother sessions with less lag. And Nvidia users get explicit sync support, and high DPI support means remote clients scale correctly for resolutions, and webcam redirection is now making it possible to get your local camera appear as if it’s plugged into the remote machine.

[01:09:51:08 – 01:10:02:02]
And finally, Nome 50 includes the typical plethora of bug fixes, optimizations, and performance tuning. If you’d like to learn more about the latest release of the GNOME desktop, you’ll find links in the show notes.

[01:10:02:02 – 01:10:17:09]
looks like there is some turmoil going on in the Manjaro Linux community. The developer community who work on Manjaro have released the Manjaro 2.0 Manifesto, which has some strong stances on how they see the project along with the Manjaro company.

[01:10:17:09 – 01:10:29:13]
Manjaro has been around for many years, and at one point it seemed like Manjaro Linux was destined to be a major player by being the most popular arch-based distribution. But after many missteps, the project appears to be at a breaking point.

[01:10:29:13 – 01:10:49:06]
With any project that has been around for as long as Manjaro has, there’s bound to be an issue here and there. But Manjaro, they tend to have the same issues repeatedly. For example, they have repeatedly let their SSL certificates expire bringing down their website and forums on multiple occasions, and it’s even affected users not being able to update their packages.

[01:10:49:06 – 01:11:09:27]
Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I haven’t ever let an SSL certificate expire. I have. But you’re supposed to learn from your mistakes, not continue to make the same mistake over and over. The fact is, SSL certificates renewal is something you can easily solve by automating the process, and not doing that for years doesn’t bode well for the reputation of Manjaro.

[01:11:09:27 – 01:11:30:15]
On the Manjaro Linux official forum, their team have put up a Manjaro 2.0 Manifesto with backing so far from at least 19 people on the Manjaro team. This includes four developers, six community moderators, six community assistants. I’m not sure what that is, but those. Also, two community managers and even Roman Gilg, the CTO of Manjaro company.

[01:11:30:15 – 01:11:51:11]
They are saying that Manjaro’s leadership does not align with the developers and community involved in it, stating that Manjaro has become one individual’s personal project and everything is centralized around this single individual. And they also call out the attempts to turn Manjaro into a business, have mostly failed, so they want to see changes happen and these are some big changes.

[01:11:51:11 – 01:12:10:10]
In the end, it’s just that Manjaro’s project has been declining over the past decade. It managed to sustain a sizable user base, yet it stagnated, lost trust, and lost almost all of its contributors, and even became a laughingstock for repeatedly making the same mistakes and never even attempting to address these known issues.

[01:12:10:10 – 01:12:49:05]
So what are the changes that they’re wanting? Well, they want to make Manjaro split off into two distinct entities. The company behind Manjaro, which would be Manjaro, GmbH, and CoKG, and a new Nonprofit Registered Association, or EV, along with a lot of project assets being transferred over to this new nonprofit org. They outlined a lot of their plan in the manifesto, which sounds like solid ideas to me, and they want to have a collaborative effort but to have division leads that help guide the path forward on projects as just one of their ideas. They also mention there are multiple stages for this manifesto.

[01:12:49:05 – 01:13:16:17]
So stage zero would be wait for an over-apply within a reasonable time span without taking any action. Stage one would be they say publicly release this document, which has happened, and a general strike will commence. Nonessential distro and community efforts will be paused. So stage two will also will consider forking and or leaving the Manjaro project as it currently stands. So some big stuff could happen with Manjaro.

[01:13:16:17 – 01:13:48:14]
been multiple updates with this news. The first update was that the developers of the community of the trying to switch to make this new organization have said that Philip Mueller was kind of stalling things, so they decided to vote on striking, and they did vote, and they are striking, and they are considering even the new one. So the first update was that the developers of the community of the trying to switch to make this new organization did vote, and they are striking, and they are considering even locking down the entire official forum if there’s not a response from Mueller, and they also said that they’re going to potentially do more depending on what happens in the coming days.

[01:13:48:14 – 01:13:58:24]
Now after they said that, they actually did get a response from Philip all the way down here, so let’s go check that out, because this happened either last night or this morning.

[01:13:58:24 – 01:13:59:28]
Okay, here we go.

[01:13:59:28 – 01:14:02:21]
It says, “To me, it seems a bit like mutiny on the bounty.

[01:14:02:21 – 01:15:18:21]
of us were part of the Mandurah project from the very start, whilst others joined us later on our shared journey, and now some feel as though they’ve bought a ticket for the Titanic and are heading straight for an iceberg. Back in 2019, we made the transition from a community project to a community-driven company, and also used assets for commercial projects as a normal company would do. If an exit to the community, or in our case, another split is now being considered, a transfer cannot happen overnight. There needs to be a hard cut from company-related assets, not even with all the assets listed here. From my perspective, the new entity must first be established, and a transition plan drawn up before anything can actually be set in motion. So far, I’ve only seen comments on the topic, and about how great Mandurah is as a Linux distro, but no concrete steps taken to realize wishes expressed here. I wasn’t against having an association as an entity back in 2019, and I’m not against it now either. I am also open to serious discussions with the new entity if one already exists. In a joint discussion with Roman, he actually wanted to take the lead in founding the association. The ball is in your court, decide as a community, go ahead and set up the new entity, then get in touch with me, otherwise business as usual.”

[01:15:18:21 – 01:15:34:09]
Now, a lot of the responses are thanking him for his reaction to the situation, saying that they want to keep the community intact and everything, and they just want to have a separate nonprofit entity to make things manage in that sense.

[01:15:34:09 – 01:15:59:03]
Now, like I said in the beginning of this topic, Mandurah has had some ups and downs, but this seems pretty serious, especially with Roman, the CTO of the company, being on board with these changes. So, based on the response from Philip and also the response from Dennis, it does look like they’re probably going to move forward with this kind of split, but we’ll have to wait and see just exactly what happens. But I just want to repeat a part of the manifesto again,

[01:15:59:03 – 01:16:20:01]
So, it says it’s been declining and has lost trust, lost almost all of its contributors, and even became a laughing stock. And this begs the question, why bother with splitting into two entities? Why not just fork Mandurah and move on? And I thought this at first as well. And honestly, with how messy this sounds, this still might be the way to go, but we’ll have to see.

[01:16:21:11 – 01:16:42:14]
I’ve also researched this topic quite a bit. Yes, I do research the topics for this show. It’s not just me, a random guy, reading a script or anything like that. Anyway, I was researching, and I came up with two reasons why this is, they might be doing this publicly, and why it would be a good idea for them to have done that, despite the unfortunate intention it’s receiving at the moment.

[01:16:42:14 – 01:17:06:19]
So, the number one thing is that as a marketer myself, I can see that letting everyone know this is going to happen, or just that it’s going on, and expressing you want to make the situation better looks good, because it shows that you’re trying to put an effort out there. And if they were to fork immediately, it might not have even, it might have seen bitter, but they also might not even be seen at all. But it looks like they genuinely want to make the project better for the users.

[01:17:06:19 – 01:17:29:21]
and number two is if you look at all of the big companies in the Linux ecosystem making operating systems, all of them have a community-driven upstream. You know, Fedora Linux is the upstream for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Debian is the upstream for Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is the upstream for SUSE Linux Enterprise. So, there’s precedent that doing this kind of thing can most certainly work.

[01:17:29:21 – 01:17:40:29]
Personally, I hope things get settled in an amicable way where everyone involved are happy, and the users are happy, and all that sort of stuff. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, and if you’d like to learn more about this, you’ll find links in the show notes.

[01:17:40:29 – 01:18:25:03]
The Blender project has a brand new version out with Blender 5.1. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Blender is an icon in the open source world because it’s been around for a long time, and continues to get better and better. Blender is an open source 3D computer graphics software tool that is used in basically all sorts of stuff, general 3D modeling and animation, but it’s also mostly known for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality stuff, and even creating 3D models for video games. And this release of Blender 5.1 adds a lot of cool stuff.

[01:18:25:03 – 01:19:08:08]
(Silence) Blender 5.1 adds the new ray cast node, allows you to cast rays against scene geometry, similar to the existing geometry nodes, but now available for shaders in both Cycles and EV. This enables a wide range of effects, including NPR stylization integrated with scene shading, and when using EV, it is currently limited to screen space tracing. Also, EV materials now compile faster by pre-compiling GPU pipelines in parallel, and GPU shaders also compile more quickly across all platforms thanks to pre-processing of the shader sources. Plus, EV now saves texture memory by overlapping frame buffer and render textures at different points within a frame.

[01:19:08:08 – 01:19:19:18]
The Blender team have added some node-based transition effects thanks to the new Sequencer strip info node. And this new node provides timing and transformed data, such as frame range, position, rotation, and scale.

[01:19:19:18 – 01:19:51:27]
Blender 5.1 delivers a major boost to animation playback performance. Shape key evaluation has seen a significant performance boost since Blender 5.0, especially on high poly meshes. And actions now evaluate much faster, and especially on armatures with mini bones keyed. Improved GPU rendering performance by up to 10% on various benchmark scenes has also been seen. And for AMD GPUs, hardware ray tracing is now enabled by default through HIP RT. But what’s performance without reliability, you ask?

[01:19:51:27 – 01:20:14:10]
Well, the Blender theme thought that as well, so this past few months, the Blender team has been working on what they call the “winter of quality.” During the past December to January, Blender developers focused on improving quality of the code base and overall stability through a coordinated effort. More than 350 reported issues were fixed. Additionally, developers worked on addressing technical debt, as well as improving documentation.

[01:20:14:10 – 01:20:27:13]
And of course, that’s not all there is for Blender 5.1, but that’s all we have time for to cover on the show because there’s just so much in this release. So if you want to learn more, you’ll find links in the show notes.

[01:20:27:13 – 01:20:32:18]
Linux Foundation has launched an effort to shield FOSS maintainers from AI slot bug reports

[01:20:32:18 – 01:20:50:06]
to get the ball rolling, this effort has started with $12.5 million for strengthening open source software security. The funding will be managed by Alpha Omega and the open source security foundation or OpenSSF and two of its security focused initiatives.

[01:20:50:06 – 01:21:02:14]
The announcement post describes a situation like this. As the security landscape grows more complex, advances in AI are dramatically increasing the speed and scalability of vulnerability discovery in open source software.

[01:21:02:14 – 01:21:13:21]
Maintainers are now facing an unprecedented influx of security findings, many of which are generated by automated systems without the resources or tooling needed to triage and remediate them effectively.

[01:21:13:21 – 01:21:35:21]
Now it’s true that many open source projects don’t have the resources or tooling to handle being inundated with reports, and it’s a real concern for projects to not be overwhelmed with AI slop. That’s not what they’re calling it, but whatever is basically what it is. That’s not to say that all AI reports are slop though, but a significant amount of them are.

[01:21:35:21 – 01:22:07:27]
One example is the CURL project, and for many years they’ve had a bug bounty program, but last year they got hit with a wave of AI generated reports. These were not real vulnerability findings, just an onslaught of unsubstantiated, unresearched submissions that were clearly generated by AI and sending off without any understanding of what is being sent at all in hopes of trying to easily cash in on a bug bounty. Yeah, they just wanted to submit whatever garbage they could in hopes that they would get paid for doing nothing.

[01:22:07:27 – 01:22:19:28]
CURL’s creator Daniel Steinberg initially tried to push back by calling out people for doing this sort of thing, but unfortunately it continued and eventually he just decided to end the bug bounty program for CURL entirely.

[01:22:19:28 – 01:22:34:21]
And there are many other projects dealing with this kind of thing. It’s a real shame because projects are being harassed with garbage code, and the people who are genuinely trying to help projects with bug bounties are being left out because of all these bad actors.

[01:22:34:21 – 01:22:44:18]
Now when I first heard about this news, I was glad to hear it because it’s needed, and then I saw where the money came from. And I sort of busted out laughing at how ridiculous this is.

[01:22:44:18 – 01:23:03:07]
That $12.5 million that I mentioned earlier comes from Tropic, Google, Microsoft, AWS, OpenAI, and a couple others. That’s right. Companies who helped cause the problem of AI slop with their AI tools are now donating a measly $12.5 million collectively.

[01:23:03:07 – 01:23:05:14]
Not each, collectively.

[01:23:05:14 – 01:23:08:13]
That breaks down to less than $1.8 million apiece.

[01:23:08:13 – 01:23:13:13]
And these multi-billion dollar mega companies couldn’t even bother to rounding up to $2 million apiece.

[01:23:13:13 – 01:23:39:16]
(Silence) Greg Crow Hartman, one of the core maintainers of the Linux kernel, commented about this news saying, “Grant funding alone is not going to help solve the problem that AI tools are causing today on open source security teams.” OpenSSF has the active resources needed to support numerous projects that will help these overworked maintainers with the triage and processing of the increased AI generated security reports they are currently receiving.

[01:23:39:16 – 01:23:44:15]
I hope this effort helps address the core issue here because it really needs to be addressed.

[01:23:44:15 – 01:24:30:15]
it’s kind of funny that these companies recognize the problem they caused yet put almost nothing into the effort to help. I know they probably donate to a lot of projects and foundations and all of that, so comparing this to their annual revenue is a bit of a stretch. But the point is, they could all afford to donate at least $12.5 million apiece and not even notice. I mean, it would be like a rounding error for them. And they could only spare enough to collectively reach that? It just seems a bit of a joke at this point. So hopefully they are able to help with this project, this effort. Linux Foundation can actually do something about this. But this amount of money is just laughable at how many companies

[01:24:31:24 – 01:24:40:01]
add it up to so little compared to the billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and

[01:24:40:01 – 01:25:04:12]
The Samba project have announced the release of Samba 4.24. For those unfamiliar with Samba, Samba is a music and dance style originating from Brazil. Wait, no. No, not that one. Samba is the most feature rich open source implementation of the SMB in Active Directory protocols for Linux. Samba makes it possible to connect to networks with Windows powered systems to integrate them into your workflow.

[01:25:04:12 – 01:25:46:14]
Samba provides secure, stable, and fast file and print services for all clients using SMB and other AD protocols such as LDAP and Kerberos. And Samba 4.24 brings more features including remote password management support with services like Microsoft Intra, self-service, password reset, and Keycloak. This matters because now Samba understands the policy hints control for password reset requests, which means those cloud driven password changes can now still respect local Active Directory password policies instead of bypassing them. This is especially useful for hybrid environments because it closes a gap where remote password workflows could conflict with on-premise policy enforcement.

[01:25:46:14 – 01:25:55:03]
Samba 4.24 brings authentication information audit support for some attributes that are not secret but relied on for some forms of authentication.

[01:25:55:03 – 01:26:21:19]
4.24 also allows larger streams with the likes of XFS now able to handle more than 65K or 64K of extended X attributes. There is also support for Kerberos PK-Innit KeyTrust Logon and KDC improvements and Samba now has an AIO rate limiting VFS module if you’re wanting to rate limit async IO operations.

[01:26:21:19 – 01:26:26:14]
And if you’d like to learn more about the latest release of Samba, you can find links in the show notes.

[01:26:26:14 – 01:26:54:26]
GIMP 3.2 is officially out landing about a year after GIMP 3.0 and this release looks like a very exciting follow-up. I’ve been doing graphic design and working with these kinds of tools professionally for many years and GIMP 3.0 was the first time I was actually excited to try it out. And one of the biggest issues GIMP has always had before is the destructive nature of the program but with GIMP 3.0 they added some non-destructive tools and with GIMP 3.2 they’ve added even more.

[01:26:54:26 – 01:27:14:19]
The headline feature for me is new non-destructive layer types. GIMP 3.2 adds link layers which work kind of like linked smart objects in Photoshop. You can bring in an external image, transform it inside your project, and if that original file changes in another app, GIMP can update it live which is really cool.

[01:27:14:19 – 01:27:36:18]
GIMP 3.2 also adds vector layers. That’s right, GIMP 3.2 now lets you create vector layers using the path tool. When you create a path layer you can set stroke and fill settings and more. And the GIMP developers say that the shape of the vector layer also automatically updates whenever you adjust the path and you can now non-destructively rotate, scale, and transform it too.

[01:27:36:18 – 01:27:51:27]
Like other layer types you can rasterize vector layers to work with them destructively if for some reason you would ever want to do that. Though interestingly the release notes say you can revert back to a vector layer using a revert rasterize option which is pretty cool.

[01:27:51:27 – 01:28:08:14]
Now GIMP already had text as a non-destructive layer type but this release expands that in many ways. The text box can be moved out of the way while you type. It supports text formatting keyboard shortcuts like if you want to do bold text you can use ctrl B to do that. And it also offers extra options for text outline.

[01:28:08:14 – 01:28:35:09]
There are also a bunch of other improvements that help round out the release like the My Paint Brush tool gets updated to have a newer API and brings 20 new brushes including an arrow brush. While also responding better to canvas zoom, rotation, and tablet input. There is also a new overwrite paint mode that is which base essentially useful for pixel art because it replaces color values without blending alpha the usual way.

[01:28:35:09 – 01:28:46:16]
On top of that GIMP 3.2 expands non-destructive filters so they can apply to channels. So not just layers and groups you can also apply these filters to the channels and it adds a new vibrance filter through Giggle.

[01:28:46:16 – 01:29:06:05]
Also the support for file formats has been broadened including export support for things like JPEG 2000, SVG, PDF vector, and Photoshop PSB. And also import support has been improved for PSD documents making it possible to have more layer styles included such as drop shadow which is really nice.

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Developers also say this release puts real effort into stability and regression fixes after the massive jump that GIMP 3.0 was.

[01:29:13:17 – 01:29:37:05]
So overall GIMP 3.2 looks really good and for the first time ever it might have the potential to be a viable option for those stuck on Adobe thanks to more non-destructive features and vector layers which are really awesome to see. And that’s not to say it’s anywhere near a Photoshop killer by any means but it might be able to serve more people who want a tool that is open source and robust.

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Now personally I can’t wait to see when GIMP gets to the point where it can fully compete but I am also happy to see this kind of update because that’s a lot of cool stuff. A lot of more non-destructiveness and also adding vector layers which I’ve been wanting for a very long time inside of GIMP so this is really cool to see. And now that non-destructive features are making their way into GIMP

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consider changing the name too.

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Germany’s Federal Sovereign Digital Infrastructure Framework called the Deutschland Stack now explicitly mandates the Open Document Format or ODF along with PDF / UA as the required document formats for public administration use.

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And according to the Document Foundation this is not being presented as a suggestion or a preference it is being framed as a mandate inside the national framework.

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Now why that matters is pretty simple. ODF is an open vendor neutral document standard so making it mandatory is a direct move against long term dependence on proprietary document formats. So Germany is treating document standards as a part of the infrastructure not just a preference and that is awesome to see.

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The broader framework also lines up with that same direction. The Deutschland Stack reportedly emphasizes things like made in the EU first, open interfaces, local data storage, open source development in cases where proprietary ownership would otherwise dominate and reducing vendor lock in. So the ODF requirement fits into a much larger strategy about keeping public sector technology more transparent, more interoperable, and less dependent on a single outside vendor. The long running argument from open source standards advocates has been that public institutions should not lock their records or workflows or archives into formats controlled by a single company and Germany’s move gives that argument a lot more weight because it comes from national policy.

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So overall this is not the most exciting story in terms of shiny new features for a project or something like that but it is very important. Germany is effectively saying that open document standards are a vital part of sovereign digital infrastructure and that is a big deal for the broader push toward open standards in government tech.

[01:31:42:26 – 01:32:05:05]
Fedora Asahi Remix 43 is now available and this is the latest version of Fedora tailored for Apple Silicon Max. This project is a collaboration between the Fedora Asahi SIG and the Asahi Linux project and with this release it keeps pace with Fedora 43 while also adding more hardware support and some important platform upgrades for Mac users running Linux.

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of the biggest practical changes in this release is broader device support. So Fedora Asahi Remix 43 adds support for the Mac Pro, brings working microphone support to M2 Pro and M2 Macs MacBooks and adds

[01:32:18:22 – 01:32:33:05]
(Silence)

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And on the software side of things, this release also picks up the broader Fedora 43 base and one of the standout changes is package management. Neil Gompo, a friend of the show, is actually part of Fedora and also posted this article on Fedora Magazine. He says that Fedora Asahi Remix 43 includes RPM 6.0

[01:32:53:01 – 01:33:13:21]
DNF 5 backend for PackageKit and Plasma Discover and GNOME software. And that actually puts Fedora Asahi ahead of mainline Fedora on this specific change since Fedora Proper is still lining up that for Fedora 44. And that is an interesting detail because it means this remix is not just keeping up with Fedora. It’s in some cases

[01:33:13:21 – 01:33:17:25]
to other things such as this particular infrastructure upgrade.

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For the desktop experience, KDE Plasma 6.6 remains the flagship option for the KDE edition and there’s also the GNOME Workstation variant which comes with GNOME 49. Fedora Asahi Remix also continues to offer a server variant for headless and server workloads, plus a minimal image for people who want to build their own setup from the ground up. So this is not just one single desktop image for Mac users. They are clearly trying to offer multiple ways to use Fedora on Apple Silicon depending on what kind of system you actually want.

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Another detail worth pointing out is the custom setup experience because Fedora Asahi Remix ships with a Calamari’s based initial setup wizard on the KDE side and reporting around the release also notes that the Plasma Setup First Run workflow for handling user account creation separately from the OS installation. That kind of polish matters because Apple hardware users generally expect a smooth onboarding experience and Linux on Apple Silicon has to feel approachable for those people when they try it out.

[01:34:18:17 – 01:34:46:22]
So overall Fedora Asahi Remix 43 looks like a solid step forward. Keeps the project aligned with modern Fedora, adds real hardware improvements that Apple Silicon users will crave, and also even brings in some package management upgrades ahead of standard Fedora. Now Fedora Asahi has spent the past few releases steadily closing gaps and this update continues that pattern in a way that makes Linux on Apple Macs feel a lot more complete and a lot more practical.

[01:34:46:22 – 01:35:23:02]
Thanks for watching this episode of This Week in Linux. If you like what I do here on this show and want to be kept up to date with what’s going on in the Linux and open source world, then be sure to subscribe. And of course remember to like that smash button. And if you’d like to support the show and the TuxDigital channel, then consider becoming a patron by going to tuxdigital.com/membership where you get a bunch of cool perks like access to our patron only section of our Discord server and much, much more. You can also support the show by ordering the Linux is Everywhere t-shirt or the This Week in Linux shirt at our store at tuxdigital.com/store. Plus while you’re there check out all the other cool stuff we have like hats, mugs, hoodies, and more at tuxdigital.com/store.

[01:35:24:02 – 01:35:35:02]
I’ll see you next time for another episode of Your Source for Linux GNews. Thanks again for watching. I’m Michael Tunnell. I hope you’re doing swell. Be sure to ring that notification bell. And until next time, I bid you farewell.

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