Late Night Linux

Lots of security news including PHP, comically weak SSL cert keys, and accidental Linux kernel CVE disclosure. Plus Canonical is ramping up development of its immutable version of the Ubuntu desktop, and it (hopefully) won’t just be GNOME.

News

Today’s PHP Security Release, and How We’re Strengthening PHP Security

Amazon Threat Intelligence identifies PHP2Shell exploitation prior to public disclosure in MadPot

The Internet goes on high alert after discovery of 8 compromised TLS certs

eMudhra to Exit global SSL/TLS Certificate Business

Several Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities Accidentally Posted To Public Kernel Mailing List

A kernel bug for last weekend while we are at it

Accelerating Ubuntu Core Desktop

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Mozilla has a new revenue stream that might actually work, GNOME OS gets closer to a stable release, Raspberry Pi OS for x86 machines returns, and Amazon has expensive new Android tablets that have the Play Store. Plus hacking old Echo Dots to work with Home Assistant, building ad blocking lists, and unbricking an M1 Mac with Linux in discoveries.

News

Mozilla introduces Firefox Enterprise

Introducing GNOME OS Preview

Raspberry Pi Desktop now available for PC and Mac

Amazon’s new Alexa Tablets drop the Fire branding but are more Android than ever

Discoveries

Echo Dot Hacks

PiHole Blocking Tool

idevicerestore

Tailscale

Tailscale is a modern, secure, zero-trust connectivity platform. Tailscale’s personal plan will be free forever for up to 6 users and unlimited devices! No credit card required. Go to https://tailscale.com/lnl to get started. If you’d like to bring Tailscale to work, use code latenightlinux for three free months of any paid plan.

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A true legend of computer science leaves us, Fortnite is coming to Linux, Steam is finally moving away from 32-bit, Microsoft Defender comes to the Linux Desktop, Adobe’s flagship apps are cloned by AI as open source, and a quick KDE Korner.

News

Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90

The new Epic Games Launcher is finally here in Preview (Fortnite is coming to Linux)

Steam preemptively killed the only advantage Epic Games’ vibe-coded store would have had

Today’s Steam Beta Makes The Linux Client A 64-bit App

Secure Linux desktops with Microsoft Defender

“Software is over”: Bold AI developer takes aim at Adobe with open source clones

KDE Korner

KDE: The Documentary

Plasma 6.8

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New Snapdragon SoCs will officially support Linux, Firefox’s redesign confuses us, the Dutch government is embracing NixOS, F-Droid has a new modern look, and Ubuntu starts shipping new kernels more regularly. Plus with the iPhone Duo about to come out, Graham is still enjoying his Pixel 9 Pro Fold but Joe’s 10 Pro Fold is in a drawer.

News

Inside Snapdragon Summit 2026: Agentic AI PCs, Googlebooks and Linux

The new Firefox design: More modern, more flexible, still Firefox

Dutch government turns to NixOS for a sovereign desktop

F-Droid 2.0: A New Chapter for Android Freedom

Google’s assault on F-Droid has begun

Ryanair Boarding Pass Liberation

Getting Ryanair tickets

Accelerating delivery of CVE fixes with a new Kernel release strategy

Kernel Recipes 2026

Tailscale

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Joe gives his first impressions of the Steam Frame – a Linux PC that you wear on your face. It’s great for VR games, but it also has a KDE desktop.

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What Linux and open source will look like in 10 years, the aspects of Linux that got us hooked all those years ago, our happiest and most miserable experiences of converting people, and how we teach kids about privacy and security.

Tailscale

Tailscale is a modern, secure, zero-trust connectivity platform. Tailscale’s personal plan will be free forever for up to 6 users and unlimited devices! No credit card required. Go to https://tailscale.com/lnl to get started. If you’d like to bring Tailscale to work, use code latenightlinux for three free months of any paid plan.

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The Steam Frame is finally here and it’s not quite as expensive as we feared. Graham was selected in the lottery but will he actually buy one? We finally talk about Omarchy, its huge fundraising effort, and why we are disappointed in companies who are contributing. Plus LibreOffice’s enviable download numbers. With guest hosts Andy from Linux Dev Time, and Shane from Hybrid Cloud Show.

News

Steam Frame

Not just Proton: Getting to know Valve’s new SteamOS compatibility layers

Power grab

DigitalOcean has $3 million for DHH and nothing for CSS-Tricks

CSS-Tricks could be a co-op

One week of LibreOffice 26.8 – The stats!

Yes, no AI is now a feature

Development/AI policy – The Document Foundation Wiki

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We answer your questions including the last new distro we tried, what distro we’d switch to if ours went away, whether we should limit our computer use, our vision for the Linux desktop, and our unpopular Linux opinions.

Tailscale

Tailscale is a modern, secure, zero-trust connectivity platform. Tailscale’s personal plan will be free forever for up to 6 users and unlimited devices! No credit card required. Go to https://tailscale.com/lnl to get started. If you’d like to bring Tailscale to work, use code latenightlinux for three free months of any paid plan.

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Audacity’s new major release makes it more like a proper digital workstation, Debian finally gets off the genAI fence and disappoints some of us, California exempts Linux from terrible age verification laws, and Asahi boots on M3 Macs. With guest host Shane from Hybrid Cloud Show.

News

Audacity 4

Debian Votes To Allow “Responsible Use Of Generative AI”

Results for LLM usage in Debian

Retiring from the Project (vv221)

California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law

M2: Episode 1 (or, Asahi Linux on M3)

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KDE has a new proper LTS and Joe is very interested, the Steam Frame is (really) nearly here, the Epic Games Store is coming to Linux, Nintendo continues to play whack-a-mole with Switch emulators, and GitHub’s serious scaling issues are getting ridiculous.

News/discussion

What a real LTS looks like: Kubuntu 26.04

Kubuntu Focus, Techpaladin Software, and KDE e.V. Announce the ‘bullet-proof’ KDE Software Initiative

New Frame welcome videos pushed to Steam Store assets

Epic Games Store Will Support Linux “Soon”

Nintendo Wipes Out 400+ Switch Emulator Repos in Single-Day GitHub Sweep

Fairphone 6 + PostmarketOS working main camera!

The August 17 GitHub outage, and the work ahead

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To celebrate 400 episodes, we look back of the last (almost) ten years of positive Linux and FOSS news.

Plugs

Piss up at The Shipwrights Arms (just next to London Bridge station) on Saturday 5th September from 5pm until late

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9.5 years of good news

Thunderbird Is Thriving: Our 2022 Financial Report (May 2023)

Asking for donations in Plasma (Aug 2024)

I think the donation notification works (Dec 2024)

Ubuntu 25.10 and Fedora 43 to drop X11 in GNOME editions (Jun 2025)

An update on the X11 GNOME Session Removal (Jun 2025)

GNOME Mutter Now “Completely Drops The Whole X11 Backend” (Nov 2025)

KDE Going all-in on a Wayland future (Nov 2025)

Give Fedora Silverblue a test drive (Sept 2018)

KDE Linux Alpha has been released (Sept 2025)

Introducing a new version of Steam Play (Aug 2018)

Steam Deck Launching February 25th 2022

Steam Machine, controller, VR headset incoming from Valve (Nov 2025)

Canonical Builds Steam Snap For Ubuntu ARM64 Leveraging FEX (Jan 2026)

Announcing WSL 2 (May 2019)

How one volunteer stopped a backdoor from exposing Linux systems worldwide (Apr 2024)

Linux has made it to Mars (Feb 2021)

Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will fly no more (Jan 2024)

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Guest hosts Chris from Linux After Dark and Sean from Hybrid Cloud Show tell Joe and Félim about bootc desktop Linux distros, how they build, deploy, and update them, and why this modern approach is so powerful. Plus another system information tool, cutting edge upscaling on the Steam Deck, and why Chris has switched to the KDE Plasma desktop.

Bootc desktops

bootc

Using Bootc to Manage Ubuntu Hosts

ubuntu-summit-26-demo

ubuntu-bootc

Mono repository for all bootcrew images

How Steam Play/Proton makes Gaming on Linux Awesome

Discoveries

HWall

ProtonPlus

KDE Plasma desktop

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Reports of desktop Linux adoption numbers are probably exaggerated, the Steam Frame seemingly gets closer, Valve’s European logistics partner leaks people’s data, Proxmox gains Arm64 support, GNOME Boxes makes some changes, and a quick KDE Korner. With guest hosts Chris from Linux After Dark, and Sean from Hybrid Cloud Show.

News

Piss up at The Shipwrights Arms (just next to London Bridge station) on Saturday 5th September from 5pm until late

Linux Desktop Market Share Surpasses 10% in North America

Steam On Linux Use Back Above 4% In July

Valve may be putting the finishing touches to the Steam Frame software stack, because Lepton and FEX are now on Steam

Steam hardware shipper breach leaks customer data, including names and addresses

Proxmox Virtual Environment launches official Arm64 Support

Proxmox ports itself to Arm with help from Nvidia and Supermicro

Getting Started With Libvirt and Saltstack

Felipe Borges: The Future of GNOME Boxes

KDE Korner

This Month in KDE Linux: July 2026

This Quarter in KDE Digital Sovereignty: Q2 2026

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Initial Steam Machine reviews are broadly positive, Jellyfin is losing some key project leaders, Sony deletes more movies that people “bought”, why you probably shouldn’t wipe your phone when the US authorities ask for access, Graham repurposes some discarded crypto hardware to play arcade games, Félim gets that old game working, a great terminal music player, and more.

News

Steam Machine with SteamOS Linux – initial thoughts

Jellyfin Project Leadership Changes

Sony Deletes A Bunch More Movies From The Accounts Of People Who ‘Bought’ Them

US government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system

David Potter, the man who put Psion in the palm of your hand, logs off at 82

Discoveries

AMD BC250 Documentation

Cholo

kew

Screenshot of kew in action

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With several open source figures taking a stance on either side of the generative AI debate, we have another argument about it. This time we actually come to something closer to an understanding of each other’s views, even if we still end up disagreeing.

News/discussion

Piss up at The Shipwrights Arms (just next to London Bridge station) on Saturday 5th September from 5pm until late

“Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issueswith that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it”

Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs

General Resolution: LLM usage in Debian

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Some of the tech from early on in our lives that inspired where we are today. Plus discoveries including and old game that doesn’t work, professional audio hardware that now works on Linux, Arch on easy mode, and an old chip that can do a surprising amount.

Discoveries

Celebrating 55 years of the 555 timer chip (flashing alert)

open-apollo

Ovine

EndeavourOS

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Mozilla is paying for Firefox to be on the front of Wrexham football shirts, SCO vs IBM might not be dead after all, Red Hat will support RHEL forever if you are willing to pay, OpenMandriva discovers why distros need good governance, Félim awaits his statue, and a quick Kagi update.

News

Wrexham AFC and Firefox announce a multi-year, front-of-kit partnership

Zombie ‘who owns Unix?’ lawsuit comes alive again

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Long-Life Add-On: Your path to RHEL with no pre-determined end date

OpenMandriva Statement regarding attempted distribution sabotage

KDE at 30

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A great example of accessibility features benefitting more than the target audience, a new version of the classic game Nethack, checking for bufferbloat, and Windows 10 limps on in discoveries. Then Félim’s question about the perceived value of open source goes in unexpected directions.

Discoveries

quick drag

Nethack 5

check your bufferbloat

opnsense help

Microsoft extends extended updates for Windows 10 in the most muted way imaginable

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We finally have pricing for the Steam Machine, but they are very hard to actually buy, and very expensive. SteamOS is now supported on your own hardware now though, and Joe gives it a go. Plus Ubuntu makes moves to tighten up the flavours situation and announces speech to text on the desktop, and a quick KDE Korner.

News

Valve opens Steam Machine pre-orders with queue lottery and hefty prices amid AI squeeze

Valve’s Steam Machine ships June 29 for $1,049, but you probably won’t be able to buy one yet

Gamers Nexus long review

Valve will finally let you build your own Steam Machine with SteamOS for desktop [archived]

$100 Steam Machine GPU Unlocked! PS5 APU (ASRock BC-250)

Ubuntu Flavors Now Mandated To Participate In Beta Releases For Official Status

Introducing Myna: Speech to Text for Ubuntu Desktop

KDE Korner

KDE e.V. COMMUNITY REPORT

Plasma 6.7

Get started with Union, Plasma’s new theming engine, in 2 minutes or less: a FAQ

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Our favourite little things about Linux and open source. This is a short episode because Joe is having a summer break.

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