Linux

Video tutorial of Creative Generalist channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JztSbwWZzsw

Not as convenient as the Gimp patch but still a detailed step-by-step tutorial for Photoshop Style Settings, Hotkeys and User Interface for Krita beginners.

Other useful links:

Introduction to Krita coming from Photoshop

Smart Patch Tool

How to Use Lasso and Other Selection Tools in Krita

Color Adjustment Curves

How to Use Layer Styles in Krita

A patch for optimizing GIMP 3.0+ for Adobe Photoshop users, including features like:

• Tool organization to mimic the position of Adobe Photoshop;
• New Splash Screen;
• New default settings to maximize space on the canvas;
• Shortcuts similar to the ones in Photoshop for Windows, following Adobe's Documentation;
• New icon and Name from custom .desktop file.

https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP/blob/master/screenshots/photogimp_3_-_diolinux.png

https://photogimp.com/

Flatpak (Linux)

In order to install the newest version of PhotoGIMP on your Linux operating system using Flatpak, just follow this simple steps:

• Make sure you already have GIMP installed from Flathub; (for Ubuntu/Mint user just select Flatpak below the install button in the manager)

• Start and quit GIMP after you installed before you continue!

• Download the files from this repository or just click here - > https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP/releases/download/3.0/PhotoGIMP-linux.zip

• Extract the content of the zip file on your home folder (.config and .local - they are the important ones) and overwrite the files if needed; (if you can't see the file click Ctrl+H to see hidden files)

-You're done, enjoy it! 😄

The GNOME.org Extensions hosting for GNOME Shell extensions will no longer accept new contributions with AI-generated code. A new rule has been added to their review guidelines to forbid AI-generated code.

Due to the growing number of GNOME Shell extensions looking to appear on extensions.gnome.org that were generated using AI, it's now prohibited. The new rule in their guidelines note that AI-generated code will be explicitly rejected

Following the Color Management protocol introduced in Wayland Protocols 1.41, out today is Wayland Protocols 1.47 with various revisions to that color management and HDR support.

The Wayland color management protocol has now loosened restrictions on maxCLL and maxFALL since it isn't mandated by the ANSI/CTA-861-H specification and some movies having a maxCLL rather than the Mastering Display Luminance. Thus the prior behavior was determined to be too strict and is now loosened.

Another shortcoming of color-management-v1 is that the description identity is a 32-bit number when it should have been a 64-bit number. As a 32-bit image description identity number if allocated 100 times per second it could theoretically wrap around in 1.4 years... For anyone running a Wayland compositor and keeping an uptime of more than 1.4 years, the ready2 event now mandates a 64-bit image description ID number.

With Linux 6.19-rc1 released, the merge window for Linux 6.19 has now concluded. Here is a summary of the interesting Linux 6.19 new features and changes with this kernel version.

Linux 6.19-rc1 was released on Sunday and will see weekly release candidates until Linux 6.19 stable is ready to debut around early February. Linux 6.19 introduces the Live update Orchestrator, adds PCIe link encryption and device authentication infrastructure, new drivers like ASUS Armoury and for Uniwill laptops, the DRM Color Pipeline API, a new console font, AMD GCN 1.0/1.1 GPus now default to the AMDGPU driver, initial support for the Tenstorrent Blackhole SoC, initial Intel Xe3P graphics enablement for Nova Lake and Crescent Island, a lot of ongoing Rust work, the constant catch-up around Apple Silicon hardware support, enabling of Microsoft C Extensions support in the kernel build by default, and Intel Xe VFIO driver merged. Plus a lot more.

The Sparky team has rolled out the latest ISO images, 2025.12, its third semi-rolling update of the year—for all enthusiasts of this lightweight Linux distro, based on Debian’s upcoming “Forky” testing branch.

The release pulls in packages from the Debian and Sparky testing repositories as of December 14, 2025. It ships with the Linux kernel 6.17 by default, while long-term-supported kernels, 6.18 LTS, 6.12 LTS, and 6.6 LTS, are available through the Sparky repositories.

Core system components have also been updated, including Firefox 140.5 ESR, Thunderbird 140.5 ESR, and GRUB 2.14 from a recent development snapshot.

Emmabuntüs is a Linux distribution based on Debian (previously on Ubuntu) that focuses on refurbishing and extending the life of older computers, while making Linux usable for beginners, nonprofits, schools, and people with disabilities, particularly visually impaired users.

Today, nearly two years after the release of version 5.0, the Emmabuntüs Collective has rolled out Emmabuntüs Debian Edition 6. It is based on Debian 13.2 and comes as a 64-bit edition with Xfce and LXQt desktop environments.

According to the announcement, this version is the result of a close collaboration with A.S.I. YOVOTOGO and the Togolese Federation of Associations of Persons with Disabilities (FETAPH).

Lobsters

Vojtěch Polášek has announced an unofficial effort to create a Fedora-based distribution designed for visually impaired users:

My ultimate vision for this project is "NO VOJTUX NEEDED!" because I believe Fedora should eventually be fully accessible out of the box. We aren't there yet, which is where Vojtux comes in to fill the gap. [...]

Key Features:
-Speaks out of the box: When the live desktop is ready, Orca starts automatically. After installation, it is configured so that it starts on the login screen and also after logging in.
-Batteries included: Comes with LIOS , Ocrdesktop, Tesseract, Audacity, and command-line tools like Git and Curl. There are also many preconfigured keyboard shortcuts.

Rust Coreutils 0.5 is now available as the latest milestone for this Rust-based alternative to GNU Coreutils. Rust Coreutils 0.5 continues moving closer to "full GNU compatibility" with nearly a 90% pass rate on the GNU test suite.

Rust Coreutils 0.5 is described in today's announcement as "a significant milestone featuring comprehensive platform improvements" There are an additional 22 tests passing now that brings Rust Coreutils 0.5 up to an 87.75% pass rate for the GNU test suite.

Signal only provides a script for .deb based distros on their official website. The flatpak is currently not ideal because it stores encryption keys in plaintext.

The provided link suggests an automated installation in a Ubuntu Distrobox including automated updates. Useful for every distro that does not natively support .deb packages.

CtrlAssist – an open source project to bring more accessible, collaborative gaming to Linux! Inspired by PC gaming sessions with my own family, where both young and old relish exploring rich stories with immersive worlds (like Witcher 3, RDR3, Hogwarts Legacy, etc) but find coordinated combat or movement control too challenging to play solo, CtrlAssist lets you combine multiple controllers into one virtual gamepad, much like assist features on dedicated game consoles.

Whether your helping grandparents through tough boss fights, or co-oping with nieces and nephews to level age gaps, CtrlAssist aims to make PC gaming on Linux fun and accessible for everyone. While I’m certain similar utilities exist, I also just wanted a holiday hobby project to practice Rust development while scratching a personal itch.

Please give it a try, share your feedback in the relevant discussion categories, or check out the open issues if you’d like to contribute, help is always welcome!

• User Feedback and Accessibility Community Discussion
  • https://github.com/ruffsl/CtrlAssist/discussions/15
• Developer Feedback and Rust Community Discussion
  • https://github.com/ruffsl/CtrlAssist/discussions/14

#RustLang #LinuxGaming #Accessibility #OpenSource #CtrlAssist

A short review of openBSD 7.8.

Today we're installing a modern Linux... on a single 1.44mb floppy disk!

🍎 Guide: https://github.com/w84death/floppinux

The BeOS-inspired Haiku operating system has received a recent port of the Go programming language to the platform. Plus Haiku also saw app improvements and more over the month of November.

Haiku received a port of Go 1.18 to its open-source operating system. Go 1.18 trails behind Go 1.25 upstream and was released back in 2022. But this Go port to Haiku is much newer than the original Go 1.4 port for that now decade-old state. As part of bringing the newer Go over, Haiku has seen some improvements to its POSIX compliance as well as various fixes.

The Linux 6.19-rc1 kernel is out to cap off the Linux 6.19 merge window. The kernel release is coming the better part of a day earlier due to Linus Torvalds being in Japan for this past week's Linux Plumbers Conference and Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit.

Merged during this second week of the Linux 6.19 feature merge window were the many x86 platform driver changes. As usual, much of the x86 platform driver activity surrounds bettering Linux hardware laptop support but also a growing number of handheld computers / gaming devices.

The x86 platform driver changes for Linux 6.19 include new drivers like for Uniwill OEM laptops as well as improving handheld support for ASUS ROG, Lenovo Legion, and Ayaneo, among other changes

For those with fond memories of the original Puppy Linux as a lightweight Linux distribution that used to run well back in the day on systems with less than 1GB of RAM, TrixiePup64 is out with a new release of this Puppy Linux based distribution with Debian GNU/Linux components. The new TrixiePup64 11.2 release is based on the latest Debian Trixie sources while continuing to offer separate builds for either X11 or Wayland usage.

TrixiePup64 11.2 is out today as the newest feature release for this most prominent continuation of the Puppy Linux efforts. This release also comes as a bit of a surprise considering after TrixiePup64 11.1.1 was released, per the Puppy Linux Forums, the development was "discontinued" and encouraged to "please see other distros". Though for this 11.2 release out today, only TrixiePup64 11.2 is out and not the 32-bit TrixiePup32

Together with my then-colleague Kalev Lember, I recently added support for pre-installing Flatpak applications. It sounds fancy, but it is conceptually very simple: Flatpak reads configuration files from several directories to determine which applications should be pre-installed. It then installs any missing applications and removes any that are no longer supposed to be pre-installed (with some small caveats).

yq is a portable command-line YAML, JSON, XML, CSV, TOML and properties processor

The LoongArch CPU architecture changes have been merged for the Linux 6.19 merge window. This domestic Chinese CPU architecture inspired by MIPS and RISC-V began with 64-bit LoongArch64 but with Linux 6.19 the foundation is being laid for LoongArch32 as a 32-bit variant.

While most CPU architectures went from a 32-bit to 64-bit world, Loongson is working back from 64-bit to 32-bit. They've been working on the LoongArch32 ABI and with Linux 6.19 that initial kernel port is being wired up.

The FamFS file-system being developed by Micron hopes to go upstream for Linux in "early-ish 2026".

For around two years already Micron has been working on FamFS as a new file-system that is special purpose and designed for fabric-attached memory (FAM) needs such as with CXL servers. FamFS over the past year was ported to FUSE for largely operating in user-space but some kernel changes remain.

Fresh is a newly released open-source TUI text editor written in Rust, designed to combine modern usability features with a command-line workflow. What sets it apart from similar applications is that it targets developers who want IDE-style functionality while remaining entirely inside the terminal.

The editor runs entirely in a terminal emulator and does not use graphical toolkits such as GTK or Qt. Menus, panels, split views, the file explorer, and the integrated terminal are all built using terminal features. Even so, the editor offers a structured, GUI-like experience with mouse support, a command palette, and contextual menus.