Microsoft is handing over the Mono project to WineHQ, which came as a bit of a surprise announcement today. We are happy to announce that the WineHQ organization will be taking over as the stewards of the Mono Project upstream at wine-mono/Mono · GitLab (winehq.org). Source code in existing mono/mono and other repos will remain available, although repos may be archived. Binaries will remain available for up to four years. Microsoft maintains a modern fork of Mono runtime in the dotnet/runtime repo and has been progressively moving workloads to that fork. That work is now complete, and we recommend that active Mono users and maintainers of Mono-based app frameworks migrate to .NET which includes work from this fork. ↫ Mono’s website Wine make use of Mono, so this seems like a natural home for the project. Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET, and is available on a wide variety of platforms, but lately it’s been languishing a bit, with no major release since 2019, and only small patches since then. Microsoft gained stewardship over the Mono project when it acquired Xamarin in 2016.

This is freebsd-rustdate, a reimplementation of freebsd-update. It’s primarily written because of how slow freebsd-update is, and is written in rust because I felt like it. In usage, it’s expected to be similar, but not identical to freebsd-update. There are probably a number of minor edge-case differences I don’t even know about, but there are a number of larger ones that are intentional too. ↫ Matthew Fuller I love it when someone takes on a very well-established tool that’s used by countless people who probably barely think about how it could be improved. In this case, the performance improvements are nothing short of extraordinary, but of course, its author Matthew Fuller rightfully points out that you really shouldn’t be using this on any production system. It has not received even one percent of the kind of testing and eyeballs that the regular update tool in FreeBSD has received, so there may be edge cases or bugs. Improving the speed of the update process is always welcome. If it’s slow and time-consuming, people might postpone the updates because they’re getting in the way of what they want to do at the moment. Sure, I doubt the average FreeBSD user is the kind of person to postpone updates and run an insecure system in the meantime, but it might still draw a few people across the line to quickly get them done before continuing their work. This new rust-based FreeBSD update tool is definitely not going to be replacing the current one any time soon, nor is it even a part of the FreeBSD project in the first place, so there’s no need to worry about any potential breakage to your FreeBSD system because they’re replacing a battle-tested tool with a new one. All this does for now is highlight that there’s gains to be made here, and that’s a goal worth pursuing.

On the whole, I’m satisfied that Lineage OS, as I use it, is preventing nearly all of Google’s data collection. I don’t install or use any Google services, I don’t enable A-GPS, I don’t use Chromium or the built-in browser. I could eliminate more arcane aspects of data collection – like the Internet connectivity check – if I wanted to take the trouble. I don’t think that taking reasonable precautions to avoid becoming part of Google’s data collection economy makes me a tinfoil-hatter. Nevertheless, I would probably use GrapheneOS instead, if I had devices that supported it. Ironically, if I wanted to use GrapheneOS, I’d have to buy Google-branded mobile devices, which is an irony that really stings. ↫ Kevin Boone The existence of Android versions like LineageOS, GrapheneOS, /e/OS, and similar, other de-Googled mobile operating systems is absolutely vital. The market is dominated by Google Android and iOS, and since full alternatives that aren’t Android or iOS are effectively impossible, de-Googled Android is the best we’re going to get. Regulators must ensure that banks, government ID applications, popular messaging platforms, and similarly crucial applications work 100% reliably on de-Googled Android, and do not require Google Play Services in any way, shape, or form. In The Netherlands, there are basically three banks that control the market, and there’s really just one messaging application that rules the country – WhatsApp – and their use is effectively required to participate in society. Consequently, these applications and platforms should be accessible by as many people as possible, and that definitely includes de-Googled Android devices. Being alive should not be taxed by Apple or Google.

If you are looking to upgrade your TV and want a long-lasting option, you may consider getting a Samsung AI TV powered by Tizen OS. The reason is that Samsung announced plans to offer seven years of Tizen OS upgrades for some of its Smart TVs. ↫ Sagar Naresh Bhavsar at Neowin Since buying a dumb TV is no longer possible, you might as well get the one with the longest possible support lifecycle. This new policy covers Samsung TVs from 2024 onward, as well as a few modls from 2023. There’s no word on if the ads that I’m assuming are part of Samsung’s smart TVs will also receive seven years of updates. Or, you know, get a good Android TV box and never plug your actual TV into your network to begin with.

Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced a so-called “Account Manager” for Windows 11 that appears on the screen when you click your profile picture on the Start menu. Instead of just showing you buttons for logging out, locking your device or switching profiles, it displays Microsoft 365 ads. All the actually useful buttons are now hidden behind a three-dot submenu (apparently, my 43-inch display does not have enough space to accommodate them). Now, the “Account Manager” is coming to Windows 10 users. ↫ Taras Buria at Neowin Yes, this is a really small ad int he grand scheme of things, but the mere concept of my operating system showing me all kinds of ads and upsells, as both Windows and macOS have been doing aggressively for years now, is so deeply offensive to me. It shows such utter disrespect to me as a user, and shows that Microsoft and Apple see me not as an end user, but as a ripe plum ready to be bled dry at every turn. It’s revolting. As the latest release, Windows 11 has always been the most ad-ridden of the Windows releases still in use, but it seems Windows users can’t escape the onslaught either. I’m especially expecting ever more aggressive ads and upsells for Windows 11 to appear in Windows 10 now that the 2025 cutoff date for Windows 10 support is nearing, of course appearing at the most inopportune times – because everybody loves a giant fullscreen ad on your operating system when you’re trying to give a presentation or meet that tight deadline you forced yourself yo stress about by playing a bit too much League of Legends. If you want an ad- and upsell-free operating system, your options are legion – there’s countless Linux distributions and the various BSDs to choose from.

The greek quiz is so obscure that it is ridiculous — noone can play this. Replace it with a new quiz about galley (ship) parts. This commit changes the LAST UNMODIFIED ORIGINAL FILE (meaning revision 1.1.1.1) from the original import that created OpenBSD on Oct 18, 1995. With this commit, we have completed an amusing mission of replacing the final parts of the original OpenBSD. We have reached OpenBSD of Theseus. ↫ Theo de Raadt With this change to a quiz game in OpenBSD, every single file of the OpenBSD code base is newer than that first, original import. Now I’m curious to see which other projects have achieved this milestone, and when.

German journalist Martin Bernklau typed his name and location into Microsoft’s Copilot to see how his culture blog articles would be picked up by the chatbot, according to German public broadcaster SWR. The answers shocked Bernklau. Copilot falsely claimed Bernklau had been charged with and convicted of child abuse and exploiting dependents. It also claimed that he had been involved in a dramatic escape from a psychiatric hospital and had exploited grieving women as an unethical mortician. Copilot even went so far as to claim that it was “unfortunate” that someone with such a criminal past had a family and, according to SWR, provided Bernklau’s full address with phone number and route planner. ↫ Matthias Bastian So why did Copilot (which is just OpenAI’s ChatGPT with sparkles) claim Bernklau did all sorts of horrible things? Well, his occupation – journalist – is a dead giveaway. He has written a lot of articles covering court proceedings in Tübingen on abuse, violence, and fraud cases, and since Copilot is just spicy autocorrect, it has no understanding of context and pinned the various crimes he covered on Bernklau. Adding in his address, phone number, and a damn planned route to his home is just the very disgusting icing on this already disgusting cake. What makes matters even worse, if you can believe it, is that Bernklau has absolutely no recourse. He contacted the public prosecutor’s office in Tübingen, but they stated they can’t press charges because the accusations coming from Copilot aren’t being made by a real person. And to make it still even worse, Microsoft just threw its hands in the air and absolved itself of any and all responsibility by pointing to its terms of service, in which Microsoft discards liability for content generated by Copilot. Convenient. This is nothing short of a nightmare scenario that can utterly destroy someone’s life, and the fact that Microsoft doesn’t care and the law isn’t even remotely prepared to take serious matters like these on is terrifying.

A page is the granularity at which an operating system manages memory. Most CPUs today support a 4 KB page size and so the Android OS and applications have historically been built and optimized to run with a 4 KB page size. ARM CPUs support the larger 16 KB page size. When Android uses this larger page size, we observe an overall performance boost of 5-10% while using ~9% additional memory. In order to improve the operating system performance overall and to give device manufacturers an option to make this trade-off, Android 15 can run with 4 KB or 16 KB page sizes. ↫ Steven Moreland Android 15 has been reworked to be page-size agnostic, meaning that a single binary can run on either 4 KB or 16 KB versions of Android. Any assumptions about page size have been removed from Android as well, the EROFS and F2FS file systems as well as UFS are now compatible with 16 KB, and a whole lot more things have been changed and refactored to make this transition as effortless as possible. Application developers do need to do a few things, though. They’ll need to recompile their binaries with 16 KB alignment, after which they’ll need to be tested in a 16 KB version of an Android device or emulator. To make this possible, starting with Android 15 QPR1, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will get a new develop option that will reboot the device in 16 KB mode. In addition, Android Studio will gain a 16 KB emulator target as well. The 16 KB page size is an ARM-only feature, so people running the emulator on x86 devices will emulate the 16 KB page size, in which “the Kernel runs in 4 KB mode, but all addresses exposed to applications are aligned to 16 KB”. Of course, Google urges Android developers to test for 16 KB page sizes as soon as possible.

The history of Ethernet is fascinating. The reason why we have three different frame types is that DIX used the Ethernet II frame that is prevalent today, while IEEE intended to use a different frame format that could be used for different MAC layers, such as token bus, token ring, FDDI, and so on. The IEEE were also inspired by HDLC, and modeled their frame header more in alignment with the OSI reference model that had the concept of SAPs. When they discovered that the number of available SAPs weren’t enough, they made an addition to the 802 standard to support SNAP frames. In networks today, Ethernet II is dominant, but some control protocols may use LLC and/or SNAP frames. ↫ Daniel Dib I just smiled and nodded.

The conversation around gaming on Linux has changed significantly during the last several years. It’s a success story engineered by passionate developers working on the Linux kernel and the open-source graphics stack (and certainly bolstered by the Steam Deck). Many of them are employed by Valve and Red Hat. Many are enthusiasts volunteering their time to ensure Linux gaming continues to improve. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a history lesson, but it’s an appropriate way to introduce yet another performance victory Linux is claiming over Windows. I recently spent some time with the Framework 13 laptop, evaluating it with the new Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and the AMD Ryzen 7 7480U. It felt like the perfect opportunity to test how a handful of games ran on Windows 11 and Fedora 40. I was genuinely surprised by the results! ↫ Jason Evangelho I’m not surprised by these results. At all. I’ve been running exclusively Linux on my gaming PC for years now, and gaming has pretty much been a solved issue on Linux for a while now. I used to check ProtonDB before buying games on Steam without a native Linux version, but I haven’t done that in a long time, since stuff usually just works. In quite a few cases, we’ve even seen Windows games perform better on Linux through Proton than they do on Windows. An example that still makes me chuckle is that when Elden Ring was just released, it had consistent stutter issues on Windows that didn’t exist on Linux, because Valve’s Proton did a better job at caching textures. And now that the Steam Deck has been out for a while, people just expect Linux support from developers, and if it’s not there on launch, Steam reviews will reflect that. It’s been years since I bought a game that I’ve had to refund on Steam because it didn’t work properly on Linux. The one exception remains games that employ Windows rootkits for their anticheat functionality, such as League of Legends, which recently stopped working on Linux because the company behind the game added a rootkit to their anticheat tool. Those are definitely an exception, though, and honestly, you shouldn’t be running a rootkit on your computer anyway, Windows or not. For my League of Legends needs, I just grabbed some random spare parts and built a dedicated, throwaway Windows box that obviously has zero of my data on it, and pretty much just runs that one stupid game I’ve sadly been playing for like 14 years. We all have our guilty pleasures. Don’t kink-shame. Anyway, if only a few years ago you had told me or anyone else that gaming on Linux would be a non-story, a solved problem, and that most PC games just work on Linux without any issues, you’d be laughed out of the room. Times sure have changed due to the dedication and hard work of both the community and various companies like Valve.

When one thinks of modern technologies like Thunderbolt, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet and modern CPUs, one would associate them with modern operating systems. How about DOS? It might seem impossible, however I did an experiment on a relatively modern 2020 Thinkpad and found that it can still run MS-DOS 6.22. MS-DOS 6.22 is the last standalone version of DOS released by Microsoft in June 1994. This makes it 30 years old today. I shall share the steps and challenges in locating a modern laptop capable of doing so and making the 30-year-old OS work on it with audio and networking functions. This is likely among the final generation of laptops able to run DOS natively. ↫ Yeo Kheng Meng I was unaware that the legacy boot mode through a UEFI Compatibility Support Module (CSM) was being phased out on Intel systems (I can’t find anything definitive on what AMD is planning to do with CSM). This will definitely be an end-of-the-line kind of thing for people interested in running old, outdated operating systems on modern hardware, as doing so would require proper EFI support. I’m not actually salty about this at all by the way – there’s no place in modern PCs for something designed in 1981. We have ATX for that. Anyway, it turns out MS-DOS 6.22 actually runs pretty well on this 2020 Thinkpad X13 Gen 1. Of course you have to enable CSM, and disable secure boot and kernel DMA proection, but once that’s done, you can just install MS-DOS 6.22 like it’s 1994. Thanks to SBEMU, you can use modern sound cards in pure DOS mode, and due to various backwards compatibility affordances in network chipsets, you can even use some of those – even through Thunderbolt, which is just PCI over a cable, after all (more or less). Running MS-DOS on a modern laptop may not allow you to get the most out of your modern hardware, but at least you can run DOS games very well, as the benchmarks Meng ran show.

AMD says Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2 update will improve performance for its new Zen 5 CPUs. The Ryzen 9000 series launched earlier this month, and failed to live up to AMD’s performance promises in most reviews. After rumors of a Windows bug, AMD has revealed that AMD-specific branch prediction code will be optimized in Windows 11 version 24H2, which is expected to ship next month. ↫ Tom Warren at The Verge It’s wild how seemingly small things can have a major impact on the launch of a new processor (or GPU) line these days. The main culprit behind the disappointing benchmarks upon launch of the Ryzen 9000 series turned out to be the 9000’s new branch prediction method, the code for which is not yet available in Windows. However, AMD ran their tests in “Admin mode”, which yielded results as if such code was actually present. AMD has said the branch prediction code needed to unlock the full potential of Ryzen 9000 chips in Windows and yield benchmark results comparable to AMD’s own internal tests and PR promiseswill be released next month as part of “Windows 11, version 24H2 in preview through the Windows Insider Program (Release Preview Channel – Build 26100) or by downloading the ISO here“. AMD claims this update will benefit users of previous Zen 5 and Zen 3 processors as well, but to a lesser degree. No word on if this issue affects Linux users in any way.

One feature I couldn’t live without anymore is snapshots. As system administrators, we often find ourselves in situations where we’ve made a mistake, need to revert to a previous state, or need access to a log that has been rotated and disappeared. Since I started using ZFS, all of this has become incredibly simple, and I feel much more at ease when making any modifications. However, since I don’t always remember to create a manual snapshot before starting to work, I use an automatic snapshot system. For this type of snapshot, I use the excellent zfs-autobackup tool – which I also use for backups. The goal is to have a single, flexible, and configurable tool without having to learn different syntaxes. ↫ Stefano Marinelli I’m always a little sad about the fact that the kind of advanced features modern file systems like ZFS, btrfs, and others offer are so inaccessible to mere desktop users like myself. While I understand they’re primarily designed for server use, they’re still making their way to desktops – my Fedora installations all default to btrfs – and I’d love to be able to make use of their advanced features straight from within KDE (or GNOME or whatever it is you use). Of course, that’s neither here or there for the article at hand, which will be quite useful for people administering FreeBSD and/or Linux systems, and who would like to get the most out of ZFS by automating some of its functionality.

This article is targeted at embedded engineers who are familiar with microcontrollers but not with microprocessors or Linux, so I wanted to put together something with a quick primer on why you’d want to run embedded Linux, a broad overview of what’s involved in designing around application processors, and then a dive into some specific parts you should check out — and others you should avoid — for entry-level embedded Linux systems. ↫ Jay Carlson Quite the detailed guide about embedded Linux.