Inhoudsopgave van November 2024 - Linux Format

During the keynote discussion at LPC 2024, Dirk Hohndel asked Linus Torvalds about the recent decision by Microsoft engineer Wedson Almeida Filho to step down as a Rust maintainer. While assuring the Rust Linux team they were great, Filho explained in a post on the Linux Kernel mailing list: “After almost four years, I find myself lacking the energy and enthusiasm I once had to respond to some of the nontechnical nonsense.” His post contains a link to a YouTube video of a presentation he did with Kent Overstreet on Rust for filesystems. It shows the attendees engaging in an aggressive line of questioning, going so far as to claim there are efforts to “switch everyone over to the religion” of Rust. Filho ended his post with the same message…

LoRa, LoRa laughs As an LXF fan/reader, I’m sending this email to suggest the inclusion of the topic of LoRa, LoRaWAN, LoRaP2P and Meshtastic in some future issue. I strongly believe this is a rich open source topic that LXF readers will probably appreciate. I’m personally interested in its communication capabilities, but also in tracking kids/pets and communicating with them, without forgetting a possible comparative of the many open source but also commercial hardware available out there. I understand that you probably have set the agenda for future LXFs, however I believe it is worth attempting to influence this agenda. Looking forward to hearing from you! Bernard Neil says… I haven’t come across LoRa at all, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. I’m happy to look at any…

When it comes to the best ultrabooks, most of us resign ourselves to the reality that the path for future upgrades is minimal. However, Framework takes a vastly different approach, enabling you to replace just about anything inside (and outside) to your heart’s desire. The latest take on that formula is the Framework Laptop 13, of which we received the DIY Edition to review. In true do-it-yourself fashion, you need to install the RAM, storage and operating system. Luckily, Framework makes it a painless process and even provides the necessary tools. This time around, Framework has also introduced a new 2,880x1,920 display option with a 120Hz refresh rate, which is a big improvement over previously available displays. The Framework Laptop 13 remains on an island as the most easily repairable…

Though not to be confused with Porteus, this similarly-named OS does also make use of modified Linux live scripts. There’s no installer in the traditional sense. It’s a modular system, so you can just copy the ISO content to your media storage and run porteux-installer-for-linux. run to make the drive bootable. Presumably, the main use case scenario is someone who doesn’t have their own device but wants to use others, in a library, say. Although there is no dedicated website, the GitHub page has a fairly comprehensive Readme, which also points users to Porteus documentation to familiarise themselves with the concept of these kinds of distros. ISOs are available for both the current and stable version, with virtually every desktop environment, such as Cinnamon, Mate, Gnome, KDE, LXQt and Xfce.…

Kodi » Universal Media Server » Jellyfin » Plex Media Server » MiniDLNA This month, we’re looking at solutions that enable you to build a Linux-based setup for interacting with your media library of TV shows, movies and music. Some of these servers directly output to an attached display, and some of them work over the network. Some can do a bit of both. Beyond that, some of them can even be expanded beyond the basic functions of playing back media by adding things such as gaming and web browsing features. You might prefer to dedicate a computer to server duties, but you can run each of these servers on your main computer or within a virtual machine if you wish. Your media can be on the server, or you…

While smart-home projects initially fell under the domain of a wide variety of proprietary protocols, standardisation pressure has led to the emergence of a few dominant interfaces. The combination of the logical Matter protocol and its accompanying Thread transport layer recently became available in the form of the affordably priced Arduino Nano Matter Community Preview. Makers and home tinkerers can create Matter/Thread-based smart-home peripherals without having to perform cost-intensive PCB design using a microcontroller or wireless module provided by one of the established vendors in the Thread/Matter space. The much-liked Arduino IDE and its hardware abstraction layer, commonly known as Arduino Core, have established themselves in the IoT space. The availability of the Matter library enables developers to integrate their Arduino-derived knowledge with a Thread-based network interface. As is the case…

With sunspot numbers set to be high for some time yet, there’s every possibility that we’ll have other opportunities to see auroras like the ones many people saw in May. However, adverse weather conditions – by which we mean a cloudy sky – would derail any such sightings. So, while seeing an aurora is often a hit-and-miss process, listening to one is less affected by the weather. We’re not talking about listening to them with just our ears, though. The northern and southern lights generate radio signals that can be heard with suitable equipment, which might be little more than a PC’s internal audio system, an antenna and some suitable software. We’re looking at signals at the bottom end of the radio spectrum, which is why they can be received…

Multiplatform gamers looking for a high-performance 32-inch gaming monitor for 4K at 144Hz gaming will find a lot to appreciate about the M32UC from Gigabyte. With a respectable number of ports and other useful features, along with snappy pixel response time and great colour gamut coverage, this is a great-looking monitor with satisfying performance. The only thing about it is that out of the box, we found it presenting a fairly flat and dimly lit display image, even when HDR is enabled. Calibration is certainly necessary. We had to fiddle with its brightness, contrast settings, colour controls and HDR settings a little bit, but when we did, the visual experience it offered was incredible. There are two HDMI 2.1 ports and one Display Port 1.4, alongside three USB-3.2 downstream ports…

The Dell S3221QS is a gorgeous monitor inside and out. Its simple yet elegant silver design gives it a unique look that sets it apart from all the gamer-centric or boring black office monitors you’re more likely to find. It comes with a stunning 4K VA panel to match, which looks great and delivers colours that we found to be accurate and rich, as well as crisp, detailed image quality. Because of the 1800R curvature, even after hours of use, there’s no eye strain. And, to make it an even better proposition, it’s got some great features as well – namely, decent-sounding speakers and an interesting picture-in-picture functionality that enables you to display two different computers in the same display. That’s pretty nifty and a great way to make up…

We don’t usually run into technology that’s so far ahead of the curve that we’re left dumbfounded, which is why the Dell UltraSharp UP3218K has impressed us even more. Finding one of the best monitors that can reach the raw gorgeousness this one can should be next to impossible. It’s not just the resolution, either. Dell went so far as to ensure that the build quality and colour reproduction are the best in the business as well. The monitor is factory calibrated, so it looks great without any tinkering, and that ultra-high resolution, along with the colour handling of the monitor, makes any content look incredible – so incredible that sometimes footage almost looks 3D with the amount of detail you’re getting. It offers two DisplayPort inputs and has an…

Snoop»Nuclear»Media Downloader»Concessio»Endless Key»Tuta»FireDragon»AntiMicroX»LibreQuake»nnn»Micro Version: 0.4.0 Web: https://gitlab.gnome.org/philippun1/snoop/ You can use the multifaceted Grep utility to search for text within files, but if you are averse to command-line utilities, you can use Snoop instead. It isn’t as dexterous as Grep, but Snoop can be used to search for text or a string of text inside files. Snoop is available as a Flatpak and can be installed with flatpak install flathub de. philippun1.Snoop. If you’ve used a search utility before, Snoop’s interface shouldn’t pose a challenge. There’s a text box at the top where you specify the text you want to search. The pull-down menu next to the search box has a list of the previous search terms. As you’d expect, it’s empty on the first run. After specifying the search string,…

Version: 0.1.4 Web: https://github.com/ronniedroid/concessio Good knowledge of file permissions is one of the basic requirements of running a Linux distro. Yet, it isn’t a skill many Linux users spend time mastering. Concessio will help correct this wrong. You can use the app to get to grips with Linux file permissions. The app is available on Flathub and can be installed with flatpak install flathub io.github.ronniedroid.concessi. It has a minimal but well-designed interface. Concessio provides a convenient way to convert between symbolic and numeric representations of UNIX file permissions. For instance, you can enter a numeric permission, such as 664 (not 777–Ed), in the space provided under the Numeric heading, and press Enter. The app then automatically converts it to the equivalent symbolic representation (which is rw-rw-r, in this case). In…

Version: 11.18.1-1 Web: https://firedragon.garudalinux.org FireDragon is a web browser that’s focused on protecting your privacy. It’s based on Floorp, which we’ve previously featured (LXF308). Floorp itself bolts on several privacy-focussed extensions atop Firefox. But while Floorp appears quite similar to Firefox, FireDragon looks radically different. The browser is bundled (and developed) as part of Garuda Linux (LXF317), but you can install it atop any distro as it’s bundled as an AppImage and Flatpak. Grab its AppImage from its website and make it an executable using the file manager, or with chmod +x The browser contains virtually all of Floorp’s modifications and is stripped of the Firefox telemetry code. It also bundles the uBlock Origin content filtering extension by default. FireDragon uses a dark theme with vibrant colours, called sweet theme.…

Version: 5.0 Web: https://github.com/jarun/nnn File management utilities come in all shapes and sizes. Mainstream distros usually ship with bulky file managers, while lightweight distros use file managers that don’t exert a heavy footprint on the hardware resources. Then there’s nnn. Dubbed the “snappy file manager for ninjas”, nnn works on the command line. Its binary weighs a measly 50KB and the app itself takes up less than 5MB of space in the RAM. While nnn is available in the repos of most desktop distros, the best and pain-free option to install its latest release is via the HomeBrew utility. Refer to LXF303, page 90, to set up HomeBrew in your distro. When it’s up and running, use homebrew install nnn to grab and install the latest version of nnn. To…

After over 20 years and thousands of lines of code, the Linux kernel has achieved hard real-time capabilities, a holy grail that some developers never believed would be achieved in a general-purpose OS. On 19th September, Thomas Gleixner humorously honoured the occasion by handing Linus Torvalds the pull request wrapped in gold and tied with a ribbon. This marked the completion of the real-time pre-emption patches, allowing future kernel versions to handle tasks with guaranteed response times, making Linux suitable even for demanding environments such as self-driving vehicles or high-performance media processing. Torvalds acted on the pull request the following morning. Still, these new capabilities are scheduled to be available in kernel v6.12 on November 25th, so aren’t yet a part of current Linux distros. But thanks to this new…

The main website describes this distro as “small, independent and general-purpose”. The name derives from the supposed four computing Ms: maintenance, multimedia, miniserver and mystery (games). We encountered a small hurdle when trying to download the OS, as apparently site visitors must make a PayPal donation before being provided with the download link. Luckily, DistroWatch pointed us towards Sourceforge (https://sourceforge.net/projects/linux4m) where we downloaded the ISO. The download page did inform us, however, that 4MLinux (aka 4M) supports live booting and installing to a hard drive, and supposedly requires 1,650MB and 128MB of RAM respectively. On booting the OS for the first time, we noticed the desktop, a customised version of JWM, feh and PCManFM. It makes use of Conky to display system stats, where we discovered that the real requirements…

Celebrity-themed Linux distros are nothing new. Who can forget the likes of Biebian – a mishmash of Debian with a Justin Bieber theme, or even Hannah Montana Linux? The developer, who’s wisely decided to remain anonymous, is a fan of the eponymous celebrity and has been developing this Debian-based OS since 2016. As with PorteuX, they clearly felt a dedicated website was beneath them but they have uploaded an extensive Readme to Sourceforge. It was here we discovered that the latest version is for 64-bit systems only, due to “QtWebEngine refusing to build in 32-bit chroots”. The developer also cautions that the OS does not contain any of Rebecca Black’s images or music, encouraging users to purchase these legally instead. Trying to conceal our disappointment, we downloaded and booted the…

After fumbling your way around Qubes for a few minutes, you’ll likely be impressed. But you’ll also likely have noticed that some fairly standard desktop things don’t seem to work the same. One of these is copying and pasting, particularly between qubes. The main desktop uses a global clipboard, while the other qubes all have their own private clipboards. So, the usual Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V work as expected while inside a particular qube. But if you want to copy something from one clipboard to another, you need to also use the global clipboard. This is just a matter of some additional digit gymnastics, namely Ctrl+C to first copy to the qube’s clipboard, then Ctrl+Shift+C to copy to the global clipboard. Then in the qube you want to paste into, do…

Filenames come in all shapes and sizes, and are often made up of unsavoury characters. That’s because there’s no defined rules for naming files, which are often a reflection of the user’s mind. You’ll find files with unnecessary spaces, hyphens, underscores, numbers and myriad other characters. If you’ve ever worked on a project that required sharing files with colleagues or peers, you’ll have come across, suffered and resented this lack of file-naming convention. The lack of discipline in naming files can become even more tiresome when working on the CLI, as you have to escape some characters and spaces. Thankfully, Detox can help bring sanity to filenames. Detox is equipped with a number of file-renaming rules, called sequences. You can define the sequence you wish to run on a specified…

You’ll spend countless hours staring at it and you’ll likely still be using it long after you consign your GPU or CPU to the ewaste bin. We’re talking about your computer’s visual display unit. The humble monitor has received a dazzling number of upgrades over the last decade or so – after the awkward long shift to flatpanels and 1080p resolutions, the display world was suddenly inundated with 4K UHD, HDR, 144Hz refresh, OLED, MicroLED, curved screens, ultra-wide screens, USB hubs, dynamic sync and more. As with most things, choosing a display is a combination of what you want to use it for and your budget. We’ve got a selection that costs from £110 up to almost £4,000, but most people won’t need an 8K display. Let’s start by looking…

The Asus TUF Gaming VG289Q offers tremendous value for gamers looking to take the step up to 4K resolution without having to go completely bonkers on price. The VG289Q has a competent overdrive function, which helps to reduce motion blur, and we didn’t notice any ghosting on the panel. AMD FreeSync is supported here, although you should note that the maximum refresh rate is just 60Hz (FreeSync will work down to 48Hz on this monitor) and offers a single DisplayPort 1.2 and twin HDMI v2.0 ports. We can happily say that SDR content looks rich and colourful on the VG289Q, but shifting to HDR doesn’t really show any improvement in image quality. It does come with a decent stand, which can be unusual these days, and this offers height adjustment…

Version: 0.6.38 Web: https://nuclear.js.org Nuclear is an interesting music streaming application in that it’s designed to pull all kinds of content, from all kinds of free online sources. This means that you can search for tracks, artists and albums, and the software goes and finds information about them, and any related info such as lyrics, along with song streams. Nuclear also takes pride in the fact that it does all this without pushing ads. The app recommends using its AppImage, but it is also available as a Flatpak, Snap and more. Nuclear has a clean and simple user interface. There’s a search bar at the top, which searches for and streams music from YouTube, by default. When it finds a track, you can click on it to play it right…

Version: 0.9 Web: www.endlessos.org/key The Endless Key app is an educational platform that claims to provide equitable access to learning resources. It attempts to bridge the digital divide by providing users with access to a major part of its educational resources without relying on an active internet connection. The app is available as a distro-agnostic Flatpak and can be installed with flatpak install flathub org. endlessos.Key. When you launch the app for the first time, you’re asked to select from one of the six available profile options, such as Artist, Scientist, Athlete and more. Endless Key then downloads the associated Starter Pack. This initial download is quite bulky in size, but can then be accessed without an internet connection. When it’s done, click Show Me to get started and explore…

Version: 3.4.1 Web: https://github.com/AntiMicroX/antimicrox Not all games, particularly retro titles, support joysticks and game controllers. Even if they do, many don’t work well with these built-for-gaming devices. If you run into such a title, AntiMicroX can get your poorly supported joystick or game controller to emulate the better supported keyboard. The app does this by binding keyboard keys and mouse buttons to the sticks and d-pads on your gamepad. It is available on Flathub and installed with flatpak install flathub io.github.antimicrox.antimicrox. On launch, the app automatically detects your gamepad controller. Linux can detect all kinds of controllers, and even detected our no-name generic game controller. When you press a button on your controller inside the app, the corresponding key lights up on the app’s controller map. To bind the controller…

Version: 2.0.14 Web: https://micro-editor.github.io/index.html Micro is a terminal-based text editor that pitches itself as the spiritual successor of nano. It claims to take advantage of the capabilities of modern day terminals, and its developers pitch it as an editor for people who regularly edit files over SSH. The app comes as a single static binary with no dependencies. Download it with curl https://getmic.ro|bas. The script places the Micro binary in the current directory. You can run it with. /micro. It’s best to move the binary to wherever your distro houses system-wide binaries, such as /usr/bin, with sudo mv micro/usr/bin. Start it by running micro path/to/file.txt or simply micro to open an empty buffer. You can also use Micro to create buffers from stdin, such as dmesg | micr, or even…

In the world of the Linux shell, the command line history stands as a silent but powerful ally to users navigating the intricate pathways of their systems. It serves as a virtual breadcrumb trail, providing users with a means to recall, analyse and replicate their past interactions with the system. In this episode of our shell saga, we will delve into the mechanisms, practical applications and, last but not least, the implementation details of how to make the command line history work as expected by a grown-up shell. Not that ours is one, but it will be. The mechanisms Modern shells, such as Bash and Zsh, offer similar command history navigation using the up and down arrow keys, Ctrl+R for reverse search, and more advanced commands such as !n, !!…

THIS ISSUE: News piped from Plumbers Conference»Religion of Rust»Snapdragon support stepped up»Linux goes real-time The 2024 Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) ran from 18th to 20th September. The annual event, arranged by the Linux Foundation, brings together all developers working at the ‘plumbing layer’ of the OS, along with other interested parties. The event in Vienna’s Austria Center hosted a number of microconferences on a diverse range of topics, including System Boot and Security, Zoned Storage Devices and RISC-V. Linus Torvalds was in attendance as part of the open source summit. The keynote discussion took place with Verizon’s head of open source, Dirk Hohndel. Topics of discussion included the latest release of Linux Kernel 6.11. Torvalds deprecatingly stated that releases “are not supposed to be exciting”, claiming that the fun comes the…

Microsoft has announced plans for DirectX to adopt SPIR-V as its shader interchange format. Support will be integrated into DirectX 12 with the upcoming release of Shader Model 7. The previous format DXIL (DirectX Intermediate Language) is seemingly to be retired. In its announcement, Microsoft emphasised its commitment to open development processes, stating, “It is our mission that HLSL [High-Level Shading Language] be the best language for compiling graphics and compute shaders for any device or GPU runtime API.” Microsoft is offering translation tools between SPIR-V and DXIL that will facilitate the process.…

Q Fast font fiddling Is there any quick single-click way to switch between two fonts (with different sizes) when writing LibreOffice documents? I normally use Liberation Serif (12pt) but often switch into Liberation Mono (11pt) to clarify things like program output or user commands used in the middle of other text. Some kind of single-click method would make the writing more fluent. Yrjö Seppä A There are two ways to approach this. One is to use the macro recording facility to record the font change, then bind that to a key. First enable macro recording under Tools > Options > Advanced. Then select Tools > Macros > Record Macro, perform the actions you want, click Stop Recording and save the macro. Now you can assign this to a hotkey by…

» As a big thank you for subscribing to Linux Format Print Edition, we’ve always offered digital access to past issues. It seems The Management thought it was a good idea and has rolled out a new system using Pocketmags ! This means there are now two ways of accessing LXF back issues for subscribers. The new Pocketmags service goes back to March 2014, including over 140 full issues, while our older PDF archive goes back to LXF66 (a crazy 8-bit filling 254 issues), though issues before LXF120 have had covers and ads stripped. We’ve outlined how to access both below. Enjoy! * Terms and conditions apply – see page 17 for full details. GET YOUR ACCESS NOW & SUBSCRIBE on page 16 FANCY NEW POCKETMAGS 1 Activate your access Head…

Based on Arch, Liya follows a rolling release model. Most of the development is undertaken by just one person who takes time on the website to explain who Liya is not for. Firstly, the OS is only available for 64-bit machines. Secondly, he cautions on the user forum that Liya is not for “distro hoppers” or those who dislike Systemd. The latest version (2.0) is available with either the Cinnamon or Mate desktop environments. We downloaded the hefty 3.6GB ISO of the former and fired it up in a VM. We were cautious about doing this, as from reading other experiences online it seems the version of Liya released last year threw up a number of PGP key signature errors during setup. The latest release, however, loaded the desktop in…

It’s been 16 long years since World of Goo squidged its way into our hearts and hard drives. The much-loved physics-based puzzle game was one of modern indie gaming’s earliest and biggest successes. But a lot has changed since then. Polished games from unfamiliar studios with barely a dozen staff members aren’t some headline-grabbing curiosity any more; they’re absolutely everywhere, all the time. On our PCs. Our Steam Decks. Our phones. They’re often discounted and bundled up, and at times even given away for free. Who needs more World of Goo, then, when the original was lovely and creative, and very much done and dusted years ago? Playing this game is a lot like catching up with an old friend. It looks, feels and plays in much the same way…

If you’re using Linux at home, you’re already doing pretty well security-wise. Even reading this magazine has been shown to boost security by up to 15% (in certain circumstances). We can all improve our security, though, but if you’ve looked into this, you’ll know that this generally comes with some sort of usability trade-off. For example, if you really don’t want any of your computers and smart devices to be hacked, you could just switch off your router (and any radios in any of those devices). But that’s not useful. Qubes OS has a far more reasonable approach, namely security by compartmentalisation. A default Qubes installation sets up four virtual machines (VMs) running under the Xen hypervisor. Much like the spoon in the first Matrix movie, there isn’t (under normal…

Despite each qube’s application menu only having a few entries, there are quite a few utilities installed by default. If you want to give them a menu shortcut, go to that qube’s settings (in Qube Manager) and go to the Applications tab. Most likely you’ll want to give KeePassXC an icon in the Vault qube. Any GUI apps you later install find their way into that Applications tab. You can use the refresh menu button to update the main menu immediately. Secure networks Each qube has its own private IP (beginning with 10; you can see them in Qube Manager) and the AppVMs can’t see or even ping each other (try it). You’ll also see in Qube Manager that Dom0 has n/a in its IP address column, as it has…

One key advantage of Linux is that it’s been built with security in mind. As earlier versions of Windows practically invited malware on to their insecure systems, Linux’s early developers were taking notes and making sure they didn’t fall into the same trap. As a result, the Linux kernel – the core interface between your PC’s hardware and its own processes – is written with security as a key priority. In this Linux Basics tutorial, we’re exploring the most notable ways in which Linux is designed to keep everything from your user account to your files safe, snug and secure. User privileges One of the most visible ways in which Linux is more secure than the likes of Windows is with its user privilege model. They say imitation is the…

The reason we’ve picked the Pixio PXC277 Advanced as the best budget 1440p monitor is because it’s such a solid all-rounder for the price. No unnecessary bells and whistles, just a monitor that delivers in all the right areas. For a pretty cheap price tag, you get a 27-inch, 165Hz monitor with a claimed 1ms response time and up to 320 nits brightness. This brightness is higher than many more expensive VA panels. Naturally, that 1ms response is a best-case scenario, and in practice, as we’d expect from VA, it’s not quite so snappy. But if you get the settings right (overdrive set to low), there’s little overshoot or ghosting, and it feels quick. In practice, all this makes for a monitor that should suit most people even gamers. It’s…

This is the budget ‘N’ model of the EX240 range. It uses a cheaper VA panel versus the IPS of its EX240 brother. It also saves you around £90. Price aside, you get the same 165Hz refresh rate, video inputs (a single DisplayPort 1.2 and dual HDMI 2.0 ports) and HDR10 support. Thanks to the inherent contrast advantage of VA panels over IPS, you could argue that basic HDR10 support is a better fit here and likely to deliver something closer to an actual HDR experience. On the other hand, BenQ only rates this VA model at 250 nits, which is low by today’s standards and hardly bodes well for HDR sizzle. You also don’t get a USB hub of any kind, while the non-N has a dual-port USB-A hub.…

The Alienware AW2725DF has been one of our favourite high-performance OLED monitors thanks to its excellent image quality and fast response. However, there’s a new king of the castle: Asus’s ROG Swift PG27AQDP. It takes the basics of the AW2725DF and adds even more performance. The ROG Swift PG27AQDP features the same 2560x1440 resolution but boosts the maximum refresh rate from 360Hz to 480Hz while maintaining Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync compatibility. We were impressed with the colour calibration straight from the box (no further calibration was necessary), and we saw a maximum SDR brightness of 400 nits. While that is not as high as you’ll see in many IPS panels with MiniLED backlighting, it’s very bright for an OLED panel. In addition, HDR brightness peaked at 1,300 nits. As…

Bit Torrent is a protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing. BitTorrent trackers can provide a list of files available for transfer, and allow the client to find peer users, known as seeds, who may transfer the files using a specialised BitTorrent client. Given how efficient it is for sharing large files, it’s hardly surprising that BitTorrent accounts for around 3% of all internet traffic. As BitTorrent can be used to share copyrighted files, some networks and ISPs block or throttle the protocol, making downloading directly to your machine difficult. This is where seedboxes come in. A seedbox is a remote server, designed for downloading/uploading files via BitTorrent at high speeds – usually 100Mb/s (8MB/s) to 10Gb/s (1,250MB/s). Once the files are in the seedbox, users can download them using other common…

Version: 5.0.1 Web: https://mhogomchungu.github.io/media-downloader/ Sure, there are tons of media downloaders, and we’ve featured a few of them, but there’s no one app that’s as comprehensive as the unimaginatively named Media Downloader, a GUI frontend to multiple CLI-based tools that download media. The app is distributed on Flathub and can be installed with flatpak install flathub io.github.mhogomchungu.media-downloader. The Qt-based app isn’t a looker, especially on non-KDE desktops, but is fairly lightweight and quick off the blocks. Onstartup, it checks the installed versions of the CLI tools it uses to get things done, and auto downloads any updates. The app has instructions on how to disable this check to shave off a few seconds. By default, the app uses yt-dlp, a feature-rich CLI-based audio and video downloader. But it also supports…

Version: 244.240903.0 Web: https://tuta.com Tuta is the client for the privacy-focused email service of the same name. The app is available as an official AppImage, but there’s also an unverified Flatpak on Flathub. Grab the AppImage and make it an executable with the chmod +x command or via the file manager. When you launch the app, you’re asked to log in to the service. If you haven’t yet registered with the service, you can use the app to do so. Tuta has a tiered payment plan, with a feature-limited free option you can use to try the service. The service offers a selection of several domains – there’s tuta.io, tutamail.com and others. However, to use tuta.com, you have to be signed up to a paid subscription plan. As part of the…

Version: 0.07-beta Web: https://librequake.queer.sh We’re big fans of retro first-person shooters, and Quake has a special place in our hearts. Linux users love the hugely popular successor to Doom, because of id Software’s open stance towards game modifications. The source code of the shoot and scoot title was GPLed, which opened the door for all kinds of enhancements. Crucially though, id kept the game’s maps, objects, textures, sounds and other creative works under its original proprietary licence. LibreQuake is working to correct that wrong by creating GPLed game data. As LibreQuake is only game data, you need to pair it with a Quake engine, also known as a source port. There’s an unending list of these, but the LibreQuake project recommends the QuakeSpasmSpiked project. It supports 64-bit CPUs, custom music…