FOSS Weekly #26.12: GNOME 50 Release, Fedora for Apple, New Ageless Linux, Manjaro Drama and More
In the previous newsletter, I discussed how various distros are handling the age verification laws. At the end of the article, I speculated that we would see a few existing or new distros coming up with "no age verification" as their unique feature.
Guess what? We have a new distro called Ageless Linux which is created specifically to refuse compliance with OS-level age verification laws.
But it's more than just a distro; the project also maintains a tracker of where various distros and organizations stand on age verification and a $12 RISC-V hardware project aimed at putting non-compliant devices in the hands of schoolchildren. I am glad that it exists.
Here are other highlights of this edition of FOSS Weekly:
- Things you can do Linux but not on Windows
- Chrome on ARM Linux (aka Raspberry Pi).
- A new web browser for Linux users.
- GNOME 50 and Fedora Ashahi releases
- And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
📰 Linux and Open Source News
GNOME 50 is here and X11 is not. Wayland is all the way in this new release. Upcoming distros like Ubuntu 26.04 and Fedora 44 will have it. Rolling distros like Arch should also get it soon.
Google has officially announced Chrome for ARM64 Linux, with a release targeted for Q2 2026. That means Raspberry Pi users, Snapdragon laptop owners, and anyone else running ARM hardware will get the Chrome experience on Linux.
Although, not open source, Kagi's Orion browser has made it to Linux as a public beta, and it's genuinely interesting because it's one of the browsers on the platform not built on Chromium or Firefox's engine. It is based on WebKit and works okayish on GNOME.
A significant chunk of the Manjaro team has gone public with the "Manjaro 2.0 Manifesto," signed by 19 members, calling for the project to separate from its parent company and restructure as a nonprofit.
Fedora Asahi Remix 43 arrives with Mac Pro support. In case you did not know, Asahi is the project bring Linux to Apple's Silicon processors.
AI companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta etc have put $12.5M into Open Source Security, managed by Linux Foundation. This is funny in a way. They are putting together a fund to fix the problem their AI tools created in the first place.
🧠 What We’re Thinking About
Google wants every Android developer to register using their real identity before their apps will install on certified devices, but not everyone's on board.
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🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings
A clean beginner's guide to Markdown covering the core syntax: headings, text formatting, links, images, lists, and block quotes. It comes with a downloadable cheat sheet and a few recommendations for online editors if you want to try it without installing anything.
Windows users have been conditioned to ask, "But can Linux do X?" This piece by Roland flips it around and asks what Linux can do that Windows can't. The answers range from practical (live sessions, moving installs between machines, reviving old hardware) to genuinely impressive (swapping kernels, choosing filesystems, replacing every layer of your stack).
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👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner
If your Raspberry Pi homelab is freezing up under load, the default 200 MB swap is probably the first thing worth looking at.
✨ Apps and Projects Highlights
If your GNOME top panel has turned into a wall of icons, Veil is worth a look. It's a shell extension that lets you hide panel items behind a toggle arrow.
📽️ Videos for You
You could move away from Google today if you wanted to, and DuckDuckGo is one of the good ones to consider.
💡 Quick Handy Tip
In Nautilus file manager, you can press CTRL+F to start a search in the current directory and CTRL+SHIFT+F to search across the other system folders. To go even further, you can add new search locations via the Search settings.
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And, if you use the shortcut CTRL+ALT+O after selecting a file or folder, you can go to it's location in the file manager. Do note that this works in the Search and Recent pages of the file manager.
🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse
Do you know the brain behind Debian? This Ian Murdock quiz will test your knowledge.
🤣 Meme of the Week: We must protect it at all costs!
🗓️ Tech Trivia: On March 17, 1988, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement over the look and feel of the Windows GUI. Apple's argument was that Windows borrowed too heavily from the Macintosh interface it had debuted in 1984. The case dragged on for years before a judge ruled that Apple had only limited rights to the design elements in question.
🧑🤝🧑 From the Community: One of our regular Pro FOSSers is having an issue with CUPS on antiX Linux; can you help?
Source: It's FOSS