Category: Linux Mint

Bits & Bobs: Birthday edition

Compiled by Larry Cafiero

Marcus Nestor of 9 to 5 Linux, among a plethora of other publications, wished Linux a happy 35th birthday on Tuesday.

“Today is August 25th, which marks 35 years since Linux was first announced,” the article states. “Grab a glass of your favorite beverage and join me in celebrating the 35th birthday of Linux!”

We’ll let Marcus drive here. “It was on August 25th, 1991, that the 21-year-old Finnish student Linus Benedict Torvalds made his now-famous announcement on the comp.os.minix newsgroup that he was working on a free operating system for 386 (486) AT clones, just as a ‘hobby’ ”.

Hello everybody out there using minix –

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since April, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them.

Linus

PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it as a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-hardisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

Happy Birthday, Linux!

But wait, there’s more . . .

Happy Birthday, Linux Mint

That’s not the only birthday this week. On Thursday, Linux Mint turned 20 years old.

Linux Mint was first released on August 27, 2006, marking the beginning of its journey as a popular Linux distribution.

Key milestones include the initial release of Linux Mint 1.0 “Ada” – and the naming convention, so far, is a woman’s name going down the alphabet ending with an “a” – followed by the introduction of Linux Mint Debian Edition in 2010.

In 2014, Linux Mint shifted to long-term support releases and in 2021, the distro – used worldwide and considered one of the key “gateways” to converting to Linux – celebrated its 15th anniversary.

Linux Mint continues to evolve, maintaining its reputation as a reliable and accessible operating system for users worldwide. Its user-friendliness makes the distro known for its ease of use and out-of-the-box functionality, while ofering a robust software manager with access to around 30,000 package. While it primarily uses the Cinnamon desktop environment, but also offers MATE and Xfce as alternatives.

Happy Birthday, Linux Mint!

But wait, there’s more . . .

Asahi Linux nears Mac M3 support

Bobby Borisov of Linuxiac reported on Thursday that Asahi Linux is nearing official support for the Apple M3 Macs, with webcams, microphones, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt now working across the Apple lineup.

“Asahi Linux is almost ready to officially support Macs with Apple’s M3 chips, and work on the newer M4 and M5 models is already underway,” the article states.

Full webcam support is now available for all M3-series Macs with built-in cameras, however “the hardware is mostly the same as before, but the M3 Max needed a small driver tweak to work correctly,” the article says.

“Built-in microphones now work across the M3 lineup,” according to the article. “Apple changed the audio hardware for this generation, so the team had to do extra reverse-engineering before Linux could use it properly. USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt now also work on all M3 Macs.”

The article also says that the display support for M3 Macs is almost as complete as it is for M1 and M2 systems. “Asahi says its M3 display controller support is nearly on par with what’s available for the older Apple Silicon models,” says the article. “With all the recent progress, the project is now close enough to an official release.”

Editor’s note: We at Distro of the Week have decided to change the schedule of Bits & Bobs to go from a semi-weekly Monday-and-Friday posting to a single weekly posting starting next Saturday. The Distro of the Week will remain on Wednesdays, but Bits & Bobs will run on Saturdays ONLY starting next week.

And that’s all for today. Don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return with news over the week on Saturday.

Bits & Bobs: Linux Mint to provide Wayland support for Cinnamon

By Larry Cafiero

Marcus Nestor at 9 to 5 Linux reported on Wednesday that full Wayland support is on the way for the Linux Mint Cinnamon edition version 6.8.

According to the article, “Linux Mint project Clement Lefebvre revealed today in the monthly newletter some of the new features and improvements coming to the next major version of the Cinnamon desktop environment, version 6.8, such as full Wayland support.”

Nestor continues that the “Linux Mint devs have been working hard on making Cinnamon’s Wayland session as stable as possible, and it looks like Cinnamon 6.8 will finally remove the ‘experimental’ status of the Wayland session and fully support Wayland.”

Wayland improvements and featuresinclude proper mapping for new windows, applet popup menus and context menus, proper focus stealing prevention, and improved support for multiple monitors and KVM switches, according to the article.

“There’s also full HiDPI support for crisp icons, smoother mouse cursor, and better handling of Chromium apps, as well as support for running root apps as Wayland clients, window progress to see, for example, Firefox download progress in the panel app button.,” the article says.

Tuxedo OS skips Ubuntu for Debian

Bobby Barisov at Linuxiac reported on Tuesday that Tuxedo Computers has made a major change for its in-house Linux distribution, Tuxedo OS, saying goodbye to its Ubuntu base and hello to Debian Testing.

“According to the company, the decision arrives after several months of reduced update cadence, especially around KDE Plasma updates,” the article states. “While Plasma 6.7.x is already available upstream, Tuxedo OS is still based on Plasma 6.5.x, and the company had not previously given a precise timeline for moving existing users to an Ubuntu 26.04 LTS base.”

So the reason behind this? It’s complicated.

“Until now, Tuxedo OS has followed a hybrid release model which combined a stable Ubuntu LTS base with more frequently updated components such as the Linux kernel, web browsers, NVIDIA drivers, the graphics stack, and KDE Plasma,” the article continues.

“However, Tuxedo says this model has become increasingly difficult to maintain as Ubuntu LTS releases age. According to the company, backporting modern software to an older package base requires more work over time, especially when newer applications depend on libraries that are either missing or outdated in the underlying distribution.”

But why switch to Debian Testing?

“Debian Testing . . . provides a more current package base,” the article states. “For Tuxedo, this gives the distribution a more flexible foundation while still staying within Debian’s well-established package ecosystem.”

KDE Plasma 6.6.6 released

Mark of the Beast or just plain happenstance? You decide.

Liam Proven at The Register reports Thursday that KDE Plasma has released version 6.6.6, which has a long list of upgrades featured on the KDE web page.

“KDE Plasma 6.6.6 is a release that really is just about bug-fixes, but while there are no headline-grabbing features coming out for this inauspicious version number, it’s worth remembering: in a world of bloated code, real-world software still depends on experienced maintainers,” the article states.

If you really like Plasma 6.6, you should hope that version 6.6.6 lasts longer than Linux kernel 6.6.6 did – that was only around for a couple of days before it was replaced with Linux 6.6.7.

“This version appeared precisely on schedule, but that planned release timetable holds some bad news. Under the heading Bugfix releases, it says: “Beginning with Plasma 6.3, stable ‘feature’ releases will each receive six (6) subsequent updates containing bug fixes.”

Interesting.

Later in the article, Proven writes that, “[w]e suspect that will matter more, because as we reported last month, the plan is that Plasma 6.7 will be the last version to support an X11 session. KDE Plasma 6.8 is currently scheduled for mid-October, in order to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the announcement of the ‘Kool Desktop Environment.’ The plan is still as it was in 2025: Plasma 6.8 will be Wayland-only. Already today, the default setup of Plasma 6.7 on most OSes uses Wayland, but it’s still possible to install the necessary package and have the option of running Plasma using X11 instead.”

And that’s all for today. Don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return on Monday.