AppGrid Launcher is a grid-style launcher for Plasma 6 (Kickoff/Kicker alternative).

1.8.0-rc.3 is up and might be the last RC before final, so I'd like more eyes on it before the stable release.

Highlights: drag-and-drop - reorder favorites by dragging, and drag any app out onto the panel or desktop, to select multi just press ctrl+click. AppGrid now also uses KDE's activity-aware favorites backend (KActivities), with automatic migration of your existing favorites when upgrading from pre-1.8.0. And like always performance and bug fixes.

Install: https://appgrid.xarbit.dev or directly from https://github.com/xarbit/plasma6-applet-appgrid/releases/tag/v1.8.0-rc.3 - distro packages for Arch/Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu. The AUR package (plasma6-applets-appgrid) tracks stable releases, so for the RC use the pre-built package or build from source.

There's also a new universal package for immutable distros (KDE Linux, Kinoite, Bazzite, etc.). It's Beta - so far tested only on Kinoite and my distro (CachyOS), so more testing there is very welcome, i actually expect it not to be that universal yet :-).

Bug reports / feedback: https://github.com/xarbit/plasma6-applet-appgrid/issues

Microsoft released Azure Linux 4, a Fedora based general purpose server distro available as an Azure VM and under WSL. Interesting to see Microsoft shipping its own Linux distro after years of mostly hosting others.

You may know about Anubis by Techaro, the PoW challenge thing that protects websites from bots. It's used on several major sites, including FFmpeg, Arch, and the Linux Foundation. This experiment is specifically about Anubis.

Note that Anubis does not use up all CPU cores for its challenge to not overheat devices and for a better UX. Some PoW challenge systems do all cores, making them more effective. However, it appears as if Anubis gets the job done just fine.

I've been using this for a month without issues, haven't uploaded this to github until now because I was too lazy... Please mind that there are no tests other than my login workflow that takes 10 seconds.

I'd always been curious to own a Mac and try macOS. The existence of ARM chips and the recent release of the MacBook Neo encouraged me to buy it.

The laptop's build quality and screen are fantastic, like few I've ever seen. The A18 Pro chip is quite powerful for its intended purpose (I work with text and browse the internet). Even with 8 GB of RAM, the laptop met all my needs. The keyboard is really good, but I consider the ThinkPad's keyboard unbeatable.

But then came macOS. The window management is awful. The workflow feels sluggish. Having to be logged into the App Store to install applications didn't appeal to me. I couldn't easily remove any program I wanted. But perhaps the worst part was the feeling that the system simply wasn't mine. I couldn't do what I wanted, install and run things the way I wanted.

I returned the MacBook and went back to my old laptop with an AMD Ryzen and Fedora. I feel like I'm at home. Linux has something that other closed systems will never be able to deliver.

Hey guys, fairly new Linux user here.

I've wanted to acquire the expertise required to contribute to Linux in some technical way, so how would you recommend I start to learn the process?

I'm not at all experienced in this, only having basic programming knowledge from computer science classes in high school which were a shitfest, but that's another story. I have been using Linux as a daily driver for a few weeks after I reinstalled on my new pc. So I would be considered an enthusiast among my peers, for what it's worth.

I am willing to spend a good amount of time as I have a vacation coming soon, and I wanted to learn how to program anyway so decided I might as well learn how the OSS community works in the same timeframe lol.

All tips are appreciated :)

Hi! I'm a young middle schooler who's pretty tech-savvy and looking to share knowledge on some stuff.

One thing I've done recently is trying to bring back an old laptop. Not horribly old - only about 6 years old, however it was running Windows 11 (eugh) and took 15 seconds to open a browser.

Here's how I turned that 15 seconds into 2, and turned it into a real, working laptop again, that you can use for pretty much anything that a typical person uses a laptop for.

Maybe not workstation and stuff like that but it does anything you could ask out of a laptop.

Lets go!

1. I used Arch Linux. I know it's a hard first time distro however if you've ever distro-hopped before like me - I switched from Nobara -> CachyOS -> Arch (not for just the larp) and have gained some experience. I used the included archinstall script and made sure to add modules like:

Bluetooth

Printers

Pipewire

Make sure to also get an LTS kernel, and configure limine!

And since Arch's iso is only about 1.4 GB, it's impressively lightweight and speeds up any old system.

Yes, I know that there are other distros out there that are specifically targeted towards old hardware; however, I find that Arch is by far the most customizable.

The AUR and Pacman also add to reasons of why to use Arch.

2. Format as btrfs (if you have a decent ssd)

For SSD's always use btrfs. It's stable, and offers a lot of backup snapshots. Although raw speed is not the same, btrfs uses some form of zstd compression when moving around files and speeds up real world performance.

3. Choose a light DE

This one's especially important. If you have decent hardware from the last 5-8 years or so, something like KDE or Budgie (what I use) wouldn't hurt. Older than that? A few options:

1. XFCE. I've used this one before. Pretty fast, but it doesn't have Wayland support and though responsive, lightdm is buggy.
2. LXDE. Like xfce, I think, but even better for old hardware.
3. LXQt. What I recommend. Uses Qtile framework, so wayland support included out of the box; the successor to LXDE.
4. OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE!

This step takes the longest so I won't list every exact thing I did here. I'll just list what I did, not how. That's a bigger conversation for a different day.

1. Configured terminal - swapped from stock terminal to Kitty; changed shell from bash -> fish, configured starship, added shortcuts.
2. Kernel - Cross-compiled a kernel (tkg) from my main rig, optimized with every instruction the laptop had - Full LTO, znver1, and -O3 optimizations to squeeze performance out of the computer.
3. Configured ease of use - took so long. Configured paru, installed limine-update-tools and such for the limine bootloader and configured that, and a lot more.

The results speak for themselves.

Here's for a Lenovo 81W1, with a Ryzen 5 3500U APU:

Single core - 1,149 (Average - 878) Total gain - ~31%

Multi-core - 3,298 (Average -2,512) Total gain - ~31%

That ain't no silicon lottery! Way too many gains...

Try it for yourself.

Thanks for reading. Peace out, have a blessed day!

As the title says.

Aside from the obvious like fastfetch, htop, vim, etc what CLI apps are out there which replace a GUI app?

I like these as it is much more convenient and faster to have it all one command away and they use much less system resources (looking at you electron) as well as just making me look like a hackerman.