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Gemini's command line tool is a hidden productivity game changer - and it's free

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET AI has finally started to trickle into the Linux command line. Thanks to the likes of Ollama, this reality is no longer avoidable: it's here, and it's not going anywhere. That's not to say you have to use AI in your Linux terminal, but you can. For those who benefit from AI and often use the Linux Command Line Interface (CLI), the combination of the two can be a very powerful productivity boost. Yes, you can get the power of Gemini AI directly in your

4 Linux distros that can't be upgraded on autopilot - and why they're still worth trying

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET If you use a Linux distribution based on Debian or Ubuntu, the upgrade path is almost always painless. I've had maybe one Ubuntu upgrade in over a decade that had problems, and even that was a fairly straightforward fix. But not all Linux distributions are created equal, and some are more challenging than others. Some distributions even make the upgrade process more difficult, and a few give users fair warning about why it's important to stay informed

The secret to Linux's remarkable journey from one dev's hobby to 40 million lines of code

Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography/Getty Images When Linus Torvalds posted his now-legendary 1991 announcement about a "hobby" operating system kernel, no one would have predicted that Linux would become the backbone of modern computing. In a speech at the Open-Source Summit, North America, Jonathan Corbet, executive editor of LWN and longtime kernel developer, recounted the Linux kernel's remarkable journey, highlighting its disruptive beginnings, its unique development model, and th

7 things every Linux beginner should know before downloading their first distro

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET I can still remember the moment I switched from Windows to Linux. Back then, I didn't have anyone there to tell me what to expect. It would have been nice to get even a bit of advice from someone with Linux experience in the know to say, "Hey, you'll want to know about this before you start down that path." It would have made things easier. Instead, I took just dove right in, hoping I could figure it all out as I went. The good news: Linux today is n

New to Linux? Seven things every beginner should know

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET I can still remember the moment I switched from Windows to Linux. Back then, I didn't have anyone there to tell me what to expect. It would have been nice to get even a bit of advice from someone with Linux experience in the know to say, "Hey, you'll want to know about this before you start down that path." It would have made things easier. Instead, I took just dove right in, hoping I could figure it all out as I went. The good news: Linux today is n

Want to stand out in IT job interviews? 10 ways a home lab can help

marchmeena29 / Getty Images When I was a kid, my home lab consisted of test tubes and beakers, sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), acetic acid (vinegar), and the occasional boom, followed closely by the sound of my mom in the distance yelling, "David Allen Gewirtz, you stop that right now." When the scold transitioned from "David Gewirtz" to "David Allen Gewirtz," I knew I was in trouble. To be fair, nothing prepared my nontechnical mom and dad to raise a future engineer. I was forever taking th

This Debian-based Linux distro is an overlooked and user-friendly gem

Jack Wallen/ZDNET I spend a lot of time looking for Linux distributions that fit in certain niches, and one of the most important niches is those open-source operating systems that can serve the general public. When looking for such distributions, I tend to consider those based on Ubuntu first, which one might think is limiting, but there are hundreds of distributions with that base. Every so often, however, I run into a Debian-based distribution that fits the bill. That makes perfect sense, g

Cross-Compiling Common Lisp for Windows

By Colin on 2025-06-28 I recently enabled Windows support for my Raylib bindings library and a game of mine that uses it, Aero Fighter. The process was surprisingly smooth. This article describes how to: cross-compile C code for Windows from Linux install a Windows-based SBCL with Wine run that SBCL as your REPL in Linux-based Emacs load .dll files into a Lisp image files into a Lisp image produce a .exe executable of a Lisp program Cross-compiling C We can easily produce Windows execut

ZeQLplus: Terminal SQLite Database Browser

ZeQL+ : Terminal SQLite Database Browser Features Open any SQLite database file Very fast Runs in a Terminal / CMD window Tiny executable with no dependencies List all tables in the database to browse Paginated view of table rows Run custom SQL queries and view the results Cross platform: macOS, Linux, Windows Open source Install Pre-built binaries for macOS, Linux, Windows 10+ are available as zip files in the releases page. Just extract and run directly with no need to install. Ho

This city is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for OnlyOffice and Linux - here's why

Jumping Rocks/Contributor/Getty Is it something in the water? First, it was Denmark bidding Microsoft adieu. Then it was the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Now it's Lyon, France's third-largest city and a leading economic hub, sweeping Microsoft Windows and Office suite away to replace them with Linux, OnlyOffice, NextCloud, and PostgreSQL. Also: Ready to ditch Windows? 'End of 10' makes converting your PC to Linux easier than ever So, why is Lyon making this move? Well, it's not due to

This city is the latest European government to dump Microsoft for Linux

Jumping Rocks/Contributor/Getty Is it something in the water? First, it was Denmark bidding Microsoft adieu. Then it was the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Now it's Lyon, France's third-largest city and a leading economic hub, sweeping Microsoft Windows and Office suite away to replace them with Linux, OnlyOffice, NextCloud, and PostgreSQL. Also: Ready to ditch Windows? 'End of 10' makes converting your PC to Linux easier than ever So, why is Lyon making this move? Well, it's not due to

Can this $200 Windows mini PC replace my Linux system for a week? Here's the verdict

ZDNET's key takeaways The Minix Z97 mini PC is available on Amazon for $217. This tiny PC is a powerhouse that's well-suited for daily use. Running demanding tasks like local AI workloads puts a strain on its resources. $238.9 at Amazon Imagine having a PC that fits in your hand and performs well enough to get you through the day (with power to spare). Such computers exist, but not all of them are created equal. I've tested plenty of these tiny form-factor PCs, and a lot of them might be cut

Topics: linux mini pc windows z97

This free Linux distro is the easiest way to revive your old computer. How it works

ZDNET's key takeaways Linux Lite 7.4 is available to download and install for free from the official site. This lightweight Linux distribution comes with everything you need and performs like an absolute champ. The default desktop is a bit bland, but it's fairly easy to customize. View now at Linuxliteos My friend recently wanted to bring an old laptop back to life. Her aging Intel MacBook was no longer supported by Apple, and instead of letting the machine wind up in a landfill somewhere, sh

Google Cloud donates A2A AI protocol to the Linux Foundation

Google Cloud has donated its Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol to the Linux Foundation, which has now announced a new community-driven project called the Agent2Agent Project. A2A was originally developed by Google Cloud as a protocol specification, SDK, and tooling set that made communication between AI agents possible. The protocol allows AI agents from different vendors to discover each other, share capabilities and context, and securely collaborate on complex tasks. AI agents are AI-powered tools

X11's dying days mean you'll be forced to switch to Wayland

CorDesign / Getty Images Wayland is the Linux display server that has been in the slow, steady process of taking over X11 to deliver a more modern, robust, and secure GUI for Linux. Wayland offers better performance, better handling of complex GUIs, and even vastly improved security. Although Wayland has been around for quite some time, the problem has been that Linux distributions and desktops have been slow to change from the long-in-the-tooth X11. That changes now because one of the most p

What tech titans Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates talked about in their first meeting

Microsoft/Mark Russinovich Boy, do I wish I had been at this dinner. For decades, Microsoft and Linux fought like cats and dogs. However, while the conflict has cooled down, and Microsoft loves Linux these days, the two leaders, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Linux creator Linus Torvalds, had never met… until now. Also: Your jump from Windows 10 to Linux gets easier with KDE Plasma 6.4 Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Azure CTO, decided it would be neat if he could somehow get the pair and Dave

Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds meet for the first time at tech titans' dinner

What just happened? Given that there was a time when Microsoft called Linux a "cancer," it's little surprise that the Redmond firm's co-founder and long-time boss Bill Gates had never met Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel. But that changed recently when the two attended a dinner, and it appears to have gone well. Microsoft chief technical officer Mark Russinovich posted evidence of the historic dinner in a LinkedIn post. Dave Cutler, the legendary programmer and lead architect of the

Your jump from Windows 10 to Linux gets easier with KDE Plasma 6.4

Weiquan Lin/Getty For the last few years, my favorite Linux desktop interface has been Linux Mint Cinnamon. However, that adoration doesn't mean I can't appreciate other Linux desktops. For example, when the KDE Community recently released KDE Plasma 6.4, I decided to give it a try on my openSUSE Tumbleweed machine, a Dell XPS 8300 with a 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-2600 processor, 16GB DDR3 RAM, and a 1.5TB 7200 rpm hard drive from 2011. That machine can run Windows 10 (you can forget about Windows

New Linux udisks flaw lets attackers get root on major Linux distros

Attackers can exploit two newly discovered local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerabilities to gain root privileges on systems running major Linux distributions. The first flaw (tracked as CVE-2025-6018) was found in the configuration of the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) framework on openSUSE Leap 15 and SUSE Linux Enterprise 15, allowing local attackers to gain the privileges of the "allow_active" user. The other security bug (CVE-2025-6019) was discovered in libblockdev, and it enab

Cosmoe: BeOS Class Library on Top of Wayland

The current iteration of Cosmoe is a shared library which implements the BeOS class library on top of Wayland. There are no supporting programs, e.g. app_server or registrar, needed to use it. All the necessary functionality is rolled into the library. Apps linked with the library run natively on Linux via Wayland. The previous iteration of Cosmoe (now known as "Cosmoe Classic") is a full port of the Haiku OS to the Linux kernel. It runs inside an SDL window on Linux. It would be possible to de

Using Microsoft's New CLI Text Editor on Ubuntu

If you spend a lot time in a terminal on Linux you’ll have preferred command-line text editor, but Microsoft’s recently announced open-source offering, simply called Edit, might be worth checking out — if only so you know you’re not missing out. Edit is a remake/reboot of the old MS-DOS Editor, updated to suit current sensibilities. Built using Rust, it aims to deliver a user experience that, per its GitHub page, provides “modern interface and input controls similar to VS Code.” Microsoft says

Topics: edit linux open text use

I found a file-transferring app that works between Android and Linux - and it's free to use

Must. Connect. To. Linux. Jack Wallen/ZDNET Almost daily, I need to send a file from my Pop!_OS Linux desktop to my Android device. Over the years, I've found some solutions, but this latest option, called Packet, makes sending files from Linux to Android a breeze. Packet works with Quick Share, and both desktop and mobile devices only have to be on the same wireless network to function. Once on the same network, sending a file to Android is simple. Also: My 6 favorite open-source Android app

Open source can't coordinate?

Open Source Can’t Coordinate I was taking a shower this morning, and was pondering yesterday’s problem, where I suspect that I have an outdated version of hotspot Linux profiler, but I can’t just go and download a fresh release from GitHub, because hotspot is a KDE app, and I use NixOS. And NixOS isn’t a problem — it’s a solution. Linux on desktop is a rickety tower of competing libraries, protocols and standards, which is always in an Escheresque sort of perpetual motion, taking off but simul

Ready to ditch Windows? 'End of 10' makes converting your PC to Linux easier than ever

End of 10 Windows 10, it's almost time to bid you adieu. Support ends soon, and many of those PCs simply aren't powerful enough to run the successor to what has been one of the most widely used desktop OSes on the planet. But users have choices. They can purchase a new computer, one with enough oomph to run Windows 11 (an expensive proposition in an unstable economy). They can run the risk of using an unsupported OS (not wise in a world that is getting ever more dangerous). They can install

Topics: 10 end help linux windows

My A11y Journey

23 years ago I was in a bad place. I'd quit my first attempt at a PhD for various reasons that were, with hindsight, bad, and I was suddenly entirely aimless. I lucked into picking up a sysadmin role back at TCM where I'd spent a summer a year before, but that's not really what I wanted in my life. And then Hanna mentioned that her PhD supervisor was looking for someone familiar with Linux to work on making Dasher , one of the group's research projects, more usable on Linux. I jumped.The timing

My A11 Journey

23 years ago I was in a bad place. I'd quit my first attempt at a PhD for various reasons that were, with hindsight, bad, and I was suddenly entirely aimless. I lucked into picking up a sysadmin role back at TCM where I'd spent a summer a year before, but that's not really what I wanted in my life. And then Hanna mentioned that her PhD supervisor was looking for someone familiar with Linux to work on making Dasher , one of the group's research projects, more usable on Linux. I jumped.The timing

Asterinas: A new Linux-compatible kernel project

Asterinas: a new Linux-compatible kernel project [LWN subscriber-only content] Born from research at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzen, China, Asterinas is a new Linux-ABI-compatible kernel project written in Rust, based on what the authors call a "framekernel architecture". The project overlaps somewhat with the goals of the Rust for Linux project , but approaches the problem space from a different direction by trying to get the best from both monolithic an

Open source can't coordinate

Open Source Can’t Coordinate I was taking a shower this morning, and was pondering yesterday’s problem, where I suspect that I have an outdated version of hotspot Linux profiler, but I can’t just go and download a fresh release from GitHub, because hotspot is a KDE app, and I use NixOS. And NixOS isn’t a problem — it’s a solution. Linux on desktop is a rickety tower of competing libraries, protocols and standards, which is always in an Escheresque sort of perpetual motion, taking off but simul

End of 10: Upgrade your old Windows 10 computer to Linux

Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025. Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer. But what if you could make your current one fast and secure again? If you bought your computer after 2010, there's most likely no reason to throw it out. By just installing an up-to-date Linux operating system you can keep using it for years to come. Installing an operating system may sound difficult, but you don't have to do it alone. With any luck, there are people in your area ready to help! Find so

Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer. Make your current one secure again?

Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025. Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer. But what if you could make your current one fast and secure again? If you bought your computer after 2010, there's most likely no reason to throw it out. By just installing an up-to-date Linux operating system you can keep using it for years to come. Installing an operating system may sound difficult, but you don't have to do it alone. With any luck, there are people in your area ready to help! Find so