Linux Foundation Endorses Chromium, SteamOS ISO Is Coming ![rw-book-cover](https://wsrv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcast.thelinuxexp.com%2Fmedia%2Fpodcasts%2Ftlenewspodcast%2Fcover_feed.png&w=100&h=100) ## Metadata - Author: [[Linux & Open Source News]] - Full Title: Linux Foundation Endorses Chromium, SteamOS ISO Is Coming - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/e5209937-7b71-41e8-b644-406e7b21776a ## Document Notes ## Highlights - Here are five reflection questions based on the podcast episode you've been listening to, keeping in mind your current playback position 22:02: 1. **The Linux Foundation's Chromium initiative:** Considering Google's continued control over Chromium, was the Linux Foundation's involvement a worthwhile endeavor? What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of this partnership? 2. **SteamOS's future:** With Microsoft actively developing a competing handheld interface for Windows 11, how will this affect the adoption and future of SteamOS, particularly regarding third-party manufacturers? 3. **Desktop Environment Evolution:** How do the ongoing developments in Budgie, Cosmic, and KDE Plasma reflect the broader trends and challenges in the Linux desktop ecosystem? What are the implications for users? 4. **Linux Gaming's Progress:** Analyzing the news about GeForce Now's Steam Deck app and Marvel Rivals lifting their Linux ban, what does this suggest about the evolving landscape of Linux gaming and the growing acceptance of Linux as a gaming platform? 5. **Dell's impact on Linux:** How might Dell's shift in product branding and naming conventions affect the availability and future of Linux support on their devices? What are the potential consequences for Linux users? Transcript: Nick They're really, really good. Okay, now let's get started. Okay, so the Linux Foundation partnered up with Google to launch what is called the Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers Initiative. This thing aims at funding the development of said web browsers and everything in the Chromium ecosystem to ensure that Chromium keeps receiving contributions from across the entire Open source world, and I should say starts receiving contributions from across the entire open source ecosystem, because right now apparently 94% of contributions to Chromium are Made by Google. The goal of this initiative, spearheaded and hosted by the Linux Foundation, is to provide a space where people and third parties and actors can support projects aimed at improving And taking advantage of Chromium. But there is one giant catch and that is that Chromium is not moving under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, where it would truly become independent. It stays under current governance and every chromium-based project also stays under their current governance model, meaning chromium is still very much a fully google-controlled Project. Google still gets to decide everything about chromium which really sabotaged the entire initiative in my opinion. Now Google, Meta, Microsoft and Opera already pledged support but you will notice that some important chromium actors like Brave or Vivaldi aren't there and it's probably because This would basically mean contributing a lot of stuff and just helping Google in the end. They still represent, as I said, 94% of contributions on Chromium because, well, they have all the control on the project, as seen with Manifest V3, where they enforced all the changes That Google wanted onto everyone using Chromium and the Chrome extension store. What is happening here is probably that Google is preparing for a potential sale of Chrome. In a current US-based antitrust case, it is likely that Google might have to sell off parts of its businesses, including Google Chrome, because Google just has too much power. If Google has to sell Chrome, then they cannot fund the development of that web browser through other profitable business units. Chrome itself would just never be a profitable business. And so Google probably wants to offload a lot of the development to the open source community, which is probably why this initiative is happening now and hasn't happened before. The problem is Google retaining all the control over the project and only benefiting from the contributions of the community would not change how things are going right now and things Are not going well right now because the community just does not contribute a lot to Chromium. I would probably have applauded this initiative had Chromium been transferred under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, because now the project would have been almost independent And would have been like the reference web engine and web browser for everyone, which we need only if it's not controlled by a giant tech company. As it stands now, it's just Google trying to benefit from more contributions, but without giving away any of the control which is just not acceptable in my opinion. Now here we are, the first SteamOS powered third-party device is now completely official, it's the Lenovo Legion Go S as we already knew and suspected that it was leaked everywhere. It uses an AMD Ryzen Z or Z1 Extreme system on a chip with Radeon 700M integrated graphics, an 8-inch touchscreen at 1200p with variable refresh rate. It can go up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, although the entry model will be 16GB, and it can go up to 1TB of SSD, but the entry model will be 512. The battery is 55Wh and the entire thing will call. The battery is 55Wh and the device will cost $500 US for the base model, so probably 500 euros in Europe. This thing will be available in May and it will be very interesting to see how well it sells because the exact same hardware will be available with Windows pre-installed presumably At the same price, so we'll see how it goes. On top of that, Valve confirmed that they would ship a beta of SteamOS as a standalone ISO that can be downloaded and tested by everyone ahead of the launch of the Lenovo Legion Go S, meaning You will finally be able to download the standalone SteamOS version, which should help a lot with testing, with compatibility, and it will generally just let people build the consoles And handhelds that they want while running the official SteamOS on their various devices. And I know there are tons of gaming distros out there that mimic SteamOS as best as they can. As far as I know, SteamOS is the only one that has the built-in per-game settings with a framerate cap, with FSR, the quality or sharpness of the scaling and things like that, but you'll Correct me if I'm wrong in the comments of the episode. At any rate, it will be interesting because an official SteamOS ISO means that maybe other partners are going to start showing up and trying to sell devices with it, and that's going To be pretty cool to see. Especially since Microsoft is finally taking steam os seriously they recently talked about bringing the xbox experience to the pc specifically to handhelds currently windows 11 Is just bad plain and simple on handhelds it's not designed at all to work with a controller or even with a touch screen. It still sucks with touch. They actually regressed since Windows 8 and Windows 10. The entire system is basically hacked together by third-party manufacturers with extra hardware buttons to make it work on those devices. Also, Windows is just really badly optimized for low-power computers compared to SteamOS, but that specifically will probably not be fixed. Microsoft said that their goal is not to design a new Xbox OS for handhelds, but at least to have a handheld or console-friendly interface available in Windows. Microsoft's vice president of Next Generation, and yes, that is a real job title apparently, said they're actively working on this exact interface right now and this could definitely Take away one of the biggest advantages of SteamOS and I said this when ([Time 0:02:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c366c0b3-b940-43b8-96dc-186c6d150e0a)) - **Chromium Governance** - The Linux Foundation partners with Google for a Chromium-based browser initiative. - However, Google retains full control, limiting community impact. Transcript: Nick Okay, now let's get started. Okay, so the Linux Foundation partnered up with Google to launch what is called the Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers Initiative. This thing aims at funding the development of said web browsers and everything in the Chromium ecosystem to ensure that Chromium keeps receiving contributions from across the entire Open source world, and I should say starts receiving contributions from across the entire open source ecosystem, because right now apparently 94% of contributions to Chromium are Made by Google. The goal of this initiative, spearheaded and hosted by the Linux Foundation, is to provide a space where people and third parties and actors can support projects aimed at improving And taking advantage of Chromium. But there is one giant catch and that is that Chromium is not moving under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, where it would truly become independent. It stays under current governance and every chromium-based project also stays under their current governance model, meaning chromium is still very much a fully google-controlled Project. Google still gets to decide everything about chromium which really sabotaged the entire initiative in my opinion. Now Google, Meta, Microsoft and Opera already pledged support but you will notice that some important chromium actors like Brave or Vivaldi aren't there and it's probably because This would basically mean contributing a lot of stuff and just helping Google in the end. They still represent, as I said, 94% of contributions on Chromium because, well, they have all the control on the project, as seen with Manifest V3, where they enforced all the changes That Google wanted onto everyone using Chromium and the Chrome extension store. What is happening here is probably that Google is preparing for a potential sale of Chrome. In a current US-based antitrust case, it is likely that Google might have to sell off parts of its businesses, including Google Chrome, because Google just has too much power. If Google has to sell Chrome, then they cannot fund the development of that web browser through other profitable business units. Chrome itself would just never be a profitable business. And so Google probably wants to offload a lot of the development to the open source community, which is probably why this initiative is happening now and hasn't happened before. The problem is Google retaining all the control over the project and only benefiting from the contributions of the community would not change how things are going right now and things Are not going well right now because the community just does not contribute a lot to Chromium. I would probably have applauded this initiative had Chromium been transferred under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, because now the project would have been almost independent And would have been like the reference web engine and web browser for everyone, which we need only if it's not controlled by a giant tech company. ([Time 0:02:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b5d658f1-bc97-4c12-8730-6de6f6428fab)) - Here are three contrarian moments from the podcast, identified as moments contradicting common assumptions or expectations: **1. The Linux Foundation's Chromium Initiative:** Play from 02:20. The podcast host expresses disappointment that the Linux Foundation's partnership with Google on Chromium doesn't transfer control of the project. He argues that this undermines the initiative's potential, as Google retains ultimate decision-making power. This contradicts the expectation that such a collaboration would lead to greater independence and community control of Chromium. > "Google still gets to decide everything about chromium which really sabotaged the entire initiative in my opinion." > > — **Nick** **2. Microsoft's SteamOS Competitor:** Play from 08:06. The host discusses Microsoft's efforts to improve Windows 11's compatibility with handheld devices, viewing it as a serious challenge to SteamOS. This contradicts the common perception that Microsoft would not actively pursue a competing interface for handheld gaming. > "Microsoft said that their goal is not to design a new Xbox OS for handhelds, but at least to have a handheld or console-friendly interface available in Windows." > > — **Nick** **3. Apple's AI Fail:** Play from 25:11. The host points out that Apple's AI features, while arriving later than competitors', are not necessarily superior. This contradicts the expectation that Apple's late entry into a technology field would automatically result in a high-quality, polished product. > "Clearly, Apple is now designing for investors and headlines and just the general stock price, and not really for users anymore, which is a shame." > > — **Nick** Transcript: Nick It stays under current governance and every chromium-based project also stays under their current governance model, meaning chromium is still very much a fully google-controlled Project. Google still gets to decide everything about chromium which really sabotaged the entire initiative in my opinion. Now Google, Meta, Microsoft and Opera already pledged support but you will notice that some important chromium actors like Brave or Vivaldi aren't there and it's probably because This would basically mean contributing a lot of stuff and just helping Google in the end. They still represent, as I said, 94% of contributions on Chromium because, well, they have all the control on the project, as seen with Manifest V3, where they enforced all the changes That Google wanted onto everyone using Chromium and the Chrome extension store. What is happening here is probably that Google is preparing for a potential sale of Chrome. In a current US-based antitrust case, it is likely that Google might have to sell off parts of its businesses, including Google Chrome, because Google just has too much power. If Google has to sell Chrome, then they cannot fund the development of that web browser through other profitable business units. Chrome itself would just never be a profitable business. And so Google probably wants to offload a lot of the development to the open source community, which is probably why this initiative is happening now and hasn't happened before. The problem is Google retaining all the control over the project and only benefiting from the contributions of the community would not change how things are going right now and things Are not going well right now because the community just does not contribute a lot to Chromium. I would probably have applauded this initiative had Chromium been transferred under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, because now the project would have been almost independent And would have been like the reference web engine and web browser for everyone, which we need only if it's not controlled by a giant tech company. As it stands now, it's just Google trying to benefit from more contributions, but without giving away any of the control which is just not acceptable in my opinion. Now here we are, the first SteamOS powered third-party device is now completely official, it's the Lenovo Legion Go S as we already knew and suspected that it was leaked everywhere. It uses an AMD Ryzen Z or Z1 Extreme system on a chip with Radeon 700M integrated graphics, an 8-inch touchscreen at 1200p with variable refresh rate. It can go up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, although the entry model will be 16GB, and it can go up to 1TB of SSD, but the entry model will be 512. The battery is 55Wh and the entire thing will call. The battery is 55Wh and the device will cost $500 US for the base model, so probably 500 euros in Europe. This thing will be available in May and it will be very interesting to see how well it sells because the exact same hardware will be available with Windows pre-installed presumably At the same price, so we'll see how it goes. On top of that, Valve confirmed that they would ship a beta of SteamOS as a standalone ISO that can be downloaded and tested by everyone ahead of the launch of the Lenovo Legion Go S, meaning You will finally be able to download the standalone SteamOS version, which should help a lot with testing, with compatibility, and it will generally just let people build the consoles And handhelds that they want while running the official SteamOS on their various devices. And I know there are tons of gaming distros out there that mimic SteamOS as best as they can. As far as I know, SteamOS is the only one that has the built-in per-game settings with a framerate cap, with FSR, the quality or sharpness of the scaling and things like that, but you'll Correct me if I'm wrong in the comments of the episode. At any rate, it will be interesting because an official SteamOS ISO means that maybe other partners are going to start showing up and trying to sell devices with it, and that's going To be pretty cool to see. Especially since Microsoft is finally taking steam os seriously they recently talked about bringing the xbox experience to the pc specifically to handhelds currently windows 11 Is just bad plain and simple on handhelds it's not designed at all to work with a controller or even with a touch screen. It still sucks with touch. They actually regressed since Windows 8 and Windows 10. The entire system is basically hacked together by third-party manufacturers with extra hardware buttons to make it work on those devices. Also, Windows is just really badly optimized for low-power computers compared to SteamOS, but that specifically will probably not be fixed. Microsoft said that their goal is not to design a new Xbox OS for handhelds, but at least to have a handheld or console-friendly interface available in Windows. Microsoft's vice president of Next Generation, and yes, that is a real job title apparently, said they're actively working on this exact interface right now and this could definitely Take away one of the biggest advantages of SteamOS and I said this when Valve announced SteamOS I never understood why Microsoft did not have the Xbox interface available on Windows Because that would just have been relatively easy for them to do. The Xbox runs a version of Windows. The interface can be ported to Windows. It should be ported to Windows and it should have been years ago. Finally, they're going to have it and we're going to have to see if it really makes SteamOS completely irrelevant to third-party manufacturers or if SteamOS still has a spot and a place Compared to Windows, notably in terms of optimization and resource usage, because Windows 11 is still a huge piece of crap in terms of how much resources it uses. Some news about Budgie and their efforts to revamp and rewrite parts of the desktop. They've made solid progress on a Wayland session, just like every other desktop environment or compositor has done for the past few years. You can now launch a full Budgie Wayland session that uses the LabWC compositor. It supports screen sharing and ([Time 0:03:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/af569f4a-4b57-43b0-a248-198c9a33b32a)) - **SteamOS Expansion** - Lenovo Legion Go S will be the first third-party SteamOS device, launching in May. - A standalone SteamOS ISO beta will release, enabling wider testing and custom handheld builds. Transcript: Nick As it stands now, it's just Google trying to benefit from more contributions, but without giving away any of the control which is just not acceptable in my opinion. Now here we are, the first SteamOS powered third-party device is now completely official, it's the Lenovo Legion Go S as we already knew and suspected that it was leaked everywhere. It uses an AMD Ryzen Z or Z1 Extreme system on a chip with Radeon 700M integrated graphics, an 8-inch touchscreen at 1200p with variable refresh rate. It can go up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, although the entry model will be 16GB, and it can go up to 1TB of SSD, but the entry model will be 512. The battery is 55Wh and the entire thing will call. The battery is 55Wh and the device will cost $500 US for the base model, so probably 500 euros in Europe. This thing will be available in May and it will be very interesting to see how well it sells because the exact same hardware will be available with Windows pre-installed presumably At the same price, so we'll see how it goes. On top of that, Valve confirmed that they would ship a beta of SteamOS as a standalone ISO that can be downloaded and tested by everyone ahead of the launch of the Lenovo Legion Go S, meaning You will finally be able to download the standalone SteamOS version, which should help a lot with testing, with compatibility, and it will generally just let people build the consoles And handhelds that they want while running the official SteamOS on their various devices. And I know there are tons of gaming distros out there that mimic SteamOS as best as they can. As far as I know, SteamOS is the only one that has the built-in per-game settings with a framerate cap, with FSR, the quality or sharpness of the scaling and things like that, but you'll Correct me if I'm wrong in the comments of the episode. At any rate, it will be interesting because an official SteamOS ISO means that maybe other partners are going to start showing up and trying to sell devices with it, and that's going To be pretty cool to see. ([Time 0:05:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b781d269-797c-4dfe-9d00-5641cd66bdb5)) - **Microsoft vs. SteamOS** - Microsoft is developing a handheld-friendly interface for Windows 11. - This aims to compete with SteamOS by addressing Windows 11's poor handheld optimization. Transcript: Nick Especially since Microsoft is finally taking steam os seriously they recently talked about bringing the xbox experience to the pc specifically to handhelds currently windows 11 Is just bad plain and simple on handhelds it's not designed at all to work with a controller or even with a touch screen. It still sucks with touch. They actually regressed since Windows 8 and Windows 10. The entire system is basically hacked together by third-party manufacturers with extra hardware buttons to make it work on those devices. Also, Windows is just really badly optimized for low-power computers compared to SteamOS, but that specifically will probably not be fixed. Microsoft said that their goal is not to design a new Xbox OS for handhelds, but at least to have a handheld or console-friendly interface available in Windows. Microsoft's vice president of Next Generation, and yes, that is a real job title apparently, said they're actively working on this exact interface right now and this could definitely Take away one of the biggest advantages of SteamOS and I said this when Valve announced SteamOS I never understood why Microsoft did not have the Xbox interface available on Windows Because that would just have been relatively easy for them to do. The Xbox runs a version of Windows. The interface can be ported to Windows. It should be ported to Windows and it should have been years ago. Finally, they're going to have it and we're going to have to see if it really makes SteamOS completely irrelevant to third-party manufacturers or if SteamOS still has a spot and a place Compared to Windows, notably in terms of optimization and resource usage, because Windows 11 is still a huge piece of crap in terms of how much resources it uses. Some news about Budgie and their efforts to revamp and rewrite parts of the desktop. ([Time 0:08:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ce116860-1ad2-4a62-8e74-6aee743612f2)) - **Budgie's Future** - Budgie 10.10 will be Wayland-only, dropping X11 support. - Budgie 11 will be a complete rewrite, potentially using System76's libcosmic. Transcript: Nick They've made solid progress on a Wayland session, just like every other desktop environment or compositor has done for the past few years. You can now launch a full Budgie Wayland session that uses the LabWC compositor. It supports screen sharing and streaming with portals, it has all the panels and applets you're used to in Budgie that work as intended apart from two specific applets, and the compositor Will receive integration within the Budgie control center so you can change all the window manager settings graphically and easily. So in 2025, they want to ship Budgie 10.10. This thing will be Wayland only and no longer support X11. And then they'll start working on Budgie 11. Now they apparently still have a few things to fix for Budgie 10.10 to be released, like the nightlight applets that don't work properly and the keyboard layout applets. Both of these things are now handled by the compositor, and so they required a bit of extra work. Budgie 10.10 will receive updates to fix later issues, but it will no longer get any major features or any major versions. All the work will then be focused on Budgie 11 after 10.10 is released. Now they made a point of not saying which toolkits they were going to use to completely rewrite Budgie 11. They previously had said they didn't want GTK or Qt and they were looking at the Enlightenment libraries, but since then they've said that these foundational libraries are not Wayland Compatible enough. They said that people should really know what they're talking about. And honestly, I think they're just going to use libcosmic and all the libraries that System76 has written for Cosmic. I don't see anything else they could use if they don't want Qt or GTK. But I guess we'll see pretty soon when they open the repos. They say the team is already set up to build all of this, so we'll see when it happens. ([Time 0:10:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/30c9b4a0-366f-4dcf-8b08-bf30c17a8b25)) - **Cosmic Alpha 5** - Cosmic Desktop Alpha 5 includes a new Vulkan-based media player. - It also features improved window management, VRR support, and user settings panel. Transcript: Nick The Cosmic Desktop Alpha 5 is now out, maintaining the one release per month sort of schedule that System76 started to have when they introduced their first version. This one brings the new Cosmic Media Player. It uses Vulkan to render video, it uses VA API for hardware accelerated decoding, provided that this is available on the system. It will also, in the future, be used for audio playback, but for now it just plays one file, whether it's a video or an audio, it doesn't have any queuing, playlists or whatever. Cosmic is also planning to add an app to install Codex inside the desktop graphically. They've reordered the Alt tab or Super tab tool to work with the most recent apps first, so apps you've opened are sorted by recency, and variable refresh rate support is also now here And fully working. They added a new user settings panel in the settings as well, where you can configure user accounts, you can set passwords, create new users, set the admin status, and there are a few Improvements here and there, like for example, the ability to open links from the terminal by just left-clicking them, which is cool, and there are also a bunch of bug fixes, because It's still an alpha, so there are bugs everywhere. Now these are small improvements over the previous alpha, and it looks like when they are going to release, they will be probably on par with GNOME in terms of the features they offer, And I would say that they probably are aiming at something close to Cinnamon in terms of what features they will offer in the end where the desktop is considered fully baked in. It will probably never reach KD level of settings which is also probably for the best because why recreate KD when you already have it. Anyway Cosmic looks interesting. I'll be looking forward to testing the final beta or the first stable version. Testing these alphas, there's just not enough to make a full video about those. ([Time 0:12:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ce1f51da-7524-4d70-8f53-dce3001551d9)) - **KDE Plasma 6.3 Beta** - KDE Plasma 6.3 beta focuses on drawing tablet and joystick support. - It improves night light, Wayland, and includes Spectacle by default. Transcript: Nick And still on desktop environments, we have Plasma 6.3, or at least its first beta. The headline feature is mostly on supporting drawing tablets. The settings and the options are now there to better handle all of these tools. There's also better joystick support for game controllers. There's an improved nightlight mode that now works with HDR displays as well, since KD supports HDR now. There are a bunch of fixes and improvements for Wayland and ex-Wayland. Just looking at the list of changes on KWIN, it's like half the entire release notes and there are some accessibility improvements. Spectacle, which is the screenshot tool, will now be shipped as part of the Plasma desktop, which makes sense because taking screenshots is really a part of the core desktop experience. And there's a new control panel to better handle snap packages if you install that kind of stuff. The info center also gained a few more informations to better let you know how your computer is working and what it has baked in. There should be a second beta at the end of the month presumably with even more features because KD tends to accept new features in between betas, and the final release is planned for The 11th of February. Obviously, you'll have a video about this on the YouTube channel. They are still on a multiple releases per year, and I don't know when they're gonna move to two releases per year, which is their goal. ([Time 0:14:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c7d3bf8b-cc36-4a4d-b54d-bbd623894704)) - **GeForce Now on Steam Deck** - GeForce Now is coming to Steam Deck with 4K HDR and RTX support. - The app, launching later this year, requires owning games on supported platforms. Transcript: Nick They said they wanted to do that to better align with various distro release dates like mostly fedora and ubuntu they're not doing it currently i prefer that because i have more stuff To talk about and i like updates to my kd desktop but for their integration and promotion in within distros it's probably not a good thing they should really start moving to this two releases Per year they're pretty stable enough to do that now now let's go back to gaming a little bit because there's good news for people who enjoy cloud gaming geforce now will have an official Steam deck app soon at ces nvidia announced a native application for the Steam Deck and thus hopefully for Linux in general, because that thing will likely be distributed on Steam, At least hopefully. It will support 4K 60fps with HDR, presumably for when you plug your Steam Deck into your TV through the dock, and it will also support RTX. The application should come out later this year. There's no confirmed date just now, and we don't yet know how they will distribute it. Hopefully, we won't need to take a trip through the desktop mode to download and install it, and hopefully, you can just find it in Steam's library and install it in one click. Now, GeForce Now is pretty expensive for a service that just lets you stream GPU and computer capabilities. You still need to buy the games, you can integrate your games library from Steam, from the Epic Games Launcher, from Ubisoft and others, but you still need to buy those games on those Services and not all of those games can be streamed. So it's really a second solution on top of your already existing library. Or if that's your primary way of gaming, you need to only buy the games that are supported through GeForce Now, which you can do through GeForce Now. ([Time 0:15:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/41be3efe-5cbb-4ce1-98a9-e0419d6e48d6)) - **AUR Policy Change** - The AUR now requires x86-64 builds for all packages. - This impacts ARM-specific software like uBoot and FEX, which were removed. Transcript: Nick Personally, I don't really have a need for such a service, but I can understand why it's cool. And having an official Steam Deck application is a big indication that developers and manufacturers and just generally the entire ecosystem of gaming starts recognizing SteamOS And the Steam Deck as a real thing that people actually own, which is really nice. About the AUR and they might have to change their policies a little bit in the future because for the moment they seem to require packages to be available for x86-64 on top of all the other Architectures that you might want to support. It seems fine, most people owned an x86 computer, but it is kind of dumb if you think about it, because some software only makes sense on ARM, for example, and that was demonstrated by The recent removal of a package in the AUR for uBoot, which is a bootloader for ARM devices, specifically in this case for a NAS, or FEX, the emulator that turns x86 instructions into ARM instructions, which obviously is only useful on ARM and will never have an x86 version because that would not work. Both of these packages were removed because they only had ARM builds and no x86 builds, which is kind of dumb. Hopefully this changes in the future because ARM devices are bound to become more prevalent and some software really only makes sense on certain architectures. Now Valve invested a lot of money to help Arch build up their package building infrastructure, presumably to support more architectures. If that work could also expand to the AUR, that would be cool because AUR is a big part of why people want to use Arch. ([Time 0:17:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5d38ca50-f2ad-4190-8d66-3a8a24755c85)) - **Firefox 134 Features** - Firefox 134 introduces touchpad hold gestures for scrolling. - It revamps the new tab page (US/Canada) and improves pop-up blocking. Transcript: Nick Now this week we've seen the release of Firefox 134 and it seems like a pretty solid update for once. The new version brings a few cool things. First, touchpad hold gestures, meaning you can scroll fast up or down by flicking your fingers on the touchpad with kinetic scrolling, your webpage is going to start flying by, and Then you can stop the scrolling by just placing two fingers on the touchpad, just like you would do on a smartphone where you could just flick the page up and then tap the screen once to Stop the scrolling. This is really useful if you often read very long webpages or stuff that has infinity scrolling. There's also a revamped new tab page, at least if you're in the US and Canada. They're rolling this out progressively, I guess to try and catch issues and get feedback. The new page places web search and your shortcuts up top, but it also adds recommended stories, which I had not seen before in Firefox, so correct me if these existed before. These are likely a way for Mozilla to make a bit of money with sponsored links, and these are displayed in cards underneath your favorites. Now pop-up blocking in Firefox should also be less aggressive, but in a good way, Firefox tended to block every single pop-up, meaning some websites that used pop-up windows for authentication, For example, could not work properly. I know some government websites in France used that and they didn't work right in Firefox. This should now be fixed. Ecosia is also now available for all of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. You can download Firefox 134 as the official Snap or Flatpak. Chances are, if you use these formats, you already are using the latest versions. And I guess many distros will already have a package up and running by now for you to update to. Looks like a solid renewed focus on features inside of Firefox which is nice, there's also some work done on their profile manager which will let you basically use multiple profiles Or workspaces for example for work and for personal browsing which is also pretty cool to have. ([Time 0:19:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d8887c11-99b1-47ef-8995-4d8e69396117)) - **Marvel Rivals Ban Reversal** - Marvel Rivals reversed its 100-year ban on Linux/macOS gamers. - CodeWeavers' CEO helped achieve this outcome after player outcry. Transcript: Nick So props on the Firefox team, it really looks like Mozilla is refocusing on the web browser and I kind of like it. We have yet more good news on Linux gaming. It looks like the developer of the game Marvel Rivals are backtracking on their ban of Linux gamers. They previously issued 100 year long bans for everyone using Linux or macOS or more specifically playing the game using Proton or the Mac Game Porting Toolkit, which obviously a 100-year Ban is ridiculous. Either delete the account or don't ban people, but a 100-year ban is basically lifetime ban, so delete the account. Apparently, enough players contacted the studio that they decided to reverse those bans, and the CEO of CodeWeavers, who are the developers of Crossover, and the main contributors Of Wine, they even weighed in to help with this outcome. The studio said that they would work on better detecting actual cheaters, but they did not specifically say that they accepted compatibility tools. So this might flip-flop again. They might decide to switch anti-cheat solutions and use something that doesn't work at all with Linux, macOS, Proton, and whatever else. Now, I thought this was interesting news because it could show that we might have enough people to start pressuring studios into actually supporting our platform, which would be really Nice. I'll follow this from afar and we'll see if this is just a nice decision that indicates that gaming on Linux will get better or if the developers are just slithering around the issue and Will hit all the Linux gamers with another blockage by just moving to another anti-cheat tool. ([Time 0:21:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bc9e2e47-d8bc-46e0-8d9e-7c8e4347aabb)) - **Dell's XPS Line** - Dell replaces its XPS line with an Apple-like naming scheme (Dell, Dell Pro, Dell Pro Max). - This raises concerns about the future of Linux support on Dell devices. Transcript: Nick Now, Dell is killing a few of their product lines to replace them with an Apple-esque naming scheme, meaning the XPS line of laptops is now dead. And that's an issue because first, they looked like pretty decent devices, and if I remember correctly, they came with Linux pre-installed as well just like other product lines did That will be deleted as well. Now their products will be known as Dell for just the general consumers the series will just be Dell laptops or Dell workstations. Then you will have Dell Pro for the same kind of pro that Apple targets, meaning not pros at all, but just people who want a dedicated GPU, and then you'll have Dell Pro Max for maximum performance. This will be applied to laptops and workstations, and within each product line you'll find the base model, so for example a Dell Pro Max, and then you'll get the Plus models or the premium Models, meaning you could get a Dell Pro Max premium laptop, for example, which makes no sense in terms of naming conventions. I don't know why manufacturers do that. Now, looking at their website, they still have devices that sell with Ubuntu pre-installed from various product lines, but once those product lines get removed, will they keep compatibility With Linux on their Dell, Dell Pro or Dell Pro Max lines or not? I don't know. And we'll have to see. It would kind of suck if they stopped supporting Linux, but we'll see whether they just transition their support or remove it. And of course, we can't have a full episode without making fun of crappy AI. ([Time 0:23:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/db6024e8-6ce9-4f15-8474-c37ea73b5f1b)) - **Apple's AI Mishaps** - Apple's AI summaries for news misinterpret headlines, reporting false information. - This highlights the ongoing struggle with AI accuracy and its potential for misinformation. Transcript: Nick And people who expected Apple to fix AI because they tend to come in later on certain technology but do it a little bit better than others, if not in a very limited way, at least it tends To work a little bit better. Well, it looks like Apple is not gonna do that with AI. They do summaries of news headlines and notifications, and these summaries seem to completely misinterpret what's happening. For example, they said someone took their own life when they did not, or they said Israel's prime minister had been arrested, which also did not happen. The issue is these headlines are still attributed to the original article or app that published the original headline, meaning it could basically be saying, hey, the New York Times Said that someone was arrested. Well, the New York Times never said that. Apple said that this feature is in beta. They will clarify that the text displayed is a summary, not the actual headline, but this seems like fixing a wet floor by just adding a wet floor sign. The issue is not fixed. The AI is still terrible at its job, no matter if you warn people about it or not. Now one could have expected Apple to kind of do it better than others because they tend to do that. They arrive later with a half-finished implementation or at least half-featured implementation, but those semi-features work better than what others have built. There were a few notable exceptions, like their first Mi.com or iCloud implementations. They were really bad. Apple Maps was also kind of crappy. The Vision Pro is just not necessarily a bad device, but it completely overestimated how much people want that kind of stuff. And it looks like with AI, they just messed up again. Clearly, Apple is now designing for investors and headlines and just the general stock price, and not really for users anymore, which is a shame. They have really good computers now, really decent chips, really good battery life and performance, and some really solid, nice, usable hardware. But their software is getting worse and worse by the minute, and this is clearly not helping. They didn't design that to help Apple consumers. They designed that because their investors told them, you need to do something AI related. ([Time 0:25:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5465ea38-993c-44e1-b76e-09042fc5fde3))