An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant's lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows' user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users.

This is probably why Microsoft has been aggressively pushing users to upgrade to Windows 11 after the previous version of the OS loses support -- so that its users would install the latest version of Windows on their current system (or get a new PC if their system is incapable of running the latest version). Although macOS is a threat to Windows, especially with the launch of Apple Silicon, we cannot say that those 400 million users all went and bought a MacBook. That's because, as far back as 2023, Mac sales have also been dropping, with Statista reporting the computer line, once holding more than 85% of the company revenue, now making up just 7.7%. The shrinking Windows user base can be attributed to a combination of factors -- a major one being the global move toward a mobile-first world, where smartphones and tablets are increasingly replacing traditional PCs for everyday computing needs.

At the same time, Microsoft's strict hardware requirements for Windows 11 have alienated users with perfectly functional older machines, prompting some to stick with unsupported versions or abandon Windows entirely. Additionally, many users find Windows 11 less intuitive than its predecessor and are frustrated by Microsoft's push toward data collection and Apple-style design changes.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes in an opinion piece for The Register: Microsoft, tactically admitting it has failed at talking all the Windows 10 PC users into moving to Windows 11 after all, is -- sort of, kind of -- extending Windows 10 support for another year. For most users, that means they'll need to subscribe to Microsoft 365. This, in turn, means their data and meta-information will be kept in a US-based datacenter. That isn't sitting so well with many European Union (EU) organizations and companies. It doesn't sit that well with me or a lot of other people either.

A few years back, I wrote in these very pages that Microsoft didn't want you so much to buy Windows as subscribe to its cloud services and keep your data on its servers. If you wanted a real desktop operating system, Linux would be almost your only choice. Nothing has changed since then, except that folks are getting a wee bit more concerned about their privacy now that President Donald Trump is in charge of the US. You may have noticed that he and his regime love getting their hands on other people's data.

Privacy isn't the only issue. Can you trust Microsoft to deliver on its service promises under American political pressure? Ask the EU-based International Criminal Court (ICC) which after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes, Trump imposed sanctions on the ICC. Soon afterward, ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was reportedly locked out of his Microsoft email accounts. Coincidence? Some think not. Microsoft denies they had anything to do with this.

Peter Ganten, chairman of the German-based Open-Source Business Alliance (OSBA), opined that these sanctions ordered by the US which he alleged had been implemented by Microsoft "must be a wake-up call for all those responsible for the secure availability of state and private IT and communication infrastructures." Microsoft chairman and general counsel, Brad Smith, had promised that it would stand behind its EU customers against political pressure. In the aftermath of the ICC reports, Smith declared Microsoft had not been "in any way [involved in] the cessation of services to the ICC." In the meantime, if you want to reach Khan, you'll find him on the privacy-first Swiss email provider, ProtonMail.

In short, besides all the other good reasons for people switching to the Linux desktop - security, Linux is now easy to use, and, thanks to Steam, you can do serious gaming on Linux - privacy has become much more critical. That's why several EU governments have decided that moving to the Linux desktop makes a lot of sense... Besides, all these governments know that switching from Windows 10 to 11 isn't cheap. While finances also play a role, and I always believe in "following the money" when it comes to such software decisions, there's no question that Europe is worried about just how trustworthy America and its companies are these days. Do you blame them? I don't. The shift to the Linux desktop is "nothing new," as Vaughan-Nichols notes. Munich launched its LiMux project back in 2004 and, despite ending it in 2017, reignited its open-source commitment by establishing a dedicated program office in 2024. In France, the gendarmerie now operates over 100,000 computers on a custom Ubuntu-based OS (GendBuntu), while the city of Lyon is transitioning to Linux and PostgreSQL.

More recently, Denmark announced it is dropping Windows and Office in favor of Linux and LibreOffice, citing digital sovereignty. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is following suit, also moving away from Microsoft software. Meanwhile, a pan-European Linux OS (EU OS) based on Fedora Kinoite is being explored, with Linux Mint and openSUSE among the alternatives under consideration.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from UploadVR: Software developer Stijn Spanhove used the newest SDK features of Snap OS to build a prototype of [a real-world ad blocker for Snap Spectacles]. If you're unfamiliar, Snap Spectacles are a bulky AR glasses development kit available to rent for $99/month. They run Snap OS, the company's made-for-AR operating system, and developers build apps called Lenses for them using Lens Studio or WebXR.

Spanhove built the real-world ad blocker using the new Depth Module API of Snap OS, integrated with the vision capability of Google's Gemini AI via the cloud. The Depth Module API caches depth frames, meaning that coordinate results from cloud vision models can be mapped to positions in 3D space. This enables detecting and labeling real-world objects, for example. Or, in the case of Spanhove's project, projecting a red rectangle onto real-world ads.

However, while the software approach used for Spanhove's real-world ad blocker is sound, two fundamental hardware limitations mean it wouldn't be a practical way to avoid seeing ads in your reality. Firstly, the imagery rendered by see-through transparent AR systems like Spectacles isn't fully opaque. Thus, as you can see in the demo clip, the ads are still visible through the blocking rectangle. The other problem is that see-through transparent AR systems have a very limited field of view. In the case of Spectacles, just 46 degrees diagonal. So ads are only "blocked" whenever you're looking directly at them, and you'll still see them when you're not.

Microsoft is preparing to release a private preview of Windows changes that will move antivirus and endpoint detection and response apps out of the Windows kernel, nearly a year after a faulty CrowdStrike update crashed 8.5 million Windows-based machines worldwide.

The new Windows endpoint security platform is being developed in cooperation with CrowdStrike, Bitdefender, ESET, Trend Micro, and other security vendors. David Weston, Microsoft's vice president of enterprise and OS security, said dozens of partners have submitted papers detailing design requirements, some hundreds of pages long. The private preview will allow security vendors to request changes before the platform is finalized.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ExtremeTech: Microsoft has changed how Windows 11 manages System Restore points after its June 2025 security update. The update, KB5060842, says that starting with Windows 11 version 24H2, System Restore points will be kept for up to 60 days. After 60 days, restore points older than 60 days will no longer be available for use. [...] The change does not change the way restore points are created or used; it only sets a clear time limit for how long they are stored. Windows will still delete older restore points if the allocated disk space fills up. But now there is a firm upper limit of 60 days, regardless of available space. The report notes that restore points in Windows 11 have varied. "Some restore points were removed after only 10 days, while others sometimes lasted the full 90 days, as reported by XDA Developers."

The new 60-day limit should give users more certainty about how long their restore points will remain on their system.

Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin writes: Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.4. This fresh new release improves on nearly every front, with progress being made in accessibility, color rendering, tablet support, window management, and more.

Plasma already offered virtual desktops and customizable tiles to help organize your windows and activities, and now it lets you choose a different configuration of tiles on each virtual desktop. The Wayland session brings some new accessibility features: you can now move the pointer using your keyboard's number pad keys, or use a three-finger touchpad pinch gesture to zoom in or out.

Plasma file transfer notification now shows a speed graph, giving you a more visual idea of how fast the transfer is going and how long it will take to complete. When any applications are in full screen mode Plasma will now enter Do Not Disturb mode and only show urgent notifications. When you exit full-screen mode, you'll see a summary of any notifications you missed.

Now, when an application tries to access the microphone and finds it muted, a notification will pop up. A new feature in the Application Launcher widget will place a green New! tag next to newly installed apps, so you can easily find where something you just installed lives in the menu.

The Display and Monitor page in System Settings comes with a brand new HDR calibration wizard. Support for Extended Dynamic Range (a different kind of HDR) and P010 video color format has also been added. System Monitor now supports usage monitoring for AMD and Intel graphic cards -- it can even show the GPU usage on a per-process basis.

Spectacle, the built-in app for taking screenshots and screen recordings, has a much-improved design and more streamlined functionality. The background of the desktop or window now darkens when an authentication dialog shows up, helping you locate and focus on the window asking for your password.

There's a brand-new Animations page in System Settings that groups all the settings for purely visual animated effects into one place, making them easier to find and configure. Aurorae, a newly added SVG vector graphics theme engine, enhances KWin window decorations.

You can read more about these and many other other features in the Plasma 6.4 announcement and complete changelog.

Michael Larabel of Phoronix highlights the key updates in today's stable release of FreeBSD 14.3: FreeBSD 14.3 has back-ported a number of improvements from FreeBSD 15 back to the FreeBSD 14 series. Plus a number of routine package updates and other fixes. Some of the FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE highlights include:

- Updating the ZFS support against OpenZFS 2.2.7.
- Merging of the Realtek RTW88 and RTW89 WiFi drivers based on the Linux 6.14 kernel code.
- The LinuxKPI code has been improved to support crypto offload as well as the 802.11n and 802.11ac standards.
- The Intel IX Ethernet driver has added support for the x550 1000BAS-BX SFP modules.
- Thor2 PCI IDs added to the Broadcom NetXtreme "BNXT" driver along with support for 400G speed modules.
- XZ 5.8.1, OpenSSH 9.9p2, OpenSSL 3.0.16, and many other package updates.
- Syscons as the legacy system console driver is now considered deprecated. Syscons is not compatible with UEFI, lacks UTF-8 support, and is Giant-locked. You can download and learn more about FreeBSD 14.3 via FreeBSD.org.

An anonymous reader shares a blog post from Google: Today, we're bringing you Android 16, rolling out first to supported Pixel devices with more phone brands to come later this year. This is the earliest Android has launched a major release in the last few years, which ensures you get the latest updates as soon as possible on your devices. Android 16 lays the foundation for our new Material 3 Expressive design, with features that make Android more accessible and easy to use.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The FBI is warning that the BADBOX 2.0 malware campaign has infected over 1 million home Internet-connected devices, converting consumer electronics into residential proxies that are used for malicious activity. The BADBOX botnet is commonly found on Chinese Android-based smart TVs, streaming boxes, projectors, tablets, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices. "The BADBOX 2.0 botnet consists of millions of infected devices and maintains numerous backdoors to proxy services that cyber criminal actors exploit by either selling or providing free access to compromised home networks to be used for various criminal activity," warns the FBI.

These devices come preloaded with the BADBOX 2.0 malware botnet or become infected after installing firmware updates and through malicious Android applications that sneak onto Google Play and third-party app stores. "Cyber criminals gain unauthorized access to home networks by either configuring the product with malicious software prior to the users purchase or infecting the device as it downloads required applications that contain backdoors, usually during the set-up process," explains the FBI. "Once these compromised IoT devices are connected to home networks, the infected devices are susceptible to becoming part of the BADBOX 2.0 botnet and residential proxy services4 known to be used for malicious activity."

Once infected, the devices connect to the attacker's command and control (C2) servers, where they receive commands to execute on the compromised devices, such as [routing malicious traffic through residential IPs to obscure cybercriminal activity, performing background ad fraud to generate revenue, and launching credential-stuffing attacks using stolen login data]. Over the years, the malware botnet continued expanding until 2024, when Germany's cybersecurity agency disrupted the botnet in the country by sinkholing the communication between infected devices and the attacker's infrastructure, effectively rendering the malware useless. However, that did not stop the threat actors, with researchers saying they found the malware installed on 192,000 devices a week later. Even more concerning, the malware was found on more mainstream brands, like Yandex TVs and Hisense smartphones. Unfortunately, despite the previous disruption, the botnet continued to grow, with HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence stating that over 1 million consumer devices had become infected by March 2025. This new larger botnet is now being called BADBOX 2.0 to indicate a new tracking of the malware campaign. "This scheme impacted more than 1 million consumer devices. Devices connected to the BADBOX 2.0 operation included lower-price-point, 'off brand,' uncertified tablets, connected TV (CTV) boxes, digital projectors, and more," explains HUMAN.

"The infected devices are Android Open Source Project devices, not Android TV OS devices or Play Protect certified Android devices. All of these devices are manufactured in mainland China and shipped globally; indeed, HUMAN observed BADBOX 2.0-associated traffic from 222 countries and territories worldwide."

"It appears as though Meta (aka: Facebook's parent company) and Yandex have found a way to sidestep the Android Sandbox," writes Slashdot reader TheWho79. Researchers disclose the novel tracking method in a report: We found that native Android apps -- including Facebook, Instagram, and several Yandex apps including Maps and Browser -- silently listen on fixed local ports for tracking purposes.

These native Android apps receive browsers' metadata, cookies and commands from the Meta Pixel and Yandex Metrica scripts embedded on thousands of web sites. These JavaScripts load on users' mobile browsers and silently connect with native apps running on the same device through localhost sockets. As native apps access programmatically device identifiers like the Android Advertising ID (AAID) or handle user identities as in the case of Meta apps, this method effectively allows these organizations to link mobile browsing sessions and web cookies to user identities, hence de-anonymizing users' visiting sites embedding their scripts.

This web-to-app ID sharing method bypasses typical privacy protections such as clearing cookies, Incognito Mode and Android's permission controls. Worse, it opens the door for potentially malicious apps eavesdropping on users' web activity.

While there are subtle differences in the way Meta and Yandex bridge web and mobile contexts and identifiers, both of them essentially misuse the unvetted access to localhost sockets. The Android OS allows any installed app with the INTERNET permission to open a listening socket on the loopback interface (127.0.0.1). Browsers running on the same device also access this interface without user consent or platform mediation. This allows JavaScript embedded on web pages to communicate with native Android apps and share identifiers and browsing habits, bridging ephemeral web identifiers to long-lived mobile app IDs using standard Web APIs. This technique circumvents privacy protections like Incognito Mode, cookie deletion, and Android's permission model, with Meta Pixel and Yandex Metrica scripts silently communicating with apps across over 6 million websites combined.

Following public disclosure, Meta ceased using this method on June 3, 2025. Browser vendors like Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and DuckDuckGo have implemented or are developing mitigations, but a full resolution may require OS-level changes and stricter enforcement of platform policies to prevent further abuse.

Microsoft is previewing a new Windows Update orchestration platform that lets third-party apps schedule and manage updates alongside system updates, "aiming to centralize update scheduling across Windows 11 devices," reports The Register. From the report: On Tuesday, Redmond announced it's allowing a select group of developers and product teams to hook into the Windows 11 update framework. The system doesn't push updates itself but allows apps to register their own update logic via WinRT APIs and PowerShell, enabling centralized scheduling, logging, and policy enforcement. "Updates across the Windows ecosystem can feel like a fragmented experience," wrote Angie Chen, a product manager at the Borg, in a blog post. "To solve this, we're building a vision for a unified, intelligent update orchestration platform capable of supporting any update (apps, drivers, etc.) to be orchestrated alongside Windows updates."

As with other Windows updates, the end user or admin will be able to benefit from intelligent scheduling, with updates deferred based on user activity, system performance, AC power status, and other environmental factors. For example, updates may install when the device is idle or plugged in, to minimize disruption. All update actions will be logged and surfaced through a unified diagnostic system, helping streamline troubleshooting. Microsoft says the platform will support MSIX/APPX apps, as well as Win32 apps that include custom installation logic, provided developers integrate with the offered Windows Runtime (WinRT) APIs and PowerShell commands. At the moment, the orchestration platform is available only as a private preview. Developers must contact unifiedorchestrator@service.microsoft.com to request access. Redmond is taking a cautious approach, given the risk of update conflicts, but may broaden availability depending on how the preview performs.

Meanwhile, Windows Backup for Organizations, first unveiled at Microsoft Ignite in November 2024, has entered limited public preview. Redmond touts the service as a way to back up Windows 10 and 11 devices and restore them with the same settings in place. It's saying it'll be a big help in migrating systems to the more recent operating systems after Windows 10 goes end of life in October. "With Windows Backup for Organizations, get your users up and running as quickly as possible with their familiar Windows settings already in place," Redmond wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. "It doesn't matter if they're experiencing a device reimage or reset."

In an interview with Wired (paywalled), OnePlus co-founder and Nothing CEO, Carl Pei, said the future of smartphones will center around the OS and AI to get things done -- rendering traditional apps a thing of the past. 9to5Google reports: Pei says that Nothing's strength is in "creativity," adding that "the creative companies of the past" such as Apple "have become very big and very corporate, and they're no longer very creative." He then dives into what else but AI, explaining that Nothing wants to create the "iPod" of AI, saying that Apple built a product that simply built a better user experience: "If you look back, the iPod was not launched as 'an MP3 player with a hard disk drive.' The hard disk drive was merely a means to a better user experience. AI is just a new technology that enables us to create better products for users. So, our strategy is not to make big claims that AI is going to change the world and revolutionize smartphones. For us, it's about using it to solve a consumer problem, not to tell a big story. We want the product to be the story."

Pei then says that he doesn't see the current trend of AI products -- citing wearables such as smart glasses -- as the future of the technology. Rather, he sees the smartphone as the most important device for AI "for the foreseeable future," but as one that will "change dramatically." According to Pei, the future of the smartphone is one without apps, with the experience instead just revolving around the OS and what it can do and how it can "optimize" for the user, acting as a proactive, automated agent and that, in the end, the user "will spend less time doing boring things and more time on what they care about."

31 years ago FreeBSD was first released. But here in 2025, searches for the Unix-like FreeBSD OS keep increasing on Google, notes the official FreeBSD blog — and it's at least a two-year trend. Yet after talking to some businesses using (or interested in using) FreeBSD, they sometimes found that because FreeBSD isn't talked about as much, "people think it's dying. This is a clear example of the availability heuristic. The availability heuristic is a fascinating mental shortcut. It's how product names become verbs and household names. To 'Google' [search], to 'Hoover' [vacuum], to 'Zoom' [video meeting]. They reached a certain tipping point that there was no need to do any more thinking. One just googles , or zooms .

These days, building internet services doesn't require much thought about the underlying systems. With containers and cloud platforms, development has moved far from the hardware. Operating systems aren't top of mind — so people default to what's familiar. And when they do think about the OS, it's usually Linux. But sitting there, quietly powering masses of the internet, without saying boo to a goose, is FreeBSD. And the companies using it? They're not talking about it. Why? Because they don't have to. The simple fact that dawned on me is FreeBSD's gift to us all, yet Achilles heel to itself, is its license.

Unlike the GPL, which requires you to share derivative works, the BSD license doesn't. You can take FreeBSD code, build on it, and never give anything back. This makes it a great foundation for products — but it also means there's little reason for companies to return their contributions... [W]e'd like to appeal to companies using FreeBSD. Talk to us about your use case... We, the FreeBSD Foundation, can be the glue between industry and software and hardware vendors alike.

In the meantime, stay tuned to this blog and the YouTube channel. We have some fantastic content coming up, featuring solutions built on top of FreeBSD and showcasing modern laptops for daily use.

It's like "a USB-C port for AI applications..." according to the official documentation for MCP — "a standardized way to connect AI models to different data sources and tools."

And now Microsoft has "revealed plans to make MCP a native component of Windows," reports DevClass.com, "despite concerns over the security of the fast-expanding MCP ecosystem." In the context of Windows, it is easy to see the value of a standardised means of automating both built-in and third-party applications. A single prompt might, for example, fire off a workflow which queries data, uses it to create an Excel spreadsheet complete with a suitable chart, and then emails it to selected colleagues. Microsoft is preparing the ground for this by previewing new Windows features.

— First, there will be a local MCP registry which enables discovery of installed MCP servers.

— Second, built-in MCP servers will expose system functions including the file system, windowing, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

— Third, a new type of API called App Actions enables third-party applications to expose actions appropriate to each application, which will also be available as MCP servers so that these actions can be performed by AI agents. According to Microsoft, "developers will be able to consume actions developed by other relevant apps," enabling app-to-app automation as well as use by AI agents.

MCP servers are a powerful concept but vulnerable to misuse. Microsoft corporate VP David Weston noted seven vectors of attack, including cross-prompt injection where malicious content overrides agent instructions, authentication gaps because "MCP's current standards for authentication are immature and inconsistently adopted," credential leakage, tool poisoning from "unvetted MCP servers," lack of containment, limited security review in MCP servers, supply chain risks from rogue MCP servers, and command injection from improperly validated inputs. According to Weston, "security is our top priority as we expand MCP capabilities."
Security controls planned by Microsoft (according to the article):

• A proxy to mediate all MCP client-server interactions. This will enable centralized enforcement of policies and consent, as well as auditing and a hook for security software to monitor actions.
• A baseline security level for MCP servers to be allowed into the Windows MCP registry. This will include code-signing, security testing of exposed interfaces, and declaration of what privileges are required.
• Runtime isolation through what Weston called "isolation and granular permissions."

MCP was introduced by Anthropic just 6 months ago, the article notes, but Microsoft has now joined the official MCP steering committee, "and is collaborating with Anthropic and others on an updated authorization specification as well as a future public registry service for MCP servers."

SiFive was one of the first companies to produce a RISC-V chip. This week they announced a new collaboration with Red Hat "to bring Red Hat Enterprise Linux support to the rapidly growing RISC-V community" and "prepare Red Hat's product portfolio for future intersection with RISC-V server hardware from a diverse set of RISC-V suppliers."

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 is available in developer preview on the SiFive HiFive Premier P550 platform, which they call "a proven, high performance RISC-V CPU development platform." The SiFive HiFive Premier P550 provides a proven, high performance RISC-V CPU development platform. Adding support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, the latest version of the world's leading enterprise Linux platform, enables developers to create, optimize, and release new applications for the next generation of enterprise servers and cloud infrastructure on the RISC-V architecture...

SiFive's high performance RISC-V technology is already being used by large organizations to meet compute-intensive AI and machine learning workloads in the datacenter... "With the growing demand for RISC-V, we are pleased to collaborate with SiFive to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 deployments on SiFive HiFive Premier P550," said Ronald Pacheco, senior director of RHEL product and ecosystem strategy, "to further empower developers with the power of the world's leading enterprise Linux platform wherever and however they choose to deploy...."

Dave Altavilla, principal analyst at HotTech Vision And Analysis, said "Native Red Hat Enterprise Linux support on SiFive's HiFive Premier P550 board offers developers a substantial enterprise-grade toolchain for RISC-V.

"This is a pivotal step forward in enabling a full-stack ecosystem around open RISC-V hardware. SiFive says the move will "inspire the next generation of enterprise workloads and AI applications optimized for RISC-V," while helping their partners "deliver systems with a meaningfully lower total cost of ownership than incumbent platforms."

"With the growing demand for RISC-V, we are pleased to collaborate with SiFive to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 deployments on SiFive HiFive Premier P550..." said Ronald Pacheco, senior director of RHEL product and ecosystem strategy. .

Beta News notes that there's also a new AI-powered assistant in RHEL 10, so "Instead of spending all day searching for answers or poking through documentation, admins can simply ask questions directly from the command line and get real-time help Security is front and center in this release, too. Red Hat is taking a proactive stance with early support for post-quantum cryptography. OpenSSL, GnuTLS, NSS, and OpenSSH now offer quantum-resistant options, setting the stage for better protection as threats evolve. There's a new sudo system role to help with privilege management, and OpenSSH has been bumped to version 9.9. Plus, with new Sequoia tools for OpenPGP, the door is open for even more robust encryption strategies. But it's not just about security and AI. Containers are now at the heart of RHEL 10 thanks to the new "image mode." With this feature, building and maintaining both the OS and your applications gets a lot more streamlined...

Valve's SteamOS 3.7.8 update brings official support for AMD-powered handhelds like Lenovo's Legion Go and Asus' ROG Ally, along with a new "Steam OS Compatible" library tab and key bug fixes. Other features include a battery charge limit, updated graphics drivers, and a shift to Plasma 6.2.5. Polygon reports: Valve outlines two requirements for the third-party devices not explicitly named in the update to run SteamOS on the handheld: they must be AMD-powered and have an NVMe SSD. Specific instructions for installing the operating system have been updated and listed here.

Before this huge update, players had to use an alternative like Bazzite to achieve a similar SteamOS experience on their devices. The new update also piggybacks off of Valve expanding the Steam Deck Verified categorization system to "any device running SteamOS that's not a Steam Deck" in mid-May. To make matters sweeter, a SteamOS-powered version of the Lenovo Legion Go S is scheduled to release on May 25. You can learn more about SteamOS 3.7.8 here.

A new virtual machine manager called Karton is being developed specifically for the KDE Plasma desktop, aiming to offer a seamless, Qt-native alternative to GNOME-centric tools like GNOME Boxes. Spearheaded by University of Waterloo student Derek Lin as part of Google Summer of Code 2025, Karton uses libvirt and Qt Quick to build a user-friendly, fully integrated VM experience, with features like a custom SPICE viewer, snapshot support, and a mobile-friendly UI expected by September 2025. Neowin reports: To feel right at home in KDE, Karton is being built with Qt Quick and Kirigami. It uses the libvirt API to handle virtual machines and could eventually work across different platforms. Right now, development is focused on getting the core parts in place. Lin is working on a new domain installer that ditches direct virt-install calls in favor of libosinfo, which helps detect OS images and generate the right libvirt XML for setting up virtual machines more precisely. He's still refining device configuration and working on broader hypervisor support. Another key part of the work is building a custom SPICE viewer using Qt Quick from scratch:

If you're curious, here's the list of specific deliverables Lin included in his GSoC proposal, though he notes the proposal itself is a bit outdated [...]. For those interested in the timeline, Lin's GSoC proposal says the official GSoC coding starts June 2, 2025. The goal is to have a working app ready by the midterm evaluation around July 14, 2025, with the final submission due September 1, 2025. You can learn more via KDE.org.

Last August a Microsoft security update broke dual-booting Windows 11 and Linux systems, remembers the blog Neowin. Distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin OS, and Puppy Linux were all affected, and "a couple of days later, Microsoft provided a slightly lengthy workaround that involved tweaking around with policies and the Registry in order to fix the problem."

The update "was meant to address a GRUB bootloader vulnerability that allowed malicious actors to bypass Secure Boot's safety mechanisms," notes the It's FOSS blog. "Luckily, there's now a proper fix for this, as Microsoft has quietly released a new patch on May 13, 2025, addressing the issue nine months after it was first reported... Meanwhile, many dual-boot users were left with borked setups, having to use workarounds or disable Secure Boot altogether."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Would you believe Microsoft has announced a new Linux distribution service for its Azure cloud service? You should. For many years, the most popular operating system on Azure has not been Windows Server, it's been Linux. Last time I checked, in 2024, Azure Linux Platforms Group Program Manager Jack Aboutboul told me that 60% of Azure Marketplace offerings and more than 60% of virtual machine cores use Linux. Those figures mean it's sensible for Microsoft to make it easier than ever for Linux distributors to release first-class Linux distros on Azure. The tech giant is taking this step, said Andrew Randall, principal manager for the Azure Core Linux product management team, by making "Azure Image Testing for Linux (AITL) available 'as a service' to distro publishers."

ATIL is built on Microsoft's Linux Integration Services Automation project (LISA). Microsoft's Linux Systems Group originally developed this initiative to validate Linux OS images. LISA is a Linux quality validation system with two parts: a test framework to drive test execution and a set of test suites to verify Linux distribution quality. LISA is now open-sourced under the MIT License. The system enables continuous testing of Linux images, covering a wide range of scenarios from kernel updates to complex cloud-native workloads. [...] Specifically, the ATIL service is designed to streamline the deployment, testing, and management of Linux images on Azure. The service builds on the company's internal expertise and open-source tools to provide:

- Curated, Azure-optimized, security-hardened Linux images
- Automated quality assurance and compliance testing for Linux distributions
- Seamless integration with Azure's cloud-native services and Kubernetes environments Krum Kashan, Microsoft Azure Linux Platforms Group program manager, said in a statement: "While numerous testing tools are available for validating Linux kernels, guest OS images, and user space packages across various cloud platforms, finding a comprehensive testing framework that addresses the entire platform stack remains a significant challenge. A robust framework is essential, one that seamlessly integrates with Azure's environment while providing coverage for major testing tools, such as LTP and kselftest, and covers critical areas like networking, storage, and specialized workloads, including Confidential VMs, HPC, and GPU scenarios. This unified testing framework is invaluable for developers, Linux distribution providers, and customers who build custom kernels and images."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: An update to Roku OS has resulted in colors looking washed out in HDR content viewed on Roku apps, like Disney+. Complaints started surfacing on Roku's community forum a week ago. On May 1, a company representative posted that Roku was "investigating the Disney Plus HDR content that was washed out after the recent update." However, based on user feedback, it seems that HDR on additional Roku apps, including Apple TV+ and Netflix, are also affected. Roku's representative has been asking users to share their experiences so that Roku can dig deeper into the problem. [...]

Roku hasn't provided a list of affected devices, but users have named multiple TCL TV models, at least one Hisense, and one Sharp TV as being impacted. We haven't seen any reports of Roku streaming sticks being affected. One forum user claimed that plugging a Roku streaming stick into a Roku TV circumvented the problem. Forum user Squinky said the washed-out colors were only on Disney+. However, other users have reported seeing the problem across other apps, including Max and Fandango. [...] Users have noted that common troubleshooting efforts, like restarting and factory resetting their TVs and checking for software updates, haven't fixed the problem.

The problems appear to stem from the Roku OS 14.5 update, which was issued at the end of April. According to the release notes, the update is available for all Roku TV models from 2014 on, except for models 65R648, 75R648, and 75U800GMR. Roku streaming sticks also received the update. Per Roku, the software update includes "various performance optimizations, bug fixes, and improvements to security, stability." Other additions include a "new personalized row of content within the Live TV Guide" and upgrades to Roku OS' daily trivia, voice control, and discovery capabilities. "I'm surprised more people aren't complaining because it makes a ton of shows simply unwatchable. Was looking forward to Andor, and Tuesday night [was] ruined," posted forum user noob99999, who said the problem was happening on "multiple apps," including Amazon Prime Video. "I hope the post about imminent app updates are correct because in the past, Roku has taken forever to correct issues."