LineageOS 23 released

The LineageOS project has released version 23 of their AOSP-based Android variant. LineageOS 23 is based on the initial release of Android 16 – so not the QPR1 release that came later – because Google has not made the source code for that release available yet. Like other, similar projects, LineageOS also suffers from Google’s recent further lockdown of Android; not only do they not have access to Android 16 QPR1’s source code, they also can’t follow along with the latest security patches for Android due to changes Google made to the patch release process, and without the device trees for Pixel devices, Pixels are now no longer supported any better than other Android devices.

LineageOS 23 brings many of the same features Android 16 brought, and comes with updated versions of LineageOS’ own camera application and music player, as well as a new TV launcher. They’ve also worked hard to make it much easier to run LineageOS in QEMU, they’ve improved support for running mainline kernels, they’ve made it easier to merge security fixes and updates for various kernel versions, and much more.

Update instructions can be found on the devices page, and specifically note that if you’re using an unofficial LineageOS build, you’ll need to perform the original installation again. With LineageOS being the Debian of the Android world, you can expect a ton of these unofficial versions to pop up over the coming months for devices LineageOS does not officially support.

Liquid Glass is cracked, and usability suffers in iOS 26

With iOS 26, Apple seems to be leaning harder into visual design and decorative UI effects — but at what cost to usability? At first glance, the system looks fluid and modern. But try to use it, and soon those shimmering surfaces and animated controls start to get in the way. Let’s strip back the frost and look at how these changes affect real use.

↫ Raluca Budiu

I have not yet used Apple’s new “Liquid Glass” graphical user interface design, so here’s the usual disclaimer that my opinions are, then, effectively meaningless. That being said, the amount of detailed articles about the problems with Liquid Glass – from bugs to structural design problems – are legion, and this article by Raluca Budiu is an excellent example.

There are so many readability problems, spacing issues, odd animations that don’t actually convey anything meaningful, performance issues, and tons of bugs. It feels like it was made not by user interface specialists, but by marketeers, who were given too little time to boot. It feels incoherent and messy, and it’s going to take Apple a long, long time to mold and shape it into something remotely workable.

In bizarre move, Framework embraces deeply extremist views

Framework, the maker of repairable laptops, is embroiled in a controversy, as the company and its CEO are openly supporting people with, well, questionable views.

If you know a little bit about PR in social media space, you might note that, right out of the gate, a project by a vocal white nationalist known for splitting communities by their mere presence, is not a great highlight choice for an overtly non-left-right-political company like Framework. Does it get worse from here? Sadly, it does.

↫ Arya Bread Crumbs

The questionable views we’re talking about here are… Let’s just say we’re not talking about milquetoast stuff like “we should be a bit stricter with immigration” or “lower taxes on the rich”, but views that are far, far outside of the mainstream in most places in the world.

Let’s ditch the superlatives and review David’s post objectively:

  • He thinks that even if you were born in the UK, you only count as British if you’re white.
  • He wouldn’t consider living in London specifically because it has too many people of color.
  • He uses racist tropes to accuse Asian men of being dangerous predators who attack white women.
  • He pushes debunked conspiracy theories about immigrants replacing white people.
  • He finds a march where speakers called for banning all non-Christian religions and ethnically cleansing immigrants “heartwarming”.
  • Finally — and maybe most alarmingly — he argues that all of the above is normal and not extreme.

You can use whatever word you want to describe all that. But if you, like me, didn’t realize that this is who DHH is, we can probably agree that he’s way worse than we thought.

↫ Jake Lazaroff

Framework has stated in no uncertain terms that it is supporting and embracing people like this. That’s a choice they are entirely free to make, but I, and many with me, then, are entirely free to choose not to buy and/or promote products by Framework. I still sincerely hope that all of this is just a massive breakdown of PR and common sense at Framework and its CEO, but since they’ve already doubled-down, I’m not holding my breath. This whole thing is going to haunt them, especially since I’m fairly sure a huge chunk of their community and users – who are buying into hardware that is, in truth, overpriced – are not even remotely aligned with such extremist views.

I care deeply about Framework’s mission, but I don’t give a single rat’s ass about Framework itself. There are countless alternatives to Framework, some of which I’ve even reviewed here (like the MNT Reform or the NovaCustom V54), and if you, too, feel a deep sense of the ick when it comes to supporting extremist views like the above, I urge you to take them into consideration.

Running FreeBSD using Windows Subsystem for Linux

What if you are forced to use Windows, but want to use a real operating system instead? You could use WSL2 to use Linux inside Windows, but what if FreeBSD is more your thing? It turns out someone is working on making FreeBSD usable using WSL2.

This repository hosts work-in-progress efforts to run FreeBSD inside Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) with minimal to no changes to the FreeBSD base system. The project builds on the open-source components of WSL2 to enable FreeBSD to boot and run seamlessly in a Windows environment.

↫ WSL for FReeBSD GitHub page

The project is experimental, and definitely not ready for production use. It’s also important to note that this project is not part of Microsoft or FreeBSD. At this point in time, FreeBSD boots using WSL2 with basic functionality, and work is currently focused on networking, I/O, and process management.

Fedora’s “AI” policy process highlights rift between IBM/Red Hat and Fedora

A lot of open source projects are struggling what to do with the “AI” bubble, and Fedora is no different. This whole past year, the project’s been struggling to formulate any official policies on the use of “AI”, and LWN.net’s Joe Brockmeier has just done an amazing job summarising the various positions, opinions, and people influencing this process. His conclusion:

There appears to be a growing tension between what Red Hat and IBM would like to see from Fedora versus what its users and community contributors want from the project. Red Hat and IBM have already come down in favor of AI as part of their product strategies, the only real questions are what to develop and offer to the customers or partners.

The Fedora community, on the other hand, has quite a few people who feel strongly against AI technologies for various ethical, practical, and social reasons. The results, so far, of turning people loose with generative AI tools on unsuspecting open-source projects has not been universally positive. People join communities to collaborate with other people, not to sift through the output of large language models. It is possible that Red Hat will persuade Fedora to formally endorse a policy of accepting AI-assisted content, but it may be at the expense of users and contributors.

↫ Joe Brockmeier at LWN.net

Reading through Brockmeier’s excellent article, the various forces pulling and pushing on Fedora become quite clear, and the fact we’ve got IBM/Red Hat in favour of “AI”, and Fedora’s community of developers and users against it, shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Wherever “AI” makes an appearance, it’s almost exclusively a top-down process with corporate interests pushing “AI” hard on a largely indifferent userbase. It seems Fedora is no different.

The massive rift between IBM/Red Hat on one side, and the Fedora community on the other is probably best illustrated by a remark from Graham White, technical lead for the Granite AI agents at IBM. One of the earlier policy proposals referenced “AI” slop, and White was offended by this, stating:

I’ve been working in the industry and building AI models for a shade over 20 years and never come across “AI slop”. This seems derogatory to me and an unnecessary addition to the policy.

↫ Graham White, as quoted by Joe Brockmeier at LWN.net

Us regular users are bombarded with “AI” slop every day, and I just can’t understand how disconnected from reality you must be to not only deny it’s a problem, but to deny its existence entirely, when virtually every single Google query will drop you in “AI” muck. If such denial is commonplace within IBM/Red Hat, it’s really no wonder there’s such a big rift between them and Fedora. It is wholly unsurprising, then, that Fedora is having such a hard time formulating an “AI” policy.

The current version of the proposed policy seems to view “AI” and its use in or by Fedora mildly positively, which certainly has me, as a Fedora/KDE user, on edge. I don’t want “AI” anywhere near my operating system for a whole variety of reasons, and if the upcoming vote on the new policy ends up in favour of it, I might have to consider moving away from Fedora.

Microsoft closes another loophole to enable local accounts in Windows 11

It seems like Microsoft is continuing its quest to force Windows users to use Microsoft accounts instead of local accounts, despite the fact Microsoft accounts on Windows are half-baked and potentially incredibly dangerous. In the most recent Windows 11 Insider Preview Build (26220.6772), the company has closed a few more loopholes people were using to trick the Windows installer into allowing local user accounts.

We are removing known mechanisms for creating a local account in the Windows Setup experience (OOBE). While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use. Users will need to complete OOBE with internet and a Microsoft account, to ensure device is setup correctly.

↫ Amanda Langowski at the Windows Blogs

It seems that the specific workaround removed with this change is executing the command “start ms-cxh:localonly” in the command prompt during the installation process (you can access cmd.exe by pressing shift+F10 during installation). Several other workarounds have also been removed in recent years, making it ever harder for people forced to use Windows 11 to use a local account, like the gods intended.

The only reason Microsoft is pushing online accounts this hard is that it makes it much, much easier for them to collect your data and wrestle control over your installation away from you. A regular, proper local account with additional online accounts for various services would work just as well for users, allowing them to mix and match exactly what kind of cloud services they want integrated into their operating system. However, leaving this choice to the user invariably means people aren’t going to be using whatever trash services Microsoft offers. And so, Microsoft will make that choice for you, whether you like it or not.

There are a million reasons to stay away from the Windows version that must be making Dave Cutler cry, and the insistence on online accounts is but one of them. It’s a perfect example of how Microsoft developers Windows not to make it better for its users, but to make it better for its bottom line. I wonder how much more Microsoft can squeeze its users before we see some sort of actual revolt.

Windows used to just lack taste. These days, it’s also actively hostile.

Servo GTK: a widget to embed Servo in GTK4

Servo, the Rust-based browsing engine spun off from Mozilla, keeps making progress every month, and this made Ignacio Casal Quinteiro wonder: what if we make a GTK widget so we can test Servo and compare it to WebKitGTK?

As part of my job at Amazon I started working in a GTK widget which will allow embedding a Servo Webview inside a GTK application. This was mostly a research project just to understand the current state of Servo and whether it was at a good enough state to migrate from WebkitGTK to it. I have to admit that it is always a pleasure to work with Rust and the great gtk-rs bindings. Instead, Servo while it is not yet ready for production, or at least not for what we need in our product, it was simple to embed and to get something running in just a few days. The community is also amazing, I had some problems along the way and they were providing good suggestions to get me unblocked in no time.

↫ Ignacio Casal Quinteiro

The code is now out there, and while not yet ready for widespread use, this will make it easier for GTK developer to periodically assess the state of Servo, hopefully some day concluding it can serve as a replacement for WebKitGTK.

Synology reverses policy banning third-party HDDs after NAS sales plummet

Earlier this year, popular NAS vendor Synology announced it would start requiring some of its more expensive models to only use Synology-branded drives. It seems the uproar this announcement caused has had some real chilling effect on sales, and the company just cancelled its plans.

Synology has backtracked on one of its most unpopular decisions in years. After seeing NAS sales plummet in 2025, the company has decided to lift restrictions that forced users to buy its own Synology hard drives. The policy, introduced earlier this year, made third-party HDDs from brands like Seagate and WD practically unusable in newer models such as the DS925+, DS1825+, and DS425+. That change didn’t go over well. Users immediately criticised Synology for trying to lock them into buying its much more expensive drives. Many simply refused to upgrade, and reviewers called out the move as greedy and shortsighted. According to some reports, sales of Synology’s 2025 NAS models dropped sharply in the months after the restriction was introduced.

↫ Hilbert Hagedoorn at Guru3D.com

If you want to screw over your users to make a few more euros, it’s generally a good idea to first assess just how locked-in your users really are. Synology is but one of many companies making and selling NAS devices, and even building one yourself is stupidly easy these days. There’s an entire cottage industry of motherboards and enclosures specifically designed for this purpose, and there are countless easy-to-use software options out there, too.

In other words, nobody is really locked into Synology, so any unpopular move by the company was bound to make people look elsewhere, only to discover there are tons of competing options to choose from. The market seems to have spoken, and Synology can only respond by reversing its decision. Honestly, I had almost forgotten what a healthy tech market with tons of competing options looks like.

MicroPythonOS: an Android-like operating system for microcontrollers like the ESP32

MicroPythonOS is a lightweight, fast, and versatile operating system designed to run on microcontrollers like the ESP32 and desktop systems. With a modern Android-like touch screen UI, App Store, and Over-The-Air updates, it’s the perfect OS for innovators and developers.

↫ MicroPytonOS’ website

It’s quite neat to see this running in such a constrained environment, especially considering it comes with a graphical user interface, some basic applications, and niceties like OTA updates and an application repository. As the name implies, MicroPythonOS uses native MicroPython for application and driver development, making cross-platform portability from microcontrollers to regular PCs a possibility. It’s built on the MicroPython runtime, with LVGL for graphics, packaged by the lvgl_micropython project.

It’s still relatively early in development, but it’s completely open source so anyone can help out and improve the project. I’m personally not too well-versed in the world of microcontrollers like the popular ESP32, so I’m not entirely sure just how capable other operating systems and platforms built on top if it are. This particular operating system seems to make it rather easy and straightforward for anyone to build and distribute an application for such microcontrollers, to a point where even an idiot like myself could relatively easily buy, say, an ESP32 kit with a display and assemble my own collection of small applications.

To repeat myself, it simply looks neat.

Qualcomm gobbles up Arduino

It was good while it lasted, I guess.

Arduino will retain its independent brand, tools, and mission, while continuing to support a wide range of microcontrollers and microprocessors from multiple semiconductor providers as it enters this next chapter within the Qualcomm family. Following this acquisition, the 33M+ active users in the Arduino community will gain access to Qualcomm Technologies’ powerful technology stack and global reach. Entrepreneurs, businesses, tech professionals, students, educators, and hobbyists will be empowered to rapidly prototype and test new solutions, with a clear path to commercialization supported by Qualcomm Technologies’ advanced technologies and extensive partner ecosystem.

↫ Qualcomm’s press release

Qualcomm’s track record when it comes to community engagement, open source, and long-term support are absolutely atrocious, and there’s no way Arduino will be able to withstand the pressures from management. We’ve seen this exact story play out a million times, and it always begins with lofty promises, and always ends with all of them being broken. I have absolutely zero faith Arduino will be able to continue to do its thing like it has.

Arduino devices are incredibly popular, and it makes sense for Qualcomm to acquire them. If I were using Arduino’s for my open source projects, I’d be a bit on edge right now.

That small sliver of time where a QNX desktop was a real thing we did

Bradford Morgan White has published an excellent retrospective of QNX, the realtime microkernel operating system focused on embedded use cases. The final paragraph made me sad, though.

QNX is a fascinating operating system. It was extremely well designed from the start, and while it has been rewritten, the core ideas that allowed it survive for 45 years persist to this day. While I am sad that Photon was deprecated, the reasoning is sound. Most vendors using QNX either do not require a GUI, or they implement their own. For example, while Boston Dynamics uses QNX in their robots, they don’t really need Photon, and neither do SpaceX’s Falcon rockets. While cars certainly have displays, most vehicle makers desire their screen interfaces to have a unique look and feel. Of course, just stating these use cases of robots, rockets, and cars speaks to the incredible reliability and versatility of QNX. Better operating systems are possible, and QNX proves it.

↫ Bradford Morgan White at Abort Retry Fail

Way back in 2004, before I even joined OSNews properly, I wrote about QNX as a desktop operating system, because back then I went through a short stint where I used QNX and its amazing Photon MicroGUI as my primary desktop. Back then, there was a short-lived but very enthusiastic community using QNX on desktops, sharing tips and findings, supported by one or two QNX employees who tried their best to support this fledgling community in the face of corporate indifference.

Eventually, these QNX employees left the company, and QNX started making it clearer than ever that they were not, in any way, interested in people using QNX on desktops, and in all honesty, they were most likely correct. However, I still think we had something special there, and had QNX’ management decided to help us out, it could’ve grown into something more sustainable. An open source QNX and Photon could’ve had an impact.

Using QNX on the desktop back then was much easier than you might imagine, with graphical package managers, capable browsers and email clients, a massive pile of open source packages, pretty great performance, and little to no need to ever leave the GUI and use a CLI. If your hardware was properly supported, you could have a great experience.

One of the very small “what-ifs” form the early 2000s.

Redox now multithreaded by default

Can these months please stop passing us by this quickly? It seems we’re getting a monthly Redox update every other week now, and that’s not right. Anyway, what have the people behind this Rust-based operating system been up to this past month?

One of the biggest changes this month is that Redox is now multithreaded by default, at least on x86 machines. Unsurprisingly, this can enable some serious performance gains. Also contributing to performance improvements this month is inode data inlining for small files, and the installation is now a lot faster too. LZ4 compression has been added to Redox, saving storage space and improving performance.

As far as ports go, there’s a ton of new and improved ports, like OpenSSH, Nginx, PHP, Neovim, OpenSSL 3.x, and more. On top of that, there’s a long list of low-level kernel improvements, driver changes, and relibc improvements, changes to the main website, and so on.

The case against generative AI: the numbers just don’t add up (i.e., it’s a scam)

Every single “vibe coding is the future,” “the power of AI,” and “AI job loss” story written perpetuates a myth that will only lead to more regular people getting hurt when the bubble bursts. Every article written about OpenAI or NVIDIA or Oracle that doesn’t explicitly state that the money doesn’t exist, that the revenues are impossible, that one of the companies involved burns billions of dollars and has no path to profitability, is an act of irresponsible make believe and mythos.

↫ Edward Zitron

The numbers are clear. People aren’t paying for “AI”, and those that do, are using up way more resources than they’re actually paying for. The profits required to make all of this work just aren’t realistic in any way, shape, or form. The money being pumped around doesn’t even exist. It’s a scam of such utterly massive proportions, it’s easier for many of us to just assume it can’t possibly be one. Too big to fail? Too many promises to be a scam.

It’s going to be a bloodbath, but as usual when the finance and tech bros scam entire sectors, it’s us normal folk who will be left to foot the bill. Let’s blame immigrants some more while we implement harsh austerity measures to bail out the billionaire class. Again.

Under pressure from US government, Apple removes ICEBlock application from the App Store

Your lovely host, late last night:

Google claims they won’t be sharing developer information with governments, but we all know that’s a load of bullshit, made all the more relevant after whatever the fuck this was. If you want to oppose the genocide in Gaza or warn people of ICE raids, and want to create an Android application to coordinate such efforts, you probably should not, and stick to more anonymous organising tools.

↫ Thom Holwerda

Let’s check in with how that other walled garden Google is trying to emulate is doing.

Apple has removed ICEBlock, an app that allowed users to monitor and report the location of immigration enforcement officers, from the App Store.

“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” Apple said in a statement to Business Insider. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”

↫ Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert, Peter Kafka, and Kwan Wei Kevin Tan for Business Insider

Oh.

Apple and Google are but mere extensions of the state apparatus. Think twice about what device you bring with you the next time you wish to protest your government’s actions.

Google details Android developer certification requirement, and it’s as bad as we feared

Google has been on a bit of a marketing blitz to try and counteract some of the negative feedback following its new developer verification requirement for Android applications, and while they’re using a lot of words, none of them seem to address the core concerns. It basically comes down to that they just don’t care about the consequences this new requirement has for projects like F-Droid, nor are they really bothered by any of the legitimate privacy concerns this whole thing raises.

If this new requirement is implemented in its current form, F-Droid will simply not be able to continue to exist in its current form. F-Droid builds the applications in its repository themselves and signs them, and developer verification does not fit into that picture at all. F-Droid works this way to ensure its applications are built from the publicly available sources, so developers can’t sneak anything nefarious into any binaries they would otherwise be submitting themselves.

The privacy angle doesn’t seem to bother Google much, either, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. With this new requirement, Android application developers can simply no longer be anonymous, which has a variety of side-effects, not least of which is that anyone developing applications for, say, dissidents, can now no longer be anonymous. Google claims they won’t be sharing developer information with governments, but we all know that’s a load of bullshit, made all the more relevant after whatever the fuck this was. If you want to oppose the genocide in Gaza or warn people of ICE raids, and want to create an Android application to coordinate such efforts, you probably should not, and stick to more anonymous organising tools.

Students and hobbyists are getting the short end of the stick, too, as Google’s promised program specifically for these two groups is incredibly limited. Yes, it waves the $25 fee, but that’s about the only positive here:

Developers who register with Google as a student or hobbyist will face severe app distribution restrictions, namely a limit on the number of devices that can install their apps. To enforce this, any user wanting to install software from these developers must first retrieve a unique identifier from their device. The developer then has to input this identifier into the Android Developer Console to authorize that specific device for installation.

↫ Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority

Google does waive the requirement for developer certification for one particular type of user, and in doing so, highlights the only group of users Google truly cares about: enterprise users. Any application installed by an enterprise on managed devices will not need to have its developer certified. Google states that in this particular use case, the enterprise’s IT department is responsible for any security issues that may arise. Isn’t it funny how the only group of users who won’t have to deal with this nonsense are companies who pay Google tons of money for their enterprise tools?

The only way we’re going to get out of this is if any governments step up and put a stop to this. We can safely assume the United States’ government won’t be on our side – they’re too busy with their recurring idiotic song-and-dance anyway – so our only hope is the European Commission stepping in, but I’m not holding my breath. After all, Apple’s rules and regulations regarding installing applications outside of the App Store in the EU are not that different from what Google is going to do. While the EU is not happy with the details of Apple’s rules, their general gist seems to be okay with them.

I’m afraid governments won’t be stepping in to stop this one.

Dutch judge to Facebook: stop secretly disregarding your users’ settings

And here we have yet another case of the EU’s consumer protection legislation working in our favour. Dutch privacy and consumer rights organisation Bits of Freedom sued Facebook over the company’s little trick of disregarding a user’s settings under a variety of circumstances, such as when a user opts for a chronological, non-profiled timeline, only to have Facebook reset itself to the profiled timeline upon a restart.

The judge states that Meta is indeed acting in violation of the law. He says that “a non‑persistent choice option for a recommendation system runs counter to the purpose of the DSA, which is to give users genuine autonomy, freedom of choice, and control over how information is presented to them.” The judge also concludes that the way Meta has designed its platforms constitutes “a significant disruption of the autonomy of Facebook and Instagram users.” The judge orders Meta to adjust its apps so that the user’s choice is preserved, even when the user navigates to another section or restarts the app.

↫ Bits of Freedom press release

This is good news, of course, but I really wish we would take this a step further: a complete ban on targeted advertising and timeline manipulation based on harvested user data. I just don’t believe these business models and ragebait machines offer anything of value to society, and in fact, do far more harm than good. I am convinced that our world would be a better place without these business models.

We restrict of outright ban dangerous substances or activities all the time. This should be among them.

Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0 released

With Google closing up Android at a rapid pace, there’s some renewed interest in mobile platforms that aren’t either iOS or Android, and one of those is Ubuntu Touch. It’s been steadily improving over the years under the stewardship of the UBports Foundation, and today they released Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0.

Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0 is the first release of Ubuntu Touch which is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, a major upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04. This might not be as big compared to our last upgrade from Ubuntu 16.04 to 20.04, but this still brings newer software stack to Ubuntu Touch (such as Qt 5.15).

↫ Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0 release announcement

In this release, aside from the upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, there’s now also a light mode for the shell, including experimental support for switching themes on the fly. Applications already supported a light theme since the previous releases, so adding support for it in the main shell is a welcome improvement. We’ve also got experimental support for encrypting personal data, which needs to be enabled per device, which I think indicates not all devices support it. On top of that, there’s some changes to the phone application, and a slew of smaller fixes and improvements as well.

The list of supported devices has grown as well, with the Fairphone 5 as the newcomer this release. The list is still relatively small, but to be fair to the project, it includes a number of popular devices, as well as a few that are still readily available. If you want to opt for running Ubuntu Touch as your smartphone platform, there’s definitely plenty of devices to choose from.

Microsoft conducts Windows reorg that sees core engineering teams back under the same roof as feature experience teams

Microsoft is reorganising the Windows teams. Again.

For those unaware, the Windows organization has essentially been split in two since 2018. Teams that work on the core of Windows were moved under Azure, and the rest of the Windows team (those that focused on top level features and user experiences) remained under the Windows org.

That is finally changing, with Davuluri saying that the Windows client and server teams are now going to operate under the same roof once again. “This change unifies Windows engineering work under a single organization … Moving the teams working on Windows client and server together into one organization brings focus to delivering against our priorities.”

↫ Zac Bowden at Windows Central

I mean, it’s obviously far too simplistic to attribute Windows’ many user-facing problems and failures on something as simple as this particular organisational split, but it sure does feel like it could be a contributing factor. It seems like the core of Windows is mostly fine and working pretty well, while the user experience is the ares that has suffered greatly in recent years, pressured as the Windows team seems to have been to add advertising, monetisation, tons of sometimes dangerous dark patterns, and more.

I hope that bringing these two teams back together will eventually lead to an overall improvement of the Windows user experience, and not a deterioration of the core of the platform. In other words, that the core team lifts up the user experience team, instead of the user experience team dragging the core team down. A Windows that takes its users seriously and respects them could be a fine operating system to use, but it reorganisations like this take a long time to have any measurable effect.

Of course, it could also just have no effect at all, or perhaps the rot has simply spread too far and wide. In a few years, depressing as it may seem, Windows 11 might be regarded as a highlight.

How to write a complete GNOME application in Lua

This article is intended to be a comprehensive guide to writing your first GNOME app in Lua using LuaGObject. The article assumes that you already understand Lua and want to get started with building beautiful native applications for GNOME. I also assume you know how to use a command line to install and compile software. Having some knowledge of the C programming language, as well as the Make, Gettext, and Flatpak software will be helpful, but shouldn’t be required to understand this guide.

↫ Victoria Lacroix

Exactly what is says on the tin.