Linux Format

During the keynote discussion at LPC 2024, Dirk Hohndel asked Linus Torvalds about the recent decision by Microsoft engineer Wedson Almeida Filho to step down as a Rust maintainer. While assuring the Rust Linux team they were great, Filho explained i

After over 20 years and thousands of lines of code, the Linux kernel has achieved hard real-time capabilities, a holy grail that some developers never believed would be achieved in a general-purpose OS. On 19th September, Thomas Gleixner humorously h

Q Fast font fiddling Is there any quick single-click way to switch between two fonts (with different sizes) when writing LibreOffice documents? I normally use Liberation Serif (12pt) but often switch into Liberation Mono (11pt) to clarify things like

As an LXF fan/reader, I’m sending this email to suggest the inclusion of the topic of LoRa, LoRaWAN, LoRaP2P and Meshtastic in some future issue. I strongly believe this is a rich open source topic that LXF readers will probably appreciate. I’m perso

» As a big thank you for subscribing to Linux Format Print Edition, we’ve always offered digital access to past issues. It seems The Management thought it was a good idea and has rolled out a new system using Pocketmags ! This means there are now two

www.magazinesdirect.com/LIN/H23A Call 0330 333 1113 and quote H23A NEW! Digital access to 130+ issues when you subscribe to print!** OUTSIDE THE UK? Turn to page 63 for more great subscriber deals! » NEW: Improved digital back-issue access!** Get in

When it comes to the best ultrabooks, most of us resign ourselves to the reality that the path for future upgrades is minimal. However, Framework takes a vastly different approach, enabling you to replace just about anything inside (and outside) to y

Based on Arch, Liya follows a rolling release model. Most of the development is undertaken by just one person who takes time on the website to explain who Liya is not for. Firstly, the OS is only available for 64-bit machines. Secondly, he cautions o

Though not to be confused with Porteus, this similarly-named OS does also make use of modified Linux live scripts. There’s no installer in the traditional sense. It’s a modular system, so you can just copy the ISO content to your media storage and ru

The main website describes this distro as “small, independent and general-purpose”. The name derives from the supposed four computing Ms: maintenance, multimedia, miniserver and mystery (games). We encountered a small hurdle when trying to download t

Celebrity-themed Linux distros are nothing new. Who can forget the likes of Biebian – a mishmash of Debian with a Justin Bieber theme, or even Hannah Montana Linux? The developer, who’s wisely decided to remain anonymous, is a fan of the eponymous ce

It’s been 16 long years since World of Goo squidged its way into our hearts and hard drives. The much-loved physics-based puzzle game was one of modern indie gaming’s earliest and biggest successes. But a lot has changed since then. Polished games fr

Kodi » Universal Media Server » Jellyfin » Plex Media Server » MiniDLNA This month, we’re looking at solutions that enable you to build a Linux-based setup for interacting with your media library of TV shows, movies and music. Some of these servers d

Threats to your security and privacy are everywhere. Even if you’re not an enemy of a nation state or elite hacking crew. Any decent desktop Linux distribution does a lot to protect you from threats and compromise. And it can do more if you spend tim

If you’re using Linux at home, you’re already doing pretty well security-wise. Even reading this magazine has been shown to boost security by up to 15% (in certain circumstances). We can all improve our security, though, but if you’ve looked into thi

After fumbling your way around Qubes for a few minutes, you’ll likely be impressed. But you’ll also likely have noticed that some fairly standard desktop things don’t seem to work the same. One of these is copying and pasting, particularly between qu

Despite each qube’s application menu only having a few entries, there are quite a few utilities installed by default. If you want to give them a menu shortcut, go to that qube’s settings (in Qube Manager) and go to the Applications tab. Most likely y

Rarely does a day go by without AI crossing your path either in the news or via a new product that promises even smarter results thanks to some sort of magic machine learning. In conjunction with Google DeepMind, Pi Foundation educators can now pick

Emulation has been possible on the Raspberry Pi since it was first released back in 2012. Back then we could emulate up to the Super Nintendo era with relative ease, and some PlayStation 1 games were possible. But with the power of the new Pi 5, we c

Utramarine Linux is based upon the venerable Fedora, and the distro touts itself as an OS for work and play, for all levels of user. It hits the mark in ease of use, but this would not become our daily driver, just yet. You see, Ultramarine Linux is

THIS ISSUE: News piped from Plumbers Conference»Religion of Rust»Snapdragon support stepped up»Linux goes real-time The 2024 Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) ran from 18th to 20th September. The annual event, arranged by the Linux Foundation, brings t

While smart-home projects initially fell under the domain of a wide variety of proprietary protocols, standardisation pressure has led to the emergence of a few dominant interfaces. The combination of the logical Matter protocol and its accompanying

Filenames come in all shapes and sizes, and are often made up of unsavoury characters. That’s because there’s no defined rules for naming files, which are often a reflection of the user’s mind. You’ll find files with unnecessary spaces, hyphens, unde

One key advantage of Linux is that it’s been built with security in mind. As earlier versions of Windows practically invited malware on to their insecure systems, Linux’s early developers were taking notes and making sure they didn’t fall into the sa

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With sunspot numbers set to be high for some time yet, there’s every possibility that we’ll have other opportunities to see auroras like the ones many people saw in May. However, adverse weather conditions – by which we mean a cloudy sky – would dera

You’ll spend countless hours staring at it and you’ll likely still be using it long after you consign your GPU or CPU to the ewaste bin. We’re talking about your computer’s visual display unit. The humble monitor has received a dazzling number of upg

The reason we’ve picked the Pixio PXC277 Advanced as the best budget 1440p monitor is because it’s such a solid all-rounder for the price. No unnecessary bells and whistles, just a monitor that delivers in all the right areas. For a pretty cheap pric

Multiplatform gamers looking for a high-performance 32-inch gaming monitor for 4K at 144Hz gaming will find a lot to appreciate about the M32UC from Gigabyte. With a respectable number of ports and other useful features, along with snappy pixel respo

The Asus TUF Gaming VG289Q offers tremendous value for gamers looking to take the step up to 4K resolution without having to go completely bonkers on price. The VG289Q has a competent overdrive function, which helps to reduce motion blur, and we didn

This is the budget ‘N’ model of the EX240 range. It uses a cheaper VA panel versus the IPS of its EX240 brother. It also saves you around £90. Price aside, you get the same 165Hz refresh rate, video inputs (a single DisplayPort 1.2 and dual HDMI 2.0

The Dell S3221QS is a gorgeous monitor inside and out. Its simple yet elegant silver design gives it a unique look that sets it apart from all the gamer-centric or boring black office monitors you’re more likely to find. It comes with a stunning 4K V

Pro-level displays are no longer the premium priced, inaccessible purchase they once were. At least as far as the BenQ SW321C PhotoVue is concerned. This 32-inch 4K photo monitor is a step or two up in terms of both performance and usability, featuri

The Alienware AW2725DF has been one of our favourite high-performance OLED monitors thanks to its excellent image quality and fast response. However, there’s a new king of the castle: Asus’s ROG Swift PG27AQDP. It takes the basics of the AW2725DF and

We don’t usually run into technology that’s so far ahead of the curve that we’re left dumbfounded, which is why the Dell UltraSharp UP3218K has impressed us even more. Finding one of the best monitors that can reach the raw gorgeousness this one can

Snoop»Nuclear»Media Downloader»Concessio»Endless Key»Tuta»FireDragon»AntiMicroX»LibreQuake»nnn»Micro Version: 0.4.0 Web: https://gitlab.gnome.org/philippun1/snoop/ You can use the multifaceted Grep utility to search for text within files, but if you

Version: 0.6.38 Web: https://nuclear.js.org Nuclear is an interesting music streaming application in that it’s designed to pull all kinds of content, from all kinds of free online sources. This means that you can search for tracks, artists and albums

Version: 5.0.1 Web: https://mhogomchungu.github.io/media-downloader/ Sure, there are tons of media downloaders, and we’ve featured a few of them, but there’s no one app that’s as comprehensive as the unimaginatively named Media Downloader, a GUI fron

Version: 0.9 Web: www.endlessos.org/key The Endless Key app is an educational platform that claims to provide equitable access to learning resources. It attempts to bridge the digital divide by providing users with access to a major part of its educa

Version: 244.240903.0 Web: https://tuta.com Tuta is the client for the privacy-focused email service of the same name. The app is available as an official AppImage, but there’s also an unverified Flatpak on Flathub. Grab the AppImage and make it an e

Version: 11.18.1-1 Web: https://firedragon.garudalinux.org FireDragon is a web browser that’s focused on protecting your privacy. It’s based on Floorp, which we’ve previously featured (LXF308). Floorp itself bolts on several privacy-focussed extensio

Version: 3.4.1 Web: https://github.com/AntiMicroX/antimicrox Not all games, particularly retro titles, support joysticks and game controllers. Even if they do, many don’t work well with these built-for-gaming devices. If you run into such a title, An

Version: 0.07-beta Web: https://librequake.queer.sh We’re big fans of retro first-person shooters, and Quake has a special place in our hearts. Linux users love the hugely popular successor to Doom, because of id Software’s open stance towards game m

Version: 5.0 Web: https://github.com/jarun/nnn File management utilities come in all shapes and sizes. Mainstream distros usually ship with bulky file managers, while lightweight distros use file managers that don’t exert a heavy footprint on the har

Version: 2.0.14 Web: https://micro-editor.github.io/index.html Micro is a terminal-based text editor that pitches itself as the spiritual successor of nano. It claims to take advantage of the capabilities of modern day terminals, and its developers p

Which is the best web browser to take into next year? We pit the biggest names against each other. Get to grips with Linux memory handling and grab yourself some faster and bigger RAM to boot. Dust off that old kit as we revitalise the old technique

Microsoft has announced plans for DirectX to adopt SPIR-V as its shader interchange format. Support will be integrated into DirectX 12 with the upcoming release of Shader Model 7. The previous format DXIL (DirectX Intermediate Language) is seemingly