Linux

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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, and 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, and support for Extended Dynamic Range (a different kind of HDR) and P010 video color format has 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 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 it easier to find and configure them. Aurorae is a newly added SVG vector graphics theme engine for KWin window decorations.

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

I just got a new laptop, put Debian 13 on it, installed Plasma, started configuring all the tools. Everything works great but when I get to set up the screensaver I realize it's Wayland. So no xscreensaver. So no IFS.

I had those fractals welcoming me when my computer wakes up probably for 20 years now. Now I'm supposed to just setup normal lock screen and move on? Nope. xdm, .xsessionrc, xscreensaver. Now it feels like home again.

But it's stupid, right? Just use new tools. They have more features. Better integrations. I'm still thinking about switching back to Wayland...

So, do you suffer from software nostalgia (a term I just made up)? Do you stick to good old tools even when the modern replacements are better? Or do you always chase the latest tools without looking back?

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/208458

Mainstream gaming on Linux has been steadily improving year after year, with better compatibility, performance, and a growing library of supported titles, making it a viable alternative to Windows and console gaming.

In contrast, the emulation scene has been around for much longer within the Linux community, thriving thanks to Linux's openness and DIYbility. There are even dedicated retro gaming distros like Lakka and RetroPie that make setting up and playing classic games on Linux easy.

In this article, we'll be taking a look at RetroArch, a popular emulation frontend available for Linux and many other platforms.

RetroArch: Overview ⭐

Before you think that RetroArch is an emulator, don't. It's actually a frontend that runs emulators through a system of modular components called Libretro cores. Each core handles a specific console or platform, allowing RetroArch to support a wide range of classic systems.

It’s also more than just a game launcher. RetroArch can run media players, game engine ports, and offers features like game rewinding, shaders, and multiplayer support.

⭐ Key Features

Packing a wide range of features that complement gameplay, customization, and compatibility across platforms, RetroArch has the following standout features:

**Cross-platform.****Supports over 200 cores.****Unified settings interface.**Can run media from discs.

🎮 Gaming Experience

On my Bazzite setup, I installed the RetroArch Flatpak and connected an Xbox Wireless controller to try out Freedoom, a free game that plays like classic DOOM. Using the PrBoom core, it ran smoothly without any major issues.

Initially, I had tried using the Steam version of RetroArch, but it was a bit tricky to manually add cores and games since that version doesn’t have the online downloader.

The Online Updater and Core Downloader pages of RetroArch.

I downloaded the PrBoom core using RetroArch’s built-in Online Updater, which offers many cores for playing games from various classic consoles and systems. Using my controller, I easily navigated to the Core Downloader page from the Main Menu to find the core.

The Main Menu and Load Content pages of RetroArch.

After loading the core, I used the Load Content option to open Part 1 of Freedoom by selecting its .wad file that I downloaded earlier. As you can see in the video above, the game ran well. There were some minor stutters, but it didn’t affect gameplay; I was too busy taking down demons.

RetroArch's Input and Recording pages.

For those who like tinkering with their controller input, RetroArch’s Input page offers detailed customization, letting you remap buttons, adjust sensitivity, and set up different profiles for each core or game.

There’s also a Recording page where you can capture gameplay footage easily without needing extra software. (I missed this before I recorded the video.)

RetroArch's Appearance and Drivers pages.

Similarly, the Appearance page allows you to adjust themes, menu styles, and on-screen displays to suit your preferences, while the Drivers page lets you configure hardware settings like video, audio, input, and network interfaces to ensure smooth performance.

During my play session, RetroArch’s full-screen mode bugged out and wouldn’t enter full-screen properly, so I had to stick with windowed mode. There are other cool features I didn’t talk about, like Netplay for online multiplayer, Shaders to improve graphics, and Cheat Code support for games.

⚙️ Installing RetroArch on Linux

RetroArch comes in a bunch of formats, but on Linux, there are two main ways I recommend installing it. The first is to source it via Flathub by running the following command:

flatpak install flathub org.libretro.RetroArch

The second is for Ubuntu users who use snaps. You can grab the latest release from Snapcraft by running this command:

sudo snap install retroarch

You can also get RetroArch via Steam, AppImage, or build it from source. It’s cross-platform, with downloads available directly from the official website for other major systems like Raspberry Pi, Windows, Android, macOS, and iOS.

RetroArch

Suggested Read 📖

Is Linux Ready For Mainstream Gaming In 2025?Linux is quietly gaining ground on Windows in the gaming space. But how well does it actually perform? Here’s what I experienced.It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

From It's FOSS News via this RSS feed

I've seen some people point to LiMux as a failure because they switched back to MS, but where LiMux failed GendBuntu (a version of Ubuntu adapted for use by France's National Gendarmerie) runs on over 100,000 stations and is going strong.

The timing’s interesting: as Windows 10 approaches end-of-life in 2025, and when users are being nudged towards a cloud-first model, this week's APC’s saying: maybe don’t. Maybe go Linux.This isn’t a niche Linux mag. It’s a mainstream Australian tech publication telling average users that Linux is now the smarter choice. That’s a shift. Feels like we’ve gone full circle: the same headlines from 2005, but this time it’s not about hope. It’s about practicality. Bloat, telemetry, UI friction maybe Linux’s time on the desktop really has arrived.

Source

Like a lot of Chinese devices, my TEMPer clone creates two HID interfaces. This isn't how TEMPer is supposed to work but this unit is a knock-off. It was purchsed from Amazon and I tried to get an authentic part (Got from Amazon. The brand looked right and it wasn't the cheapest TEMPer, by far, but turned out to be a junky knock-off).

Right now, the app only works with root permission. I need to get it completely into the user space

Anyway, it creates two HIDRAW dev interfaces. The first one does not work. It responds on the second one. It always seems to show up on /dev/hidraw3 but I understand this cannot be counted on after re-plug, reboot, or other installs.

How can I create a udev rule that will allow my app to find the device (either scan with HIDAPI or libusb) and create symlink under /dev with user space access that my app can interface with?

Or, perhaps there is a better way?

I'm trying to write a driver that anyone can use with a knock-off TEMPer.

On GNOME, it is possible to switch windows by doing the three-finger swipe up and selecting the window. When you do the three-finger swipe down, it goes back to your current window. Is it possible to configure GNOME so that when I hover over a different window after the 3-finger swipe up gesture and then do the 3-finger swipe down it goes to the different window rather than the current one? Or is that not a thing? It would be really helpful as then I don't have to click whenever I want to switch windows. I am running Fedora Workstation 42 on a laptop.

Aside from this small quibble, Linux has been very fun to use :D

OC by @[email protected]

Single core, 32 bit CPU, can't even do video playback on VLC. But it kinda works for some offline work, like text editing, and even emulation through zsnes! It's crazy how Linux keeps old hardware like this running.

Thankfully though, this laptop CPU is upgradable, and so is the ram, so I'm planning on revitalizing and bringing this old Itautec to the 21st century 😄