Wine fans have a reason to smile today. Wine 11.0 is finally here, and it is a big deal for anyone running Windows software on Linux. After a full year of work, more than six thousand code changes, and hundreds of bug fixes, Wine is moving forward in a way that feels like a turning point. This release tightens up major subsystems, improves performance, expands hardware support, and carries a big win for compatibility. If you have been waiting for Wine to feel smoother and a little less fussy, 11.0 might be the moment you jump back in.

Building off today's release of Wine 11.0 for enabling countless Windows applications and games to run well under Linux and being the basis of Valve's Proton for Steam Play, Hangover 11.0 is now available. Hangover is the open-source project that pairs Wine with either the FEX-Emu or Box64 emulators for enabling x86 32-bit and 64-bit Windows games/apps to run on native ARM64 Linux systems.

With Hangover you can leverage Wine and an emulator like FEX or Box64 to open up Windows games/apps to the ARM64 Linux world as well as some explorations that were done too for the likes of POWER and RISC-V. Previously using QEMU as an emulator was an option too but that support was removed ahead of Hangover 11.0. Hangover has all the more relevance these days now with Valve's Steam Frame VR headset employing a similar approach for Steam Play's Proton with FEX for enabling Windows x86 games to run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon hardware.

kdenlive: https://kdenlive.org/
my music: https://unicornmasquerade.bandcamp.com/
my photography: / breadonpenguins

kdenlive manual (read it, it shows you how to do literally everything): https://docs.kdenlive.org/en/index.html
kdenlive donation page: https://kdenlive.org/fund/
my shortcuts file: https://github.com/BreadOnPenguins/dots/

‪@VeronicaExplains‬ made a great video that covers kdenlive, too! • I make all my videos using Linux. Here's how.

all footage incl. pixel animations is mine.
my wallpaper is a painting by Alois Arnegger 'winter mountain landscape in evening light'.

The Wine Project, a compatibility layer that enables Linux and macOS users to run Windows applications, has officially released version 11.0. The headline change is the completion of the new WoW64 architecture, which is now fully supported and considered feature-complete.

First introduced experimentally in Wine 9.0, the new WoW64 mode now supports 16-bit Windows applications, removes the separate wine64 loader in favor of a single unified loader, and deprecates pure 32-bit prefixes created with WINEARCH=win32. Existing 64-bit prefixes can be forced into the new mode by setting WINEARCH=wow64.

Another major improvement is NTSync support, which allows Wine to use the Linux kernel’s NTSync module when available. Starting with Linux kernel 6.14, this significantly improves the performance of Windows synchronization primitives, reducing overhead in multi-threaded applications and games. Wine 11.0 also adds thread priority handling on Linux and macOS, along with new synchronization barriers in NTDLL.

There. That's out of the way. I recently installed Linux on my main desktop computer and work laptop, overwriting the Windows partition completely. Essentially, I deleted the primary operating system from the two computers I use the most, day in and day out, instead trusting all of my personal and work computing needs to the Open Source community. This has been a growing trend, and I hopped on the bandwagon, but for good reasons. Some of those reasons might pertain to you and convince you to finally make the jump as well. Here's my experience.

[...]

It's no secret that Windows 11 harvests data like a pumpkin farmer in October, and there is no easy way (and sometimes no way at all) to stop it. The operating system itself acts exactly like what was called "spyware" a decade or so ago, pulling every piece of data it can about its current user. This data includes (but is far from limited to) hardware information, specific apps and software used, usage trends, and more. With the advent of AI, Microsoft made headlines with Copilot, an artificial assistant designed to help users by capturing their data with tools like Recall.

[...]

After dealing with these issues and trying to solve them with workarounds, I dual-booted a Linux partition for a few weeks. After a Windows update (that I didn't choose to do) wiped that partition and, consequently, the Linux installation, I decided to go whole-hog: I deleted Windows 11 and used the entire drive for Linux.

ReactOS began 2026 with another "major step" towards Windows NT 6 compatibility with updating its MSVCRT implementation from Wine for the Microsoft C Runtime DLL library. That improved support for a number of Windows applications running on this open-source OS. ReactOS is taking another step-forward now with addressing a very annoying usability issue where up until now you may need to refresh the file manager for seeing folder changes.

Up to now when creating a new folder on the desktop or other folder of ReactOS, it would not show up immediately but the user would need to refresh. Similarly, when emptying the Recycle Bin, it wouldn't change the icon to reflect it being emptied, the ReactOS developers noted on X.

In StatCounter's latest US numbers, which cover through October, Linux shows up as only 3.49%. But if you look closer, "unknown" accounts for 4.21%. Allow me to make an educated guess here: I suspect those unknown desktops are actually running Linux. What else could it be? FreeBSD? Unix? OS/2? Unlikely.

In addition, ChromeOS comes in at 3.67%, which strikes me as much too low. Leaving that aside, ChromeOS is a Linux variant. It just uses the Chrome web browser for its interface rather than KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or another Linux desktop environment. Put all these together, and you get a Linux desktop market share of 11.37%. Now we're talking.

As expected, Wine 11.0 stable was officially released today. This is a big step forward for this open-source software to run Windows games and applications on Linux and other platforms. Wine also serves as the basis for Valve's Steam Play (Proton) that has been critical to the recent successes of Linux gaming.

Wine 11.0 brings NTSYNC support when running on recent versions of the Linux kernel, the new WoW64 mode is stable, exclusive full-screen mode support, better Wine Wayland driver support, Vulkan improvements, and various other gaming enhancements like better joystick and gamepad support.

Do you know which is the most popular GNOME extension out there?

I don't know for sure, but if I have to make a guess, I would say Dash to Dock is a good candidate for that title.

Why do I say that? Because at the time of writing this article, this extension has more than ten million downloads.

What is Dash to Dock?

In the clean GNOME layout, you don't see any quick launcher. It's just the wallpaper. You press the Super key (Windows key), a launcher appears at the side or on the bottom. This launcher is called Dash in GNOME. The Dash to Dock extension takes the "dash" from GNOME Activities Overview and "docks" it to make it visible on the desktop all the time.

Zorin, a Linux distro that positioned itself as a familiar and accessible entry point for users leaving Windows, continues to move with growing confidence toward reaching a broader user base. I say this because the most recently published information on the subject is impressive.

Following the release of Zorin OS 18 on October 14, the project recorded more than 100,000 downloads within the first 48 hours. In just one month, that figure climbed to 1 million. Now, Zorin OS has reached another milestone.

According to a post on the distribution’s official X account, Zorin OS 18 has reached 2 million downloads in less than 3 months since release, marking the fastest adoption in the project’s history. But what’s even more interesting is the fact that more than three-quarters of those downloads came from Windows users.

The MX Linux team announced today the general availability of the beta version of the upcoming MX Linux 25.1 release of this Debian-based distribution featuring Xfce, KDE Plasma, and Fluxbox flavors.

Based on the recently released Debian 13.3 “Trixie” update, MX Linux 25.1 beta is powered by the long-term supported Linux 6.12.63 kernel on the non-AHS images and the Liquorix-flavored Linux kernel 6.18.4 LTS on the AHS (Advanced Hardware Support) images and the KDE Plasma edition.

An interesting thing about the upcoming MX Linux 25.1 release is that it brings back dual-init support, which means that both systemd and SysVinit are now included in the ISOs, allowing users to choose the init system they want to boot MX Linux with from the live boot menu of the live system.

Linux on (non-Apple) ARM, what is the current status?

Qualcomm Snapdragon, Ampere and maybe others. Support of Snapdragons was said to be quite bad due to the lack of upstream "giving a damn about Linux".

Has this changed?

#Linux #ARM #Qualcomm #Snapdragon #Ampere

@linux@lemmy.ml @linux@programming.dev @Linux@lemmy.world

Wine project leader Alexandre Julliard relayed on the mailing list today that the plan is to release Wine 11.0 stable tomorrow, 13 January.

Wine 11.0 is ready for release! Barring any last minute issues from coming up, Wine 11.0 stable will be officially released on Tuesday as the annual major feature release. Wine 11.0 delivers on many exciting new features and improvements

"Gimp is good but i miss the heal patch" ...not really.

Resynthesize is a heal selection plugin you can add to Gimp. With many software store manager like the one from Linux Mint all you have to do is simply to add the additional components in the software page

Otherwise you can download it from github and add it to your plugin folder following those guides

https://www.arkthinker.com/edit-image/remove-the-watermark-with-gimp/

https://github.com/bootchk/resynthesizer

once installed you can find it in Filters> Enhance > Heal section

Auto-CPUFreq 3.0 released this weekend as the newest version of this Linux user-space tool to help you extend your laptop battery life by automatically applying CPU speed and power optimizations. When all goes according to plan, Auto-CPUFreq means extending your battery life without compromises to the user experience.

One of the new features of Auto-CPUFreq 3.0 include the ability to override the CPU turbo setting (where available) via the program's command line interface or GUI. For those using the auto-cpufreq CLI, the new --turbo flag allows overriding the CPU turbo mode for this additional knob for either extending your battery life or still wanting to reach your CPU's peak clock speeds.

In open-source circles there are many situations, such as bug reports, demos, and tutorials, when one might want to provide a play-by-play of a session in one's terminal. The asciinema project provides a set of tools to do just that. Its tools let users record, edit, and share terminal sessions in a text-based format that has quite a few advantages compared to making and sharing videos of terminal sessions. For example, it is easy to use, offers the ability to search text from recorded sessions, and allows users to copy and paste directly from the recording.

Fastfetch, a widely adopted tool by Linux enthusiasts for showcasing a sleek summary of system information right in the terminal, has just launched version 2.57.

One of the most visible changes in this release is the formal deprecation of support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.x. While compatibility remains available for now, the project explains that these older versions lack proper ANSI escape code support and several APIs required by Fastfetch.

Parrot OS, a versatile Debian-based Linux distro designed for ethical hackers and cybersecurity pros, which released its major 7.0 version last month, has published its roadmap for 2026.

According to the project, Parrot’s focus in 2006 will be on AI, but with a deliberately restrained scope. Rather than “adding AI features,” the project intends to study large language models, agents, and AI-powered systems as emerging attack surfaces already being used in real security workflows.

In addition, the team also plans to share market-level insights into how AI is reshaping pentesting workflows, attacker behavior, and tooling expectations.

Over three weeks after its beta and four months since the 22.2 “Zara” release, Linux Mint 22.3 “Zena” is now available for download, as the status has been changed from “Being tested” to “Approved for stable release,” and the installation ISOs are now being synchronized across the mirrors.

Powered by Linux kernel 6.14, the distribution is based on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS and promises support and updates scheduled through April 2029 as part of the long-term support cycle.

The main release’s highlight is the integration of Cinnamon 6.6, the latest iteration of Mint’s flagship desktop environment, which delivers a redesigned application menu with a full-height sidebar for user profile access, symbolic category icons, configurable layout options, and enhanced support for Places and Bookmarks

Now that Budgie 10.10 is out as the last chapter in the Budgie 10 series, the devs behind this modern Linux desktop environment have kicked off the development of the next major release, Budgie 11.

Budgie developer Joshua Strobl shares with us today some interesting details about Budgie 11, such as the fact that the upcoming desktop environment will be written in the Qt 6 open-source application framework, and some steps have already been taken in this direction with the Budgie 10.10 release.

The devs already wrote Budgie Desktop Services, the beating heart of Budgie 11, in Qt 6, and they plan on writing the Budgie Display Configurator in Qt6/Kirigami as well. The end goal here is to make Budgie more modular, allowing users and integrators alike the freedom to fully configure the desktop environment.

KDE developers continue preparing Plasma 6.6, and although there are over a month to go before the final stable release (scheduled for February 17, 2026), the team posts weekly updates on the KDE Blogs about what changes to expect from this version. After I covered some of them recently, now we have a new batch to look at.

One of the most notable recent additions is the ability to save the current visual configuration as a new global theme. Users can now capture their active color, window decoration, icon, and other appearance settings directly from System Settings, simplifying theme creation and reuse without manual component selection.

In addition to Linus Torvalds' recent comments around AI tooling documentation, it turns out in fact that Linus Torvalds has been using vibe coding himself. Over the holidays Linus Torvalds has been working on a new open-source project called AudioNoise that was started with the help of AI vibe coding.

Over the winter holidays, Linus Torvalds routinely works on new hobbies and the like. Last year he started creating his own guitar pedals as a hobby. Or as he put it back in the Linux 6.13-rc7 announcement, "LEGO for grown-ups with a soldering iron."