F.O.S.S

by: Abhishek Prakash
Linux Mint 22.1 codenamed Xia is available now. I expected this point release to arrive around Christmas. But it got delayed a little, if I can call it a delay, as there are no fixed release schedule.

Wondering what's new in Mint 22.1? Check this out 👇

6 Exciting Features in Linux Mint 22.1 ‘Xia’ Release

Linux Mint’s latest upgrade is available. Explore more about it before you try it out!

It's FOSS NewsAnkush Das

And the Tuxmas lifetime membership offer is now over. We reached the milestone of 100 lifetime Plus members. Thank you for your support 🙏

💬 Let's see what else you get in this edition

• A new Raspberry Pi 5 variant.

• AI coming to VLC media player.

• Nobara being the first one to introduce a release in 2025.

• And other Linux news, videos and, of course, memes!

• This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by PikaPods.

❇️ PikaPods: Self-hosting Without Hassle

PikaPods allows you to quickly deploy your favorite open source software. All future updates are handled automatically by PikaPods while you enjoy using the software. Did I tell you that they also share revenue with the original developers of the software?

Oh! You also get a $5 free credit to try it out and see if you can rely on PikaPods.

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📰 Linux and Open Source News

• Microsoft's Phi-4 AI model has been made open source.

• The Raspberry Pi 5 now has a 16 GB variant for power users.

• COSMIC Alpha 5 serves as a reminder of how the desktop environment is progressing.

• Flatpak version 1.16 is released with new features

Earlier, Kdenlive introduced AI feature and now VLC is adding AI subtitles.

AI Subtitles Are Coming to VLC— Get Ready!

VLC is adding the ability to generate subtitles with the help of AI.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

Linus Torvalds is proposing to build a guitar effects pedal for one lucky kernel contributor.

Linus Torvalds offers to build free guitar effects pedal

‘I’m a software person with a soldering iron’, he warns alongside release of Linux 6.13-rc7

The RegisterSimon Sharwood

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Level up your Gedit experience with these 10 tweaks.

• Using your phone's camera and mic in Ubuntu is possible.

• You can run Windows apps on Linux by following this beginner's guide.

Don’t Believe These Dual Boot Myths

Don’t listen to what you hear. I tell you the reality from my dual booting experience.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

ArmSoM AIM7 sets the stage for cutting-edge AI applications.

ArmSoM AIM7: A Promising Rockchip Device for AI Development

Harness the power of RK3588 Rockchip processor for AI development with ArmSoM RK3588 AI Module 7 (AIM7) AI kit.

It's FOSSAbhishek Kumar

Usenet was where conversations took place before social media came about.

Remembering Usenet - The OG Social Network that Existed Even Before the World Wide Web

Before Facebook, before MySpace and even before the Word Wide Web, there existed Usenet. From LOL to Linux, we owe a lot to Usenet.

It's FOSSBill Dyer

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✨ Apps of the Week

What's so clever about KleverNotes? Find out:

KleverNotes Is A Practical Markdown Note-Taking App By KDE

That’s a clever markdown-powered editor. Give it a try!

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🛍️Deal You Would Love

Challenge your brain and have a blast learning with these acclaimed logic and puzzle games exploring key concepts of programming and machine learning.

New Year, New You: Programming Games

Have fun learning about programming and machine learning in this puzzle and logic game bundle featuring while True: learn(), 7 Billion Humans, and more.

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🧩 Quiz Time

Here's a fun crossword for correctly guessing the full forms of the mentioned acronyms.

Expand the Short form: Crossword

It’s time for you to solve a crossword!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

💡 Quick Handy Tip

You can search for free icons from Font Awesome or Nerd Fonts to add to panels and terminal tools like Fastfetch.

Ensure that you install the respective fonts, font-awesome and firacode-nerd on your system before using. Otherwise, they won't appear properly.

On Font Awesome, click on Copy Glyph to copy the icon to the clipboard. And in Nerd Fonts, click on the Icons button to copy the icon to the clipboard.

🤣 Meme of the Week

Yep, that happens. 😆

🗓️ Tech Trivia

Wikipedia launched on January 15, 2001, as a free, collaborative encyclopedia. Created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, it grew to host millions of articles in multiple languages.

Today, it’s one of the most visited websites globally, embodying the spirit of open knowledge.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

Would it be possible to learn to code after 50? Community members share their views and experience.

50+ and learning to code...?

I’m over 50 (became 50 on 28 October 2024) and, while I did do some coding in a grey past, I noticed I’m currently finding it difficult to pick it up. There’s so much to learn: Coding (in my case C++) The API of the relevant libraries I intend to use for my Amazing FLOSS Project™. 🙂 (In my case FLTK, and yaml-cpp). The language of the build system (CMake in my case). Some editor like thing with some creature comforts (in my case I’m going with sublime text). Git (including how to…

It's FOSS Communityxahodo

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Enjoy FOSS 😄

by: Bill Dyer

Before Reddit, before GitHub, and even before the World Wide Web went online, there was Usenet.

This decentralized network of discussion groups was a main line of communication of the early internet - ideas were exchanged, debates raged, research conducted, and friendships formed.

For those of us who experienced it, Usenet was more than just a communication tool; it was a community, a center of innovation, and a proving ground for the ideas.

📋

It is also culturally and historically significant in that it popularized concepts and terms such as "LOL (first used in a newsgroup in 1990)," FAQ," "flame," "spam," and,"sockpuppet".

Oldest network that is still in use

Usenet is one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use. It went online in 1980, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.

1980 is significant in that it was pre-World Wide Web by over a decade. In fact, the "Internet" was basically a network of privately owned ARPANet sites. Usenet was created to be the network for the general public - before the general public even had access to the Internet. I see Usenet as the first social network.

Over time, Usenet grew to include thousands of discussion groups (called newsgroups) and millions of users. Users read and write posts, called articles, using software called a newsreader.

In the 1990s, early Web browsers and email programs often had a built-in newsreader. Topics were many; if you could imagine a topic, there was probably a group made for it and, if a group didn't exist, one could be made.

The culture of Usenet: Learning the ropes

While I say that Usenet was the first social network, it was never really organized to be one. Each group owner could - and usually did - set their own rules.

Before participating in discussions, it was common advice to “lurk” for a while - read the group without posting - to learn the rules, norms, and tone of the community. Every Usenet group had its own etiquette, usually unwritten, and failing to follow it could lead to a “flaming.” These public scoldings, were often harsh, but they reinforced the importance of respecting the group’s culture.

For groups like comp.std.doc and comp.text, lurking was essential to understand the technical depth and specificity of the conversations. Jumping in without preparation wasn’t just risky - it was almost a rite of passage to survive the initial corrections from seasoned members. Yet, once you earned their respect, you became part of a tightly knit network of expertise and camaraderie - you belonged.

Usenet and the birth of Linux

One newsgroup, comp.os.minix, became legendary when Linus Torvalds posted about a new project he was working on. In August 1991, Linus announced the creation of Linux, a hobby project of a free operating system.

Usenet's structure - decentralized, threaded, and open - can be seen as the first demonstration of the values of open-source development. Anyone with a connection and a bit of technical know-how could hop on and join in a conversation. For developers, Usenet quickly became the main tool for keeping up with rapidly evolving programming languages, paradigms, and methodologies.

It's not a stretch to see how Usenet also became an essential platform for code collaborating, bug tracking, and intellectual exchange - it thrived in this ecosystem.

The discussions were sometimes messy - flame wars and off-topic posts were common - but they were also authentic. Problems were solved not in isolation but through collective effort. Without Usenet, the early growth of Linux may well have been much slower.

A personal memory: Helping across continents

My own experience with Usenet wasn’t just about reading discussions or solving technical problems. It became a bridge to collaboration and friendship. I remember one particular interaction well: a Finnish academic working on her doctoral dissertation on documentation standards posted a query to a group I frequented. By chance, I had the information she needed.

At the time, I spent a lot of my time in groups like comp.std.doc and comp.text, where discussions about documentation standards and text processing were common. She was working with SGML standards, while I was more focused on HTML. Despite our different areas of expertise, Usenet made it easy for the two of us to connect and share knowledge. She later wrote back to say my input had helped her complete her dissertation.

This took place in the mid-1990s and that brief collaboration turned into a friendship that lasts to this day. Although we may go long periods without writing, we’ve always kept in touch. It’s evidence to how Usenet didn’t just encourage innovation but also created a lasting friendship across continents.

The decline and legacy of Usenet

As the internet evolved, Usenet's use has been fading. The rise of web-based forums, social media, and version-control platforms like GitHub made Usenet feel clunky and outdated, and there are concerns that it is largely being used to send spam and conduct flame wars and binary (no text) exchanges.

On February 22, 2024, Google stopped Usenet support for these reasons. Users can no longer post or subscribe, or view new content. Historical content, before the cut-off date can be viewed, however.

This doesn't mean that Usenet is dead; far from it. Giganews, Newsdemon, and Usenet are still running, if you are interested in looking into this. Both require a subscription, but Eternal September provides free access.

If Usenet's use has been declining, then why look into it? Its archives. The archives hold detailed discussions, insights, questions and answers, and snippets of code - a good deal of which is still relevant to today’s software hurdles.

Conclusion

I would guess that, for those of us who were there, Usenet remains a nostalgic memory. It does for me. The quirks of its culture - from FAQs to "RTFM" responses - were part of its charm. It was chaotic, imperfect, and sometimes frustrating, but it was also a place where real work got done and real connections were made.

Looking back, my time on Usenet was one of the foundational chapters in my journey through technology. Helping a stranger across the globe complete a dissertation might seem like a small thing, but it’s emblematic of what Usenet stood for: collaboration without boundaries. It bears repeating: It was a place where knowledge was freely shared and where the seeds of ideas could grow into something great. And in this case, it helped create a friendship that continues to remind me of Usenet’s unique power to connect people.

As Linux fans, we owe a lot to Usenet. Without it, Linux might have remained a small hobby project instead of becoming the force of computing that it has become. So, the next time you’re diving into a Linux distro or collaborating on an open-source project, take a moment to appreciate the platform that helped make it all possible.