F.O.S.S

by: Sreenath

Hyprland is a highly customizable Wayland tiling compositor known for its eye-catching aesthetics and impressive performance. With such a high degree of customization, one important feature that many users seek is the ability to take screenshots.

Whether for sharing on social media or saving essential screen details for future reference, capturing your screen is an essential task.

In this article, we will explore various methods to set up screenshot functionality on your Hyprland installation.

First Option: Grimblast

Grimblast is an official Hyprland screenshot utility offering various options.

It is a shell script, that uses tools like grim and slurp to take screenshots.

Installing Grimblast

Before installing Grimblast, we need to get the required dependencies. On Arch Linux, use the following command:

sudo pacman -Syu jq grim slurp wl-clipboard libnotitfy hyprpicker

🚧

For other distributions, you should check the official program pages for installation instructions.

Grimblast is not available in the package manager of applications. To install, first go to the official repo of the project and go to the grimblast folder.

Click on grimblast

Here, go to the script file 'grimblast' and click on it to access.

Click on grimblast script file

Here, click on the download icon on the top-right corner of the code page to start downloading it.

Download grimblast script

Download Grimblast Script

🚧

You should keep an eye on the project for updates/commits.

Once downloaded, go to the download location and give it execution permission.

chmod +x ./grimblast

Now, copy the file to a directory that is in your PATH.

sudo cp ./grimblast /usr/local/bin/

Using Grimblast

Grimblast has several useful options. We will be taking a look at some items in the table below:

Grimblast supports the following area of screenshots:

• active: Current active window.

• screen: All visible outputs.

• output: Currently active output/monitor.

• area: Manually selected rectangular area/window.

1. Open the image in an editor

Grimblast supports opening the screenshot in a selected image editing application. By default, this is set as GIMP.

So, if you have GIMP installed, you can use the command:

grimblast edit area

The above command will take a screenshot of an area and open it in GIMP.

If you are using another image editor like Photoflare, you can use that program by configuring the GRIMBLAST_EDITOR environment variable.

On your ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf file, use the following line:

env = GRIMBLAST_EDITOR,photoflare

That's it. Now, when a screenshot is taken, it is opened in the selected editor.

2. Move the screenshot area

While taking region screenshots, you can move the screenshot view port. For this, when the screenshot key is pressed, and a region is selected, hold down the Space key without releasing the mouse click.

Now, without releasing the mouse click, drag the mouse to move around the screenshot area.

You can release the space key, and continue the resizing of the screenshot as well.

3. Add Grimblast Keybindings

You should be using Grimblast only through keybindings.

On Hyprland configuration file, add the line:

bind = , PRINT, exec, grimblast copysave area
bind = $mainMod_SHIFT, PRINT, exec, grimblast copysave output

The above command will save a screenshot of the selected area or window to ~/Pictures directory when you hit the PrtScr key. It will also be copied to your clipboard. The Super + SHIFT + PrtScr key will save a screenshot of currently active output, with the same will be copied to clipboard as well.

Second Option: Hyprshot

Hyprshot is an exclusive screenshot utility designed specifically for Hyprland.

It is a straightforward tool that does exactly what it's meant for: taking screenshots.

If you have read through the GitHub page of this tool, you will realize that it is primarily a shell script that serves as a wrapper around tools like grim, slurp, and others to take screenshots in Wayland environment. Furthermore, it is specially tailored to work with Hyprland, which is the most important thing here.

Installing Hyprshot

Before installing Hyprshot, first we need to get the dependencies. On Arch Linux, use the following command:

sudo pacman -Syu jq grim slurp wl-clipboard libnotitfy hyprpicker

Once the dependencies are installed, let's install Hyprshot:

yay -S hyprshot

If you are using any other distribution, go to the official GitHub page of Hyprshot and download the release file.

Download Hyprshot

Once done, extract the archive file, and you will get a shell script file called hyprshot. Go inside the extracted location and make this script file executable:

chmod +x ./hyprshot>

Now, copy this file to a directory in your PATH to make it available everywhere.

sudo cp ./hyprshot /usr/local/bin/

That's it!

Setting Hyprshot

Once installed, it's time to configure. Open your hyprland.conf file using any of your favorite text editor.

nano ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf

Inside this file, go to the end and add a key binding for Hyprshot. To make everything look neat, we will create a section using comment called Hyprshot Screenshots.

# Hyprshot Screenshots
bind = , PRINT, exec, hyprshot -m region
bind = $mainMod_SHIFT, PRINT, exec, hyprshot -m window

Here, we have set two keybindings with the values. To take a screenshot of a rectangular region:

hyprshot -m region

💡

While selecting a region, without releasing the mouse left-click press the space and drag the mouse. This will move the selection area. A video is shown in the Grimblast section.

And to take the screenshot of an open window, you type in:

hyprshot -m window

There are other options available with Hyprshot, let's take a brief look:

Did you know you can also freeze the screen?

An interesting use-case that you can pull off is to freeze the screen while taking a screenshot. For this to work, you should have hyprpicker installed.

Once you have Hyprshot and Hyprpicker, you can use the -z option to freeze the screen.

For example, to take the screenshot of a rectangular region with screen frozen, use the command:

hyprshot -zm region

To add this to the Hyprland config, use the keybinding command:

bind = , PRINT, exec, hyprshot -zm region

For those who only need to add it to the clipboard without saving, use:

bind = , PRINT, exec, hyprshot -zm region --clipboard-only

💡

If you have a notification daemon like dunst is running, Hyprshot will notify you about the screenshot.

Third Option: Flameshot

Flameshot is a great screenshot taking utility for Linux. But the default package available in the repos of distribution works mainly on Xorg-based distributions.

But, you can use the git version of Flameshot in Wayland-based systems like Hyprland. Let me tell you how.

Install Flameshot

First, remove any other Flameshot instance installed on your system (this is applicable for Arch users):

sudo pacman -Rs flameshot

Next, install the git version of Flameshot from the AUR. We will recommend using an AUR helper like yay to install the package.

yay -S flameshot-git

Wait for some time to compile the program and installation process to complete.

Once completed, you can open Flameshot from your app menu:

Flameshot offers better screenshot options compared to other items mentioned here. But, you should keep in mind that Flameshot is developed mainly for Xorg sessions, and the packaged versions may not work properly in Hyprland.

So, try out Flameshot as an experiment if you do not like the first two options.

Wrapping Up

While starting with Hyprland can be challenging for new users, you can do a great deal of things with ease, as mentioned above.

💬 How do you take screenshots on Hyprland? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

by: Ankush Das

Whether you are a Windows/macOS user, or someone who is new to computers, Linux often comes as a challenge to everyone when they encounter unfamiliar terms.

You do not usually come across Linux-specific jargon in standard high school academic computer books, unless there is a dedicated chapter for Linux.

So, for the majority of users who never used Linux, the terms associated will sound alien to them.

With this article, I aim to change that by explaining some of the important jargon that should help you navigate the Linux world better.

1. Kernel

The core of an operating system that interacts with the hardware, and software to help you take control of it, is a kernel.

And, Linux is just a kernel. We have an article that explains what Linux is for more details.

Every operating system is built on top of a kernel, like the Windows NT kernel for Windows, and the XNU kernel for Apple's macOS.

2. Distro

A distro (short for distribution) is a complete operating system package built on top of a Linux kernel.

There can be 100s of Linux distros. Each of them can differ in terms of its desktop environment, package manager, software pre-installed, user interface, Linux kernel version, and its use-cases. The combination of such system components that you like should be your preferred Linux distro.

Some of the examples of a distro include Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, and Linux Mint. Furthermore, there are distros that are based on other existing distros. For instance, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is based on Debian.

It can be confusing to choose a distro based on what's available. So, I recommend going through the list of the best Linux distributions for all kinds of users.

Best Linux Distributions For Everyone in 2025

Looking for the best Linux distribution that suits everyone? Take a look at our comprehensive list.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

3. Dual Booting

The technique of having two operating systems installed in a single computer is called dual booting.

You can decide to use either of them, whether you have two Linux distros or one Linux and Windows operating system.

If you are considering doing it, you must know about the dual booting myths before proceeding.

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

4. Grub

Grub is the boot manager program (or bootloader) that lists the operating systems installed on your computer. You can find it on most popular Linux distributions, with some exceptions like Pop!_OS.

If you didn't know, a bootloader is a program that starts when you boot up the computer and loads the kernel to execute. You get to customize the order of it, and also customize the look of it to some extent.

You can learn more about grub in our jargon buster article.

What is Grub in Linux? What is it Used for?

If you ever used a desktop Linux system, you must have seen this screen. This is called the GRUB screen. Learn what is GRUB in Linux and what is it used for?

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

5. Desktop Environment

The desktop environment is a component of a Linux distribution that provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to interact with all the tech.

It includes elements like icons, toolbar, wallpaper, widgets, and more.

You can get a detailed explanation of what a desktop environment is in our article and explore all the available desktop environments here:

8 Best Desktop Environments For Linux

A list of the best Linux Desktop Environments with their pros and cons. Have a look and see which desktop environment you should use.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

My favorite desktop environments include GNOME and KDE Plasma.

6. Display server

Display server is the core tech of what enables you to see and have a graphical user interface (GUI). Without it, you will not have a GUI to interact with.

It is not the same as desktop environment. In fact, a desktop environment includes a display server under-the-hood to make things possible.

You might have heard about X11, and Wayland sessions, those are the types of display servers available. Explore more here:

Linux Jargon Buster: What is a Display Server in Linux? What is it Used for?

In Linux related articles, news and discussions, you’ll often come across the term display server, Xorg, Wayland etc. In this explainer article, I’ll discuss display servers in Linux. What is display server in Linux? A display server is a program which is responsible for the input and output

It's FOSSDimitrios

7. Display Manager

The display manager is a program that gives login capabilities to the user in a desktop environment.

Some popular display managers are GDM, LightDM, and SSDM. You can learn more about it here:

Linux Jargon Buster: What is Display Manager in Linux?

In this chapter of the Linux Jargon Buster, you’ll learn about display manager in Linux. Is it part of the desktop environment? What does it do?

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

8. GNOME Shell

The user interface component in the GNOME desktop environment that is responsible to managing actions like window switching, notifications, and launching applications is the GNOME shell.

You can customize the behavior and add more functionalities to it using GNOME shell extensions.

9. Terminal Emulator

The terminal emulator is a text-based program that lets you type in commands for the computer to process. Some may even prefer to all it the command-line interface (just like the command prompt in Windows).

By default, every Linux distribution offers a terminal emulator with a set of capabilities. However, you can choose to install a separate one to get more functionalities or a different look/feel.

You can explore our list of available Linux terminal emulators to try out some cool options.

10. Sudo

Sudo is a command on Linux that gives you elevated privileges (or root privileges) temporarily.

It is used whenever you want to make a system modification, or want to simply access a system file. The user is asked to prove that they are the administrators of the computer by typing in the password whenever sudo is used in a command.

Interestingly, the password is not visible when you type it in the terminal for security purposes.

11. Package Manager

A tool that lets you install, manage, and remove applications on your Linux distro, is the package manager. It can be terminal-centric or one with a graphical user interface (GUI).

For instance, APT package manager for .deb files is terminal-focused. And, Synaptic is a GUI-based tool.

Every Linux distro has a different package manager. However, some package managers are predominantly found in most of the Linux distributions. For more information, you can check out our package manager explainer:

What is a Package Manager in Linux?

Learn about packaging system and package managers in Linux. You’ll learn how do they work and what kind of package managers available.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

12. End of Life

End of Life (EOL) is a term used to point out the particular date/year after which a software will stop receiving any maintenance or security updates. In our context, it can be a Linux distribution. However, it is a term used for all kinds of software.

For instance, the End of Life for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is April 2029. The End of Life differs based on the release cycle of the distribution, which I shall mention in the next point.

Suggested Read 📖

What is End of Life in Ubuntu? Everything You Should Know About it

Learn what is end of life of an Ubuntu release, how it impacts you, how to check support status and what you should do if your system reaches end of life.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

13. Long-Term Support (LTS) and Non-LTS Release

A release cycle is the period when you can expect a software to get a new upgrade while marking the end of life of the current version.

If you find something that mentions — Long-Term Support (LTS) release, it means that the software will get updates for a long duration of time, focusing on its stability over bleeding-edge changes.

Depending on the software or the distro, the duration will differ. For instance, every LTS release of Ubuntu gets at least five years of updates, and its flavours get only three years of updates.

And, non-LTS is the opposite of it, meaning, the software will get updates for a shorter duration (or limited time).

For instance, Ubuntu 24.10 will be supported for only nine months.

14. Point and Rolling Release

A point release is a minor update to a major version of the software. For instance, Linux Mint 22.1 is a point update to Linux Mint 22.

On the contrary, a rolling release does not increment in any similar form. It just gets updates, small or big, with every new push by the developer team after its initial big release. For instance, Arch Linux is one of the best rolling release distros.

What is a Rolling Release Distribution?

What is rolling release? What is a rolling release distribution? How is it different from the point release distributions? All your questions answered.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

15. Snap, Flatpak, and AppImage

Snap, Flatpak, and, AppImage are three different universal packaging formats for Linux software. Unlike DEB or RPM packages, you can use Snap/Flatpak/AppImage packages on any Linux distributions.

Technically, they have certain differences among each other, but they serve a similar aim, to make things cross-distribution friendly and remove the hassle of dependencies.

Suggested Read 📖

Flatpak vs. Snap: 10 Differences You Should Know

Flatpak vs Snap, know the differences and gain insights as a Linux user to pick the best.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

16. Tiling Window Manager

Tiling Window Manager is a program that lets you organize your windows in a tile layout. It is a mighty utility to make the best use of your screen space while keeping things organized.

It boosts your productivity, and also makes your desktop experience prettier.

Suggested Read 📖

Explained: What is a Tiling Window Manager in Linux?

Learn what a tiling window manager is, and the benefits that come along with it.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

17. Upstream and Downstream

In terms of Linux software lingo, upstream is often referred to an original project from which the current software is based on. It can be a kernel, or a distro, or an app in our context. And, the downstream is the one that takes things from the upstream.

For instance, the Linux kernel releases are upstream, and the distro developers customizing it and using it will be termed as downstream.

You can learn more in our article here:

Linux Jargon Buster: What are Upstream and Downstream?

The terms: upstream and downstream are rather ambiguous terms and, I think, not really used by the general public. If you are a Linux user and do not write or maintain software, chances are pretty good that these terms will mean nothing to you, but they can be instructive in

It's FOSSBill Dyer

18. Daemon

A daemon is a utility program that runs in the background to make sure certain services are running and monitored. For instance, the system update daemon makes sure to check for updates at a regular interval of time.

Get more insights on this on our article here:

What are Daemons in Linux? Why are They Used?

You’ll often come across the term daemon while using Linux. Don’t be scared. Learn what are daemons in Linux & why they are used in UNIX-like operating systems.

It's FOSSBill Dyer

19. TTY

When it comes to Linux, TTY is an abstract device in UNIX and Linux. Sometimes it refers to a physical input device such as a serial port, and sometimes it refers to a virtual TTY where it allows users to interact with the system (reference).

What is TTY in Linux?

Sooner or later, you’ll come across the term tty while using Linux. Learn what it is and what is its significance.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

20. Immutable Distro

Considering you already know what a distro is, an immutable distro is just a type of distro where you cannot modify the core of the operating system (in other words, it is read-only).

This makes it a safer experience, and a more reliable one. Immutable distros have gained popularity recently, and you can find plenty of immutable distros to try the concept for yourself.

12 Future-Proof Immutable Linux Distributions

Immutability is a concept in trend. Take a look at what are the options you have for an immutable Linux distribution.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

21. Super Key

The Windows key that you normally know and love is the super key for Linux. It acts as the command button (like macOS) with which you can perform a range of keyboard shortcuts.

So, if someone says press the super key, it is just the Windows key on most keyboards. In some rare instance, the keyboard button could have a Linux icon over a Windows one.

What is the Super Key in Ubuntu Linux?

Get familiar with the super (or is it meta) key in Linux in this chapter of the Jargon Buster series.

It's FOSSSagar Sharma

Conclusion

It helps to know the common technical terms, specially if you are in discussion on online forums.

Of course, there is no end to jargon. There are many more that didn't make to this list. There will be newer ones as we progress with time.

What are your favorites Linux jargon that you learned recently? Share it with us in the comments 😄

by: Abhishek Prakash

The holidays are over and so do the Tuxmas Days. 12 days of 12 new features, changes and announcements.

As mentioned on Tuxmas Day 11, It's FOSS Lifetime membership now also gets you lifetime Reader-level membership of Linux Handbook, our other portal focused on sysadmin, DevOps and self-hosting.

If you are one of the 73 people (so far) who opted for the Lifetime plan, you'll get a separate email on Linux Handbook's membership. Meanwhile, please download the 'Linux for DevOps' book for free as part of your Plus membership.

Please note that this combined benefit of free lifetime Linux Handbook Reader level membership (usually costs $18 per year) is only available till 11th January. Thereafter, it will cost $99 and won't include Linux Handbook's membership. Get the additional advantage before the time runs out.

Get It's FOSS Lifetime Membership

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

• SteamOS rolling out

• Kdenlive working on a new AI-powered feature.

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

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

📰 Linux and Open Source News

• Nobara 41 is the first Linux distro release of 2025.

• 2025 has hardly started and we have some bad news already as Absolute Linux is discontinued.

• Kdenlive is working on adding an AI-powered background removal tool.

• If rumors are to be believed, a 16 GB variant of the Raspberry Pi 5 could be coming very soon.

• Soon, you'll be able to install SteamOS on other handheld gaming devices.

Did you know there is a dedicated Linux distribution for wiping disks?

ShredOS is a Linux Distro Built to Wipe Your Data

A Linux distro built to help you destroy data. Sounds pretty cool!

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

Sourav switched to Proton VPN after going through many other VPN services, here's what he thinks of it:

I Switched to Proton VPN and Here’s What I Honestly Think About It

Proton VPN is an impressive solution. Here’s my experience with it.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Learn how to install and use Neovim on various distros.

• Updating your Python packages is crucial, and it's effortless with pip.

• Optimize your workflow by auto-starting AppImages on your Linux workstation.

And an analogy to explain why there are so many Linux distributions.

What is Linux? Why There are 100’s of Linux OS?

Cannot figure out what is Linux and why there are so many of Linux? This analogy explains things in a simpler manner.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

Did you know you could run LLMs locally on a Raspberry Pi?

How to Run LLMs Locally on Raspberry Pi Using Ollama AI

Got a Raspberry Pi? How about using it ton run some LLMs using Ollama for your own private AI?

It's FOSSAbhishek Kumar

📹 Videos we are watching

Do you really need a media server software?

Subscribe to our YouTube channe

✨ Apps of the Week

Mullvad Browser is a very solid privacy-focused alternative to the likes of Google Chrome.

Mullvad Browser: A Super Privacy-Focused Browser Based on Firefox

Mullvad is Firefox, but enhanced for privacy, pretty interesting take as a cross-platform private browser app.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

If you are looking for a change in file management on Android, then you could go for Fossify File Manager.

🧩 Quiz Time

Have some fun finding the logos of distros and open source projects.

Spot All The Logos: Image Puzzle

Let’s see if you can spot the hidden items in the image!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

💡 Quick Handy Tip

If you are a Xfce user with a multi-monitor setup, then you can span the Xfce panel across monitors. First, right-click on the panel you want to span and then go to Panel → Panel Preferences. Here, in the Display tab, set Output as Automatic and enable the “Span monitors” checkbox.

🤣 Meme of the Week

The pain is real. 😥

🗓️ Tech Trivia

Hitachi announced the first 1 MB memory chip on January 6, 1984. At the time, this was a revolutionary leap in storage technology. Today, we carry more memory in our pockets than entire systems from that era!

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

Pro FOSSer Neville shares his experience with Chimera Linux on virt-manager. This is a detailed write-up, so be prepared for a lengthy read.

Chimera Linux in virt-manager with Plasma | Wayland | APK | Clang/LLVM | musl | dinit | BSD core tools

Chimera Linux in virt-manager with Plasma and Wayland Want to try something really different? Chimera Linux have just released new images as of 4/12/24. Chimera is a new distro build from scratch using Linux kernel 6.12 core tools from FreeBSD apk package system from Alpine Clang/LLVM toolchain Musl C library Gnome and Plasma desktops with Wayland &/or X11 multiple architectures - Intel/AMD, ARM AArch64, POWER, and RISC-V the dinit init system A real mix. One could debate whether it is L…

It's FOSS Communitynevj

❤️ With love

Share it with your Linux-using friends and encourage them to subscribe (hint: it's here).

Share the articles in Linux Subreddits and community forums.

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Opt for It's FOSS Plus membership and support us 🙏

Keep on enjoying Linux in 2025 🐧

by: Abhishek Kumar

Since the launch of DeepSeek AI, every tech media outlet has been losing its mind over it. It's been shattering records, breaking benchmarks, and becoming the go-to name in AI innovation.

DeepSeek v/s OpenAI benchmark | Source: Brian Roemmele

Recently, I stumbled upon a post on my X feed (don’t judge me, I’m moving to Bluesky soon!) where someone claimed to have run Deepseek on a Raspberry Pi at 200 tokens/second.

My head started spinning. "wHaaaTTT?!"

Naturally, I doom-scrolled the entire thread to make sense of it. Turns out, the guy used an AI accelerator module on top of the Pi to hit those numbers.

But curiosity is a powerful motivator. Since I didn’t have an AI module lying around, I thought, why not test the raw performance of Deepseek on a plain Raspberry Pi 5? Who's stopping me?

So, for this article, I installed Ollama on my Pi 5 (8 GB model) and downloaded Deepseek model with different parameters(i.e. 1.5B, 7B, 8B, and 14B parameters to be specific).

💡

If you're new or unsure about setting things up, don't worry, we already have a detailed guide on installing Ollama on a Raspberry Pi to help you get started.

Here’s how each one performed:

Deepseek 1.5B

This model was snappy. It felt surprisingly responsive and handled paraphrasing tasks with ease. I didn’t encounter any hallucinations, making it a solid choice for day-to-day tasks like summarization and text generation.

Performance stats

To test its capability further, I posed the question: What's the difference between Podman and Docker?

The model gave a decent enough answer, clearly breaking down the differences between the two containerization tools.

It highlighted how Podman is daemonless, while Docker relies on a daemon, and touched on security aspects like rootless operation.

This response took about two minutes, and here’s how the performance data stacked up:

total duration:       1m33.59302487s
load duration:        44.322672ms
prompt eval count:    13 token(s)
prompt eval duration: 985ms
prompt eval rate:     13.20 tokens/s
eval count:           855 token(s)
eval duration:        1m32.562s
eval rate:            9.24 tokens/s

Deepseek 7B

The 7B model introduced a fair amount of hallucination. I tried writing a creative prompt asking for three haikus, but it started generating endless text, even asking itself questions!

While amusing, it wasn’t exactly practical. For benchmarking purposes, I simplified my prompts, as seen in the video. Performance-wise, it was slower, but still functional.

Performance stats

To test it further, I asked: What’s the difference between Docker Compose and Docker Run? The response was a blend of accurate and imprecise information.

It correctly explained that Docker Compose is used to manage multi-container applications via a docker-compose.yml file, while Docker Run is typically for running single containers with specific flags.

However, it soon spiraled into asking itself questions like, “But for a single app, say a simple Flask app on a single machine, Docker Run might be sufficient? Or is there another command or method?”

Here’s how the performance data turned out:

total duration:       4m20.665430872s
load duration:        39.565944ms
prompt eval count:    11 token(s)
prompt eval duration: 3.256s
prompt eval rate:     3.38 tokens/s
eval count:           517 token(s)
eval duration:        4m17.368s
eval rate:            2.01 tokens/s

Deepseek 8B

This was the wild card. I didn’t expect the 8B model to run at all, considering how resource-hungry these models are. To my surprise, it worked!

The performance was on par with the 7B model, neither fast nor particularly responsive, but hey, running an 8B model on a Raspberry Pi without extra hardware is a win in my book.

Performance stats

I tested it by asking, "Write an HTML boilerplate and CSS boilerplate." The model successfully generated a functional HTML and CSS boilerplate in a single code block, ensuring they were neatly paired.

However, before jumping into the solution, the model explained its approach, what it was going to do and what else could be added.

While this was informative, it felt unnecessary for a straightforward query. If I had crafted the prompt more precisely, the response might have been more direct (i.e. user error).

Here’s the performance breakdown:

total duration:       6m53.350371838s
load duration:        44.410437ms
prompt eval count:    13 token(s)
prompt eval duration: 4.99s
prompt eval rate:     2.61 tokens/s
eval count:           826 token(s)
eval duration:        6m48.314s
eval rate:            2.02 tokens/s

Deepseek 14B ?

Unfortunately, this didn’t work. The 14B model required over 10 GB of RAM, which my 8 GB Pi couldn’t handle. After the success of the 8B model, my hopes were high, but alas, reality struck.

Conclusion

DeepSeek’s raw performance on the Raspberry Pi 5 showcases the growing potential of SBCs for AI workloads.

The 1.5B model is a practical option for lightweight tasks, while the 7B and 8B models demonstrate the Pi’s ability to handle larger workloads, albeit slowly.

I’m excited to test DeepSeek on the ArmSoM AIM7 with its 6 TOPS NPU. Its RK3588 SoC could unlock even better performance, and I’ll cover those results in a future article.

If you’re interested in more of my experiments, check out this article where I ran 9 popular LLMs on the Raspberry Pi 5.

Until then, happy tinkering, and remember: don’t ask AI to write haikus unless you want a never-ending saga. 😉

by: Abhishek Prakash

One of the main downside of using AppImages is the lack of desktop integration. This can be achived using AppImage Launcher tool.

Another problematic part is the lack of support for autostarting an AppImage application when the system restarts.

With some effort, you can achieve that, too.

The method involves twp steps:

• Creating a desktop file for the application

• Adding this desktop file to autostart application list

Let me show you the process in detail.

Step 1: Create a desktop file

Desktop files are text files that contain metadata about applications, such as their name, icon, and the command to run them.

These files are stored in specific locations, and the system menu uses them to allow users to launch applications from the menu.

For user-installed applications, the desktop file is typically stored in ~/.local/share/applications.

Before you explore autostarting an AppImage file, let’s first create a desktop file for your AppImage package.

Method 1: Using AppImage Launcher

AppImageLauncher is a handy tool that integrates AppImages with your Linux system. This way, you can find the AppImage apps in the system menu.

Although, AppImage Launcher hasn't see a new release in almost three years, it still works.

For Ubuntu and other Debian-based systems, you can use the deb package to install AppImage Launcher.

First, go to the releases page and download the deb file.

Download AppImageLauncher Deb File

📋

You can either download the stable release file, released in 2020 or the continuous build file, released in 2022.

Then install the deb file to your system.

If you are an Arch Linux user, you can install AppImageLauncher from AUR using an AUR helper like Yay.

yay -S appimagelauncher

There are release files for Fedora on the official releases page.

Once AppImageLauncher is installed, right-click on an AppImage app file and select "Open with AppImageLauncher".

Open AppImage with AppImageLauncher

For the first time, it will ask you to select a centralized location. Go for the default (~/Applications). Click OK. Now, this is where all your AppImage files will be stored.

Default AppImage location

Now, in the next window, chose "Integrate and Run".

Integrate and Run the AppImage

That's it. Your AppImage is now integrated to your system. You can now find the app you just ran with AppImage launcher in the system menu.

And it creates the required desktop file which is located at ~/.local/share/application.

Method 2: Creating desktop file manually

📋

This part requires you to have basic knowledge of Linux commands.

If you do not want to use AppImage Launcher, you can also create a desktop file manually.

Create a file called <your-app-name>.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications. For example, if you are using ClickUp, name it ~/.local/share/applications/clickup.desktop

Inside this file, add the following lines in this manner:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Logseq
Comment=A Note taking and Knowledge Management Application
Exec=/home/$USER/Applications/Logseq.AppImage
Icon=/home/$USER/Applications/Images/Logseq.png
Terminal=false
Categories=Office;

This is a very minimal desktop file for an application.

Here, the fields should be filled with data:

• Replace the Name and Comment field with the name and description for your application.

• The Exec field should point to the absolute path of the AppImage file.

• The Icon field should point to the absolute path of the icon image file.

• Terminal=false means that the application does not require a terminal to run. For most graphical applications like AppImages, this is the desired setting.

• Categories is where your Application will appear in the system menu.

Once done, save the file. That's it. You have created a desktop file for the AppImage.

💡

I advise placing all the AppImage files in a dedicated directory for better organization and avoiding accidental removal of the AppImage files.

Step 2: Autostart the application

Once you have the AppImage desktop file ready, you can easily autostart the application by just copy and pasting it to the ~/.config/autostart directory.

Use the cp command to copy the file:

cp ~/.local/share/applications/Logseq.desktop ~/.config/autostart

There is a dedicated GUI tool to autostart programs in Ubuntu. You may use that, if you want.

Now, when you restart your system, the selected application will be auto-started.

Conclusion

Out of Snap, Flatpak and AppImages, I like AppImage for the protability feature. You download the AppImage file, make it executable and run it.

The ease of use comes with a few downsides. The desktop integration is the most obvious one. You cannot launch them from the system menu. However, this can be achived using the third-party AppImage Launcher tool.

Not able to auto start an AppImage app when the system starts is another pain point. With some effort, that can also be achieved.

I so wish that AppImage ecosystem provides these feature by default. I mean if a third party AppImage Launcher can allow desktop integration, it can surely be integrated by AppImage officialy. What do you think?

by: Community

As a developer, you've likely seen many IDEs offering AI capabilities - from standalone editors like Cursor, Void editor, and Zed, to extensions like GitHub Copilot, Continue.dev, and Qodo.

If you enjoy tinkering with open source tools and experimenting with different approaches, Flexpilot IDE might be just what you're looking for. 🔍

Why Flexpilot IDE? ✨

Here are my reasons for creating and using Flexpilot:

Bring your own AI Model 🤖: Most developers already have API keys for various LLM services. Today's LLM providers offer generous free tiers - take Google Gemini or Azure OpenAI for instance. Instead of being locked into a specific subscription, Flexpilot lets you use these existing credentials and experiment with different models as you see fit.

Use locally hosted models 🏠: Privacy concerns in AI development are real. With advances in small language models and quantization techniques, running AI locally for simple coding tasks has become increasingly practical. Flexpilot embraces this by supporting locally hosted models, giving you complete control over your code's privacy.

GitHub Copilot Extension marketplace 🔌: The GitHub copilot extension marketplace is one of the largest growing Agentic Marketplace as of today. Flexpilot stands alongside VSCode (i.e., with GitHub copilot) as one of only two platforms that can tap into these extensions, opening up a world of specialized AI capabilities.

Use it inside a browser instantly 🌐: For those of us who spend time exploring GitHub codebases, the default GitHub interface can feel limiting. While vscode.dev and github.dev offer better browsing experiences, they lack AI capabilities. Flexpilot fills this gap through ide.flexpilot.ai, providing a familiar IDE experience enhanced with AI features right in your browser.

Uses native API interfaces ⚡: Most VS Code extensions rely on webviews for their chat interfaces, which can create unnecessary overhead. Flexpilot takes a different approach by using native APIs. Think of it like using a native app versus a web app - the difference might seem subtle at first, but the improved performance and additional capabilities become apparent as you use it.

Forked from VS Code 🔱: If you're comfortable with VS Code, you'll feel right at home with Flexpilot. It maintains all the familiar VS Code features while adding seamless AI integration. This means you get the best of both worlds - a trusted development environment with enhanced AI capabilities.

Use Flexpilot IDE in web browser 🌐

📋

While the browser version offers a streamlined experience, it operates as a minimal client-only version. Due to browser limitations, it can't access nodejs or native APIs, but it handles code browsing and AI features remarkably well.

One of Flexpilot's standout features is its browser accessibility. Similar to vscode.dev or github.dev, but with integrated AI capabilities, you can start using it immediately without installation. Try it by clicking here to browser Flexpilot IDE's source code.

To browse any GitHub repository, simply modify the URL with your desired repo details:

https://ide.flexpilot.ai/?folder=web-fs://github/<repo-user>/<repo-name>/<branch>

For example, to explore the flexpilot-ide repo's main branch, use:

https://ide.flexpilot.ai/?folder=web-fs://github/flexpilot-ai/flexpilot-ide/main

Use Flexpilot IDE on Linux desktop 🐧 💻

It would be better to use Flexpilot on the desktop to use its full functionality.

Step 1: Download and install

Head over to flexpilot.ai to download the latest Desktop version. You'll find builds for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with options for both x64 and ARM architectures.

For Ubuntu users, the installation process is straightforward. Once you download the appropriate .deb package, Open Terminal in your download directory and run:

For x64 systems:

sudo dpkg -i linux-x64.deb

For ARM systems:

sudo dpkg -i linux-arm64.deb

Then install dependencies:

sudo apt-get install -f

Now you can launch Flexpilot through your Applications menu or by just typing flexpilot in the terminal.

Step 2: Connect to GitHub

When you first launch Flexpilot, you'll notice a chat panel on the right side of the screen with a GitHub sign-in option. This connection does more than just authentication - it personalizes your experience with your GitHub profile and automatically configures GitHub Models API access, giving you immediate access to AI features.

Step 3: Configure AI Model (Optional during initial setup) ⚡

While GitHub Models API is pre-configured after sign-in, you might want to set up additional AI providers. Access the command palette with Ctrl+Shift+P, type Flexpilot: Configure the Language Model Provider, and customize your model settings according to your needs.

Step 4: Start chatting with your codebase using AI 💬

Flexpilot offers several ways to interact with AI throughout your development workflow:

Panel Chat

The panel chat sits conveniently on the right side of your screen. Select your preferred model, add context by referencing files or symbols, and start your AI-assisted coding journey.

Inline Chat

Need to modify specific code sections? Select the code, press Ctrl+I, and describe your desired changes. The AI will suggest improvements while maintaining context.

Terminal Chat

Working in the terminal? Press Ctrl+I while in the integrated terminal to get AI-powered command suggestions and explanations.

Additional Features

Flexpilot's AI integration extends beyond chat interfaces. You'll find AI assistance in code completions, multi-file edits, quick chat, symbol renaming, commit message generation, and more. Check out the official documentation for a complete feature list.

Step 5: Configure completions

For those who enjoy predictive code completions, configure any OpenAI API compatible completion model providers through the command palette. Select Flexpilot: Configure the Language Model Provider and choose Edit Completions Config.

💡

Consider trying Codestral API by Mistral - they offer a generous free tier for code completions. Sign up at console.mistral.ai/codestral without requiring payment details.

Extend AI capabilities with Copilot Extensions 🔌

Flexpilot's extension system represents a significant step toward the future of AI development. Type @ in your chat to see installed agents and discover new ones through the marketplace. For instance, try the MongoDB extension - just start your questions with @mongodb for database-specific assistance.

This extension ecosystem embodies the vision of collaborative AI agents working together to solve complex development challenges.

Conclusion

Flexpilot IDE brings a fresh perspective to AI-assisted development. While it's still evolving, its unique features and open approach make it a valuable tool for developers who want more control over their AI assistance.

Looking to contribute? Visit GitHub repository and join the community in shaping the future of AI-native development.

Happy coding! 🚀

Author Info

Mohankumar Ramachandran is a Gen AI enthusiast, turning caffeine into code. Creator of Flexpilot.ai and open source advocate who believes AI is not just hype - it’s the future.

by: Bill Dyer

During a weekend of tidying up - you know, the kind of chore where you’re knee-deep in old boxes before you realize it. Digging through the dusty cables and old, outdated user manuals, I found something that I had long forgotten: an old Plan9 distribution. Judging by the faded ink and slight warping of the disk sleeve, it had to be from around 1994 or 1995.

I couldn’t help but wonder: why had I kept this? Back then, I was curious about Plan9. It was a forward-thinking OS that never quite reached full potential. Holding that disk, however, it felt more like a time capsule, a real reminder of computing’s advancements and adventurous spirit in the 1990s.

What Made Plan9 So Intriguing Back Then?

In the 1990s, Bell Labs carried an almost mythical reputation for me. I was a C programmer and Unix system administrator and the people at Bell Labs were the minds behind Unix and C, after all. When Plan9 was announced, it felt like the next big thing. Plan9 was an operating system that promised to rethink Unix, not just patch it up. The nerd in me couldn’t resist playing with it.

A Peek Inside the Distro

Booting up Plan9 wasn’t like loading any other OS. From the minimalist Rio interface to the “everything is a file” philosophy taken to its extreme, it was clear this was something different.

Some standout features that left an impression:

• 9P Protocol: I didn’t grasp its full potential back then, but the idea of treating every resource as part of a unified namespace was extraordinary.

• Custom Namespaces: The concept of every user having their own view of the system wasn’t just revolutionary; it was downright empowering.

• Simplicity and Elegance: Even as a die-hard Unix user, I admired Plan9's ability to strip away the cruft without losing functionality.

Looking at Plan9 Today

Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to see if the disk still worked. Spoiler: it didn’t.

But thanks to projects like 9front, Plan9 is far from dead. I was able to download and image and fire it up in a VM. The interface hasn't aged well compared to modern GUIs, but its philosophy and design still feels ahead of its time.

As a seasoned (read: older) developer, I’ve come to appreciate things I might have overlooked in the 1990s:

1. Efficiency over bloat: In today’s world of resource-hungry systems, Plan9’s lightweight design is like a breath of fresh air.

2. Academic appeal: Its clarity and modularity makes Plan9 and outstanding teaching tool for operating system concepts.

3. Timeless innovations: Ideas like distributed computing and namespace customization feels even more pertinent in this era of cloud computing.

Why didn’t Plan9 take off?

Plan9 was ahead of its time, which often spells doom for innovative tech. Its radical departure from Unix made it incompatible with existing software. And let’s face it - developers were (and still are) reluctant to ditch well-established ecosystems.

Moreover, by the 1990s, Unix clones, such as Linux, were gaining traction. Open-source communities rallied around Linux, leaving Plan9 with a smaller, academic-focused user base. It just didn't have the commercial/user backup.

Plan9’s place in the retro-computing scene

I admit it: I can get sappy and nostalgic over tech history. Plan9 is more than a relic; it’s a reminder of a time when operating systems dared to dream big. It never achieved the widespread adoption of Unix or Linux, but it still has a strong following among retro-computing enthusiasts.

Here’s why it continues to matter:

• For Developers: It’s a masterclass in clean, efficient design.

• For Historians: It’s a snapshot of what computing could have been.

• For Hobbyists: It’s a fun, low-resource system to tinker with.

Check out the 9front project. It’s a maintained fork that modernizes Plan9 while staying true to its roots. Plan9 can run on modern hardware. It is lightweight enough to run on old machines, but I suggest using a VM; it is the easiest route.

Lessons from years past

How a person uses Plan9 is up to them, naturally, but I don't think that Plan9 is practical for everyday use. Plan9, I believe, is better suited as an experimental or educational platform rather than a daily driver. However, that doesn't mean that it wasn't special.

Finding that old Plan9 disk wasn’t just a trip down memory lane; it was a reminder of why I was so drawn to computing. Plan9’s ambition and elegance is still inspiring to me, even decades later.

So, whether you’re a retro-computing nerd, like me, or just curious about alternative OS designs, give Plan9 a run. Who knows? You might find a little magic in its simplicity, just like I did.

by: Ankush Das

One of the superpowers of having a computer is dual booting. You can have two operating systems installed on a single computer, and switch between them at boot time.

If you are hearing it for the first time, I suggest you read our article on dual booting to learn more about the impressive capability.

And, the most popular option to dual boot is Linux and Windows. So, you can have the best of both worlds, without any compromises.

However, there are some myths surrounding this combination of dual booting. Here, I tell you the reality of the myths as per my experience with dual booting for more than a decade now.

1. Dual Booting Slows Down Your System

If you have been dual booting for a long time, you must have come across this thought where some were convinced that dual booting affects your system speed.

Fortunately, it is not true, as you only use one operating system at any given time.

When you are greeted with the grub screen or dual boot screen with the two options, you merely choose what to load up for using your computer. It is either Windows or the Linux distribution.

Dual boot grub screen of my computer

So, when you do pick one, the other remains dormant, until you reboot and select it.

It never slowed down my system, and it will not slow down yours.

2. Dual Boot is Only About Windows and Linux

I have a dual boot Windows and Linux setup for my use-case, and that is the most common choice among users.

But, that does not mean that is the only possible choice.

You can choose to have two Linux distributions for dual booting, and you can also have two Linux distributions, and Windows. Something like this:

Credits: It's FOSS Community

If I can think of a combination, I can do that, it is that simple.

3. You Cannot Dual Boot With Secure Boot

When it comes to dual booting with secure boot, you are limited to certain Linux distributions that support it (and offer documentation for it). But, it is not impossible.

For instance, Ubuntu supports dual booting with UEFI secure boot enabled.

You can follow our tutorial on installing Ubuntu with Windows to get it done.

4. You Need Two Disks to Dual Boot a System

While I admit that I utilize two disks for dual booting conveniently, but it is not what everyone does.

Plenty of users have just a single disk, and install the secondary OS to dual boot on a separate partition. Linux distributions have made it easy by offering an "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows Boot Manager" option during installation:

You just have to be more careful when selecting the path to the bootloader, and the partition to install the OS. But, it is entirely possible.

5. You have to install Linux after Windows

It is a no-brainer that most Windows users think of installing Linux as a secondary OS. I find it so peaceful for a change, even if you rely on some Windows-specific applications for work.

So, that is the popular norm. But, it also works the other way. If you have Linux installed already, you can install Windows later without any hiccups. Just like we have done here:

How to Install Windows After Ubuntu Linux in Dual Boot

When it comes to dual boot, the general idea is that you have a system preinstalled with Windows and then you install Linux alongside Windows. On the boot, you select whether you want to use Windows or Linux. How about the opposite situation? What if you have a system that

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

Or, if you have nothing pre-installed. You can choose to first install Linux, and then Windows, it does not make a difference.

6. You Cannot Go Back to Windows Without Formatting The Entire System

Whether you have Linux or Windows installed currently, you can always go back to your favorite as the only option again.

Let us assume that you want to go back to Windows as your daily driver over your Linux distribution.

In such a case, all you need to do is add Windows as a secondary OS for dual booting and then remove format the partition that housed Linux, that's it:

Beginners Guide to Install Windows With Ubuntu in Dual Boot

This detailed article shows you how to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows 10, step-by-step, accompanied with proper screenshots.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

And, if you added Linux as the secondary OS to boot, and no longer want to use Linux. You can remove that too by simply deleting the partition/disk drive where you installed it. Here's some more information regarding that:

How to Uninstall Ubuntu from Windows Dual Boot Safely

This beginner’s guide shows you how to safely remove Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution from Windows dual boot.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

So, you can always go back to either of the operating systems as per your choice. You do not need to format the entire system to get rid of one.

Wrapping Up

I have been on a dual boot setup with Linux distributions and Windows for years now.

Yes, I might have put myself into trouble, thinking that I almost lost all my data. But, once you learn how to do it correctly, it is an interesting life.

💭 What do you think about dual booting? Let me know your thoughts on the same!

by: Sreenath

I found it cool enough to watch someone, often portrayed as a hacker, use the Linux terminal, especially in the movies. What if I try to become one of the super cool hackers from the Hollywood movies? 😎

Now that I'm older, I'm no longer fooled by those movie skits 😌 But, I'm still a kid at heart, and I want others to think that I am a secretive hacker when they see me using the terminal.

To pursue that, I started exploring a list of cool Linux terminal tools that I can use for the job.

If I can feel like a hacker with these tools, you can too! Let's give them a try!

💡

You can use CTRL+C to exit the terminal after running these tools.

1. genact

Do you often feel like all you do in the terminal is run update commands, with nothing impressive to show off? Don’t worry—genact is here for you!

0:00

/1:02

1×

Running genact in a terminalRunning genact in a terminal

This little command will fill package download, network and other entries to your terminal. Those watching will think you are compiling some great programs.

You can install this from the Ubuntu Snap store or grab the prebuilt binary for genact from the official GitHub repository as per your CPU architecture.

If you downloaded the binary, open a terminal in the downloaded directory, and give the file execution permission with the following command:

chmod +x ./genact-file-name

The file name will look like genact-1.4.2-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Next, execute it using:

./genact-file-name

genact

2. Cmatrix

Anyone who has seen The Matrix movie cannot forget the iconic effect of characters raining down the screen. With CMatrix, you can recreate this mesmerizing display right in your terminal.

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Cmatrix command running in terminal.

You can install Cmatrix from the official repository of most Linux distributions. For instance, here's the command for Ubuntu-based distributions:

sudo apt install cmatrix

Now, just run it using the command:

cmatrix

For more fun, you can pair it with other fun terminal tools like lolcat, one of the fun ASCII art tools.

3. Hollywood

Hollywood is that command which will make others think that your system has been hacked my someone.

It will burst a huge text and animation effects on your terminal, where regular keyboard entries will do nothing. For a minute, I forgot I had to stop it to continue writing the article, it looked so cool! 😎

To install hollywood on Ubuntu, use the command:

sudo apt install hollywood

Hollywood

4. TEXTREME

Do you want a text editor that will show all types of fancy animation for character entry and deletion?

Textreme is for you.

This is not a regular text editor, where you will code swiftly, but a cool fancy text editor, that gives a festive party vibe while you write something.

You can grab an executable binary from the official website. And, extract the tar file and double-click on the file to start the editor.

TEXTREME

5. No More Secrets

No More secrets will show an encrypt/decrypt effect for everything piped into it. It tries to recreate the famous data decryption effect seen on screen in the 1992 hacker movie Sneakers.

There are no release files for this package. So, you need to compile it from GitHub.

Make sure you have git and essential build tools like make installed. Then use the following commands to proceed:

git clone https://github.com/bartobri/no-more-secrets.git
cd ./no-more-secrets
make nms
make sneakers
sudo make install

This will install two tools, no-more-secrets or nms and sneakers.

Sneakers

Sneakers recreates the movie clip for you. Once the command completes printing encrypted characters, press any key to start the decrypting effect.

No More Secrets

Pipe any text output to this command and see the effect for yourself. If you would rather not press a key to start decryption, use:

cat agatha.txt | nms -a

This will print the contents of the file in encrypted form and then automatically start to decrypt it and show the original content.

You can experiment with it to show different colors as well!

No More Secrets

6. Cool Retro Term

Sometimes the feeling of a hacker or a whiz comes from retro tools. This is one of the super cool terminal emulators that helps achieve what we want here.

You can install the Cool Retro Term terminal emulator application on Ubuntu using the command:

sudo apt install cool-retro-term

Next, open the terminal from your Activities Overview or app menu:

Do not forget to right-click on the terminal and explore the settings. There are more effects waiting!

Cool Retro Term Settings

Cool Retro Term

7. gping

Did you ever use the Ping command to check whether you have an active internet connection? Or to check whether a site is up and running?

The ping command is just a text command, where you need to look at the values to get the picture. You can do the same, but have some aesthetically pleasing outputs (graph) using gping.

Install GPing on Ubuntu using the command:

sudo apt install gping

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Gping command

gping

8. Bpytop

Bpytop is a htop alternative that prints system information neatly. You can use this command to make someone think that you're monitoring super serious aspects of your computer.

To install it, use the command:

sudo apt install bpytop

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Bpytop command with options

Bpytop

When it comes to Linux terminal tools, there are endless options from various individual developers.

Here, I have shared the ones that I tried to make myself look like a hacker to anyone who observes me when I use the computer 😄

You can also choose to explore some terminal emulators or system monitoring tools to have fun with:

Top 14 Terminal Emulators for Linux (With Extra Features or Amazing Looks)

Want a terminal that looks cool or has extra features? Here are the best Linux terminal emulators you can get.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

💬 What is your favorite on the list? Do you have some fun tools that I missed listing here? Do share your thoughts in the comments below.

by: Abhishek Prakash

The Linux terminal could be intimidating. The dark screen with just commands to use. It's easy to feel lost.

The thing is that Linux command line is a vast topic. You can manage the entire system using just the commands. I mean that's the role of sysadmins, network engineers and many other jobs.

The aim of this tutorial collection is not to make you job-ready. It intends to give you the starting point of your Linux command line journey. It will give you enough to navigate the terminal and understand a few basic things like reading files and editing them.

Since it's just the beginning, most of the tutorials are in the 'file operation' category. That's where most Linux books and courses begin.

📋

The best way to learn is by doing it yourself. I have written the tutorials in 'hands-on mode' so you can follow the examples on your Linux system. Each chapter in the series contains some sample exercises to practice your learning. Follow, practice and you'll be getting better at Linux command line in no time.

Prerequisite

When you are absolutely new to the terminal, you'll find yourself lost even while reading the tutorials. That's because you may not always understand even the simplest of terms.

The article below will help you with some of that. While some of the tips I shared may be a little advance or not-so-useful for you at this moment, you'll find plenty of useful stuff.

19 Basic But Essential Linux Terminal Tips You Must Know

Learn some small, basic but often ignored things about the terminal. With the small tips, you should be able to use the terminal with slightly more efficiency.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

What will you learn here?

• Changing directories: In the first chapter, learn to switch directories (folders) using absolute and relative paths. This way, you can navigate in the Linux command line.

• Making directories: Now that you know about switching directories, learn about creating new ones.

• Listing directory content: You are getting a good grasp of the directories. Learn to see inside directories and see what files and subdirectories do they have.

• Creating files: Enough about directories. Learn to create new files in the Linux command line.

• Reading files: What's inside the file? Learn to read text files in this chapter.

• Deleting files and directories: Now that you have learned to create new files and folders, it's time to delete them.

• Copying files and directories: Keep on with the file operations and learn to copy files and directories in this installment of the terminal basics series.

• Moving files and directories: Moving file operation is like cut-paste. You can use the same method for renaming files and directories as well.

• Editing files: As the last major file operation, learn to edit text files in the command line.

• Getting help: Now that you have learned plenty of the basic Linux command line operation, it's time to know how you can get help in the terminal itself.

Where to go from here?

Now that you are more comfortable with the terminal and know the basic file operations in the command line, you may wonder what comes next.

I will suggest getting a Linux book like How Linux Works. However, you can start with any Linux book you come across. Here are a few Linux books I love.

Best Linux Books For Beginners to Advanced Linux Users

Here are some Linux book recommendations to improve your knowledge. These books cater to the need of beginners and experts and help you master Linux concepts.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

Don't want to spend money on books yet? No worries! Here are some free Linux ebooks you can download.

20 Best Linux Books You Can Download For Free Legally

Let me share the best resource to learn Linux for free. This is a collection of Linux PDFs that you can download for free to learn Linux.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

Bash scripting is also an integral part of Linux learning. Even if you don't have to write shell scripts, if you know the basics, you should be able to understand scripts you come across while using Linux.

Learn Bash Scripting For Free With This Tutorial Series

New to bash? Start learning bash scripting with this series in am organized manner. Each chapter also includes sample exercises to practice your learning.

It's FOSS

There is no limit to learning. It's impossible to know it all. Yet, if you know at least the basics, it helps you in using the system more effectively.

🗨 I hope you like this Linux terminal tutorial series. Do share your feedback in the comments section.

by: Ankush Das

The Raspberry Pi is an extremely popular invention that enabled tinkerers to make interesting projects out of it.

You name it, and there must be a way for tinkerers to make it happen using the Raspberry Pi board. The possibilities are endless. Don't believe me? You can explore our list of Raspberry Pi project ideas to see what kind of projects exist.

That being said, the Raspberry Pi can also be used in arrangement to make a laptop you can use, or maybe a tablet. You can purchase some ready-made Raspberry Pi-based kits or choose to build it yourself following some project ideas out there.

Here, I have compiled all such options for you to take a look at.

🚧

The Raspberry Pi kits and accessories mentioned are available across various platforms. These websites may not have the best return/shipping policies. Please check them carefully before you make a purchase.

📋

The article contains affiliate links. Please read our affiliate policy.

1. RasPad

RasPad is one of the most popular Linux tablets out there. While it is extremely difficult to find it in stock on the official website, you can find several retailers/resellers making it available.

It is built to be used along with a Raspberry Pi device, which you have to purchase separately. Sure, it may not be a slim tablet, like the Android ones, but it is a fun portable gadget to put together and use.

You can install RasPad OS or any other Raspberry Pi operating system.

RasPad

2. CrowPi Raspberry Pi Educational Kit

A portable Raspberry Pi-based kit that looks like a laptop, CrowPi by Elecrow is a decent option available to purchase.

It is compatible with Raspberry Pi 5. So, you can make use of the latest tech available to get yourself a portable Raspberry Pi device with a big 9-inch IPS touch screen.

You can connect a keyboard to it, install any operating system of your choice, and you have a portable laptop to mimic, even if it may not look the prettiest.

CrowPi Compact Educational Kit

3. Piper Computer Kit

A Raspberry Pi-based kit tailored to provide a computer building experience where you end up with a device which you can use to learn and build stuff.

The kit is designed like there are puzzle pieces that you need to put together to learn as you build. It already includes a Raspberry Pi in the kit. So, you do not need to purchase it separately.

Piper Computer Kit

4. CrowPi L

CrowPi L looks relatively close to a laptop, and you have it as an assembled device without the Raspberry Pi.

It is compatible with Raspberry Pi 4B. So, all you have to do is get the board, and install it on its back side just like you would install a removable battery, yes, that easy!

You get an integrated camera + microphone, an 11.6-inch IPS screen, and a 5000 mAh battery to power the device.

You can choose to use it as a real laptop replacement or utilize it to build other projects.

CrowPi L

5. Handeld Nano Pi 2

Unlike the above-mentioned options, this handheld Raspberry Pi device is a project idea that you can refer and build it yourself.

The project runs a Raspberry Pi 2 version board with an incredibly small phone-sized keyboard and screen. You can 3D print the chassis of the keyboard, screen, and the box using the files available. And, customize it for a newer Raspberry Pi board.

For instructions, you will have to check out its Thingiverse page.

Thingiverse Nano Pi2 UMPC

6. CrowView Note

CrowView Note is a portable monitor with a keyboard and all the essentials, like microphone, camera, to turn any SBC like Raspberry Pi into a laptop.

Sure, you can use Raspberry Pi alternatives. But, I have seen people build Raspberry Pi laptops out of it on YouTube, just like this one:

When writing this, it was available as a Kickstarter product. So, it should be available when it's back in stock or at a later date again on its official manufacturer's website, Elecrow.

CrowView Note

7. Raspberry Pi 500 Desktop Kit

Credits: Jeff Gerling

If you are not satisfied with any of the options available in the market, you can go for the Raspberry Pi 500 or its predecessor, Raspberry Pi 400, built on top of the Raspberry Pi 5 and 4 respectively.

It is not a laptop nor a tablet, but if you aren't concerned about the form factor, this can be a portable solution. All you need is a screen to connect to, as the keyboard is the entire computer.

With the kit, you get a mouse, a preloaded SD card with Raspberry Pi OS, and essential cables to connect to a monitor. You will find limited online resellers having it in stock.

Raspberry Pi 400

Any Other Options To Consider?

You can build countless form factors when using a Raspberry Pi board to create a device. The ready-made options are always limited.

If you just want a lightweight hackable laptop to run Linux for your projects (not based on Raspberry Pi), you can take a look at PineBook that uses its custom SBC.

Not a tinkerer? And, looking for a mini PC? We have a list of Linux-based mini PCs as well:

11 Mini PCs That Come With Linux Pre-installed

Looking for a Linux-based mini PC? Here are the options that let you replace your traditional bulky desktop with a compact yet powerful mini PC.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

💬Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know in the comments down below!

by: Ankush Das

Google's ecosystem includes several products and services. It is one of the prominent ecosystems on the internet with a dominating market share.

While I believe their products require no introduction, as a formality, I should mention some of them as Gmail, YouTube, Google Chrome, Google Drive, Google Search, Google Photos, and Google Gemini.

Considering I am an Android user, and prioritize my convenience, I have been using Google services for a long time now.

However, I have decided to move away from Google's ecosystem to try out other options. Sure, it is tough to eliminate their presence without affecting my convenience, so the aim is to minimize it.

Before I tell you my strategy to make the move to alternative options, let me tell you why.

Why The Move Away From Google's Ecosystem?

Without a surprise, the first reason for the switch is privacy.

While I can never be anonymous on the internet, I can share fewer details about me and my data with the services I use.

And, Google is the least preferred privacy-friendly choice out there. They get to know a lot of about from the data you store with them. And, it is not illegal, but it is something that I no longer would like to do.

I should mention that I'm not mixing security with privacy here. Google has been good enough to keep my accounts secure, or else I would not have been safely using my Gmail account for such a long time.

Next, I want to give a chance to innovative players in the market. The options may not be necessarily better than Google services, but they have their unique selling points, which could unlock a benefit for me that I never realized.

And, finally, giving open source a better chance.

Now, let me highlight how I exactly plan to move from Google's ecosystem.

📋

There are some affiliate links in the article. Please read our affiliate policy for more details.

First Step: Finding Out The Areas With Alternatives

If you know there are options, it is easy to switch. So, first, I set out to find the type of services which provide me with options.

Some easy ones include:

• Search engine

• Email + Calendar

• Cloud storage

• AI chatbot

• Video conference

• Website analytics

• Browser

And, here are the ones that are a bit tricky to move away from:

• Document Suite

• Photo collection

• Video sharing platform

• Maps

I will tackle all of them, but let us focus on the easy ones first.

The Best Google Alternatives For My Use-Case (And Hopefully For You!)

Now that we know what kind of alternatives we need, I just need to narrow down the options that are capable enough.

Yes, I can list countless alternatives, but it is useless if it cannot do half of the things Google services let me do.

The goal is not to aimlessly move away from Google, but pick meaningful alternatives. So, with the above-mentioned categories in mind, I tell you about the best options that I use along with some suggestions for you.

✋

Please note that the alternatives I am using or suggesting may not be an exact replacement of a Google service. They might be good enough for me but perhaps they won't suffice your need or preference. Try them on your own and see if you are comfortable with the alternatives.

Search Engine: DuckDuckGo

In my opinion, DuckDuckGo is a great alternative to Google search engine that promises to keep your personal activity private while offering additional privacy-focused services.

For instance, I use DuckDuckGo's Privacy Essentials browser extension to get rid of trackers, and to generate free email aliases. I can also integrate the email aliases with Bitwarden. Not to forget, they also have a privacy-friendly AI chatbot providing access to AI models like Gpt-4o mini, and a browser for Windows/macOS.

So, DuckDuckGo's ecosystem makes it an interesting choice for what I need.

📋

You can also try some privacy-focused search engines like Ecosia, Startpage, and searx.

Email + Calendar: Proton Mail

Proton Mail is an obvious choice here because of its Google-like ecosystem offering. You can also try Tuta for privacy-focused email.

For me, I have been using Proton Mail since its early days. So, it makes sense to stick with it, along with the potential of using Proton's other services (which we will also touch upon as you read on).

Here, the relevant service to use with the email is Proton Calendar:

I use it for free (personally), and if I want to scale up my requirements, I can upgrade it to a paid plan for more storage, and features like custom email domains.

And, for my work at It's FOSS, we have a visionary (paid) account, so we get more storage, and all the perks of premium Proton services available.

I would say both free and premium options justify their use-cases to replace Gmail and Google Calendar for me.

Cloud Storage

Considering I already use Proton Mail (and its calendar), it is a no-brainer choice to go with Proton Drive, being an end-to-end encrypted (E2E) option.

You only get 5 GB of space, which is lower than what you get with Google. But, it should be decent if you want to store a couple of important documents.

And, if you want more, and aren't concerned about E2E, you can opt for pCloud, which offers more storage space, and explore other privacy-focused cloud storage services.

Top 10 Best Free Cloud Storage Services for Linux

Which cloud service is the best for Linux? Check out this list of free cloud storage services that you can use in Linux.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

AI Chatbot

A replacement to Google Gemini? That's easy.

I just set up Ollama to use one of the best open source LLMs and a web UI to easily access it without the terminal.

12 Tools to Provide a Web UI for Ollama

Don’t want to use the CLI for Ollama for interacting with AI models? Fret not, we have some neat Web UI tools that you can use to make it easy!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

Everything runs locally, I do not have to worry about anything here. Of course, you need a decent system with a mid-range GPU like the RTX 3060 to run the AI models efficiently.

Video Conference

Google Meet is a dominantly used option for all kinds of meetings/interviews, but it is not open source, nor end-to-end encrypted.

You can opt for Jitsi Meet if you want enhanced security and privacy. It is open source, and end-to-end encrypted. If needed, you can self-host it to meet your custom requirements.

For more options, you can refer to our article as well:

5 Best Open Source Video Conferencing Tools [2024]

Don’t trust the big tech with your data? Try these open source video conferencing tools for online meetings.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

Website Analytics

Google Analytics is a popular choice among web administrators because it is free, and provides a lot of information about your audience to take better decisions regarding your content, product, and more.

However, there are better (and lighter) Google Analytics alternatives out there that respect the privacy of your visitors/customers, and still give you plenty of useful insights.

The catch is most of them are paid. I understand not everyone can afford to switch to a paid alternative, but you can start with the free ones (or self-host them), and choose to invest in paid options later. Explore all the alternatives here:

8 Best Google Analytics Alternatives You Can Try Today

It is not that complicated to switch away from Google Analytics with these options. You can opt for a free self-hosted one or go for a paid one as per your requirements.

Linux HandbookAnkush Das

Web Browser

Google Chrome holds more than 65% of the market share as per Statista.

Sure, it is one of the most convenient options. However, it does not offer good privacy protection features.

If you want to switch away to get better privacy, you can try Brave, Mullvad, or LibreWolf (a hardened version of Firefox).

Documents, Photos, Videos, and Map

Honestly, there are no easy replacements to this. So, you will have to decide if you would like to adjust, and willing to pay a lot more (in some cases).

Nextcloud Office (a self-hosted replacement to Google Docs)

For instance, you will not get a Google Docs like experience with Nextcloud Office (self-hosted) or CryptPad or Proton Docs, but they are manageable to some extent. So, you need to try them out and see if it fits your requirements.

Next up is tough, a replacement for Google Photos.

Yes, Ente is an excellent open source privacy-focused option. However, it is way pricier than what Google Photos costs for extra storage, as you get only 5 GB for free. Therefore, if you have numerous photos and videos, it will be an expensive switch.

You can choose to self-host it, and explore other self-hosted Google Photos alternatives. But, of course, you will need to spend some time and money there as well.

Self-hosted Open Source Alternatives to Google Photos

Google Photos can be replaced using these open-source self-hosted photo applications.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

Finally, we need a replacement for Google Maps?

As much as we could hate Google, I can never object to its usefulness and integration capabilities with every car out there.

You can try open source alternatives like Organic Maps (for Android phones), and OpenStreetMap (web-based). However, it may not give you the same details and experience.

So, choosing a document suite, map, and photo/video platform to replace Google services will be an inconvenient endeavor.

In my case, I have tried to use CryptPad as much as possible. But, other alternatives haven't worked out well for me.

Final Thoughts

With the options mentioned above, I might have reduced my Google-centric usage by 70%, but it is not a 100% yet. I hope to reach that mark some day.

I would love to know about your plans to do the same. Are you on the same boat with me? Have any other plans? Let me know in the comments below!

by: Abhishek Kumar

Ever since I realized that AI was shaping the future, I’ve been fascinated by its endless possibilities.

I’m someone who enjoys testing large language models (LLMs) on my devices, and the open-source approach to data has always been my preference.

Why? Because open-source projects empower us to have control, privacy, and customization, which is essential in today's data-driven world.

When I decided to explore AI image generation, it felt like a natural extension of this mindset. Why rely on proprietary models when open-source alternatives offer powerful features and flexibility?

Now, I’ll admit - I don’t have the ideal hardware to run these models locally at blazing speeds, but where there’s a will, there’s a way! Sure, CPU inference is painfully slow, but it gets the job done eventually (and hey, patience builds character, right?).

During my research, I stumbled upon several fascinating projects. Some are fully ripe and ready to use, while others are still budding and need more time to mature.

This article is a combined list of some of the best open-source AI image generators that you can run locally. If I’ve missed any gems, feel free to let me know in the comments!

1. Stable diffusion 1.5 (paired with stable-diffusion webui)

Stable Diffusion WebUI | Source: AUTOMATIC1111

Stable Diffusion v1.5 is a powerful latent text-to-image diffusion model designed to generate photo-realistic images from textual prompts.

Developed as an evolution of earlier versions, it was fine-tuned on a large-scale dataset, "LAION-Aesthetics v2 5+", to enhance its capabilities.

This model is particularly well-suited for artistic, creative, and research purposes, offering impressive results with minimal computational requirements.

Key features

• Unlock high-quality text-to-image generation with its latent diffusion process, achieving impressive results with reduced computational overhead.

• Fine-tuned on a large-scale dataset to improve its ability to generate visually appealing images.

• Supports multiple platforms and tools, including Diffusers Library for seamless integration into Python workflows, ComfyUI, Automatic1111, SD.Next, and InvokeAI for local usage.

• Enjoy efficient weight options like EMA-only weights for inference or EMA + non-EMA weights for fine-tuning tasks.

• Leverage the Pretrained Text Encoder, inspired by Google's Imagen model, to robustly understand text prompts.

• Generate artwork, design prototypes, and educational visuals with its creative applications, ideal for artistic and research purposes.

Stable Diffusion 1.5

2. Invoke AI

Source: InvokeAI

InvokeAI is a robust, open-source image generation project that takes its inspiration from upon Stable Diffusion, offering users a highly customizable experience for creating unique visuals.

Whether you're looking to generate artwork, photorealistic images, or something more abstract, InvokeAI provides a powerful toolkit with an easy-to-use interface.

Its flexibility is perfect for those who want more control over the creative process, especially for those working with specific intellectual property or requiring tailored workflows.

Key Features

• Create highly detailed prompts with options for both positive and negative guidance to guide the generation process.

• Generate images based on textual descriptions, with numerous customization options for finer control.

• Use an existing image as a reference to help guide the AI in maintaining specific colors, structures, or themes.

• Access a unified canvas that enables users to modify images by regenerating certain elements, editing content or colors (inpainting), and extending the image (outpainting).

• Experiment with different models, each trained to generate specific styles or outputs, providing flexibility to match your creative needs.

• Utilize advanced customization options like Low-Rank Adaptations (LoRAs) and Textual Inversion Embeddings to focus on specific characters, styles, or concepts.

• Customize the number of de-noising steps and choose from different schedulers to optimize the generation process for quality and speed.

Invoke AI

3. OpenJourney

OpenJourney is a powerful, open-source text-to-image AI art generator that allows users to create stunning visuals from text prompts.

Launched in November 2022 by PromptHero, it has quickly gained popularity as a free alternative to MidJourney.

Built on Stable Diffusion, OpenJourney was trained using thousands of MidJourney images from its v4 update, as well as other AI models like DALL-E 2.

OpenJourney excels at generating photorealistic and artistic images, and its open-source nature ensures it remains accessible to a wide audience.

Key Features

• Create stunning visuals from text prompts with its powerful text-to-image generation capabilities.

• Enjoy photorealistic and artistic images, perfect for artists, designers, and anyone looking to generate high-quality content.

• Access a library of curated prompt ideas to inspire your creativity and get started with generating art.

• Customize the style and content of your generated images by crafting specific prompts that fit your vision.

• Benefit from OpenJourney's stable diffusion-based architecture and additional training on MidJourney images for enhanced capabilities.

• Take advantage of its wide accessibility, available for free download on Hugging Face as part of a broader ecosystem of open-source AI models.

Openjourney

4. LocalAI (all-rounder)

This is an example of telegram-bot created using LocalAI | Source: LocalAI

LocalAI is an open-source, free alternative to OpenAI that enables local AI inferencing on consumer-grade hardware.

It acts as a drop-in replacement for OpenAI's API specifications, allowing you to run large language models (LLMs), generate images, audio, and more without the need for a GPU.

LocalAI API WebUI | Source: LocalAI-frontend

Created and maintained by Ettore Di Giacinto, LocalAI provides a flexible and cost-effective solution for running AI models on-premise.

Key Features

• It offers compatibility with OpenAI API specifications, making integration straightforward for developers.

• The platform operates on consumer-grade hardware, eliminating the need for a GPU.

• Supports a wide range of models and platforms, including Llama, Hugging Face, and Ollama, for diverse applications.

• Enables advanced text generation using models like Llama.cpp and transformers.

• Allows users to generate images from text prompts for creative projects.

• Includes audio features such as text-to-audio and audio-to-text with whisper.cpp.

• Facilitates embedding generation for vector database tasks like semantic search.

• Offers peer-to-peer inferencing for distributed AI processing across multiple devices.

• Integrates voice activity detection using Silero-VAD for improved audio task accuracy.

• Provides an easy-to-use WebUI for managing models without technical expertise.

• Features a model gallery for browsing and downloading models directly from platforms like Hugging Face.

Local AI

5. Foocus (Editor's choice)

Source: Fooocus

Fooocus caught my attention as one of the most user-friendly and innovative open-source image generators out there.

I was especially drawn to its ability to work on modest hardware(like mine, my poor laptop) and can handle diverse styles, having compatibility with various models.

It’s like having a Swiss Army knife for image generation!

Key features

• Fooocus boasts a proprietary inpainting algorithm that delivers superior results for editing and completing images.

• With the ability to use multiple prompts simultaneously, Fooocus enriches creative possibilities and output diversity, opening up new avenues of artistic expression.

• Fooocus supports a vast array of SDXL models, accommodating styles from artistic to photorealistic, giving users endless options for experimentation.

• Users can specify aspect ratios for tailor-made image generation, ensuring that every output meets their unique requirements.

• Advanced style controls, including contrast, sharpness, and color adjustments, empower users to fine-tune generated images with precision.

• Fooocus utilizes A1111's reweighting algorithm, enhancing the influence of specific elements within prompts for more targeted results.

• The platform incorporates InsightFace technology for precise face swapping, ideal for creating personalized avatars or modifications.

• Optimized for performance across a wide range of hardware configurations, Fooocus ensures accessibility and speed, regardless of the user's setup.

Fooocus

Conclusion

And there you have it! From Stable Diffusion to Fooocus, these are some of the open-source projects you can host or deploy locally to create stunning images right on your hardware.

While I won't dive into the murky waters of how these models get trained (support your favorite creators, and remember, stealing is bad!), I can tell you this: each project offers unique capabilities and tons of creative potential.

I like exploring local AI tools. Take this list of open source AI tools for documents.

5 Local AI Tools to Interact With PDF and Documents

Interact with your documents but in private with these local AI tools.

It's FOSSAbhishek Kumar

Now, before I get lost in a sea of stunning visuals and my laptop's fan decides to take off, I have a tiny request for you.

What do you think? Have any hidden gems that I missed? Do you agree with my not-so-secret affection for LocalAI and Fooocus?

Dive into the comments section and let me know your thoughts. Who knows? Your suggestion might just be the next project I test out (if my CPU allows it, of course)!

Until next time, keep generating and keep dreaming!

by: Abhishek Kumar

While I’ve always enjoyed Kodi’s default skin, I’ve found that it can get a bit "boring" after a while.

That’s when I started exploring Kodi builds, these pre-packaged setups not only refresh the interface but also bring in various features and add-ons that make the experience more exciting.

After spending some time fiddling with different builds, I’ve collected the ones I find particularly interesting and amazing.

Whether you're new to Kodi or looking for a fresh look, these builds will definitely take your streaming game to the next level.

What's the point of Kodi builds?

Kodi, by default, gives you the freedom to customize everything from the interface to the content you access.

However, this can sometimes mean a lot of manual work, like searching for and installing individual add-ons for movies, TV shows, live sports, and more. While this gives you control, it can be time-consuming, especially for beginners.

In simple words, Kodi builds bundle everything you need into one pre-configured setup, from add-ons to custom settings, saving you time and effort.

Instead of piecing everything together yourself, you get a fully functional and visually appealing interface right from the start.

How to install Kodi builds?

Installing Kodi build is a straightforward process. Follow these steps to get started:

1. Enable Unknown Sources: Open Kodi, go to Settings > System > Add-ons, and toggle Unknown sources on. (Accept the warning)

2. Add the Repository: In Settings > File Manager, click Add Source, enter the repository URL, name it, and save.

3. Install the Build: Go to Add-ons > Install from zip file, select the repository you just added, and install the build wizard (like Chef Wizard or Doomzday Wizard).

4. Open the wizard from your Program Add-ons, pick your desired build, and follow the on-screen steps to install it.

Restart Kodi, and your new build will be ready to use!

📋

All the builds mentioned in this list are designed to work with Kodi 21 Omega, which is the latest release of Kodi right now. Some of these builds may also be compatible with earlier versions like Kodi 20 Nexus, 19 Matrix, and 18 Leia, and I’ve pointed those out where applicable.

1. Doomzday Nova

Compatibility: Kodi 21 Omega & Kodi 20 Nexus

Whether you're using a low-RAM device like FireStick or an Android TV Box, or you have a powerful computer or SBC, Doomzday has something for everyone.

The Nova TV build, for example, is a lightweight option that runs smoothly on lower-spec devices, while other feature-rich builds are perfect for high-end systems.

With a variety of popular Kodi add-ons pre-installed, you can easily access all your favorite content in one place.

Key Features:

• Lightweight builds for low-RAM devices (e.g., Raspberry Pi 3, FireStick)

• Feature-rich builds for high-end devices

• Pre-installed popular add-ons like Asgard, The Crew, and more

• Easy-to-navigate interface with different categories

• Supports a wide range of content: Movies, TV Shows, Sports, Live TV, etc.

• Includes 4K streaming options (Debrid 4K)

• Frequent updates and improvements

• Free and premium streaming options (Debrid support)

• Access to specialized content like documentaries and family-friendly shows

Doomzday

2. Diggz Xenon

Compatibility: Kodi 21 Omega

Diggz Xenon is often regarded as one of the best Kodi builds, and for good reason. Its futuristic interface, vast content library, and a solid collection of add-ons make it a top choice for cord-cutters.

Located within the Chef Wizard, Xenon offers both "Debrid" and "Free" versions, allowing users to choose based on their needs.

The Debrid version requires a Real-Debrid account to access higher-quality streaming links, while the Free version skips the need for a debrid service.

With the addition of the AIO (All-In-One) update, users can now preview builds before selecting, making it even easier to find the perfect setup.

Key Features:

• Sleek, futuristic interface with smooth navigation

• Two versions: Debrid (for higher-quality links) and Free (no debrid required)

• Extensive content library covering Movies, TV Shows, Sports, and more

• Located inside the Chef Wizard, which houses other high-quality builds

• AIO (All-In-One) update for previewing builds before installation

• Includes popular add-ons like Umbrella, Seren, FEN, and Asgard

• Regular updates for improved functionality and content

• Excellent for both new and experienced Kodi users

• Great support for both free and premium streaming options

Diggz Xenon

3. Aspire

Compatibility: Kodi 21 Omega

Aspire is a well-regarded build in the Kodi community, known for its sleek design and solid performance.

It strikes a great balance between style and functionality, making it an excellent choice for users who want both aesthetics and practicality.

Aspire works smoothly on a variety of devices, including lower-spec options like the Onn, Google TV Box and Fire TV Stick Lite.

It can be installed through the Doomzday Wizard or EzzerMans Wizard, offering flexibility in how you set it up.

Key Features:

• Sleek, stylish design with a user-friendly interface

• Small size (267 MB), making it ideal for lower-spec devices

• Packed with content including on-demand titles and live channels

• Supports integration with debrid services for enhanced performance

• Can be installed via Doomzday Wizard or EzzerMans Wizard

• Works well on devices like Fire TV Stick Lite and onn. Google TV Box

• Includes popular add-ons like Diggz Free99, Ghost, and Magic Dragon

• Smooth streaming experience with minimal buffering

• Regular updates to keep the build fresh and functional

• Great for both casual viewers and avid streamers

Aspire

4. Grindhouse

Compatibility: Kodi 21 Omega

Whether you're looking for lightweight builds or feature-rich setups, Grindhouse has something for everyone.

It’s home to over a dozen builds, including popular ones like AR Build, Blue, Decades, Horror, Jaws, and Pin Up.

These builds are designed to provide an all-in-one experience, so you don’t need separate outlets for movies, TV shows, and live programming.

The sleek, dim-themed interface is easy to navigate, with sections for Builds, Maintenance, Backup/Restore, Tools, and more.

Grindhouse continues to be a go-to repository for many Kodi users, and it’s easy to see why it made it to our list.

Key Features:

• Diverse collection of builds, from lightweight to feature-rich

• All-in-one builds for movies, TV shows, and live programming

• Easy-to-navigate, sleek, dim-themed interface

• Includes popular builds like AR Build, Blue, Decades, and more

• Sections for Builds, Maintenance, Backup/Restore, Tools, and Close

• Continually updated and maintained for optimal performance

• Ideal for users who want a variety of content in one place

• Popular among Kodi users for its versatility and ease of use

• No need for multiple add-ons to access all types of content

• Simple setup and installation process

Grindhouse

5. Plutonium

Compatibility: Kodi 21 & Kodi 20

Plutonium is a lightweight, visually engaging build with a colorful interface that makes it a great choice for devices with limited storage.

It’s designed primarily for Video On-Demand (VOD) content, offering a packed library of movies and TV series.

While it doesn’t include live TV channels, this simplicity helps it run smoothly and quickly. If you already have an IPTV service, Plutonium might be the perfect build to complement your setup.

The latest update from EzzerMan ensures compatibility with Kodi 21, continuing to deliver an optimized, user-friendly experience.

Key Features:

• Colorful, engaging user interface

• Extensive library of movies and TV series for on-demand streaming

• No live TV channels, but ideal for users with IPTV services

• Simple setup and navigation for easy use

• Optimized for streaming video content without buffering

• Available through EzzerMan’s Wizard, alongside other notable builds

• Easy-to-install and quick to get started

• Frequent updates to ensure smooth performance

Plutonium

6. Xontrix

Compatibility: Kodi 21 Omega

Xontrix is a powerful all-in-one Kodi build that offers both on-demand content and live TV channels.

It’s housed in the popular Chains Repository, known for its high-quality builds and addons. Installation is straightforward, and the build works seamlessly right after download.

The user-friendly interface allows easy navigation between content categories and addons, making it simple to find what you're looking for.

Xontrix also features a dedicated Kids section for family-friendly content and offers immersive music options.

For optimal performance, integrating a premium resolving service like Real-Debrid is recommended, as many of the build’s addons are “premium” options.

Key Features:

• All-in-one build with both on-demand content and live TV channels

• Easy installation and flawless performance right after download

• User-friendly interface with categories for quick navigation

• Includes a Kids section for family-friendly content

• Music options for an immersive audio experience

• Best used with a premium resolving service like Real-Debrid for enhanced performance

• Located in the reputable Chains Repository

• Customizable settings to adjust categories and services

• Supports a variety of popular addons

Xontrix

7. Green Monster

Compatibility: Kodi 21 & Kodi 20

Green Monster is a visually impressive and versatile Kodi build known for its lightweight design and top-notch video add-ons.

It offers a variety of categories, making it a great choice for streaming movies, TV shows, and live channels.

The build has been around for several years and continues to receive frequent updates.

Although it may take a few minutes to set up after installation due to its slightly heavier size, the wait is worth it.

Once installed, you’ll find a wide range of content options that can be easily customized to suit your needs.

Key Features:

• Impressive user-interface with a visually appealing design

• Lightweight yet versatile with a variety of categories

• Frequently updated by developers to ensure a smooth experience

• Great for streaming movies, TV shows, and live channels

• Slightly heavier than other builds, so it may take time to set up initially

• Provides a wide range of content choices once installed

• Customizable settings to adjust to your preferences

• Top add-ons for enhanced streaming experience

Green Monster

8. Misfit Mods Lite

Compatibility: Kodi 21 Omega

Misfit Mods is back and better than ever! Known for its sleek and modern layout, this build has been a favorite among Kodi users, especially those who used it on Kodi 19 Matrix.

Now, with compatibility for Kodi 21 Omega, it’s even more accessible. Misfit Mods Lite offers thousands of on-demand movies and TV shows, along with hundreds of live channels.

It also features categories for children's shows and music, making it a versatile option for the entire family.

For an enhanced experience, integrating a premium resolving service like Premiumize, AllDebrid, or LinkSnappy is highly recommended.

Key Features:

• Sleek and modern user-interface for easy navigation

• Thousands of on-demand movies and TV shows

• Hundreds of live channels available

• Dedicated categories for children’s shows and music

• Ideal for users looking for a well-rounded build

• Best experience with Premiumize, AllDebrid, or LinkSnappy integration

• Simple installation and quick setup

• Regular updates to ensure smooth performance

Misfit Mods Lite

9. Superman

Compatibility: Kodi 21 Omega

The Superman Kodi build is a fan favorite, known for its Superman-themed interface and versatile content options. Whether you're into movies, TV shows, live channels, or sports, this build has it all.

It even features a dedicated “Marvel & DC” category for superhero content, making it a perfect choice for comic book fans.

The user interface is easy to navigate, ensuring a smooth experience on any device. For the best streaming performance, it’s recommended to integrate a cloud provider.

Key Features:

• Superman-themed interface with easy navigation

• Offers movies, TV series, live channels, sports, and a superhero-specific “Marvel & DC” category

• Smooth user experience on all devices

• Regularly updated with new content

• Works well for both beginners and experienced Kodi users

• Reliable performance with no buffering (with proper cloud integration)

• Top add-ons for enhanced streaming quality

Superman

10. Estuary Switch

Compatibility: Kodi 21 & Kodi 20

If you are like me and prefer the classic, familiar look of Kodi, Estuary Switch is the build for you. It uses the default Estuary skin, ensuring that users don’t have to adjust to a new interface.

While it doesn't offer an overwhelming number of add-ons, it includes the essentials for basic streaming needs.

The build allows users to filter content by Genre, Year, and Decade, making it easy to find what you're looking for.

Its simplicity and lightweight nature make it ideal for less powerful streaming devices, offering a smooth experience without unnecessary bloat.

Key Features:

• Classic Kodi interface with the default Estuary skin

• Easy navigation with content filtering by Genre, Year, and Decade

• Essential add-ons for basic streaming needs

• Simple and lightweight, perfect for low-powered devices

• Familiar home screen layout for quick access to media

• Great for users who prefer a minimalistic setup

• Regular updates for optimal performance

Estuary Switch

Other Notable Builds

Due to space constraints, we couldn’t go into detail about every fantastic build available. However, here are some notable builds worth checking out.

Cosmic One

A Trakt-compatible build from The Crew repo, offering categories like movies, TV shows, sports, live content, and more.

CrewNique

Found in both the Chains Build Wizard and The Crew Wizard, this build includes movies, IPTV, TV shows, and sports categories.

OneFlix

A Debrid-only build described as a “Netflix-style streaming service,” featuring notable add-ons like Ghost, AfFENity, Umbrella, and SEREN.

POVico

With an interface reminiscent of Kodi’s original aesthetic, this build focuses on movies and TV shows.

Conclusion

Choosing the best Kodi build ultimately comes down to your personal preferences and streaming needs.

Whether you’re drawn to the versatility of Diggz Xenon, the torrent-powered Burst, or the sleek interface of Aspire, there’s no shortage of excellent options to enhance your Kodi experience in 2025.

While Kodi builds are legal to install and use, it’s important to remain cautious about the content you access. 🏴‍☠️

Many builds include third-party add-ons, and users should ensure they only stream publicly available titles to stay on the right side of copyright laws.

For safety, stick to trusted sources and scan files for malware before installation. Kodi is a powerful tool, and with the right build, it can transform your media setup into a streaming powerhouse.

Enjoy exploring, and happy streaming! 🎞️

by: Community

If you're a developer or a power user, you probably understand the importance of having an efficient and organized workflow.

Whenever I get to work with a Windows-based system, I really miss the terminal emulator along with the ability to quickly switch between different terminal sessions. Not to mention, sometimes I need to gather 2-3 command sessions in a single view. There are many scenarios where I need to run multiple commands simultaneously. 

Sure, we have the command prompt, or Windows terminal to use, but it is not enough for a similar experience.

💡

Windows 11 Terminal does provide you the ability to create multiple panes within a tab. You can use the shortcut Alt + Shift + - and Alt + Shift + + to create horizontal and vertical panes, respectively.

With Linux, I had access to terminal multiplexers like tmux and screen.

But, wait, there is a solution on Windows 10 and Windows 11 that can work as a terminal multiplexer and a text editor – all in one!

Enter Emacs 🤩

Why Use Emacs as a Terminal Multiplexer?

While I have already mentioned why we are looking at a solution like Emacs, let me give highlight some more reasons you want to try this out (apart from the fact that it is open source and super awesome):

1. Less is More

Emacs is an all-in-one solution. It can work as a terminal, text editor, file manager, email client, calculator, a text-based web browser. All these features are packed in a 150 MB zipped file. Pretty crazy, right? You won't know all this until you give it a try!

2. Powerful Customization

Emacs is famously customizable. You can tweak almost everything: keybindings, window layouts, themes, and even the behavior of your terminal sessions. This allows you to tailor the environment to your exact needs, providing a highly efficient experience.

3. Integrated Shell Support

Emacs allows you to open a shell session inside a buffer, and with its support for eshell, shell, you can run shell commands, manipulate files, and perform operations right alongside your text editing. 

4. Flexibility with Windows

Emacs is great at handling multiple buffers in a single window. You can split your window into multiple panes (or "windows," as Emacs calls them), just like with tmux, enabling you to work on different tasks simultaneously without feeling cluttered.

Using Emacs as Terminal Multiplexer

Now that you know the benefits, to help you use it, let me give you a walkthrough on using Emacs as a terminal multiplexer.

Step 1: Install Winget

Winget comes as a part of the App Installer package. So, you need to first install the App Installer from Microsoft Store:

Step 2: Install Emacs on Windows 11 or Windows 10

Winget makes it super simple to install Emacs. Simply run this command:

winget install emacs

Step 3: Open Emacs 

Open Emacs from the Windows 11 Start menu.

Step 4: Run shell

Within emacs, press Alt + X, and type shell and hit Enter to get the interactive user interface.

💡

In Emacs terminology, the Alt key is often referred to as M, and Ctrl is referred to as C. I have used C, and M to represent the same throughout the article.

Now, with Emacs, you will realize the following benefits:

• A nice auto-completion system

• Ability to edit any previous command at a point

• Quickly jump between different command sessions.

Autocomplete selection

To see autocomplete in shell buffer, simply type in 'a' and then hit Tab, you’ll be presented with a list of options. You can select one of the options with a mouse click as shown above.

📋

If you see terms like C-s, or C-u, or Alt-x, read it as Ctrl + s/u or Alt + x.

To search for previous commands and outputs, hit C-s <your-term>. This is what I referred to when I mentioned consistent keybindings for all of your workflow. Within your Emacs environment, C-s will do a forward search everywhere unless you modify it.

To edit your previous commands, move your cursor to the previous command or do a quick search, make the necessary adjustments, and hit enter. 

If you want to open another shell, press C-u keys, and then Alt-x to open another shell.

By default, this buffer will be named “Shell 2”. And you can navigate between these different shells by C-x b and Tab. Use the mouse for selection. We’ll make it more efficient in the next section.

Terminal Multiplexing

Now here comes the magic. If you want to create two vertical layouts, simply use the keybinding C-x + 3. Then, if you want two horizontal layouts, use the shortcut C-x + 2.

For navigation to other panes, you can use your mouse or use Emacs shortcut
C-x + o

Auto-completion and multi-window layouts

Another quick tip. With just one line configuration, Emacs can provide useful completions based on your action with ido-mode. 

Save the line below in a new .emacs file usually located at your user C:/Users/YourUser/AppData/Roaming. After saving, you don’t need to restart Emacs.

(ido-mode 1)

Let’s enable winner-mode as well to undo and redo multi-window layouts. Add the line below to the config file like you did above:

(winner-mode 1)

Finally, save this two-line configuration

Simply, do Alt + x and then type eval-buffer.

Now with ido-mode, you can simply switch to shell 2 buffer using C-x b 2.

With winner-mode in place, if you want to get a full preview of a single pane, press C-x + 1, and then to go back to the previous layout, run

winner-undo

You can save yourself time by mapping a keybinding for winner-undo and winner-redo commands.

Keybindings Cheatsheet

Here’s a list of all keybindings we used throughout this tutorial.

💬Do you love having multiple terminal sessions as well? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Author Info

Bhuwan Mishra is a Fullstack developer, with Python and Go as his tools of choice. He takes pride in building and securing web applications, APIs, and CI/CD pipelines, as well as tuning servers for optimal performance. He also has passion for working with Kubernetes.

by: Abhishek Kumar

From the title, you might be thinking: yet another clickbait post. But I mean it when I say this, ArmSoM has truly delivered something special.

ArmSoM, yet again, has sent us their Compute Module 5 (CM5) with its IO board for review. Last time, I tested and reviewed their AIM7 board, and my head was blown by its sheer performance. With an RK3588 SoC, 8GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage, it was a beast.

This time around, we’re looking at the CM5, powered by the RK3576, a slight step down from the RK3588 but still impressive.

It comes with 8 GB of RAM (though a 16 GB version is available) and 64 GB of onboard eMMC storage. On paper, it’s shaping up to be a serious contender in the world of compute modules.

In this review, I’ll walk you through its hardware specifications, software support, benchmarks, AI capabilities, and my personal thoughts.

Let’s dive in!

CM5 Specifications

Source: ArmSoM

The ArmSoM Compute Module 5 is a compact powerhouse built around the RK3576 SoC, an octa-core processor that’s both fast and efficient.

With support up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 128GB of onboard eMMC storage, it offers twice the memory and storage options of the Raspberry Pi CM4.

What makes it even better? It uses the same 100-pin connector as the CM4, making it compatible with Raspberry Pi IO boards.

Plus, it supports 4K@120fps video output, giving you ultra-smooth visuals for high-resolution displays.

CM5-IO board Specifications

Source: ArmSoM

The CM5-IO board is designed to make the most of the CM5 module. It features an HDMI output for 4K displays, four USB 3.0 ports for peripherals, and a Gigabit Ethernet port with PoE support.

There’s also an SD Card slot and an M.2 slot for adding fast storage or PCIe devices.

With dual MIPI CSI camera interfaces and a 40-pin GPIO header, it’s perfect for projects that demand flexibility.

It’s compact, functional, and pairs seamlessly with the CM5 module to deliver a complete development platform.

Unboxing and first impression

The CM5 and its IO board arrived fully assembled, tucked neatly inside a sturdy, no-nonsense package. While the box wasn’t flashy, it did its job well, everything was secure and free of unnecessary fluff.

Sorry for the potato looking image quality

The first thing I noticed was the compactness of the CM5 module. It’s small, yet it feels solid in hand, like it means business. Looking closely, you can immediately spot the essentials: the RK3576 SoC sitting at the heart of the module, flanked by the eMMC storage chip and LPDDR5 RAM.

The layout is efficient and clean, with every component neatly placed. Even the tiny antenna connectors for Bluetooth and WiFi are exposed, ready to connect to external antennas for better wireless performance.

Flipping it over, the 100-pin connector on the back stands out.

The CM5 is designed to work seamlessly with Raspberry Pi IO boards, making it an excellent choice for anyone looking to upgrade their Pi-based projects.

ArmSoM CM5 supports Raspberry Pi IO board | Source: ArmSoM

The IO board, which came paired with the module, is equally impressive. It’s larger than the CM5 itself but just as well-built.

Ports and connectors are thoughtfully arranged, from the HDMI output and USB 3.0 ports and 40-pin GPIO header.

and don't forget that this IO board also has an M.2 slot unlike Raspberry Pi 500, which came in news with its unpopulated M.2 slot.

Setting it up

Getting started with the CM5 was refreshingly simple. The module slid perfectly into the IO board, just look for the markings on the board.

And to my surprise, this time I didn't have to rely on other sources, as ArmSoM has provided a great documentation for setup and links to all the OS images.

OS Installation & first boot

If you are coming from Raspberry Pi ecosystem, you might find it difficult to flash OS images into CM5 but during my experience with AIM7, it was an ease for me.

RKDevTool is required to flash an OS image in Rockchip devices.

Flashing Android 14 image to CM5 using RKDevTool

Debian

The CM5 came pre-installed with ArmSoM’s custom Debian image, which saved me the hassle of flashing an OS right out of the box.

When I powered it on, the board booted into Debian in under 30 seconds, thanks to the onboard eMMC storage.

However, there was a small hiccup: the default locale was set to Chinese. While this threw me off for a moment, Google Translate came to the rescue. I’ve covered a detailed guide on how to change locales in Debian.

Once the language barrier was out of the way, everything ran smoothly. The system felt responsive, and the ArmSoM image came with just the right balance of pre-installed utilities to get started without feeling bloated.

Android 14

ArmSoM doesn’t just stop at Debian; they also provide an Android 14 image for the CM5, and I couldn’t resist the idea of running Android on this tiny yet powerful board.

Installing it was straightforward, though slightly different from the usual process. Instead of burning the image to an SD card or eMMC, you need to flash it as firmware using the RKDevTool utility.

The process was smooth, and once the flashing was complete, I rebooted the system.

I was greeted with the Android boot animation, and in no time, the familiar Android home screen appeared. Interestingly, the display was in portrait mode, which felt a bit odd on my monitor but didn’t hinder functionality.

The Android image was barebones - just the essentials, nothing more. I scrolled through the settings, checked out the "About" section, and explored the file manager. It felt snappy and responsive, but that was about it.

One noticeable omission was the absence of the Google Play Store. If you’re keen on having it, you can install it using Open GApps Project.

However, since I was pressed for time, I skipped that step and instead sideloaded Geekbench for Android from APKMirror to get straight to benchmarking.

Performance testing

Now comes the most awaited section, the benchmarks!

It’s one thing to talk about specs on paper, but how does the CM5 actually perform in real-world tests? To keep things simple, here’s what I tested:

• Geekbench Performance: Evaluating CPU and overall system power.

• AI Capabilities: Testing the NPU for AI-related workloads.

• YouTube Playback: Checking video performance and hardware acceleration.

📋

The Geekbench test was conducted using the Geekbench Android app. For AI testing, I used the pre-installed Debian image. YouTube performance was tested in the Chromium browser inside Debian as well, with hardware acceleration enabled.

Geekbench results

The Geekbench results gave us a good glimpse of the CM5's raw power. With a Single-Core Score of 321 and a Multi-Core Score of 1261, the CM5 delivers solid performance.

The single-core score of 321 might seem modest, but it’s adequate for basic tasks like file compression (54.9 MB/sec) and lightweight navigation (2.34 routes/sec).

If you’re planning to use the CM5 for simple applications, like hosting a lightweight server or running scripts, this score is sufficient.

However, for tasks that demand high single-threaded performance like intensive image processing or compiling large programs, you might notice some lag.

The multi-core score of 1261 is where the RK3576 shines. This score reflects the strength of its eight cores working together, making it ideal for multitasking and workloads that can leverage parallel processing.

AI workload

The CM5’s 6 TOPS NPU is designed to handle AI inference efficiently, just like its big sibling, the AIM7.

It supports RKNN-LLM, a toolkit that enables deploying lightweight language models on Rockchip hardware with optimized performance.

Source: RKNN-LLM

To test its capabilities, I ran the TinyLLAMA model with 1.1 billion parameters, and the results were consistent with the AIM7.

The NPU achieved a throughput of 13 or 14 tokens /second , showcasing its ability to handle lightweight AI workloads with ease.

With NPU handling AI tasks, the GPU stays free for other workloads. This makes CM5 ideal for edge AI projects where efficient resource use is key.

YouTube playback

YouTube playback is my favorite test for any SBC because it’s where many boards, including the Raspberry Pi (even the Pi 5), still stumble.

Playing 1080p consistently is a challenge for most, and 4K? Forget about it. But the CM5 completely shattered my expectations.

Running Chromium on Debian with hardware acceleration enabled, I tested videos at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. The CM5 didn’t just handle it, it crushed it.

Even at 4K resolution, the playback was smooth, with less than 10 dropped frames throughout the video. That’s right, 4K on an SBC, and it worked beautifully.

What’s more impressive is how efficiently it handled the load. Thanks to hardware decoding, CPU usage stayed low, leaving the board cool and responsive.

I even recorded a video of the CM5 playing a 4K YouTube video to showcase its capabilities.

If you’re considering the CM5 for a media server or as a replacement for your Android TV box, this performance makes it an easy choice. It’s rare to see this level of multimedia smoothness on an SBC, and the CM5 delivers it effortlessly.

What about Raspberry Pi CM5?

I don't want to sugarcoat it, the Raspberry Pi CM5 outperforms the ArmSoM CM5 in raw processing power, and the benchmarks make that crystal clear.

In single-core performance, the Raspberry Pi CM5 delivers a stellar 804 compared to the ArmSoM CM5’s modest 321. That’s a difference of 39.9%, and it’s noticeable in tasks that rely on single-threaded performance, like browsing, lightweight applications, or running certain server processes.

The gap widens further in multi-core performance, where the Pi CM5 scores an impressive 1651, leaving the ArmSoM CM5 trailing at 1261 a 76.4% lead that makes the Pi CM5 the clear choice for CPU-intensive tasks.

That said, the ArmSoM CM5 isn’t trying to play the same game. It’s built with a different focus, and its strengths lie elsewhere.

The 6 TOPS NPU on the ArmSoM CM5 is a game-changer for AI workloads, allowing it to handle tasks like language models or image recognition with ease, something the Raspberry Pi CM5 lacks entirely.

Final thoughts

After spending time with the ArmSoM CM5, it’s clear that this little board has carved out its niche.

It may not outshine the Raspberry Pi CM5 in raw CPU benchmarks, but it brings its own strengths to the table.

The built-in NPU, seamless 4K playback, and thoughtful design make it a compelling choice for AI-driven edge projects, media servers, or even as a replacement for an Android TV box.

What impressed me most was its support for Raspberry Pi IO boards.

I feel that, the ArmSoM CM5 isn’t trying to be a Raspberry Pi killer. Instead, it’s a specialist board that excels in areas where the Pi falters.

As I wrap up this review, I'm also thinking about running some emulators on the CM5 to dive deeper into its GPU performance and for the fun of it.

Recently, many retro game emulation videos have been popping up in my feed, and they’re tempting me to dip my toes in.

If you want to see that, let me know in the comments section! 🕹️

by: Abhishek Kumar

Kodi is a versatile media player that can be customized to fit your needs, and one of the best ways to personalize your experience is by installing a Kodi build.

These builds come pre-configured with skins, addons, and settings that make your Kodi experience even better.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the steps of installing a Kodi build, using the Diggz Xenon Build as an example. The same method is used for installing add-ons to Kodi.

Whether you're using Kodi on a Raspberry Pi, PC, or even an Android Box, these steps will work across all devices.

Step 1: Enable unknown sources

Before we can install third-party builds, we need to allow Kodi to install from unknown sources. Here's how:

Go to Kodi's Home Screen and click the Settings Cog (top-left corner).

Select System from the options.

Scroll down and choose Add-ons. On the right side, toggle the Unknown Sources option to On. A warning message will pop up; click Yes to confirm.

We’re enabling this because Kodi doesn’t allow third-party sources by default for security reasons, but since we trust the source, we’ll proceed.

Step 2: Add the repository source

Now, we’ll add the source for the Team Crew Repository. This is where the HomeFlix and many other amazing Kodi builds reside.

Go back to the Kodi home screen and open Settings again. Select File Manager.

Click on Add Source.

In the window that appears, click on <None>.

Enter the build URL, in our case: https://team-crew.github.io and click OK.

Name the source with any name you prefer), then click OK.

Step 3: Install the build repository

Now that the source is added, we’ll install the build repository.

Return to the Kodi Settings page and click Add-ons.

a

Choose Install from Zip File.

Select the source you just added.

Click on the zip file named repository.thevrew-X.zip (X will be the version number).

Wait for the notification that says The Crew Repository Add-on Installed.

Step 4: Install the build wizard

The next step is to install the build Wizard, which will allow us to install the specific build that we want.

From the Add-ons menu, click Install from Repository.

Open the Build Repository i.e Crew repo in my case.

Select Program Add-ons.

Click on build wizard i.e. The Crew Wizard

and then select Install.

A prompt will appear asking you to confirm the installation of dependent addons. Click OK.

Wait for the installation to complete. This may take a couple of minutes.

Step 5: Install the actual build

Now we’re ready to install the actual build itself. I like Homeflix because if its familiar interface with Netflix, thus I'll be installing that.

Return to the Kodi home screen and go to Add-ons.

Select Program Add-ons

and click on Chef Wizard

Click on Build Menu.

Find and select your preffered build, I'm selecting Homeflix.

1. Click Continue and wait for the build to download and install. This may take a few minutes, so be patient.

Once the installation is complete, click OK to force close Kodi.

Step 6: Restart Kodi and Enjoy!

After the installation, simply reopen Kodi, and you’ll be greeted with the HomeFlix Build. The interface will be customized with a sleek new look, and you’ll have access to a range of addons and features.

Conclusion

Personally, I love the Homeflix Build by Team-Crew because it gives me that Netflix-like experience, which I find really comfortable.

It’s clean, visually appealing, and comes with tons of addo-ns pre-installed, including some premium ones like Debrid.

If you’re using premium services, you might need to configure those, but the build itself is a great starting point for anyone looking to get a smooth Kodi experience.

There are plenty of builds out there, each catering to different preferences. Whether you’re into movies, TV shows, live sports, or even gaming, there’s likely a Kodi build that fits your style.

I’ve already listed my favorite Kodi builds in a separate article, so be sure to check that out for more recommendations.

Best Kodi Builds to Spice Up Your Experience in 2025

Pimp your Kodi with a new skin and additional features by using one of the Kodi builds of your preference.

It's FOSSAbhishek Kumar

Explore a few options, experiment with different builds, and find the one that enhances your Kodi experience the most.

Now that you’ve got your build installed, sit back, relax, and enjoy a fully customized Kodi setup. Happy streaming!

by: Abhishek Kumar

DeepSeek has taken the AI world by storm. While it's convenient to use DeepSeek on their hosted website, we know that there's no place like 127.0.0.1. 😉

Source: The Hacker News

However, with recent events, such as a cyberattack on DeepSeek AI that has halted new user registrations, or DeepSeek AI database exposed, it makes me wonder why not more people choose to run LLMs locally.

Not only does running your AI locally give you full control and better privacy, but it also keeps your data out of someone else’s hands.

In this guide, we'll walk you through setting up DeepSeek R1 on your Linux machine using Ollama as the backend and Open WebUI as the frontend.

Let’s dive in!

📋

The DeepSeek version you will be running on the local system is a striped down version of actual DeepSeek that 'outperformed' ChatGPT. You'll need Nvidia/AMD graphics on your system to run it.

Step 1: Install Ollama

Before we get to DeepSeek itself, we need a way to run Large Language Models (LLMs) efficiently. This is where Ollama comes in.

What is Ollama?

Ollama is a lightweight and powerful platform for running LLMs locally. It simplifies model management, allowing you to download, run, and interact with models with minimal hassle.

The best part? It abstracts away all the complexities, no need to manually configure dependencies or set up virtual environments.

Installing Ollama

The easiest way to install Ollama is by running the following command in your terminal:

curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

Once installed, verify the installation:

ollama --version

Now, let's move on to getting DeepSeek running with Ollama.

Step 2: Install and run DeepSeek model

With Ollama installed, pulling and running the DeepSeek model is really simple as running this command:

ollama run deepseek-r1:1.5b

This command downloads the DeepSeek-R1 1.5B model, which is a small yet powerful AI model for text generation, answering questions, and more.

The download may take some time depending on your internet speed, as these models can be quite large.

Once the download is complete, you can interact with it immediately in the terminal:

But let’s be honest, while the terminal is great for quick tests, it’s not the most polished experience. It would be better to use a Web UI with Ollama. While there are many such tools, I prefer Open WebUI.

12 Tools to Provide a Web UI for Ollama

Don’t want to use the CLI for Ollama for interacting with AI models? Fret not, we have some neat Web UI tools that you can use to make it easy!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

Step 3: Setting up Open WebUI

Open WebUI provides a beautiful and user-friendly interface for chatting with DeepSeek. There are two ways to install Open WebUI:

• Direct Installation (for those who prefer a traditional setup)

• Docker Installation (my personal go-to method)

Don't worry, we'll be covering both.

Method 1: Direct installation

If you prefer a traditional installation without Docker, follow these steps to set up Open WebUI manually.

Step 1: Install python & virtual environment

First, ensure you have Python installed along with the venv package for creating an isolated environment.

Run the following command:

sudo apt install python3-venv -y

This installs the required package for managing virtual environments.

Step 2: Create a virtual environment

Next, create a virtual environment inside your home directory:

python3 -m venv ~/open-webui-venv

and then activate the virtual environment we just created:

source ~/open-webui-venv/bin/activate

You'll notice your terminal prompt changes, indicating that you’re inside the virtual environment.

Step 4: Install Open WebUI

With the virtual environment activated, install Open WebUI by running:

pip install open-webui

This downloads and installs Open WebUI along with its dependencies.

Step 5: Run Open WebUI

To start the Open WebUI server, use the following command:

open-webui serve

Once the server starts, you should see output confirming that Open WebUI is running.

Step 6: Access Open WebUI in your browser

Open your web browser and go to: http://localhost:8080

You'll now see the Open WebUI interface, where you can start chatting with DeepSeek AI!

Method 2: Docker installation (Personal favorite)

If you haven't installed Docker yet, no worries! Check out our step-by-step guide on how to install Docker on Linux before proceeding.

Once that's out of the way, let's get Open WebUI up and running with Docker.

Step 1: Pull the Open WebUI docker image

First, download the latest Open WebUI image from Docker Hub:

docker pull ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main

This command ensures you have the most up-to-date version of Open WebUI.

Step 2: Run Open WebUI in a docker container

Now, spin up the Open WebUI container:

docker run -d \
  -p 3000:8080 \
  --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway \
  -v open-webui:/app/backend/data \
  --name open-webui \
  --restart always \
  ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main

Don’t get scared looking at that big, scary command. Here’s what each part of the command actually does:

Step 3: Access Open WebUI in your browser

Now, open your web browser and navigate to: http://localhost:8080 .You should see Open WebUI's interface, ready to use with DeepSeek!

Once you click on "Create Admin Account," you'll be welcomed by the Open WebUI interface.

Since we haven't added any other models yet, the DeepSeek model we downloaded earlier is already loaded and ready to go.

Just for fun, I decided to test DeepSeek AI with a little challenge. I asked it to: "Write a rhyming poem under 20 words using the words: computer, AI, human, evolution, doom, boom."

And let's just say… the response was a bit scary. 😅

Here's the full poem written by DeepSeek R1:

Conclusion

And there you have it! In just a few simple steps, you’ve got DeepSeek R1 running locally on your Linux machine with Ollama and Open WebUI.

Whether you’ve chosen the Docker route or the traditional installation, the setup process is straightforward, and should work on most Linux distributions.

So, go ahead, challenge DeepSeek to write another quirky poem, or maybe put it to work on something more practical. It’s yours to play with, and the possibilities are endless.

For instance, I recently ran DeepSeek R1 on my Raspberry Pi 5, while it was a bit slow, it still got the job done.

Who knows, maybe your next challenge will be more creative than mine (though, I’ll admit, that poem about "doom" and "boom" was a bit eerie! 😅).

Enjoy your new local AI assistant, and happy experimenting! 🤖

by: Abhishek Prakash

Happy new year 2025 🥳

The Tuxmas Days continue in full swing. Main highlights are:

Tuxmas Day 3 introduced the new commenting system. You'll see it in action when you leave a comment on the website.

Tuxmas Day 4 introduced the lifetime membership option. Instead of a recurring fee, you get the Plus membership forever with a single payment of $76 till 7th January. After that it will be $99. If you wanted to support It's FOSS with Plus membership, this would be the best time and chance 🙏

Tuxmas Day 5 has Linux Terminal and Bash series converted into downloadable PDF eBook.

Follow the entire Tuxmas series here. And your feedback is greatly appreciated.

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

• Serpent OS's alpha release.

• An open source 3D printer.

• Rediscovering an operating system.

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

📰 Linux and Open Source News

• Serpent OS Alpha is out for testing with new hardware support.

• GNOME's new image viewer is set to receive some handy upgrades.

• A new open source 3D printer has appeared, can be built using off-the-shelf parts.

• NVIDIA says that it will open source Run:ai, a platform that it is said to have acquired for $700M.

And finally, open source tools are adding AI features. Better late than never.

Kdenlive is Adding an AI Background Removal Tool

You can easily remove backgrounds with this new tool.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

What's your new year resolution?

My Linux and Open Source Resolutions for 2025

Here’s what I have decided for 2025. What are your resolutions?

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

Ankush's favorite distro of 2024 is one that you might not have expected.

My Favorite Linux Distro for 2024 is Not Ubuntu, Not Mint, It’s This

Revealing my favorite Linux distribution before 2024 ends.

It's FOSS NewsAnkush Das

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Start 2025 with some good note-taking apps.

• If you were looking to distro hop, you could take ArchBang Linux for a run.

• Following that, you could learn how to use the apt search and apt show commands in Ubuntu.

And if you are still unfamiliar with the Linux command line, use the new year motivation and get acquainted with the essentials in this series.

Linux Command Line Introduction [Free Course]

Want to know the basics of the Linux command line? Here’s a tutorial series with a hands-on approach.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

Your homelab will thank you for using a dashboard tool to manage it effectively.

Imagine that the genius minds like Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan and Bjarne Stroustrup collaborated on a new operating system and yet it flopped.

Rediscovering Plan9 from Bell Labs

An OS that was developed by the likes of Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Bjarne Stroustrup and yet it did not achieve the success.

It's FOSSBill Dyer

📹 Videos we are watching

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, too

✨ Discover handy tools

A dope looking GUI-based system monitor for Linux.

NeoHtop - Modern System Monitor

A beautiful, efficient system monitor built with Rust and Svelte. Monitor processes, CPU, and memory usage in real-time.

NeoHtopYour Name

🧩 Quiz Time

Call yourself a terminal junkie? Find the wrong paths with this puzzle.

Find The Wrong Path

Spot what’s wrong, and solve the quizzes!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

If that's too tricky, then you can try your hand at the Essential Ubuntu Shortcuts puzzle.

💡 Quick Handy Tip

In a terminal, you might already know that you can select a word by double-clicking on it.

However, if you hold the Shift key and left-click on another word after that, all the text between the first and last selected text will also be highlighted. No need to manually drag the cursor to select those.

It may not work in all the terminal emulators (i.e. terminal applications).

🤣 Meme of the Week

Oh, that would be something. 🤌 ✨

🗓️ Tech Trivia

On December 31, 1889, American Bell reorganized and transferred its assets to AT&T to bypass Massachusetts laws. By becoming the parent company, AT&T took control of the Bell System. This move eventually led to AT&T becoming a legalized monopoly in the U.S.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

What was your favorite distro in 2024? Join other FOSSers and share yours!

What’s your favourite Linux distro? Why do you use that one?

You have to move with the times. When you retire you may have the luxury of doing it your way. Snaps are like static binaries, but with some extra crud to fit them into the package system. I dont see why they should startup slowly… there must be some clunky scripts involved. A static binary is large, but not so large that it would affect load time. I have one app (keenwrite) that comes as a static binary… it loads quite fast and my machine is rather like your Dell with early corei7 and…

It's FOSS Communitynevj

❤️ With love

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Share the articles in Linux Subreddits and community forums.

Follow us on Google News and stay updated in your News feed.

Opt for It's FOSS Plus membership and support us 🙏

Enjoy using Linux in 2025 🐧

by: Abhishek Prakash

If you are starting to use and learn Linux, remember this:

• Linux is not magic 🪄

• It's sudo science 🔬

Okay...sorry... my dad jokes urges get the better of me at times 😁

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

• Cropping a video in VLC (no, seriously)

• Cloning SD card in Raspberry Pi

• Modern terminals with modern features

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

• This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by PikaPods.

📰 Linux and Open Source News

• DietPi's new release supports Pi-hole v6

• Nextcloud Hub 10 is available now

• Mozilla introduces 'terms of use' for Firefox

Answering the difficult question. Is Linux any better for gaming in 2025?

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

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

The RSS feed matters more than ever.

• Why I Still Love and Use RSS Feeds in 2025

• RSS feeds are classic. And surprisingly, they are still relevant in 2025.

It's FOSS NewsAbhishek

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Cropping a video in VLC: is that even a thing?

• See the devices connected to your local network on Linux

• Although I prefer using yay, here are some other AUR helpers, Arch users.

Here are some modern Linux terminals with not-so-traditional features.

7 Linux Terminals From the Future

Just when I thought the terminals cannot be innovated, there is an influx of modern terminal emulators with interesting new features.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

The easiest way to back up your Raspberry Pi is by cloning it. Am I right?

• Clone Existing Raspberry Pi OS to a Bigger SD Card

• Need more space on your Pi? How about cloning it to a bigger SD card? Here’s how to do that.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

✨ Apps highlight

Alright! Obsidian is not open source but it is awesome.

• Obsidian Review: Notion Alternative for the Markdown Pros

• This second brain tool has taken the first brain of Markdown lovers by storm.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

🛍️ Deal Ending Soon

And I know there is Logseq, its open source alternative. Between you and me, we have a tutorial series planned on Logseq, covering its features and tips on using it.

15 Linux and DevOps books for just $18 plus your purchase supports Code for America organization. Get them on Humble Bundle.

Humble Tech Book Bundle: Linux from Beginner to Professional by O’Reilly

Learn Linux with ease using this library of coding and programming courses by O’Reilly. Pay what you want & support Code For America.

Humble Bundle

📽️ Video I am Creating for You

It's a small topic but often confuses the Arch beginners.

Subscribe to It's FOSS YouTube Channel

🧩 Quiz Time

Test your Linux file permission knowledge by taking this quiz.

• Linux File Permission

• The Linux file permission is an important concept to know about. Test your knowledge.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

💡 Quick Handy Tip

In Nautilus file manager (GNOME's file explorer), you can use the Shortcut CTRL + S to start a quick "Select Items Matching".

In the dialog box, enter the glob pattern matching, like *.png to select all PNG files, or *.txt to match all txt files.

🤣 Meme of the Week

I laughed harder than I should have on this meme. If you know Linux Mint, you would laugh too.

And if you are interested, learn the logic behind the codenames of popular distro releases.

🗓️ Tech Trivia

The first web browser was introduced by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web on 26th Feb 1991. It was named WorldWideWeb at first but renamed later to Nexus to avoid the confusion.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

FOSSers are discussing the future 🖲️

In 50 years, what will our computers look like?

Imagine, it’s the mid-term future. What will desktop computers look like? What specs will they have?

It's FOSS Communityxahodo

❤️ With love

Share it with your Linux-using friends and encourage them to subscribe (hint: it's here).

Share the articles in Linux Subreddits and community forums.

Follow us on Google News and stay updated in your News feed.

Opt for It's FOSS Plus membership and support us 🙏

Enjoy FOSS 😄

by: Abhishek Prakash

Pay attention if you use Amazon Kindle. Starting 26th Feb, Amazon won't allow 'Download and transfer via USB' feature anymore. That's the feature people used to download the Kindle books they purchased and convert them to EPUB or PDF to read on other eBook readers like Kobo or their computers. In other words, your Kindle purchases will be restricted completely for Kindle devices.

If you want the control of your Kindle purchased books, take action and download the books before the deadline, remove DRM and convert them to PDF or EPUB.

Use Calibre to Remove DRM from Kindle Books and Convert to PDF

Own your content by removing DRM from Kindle books with the help of open source tool Calibre.

It's FOSSSagar Sharma

If you have hundreds of Kindle books, there is a script that can be used to download them in bulk. I have not tested it yet.

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

• GNOME's website getting a makeover.

• Fedora being threatened with a lawsuit.

• openSUSE making waves with recent moves.

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

• This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by ANY.RUN.

❇️ Sandbox to Rescue

Infosec head at an EU bank shared insights on how they:

• Prevent hundreds of potential security incidents every year  

• Stay lean and efficient with limited resources

• Help the business avoid cyber attacks and protect clients

Must-read for all security professionals operating on a tight budget.

How I Used a Sandbox to Strengthen Bank’s Security

Discover how an investment bank cut threat response time in half and prevented hundreds of security incidents with ANY.RUN’s sandbox.

ANY.RUN's Cybersecurity BlogName

📰 Linux and Open Source News

• GNOME's website has received a complete revamp.

• AI-powered edit predictions have arrived on Zed editor.

• openSUSE has decided to ditch AppArmor for Tumbleweed.

• They are also considering dropping Legacy BIOS support for Leap and SLES.

• Nitrux has introduced a new kernel builder tool for Debian-based distros.

• Popular system stability testing and monitoring tool OCCT has arrived on Linux.

And we gear up for the Ubuntu 25.04 release.

Ubuntu 25.04 Features and Release Date: Here’s What You Need to Know

Here are the best Ubuntu 25.04 features.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

The string of dramas in the Linux space don't seem to stop, huh? This time, it is Fedora getting threatened with a lawsuit by OBS Studio.

Open Sue! OBS Studio Threatens Fedora With Legal Action

Another day, another Linux-related drama. This time, it’s OBS Studio and Fedora going at it.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Setting up Conky on Ubuntu is quite straightforward.

• We debunk the most common myths surrounding Linux.

• Learn how to always keep a window on top in GNOME.

• Using the night light feature on Linux Mint.

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

Sharing my experience of using this unusual device that converts an SBC into a laptop.

CrowView Note: Turning Raspberry Pi into a Laptop, Sort of

A highly crowdfunded device to add a portable workstation to your Raspberry Pi and other SBCs.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

And a little about running a LLM locally as a coding assistant in VS Code.

✨ Apps highlight

Plank Reloaded is a modern successor to the beloved Plank dock.

Plank Reloaded is a Fresh Take on the Classic Dock Experience

Plank Reloaded aims to refine what the classic Plank dock offered by staying simple but with a modern take on it.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

Who needs a GUI to listen to music when you could use kew?

🛍️ Deal You Would Love

15 Linux and DevOps books for just $18 plus your purchase supports Code for America organization. Get them on Humble Bundle.

Humble Tech Book Bundle: Linux from Beginner to Professional by O’Reilly

Learn Linux with ease using this library of coding and programming courses by O’Reilly. Pay what you want & support Code For America.

Humble Bundle

📽️ Video We are Creating for You

Subscribe to It's FOSS YouTube Channel

🧩 Quiz Time

Call yourself a Fedora buff? Prove it by beating this quiz.

Fedora Trivia Quiz

An enjoyable trivia quiz about Fedora Linux.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

💡 Quick Handy Tip

With the Extensions List GNOME extension, you can toggle extensions, access their settings, visit its home page, etc. right from the top panel. There is no need to open an additional extension app like Extension Manager.

You can install the Extensions List extension and get started right away.

🤣 Meme of the Week

We all have that friend. 😆

🗓️ Tech Trivia

February 15, 1999, marked Windows Refund Day, when Linux users staged protests outside Microsoft offices in the San Francisco Bay Area. The event aimed to raise awareness of Microsoft’s practice of bundling Windows with PCs and not offering refunds.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

Pro FOSSer Neville shares his experience with Meld. Have you used it before?

Meld is very useful for programming work

I have been editing some R code . I work in a temporary copy, in an R workspace. I have some modifications ready… I want to add them to the new version, but I cant simply copy in the .R files, because my temporary workspace is out of date. So I have to re-edit all the changes into the new version’s files. Here is how You can see my workspace screeen with a terminal for editing the new version on the left. On the right top you see a meld screen, comparing the new version file with the te…

It's FOSS Communitynevj

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Share it with your Linux-using friends and encourage them to subscribe (hint: it's here).

Share the articles in Linux Subreddits and community forums.

Follow us on Google News and stay updated in your News feed.

Opt for It's FOSS Plus membership and support us 🙏

Enjoy FOSS 😄

by: Abhishek Prakash

I would appreciate your feedback on something 'new'. I plan to add pages that let you discover applications based on certain criteria.

It's a work in progress, but feel free to have a look and share your opinion 🙏

Discover Interesting Linux Terminal Tools

Discover a selection of interesting tools and utilities you can use from the (dis)comfort of your terminal.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

Would you like to see more pages like this?

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

• Upgrading to Mint 22.1.

• Flathub introducing a new section.

• Linux powering NVIDIA's Project DIGITS.

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

• This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by ANY.RUN.

✨ANY.RUN: Business-Ready Interactive Linux Malware Analysis

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• Quick setup gets you started instantly

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📰 Linux and Open Source News

• Rhino Linux 2025.1 is now available.

• Intel's Tofino P4 has been open sourced.

• Flathub has made it easy to find mobile apps on the platform.

• NVIDIA Project DIGITS is a supercomputer that is powered by Linux

• Upgrading to Mint 22.1 from Mint 22.

• WINE 10.0 is now available.

Linux kernel 6.13 is a major upgrade with many changes.

Linux Kernel 6.13 Released: Here’s What’s New!

AMD users and old Apple device owners, this is a good release for you!

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

This is not how you 'force implement' cloud features.

Bambu Lab Firmware Fiasco Has Caused Rifts In The 3D Printing Community

Bambu Labs has found themselves in a tough spot.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

Hindenburg Research closing up shop has resulted in an interesting outcome.

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Hyprland series sees the addition of two new tutorials; grouping items in Waybar and screenshots utilities in Hyprland.

• WSL tutorial series has also been reorganized.

• Spice up your Kodi setup with these stunning builds!

• Not the true measure, but this trick lets you have some ideas about how long it takes to boot your Linux system.

Blend in with the crowd with these jargons.

21 Jargon Every Linux User Should Know

Even if you don’t know Linux well enough, you should know these common terms to blend in ;)

It's FOSSAnkush Das

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

Tinker right out of the box with these 7 Raspberry Pi laptops and tablets.

7 Raspberry Pi-Based Laptops and Tablets for Tinkerers

Raspberry-powered laptops and tablets can be the perfect pick for your projects, and portable computing needs. Here’s a list of options.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

Tip on monitoring the CPU and GPU temperature of your Raspberry Pi.

📹 Videos we are creating

Take a look at the new features in the new Mint 22.1 Xia.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

✨ Apps of the Week

Text Pieces is a neat app that acts as a scratchpad for developers.

Text Pieces: A Rust-based Open Source App to Help Devs With Text Transformations

A handy little scratchpad app for developers.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

Managing your finances is crucial, My Expenses makes it simple.

🛍️Deal You Would Love

If you are looking for a career in IT with Linux, Cloud and DevOps, Linux Foundation's training and certifications (LFCS, CKA etc) are on a limited time discount.

Check Linux Foundation Offer

🧩 Quiz Time

This time it's a crossword on Linux terminal emulators.

Linux Terminal Emulators: Crossword

Let’s explore some Linux terminal emulators with this crossword.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

💡 Quick Handy Tip

In KDE Plasma, you can add some additional effects to the Breeze window decorations using system settings. First, go to System Settings, then go to Colors & Themes → Window Decorations.

Here, click on the edit icon near the Breeze theme to get more options, where a new settings dialog should appear. You can do appearance changes like title alignment, shadows and outline, button size tweaks, etc.

This might work with other Plasma themes too.

🤣 Meme of the Week

Do you also feel the same way?

🗓️ Tech Trivia

The Macintosh, launched on January 24, 1984, was the first successful computer with a mouse and graphical user interface. It revolutionized personal computing by making technology more accessible. Its debut was marked by Apple’s iconic “1984” Super Bowl commercial.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

Pro FOSSer, Jimmy, shares how he is impressed by Atuin.

Atuin Rocks!: Fuzzy Search for Bash History

Hey everyone, Around mid November I decided to try Atuin: Github link. Atuin replaces your shell history with an SQLite database. You can also set it up so that your fully encrypted history is synchronized between different machines*. Before this, while I used the shell history, I cannot say that I was very good at it. If it had been a long time since I had run the command, I was usually better off just trying to figure out what I ran before by typing it out. Of course, sometimes I would have…

It's FOSS CommunityAkatama

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Share the articles in Linux Subreddits and community forums.

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Opt for It's FOSS Plus membership and support us 🙏

Enjoy FOSS 😄

by: Abhishek Prakash

In the previous newsletter, I shared the new tools directory page proposal and asked for your feedback. From the responses I got, an overwhelming majority of FOSSers liked this idea.

So I'll work on such pages. Since I want them to have some additional features, they will take a little longer. I'll inform you once they are live. Stay tuned 😄

Would you like to see more pages like this?

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

• A new Hyprland release.

• FSF's new commemorative logo.

• Microsoft's popular offering being handed a lawsuit.

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

• This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by ONLYOFFICE.

✨ONLYOFFICE PDF Editor: Create, Edit and Collaborate on PDFs on Linux

The ONLYOFFICE suite now offers an updated PDF editor that comes equipped with collaborative PDF editing and other useful features.

Deploy ONLYOFFICE Docs on your Linux server and integrate it with your favourite platform, such as Nextcloud, ownCloud, Drupal, Moodle, WordPress, Redmine and more. Alternatively, you can download the free desktop app for your Linux distro.

Online PDF editor, reader and converter | ONLYOFFICE

View and create PDF files from any text document, spreadsheet or presentation, convert PDF to DOCX online, create fillable PDF forms.

ONLYOFFICE

📰 Linux and Open Source News

• Hyprland 0.47.0 released with HDR support and squircles.

• Bitwarden has tightened security for accounts without 2FA enabled.

• Mozilla Thunderbird 134 has landed with a new notification system.

• A few offers on Data Privacy Day.

• Microsoft has launched DocumentDB, an open source document store platform.

• The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has unveiled a fresh logo to commemorate its forthcoming 40th anniversary.

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

Facebook is banning the links from many Linux websites.

Everything is Spam on Facebook Unless It is Paid Post (or Actual Spam)

Linux websites are getting ill-treatment by Facebook.

It's FOSS News Abhishek

Microsoft's popular social media platform, LinkedIn, has been dragged to court over alleged misuse of user data.

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Moving away from Google's ecosystem is a smart move in the long run.

• You can share files between guest and host operating system in GNOME boxes.

• Small tip on tracking changes and version control with LibreOffice.

• Learn to merge PDF files in Linux.

• And some tips on customizing the launcher in Ubuntu.

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

Running the impressive DeepSeek R1 AI model on a Raspberry Pi 5 is possible.

I Ran Deepseek R1 on Raspberry Pi 5 and No, it Wasn’t 200 tokens/s

Everyone is seeking Deepseek R1 these days. Is it really as good as everyone claims? Let me share my experiments of running it on a Raspberry Pi.

It's FOSSAbhishek Kumar

✨ Apps highlight

If you like listening to audiobooks, then Cozy can be a great addition to your Linux system.

Cozy: A Super Useful Open Source Audiobook Player for Linux

Cozy makes audiobook listening easy with simple controls and an intuitive interface.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

Take your music anywhere with the open source Musify app.

🛍️ Deal You Would Love

15 Linux and DevOps books for just $18 plus your purchase supports Code for America organization. Get them on Humble Bundle.

Humble Tech Book Bundle: Linux from Beginner to Professional by O’Reilly

Learn Linux with ease using this library of coding and programming courses by O’Reilly. Pay what you want & support Code For America.

Humble Bundle

🎟️ Event alert

Foss FEST 2025 is open for registration. Groups of international students can participate in the hackathon and win prizes worth 4,000 euros. It's FOSS is an official media partner for this event.

Foss FEST 2025: International Hackathon

OpenSource Science B.V.

🧩 Quiz Time

Can you beat this Linux Directory Structure puzzle?

Linux Directory Structure: Puzzle

The Linux directory structure is fascinating and an important thing to know about. Take a guess to solve this puzzle!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

💡 Quick Handy Tip

You can easily open new windows for running apps by either Middle-Clicking or Ctrl+Left-Clicking on the app from the dock. It also works for apps that are not running.

Usually, the apps open in the same workspace, however in multi-monitor setups, this might open new app windows on the other monitor.

🤣 Meme of the Week

Windows got destroyed hard. 🤭

🗓️ Tech Trivia

Apple launched the iPad on April 3, 2010, redefining mobile computing with its touch-based, versatile design. It bridged the gap between smartphones and laptops, setting the standard for tablets. The iPad's success has reshaped the tech world and inspired countless imitators.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

Pro FOSSer, Daniel is showcasing his Gentoo virtual machine setup on his laptop.

Gentoo vm install on my laptop

Up early this morning putting the finishing touches to Gentoo VM, to reboot to the CLI!! I have compiled two kernels, a gentoo-source, that I did a manual compile and a gentoo-kernel-dis for backup!! If the gentoo-source kernel works, I will nuke the gentoo-kernel. Just for fun, take a look-see Been awhile since we have had a 8 inch snow!!!

It's FOSS CommunityDaniel_Phillips

❤️ With love

Share it with your Linux-using friends and encourage them to subscribe (hint: it's here).

Share the articles in Linux Subreddits and community forums.

Follow us on Google News and stay updated in your News feed.

Opt for It's FOSS Plus membership and support us 🙏

Enjoy FOSS 😄

by: Abhishek Prakash

The brilliance and curiosity of some people amazes me. Take this person who managed to run Linux inside a PDF file 🫡

Wow! You Can Now Run Linux Inside a PDF

Yes, you read that right.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

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

• Debian logging off X/Twitter.

• Installing DeepSeek R1 locally on Linux.

• Doom running on Android 16's Linux Terminal.

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

• This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by PikaPods.

❇️ PikaPods: Enjoy Self-hosting Hassle-free

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. PikaPods also share revenue with the original developers of the software.

You 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

• An official Arch Linux WSL image is in the works.

• Debian has stopped publishing content on X/Twitter and it created a controversy.

• Running Doom on Android 16's Linux Terminal is possible.

• Fedora's KDE Plasma Desktop has been promoted to Edition.

• The sole maintainer of the Linux wireless networking drivers has stepped down.

GTK set to drop support for X11 and Broadway

GTK Drops X11!

And Broadway Support, Lays the Foundation for New Android Backend

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

The Video Game History Foundation is giving people early access to their archive of research materials on video game history.

The VGHF Library opens in early access | Video Game History Foundation

For free. For everyone. Wherever you are.

Video Game History FoundationPhil Salvador

Development of Serpent OS has slowed down considerably due to funding issues.

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

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A common issue these days is missing Windows from Grub in a fresh dual boot setup. The fix is easy.

Missing Windows from Grub After Dual Boot? Here’s What You Can Do

Can’t see Windows in Grub after successfully dual booting? That’s because os-prober is disabled. Here’s how to fix it.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

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by: Abhishek Prakash

One of the issues I encountered after dual booting Windows with Linux is the missing Windows entry from the grub menu.

Here's the scenario. Windows was present on the computer. I installed CachyOS alongside Windows. I selected to install the Grub bootloader that allows booting into Linux, Windows (and any other OS present on the system) along with the option to access UEFI.

Only this time, Grub did not show Windows in the menu 😔

Missing Windows from Grub bootloader

That was disappointing but not surprising because I am aware that this is a feature.

Let me show you how you can fix this by enabling os-prober feature in Grub and then updating it.

Step 1: Enable os-prober in grub

Grub config file is located at /etc/default/grub. If you open it via Nano or some editor, you'll see at the end of this file that os-prober is disabled by default sighting security reasons.

If you are familiar with any terminal-based text editor, use it to uncomment the line # GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false by removing the # at the beginning of the line.

However, if you are absolutely new to the command line, you can use this command in the terminal:

echo "GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false" | sudo tee -a /etc/default/grub

It will ask for your password. It should be the same account password you use to log in to the system.

🚧

When you type the password in Linux terminal, nothing is reflected on the screen. It feels as if your system is hanged, as there is no visible feedback. Don't worry. It's a security feature and most Linux terminals won't even show asterisks (*) as you enter the password. Just type it in and enter.

With os-prober enabled, Grub will look for the presence of other operating systems in EFI folder and will add them in the bootloader menu.

There is one little problem. The config changes won't take place unless you update grub.

Step 2: Update grub

On Ubuntu and some other distributions, there is a dedicated command to update grub:

sudo update-grub

However, on Arch and some other distributions, you'll end up with update-grub command not found error.

That's because update-grub is not a standard command. It is just la stub for this command:

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Run the above command if your system doesn't have update-grub.

It should show an output like this:

And as you can see in the above output, grub is probing for other OS and has found Windows boot manager. This is an indication that when you reboot the system, grub should show Windows in the available option.

And Windows is back in Grub

Still no Windows boot manager?

See, this method only works when dual boot succeeded properly and you have all EFI settings located in the same folder under the same ESP partition.

If that's not the case, you could try accessing the UEFI settings, go to boot order. Windows boot manager should be present there and if you move it up the order, you can boot from it into Windows.

This is not the most convenient option, I understand but it's a workaround until you figure out why Grub bootloader could not see Windows.

💡 Bonus tip: The time synchronization issue

Since we are discussing dual booting Windows and Linux, let me share another potential issue you'll encounter. You'll notice that system time changes when you switch between Windows and Linux. You can fix it, if you want.

[Solved] Wrong Time in Windows 10 After Dual Boot With Linux

If you dual boot Windows and Linux, you’ll notice that often one of them shows incorrect time. Here’s why that happens and what you can do to fix it.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

💬 I hope this little trick helps you get a better dual booting experience. Let me know in the comments if you were able to get Windows back in Grub.