FOSS Roundup #7 - M1, Gaming, Docs, and More!

Sean Davis
Newsletter
March 20, 2022

Table of Contents

It’s been another exciting week in the Linux landscape, with Linux support arriving for the M1 and gaming on Linux continuing to expand thanks to the Steam Deck. Around Xubuntu, docs are done, and AppImage continues to be supported. As usual, Xfce has a few new releases as well. All this and more in this week’s FOSS Roundup!

The first Asahi Linux alpha release arrives

The first release of Asahi Linux, the first distribution for M1-powered Macs, has been made available. There are still many missing features, but even just getting here is incredible. This team has made so much progress in a very short time. Interestingly, Apple has, at the same time, been quietly enabling features to support booting Linux on the M1 Macs.

Microsoft is working to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to Steam Deck

Working closely with Valve, Microsoft has prepared a beta version of the Microsoft Edge browser that brings the cloud gaming service to Linux and the Steam Deck. A handful of Microsoft-published verified titles are also available on Steam.

The new Xubuntu Documentation is finally ready

After nearly two years, the newly rewritten Xubuntu Documentation is ready to be reviewed, merged, and published. Together with another Xubuntu Team member, I worked with members of the community to document Xubuntu’s user experience more completely. The most painful part of it all was converting to DocBook, our native documentation format. This part is now complete.

It’s finally done. 🎉 https://t.co/k7a2bP6sYH https://t.co/jinkuoI6ZV
I’m so tired of working with Docbook. pic.twitter.com/k0rmta101k
— Sean Davis 🦣 @bluesabre@floss.social (@bluesabredavis) March 19, 2022

Supporting AppImage on Xubuntu

While installing Xubuntu 22.04 on my main machine for testing, I found that it could no longer open software distributed with AppImage. This includes .run and .AppImage files that you might find online, like DaVinci Resolve or Cryptomator. The missing piece was the libfuse2 package, which was no longer pulled in as a dependency in 22.04. As of today’s daily ISO, this issue should be resolved for Xubuntu and Ubuntu Studio.

http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/universe/x/xubuntu-meta/xubuntu-meta_2.240/changelog

This week’s Xfce releases

libxfce4ui 4.17.5 was released this week, including several bug fixes and enabling Mousepad to use the XfceShortcutsEditor. Sounds like some nice new features are on their way.

Orage 4.16.0, previously unmaintained and archived, has now been ported to GTK 3 and is once again an active Xfce project. The Orage panel plugin has been discontinued, but the standalone calendar application will be supported going forward.

What I’m working on…

With the documentation updates nearly out of the way and bug lists cleaned up, I hope to start working on bug fixes and more testing this week. We’ve also nearly completed voting on the 22.04 Xubuntu Wallpaper contest, with 3 clearly identified winners and three we’re sorting out. Look for more news early this week.