Table of Contents

Welcome From The Chief Editor

1. Getting To Know You: Hunter0one

2. Wiki Pick: The 10 Commandments For Linux Users

3. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner — Sour Cream Noodle Bake

4. ICYMI: Just Over 50 Percent Of The Internet Is Now AI Slop

5. Why I Fell In Love With Linux, And Why PCLinuxOS Magazine Feels Like Home

6. I Asked An AI Bot

7. GIMP Tutorial: Make An Image Seem To Fly Apart

8. We Support Your Freedom — Support The Licensing & Compliance Lab

9. Tip Top Tips: Autofs For NFS Shares

10. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus — Instant Pot Honey Garlic Pork Tenderloin

11. Inspiration & Motivation

12. PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

13. Screenshot Showcase

From The Chief Editor's Desk...

We signed our kids up for karate classes last March. The AKKA school in our area had the best prices, so we enrolled them in their Kenpo Kids program. Come sometime this January, they will have earned their black belts in the Kenpo Kids program, and will graduate to the Junior’s curriculum as gold belt students. They have done AMAZING.

When we took the kids to their first session, Ryan was gung-ho. Lexi however, went kicking and screaming. She kept saying “but I want to do dance!” We told her it was a lot like a dance, and that she should give it a try. And, once she tried it, she loved it. Now, both kids are eager for the twice-a-week lessons, and can’t wait to get in there and learn new karate moves. Lexi has even recruited her best friend from school to join her in the karate lessons.

Sitting on the sidelines watching the kids, I started thinking that maybe this was my opportunity to also learn karate. I had always wanted to learn it, but when I was growing up, my folks could never afford it. I also couldn’t afford it when I moved out on my own, either. Unbeknownst to me, my wife was thinking the same thing. So, we inquired about signing up for the senior’s program (for those 18 years of age and older … yep …. I qualify).

So, my wife and I started the program in May. It has been fun … and challenging. All through school in my younger years, I was the prototypical “nerd,” always opting for more “cerebral” pursuits. I had not even had a PE class past the seventh grade. I was the school newspaper and yearbook photographer who took pictures of the other students who were participating in sports (and other things). So, it was a HUGE adjustment for me, never having been involved in ANY kind of organized physical fitness program, much less one as regimented as karate classes.

After a couple of weeks, my wife and I earned our white belts. A few months later, we tested for our gold belts (the belt ranks are white, gold, orange, purple, blue, green, brown (three tiers), and black (10 tiers)). We are both now working towards our orange belts.

The owner and master instructor at our school is an 8th degree black belt, working towards his 9th degree black belt. His instructors range from blue belts up to 4th degree black belts. Our instructors have been very patient with us, as we get used to the program and as we overcome the obstacles we have inflicted upon ourselves.

At 65 years old, I am one of the oldest students in the school, so I also have to deal with problems that many of the younger students don’t have to contend with. For me, a huge one is arthritis from my toes to my neck. When I was in elementary and middle school, I was a literal sit-up machine. Now, thanks to the arthritis, I can’t even do one legitimate, proper sit-up. I replace the sit-ups (with my instructor’s approval) with abdominal crunches. It also doesn’t help that I seem to have an advanced case of CRS when it comes to karate class. Replace “stuff” in the “polite” version that I linked to with another word that’s a common slang term that smells bad and begins with “S” to grasp my intended meaning.

One of the things that I noticed early on when taking the kids to their lessons are all of the inspirational and motivational messages that line the walls of the dojo. While some are focused on karate, most of them are messages that are applicable to many different facets of life. So, our newest monthly column, “Inspiration & Motivation,” reproduces many of those messages for the readers of this magazine. You’ll be seeing them in the months to come. I have enough to last for quite a few years, in fact. I wanted to find a way to share these impactful messages with our readers.

********************

This month’s cover features an image from Pixabay artist Gordon Johnson. I found it fitting to usher in the New Year.

********************

Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity, prosperity, and continued good health!

Getting To Know You: Hunter0one

by Artim

About Hunter (from his website):

My username is hunter0one, but you can call me Hunter. Why hunter0one, you may ask? I picked hunter0one because I was born in 2001 and so naturally I would go with hunter01, but that's taken on most services, therefore I made hunter0one instead. I am a Southerner who loves technology (particularly free software as well as the English language, culture, history and other topics). I am autistic, I have Asperger's Syndrome to be specific. I'm a student, but I try to dabble in creative outlets like making videos, writing, or scripting.

How did you find PCLinuxOS, and what keeps you here using it?

I found PCLOS from the Systemd-Free Wordpress site, where it is listed along with other distros which do not use systemd or elogind. At the time, I was trying to come back to Linux from FreeBSD because I had to switch to using Wi-Fi instead of Ethernet and the Wi-Fi chip I had wasn't supported by the FreeBSD kernel. I lost almost all hope in Linux because of the systemd ecosystem, but it was very nice to find at least one desktop distribution without systemd or elogind which is almost just as bad in my opinion. I keep using PCLOS off and on because it's easy to develop for, there's no walls of bureaucracy or opinions stopping you that I experienced packaging for other distributions.

What desktop do you use and why?

KDE Plasma. No particular reason besides that it has a good Wayland session. I would use a standalone compositor, but when I used X11 I preferred IceWM and there's no good alternatives on Wayland yet (I went from having bad luck with Wayland to it having less bugs than X11 for me).

If you have family that use computers, are they running PCLinuxOS too?

No, my family has transitioned all their computer needs to tablets and smartphones, unfortunately.

Do you work, and what's your job description? Do you like your job?

Not currently, but I was working in a meat department for quite some time. I liked it a lot there, but went to pursue a degree in something more tech-related, which is what I always wanted to do.

Do you have hobbies and passions? Maybe share them with our readers.

I like video games, scripting and writing. I consider myself pretty passionate nowadays about free software as a whole, if I have a free alternative I will use it, whether it is Luanti instead of Minecraft or Brave instead of Google Chrome. I like to package software (like the RPMs you install on PCLinuxOS) but also wouldn't mind making my own Linux distribution with the knowledge I've gained one day.

Any advice for a student?

Just be yourself.

When you're not behind a keyboard, where do you spend your free time?

I like spending time with both my mom and my dog named Tank (he's a miniature pinscher-chihuahua mix). I also like to drive around the countryside.

Where do you live?

Mississippi. Not to be too specific, but it's pretty rural.

What is the weather like where you live?

Unpredictable. One day it will be freezing cold and the next it will be burning hot.

Are there any special attractions where you live?

Not really. I love being in the middle of nowhere, but it comes with its downsides, like there not being much to do.

What advice would you give to users just getting started with Linux?

Just take your time. Trust your gut when it comes to distro hopping or choosing what software to use because everyone's opinion is different and once you start to learn Linux more and more, eventually you'll find your place in the community.

What advice would you give to more “seasoned” Linux veterans?

It's beneficial to use your experience to help keep Linux growing, whether it's from packaging, making helper scripts or providing advice for new users. Linux is a community, not a corporation, and it's important that we all step up and do our part in some way to keep the ball rolling.

What have you learned from your experiences with Linux?

I learned that there's nothing wrong with distro hopping. It's something we all do as Linux users, and eventually you will find what works for you. Also that everyone has an opinion on what should and shouldn't be used, it's just part of using something fragmented like Linux or *BSD. I also learned to read the manuals! Man pages, wikis, etc. and you will save some poor soul's time.

Do you have any Linux programs or desktops that you are passionate about? Why?

Too many to list here, probably. I mostly use KDE applications since I'm using Plasma, a program like K3b is just plain unmatched by anything else. For other desktops I like IceWM and TDE (Trinity Desktop Environment). I quite like the DNF package manager, maybe I'm biased because I ported it. Blender, GIMP, LibreOffice, and OBS Studio are probably my other favorites because they prove how capable Linux is.

You are a packager for PCLinuxOS, right? Are you also a Maintainer?

Maintaining packages is where somebody has sole responsibility for updating or fixing bugs in a package. Packaging would be updating/bugfixing or introducing new packages regardless of ownership, I would say. I am more of a packager than a maintainer, although some packages get updated mostly by me, such as Virt Manager, Luanti, or Steam. There is also the Nitro init system I have been the maintainer of so far, which sits in the unstable repo.

Wiki Pick: The 10 Commandments For Linux Users

Relevant to all editions of PCLinuxOS

Introduction

…and the ROOT user did speak…

1. Thou shalt not log in as root
Use "su -" for administrative tasks. PCLinuxOS DOES NOT use “sudo” by default. (It is installable from the package manager, if you feel like you do need it, though).

2. Thou shalt use the Package Manager when possible
Sometimes installing from source code can't be avoided, but when you use the Package Manager to manage to install software, you can also use it to update and remove it. This is one of the main strengths of Linux.

3. Thou shalt be a part of the community
Freely give what you have received for free. Offer help and advice whenever you can.

4. Thou shalt read documentation and man pages
Always read the documentation. The people who wrote the software tried to anticipate your questions, and provided answers before you asked.

5. Thou shalt use the available support system
Switching to Linux can be tough. It can be frustrating, but there are a lot of people out there who want to help you. Let them.

6. Thou shalt search
In most cases, your question or problem has already been addressed. Try to find the answers that are already out there before asking someone to provide a new one.

7. Thou shalt explore
Linux opens a whole new world of options and possibilities. Try everything you can.

8. Thou shalt use the command line
Especially when it comes to configuration, use the GUI tools to get your system working, but get to know the command line versions as well. In many cases, the command line is the only way to use some of the more advanced features.

9. Thou shalt not try to recreate Windows
Linux is not meant to be a clone of Windows. It's different. Embrace and appreciate the differences.

10. Thou shalt not give up
I tried several distributions before I found one I liked. I still try other distros from time to time. I also tried several different programs to serve one purpose before settling on what I use now (amarok, xmms, beep, exaile for music — azureus, ktorrent, deluge for bittorrents). If you don't like the defaults, remember that you can change almost everything to suit you.

11. And an extra one for good measure - 777 is the number of the devil, thou shalt stay away from it. Explanation: 777 permissions give read/write/execution permissions to everyone on the box.

You can view the original PCLinuxOS Knowledgebase Wiki article here.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner - Sour Cream Noodle Bake

Sour Cream Noodle Bake

Serves: 8

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb ground beef or ground turkey

1 medium onion diced

2 cloves garlic minced

1 24 ounce can or jar pasta sauce your favorite

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

½ teaspoon garlic powder

8 oz cream cheese softened

8 oz sour cream

1 lb rotini pasta cooked, drained

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

16 oz shredded mozzarella divided

DIRECTIONS:

Brown ground beef, onion and garlic in a skillet. Drain any fat.

Stir in pasta sauce and Italian seasoning simmer for about 5–10 minutes.

With a mixer, combine cream cheese and sour cream. Stir in garlic powder, Parmesan cheese, and 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella.

Spread half of the meat sauce in a 9 x 13 pan. Top with rotini. Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the pasta layer.

Spread remaining sauce on top of the cream cheese mixture. Top with mozzarella.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake until cheese is slightly browned and bubbly.

NUTRITION:

Calories: 665    Carbs: 52g    Sodium: 1070mg    Fiber: 3g    Protein: 38g

ICYMI: Just Over 50 Percent Of The Internet Is Now AI Slop

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Image by jürgen ihle from Pixabay

Mold found at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster appears to be feeding off the radiation, according to an article from the BBC. Could we use it to shield space travellers from cosmic rays? In May 1997, Nelli Zhdanova entered one of the most radioactive places on Earth – the abandoned ruins of Chernobyl's exploded nuclear power plant – and saw that she wasn't alone. Across the ceiling, walls and inside metal conduits that protect electrical cables, black mold had taken up residence in a place that was once thought to be detrimental to life. The mold – formed from a number of different fungi – seemed to be doing something remarkable. It hadn't just moved in because workers at the plant had left. Instead, Zhdanova had found in previous surveys of soil around Chernobyl that the fungi were actually growing towards the radioactive particles that littered the area. Now, she found that they had reached into the original source of the radiation, the rooms within the exploded reactor building. With each survey taking her close to harmful radiation, Zhdanova's work has also overturned our ideas about how radiation impacts life on Earth. Now her discovery offers hope of cleaning up radioactive sites and even provide ways of protecting astronauts from harmful radiation as they travel into space.

When astronomers search for planets that could host liquid water on their surface, they start by looking at a star's habitable zone, according to an article from Space.com. Water is a key ingredient for life, and on a planet too close to its star, water on its surface may "boil"; too far, and it could freeze. This zone marks the region in between. But being in this sweet spot doesn't automatically mean a planet is hospitable to life. Other factors, like whether a planet is geologically active or has processes that regulate gases in its atmosphere, play a role. The boundaries of the habitable zone are defined by how much of a "greenhouse effect" is necessary to maintain the surface temperatures that allow for liquid water to persist. It's a balance between sunlight and atmospheric warming.

A nearby binary star system is bereft of giant planets, but scientists think it may still be a decent place to look for life, according to an article from Yahoo! News. Binary star system Eta Cassiopeiae, located just 19 light-years away, could be a good target in the search for habitable exoplanets, according to a recent study. University of California, Riverside astronomer Stephen Kane and his colleagues simulated the orbital dynamics of the star system and concluded that it's not home to any giant planets – or any planets farther than 8 astronomical units (8 times Earth's distance from the Sun) away from its main star. But small, Earth-like planets might still be hanging out in the main star's habitable zone, waiting for astronomers to find them.

Image by Gregor Mima from Pixabay

Rejoice, netizens of flesh and blood, for only a little over half of all new articles on the internet are AI-generated, according to a new report highlighted in Axios, says an article from Futurism. Believe it or not, this is kind of good news. Since the public launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, we’ve been battening down the hatches amid an absolute deluge of AI slop. But it hasn’t quite drowned us all yet, evidently. The report, published by the SEO firm Graphite, analyzed a random sample of 65,000 English-language articles published between January 2020 and May 2025. Using an AI detector called Surfer, any article that was found to have 50 percent or more of the content written with a large language model was considered AI-generated. As expected, the analysis showed a rapid spike in AI-generated articles coinciding with the release of ChatGPT, from roughly ten percent in late 2022, to over 40 percent by 2024, before slowing to a more steady climb. Now, for the good news: it looks like the influx of AI articles has hit a plateau. After AI-generated articles hit a peak in November 2024, the share of newly-published AI and human-written content has been hovering around a fifty-fifty split, As of this May, the share of new AI articles is at 52 percent, trading places from just a month ago when human written articles enjoyed a brief majority.

Researchers found that low choline levels strongly correlate with these risks of brain damage, hinting at a nutrient gap affecting long-term brain health, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Researchers have long recognized that problems affecting the body often influence the brain as well. Conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance place heavy demands on the body’s metabolic and vascular systems. Over many years, that constant strain can accelerate cognitive decline and raise the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease. A new study led by Arizona State University scientists suggests that these brain-related effects may begin far earlier in life than once believed. In young adults with obesity, the research team detected biological indicators of inflammation, liver strain, and early signs of injury to brain cells. Although subtle, these markers resemble patterns typically found in older adults experiencing cognitive impairment. One unexpected finding stood out. Many of the young adults in the study had unusually low levels of choline in their blood. Choline is an essential nutrient that plays a central role in liver function, inflammation management, and long-term brain health.

In a recent study published in PNAS, researchers investigated the journey of tattoo ink through the lymphatic system as it accumulates in lymph nodes and affects immune cells, examining its long-term effects on immune responses to vaccination, according to an article from News Medical. They demonstrated that tattoo ink rapidly drains to lymph nodes, where macrophages take it up and often undergo cell death, triggering persistent inflammation for months. These effects were observed when vaccination occurred in the same lymphatic drainage area as the tattoo. Ink accumulation reduced immunity to messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) when administered at the tattoo site, but enhanced responses to an influenza vaccine in an ink- and timing-dependent manner.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

A new study finds that taking arginine orally may lower amyloid buildup and neuroinflammation, suggesting a safe, low-cost treatment strategy for Alzheimer’s disease, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive condition that gradually damages the brain and is one of the primary causes of dementia around the world. There is still no cure. Although new antibody-based treatments designed to target amyloid β (Aβ) have emerged in recent years, their benefits remain modest. These medications can also be expensive and may trigger immune-related side effects, which reinforces the need for safer, more affordable options that can reliably slow the advance of AD. A recent study published in Neurochemistry International reveals that scientists from Kindai University and partner organizations have found that giving arginine by mouth can successfully reduce Aβ buildup and its harmful impacts in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease. Arginine is a naturally present amino acid that functions as a safe chemical chaperone. The scientists stressed that while arginine can be purchased as an over-the-counter dietary supplement, the specific dosage and delivery method used in their research was tailored for scientific investigation and differs from what is available in commercial products.

EMBL researchers have created a new AI tool that uses a “molecular laser tag” approach to identify cells capable of revealing the earliest origins of cancer, according to an article from SciTechDaily. The human body depends on accurate genetic instructions to keep its cells working properly. Cancer begins to form when these instructions become disrupted. As genetic mistakes build up over time, cells can lose their normal limits on growth and start multiplying in an uncontrolled way. Chromosomal abnormalities – numerical and structural defects in chromosomes – are often one of the earliest changes that push healthy cells toward becoming cancerous. Researchers in the Korbel Group at EMBL Heidelberg have created a new AI-based tool that gives scientists a way to closely examine how these chromosomal abnormalities develop. The insights gained from this approach may eventually clarify some of the earliest steps that lead to cancer.

Disrupting the chemical messages that oral bacteria use to coordinate growth may help prevent disease by keeping plaque communities in a healthier state, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Like all living things, bacteria adapt in order to survive. Over time, many have become resistant to widely used antibiotics and disinfectants, creating growing challenges for healthcare and sanitation. At the same time, a large portion of bacteria are helpful and play essential roles in human health. This raises an important question: could shifting the behavior of bacteria inside the body help prevent disease and improve health outcomes? Bacteria communicate constantly. Hundreds of species in the human mouth send and receive chemical messages in a process called quorum sensing. Many rely on signaling molecules known as N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) to exchange information. Researchers in the College of Biological Sciences and the School of Dentistry at the University of Minnesota set out to explore how oral bacteria use these signals and whether this communication could be altered to stop plaque from forming and support a healthier oral microbiome. Their findings, published in the journal npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, point to possibilities that could reshape future medical treatments.

Museums-Victoria

In 2015, David Hole was prospecting in Maryborough Regional Park near Melbourne, Australia, according to an article from ScienceAlert. Armed with a metal detector, he discovered something out of the ordinary – a very heavy, reddish rock resting in some yellow clay. He took it home and tried everything to open it, sure that there was a gold nugget inside the rock – after all, Maryborough is in the Goldfields region, where the Australian gold rush peaked in the 19th century. To break open his find, Hole tried a rock saw, an angle grinder, a drill, and even doused the thing in acid. However, not even a sledgehammer could make a crack. That's because what he was trying so hard to open was no gold nugget. As he found out years later, it was a rare meteorite.

Penn State scientists discovered seven new ceramics by simply removing oxygen — opening a path to materials once beyond reach, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Sometimes, less truly is more. By removing oxygen during the synthesis process, a team of materials scientists at Penn State successfully created seven new high-entropy oxides (HEOs) — a class of ceramics made from five or more metals that show promise for use in energy storage, electronics, and protective coatings. During their experiments, the researchers also established a framework for designing future materials based on thermodynamic principles. Their findings were published in Nature Communications. “By carefully removing oxygen from the atmosphere of the tube furnace during synthesis, we stabilized two metals, iron and manganese, into the ceramics that would not otherwise stabilize in the ambient atmosphere,” said corresponding and first author Saeed Almishal, research professor at Penn State working under Jon-Paul Maria, Dorothy Pate Enright Professor of Materials Science. Almishal first succeeded in stabilizing a manganese- and iron-containing compound by precisely controlling oxygen levels in a material he called J52, composed of magnesium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and iron. Building on this, he used newly developed machine learning tools — an artificial intelligence technique capable of screening thousands of possible material combinations within seconds — to identify six additional metal combinations capable of forming stable HEOs.

In an exclusive article from TechCrunch, several public websites designed to allow courts across the United States and Canada to manage the personal information of potential jurors had a simple security flaw that easily exposed their sensitive data, including names and home addresses. A security researcher, who asked not to be named for this story, contacted TechCrunch with details of the easy-to-exploit vulnerability, and identified at least a dozen juror websites made by government software maker Tyler Technologies that appear to be vulnerable, given that they run on the same platform. The sites are all over the country, including California, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.

Euroatlas

It swims like a predator. Looks like a shark. Hunts in packs. But this creature doesn’t eat fish… it guards the undersea cables that keep the modern world online. A German defense-tech firm, Euroatlas, has rolled out a new underwater robot called Greyshark, a long-endurance autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) designed to patrol and safeguard the world’s vast seabed infrastructure, according to an article from eWeek. The company says the system was built to operate with minimal human involvement and to address rising concerns about the security of subsea communication lines. These cables, stretching roughly 800,000 miles, carry more than 95% of the world’s internet traffic and trillions of dollars in financial transfers each day. Recent incidents in the Baltic Sea and growing geopolitical tensions have forced governments to act faster. According to Euroatlas, Greyshark’s design centers around stealth and independence. The robot’s low-noise electric motor, composite hull, and bio-inspired shape help it move stealthily underwater while staying hard to detect. The company explained that multiple units can operate together as a coordinated group, sharing data in real time through secure underwater communication. The company also noted that the robot can “hold their position passively on the seabed and activate at critical events, such as the identification of a specific vessel,” per Interesting Engineering. Using a stack of advanced sensors, including sonar, lidar, electromagnetic scanners, cameras, and laser imaging, Greyshark can map cable routes, spot anomalies, and detect objects such as mines or unauthorized vehicles near key underwater corridors.

Much of America’s musical heritage is stored on artists’ studio tapes. But as they age, many of those reels are slowly deteriorating, putting work by 20th-century masters like Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac and Bruce Springsteen at risk. One audio engineer, armed with unconventional machinery, is trying to solve that problem before it’s too late, according to an article from the New York Times. A huge portion of the world’s recorded musical heritage is stored on magnetic tape, used regularly from the 1940s into the digital age to capture musicians’ sounds in the studio. But as analog tape ages, it grows more fragile and vulnerable, posing a challenge for engineers like Pribble, 60, an audio preservation expert with the giant storage company Iron Mountain. For 15 years, he has been at the forefront of an obscure but vital industrywide effort to save old tapes — for which he employs an assortment of handmade tools and Rube Goldberg-worthy machines in a cramped workshop.

According to a press release from Micron Technology, Micron Technology, Inc., a leader in innovative memory and storage solutions, announced its decision to exit the Crucial consumer business, including the sale of Crucial consumer-branded products at key retailers, e-tailers and distributors worldwide. Micron will continue Crucial consumer product shipments through the consumer channel until the end of fiscal Q2 (February 2026). The company will work closely with partners and customers through this transition and will provide continued warranty service and support for Crucial products. Micron will continue to support the sale of Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial channel customers globally. “The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments,” said Sumit Sadana, EVP and Chief Business Officer at Micron Technology. “Thanks to a passionate community of consumers, the Crucial brand has become synonymous with technical leadership, quality and reliability of leading-edge memory and storage products. We would like to thank our millions of customers, hundreds of partners and all of the Micron team members who have supported the Crucial journey for the last 29 years.”

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

When the Black Death swept through Europe beginning in 1347, the plague wiped out more than half of the continent’s population, upending societies and interrupting wars. New research suggests that a volcanic eruption or multiple eruptions, unknown to Europe’s inhabitants, most likely catalyzed the pandemic’s arrival on the continent’s shores, according to an article from NBC News (and widely reported on by multiple media outlets). The theory, described in a study published December 4, 2025 in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, suggests the eruptions set off a series of events that enabled the fleas that spread the plague to proliferate in Europe. The eruptions dimmed global temperatures for a few years, causing a sudden climate shift that affected harvests in Europe. With crops failing and fears of starvation rising, some wealthy Italian city-states like Florence and Venice imported grain from elsewhere in the world. And on those ships most likely came plague-infected fleas. The actions of Florence’s leaders prevented mass starvation — tens of thousands of famine refugees migrated there, and the city was able to feed them in addition to its own citizens. But the imports unwittingly ushered in a pandemic. City leaders were proud of their accomplishment in providing enough food for so many people, said Martin Bauch, an author of the new study and a medieval historian at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe in Germany. “They couldn’t have an idea of what danger was there,” he said. The research offers a historical example of the way that changes in the climate can alter human societies and animal ecosystems in hard-to-predict ways and with incredible downstream consequences.

A 49-year-old man claims that Grok, the AI chatbot created by Elon Musk’s xAI, helped save his life after it correctly identified a near-ruptured appendix that doctors had missed, according to an article from TipRanks. In fact, when he first went to the ER, he was told the intense abdominal pain he was experiencing was just acid reflux. But after the pain didn’t go away, he turned to Grok, which analyzed his symptoms and urged him to return to the hospital and request a CT scan. That scan confirmed a much more serious issue.

A lack of physical activity puts adults at greater risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes, type 2 diabetes, dementia and cancers such as breast and colon, the organisation writes, according to an article from The Independent. But new research from the University of Sydney suggests a certain type of exercise could be more powerful in preventing these conditions than previously thought: vigorous-intensity activity. The new data found vigorous-intensity activity to be six times more effective at lowering your risk of cardiovascular disease than moderate-intensity activities like brisk walking, lead author Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis tells me. In other words, for every one minute of vigorous-intensity activity you do, you would need to do six minutes of a moderate-intensity activity to have the same impact on heart health. “For diabetes, it’s nine times more effective, and for all-cause mortality and cancer, it’s a little bit lower,” Professor Stamatakis adds.

Image by kalhh from Pixabay

Malicious extensions do occasionally find their way into the Chrome Web Store (and similar libraries in other browsers) by posing as legitimate add-ons, according to an article from Lifehacker. They are particularly difficult to catch when they are benign to begin with, only morphing into malware after gaining user trust. That's what happened with a number of extensions on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge: researchers at Koi Security identified add-ons across both browsers that operated legitimately for several years before receiving malicious updates that allow hackers to surveil users and collect and exfiltrate sensitive data. The scheme, known as ShadyPanda, reached four million downloads and is still active on Edge. Threat actors ran a similar campaign targeting Firefox earlier this year: They gained approval for benign extensions mimicking popular crypto wallets, accumulated downloads and positive reviews, and then injected the add-ons with malicious code capable of logging form field inputs, which they used to access and steal crypto assets.

During the first week of December, pet products and services giant Petco confirmed that it experienced a data breach involving customers’ personal information, without specifying what type of data was affected, according to an article from TechCrunch. On December 5, in a legally required filing with Texas’ attorney general’s office, Petco reported that the affected data included names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, financial information such as account numbers, credit or debit card numbers, and dates of birth.

Senescent “zombie” cells are linked to aging and multiple diseases, but spotting them in living tissue has been notoriously difficult, according to an article from Science Daily. Researchers at Mayo Clinic have now taken an inventive leap by using aptamers—tiny, shape-shifting DNA molecules—to selectively tag these elusive cells. The project began as an offbeat conversation between two graduate students and quickly evolved into a collaborative, cross-lab effort that uncovered aptamers capable of binding to unique surface proteins on senescent cells.

Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder believe they have found a solution to poor insulating glass windows, according to an article from The Brighter Side. Physicists there have developed a new transparent insulating material known as a Mesoporous Optically Clear Heat Insulator, or MOCHI. The material behaves like a highly controlled version of frozen air, trapping heat while remaining almost invisible. MOCHI consists of a network of hollow silicone nanotubes arranged in a highly uniform pattern. Air makes up more than 90% of its volume, yet the solid framework keeps those air pockets stable and evenly spaced. By limiting solid material to just 5% to 15%, the team achieved both low heat flow and high transparency. Tests showed that thin MOCHI sheets transmit more than 99% of visible light, with almost no haze. Ordinary window glass typically transmits less than 92%. At the same time, MOCHI conducts heat at less than half the rate of still air. According to Ivan Smalyukh, senior author of the study and a physics professor at CU Boulder, that balance has been elusive.

Gut-microbiome metabolites may hold the key to new treatments for obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to an article from Science Daily. Scientists from Harvard found that certain molecules made by gut bacteria travel to the liver and help control how the body uses energy. These molecules change depending on diet, genetics, and shifts in the microbiome. Some even improved insulin response in liver cells when tested in the lab. The findings could open the door to new ways of preventing or managing obesity and diabetes.

Scientists have uncovered a powerful new antibody that disrupts a key protein helping triple-negative breast cancer survive and evade immunity, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is considered one of the most aggressive and difficult forms of breast cancer to treat. It grows rapidly, tends to spread at an early stage, and does not have the hormone receptors that allow many other breast cancers to be treated with targeted drugs. Although some patients respond to initial therapy, the disease frequently comes back and is often more resistant to treatment the second time. New research published in Breast Cancer Research highlights a potential way to address this challenge. Scientists at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center created an antibody designed to interfere with several processes that help TNBC cells survive, multiply, and avoid detection by the immune system. In early experiments, the antibody reduced the growth of primary tumors, limited the spread of cancer to the lungs, and restored the activity of immune cells that attack cancer. It was also effective against cancer cells that no longer responded to chemotherapy.

Image by Ribhav Agrawal from Pixabay

The first successful human implant of a 3D-printed cornea made from human eye cells cultured in a laboratory has restored a patient’s sight, according to an article from The Good News Network. The North Carolina-based company that developed the cornea described the procedure as a ‘world first’—and a major milestone toward its goal of alleviating the lack of available donor tissue and long wait-times for people seeking transplants. According to Precise Bio, its robotic bio-fabrication approach could potentially turn a single donated cornea into hundreds of lab-grown grafts, at a time when there’s currently only one available for an estimated 70 patients who need one to see.

Scientists in Brazil from the Federal University of Grande Dourados (UFGD), the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), and São Paulo State University (UNESP) have carried out new research on the Joseph’s Coat plant (Alternanthera littoralis), demonstrating its safety along with anti-inflammatory, pain-relieving, and anti-arthritic effects, according to an article from SciTechDaily. The plant grows naturally along Brazil’s coastline and has a long history of use in traditional remedies for inflammation, infections caused by microorganisms, and parasitic illnesses. Until recently, however, these traditional uses had not been thoroughly supported by pharmacological studies or formal safety evaluations.

From the “hmmm … I didn’t see that coming department” [/sarcasm], threat actors are now using paid search ads on Google to spread conversations with ChatGPT and Grok that appear to provide tech support instructions but actually direct macOS users to install an infostealing malware on their devices, according to an article from Lifehacker. The campaign is a variation on the ClickFix attack, which often uses CAPTCHA prompts or fake error messages to trick targets into executing malicious commands. But in this case, the instructions are disguised as helpful troubleshooting guides on legitimate AI platforms.

Artist concept from NASA/ESA/CSA

A new discovery, made using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), may just be the weirdest exoplanet yet, possessing an atmosphere unlike any we've ever seen on an exoplanet, according to an article from Space.com. Currently, the team behind this discovery can't explain how such a planet came to be. The planet, designated PSR J2322-2650b, has a mass around that of Jupiter and orbits a dead star called a pulsar that blasts out twin jets of radiation that sweep across the universe like a cosmic lighthouse. Technically, the system is classified as a "black window pulsar," a binary star normally containing both a pulsar and stellar body, which the pulsar erodes and devours with its jets of radiation. However, what sets PSR J2322-2650b apart are the facts that it has an ellipsoid shape, like a planetary lemon or football, and that it has an atmosphere like none scientists have ever seen before. "This was an absolute surprise," team member Peter Gao of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory said in a statement. "I remember after we got the data down, our collective reaction was 'What the heck is this?' It's extremely different from what we expected." The atmosphere of PSR J2322-2650b is dominated by helium and carbon, and likely has clouds of carbon soot that condense to create diamonds that rain down onto the planet.

Are the days of cord-cutting over? Traditional cable providers see first increase in subscribers in eight years, according to an article from Yahoo! News. The rise came during the third quarter of 2025 amid soaring streaming service fees. Over 303,000 subscribers returned to traditional cable providers in Q3, Light Reading reports, citing MoffettNathanson’s latest Cord—Cutting Monitor report. Industry analysts attributed the increase to a combination of factors, most notably reduced subscriber losses among traditional providers and strong performance from internet—based services known as virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPD). Despite the encouraging figures, analysts warned that the gain may be temporary.

Dick Van Dyke, the legendary American actor and comedian who starred in classics such as Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, turned 100 on December 13. The beloved actor credits his remarkable longevity to his positive outlook and never getting angry, according to an article from Science Alert. While longevity of course comes down to many factors – including genetics and lifestyle – there is some truth to Van Dyke's claims. Numerous studies have shown that keeping stress levels low and maintaining a positive, optimistic outlook are correlated with longevity.

Cancer Genome Atlas

A new study finds that artificial intelligence systems used to diagnose cancer from pathology slides do not perform equally for all patients, with accuracy varying across race, gender, and age groups, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Researchers uncovered three main reasons behind this bias and introduced a new approach that dramatically reduced these performance gaps. The results underscore the importance of routinely testing medical AI for bias so these tools can support fair and accurate cancer care for everyone.

Biomedical scientists are racing to identify the genes that contribute to illness, hoping that these discoveries will lead to treatments that target the right genes and help bring the body back to health, according to an article from Science Daily. When one faulty gene is responsible, the path to understanding the problem can be fairly direct. Many conditions, however, are far more complicated. In these cases, multiple genes, sometimes even thousands, play a role, and it becomes much harder to sort out how they connect to the disease. A new genomic mapping approach could make that challenge easier to tackle. In a Nature study, researchers at Gladstone Institutes and Stanford University used a broad strategy that tests the impact of every gene in a cell, linking diseases and other traits to the underlying genetic systems that shape them. The resulting maps could cut through confusing biology and spotlight the genes most likely to be useful targets for new therapies.

Although they are technically gas giants, Uranus and Neptune are referred to as "ice giants" due to their composition. This refers to the fact that Uranus and Neptune have more methane, water, and other volatiles than their larger counterparts (Jupiter and Saturn). Given the pressure conditions in the planets' interiors, these elements become solid, essentially becoming 'ices.' However, new research from the University of Zurich (UZH) and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS is challenging our understanding of these interior regions of these planets, according to an article from Science Alert. According to the research team's findings, which appeared in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Uranus and Neptune may be more rocky in their cores and less 'icy' than previously thought.

Linus Torvalds responded and rightfully called out the ever-growing and complex nature of security modules, amid calls for a new Linux Security Module, according to an article from Phoronix. "If you can't convince the LSM people to take your code, you sure can't convince me. I already think we have too many of those pointless things. There's a fine line between diversity and "too much confusion because everybody thinks they know best". And the linux security modules passed that line years ago. So my suggestion is to standardize on normal existing security models instead of thinking that you can do better by making yet another one. Or at least work with the existing people instead of trying to bypass them and ignoring what they tell you. Yes, I know that security people always think they know best, and they all disagree with each other, which is why we already have tons of security modules. Ask ten people what model is the right one, and you get fifteen different answers. I'm not in the least interested in becoming some kind of arbiter or voice of sanity in this."

An international team of researchers has examined brain scans from nearly 30,000 people and uncovered noteworthy links between frequent consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and differences in brain structure, according to an article from SciTechDaily. These structural differences may contribute to patterns of overeating and make it harder for individuals to regulate their eating habits. “Our findings suggest that higher consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with differences in the brain. These associations could be linked to behavioural patterns such as overeating, though causal relationships cannot be confirmed by our study. The observed associations are not solely explained by inflammation or obesity; ingredients and additives typical to UPFs, such as emulsifiers may also play a role, although this requires further longitudinal or experimental evidence,” explains the shared first author of the research Arsène Kanyamibwa from the University of Helsinki.

Here we go again. “Microsoft is trying a new way to stop users from downloading Google Chrome.” We have seen this before. Just as with Apple, the two tech giants are pushing hard to keep users within their own walled gardens, on Safari and Edge, according to an article from Forbes. The latest news comes from Windows Report. “If you open the Chrome download page in Microsoft Edge, you may see a new banner at the top.” Instead of just presenting the usual Edge versus Chrome comparison, “Microsoft now focuses on protection.”

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

While massive contact databases can be a significant time-saver for businesses, they also have a major drawback – security. If left unprotected, a single exposed dataset can endanger the privacy of millions of users. That’s exactly what the Cybernews research team discovered in a recent major data leak, according to a Cybernews blog post. The team found an unprotected MongoDB instance containing a staggering 16.14 terabytes of professional and corporate intelligence data. In total, researchers discovered nearly 4.3 billion documents, making it one of the largest lead-generation datasets to have ever leaked. Bob Diachenko, a Cybernews contributor, cybersecurity researcher, and owner of SecurityDiscovery.com, is behind this major discovery. Diachenko uncovered the 4.3 billion-strong database on November 23rd, 2025, with the instance’s owners securing it two days later. While researchers do not know how long the instance was exposed before being found, if our team was able to find it, less high-minded individuals may have also. Attackers treasure large and well-organized datasets with abundant personal information, as they enable the conduct of large-scale automated attacks.

700Credit, a U.S.-based financial services and fintech company, will start notifying more than 5.8 million people that their personal information has been exposed in a data breach incident, according to an article from BleepingComputer. The cyberattack occurred after a threat actor had breached one of 700Credit's integration partners in July and discovered an API for obtaining customer information. However, the partner did not inform 700Credit of the compromise. 700Credit noticed suspicious activity on its systems on October 25 and launched an investigation, with assistance from third-party computer forensic specialists. According to 700Credit Managing Director Ken Hill, the attacker managed to steal around 20% of consumer data from May to October before the company terminated the exposed API. The threat actor was able to exfiltrate data due to a security vulnerability in the API, a failure to validate consumer reference IDs against the original requester. The data types that have been exposed include customers’ Full name, physical address, date of birth, and Social Security Number (SSN).

Another PayPal phishing scam is circulating, this time with email notifications about recurring or automatic payments, according to an article from Lifehacker. The messages originate from a legitimate PayPal address, allowing them to evade some security filters and leave recipients worried that their accounts have been compromised—perhaps just enough to ignore the obvious red flags and call or email scammers back. Here's how scammers are exploiting PayPal settings to land in your inbox. If you're targeted by this campaign, you may receive an email with the subject line "Your automatic payment status has changed" or "Recurring Payment Reactivated." The layout imitates a real PayPal notification and includes a message about a high-dollar payment being "successfully processed" along with a customer service email and phone number to contact PayPal support. The email is full of red flags: It is addressed to a random name (or, in one of the messages I received, "Hello Update Invoice"), has poor spelling and wonky formatting, and simply doesn't make sense. You can easily spot oddities like bold text and Unicode characters, which BleepingComputer notes is a trick used to bypass spam filters and keyword detection.

Why I Fell In Love With Linux, And Why PCLinuxOS Magazine Feels Like Home

by Hazem Abbas

Originally appearing December 5, 2025

Reprinted with permission

Editor’s Note: We have been aware for quite some time now that non-PCLinuxOS users faithfully read The PCLinuxOS Magazine. After all, compared to the commercially available operating systems, Linux information is a bit harder to come by. This is a first-hand account from Hamza Mu, a physician, equestrian, and a Linux user, about why he loves The PCLinuxOS Magazine. In fact, Hamza is also a former PCLinuxOS user. We originally reprinted two of his articles in the September 2025 issue of the magazine. We feel (and hope) his sentiments about The PCLinuxOS Magazine are shared by Linux users all across the globe.

DreamLinux, a screenshot from my desktop, just two months before DreamLinux dropped out!

I didn’t just start using Linux in the late 1990s. I fell into it. Like a horse that knows the trail before you do. It wasn’t a choice. It was an awakening, then turned to a lifestyle.

Back then, I was a medical student starting my first year in Egypt, curious about how things really worked. Not just medicine, but machines. The terminal was my first teacher. Config files became my journal. Bash scripts? My daily meditation.

Some of my engineer friends were using RedHat, others Debian, but a unique friend used Slackware, and he did not even care (he still uses Slackware though). However, my geek friends used FreeBSD, Debian, and Mandrake (now Mandriva).

But the primary reason for me to use Linux, actually and the things I really liked about it, was that It saved me countless hours that I would have wasted gaming, and instead I focused on Learning.

Linux For me, More than an OS!

Linux wasn’t just an OS for me.

It was a lifestyle.

A discipline.

A mindset.

It is a self-educational discipline that will make you a good developer, researcher, problem solver, and that made me a better doctor, and a good horse rider as well.

And like horse riding, which I’ve lived with for over 15 years, Linux demands presence, patience, and listening. You don’t use it. You live with it. Every command is a conversation. Every error message is a lesson. Every fix feels like healing.

I still remember the first time I ran sudo apt update and saw the progress bar move, not because of speed, but because I understood what was happening. That moment changed everything.

I think I said to my friends, who use Mac, back then when they got excited about their new package manager, "We have dozens of them in the Linux world, I am not that excited".

Since then, I’ve carried this spirit everywhere.

Why I Do recommend Linux to my Friends (Except Gamers)

I recommended Linux to friends, teachers, students, even my own son. He’s only five. But he runs Linux on an old machine I gave him. No Windows. No games. Just curiosity, control, and quiet focus. He doesn’t want to switch. And neither do I.

I’ve hosted meetups, mostly at my house, joined workshops, built small communities around Linux (My little brother, Anas, carried the spirit to Ubuntu EG community for some time), not just for tech, but to learn and exchange knowledge and feedback.

These weren’t just users sharing tips. They were people who understood: when you tinker with your system, you’re also learning to tinker with yourself.

These friendships, forged over shared commands, config fixes, late-night debugging sessions, are real. Deep. Lasting. They’re more than knowledge exchange. They’re life-long bonds.

To me, Linux is a mental gym.

It’s problem-solving as therapy.

It’s building resilience one script at a time.

The PCLinuxOS Magazine!

The PCLinuxOS Magazine began in September 2006, not as a corporate project, but as a heartbeat of the community. It was born from real users, for real users. No developers. No official ties. Just people who loved PCLinuxOS and wanted to share, learn, grow together.

For nearly two decades, it has published monthly (with only brief pauses), each issue packed with practical how-tos, personal stories, and wisdom from everyday Linux users. It’s not about perfection. It’s about honesty. About showing up. About helping someone else find their way, just like you once did.

The magazine is built by volunteers: Paul Arnote (parnote), Meemaw, Torsten Schommer (tbs), and many others who believe in open knowledge. Hosted on David Moore’s server, it runs on PCLinuxOS itself, a quiet, beautiful loop of community, code, and care. (Editor's Note: since the fire at David's place in June, the magazine website has been hosted on Hostinger.)

I love this magazine because it reflects what Linux means to me, not just an OS, but a way of life. It’s where I first shared my voice. Where I saw my words in print. Where I felt seen. That moment, seeing my article in its pages, wasn’t just pride. It was belonging.

Why Does This Magazine Matter for The Linux Community?

It matters because it keeps the spirit alive. Not the hype. Not the marketing. But the real stuff: terminal commands, config files, bash scripts, problem-solving, late-night debugging sessions, and the joy of fixing something yourself.

In a world of polished, closed systems, PCLinuxOS Magazine stands for openness. For curiosity. For learning without fear. For sharing, even when you’re unsure.

To me, it’s more than a magazine. It’s a library of small victories.

A digital campfire where Linux users gather, not just to solve problems, but to remember why they started.

And now, after all these years, I’m honored beyond words to see my articles published in The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

It’s a rare space where open-source isn’t just code, it’s humanized.

Closed Systems VS Open Minded Systems

In a world of closed systems, AI black boxes, and digital noise, PCLinuxOS Magazine stands as a quiet, honest voice.

It reminds us: We don’t need permission to learn. We don’t need to be perfect to contribute. We just need to show up.

And that, that’s why Linux means so much more than an operating system.

It forms communities.

It builds relationships.

It teaches empathy, through debugging, through sharing, through silence when someone needs help.

Linux isn’t just software.

It’s soul.

And The PCLinuxOS Magazine?

It’s the heart of that soul.

So yes, I love Linux.

Not because it’s stable or secure (though it is).

But because it makes me feel alive.

Because it connects me, to machines, to people, to myself.

And every time I open that magazine, I’m reminded:

I belong here.

Not as a user.

Not as a developer.

But as a human, learning, growing, sharing, just like the rest of us.

I Asked An AI Bot

by Alessandro Ebersol (Agent Smith)

I asked an AI: What are the hot topics happening with GNU Linux right now?

Seeking inspiration to write this article, I sat down at my computer and searched for an AI to bring me up to speed on the latest and “hottest” topics happening with GNU Linux right now.

Why did I do that? It would have been better if I had never known... Let's see then.

Linux today: Corrupted, distorted, and controlled

The AI then provided topics for articles and gave me several interesting subjects that are at the top of Linux topics.

1. The End of Rust's “Experimental Era” in the Kernel

Recently (December 2025), the use of Rust in Linux kernel development is no longer considered experimental and has been officially adopted as permanent.

The Controversy: The community is divided. On one side, memory safety advocates celebrate; on the other, “old guard” C developers complain about the extra complexity and the need for new compilation tools.

2. The “Enshittification” of Red Hat (IBM)

The increasing integration of Red Hat into IBM's structures (planned to intensify in 2026) continues to generate concern in the open source community.

The controversy: Internal teams in areas such as HR and Finance at Red Hat are being absorbed by IBM, which many see as the ultimate loss of independence for the company that “carries” much of the development of the ecosystem (GNOME, SystemD, Wayland).

The Debate: The term “Enshittification” (the decline in quality in pursuit of profit) has been widely used to describe the current corporate business model in Linux.

3. Cleaning Up Terms in the Kernel (The “Genocide” Case)

This December, Kernel 6.19 officially removed a function called d_genocide().

The Controversy: Although the change follows the inclusive language guidelines adopted a few years ago, the removal of this specific function (which had existed for decades with the technical purpose of clearing the directory cache) reignited the debate about “language policing” vs. “necessary modernization” in the source code.

Well, machines don't have critical thinking skills, and they just report what they find.

Let's now analyze and counter each of the three topics that AI chose for me.

1. Rust in the Linux Kernel

Rust in the Linux kernel is a bad idea. Rust, as a language, as a finished product, is less than 15 years old, having been initially released in 2015. Now, replacing C, a language that has been around for over 50 years, created in the 1960s, with one that is not yet mature, in mission-critical environments? It is reckless and irresponsible.

And let's not forget that Cloudflare's crash was due to a Rust module, which triggered a worldwide cascade effect and left the internet down for several hours. Rust apologists will say that Cloudflare was to blame, but as the old saying goes: If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. And that's what will be expected of Rust: Always heavy lifting and mission-critical.

But if Rust is so immature, why is there pressure to adopt it?

1.1. Rust's license – Rust has a dual license: MIT and Apache 2.0, which are permissive enough to allow corporations to do whatever they want with it, and without any infectious clauses, such as those found in the GPL. So, if the Linux kernel is “converted” to Rust, it will cease to be what it is today and will become another product controlled by corporations, rather than a joint effort between the community and corporations.

1.2. The US government, DARPA, and various military agencies recommend its use. Is it because of security? Well, we can only speculate that the US government wants Rust to be its new backdoor. Being a language that is difficult to debug and reverse engineer, it could hide many secret functions that would facilitate espionage. More or less like the TOR protocol, a huge honey pot (which I still want to write about).

Could any machine make these criticisms? Of course not, after all, they only repeat what they have been “taught.”

2. The “Enshittification” of Red Hat (IBM)

This has been going on for some time now, and Red Hat has betrayed many of its principles. But that's what happens when a company becomes a multi-billion dollar enterprise: it throws moral scruples out the window and focuses on making money and gaining control over its core product: GNU Linux, which I think will soon be called systemD-Linux, given how big this init system has become. Not to mention that Red Hat controls several projects essential to GNU Linux: the GTK libraries, the Gnome project, Wayland, Pipewire, and many others.

But despite all this, Red Hat does not own the GNU Linux project. There is a lot of volunteer work within GNU Linux. People like Kon Colivas, Paul Bristow, and many others, who are volunteers and do not belong to any company, but work for the common good of all users. And volunteers like this are becoming increasingly rare, as the policies surrounding the development of the Linux kernel are becoming very oppressive, with codes of conduct and bureaucracy that hinder the work of community volunteers. And this is designed to be this way.

3. Cleaning Up Terms in the Kernel (The “Genocide” Case)

Oh, dear God, why? Why more PC nonsense?

Come on, computer terms were created a long time ago, and changing them to non-aggressive or politically correct language is creating dissent where none exists. Master/slave drives have been around forever, but what politically correct people forget is that the first slaves were Caucasians in ancient Greece and Rome, not to mention that more recently (in medieval Ireland, slavery was a common practice even before the Vikings arrived on the island).

Now changing the terms in the Linux kernel is more about corporations exercising their political power than acting in a politically correct manner, opening yet another avenue to oppress volunteer programmers, those who do not have a company behind them.

With all this “good news,” is there any upside to this?

Well, I complained to the AI: Only bad news?

And what's worse: With so much going on in the development of GNU Linux, people are abandoning the system. I have several friends who are migrating to BSD (ARGH!), because of political changes in Linux, which are not pleasing a good portion of the community.

And migrating to BSD is quite extreme: hardware support is very weak and corporations don't help it, on the contrary: the more useless it is to the end user, the better for corporations.

And I asked again: Only bad news? What positive things can you tell me that are happening now with GNU Linux?

There is good news, we just have to look in the right direction!

As bad as some news may seem (the corruption of GNU Linux's community ideals, its decharacterization with Rust, or more corporate control via politically correct maneuvers), we still have good news:

1) The “5% Barrier” and the Year of Desktop Linux

Recent data from Statcounter shows that Linux (including ChromeOS in some metrics) has finally broken the psychological barrier of 5% market share on desktops in regions such as the US.

Of course, Linux got a little help from Microsoft, condemning around 44 million computers, but it is still a major breakthrough.

2) Framework and the Ethics of Repair

The resounding success of Framework (modular laptops) running Linux by default is forcing giants like Dell and Lenovo to rethink the design of their devices.

The Good News: There is a movement back toward sustainability. Linux is the hero here, as it allows machines from 10 years ago to remain fast and secure, combating planned obsolescence.

3) The Rebirth of Open Hardware (RISC-V)

While x86 (Intel/AMD) and ARM architectures are becoming increasingly closed with DRM and hardware-based “security” that users cannot control, Linux is leading the RISC-V explosion.

The Good News: 2025 saw the release of truly powerful and affordable RISC-V laptops and boards. Linux is the standard operating system for this revolution. It is a return to hardware sovereignty: a processor without “backdoors” from large corporations.

4) Wine and Proton: The end of Windows software “prison”

The compatibility layer (Valve/Steam) has reached a level of perfection that was unthinkable three years ago.

The Good News: Today, the difference in performance between running a game (or even professional software such as the Affinity suite or CADs) on Windows vs. Linux is almost non-existent. In some cases, Linux performs better because it has a kernel that is less “cluttered” with telemetry.

5) Xlibre releases version 25.1.0

Some highlights of this new version:

- Over 1,500 commits

- Support for the following platforms: Dragonfly BSD, FreeBSD, Win32

- Support for SEATD (systemD-free user administration)

- Integrated Xfbdev (great for embedded Linux)

- Improved support for Nvidia proprietary drivers

A new year begins, and I wish I could have only good news for everyone. Unfortunately, however, we have the interference of many companies with no ethics or morals regarding the development of GNU Linux. Therefore, it is better to be safe than sorry: observe what is happening and what may happen, so that you are prepared for the right changes at the right times.

I wish everyone a great 2026, and let's remain vigilant so we can adopt the right strategy in these uncertain times.

GIMP Tutorial: Make An Image Seem To Fly Apart

by Meemaw

This is an oldie, but we haven’t done it, so I thought it would be fun. I saw it on LittleWebHut.com. It makes your image look like pieces of it are flying away.

Load your image and add an Alpha Channel. Your image needs to have a transparent background, so if it has anything else, you’ll need to remove the background. We did an article in May, 2021, and another in July, 2021 about removing backgrounds, so feel free to use one of them. I already did this to my image…

Add a separate white background & move that layer to the bottom. Duplicate your image, then select the duplicate. Right-clicking on that layer, choose Alpha to selection. This will outline the image.

Select the Resize tool . Resize the layer copy taller and wider. The resize will be on a floating selection. Anchor the floating selection by clicking on the anchor at the bottom of the layers dialog. In the image below, you can see both layers.

Select the resized layer copy, and add layer mask by right-clicking in the layers dialog and choosing Add Layer Mask. When the window comes up, choose Black (full transparency), and you’ll see the layer copy disappear, and a black square appear in the layers dialog.

Select the original layer and the eraser tool. Choose the vine brush. Set the Opacity at 100%. The size of the brush depends on the size of your image (I used size 75). All items at the bottom of tool options should be unchecked.

Using the eraser tool, click over the original image to show pieces that have “flown”.

Now we’re going to add the pieces that have “flown”. Select the layer mask by clicking on the black square. It should now have a white outline. Make sure your background color is white. Using the same eraser tool, start clicking on the layer. It will change the image copy in the places you clicked to translucent instead of transparent, so you are bringing out only what you want to see.

If you notice some little lines next to the items you placed, it’s because the vine brush creates leaves with stems. If you want to get rid of them, choose Colors > Threshold. This works on the layer mask.

Let’s add some blur to those pieces, since they are flying… select Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur. I set mine at 1.50.

Add a wind effect to the original image using Filters > Distorts > Wind. Since the pieces are on the right side, my direction is right, and my strength is 6. Play with the settings until they look the way you want.

Now you have a photo that looks like some pieces are flying out to the right.

We Support Your Freedom — Support The Licensing & Compliance Lab

by Craig Topham

Free Software Foundation

Reprinted under Creative Commons license

From the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) earliest efforts protecting user freedom to the formation of the Licensing and Compliance Lab (the Lab) in 2001 and beyond, the tactics and methods used to keep the GNU project and the GNU General Public License (GPL) strong for software freedom have been consistent. We have software freedom today because of the deliberate efforts of our predecessors, but to quote the memorable original Star Trek character, Dr. Leonard “Bones ”McCoy, “All right, it's worked so far, but we're not out yet. ”From copyright and compliance to education and support, our tried and proven work continues, and we will not stop fulfilling our mission to promote and defend users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and distribute software.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

GNU copyright and GPL enforcement

Dr. McCoy's quote probably applies to all aspects of the FSF's work, but it especially encapsulates our work on GNU copyright and GPL compliance. Software freedom has survived and thrived over the last 40 years, but what about the next 40? What about today? To be certain our course is still steady, the Lab has been discussing the value of copyright assignment in different forums over the last year, with both legal professionals and in the community at large to see if the GPL enforcement landscape has changed. Generally speaking, not much has changed, especially for a couple of steadfast approaches to protecting free software. First, projects are still in the strongest legal position to enforce a GPL violation if the project has a single copyright holder through developers assigning copyright for their code contributions. This approach is what enables the copyright holder of a project to confidently enforce a license on behalf of its contributors and empowers the FSF to enforce the GPL on behalf of GNU. Because we know that copyright assignment works for keeping software free, we continue to promote its use over a Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO), permissively licensed code, and the public domain for contributions.

Second, the most effective means to prevent an employer from making a claim on a contributor's work (if the contributor is employed to program) is with an employer disclaimer. With a disclaimer in place, contributions to GNU (or any other project that uses copyright assignment) are more secured against a claim by an employer. Copyright assignment is a strategy that has worked well to protect free software, and should not be abandoned or diluted. “It's worked so far, but we're not out yet. ”Yeah, Bones, we hear you.

Protecting the GNU General Public License

When a program is licensed under a GNU GPL, it is frequently recognized, and it is understood what freedoms are guaranteed with the license; however, there is a growing trend where this affiliation is being exploited and abused. We call this freewashing. Freewashing is sometimes purposeful, sometimes a simple misunderstanding, but regardless of the intent, it is confusing to the public. The Lab has been busy resolving confusing licenses involving a GPL with two new cases since this summer, ten currently open cases, and three successful resolutions. We receive a lot of reports from people being confused if they can rely on their rights under the GPL when projects alter the license with further restrictions or make erroneous statements about how it should be applied. The FSF is not interested in using our rights to bring an iron fist down upon a project. Yes, we enforce our rights, but we also want projects to join us in embracing software freedom for the greater good of all. This is the good fight, and it is with your contributions that we are able to continue this work.

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Educating the community

The Lab does a lot of other important work outside of GPL stewardship and enforcement. We work hard to educate and support members of the free software community and the world at large. In the last year, we answered over 150 emails sent to licensing@fsf.org with questions about free software licensing. Although we receive questions from several sources, most are individual members of the free software community seeking to better understand the GPL and free software licensing. The Lab, and its amazing licensing volunteers, provide this service for free, which if given a monetary value could amount to hundreds of dollars per inquiry. Although it is not legal advice, it is a consultation with the preeminent resource of free licensing for free software developers. Not only does this directly help the free software community, it provides our licensing volunteers with the opportunity for a rigorous exercise in emerging licensing issues of the modern day. This, in turn, strengthens volunteer's knowledge of free software licensing, making them a greater asset to the movement as a whole. Only with your support, can we continue this work. Please consider supporting us today and bringing us closer to our fundraising goal!

Furthering the goal of education and support from the Lab, both myself and licensing and compliance manager Krzysztof Siewicz gave multiple talks about, and hosted panels, on free software licensing at events such as: LinuxFest Northwest, Jesień Linuksowa, GNU Cauldron, Teardown, and Hackers Of Planet Earth (HOPE). Even when we weren't able to give a talk on free software, we were able to table at events including All Things Open and SeaGL. Tabling is an important, and often first, introduction to free software and why it's important for a free and just society.

Verification and certification

In addition to all the work we do with compliance, stewardship, and education, we still find time to grow the Free Software Directory (FSD). At HOPE in New York, I hosted a workshop on determining a programs' licensing and adding it to the FSD. The FSD is more than just a catalog of free software, it is an introduction to newcomers, and a powerful educational platform for those wishing to strengthen the community of free software. It is also a neutral community platform where projects can receive feedback from the public. Every week the Lab gives three hours of focused time to help people learn how to evaluate a program's licensing, so please join us every Friday from 12:00-15:00 EST (17:00 to 20:00 UTC) in the Libera. Chat #fsf channel. It requires self-direction, but it also puts an enabled reviewer in a better position to help small projects with their licensing, making the free software movement stronger, one project at a time.

A major way the Lab is able to continue our work is through donations from supporters like you. Please take a moment to reflect on the value the Lab brings to the community through free software licensing education, upholding the GNU GPL, and defending GNU. We are filled with gratitude for the successes over these last forty years, and we promise to continue the fight so that countless hours of work by our predecessors for software freedom will not be in vain. Remember, “It has worked so far, but we're not out yet."

Tip Top Tips: Autofs For NFS Shares

Editor’s Note: Tip Top Tips is a semi-monthly column in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Periodically, we will feature – and possibly even expand upon – one tip from the PCLinuxOS forum. The magazine will not accept independent tip submissions specifically intended for inclusion in the Tip Top Tips column. Rather, if you have a tip, share it in the PCLinuxOS forum’s “Tips & Tricks” section. Occasionally, we may run a “tip” posted elsewhere in the PCLinuxOS forum. Either way, share your tip in the forum, and it just may be selected for publication in The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

This month’s tip is from Cúig.

The difficulty in unmounting NFS shares in Dolphin has been bugging me for more than a year now. I had many failures trying to make it easy for me.

The difficulty is that the mounts, via Dolphin (and I expect other file managers), are done in kernel space and not user space, and the user is not granted permission to unmount those mounts. So to unmount the share, root permissions are required.

I am presently testing an alternative, called autofs, which automounts a share when accessed, and unmounts it again after a time specified in the config files. The user is still unable to unmount a share for the same reasons as above, but hopefully this method will suffice as a sort of 'halfway house' as the timeout can be specified.

Most applications will trigger the automount. I have tried Synaptic and Rsync and they worked. But of course, I have no idea if some other applications might be problematic.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

How it works

The setup details are below.

After setup, I click on a shortcut in the Places panel of Dolphin to automount and access the share.

If there is no access or viewing of the share (Dolphin closed) it will auto unmount after the specified time.

The mount and access appears to be visibly faster than before when I was using fstab entries.

This is my first attempt to use autofs/automount, so this is not a recommendation or anything other than an information post of what I have done. I have no idea how it will work out in the long term.

That said, here is a listing of what I did.

Note that the majority of the steps require root privileges.

Setting Up NFS Shares with autofs

1. Install Required Packages

install autofs and nfs-utils-clients

2. Create the Base Directory (use whatever suits your use case - I used /media, but it could just as easily be your home)

mkdir -p /media/nfs chown root:root /media/nfs chmod 755 /media/nfs

3. Edit /etc/autofs/auto.master by adding this line:

/media/nfs /etc/autofs/auto.nfs --timeout=60

4. Create /etc/autofs/auto.nfs

mkdir -p /etc/autofs/auto.nfs

Add one line per share to this file, using this format. Be sure to do the substitutions.

<sharename> -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr,noatime <server_ip>:/<export_path>

Example Only:

ShareDisk3 -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr,noatime 192.168.1.100:/media/Disk3

5. Restart autofs

/etc/init.d/autofs restart

6. Access Shares

First access using Dolphin:

Access /media/nfs and manually type the share name in Dolphin's location bar so it shows:

/media/nfs/ShareDisk3

For Subsequent access:

Drag the mounted folder from the location bar to Dolphin's Places panel for one-click access.

Avoid Static Mounts in /etc/fstab for the Same Paths:

If you use autofs for a mount point, comment out or remove any static mount for the same path in /etc/fstab to prevent conflicts.

Always restart the autofs service after editing configuration files to apply changes.

The above is how I did it, and it is working for me, but that is not to say it cannot be improved by someone who knows what they are doing!

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus — Instant Pot Honey Garlic Pork Tenderloin

Instant Pot Honey Garlic Pork Tenderloin

Serves: 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb Pork Tenderloin (not pork loin roast)

Dry Rub

½ tsp Salt

½ tsp Onion Powder

½ tsp Chili Powder

½ tsp Thyme

1 tsp Rosemary

Sauce

½ cup Orange Juice

1 ½ Tbsp Garlic, (7 to 9 cloves) pressed or finely minced

½ cup Soy Sauce, low sodium

3 Tbsp Brown Sugar

1 tsp Grated Ginger

½ cup Honey

For Browning the Pork

1 tsp Olive Oil

3 Tbsp Butter

To Thicken (whisk together)

3 Tbsp Corn Starch

4 Tbsp Cold Water

For Serving

2-3 cups Hot Cooked Rice

DIRECTIONS:

First, note how much your pork tenderloin weighs (they are typically 1 to 1 1/2 lbs) and measure across to find out how thick it is. This recipe is for a 1 lb tenderloin at 1.5" thick. If yours is larger, it will need to rest longer after pressure cooking.

Prepare the Pork: Mix the dry rub ingredients together and coat the pork tenderloin on all sides. Set aside.

Make the Sauce and Slurry: In a bowl, whisk together the sauce ingredients until the honey is fully dissolved in the sauce. Set aside.

Mix together the corn starch and water. Set aside.

Brown the Pork: Turn on the Sauté setting. When it is hot, add the olive oil and the butter. Then place the pork in the pot and brown it on all sides for about 2-3 minutes each side. Then remove it to a plate.

Add the sauce to the pot and stir, scraping the bottom of the pot to get up any of the fond (browned bits). This is also called deglazing. Turn off the pot.

Place the pork back in the pot and coat with the sauce.

Pressure Cook the Pork: Close the lid and set the steam release knob to the Sealing position.

Press the Pressure Cook/Manual button or dial, then the +/- button or dial to select 1 minute (for a 1 lb tenderloin, 1.5" thick). LOW Pressure. The pot will take several minutes to come to pressure.

If your pot doesn't have Low pressure, cook a 1 lb tenderloin (1.5" thick) for 0 (zero) minutes at High pressure.

When the cook cycle has finished, turn off the pot and let it sit undisturbed for 15 minutes. Use a timer. Then turn the steam release knob to the Venting position to release any remaining steam/pressure. There may not be any. If you have a thicker tenderloin, more than 1 lb, let it stay in there for 23 minutes and then check it.

When the pin in the lid drops back down, open the lid.

Check the temperature of the pork. It should be 145° to be done. If it's a little higher than that, it's okay. If it's a little lower, put the lid on and let it rest there a few more minutes.

Remove the tenderloin to a baking pan and cover loosely with foil. Turn on your oven to Broil to start heating it up.

Thicken the Sauce: Turn on the Sauté setting again. When it starts to simmer, add the corn starch slurry, stirring until the sauce thickens. Then turn off the pot.

Broil to Caramelize the Sauce: Remove the foil from the tenderloin and spoon some of the sauce over it. Place under the broiler and caramelize the coating. Watch it so it doesn't burn!

Serve the tenderloin sliced into medallions, on top of some rice with more sauce over it.

NUTRITION:

Calories: 330    Carbs: 26g    Sodium: 1009mg    Fiber: 1g    Protein: 33G

Inspiration & Motivation

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Sudoku

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

Scrappler

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

January 2026 Word Find

Winter

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

January 2026 Crossword

Winter

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

Mixed-Up-Meme Scrambler

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

Screenshot Showcase

Posted by astronaut on December 5, 2025, on Openbox

Posted by ja28 December 11, 2025, on IceWM

Posted by luikki on December 4, 2025, on KDE

Posted by Meemaw on December 21, 2025, on XFCE

Posted by mutse on December 4, 2025, on Maté

Posted by mutse on December 21, 2025, on Maté

Posted by parnote on December 12, 2025, on XFCE

Posted by tbs on December 4, 2025, on KDE

Posted by ximru on December 11, 2025, on Maté

Posted by youcantoo on December 16, 2025, on KDE

Table of Contents

1. Table of Contents

2. From The Chief Editor's Desk...

3. Getting To Know You: Hunter0one

4. Wiki Pick: The 10 Commandments For Linux Users

5. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner - Sour Cream Noodle Bake

6. ICYMI: Just Over 50 Percent Of The Internet Is Now AI Slop

7. Why I Fell In Love With Linux, And Why PCLinuxOS Magazine Feels Like Home

8. I Asked An AI Bot

9. GIMP Tutorial: Make An Image Seem To Fly Apart

10. We Support Your Freedom — Support The Licensing & Compliance Lab

11. Tip Top Tips: Autofs For NFS Shares

12. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus — Instant Pot Honey Garlic Pork Tenderloin

13. Inspiration & Motivation

14. PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

15. Screenshot Showcase

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

From The Chief Editor's Desk...

Getting To Know You: Hunter0one

Wiki Pick: The 10 Commandments For Linux Users

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner - Sour Cream Noodle Bake

ICYMI: Just Over 50 Percent Of The Internet Is Now AI Slop

Why I Fell In Love With Linux, And Why PCLinuxOS Magazine Feels Like Home

I Asked An AI Bot

GIMP Tutorial: Make An Image Seem To Fly Apart

We Support Your Freedom — Support The Licensing & Compliance Lab

Tip Top Tips: Autofs For NFS Shares

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus — Instant Pot Honey Garlic Pork Tenderloin

Inspiration & Motivation

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Screenshot Showcase