We test-drive a self-hosted alternative to Google Location History. Plus, we cover the week's Linux news highlights, then spill the beans on our upcoming TUI challenge.

Sponsored By:

• Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices!
• 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• 💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike
• 📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FM
• LINUX Unplugged TUI Challenge Rules — Help shape the challenge - what did we miss?
• libcaca – Caca Labs — A graphics library that outputs text instead of pixels, so that it can work on older video cards or text terminals.
• New GNOME Executive Director Named: Steven Deobald — Steven Deobald has been appointed as the new Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation, succeeding interim director Richard Littauer and Holly Million, who stepped down last year after a brief tenure.
• Creation of the NixOS hardware team — TL;DR: The Steering Committee is launching the new Hardware Team to own the nixos-hardware repo, drive hardware enablement, and expand partnerships.
• Adopting sudo-rs By Default in Ubuntu 25.10 - Project Discussion - Ubuntu Community Hub — The sudo-rs project is designed to be a drop in replacement for the original tool. For the vast majority of users, the upgrade should be completely transparent to their workflow. That said, sudo-rs is a not a “blind” reimplementation.
• LINUX Unplugged 607: Ubuntu's Rusty Roadmap
• Bcachefs Patches Aim For Faster Snapshot Deletion But With Another On-Disk Format Update — Bcachefs has introduced patches aimed at significantly improving snapshot deletion performance. However, implementing these improvements necessitates an update to an incompatible on-disk format, which must be explicitly enabled by users.
• Dawarich — Your Journey, Your Control — Visualize your location history, track your movements, and analyze your travel patterns with complete privacy and control.
• fabean/ytviewer — YouTube TUI that pulls subscriptions from YouTube API
• Pick: meshSidecar — meshSidecar provides a flexible way to integrate mesh networking capabilities with NixOS services. It allows services to participate in mesh networks without requiring direct modification of the service itself.
• Pick: ELEMENT.FM — Unlimited, GPLv3 Licensed, self-hostable podcast hosting

We chat with the founder of Home Assistant and then fire up Brent's Linux-powered rig.

Sponsored By:

• Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices!
• 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• 💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike
• 📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FM
• Self-Hosted 150 Merch at the Jupiter Garage
• Announcing State of the Open Home 2025
• Open Home Foundation
• Works with Home Assistant
• Reolink joins Works with Home Assistant
• Eve Joins Works With Home Assistant - Home Assistant
• 3…2…1… Backup - Home Assistant
• Home Assistant
• The Launch 🚀 20: Linux Goat North Van
• This 1987 Dodge Camper Van Is an Amazing 1980s RV Relic - YouTube
• Roadtrek Brochure - 1989-1990 Chassis Model Years.pdf
• Axiomtek ICO300-TES5 Industrial PC (PDF)
• Intel Atom® E3827
• Mieze K106 Octa-Core Tablet 10 Inch
• Spokane Linux User's Group – casual meet-up to talk tech — Cant wait till the next JB meetup over here too!
• Alpine Email Program
• Pick: LinuxInExcel — The emulator is built as a seperate dll which is loaded by the VBA macro. The VBA macro calls the emulator in the dll and gets the output and writes it into the cells in the spreadsheet.
• cnlohr/mini-rv32ima — A tiny C header-only risc-v emulator.

We're live from LinuxFest Northwest 2025. We're joined by guests from the audience, try our hand at Linux trivia and share our experiences from the best fest in the West.

Sponsored By:

• Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices!
• 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps.
• ConfigCat Feature Flags: Manage features and change your software configuration using ConfigCat feature flags, without the need to re-deploy code.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• 💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike
• 📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FM
• LinuxFest Northwest 2025 Day 1
• LFNW2025 - LinuxFest Norhtwest Homepage — 25 Years of Community Excellence.
• See how far COSMIC has come this year by Carl Richell - LinuxFest Northwest 2025
• COSMIC Desktop
• COSMIC Alpha 7 — ISO excited for the latest COSMIC alpha release! We’ve been busy clearing up scores of bugs while soldering together the features that we absolutely must include before the Big Betahemoth descends upon the Earth. Let COSMIC Alpha 7 commence!
• pop-os/cosmic-epoch: Next generation Cosmic desktop environment
• COSMIC Desktop Alpha 7 Brings More New Features
• The best-looking Linux desktop I've seen so far in 2025 — The creators of one of the coolest Linux distros just released a new version - and it puts the old one to shame.
• Blind Penguin - Software Development with José Ibañez
• Accessibility Talk: Blind Penguin at LFNW 2025
• Beyond ARIA Labels: What a Blind Film Enthusiast Can Teach Us About Open Source
• Trimui Smart Pro 128G Handheld Game Console with Pre Loaded Games
• Sausage — sausage is a terminal word forming game, written in Bash.

Fedora 42 and Ubuntu 25.04 are here—We break down what's new, what stands out, and what we love most about each release.

Sponsored By:

• Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices!
• 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps.
• ConfigCat Feature Flags: Manage features and change your software configuration using ConfigCat feature flags, without the need to re-deploy code.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• 💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike
• 📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FM
• The answer is 42! Fedora Linux 42, that is.
• GNOME 48 Release Notes
• Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin)
• The newest Ubuntu version ushers in ARM64 support for early adopters
• Ubuntu 25.04 upgrades halted due to Kubuntu users getting a broken desktop
• JB Gaming Den
• Retro Game Corps on YouTube
• Pick: Ignition — Ignition is a minimal app for editing autostart entries on Freedesktop-compliant Linux distributions.
• Ignition on Flathub
• Pick: RecordApps — A desktop application that allows you to record audio from specific applications on Linux. Built with Deno, Svelte, and WebView.
• Record Apps on Flathub

Apple's software is going rotten, while Linux sneaks up as the better Mac. Linus grumbles through Git's 20th birthday, and we spot a hardware window Linux better not slam shut.

Sponsored By:

• Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices!
• 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps.
• ConfigCat Feature Flags: Manage features and change your software configuration using ConfigCat feature flags, without the need to re-deploy code.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• 💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike
• 📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FM
• Tailscale Community Meetup Seattle — Calling all Tailscale users, homelabbers, and networking enthusiasts! We’re bringing the community together for a casual, community focused meetup in Seattle.
• POLL: Would you tune into a Saturday LFNW Live Stream?
• Celebrating Git's 20th anniversary with creator Linus Torvalds — Discover the origins of the open-source version control system, why he handed over the reins a few months in, and what he thinks about adding new programming languages to Git.
• Two decades of Git: A conversation with creator Linus Torvalds - YouTube
• uemacs - Linus Editor — Random version of microemacs with my private modificatons
• Yes Linus' uemacs is pacakged in Nix
• Debian APT 3.0 Stable Released With New Package Solver & Refined Text UI — This new version introduces a significantly refined command-line interface and a completely new package solver.
• I Want a Better Mac, so I’m Cheering for a Better Linux — "Apple needs a real competitor, one alternatives such as GNOME on Linux could actually be, if only the hardware rose to the occasion."
• I'd love to see someone help Linux take the next step
• outdoorgeek's laptop sleep optimized NixOS config
• Rust is easy? Go is… hard?
• Pick: chat-gipitty: Terminal client for getting answers from LLMs — Chat Gipitty (Chat Get Information, Print Information TTY) is a command line client for ChatGPT. It allows you to chat with your chosen model of ChatGPT in a terminal and even pipe output into it.
• moreutils' sponge — soak up standard input and write to a file.
• GitHub - pgdr/moreutils — a growing collection of the unix tools that nobody thought to write long ago when unix was young.
• Pick: ALttP VT Randomizer — Each playthrough shuffles the location of all the important items in the game. Will you find the Bow atop Death Mountain, the Fire Rod resting silently in the library, or even the Master Sword itself waiting in a chicken coop?
• spannerisms/ALttPNG

We attempt to get one of the great gaming classics running on Linux, and dig into some of the technical issues still holding back Linux. Plus: Chris has a new handheld.

Sponsored By:

• Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices!
• 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps.
• ConfigCat Feature Flags: Manage features and change your software configuration using ConfigCat feature flags, without the need to re-deploy code.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• 💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike
• 📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FM
• LinuxFest Northwest 2025 Schedule
• POLL: Would You Tune Into a Saturday LFNW Live Stream?
• LINUX Unplugged LIVE@LFNW Sunday — Sunday 10:00 AM · 1h · HC 108
• Linux-Powered Payments: Running a Lightning Node with nix-bitcoin — Sunday 1:30 PM · 45 min · HC 204
• Lutris - Open Gaming Platform for Linux — video game preservation platform aiming to keep your video game collection up and running for the years to come.
• GitHub - ValveSoftware/Proton: Compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components
• R36MAX Retro Handheld Game Console with 64G Built-in 18000+ Classic Games — The R36Max is a budget device that puts the common RK3326 chip into a vertical handheld. It has the same specs as the R36Pro, but with a larger, 1:1 screen.
• R36 Max Handheld Game Console with 4" Screen Linux System
• Kooha: Elegantly record your screen — Kooha is a simple screen recorder with a minimal interface. You can simply click the record button without having to configure a bunch of settings.
• vtt-summarizer: Summarize .vtt files into meeting notes — It uses open source LLMs to handle the data extraction and summarization, ensuring everything can be run locally and without the need to share with third parties.

Linux 6.14 lands with big improvements for gaming, laptops, and filesystems—but why is a Windows feature sneaking into our kernel?

Sponsored By:

• Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices!
• 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps.
• River: River is the most trusted place in the U.S. for individuals and businesses to buy, sell, send, and receive Bitcoin.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• 💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike
• 📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FM
• LinuxFest Northwest 2025 Schedule
• LINUX Unplugged LIVE Sunday — Sunday 10:00 AM · 1h · HC 108
• Linux-Powered Payments: Running a Lightning Node with nix-bitcoin — Sunday 1:30 PM · 45 min · HC 204
• Linux 6.14
• Linux 6.14 from Linux Kernel Newbies
• Btrfs Support for uncached buffered I/O
• FUSE and io_uring
• Windows NT synchronization primitives for Linux
• NixOS/nixos-hardware: A collection of NixOS modules covering hardware quirks.
• NerfyGek0/MeshtasticIOAddon — Documentation of how to use Meshtastic serial and MQTT functionality to automation custom hardware
• Pick: Eloquent — Eloquent is a proofreading software for English and more than 20 other languages.
• Eloquent - Flathub
• languagetool — Style and Grammar Checker; it finds many errors that a simple spell checker cannot detect.
• LanguageTool standalone server

Canonical's VP of Engineering for Ubuntu reveals why they're swapping coreutils for Rust-built tools. Then we break down the GNOME 48 release, and why this one is special.

Sponsored By:

• Tailscale: Tailscale is a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default - get it free on up to 100 devices!
• 1Password Extended Access Management: 1Password Extended Access Management is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps.
• River: River is the most trusted place in the U.S. for individuals and businesses to buy, sell, send, and receive Bitcoin.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• 💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike
• 📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FM
• Jon Seager
• Engineering Ubuntu For The Next 20 Years — We should look deeply at the tools we ship with Ubuntu by default, selecting for tools that have resilience, performance and maintainability at their core.
• Carefully But Purposefully Oxidising Ubuntu — Starting with Ubuntu 25.10, my goal is to adopt some of these modern implementations as the default. My immediate goal is to make uutils’ coreutils implementation the default in Ubuntu 25.10, and subsequently in our next Long Term Support (LTS) release, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, if the conditions are right.
• GNOME 48 Release Notes — The GNOME project is excited to introduce GNOME 48, a fresh release shaped by six months of hard work from our amazing community. Named “Bengaluru”, this release pays tribute to the dedication of the GNOME Asia 2024 organizers.
• awesome-tuis
• Pick: Ulauncher — Application launcher for Linux🐧
• Ulauncher on GitHub
• Hotkey In Wayland · Ulauncher Wiki
• Browse Ulauncher Extensions
• Gitmoji Extension
• Todoist task management Extension
• mariob88/ulauncher-todoist-integration
• Turn Off Screen Extension
• Home Assistant Extension
• qcasey/ulauncher-homeassistant
• Obsidian Extension