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I know, this title might come as a surprise to many. Or perhaps, for those who truly know me, it won’t. I am not a fanboy. The BSDs and the illumos distributions generally follow an approach to design and development that aligns more closely with the way I think, not to mention the wonderful communities around them, but that does not mean I do not use and appreciate other solutions. I usually publish articles about how much I love the BSDs or illumos distributions, but today I want to talk about Linux (or, better, GNU/Linux) and why, despite everything, it still holds a place in my heart. This will be the first in a series of articles where I’ll discuss other operating systems.

What is it?

Harper is a free English grammar checker designed to be just right. You can think of it as an open-source alternative to Grammarly. I created it after years of dealing with the shortcomings of the competition.

Private

Harper is completely private, in every sense of the word.

Since Harper runs on-device, your data doesn't go anywhere you don't want it to.

That means you have 100% certainty we don't violate your copyright by training large language models.

Harper also intentionally avoids including any kind of generative AI in any part of our processing pipeline.

Bluetooth® audio has come a long way since 2001, when the Headset Profile (HSP) and Hands-Free Profile (HFP) first enabled bidirectional voice calls over Synchronous Connection-Oriented transport. The Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) followed in 2003, bringing high-quality audio streaming to our headphones and speakers. While these Bluetooth® "classic" profiles have served us well for over two decades, they come with fundamental limitations that have become increasingly apparent in modern use cases.

If you've ever wondered why your music quality drops dramatically when you answer a call on your Bluetooth® headset, you've experienced one of A2DP's key limitations firsthand. Its unidirectional nature means that enabling a microphone requires switching to HFP, resulting in that noticeably reduced audio quality. Beyond this, Bluetooth® classic exhibits high latency (100-200ms for A2DP) and high power consumption, by modern standards, which results in inadequate battery life for all-day use cases like hearing aids. These and many more limitations have led vendors over the years to drive this outdated technology to its limits and develop non-standard solutions such as Google's Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) profile and Apple's Made for iPhone (MFi) extensions.

Enter LE Audio, introduced with Bluetooth® 5.2 in 2020, which represents a fundamental shift in the Bluetooth® audio architecture. This post outlines what changes LE Audio brings, what its support status is on Linux, and what lies ahead for building great Linux-based products that make use of this functionality. The content of this post was originally a talk presented at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2025, which you can watch here

The latest stable release of SteamVR is out now! SteamVR 2.14 is a maintenance release focused on fixing up bugs and nuisance issues. Nice to see the Linux fix make it in here, as no doubt that was quite annoying.

Mainly, this is promoting the previous Beta build to stable for all SteamVR users. No doubt plenty more ongoing behind the scenes so that SteamVR is ready for the upcoming Steam Frame device from Valve. I am very excited to get my hands on it eventually to cut the cord with VR but the Valve Index has served me well until now.

With Advanced Performance Extensions (APX) on upcoming Intel processors doubling the number of general purpose registers (GPRs) among other advantages, Intel engineers are beginning to think of possible kernel uses for the extra registers.

To date there hasn't been much thought given to kernel uses for these extra registers with the enablement thus far of APX primarily focused on user-space software. There is some thinking that these EGPRs (Extended General Purpose Registers) may be useful to help reduce kernel stack pressure. But it also needs to be decided among kernel developers just how much they plan to make use of these extra registers for knowing the best design for how to handle their use in sharing with user-space. Plus needing to keep assuming APX is optional for x86_64 Linux, maintaining legacy register use, etc.

Personally, I’ve been vegan for almost a decade. This is the longest I’ve ever stuck with anything in my entire life. I’ve picked up and put down so many hobbies, played around with my gender expression, and had just shy of a million jobs, but being vegan is by far the most consistent thing about me.

Recently, my partner and I spent a weekend at Vegan Basecamp. A lovely couple living in Las Vegas plans a few trips a year to camp and hike in different parts of the southwest, and they pamper their guests with amazing homemade vegan meals. During our weekend in the Coconino Forest in Sedona we had breakfast tacos, soy curl “chicken” with roasted veggies, and the best tofu scramble I’ve ever had. I’d never been around so many vegans before, it was so eye opening. It was so nice to be somewhere for an entire weekend without having to worry about what I could or couldn’t eat.

On Saturday, November 15, people began to slowly trickle into Lewiston’s Franco Center as soon as the doors opened at 9:00 AM. Coming from all over the state, a few having traveled from as far as Massachusetts and New York, people were arriving for the first ever Maine Solidarity Conference, a day-long event put on by the Maine Democratic Socialists of America. Throughout the day roughly 125 people showed up, attending different panels and presentations focused on an array of issues ranging from labor to empire, from feminism to electoral politics, and much more followed by a social featuring local bands.

The statewide chapter of DSA voted to organize a fall conference last January during its Winter Semi-Annual Convention, the impetus being the rise of Trump 2.0 and the need for a stronger united front on the left. By bringing together people from different organizations and overlapping struggles who might not otherwise get many chances to share strategies and experiences, the hope was that the conference could offer a material step toward opening lines of communication and education between different movements that all share an interest in opposing the far right’s agenda.

Maker David Johnson-Davies has designed a compact board for anyone looking to turn a USB Power Delivery (PD)-capable power supply into a user-selectable fixed voltage for their breadboard projects and more: the USB-C Power Delivery Dongle.

"This is a small board that will deliver one of six fixed voltages from a USB-C power adapter that supports [USB] Power Delivery," Johnson-Davies explains of the gadget. "It's compact enough that you can put it in line with a USB-C cable, encapsulated in a small case or heatshrink tubing, and you can select the voltage by soldering a wire link or fitting a jumper in one of six positions. A green LED indicates when the output is active."

Oklahoma City DSA by James Welch

Oklahoma City DSA is a small, but mighty chapter, experiencing a resurgence in membership and energy in this post-apocalyptic anti-Trump wave. Among other things, we are organizing around Queer Liberation, because our fair city has a strong LGBTQ+ community, due to many fleeing oppression in rural areas. We have organized the popular Queer Fight Club, where we teach a vulnerable population not only basic self-defense skills, but also how to deescalate confrontation and find support in the community. We have learned how to be protective of our members, and have faced some security concerns, which DSA has helped us navigate. We believe that Queer Fight Club helps promote a socialist future by teaching lessons of solidarity grounded in community awareness and access to vital services.