Just my blogroll - BlogFlock

Linux man pages 6.17 released - LWN.net

2026-02-11T21:24:02.000Z

Version 6.17 of the Linux manual-page collection has been released. Along with a long list of updates to the man pages themselves, it includes some new utility programs of interest.

The grepc(1) program is something that originated in this project, as it helped me find code quickly in glibc and the Linux kernel. However, I've found it incredibly useful outside of this project. I'll take some space to announce it, as it's much more than just a tool for writing manual pages, and I expect it to be useful to most --if not all-- C programmers.
It is a command-line tool that finds C source code (for example, a function definition) in arbitrary projects. It doesn't use any indexing mechanism (unlike ctags and similar tools). This means that it can be used right after cloning some repository, without having to first generate an index.

New Proton Experimental update adds controller support to more launchers on Linux / SteamOS - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-11T19:13:41.000Z

Valve have released a new update to Proton Experimental, their testing ground for getting more Windows games running on Linux / SteamOS systems.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Mesa 26.0 is out bringing ray tracing performance improvements for AMD RADV - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-11T18:35:27.000Z

Mesa 26.0 has arrived as the latest new-feature release of open source graphics drivers, and there's a whole lot to be excited about in this one.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Automatically Syncing Emacs Tab Bar Styling With Your Theme - Emacs@ Dyerdwelling

2026-02-11T18:26:00.000Z

If you’ve ever enabled a new theme and noticed your tab-bar faces stubbornly hanging onto old colours or custom tweaks, I have found often that the tab-bar, tab-bar-tab, and tab-bar-tab-inactive faces don’t always blend cleanly with freshly loaded themes — especially of the older variety (a bit like me) and especially ones that came out before the tab bar was introduced into Emacs.

So how about a simple solution?, Can I implement something, that whenever I load a theme, the tab-bar faces update based on the theme’s default faces to establish a visually pleasant and coherent look?

Yes, yes I can!; the result is a tiny Elisp enhancement that hooks directly into Emacs’ theme-loading process.

Firstly however we need to have a method that will reliably pass over the themes default faces to the tab-bar. Here’s the function that realigns the tab-bar styling with your active theme:

(defun selected-window-accent-sync-tab-bar-to-theme ()
"Synchronize tab-bar faces with the current theme."
(interactive)
(let ((default-bg (face-background 'default))
(default-fg (face-foreground 'default))
(inactive-fg (face-foreground 'mode-line-inactive)))
(custom-set-faces
`(tab-bar ((t (:inherit default :background ,default-bg :foreground ,default-fg))))
`(tab-bar-tab ((t (:inherit default :background ,default-fg :foreground ,default-bg))))
`(tab-bar-tab-inactive ((t (:inherit default :background ,default-bg :foreground ,inactive-fg)))))))

This simply rebuilds the key tab-bar faces so they derive their colours from the current theme’s normal face definitions, so any old themes should now not leave the tab bar faces hanging.

Now for the function activation; Emacs 29 introduced enable-theme-functions, a hook that runs every time a theme is enabled — perfect for our use case, but as always I have my eye on older Emacs versions, so lets fall back to a classic approach: advice on load-theme.

Here’s a version‑aware setup that does the right thing automatically:

(if (version<= "29.1" emacs-version)
;; Emacs 29.1+ — use the official theme hook
(add-hook 'enable-theme-functions
(lambda (_theme)
(selected-window-accent-sync-tab-bar-to-theme)))
;; Older Emacs — fall back to advising load-theme
(progn
(defun selected-window-accent-sync-tab-bar-to-theme--after (&rest _)
(selected-window-accent-sync-tab-bar-to-theme))
(advice-add 'load-theme :after
#'selected-window-accent-sync-tab-bar-to-theme--after)))

With this tweak in place, every time you change themes, your tab-bar instantly updates, colours stay consistent, clean, and theme‑accurate without you having to do anything at all! The downside to this of course is that any newer themes that were created after the advent of the tab bar in Emacs will have their tab-bar faces overridden, but for me this solution is good enough and gives a pleasant coherent visual tab bar experience.

Yay!, yet another Yak shaved!

The Next Innovation in Higher Education: Vibe-Teaching™ - McSweeney’s

2026-02-11T18:00:00.000Z

As the associate vice provost for the Office of Asynchronous Online Courses for Student-Centered High-Impact Learning (OAOCSCHIL, an office we created in the last few years after realizing how lucrative these things are), I want to address a growing concern on campus: the rumor that asynchronous online classes are “basically a scam.”

I understand the confusion. Outsiders are quick to pass judgment on these courses stocked with hastily recorded video lectures from 2020, auto-graded multiple-choice quizzes, and reflection message boards that are now 87 percent bots talking to other bots. Because there are no scheduled meetings with professors or classmates, and grading consists of counting whether students clicked the correct buttons, the fact that we charge tuition for the privilege of participating in these experiences could be mistaken for a scam: one in which no learning and very little effort are exchanged for grades and credits.

But, I assure you, this is not a scam. This is innovation.

Let me walk you through our new pedagogical model, which we in the OAOCSCHIL call Vibe-Teaching. You may have heard of “vibe-coding,” the revolutionary new software methodology in which programmers no longer understand code, write code, or even read code. They simply tell a large language model (LLM) what they want, run whatever it produces, and then tweak the prompt until the contraption is complete. Coding becomes cycles of evaluating outputs driven by persistent hopefulness.

Vibe-Teaching brings this cutting-edge, iterative feedback loop to higher education. Rather than building courses through faculty expertise or disciplinary knowledge, faculty gather complaints from alums now trying to get real jobs, feed those complaints into AI, and allow the system to revise the course accordingly. This continuous-improvement cycle transforms real-world disappointment into automated course updates, freeing faculty time for research (about AI), service (related to AI), and existential despair (you can guess the topic).

This instructional design reflects our commitment to inclusive pedagogy: All learning pathways are valid, whether students engage as manual human learners or outsource their consciousness to a chatbot. We support all modalities, confident that each demonstrates a different facet of multiple intelligences—or whatever we’re calling it this year.

In Vibe-Teaching, faculty are no longer required to read the AI-generated slop that students themselves have not paused to read. We only uphold one high-touch requirement: Vibe-Teaching faculty must log in every two weeks to respond to the pop-up message, “Are you still teaching?”

Some have asked why we don’t simply focus on helping students learn things. We appreciate the sentiment. Unfortunately, AI has made it impossible to measure actual learning. Every assignment is now an unverifiable collaboration between a stressed undergraduate and a VC-backed robo-parrot. Detecting “authentic” student thinking is technically possible, but prohibitively expensive. Think about it: We would need to pay real human faculty to interact with real human students. We do not have the budget for that.

So we have stopped trying to change student thinking. Instead, we focus on the continuous improvement of vibes. In lieu of learning outcomes, we now ask whether students have a warm sense of what learning might feel like and whether they can recall, with confidence, that they took “chemistry.” If so, we mark that as “exceeds expectations.”

And because we are a modern, data-driven institution, we have checked our dashboards to confirm the effectiveness of this approach. GPAs are rising, fail rates are down, and student satisfaction with online learning is trending in the right direction! Our website now proudly proclaims our AI-enhanced commitment to student success. The naysayers may fret about a post-literate world, but they have clearly not looked at the data. Numbers don’t lie.

From an institutional perspective, the benefits are substantial. Vibe-Teaching allows us to maximize enrollment and graduation rates without expanding facilities, faculty positions, or effort. It satisfies student demand for maximum flexibility, minimal cognitive effort, and zero human interaction, while meeting accreditation requirements (in vibes, if not in letter).

There is, of course, some risk of corroding the very foundations of our university’s mission. But institutional survival requires adaptation. Our graduates must become “AI-resilient and future-ready members of the workforce”… whatever that means.

The truth is, everyone wants this. Why they want it is beside the point. In light of these market demands, we humbly ask everyone to stop referring to asynchronous online courses as a “scam.” That word implies deception. In Vibe-Teaching, we are fully transparent:

We provide the illusion of education.
Students provide the illusion of engagement.
Together, we uphold the illusion of academic integrity.

1200 Ubisoft staff go on strike against Assassin's Creed company's massive cutbacks - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-11T17:38:36.000Z

At least 1,200 Ubisoft developers have gone on strike across Paris and Milan in response to the company’s recent massive cutbacks and change of policy towards remote-working. That’s the figure given for yesterday’s bout of strike action by Marc Rutschlé, Ubisoft Paris staffer and a representative of the union Solidaires Informatique, in a statement to the socialist agitators of GamesIndustry.biz.

The primary inspiration for this week’s strike is Ubisoft’s cancellation or closure of several games and studios, with total job losses still to be confirmed but likely to be in the hundreds. The strikers are also pissed off about delayed or inadequate pay rises, together with Ubisoft’s new ban on remote or hybrid working (employees will get a yearly allowance of homeworking days instead). In general, they incline to the belief that Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot is a big smelly bumface who should be looking for a new job.

Cyberpunk platformer Replaced has a demo out, and it's wonderfully atmospheric when you're not plummeting a short distance - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-11T17:14:11.000Z

Warren! Warren! Warren!

ARRGGHHH! WHAAAA! HUHHHH! Replaced, the long-in-development dystopian platformer from Sad Cat Studios, keeps shouting my last name at me. It might because the game's main character, a jacketed gap jumper and baddie shooter, is called Warren. It might also because I did plenty of falling and accidentally got shot by a robo-sniper in Replaced's demo, which is now live ahead of the full thing's release next month.

Come shout down dystopia in the demo for Amanita's fancy cardboard mind control puzzler Phonopolis - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-11T16:56:31.000Z

Czech indie developers Amanita Design – creators of Samorost, Creaks and Machinarium, among other marvels – have released a demo for Phonopolis, their 3D cardboard adventure about a young man called Felix who is trying to save a city brainwashed by massive loudspeakers. Protected by his headphones, Felix is on a mission to stop the authoritarian Leader from issuing the Absolute Tone, which will “strip every citizen of their humanity forever”. Seems like a thing to avoid!

No Man's Sky Remnant update brings a fancy gravity gun and customizable trucks - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-11T16:51:49.000Z

No Man's Sky is gradually turning into a playground, and now you can mess with physics in the No Man's Sky Remnant update.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Reanimal review – the dollhouse horror of Little Nightmares gives way to a grimier tale of war and slaughter - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-11T16:21:51.000Z

In an industry pestered by calls to "think of the children", Tarsier’s games are useful reminders that children can be utterly depraved in ways no coddling adult would ever dream. Later in Reanimal, the developer’s latest, strictly 'co-optional' horror game, two kids rip an eyeball out of a massive, sunken horse skull and shove it into what I sincerely hope is the eyesocket of a slumbering whale. Somehow, this is necessary to advance.

It’s the kind of thing that would only occur to children, because children do not reason like 'we' do, those disgusting creeps. They sense that they exist in a world that isn’t for them: a world of baffling laws, high shelves, and everyday monstrosity; a world they’re required to 'grow into' by means of repeated shedding and sprouting and subjection - milk teeth and pubic hair and doing your goddamn chores. So they instinctively come up with ways to screw with the system, twist its horrible logic against itself. Why not push a horse’s eyeball into a whale?

Overwatch has returned with new heroes and a new UI - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-11T16:13:17.000Z

Overwatch has returned with the "2" now in the bin, along with a big content update with new heroes and a new lobby UI.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

[$] Evolving Git for the next decade - LWN.net

2026-02-11T15:55:58.000Z

Git is ubiquitous; in the last two decades, the version-control system has truly achieved world domination. Almost every developer uses it and the vast majority of open-source projects are hosted in Git repositories. That does not mean, however, that it is perfect. Patrick Steinhardt used his main-track session at FOSDEM 2026 to discuss some of its shortcomings and how they are being addressed to prepare Git for the next decade.

postmarketOS FOSDEM 2026 and hackathon recap - LWN.net

2026-02-11T15:55:28.000Z

The postmarketOS project has published a recap from FOSDEM 2026, including the FOSS on Mobile devroom, and a summary of its post-FOSDEM hackathon. This includes decisions on governance and the project's AI policy:

AI policy: our current AI policy does not state that we forbid the use of generative AI in postmarketOS, so far this document just lists why we think it is a bad idea and misaligned with the project values. We discussed this and will soon change it (via merge request) to clearly state that we don't want generative AI to be used in the project. It was also noted that currently the policy is too long, it would make sense to split it into the actual policy and still keep, but separate the reasoning from it.

[...] Power delegation and teams: in over two hours we discussed how to move forward with [postmarketOS change request] PMCR 0008 to organize ourselves better, and how it fits with soon having a legal entity. We figured that we need to rename "The Board" (which is currently for financial oversight) to "Financial Team", as we will soon have a new board for the legal entity. In the end our idea was to have the new board refer to an "assembly" for all important decisions, and this "assembly" would just be all Trusted Contributors in postmarketOS. The Core Contributors team would be dissolved in favor of having several topic-specific teams (a lot of which we already have, such as the infra team). This way we would have a very flat decision structure. The PMCR will be updated soon and discussed further there. Casey also asked on fedi for further feedback and got a lot of input.

Other topics include reaching out to resellers to sell phones with postmarketOS preinstalled, security, and more.

Romeo is a Dead Man's most beguiling spectacle is its astral fish tank menu - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-11T15:28:33.000Z

Romeo is a Dead Man, Grasshopper Manufacture’s eccentric new hack 'n' slash, is out today. I quite like it. I especially like its main menu screen, a strangely hypnotic fish tank in which captive planets float alongside a coral ballet trophy, and the menu’s text strings try to escape when you’re not looking. There is, precisely, one fish.

Winpulse - Irreal

2026-02-11T15:10:11.000Z

Álvaro Ramírez has a new Emacs app available. The app, winpulse, is his answer to keeping track of the active window. What happens is that every time the focus changes the new window flashes so you get a visual indication of the new window.

I had the same problem but solved it in a different way. I made the modeline of the active window a strikingly different color so that it’s easy to spot the one with focus. I like my solution better because the indication has longevity. If I get up and then return to my computer, I can immediately see which window is active. The nice thing about my solution is that it simply amounts to a set-face-attribute as you can see in my post or below.

None of this will come as news to Ramírez, of course. He simply prefers a different way of indicating the active window and, as always, Emacs makes it easy to have it your way.

Ramírez says the the app is brand new so it won’t be on Melpa yet but you can get it from its GitHup repository. If you like just having a momentary indication of the active window, Ramírez’s solution may be just what you’re looking for. If you prefer something a little stickier, changing the color of the modeline has worked very well for me. You could, I suppose even use both methods.

For the record, here’s the current code from my inet.el:

(set-face-attribute 'mode-line-active nil
:foreground "black" :background "goldenrod" :box '(:line-width 1 :color
"black"))

Unless you have a tan background, goldenrod probably isn’t the right color for you but you can experiment to see what works well with your theme.

Stable kernels for Wednesday - LWN.net

2026-02-11T14:33:56.000Z

Greg Kroah-Hartman has unleashed six new stable kernels: 6.18.10, 6.6.124, 6.12.70, 6.1.163, 5.15.200, and 5.10.250. Each one contains important fixes throughout the tree; users are advised to upgrade.

Retro Macintosh games Return to Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle arrive on Steam in March - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-11T14:15:21.000Z

Return to Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle are classic Macintosh games from the 80s, and they're getting a bundled definitive edition re-release on Steam.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Security updates for Wednesday - LWN.net

2026-02-11T14:01:00.000Z

Security updates have been issued by Debian (kernel, linux-6.1, munge, and tcpflow), Fedora (accel-ppp, atuin, babl, bustle, endless-sky, envision, ettercap, fapolicy-analyzer, firefox, glycin, gnome-settings-daemon, go-fdo-client, greenboot-rs, greetd, helix, hwdata, keylime-agent-rust, kiwi, libdrm, maturin, mirrorlist-server, ntpd-rs, ogr2osm, open-vm-tools, perl-App-Cme, perl-Net-RDAP, perl-rdapper, polymake, python-requests-ratelimiter, python-tqdm, rust-add-determinism, rust-afterburn, rust-ambient-id, rust-app-store-connect, rust-bat, rust-below, rust-btrd, rust-busd, rust-bytes, rust-cargo-c, rust-cargo-deny, rust-coreos-installer, rust-crypto-auditing-agent, rust-crypto-auditing-client, rust-crypto-auditing-event-broker, rust-crypto-auditing-log-parser, rust-dua-cli, rust-eif_build, rust-git-delta, rust-git-interactive-rebase-tool, rust-git2, rust-gst-plugin-dav1d, rust-gst-plugin-reqwest, rust-heatseeker, rust-ingredients, rust-jsonwebtoken, rust-lsd, rust-monitord, rust-monitord-exporter, rust-muvm, rust-nu, rust-num-conv, rust-onefetch, rust-oo7-cli, rust-pleaser, rust-pore, rust-pretty-git-prompt, rust-procs, rust-rbspy, rust-rbw, rust-rd-agent, rust-rd-hashd, rust-redlib, rust-resctl-bench, rust-resctl-demo, rust-routinator, rust-sccache, rust-scx_layered, rust-scx_rustland, rust-scx_rusty, rust-sequoia-chameleon-gnupg, rust-sequoia-keystore-server, rust-sequoia-octopus-librnp, rust-sequoia-sq, rust-sevctl, rust-shadow-rs, rust-sigul-pesign-bridge, rust-speakersafetyd, rust-tealdeer, rust-time, rust-time-core, rust-time-macros, rust-tokei, rust-weezl, rust-wiremix, rust-ybaas, rustup, sad, strawberry, systemd, tbtools, transmission, trustedqsl, tuigreet, uv, and vdr-extrecmenung), Oracle (brotli, git-lfs, java-1.8.0-openjdk, kernel, libsoup, libsoup3, nodejs:24, python3.12, and thunderbird), Red Hat (fence-agents, python-urllib3, python3.11-urllib3, python3.12-urllib3, and resource-agents), SUSE (avahi, cups, freerdp, golang-github-prometheus-prometheus, java-11-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, libsoup2, libxml2, and python-pip), and Ubuntu (expat, glib2.0, and imagemagick).

No Man's Sky's latest update is all about rubbish-flinging spacetrashpeople with gravity guns and interstellar trucks - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-11T14:00:00.000Z

Look at all the mess lying around. You can't move for discarded detritus on the planets of No Man's Sky. Good news, then, that the space sandbox's latest update delivers a gravity gun and interstellar rubbish collection lorries that'll help clean those worlds up a bit.

Wireless VR streaming levels up on Linux with the latest WiVRn release - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-11T13:54:31.000Z

Have a VR headset and want to do some gaming from your Linux PC? WiVRn has a new release out that should make the experience even better.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.