FOSS Weekly #26.32: Kittens, Feed Readers, Free Bash Course, No AI in Kernel Staging and More

It's FOSS reports that Greg Kroah-Hartman has banned AI-generated patches from the drivers/staging area of the Linux kernel, while allowing them elsewhere, and GNOME has published a guide for bots to reduce AI-generated extension submissions. NVIDIA has joined the LVFS as a premier sponsor, bringing the total to four OEM sponsors and meeting the project's funding target. Keychron announced ZGM, a GPL-3.0 open source mouse firmware built on Zephyr RTOS, debuting on the G6 HE in Q1 2027.

The entire debate in the Linux and open source world these days is if AI generated code should be used or not. As Linus told AI critics to fork the project or walk away, GKH took a more surgical approach https://itsfoss.com/news/linux-drivers-staging-ai-rejection/ . AI patches are fine elsewhere in the kernel, but drivers/staging is off limits. The GNOME extensions review queue is still flooded with AI slop months after the no-AI rule went in. The latest attempt to slow it down is a guide https://itsfoss.com/news/gnome-shell-extension-instructions-for-bots/ written directly for the bots doing the generating, covering the bad patterns that keep showing up. Keychron's doing for mice what QMK did for keyboards. ZGM https://itsfoss.com/news/keychron-zgm-mouse-firmware/ is a GPL-3.0 open source firmware built on Zephyr RTOS, coming first to the G6 HE in Q1 2027. If it takes off, Linux users are the ones who gain most since practically no gaming mice ship with official Linux configuration support. Another Ubuntu deb is becoming a Snap. hwctl , the CLI tool behind Ubuntu Pro and hardware certification checks, is going Snap-only https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/ubuntu-hwctl-deb-to-snap-transition?ref=itsfoss.com for better sandboxing and tighter GNOME Control Center integration. Nine months since the last release and nearly a decade in the 3.4 series, Rhythmbox 3.5.0 https://itsfoss.com/news/rhythmbox-3-5-release/ has finally arrived. Podcasts have seen the most work, where played episodes are now marked, notifications are better, and there's a new gPodder.net plugin for syncing feeds. Following up on the LVFS sponsorship story from earlier https://itsfoss.com/news/hp-supports-lvfs/ . NVIDIA has now joined as a premier sponsor https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2026/08/04/nvidia-is-now-supporting-the-lvfs/?ref=itsfoss.com , bringing the total to four OEM sponsors and hitting the funding target the project set for itself. 🧠 What We’re Thinking About GNOME Boxes hasn't looked modern in a long time. The rewrite, in beta now on GNOME Nightly https://itsfoss.com/news/gnome-boxes-glow-up/ , fixes that, moving to GTK4 and Libadwaita while opting for a Flatpak-only approach. 🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings If you use Kitty and haven't touched its Kittens yet https://itsfoss.com/kittens-kitty/ , then you are missing out These are small built-in programs that extend the terminal without needing external tools, covering everything from an interactive theme switcher and font picker to a drop-down terminal, a fuzzy file chooser If your Linux Mint desktop feels a bit plain, Cinnamon's extension manager provides a set of visual effects https://itsfoss.com/linux-mint-window-effects/ worth trying. Effects like burn my windows, wobbly windows, magic lamp, and a desktop cube for workspace switching are available. A free nine-chapter bash scripting course https://itsfoss.com/bash-scripting-tutorial/ for beginners, covering variables, arguments, user input, arithmetic, arrays, strings, conditionals, loops, and functions. 👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner Want to take back control of what you read without an algorithm deciding for you? We have covered ten self-hosted RSS readers https://itsfoss.com/self-hosted-rss-feed-readers/ , with notes on which ones are actually built for self-hosting and which ones technically work but their own developers don't recommend it. The list is for self-hosting. For normal desktop usage, we have a separate list of RSS feed readers for Linux https://itsfoss.com/feed-reader-apps-linux/ . It's a bit old, but most of the apps are still in active development. Desktop Linux is mostly neglected by the industry but loved by the community. For the past 14 years, It's FOSS has been helping people use Linux on their personal computers. And we are now facing the existential threat from AI models stealing our content. If you like what we do and would love to support our work, please become It's FOSS Plus member. It costs $49 a year less than the cost of a McDonald's burger a month , and you get an ad-free reading experience with the satisfaction of helping the desktop Linux community. And there are also free Linux ebooks. Join It's FOSS Plus https://itsfoss.com/membership/ ✨ Apps and Projects Highlights While it is yet to arrive on Linux, the terminal-browser https://terminal-browser.com/?ref=itsfoss.com is worth a look. It is a real browser that runs inside a terminal. 📽️ Videos for You You can master AppImage installation by following a few simple steps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHdMhFnnVOI&ref=itsfoss.com . 💡 Quick Handy Tip Transform Dash to Panel into a dynamic, Plank-style dock with ripple hover animations by tweaking a few key extension settings. First, navigate to the " Position " tab in the Dash to Panel settings. Disable every item on the panel except for the " Taskbar ", and change the panel size or length mode to " Dynamic " so it shrinks to fit your active app icons. Next, open the " Fine-Tune " tab and enable " Keep original gnome-shell top panel ." This restores the standard GNOME top bar for your clock, system status icons, and menus while leaving your new dock at the bottom or side. Finally, switch to the " Style " tab and enable " Animate hovering app icons ." Click the settings gear next to this option to choose and adjust your preferred hover effect. Local AI Weekly will start from first week of August. If you are interested in learning about open source AI, please subscribe to our upcoming Local AI Weekly newsletter https://itsfoss.com/local-ai-weekly/ . Subscribe to Local AI Weekly https://itsfoss.com/local-ai-weekly/ 🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse Do you know what kind of Linux user you are https://itsfoss.com/quiz/linux-user-type-personality/ ? Well, it's obvious which one is the winner here. 😉 🗓️ Tech Trivia : IBM launched the System/23 Datamaster on July 28, 1981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM System/23 Datamaster?ref=itsfoss.com , just two weeks before the IBM PC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM Personal Computer?ref=itsfoss.com . The same engineers built both, and what they learned on the Datamaster helped shape the desktop computer as we know it. 🧑🤝🧑 From the Community : Pro FOSSer Neville has shared his experiment running Lumina desktop on antiX-26 https://itsfoss.community/t/antix26-with-lumina-desktop-environment-the-iso/16095?ref=itsfoss.com . If this helped you, consider supporting It's FOSS It's FOSS has been helping people use Linux for the past 14 years. Help us stay independent from big tech. 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