LINUX Unplugged

653: The Kernel Always Wins

The news this week highlights shifts in Linux from multiple angles. What's evolving, why it matters, and that moment where the future actually works.Sponsored By:Jupiter Party Annual Membership: Put your support on automatic with our annual plan, and get one month of membership for free! Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FMSCaLE 23x | Registration — Get 40% off registration with promo code "UNPLG"PlanetNix 2026 — Where Nix Builders Come TogetherPasadena Linux Party MeetupValve explains why it hasn’t announced release dates for its new hardware, now plans for “first half of the year” — Valve now says all three products will ship “in the first half of the year.”Latest VirtualBox Code Begins Supporting KVM Backend — Support for KVM or other native OS hypervisors in conjunction with VirtualBox has long been sought and it's finally becoming a reality.bcachefs-tools v1.36.1 — Interactive TUI for monitoring various filesystem internals, slowpaths and device performance, with duration and frequency tracking for various events. Helpful for diagnosing performance issues.bcachefs v1.36.1 is out - next release will be erasure coding : r/bcachefsbcachefs PSA: if you're on 1.33-1.35, upgrade asap — Several people have been hit by this, so - please upgrade asap.Mattermost — Mattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle.Debian's CI Data No Longer Publicly Browseable Due To LLM Scrapers / Bot TrafficVenice AI - Private AI for Unlimited Creative FreedomThinkBox V2 - A Custom 4-Bay SATA/SAS HDD NAS for Your Lenovo M720QCode for Climate 2026 — The Mad Botter Earth Day Open Source Challenge — We're doing our Earth Day open-source competition again The Mad Botter INC. Once again featuring System76 hardware and this time with dual tracks for college and non-college students.Michael Dominick on X - Earth Day Open Source ChallengeRed5d/podcast_mcp — MCP server for accessing Podcasting 2.0 RSS feed episode data. "I've really only tested it with JB feeds!"Pick: Plexus — Remove the fear of Android app compatibility on de-Googled devices.Plexus-app: GitHubPick: ReinschriftTodo — Reinschrift combines a native GNOME interface with the simplicity of plain text. Your tasks remain a normal Markdown file – easy to back up, versionable via Git, and editable on any device with your favorite editor.Reinschrift on Flathub

652: Have Your Bot Call My Bot

We stress tested open source AI agents this week. What actually held up, and where it falls apart. Plus Brent's $20 Wi-Fi upgrade.Sponsored By:Jupiter Party Annual Membership: Put your support on automatic with our annual plan, and get one month of membership for free! Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FMPlanetNix 2026 — Where Nix Builders Come TogetherAgenda - PlanetNix 2026SCaLE 23x | Registration — Get 40% off registration with promo code "UNPLG"Pasadena Linux Party MeetupLINUX Unplugged 650: This Old Network — We rebuild a small office network around Linux, with an Unplugged twist and real-world constraints. Things don't go quite as expected...OpenWrt Wiki - Ad blockingAdBlock-fast — AdBlock-Fast is a high-performance ad-blocking service for OpenWrt that integrates with Dnsmasq, SmartDNS, and Unbound.OpenWrt Wiki - Supported Hardware TableAbe's volition — This is a public, sanitized version of my Abiverse repository for people to use and run their own AbesOpenClaw — Clears your inbox, sends emails, manages your calendar, checks you in for flights. All from WhatsApp, Telegram, or any chat app you already use.Introducing OpenClawopenclaw on GitHub 🦞openclaw security IssuesPractical changes could reduce AI energy demand by up to 90% – University College Londonmoltbook — the front page of the agent internetSeloraBox - NixOS Edition — SeloraBox is a self-configuring home automation appliance based on NixOS, featuring automated installation, device claiming via QR code, and self-updating configuration management.nixtcloud: Nextcloud with NixOS in the backend and P2P connectivity enabled — Nixtcloud turns a Raspberry Pi or NanoPi NEO3 into a privacy-first, zero-config personal cloud — powered by NixOS, Nextcloud, and peer-to-peer remote access via Holesail. Built for the self-hosting crowd who want full control without constant babysitting.Holesail.io - Open Source P2P Reverse ProxyPick: ml-sharp-pinokio — One-click 3D Gaussian Splatting generation from a single image.Pick: Gradia — Gradia helps you get your screenshots ready for sharing, whether quickly with friends or colleagues, or professionally with the entire world.

651: Uptime Funk

When your self-hosted services become infrastructure, breakage matters. We tackle monitoring that actually helps, alerts you won't ignore, and DNS for local, and multi-mesh network setups.Sponsored By:Jupiter Party Annual Membership: Put your support on automatic with our annual plan, and get one month of membership for free! Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FMUsing Experimental Lighthouse DNS with Nebula | Nebula DocsPlanetNix 2026 — Where Nix Builders Come TogetherSCaLE 23x | Registration — Get 40% off registration with promo code "UNPLG"Pasadena Linux Party MeetupNACME: ACME for Nebula PKI — ACME for Nebula PKIuptime-kuma — A fancy self-hosted monitoring tooltelegraf-bcachefs-inputbcachefs collector by ananthbntfy.sh — Send push notifications to your phone via PUT/POSTmeshSidecar — Mesh network sidecars for NixOS ServicesBecome a Core Contributor MemberJupiter.Party Network MembershipNixOS Clinic ConfigNixRTR/nixos-router — NixOS Router ConfigurationNext Steps for Funding Contributors - Actual BudgetWiFiman - WiFi AnalyserRichARCH Install GuideRichARCH Hyprvibe ScreenshotPick: Switchyard — Modern rules-based URL launcher ready to replace your default browser.switchyard on GitHubSwitchyard on Flathub

650: This Old Network

We rebuild a small office network around Linux, with an Unplugged twist and real-world constraints. Things don't go quite as expected...Sponsored By:Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. 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 UnpluggedLinks:💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FMPlanetNix 2026 — Where Nix Builders Come TogetherSCaLE 23x | Registration — Get 40% off registration with promo code "UNPLG"GEEKOM IT13 Mini PC 2026OpenWrt OneSonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus-EHome Assistant Connect ZBT-2 — An updated Zigbee and Thread chip gives it the highest performance available, while providing a rock-solid, stable network.SYMFONISK Sonos WiFi bookshelf speaker — The speaker is a collaboration between IKEA and Sonos, so it easily integrates with other products from Sonos.IKEA SYMFONISK - Home Assistant — Support for devices by IKEA SYMFONISK in Home Assistant is provided by the Sonos integration.OpenCode — The open-source AI coding agent.OpenCode on GitHubmike@computerupcycleproject.orgActual — A local-first personal finance app.Pocket ID — A simple and easy-to-use OIDC provider that allows users to authenticate with their passkeys to your services.Pick: Pocket TTS — A high quality TTS that gives your CPU a voice.Pocket TTS on GitHubPick: WebView Kiosk — Turn your Android device into a locked-down web page in fullscreen mode.webview-kiosk on GitHub

649: Burned by AI

The storage apocalypse has arrived. An old friend drops by to talk survival strategies as prices explode, and we pitch our own unapologetically 90s approach to stretching storage.Sponsored By:Managed Nebula: Meet Managed Nebula from Defined Networking. A decentralized VPN built on the open-source Nebula platform that we love. CrowdHealth: Discover a Better Way to Pay for Healthcare with Crowdfunded Memberships. Join CrowdHealth to get started today for $99 for your first three months using UNPLUGGED. Support LINUX UnpluggedLinks:💥 Gets Sats Quick and Easy with Strike📻 LINUX Unplugged on Fountain.FMPlanetNix 2026 — Where Nix Builders Come TogetherPlanet Nix 2026: Call for ProposalsSCaLE 23x | RegistrationLinuxFest Northwest 2026: Call for SpeakersMichael Tunnell - YouTubeDestination Linux - YouTubeTuxDigitalLINUX Unplugged 596: Perilously Pontificated PredictionsPhison CEO: SSD "Pricing Apocalypse" to Continue Through 2027HDD Prices Spike as AI Infrastructure and China’s PC Push Collide2025 Cloud Pricing Trends: Big Three Shake Up Storage CostsStorage Apocalypse: Why SSDs and HDDs Are Becoming Impossibly ExpensiveJensen Huang Flagged Data Storage as the Next AI BottleneckManufacturer Recertified Drives - ServerPartDeals.comHard Disk Prices (US)Storage Price TrackerRackRat - eBay Rackmount Server Deal Finderr/HomelabSales$£€ - RedditSmart Buy 10 Pack Bd-r Dl 50gb 6X Blu-ray Double Layer Recordable DiscBlueVault — A top-quality TUI app to manage Blu-ray cold storage archives on Linux.Pick: Kopia — Cross-platform backup tool for Windows, macOS & Linux with fast, incremental backups, client-side end-to-end encryption, compression and data deduplication. CLI and GUI included.Kopia Repository ServerPick: PowerISO — Create, Burn, Mount, Edit, Compress, Encrypt, Split, Extract ISO file, ISO/BIN converter, Virtual DrivePowerISO on FlathubPick: CDEmu — CDemu is a software suite designed to emulate an optical drive and disc on the Linux operating system.Tellico — Collection management software, free and simple.