My Journey to the openSUSE.Asia Summit (oSAS) 2026 in Yogyakarta
This is the prologue of my journey.
Let me share my stories about mine in oSAS26. I'm thinking of joining oSAS next year, after oSAS25 in Faridabad, India. At the time, I was a first-time contributor to openSUSE, and sometimes I chatted with people in the openSUSE Bar. I'd already met a few people in openSUSE by then, like Douglas DeMaio (ddemaio) and Luboš Kocman (lkocman), and a few others from the Bar, Release Team and weekly meetings (Tuesdays and Thursdays). I was so happy when they told me the next oSAS is in Indonesia. I thought at the time that I should join the next one. So, as we're entering 2026, openSUSE Indonesia has confirmed that the next oSAS is going to be in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I'm waiting for info about that and the CfP (Call for Papers) to submit as a speaker, since I can't just attend.
When I first started, I didn't have much recognition in the local community, so people at the time had no idea who I was. I know it's my fault for not showing them what I really look like and always presenting myself as a virtual influencer. But never mind; time flies. When I got accepted for my CfP, I immediately applied for TSP (Travel Support Program), and when that was also accepted, I contacted Douglas to see if he could get the TSP funds to me earlier, since I had planned everything for the trip. At the time, I asked for at least 100 EUR (about Rp. 2,000,000), but now the funds I have to manage are only 67 EUR (about Rp. 1,360,830). I'm working on my funding plan for that at the moment, and we talked about it until I finally decided to use EUR 52.48 (about Rp. 1,085,500). When my TSP money has been transferred to my bank account, I'll sort out the bus and accommodation booking right away. I'm keeping the rest of it in a separate account with a different bank. Then, as usual, I'll report the invoice to Douglas and get my travel ready. I know that TSP should be reimbursed at the end of the event, but since I told him I can't go with my own funding, he finally got back to me and is helping me out. So basically, I owe them funding for going to Yogyakarta, and now I'm paying for it by preparing the trip from Bandung via the DAMRI bus. The journey starts here.
Preparing the trip from Bandung to Yogyakarta.
September 30th, when I started the day with my parents at DAMRI Kebon Kawung, it was near KAI Bandung Station at the North Gate. 10.30 to 16.30, I waited for the bus, and I departed at 17.00.
DAMRI Bandung Kebon Kawung, photo by me at Fediverse
At the time, I was also very unwell with breathing difficulties, and I had so much mucus that I was coughing constantly. Also, a few of the buses I got were in bad condition (especially the air conditioning, which made me feel even worse). The bus route I took was from Semarang to Magelang to Yogyakarta. Some people were getting on and off at Semarang and Magelang, but I was the only one actually going to Yogyakarta.
October 1st at 03.00 in the early morning, I arrived at the DAMRI station in Yogyakarta and made my first Grab order directly to UIN Sunan Kalijaga (UIN SUKA), as I had promised my friend at GNU/Weeb. His name is Ammar Faizi, and he originally comes from Yogyakarta, but he is moving to Jakarta. We had arranged to meet at the Grand Mercure Hotel, which looks expensive but is actually very impressive. Before they opened the gate, I walked from UIN SUKA to the Circle K near the city border between Sleman and Yogyakarta. I also joined the bar when I told Gertjan Lettink (Knurpht) that I had arrived in Yogyakarta. He told me that Luboš was still on air. So, I am waiting until 08.00 morning while I am also listening to RRI Pro 3 (RRI's news channel). After that, I posted the opening stories on Instagram about my arrival in Yogyakarta.
First and Second day in Yogyakarta, before going to oSAS26
After being greeted by the morning in Yogyakarta, I went to UIN SUKA again to familiarise myself with the surroundings as a guest. After walking around the UIN SUKA complex, I decided to wait at the Grand Mercure Hotel, which Ammar and I had booked. I went to the gate to verify our booking, but since Ammar hadn't arrived yet, I waited in the lobby. At 10:30, I met Sendy at the hotel, and he asked me to follow him to find some food. It was the first time I had seen Sendy, and he gave me the food he had ordered for both of us. We parted ways when I went back to the hotel.
At 2 pm, I finally met Ammar at the hotel, and we went to our booked room. I spent the day with him, and then at 19:00 we went to Klaten to meet our friend Ufal Salman at his biryani restaurant. We discussed so much with him, and it's my first time seeing the friends that I want to see. We returned to Yogyakarta at 22:00, after which I went to sleep, bringing my first day to a close.
Ammar's post at GNU/Weeb Social (Mastodon) regarding our visit to Klaten, sources here
October 2nd, Friday. We're still at the hotel having breakfast. At 09:00, I'm going to the mosque complex at UIN SUKA while Ammar is looking for the nearest mosque to the hotel to attend the weekly Friday prayer (you might have realised that I'm a Muslim with a Western-sounding name). After that, we're going to spend some time there. Then, I'm going to Garuda Spark to meet the guys from JogjaDev for a small meetup. I am going back to the hotel once the meetup has ended, and preparing with Ammar to see Indian businessman at Malioboro area, and we spend time with him (and his girlfriend that eventually are Chindo (Chinese Indonesian) woman from Sukabumi). We spent time there until 23.00. After we arrived at the hotel, Ammar was preparing for sleep while I was finishing my presentation.
The day has come. Third day in Yogyakarta, farewell with Ammar and the first day of the event.
October 3rd, D-Day for me. As I was finishing my presentation, Luboš suddenly joined the bar. I saw that he was already at the hotel in Yogyakarta that he had booked. He told me something that surprised me. What was it? He said that he was representing SUSE and wanted me to attend the next openSUSE Conference (oSC27). He wants me to attend as a speaker and discuss the conference, which is taking place in Prague, Czechia, in June 2027. I agreed with him, but I was worried about my exam schedule. After that, he left to finish his own presentation, and I finished mine. After that, I slept for two hours, and then morning came. Today is the last day I will see Ammar in person. I prepared to leave for the UIN SUKA complex. Before doing so, I said goodbye to him, telling him, as usual, that we would meet again, especially when I wanna go to Jakarta. After that, I had my last breakfast at the hotel before leaving for the UIN SUKA convention hall.
As usual, I'm walking to the venue. While they are preparing, Estu suddenly warned me not to save my things. At first, he saw me as a stranger, before realising that I was the speaker at the event. After that, I saved my bag of clothes in the committee room and waited to meet people. A few hours later, I met some of the other speakers, including Luboš, Douglas, Simon, Sunny (Yan Sun), Segitz, and others. We took a picture together. Small trivia about this; for Luboš and Douglas I have meet with them many times in online and first time in person; but for like Sunny, Simon, Segitz, and others are really my first time.
After that, we'll separate and enter the main room to open the event with our national anthems and ceremonies. We will then listen to a few opening speakers, such as Dhenadi from openSUSE Indonesia and Simon from the openSUSE Board team. There will also be keynotes from Mr Taufik, representing UIN SUKA, and Patrick from SUSE and the Gecko Foundation. Patrick is not attending in person, but will be appearing on video. After the keynotes and a massive photo for Day 1, I am preparing for my session to speak; the same applies to others like Segitz, Shobha, and others. Well, from 11:00 to 11:45, I am doing my first time speaking in a stand-up style, and talking about an introduction to GNU/Linux for the next gen and how to reduce dependency on proprietary software. I have a video of my session that helps you understand that; go ahead and watch it.
Time flies, and my session is over. After that, I am going to the main room to attend Herpiko's session. He is behind the BlankOn revival project, and he will be talking about how to interact with people and build the right community. Herpiko's presentation looks interesting and is sure to be amazing. After his session, Luboš and I are leaving the main room to go to the BlankOn booths. You know what? He gave a “free lesson” on how to use the openSUSE Build Service to the people at the BlankOn booths. They learned what I did when I was just a user and random package maintainer.
He was happy to tell the BlankOn guys how OBS works, and we're back in the main room for Luboš's session about openSUSE Kudos. He's introducing the Kudos recognition platform for openSUSE contributors to everyone in the room, and it instantly becomes popular among openSUSE Indonesia communities, and he looks happy after that. And then, I am skipping other sessions until we come to Sendy's session in the Main Room. Interestingly, Sendy brings up topics about gaming in openSUSE. While Sendy speaking, Luboš does something experiment to make the image that would be reassembly SteamOS with openSUSE software, based on Sendy's idea in the topics. It was a long story to tell you about this, so if you want to know about it, feel free to get in touch with Luboš Kocman (lkocman) and Sendy Aditya Suryana (SENDYYeah) to discuss it. I would like to maintain what Luboš was experimenting with, but since it's still not baked very well, I would like to start focusing on it after openSUSE Conference 2027 (oSC27) to maintain our experiment.
After Sendy's session is done, we're entering the light talks, the quiz games (which Luboš got first and he donated the prize to Siska's son; and I got third (also got shoes as the prize)), and it ends our Day 1 of the events. I forgot to tell you that I met with Robertus Chris (bruhtus), Aayaan Mateen (HimSec), Shobha Tyagi, and a few others at the time. After our day ended, we followed Luboš and Douglas to their hotel, which Aayaan also booked. You know, I also panicked that I hadn't booked my reservation. Also, I was sweating a lot at the time. So, Luboš and others are going to a public restaurant behind Circle K, and they are enjoying the meal. At the time, I was contacting my mom and introducing both Luboš and Douglas (actually, my mom wanted to say thank you so much, but since she doesn't speak English, she just smiled).
So, when it was 20:30, I went with Robertus to book my reservation, and it was my first time visiting the basic hostel, which is basically where I got scammed, but I don't care about it; at least I have time to rest.
My fourth day in Yogyakarta, and it's Day 2 for oSAS26
October 4th, we're preparing to go to the venue again for Day 2 with Robertus and as usual, we're meeting again with those guys. I don't have to tell you so much; Day 2 is also the last day for us at the event. The opening is the same, but this time we're going to the keynote, where Sunny will give the first keynote of the day, and she told everyone about her struggles to make openSUSE.Asia community happens. I have been inspired so much by her stories that it makes me even want to contribute more to openSUSE, both on the Release Team, the Translation, and others. After Sunny's session, Douglas took the stage, and it was his second keynote, where he reported on activities and funds at the Gecko Foundation to support the community.
After he's done speaking, we're taking pictures both during the Sunny session to show the woman and after Douglas's keynote session. And then, I am still in the main room to attend Simon's session about contributing to openSUSE Build Service to maintain the packages in the Factory. After Simon's session, I am going to room that I am attending three session at same room, between Didiet's session about Podman, Nayla's session about don't worry to use Linux, the lighter version of my topics, and Rithull/Prakash session about how openSUSE works. Sunny was also there for Nayla's session, and Douglas came when Rithull/Prakash's session was about to start.
After those sessions, we're going back to the main room to see Yuki's session. He was a great guy, and he seems really professional when presenting rather than mine. At the time, I was trying to get him to speak in Japanese, since I had a chance to meet Japanese people. But I have no idea why Yuki answered someone's question after mine in Japanese, when he should have answered it in English. So, I had to translate what Yuki said. After that session, we're entering light talks and quiz games again (on Day 2, only locals are the winners at Day 2). After that, the committee announced that Dhenadi became the new leader for openSUSE Indonesia. As representatives for the openSUSE Release Team like mine, Luboš and others are happy to see Dhenadi become the leader of the Indonesian community. Time flies, and it has ended. Also, Estu and mine saying sorry each other because my negative thinking about Estu.
And then, we're coming to night dinner as the last time seeing those who cannot join One Day Trip. At 22:00, we went back to our hostel with Robertus, and we rested. Another small trivia here; at the time I couldn't sleep, we were heating on the Telegram group. Until then, I finally fell asleep.
oSAS26 is concluded, and it's the fifth day in Yogyakarta (One Day Trip).
October 5th, we're preparing again to join a one-day trip to a few places. We met Luboš and Aayaan; also, Douglas and Sunny (this time with his husband) are joining us. We are going to Sambisari Temple, Bantul to see sea turtles, and then going to Kampung Batik, where we learn to make the Batik. I am also helping Douglas choose the Batik that he wants to buy. After that, we're going to a restaurant to eat goat satay, and it ends our day. It was my last day seeing Sunny and his husband, Douglas, Luboš, and others in person (for both Douglas and Luboš, I don't mind since we will meet again as usual, but for Sunny it was rare for us to see her in person again).
Lemme share a few photos that came from Luboš's album and my album below.
My sixth day, I am leaving Yogyakarta and going back to Bandung (also, it's the epilogue of my journey stories).
After a one-day trip, I am going back to our hostel for the last day, and we're resting as usual. Also, on October 6th, it's time for me to say goodbye to Yogyakarta and to my friend who was helping me, Robertus. After we separate and say goodbye, I am going to Giliwangan to find my bus. And then, I am waiting at the pool for a whole day until my ticket to go back home is ready. You know, I see few things that is interested in Sinar Jaya Yogyakarta pool. See the photo below.
After my waiting time is over, finally I am bording to the bus and going back to Bandung. October 7th, when I was awake, I figured that I am in Kendal for resting and I am choosing Soto Ayam plus Nasi as my breakfast at early morning, and after that we're continuing and after 04.30, I had arrived at Gedebage, Bandung. And finally, after a few days, I am going back to Bandung. First, after my arrival, I am going to Al-Jabbar mosque to take a bath and rest.
After that, I am going to meet my parents, and finally I am going back to Bandung, and my journey ends here.
Big Thanks and Farewell
Big thanks to every instances and person that I have mentionin on this artifor bringingringa me good experieon for tripvel. Anyway, I will attend the openSUSE Conference 2027 in Prague, Czechia, as a speakers and I want you to support me (by helping me with my passport, information about something in Europe, helping me to tell my family about my next journey, or anything that would be useful for me is appreciated) for the next journey. I'll see you there soon.
All content authored by James “Jim” Ed Randson on this blog is published under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). You are free to copy, distribute, and modify any content found here, provided that you comply with the terms and conditions of the GFDL, including proper attribution and the preservation of this license notice in any derivative works. For the full license text, refer to the GNU Free Documentation License.
Planet News Roundup
This is a roundup of articles from the openSUSE community listed on planet.opensuse.org. This community blog feed aggregator lists the featured highlights below from Oct. 23 - 29.
This week highlights five Tumbleweed snapshots for week 43 headlined by KDE Plasma 6.8.0, Qt 6.12.0, Linux Kernel 7.2.11 and PHP 8.5.12, which fixes the critical “PHP2Shell” vulnerabilities, along with the second Plasma 6.8 update, Agama 25, the announcement that esLibre 2027 will be held in Barcelona, the Akademy-es 2026 Madrid group photos, the start of the 2026 openSUSE Board Election, a guide to installing VMware Remote Console on Tumbleweed, the final days of Slimbook Days, Linux Saloon 225 and a GNU/Linux València gaming event.
Here is a summary and links for each post:
Last Days of the October 2026 Slimbook Days
The KDE Blog highlights the final days of Slimbook Days, running Oct. 19-31 with discounts across the Slimbook lineup. Baltasar Ortega notes that Slimbook tunes its Linux systems for full GNU/Linux compatibility and that component prices keep rising, so waiting for a short-term drop is unlikely to pay off. He also states that the post is not sponsored and that his relationship with Slimbook is that of a regular customer and friend.
esLibre 2027 Congress Will Be Held in Barcelona
The KDE Blog announces that the esLibre 2027 congress will take place in Barcelona on April 9 and 10 at the Historic Building of the University of Barcelona. It notes that the event is being organized with Barcelona Free Software and the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, recaps the conference’s history since 2019 and advises attendees to book accommodation early.
Second Plasma 6.8 Update
The KDE Blog announces Plasma 6.8.2, the second bugfix update to Plasma 6.8, released on Oct. 27, 2026. It recaps the 6.8 highlights, including the Hanabi wallpaper, Nepali calendar support, GTK4 decoration fixes, Discover’s AppStream previews, the redesigned Flatpak permissions page and DrKonqi improvements.
Install VMware Remote Console on openSUSE Tumbleweed
Nathan Wolf’s blog explains how to install VMware Remote Console (VMRC) on openSUSE Tumbleweed from a .bundle installer that requires root access. It notes that VMRC helps manage ESXi and vSphere virtual machines with features such as USB redirection and improves efficiency for users working in non-native Linux environments.
Official Group Photo of Akademy-es 2026 Madrid 20th Anniversary #akademyes
The KDE Blog shares the official group photo from Akademy-es 2026 Madrid, taken after Saturday’s talks in the Sierra de Madrid. Baltasar Ortega highlights the mix of familiar and new faces and says he is already looking forward to Akademy-es 2027.
Akademy-es 2026 Madrid 20th Anniversary Group Photo #akademyes
The KDE Blog shares a group photo from Akademy-es 2026 Madrid as the event closes with a hiking outing, showing attendees alongside cakes marking the 20th anniversary of Akademy-es and KDE’s 30th anniversary. Baltasar Ortega, who could not attend, describes the gathering as intimate and waits for the videos and presentation materials.
Linux Saloon 225 | Vim Motions Tutor
Nathan Wolf’s blog recaps Linux Saloon 225, where Mike Chilson demonstrated DevsFTP and participants discussed backup solutions and their Linux experiences. The show invites community suggestions for future application topics and shares project links for continued learning.
openSUSE Board Election 2026 Begins
openSUSE News announces the start of the 2026 openSUSE Board Election, with three Board seats up for election and a target completion date of Dec. 1, 2026. It lists the timeline from nominations on Oct. 24 through results on Nov. 23 and explains how eligible members can stand for election and publish a platform.
Fixing All the Bugs, PiP and Performance – This Week in Plasma
The KDE Blog translates Nate Graham’s latest “This Week in Plasma,” covering the Plasma 6.9 work that followed the 6.8 release. It highlights Wayland Picture-in-Picture support enabled by default in KWin, per-screen-layout window size and position memory, browser integration improvements and a long list of Plasma 6.8.1 and 6.8.2 bug fixes.
Tumbleweed – Review of the Week 2026/43
Dominique Leuenberger and Victorhck detail the five snapshots (1016, 1017, 1018, 1020 and 1021) and major arrivals such as KDE Plasma 6.8.0, Qt 6.12.0, Linux Kernel 7.2.11, Mesa 26.2.5 and PHP 8.5.12, which fixes the critical “PHP2Shell” remote code execution flaws. They also cover curl 8.23.0, Mozilla Firefox 158.0, polkit 128, containerd 2.3.3, systemd 261.4 and Memtest86+ 9.00, and preview staging work on GNOME 51.1, Linux Kernel 7.3.0, Ruby 4.0.9, Go 1.27.3 and VirtualBox 7.2.22.
Gaming on Linux + Help and Installation Workshop, New Event Organized by GNU/Linux València
The KDE Blog announces a GNU/Linux València event on Oct. 30 at Las Naves in Valencia, starting with a 17:00 install and help workshop followed by an 18:30 talk on the past, present and future of gaming on Linux. The free event covers tools such as Wine and Proton, the Steam Deck and challenges such as anti-cheat support.
Agama 25 Released
Victorhck’s blog announces Agama 25, the first release after openSUSE Leap 16.1 and the start of work toward Tumbleweed, Slowroll and Leap 16.2. It adds a terminal in the web interface, an exit option before installation begins, searchable multi-select port selection and reduced reliance on YaST packages.
View more blogs or learn to publish your own on planet.opensuse.org.
Member
FutureboyInstall VMware Remote Console on openSUSE Tumbleweed
Linux Saloon 225 | Vim Motions Tutor
openSUSE Board Election 2026 Begins
The openSUSE Election Committee has announced the start of the 2026 openSUSE Board Election. Three Board seats are up for election, and all eligible openSUSE members are encouraged to take part.
The openSUSE Board asked for the election to be completed by Dec. 1, 2026, as outlined in Board ticket #108. More information is available on the openSUSE wiki.
Election Timeline
- Oct. 24, 2026: Election announced; call for nominations and applications for Board candidacy; membership drive begins
- Nov. 14, 2026: Final list of candidates announced; campaign begins; membership database sealed (new members can still apply and vote, but can no longer run as candidates in this election)
- Nov. 15, 2026: Ballots open; campaign continues
- Nov. 22, 2026: Ballots close
- Nov. 23, 2026: Election results announced
How to Participate
The Election Committee encourages all eligible openSUSE members to consider standing for election or nominating fellow community members. Serving on the Board is an opportunity to contribute to the direction and governance of the openSUSE Project.
To stand for election, send your application to both:
project@lists.opensuse.orgelection-officials@opensuse.org
Election Platforms
All candidates are expected to publish an election platform introducing themselves, their involvement in the openSUSE Project, and their motivation and priorities for serving on the Board. An example platform from the previous election is available on the wiki.
Platforms should be published before the final candidate list is announced on Nov. 14.
Election Rules
According to the openSUSE Board Election Rules, the nomination period may be extended if not enough candidates come forward. Any changes to the schedule will be communicated accordingly. The sitting Board may also appoint members to fill vacant seats if not enough candidates are elected.
The original announcement was sent to the project mailing list.
Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2026/43
Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,
This week saw the release of 5 snapshots (1016, 1017, 1018, 1020, and 1021).
Big desktop milestones and unblocked migrations took center stage across Tumbleweed this week. However, the biggest headlines in the broader tech landscape revolved around security—specifically the critical remote code execution vulnerabilities in PHP dubbed “PHP2Shell” (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619). Tumbleweed users were protected promptly when snapshot 1021 delivered PHP 8.5.12 addressing both flaws. Security was a prominent theme across other snapshots as well: snapshot 1016 rolled out curl 8.23.0 with multiple CVE fixes, snapshot 1020 brought Mozilla Firefox 158.0, and polkit 128 arrived to fix authentication-helper vulnerabilities while dropping previous temporary service memory caps.
Alongside security responses, major desktop and foundational transitions landed. Snapshot 1016 delivered KDE Plasma 6.8.0, accompanied by swift packaging adjustments in SDDM and the lockscreen footer to ensure smooth logins and proper virtual keyboard behavior. Complementing the desktop, snapshot 1018 rolled out both Qt 6.12.0 and Mesa 26.2.5. Snapshot 1018 also marked the completion of the containerd 2.x migration, shipping containerd 2.3.3 after an update to open-vm-tools resolved the build conflict tracked in boo#1284086.
Under the hood, Linux Kernel stepped up to 7.2.11 in snapshot 1017. Other notable deliveries included systemd 261.4, CUPS 2.4.20 (fixing an upstream mailto notification regression), SQLite 3.54.1, LVM2 2.03.43, and Memtest86+ 9.00, which adds native AArch64 (ARM64) support and Secure Boot signing.
These 5 snapshots delivered the following updates:
- 7zip 26.04
- containerd 2.3.3
- cups 2.4.20
- curl 8.23.0
- freetype2 2.15.0
- gedit 51.0
- GraphicsMagick 1.3.49
- KDE Plasma 6.8.0
- libaom 3.15.2
- Linux Kernel 7.2.11
- lvm2 2.03.43
- memtest86+ 9.00
- Mesa 26.2.5
- MozillaFirefox 158.0
- ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs 2026.9.28
- os-prober 1.85
- php8 8.5.12
- pipewire 1.6.9
- polkit 128
- poppler 26.10.0
- Qt 6.12.0
- sqlite3 3.54.1
- systemd 261.4
- tmux 3.8
- vim 9.2.1202
As we turn our focus to the upcoming days, here is a preview of what is currently making its way through the staging projects:
- GNOME 51.1: A comprehensive update across GNOME Shell, Mutter, and core desktop applications is currently undergoing integration testing.
- Linux Kernel 7.3.0
- Ollama 0.40.9
- HarfBuzz 15.0.0
- Ruby 4.0.9: Addressing multiple upstream regular expression CVEs.
- Go 1.27.3
- VirtualBox 7.2.22
- fmt 12.2.0
- kernel-source-longterm 6.18.55: Waiting on VirtualBox driver updates to adapt to kernel API changes.
- Swig 4.5.0: YaST integration issues remain under investigation, tracked under boo#1275515.
Planet News Roundup
This is a roundup of articles from the openSUSE community listed on planet.opensuse.org. This community blog feed aggregator lists the featured highlights below from Oct. 16 - 22.
This week highlights seven Tumbleweed snapshots for week 42 headlined by Linux Kernel 7.2.10, KDE Gear 26.08.2 and Mozilla Firefox 157.0.1, the first Plasma 6.8 update and the seventh Plasma 6.6 update, Tellico’s 25th anniversary, the KDE documentary, Agama 25, the Akademy-es 2026 Madrid program and preview, a report from the openSUSE.Asia Summit and Open Source Summit Europe, September Kudos, a deep look at vllm.cpp and more.
Here is a summary and links for each post:
Akademy-es 2026 Madrid 20th Anniversary Begins Tomorrow
The KDE Blog reminds readers that Akademy-es 2026 Madrid kicks off tomorrow, Oct. 23, and runs through Oct. 25 at Camping Arco Iris in Villaviciosa de Odón. Baltasar Ortega recaps the build-up, including the talk program, gold sponsor openSUSE, silver sponsor Slimbook, registration and 10 reasons to attend. He notes he cannot attend in person this year and will live vicariously through the photos and updates from Madrid.
Building syslog-ng with bundled ivykis on FreeBSD
Peter Czanik’s blog explains that the syslog-ng FreeBSD port currently uses ivykis from ports, even though the project carries FreeBSD-specific fixes in its own ivykis fork. He is working on making the bundled ivykis selectable and invites testing and help.
VLLM.CPP: A New Engine Is Born
Alessandro’s blog examines vllm.cpp, LocalAI’s C++20 inference engine that brings vLLM-style continuous batching, paged KV caching and an OpenAI-compatible server without requiring Python or PyTorch inside the engine. It compares the project with vLLM and llama.cpp, reviews its C API, formats and hardware backends, and cautions that multi-GPU support, multimodal input and some KV-cache features remain incomplete.
First Plasma 6.8 Update
The KDE Blog announces Plasma 6.8.1, the first bugfix update to Plasma 6.8, released on Oct. 20, 2026. It recaps the 6.8 highlights, including the Hanabi wallpaper, Nepali calendar support, GTK4 decoration fixes, Discover’s AppStream previews and the redesigned Flatpak permissions page.
Releasing Agama 25
The Agama Installer announces Agama 25, the first release after openSUSE Leap 16.1 and the start of work toward Tumbleweed, Slowroll and Leap 16.2. It adds a web-based terminal, an exit option available before installation begins, searchable multi-select bond and bridge port selection, riscv64 support contributed by Andreas Schwab, and reduced reliance on YaST packages. It also publishes the OpenAPI specification and JSON schemas at stable URLs for autocompletion and validation in editors.
Seventh Plasma 6.6 Update
The KDE Blog covers Plasma 6.6.7, released Oct. 16, 2026, as the seventh maintenance update in the 6.6 series. It notes that the series has received extra updates through an agreement with KUbuntu Focus and lists 6.6 features such as Plasma Keyboard, OCR in Spectacle, Plasma Setup, custom global themes and colorblind filters.
Budapest Audio Expo 2026
Peter Czanik’s blog reports on the third Budapest Audio Expo, where his favorite room paired NCS Audio, Qualiton and Pixel cables for a clear, lively sound at a relatively affordable price. He also praises 72 Audio, the Natural Distortion prototype DAC and amp with Popori Acoustics speakers, and a Heed Audio Helikon and Zellaton setup, while criticizing overprocessed room-correction demos.
September Kudos, Recognition
openSUSE News publishes the September Kudos report, noting that 14 users received 14 kudos and 152 badges were awarded to 136 contributors. It lists thank-you notes for contributors such as Adrian Schröter, Bernhard Wiedemann, Dominique Leuenberger and Santiago Zarate, and highlights Tumbleweed, Leap 16.0/16.1 and LinuxDays badges.
New Weather Widget and On-Screen Keyboard – This Week in Plasma
The KDE Blog translates Nate Graham’s latest “This Week in Plasma,” covering the new Plasma 6.9 weather widget with hourly forecasts and Open-Meteo support, a redesigned on-screen keyboard, a temporary night-light toggle and smaller tray icons. It also covers Plasma 6.8.1 fixes, clipboard shortcut reorganization and Qt 6.13 font hinting improvements.
Tellico Turns 25 – Long Live Tellico!
The KDE Blog celebrates Tellico’s 25th anniversary with a timeline from the first Bookcase 0.1 release in November 2001 through its renaming to Tellico, its move to KDE Extragear and the Qt6/KDE Frameworks 6-based Tellico 4.0. The post also explains how the collection manager works and highlights its customizable fields and built-in collection types.
Linux Saloon 224 | Open Mic Night
Nathan Wolf hosts Linux Saloon 224 as an open mic night, where Mike Chilson demonstrated DevsFTP and discussed backup solutions. Participants shared their Linux experiences, and the show invites community suggestions for future application topics.
On GenAI LLMs and Knowledge Workers
Santiago Zarate reflects on how LLMs and agents may reshape knowledge work, starting from a Telegram poll of Venezuelan programmers about whether the future remains human. He compares the change to spreadsheets, factory robots and automated telephone exchanges, argues that automation changes jobs more than it eliminates them, and urges readers not to panic while warning that developers still need real fundamentals.
Tumbleweed – Review of the Week 2026/42
Dominique Leuenberger and Victorhck detail the seven snapshots and major arrivals such as libvirt 12.8.0, libnettle 4.0, KDE Gear 26.08.2, WebKitGTK 2.54.1, GStreamer 1.28.8 and Nautilus 50.4. They also explain the mutter revert that restored clipboard copy and paste, the ktextaddons ABI fix and the cups-filters hardening, and previews staging work on Plasma 6.8.0, Qt 6.12.0 and more.
The KDE Documentary
Martin Schlander’s blog recommends the KDE 30th-anniversary documentary, calling it a high-quality production that covers the project’s most significant events. He notes that it also touches on Qt, GNU, Linux and GNOME and features legendary SUSE developers.
Akademy-es 2026 Madrid 20th Anniversary Talk Program #akademyes
The KDE Blog shares the talk program for Akademy-es 2026, taking place Oct. 23-24 at Camping Arco Iris in Villaviciosa de Odón, Madrid. The 20th-anniversary event includes a QML workshop, talks on KDE España, Plasma and low vision, Okular, Autofirma on Flathub, data-center sustainability and plenty of time for socializing.
Liberec Dam
Jakub Steiner shares a drone video of the restored Harcovská přehrada dam in Liberec, Czechia, after a major reconstruction that removed 26,000 cubic meters of silt and replaced the dam’s outlets while preserving its landmark appearance. He also recalls filming the drained basin in 2022, notes the dam is now rated for a 10,000-year flood, and admits the dam has claimed another one of his drones.
KDE Documentary: A History of the Underdogs of Free Software
The KDE Blog highlights CultRepo’s KDE documentary, “A History of the Underdogs of Free Software,” which premiered on Oct. 14 for KDE’s 30th anniversary. The film traces KDE from Matthias Ettrich’s 1996 Usenet post through the Qt licensing struggle, the KHTML-to-WebKit story, the KDE 4 controversy and the community’s role in today’s Linux desktops.
From Yogyakarta to Prague: openSUSE.Asia Summit and Open Source Summit Europe 2026
openSUSE News reports on a two-continent trip to the openSUSE.Asia Summit in Yogyakarta and Open Source Summit Europe in Prague. The post covers the Asia summit’s community news, quiz, offsite turtle release and batik workshop, the adoption of Kudos, a new 14:00 CEST Tuesday meeting time, and a busy Prague booth featuring a 64-core RISC-V workstation running Tumbleweed and QtRvSim.
View more blogs or learn to publish your own on planet.opensuse.org.
Kraft 2.1.0 Release
and Happy Birthday KDE 💙
It is a pleasure to announce the new Kraft version 2.1.0 today.
Kraft is an free software app for effective invoicing and business document management on Linux desktops. It is specifically targetted to small business needs and ensures data privacy.
The new version is the second release of the Kraft 2 generation.
It continues to deliver on the goals we set at beginning of the year with Kraft 2: More formally correct documents to better match legal requirements. Moreover the file based storage backend for simplicity and privacy aware cloud support was continued. With that Kraft will be the perfect solutions for work teams.
This release brings a lot of detail improvements for users, such as:
- With a special markout of certain document types as invoice-type lets Kraft provide invoice-specific features such as the benefit period or XRechnung generation that other doc types like offers do not need
- Draft documents can be deleted now which was not possible before
- The creation of custom formatted document templates for PDF generation of the docs is way easier now: Kraft can display a list of all variables that can be referenced in the template, along with their meaning and an example value based on the selected document
Also, XRechnung support for electronic invoicing on Linux is continously improved.
Under the hood, a lot of bug fixes and improvements make Kraft even better, mainly by saving more data as files in the filesystem to enable cloud sync. The UI got enhanced by a bunch of efficiency raising improvements. That supports all users who have better ideas of spending their days than fiddling on the computer to get an invoice out even better.
This release comes with codename Happy Birthday KDE 💙!
That means that we want to congratulate KDE which turned 30 this year! Many thanks to the great KDE community and what it did to the open source eco system. Kraft also would not exist without KDE and the lovely community.
As usual, Kraft is very open for contributions via Github. Thanks to all the contributors.
Building syslog-ng with bundled ivykis on FreeBSD
One of the core dependencies of syslog-ng is the ivykis library. We have a few FreeBSD specific fixes in our ivykis fork, however the syslog-ng port uses ivykis from ports instead of the bundled version. I am now working on making it selectable. Testing and help are welcome.
Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/building-syslog-ng-with-bundled-ivykis-on-freebsd
syslog-ng logo
Releasing version 25
Agama 25 is here, and while it does not carry any single headline feature, it bundles a handful of changes requested by users and some groundwork for what is coming next.
This is the first release after openSUSE Leap 16.1, starting the work toward Tumbleweed, Slowroll, and Leap 16.2.
Let's see what's new.
A web-based terminal
Agama's web UI now features an actual terminal. Until now, if you needed a shell on the system you
were installing, your options were limited to switching to a different virtual console (e.g.
Ctrl+Alt+F8) if you had local access, or connecting through SSH.
Now you can just open a terminal from the comfort of Agama's web UI, without leaving the browser.
Leaving before it's too late
As several users requested, Agama now offers an exit option. You will find it from the very beginning of the process, letting you reboot or shut down the machine if you change your mind.
It is important to note that the option is only available before the installation starts: cancelling while Agama is already applying changes to the system could leave it in an unpredictable and potentially unbootable state, so the exit option disappears as soon as the installation is underway.
Enhanced port selection
Until now, the ports of a bond or a bridge had to be typed by hand in a free-text field, with only a line listing the existing device names as a hint. A typo was silently accepted, and the field did not scale well past a handful of NICs.
In Agama 25, the ports selection uses a searchable multi-select field instead: the devices found in the system are offered in a list you can filter as you type, and a name can still be written out by hand for a device that is not present in the system yet.
Towards Tumbleweed adoption
Behind the scenes, we keep working with the Tumbleweed maintainers to make Agama the installer for the distribution. There is still no date for that to happen, but we are getting closer. Recent examples of that effort are adjusting the registration support and 32-bit media build and adding riscv64 support, the latter contributed by Andreas Schwab.
Cutting ties with YaST packages
Agama was born on top of several YaST packages, reusing logic that was already there instead of rewriting it from scratch. We are now reducing that reliance, bringing into Agama's own codebase just the parts it actually needs instead of pulling in whole YaST modules. So far this effort covers the AutoYaST-related code, and more areas will follow.
Polishing and publishing our OpenAPI and JSON schemas
Agama exposes its HTTP API through an OpenAPI specification and validates its configuration and profile files against JSON schemas. We have been polishing both and, more importantly, publishing them with stable URLs at Agama's documentation site.
Having them published this way is useful well beyond Agama itself: it allows other tools to generate
clients, validate requests, or simply let people browse the API without digging through the source
code. The JSON schemas are useful on their own too. For instance, adding a "$schema" key pointing
to the right schema at the top of your AutoYaST-like profile or configuration file is enough for
many editors to offer autocompletion and inline validation as you type.
Keep in touch
On top of all that, we have also been busy with a bunch of smaller fixes and improvements that did
not make it into this post, like reporting more details about network devices or setting
systemd-boot as the default bootloader for MicroOS.
As always, you can take a look at the project at GitHub or
drop by the #yast channel at Libera.chat if you have questions, feedback
or just want to say hello.
Stay tuned!