Recently, I’ve worked on making certain “less obvious” system settings more accessible for Plasma Mobile users. The modules I’ve worked on fall just outside the typical mobile phone use-case, but can be important to users of other types of devices. Specifically, users that plug in or connect a keyboard once in a while and need to change its layout or language, or devices that are connected using an ethernet cable, as often is the case with embedded industrial devices.

These two settings module offer a subset of their “desktop companions'” settings and cater to simpler use-cases while sporting a leaner and more focused user interface. Most of the business logic and the more complex UI components are also shared with the desktop versions.

Reviewers needed!

The merge requests for both are currently under review and I’d appreciate if people could help ironing out issues so we can go ahead and merge the code:

• Merge request for mobile wired network settings
• Merge request for mobile keyboard settings

Update: Both modules have been merged and will ship as part of Plasma 6.6.

The author expresses frustrations with the GTK file dialog in Thunderbird, advocating for the use of KFileDialog instead. They provide detailed steps for adjusting settings in Thunderbird to enhance user experience, particularly highlighting the ease of KFileDialog. While usability issues persist on X11, the author finds the improvement beneficial.

There was a service degradation of our reference server. On Wednesday, October 15 from 05:00 in the morning, the response time of OBS was slow for anyone trying to use the server and in many cases connections were even dropped completely. Additionally at 14:10 UTC, the service went offline for a period of 84 minutes. build.opensuse.org was back to normal operation at 15:37 UTC, so users were impacted by this during roughly 10.5 hours. We...

Our recent contribution to the package versions tracking includes displaying accurate information about the upstream version and providing the link to the release monitoring within easy reach. These updates are part of the Foster Collaboration beta program. You can find more information about the beta program here. Our efforts to foster collaboration started in August 2024, when we introduced labels and bug report links. Next, we improved labels to foster collaboration, allowed labeling projects and...

The author highlights their dissatisfaction with Thunderbird's built-in PDF viewer, which lacks essential features like annotations and easy window management. They prefer Okular for its robust capabilities. Despite some frustrations in adjusting settings, they appreciate Thunderbird's flexibility and customization, making it an effective tool for their email and productivity needs.

As a follow up of the Hackweek 24 project, I've continued working on the gnome-tour fork for openSUSE with custom pages to replace the welcome application for openSUSE distributions.

GNOME Tour modifications

All the modifications are on top of upstream gnome-tour and stored in the openSUSE/gnome-tour repo

• Custom initial page

• A new donations page. In openSUSE we remove the popup from GNOME shell for donations, so it's fair to add it in this place.

• Last page with custom openSUSE links, this one is the used for opensuse-welcome app.

opensuse-welcome package

The original opensuse-welcome is a qt application, and this one is used for all desktop environments, but it's more or less unmaintained and looking for a replacement, we can use the gnome-tour fork as the default welcome app for all desktop without a custom app.

To do a minimal desktop agnostic opensuse-welcome application, I've modified the gnome-tour to also generate a second binary but just with the last page.

The new opensuse-welcome rpm package is built as a subpackage of gnome-tour. This new application is minimal and it doesn't have lots of requirements, but as it's a gtk4 application, it requires gtk and libadwaita, and also depends on gnome-tour-data to get the resoures of the app.

To improve this welcome app we need to review the translations, because I added three new pages to the gnome-tour and that specific pages are not translated, so I should regenerate the .po files for all languages and upload to openSUSE Weblate for translations.

Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

If 42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, then week 42 of the year 2025 must bring you all the software updates you have waited for your entire life, and your computer has entered the ‘working perfectly mode’ now. The number of snapshots is lower than in other weeks, as openQA ensured we reached perfection and has prevented us from releasing some broken snapshots (broken in the sense that the grub2/snapper integration was denied by SELinux).

We have thus released three snapshots (1013, 1014, and 1015), bringing you these updates:

• KDE Gear 25.08.2
• KDE Frameworks 6.19.0
• Qt 6.10.0
• Linux kernel 6.17.1 & 6.17.2
• GNOME 49.1 (gnome-shell and mutter are pending; they were released a bit later by upstream)
• gimp 3.0.6
• Ruby 3.4.7
• Switch to ffmpeg-8 by default
• LibreOffice 25.8.2.2
• GCC 15.2.1
• Qemu 10.1.1
• libxml 2.14.5
• opensuse-welcome was replaced by opensuse-welcome (sic!): the new implementation is forked off gnome-tour

The outlook for the next week promises to keep going strong. Using OBS’ staging areas, we are currently testing integration of:

• Linux kernel 6.17.3
• Mozilla Firefox 144.0
• KDE Plasma 6.5 (beta 2 being tested; waiting for the final release)
• util-linux 2.41.2
• transactional-update 5.5.0: enables soft-reboot if possible
• Switch from grub2 to grub2-bls
• openSSL 3.6.0: fix for nodejs22 pending

This is a roundup of articles from the openSUSE community listed on planet.opensuse.org.

The below featured highlights listed on the community’s blog feed aggregator are from October 11 to 17.

The week’s Planet highlights an install party at the University of Valencia, KDE Apps of the week, KDE turns 29 and more.

Here is a summary and links for each post:

Morning Day of the XI Annual Conferences of Wikimedia Spain

This blog recounts the author’s experience at the XI Annual Wikimedia Spain Conference in Valencia. Details include exploring the Etno Museum’s setting to attending engaging talks on GLAMWiki and media literacy.

Install party at the University of Valencia October 21

The KDE Blog announces an upcoming install party at the University of Valencia on Oct. 21 as the official support of Windows 10 ends. The association GNU/Linux València invites participants to try out Linux and free software at this hands-on community event.

Matrix Widgets in NeoChat – This Week in KDE Apps

The KDE Blog covers recent KDE app updates, which includes Matrix app NeoChat and social media app Tokodon. The blog also covers enhancements in Dolphin, Kate, Konsole and more.

KDE turns 29

Victorhck and Baltolkien both highlight the KDE’s 29th anniversary and congratulate to the entire community on its journey from the “Kool Desktop Environment” to a thriving global community of developers and users.

Home-made Berliner Currywurst

Perhaps in good taste, Sebastian Kügler shares his recipe for Berlin-style Currywurst, which adds some chili powder to the Linux flavors people can consume on the blog aggregator.

Leap Powers Consultants on the Move

openSUSE News highlights how independent consultants, like Agustín Benito Bethencourt, rely on openSUSE Leap. From meetings to security, Bethencourt highlights a use case that keeps him going while on the move.

DiraQ: Pocket Linux for Quantum Computing

Alessandro de Oliveira Faria introduces DiraQ, which is a a lightweight plug-and-play alternative, that is tailored for quantum computing. It fits a niche use case for research and enthusiasts.

KDE Frameworks 6.19.0

The KDE Blog reports on the latest KDE Frameworks 6.19 version and highlights its bug fixes, and enhanced performance.

Memory Bank: Labels in HTML

This blog post dives into proper use of the <label> element in HTML forms. It points out best practices and pitfalls developers should avoid with labels.

Talk: What is Free Software? in Castellón

The association GNU/Linux València highlights an upcoming public talk in Castellón on Oct. 24 titled “What is Free Software?|” to spread awareness of free software values.

KDE Gear 25.08 Second Update

The KDE Blog covers the second bugfix release of KDE Gear 25.08. The blog focuses on KDE Connect and neochat as well as other KDE applications.

A lot of stability work for Plasma 6.5 – This Week in Plasma

The KDE Blog highlights improvements in Plasma 6.5. It shows where Plasma 6.6.0 is moving with the Breeze icon theme “Send” icon. It also points out fixes with KWin and the fixing of issues that bled apps using XWayland on some screens.

Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2025/42

And last but not least, a new weekly review by Dominique Leuenberger and Victorhck in Spanish, detailing the news that has arrived at the openSUSE Tumbleweed repositories in the last week.

View more blogs or learn to publish your own on planet.opensuse.org.

Alhoewel ik een paar weken geleden, na meer dan 27 jaar in Nederland te wonen mijn Duits paspoort heb ingeleverd, zijn er toch een paar dingen uit de Duitse cultuur die een plaats mijn hart zullen blijven hebben (naast lange zinnen met comma’s). Een daarvan is het toppunt van Duitse fast-food menu’s (naast Döner Kebab), good old Currywurst.

Het recept (in het Duits, uiteraard) vind je hier. Tip: voeg een heel klein beetje chilipoeder toe voor wat extra pit. Dat mag van mij wel.

For tech consultants, life happens on the move.

From airport lounges to boardrooms across Europe and beyond, the tool of choice for one tech consultant is Slimbook Executive edition powered by openSUSE Leap; it’s a reliable, secure, and flexible Linux machine that seamlessly adapts to the ever-changing demands of independent consulting.

Freelancer tech consultants like Agustín Benito Bethencourt, who shared his use case of Leap, works with multiple clients in highly regulated industries face unique challenges as each customer enforces its own security policies, communication platforms,and compliance protocols.

What works for one organization might be blocked or noncompliant with another.

Leap’s flexibility allows Bethencourt and his consultant company, toscalix, to adapt quickly. As an independent consultant, Bethencourt needs to use many of the video chat tools available. This includes BigBlueButton and Jitsi through the web, plus Google Meet, Zoom, Teams and Slack.

Bethencourt uses Firefox, Edge and Chromium/Chrome because different corporate tools are necessary.

“Some of these tools, I use them through Flatpaks,” Bethencourt said.

Flatpaks are containerized applications designed to run consistently on any Linux distribution and can be found through Flathub.

The consultant’s workflow goes beyond applications. Different customers impose strict security measures, from encrypted drives and segregated vaults to VPNs tied to specific certificates. The consultant uses Bitwarden as a password manager with separate vaults for each client and it reduces risks of accidental data exposure.

Hardware-level protections also play a role. A patch disables the laptop’s webcam when visiting customer facilities. When charging in airports or on-site, the consultant uses USB data blockers to prevent juice jacking attacks, which is a type of attack that exploits USB cables to secretly transfer data while charging.

Bethencourt explained that compiling the information into a document might streamline interactions with security compliance departments.

“My use case might not be fancy,” he said. But “it shows the flexibility from a professional user’s point of view.”

Stories like this illustrate Leap’s adaptability for diverse environments. With Leap 16’s extended lifecycle and enterprise-grade reliability, professionals can count on this distribution whether they are in the office, in transit or on-site with a client.

Members of the openSUSE Project are trying to showcase how people use openSUSE . If you have a use cases for Leap 16 that you want to share, comment on the project’s mailing list.