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A few years ago Solder Party started selling tiny USB keyboards made by combining an actual BlackBerry keyboard (ripped from an old device) with a custom PCB and USB-C connector. But since BlackBerry is out of business, eventually it’s going to get harder to find devices to cannibalize for their keyboards.

So Solder Party has now introduced two brand new products. The KeebDeck Keyboard is a tiny thumb keyboard with 69 silicone keys arranged in an orthogonal layout, while the KeebDeck Basic is the first fully functional input device built around that keyboard. They’re available for purchase for around $4 and $8, respectively – although shipping to the US currently drives the price way up. But you can also find everything you need to make your own at Solder Party’s GitHub page.

Due to the UK's Online Safety Act implemented earlier this year, accessing my Bluesky DM's now means I need to allow a third-party service to scan my face, ID, or bank card. Understandably, that gives me the willies. So I can either simply never look at my messages again, whip out the likeness of Norman Reedus, OR I can log on via a VPN. However, the days of this vastly preferable third option may be numbered.

US states Wisconsin and Michigan have already proposed VPN crackdown bills aiming to close off this workaround—and the UK may be looking to follow suit. Online privacy nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation recently criticised this strategy, taking aim at Wisconsin's bill in particular, saying that blocking the use of VPNs is "going to be a disaster for everyone."

The state’s Independent Ethics Commission will investigate complaints against Democratic lawmakers who attended a weekend retreat with lobbyists in Vail last month paid for, at least in part, by a dark money group.

Commissioners Daniel Wolf, Lori Laske and Cyril Vidergar voted Tuesday in favor of deeming the complaints “nonfrivolous” and allowing them to move forward after discussing them out of public view. Commissioner Sarah Mercer, who chairs the group, recused herself and did not provide a reason for her recusal.

Guild Wars Reforged was announced today by ArenaNet to arrive on December 3, and it will be Steam Deck Verified and optimised for Valve's handheld.

From the announcement: "We believe that even with all the advancements and innovations of the last two decades, Guild Wars has a lot to offer: an enchanted world of limitless adventure, a deep and flexible skill-based combat system, PvE and PvP challenges of all types, and more. Guild Wars Reforged begins with a series of updates to Guild Wars that will be completely free to existing players and make it easier than ever for new players to experience it all firsthand."

Creator of the popular free and open source video game library manager Playnite has a positive update on a Linux version, with plans for it during 2026.

Back in February, GamingOnLinux covered the latest update from the creator on their plans for it, where they noted "To sum this up, Linux version is definitely something I plan to work on in future, it's just going to happen later than originally planned.".

ClamAV, a widely adopted free and open-source antivirus software developed by Cisco Talos, will undergo a substantial cleanup of its signature databases in December, marking its largest reduction effort since the project began more than two decades ago.

Cisco Talos, which maintains ClamAV, has evaluated the full signature set and identified large numbers of entries that no longer match any activity in current threat data. These signatures will be retired beginning December 16, 2025, resulting in smaller databases and lower resource usage for users.

The change will have an immediate and measurable impact. The main.cvd file, currently around 163 MB, will shrink to roughly 80 MB. The daily.cvd file, which is 62 MB today, will fall to about 22 MB, so that users will see it is nearly half their current size.

Systemd 259 is just around the corner, and the recently released RC1 gives us a clear look at what to expect in the final version of this Linux’s most widely used init system and service manager.

One of the most significant steps is the final deprecation of System V init script support. The SysV generators, rc-local generator, and sysv-install helpers are all marked for removal in the next 260 version, with maintainers urging distributions and software authors to provide native unit files.

A notable behavioral change appears in the default journal configuration. Systemd now defaults to persistent storage rather than switching automatically based on the presence of /var/log/journal.

Although Wayland has been GNOME’s default session since 2016, X11 has continued to linger in the codebase—until now. That changed with the recent merging of two PRs (here and here), which completely removed the X11 codebase from both Mutter, GNOME’s default window manager and compositor, as well as the GNOME Shell itself.

In other words, the GNOME project is finally closing one of the longest chapters in Linux desktop history. With the upcoming GNOME 50 release, scheduled for mid-march 2026, the desktop environment will officially drop support for the native X11 session, making Wayland the sole display system moving forward.

Cloudflare announced today they have open-sourced the code to Tokio-Quiche as their async QUIC library that combines their previously-open-sourced Quiche QUIC implementation with Rust's Tokio async runtime

Cloudflare announced today they have open-sourced the code to Tokio-Quiche as their async QUIC library that combines their previously-open-sourced Quiche QUIC implementation with Rust's Tokio async runtime

Earlier this year, retro gaming YouTuber Christian "Peri Fractic" Simpson purchased the Commodore brand from a Dutch company, relaunching it with help from many former Commodore employees.

The revived brand is launching the Commodore 64 Ultimate, a new version of the iconic home computer based on Gideon Zweijtzer's Ultimate 64 Elite-II board.