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Just a few days ago, we reported on Jolla’s push for a new Linux phone, which needed at least 2,000 pre-orders to move forward. Now, only days later, there’s good news: interest in the device has surpassed all expectations.

Jolla’s community-funded smartphone project has cleared its production threshold, securing more than 3,200 pre-orders. The strong response ensures that the new Linux phone, developed under the Do It Together (DIT) model, will move forward into manufacturing, with Batch #1 already sold out and Batch #2 now available.

Yesterday I noted some early performance regressions I've found on the Linux 6.19 kernel compared to Linux 6.18 LTS stable. Those initial benchmarks were on an AMD EPYC server. Since then I've seen many of the same workloads regressing similarly on an AMD Ryzen Threadripper workstation between Linux 6.18 and Linux 6.19 Git. Given the significant impact and AMD Threadripper processors always helping out to speed-up Linux kernel build times to make for a quicker and more manageable kernel bisecting experience, here is a look at some of the results for the Linux 6.19 performance regressions.

With Firefox 146 being released today to the stable channel, Mozilla has promoted the next major version of its open-source, free, and cross-platform web browser, Firefox 147, to the beta channel for public testing.

Firefox 147 promises support for the Freedesktop.org XDG Base Directory Specification, zero-copy hardware-decoded video support on AMD GPUs to improve video playback performance, support for the Safe Browsing V5 protocol, and WebGPU support for all Apple Silicon Macs.

Firefox 147 also promises to improve the Picture-in-Picture feature by adding support to automatically open a new player window for a playing video in a tab if that tab is ever backgrounded, which was previously in Firefox Labs, as well as support for Compression Dictionaries, IETF RFC 9842.

The developer team at Discord released a new engineering blog post yesterday (December 8th) detailing lots of fixes, along with some Linux improvements. As one of the most popular chat apps in the world, it's good to see their support of Linux continue to get better over time.

Framework Computer BV have announced a nice big expansion of their sponsorship program with many open source events and Linux distributions benefiting from it.

In a blog post originally posted October 14th, they detailed a few different events they were sponsoring along with projects like GNOME and LVFS. In an update to the post from December 3rd, they've detailed a whole lot more that have been receiving handouts bringing the total Framework has put out during 2025 to over $225,000.

Framework Computer BV have announced a nice big expansion of their sponsorship program with many open source events and Linux distributions benefiting from it.

In a blog post originally posted October 14th, they detailed a few different events they were sponsoring along with projects like GNOME and LVFS. In an update to the post from December 3rd, they've detailed a whole lot more that have been receiving handouts bringing the total Framework has put out during 2025 to over $225,000.

With the first release of Hytale finally approaching, the developers are still working through getting it running on Linux and macOS. As covered on GamingOnLinux previously, the developers did confirm they were working on both versions officially now.

At least now we know how you'll be getting it, with the developer doing it via a Flatpak which means you should be able to install it across many different distributions.

Oh dear. Goonswarm Games are shutting down after Running With Scissors cancelled POSTAL: Bullet Paradise due to the use of generative AI. It's a bit of a saga this one.

I covered the initial announcement, along with a follow-up update in there where Running With Scissors attempted to defend the developer. The backlash only continued, and eventually RWS cancelled it as per the statement GamingOnLinux was sent on December 5th via Vince Desi, founder of Running With Scissors

We're on the road to the release of Wine 11 early next year with the first Release Candidate now available for the Windows compatibility layer. This is what Valve's Proton is originally based on, and so eventually next year we'll see Proton 11 too.

Now that this release is out, they will move onto a feature-freeze to focus on fixing up bugs.

The highlights of this Wine 11 RC 1 release include:

• Mono engine updated to version 10.4.0.
• Locale data updated to Unicode CLDR 48.
• TWAINDSM module for scanner support on 64-bit.
• Various bug fixes.

A few game fixes were noted for the likes of Oblivion, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, King's Quest: Mask of Eternity and various others.

Oh no, it's going to pull me back in isn't it? War Thunder is finally adding infantry combat to its roster of war games in a future update. Testing is due to begin this month, being spread across stages for an eventual full roll-out during next year as the mode is still under development.

Interestingly, they're taking some elements from another game they publish called Enlisted, with you controlling a squad. They said you control a single soldier, but you have "full tactical control over the entire squad" and they will automatically follow you and assist in all combat situations.

A lovely blast from the past of 2015, Nuclear Throne from the revived Vlambeer has update #100 out now with some major additions and improvements. Originally founded by Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman, nowadays Nijman owns 100% of the company after Ismail sold their part in it back in 2024.

Going back 10 years ago, Nuclear Throne was easily one of the most popular games in its genre. To this day, it's easily still one of the best too. Valve have also now given it a re-test and they've given it the green tick of Steam Deck Verified approval. It does have a Native Linux version, but Valve set it to use Proton 10.