GNOME 45 breaks Extensions and AMD Overdrive on Linux

Gnome 45 breaks extensions, AMD brings “OverDrive” GPU overclocking features to Linux, a Pi powered word processor, and Wayland breaks bad software.

Listen:

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
04:04 Mechanical keyboard warfare
09:33 GNOME 45 breaks Extensions
15:14 Wayland breaks bad software
19:11 AMD brings “OverDrive” to Linux
21:14 Pi powered word processing

Extensions in GNOME 45

https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2023/09/02/extensions-in-gnome-45/

Gnome Shell is moving from GJS to JavaScript modules (ESM).
Upgrading Gnome to v45+ will break older extensions. So users will have to pick from those that are ported.
Difficulty: a LOT of people say Gnome is almost unusable without extensions.
I tend to think of Gnome as a base to build something on.
Like PopOS.
Do you run GNOME without extensions? What extensions are a must?
Big news for GNOME and those that use the GNOME desktop, GNOME is moving from its in-house GNOME JavaScript to standard JaveScript modules, or ESM.
This means that when you upgrade to GNOME version 45, all of your older GNOME 44 extensions or older won’t work!
And you will have to wait for the app maintainers and developers to upgrade their extensions.
Fortunately, some of them have already been fixed for the GNOME 45 migration.
For most extensions this is a simple fix, and the app maintianers can look at the link posted in our LWDW show notes for instructions.
Two of my favorite extensions, Dash to Panel and Dash to Dock are some of the most popular.
Dash to Dock has a GNOME 45 extension already available at extensions.gnome.org, but Dash to Panel doesn’t yet.

Wayland is the future

https://orowith2os.gitlab.io/posts/wayland-breaks-your-bad-software/

This is an opinionated piece that has been making the rounds this week.
Wayland is perfect and X11 will kidnap your dog.
At least that’s what you might think after reading this user’s blog.
The general take is you no longer have an excuse to not use Wayland, period.
And if you’re designing software it should work with Wayland and if it breaks X, so be it.
Screen recording works but some apps don’t support it yet.
Barrier/Synergy/remote desktop works? The maintained fork of Barrier input-leap would disagree.
Accessibility tools? Nope.
“Thankfully NVK was recently merged into Mesa so we can finally get off of the proprietary drivers” Yes, in maybe a decade.
Loup has the correct take.
Same as that Linus guy. Don’t, break, userspace.
Wayland has been in development for the last 15 years and it’s been almost ready for the last 5.
Like any 32 year old piece of software X is a collection of hack upon hacks.
Will Wayland be the same in another 17 years? Yes.
ATM, HRD, fractional scaling, and security are the strong points for Wayland.
Here on LWDW many times we have talked about Xorg being a series of band aid fixes on top of a core that needs to be rewritten.
Wayland fixes a lot of these issues and is more prepared for the functions of the modern desktop, like multiple monitors, fractional scaling and HDR to name a few.

AMD Penguindrive

https://wccftech.com/amd-to-enhance-overdrive-gpu-overclocking-features-for-linux-users/

There is some very exciting news from AMD for us AMD GPU users on Linux!
AMD is enhancing the OverDrive GPU overclocking features for us Linux users, and bringing them closer to parity with the ones on Windows.
This demonstrates AMDs future and current commitment to supporting our penguins!
Some of the new OverDrive features includes lots of fan adjustments:
- PWM tuning
- Adjusting the fan curve
- Fan acoustic limit
- Fan target temperature
The new features are only available to those who have newer RDNA3 Radeon RX 7000 series cards, and not older generation cards.
These changes affect the user-space interface using sysfs, not changes in the GUI tools.
As those of us in the Linux world know, AMD doesn’t have an official OverDrive app on Linux, but let’s third party developers and apps utilize these features.

Slice of Pi

MUSE Pi

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/most-unusual-sentence-extractor-hackspace-70/

https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/13l0wus/made_myself_a_raspberry_pi_writing_computer_i/

There was a brief moment between typewriters and PCs that was filled with word processors.
They had monitors, usually a disk drive, and a printer.
Brendan decided to fuse them into a MUSE. The Most Unusual Sentence Extractor.
Based on a Olympia Traveller de Luxe, the MUSE combines a SILENT keyboard with an e ink display that was later replaced by an LCD touchscreen.
It even has the ability to sync with the cloud.
All powered by a RasPi.
This is a beautiful retro looking word processor!
I understand Brendan’s need for a simple machine to type on away from distractions of modern media, social media, YouTube and video games.
This is one of the reasons why I often used older computers to write show notes, and ones I can’t play modern games on! LOL