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  "path": "/2026/03/31/this-month-in-kde-linux-march-2026/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-01T00:05:23.000Z",
  "site": "https://pointieststick.com",
  "tags": [
    "KDE Linux",
    "the last one",
    "https://kde.org/linux",
    "weren’t as atomic as intended",
    "fairly serious bug",
    "Our custom system for deploying changes to /etc",
    "documented set of recovery steps",
    "fixed the bug on our side",
    "automatically roll back and forward /etc as you roll back and forward OS builds",
    "adapted Discover’s sysupdate support",
    "https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/41303",
    "https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/41299",
    "https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/41288",
    "broke many TPM",
    "tweaked the parameters of our zram setup",
    "fixed our “out of memory” handler",
    "deep research into memory management",
    "integrated a component",
    "displays sane feedback",
    "pre-installed usbmuxd",
    "fixed an issue",
    "slightly increased the amount of time that the OS image chooser is visible on screen",
    "added support for mounting optical disk images",
    "support for SSTP VPNs",
    "and also",
    "display translated text",
    "screen locking",
    "update checking",
    "disabled canceling the installation in the middle",
    "display a little “*” for every character you type",
    "to preserve metadata",
    "fixed our spellchecking setup",
    "set the $SSH_ASKPASS environment",
    "KSSHAskPass",
    "install KDE Linux",
    "report issues",
    "KDE Linux’s documentation",
    "here",
    "packaging or code issues in Flatpak-packaged apps",
    "Beta milestone",
    "High priority tasks for technical experts",
    "Other tasks to make the user builds better",
    "Tasks for newcomers"
  ],
  "textContent": "Welcome to the March 2026 edition of development news for KDE Linux, KDE’s up-and-coming general-purpose operating system.\n\nI’m going to try to publish one of these posts every month, so you get this one just two weeks after the last one! Despite the abbreviated timeframe, the weeks were fairly busy in KDE Linux land.\n\n## Hardening updates against breakage\n\nProbably the most consequential thing to happen was several users experiencing a series of bad updates that rendered the system unbootable.\n\nHarald Sitter has root-caused everything and is working on making the issues impossible to experience in the future. But this is the reason why https://kde.org/linux recommends against deploying KDE Linux’s Alpha release on your non-technical uncle’s computer or across the accounting department at work!\n\n> “Wait, you told me this distro uses atomic updates that can’t ever make the system unbootable, you filthy liar!”\n\nWell, it turns out that our updates weren’t as atomic as intended.  You see, a system update in KDE Linux consists of multiple steps:\n\n  1. Download an image file that contains the OS\n  2. Download a “unified kernel image” (UKI) that tells the boot manager about the OS image\n  3. Reboot, choosing the boot manager’s entry for the new OS image\n  4. During the boot process, relevant changes from the new OS image are deployed to `/etc`, which is not immutable\n\n\n\nA fairly serious bug in systemd’s newly-released version 260 made step 1 fail silently while step 2 succeeded. Thus, the boot manager would let you try to boot into a non-existent OS image, which would fail. Eek.\n\nBut no problem, right? Just roll back to the previous OS image!\n\nWell, here’s where a bug in step 4 broke that. Our custom system for deploying changes to /etc was not hardened against the case where the OS image was missing but the boot manager let you try to boot into it anyway; doing so would erase much of the content in `/etc` and prevent booting into a known-good OS image. Oops.\n\nFortunately, KDE Linux includes built-in Btrfs snapshots of `/etc`, so there’s a documented set of recovery steps. And Harald Sitter has since improved error logging for this situation and fixed the bug on our side so rolling back from a botched update won’t damage `/etc` anymore.\n\nOur focus now shifts towards implementing a system to automatically roll back and forward /etc as you roll back and forward OS builds, so each OS build is permanently associated with the version of `/etc` it was known to work with. This would have also prevented the issue.\n\nIn addition, we’re looking into merging steps 1 and 2 as much as possible so this type of failure can’t even happen in the first place.\n\n* * *\n\nBut that wasn’t all the “excitement” around updates: systemd-260 also opted the “sysupdate” functionality that KDE Linux uses out of systemd’s API stability guarantee, and then broke compatibility — resulting in Discover being unable to update the system. `updatectl update` in a terminal window remained working.\n\nFortunately, Akseli Lahtinen has already adapted Discover’s sysupdate support to the new approach in systemd-260, so that’s working again.\n\nWe also uncovered a few more bugs introduced by systemd-260, including https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/41303 and https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/41299. And if anyone from Systemd is reading, https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/41288 is also a highly relevant issue; this really shouldn’t happen.\n\nI’ve been told that sysupdate is expected to return to the API compatibility guarantee in systemd-261 or -262, so expect some more churn here. If it gets too bad, we’ll consider rolling back to systemd-259 (or even -258, since -259 broke many TPM chips).\n\n* * *\n\nThankfully there’s also good news!\n\n## Better memory management\n\nI tweaked the parameters of our zram setup to stop causing system freezes when close to the limit. I also fixed our “out of memory” handler so that it works, and now memory-hogging apps will be terminated instead of letting the whole system freeze.\n\nThis whole endeavor came out of some deep research into memory management that I expect to yield more positive changes in the future.\n\n## More user-friendly handling of incompatible packages\n\nThomas Duckworth integrated a component he’s been working on that displays sane feedback when you try to open a package or app that isn’t supported on the system, like a Windows `.exe` or a `.rpm` package.\n\n## Better out-of-the-box hardware support\n\nJohn Kizer pre-installed usbmuxd, which makes plugged-in Apple iOS devices visible in Dolphin and file dialogs. So now you can, for example, plug in one such device and copy pictures off of it.\n\nThomas Duckworth fixed an issue that prevented non-NVIDIA systems from fully sleeping. This workaround was only needed for systems with NVIDIA GPUs, and no longer takes effect for systems with other GPUs.\n\nVishal Rao slightly increased the amount of time that the OS image chooser is visible on screen, making it less likely that you’ll miss it entirely when using KDE Linux with a TV or a slow monitor that takes a while to turn on.\n\n## Better out-of-the-box software support\n\nHadi Chokr added support for mounting optical disk images.\n\nI added support for SSTP VPNs, and also for encoding audio on CDs using the Opus format, indexing really old Microsoft Word documents, and opening archives compressed with more types of compression algorithm.\n\n## Internationalized “command not found” handler\n\nI made the “command not found” handler display translated text if you don’t use your KDE Linux system in English. Thanks a lot to Albert Astals Cid for helping me with the details here!\n\n## Smarter settings\n\nYago Raña Gayoso disabled screen locking and update checking while in the live session, as these don’t really make sense there. Yago also disabled canceling the installation in the middle, as this is not supported right now and would produce a broken system.\n\nThomas Duckworth configured the `sudo` command-line tool to display a little “*” for every character you type, instead of nothing. This matches the standard behavior in password fields that people are familiar with.\n\nI configured the `cp` and `rsync` command-line tools to preserve metadata (such as modification times, extended attributes, and ACLs) when copying files.\n\n## Fixed spellchecking, at least for English\n\nI fixed our spellchecking setup by installing the English backend for `hunspell`, and removing the redundant `aspell` to save some space. These language packages can be quite large, so it’s not super feasible to ship them all in the image right now. In the future we’ll be building a system to let them download at runtime.\n\n## Technical changes\n\nThomas Duckworth fixed an issue that made newly-installed OS images sometimes get de-prioritized in the OS image chooser for no good reason.\n\nAkseli Lahtinen set the $SSH_ASKPASS environment variable to to point to KSSHAskPass by default, smoothing out some SSH-based workflows.\n\nHadi Chokr added `~/.local/bin` to every user’s default `$PATH` variable, allowing `kde-builder` and other user-installed binaries to work without an extra setup step.\n\n## How you can help\n\nDoes this project sound exciting? I hope it does! We’re building a general-purpose operating system for normal people, aiming to integrate all components out of the box in a way that rivals Windows and MacOS. If you’d like to help out with the project, there are multiple ways.\n\nIf you’re an adventurous and technical person, install KDE Linux and report issues.\n\nIf you’re good at writing, KDE Linux’s documentation can always use improvement. Submit merge requests here.\n\nKDE Linux leans heavily on Flatpak, so fixing packaging or code issues in Flatpak-packaged apps is very helpful.\n\nYou can even help us build the OS itself! The Beta milestone is currently **71% complete** , and there’s plenty to do:\n\n  * High priority tasks for technical experts\n  * Other tasks to make the user builds better\n  * Tasks for newcomers\n\n\n\nAnd if you’re already using KDE Linux, let us know how your experience has been! Is it good? What can we do better?",
  "title": "This month in KDE Linux: March 2026"
}