Over the years, I've learned not to question inspiration. To simply let it drive when it shows up with a full tank. Quite often, I don't exactly know where we're going or even why we're going, but it's repeatedly taken me to just the right place at just the right time, so now I just hop in and say: Let's go! Case in point: Arch + Hyprland. It's been over a year since I created Omakub to smooth out my own exit path from macOS to Linux, and in the process, helped thousands of others enjoy a beautiful, preconfigured, and relatively familiar desktop experience with Ubuntu. And I continue to think this is an excellent choice for Linux, especially for first-time Mac and Windows defectors. But this weekend, I just happened to be home alone, and the hype around Arch + Hyprland got the better of me. While Ubuntu is all about being a friendly place for newcomers to Linux, Arch + Hyprland is the exact opposite: It's Linux on hard mode!  At least that's the reputation, and there's certainly something to that. The Arch ISO literally just dumps you into a terminal with scarcely any direction. Just getting on the Wi-Fi requires learning the arcane command-line options for the iwctl terminal configurator. But besides iwctl, it's actually not that bad anymore. We now have a cheat code for installing Arch in the form of archinstall. It's a terminal interface for getting all the bits like picking a disk and creating the first user done in the correct order, without having to set aside an entire evening just to get the OS installed. So it didn't take long to get Arch up and running. That doesn't get you much further, though! By default, Arch is about as minimal as it gets. There's no default graphical interface. There are no niceties. Not even wget or curl by default! It really is just a bare-bones installation of Linux. But on the other hand, Arch is blessed with the AUR — a Wikipedia-style, community-maintained package management system that seems to have literally every piece of software ever released on Linux, and always in the latest version. A quarter of Omakub is trying to work around the fact that helpful tools like Alacritty or LazyGit or whatever rarely have official packages for Ubuntu, so you're left doing a lot of manual scripting to get everything a developer would want from a modern Linux setup. Not so with the AUR! So that's Arch. But Hyprland is even more hilarious. It's a tiling window manager with something as rare in the Linux world as a keen focus on aesthetics! It looks like it was written by visual artists rather than neckbeards. And it's at the core of the modern r/unixporn Linux ricing subculture. That's not the funny part, though. The funny part is how ridiculously atomized the entire thing is. Hyprland comes with absolutely nothing out of the box. No login screen, no menu bar, no notification system, no file manager, no visual settings application. Just a text-based configuration file, a wiki, and an outline on a map for how to design your own adventure. This means that if you're interested in running Hyprland, and you intend to set it all up from scratch, you're probably signing up for at least a good 10+ hours — just to install and configure everything! Now, there are some precompiled setup scripts out there already, but most of them still require you to do a ton of manual legwork before you reach that beautiful summit of a complete system. So while the downside of Arch + Hyprland is that literally every last detail requires you to make a choice and a config file to move on, it's also its upside: you can change EVERYTHING! And the core window tiling magic of Hyprland is one of the most intoxicating ways of using a computer that I've ever experienced. It looks amazing; it feels amazing (if you prefer using a keyboard instead of a mouse!). I've poured hours and hours into this quest over the weekend, and yet I'm still not even done with my first Arch + Hyprland build! My login screen looks like shit. I haven't decided on a final menu bar configuration. But what is working — the basic tiling flow and look — is so nice that the inspiration keeps driving the project forward. Which, of course, I've already decided to codify. I'm not going through all this work to set up a beautiful, preconfigured, fully-functional, out-of-the-box Arch + Hyprland combo and then not share it with anyone who's curious (and might not have 10–20 hours for this kind of side quest available in their schedule). So of course I registered a domain and found a way to draw some ASCII art: Omarchy is on the way!

OH: It’s just JavaScript, right? I know JavaScript. My coworker who will inevitably spend the rest of the day debugging an electron issue — @jonkuperman.com on BlueSky “It’s Just JavaScript!” is probably a phrase you’ve heard before. I’ve used it myself a number of times. It gets thrown around a lot, often to imply that a particular project is approachable because it can be achieved writing the same, ubiquitous, standardized scripting language we all know and love: JavaScript. Take what you learned moving pixels around in a browser and apply that same language to running a server and querying a database. You can do both with the same language, It’s Just JavaScript! But wait, what is JavaScript? Is any code in a .js file “Just JavaScript”? Let’s play a little game I shall call: “Is It JavaScript?” Browser JavaScript let el = document.querySelector("#root"); window.location = "https://jim-nielsen.com"; That’s DOM stuff, i.e. browser APIs. Is it JavaScript? “If it runs in the browser, it’s JavaScript” seems like a pretty good rule of thumb. But can you say “It’s Just JavaScript” if it only runs in the browser? What about the inverse: code that won’t run in the browser but will run elsewhere? Server JavaScript const fs = require('fs'); const content = fs.readFileSync('./data.txt', 'utf8'); That will run in Node — or something with Node compatibility, like Deno — but not in the browser. Is it “Just JavaScript”? Environment Variables It’s very possible you’ve seen this in a .js file: const apiUrl = process.env.API_URL; But that’s following a Node convention which means that particular .js file probably won’t work as expected in a browser but will on a server. Is it “Just JavaScript” if executes but will only work as expected with special knowledge of runtime conventions? JSX What about this file MyComponent.js function MyComponent() { const handleClick = () => {/* do stuff */} return ( <Button onClick={handleClick}>Click me</Button> ) } That won’t run in a browser. It requires a compilation step to turn it into React.createElement(...) (or maybe even something else) which will run in a browser. Or wait, that can also run on the server. So it can run on a server or in the browser, but now requires a compilation step. Is it “Just JavaScript”? Pragmas What about this little nugget? /** @jsx h */ import { h } from "preact"; const HelloWorld = () => <div>Hello</div>; These are magic comments which affect the interpretation and compilation of JavaScript code (Tom MacWright has an excellent article on the subject). If code has magic comments that direct how it is compiled and subsequently executed, is it “Just JavaScript”? TypeScript What about: const name: string = "Hello world"; You see it everywhere and it seems almost synonymous with JavaScript, would you consider it “Just JavaScript”? Imports It’s very possible you’ve come across a .js file that looks like this at the top. import icon from './icon.svg'; import data from './data.json'; import styles from './styles.css'; import foo from '~/foo.js'; import foo from 'bar:foo'; But a lot of that syntax is non-standard (I’ve written about this topic previously in more detail) and requires some kind of compilation — is this “Just JavaScript”? Vanilla Here’s a .js file: var foo = 'bar'; I can run it here (in the browser). I can run it there (on the server). I can run it anywhere. It requires no compiler, no magic syntax, no bundler, no transpiler, no runtime-specific syntax. It’ll run the same everywhere. That seems like it is, in fact, Just JavaScript. As Always, Context Is Everything A lot of JavaScript you see every day is non-standard. Even though it might be rather ubiquitous — such as seeing processn.env.* — lots of JS code requires you to be “in the know” to understand how it’s actually working because it’s not following any part of the ECMAScript standard. There are a few vital pieces of context you need in order to understand a .js file, such as: Which runtime will this execute in? The browser? Something server-side like Node, Deno, or Bun? Or perhaps something else like Cloudflare Workers? What tools are required to compile this code before it can be executed in the runtime? (vite, esbuild, webpack, rollup typescript, etc.) What frameworks are implicit in the code? e.g. are there non-standard globals like Deno.* or special keyword exports like export function getServerSideProps(){...}? When somebody says, “It’s Just JavaScript” what would be more clear is to say “It’s Just JavaScript for…”, e.g. It’s just JavaScript for the browser It’s just JavaScript for Node It’s just JavaScript for Next.js So what would you call JavaScript that can run in any of the above contexts? Well, I suppose you would call that “Just JavaScript”. Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

The recent disconnection of the ICC's chief prosecutor, at the behest of the American administration, could not have come at a worse time for Microsoft. Just a month prior, the folks from Redmond tried to assure Europe that all was well. That any speculation Europeans could get cut off from critical digital infrastructure was just fear, doubt, and uncertainty. Then everything Europeans worried could happen happened in Hague. Oops! Microsoft's assurances met reality and reality won. That reality is that all American administrations have the power to disconnect any individual, company, or foreign government from digital infrastructure provided by American Big Tech. So in that sense, it's pointless to blame Microsoft for the sanctioning power vested in the Oval Office. But we certainly can blame them for gaslighting Europe about the risk. What's more important than apportioning blame, though, is getting out of the bind that Europe is in. The continent is hopelessly dependent on American Big Tech for even the most basic of digital infrastructure. If this American administration, or the next, decides to use its sanctioning power again, Europe is in a real pickle. And with the actions taken against the ICC in Haag, Europe would be negligent to ignore the threat. Denmark even more so. It's no secret that tensions between Denmark and the US are at a historic high. Trump keeps repeating a desire to take over Greenland by fuzzy means possible. The American intelligence services have been directed to increase their spying on Denmark and Greenland. Naturally, the Danes are spooked. They should be! Regardless of what happens with Greenland, trade negotiations, or geopolitical disagreements, though, it would suit Europe well to become digitally sovereign. That doesn't mean cutting off all American tech, but it does mean rejecting any services that can be turned off from Washington. So in terms of Microsoft, it means no more Microsoft 365, no more Teams, no more Azure. And that's exactly what the two biggest counties in Denmark have announced plans to do. Copenhagen and Aarhus just declared that they're going to get rid of Microsoft products for all their workers. The Copenhagen county is the largest employer in Denmark with over 40,000 employees. So this is a big deal! The chairman of the Copenhagen committee who pushed this forward made this comment to Danish media:  If, theoretically, the relationship to the US gets worse, we could fear that Microsoft would be forced to shut everything down. That possibility exists. And if we suddenly can't access our emails or communicate via our systems, we'll be challenged. That's an understatement. Denmark is one of the most highly digitalized countries in the world. It's also one of the most Microsoft dependent. In fact, Microsoft is by far and away the single biggest dependency, so it makes perfect sense to start the quest for digital sovereignty there. But Denmark is also full of unambitious, defeatist bureaucrats who can't imagine a world without Microsoft. Just today, the IT director for The Capital Region declared it to utopian to think Denmark could ever achieve digital sovereignty or meaningfully replace Microsoft. Not even a decade would make a dent, says the director, while recognizing that if we'd done something 15 years ago, we wouldn't be in this pickle. A remarkable illustration of cognitive dissonance! Sadly, this is not an uncommon conclusion from people who work inside the belly of bureaucracies for too long. Whatever has always done too often seems like the only thing that ever could be done. But, as Mandela said, it always seems impossible until it's done. So let's get it done. Digital sovereignty isn't easy, but neither was securing a sovereign energy supply. Nor will it be to rebuild a credible defensive military. Europe needs all of it, yesterday. The bureaucrats who aren't interested in making it happen should find employment elsewhere.

Three years ago, Kagi officially launched with a splash on popular technology forum Hacker News (to which we are eternally grateful for helping put Kagi on the map).

Questionable puns aside, it’s Pride Month and we’re excited to celebrate by bringing you these updates hand-made by real LGBTQIA+ community members from around the world!—and possibly some straight cis folks too. This rainbow of releases includes some important accessibility updates, tons of bug fixes, and of course a few new features. Window Manager & Dock Another absolutely massive release of our window manager is out that fixes about 20 reported issues and a brand new Gesture Controller thanks to Leonhard and Leo. You can now Swipe up in Multitasking View to close windows, app titles in Multitasking View are now always shown—making them accessible for touch screen setups—and screenshots taken with a keyboard shortcut will send a notification that you can use to view it in Files, just to name a few headlining features. If you want to read the full release notes, Good Luck Babe they’re quite long. A new release of our Dock is also out which brings back a couple of old Plank features: showing multiple dots for apps with multiple running windows and cycling through app windows when you hold a drag-n-drop over its icon. Plus you can now open context menus with a long-press. And there’s a number of bug fixes including things related to hide modes and memory usage. Thanks again to Leo and Leonhard for their hard work here. System Settings Leonhard fixed a crash when setting custom hotcorner commands and we now only show the Applications Menu hotcorner action in its corresponding panel corner—that’s top-left for folks reading left-to-right and top-right for folks reading right-to-left. Plus there’s a new option to enable hotcorners even while an app is fullscreened. As a follow up to last month’s fixes, choosing light or dark mode in System Settings will now properly snooze your schedule instead of disabling it all together—a great convenience for those of us who suffer from eye strain or headaches and need to occasionally reach for that dark mode during the day. Plus, the Reduce Motion setting now covers a whole new range of animations—perfect for folks who get motion sick or find animations distracting. Leonardo tackled a couple of crashes in Display settings including one when mirroring, and another when new displays are attached while System Settings is open. We fixed an issue that prevented CalDAV accounts from connecting in Online Accounts settings. And Alain snuck in a few design tweaks, fixing button alignments etc. And More Thanks to feedback from Aaron, Notifications and the Shortcut Overlay both got releases that add screen reader support. Corentin addressed some Flatpak sandbox issues with an updated Apparmor Profile—especially notable if you’d had trouble with Steam. We now use BeaconDB as our location services provider. And thanks to Ryo we’re now shipping the latest version of GNOME Web which brings improved performance and web compatibility as well as a redesigned bookmarks sidebar. Get These Updates As always, pop open System Settings → System on elementary OS 8 and hit “Update All” to get these updates plus your regular security, bug fix, and translation updates. Or set up automatic updates and get a notification when updates are ready to install! Community Pride I want to take a little space to say that our community is for everyone regardless of gender or sexual identity. We’ve long been made up of lots of different kinds of folks and I’m really proud of that. Open Source software should never be a space that is restricted to a narrow set of identities. In a time where many companies are withdrawing their support for the LGBTQIA+ community, I think it’s incredibly important that we make a strong statement against hate and don’t give in to the pressure to erase queer people in some sad attempt to be “apolitical”. Free Software has always been political, and its politics are freedom and inclusivity and so are ours. Sponsors At the moment we’re at 23% of our monthly funding goal and 336 Sponsors on GitHub! Shoutouts to everyone helping us reach our goals here. Your monthly sponsorship funds development and makes sure we have the resources we need to give you the best version of elementary OS we can! Monthly release candidate builds and daily Early Access builds are available to GitHub Sponsors from any tier! Beware that Early Access builds are not considered stable and you will encounter fresh issues when you run them. We’d really appreciate reporting any problems you encounter with the Feedback app or directly on GitHub.