D7VK is a new Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 7. It relies on DXVK’s Direct3D 9 backend and works with Wine on Linux. The project is open source and actively maintained.
The developer behind it is WinterSnowfall, who has also worked on D8VK between 2023 and 2024. That project has since been merged into the larger DXVK project that's extensively used by Linux users.
You have to understand that D7VK is not meant to run every Direct3D 7 game. Titles that mix D3D7 with older DirectDraw or GDI calls may fail to launch or show graphical glitches. So, compatibility is experimental and limited.
It works by translating Direct3D 7 calls to Direct3D 9 through DXVK, allowing Vulkan-based 3D application rendering on Linux. Sadly, there is no official list of supported games yet.
Some games work well, others have issues. Missing textures, crashes, and black screens are common. The issues page on the project's GitHub repo shows which games are behaving poorly. It is a good way to see what currently works.
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PCGamingWiki's list of Direct3D 2-7 games is also a handy resource to have if you want to test a specific Direct3D 7 game.
What’s nice is how the developer sets expectations right from the start. They are upfront about the experimental nature of the project. This clarity makes it easier to test games without getting disappointed.
For fans of late 90s and early 2000s games, D7VK could be handy. It won’t fix everything, but it opens the door to running older Direct3D 7 games on Linux.
Want to Check it Out?
The D7VK GitHub repository has the source code. You can manually compile it and place it in your Wine prefix directory to try it out. D7VK supports a HUD overlay and frame rate limiting through DXVK.
These features will help you track performance and debug graphical issues.
Having a reliable help desk solution is a must for any consumer-facing business in today's digital age. Whether you handle customer emails, support tickets, or live chat, a good help desk system keeps your communication organized and your customers happy.
Sadly, many companies take advantage of this need. They push users into walled gardens where access to basic features can change on a whim and key tools get locked behind paywalls.
But, what if I told you there was an alternative that does not make you anxious about sudden pricing changes? Something that lets you build your own setup, keep your data close, and pay only for what you actually need.
FreeScout Doesn't Lock You In
FreeScout is an open source help desk and shared mailbox built with PHP and Laravel. It is licensed under AGPL 3.0, which means the code is freely available, and you can self-host it on your own server without having to pay any user-based costs.
You only pay for hosting and optional paid modules that expand functionality. Modules cover integrations, push notifications, and specialized features. Everything else, from ticket handling to automation, works out of the box once you install FreeScout.
Other than the usual help desk features like shared inboxes, agent collision detection, canned responses, and user management, FreeScout offers flexibility that few platforms can match.
FreeScout goes a step further with self-hosting, custom domains, API access, and full database control. You decide how your data is stored, backed up, and secured. For organizations that care about privacy and sovereignty, this makes a real difference.
It also supports mobile apps for Android and iOS. Push notifications require a paid server-side module, but once configured, your team can manage tickets directly from their phones with no extra cloud dependencies.
Running FreeScout does need some technical setup. You will manage hosting, updates, and backups. Adding advanced features like AI-powered replies or analytics will take extra configuration and can add costs over time.
Depending on your setup, you may still rely on FreeScout modules or community support. That means moving away later could take planning, though you always keep your data since it lives on your own server.
In contrast, Help Scout and Zendesk provide everything under a single roof. They handle hosting, maintenance, and scaling for you but limit backend customization and control. You use what they provide within their rules.
Overall, what FreeScout offers beats any walled garden solution, especially for people running small businesses or larger teams that value data ownership and predictable costs over convenience that comes with lock-in.
Want to Deploy It?
You can try FreeScout in your browser using its live demo. If you would like hosting it yourself, the official installation guide covers every step for various kinds of setups.
Plus, there are apps for both Android and iOS. However, in order to for them to work with your FreeScout instance, you must do some additional config work.
If you are considering a move from another help desk like Help Scout or Zendesk, you should check out the official migration guide, and if you are interested in the source code, then you can visit the project's GitHub repository.
Imagine that one of the most prestigious open source software websites starts showing up in top results for "pornhub downloader".
This is actually happening with Flathub, the official web-based app store for Flatpak packages.
Here's a demo I made while risking to spoil my relationship with Google:
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And no, I was not particularly looking for a one-handy utility like this 👼
I was using Ahrefs, a SEO tool used for monitoring web rankings, among other things. This is when I noticed that FlatHub was ranking for terms it should not have been.
Flathub ranking for words it wouldn't want
Not just that, out of the top 10 ranked pages, at least 2 of them are NSFW tag pages.
Top ranking pages are not something Flathub would be proud of
Shady developer piggybacking on Flathub's reputation
This would have been one innovative, fun way to make more people use open source software only the application that uses these tags is not open source software at all.
There are actually three of these applications, all of which were created by the same developer, called Warlord Software. I am not going to link out to this website out of spite.
Seems like a regular downloader app until it is not
But when you scroll down to the tag section, this is where you see the root cause of the problem. All three apps are using those NSFW tags.
This is a deliberate act of exploiting the good reputation of Flathub to get more people to dowload these applications before getting them on the paid version. Yes, all these three apps have premium licenses as well.
Before you say that this is all no-issue and there is nothing wrong with offering an app for downloading videos from adult websites, let me tell you that you will find no such tags or words mentioned anywhere on the developer's website:
No NSFW words on developer's own website where these apps are offered
Here's what's going on...
See, it is nearly impossible for a new website or application to rank for popular but highly competitive keywords like 'xyz downloader'. There are numerous websites and tools that let you download online videos from x number (orn XXX number) of websites.
So this developer created a few downloader apps that have no special features, offered Flatpak versions for Linux users, published them on Flathub and tagged them with the NSFW keywords. With verified tag, the app looks more legit and tempting to download.
It is easy for a highly reputed website like Flathub to rank highly for those terms.
This way, a shrewd developer who would have never been able to get even 100 downloads on his own got more than 250,000 downloads.
There are tons of good downloader applications for Linux. They can also use these keywords, but we only have apps made by a certain developer doing this. This is pure exploitation of the Flathub ecosystem.
Flathub is not to be blamed here
It's not entirely their fault that someone added NSFW words and used it to sell shady properitary apps. Although they should be more careful about such clear exploitation of their web reputation.
Now, it may seem like I am making an issue out of nothing. Perhaps. I actually noticed this a few months ago. I wanted to write about it but then I decided to ignore a 'non-issue'. Few months later, Flathub was still ranking for all kind of this-hub, that-tube, xyz-hamster downloaders, and I could not tolerate it anymore.
Lovely folks at Flatpak/Flathub/Fedora, please take note. My rant ends here.
Humble Bundle has a Linux collection (partner link) running right now that's kind of hard to ignore. Twenty-two books covering everything from "how do I even install this" to Kubernetes orchestration and ARM64 reverse engineering. All from Apress and Springer; this means proper technical publishers, not some random self-published stuff.
If you decide to go ahead with this bundle, your money will go to support Room to Read, a non-profit that focuses on girls' literacy and education in low-income communities.
⏲️ The last date for the deal is November 24, 2025.
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This article contains affiliate links. Please read our affiliate policy for more information.
So, What's in The Bundle?
First off, the "Zero to SysAdmin" trilogy. Using and Administering Linux: Volume 1 covers installation and basic command line usage. Volume 2 goes into file systems, scripting, and system management. Volume 3 focuses on network services like DNS, DHCP, and email servers.
The Kubernetes coverage includes three books. Deploy Container Applications Using Kubernetes covers microk8s and AWS EKS implementations. Ansible for Kubernetes by Example shows cluster automation. Kubernetes Recipes provides solutions for common deployment scenarios. Plus Certified Kubernetes Administrator Study Companion if you're prepping for the CKA exam.
systemd for Linux SysAdmins explains the init system and service manager used in modern distributions. It covers unit files, service management, and systemd components.
For low-level work, there's Assembly Language Reimagined for Intel x64 programming on Linux. Foundations of Linux Debugging, Disassembling, and Reversing covers x64 architecture analysis. Foundations of ARM64 Linux Debugging, Disassembling, and Reversing does the same for ARM64.
Linux Containers and Virtualization covers container implementation using Rust. Oracle on Docker explains running Oracle databases in containers. Supercomputers for Linux SysAdmins covers HPC cluster management and hardware.
Yocto Project Customization for Linux is for building custom embedded Linux distributions. Pro Bash is a shell scripting reference. Introduction to Ansible Network Automation covers network device automation.
The Enterprise Linux Administrator and Linux System Administration for the 2020s both cover current sysadmin practices. Practical Linux DevOps focuses on building development labs. CompTIA Linux+ Certification Companion is exam preparation material. Linux for Small Business Owners covers deploying Linux in small business environments.
What Do You Get for Your Money?
All 22 books are available as eBooks in PDF and ePub formats. They should work on most modern devices, ranging from computers and smartphones to tablets and e-readers.
Here's the complete collection. 👇
Column 1
Column 2
CompTIA Linux + Certification Companion
Introduction to Ansible Network Automation
Certified Kubernetes Administrator Study Companion
Pro Bash
Yocto Project Customization for Linux
Linux Containers and Virtualization
Using and Administering Linux: Volume 1
Foundations of ARM64 Linux Debugging, Disassembling, and Reversing
Using and Administering Linux: Volume 2
Foundations of Linux Debugging, Disassembling, and Reversing
Using and Administering Linux: Volume 3
Deploy Container Applications Using Kubernetes
systemd for Linux SysAdmins
Ansible for Kubernetes by Example
Assembly Language Reimagined
Linux for Small Business Owners
Kubernetes Recipes
Linux System Administration for the 2020s
Oracle on Docker
Practical Linux DevOps
Supercomputers for Linux SysAdmins
The Enterprise Linux Administrator
There are three pricing tiers here:
$1 tier: Two books: Linux System Administration for the 2020s and Practical Linux DevOps. Both focus on current practices. Not bad for a dollar.
$18 tier: Adds three more books covering Kubernetes, Ansible automation, and DevOps stuff. Five books total.
$25 tier: All 22 books. This is where you get the whole bundle.
These books are yours to keep with no DRM restrictions. Head over to Humble Bundle (partner link) to grab the collection before the deal expires.
Microsoft's proprietary formats like .doc and .docx dominate the office productivity landscape. Most people and organizations rely on these formats for daily document work. This creates a predatory situation where vendor lock-in is the norm and compatibility issues are taken as a omen that moving away from Microsoft Office is a bad idea.
OpenDocument Format (ODF) offers an open alternative. It is an ISO-standard XML-based format for text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and graphics. ODF works across multiple office suites, including LibreOffice, Collabora Online, and Microsoft Office itself.
The format operates under the OASIS Open umbrella, a nonprofit consortium that develops open standards and open source projects. It brings together individuals, organizations, and governments to solve technical challenges through collaboration.
Coming after four years of development work, OASIS Open has introduced ODF 1.4, marking a major milestone during ODF's 20th anniversary as an OASIS Standard.
ODF 1.4 Packs in Many Upgrades
The development involved contributions from multiple organizations. Engineers from Collabora, The Document Foundation, IBM, Nokia, Microsoft, and KDE participated. Community members from the LibreOffice project also made significant contributions.
As for the major improvements of this release, tables can now be placed inside shapes, breaking free from the textbox-only limitation. This bridges a compatibility gap with Microsoft's OOXML and other file formats, making cross-format workflows smoother.
Accessibility gets meaningful upgrades through decorative object marking. Images and shapes can be flagged as decorative, instructing screen readers to skip them. This eliminates clutter for assistive technology users navigating complex documents.
A new overlap prevention property helps manage document layout. Anchored objects can now specify whether they need to avoid sitting on top of other elements. This gives users finer control over how images and shapes interact on a page.
Text direction support improves with 90-degree counter-clockwise rotation. Content can now flow left to right, then top to bottom, in this rotated orientation. The addition complements the existing clockwise direction commonly used for Japanese text layouts.
Michael Stahl, Senior Software Engineer at Collabora Productivity, explained the development approach:
Over the last four years, since ODF 1.3 was approved, engineers from Collabora Productivity and LibreOffice community members have worked with the Technical Committee to standardise many important interoperability features.
The feature freeze for ODF 1.4 was over two years ago, so while the list of changes is extensive the focus here is not on ‘new’ features that contemporary office suite users haven’t seen before, but improvements to bring ODF more in-line with current expectations.
For a Closer Look
The complete ODF 1.4 specification is available on the OASIS Open documentation website. The specification consists of four numbered documents covering different aspects of the standard.
Part 1 provides the introduction and master table of contents. Part 2 defines the package format language. Part 3 contains the XML schema definitions. Part 4 specifies the formula language for spreadsheet calculations.
If you love working in the terminal or just want something fast and lightweight for calendar management, Calcurse gives you a full organiser you can use right in your shell. As its name suggests, Calcurse uses ncurses to deliver a complex command-line interface that rivals some GUI apps in features and efficiency.
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If you don't need automated reminders and/or the overhead of a database, it's great for keeping track of your appointments and to-do lists. Being lightweight, it works well in server environments over SSH, and is a great candidate for those using low-powered devices.
Understanding Calcurse at a glance
The standard Calcurse interface in action
Calcurse is written in C, and boasts robust support for scripting and helper tools. It supports many of the features you'd expect in a GUI calendar app, including iCalendar (.ics) import/export, as well as some you may never have thought of. It should bring back some nostalgia if you were around during the early days of computing (DOS, early Unix, etc), where text-based user interface (TUI) apps were predominant, and complex, keyboard-driven interfaces were actually the norm.
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I can't cover everything about Calcurse here, since it's got way too many features for a single article. If you're interested in trying it out, check out the documentation.
Calcurse operates in three main forms:
An interactive ncurses interface: the standard Calcurses interface that you get by running the calcurses command with no arguments or flags.
A non-interactive TUI: prints output according to parameters, and exits. Called by passing flags like --status.
A background daemon: must first be enabled from the ncurses interface or run with --daemon, can be ended by starting the interactive interface or by using pkill calcurse.
Most actions are a single keystroke away, with on-screen prompts and a simple help/config menu when you need it. Once the shortcuts click, navigation is quick and predictable.
Where most calendar apps store your data in a database, Calcurse uses plain text files on the backend. This choice keeps it snappy, easy to back up, and instantly responsive to your changes. At this time, Calcurse can only show one calendar per instance, so if you'd like to have multiple calendars, you'll need to run different instances, each connected to a different calendar file (with -c) and data directory (with -D).
Notifcations and sync? Check!
Calcurse supports notifications within its ncurses UI or by running a custom command (such as your system's mailer or your desktop environment's own notification system). By default, Calcurse does not run as a daemon (background process), so as long as you're not actively running it, it uses no additional system resources.
However, being as versatile as it is, you can enable daemon mode so Calcurse can deliver notifications even after you quit the UI. Launching the UI typically stops the daemon to avoid conflicting instances, unless using the --status flag. To avoid this, you can run Calcurse as a separate instance or query it using the appropriate flags without bringing up the UI. If you'd prefer a more hands-on approach, you can set up cron jobs and scripting to interact with the non-interactive mode for the same purposes.
iCalendar import/export is built into the native app itself and can be invoked with "i" (for import) or "x" (for export). CalDAV sync is also supported, but requires a third-party helper (calcurse-caldav). It's still considered alpha-quality software, and does require its own database, so syncing between Calcurse instances may be a little trickier here.
Going deeper on syncing
Perhaps one of the coolest parts of using a tool like Calcurse is that since everything is kept in plain text, you can use version control for just about everything: from configurations to schedules. If you have a certain schedule you'd like to sync between your devices, you'd just need to store your ~/.config/.calcurse~ and ~/.local/share/calcurse folders in a Git repo or your personal Nextcloud server, for instance.
You could have the actual folder stored in your sync location and have Calcurse read from a symlink. This way, you could manually edit your configuration from anywhere, and have it automatically sync to every device where you use Calcurse. Pretty handy for power users with many devices to manage.
Customisation and quality-of-life
Customizing the colour theme in Calcurse is easy
With how many advanced features Calcurse offers, you may not be too surprised to learn that it supports a degree of customisation (in interactive mode), accessible through the config menu. You can change the colours and layout, or choose the first day of the week. You can also enable various quality of life features, like autosave and confirmations.
If you don't like the standard key bindings, you can set your own, which is quite handy for those who may have certain preferences. For example, you can bind a custom key for jumping between views. If you're running Calcurse in a terminal emulator under Wayland, it's especially useful. You won't need to worry about running into conflicts over hotkeys in your desktop environment.
Changing views
Calcurse with the calendar in week view
If you'd like to change how the calendar is displayed, you can change the appearannce.calendarview option in the config between monthly and weekly. In weekly view, the number of the week is shown in the top right-corner of the calendar. There's no way to enable this in the monthly view, it shows the day of the year instead.
Creating an appointment with the calendar in month view
If you'd like to show notifications in Calcurse itself, you can toggle the notification bar with the appearance.notifybar option. I didn't test notifications in this way, as I'd prefer to set up system integration.
Where Calcurse might not be for you
Of course, as powerful as it is, Calcurse does have some quirks and shortcomings that may be an issue for some users. For instance, it does not support any fancy views or month-grid editing like many GUI calendar tools. To be fair, the default interface is simple enough to be comfortable to use once you get used to it, but if you need these additional features, you're out of luck.
One other quirk is that the 12-hour time format is not globally supported throughout the app. The interactive list uses the hh:mm format, whereas the notification bar and CLI output can be switched to the 12 hr format. The rest of the app displays its time in the 24 hr format. Changing the format where you are allowed to isn't trivial, so be prepared to consult the documentation for this one.
The format quirks also show up in how you choose certain display units for dates. Unless you're well versed in these, you might find yourself consulting the documentation often. This could be off-putting for some users, even terminal lovers who prefer the TUI over everything else. It's also inconsistent in this way, since format.inputdate uses simple numbers in the config, whereas format.dayheading uses the less familiar "%-letter" format.
Overall, even if you like working on the command-line, the learning curve for Calcurse can be a little steep. That said, once you get acclimated, the key-driven TUI is actually comfortable to work with, and the high range of features would make it a great tool for those who like to build custom solutions on top of headless apps.
Getting Calcurse on your distro
Calcurse is packaged for many distros, including Debian/Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, and others, as well as their derivatives, of course. You can search for calcurse in your software manager (if it supports native packages) or use your standard installation commands to install it:
Debian/Ubuntu/Mint:
sudo apt install calcurse
Fedora:
sudo dnf install calcurse
Arch:
sudo pacman -S calcurse
However, if you're looking to build from source, you can grab up-to-date source releases from the Calcurse downloads page, pull the latest code from the project's GitHub page.
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Calcurse does not track releases on its GitHub page. If you pull from Git, you're essentially pulling the development branch.
Conclusion
Calcurse is a rare gem: a powerful, straightforward TUI calendar management app with support for iCal import/export, CalDAV sync, and scriptable reports. If you live in the shell, manage servers over SSH, or want plain-text data you can version, it's a reasonable solution. Sure, there are real trade-offs: no month-grid, a slight learning curve, and 12-hour time relegated to the notification bar and output. For terminal-first users, it is an easy recommendation.
Rust has been making waves in the information technology space. Its memory safety guarantees and compile-time error checking offer clear advantages over C and C++.
The language eliminates entire classes of bugs. Buffer overflows, null pointer dereferences, and data races can't happen in safe Rust code. But not everyone is sold. Critics point to the steep learning curve and unnecessary complexity of certain aspects of it.
Despite criticism, major open source projects keep adopting it. The Linux kernel and Ubuntu have already made significant progress on this front. Now, Debian's APT package manager is set to join that growing list.
The integration targets critical areas like parsing .deb, .ar, and tar files plus HTTP signature verification using Sequoia. Julian said these components "would strongly benefit from memory safe languages and a stronger approach to unit testing."
He also gave a firm message to maintainers of Debian ports:
If you maintain a port without a working Rust toolchain, please ensure it has one within the next 6 months, or sunset the port.
The reasoning is straightforward. Debian wants to move forward with modern tools rather than being held back by legacy architecture.
What to Expect: Debian ports running on CPU architectures without Rust compiler support have six months to add proper toolchains. If they can't meet this deadline, those ports will need to be discontinued. As a result, some obscure or legacy platforms may lose official support.
For most users on mainstream architectures like x86_64 and ARM, nothing changes. Your APT will simply become more secure and reliable under the hood.
If done right, this could significantly strengthen APT's security and code quality. However, Ubuntu's oxidation efforts offer a reality check. A recent bug in Rust-based coreutils breifly broke automatic updates in Ubuntu 25.10.
Sourav Rudra
