Lumo 2.0: Proton's Private Alternative to ChatGPT and Claude Just Got Better

When Lumo (partner link) launched last year, I took it for a spin to see what Proton's foray into AI assistants looked like. I found out that the open source AI assistant ran quite well for a new launch.

And a few months later, Lumo 1.3 brought Projects to the assistant, letting me bundle related chats, files, and custom instructions into encrypted workspaces. I tried this out too, complete with Proton Drive integration for pulling files straight in, and it worked well.

Following that, I used Lumo to cook up some ideas for our socials, and it worked decently, though sometimes it would completely miss the mark. Also, its lack of ability to read images was something that didn't sit well with my workflow.

Fortunately, that's changing with the launch of Lumo 2.0, Proton's "most advanced AI assistant yet."

What's new with Lumo 2.0?

The feline-faced assistant didn't have real memory capabilities before this. It could save your chat history and group-related work into Projects, but it never actually remembered anything about you between separate conversations.

That is something every major AI chatbot on the market has already cracked. With Lumo 2.0, that changes, and you can now take advantage of user-controlled memory, which lets you configure what Lumo carries over from chats.

Then there's the web search feature that already existed earlier, but it leaned entirely on the model's own knowledge once you toggled it on. The Lumo 2.0 implementation pulls in live results with source citations instead, so answers about anything recent should actually hold up.

Another gap that has been plugged is the image support, with there now being the ability to analyze, edit, and generate images inside any encrypted Lumo conversation.

Proton also includes the Lite and Max models with this release. Andy Yen, Proton's CEO and founder, says the latter performs on par with the latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic for many use cases, based on the company's own user testing.

I played around with it

For starters, I asked Lumo what version it was running, just to see if it had information on what its internal components consisted of. The earlier Lumo release had just done some guesswork, guiding me towards the support page for Lumo for getting further information.

But with 2.0, I was given an overview of the release, and during that, I also noticed the new AI model switcher that let me change between the Lite and Max models, as well as the thinking mode, with toggles for Fast and Thinking.

Next, I enabled memory through the settings panel. Before I could do that, Lumo laid out what it does. Showing that it can personalize chats based on saved preferences, stay out of project chats entirely, and store everything with zero-access encryption.

Once it was on, the panel showed an empty saved memories list, with options to generate entries from recent chats or add your own. I added one manually, telling Lumo I prefer facts over hallucinations and clarity over jargon.

To test the upgraded web search, I asked Lumo, "What is the hype behind Crypto?," a question that needs current information rather than whatever the model already knows.

Initially, it gave me a long summary of what I asked, but it was drawn from its training knowledge.

I asked Lumo again, this time with a slightly different prompt, "Why is crypto in hype right now?," and it visibly searched the web before answering. It then came back with a June 2026 breakdown covering Bitcoin's recent price drop, the political money flowing into crypto-friendly campaigns, and the DeFi narrative gaining traction.

To back all that, the sources panel sitting next to the answer cited reporting from authoritative outlets like Business Insider, Forbes, Seeking Alpha, and Politico.

For image generation, I uploaded the official Lumo 2.0 launch banner and asked it to convert the branding over to our branding, with a link to our homepage as reference.

Lumo worked through the request, pulled in the image, read through the It's FOSS homepage, our socials, and searched the web before generating a result.

The output swapped the purple cat mascot for a green penguin and shifted the color palette to match our branding. Though there was a slight niggle here.

Lumo's own summary claimed the text had been updated correctly to read "It's FOSS." It hadn't. The actual banner reads "It's FOCS," a typo Lumo never caught, even while running on Lumo 2.0 Max in Thinking mode.

AI assistants are known to fumble exactly this kind of detail, so I asked Lumo to fix the typo. A few prompts and a handful of slightly different image variations later, Lumo gave up, explained what the issue was, and asked me to add the text myself instead.

It then promptly slipped a typo into the supposedly text-free image it generated next. ☠️

Get started with Lumo

The 2.0 models are available right now, accessible via the official website. Without signing up, you get limited guest access to Lumo's core AI capabilities, while creating a free account unlocks more prompts and chat history.

Proton Lumo

If you want more, then signing up for Lumo Plus will get you access to projects, image generation, unlimited chats, and the various Lumo models.

Proton Lumo Plus

If that still doesn't cover your use cases, then there are the Lumo for Business plans, which run on the same zero-access encrypted, Europe-based infrastructure. These include admin tools for managing team access and compliance support for regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.

Finally, the source code for Lumo's Android and iOS apps can be found on GitHub.

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AI Agents Could Get Verified Identities, Courtesy of DNS

The Linux Foundation says that it intends to launch the Agent Name Service (ANS), an open standard that extends DNS to give AI agents a way to prove who they are.

In practice, that means being able to look up an agent and check who's actually operating it, what it's cleared to do, and whether anything in its code or history has changed.

Citing a research paper, the Linux Foundation says 82% of executives plan to adopt AI agents within the next one to three years, and most still have no reliable way to authenticate or govern them once they're running in production.

Right now, nothing stops an agent from claiming to be support-agent.acme.com as there is no way for anyone to check if that's true.

Finding the right one is just as hard. Nothing today links an agent's name and capabilities to a specific, verified version you can actually reach. ANS is built to address both problems at once.

How does it work?

Every agent registered under ANS gets a DNS-style name with a version number built in, something like ans://v1.0.0.my-agent.example.com. That name only comes with an identity certificate once the agent's domain passes the same DNS and ACME checks a website goes through to get an ordinary TLS certificate.

Every registration, renewal, or revocation gets recorded in a tamper-evident log (append-only Merkle log), so nobody can edit an agent's history after those events. A separate offline tool called ans-verify can check those records without even needing a live connection to the registry.

And before you assume this is something new they cooked up, it is not. GoDaddy already had ANS up and running months before the Linux Foundation got involved, building on an existing IETF draft.

Rather than build new certificate and DNS systems from the ground up, GoDaddy's engineers reused infrastructure they already had in production. That is the same certificate service handling over 100 million active SSL and TLS certificates, plus their existing DNS systems.

What's already live?

The agentnameservice organization on GitHub currently hosts eight repositories. The main one is ans, an MIT-licensed Go codebase that implements the whole stack, including the registry, the logging, and the verifier as a working reference anyone can run.

It's still early days, of course, but the whole stack reportedly comes up in around 60 seconds with nothing more than Go, openssl, curl, and jq installed.

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You Can Spend Up to $11,944 on Purism's Librem 16 Linux Laptop

Ever since successfully crowdfunding over $500k for the Librem 15, Purism has become a recognized hardware manufacturer catering to privacy and Linux enthusiasts.

The company is registered as a Social Purpose Corporation, dedicating its existence to upholding the privacy, security, and freedom of its users, even when that conflicts with maximizing shareholder profit.

That philosophy carries through their lineup of offerings like the Liberty Phone, the Librem series of phones, and Post Quantum Cryptography hardware.

Just recently, they announced the Librem 16 laptop, positioned as the direct successor to the Librem 15 and an upgrade over the Librem 14 in both performance and expandability.

📝 Librem 16: Key Specifications

At the heart of the Librem 16 sits a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13620H, which is a 10-core, 16-threaded chip. Its performance cores turbo up to 4.9GHz, while the efficiency cores cap out at 3.6GHz. Sadly, there's no discrete GPU onboard, just Intel's integrated UHD Graphics handling display duties.

Memory tops out at 64GB, split across two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots. Storage comes from two M.2 bays that handle both NVMe and SATA drives, for a maximum of 16TB.

PureOS is the Linux distribution of choice here. It is Purism's own Debian-based distro that has endorsement from the Free Software Foundation, and there's no telemetry or advertisements involved.

Firmware leans in the same direction, with the Librem 16 featuring coreboot and a disabled Intel Management Engine. Then there are the two kill switches; one cuts the camera and mic, the other cuts wireless and Bluetooth; both can be flipped off manually.

The rest of the specs include:

• Display: 16-inch, 1920x1200 (16:10 aspect ratio).
• Ports: 2x USB-C (USB 3.2 Gen 2, DisplayPort Alt Mode, USB-PD up to 100W), 2x USB-A (USB 3.2 Gen 1), 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x memory card reader, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack.
• Dimensions: 360 x 26 x 240mm (W x H x L), 1.8kg.
• Connectivity: 1x Gigabit Ethernet over RJ45, Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 with two antennas, and Bluetooth.
• Battery: A single 3-cell, 54.2Wh pack rated at 11.55V and 4.7Ah

Get Yours

The Librem 16 is sold in three pre-configured tiers, plus a build-your-own option for anyone who wants to tailor the specs to their needs.

• The Base model is the entry point at $2,899, with 16GB of RAM and 500GB of storage.
• The Plus model bumps that to 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage for $4,199.
• The Max model with 64GB of RAM and 16TB of storage across two 8TB drives tops the range at $9,799.

If none of those fit, the build-your-own option starts at $2,870 and lets you configure memory, both storage slots, the wireless card, anti-interdiction service, and warranty length individually.

Push every option to its highest value, and the final tally lands at a whopping $11,944.

Anyhow, every configuration ships within 10 business days, with optional anti-interdiction service ($249) and an extended 3-year warranty ($399) available as add-ons.

Librem 16

Linux preloaded laptops have never been cheaper. And Purism has a privacy at hardware level angle so these laptops are not affordable by general public (like me).

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Every Physics Teacher (And Student) Should Try This Open Source Software

Open source software has always been a cornerstone in scientific applications.

From supercomputers to CERN labs, handling some of the greatest discoveries of humankind and accelerating particles beyond imagination, open source software has provided the framework for all necessary technological usage.

Bringing it down to a simpler level, KDE's Step provides you a platform to test out some of the most important basic concepts in physics, like simple motion, electrostatics and gravitation, and even things like spring (harmonic) motion.

Developing an intuition about these phenomena can finally bridge the knowledge gap that students need. So if you are a physics teacher (or student), KDE Step is worth your attention.

Interface and Experience

Using the basic KDE design kit, the application looks quite familiar as it is. It is arranged in a very efficient manner, with all the usable objects on a panel on the left side of the window, while the right side holds the panel that can be used to modify any of the attributes of those objects as well as a panel that shows the history of the steps (no pun intended) made by the user. On the top of the window, all the menus are present with the undo/redo buttons, and most importantly, the button that allows you to start the simulation.

To demonstrate the elements and how they're used in the best way possible, I'm going to show different simulations that incorporate said elements. It is the most efficient and vivid way, since it is, after all, a simulation app.

Simple Harmonic Motion

As a very famous quote from Sidney Coleman says, "The career of a young theoretical physicist consists of treating the harmonic oscillator in ever-increasing levels of abstraction." Keeping up with that sentiment, I will show a very basic demonstration of a simple harmonic motion.

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Simple Harmonic Motion

The elements used here are two particles, a spring, a graph, weight field and an anchor. Particles in Step are simple zero-dimensional point objects with modifiable position, color, velocity, mass, momentum and kinetic energy.

Springs are simple, you can attach both ends to objects, you can change the stiffness. Anchors are utilities that can be used to fix the position of an object to the scene. No matter what, it will not move from where it is placed.

A weight field simply simulates the gravitational force of earth for all the objects placed on the scene, but again, you can modify the gravitational acceleration to suit whatever kind of simulation you're trying to run (for example, trying to simulate the gravitational force on the moon).

Finally, the graph utility can be used to plot any property of any object on the scene against any other property.

Soft Body

While sounding like a promise made by a moisturizer, soft body is not that but a category of objects in physics that are not rigid but that deform and change shape according to the parameters set.

More accurate, and as shown in the app itself, it can be thought of as an object made of small particles connected to each other by springs that deform according to the force provided.

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Soft body simulation

Two new elements are used here, a soft body (that has already been described) and a box. A box is just that, a rectangle with modifiable dimensions, where apart from what you can already change in a particle, you can also change the angular velocity, angular momentum, inertia, and so on.

📋

If you're wondering why the soft body falls on the left even though it has been placed centrally on the screen, that is because nothing can be truly zero in this context. There's always a miniscule value left, and in this case, even when the value is defined as 0, it is some exponentially small value close to it on the left (negative).

Orbit

Another basic simulation that can really help is that of an orbit. Step provides a gravitational field simulation, in which the universal law of gravitation starts holding true and applying within the canvas.

In this simulation, I've modified the value of the gravitational constant to something that allows my particle to orbit the central particle (because I finally can), and I'm using a controller to change the mass of my central particle while the simulation is going on to show how that changes the velocity and distance of the revolving particle.

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Orbit simulation

As you can see, for the first part of the video, it is making a calm orbit but as soon as I start increasing the mass, the particle comes closer (as one would expect) and when I decrease it, the particle goes out the frame (a little dramatic, but still expected).

Compound Pendulum

Have you ever wondered what an oscillating lambda would look like? Well wonder no further because Step allows you to make any kind of polygon that you would like to make with the polygon tool, and then you can use a pin to fix the position of one point in that body to the canvas. And some weight force to the scene, and there you go. A lambda pendulum:

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Compound pendulum simulation

This kind of pendulum that isn't one concentrated mass but distributed instead is called a compound pendulum in physics, which can be quite difficult to visualize sometimes.

Linear-Angular Parallels

Students often struggle with the equations for the motion of a disk, or anything that has to do with rotating rigid bodies, but it is only a matter of translation of the values in the usual linear equations of motion into those that concern rotating bodies. For example, mass gets replaced with moment of inertia, velocity with angular velocity, same with acceleration and so on. In the following simulation, that's exactly what we're showing:

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Linear-rotating parallels.

In this simulation, the particle and the disk have mass and moment of inertia with the value 1, velocity and angular velocity with value 6, acceleration and angular acceleration -2 respectively.

As you can see, the changes happen hand-in-hand, making it clear how the equations work practically parallelly. I have used a linear motor to apply a linear force to the particle and a circular motor to apply a torque to the disk. The values on display can be shown using the meter utility.

Stable and Unstable Equilibrium Positions

In the first case, I've fixed two positive charges of equal magnitude on the canvas with anchors. Another positive charge was placed right in between them. The charge, of course, will be in equilibrium just by the virtue of being smackdab right in the middle of the positive charges. What happens if I slightly move the central charge from its position?

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Stable equilibrium state for charges

The charge starts oscillating. In a real life scenario where there are losses due to friction and so on, this will return to the equilibrium position right in the middle. But what if my central charge is negative? What happens then?

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Unstable equilibrium state for charges

As you can see, the charge moves on to the side of movement, as you would expect. In this case, the equilibrium was unstable, meaning even the slight change in position on one side will result in absolute ruin of the equilibrium state. I've used charged particles, which are similar to normal particles but with the added option of adding a charge to them. Similar to how we did with gravitation, you need to add the Coulomb field to the canvas in order for the law of electrostatics to start applying.

Constraints

A lot of basic physics is based on constraints, which can be of different sorts. The most basic one is where the distance between two bodies is fixed, so that the motion of one of the bodies impacts that of the other. So in this simulation, I've done that exactly with a massless stick, which connects two bodies in Step. I've given a certain velocity to one of the particles, and you can see here how it impacts the other one:

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Usage of stick in Step

📋

It is important to note that sometimes the stick doesn't work really well. It is not supposed to be elastic, but it sometimes acts more like a spring than a stick if not configured exactly well.

Perfect Gas Simulation

Finally, Step has a tool that lets you simulate a perfect gas, following the basic principles of kinetic theory of gases. When applying it on the canvas, you can configure the area that the gas will exist in, the number of particles inside that area, the concentration, the temperature, particle mass and mean velocity. Sure, some of these things are dependent on each other and all of them being configurable individually does seem a little counter-intuitive, but if you change one of the values that another depends upon, it changes automatically. There's no disregard for the physics of it here.

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📋

The gas particles are not configured to interact with any other bodies or walls/objects in the vicinity. If you put boxes or polygons to see how the gas interacts with them, Step will show an error saying it isn't possible.

Wrapping Up

There are some very obvious points at which Step breaks. Not even showing an error, it just breaks. For example, if you configure the mass of a particle to be 0 or very close to it, for any simulation that involves forces or collisions, the canvas just disappears. Obviously, massless particles are not in the scope of scenarios which Step can simulate.

Overall, Step has some excellent options that can really help students visualize their physics lesson up to an elementary undergraduate level.

As a student of Physics, I have been using it for years to clear my doubts, but it is only obvious that the simulation can only be as helpful and accurate as you are careful with setting it up. More than that, it helps you explore possibilities that aren't possible in the physical world, such as completely ideal conditions of zero friction, the ability to change fundamental and universal constants and so on.

On a related note, you may want to check out the list of distros for schools and education.

I hope this article was helpful and that you have fun seeing the answers to your physics doubts come to life. Cheers!

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Banking Apps, No Google, and a Locked Bootloader: How iodé Makes Privacy Android Work for Everyone

A few weeks back, I invited Brian from the iodé, a de-googled Android project, to have a quick discussion on the project, its achievements and the futuree challenges. I was meant to be in video/audio format but part of discussion suffered from poor audio quality and hence I switch it to nour usual text format.

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

It's FOSS: iodé sits at an interesting crossroads of privacy and sustainability. For those who haven't come across the project before, what is it and what is it trying to accomplish?

Brian: iodé is a project that is interested in making sure that there's a privacy-based Android distribution that is also very easy to use. Very easy for normal users to feel they can use it conveniently.

We also feature a tool which is a tracker blocker, so both your apps and your browser when you're browsing the internet have a sort of firewall that allows you to know exactly which connections your device is making, which connections the apps are making, the browser is making when you're visiting websites, and it prevents ads and trackers from following you around the internet.

That's the main goal and while it's not a Linux device in the classic sense of a Linux mobile device, it's an Android device, it gives you all the usability of an Android device.

It's FOSS: App compatibility is usually the first thing that worries someone considering a de-Googled phone, especially banking apps and anything they'd normally get from the Play Store. Since iodé doesn't ship with Google Play, how do you handle that?

Brian: We have two app stores. We have F-Droid, which is a free software app store that comes by default. And we also have Aurora Store, which is basically a front end for the Google Play Store.

So you can install any app that's on Google Play without Google knowing which apps you're installing it doesn't track you the same way Google Play does, but still gives you all the usability of Google Play.

And the difference is you can also spoof different devices. So if something is not available for your device, you don't have to go to some random APK store and risk downloading something that maybe is a dangerous file. You can just simply change the device settings and spoof another device and download that.

So it gives you all the usability of Google Play, maybe even more so. And like all of our pre-installed apps, you can uninstall any of them and install another app store if you want. You can even install the official Google Play if you want.

It's FOSS: If a non-technical person, someone who just wants their phone to work, switched to iodé tomorrow, what would their day-to-day experience actually look like?

Brian: There may be issues with some banking apps because Google has this integrity API, it's more about monopoly than it is about security.

So there are a few issues users may find with some apps not playing well with Play Integrity API. What we have is called MicroG. It's a Google Play Services emulator, and that usually works for almost any app. All the common apps that you would expect,Instagram, TikTok, all these things, they still work on iodé as you would expect.

So for the average user, unless you have problems with a banking app, and that's not that common, most banking apps continue to work. The only occasional thing I've seen is some apps that are from OEMs, like Samsung Watches, may not work. But in general, most users won't notice a big difference moving over from Android.

The difference you will notice is you don't get a lot of notifications and advertisements and just junk you get in a standard Android distribution, there's an incredible amount of bloatware and ads, especially if you're on something like Xiaomi or OPPO.

It's FOSS: Sustainability is something that sets iodé apart from a lot of other privacy-focused Android projects. You offer refurbished devices alongside new ones. Can you walk us through your thinking on that?

Brian: We're very interested in sustainability and so we encourage people to use refurbished devices when possible. Even some of the Fairphones we offer are refurbished. When you're using a very minimalistic image like iodé, it doesn't have a lot of the bloat and unnecessary software, things that you can't uninstall on a regular stock Android device, which is just running in the background and using up your CPU and using up your RAM.

The system itself is much bigger on stock because of Google Play Services and any other add-ons that OPPO or Xiaomi or any other manufacturer puts in. Because iodé is more minimal, it can run on older hardware, on hardware with lower specifications. So that's why we encourage people to use refurbished devices.

But people are asking, saying, "hey, we want new devices as well." So we have begun to add more new devices to our shop. Initially, we only wanted to work with Shift and Fairphone because they're sort of ethical manufacturers. They look at the entire supply chain, the conflict minerals that are involved in building the phones, and make sure that workers get paid well and that the materials are fairly sourced, and try to make a more sustainable model. Because obviously the best device you can always use is a device that's already been built, in terms of sustainability and ecology. So this is why we focused on refurbished.

It's FOSS: The privacy Android space isn't exactly crowded, but there are notable players like /e/OS, LineageOS, GrapheneOS. Do you see them as part of the same broader community, or more as competitors?

Brian: Honestly, I think anything that's good for any of these projects is going to help the other projects. Of all the Android hardware that's out there, there are very few devices to choose from, probably less than 1% of all Android devices can be de-Googled. There was more interest in custom ROMs back in the day when Android wasn't as useful and when people wanted to customize it. With Play Integrity and the Google Play APIs coming out that made it more difficult to use banking apps and things like that, there was a loss of interest. And also people began to see it as a security problem with unlocked bootloaders.

Now, we try to respect the locked bootloader, which makes us different from other projects like Lineage. Whenever we can relock the bootloader, we do. We have relocked bootloaders on four or five manufacturers. The rest of the manufacturers simply don't allow it. We're trying to work with these other operating systems. We have an agreement through the unified attestation to try to come up with an alternative to Google Play Integrity.

I think there's a big market for these devices. A lot of people just don't know that they can get a device that isn't spying on them, that isn't constantly sending data back to Google or to Apple. And just the fact that these devices exist and work out of the box, many people don't even know or realize this, or they think that it's going to be a huge amount of work to install it. That's why we have a shop, that's why we sell our devices. And if we can help these other projects, I think that's great.

I'd like to see more collaboration, and it would be really good if these groups didn't see each other as competitors. I think the same thing is true of Linux distributions. It would be very absurd for Fedora to be attacking SUSE Linux or Linux Mint. People often distro-hop, and I think the same will be true of privacy-based Android distributions.

It's FOSS: GrapheneOS has at times been quite critical of other projects in this space, including iodé, particularly on security grounds. How do you view that?

Brian: Graphene has been very vocal about saying that we've been attacking them. Actually, I don't think we have. This is probably the first time we'll ever say anything about Graphene. And I think the only thing I will say is that they have a great project, and that it's only available on Pixels. There are some people who want other devices. It is important to have a locked bootloader, but not all hardware manufacturers permit it. While we do lock bootloaders when possible on every system that allows bootloader re-locking, we also want to offer other hardware. And that can lead to security issues on those people's devices.

As for whether we also support end-of-life devices — we do. There's a billion people in the world who are running end-of-life devices, and those devices are vulnerable to attacks that have been found in the code base and aren't getting fixed by manufacturers. We continue to support those devices. I think people should know that if they are worried about security, they shouldn't be running end-of-life devices. But we also don't want people to throw them in the bin. They may have other uses for the device and they may not want that device to be constantly sending data back to Google. So there's a balance here.

There's also the question of the firmware. The firmware is updated by the manufacturer and a lot of those device drivers are actually closed source. We don't have access to be able to change it even if we wanted to. This is kind of one of the problems with the Android ecosystem. It's the same problem that the Linux mobile space is also facing.

We do want to support 60 devices; we don't just want to support Google Pixels. All power to them. I hope that Graphene can also make an agreement with Motorola to allow re-locking bootloaders on their devices. We've already begun to support Motorola devices. We do provide monthly security updates, and we're much more up to date than some of the other custom Android distributions out there. All of these projects are working with very limited resources, and it would be wise if we didn't do any sort of infighting. There's no custom ROM developer that has 30 developers. We're all working with very limited resources.

It's FOSS: Without tracking your users, getting a real picture of adoption must be tricky. What do you actually know about how many people are running iodé?

Brian: We do not really get any information on our user base. We don't keep any information. We just know what happens on the forum. We do know that in the last two years there's been a quarter of a million downloads. There's probably well over 10,000 people running iodé as a daily driver. It's almost doubled in the last year, we think, because there's been a great increase of users, including in the United States. We don't actually sell our devices in the US, so this is a bit of a surprise.

Basically the only thing we can see is the IP of the person downloading the file, and we log this in the sense that we just keep some statistics on which countries are downloading. We have people in the United States, in Germany, and France. And we wipe out these IPs. We just know which country it's coming from.

It's FOSS: To close, if someone is weighing iodé against other privacy-focused Android options, what's your pitch? What makes it worth choosing?

Brian: Aside from monthly security updates and the fact that you can install it on many different devices, we have over 60 devices supported now. I think one of the big things that's really going to interest people, like why to choose iodé over something like Lineage, is that you get an iodé blocker. So you get an integrated tracker blocker, and it's also not going to fill up your VPN slot. On most operating systems, if you install a DNS blocker or an ad blocker, those will usually take up your VPN slot and the VPN slot is also useful for your privacy. So you get kind of the best of both worlds.

One of the things we also focus on is we want there to be a complete suite of apps that's pre-installed, and we want all of those apps to be uninstallable. If you don't like our music player, you just uninstall it. If you don't like the default map app, we use Comaps as a default map app, you can install Google Maps if you want, you can have them both. And you still get all of the privacy advantages of Lineage, because our base is Lineage, with some more improvements. The standard Firefox browser doesn't have any connections back to Google, for instance. But if you wanted to use a different web view, you can also do that.

So you have a lot of choice. But for the average user who doesn't know anything about configuring a device besides "I want to install these four apps," it will still give you much better privacy than a standard stock Android, privacy by default, and the choice to do whatever you want to do with the phone.

---

I would like to thank Brian for sharing interesting insights about the iodé project. I strongly recommending checking it out, who knows perhaps your next smartphone is powered by iodé.

iodé project

And if it interests you, you may checkout:

• List of Linux-based smartphons
• Other de-googled Android distros
• and choice of open source smartphone OS

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Getting More Out of KDE Plasma System Monitor

One of the biggest strengths of KDE Plasma is its customization, and the System Monitor is no exception.

I have shown this with KDE Konsole tweaks earlier and now I am here to do the same with KDE System Monitor.

Like most other parts of the Plasma desktop, the System Monitor offers plenty of customization options that are easy to overlook.

Let me show you how to transform the default KDE Plasma System Monitor into a clean and powerful system monitoring dashboard.

Understanding the System Monitor Layout

Before we start customizing the System Monitor, let's first understand how KDE Plasma System Monitor arranges sensors on the page.

Take a look at the sample layout diagram below.

KDE Plasma System Monitor Layout

This gives you a general idea of how different elements are organized inside the System Monitor.

At the top is the window layer, where everything is arranged in rows. Inside each row is a column layer, where items are arranged into columns.

Within each column, you'll find sections. These sections hold the individual widgets that display system information.

When you enter the System Monitor's edit mode, which we'll cover in the next section, you can hover over the layout to identify these different layers.

As you add or modify widgets, clicking on a particular layer only shows the options available for that layer.

For example, clicking the column layer lets you add more columns, but not sections.

Likewise, clicking the section layer lets you add additional sections, but not columns.

Keeping this layout in mind will make it much easier to customize the System Monitor without any confusion.

As mentioned earlier, KDE Plasma's default System Monitor includes a few pre-built pages that display essential system information.

If you look closely, you'll notice that each item on these pages is essentially a widget, similar to the widgets you can place on the Plasma desktop.

In other words, the System Monitor app works like a canvas where you can add widgets and configure them however you like.

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KDE System Monitor has the concept of "pages" and they are configured to display specific system information. If you look closely, you'll notice that each item on these pages is essentially a widget, similar to the widgets you can place on the Plasma desktop. In other words, the System Monitor app works like a canvas where you can add widgets and configure them however you like. This is what we are going to do.

Add a New Page

By default, the Plasma System Monitor includes four pages:

• Overview: A dashboard that displays multiple system statistics.
• Applications: A list of running applications and their resource usage.
• History: Live graphs for CPU, GPU, memory, and network activity.
• Processes: A list of running processes and their resource usage.

For this guide, we'll create a new page instead of modifying the existing ones.

Click the menu button in the top-left corner and select Add New Page.

Add a new page

In the dialog that appears, enter a name for the page and choose an icon.

Next, set Load this page to During application startup.

Finally, click Add.

Add page details

The new page will now appear in the sidebar. Select it to open it.

You'll be greeted with an empty page. This is where we'll build our custom system monitoring dashboard.

Edit the Page

Now that the new page is ready, it's time to customize its contents.

Open the new page and click the Edit Page button in the top-right corner.

Since the page currently contains only one system monitor widget, click on it. This opens a sidebar where you can configure the selected widget.

Let's turn it into a horizontal bar chart that displays the load on each CPU core.

In the sidebar, change the following settings:

• Title: CPU Load Graph (or any name you prefer)
• Display Style: Horizontal Bars
• Sensors: Select the usage percentage for all CPU cores, as shown in the clip below.

Editing the first KDE Plasma System Monitor widget.

Selecting Sensors

Choosing the right sensors is the most important part of building your dashboard. Most System Monitor widgets work similarly to Plasma desktop widgets and let you display different types of system information.

Depending on the widget, you'll usually find two sensor fields:

• Sensors: Displays the selected sensors as charts, graphs, or other visual elements. You can select multiple sensors.
• Text-only Sensors: Displays the selected sensors as plain text instead of charts or graphs.

Clicking either field opens a categorized list of available sensors.

For example, CPU-related sensors, such as usage percentage, per-core statistics, and CPU temperature, are available under the CPU category.

Likewise, RAM-related sensors are grouped under Memory → Physical Memory.

Here are some of the main sensor categories you'll come across:

• CPUs: CPU usage, per-core statistics, temperature, and related metrics.
• Disks: Disk usage, free space, read/write activity, and other storage information.
• GPU: GPU usage, temperature, video memory, and related statistics.
• Memory: RAM and swap usage.
• Network Devices: IP address, download and upload speed, and other network statistics.
• Operating System: Kernel version, hostname, uptime, and other system details.

The exact sensors available will depend on your hardware and system configuration.

Adding a New Row

Now that we've added the first widget, let's create a new row to add another one.

While still in edit mode, click Add Row. A new empty system monitor widget will appear below the existing one.

Add a row

This time, we'll configure it as a pie chart to display used and free physical memory (RAM).

If you'd like to see the complete process, check out the short clip below.

Otherwise, configure the widget with these settings:

• Title: RAM Usage
• Display Style: Pie Chart
• Sensors: Used Physical Memory Percentage and Free Physical Memory Percentage

Adding a RAM usage pie chart to the dashboard.

You can also customize the chart colors if you like, but we'll leave them at their default values for this guide.

Add a Column

If the first section looks a bit too wide, you can split the available space by adding another column.

While in edit mode, click the topmost layer of the widget. This opens the menu for that layer.

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Check the layout diagram to know the arrangements.

From there, select Add → Add Column. The process is shown in the clip below.

Adding a new column using the top layer menu.

A new system monitor widget will appear to the right of the existing one. At the same time, the original widget will automatically resize to make room for the new column.

Using the same editing process as before, I configured this new widget with the Color Grid display style to show additional system information.

Creating a Color Grid widget to display system information.

Change the Position of a Widget

After setting up the dashboard, I felt that the Color Grid would look better before the CPU Load graph.

To move it, I clicked the topmost part of the widget to open that layer's menu.

From there, I clicked on Move and simply dragged the widget to the left of the CPU Load graph.

Moving the column item.

That's all there is to it.

Organize Widgets with Sections

So far, we've added rows and columns and rearranged widgets.

There is one more organizational feature in the System Monitor called Sections.

Sections let you group related widgets together. For example, you can keep all hardware-related sensors in one section and system information in another.

Let's see how it works. I'll demonstrate this on a new page. By now, you should already know how to create one.

In edit mode, click the top part of the section layer, located just above the widget title.

From the layer menu, select Add → Add Section. A new widget will be added to the right of the existing one.

Both widgets now belong to the same section and share a single section header.

To separate them visually, click the section header and select Add → Add Separator.

Add items in sections.

Save Your Changes

Once you're happy with the layout, click the Save Changes button in the top bar.

Save Changes

This saves all your modifications and exits edit mode.

Your newly created pages and customized widgets will now be available whenever you open the System Monitor.

Start with Your Custom Page

After creating your custom dashboard, you may want the System Monitor to open with that page by default. Fortunately, that's easy to set up.

Click the menu button in the top-left corner and select Edit or Remove Pages.

In the Start with drop-down menu, select the page you created.

Click OK to save the changes.

Start with Custom Page

From now on, the System Monitor will open directly to your custom page every time you launch it.

Remove a Page

If you no longer need a page, you can remove it at any time.

Click the menu button in the top-left corner and select Edit or Remove Pages.

A dialog listing all available pages will appear. Click the Delete button next to the page you want to remove.

Remove a custom page from the System Monitor

Once you're done, click OK to save the changes.

If you don't want to delete a page completely, simply uncheck it in the list. This hides the page without removing it.

Download Community Pages

You don't have to build every dashboard from scratch. The KDE community has created many custom System Monitor pages that you can download and use.

As with any third-party content, install these pages with caution. They are community-created and may not have been tested by the KDE developers for security or stability.

To browse available pages, click the menu button in the top-left corner and select Get New Pages.

Browse available community created pages

This opens the online catalog, where you can click the Install button next to any page to download and add it to your System Monitor.

Export or Import Pages

If you frequently switch between systems, exporting and importing pages can save you from recreating your custom dashboards every time.

To export a page, first open the page you want to save. Then click Menu → Export Current Page. Choose a file name and click Save.

The page will be saved with the .page extension in your chosen location.

Export a page in KDE System Monitor

To use it on another system, open the System Monitor and select Menu → Import Page. Then choose the exported .page file to add it to your System Monitor.

Wrapping Up

KDE Plasma's System Monitor is much more than a tool for checking CPU and memory usage. It offers a level of customization that many graphical system monitors simply don't provide.

Despite being a GUI application, it gives you plenty of flexibility to build dashboards that suit your workflow.

Have you customized the KDE Plasma System Monitor before, or do you prefer a different system monitoring tool?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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