Upgrading from Zorin OS 17 to 18 (In Early Access)

Last month, Zorin OS 18 dropped just in time for the Windows 10 EOL, bringing about an assortment of improvements like Linux kernel 6.14, rounded corners for the desktop interface, and a new window tiling manager.

So, it didn't come as a surprise to me when Zorin OS 18 hit the 1 million downloads milestone just over a month after its release. Alongside that announcement, the developers have made available an upgrade path from Zorin OS 17, which is intended for users of Core, Education, and Pro editions.

Let me walk you through the upgrade process. 😃

🚧

This upgrade path is currently in the testing phase. I don't recommend using it on your main computer or any production machine until the full rollout.

Before You Upgrade to Zorin OS 18

Zorin OS uses Déjà Dup as the backup utility.

First, ensure that you are running Zorin OS 17.3, the last point release. Then, create a backup of your files before upgrading the system. This is an optional step, as Zorin OS' upgrade tool is quite reliable.

The easiest way to do so is by using the pre-installed "Backups" tool. You can search for it in the Zorin Menu (the app launcher).

You can select the folders you want to backup and the location for their storage.

After you launch it, click on "Create My First Backup," and select the folders you want saved and the ones ignored. Then, select the storage location for the backup. I suggest you store these on external storage or upload them to Google Drive.

📋

In the screenshot above, I just used a dummy folder located on-device to demonstrate the steps.

You can choose to encrypt your Zorin OS backups.

Should you choose to, there is an option to encrypt the backup using a password; you will need it to update the existing backup or restore the files to the system.

For a more comprehensive backup solution, I recommend opting for Timeshift instead.

Guide to Backup and Restore Linux Systems with Timeshift

This beginner’s guide shows you how to back up and restore Linux systems easily with the Timeshift application.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

Time for The Upgrade

Open the Zorin Menu by clicking on its logo in the taskbar or pressing the Super key on your keyboard and search for "Software Updater". If you have any pending updates, get them by clicking on "Install Now".

Just search for the Software Updater in the Zorin Menu.

You will be prompted to enter your account password. Enter it to authenticate the upgrade and wait for the process to complete. Towards the end, you might be asked to restart your computer.

Now, open the terminal via the Zorin Menu or by using the handy keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + T and run the following command on it:

gsettings set com.zorin.desktop.upgrader show-test-upgrades true

When the upgrade path comes out of testing, you won't need to run the above-mentioned command and can directly skip over to the step below.

Finding the "Upgrade Zorin OS" tool is easy.

Now, launch the "Upgrade Zorin OS" tool and select the Zorin OS 18 edition that matches your current installation. In my case, that is Zorin OS 18 Core, going up from Zorin 17 OS Core.

You will be prompted to enter your password again. Go ahead and authenticate.

Remember to read the disclaimers!

After an upgrade requirements check, a long list of disclaimers will be shown. Ensure that you go through them before clicking on "Upgrade" to begin the upgrade process from Zorin OS 17 to 18.

The final stretch of the Zorin OS upgrade process.

Now it is just a matter of waiting. The upgrade time depends on your internet speed and hardware. Once done, restart your computer when prompted, and you will boot into Zorin OS 18.

If you run into any issues, you can ask the helpful FOSSers over at It's FOSS Community for help.

Suggested Read 📖

Move Between the Distros: Back Up and Restore Your Snap Packages

Make a backup of your Snap apps and application data and restore them to a new Linux system where Snap is supported. Works between Ubuntu and non-Ubuntu distros, too.

It's FOSSRoland Taylor

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Enshittification of Arduino Begins? Qualcomm Starts Clamping Down

When Qualcomm announced its acquisition of Arduino in October 2025, the tinkerer and maker community watched nervously. Large corporate acquisitions rarely end well for open platforms after all, and enshittification is something that often follows.

And now, what's followed is unsettling. Adafruit Industries, makers of popular development boards and a respected voice in the open hardware space, have sounded the alarm.

This Looks Concerning

Qualcomm has quietly made some massive changes to Arduino's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, marking a clear departure from the platform's founding principles.

According to Adafruit, the new policies introduce sweeping user-license provisions, broaden data collection (particularly around AI usage), and embed long-term account data retention, all while integrating user information into Qualcomm’s broader data ecosystem.

Section 7.1 grants Arduino a perpetual, irrevocable license over anything you upload. Your code, projects, forum posts, and comments all fall under this. This remains in effect even after you delete your account. Arduino retains rights to your content indefinitely.

The license is also royalty-free and sublicensable. Arduino can use your content however they want, distribute it, modify it, and even sublicense it to others.

This is not unfounded; see for yourself.

The terms further state that users are not allowed to reverse engineer or attempt to understand how the platform works unless Arduino gives permission. Adafruit argues that this contradicts the values that made Arduino attractive to educators, researchers, and hobbyists.

The Privacy Policy states Arduino is wholly owned by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. User data, including from minors, flows to other Qualcomm Group companies.

While these policy changes have raised eyebrows, Qualcomm and Arduino maintain that the acquisition will not alter the core spirit of the platform. They also state that existing Arduino boards built on non-Qualcomm microcontrollers will continue to be supported.

Nonetheless, there are good reasons to take Adafruit's concerns seriously. The updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy do contain sweeping language that feels out of place for a platform built on openness and transparency. The community is entitled to scrutinize these changes closely.

At the same time, the hardware side of Arduino doesn't seem to have changed too much as of now, so there's that too. Going forward, how these two organizations respond to criticisms such as this should paint a more clear picture of Arduino's future at its new home.

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Move Between the Distros: Back Up and Restore Your Snap Packages

The Snap packaging system makes it easy to install and update software on any Linux distribution that supports them. However, if you’ve ever had to reinstall your system, you’ve probably been burned by the fact that Snap, like most other packaging systems, doesn’t provide any built-in means for exporting your apps or moving them to a new machine.

Thankfully, there's good news: You can still. With just a few commands and a bit of organisation, you can export and restore your Snap applications on any other system where it's supported.

🚧 Some things to keep in mind

Before you dive in, there are some key things to understand about the Snap packaging system and how it works. Snap doesn’t yet have a built-in “export/import” tool like Flatpak. Neither packaging format allows you to repackage any packages you've already installed.

Furthermore, with the Snap system, reinstalling restores the latest version of the package, not necessarily the exact revisions you previously had. Since many apps store extra data under /var/snap/, you'll likely need to restore this data as well, if you're seeking to retain your settings when migrating. This article will show you how you can back up and restore this directory as well.

⚠️ What this tutorial cannot cover

Occasionally, Snap packages require hooks to enable certain features and integrations. Unfortunately, this is a more complicated process and must be done on a per-package basis. For this reason, we won't cover how to do this for individual packages, as that process can differ for each package that requires it.

Now, let's dive in.

Step 1. Creating a list of installed snap packages

To get started, you'll first need to save a list of every Snap package currently installed on your system:

snap list --all | awk 'NR>1 {print $1}' > snap-list.txt

This will create a text file with the names of all your Snap packages. As with most other packaging systems, package names are all you need to refer to the packages you want to manage. However, if you'd keep a note of further details in this list, you can do so with the following command:

snap list --all > snap-list-detailed.txt

🗒️

Unlike with other packaging systems, you cannot restore particular revisions of an application with the Snap packaging system. This command is only useful for record keeping purpose.

Step 2. Backing up your app data

Snap packages store their data and settings in your home folder within the ~/snap directory. Each app saves its data in a subdirectory of the same name. For example, Inkscape saves its data in _{/snap/inkscape} Firefox in /snap/firefox, and so on.

Each Snap package has its own config and data directory

You can back up individual apps if you'd like, but for the purposes of this tutorial, we'll run through how to back up the entire directory.

To do this, you can run:

tar -czf snap-data-backup.tar.gz ~/snap/

Remember to copy this file along with snap-list.txt to the target system where you'll be restoring your packages.

🗒️

If you're on a multi-user system, you'll need to run this for each user on the system you're transferring from.

Step 3. Transferring to the target system

On the target system, you should first ensure Snap is installed and working.

For the best results, it's safest if the target system has the same or a newer version of Snap compared to the original. You can check the Snap version on both systems by running the following command:

snap version

If you get output showing your snap version and other data, you’re ready to go.

🗒️

If you're running Ubuntu, Snap will be preinstalled. Most major distributions do not ship with Snap preinstalled, so you'll need to install it before continuing.

Installing your packages on the target system

In the same directory where you've copied the snap-list text file, run the following command to install the snap packages from your list:

xargs -a snap-list.txt sudo snap install

Once this command is finished running, you'll have all the same Snap apps and packages you'd have had on your previous system. Now, you can move on to restoring your app data.

You can verify your apps successfully installed by running:

snap list

4. Restoring app data

Now that you've successfully restored your Snap apps and packages, you can restore your Snap package data. To do this, you can decompress the archive you created earlier in your home folder:

tar -xzf snap-data-backup.tar.gz -C ~/

Remember, if you've done this for multiple users, this will need to be done in each user's home folder individually.

Optional bonus for advanced users: Automating your setup

If you regularly install or change your Snap packages, and you'd like to run this step more smoothly, you can automate it all with some simple scripting and cron.

Creating the script

For the script, you just to tie these commands together. Create a file such as ~/bin/snap-back.sh, and give it executable permission:

# Create the script:
touch ~/bin/snap-back.sh

# Give it executable permission:
chmod +x ~/bin/snap-back.sh

Now edit the script with the text editor of your choice, and add the following:

#!/bin/bash
# Backup Snap package list and user data
snap list --all | awk 'NR>1 {print $1}' > ~/snap-list.txt
tar -czf ~/snap-data-backup.tar.gz ~/snap/

# Optional: enable logging
echo "Snap backup completed on $(date)" >> ~/snap-backup.log

If you don't need to keep a log, you can remove the last line (and the comment above it).

Automating it all

If you'd like to have this back up run at regular intervals, you can schedule this process with cron:

# Open your crontab
crontab -e

In the editor, add this line:

0 10 * * SUN ~/bin/snap-back.sh

This will set your Snap package backup to run automatically at the beginning of every week. You can choose any interval you'd prefer, of course.

Conclusion

Even though Snap doesn't offer the same level of convenience as Flatpak, these steps still give you a dependable and scriptable way to preserve and transfer your setup. This is especially useful if you love to maintain the same setup across devices or like to do a fresh installation on upgrade. Remember, you can always keep your setup synced to a version control system or your personal cloud server.

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Deploy Your Thanksgiving Dinner with Cranberry sOSS

There is an ongoing OSS maintainer burnout crisis. A new report reveals that a significant portion of developers have experienced burnout, with most of them being unpaid and very close to quitting.

Luckily, all's not lost. With proper funding, support, and recognition, there is a chance this crisis can be handled.

Alongside releasing that report, Sentry and the Open Source Pledge also announced something very wholesome.

Celebrate Thanksgiving, The Open Source Way

Cranberry sOSS is a real jar of cranberry sauce that Vlad-Stefan Harbuz, Studio 404, and the Open Source Pledge team created to help open source maintainers. All proceeds made from this will go directly to developers.

Funding distribution is handled systematically, with thank.dev's dependency analysis model being used to identify the most depended-upon open source maintainers globally. The complete list of beneficiaries is public on the funding distribution page.

The creators acknowledge "no model is perfect". But they believe the weighted distribution approach makes sense for supporting foundational maintainers who keep the internet running.

As for the sauce, it contains fresh cranberries sourced locally from Cape Cod. Other ingredients include organic cane sugar and water. It is gluten-free, sodium-free, and certified organic too.

This can be a lovely addition to your Thanksgiving table in seven days; it should go well with sandwiches, charcuterie boards, and turkey dinners.

Let the Celebrations Begin

A jar of Cranberry sOSS costs $13.37 excluding shipping. You can order through the Sentry Shop. Cranberry sOSS ships internationally, though some countries are excluded, and thanks.dev handles all payment disbursement to the selected open source maintainers.

PS: Keep an eye out for some genius copywriting on the product page. The pricing itself is an obvious one.

Cranberry sOSS

Suggested Read 📖

Open Source Developers Are Exhausted, Unpaid, and Ready to Walk Away

The foundation of modern software is cracking under the weight of burnout.

It's FOSSSourav Rudra

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Blender 5.0 Released with HDR Support, Video Sequencer Overhaul, and ACES Workflows

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite used across film, animation, game development, and VFX production. Organizations like Ubisoft, NVIDIA, AMD, and others rely on it for their commercial projects.

With a recent announcement, the Blender team has released Blender 5.0, introducing major improvements to color management, video editing, and rendering workflows.

🆕 Blender 5.0: What's New?

Blender 5.0 adds support for ACES 1.3 and 2.0 workflows. You can now use the ACEScg working space and ACES 2.0 view transforms. OpenEXR images can be saved in ACES2065-1 and ACEScg color spaces, with files now enabling custom working color spaces, like Linear Rec.2020.

The Compositor also gets a new Convert Colorspace node, and tooltips now show descriptions for displays, views, and color spaces from your OpenColorIO config.

The color pipeline now supports HDR and wide gamut colors for images and video. You get new display options like Rec.2100-PQ, Rec.2100-HLG, and AgX HDR. Using HDR on Blender requires a compatible monitor, Vulkan backend on Windows and Linux, and Wayland on Linux. Apple Silicon Macs work out of the box.

Source: Blender

Then there are the color pickers, which have a new Linear/Perceptual toggle, where the Linear option (formerly called RGB) uses the scene linear working color space and the Perceptual option uses the color picking space (sRGB by default) that matches the visual color picking widgets.

Similarly, the Sky Texture node now uses multiple scattering for delivering more realistic skies and can be used to create day-to-night cycles by animating just a single parameter.

The new Radial Tiling node allows you to create circular patterns and rounded polygons with adjustable roundness, and Grease Pencil objects now support motion blur with adjustable quality steps.

We wrap up this section with the Video Sequencer getting a major overhaul. The Strip properties have been moved to the Properties Editor with dedicated tabs.

You can now pick different scenes for the Sequencer, and the biggest addition here is the Compositor Modifier, which brings node-based effects into the Sequencer. Plus, playback controls are now built into the editor.

🛠️ Other Changes and Improvements

There are plenty of other quality-of-life upgrades too; some notable ones include:

• Better denoising quality with the OptiX denoiser.
• Metallic materials support thin-film iridescence effects like oil slicks.
• Material compilation is up to 4x faster on NVIDIA GPUs with Vulkan.
• Subsurface scattering now uses multi-bounce rendering for more realistic results.
• Volumes render faster with NanoVDB and new filtering (up to 3x speedup on GPU).

📥 Download Blender 5.0

You will find the necessary binaries for this release on the official website for Linux, Windows, and macOS. For alternative downloads on Linux, you get this release from Snapcraft and Steam.

Though, before you download, you should take note of the updated GPU requirements, and for an in-depth look at Blender 5.0, you can go through the changelog.

The source code lives in the project's Gitea instance.

Blender 5.0

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FOSS Weekly #25.47: AI Mode in Firefox, Nitrux 5, GNOME Panel, Rust Alternative Commands and More Linux Stuff

Nitrux has released a major new version, and it now uses Hyprland instead of KDE Plasma. Hyprland popularity is soaring, and I predict that more distros will start offering their Hyprland soon. Are we entering a Hyprland era of desktop Linux?

Nitrux 5.0.0 Released: A ‘New Beginning’ That’s Not for Everyone (By Design)

The Debian-based distro goes all-in on Hyprland, immutability, and intentional design.

It's FOSSSourav Rudra

Let's see what else you get in this edition of FOSS Weekly:

• FFmpeg being unhappy with Google.
• Mastodon seeing a leadership change.
• Tool for keeping GNOME Panel clean.
• Snapchat dipping their toes in the open source pond.
• Video review of a beautiful Raspberry Pi mini PC case.
• And other Linux news, tips, and, of course, memes!
• This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by Internxt.

SPONSORED

Free Webinar | SOC Leader’s Playbook: 3 Steps to Faster MTTR

SOCs are dealing with tighter timelines, rising noise, and fast-moving threats.
In this session, you’ll get a clear 3-step playbook designed to help teams:

• Cut MTTR by 21 minutesper incident
• Detect new attacks earlierwith intel from15,000 organizations
• Achieve a 3× performance boostby reducing false positives

Tune in to the LIVE webinar on November 25 at 3 PM UTC

📰 Linux and Open Source News

• Snapchat open-sources the Valdi framework.
• RustDesk has pulled ahead of its competitors.
• FFmpeg has called out Google over CVE slop.
• IBM has joined the OpenSearch Software Foundation.
• Mozilla has unveiled a new 'AI Window' browsing mode for Firefox.
• Ubuntu now offers 15 years of support for long-lived enterprise systems.

Eugen Rochko has stepped down from his role as CEO at Mastodon and looks forward to his new advisory role.

After Nearly 10 Years of Building Mastodon, Eugen Rochko Steps Into Advisory Role

Mastodon’s creator steps back from CEO role, transfers assets to non-profit organization.

It's FOSSSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

Open source developers are burning out fast, and if concrete steps aren't taken, they will quit.

Open Source Developers Are Exhausted, Unpaid, and Ready to Walk Away

The foundation of modern software is cracking under the weight of burnout.

It's FOSSSourav Rudra

Microsoft's new AI feature for Windows can be tricked into installing malware.

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings

• Some suggestions to follow to keep your Linux systems secure.
• Ever heard the term "LUKS"? If not, then we have an explainer on it.
• Here are some Rust-based alternatives to classic CLI tools on Linux.

If you see a 'apt-key is deprecated' warning, here's what you can do about it.

[Fixed] apt-key is deprecated. Manage keyring files in trusted.gpg.d

The apt-key is being deprecated and your system knows that. But do you know what you should do to get packages from external repositories?

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

I mentioned Hyprland window manager at the beginning. On the related topic, here's an explainer on what a tiling window manager is.

Explained: What is a Tiling Window Manager in Linux?

Learn what a tiling window manager is, and the benefits that come along with it.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

Desktop Linux is mostly neglected by the industry but loved by the community. For the past 13 years, It's FOSS has been helping people use Linux on their personal computers. And we are now facing the existential threat from AI models stealing our content.

If you like what we do and would love to support our work, please become It's FOSS Plus member. It costs $24 a year (less than the cost of a McDonald's burger a month), and you get an ad-free reading experience with the satisfaction of helping the desktop Linux community.

Join It's FOSS Plus

👷 AI, Homelab and Hardware Corner

Your Raspberry Pi Pico can be a DIY powerhouse with these project ideas.

9 Projects Ideas to Get into DIY Mode With Raspberry Pi Pico

Got a Raspberry Pi Pico? Here are some examples of what you can do with this tiny but versatile microcontroller.

It's FOSSAbhishek Kumar

🛍️ Linux eBook bundle

This curated library (partner link) of courses includes Supercomputers for Linux SysAdmins, CompTIA Linux+ Certification Companion, Using and Administering Linux: Volumes 1–2, and more. Plus, your purchase supports the Room to Read initiative!

Explore the Humble offer here

✨ Project Highlights

Veil is a neat extension that can tidy up the top panel on GNOME-equipped systems.

Clean Up Your GNOME Panel With This New Extension

Hide unwanted panel icons automatically with Veil.

It's FOSSSourav Rudra

📽️ Videos I Am Creating for You

A beautiful mini PC case for Raspberry Pi. The latest video shows its positives and negatives in action.

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💡 Quick Handy Tip

In Firefox's recent versions (143 and above), you can copy and share links to highlight. Select a piece of text on a website you want to bring attention to, then right-click on the selection and click on "Copy Link to Highlight."

🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse

This crossword will test your knowledge of popular shortforms in FOSS.

Expand the Short form: Crossword

It’s time for you to solve a crossword!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

🤣 Meme of the Week: Yeah, visiting some Linux forums can be brutal, but not ours!

🗓️ Tech Trivia: On November 21, 1969, the first ARPANET link went live between UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute, demonstrating packet-switched communication and laying the groundwork for what would eventually become the modern Internet.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 From the Community: One of our regular Pro FOSSers, Xander, is looking for solutions to backup only the Home folder in their Linux Mint system. Can you provide any helpful pointers?

How to best make a backup of ONLY my home folder?

Today I’m expecting a brand new computer. A Tuxedo computer. Now, on my current computer I’m running Linux Mint 22.2. How do I best backup my HOME directory completely, including all the dotfiles and dotdirectories. I’m especially interested in keeping my firefox configuration, but there’s also quite some documents on there I wish to keep. I’d either need to import it in TuxedoOS or a new install of Linux Mint, depending on how used I got to cinnamon.

It's FOSS Communityxahodo

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