Just a few days ago, we reported on Jolla’s push for a new Linux phone, which needed at least 2,000 pre-orders to move forward. Now, only days later, there’s good news: interest in the device has surpassed all expectations.

Jolla’s community-funded smartphone project has cleared its production threshold, securing more than 3,200 pre-orders. The strong response ensures that the new Linux phone, developed under the Do It Together (DIT) model, will move forward into manufacturing, with Batch #1 already sold out and Batch #2 now available.

With Firefox 146 being released today to the stable channel, Mozilla has promoted the next major version of its open-source, free, and cross-platform web browser, Firefox 147, to the beta channel for public testing.

Firefox 147 promises support for the Freedesktop.org XDG Base Directory Specification, zero-copy hardware-decoded video support on AMD GPUs to improve video playback performance, support for the Safe Browsing V5 protocol, and WebGPU support for all Apple Silicon Macs.

Firefox 147 also promises to improve the Picture-in-Picture feature by adding support to automatically open a new player window for a playing video in a tab if that tab is ever backgrounded, which was previously in Firefox Labs, as well as support for Compression Dictionaries, IETF RFC 9842.

The developer team at Discord released a new engineering blog post yesterday (December 8th) detailing lots of fixes, along with some Linux improvements. As one of the most popular chat apps in the world, it's good to see their support of Linux continue to get better over time.

Oh dear. Goonswarm Games are shutting down after Running With Scissors cancelled POSTAL: Bullet Paradise due to the use of generative AI. It's a bit of a saga this one.

I covered the initial announcement, along with a follow-up update in there where Running With Scissors attempted to defend the developer. The backlash only continued, and eventually RWS cancelled it as per the statement GamingOnLinux was sent on December 5th via Vince Desi, founder of Running With Scissors

We're on the road to the release of Wine 11 early next year with the first Release Candidate now available for the Windows compatibility layer. This is what Valve's Proton is originally based on, and so eventually next year we'll see Proton 11 too.

Now that this release is out, they will move onto a feature-freeze to focus on fixing up bugs.

The highlights of this Wine 11 RC 1 release include:

• Mono engine updated to version 10.4.0.
• Locale data updated to Unicode CLDR 48.
• TWAINDSM module for scanner support on 64-bit.
• Various bug fixes.

A few game fixes were noted for the likes of Oblivion, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, King's Quest: Mask of Eternity and various others.

A lovely blast from the past of 2015, Nuclear Throne from the revived Vlambeer has update #100 out now with some major additions and improvements. Originally founded by Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman, nowadays Nijman owns 100% of the company after Ismail sold their part in it back in 2024.

Going back 10 years ago, Nuclear Throne was easily one of the most popular games in its genre. To this day, it's easily still one of the best too. Valve have also now given it a re-test and they've given it the green tick of Steam Deck Verified approval. It does have a Native Linux version, but Valve set it to use Proton 10.

The KDE team has announced Plasma 6.5.4, the fourth bugfix update to the major 6.5 series, which follows three weeks after the previous 6.5.3 release. While no new features are introduced, Plasma 6.5.4 focuses on refinement and reliability.

The release adds updated translations and a long list of targeted fixes. Discover receives several corrections to its Flatpak handling, improving installation management, notifier behavior, and support on aarch64 systems. Headless update scenarios are also addressed, and UI actions now behave consistently across desktop and mobile interfaces.

KWin, the window manager, includes numerous improvements. These range from better handling of input methods and tablet devices to corrections for HiDPI rendering and transformed item painting.

A single-dose gene replacement therapy is found to transform the capabilities for movement in children over 2 years of age and teenagers with spinal muscular atrophy, according to research published in Nature Medicine.

The effects allowed these minors who could sit but not stand to move like they’ve never done before, including standing up, walking, and even climbing stairs.

The real-world results of this phase 3 clinical trial, involving 126 children and adolescents, could support an alternative to lifelong, repeat-dose treatments for people who couldn’t get access to corrective treatment before 2, when curing the condition is possible.