Why GNOME Replaced Eye of GNOME with Loupe as the Default Image Viewer

Linux Journal
1 week 3 days ago
by George Whittaker A Shift in GNOME’s Core Applications

For over two decades, Eye of GNOME (often shortened to EOG) was the silent workhorse of the GNOME desktop environment. It wasn’t flashy, but it did exactly what most people expected: double-click a picture, and it opened instantly. Yet, with the arrival of GNOME 45 in late 2023, a new name appeared in the lineup of “core” apps: Loupe. From that moment forward, Loupe became the official default image viewer on GNOME desktops, displacing EOG.

This decision wasn’t made lightly. GNOME has been steadily refreshing its default applications in recent years, Gedit was replaced by GNOME Text Editor, and Cheese gave way to Snapshot. Loupe is the continuation of this modernization trend. Eye of GNOME is still available in repositories for those who want it, but the GNOME team has shifted its endorsement to Loupe as the better long-term solution.

What Loupe Brings to the Table

Loupe isn’t just a reskin of EOG. It was built from scratch with today’s hardware, design standards, and security expectations in mind. At first glance, the interface looks minimal, but there’s more happening beneath the hood than many realize.

  • Rust-Powered Foundation – Unlike Eye of GNOME’s decades-old C codebase, Loupe is written in Rust. This choice immediately grants it memory safety, helping avoid whole categories of crashes and vulnerabilities. For an app that regularly opens untrusted files, this is an important safeguard.

  • GPU-Accelerated Image Handling – Instead of pushing all rendering to the CPU, Loupe leverages the GPU. Panning across a large image or zooming into a 50-megapixel photo feels fluid, even on high-resolution displays.

  • Touch-Friendly Navigation – GNOME has been preparing for a future that includes more touch devices. Loupe fits right in, supporting pinch-to-zoom, two-finger swipes to move between images, and smooth transitions that feel natural on both touchscreens and trackpads.

  • Streamlined Metadata View – Instead of burying photo information behind a separate dialog, Loupe integrates an optional sidebar. With a click, you can see dimensions, file size, EXIF data, and even location details without leaving the main view.

  • Security Through Sandboxing – Image decoding is handled in isolated processes using a new backend called Glycin. If a corrupt or malicious image tries to crash the decoder, it won’t take the entire viewer down with it.

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George Whittaker

[Testing Update] 2025-08-16 - KDE Gear, Wine, Xfce, Python, Haskell

Manjaro Linux
1 week 6 days ago

Hello community, here we have another set of package updates.

Current Promotions Recent News Valkey to replace Redis in the [extra] Repository (click for more details) Previous News Finding information easier about Manjaro (click for more details) Notable Package Updates
  • KDE Gear 25.08.0
  • Wine 10.13
  • Some Xfce updates
  • Python and Haskell updates
Additional Info Python 3.13 info (click for more details) Info about AUR packages (click for more details)

Get our latest daily developer images now from Github: Plasma, GNOME, XFCE. You can get the latest stable releases of Manjaro from CDN77.

Our current supported kernels
  • linux54 5.4.296
  • linux510 5.10.240
  • linux515 5.15.189
  • linux61 6.1.148
  • linux66 6.6.102
  • linux612 6.12.42
  • linux615 6.15.10
  • linux616 6.16.1
  • linux617 6.17.0-rc1
  • linux61-rt 6.1.146_rt53
  • linux66-rt 6.6.99_rt58
  • linux612-rt 6.12.39_rt11
  • linux615-rt 6.15.0_rt2
  • linux616-rt 6.16.0_rt3

Package Changes (Sat Aug 16 23:28:59 CEST 2025)

  • testing core x86_64: 8 new and 8 removed package(s)
  • testing extra x86_64: 1379 new and 1383 removed package(s)
  • testing multilib x86_64: 4 new and 4 removed package(s)

Overlay Changes

  • testing extra x86_64: 7 new and 7 removed package(s)

A list of all changes can be found here.

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philm

[Testing Updates] 2025-08-15 - Kernels, NVIDIA, VirtualBox, GCC, InputPlumber

Manjaro Linux
2 weeks ago

Hello community, here we have another set of package updates.

Current Promotions Recent News Valkey to replace Redis in the [extra] Repository (click for more details) Previous News Finding information easier about Manjaro (click for more details) Notable Package Updates
  • Most Kernels got updated or rebuilt
    • toolchain update
    • linux616-rt series introduced
  • NVIDIA 580.76.05
    • feedback of the driver can be found here
  • VirtualBox 7.2.0
  • GCC 15.2.1
  • Gstreamer-Plugins 0.14.1
  • InputPlumber 0.62.1
  • Python and Haskell updates
Additional Info Python 3.13 info (click for more details) Info about AUR packages (click for more details)

Get our latest daily developer images now from Github: Plasma, GNOME, XFCE. You can get the latest stable releases of Manjaro from CDN77.

Our current supported kernels
  • linux54 5.4.296
  • linux510 5.10.240
  • linux515 5.15.189
  • linux61 6.1.148
  • linux66 6.6.102
  • linux612 6.12.42
  • linux615 6.15.10
  • linux616 6.16.0
  • linux617 6.17.0-rc1
  • linux61-rt 6.1.146_rt53
  • linux66-rt 6.6.99_rt58
  • linux612-rt 6.12.39_rt11
  • linux615-rt 6.15.0_rt2
  • linux616-rt 6.16.0_rt3

Package Changes (Fri Aug 15 17:32:41 CEST 2025)

  • testing core x86_64: 24 new and 24 removed package(s)
  • testing extra x86_64: 1496 new and 1504 removed package(s)
  • testing multilib x86_64: 8 new and 8 removed package(s)

Overlay Changes

  • testing core x86_64: 28 new and 26 removed package(s)
  • testing extra x86_64: 197 new and 182 removed package(s)
  • testing multilib x86_64: 2 new and 2 removed package(s)

A list of all changes can be found here.

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8 posts - 5 participants

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philm

Ptyxis: Ubuntu’s Leap Into GPU-Powered Terminals

Linux Journal
2 weeks 1 day ago
by George Whittaker

For decades, the humble terminal has been one of the most unchanging parts of the Linux desktop. Text streams flow in monochrome grids, and while the underlying libraries have evolved, the experience has remained more or less the same. Ubuntu, however, is preparing to rewrite this narrative. The distribution is adopting Ptyxis, a fresh terminal emulator designed for modern computing, and one of its standout qualities is that it leans on the GPU for rendering rather than relying solely on the CPU.

This shift is more than cosmetic. It represents a rethink of how command-line tools should perform in an era of container-heavy development, high-DPI displays, and demanding workloads. Let’s unpack what makes Ptyxis a different breed of terminal, why Ubuntu is betting on it, and what it means for everyday users and power developers alike.

The Origin Story of Ptyxis

Ptyxis is not an accidental side project. It was initially prototyped under the name GNOME Prompt by Christian Hergert, a well-known GNOME contributor also behind GNOME Builder. Early experiments showed there was space for a terminal designed from scratch with today’s GNOME ecosystem and GPU pipelines in mind.

To avoid conflicts with existing software, the project was later rebranded as Ptyxis. The application has since matured rapidly, and major distributions such as Fedora and Ubuntu have committed to it. Ubuntu introduced it in experimental form in 24.10, and by the upcoming Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing Quokka”, it is expected to replace the aging GNOME Terminal as the default choice.

A New Kind of Terminal Experience GPU Acceleration as the Core

Traditional terminals typically rely on CPU-bound rendering stacks, often through libraries like Cairo and Pango. This works fine until you throw thousands of lines of log output or try to run full-screen text-based UIs that push rendering to its limits. Ptyxis sidesteps these bottlenecks by shifting the drawing work to the graphics processor, taking advantage of Vulkan or OpenGL backends supplied by GTK4.

The result is immediately noticeable: smooth scrolling, responsive updates, and consistent performance even with massive amounts of text on screen. It’s not just about speed, either, offloading rendering to the GPU reduces CPU strain, leaving headroom for the processes you’re actually running.

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George Whittaker

Linux Foundation Newsletter: August 2025

Linux Foundation
2 weeks 2 days ago

Welcome to the August  2025 edition of the Linux Foundation Newsletter.

This month, the Linux Foundation welcomed a groundbreaking project, expanded our India‑based open source footprint, and amplified developer collaboration across continents.

Highlights
  • AGNTCY Project Joins the Linux Foundation
    The AGNTCY project—an open infrastructure for AI agent discovery, secure messaging, identity, and observability—has officially joined the Linux Foundation. Supported by formative members including Cisco,Dell Technologies, Google Cloud, Oracle, and Red Hat, AGNTCY aims to break down silos, interoperating with standards like Agent2Agent (A2A) and Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP). Read more in the official press release and check out announcement coverage in Forbes. 
  • LF India Marks Momentum at Inaugural Open Source Summit India
    At Hyderabad’s inaugural Open Source Summit India, LF India showcased its first-year impact—welcoming new foundations including AgStack, LF AI & Data, FinOps Foundation, FINOS, O3DE, and OpenInfra. These additions bolster support across agriculture, AI, fintech, manufacturing, and infrastructure. Explore the full scope of India’s growth in the press release and media recap in It’s Foss News. .
What’s Next

Read on for more news and opportunities from across the Linux Foundation.

The Linux Foundation

KDE Plasma 6 on Wayland: the Payoff for Years of Plumbing

Linux Journal
2 weeks 3 days ago
by George Whittaker Why this release cycle feels different

For most of the last decade, talk about Wayland on KDE sounded like a promise: stronger security, modern graphics, fewer legacy foot‑guns, once the pieces land. With Plasma 6, those pieces finally clicked into place. Plasma 6.1 delivered two changes that go straight to how frames hit your screen, explicit synchronization and smarter buffering, while 6.2 followed with color‑management and HDR work that makes creators and gamers care. Together, they turn “Wayland someday” into a desktop you can log into today without caveats.

The frame pipeline finally behaves Explicit sync: the missing handshake

On X11/older Wayland setups, graphics drivers and compositors often assumed when work finished (“implicit sync”), which is fine until it isn’t, especially on NVIDIA, where that guesswork frequently produced flicker or glitches. Plasma 6.1’s Wayland session speaks the explicit sync protocol instead. Now the compositor and apps exchange fences that say “this frame is done,” reducing visual artifacts and making delivery predictable. If you run the proprietary NVIDIA driver, this is the change you’ve been waiting for: NVIDIA added explicit‑sync support in the 555 series, and XWayland 24.1 gained matching support so many games and legacy X11 apps benefit as well.

What you’ll notice: fewer one‑off hitches, less tearing in XWayland content, and a general sense that motion is “locked in” rather than tentative, particularly with the 555.58+ drivers.

Dynamic triple buffering: fewer “missed the train” stutters

Traditional double buffering is cruel: miss a vblank by a hair and your framerate can fall in half. KWin 6.1 added triple buffering that only kicks in when the compositor predicts a frame won’t make the next refresh, letting another frame be “in flight” without permanently increasing latency. One of KWin’s core developers outlined how it activates selectively, tries not to add avoidable lag, and works regardless of GPU vendor. It sounds simple; it feels like the end of random judder during heavy scenes.

VRR/Adaptive‑Sync polish

Variable refresh is no longer a roulette wheel. KDE’s devs chased down stutter/flicker under Adaptive‑Sync, and those fixes landed in the same timeframe as Plasma 6.1. If your monitor supports FreeSync/G‑Sync Compatible and the GPU stack is sane, frame pacing is noticeably calmer.

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George Whittaker