May, 2026 Updates

Greetings my friends! It's that time again! Monthly updates, this time in the merry merry month of May!

I just wrote up an A+ Core 1 Cram Sheet for you all. Sign up for free to get it:
https://prowse.tech/aplus-cramsheet/

One live stream coming up in June:

🔥 Using Prometheus to Monitor Linux and Kubernetes
Learn how to analyze statistics and performance using Prometheus!
June 5, 8am-12pm Eastern
Click here to register.

THE LATEST RELEASES

Terraform

🖳 My Terraform 004 video course is finally available on O'Reilly!
Check it out here. OH YEAH!

Draw On Gnome Version 11

It's now available—your favorite Linux screen annotation tool. Now updated for GNOME version 50 support. And we just hit a gross of stars on GitHub. Thanks to all you stargazers and supporters!

Official Download from E.G.O.: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/7921/draw-on-gnome/

GitHub Page: https://github.com/daveprowse/Draw-On-Gnome

Documentation: https://daveprowse.github.io/Draw-On-Gnome/

☕

One of the people who helped me a lot with my code was JustPerfection. Consider buying him a coffee (or two) because he was instrumental in getting this extension out to the masses, in addition to being the developer of the fantastic JustPerfection extension for GNOME.
Donation Link: https://buymeacoffee.com/justperfection

Wireshark Vulnerabilities

Several vulnerabilities have been found in package manager-based installations of Wireshark (apt and dnf for example). Be sure to update your wireshark program to make it secure!

AI Contemplation

As many of you are, I have been thinking about AI a lot lately. Ethics, the end game, effects on human art, effects on jobs, marketing, usage, what it all means, you know, the typical stuff. As you can expect, I'm more concerned now than ever before.
In 2024, most AI tools were too problematic and had too many hallucinations. In 2025, it started to change. Now, in 2026, it's a whole new ballgame. Many of the tools that failed 50% of the time just two to three years ago now perform as expected over 80% of the time. Great for technology advancement, but this has translated badly in the job sector.
As a trainer, and a builder of educational materials, I am now finding that my actions can more easily disrupt job creation and growth due to the prevalence of AI. My decisions about the topics I will teach, and how I will teach them, have to be made more carefully.
My thoughts are about human value, and where to draw the line between the work AI does and the work that humans do. It's more than apparent to me now that if we do not create some kind of boundaries, that AI tools will usurp too much of the human element.
The Pope just released his first encyclical and it has some very good points about AI—a good read. I've also been spending some time at AINOW, Partnership on AI, the IEEE, and watching what the big tech companies are doing, and trying to pull in as much information as possible. I guess what I am looking for is an ethical place to stand that is realistic and not just fluff.

To be continued

NEWS OF NOTE

Linux Kernel 7 is out - link - increased network performance with AccECN, tightened stability for KVM virtualization, better high-end networking support, self-healing XFS, and works great with GNOMEv50
GNOME version v50 (Tokyo) has arrived in Ubuntu 26.04 and Fedora 44 - link - massive improvements to parental controls, accessibility and Files enhancements, remote desktop improvements, document annotation (Document Viewer), Display handling, and bye-bye x11 (a sad day), hello Wayland as the default. And as mentioned, we've updated Draw On Gnome to work with version 50.

Time for the monthly Troubleshooting and Configurations. Let's go!

Fedora 44 Upgrade & KVM Install

Released on April 28, 2026, it touts a lot of great new features. I upgraded one of my systems to it. Check out the article here:

New Rack

It was time to redo my networking/server rack. It was such a mess of cables and old hardware that I was starting to lose track of what was what—well, more than usual!
I'll be documenting it all in June

New Gateway Device - Netgate 4200

Check out the Linux computer build video. It was a blast, and the thing rocks!

Nonsensical AI Image of the Month

I'm wondering what the purple LED lights mean on the NICs. If it means 10 Gbps, then that's a lot of bandwidth!

🙏

That's all for now. Until next time!
Dave