This Week in TUXEDO OS #22-2025 - TUXEDO Computers

Hello TUXEDO Fans and Open-Source Enthusiasts!

While folks in the US are firing up their grills for Memorial Day, Linus Torvalds has fired up Git and opened the merge window for Linux 6.16—because, in his words, “neither snow nor rain… nor Memorial Day” stops the merge window. Our developer penguins just chuckle. On their ice floe, it’s always winter, and the wind whistles through the cracks in the igloo. Still, with frozen flippers, they’ve managed to ship fresh updates for TUXEDO OS, plus handy tips on Akonadi and Klipper to boost your KDE Plasma productivity.

Enjoy reading,
The TUXEDO OS Team

TUXEDO OS News

We would like to stay closer to the way Debian packages KDE in the future. One of the reasons are compatibility problems that occurred especially when upgrading from Ubuntu 22.04 “Jammy Jellyfish” to Ubuntu 24.04 “Noble Numbat”. Therefore we have backported Qt, KDE Plasma, KDE Frameworks and KDE Gear from the current point release of Ubuntu to Ubuntu 24.04.

We have therefore started a beta-test with which we would like to expand the test base and would appreciate your support. You can read more about this in our news section.

KDE App of the Week: The Akonadi Framework

In this edition of TWIX, our KDE App of the Week is the Akonadi framework. Akonadi is a background service that, as a user, you typically won’t interact with directly—unless it’s not working as expected.

What is Akonadi’s purpose?

Akonadi was developed to unify and centralize data management methods in KDE’s PIM (Personal Information Management) applications, which were previously handled separately in KDE 3. The framework was launched in 2008 as a central service for managing personal data within the KDE ecosystem.

Akonadi serves as a central interface and cache for different types of personal information, such as emails, contacts, calendars, tasks, and notes. Today, all KDE PIM applications (with the exception of Akregator) rely on Akonadi to access user PIM data.

To achieve this, Akonadi provides a central database that various applications can access to store, retrieve, or modify personal data. Email clients, calendar tools, and address books no longer communicate directly with data sources like POP3 or IMAP servers—they go through Akonadi.

Akonadi’s architecture follows the client-server model: it runs as a background server and offers developers APIs to interact with PIM data. The actual data is stored in relational databases like MySQL, SQLite, or PostgreSQL, which are automatically managed by Akonadi.

Advantages of Akonadi

Thanks to Akonadi, applications can share data without having to implement their own data storage or synchronization logic. For example, multiple programs can access the same contact list or calendar entries.

Akonadi also simplifies synchronization and working offline, as it functions as a cache: changes are stored temporarily until the original data source is available again.

Cross-platform compatibility

Akonadi is not a KDE-only service—it is designed to be cross-platform. From the beginning, it was conceived as a general framework for managing personal data, and it is not exclusively tied to the KDE desktop environment.

When things get stuck

If you ever receive error messages from Akonadi, first check whether the service is running with this command:

akonadictl status

If it’s running but not behaving correctly, a restart might help. This often resolves common issues after system changes or updates:

akonadictl restart

If that’s not enough, you can check the database for consistency using:

akonadictl fsck

Any issues found will be repaired automatically. To clean up and optimize the database, use:

akonadictl vacuum

In its early days, Akonadi was more prone to broken databases and various issues. Today, however, the framework runs very reliably, so you’ll likely only need the above commands on rare occasions.

TUXEDO OS Tips & Tricks: Rethinking the Clipboard

The clipboard is one of those everyday tools we often take for granted. A quick Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, and content is copied and pasted. But under KDE Plasma on TUXEDO OS, the clipboard goes far beyond basic copy & paste.

Here’s a great example: Pressing Ctrl+Shift+V lets you paste content without its original formatting. Perfect if you’re copying text from Wikipedia into a word processor like LibreOffice Writer — no annoying formatting or hyperlinks included.

Clipboard with a memory

Things get even better with Tux+V: This keyboard shortcut opens a handy little menu right at your cursor, showing the last five clipboard entries for quick selection. That means you can reuse multiple items without constantly switching between windows.

Another neat trick: You can turn individual entries into a QR code. This makes it super easy to transfer things like login details or links to your smartphone. Just scan the code with your phone’s camera app.

Automate your Copy & Paste

To fine-tune your clipboard behavior, right-click the clipboard icon in the system tray and select Configure Clipboard…. There, you can define how many entries should be remembered or whether the clipboard history should persist across reboots. Advanced users can even define custom commands that are triggered when specific text patterns are detected.

This allows you to automate repetitive tasks—for example, sending copied text to local AI models for correction or formatting. Klipper is far more than just a simple clipboard—it’s a powerful tool to boost your daily workflow.

Ubuntu Security Updates

The security updates listed here from Ubuntu are directly integrated into TUXEDO OS:

• USN-7537–2: net-tools regression: USN-7537–1 caused a regression in net-tools.
  IDs: —
  Affects: Ubuntu 25.04, Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• USN-7544–1: Setuptools vulnerability: Setuptools could be made to write files to arbitrary locations on the filesystem.
  IDs: CVE-2025–47273
  Affects: Ubuntu 25.04, Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

• USN-7542–1: Kerberos vulnerability: Kerberos could be made to expose sensitive information over the network.
  IDs: CVE-2025–3576
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

• USN-7543–1: libsoup vulnerabilities: libsoup could be made to crash if it received specially crafted network traffic.
  IDs: CVE-2025–32908, CVE-2025–4476
  Affects: Ubuntu 25.04, Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

• USN-7521–3: Linux kernel vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.
  IDs: CVE-2024–57977, CVE-2024–57999, CVE-2025–21857, and 225 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

• USN-7538–1: FFmpeg vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in FFmpeg.
  IDs: CVE-2025–1816, CVE-2025–0518, CVE-2025–22919, and 2 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 25.04, Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

• USN-7537–1: net-tools vulnerability: net-tools could be made to crash or run programs as your login if it opened a specially crafted input.
  IDs: CVE-2025–46836
  Affects: Ubuntu 25.04, Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• USN-7536–1: cifs-utils vulnerability: cifs-utils could be made to expose sensitive information.
  IDs: CVE-2025–2312
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• USN-7535–1: Intel Microcode vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in Intel Microcode.
  IDs: CVE-2024–45332, CVE-2025–24495, CVE-2025–20623, and 5 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 25.04, Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

• USN-7532–1: GLib vulnerability: GLib could be made to crash or execute arbitrary code if it received a specially crafted input.
  IDs: CVE-2025–4373
  Affects: Ubuntu 25.04, Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS