Hey everyone!

I've been working on xdg-desktop-portal-gtk4, a GTK4-based implementation of the XDG Desktop Portal infrastructure, written in Rust.

GitHub: https://github.com/JohnRTitor/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk4

The project is primarily aimed at users who want to move away from the traditional GTK3-based xdg-desktop-portal-gtk and use GTK4 for their portal dialogs and integrations.

WHAT DOES IT SUPPORT?

The original project by mahkoh (https://github.com/mahkoh/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk4) primarily implemented GTK4 FileChooser support. I've extended that codebase with additional portal interfaces and functionality.

Currently, it implements:

• Access

• Account

• AppChooser

• Clipboard

• DynamicLauncher

• Email

• FileChooser (including thumbnail support)

• Inhibit

• Lockdown (currently a stub)

• Notification

• Print

• Settings

• USB

I've tested it myself on Hyprland running on NixOS, and I'm particularly interested in getting feedback from other desktop (mainly WM) users.

The intention isn't to replace xdg-desktop-portal-wlr or -hyprland. Compositor-specific functionality such as screen sharing, screenshots and remote desktop should continue to be handled by the appropriate compositor portal.

Instead, you can use this backend for supported interfaces such as FileChooser while retaining Hyprland's portal for compositor-specific functionality.

UNDER THE HOOD

• Written in Rust using GTK4, GLib, Tokio and zbus.

• GTK operations run on the GTK main thread, with D-Bus requests handled by a dedicated asynchronous runtime.

• Automated unit and D-Bus integration tests.

• Compile-time feature selection for individual portals.

• Internationalization and structured logging.

• Conditional GTK patching for a file chooser thumbnail regression affecting GTK 4.22.0–4.22.4.

The project is also being packaged on Arch Linux through the AUR:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk4-git

A NOTE ABOUT THE PROJECT'S ORIGINS

This project builds upon the original work by mahkoh.

The initial GTK3-to-GTK4 port/rewrite, particularly the Rust implementation, made substantial use of AI coding assistants, under my supervision, with human review, debugging, integration work and extensive testing.

It initially started as a personal project to address my own requirements, but I eventually realised that it could be useful to other Linux desktop users as well.

Bug reports, suggestions and contributions are welcome!

I am a university instructor (not in anything tech-related), and I thought I'd share some insights on the relationship college-age kids have with their computers today.

I set up my new laptop with a fresh Fedora KDE install yesterday, then brought with me to teach this morning. While mirroring my screen to the projector, one student asked why my computer "looked weird." My students (sample size of 50, admittedly) had not heard of Linux, though I'm sure between 1/3 and 1/2 use Android phones. I'm not a Linux evangelist by any means---my daily work involves using windows, Mac, and Linux PCs regularly, but I did take a second to explain what Linux was. It took me a minute to realize that my students didn't know what an "operating system" was.

I see this every semester. I have to teach 18-22 year olds the concept of local storage every Fall and Spring, because they get frustrated trying to download and open the documents I email them. Every semester I have to walk students through their file systems and explain that files can be stored on their own PCs and not just the internet.

I tried to help a student download some software recently, only to discover that he had only ever used "the app store," and he didn't trust "downloads."

More than once I have tried to help a student "fix" their computer after a complaint that it was suddenly slow. It turns out they've never opened their downloads folder, and they've practically filled their drives with random junk, and they have dozens of processes they don't need running at all times (McAfee is a very common one). Pretty much every time, they've elected to just buy a new computer instead.

Of course, this is the logical end result of cutting computer skills courses in high school because the kids are "digital natives" now. It's also the fault of corporations like Apple and Microsoft dumbing things down and trying to eliminate all possible friction by choosing everything for the user. AI has made this even worse, because they don't even have to know basic terms. They just talk to integrated LLMs like they'd talk to a friend, and it babies them through whatever needs to happen.

This is all to say, the students I encounter on a daily basis (and I've been teaching for a while) are absolutely, unequivocally, *never* going to use a terminal. Not because it's actually difficult (it isn't), but because it requires learning a new way to interact with a computer. It requires a little reading, and that's not happening. They are never going to troubleshoot a wireless card. They are certainly never going to install a new OS.

It took me an hour to get my speakers working after installing Fedora yesterday. I understand that other OSes have problems as well, but when that happens, students just take their device back to their store to get it "fixed." If that doesn't work, they replace it.

Windows and MacOS are getting worse every year because they both encourage and cater to this kind of helplessness. Linux is excellent for anyone who wants to exercise control and ownership over their devices. But the younger generations (not all of them, but this is generally the case) don't have the basic skills which Linux requires of the end user.

Mint isn't the answer. It's not about being stripped down, streamlined, or simplified. Linux's greatest feature is that it gives the user agency, and *that's* the problem. A very significant portion (in my experience, the vast majority) of young users don't know what do with that agency, and they don't want it.

I'm not sure what the point of sharing this is, but I thought someone might find it interesting. more for us I guess!

Dear Friends, Sympathizers, Relatives, In-Laws, Naysayers, Foes, Detractors, Tax Collectors, YouTube Talking Heads™, Reddit Trolls, and other potentially sentient beings monitoring this forum,

It is my great honor — and my equally great pleasure — to announce to you that the Manjaro Project e.V. is now an officially registered and fully legal non-profit organization in Germany, completely independent from the commercial Manjaro GmbH & Co KG company.

At the moment, we are still working on optimizing the new development infrastructure, which was partly necessitated by the ongoing (A.I.) bot attacks against our old infrastructure.

Without wanting to sound presumptuous, it is therefore my personal belief that the Manjaro Team would hereby have now provided sufficient evidence that continuity in the development and maintenance of the Manjaro GNU/Linux distribution is assured.

For transparency on the current status;

The e.V. is now officially registered in Berlin, but a transfer of company assets to the e.V. has not yet taken place.

Our next goal is getting the e.V. ready for this transition, this involves polishing some rough edges in the satsung, inviting a few more members, and setting up an e.V. owned bank account, among other things.

Once we are ready for it, we will reach out and engage in dialogue with the company.

They literally attack right before the 26.10 summit. I was planning to join that.

Just in case, you should disable livepatch for now if you have ubuntu pro. It may show unexpected behavior when API is unreachable for a long time due to outage.