--- title: Best It's Foss posts — March 2026 | daily.dev description: The most upvoted It's Foss posts from March 2026, curated by the daily.dev community. canonical: https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss/best-of/2026/03 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:url: https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss/best-of/2026/03 og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Best It's Foss posts — March 2026 | daily.dev og:description: The most upvoted It's Foss posts from March 2026, curated by the daily.dev community. og:image: https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--VAY5ToZt--/f_auto/v1724209435/public/daily.dev%20-%20open%20graph --- # Best of It's Foss — March 2026 1. 1 [](https://daily.dev/posts/someone-forked-systemd-to-strip-out-its-age-verification-support-4b1f2w6pb "Someone Forked Systemd to Strip Out Its Age Verification Support") Article It's Foss · 25w Someone Forked Systemd to Strip Out Its Age Verification Support A developer named Jeffrey Seathrún Sardina has forked systemd into 'Liberated systemd', removing the recently added birthDate field tied to age verification laws in California, Colorado, and Brazil. The fork strips out all related code including homectl options, man page entries, and tests. While the birthDate field in mainline systemd is optional, admin-only, and not acted upon by systemd itself, the developer views it as surveillance-enabling code. The fork is currently a one-person project with no releases and is already 37 commits behind upstream, making it unsuitable for production use. The author suggests such forks serve more as protest and conversation starters than serious long-term alternatives. 75 19 2. 2 [](https://daily.dev/posts/systemd-s-new-feature-brings-age-verification-option-to-linux-hytrnktpb "Systemd’s New Feature Brings Age Verification Option to Linux") Article It's Foss · 25w Systemd’s New Feature Brings Age Verification Option to Linux Systemd has merged a pull request adding an optional \`birthDate\` field to its userdb JSON user records, responding to age verification laws in California, Colorado, and Brazil. The field, stored in YYYY-MM-DD format, can only be set by administrators and is not mandatory. Lennart Poettering clarified that systemd itself does nothing with the data — it simply standardizes the field so other projects like xdg-desktop-portal can build age verification compliance on top of it. A request to repeal the change was rejected, with Poettering noting widespread misunderstanding of the intent. 54 51 3. 3 [](https://daily.dev/posts/ubuntu-26-04-lts-requires-more-ram-than-windows-11--lbrgcxb1k "Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Requires More RAM Than Windows 11?") Article It's Foss · 24w Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Requires More RAM Than Windows 11? Canonical has raised the minimum RAM requirement for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 'Resolute Raccoon' desktop to 6 GB, up from 4 GB in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. While this appears higher than Windows 11's listed 4 GB minimum, the comparison is misleading — Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0, meaning most compatible hardware already ships with 8 GB RAM, and 4 GB performs poorly in practice. The 6 GB figure reflects real-world GNOME desktop usage more honestly. Users with 4 GB machines can still run Ubuntu 26.04 but may prefer lighter alternatives like Lubuntu (LXQt) or Xubuntu, or even minimal window managers like i3 or bspwm. 46 14 4. 4 [](https://daily.dev/posts/after-6-years-one-of-wayland-s-most-annoying-problems-is-finally-getting-fixed-ejf9otlrh "After 6 Years, One of Wayland’s Most Annoying Problems is Finally Getting Fixed") Article It's Foss · 24w After 6 Years, One of Wayland’s Most Annoying Problems is Finally Getting Fixed After six years, the xdg-session-management protocol has finally been merged into Wayland protocols. This new protocol enables desktop environments and applications to save and restore window states, positions, and sizes across restarts or crashes. The pull request was originally opened in February 2020 and merged in March 2026\. Key benefits include automatic session restoration after crashes and persistent desktop layouts across reboots. KDE's KWin reportedly already implemented an early version, and the hope is that all major Linux desktop environments will adopt it, closing a long-standing gap compared to the older X11 display server. 27 1 5. 5 [](https://daily.dev/posts/vykar-is-a-new-open-source-backup-tool-that-s-faster-than-borg-restic-and-kopia-hctzqngxw "Vykar is a New Open Source Backup Tool That's Faster Than Borg, Restic, and Kopia") Article It's Foss · 26w Vykar is a New Open Source Backup Tool That's Faster Than Borg, Restic, and Kopia Vykar is a new open source encrypted backup tool written in Rust, developed by the BorgBase team and released under GPL-3.0\. It features deduplication via FastCDC, compression with LZ4 or Zstandard, AES-256-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption, a first-party desktop GUI with system tray support, a WebDAV server for browsing snapshots, and concurrent multi-client backup support. Performance benchmarks against a 49 GiB dataset show Vykar completing backups in 61 seconds versus Borg's 268, Restic's 138, and Kopia's 85, with similar advantages in restore times and CPU usage. The tradeoff is higher memory usage (623 MB vs Borg's 236 MB). Configured via a single YAML file, it supports local filesystem, S3-compatible storage, SFTP, and REST server backends. Pre-built binaries are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. 26 1 6. 6 [](https://daily.dev/posts/firefox-is-getting-a-major-redesign-after-5-years-he5snhweb "Firefox Is Getting a Major Redesign After 5 Years") Article It's Foss · 26w Firefox Is Getting a Major Redesign After 5 Years Mozilla is internally working on a major Firefox UI redesign codenamed "Nova," leaked by developer Sören Hentzschel. The redesign moves away from the flat Proton design (in use since 2021) toward a more modern look featuring rounded corners throughout, a floating unified toolbar island, subtle gradients, violet color accents, and a redesigned browser menu. Mockups show dark mode with split-view, light mode with tab groups as colored pills, and a visually distinct dark-purple private browsing window. No official announcement has been made yet, but Mozilla's Bugzilla has active entries tracking Nova's development. 21 2 7. 7 [](https://daily.dev/posts/inside-the-systemd-age-verification-debate-developer-responds-to-criticism-sjccmoczf "Inside the Systemd Age Verification Debate: Developer Responds to Criticism") Article It's Foss · 25w Inside the Systemd Age Verification Debate: Developer Responds to Criticism Dylan M. Taylor, the developer who added an optional birthDate field to systemd's user database to help Linux distributions optionally comply with US age verification laws, shares his side of the controversy in an interview. He clarifies the change is not actual age verification — no ID checks or third-party validation are involved — and defends it as a lightweight, self-attested honor system similar to date pickers from the early 2000s. He also reveals the severe personal toll: death threats, doxxing, harassment, and having his personal information posted publicly. Dylan reflects on the broader tension between FOSS principles and legal compliance, predicting a future split between corporate-backed and independent Linux distributions on such issues, while affirming his commitment to open source despite the backlash. 24 12 [See all It's Foss archives](/sources/itsfoss/best-of) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"CollectionPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss/best-of/2026/03#page","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss/best-of/2026/03","name":"Best It's Foss Posts — March 2026","description":"The most upvoted It's Foss posts from March 2026, curated by the daily.dev community.","isPartOf":{"@type":"WebSite","url":"https://daily.dev"}},{"@type":"ItemList","@id":"https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss/best-of/2026/03#items","numberOfItems":7,"itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"url":"https://daily.dev/posts/someone-forked-systemd-to-strip-out-its-age-verification-support-4b1f2w6pb","name":"Someone Forked Systemd to Strip Out Its Age Verification Support"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"url":"https://daily.dev/posts/systemd-s-new-feature-brings-age-verification-option-to-linux-hytrnktpb","name":"Systemd’s New Feature Brings Age Verification Option to Linux"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ubuntu-26-04-lts-requires-more-ram-than-windows-11--lbrgcxb1k","name":"Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Requires More RAM Than Windows 11?"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"url":"https://daily.dev/posts/after-6-years-one-of-wayland-s-most-annoying-problems-is-finally-getting-fixed-ejf9otlrh","name":"After 6 Years, One of Wayland’s Most Annoying Problems is Finally Getting Fixed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"url":"https://daily.dev/posts/vykar-is-a-new-open-source-backup-tool-that-s-faster-than-borg-restic-and-kopia-hctzqngxw","name":"Vykar is a New Open Source Backup Tool That's Faster Than Borg, Restic, and Kopia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":6,"url":"https://daily.dev/posts/firefox-is-getting-a-major-redesign-after-5-years-he5snhweb","name":"Firefox Is Getting a Major Redesign After 5 Years"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":7,"url":"https://daily.dev/posts/inside-the-systemd-age-verification-debate-developer-responds-to-criticism-sjccmoczf","name":"Inside the Systemd Age Verification Debate: Developer Responds to Criticism"}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sources","item":"https://daily.dev/sources"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"It's Foss","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Best of","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss/best-of"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"name":"March 2026"}]}]} ```