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Kees Cook describes his work resulting in a kernel documentation commit whose ID shares the same first 12 characters as the initial commit in the kernel's repository. This is not yet in the upstream Linux tree, for fear of breaking countless other tools out in the wild. But it can serve as a test commit for those that want to get this fixed ahead...

The origins of the TCP and UDP network protocols can be traced back a full 50 years. Even though networks and their use have changed radically since those protocols were designed, they can still be found behind most networking applications. Unsurprisingly, these protocols are not optimal for all situations, so there is ongoing interest in the development of alternatives. One such is the Homa transport...

Security updates have been issued by Debian (gst-plugins-good1.0 and opensc), Fedora (iwd and libell), and SUSE (chromium, govulncheck-vulndb, and poppler).

The 6.13-rc5 kernel prepatch is out for testing. Linus says: "It's been another week, but I'm happy to report that clearly most people actually seem to have been enjoying the holidays, because rc5 is tiny"

Greg Kroah-Hartman has posted three new stable kernel updates: 6.12.7, 6.6.68, and 6.1.122. As usual, he warns that all users of stable kernels must upgrade, although for many systems that seems unlikely to happen until January.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (node-postcss), Fedora (age, dr_libs, incus, libxml2, moodle, and python-sql), and SUSE (poppler and python-grpcio).

Continuing its tradition of yearly major releases on December 25, the Ruby programming-language project has released Ruby 3.4.0 (followed quickly by 3.4.1, which simply updates the version number). Ruby 3.4 includes lots of changes, including the addition of it as a less-confusing shorthand for _1 as a block parameter, switching to Prism as the default parser, adding the Happy Eyeballs version 2 algorithm to the...

Security updates have been issued by Debian (fastnetmon, webkit2gtk, and xen), Fedora (sympa), Oracle (postgresql), and Red Hat (pcp, tigervnc, and xorg-x11-server and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland).

It is often said that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting different results. Be that as it may, LWN has repeatedly started a new year with a set of predictions, only to have to review how badly they went at the end. There was no break in that pattern this year, so there is no help for it; the...

The systemd v257 release brings a number of incremental enhancements to various components and utilities for working with Linux systems. This includes more support for varlink, automated downloading of disk images at boot time, and a number of improvements to the secure-boot process for unified kernel images (UKIs), which we have covered in a separate article.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (containernetworking-plugins, edk2:20240524, gstreamer1-plugins-base, gstreamer1-plugins-good, kernel, libsndfile:1.0.31, mpg123:1.32.9, pam, php:8.1, php:8.2, python3.11, python3.11-urllib3, python3.12, python3.9:3.9.21, skopeo, and unbound:1.16.2), Debian (intel-microcode), Fedora (python3-docs and python3.12), Mageia (emacs), Red Hat (podman), and SUSE (gdb, govulncheck-vulndb, libparaview5_12, mozjs115, mozjs78, and vhostmd).

The systemd project has been working for some time on promoting unified kernel images (UKIs), a format that bundles a kernel, initial disk image, kernel command line, and other associated data into a single file. The advantage of the format is the ability to authenticate the entire collection with secure boot, which makes it easier for end users to know that their operating system...

The Fedora Project has announced the results of the Fedora Linux 41 election cycle. Five seats were open on the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo), and the winners are Kevin Fenzi, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek, David Cantrell, Tomáš Hrčka, and Fabio Alessandro Locati. One seat was open on the Mindshare Committee and that went to Luis Bazan as the only eligible candidate nominated in this period.

In the past, suspensions of Python core developers have effectively been permanent because the recipients of the punishment chose not to return. Things have played out quite differently after Tim Peters was suspended for three months back in August; Peters has been posting to the Python discussion forum since his suspension ended in early November and, generally, getting back to work as usual. That...

Security updates have been issued by Debian (gst-plugins-base1.0, libxstream-java, php-laravel-framework, python-urllib3, and sqlparse), Fedora (chromium, libcomps, libdnf, mingw-directxmath, mingw-gstreamer1, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-base, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-good, mingw-orc, ofono, prometheus-podman-exporter, python3-docs, python3.13, and webkitgtk), Mageia (mozjs78, thunderbird, and tomcat, tomcat packages), SUSE (aalto-xml, flatten-maven-plugin, jctools, moditect, netty, netty-tcnative, chromedriver, govulncheck-vulndb, grpc, kernel, python-aiohttp, python-python-sql, and vim), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-oracle-5.15 and linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4,...

Linus has released 6.13-rc4 for testing. "So this definitely is looking a bit smaller than most rc4s, and I expect (and hope) that rc5 will be absolutely tiny because you should all already be relaxing over the xmas holidays. But hey, if somebody is out there keeping the lights on, please do keep testing."

Version 5.0.0 of the darktable photography workflow application has been released. Major changes in this release include user-interface/user-experience (UI/UX) improvements, speed improvements for bulk operations, and the addition of a inter-script-communication event to allow a running script to send messages to another running script. LWN last looked at darktable in 2022.

Curl maintainer Daniel Stenberg announces that the curl project will be dropping hyper, its experimental HTTP backend written in Rust, due to lack of developer interest. While the experiment itself is deemed a failure, I think we learned from it and improved curl in the process. We had to rethink and reassess several implementation details when we aligned HTTP behavior with hyper. libcurl parses...

Version 2024.12 of the Debian-based Grml live Linux system for system administrators has been released. Grml 2024.12 uses packages from the upcoming Debian 13 ("trixie") release. It drops support for 32-bit x86 PCs and gains support for 64-bit ARM CPUs. See the release notes for a full list of changes and new features.

Back in 2022, Josh Triplett presented a plan to implement a "spawn new process" functionality in the io_uring subsystem. There was a fair amount of interest at the time, but developers got distracted, and the work did not progress. Now, Gabriel Krisman Bertazi has returned with a patch series updating and improving Triplett's work. While interest in this functionality remains, it may still take...

Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium and gunicorn), Fedora (jupyterlab), Oracle (bluez, containernetworking-plugins, edk2:20220126gitbb1bba3d77, edk2:20240524, gstreamer1-plugins-base, gstreamer1-plugins-good, kernel, libsndfile, libsndfile:1.0.31, mpg123, mpg123:1.32.9, pam, python3.11-urllib3, skopeo, tuned, and unbound:1.16.2), SUSE (avahi, docker, emacs, govulncheck-vulndb, haproxy, kernel, libmozjs-128-0, python-grpcio, python310-xhtml2pdf, sudo, and tailscale), and Ubuntu (dpdk, linux-hwe-5.15, and linux-iot).

The 6.12.6, 6.6.67, 6.1.121, 5.15.175, 5.10.232, and 5.4.288 stable kernels have been released. As usual, they contain important fixes throughout the kernel tree.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bluez, edk2:20220126gitbb1bba3d77, gstreamer1-plugins-base, gstreamer1-plugins-good, kernel, kernel-rt, mpg123, php:8.2, python3.11-urllib3, and tuned), Fedora (ColPack, glibc, golang-github-chainguard-dev-git-urls, golang-github-task, icecat, python-nbdime, python3.13, and python3.14), Mageia (kernel, kmod-xtables-addons, kmod-virtualbox, dwarves and kernel-linus), Red Hat (gstreamer1-plugins-base and gstreamer1-plugins-good), SUSE (curl, emacs, git-bug, glib2, helm, kernel, and traefik2), and Ubuntu (gst-plugins-base1.0, gst-plugins-good1.0, gstreamer1.0, libvpx, linux-gcp, phpunit, and yara).

The Fedora Engineering Steering Council (FESCo) has made a series of missteps in deciding to revoke a longtime Fedora contributor's provenpackager status. FESCo made the decision during a closed session, based on private complaints. It then publicly announced its decision, including the contributor's name, while only supplying a vague account of the contributor's actions. This has left the Fedora community with more questions than...

fish is a shell with a custom language and several affordances not available out of the box in other shells, such as directory-sensitive command completion. Although the project does not normally make beta releases, the newly announced 4.0b1 release will have one in order to ensure that no problems were introduced after a major effort to switch the code base from C++ to Rust....

Emacs has had a few bugs related to accidentally permitting the execution of untrusted code. Unfortunately, it seems as though another bug of that sort has appeared — and may be harder to patch, because the problem comes from the way Emacs handles expansion of Lisp macros in code being analyzed. The vulnerability is only practically exploitable in a non-default configuration, so not every...

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (libsndfile, php:7.4, python3.11, python3.12, and python36:3.6), Debian (dpdk), Mageia (curl and socat), Oracle (firefox and tuned), Red Hat (bluez, containernetworking-plugins, edk2, edk2:20220126gitbb1bba3d77, edk2:20240524, expat, gstreamer1-plugins-base, gstreamer1-plugins-base and gstreamer1-plugins-good, gstreamer1-plugins-good, kernel, libsndfile, libsndfile:1.0.31, mpg123, mpg123:1.32.9, pam, python3.11-urllib3, skopeo, tuned, unbound, and unbound:1.16.2), SUSE (cloudflared, curl, docker, firefox, gstreamer-plugins-good, kernel, libmozjs-115-0, libmozjs-128-0, libmozjs-78-0, libsoup, ovmf, python-urllib3_1, subversion, thunderbird, and...

Fedora Magazine reports that the Fedora Asahi Remix 41 for Apple Silicon is now available: In addition to all the exciting improvements brought by Fedora Linux 41, Fedora Asahi Remix 41 provides x86/x86-64 emulation integration including support for AAA games to Apple Silicon. The game support is based on the new conformant Vulkan 1.4 driver. It also continues to provide extensive device support, including...

Since we last looked at the WordPress dispute, WP Engine has sought a preliminary injunction against Automattic and its founder Matt Mullenweg to restore its access to WordPress.org, and more. The judge in the case granted a preliminary injunction on December 10. The case is, of course, of interest to users and developers working with WordPress—but it may also have implications for other open-source...

Version 2024.4 of the Kali Linux penetration-testing distribution has been released. Changes include a switch to Python 3.12, the removal of i386 kernel support, GNOME 47, and more.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (gstreamer1.0), Fedora (jupyterlab and python-notebook), Oracle (gimp:2.8.22, gstreamer1-plugins-base, gstreamer1-plugins-good, kernel, php:8.2, postgresql, and python3.11), SUSE (aws-iam-authenticator, firefox, installation-images, kernel, libaom, libyuv, libsoup, libsoup2, python-aiohttp, socat, thunderbird, and vim), and Ubuntu (curl, Docker, imagemagick, and kernel).

The Sequoia PGP project has announced version 1.0 of the sq command-line tool for managing OpenPGP encryption and signatures. It also provides a decentralized public key infrastructure (PKI), and key management facilities. This is the first stable release since development began on the project in 2017. sq's PKI is probably its most notable feature, and the one we invested the most time in. The...

Emacs is, famously, an editor—perhaps far more—that is extensible using its own variant of the Lisp programming language, Emacs Lisp (or Elisp). This year's edition of EmacsConf, which is an annual "gathering" that has been held online for the past five years, had two separate talks on using a different variant of Lisp, Guile, for Emacs. Both projects would preserve Elisp compatibility, which is...

Security updates have been issued by Debian (gst-plugins-base1.0, gstreamer1.0, and libpgjava), Fedora (bpftool, chromium, golang-x-crypto, kernel, kernel-headers, linux-firmware, pytest, python3.10, subversion, and thunderbird), Gentoo (NVIDIA Drivers), Oracle (kernel, perl-App-cpanminus:1.7044, php:7.4, php:8.1, php:8.2, postgresql, python3.11, python3.12, python3.9:3.9.21, python36:3.6, ruby, and ruby:2.5), SUSE (docker-stable, firefox-esr, gstreamer, gstreamer-plugins-base, gstreamer-plugins-good, kernel, python-Django, python312, and socat), and Ubuntu (mpmath).

Linus has released 6.13-rc3 for testing. "Earlier this week it felt to me like things might have already started to quiet down in prep for the holidays, but doing the statistics on rc3 that doesn't actually seem to be the case - this looks very regular both in number of commits and in diff size".

Version 4.20 of the Xfce desktop environment has been released. "The major focus during this development cycle was the preparation of the codebase to be ready for Wayland". See the Xfce 4.20 tour for an overview of the changes in this release.

The 6.12.5, 6.6.66, 6.1.120, 5.15.174, 5.10.231, and 5.4.287 stable kernels have all been released; each contains a relatively large set of important fixes.

Commits in the Git source-code management system are identified by the SHA-1 hash of their contents — though the specific hash may change someday. The full hash is a 160-bit quantity, normally written as a 40-character hexadecimal string. While those strings are convenient for computers to work with, humans find them to be a bit unwieldy, so it is common to abbreviate the hash...

Handling time in a networked environment is never easy. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) has been used to synchronize clocks across the internet for almost 40 years — but, as computers and networks get faster, the degree of synchronization it offers is not sufficient for some use cases. The Precision Time Protocol (PTP) attempts to provide more precise time synchronization, at the expense of...

The CentOS Project has announced the general availability of CentOS Stream 10. See the release notes for information on new features, changes, and removed software. The Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) 10 repository is also available, and will be adding minor version repositories: For the EPEL 9 release, we started building packages about six months before the RHEL 9 release by using CentOS Stream 9...

Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, pgpool2, and smarty4), Fedora (chromium, linux-firmware, matrix-synapse, open62541, and thunderbird), Red Hat (kernel, kernel-rt, python3.11, python3.12, python3.9:3.9.18, python3.9:3.9.21, and ruby:2.5), SUSE (buildah, chromium, govulncheck-vulndb, java-1_8_0-ibm, libsvn_auth_gnome_keyring-1-0, python310-Django, qemu, and radare2), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gke, linux-ibm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-oem-6.8, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-raspi, linux, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-raspi, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-gkeop, linux-nvidia,...

Version 1.32 (dubbed "Penelope") of Kubernetes has been released with 13 major features graduating to Stable status, 12 entering Beta, and 19 entering Alpha. If Kubernetes is Ancient Greek for "pilot", in this release we start from that origin and reflect on the last 10 years of Kubernetes and our accomplishments: each release cycle is a journey, and just like Penelope, in "The Odyssey",...

The Python Package Index (PyPI) Blog has an analysis of the compromise of the ultralytics project, and what PyPI has learned from this event: PyPI staff and volunteers do their best to remove malware, but because the service is open to anyone looking to publish software there is an unfortunately high amount of abuse. Thankfully most of this abuse does not have the same...

The release of the 4.19.325 stable kernel update on December 5 marked the end of an era of sorts. This kernel had been supported for just over six years since its initial release in October 2018; over that time, 325 updates were released, adding 30,109 fixes. Few Linux kernels receive public support for so long; it is worth taking a look at this kernel's history...

Security updates have been issued by Debian (libsoup2.4, python-aiohttp, and upx-ucl), Fedora (iaito, python3.11, python3.9, and radare2), Red Hat (ruby, ruby:2.5, and ruby:3.1), Slackware (mozilla-thunderbird), SUSE (govulncheck-vulndb, nodejs18, nodejs20, and socat), and Ubuntu (ofono and python-tornado).

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 beta was released in mid-November and, if all goes according to plan, CentOS Stream 10 should be released before the end of the year. While nothing is etched in stone just yet, it is a good time for anyone using or targeting RHEL (and its clones) to start taking a look at how Stream 10, and the corresponding EPEL repository,...