All the News that Matters

• Two new stable kernels
  Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 6.17.8 and 6.12.58 stable kernels. Each contains animportant set of fixes. Users are advised to upgrade.
  
  
  

• Rust in Android: move fast and fix things (Google Security Blog)
  The Google Security Blog has anew post on just how well the use of Rust is working out for theAndroid project.
  We adopted Rust for its security and are seeing a 1000x reduction in memory safety vulnerability density compared to Android's C and C++ code. But the biggest surprise was Rust's impact on software delivery. With Rust changes having a 4x lower rollback rate and spending 25% less time in code review, the safer path is now also the faster one.

• Privilege escalation in LightDM Greeter by KDE (SUSE Security Team Blog)
  The SUSE Security Team has published an in-deptharticle on its findings after reviewing a D-Bus service containedin LightDMGreeter by KDE (the lightdm-kde-greeter package)for addition to openSUSE Tumbleweed. The team found a privilegeescalation from the lightdm service user to root, aswell as other attack vectors in the service:
  In agreement with upstream, we assigned CVE-2025-62876 to track thelightdm service user to root privilege escalation aspect described inthis report. The severity of the issue is low, since it only affectsdefense-in-depth (if the lightdm service user were compromised) andthe problematic logic can only be reached and exploited if triggeredinteractively by a privileged user.
  The fixes are contained in the 6.0.4release of the project.
  
  
  

• Thunderbird 145 released
  Version145 of the Thunderbird email client has been released. Notablechanges in this release include enabling DNS over HTTPS, support forMicrosoft Exchange via Exchange Web Services, and quite a few bugfixes. As of 145, the project is no longer shipping 32-bit binariesfor Linux on x86.
  
  
  

• [$] Another Fedora Flatpak discussion
  Many distributions provide support out of the proverbial box forFlatpak packages, but Fedora is unusual in that it also provides, anddefaults, to its own repository of Fedora-built Flatpaks. This has beena source of confusion for Fedora users, who expect to get the Flatpakbuilt by the original developers and hosted on Flathub. It has also been a sourceof conflict with upstream projects, because users complain of bugs inFlatpak packages they are not responsible for. The situation has also frustrated someFedora developers, who would prefer to offer put Flathub's offeringsfirst. A new complaint that Fedora has apparently used manifestsfrom Flathub to build the packages for Fedora—without giving credit tothe original authors—has spurred discussions about Fedora'sFlatpaks once again. While no concrete changes are on the table, yet,there may be some movement toward addressing persistent complaints.
  

• Security updates for Thursday
  Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium and firefox-esr), Fedora (firefox, rubygem-rack, skopeo, and webkitgtk), Mageia (perl, perl-CPAN, perl-HTTP-Tiny, perl-Data-Entropy, perl-FCGI, perl-File-Find-Rule, perl-YAML-LibYAML, python-tornado, python-urllib3, python-pip, python3, and unbound), Oracle (ipa and kernel), Red Hat (container-tools:rhel8, krb5, openssl, pcs, podman, and runc), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (binutils, kernel, netty, netty-tcnative, podman, python311-pdfminer, and tomcat11), and Ubuntu (bind9 and linux-aws-6.8).

• [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for November 13, 2025
  Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
  Front: FUSE performance; Magic kfuncs; Tails Linux; Direct I/O and modifying buffers; Working with bootable containers. Briefs: Kernel LLM policy; Firefox 145; FHS; Homebrew 5.0.0; Mastodon 4.5; Public-inbox 2.0.0; Pytest 9.0.0; Quote; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

• Homebrew 5.0.0 released
  Version5.0.0 of the Homebrew packagemanager for Linux and macOS has been released. Notable changes in thisrelease include download concurrency by default, official support for64-bit Arm on Linux, and more.
  
  
  

• [$] The intersection of unstable pages and direct I/O
  Longtime LWN readers will have encountered the concept of "stable pages"before; it was first covered here nearly15 years ago. For the most part, the problem that stable pages weremeant to solve — preventing errors when user space modifies a buffer thatis under I/O — has been dealt with. Butrecent discussions show that there is one area where problems remain:direct I/O. There is some disagreement,though, over whether those problems are the result of user-space bugs andhow much of a performance price should be paid to address them.

• Security updates for Wednesday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, kernel-rt, and libtiff), Debian (kernel, libarchive, rust-sudo-rs, and squid), Fedora (chromium, dotnet8.0, forgejo, ruby, and webkitgtk), Oracle (bind, bind9.18, kernel, kernel-uek*, libtiff, and runc), Red Hat (firefox, kernel, and kernel-rt), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (buildah, colord, containerd, kernel, lasso, libsoup, micropython, ongres-scram, openssh, proxy-helm, uyuni-tools, python-pdfminer.six, qatengine, qatlib, regclient, and runc), and Ubuntu (raptor and raptor2).

• Firefox 145 released
  Firefox 145 has been released. Notablechanges in this release include note-takingfeatures for PDFs viewed in Firefox, enhancedprivacy protections, and the ability to access and manage passwords inthe sidebar. This release also drops support for 32-bit Linux systems.
  
  
  

• [$] Protecting privacy with Tails
  Tails is an unusual Linuxdistribution developed by the Tor Project; itis designed to help users work around internet censorship and avoidsurveillance. It is a "portable" operating system that is meant to berun from a USB stick or ISO image and to leave no trace on thecomputer it was run on. Tails routes connections to the internet overthe Tornetwork and includes a selection of applications and toolssuited to working with sensitive documents, communicating securely,and preserving users' anonymity. The tradeoff, of course, is thatTails is less convenient and requires users to learn a new set oftools to avoid compromising their own security and anonymity. Tails 7.1 wasreleased in October, and it seemed like as good a time as any to takeit for a spin.
  

• Security updates for Tuesday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bind, expat, kernel, osbuild-composer, qt6-qtsvg, runc, valkey, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Debian (incus), Fedora (cef and dotnet8.0), Mageia (strongswan), Red Hat (fence-agents and python-requests), SUSE (chromium, colord, erlang26, java-1_8_0-openjdk, libsoup, python-django, thunderbird, tiff, and warewulf4), and Ubuntu (intel-microcode and rust-sudo-rs).

• Public-inbox 2.0.0 released
  Version 2.0.0 of public-inbox, the mail archiving system behindlore.kernel.org and LWN's email archive, has been released. "Thisrelease includes several new features and fixes; mostly around improvedintegration between inboxes and coderepos for solver. Portability andreliability is also improved, especially in the internal process managementof lei."

• [$] Magic kernel functions for BPF
  When programs written in BPF (the kernel's hot-loadable virtual-machine bytecode) call kernel functions (kfuncs), it may be usefulfor those functions to have additional information about the context in whichthose BPF programs are executing. Rather than requiring it to supplythat information, it would be convenient to let the BPF verifier pass thatinformation to the called function automatically. That is already possible, buta recent patch set from Ihor Solodrai would make it more ergonomic.It allows kerneldevelopers to specify that a kfunc should be passed additionalparameters inferred by the verifier, invisibly to the BPF program. Thediscussion included concerns that Solodrai's implementation was unnecessarily complex, however.
  

Linux Insider"LinuxInsider"

• Red Hat’s Evolution: How a Subsidiary Became an AI Powerhouse
  Red Hat has become a foundational player in enterprise AI by combining open-source infrastructure with hybrid cloud flexibility, maintaining independence while leveraging IBM’s global scale. The post Red Hat’s Evolution: How a Subsidiary Became an AI Powerhouse appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Open-Source Security Tool AdaptixC2 Fueling Ransomware Attacks
  Ransomware gangs are exploiting AdaptixC2, an open-source command-and-control framework originally built for red team testing, to support stealthy post-exploitation operations. The post Open-Source Security Tool AdaptixC2 Fueling Ransomware Attacks appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Open-Source Model Near Breaking Point Despite Trillions in Value
  A coalition of open-source stewards warns that the software industry’s reliance on goodwill to maintain critical infrastructure is unsustainable, despite open source fueling trillions in global economic value. The post Open-Source Model Near Breaking Point Despite Trillions in Value appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• The Linux Foundation Expands Agentic AI Push With Third Major Project
  The Linux Foundation has launched its third major agentic AI initiative in three months, designed to secure communication, enhance interoperability, and drive open-source innovation in multi-agent environments. The post The Linux Foundation Expands Agentic AI Push With Third Major Project appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• TuxCare’s In-Memory CVE Scanner Enhances Linux Security With Radar
  TuxCare Radar is an in-memory CVE scanner that reduces false positives, speeds compliance, and delivers real-time Linux vulnerability detection. The post TuxCare’s In-Memory CVE Scanner Enhances Linux Security With Radar appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Linux Patch Blind Spot Exposes Critical Cybersecurity Risks
  Linux patch delays leave enterprises exposed to long-standing vulnerabilities. Experts warn automation and consistent management are essential to closing this critical security gap. The post Linux Patch Blind Spot Exposes Critical Cybersecurity Risks appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• The Year of the Linux Desktop? This Time, the Data Says Yes
  Linux is making real gains on the desktop. New data shows its market share passing 5% in the U.S., signaling a long-awaited breakthrough. The post The Year of the Linux Desktop? This Time, the Data Says Yes appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• From Kernel to Cloud: Open Source Takes On Security Trade-Offs
  Open-source systems are adopting live patching and isolation technologies to support always-on security and meet enterprise compliance demands in the cloud. The post From Kernel to Cloud: Open Source Takes On Security Trade-Offs appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Kubernetes Cost Optimization May Be Doing More Harm Than Good
  Slashing Kubernetes costs sounds smart — until it backfires. Here’s how to reduce spend safely while improving platform stability and speed. The post Kubernetes Cost Optimization May Be Doing More Harm Than Good appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Is a Security Baseline Enough for Open-Source Software?
  The OpenSSF’s new baseline sets minimum security expectations for open-source projects — but not all developers agree it’s practical, scalable, or sufficient. The post Is a Security Baseline Enough for Open-Source Software? appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Digital overhaul at UK's NS&I bank is £1.3B over budget and 4 years late
  Watchdog says program buckled under procurement failures and technical complexity
  The UK's state-owned savings bank has blown past its budget by £1.3 billion on a digital transformation program beset by delays, according to the National Audit Office.…
  

• Clop claims it hacked 'the NHS.' Which bit? Your guess is as good as theirs
  Cybercrime crew has ravaged multiple private organizations using Oracle EBS zero-day for months
  The UK's National Health Service (NHS) is investigating claims of a cyberattack by extortion crew Clop.…
  

• Execs make rules that control AI usage, then break them for their own work
  FOMO trumps corporate governance when it comes to AI
  More than two-thirds of corporate executives say they've violated their own AI usage policies in the past three months, and over half of the leaders also ranked security and compliance as the greatest AI implementation challenge.…
  

• Developer battled to write his own documentation, but lost the boss fight
  Org chart games were more important than speed and accuracy
  On Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column in which we tell your tales of tech support troubles and other workplace woes.…
  

• Chinese web giant Tencent can't buy all the GPUs it wants
  Getting by with a meager $2 billion quarterly capex – vastly less than rivals, but still cashing in on AI
  Chinese web giant Tencent’s capital expenditure is slowing and the company expects it will decelerate further due to its inability to buy all the GPUs it wants.…
  

• Kubernetes overlords decide Ingress NGINX isn’t worth saving
  Maintenance to end next year after ‘helpful options’ became ‘serious security flaws’
  Kubernetes maintainers have decided it’s not worth trying to save Ingress NGINX and will instead stop work on the project and retire it in March 2026.…
  

• Chinese spies told Claude to break into about 30 critical orgs. Some attacks succeeded
  Anthropic dubs this the first AI-orchestrated cyber snooping campaign
  Chinese cyber spies used Anthropic's Claude Code AI tool to attempt digital break-ins at about 30 high-profile companies and government organizations – and the government-backed snoops "succeeded in a small number of cases," according to a Thursday report from the AI company.…
  

• Happy holidays: AI-enabled toys teach kids how to play with fire, sharp objects
  Consumer advocacy researchers at PIRG tested four AI toys, and none of them passed muster
  Picture the scene: It's Christmas morning and your child is happily chatting with the AI-enabled teddy bear you got them when you hear it telling them about sexual kinks, where to find the knives, and how to light matches. This is not a hypothetical scenario. …
  

• Firefox adds AI Window, users want AI wall to keep it out
  Browser maker scolds AI objectors, "The web is changing, and sitting it out doesn’t help anyone"
  Mozilla is apparently a lot more excited about adding AI features to Firefox than its community. The org has decided that AI deserves its own new environment in the browser, a move its fans met with withering criticism.…
  

• Ransomed CTO falls on sword, refuses to pay extortion demand
  Checkout.com will instead donate the amount to fund cybercrime research
  Digitial extortion is a huge business, because affected orgs keep forking over money to get their data back. However, instead of paying a ransom demand after getting hit by extortionists last week, payment services provider Checkout.com donated the demanded amount to fund cybercrime research.…
  

• Baidu answers China's call for home-grown silicon with custom AI accelerators
  Chinese search giant plans to bring custom silicon to the rack scale in 2026 with 256- and 512-chip systems
  Chinese search giant Baidu unveiled two new AI accelerators this week amid a national push to end reliance on Western chips.…
  

• States that aren't nice to ICE still sharing key database full of personal info
  Lawmakers warn of ‘information gap’ lets immigration agents sidestep states’ data safeguards
  Democratic lawmakers say some states that don't want to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may be unintentionally allowing the agency access to residents' driver and criminal records through a law-enforcement data network.…
  

• AI pilots keep crashing, mostly because firms skip the prep, survey finds
  Under a third of PoCs make it past testing, but those that do often boost productivity
  It is the best of AI times; it is the worst of AI times, depending on whom you ask. Nearly a third of firms are seeing almost total failure of their AI proof-of-concept (PoC) projects, while 46 percent are successfully moving more than 10 percent of theirs into operational use.…
  

• Ubuntu 25.10's Rusty sudo holes quickly welded shut
  The goal of 'oxidizing' the Linux distro hits another bump
  Two vulnerabilities in Ubuntu 25.10's new "sudo-rs" command have been found, disclosed, and fixed in short order.…
  

• Avalonia brings Linux, browser support to Microsoft's MAUI cross-platform app solution
  Third-party framework builds alternative backend using its own renderer and WebAssembly
  Microsoft's MAUI (Multi-platform App UI), the official .NET solution for cross-platform desktop and mobile apps, will get Linux and browser support via Avalonia, a third-party framework.…
  

• ERP carnage continues as orgs jump in unprepared
  Lack of executive backing, unrealistic plans, and muddled goals remain recipe for failure
  In Barcelona this week, consultancy Gartner once again tried to answer one of the perennial questions in IT: what is it about ERP projects that makes them so likely to fail?…
  

• Blue Origin hopes third time's the charm for New Glenn after two scrubbed launches
  Bezos booster blasted by solar emissions
  A blast from the Sun kept Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket on the pad as the Northern Lights forced NASA to halt the launch.…
  

• HPE details Vera Rubin blades for next-gen Cray supercomputers
  Promised for 2027 racks, mixing Nvidia and AMD silicon in one liquid-cooled box
  HPE's next-gen Cray supercomputing platform will offer a choice of compute nodes with Nvidia's Vera Rubin or AMD's upcoming Venice Epyc CPUs – or a mix of both.…
  

• Extra, extra, read all about it: Washington Post clobbered in Clop caper
  Nearly 10,000 staff and contractors warned after attackers raided newspaper's Oracle EBS setup
  The Washington Post has confirmed that nearly 10,000 employees and contractors had sensitive personal data stolen in the Clop-linked Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) attacks.…
  

• To solve compatibility issues, Microsoft would quietly patch other people's code
  Long before automatic updates, the Windows 95 team tweaked third-party software to keep it running
  How to get that all-important piece of software working on Windows has vexed Microsoft since the beginning of the operating system. Compatibility was king.…
  

• Britain's first small modular reactors to be built in Wales
  Government picks Wylfa on Anglesey for initial trio of units, but power unlikely before mid-2030s
  The UK will build its first small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear plant at Wylfa on Anglesey, an island off northwest Wales - but it won't generate power until the mid-2030s.…
  

• Geopolitics push European CIOs to think local on cloud
  Majority of customers plan to favor domestic providers as sovereignty fears rise
  A survey of CIOs and tech leaders in Western Europe has found 61 percent want to increase their use of local cloud providers amid global geopolitical uncertainty.…
  

• Rhadamanthys malware admin rattled as cops seize a thousand-plus servers
  Operation Endgame also takes down Elysium and VenomRAT infrastructure
  International cops have pulled apart the Rhadamanthys infostealer operation, seizing 1,025 servers tied to the malware in coordinated raids between November 10-13.…
  

• London left buffering as Hyperoptic backup link refuses to boot
  Broadband provider says damaged fiber and dormant failover path knocked customers offline for nearly 24 hours
  UK broadband provider Hyperoptic learned the importance of testing backup systems this week after the service went dark for customers in London.…
  

• NHS supplier ends probe into ransomware attack that contributed to patient death
  Synnovis's 18-month forensic review of Qilin intrusion completed, now affected patients to be notified
  Synnovis has finally wrapped up its investigation into the 2024 ransomware attack that crippled pathology services across London, ending an 18-month effort to untangle what the NHS supplier describes as one of the most complex data reconstruction jobs it has ever faced.…
  

• To 'Infinity' ... and beyond: MX Linux 25 has arrived
  Systemd-free option still available if you choose that download
  MX Linux 25 "Infinity" is now available, and the new version has some significant differences from the 2023 release, with things that used to be boot-time choices having become pre-install decisions.…
  

• Networking students need an explanation of the internet that can fit in their heads
  Networks have changed profoundly, except for the parts that haven’t
  Systems Approach When my colleague and co-author Bruce Davie delivered his keynote at the SIGCOMM conference, he was asked a thought-provoking question: How should we think about educating the next generation of students about networking, given how different and more complex the internet is today?…
  

• Russia’s first autonomous humanoid robot staggers and falls on debut
  Go home, comrade clanker, you look drunk – and worryingly angry
  A semi-autonomous humanoid robot said to be Russia’s first such machine has fallen over within seconds of facing the public for the first time.…
  

• Google to allow Android users with high pain tolerance to sideload unverified apps
  Promises some easing of rules that knobble indie devs, eventually
  Google has decided to loosen some of its recently introduced rules regarding registration of Android developers and their apps, but isn’t rushing to deliver the modest changes it plans.…
  

• Atlassian twice shunned AWS Graviton CPUs, but now runs Jira and Confluence on them
  Bills fell 10 percent after granular tests suggested JVM tweaks that improved performance
  Atlassian twice marked Amazon Web Services’ Graviton CPUs off-limits for production purposes, but recently relented and now uses the processors to power thousands of server instances that run its Jira and Confluence products. So what changed?…
  

• Microsoft is building datacenter superclusters that span continents
  The 100 trillion-parameter models of the near future can't be built in one place
  Microsoft believes the next generation of AI models will use hundreds of trillions of parameters. To train them, it's not just building bigger, more efficient datacenters – it's started connecting distant facilities using high-speed networks spanning hundreds or thousands of miles.…
  

• OpenAI GPT-5.1 adds more personalities, loses inhibitions
  Updated model may deliver a bit more unwanted content, but will be polite about it
  OpenAI on Wednesday introduced GPT-5.1, an AI model update that's "warmer," more conversational, and slightly more willing to blurt out unwelcome observations about sex, violence, and mental health in a way that invites emotional dependence.…
  

• You can now put your US passport into Apple Wallet for domestic travel
  But only a few states plus Puerto Rico will accept it
  Need to fly domestically, but want to leave your passport or driver's license at home? Apple has you covered, as long as you're using an iOS device and traveling between or within one of the dozen or so states that support digital IDs and Apple Wallet. Unfortunately, it's not clear which states those are, and the TSA's web site is not up to date thanks to the ongoing government shutdown.…
  

• Google sues 25 China-based scammers behind Lighthouse 'phishing for dummies' kit
  600+ phishing websites and 116 of these use a Google logo
  Google has filed a lawsuit against 25 unnamed China-based scammers, which it claims have stolen more than 115 million credit card numbers in the US as part of the Lighthouse phishing operation.…
  

• OpenAI’s viability called into question by reported inference spending with Microsoft
  Microsoft internal financials also suggest AI flag bearer is nowhere close to $13 billion in revenues
  OpenAI may be burning far more capital serving its GPT-family of models than previously thought. Leaked documents show the company paying more than $12 billion to Microsoft for compute power since 2024 and suggest much weaker revenue than it needs to pay for all those expenses.…
  

• Google apes Apple, swears cloud-based AI will keep your info private
  We take your privacy, seriously
  Google, perhaps not the first name you'd associate with privacy, has taken a page from Apple's playbook and now claims that its cloud AI services will safeguard sensitive personal data handled by its Gemini model family.…
  

• First stellar Coronal Mass Ejection detected beyond our Sun
  Red dwarf hurls plasma at speeds rarely seen from Sun, potentially stripping atmospheres from orbiting planets
  Astronomers have made the first definitive observation of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) on a nearby star.…
  

• Attackers turned Citrix, Cisco 0-day exploits into custom-malware hellscape
  Vendors (still) keep mum
  An "advanced" attacker exploited CitrixBleed 2 and a max-severity Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) bug as zero-days to deploy custom malware, according to Amazon Chief Information Security Officer CJ Moses.…
  

• Apple knits up $230 sock for your iPhone in time for Christmas
  Fashion house behind Jobs' turtleneck helps with pricey new accessory line
  Apple, the reassuringly expensive US technology brand, is selling a sock in which iPhone owners can house their gadget.…
  

• VLC's keeper of the cone nets European free software gong
  Jean-Baptiste Kempf lauded for keeping the media player free of crapware
  If you don't know what app will open a random media file (or URL), VLC is the answer. It runs on everything, plays anything, and it's free – thanks to Jean-Baptiste Kempf.…
  

• Broken wizard forces Microsoft to issue out-of-band Windows 10 patch
  End of support? Not quite
  Microsoft released an emergency out-of-band update on November 11 to fix a malfunctioning enrollment wizard that prevented eligible Windows 10 users from accessing Extended Security Updates (ESU).…
  

• Microsoft ships .NET 10 LTS and Visual Studio 2026, Copilot everywhere
  Faster and easier to use but adopting the dev stack not without risks
  Microsoft has released C# 14 and .NET 10, a long-term support version, along with a bunch of related products including Visual Studio 2026 and Aspire 13. Copilot Free is included but devs will soon hit its limits.…
  

• Brussels weighs banning China from major EU research scheme
  Draft Horizon Europe plan cites lack of IP protections and Beijing's civil-military fusion strategy
  The European Commission is preparing to block Chinese institutions from significant portions of its €95.5 billion ($110 billion) Horizon Europe research program, citing intellectual property risks and links between Chinese universities and Beijing's military.…
  

• MS Task Manager turns 30: Creator reveals how a 'very Unixy impulse' endured in Windows
  Dave Plummer's 85 KB troubleshooting tool shipped with his home number on the code
  As Microsoft's Task Manager celebrates three decades - and grapples with its modern tendency to leave orphaned processes behind - its creator has shared the story of how the much loved troubleshooting tool came to be.…
  

• Broadcom creates a new Seal Of Approval for servers that run AI under VMware
  This apparently makes VCF more extensible and open to partners
  Broadcom will let its hardware allies self-certify their boxes as compliant with a new spec it developed that describes rigs ready to run AI workloads under its VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) private cloud platform.…
  

• Mozilla's Firefox 145 is heeeeeere: Buffs up privacy, bloats AI
  Improves tracking prevention, profile management, PDF editing, and Perplexity creeps into your address bar
  Updated Firefox 145 is out, with more privacy, better profile handling, better image search for Google users… and, almost inevitably, more LLM bot integration.…
  

• Bitcoin bandit's £5B bubble bursts as cops wrap seven-year chase
  Metropolitan Police lands lengthy sentence following 'complex' investigation
  The Metropolitan Police's seven-year investigation into a record-setting fraudster has ended after she was sentenced to 11 years and eight months in prison on Tuesday.…
  

• UK's Cyber Security and Resilience Bill makes Parliamentary debut
  Various touch-ups added as MPs seek greater resilience to attacks on critical sectors
  UK government introduced the Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR) Bill to Parliament today, marking a significant overhaul of local cybersecurity legislation to sharpen the security posture of the most critical sectors.…
  

• Aviation watchdog says organized drone attacks will shut UK airports ‘sooner or later’
  Skies are open for mischief as hard-to-trace drones and fast-moving cyber raids promise new wave of disruption
  Britain's aviation watchdog has warned it's only a matter of time before organized drone attacks bring UK airports to a standstill.…
  

• Retail giant Kingfisher rejects SAP ERP upgrade plan
  'Don't just give me a price list or licensing module that spikes cost by 20x, show me the value,' says CTO
  SAP insists customers wanting "innovation" such as AI must upgrade to its latest platform for ERP, using prescribed cloud migration plans. Kingfisher - which operates 2,000 European retail stores including UK brands Screwfix and B&Q - rejected that approach.…
  

• EROFS File-System Continues Attracting More Industry Players
  The EROFS read-only file-system started by Huawei and now maintained by a growing number of contributors continues attracting even more interest. EROFS has exhibited much potential for mobile devices as well as container use-cases while proving itself to be quite robust since its mainlining back in 2019...

• Proton 10.0-3 Released For Steam Play With Dozens Of Fixes, More Games Working
  Valve and CodeWeavers today released Proton 10.0-3 as the newest stable update to this Wine-based software that powers Steam Play for enabling countless Windows games to run often extremely well under Linux...

• New Patch Moves AMD GCN 1.0 GPUs Over To AMDGPU Driver By Default
  Following the recent patch proposal for moving AMD GCN 1.1 generation GPUs over to the AMDGPU Linux driver by default in place of the legacy Radeon driver, a similar patch has now been proposed for the GCN 1.0 graphics processors. AMD GCN 1.0/1.1 GPUs are at parity with the AMDGPU driver to the Radeon driver while needing this newer kernel driver for enjoying RADV Vulkan support, better performance, and overall a better experience...

• Bcachefs Rolls Out Metadata Version Reconcile "rebalance_v2" Feature
  For those making use of the out-of-tree Bcachefs file-system driver, rolling out to the snapshot/nightly testing channel is the long-in-development "rebalance_v2" functionality now known as the "bcachefs_metadata_version_reconcile" feature...

• Possible Setback For Linux x86_64 Laptops: Prominent Developer Joins Qualcomm
  Back in early September we reported on a Linux hardware enablement leader planning to leave Red Hat. Hans de Goede has been a longtime contributor to improving Intel/AMD Linux desktop/laptop hardware support and in fact an x86 platform drivers subsystem maintainer. We now found out where this lead Linux x86 driver developer ended up: Qualcomm...

• The Incredible Evolution Of AMD EPYC HPC Performance Shown In The Azure Cloud
  Last week the Microsoft Azure HBv5 instances reached general availability as powered by the custom EPYC 9V64H CPUs with HBM3 memory. These very interesting EPYC processors for memory bandwidth intensive workloads were announced last year while have finally reached GA with jaw-dropping results for software able to take advantage of the 6.7 TB/s memory bandwidth thanks to the HBM memory. The Azure HBv5 benchmarks last week showed how they compare to prior generation HBv4 instances while this article is taking things further and putting the performance into perspective against the older HBv2 and HBv3 instances.

• Linux Looks To Remove SHA1 Support For Signing Kernel Modules
  Patches posted to the Linux kernel mailing list this week are seeking to remove SHA1 support for signing of kernel modules. This is part of the larger effort in the industry for moving away from SHA1 given its vulnerabilities to hash collisions and superior hashing algorithms being available...

• NVIDIA CUDA 13.0 U2 Brings DGX Spark Performance Improvements
  CUDA 13.0 Update 2 is now available as the latest incremental improvement to NVIDIA's compute stack...

• RadeonSI OpenGL Mesh Shader Support Is Now Completed For Mesa 26.0
  For next quarter's Mesa 26.0 release, the AMD RadeonSI Gallium3D driver will present OpenGL mesh shaders support. It's been a long journey from the GL_EXT_mesh_shader extension being crafted and merged to wiring up the Mesa driver support while now it's in place for the AMD Radeon Linux graphics driver...

• Linux Has Another Maintainer Now For Its DEC Alpha Port
  The Linux kernel's port to the DEC Alpha processors remains alive over 30 years after these processors first appeared...

• Intel Now Confirms Nova Lake Will Support AVX10.2 & APX Extensions
  Recently when Intel contributed Nova Lake support for LLVM/Clang and the GCC compiler support there was not any AVX10 or APX support contrary to rumors and expectations. Intel has now published a new programming reference manual where they now confirm Nova Lake will in fact support AVX10.2 and APX...

• Canonical To Now Provide Up To 15 Years Commercial Support For Ubuntu LTS Releases
  Canonical announced today the expansion of the legacy add-on for Ubuntu Pro to provide total coverage of Ubuntu LTS releases up to 15 years...

• Miracle-WM 0.8 Adds More Features For This Mir-Powered Wayland Compositor
  Miracle-WM 0.8 was released on Wednesday as another step forward for this tiling Wayland compositor built atop Canonical's Mir software. Canonical engineer Matthew Kosarek continues driving new features into Miracle-WM as it works toward its v1.0 milestone...

• Intel Finds Great Performance With PostgreSQL9s AVX-512 Support
  Back in April PostgreSQL added AVX-512 support for CRC32 computations. At the time the gains for CRC32 computations with this popular open-source database server were reported to be 50% to 3x faster for x86_64 CPUs able to leverage AVX-512. That AVX-512 support is found with PostgreSQL 18.0 that released in September and now Intel is praising this addition to PostgreSQL for which their developers also had a part in along with AWS and others...

• Mesa 25.2.7 Ships The Latest Open-Source OpenGL & Vulkan Driver Fixes
  Eric Engestrom today released Mesa 25.2.7 as the newest bi-weekly point release for this stable set of open-source (predominantly) OpenGL and Vulkan drivers for Linux systems...

• Valve Already Upstreams Support For The New Steam Controller To SDL3
  Just hours ago Valve announced the new Steam Controller along with the Steam Frame VR headset and new Steam Machine. While these new Steam hardware products won't be available until early 2026, Valve has just-now upstreamed support for the new Steam Controller to the SDL3 library...

• Valve Announces New Steam Machine, Steam Controller & Steam Frame
  Valve just sent over the press release announcing three new Steam Hardware devices...

• The State Of The Vulkan Renderer For Wayland9s Weston 15.0 Compositor
  With the upcoming release of Weston 15.0, this Wayland reference compositor will finally feature a Vulkan renderer. For those curious about its potential, a presentation recently outlined the current state of this Vulkan code path...

• Framework Laptop 16 Upgrade To AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Benchmarks
  Framework Computer announced back in August that the Framework Laptop 16 would be rolling out upgrades to the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series and a GeForce RTX 5070 graphics option. Today the review embargo lifts on these new Framework 16 laptop upgrades and some Linux benchmarking of the new hardware.

• Valve9s Open-Source Radeon Linux Driver "Love Song For Gamers With Old GPUs"
  As covered recently on Phoronix there has been several exciting improvements for aging AMD Radeon GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.1 era graphics cards for the open-source AMD Linux graphics driver stack. This work has been led by Timur Kristóf of Valve's Linux Open-Source Graphics Driver Group with an ultimate goal of shifting the GCN 1.0/1.1 open-source Linux driver hardware support from the aging "Radeon" kernel graphics driver over to the "AMDGPU" kernel driver already used by default for all AMD GPUs/accelerators from GCN 1.2 and newer...

• Red Hat9s RHEL 10.1 Released With systemd Soft-Reboots, Easier AI Accelerator Drivers
  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.1 has reached general availability with a number of enhancements to this leading enterprise Linux distribution. As with so many things in 2025, AI is a big focus for RHEL 10.1...

• RADV Driver Adds Valve Video Extension Used By Steam Link VR
  Back in August with the Vulkan 1.4.327 spec update was the introduction of VK_VALVE_video_encode_rgb_conversion as a Valve vendor extension. The open-source Radeon Vulkan "RADV" driver has now merged support for this extension that is being used now by Steam Link VR...

• At Least Two New Open-Source NPU Accelerator Drivers Expected In 2026
  Open-source developer Tomeu Vizoso who developed the open-source and reverse-engineered "Rocket" accel driver for the Rockchip NPU and also worked on the Etnaviv/Vivante NPU support and other related code like Mesa's Teflon is teasing new NPU drivers coming in the new year...

• Webmin 2.600 Web-Based System Administration Tool Brings "Biggest UI Update"
  Webmin continues serving as one of the best open-source, web-based server management control panels for Linux and other Unix-like platforms. Webmin 2.600 is out today with yet more features and a refined theme...

• Haiku OS Made Many Kernel & App Improvements In October
  The Haiku open-source operating system project inspired by BeOS has published their October 2025 status report...

• Google Posts Device Trees For Booting Pixel 10 Hardware With The Mainline Linux Kernel
  A Chromium engineer at Google posted the initial Device Tree (DT) files for being able to boot their latest-generation Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, and Pixel 10 Pro XL devices with the mainline Linux kernel...

• sudo-rs Affected By Multiple Security Vulnerabilities - Impacting Ubuntu 25.10
  The Ubuntu 25.10 transition to using some Rust system utilities continues proving quite rocky. Beyond some early performance issues with Rust Coreutils, breakage for some executables, and broken unattended upgrades due to a Rust Coreutils bug, it's also sudo-rs now causing Ubuntu developers some headaches. There are two moderate security issues affecting sudo-rs, the Rust version of sudo being used by Ubuntu 25.10...

• Kaspersky Brings Its Anti-Virus Software To Linux For Home Users
  Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab announced that it's bringing its flagship Kaspersky anti-virus software for home users over to Linux. Kaspersky software was previously available for Linux just for business/enterprise deployments...

• Linux 6.18 Merges Fix For "Catastrophic Performance Issue" On 64-bit ARM
  Sent out today and already merged for the in-development Linux 6.18 kernel is the latest batch of 64-bit ARM "ARM64" architecture fixes. Most notable is a fix for addressing a "catastrophic performance issue" that was uncovered...

• Intel Releases New CPU Microcode, Publishes 30 New Security Advisories
  It's "Patch Tuesday" and Intel is out with new CPU microcode for Linux users in addition to making public 30 new security advisories that affect a range of Intel products...

• Linux Proposal Aims To Overcome Kernel Limitation Affecting Various Gaming Peripherals
  The Linux kernel's Human Interface Devices (HID) subsystem has an existing architectural limitation that there is just up to one battery per HID device. But with modern devices -- especially among various gaming peripherals -- there can be more than one battery when considering earbuds with a battery for each earbud, multi-device wireless receivers, etc. A proposal was raised today to address this limitation...

• Intel Core Ultra 7 255H Linux CPU Performance
  Lenovo recently sent over their new ThinkPad P1 Gen 8 laptop for review under Linux. My Linux review on that ThinkPad P1 Gen 8 laptop will be coming up in the near future along with some other benchmarks from that premium mobile workstation. But with this being the first time I9ve had an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H "Arrow Lake H" device at Phoronix, here are some standalone benchmarks looking at the CPU performance of that 16-core mobile processor compared to various other Intel and AMD SoCs in different laptops while running Ubuntu Linux.

• Google cancels plans to require Android application certification outside of the Play Store
  Only a few months ago, Google announced it was going to require that all Android applications  even those installed outside of the Play Store  had to be verified. This led to a massive backlash, and it seems our protests and complaints have had effect: the company announced a change in plans today, and will, in fact, not require certification for installing applications outside of the Play Store. Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isnt verified. We are designing this flow specifically to resist coercion, ensuring that users arent tricked into bypassing these safety checks while under pressure from a scammer. It will also include clear warnings to ensure users fully understand the risks involved, but ultimately, it puts the choice in their hands. We are gathering early feedback on the design of this feature now and will share more details in the coming months. ↫ Matthew Forsythe Director at the Android Developers Blog While this is great news, Im still concerned this is only temporary. Companies like Google have a tendency to announce some draconian measure to test the waters, walk it back in response to backlash, only to then reintroduce it through some sneaky backdoor a year later when nobodys looking. Installing whatever we want on the devices we own should be a protected right, not something graciously afforded to us by our corporate overlords. If you think this is the end of this story, youre a fool.

• Big news for small OpenBSD /usr partitions
  Ever ran into issues using sysupgrade on OpenBSD because /usr ran out of space? OpenBSD developers are trying to address this issue. Firstly, Stuart Henderson (sthen@) modified the installer to increase free space prior to installing. Theo de Raadt (deraadt@) modified sysupgrade(8) so that, if space is too tight, it will fail gracefully rather than risk leaving the administrator with a broken system. ↫ OpenBSD Journal These are very welcome additions.

• Valve brings x86 gaming to ARM Linux with FEX
  Valve announced a few new devices yesterday. Theres a new Steam console, which is essentially just a tiny PC with SteamOS installed  think of it as a Steam Deck without a display. Second, Valve finally released a new Steam Controller to go with the Steam console, which has taken them long enough. Lastly, theres a brand new Steam VR headset, the Steam Frame. Other websites with actual access to these new devices will do a better job of covering them than I ever could, but I do want to highlight something crucially important about the Steam Frame: it contains a Snapdragon ARM processor, but can still run Steam and all of its games. How does this work? Well, after developing Proton to allow Windows games to run on Linux, Valve introduced! FEX, which will allow you to run x86 Windows games on ARM Linux. I put the quotation marks there because FEX was an existing project Valve invested heavily into in recent times, and its now at the point where Valve seems confident enough it will be capable of running enough x86 games on ARM Linux. As such, the Steam Frame runs full SteamOS with KDE Plasma, you can run x86 Steam games, and as an additional bonus, you can install Android APKs as well. Ive yet to even try VR, because Im not particularly interested in buying into any locked-down platform. The Steam Frame may be the first VR device Ill buy  depending on price, of course  and the Steam console definitely looks like a great addition to the living room, too. My wife and I have little to no interesting in buying an Xbox or PS5, but having easy, no-hassle access to our massive Steam libraries on our TV will be awesome.

• VMS/XDE: an OpenVMS x86 development environment for Linux and Windows/WSL
  VMS/XDE is an OpenVMS x86 development environment for Linux and WIndows (via WSL). It provides a familiar user experience for OpenVMS developers working in Linux and Windows yet offers 100% binary and file system compatilibilty with OpenVMS. VMS/XDE includes OpenVMS V9.2-3 user, supervisor and executive mode operating system environments and a set of x86 native compilers and layered products geared towards OpenVMS software development and testing. ↫ VMS/XDE website VMS/XDE is a beta version, and comes with the usual annoying OpenVMS x86 time bombs, this time exploding on 3 January 2026. If you intend to use the finalised commercial version after the beta period ends, youll have to employ the same licenses as regular OpenVMS. Its a bit of a mess, but thats the OpenVMS way, sadly  and I dont blame them, either, as Im sure theyre hamstrung by a ton of agreements and restrictions imposed upon them by HP. Regardless, VMS/XDE brings a zero setup OpenVMS environment to the operating system youre already using, making it easier to develop and cross-compile for the platform. I still have absolutely no clue just how many people OpenVMS is still relevant for, but I absolutely adore the fact VMS Software Inc. is working on this. In a world where so many of its former competitors are being held hostage by corporate indifference, its refreshing to see VMS still moving forward.

• Plasma Mobile 6.5 keeps improving
  As part of the KDE Plasma 6.5 release, we also got a new release of Plasma Mobile. As theres a lot of changes, improvements, and new features in Plasma Mobile 6.5, the Plasma Mobile Team published a blog post to highlight them all. The biggest improvement is probably the further integration of Waydroid, a necessary evil to run Android applications until the Plasma Mobile ecosystem manages to become a bit more well-rounded. Waydroid can now be managed straight from the settings application and the quick settings dropdown. Furthermore, the lockscreen has been improved considerably, theres been a ton of polish for the home screen and the user interface in general, the quick settings panel can now be customised to make it fit better on different form factors, the first early test version of the new Plasma mobile keyboard is included, and so much more. This is definitely a release I would want to try out, but since I dont have any of the supported devices, Im a bit stuck. This is, of course, one of the two major problems facing proper mobile Linux: the lack of device support. Its improving due to the tireless work of countless volunteers, but theyre always going to be swimming upstream. The other major problem is, of course, application availability, but at least Waydroid can bridge the gap for the adventurous among us.

• Tribblix m38 released
  Tribblix, the Illumos distribution focused on giving you a classic UNIX-style experience, has released a new version. Milestone 38 isnt the most consequential release of all time, but it does bring a few small changes accompanied by the usual long list of updated open source packages. The zap install command now installs dependencies by default, while zap create-user will now restrict new home directories to mode 0700 by default. Meanwhile, int16h at Cryogenix published an article about using a Bhyve VM running FreeBSD to act as a Wi-Fi bridge for laptops with 802.11xx chips that Tribblix doesnt support. This is a great, albeit somewhat convoluted option if your hardware uses any Wi-Fi chips Tribblix doesnt support. Theres honestly a solution for everything, isnt there?

• Setting up a combined 68k/PA-RISC HP-UX 9 cluster
  Jonathan Pallant got lucky and managed to score a massive haul of 90s UNIX workstations, one of which was an HP 9000 Model 340, a HP-UX workstation built around a Motorola 68030 processor at 16.7 MHz. It doesnt come with a hard drive or even a floppy controller, though, so he decided to borrow a PA-RISC-based HP 9000 Model 705 to set up an HP-UX 9 cluster. But wait, how does that work, when were dealing with two entirely different architectures? Whats more fun though, is putting it into a cluster with the Model 705 and network booting it. Yes, that a 68030 machine network booting from a PA-RISC machine 0 and`sharing the same root filesystem. But arent PA-RISC binaries and 68K binaries quite different? Oh yes, they really are. So, how does that work? ↫ Jonathan Pallant HP-UX is far more interesting and fascinating than a lot of people give it credit for, and while my interest lies with HP-UX 11i, I find what Pallant is doing here with HP-UX 9 just as fascinating. You first need to install HP-UX 9 for PA-RISC on the 700 series machine, convert it to a cluster server, and then install HP-UX 9 for 68k on top of that PA-RISC installation. After this is done, you effectively end up with a single root file system that contains both PA-RISC and 68k binaries, and you can network boot the 68k-based Model 340 right from it  using the same root filesystem on both machines. Absolutely wild. No, these are not universal binaries or some other trick you might know of from more modern system. In fact, installing the 68k version of HP-UX 9 into! the PA-RISC HP-UX 9 cluster server, you end up with something called a Context Dependent Filesystem. To get a better idea of what this means and how this works, you should really head on over to Pallants excellent article for all the details.

• Ironclad 0.7.0 and 0.8.0 released, adds RISC-V support
  Weve talked about Ironclad a few times, but theres been two new releases since the 0.6.0 release we covered last, so lets see what the projects been up to. As a refresher, Ironclad is a formally verified, hard real-time capable kernel written in SPARK and Ada. Versions 0.7.0 and 0.8.0 improved support for block device caching, added a basic NVMe driver, added support for x86’s SMAP, switched from KVM to NVMM for Ironclad’s virtualization interface, and much, much more. In the meantime, Ironclad also added support for RISC-V, making it usable on any 64 bit RISC-V target that supports a Limine-protocol compatible bootloader. The easiest way to try out Ironclad is to download Gloire, a distribution that uses Ironclad and the GNU tools. It can be installed in both a virtual machine and on real hardware.

• Mac OS 7.6 and 8 for CHRP releases discovered
  For those of us unaware  unlikely on OSNews, but still  for a hot minute in the second half of the 90s, Apple licensed its Mac OS to OEMs, resulting in officially sanctioned Mac clones from a variety of companies. While intended to grow the Macs market share, what ended up happening instead is that the clone makers outcompeted Apple on performance, price, and features, with clones offering several features and capabilities before Apple did  for far lower prices. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he killed the clone program almost instantly. The rather abrupt end of the clone program means theres a number of variants of the Mac OS that never made their way into the market, most notable variants intended for the Common Reference Hardware Platform, or CHRP, a standard defined by IBM and Apple for PowerPC-based PCs. Thanks to the popular classic Mac YouTuber Mac84, we now have a few of these releases out in the wild. These CDs contain release candidates for Mac OS 7.6 and Mac OS 8 for CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) systems. They were created to support CHRP computers, but were never released, likely due to Steve Jobs returning to Apple in September 1997 and eliminating the Mac Clone program and any CHRP efforts. ↫ Mac OS 7.6/8 CHRP releases page Mac84 has an accompanying video diving into more detail about these individual releases by booting and running them in an emulator, so we can get a better idea of what they contain. While most clone makers only got access to Mac OS 7.x, some of them did, in fact, gain access to Mac OS 8, namely UMAX and Power Computing (the latter of which was acquired by Apple). Its not the clone nature of these releases that make them special, but the fact theyre CHRP releases is. This reference platform was a failure in the market, and only a few of IBMs own machines and some of Motorolas PowerStack machines properly supported it. Apple, meanwhile, only aid minor lip service to CHRP in its New World Power Macintosch machines.

• FreeBSD now builds reproducibly and without root privilege
  The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that it has completed work to build FreeBSD without requiring root privilege. We have implemented support for all source release builds to use no-root infrastructure, eliminating the need for root privileges across the FreeBSD release pipeline. This work was completed as part of the`program commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Agency. ↫ FreeBSD Foundation blog This is great news in and of itself, but theres more: FreeBSD has also improved build reproducability. This means that given the same source input, you should end up with the same binary output, which is an important part of building a verifiable chain of trust. These two improvements combined further add to making FreeBSD a trustworthy, secure option  something it already is anyway. In case you havent noticed, the FreeBSD project and its countless contributors are making a ton of tangible progress lately on a wide variety of topics, from improving desktop use, to solidifying Wi-Fi support, to improving the chain of trust. I think the time is quite right for FreeBSD to make some inroads in the desktop UNIX-y space, especially for people to whom desktop Linux has strayed too far from the traditional UNIX philosphy (whatever that means).

• LXQt 2.3.0 released
  LXQt, the other Qt desktop environment, released version 2.3.0. This new version comes roughly six months after 2.2.0, and continues the projects adoption of Wayland. The enhancement of Wayland support has been continued, especially in LXQt Panel, whose Desktop Switcher is now enabled for Labwc, Niri, …. It is also equipped with a backend specifically for Wayfire. In addition, the Custom Command plugin is made more flexible, regardless of Wayland and X11. ↫ LXQt 2.3.0 release announcement The screenshot utility has been improved as well, and lxqt-qdbus has been added to lxqt-wayland-session to make qdbus commands easier to use with all kinds of Wayland compositors.

• WINE gaming in FreeBSD Jails with Bastille
  FreeBSD offers a whole bunch of technologies and tools to make gaming on the platform a lot more capable than youd think, and this article by Pertho dives into the details. Running all your games inside a FreeBSD Jail with Wine installed into it is pretty neat. Initially, I thought this was going to be a pretty difficult and require a lot of trial and error but I was surprised at how easy it was to get this all working. I was really happy to get some of my favorite games working in a FreeBSD Jail, and having ZFS snapshots around was a great way to test things in case I needed to backtrack. ↫ Pertho at their blog No, this isnt as easy as gaming on Linux has become, and it certainly requires a ton more work and knowledge than just installing a major Linux distribution and Steam, but for those of us who prefer a more traditional UNIX-like experience, this is a great option.

• Tape containing UNIX v4 found
  A unique and very important find at the University of Utah: while cleaning out some storage rooms, the staff at the university discovered a tape containing a copy of UNIX v4 from Bell Labs. At this time, no complete copies are known to exist, and as such, this could be a crucial find for the archaeology of early UNIX. The tape in question will be sent to the Computer History Museum for further handling, where bitsavers.org will conduct the recovery process. I have the equipment. It is a 3M tape so it will probably be fine. It will be digitized on my analog recovery set up and Ill use Len Shusteks readtape program to recover the data. The only issue right now is my workflow isnt a while you wait! thing, so I need to pull all the pieces into one physical location and test everything before I tell Penny its OK to come out. ↫ bitsavers.org Its amazing how we still manage to find such treasures in nooks and crannies all over the world, and with everything looking good so far, it seems well soon be able to fill in more of UNIX early history.

• There is no such thing as a 3.5 inch floppy disk
  Wait, what? The term`3.5 inch floppy disc`is in fact a misnomer. Whilst the specification for 5.25 inch floppy discs employs Imperial units, the later specification for the smaller floppy discs employs metric units. The standards for these discs are all of which specify the measurements in metric, and only metric. These standards explicitly give the dimensions as 90.0mm by 94.0mm. Its in clause 6 of all three. ↫ Jonathan de Boyne Pollard Even the applicable standard in the US, ANSI X3.171-1989, specifies the size in metric. We couldve been referring to these things using proper measurements instead of archaic ones based on the size of a monks left testicle at dawn at room temperature in 1375 or whatever nonsense imperial or customary used to be based on. I feel dirty for thinking I had to use inches! for this. If we ever need to talk about these disks on OSNews from here on out, Ill be using proper units of measurement.

• Servo ported to Redox
  Redox keeps improving every month, and this past one is certainly a banger. The big news this past month is that Servo, the browser engine written in Rust, has been ported to Redox. Its extremely spartan at the moment, and crashes when a second website is loaded, but its a promising start. It also just makes sense to have the premier Rust browser engine running on the premier Rust operating system. Htop and bottom have been ported to Redox for much improved system monitoring, and theyre joined by a port of GoAccess. The version of Rust has been updated which fixed some issues, and keyboard layout configuration has been greatly improved. Instead of a few hardcoded layouts, they can now be configured dynamically for users of PS/2 keyboards, with USB keyboards receiving this functionality soon as well. Theres more, of course, as well as the usual slew of low-level changes and improvements to drivers, the kernel relibc, and more.

• MacOS 26’s new icons are a step backwards
  On the new MacOS 26 (Tahoe), Apple has mandated that all application icons fit into their prescribed squircle. No longer can icons have distinct shapes, nor even any fun frame-breaking accessories. Should an icon be so foolish as to try to have a bit of personality, it will find itself stuffed into a dingy gray icon jail. ↫ Paul Kafasis The downgraded icons listed in this article are just0 Sad. While theres no accounting for tastes, Apples new glassy icons are just plain bad, void of any whimsy, and lacking in artistry. Considering where Apple came from back when it made beautifully crafted icons that set the bar for the entire industry. Almost seems like a metaphor for tech in general.

• Another Linux Malware Discovered
  Russian hackers use Hyper-V to hide malware within Linux virtual machines.
  

• TUXEDO Computers Announces a New InfinityBook
  TUXEDO Computers is at it again with a new InfinityBook that will meet your professional and gaming needs.
  

• SUSE Dives into the Agentic AI Pool
  SUSE becomes the first open source company to adopt agentic AI with SUSE Enterprise Linux 16.
  

• Linux Now Runs Most Windows Games
  The latest data shows that nearly 90 percent of Windows games can be played on Linux.
  

• Fedora 43 Has Finally Landed
  The Fedora Linux developers have announced their latest release, Fedora 43.
  

• KDE Unleashes Plasma 6.5
  The Plasma 6.5 desktop environment is now available with new features, improvements, and the usual bug fixes.
  

• Xubuntu Site Possibly Hacked
  It appears that the Xubuntu site was hacked and briefly served up a malicious ZIP file from its download page.
  

• LMDE 7 Now Available
  Linux Mint Debian Edition, version 7, has been officially released and is based on upstream Debian.
  

• Linux Kernel 6.16 Reaches EOL
  Linux kernel 6.16 has reached its end of life, which means you'll need to upgrade to the next stable release, Linux kernel 6.17.
  

• Amazon Ditches Android for a Linux-Based OS
  Amazon has migrated from Android to the Linux-based Vega OS for its Fire TV.
  

• Cairo Dock 3.6 Now Available for More Compositors
  If you're a fan of third-party desktop docks, then the latest release of Cairo Dock with Wayland support is for you.
  

• System76 Unleashes Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta
  System76's first beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 is an impressive feat.
  

• Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
  Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
  

• Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
  If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
  

• Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
  The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
  

• Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
  Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
  

• USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
  Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
  

• Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
  The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
  

• KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
  It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
  

• AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
  This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.