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LinuxSecurity - Security Advisories







LWN.net

  • Stenberg: Mythos finds a curl vulnerability
    Daniel Stenberg has published a lengthyarticle on his thoughts on Anthropic's Mythos, which the companydecided was too dangerous for wide public release.

    My personal conclusion can however not end up with anything elsethan that the big hype around this model so far was primarilymarketing. I see no evidence that this setup finds issues to anyparticular higher or more advanced degree than the other tools havedone before Mythos. Maybe this model is a little bit better, but evenif it is, it is not better to a degree that seems to make asignificant dent in code analyzing.

    This is just one source code repository and maybe it is much betteron other things. I can only tell and comment on what it foundhere.

    But allow me to highlight and reiterate what I have said before: AIpowered code analyzers are significantly better at finding securityflaws and mistakes in source code than any traditional code analyzersdid in the past. All modern AI models are good at this now. Anyonewith time and some experimental spirits can find security problemsnow. The highquality chaos is real.



  • Two stable kernels with Dirty Frag fixes
    Greg Kroah-Hartman has released the 7.0.6 and 6.18.29 stable kernels with HyunwooKim's patchfor the second vulnerability (CVE-2026-43500)reported with Dirty Fragand Copy Fail 2. Allusers are advised to upgrade.



  • [$] Providing 64KB base pages with 4KB kernels, two different ways
    Some CPU architectures are able to run with a number of different base-pagesizes; using a larger size can often result in better performance at thecost of increased memory use. Other architectures are more limited. Atthe 2026 LinuxStorage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, two sessions inthe memory-management track explored options for letting processes run with64KB page sizes when the underlying kernel does not. The first was focusedon letting each process have its own page size, while the second concernedbringing 64KB pages to x86 systems.


  • Debian to require reproducible builds
    Paul Gevers has slipped an interesting bit of news into a "bits from the releaseteam" message:
    Aided by the efforts of the Reproducible Builds project, we've decided it's time to say that Debian must ship reproducible packages. Since yesterday, we have enabled our migration software to block migration of new packages that can't be reproduced or existing packages (in testing) that regress in reproducibility.
    As Gioele Barabucci pointedout, "reproducible" in this sense is limited to building within aninstance of Debian's build environment, which is a tighter requirement thanis normally used. It is still a big step forward for reproducible builds.


  • Security updates for Monday
    Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (corosync, freeipmi, kernel, and kernel-rt), Debian (corosync, firefox-esr, kernel, lcms2, libpng1.6, linux-6.1, php8.2, php8.4, postorius, pyjwt, and tor), Fedora (dotnet10.0, exim, gnutls, kernel, nextcloud, nodejs22, php, proftpd, prosody, python-pulp-glue, python-requests, rclone, and SDL3_image), Mageia (firefox, nss, rootcerts, openvpn, thunderbird, and vim), Oracle (corosync, freeipmi, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, gstreamer1-plugins-base, and gstreamer1-plugins-good, kernel, libpng, and mingw-libtiff), Slackware (kernel and mozilla), SUSE (build, product-composer, c-ares, cairo, copacetic, distribution, firefox, firefox-esr, frr, glibc, go1.25, google-cloud-sap-agent, iproute2, java-11-openj9, java-17-openj9, java-17-openjdk, java-1_8_0-openj9, java-21-openj9, java-21-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, kernel, libexif-devel, libpcp-devel, libtpms, libtree-sitter0_26, Mesa, micropython, mozjs128, nginx, opencc, openCryptoki, php-composer2, podman, postfix, python-pytest, python311-Django, python311-Django4, redis, semaphore, strongswan, terraform-provider-aws, terraform-provider-azurerm, terraform-provider-external, terraform-provider-google, terraform-provider-helm, terraform-provider-kubernetes, terraform-provid, tor, valkey, vim, and wireshark), and Ubuntu (linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, and nasm).


  • Kernel prepatch 7.1-rc3
    Linus has released 7.1-rc3 for testing."I think this answers the 'is 7.1 continuing the larger size patternthat we saw with 7.0?' question, and the answer is yes: that wasn't a flukebrought on by a .0 release - it simply seems to be the new normal."


  • More stable kernels with partial Dirty Frag fixes
    Greg Kroah-Hartman has released the 6.1.171, 5.15.205, and 5.10.255 stable kernels, quicklyfollowed by 6.1.172 and 5.15.206 kernels. This is another roundof stable kernels to provide fixes for one of the CVEs (CVE-2026-43284)assigned following the DirtyFrag and Copy Fail 2security disclosures. There is not, yet, a stable kernel with a fixfor CVE-2026-43500,though apatch to fix the second half is in the works.



  • [$] Forgejo "carrot disclosure" raises security questions
    An unusual, some might say hostile, approach to disclosing an allegedremote-code-execution (RCE) flaw in the Forgejo software-collaboration platform hassparked a multifaceted conversation. A so-called"carrot disclosure" in April has raised questions about theresearcher's methods of unveiling a security problem, Forgejo'ssecurity policies, and the project's overall security posture.


  • killswitch for short-term emergency vulnerability mitigation
    It seems that we are in for an extended period of the disclosure ofvulnerabilities before fixes become available. One possible way of copingwith this flood might be the killswitchproposal from Sasha Levin. In short, killswitch can immediately disableaccess to specific functionality in a running kernel, essentially blastinga vulnerable path (and its associated functionality) out of existence untila fix can be installed. "For most users, the cost of 'this socketfamily stops working for the day' is much smaller than the cost of runninga known vulnerable kernel until the fix land."


  • [$] A 2026 DAMON update
    The kernel's DAMON subsystemprovides user-space monitoring and management of system memory. DAMON isdeveloping rapidly, so an update on its progress has become a regularfeature of the annual Linux Storage,Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. This traditioncontinued at the 2026 gathering with an update from DAMON creator SeongJaePark covering a long list of new capabilities — tiering, data attributesmonitoring, transparent huge pages, and more — being added to this subsystem.



LXer Linux News



  • Redesigned Thelio Major Elevates System76's All-AMD, Open-Source Linux Workstation
    A few weeks back we reviewed the redesigned System76 Thelio Mira with a brand new chassis design and powered by the AMD Ryzen 9000 series. This was an interesting Linux-powered desktop manufactured in Colorado while for those needing a bit more performance, since then the redesigned Thelio Major launched. The new System76 Thelio Major provides an updated Thelio case design like Mira while comes packed with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9000 series and AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 graphics for delivering a very powerful, all-AMD and open-source high-end Linux workstation.



  • HDMI 2.1 Display Stream Compression "DSC" Also Ready For AMDGPU Linux Driver
    At the beginning of the month was the surprise milestone of AMD posting AMDGPU kernel driver patches for HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link (FRL) support. The HDMI FRL patches have since been updated to also enable HDMI 2.1's Display Stream Compression (DSC) functionality for higher resolutions and higher refresh rates with the open-source AMDGPU driver...







Linux Insider"LinuxInsider"












Slashdot

  • Arts and Cultural Engagement 'Linked To Slower Pace of Biological Aging'
    An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Singing, painting or visiting a gallery or museum helps people age more slowly, according to the latest study to link taking an active interest in art and culture with improved health. The findings are the first to show that both participating in arts activities and attending events, such as viewing an exhibition, lead to people staying biologically younger. "These results demonstrate the health impact of the arts at a biological level. They provide evidence for arts and cultural engagement to be recognized as a health-promoting behavior in a similar way to exercise," said Prof Daisy Fancourt, the lead author of the research and the head of the social biobehavioral research group at University College London. However, slower aging does not necessarily mean someone will live longer. The "epigenetic clocks" used in the study to assess biological ageing are predictive of future morbidity and mortality, and previous studies have suggested a link between arts engagement and longer lifespan, but much more research would be needed to establish potential causal effects on longevity. Those who take part in artistic pursuits the most often slow the pace of their biological aging the most. Under one of the study's methods of assessment, those who did so at least weekly slowed their aging process by 4%, while monthly engagement led to it slowing by 3%. Similarly, another of the tests showed that those who undertook an arts activity at least once a week were on average a year younger biologically than those who rarely engaged in such pursuits. Those who exercised once a week were only six months younger by that measure. The benefit the arts confer on the pace at which people age is so dramatic that it is comparable to the difference between smokers and those who have given up smoking, the researchers say. The results, published in the journal Innovation in Aging, are based on blood test and survey response data from 3,556 adults taking part in the UK Household Longitudinal Study. It uses blood samples to estimate people's biological age and the pace at which they are ageing.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Testifies In OpenAI Trial
    The Musk v. Altman trial entered its third week Monday, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former OpenAI co-founder and renowned AI researcher Ilya Sutskever taking the stand. Nadella testified that Elon Musk never raised concerns to him that Microsoft's investments in OpenAI violated any special commitments, and said he viewed the partnership as clearly commercial from the start. He also described OpenAI's 2023 board crisis as "amateur city." Meanwhile, Sutskever testified that he had raised concerns about Sam Altman because he feared OpenAI could be "destroyed." He expressed concerns about Altman's behavior to the board, in part because he said he felt "a great deal of ownership" over the startup. "I simply cared for it, and I didn't want it to be destroyed," Sutskever said. CNBC reports: Nadella said he was "very proud" that Microsoft took the risk to invest in OpenAI when "no one else was willing" to bet on the fledgling lab. Musk, who testified late last month, said Microsoft's $10 billion investment was the key tipping point that made him believe OpenAI was violating its nonprofit mission. He testified that the scale of the investment bothered him, and it prompted him to open a legal investigation into OpenAI. "I was concerned they were really trying to steal the charity," Musk said from the stand. Nadella said he did not believe Microsoft's investments in OpenAI were donations, and that there was a clear commercial element to their partnership from the outset. He said during the partnership's early years, Microsoft gave OpenAI sharp discounts on computing resources, and Microsoft believed it would reap marketing benefits from doing so. During a separate video deposition that was played on Monday morning, Michael Wetter, a corporate development executive at Microsoft, said the company has recognized approximately $9.5 billion in revenue to date through its partnership with OpenAI as of March 2025. [...] Nadella said he was "pretty surprised" by the board's decision [to fire Altman in November 2023], and that his priority was to try and figure out how to maintain continuity for Microsoft customers. Immediately after Altman was removed, Nadella said he made an effort to learn more about what happened, adding that he suspected jealousy and poor communication was at play. During conversations with OpenAI board members after the firing, Nadella said he was simply trying to understand the language in the OpenAI's statement about Altman being "not consistently candid" while communicating with the board. That language, Nadella said, "just didn't sort of suffice, because this is the CEO of a company that we are invested in and we're deeply partnered with, and so I felt that they could have explained to me what are the incidents or what is the detail behind it." There must have been instances of jealousy or miscommunication that could have justified pushing out Altman, Nadella said. He wanted more depth from the board members after the remark about candor, but no such information was available, he said. "It was sort of amateur city, as far as I'm concerned," Nadella testified. [...] Musk testified that he is not entirely against OpenAI having a for-profit unit, but he said it became "the tail wagging the dog." He repeatedly accused Altman and Brockman of enriching themselves from a charity while also reaping the positive associations that come from running a nonprofit. "Microsoft has their own motivations, and that would be different from the motivations of the charity," Musk said from the stand. "All due respect to Microsoft, do you really want Microsoft controlling digital superintelligence?" During a videotaped deposition shown in court last week, former OpenAI director Tasha McCauley recalled a discussion with Nadella and her fellow board members after the 2023 decision to dismiss Altman as OpenAI's CEO. "To the best of my recollection, Satya wanted to restore things to as they had been," McCauley said. The board members didn't think that was the right move, she said. But as a court witness on Monday, Nadella said he never demanded that the board reinstate Altman as OpenAI CEO. Recap:Sam Altman Had a Bad Day In Court (Day Eight)Sam Altman's Management Style Comes Under the Microscope At OpenAI Trial (Day Seven)Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (Day Six) OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five)Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four)Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three) Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two) Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • A Data Center Drained 30 Million Gallons of Water Unnoticed
    A Georgia data center developed by QTS used nearly 30 million gallons of water through two unaccounted-for connections before residents complained about low water pressure and the county utility discovered the issue. "All told, the developer, Quality Technology Services, owed nearly $150,000 for using more than 29 million gallons of unaccounted-for water," reports Politico. "That is equivalent to 44 Olympic-size swimming pools and far exceeds the peak limit agreed to during the data center planning process." From the report: The details were revealed in a May 15, 2025 letter from the Fayette County water system to Quality Technology Services, which outlined the retroactive charge of $147,474. The letter did not specify how many months the unpaid bill covered, but when asked about it Wednesday, Vanessa Tigert, the Fayette County water system director, said it was likely about four months. A QTS spokesperson said the timeframe was 9-15 months. Once the data center was notified, it paid all retroactive charges, a QTS spokesperson said in an email, noting the unmetered water consumption occurred while the county converted its system to smart meters. The Fayette County water system confirmed the data center's meters are now fully integrated and tracked. Tigert, the water system director, blamed the issue on a procedural mix-up. "Fayette County is a suburb, it's mostly residential, and we don't have much commercial meters in our system anyway," she said. "And so we didn't realize our connection point wasn't working." The incident became public last week when a county resident obtained the 2025 letter to QTS through a public records request and posted it on Facebook, prompting outrage from residents concerned about the data center's water consumption. [...] Tigert, who sent the 2025 letter to QTS, said the utility didn't know about the water hookups because the connection process "got mixed up" as the county transitioned to a cloud-based system while also trying to accommodate an industrial customer. Tigert also said her staff is small and at capacity. "Just like any water system, we don't have enough staff. We can't keep staff," she said. "I've got one person that's doing inspections and plan review, and so he's spread pretty thin." She said it's possible her staff did know about hookups but that she hadn't been able to locate the inspection report. "I may have hit 'send' too soon," she said about the 2025 letter to QTS. While the utility charged the data center a higher construction rate for the unapproved water consumption, Tigert confirmed the utility did not penalize or fine the data center. For what it's worth, the Blackstone-owned company says its data centers use a closed-loop cooling system that does not consume water for cooling. The reason for last year's high water use, according to QTS, was the temporary construction work such as concrete, dust control, and site preparation. Once the campus is fully operational, it should only use a small amount of water for things like bathrooms and kitchens. But that point could still be years away, as construction and expansion in Fayetteville may continue for another three to five years.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Digg Tries Again, This Time As an AI News Aggregator
    Digg is relaunching again, this time as an AI-focused news aggregator rather than the Reddit-style community site it recently abandoned. TechCrunch reports: On Friday evening, the founder previewed a link to the newly redesigned Digg, which now looks nothing like a Reddit clone and more like the news aggregator it once was. This time around, the site is focused on ranking news -- specifically, AI news to start. In an email to beta testers, the company said the site's goal is to "track the most influential voices in a space" and to surface the news that's actually worth "paying attention to." AI is the area it's testing this idea with, but if successful, Digg will expand to include other topics. The email warned that the site was still raw and "buggy," and was designed more to give users a first look than to serve as its public debut. On the current homepage, Digg showcases four main stories at the top: the most viewed story, a story seeing rising discussion, the fastest-climbing story, and one "In case you missed it" headline. Below that is a ranked list of top stories for the day, complete with engagement metrics like views, comments, likes, and saves. But the twist is that these metrics aren't the ones generated on Digg itself. Instead, Digg is ingesting content from X in real-time to determine what's being discussed, while also performing sentiment analysis, clustering, and signal detection to determine what matters most. [...] The site also ranks the top 1,000 people involved in AI, as well as the top companies and the top politicians focused on AI issues.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • CUDA Proves Nvidia Is a Software Company
    Nvidia's real AI moat isn't "a piece of hardware," writes Wired's Sheon Han. It's CUDA: a mature, deeply optimized software ecosystem that keeps machine-learning workloads tied to Nvidia GPUs. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: What sounds like a chemical compound banned by the FDA may be the one true moat in AI. CUDA technically stands for Compute Unified Device Architecture, but much like laser or scuba, no one bothers to expand the acronym; we just say "KOO-duh." So what is this all-important treasure good for? If forced to give a one-word answer: parallelization. Here's a simple example. Let's say we task a machine with filling out a 9x9 multiplication table. Using a computer with a single core, all 81 operations are executed dutifully one by one. But a GPU with nine cores can assign tasks so that each core takes a different column -- one from 1x1 to 1x9, another from 2x1 to 2x9, and so on -- for a ninefold speed gain. Modern GPUs can be even cleverer. For example, if programmed to recognize commutativity -- 7x9 = 9x7 -- they can avoid duplicate work, reducing 81 operations to 45, nearly halving the workload. When a single training run costs a hundred million dollars, every optimization counts. Nvidia's GPUs were originally built to render graphics for video games. In the early 2000s, a Stanford PhD student named Ian Buck, who first got into GPUs as a gamer, realized their architecture could be repurposed for general high-performance computing. He created a programming language called Brook, was hired by Nvidia, and, with John Nickolls, led the development of CUDA. If AI ushers in the age of a permanent white-collar underclass and autonomous weapons, just know that it would all be because someone somewhere playing Doom thought a demon's scrotum should jiggle at 60 frames per second. CUDA is not a programming language in itself but a "platform." I use that weasel word because, not unlike how The New York Times is a newspaper that's also a gaming company, CUDA has, over the years, become a nested bundle of software libraries for AI. Each function shaves nanoseconds off single mathematical operations -- added up, they make GPUs, in industry parlance, go brrr. A modern graphics card is not just a circuit board crammed with chips and memory and fans. It's an elaborate confection of cache hierarchies and specialized units called "tensor cores" and "streaming multiprocessors." In that sense, what chip companies sell is like a professional kitchen, and more cores are akin to more grilling stations. But even a kitchen with 30 grilling stations won't run any faster without a capable head chef deftly assigning tasks -- as CUDA does for GPU cores. To extend the metaphor, hand-tuned CUDA libraries optimized for one matrix operation are the equivalent of kitchen tools designed for a single job and nothing more -- a cherry pitter, a shrimp deveiner -- which are indulgences for home cooks but not if you have 10,000 shrimp guts to yank out. Which brings us back to DeepSeek. Its engineers went below this already deep layer of abstraction to work directly in PTX, a kind of assembly language for Nvidia GPUs. Let's say the task is peeling garlic. An unoptimized GPU would go: "Peel the skin with your fingernails." CUDA can instruct: "Smash the clove with the flat of a knife." PTX lets you dictate every sub-instruction: "Lift the blade 2.35 inches above the cutting board, make it parallel to the clove's equator, and strike downward with your palm at a force of 36.2 newtons." "You can begin to see why CUDA is so valuable to Nvidia -- and so hard for anyone else to touch," writes Han. "Tuning GPU performance is a gnarly problem. You can't just conscript some tender-footed undergrad on Market Street, hand them a Claude Max plan, and expect them to hack GPU kernels. Writing at this level is a grindsome enterprise -- unless you're a cracker-jack programmer at DeepSeek..." Han goes on to argue that rivals like AMD and Intel offer competitive specs on paper, but their software stacks have struggled with bugs, compatibility issues, and weak adoption. As a result, Nvidia has built an Apple-like moat around AI computing, leaving the industry dependent on its expensive hardware.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Anthropic's Bug-Hunting Mythos Was Greatest Marketing Stunt Ever, Says cURL Creator
    cURL creator Daniel Stenberg says Anthropic's hyped Mythos bug-hunting model found only one confirmed low-severity vulnerability in cURL, plus a few non-security bugs, after he expected a much longer list. He argues Mythos may be useful, but not meaningfully beyond other modern AI code-analysis tools. "My personal conclusion can however not end up with anything else than that the big hype around this model so far was primarily marketing," Stenberg said a blog post. "I see no evidence that this setup finds issues to any particular higher or more advanced degree than the other tools have done before Mythos." He went on to call Mythos "an amazingly successful marketing stunt for sure." The Register reports: Stenberg explained in a Monday blog post that he was promised access to Anthropic's Mythos model - sort of - through the AI biz's Project Glasswing program. Part of Glasswing involves giving high-profile open source projects access via the Linux Foundation, but while Stenberg signed up to try Mythos, he said he never actually received direct access to the model. Instead, someone else with access ran Mythos against curl's codebase and later sent him a report. "It's not that I would have a lot of time to explore lots of different prompts and doing deep dive adventures anyway," Stenberg explained. "Getting the tool to generate a first proper scan and analysis would be great, whoever did it." That scan, which analyzed curl's git repository at a recent master-branch commit, was sent back to him earlier this month, and it found just five things that it claimed were "confirmed security vulnerabilities" in cURL. Saying he had expected an extensive list of vulnerabilities, Stenberg wrote that the report "felt like nothing," and that feeling was further validated by a review of Mythos' findings. "Once my curl security team fellows and I had poked on this short list for a number of hours and dug into the details, we had trimmed the list down and were left with one confirmed vulnerability," Stenberg said, bringing us back to the aforementioned number. As for the other four, three turned out to be false positives that pointed out cURL shortcomings already noted in API documentation, while the team deemed the fourth to be just a simple bug. "The single confirmed vulnerability is going to end up a severity low CVE planned to get published in sync with our pending next curl release 8.21.0 in late June," the cURL meister noted. "The flaw is not going to make anyone grasp for breath."


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • GM Cutting Hundreds of Salaried IT Workers As It Trims Costs, Evaluates Needs
    GM is laying off about 500 to 600 salaried IT workers, mainly in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan, as it restructures its technology organization and trims costs. "GM is transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future. As part of that work, we have made the difficult decision to eliminate certain roles globally. We are grateful for the contributions of the employees affected and are committed to supporting them through this transition," the automaker said in an emailed statement. CNBC reports: GM reported employing about 68,000 salaried workers globally as of the end of last year, including 47,000 white-collar employees in the U.S. Despite Monday's cuts, GM still is still hiring IT workers. The company has 82 open IT positions that include positions working in artificial intelligence, motorsports and autonomous vehicles, according to the automaker's careers website.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • iPhone-Android RCS Conversations Are End-To-End Encrypted In iOS 26.5
    Apple says end-to-end encryption for RCS messages between iPhone and Android is now available in iOS 26.5, though the feature is still considered beta and depends on carrier support on both sides. MacRumors reports: Apple says that it worked with Google to lead a cross-industry effort to add E2EE to RCS. iOS users will need iOS 26.5, while Android users will need the latest version of Google Messages. End-to-end encryption is on by default, and there is a toggle for it in the Messages section of the Settings app. Encrypted messages are denoted with a small lock symbol. On iPhones not running iOS 26.5, RCS messages between iPhone and Android users do not have E2EE, but the new update will put Android to iPhone conversations on par with iPhone to iPhone conversations that are encrypted through iMessage. Along with Google, Apple worked with the GSM Association to implement E2EE for RCS messages. E2EE is part of the RCS Universal Profile 3.0, published with Apple's help and built on the Messaging Layer Security protocol. RCS Universal Profile 3.0 also includes editing and deleting messages, cross-platform Tapback support, and replying to specific messages inline during cross-platform conversations.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Students Boo Commencement Speaker After She Calls AI the 'Next Industrial Revolution'
    An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Speaking to graduates of University of Central Florida's College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media on May 8, commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield, vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group, told graduating humanities students that AI is the "next industrial revolution," and was met with thousands of booing graduates. "And let's face it, change can be daunting. The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution," Caulfield said. At that point, murmurs rippled through the crowd. Caulfield paused, and the crowd erupted into boos. "Oh, what happened?" Caulfield said, turning around with her hands out. "Okay, I struck a chord. May I finish?" Someone in the crowd yelled, "AI SUCKS!" Her speech begins around the hour and 15 minute mark in the UCF livestream. [...] Before the industrial revolution comment, Caulfield praised Jeff Bezos for his passion and use of Amazon as a "stepping stone" to his real dream: spaceflight. Rattled after the crowd's reaction, she continued her speech: "Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives." The crowd cheered. "Okay. We've got a bipolar topic here I see," Caulfield said. "And now AI capabilities are in the palm of our hands." The crowd booed again. "I love it, passion, let's go," she said. "AI is beginning to challenge all major sectors to find their highest and best use," she continued. "Okay, I don't want any giggles when I say this. We have been through this before, these industrial revolutions. In my graduation era, we were faced with the launch of the internet." She goes on to talk about how cellphones used to be the size of briefcases. "At that time we had no idea how any of these technologies would impact the world and our lives. [...] These were some of the same trepidations and concerns we are now facing. But ultimately it was a game changer for global economic development and the proliferation of new businesses that never existed like Apple and Google and Meta and so many others, and not to mention countless job opportunities. So being an optimist here, AI alongside human intelligence has the potential to help us solve some of humanity's greatest problems. Many of you in this graduating class will play a role in making this happen."


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Google Says Hackers Used AI To Create Zero Day Security Flaw For the First Time
    Google says it has seen the first evidence of cybercriminals using AI to create a zero-day vulnerability. "Google reported its findings to the unnamed firm affected by the vulnerability before releasing its report," reports Politico. "The company then issued a patch to fix the issue." From the report: Google Threat Intelligence Group researchers detailed the development in a report released Monday. Zero-day exploits are considered the most serious type of security flaw because they are not detected by security companies and have no known fixes. The report noted that this was the first time Google had seen evidence of AI being used to develop these vulnerabilities -- marking a major change in the cybersecurity landscape, as it suggests newer AI models could be used to create major exploits, not just find them. Google concluded that Anthropic's Claude Mythos model -- which has already found thousands of vulnerabilities across every major operating system and web browser -- was most likely not used to create the zero-day exploit. [...] The Google Threat Intelligence Group report also details efforts by Russia-linked hacking groups to use AI models to target Ukrainian networks with malware, while North Korean government hacking group APT45 used AI technologies to refine and scale up its cyber methods. John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, said the findings made clear that the race to use AI to find network vulnerabilities has "already begun." "For every zero-day we can trace back to AI, there are probably many more out there," Hultquist said. "Threat actors are using AI to boost the speed, scale, and sophistication of their attacks."


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


www.theregister.com - Articles












Linux.com



  • From DHCP to SZTP – The Trust Revolution
    By Juha Holkkola, FusionLayer Group The Dawn of Effortless Connectivity In the transformative years of the late 1990s, a quiet revolution took place, fundamentally altering how we connect to networks. The introduction of DHCP answered a crucial question, Where are you on the network?!, by automating IP address assignment. This innovation eradicated the manual configuration [0]

    The post From DHCP to SZTP – The Trust Revolution appeared first on Linux.com.









Phoronix

  • Linux Scheduler Work Helping Boost Gaming Performance On Old "Potato" Hardware
    Prominent Linux kernel engineer Peter Zijlstra of Intel has been working on a set of scheduler patches to help with enhancing the behavior and delivering better results, especially for aging hardware he described as a "potato" -- an Intel Sandy Bridge desktop CPU with AMD Radeon RX 580 Polaris graphics. Benchmark results are promising from this work for gaming on old hardware while other workloads may ultimately stand to benefit too...



  • Intel Looking To Move Their Low-Power Mode Daemon Into The Linux Kernel Source Tree
    For years Intel has been developing the Low Power Mode Daemon "LPMD" to help their hybrid laptop and desktop CPUs deliver optimal power efficiency under Linux. Intel LPMD leverages hardware hints and other features for optimizing active idle power of the processor and putting the system into lower power modes where possible. This tool could soon call the Linux kernel source tree its new home...


  • BeOS-Inspired Haiku Finally Sees Initial ARM64 SMP Support
    The open-source Haiku operating system inspired by BeOS is now seeing multi-core symmetric multi-processing (SMP) support on ARM64 that works at least in a virtualized world. Plus an assortment of other improvements made to this open-source OS over the course of April...


  • Open-Source Radeon Driver For R300 Through R500 GPUs Sees Big Code Cleanup In 2026
    The open-source Radeon "R300g" driver living within the Mesa codebase for supporting the aging ATI (AMD) Radeon 9500 "R300" through Radeon X1000 "R500" series graphics processors is going through a big code restructuring as part of a big undertaking in 2026... Yes, 24 years after the ATI R300 GPUs first released, thanks to a devoted open-source developer fan, there is a significant improvement in the works...



  • HDMI 2.1 Display Stream Compression "DSC" Also Ready For AMDGPU Linux Driver
    At the beginning of the month was the surprise milestone of AMD posting AMDGPU kernel driver patches for HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link (FRL) support. The HDMI FRL patches have since been updated to also enable HDMI 2.1's Display Stream Compression (DSC) functionality for higher resolutions and higher refresh rates with the open-source AMDGPU driver...


  • Redesigned Thelio Major Elevates System769s All-AMD, Open-Source Linux Workstation
    A few weeks back we reviewed the redesigned System76 Thelio Mira with a brand new chassis design and powered by the AMD Ryzen 9000 series. This was an interesting Linux-powered desktop manufactured in Colorado while for those needing a bit more performance, since then the redesigned Thelio Major launched. The new System76 Thelio Major provides an updated Thelio case design like Mira while comes packed with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9000 series and AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700 graphics for delivering a very powerful, all-AMD and open-source high-end Linux workstation.



  • Intel IGC 2.34.4 Compiler Brings Many Improvements
    The Intel Graphics Compiler "IGC" 2.34.4 release is out today as this compiler used by the Intel Compute Runtime for Level Zero and OpenCL compute on Intel graphics hardware plus is also used as the graphics shader compiler under Windows...



Engadget"Engadget - Technology News & Expert Reviews"











OSnews

  • OpenBSD and slopcode: raindrop to a torrent?
    Every single software product is dealing with the question about what to do with AI!-generated code, but the question is particularly difficult to answer for open source operating systems like Linux distributions and the various BSDs, which often consist of a wide variety of software packages from hundreds to thousands of different developers. On top of that, they also have to ask the AI! question for every layer of their offering, from the base install, to the official repositories, to community-run ones. As users, we, too, are asking these same questions, wondering just how much AI! taint were willing to spread across our computers. I understand the difficult position Linux distributions are in with regard to AI!. I mean, when even the Linux kernel itself is tainted by AI!, a no- AI! policy is basically an empty gesture for them at this point. Personally, I find a policy of we dont do AI in our work, but we dont have control over the thousands of components we consist of! to be an entirely reasonable, if deeply unsatisfying, position to take. What else are they going to do? You cant really be a Linux distribution without, you know, the Linux kernel, which is, as Ive already said, utterly tainted by AI! at this point. Still, in the back of my mind, I always had a trump card: if all else fails, well always have OpenBSD. Its project leader Theo de Raadt is deeply principled, every OpenBSD user and contributor I know hates AI! deeply, and the project routinely sticks to their principles even when its difficult or inconvenient. Yes, this makes OpenBSD not the most ideal desktop operating system, but Id rather use that than something that embraces the multitude of ethical, environmental, quality, and legal concerns regarding AI! code completely. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that OpenBSD already contains slopcode in its base installation, with the projects leaders and developers remaining oddly silent about it. My friend and OSNews regular Morgan posted this on Fedi a few days ago: Nearly six weeks later, and the question of whether AI! generated code in tmux  not tool-assisted bug finding, not refactoring, actual LLM-generated slop with questionable license(1)  that was consequently merged into OpenBSD base, is considered acceptable by the lead devs, remains unanswered. Despite Theo de Raadts concrete stance against any code of questionable license origin polluting the project  and the tmux merge was indeed questionable  it seems this is being swept under the rug. This makes me extremely uncomfortable; its like seeing a fox in the henhouse but the farmers are all looking the other way and no one can convince them to admit they can see it and root it out. I really dont know what to do being just a user; I feel like even if I tried to chime in on the mailing list I would just be ignored like the others trying to raise the alarm. I hope, as they do, that this is being discussed internally, away from the public list, and that a positive outcome is near. Maybe they are waiting for the 7.9 release before setting anything in stone. Or maybe the AI! disease has infected one of the last pure operating system projects we have left and theres no going back. ↫ Morgan on Fedi I obviously share Morgans concerns, and like him, Im also afraid that opening the door to a few drops of slop in base will quickly grow into a torrent of slop as time goes by. Yes, its just a patch to tmux, but its in base, and the base! of a BSD is almost a sacred concept, and entirely the last place where you want to see code that raises ethical, environmental, quality, and legal concerns. For all we know, this patch of slop or the next one contains a bunch of GPL code because it just so happens thats where the ball tumbling down the developers pachinko machine ended up. GPL code that would then be in the base of a BSD. I echo the call for the OpenBSD project to address this problem, and to set clear boundaries and guidelines regarding AI! code, so users and developers alike know what level of quality and integrity we can expect from OpenBSD and its base installation going forward.


  • Windows 11 will start boosting your processor to maximum GHz to make the Start menu open faster
    Microsoft is currently testing a brand new performance-enhancing feature in Windows 11. Microsoft, too, is introducing something to Windows 11 called low latency profile! and it this will work irrespective of the processor, be it AMD64 CPUs like Intel or AMD or ARM64 ones like from Qualcomm. Essentially what this new tech will do is apply a maximum available clock frequency boost for a very small span of time, like for one to three seconds, when a user launches any app. The idea is that the app launch time will reduce while the quick clock burst should not impact the overall efficiency of the system by much. ↫ Sayan Sen at Neowin Unsurprisingly, boosting the processors clock speed to its maximum for a few seconds will make a menu or application open a little faster. Im not entirely sure why anyone seems surprised by this, but here we are. Yes, the Start menu will load faster and applications will be ready quicker if you boost the processor to its full potential, but that does raise the question of why Windows 11 would need to do that just to open a menu or load an application in the first place. According to Microsofts Scott Henselmann, who defended Microsofts approach (weirdly enough he did so on a nazi platform called Twitter! that Im obviously not linking to), every other modern operating system does the exact same thing, pointing specifically to macOS and GNOME and KDE on Linux. He also pointed out that the Start menu today does a lot more than the same Start menu back in Windows 95, including making network requests and rendering everything in HiDPI. I just want a cascading menu of stuff I can run and dont want my launcher to make network requests, but alas, I guess Im old. Anyway, I dont know enough about the intricacies of how modern processors work to make any statements about how this affects battery life, but instinctively, youd think this would not exactly be conducive to that. I also wonder if this will trigger a lot of laptops to spin up their fans whenever you open the Start menu, because the few seconds your processor goes full tilt raises its temperature just enough to make that happen. Once this new feature comes out of testing and is generally available, Id be quite interested in seeing battery tests, as well comparisons to other operating systems to see how it fares.


  • GitHub is sinking
    Microsoft acquired GitHub and applied their unique brand of enshittification. Amongst their achievements was the spawning of the Copilot circle of hell. Now they’re effectively DDoSing themselves with slop. I won’t dwell on what else went wrong. I don’t know and I don’t care. GitHub is impressively bad now. It’s embarrassing. Shameful. ↫ David Bushell Luckily, theres really very little in the form of lock-in with GitHub, unless you really value your stars or whatever. There are countless alternatives, and if youre a programmer, its probably absolutely trivial for you to run your own instance of any of the various available forges. If youre still on GitHub, you should really be thinking about, and planning for, leaving, as it seems its circling the drain.


  • Debian embraces reproducible builds
    Big news from the Debian release team: Debian is going for reproducible package builds. Aided by the efforts of the Reproducible Builds project, weve decided its time to say that Debian must ship reproducible packages. Since yesterday, we have enabled our migration software to block migration of new packages that cant be reproduced or existing packages (in testing) that regress in reproducibility. ↫ Paul Gevers Reproducible means, in short, that you can verify that the source code used to build a package is indeed that source code. This provides a layer of defense against people tampering with code or otherwise trying to fiddle with the process between source code and final package on your system. This effort constitutes a tremendous amount of work, but its massively important.


  • Building a web server in aarch64 assembly to give my life (a lack of) meaning!
    ymawky is a small, static http web server written entirely in aarch64 assembly for macos. it uses raw darwin syscalls with no libc wrappers, serves static files, supports GET, HEAD, PUT, OPTIONS, DELETE, byte ranges, directory listing, custom error pages, and tries to be as hardened as possible. why? why not? the dream of the 80s is alive in ymawky. everybody has nginx. having apache makes you a square. so why not strip every single convenience layer that computer science has given us since 1957? i wanted to understand how a web server actually works, something i know little about coming from a low-level/systems background. the risks that come up, the problems that need to be solved, the things you don’t think about when you’re writing python or c. this (probably) won’t replace nginx, but it is doing something in the most difficult way possible. ↫ Tony imtomt! I love this.


  • Object oriented programming in Ada
    Ada is incredibly well designed. One way this shows is that it takes the big, monolithic features of other languages and breaks them down into their constituent parts, so we can choose which portions of those features we want. The example I often reach for to explain this is object-oriented programming. ↫ Christoffer Stjernlöf Exactly what it says on the tin.


  • Sculpt OS 26.04 released
    Sculpt OS, the operating system based on the various components that make up Genode, has seen a new release, 26.04. A lot of the new features and changes to Genode that weve been talking about for a while now are part of this release, most notably the new human-inclined data syntax that replaces XML as the configuration language for Genode. Thats not the only major improvement, though. Regarding technical advances of the new version and device support in particular, all Linux-based drivers have been updated to kernel version 6.18, making the system compatible with most modern Intel-PC hardware. Laptop users may appreciate the new USB networking option that is now offered by default. Software-wise, the new version comes with a longed-after update of Qt6 along with the Chromium-based Falkon browser, downloadable at the depot of cproc. In the same menu, one can find the experimental first version of the Goa SDK running natively on Sculpt OS without the need of a Linux VM. For the first time, Genode components can now be developed, compiled, and tested using Sculpt OS on its own. The amazement of walking without crutches. ↫ Sculpt OS 26.04 release notes This new release is available for common PC hardware, the PinePhone, and the MNT Reform. 


  • Sprite scaling on the Master System: building the new on the ruins of the old
    Sprite scaling. It is the coolest effect of the 2D arcade era, a must-have for games from Space Harrier to Real Bout Fatal Fury Special. Home consoles pretty much lacked it– sorry, Nintendo, but Mode 7 only scales a background, not sprites. So therefore you might be surprised to hear that Sega’s plucky underdog Master System could do it. Well, don’t get your hopes up; this is far too limited– calling it scaling is overstating things. But let’s dig in anyway! ↫ Nicole Branagan Nicole Branagan has the best articles on obscure console features, and this one is no exception.


  • Google is tying reCAPTCHA to Google Play Services, screwing over de-Googled Android users
    The ways in which Google can lock you into their ecosystem are often obvious, but sometimes, theyre incredibly sneaky and easily missed. CAPTCHA tests are annoying, but at the same time, they can help protect websites from bots. While these tests are already the bane of our internet existence, they are going to get worse for some Android users. A requirement for Google’s next-generation reCAPTCHA system will make it a lot harder for de-Googled phones to browse the web. A Reddit user has highlighted a seemingly innocuous support page for Google’s reCAPTCHA system. The page in question relates to troubleshooting reCAPTCHA verification on mobile. In the document, it says that you’ll need to use a compatible mobile device to complete verification. If you have an Android phone, then that means you’ll need to be running Google Play Services version 25.41.30 or higher. ↫ Ryan McNeal at Android Authority When was the last time you actively thought about reCAPTCHA being a Google property? Even then, when was the last time you imagined something as annoying but ultimately basic as a captcha prompt could be used to tie people to Google Play Services, and thus to blessed! Android? Every time we manage to work around one of these asinine ties to Google Play Services, another one pops up to ruin our day. Were so stupidly tied down to and entirely dependent on two very mid  at best  mobile operating systems, and its such a stupid own goal for especially everyone outside of the US to just sit there and do nothing about it. Worse yet, it seems were only tying ourselves down further, while paying for the privilege. At the very least we should be categorising certain services  government ID services, payment services, popular messaging platforms, and a few more  as vital infrastructure, and legally mandate these services have clearly defined and well-documented APIs so anyone is free to make alternative clients. The fact that many people are tied to either iOS or blessed! Android because of something as stupid as what bank they use or the level of incompetency of their government ID service should be a major crisis in any country that isnt the US. I dont want to use iOS or Android, but nobody is leaving me any choice. Its infuriating.


  • Why don’t lowercase letters come right after uppercase letters in ASCII?
    With that context, I always found it strange that the designers of ASCII included 6 characters after uppercase Z before starting the lowercase letters. Then it hit me: we have 26 letters in the English alphabet, plus 6 additional characters before lowercase starts: 26 + 6 = 32. If you know anything about computers, powers of 2 tend to stick out. Let’s take a look at the binary representations of some characters compared to their lowercase counterparts. ↫ Tyler Hillery I only have a middling understanding of the rest of the article and thus the ultimate reason why ASCII includes those six characters between Z and a, but I think it comes down to making certain operations on uppercase and lowercase letters specifically more elegant. In some deep crevices of my brain all of this makes sense, but I find it very difficult to truly understand and explain as someone who knows little about programming.



Linux Journal News

  • EU OS: A Bold Step Toward Digital Sovereignty for Europe
    Image
    A new initiative, called "EU OS," has been launched to develop a Linux-based operating system tailored specifically for the public sector organizations of the European Union (EU). This community-driven project aims to address the EU's unique needs and challenges, focusing on fostering digital sovereignty, reducing dependency on external vendors, and building a secure, self-sufficient digital ecosystem.
    What Is EU OS?
    EU OS is not an entirely novel operating system. Instead, it builds upon a Linux foundation derived from Fedora, with the KDE Plasma desktop environment. It draws inspiration from previous efforts such as France's GendBuntu and Munich's LiMux, which aimed to provide Linux-based systems for public sector use. The goal remains the same: to create a standardized Linux distribution that can be adapted to different regional, national, and sector-specific needs within the EU.

    Rather than reinventing the wheel, EU OS focuses on standardization, offering a solid Linux foundation that can be customized according to the unique requirements of various organizations. This approach makes EU OS a practical choice for the public sector, ensuring broad compatibility and ease of implementation across diverse environments.
    The Vision Behind EU OS
    The guiding principle of EU OS is the concept of "public money – public code," ensuring that taxpayer money is used transparently and effectively. By adopting an open-source model, EU OS eliminates licensing fees, which not only lowers costs but also reduces the dependency on a select group of software vendors. This provides the EU’s public sector organizations with greater flexibility and control over their IT infrastructure, free from the constraints of vendor lock-in.

    Additionally, EU OS offers flexibility in terms of software migration and hardware upgrades. Organizations can adapt to new technologies and manage their IT evolution at a manageable cost, both in terms of finances and time.

    However, there are some concerns about the choice of Fedora as the base for EU OS. While Fedora is a solid and reliable distribution, it is backed by the United States-based Red Hat. Some argue that using European-backed projects such as openSUSE or KDE's upcoming distribution might have aligned better with the EU's goal of strengthening digital sovereignty.
    Conclusion
    EU OS marks a significant step towards Europe's digital independence by providing a robust, standardized Linux distribution for the public sector. By reducing reliance on proprietary software and vendors, it paves the way for a more flexible, cost-effective, and secure digital ecosystem. While the choice of Fedora as the base for the project has raised some questions, the overall vision of EU OS offers a promising future for Europe's public sector in the digital age.

    Source: It's FOSS
    European Union


  • Linus Torvalds Acknowledges Missed Release of Linux 6.14 Due to Oversight

    Linus Torvalds Acknowledges Missed Release of Linux 6.14 Due to Oversight

    Linux kernel lead developer Linus Torvalds has admitted to forgetting to release version 6.14, attributing the oversight to his own lapse in memory. Torvalds is known for releasing new Linux kernel candidates and final versions on Sunday afternoons, typically accompanied by a post detailing the release. If he is unavailable due to travel or other commitments, he usually informs the community ahead of time, so users don’t worry if there’s a delay.

    In his post on March 16, Torvalds gave no indication that the release might be delayed, instead stating, “I expect to release the final 6.14 next weekend unless something very surprising happens.” However, Sunday, March 23rd passed without any announcement.

    On March 24th, Torvalds wrote in a follow-up message, “I’d love to have some good excuse for why I didn’t do the 6.14 release yesterday on my regular Sunday afternoon schedule,” adding, “But no. It’s just pure incompetence.” He further explained that while he had been clearing up unrelated tasks, he simply forgot to finalize the release. “D'oh,” he joked.

    Despite this minor delay, Torvalds’ track record of successfully managing the Linux kernel’s development process over the years remains strong. A single day’s delay is not critical, especially since most Linux users don't urgently need the very latest version.

    The new 6.14 release introduces several important features, including enhanced support for writing drivers in Rust—an ongoing topic of discussion among developers—support for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chip, a fix for the GhostWrite vulnerability in certain RISC-V processors from Alibaba’s T-Head Semiconductor, and a completed NTSYNC driver update that improves the WINE emulator’s ability to run Windows applications, particularly games, on Linux.

    Although the 6.14 release went smoothly aside from the delay, Torvalds expressed that version 6.15 may present more challenges due to the volume of pending pull requests. “Judging by my pending pile of pull requests, 6.15 will be much busier,” he noted.

    You can download the latest kernel here.
    Linus Torvalds kernel


  • AerynOS 2025.03 Alpha Released with GNOME 48, Mesa 25, and Linux Kernel 6.13.8
    Image
    AerynOS 2025.03 has officially been released, introducing a variety of exciting features for Linux users. The release includes the highly anticipated GNOME 48 desktop environment, which comes with significant improvements like HDR support, dynamic triple buffering, and a Wayland color management protocol. Other updates include a battery charge limiting feature and a Wellbeing option aimed at improving user experience.

    This release, while still in alpha, incorporates Linux kernel 6.13.8 and the updated Mesa 25.0.2 graphics stack, alongside tools like LLVM 19.1.7 and Vulkan SDK 1.4.309.0. Additionally, the Moss package manager now integrates os-info to generate more detailed OS metadata via a JSON file.

    Future plans for AerynOS include automated package updates, easier rollback management, improved disk handling with Rust, and fractional scaling enabled by default. The installer has also been revamped to support full disk wipes and dynamic partitioning.

    Although still considered an alpha release, AerynOS 2025.03 can be downloaded and tested right now from its official website.

    Source: 9to5Linux
    AerynOS


  • Xojo 2025r1: Big Updates for Developers with Linux ARM Support, Web Drag and Drop, and Direct App Store Publishing
    Image
    Xojo has just rolled out its latest release, Xojo 2025 Release 1, and it’s packed with features that developers have been eagerly waiting for. This major update introduces support for running Xojo on Linux ARM, including Raspberry Pi, brings drag-and-drop functionality to the Web framework, and simplifies app deployment with the ability to directly submit apps to the macOS and iOS App Stores.

    Here’s a quick overview of what’s new in Xojo 2025r1:
    1. Linux ARM IDE Support
    Xojo 2025r1 now allows developers to run the Xojo IDE on Linux ARM devices, including popular platforms like Raspberry Pi. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for developers who want to create apps for ARM-based devices without the usual complexity. Whether you’re building for a Raspberry Pi or other ARM devices, this update makes it easier than ever to get started.
    2. Web Drag and Drop
    One of the standout features in this release is the addition of drag-and-drop support for web applications. Now, developers can easily drag and drop visual controls in their web projects, making it simpler to create interactive, user-friendly web applications. Plus, the WebListBox has been enhanced with support for editable cells, checkboxes, and row reordering via dragging. No JavaScript required!
    3. Direct App Store Publishing
    Xojo has also streamlined the process of publishing apps. With this update, developers can now directly submit macOS and iOS apps to App Store Connect right from the Xojo IDE. This eliminates the need for multiple steps and makes it much easier to get apps into the App Store, saving valuable time during the development process.
    4. New Desktop and Mobile Features
    This release isn’t just about web and Linux updates. Xojo 2025r1 brings some great improvements for desktop and mobile apps as well. On the desktop side, all projects now include a default window menu for macOS apps. On the mobile side, Xojo has introduced new features for Android and iOS, including support for ColorGroup and Dark Mode on Android, and a new MobileColorPicker for iOS to simplify color selection.
    5. Performance and IDE Enhancements
    Xojo’s IDE has also been improved in several key areas. There’s now an option to hide toolbar captions, and the toolbar has been made smaller on Windows. The IDE on Windows and Linux now features modern Bootstrap icons, and the Documentation window toolbar is more compact. In the code editor, developers can now quickly navigate to variable declarations with a simple Cmd/Ctrl + Double-click. Plus, performance for complex container layouts in the Layout Editor has been enhanced.
    What Does This Mean for Developers?
    Xojo 2025r1 brings significant improvements across all the platforms that Xojo supports, from desktop and mobile to web and Linux. The added Linux ARM support opens up new opportunities for Raspberry Pi and ARM-based device development, while the drag-and-drop functionality for web projects will make it easier to create modern, interactive web apps. The ability to publish directly to the App Store is a game-changer for macOS and iOS developers, reducing the friction of app distribution.
    How to Get Started
    Xojo is free for learning and development, as well as for building apps for Linux and Raspberry Pi. If you’re ready to dive into cross-platform development, paid licenses start at $99 for a single-platform desktop license, and $399 for cross-platform desktop, mobile, or web development. For professional developers who need additional resources and support, Xojo Pro and Pro Plus licenses start at $799. You can also find special pricing for educators and students.

    Download Xojo 2025r1 today at xojo.com.
    Final Thoughts
    With each new release, Xojo continues to make cross-platform development more accessible and efficient. The 2025r1 release is no exception, delivering key updates that simplify the development process and open up new possibilities for developers working on a variety of platforms. Whether you’re a Raspberry Pi enthusiast or a mobile app developer, Xojo 2025r1 has something for you.
    Xojo ARM


  • New 'Mirrored' Network Mode Introduced in Windows Subsystem for Linux

    Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) continues to evolve with the release of WSL 2 version 0.0.2. This update introduces a set of opt-in preview features designed to enhance performance and compatibility.

    Key additions include "Automatic memory reclaim" which dynamically optimizes WSL's memory footprint, and "Sparse VHD" to shrink the size of the virtual hard disk file. These improvements aim to streamline resource usage.

    Additionally, a new "mirrored networking mode" brings expanded networking capabilities like IPv6 and multicast support. Microsoft claims this will improve VPN and LAN connectivity from both the Windows host and Linux guest. 

    Complementing this is a new "DNS Tunneling" feature that changes how DNS queries are resolved to avoid compatibility issues with certain network setups. According to Microsoft, this should reduce problems connecting to the internet or local network resources within WSL.

    Advanced firewall configuration options are also now available through Hyper-V integration. The new "autoProxy" feature ensures WSL seamlessly utilizes the Windows system proxy configuration.

    Microsoft states these features are currently rolling out to Windows Insiders running Windows 11 22H2 Build 22621.2359 or later. They remain opt-in previews to allow testing before final integration into WSL.

    By expanding WSL 2 with compelling new capabilities in areas like resource efficiency, networking, and security, Microsoft aims to make Linux on Windows more performant and compatible. This evolutionary approach based on user feedback highlights Microsoft's commitment to WSL as a key part of the Windows ecosystem.
    Windows


  • Linux Threat Report: Earth Lusca Deploys Novel SprySOCKS Backdoor in Attacks on Government Entities

    The threat actor Earth Lusca, linked to Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups, has been observed utilizing a new Linux backdoor dubbed SprySOCKS to target government organizations globally. 

    As initially reported in January 2022 by Trend Micro, Earth Lusca has been active since at least 2021 conducting cyber espionage campaigns against public and private sector targets in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. Their tactics include spear-phishing and watering hole attacks to gain initial access. Some of Earth Lusca's activities overlap with another Chinese threat cluster known as RedHotel.

    In new research, Trend Micro reveals Earth Lusca remains highly active, even expanding operations in the first half of 2023. Primary victims are government departments focused on foreign affairs, technology, and telecommunications. Attacks concentrate in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Balkans regions. 

    After breaching internet-facing systems by exploiting flaws in Fortinet, GitLab, Microsoft Exchange, Telerik UI, and Zimbra software, Earth Lusca uses web shells and Cobalt Strike to move laterally. Their goal is exfiltrating documents and credentials, while also installing additional backdoors like ShadowPad and Winnti for long-term spying.

    The Command and Control server delivering Cobalt Strike was also found hosting SprySOCKS - an advanced backdoor not previously publicly reported. With roots in the Windows malware Trochilus, SprySOCKS contains reconnaissance, remote shell, proxy, and file operation capabilities. It communicates over TCP mimicking patterns used by a Windows trojan called RedLeaves, itself built on Trochilus.

    At least two SprySOCKS versions have been identified, indicating ongoing development. This novel Linux backdoor deployed by Earth Lusca highlights the increasing sophistication of Chinese state-sponsored threats. Robust patching, access controls, monitoring for unusual activities, and other proactive defenses remain essential to counter this advanced malware.

    The Trend Micro researchers emphasize that organizations must minimize attack surfaces, regularly update systems, and ensure robust security hygiene to interrupt the tactics, techniques, and procedures of relentless threat groups like Earth Lusca.
    Security


  • Linux Kernel Faces Reduction in Long-Term Support Due to Maintenance Challenges

    The Linux kernel is undergoing major changes that will shape its future development and adoption, according to Jonathan Corbet, Linux kernel developer and executive editor of Linux Weekly News. Speaking at the Open Source Summit Europe, Corbet provided an update on the latest Linux kernel developments and a glimpse of what's to come.

    A major change on the horizon is a reduction in long-term support (LTS) for kernel versions from six years to just two years. Corbet explained that maintaining old kernel branches indefinitely is unsustainable and most users have migrated to newer versions, so there's little point in continuing six years of support. While some may grumble about shortened support lifecycles, the reality is that constantly backporting fixes to ancient kernels strains maintainers.

    This maintainer burnout poses a serious threat, as Corbet highlighted. Maintaining Linux is largely a volunteer effort, with only about 200 of the 2,000+ developers paid for their contributions. The endless demands on maintainers' time from fuzz testing, fixing minor bugs, and reviewing contributions takes a toll. Prominent maintainers have warned they need help to avoid collapse. Companies relying on Linux must realize giving back financially is in their interest to sustain this vital ecosystem. 

    The Linux kernel is also wading into waters new with the introduction of Rust code. While Rust solves many problems, it also introduces new complexities around language integration, evolving standards, and maintainer expertise. Corbet believes Rust will pass the point of no return when core features depend on it, which may occur soon with additions like Apple M1 GPU drivers. Despite skepticism in some corners, Rust's benefits likely outweigh any transition costs.

    On the distro front, Red Hat's decision to restrict RHEL cloning sparked community backlash. While business considerations were at play, Corbet noted technical factors too. Using older kernels with backported fixes, as RHEL does, risks creating divergent, vendor-specific branches. The Android model of tracking mainline kernel dev more closely has shown security benefits. Ultimately, Linux works best when aligned with the broader community.

    In closing, Corbet recalled the saying "Linux is free like a puppy is free." Using open source seems easy at first, but sustaining it long-term requires significant care and feeding. As Linux is incorporated into more critical systems, that maintenance becomes ever more crucial. The kernel changes ahead are aimed at keeping Linux healthy and vibrant for the next generation of users, businesses, and developers.
    kernel


  • Linux Celebrates 32 Years with the Release of 6.6-rc2 Version

    Today marks the 32nd anniversary of Linus Torvalds introducing the inaugural Linux 0.01 kernel version, and celebrating this milestone, Torvalds has launched the Linux 6.6-rc2. Among the noteworthy updates are the inclusion of a feature catering to the ASUS ROG Flow X16 tablet's mode handling and the renaming of the new GenPD subsystem to pmdomain.

    The Linux 6.6 edition is progressing well, brimming with exciting new features that promise to enhance user experience. Early benchmarks are indicating promising results, especially on high-core-count servers, pointing to a potentially robust and efficient update in the Linux series.

    Here is what Linus Torvalds had to say in today's announcement:
    Another week, another -rc.I think the most notable thing about 6.6-rc2 is simply that it'sexactly 32 years to the day since the 0.01 release. And that's a roundnumber if you are a computer person.Because other than the random date, I don't see anything that reallystands out here. We've got random fixes all over, and none of it looksparticularly strange. The genpd -> pmdomain rename shows up in thediffstat, but there's no actual code changes involved (make sure touse "git diff -M" to see them as zero-line renames).And other than that, things look very normal. Sure, the architecturefixes happen to be mostly parisc this week, which isn't exactly theusual pattern, but it's also not exactly a huge amount of changes.Most of the (small) changes here are in drivers, with some tracingfixes and just random things. The shortlog below is short enough toscroll through and get a taste of what's been going on. Linus Torvalds


  • Introducing Bavarder: A User-Friendly Linux Desktop App for Quick ChatGPT Interaction

    Want to interact with ChatGPT from your Linux desktop without using a web browser?

    Bavarder, a new app, allows you to do just that.

    Developed with Python and GTK4/libadwaita, Bavarder offers a simple concept: pose a question to ChatGPT, receive a response, and promptly copy the answer (or your inquiry) to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere.

    With an incredibly user-friendly interface, you won't require AI expertise (or a novice blogger) to comprehend it. Type your question in the top box, click the blue send button, and wait for a generated response to appear at the bottom. You can edit or modify your message and repeat the process as needed.

    During our evaluation, Bavarder employed BAI Chat, a GPT-3.5/ChatGPT API-based chatbot that's free and doesn't require signups or API keys. Future app versions will incorporate support for alternative backends, such as ChatGPT 4 and Hugging Chat, and allow users to input an API key to utilize ChatGPT3.

    At present, there's no option to regenerate a response (though you can resend the same question for a potentially different answer). Due to the lack of a "conversation" view, tracking a dialogue or following up on answers can be challenging — but Bavarder excels for rapid-fire questions.

    As with any AI, standard disclaimers apply. Responses might seem plausible but could contain inaccurate or false information. Additionally, it's relatively easy to lead these models into irrational loops, like convincing them that 2 + 2 equals 106 — so stay alert!

    Overall, Bavarder is an attractive app with a well-defined purpose. If you enjoy ChatGPT and similar technologies, it's worth exploring.
    ChatGPT AI


  • LibreOffice 7.5.3 Released: Third Maintenance Update Brings 119 Bug Fixes to Popular Open-Source Office Suite

    Today, The Document Foundation unveiled the release and widespread availability of LibreOffice 7.5.3, which serves as the third maintenance update to the current LibreOffice 7.5 open-source and complimentary office suite series.

    Approximately five weeks after the launch of LibreOffice 7.5.2, LibreOffice 7.5.3 arrives with a new set of bug fixes for those who have successfully updated their GNU/Linux system to the LibreOffice 7.5 series.

    LibreOffice 7.5.3 addresses a total of 119 bugs identified by users or uncovered by LibreOffice developers. For a more comprehensive understanding of these bug fixes, consult the RC1 and RC2 changelogs.

    You can download LibreOffice 7.5.3 directly from the LibreOffice websiteor from SourceForge as binary installers for DEB or RPM-based GNU/Linux distributions. A source tarball is also accessible for individuals who prefer to compile the software from sources or for system integrators.

    All users operating the LibreOffice 7.5 office suite series should promptly update their installations to the new point release, which will soon appear in the stable software repositories of your GNU/Linux distributions.

    In early February 2023, LibreOffice 7.5 debuted as a substantial upgrade to the widely-used open-source office suite, introducing numerous features and improvements. These enhancements encompass major upgrades to dark mode support, new application and MIME-type icons, a refined Single Toolbar UI, enhanced PDF Export, and more.

    Seven maintenance updates will support LibreOffice 7.5 until November 30th, 2023. The next point release, LibreOffice 7.5.4, is scheduled for early June and will include additional bug fixes.

    The Document Foundation once again emphasizes that the LibreOffice office suite's "Community" edition is maintained by volunteers and members of the Open Source community. For enterprise implementations, they suggest using the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners.
    LibreOffice


Linux Magazine News (path: lmi_news)







  • France Says "Au Revoir" to Microsoft
    In a move that should surprise no one, France announced plans to reduce its reliance on US technology, and Microsoft Windows is the first to get the boot.





Page last modified on November 17, 2022, at 06:39 PM