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Do a presentation at NTLUG.
What is the Linux Installation Project?
Real companies using Linux!
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Providing ready to run platforms on Linux
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(Two Column)
- A 0-click exploit chain for the Pixel 9 (Project Zero)
The Project Zero blog has athree-part series describing a working, zero-click exploit forPixel 9 devices.
Over the past few years, several AI-powered features have been added to mobile phones that allow users to better search and understand their messages. One effect of this change is increased 0-click attack surface, as efficient analysis often requires message media to be decoded before the message is opened by the user. One such feature is audio transcription. Incoming SMS and RCS audio attachments received by Google Messages are now automatically decoded with no user interaction. As a result, audio decoders are now in the 0-click attack surface of most Android phones.
The blog entry does not question the wisdom of directly exposing audiodecoders to external attackers, but it does provide a lot of detail showinghow it can go wrong. The first part looks at compromising the codec; parttwo extends the exploit to the kernel, and partthree looks at the implications: It is alarming that it took 139 days for a vulnerability exploitable in a 0-click context to get patched on any Android device, and it took Pixel 54 days longer. The vulnerability was public for 82 days before it was patched by Pixel.
- Running Debian on the OpenWrt One (Collabora Blog)
Sjoerd Simons has publisheda blog post about running Debian on the OpenWrt Onerouter hardware:
With openwrt-one-debian, you can now install and run a full Debiansystem leveraging the OpenWrt One's NVMe storage, enabling everythingfrom custom services and containers to development tools andlightweight server workloads, all on open hardware.
This project provides a rust-based flasher to install Debian on theOpenWrt One, opening the door to standard Debian tooling, packages,and workflows. For developers and power users, it transforms theOpenWrt One from a network appliance into a compact, general-purposeLinux system.
See the GitHubrepository for the code and latest build. LWN reviewed the device inNovember 2024, and covered DenverGingerich's talk at SCALE 22x aboutthe making of the router in March 2025.
- Forgejo 14.0 released
Version14.0 of the Forgejo software forge has been released. Notablechanges in this release include several databaseimprovements, new options for approvingactions execution from pull requests, a newfile editor, and progress toward makingForgejo's web UI work without JavaScript.
- [$] Removing a pointer dereference from slab allocations
Al Viro does not often stray outside of the core virtual filesystem area;when he does, it is usually worthy of note. Recently, he wandered intomemory management with this patchseries to the slab allocator and some of its users. Kernel developerswill often put considerable effort into small optimizations, but it isstill interesting to look at just how much effort has gone toward the purpose ofavoiding a single pointer dereference in some memory-allocation hot paths.
- A note for MXroute users
We have recently noticed that email from LWN.net seems to beblocked by MXroute. Unfortunately, the company also does not seem tohave a way for non-customers to report problems in mail delivery, sowe have no good way to get ourselves unblocked.
As a result, readers who have subscribed to an LWN mailing listfrom a domain hosted with MXroute will probably not receive ourmailings. We have not yet unsubscribed addresses that are beingblocked by MXroute, but will soon if the problem persists. Pleaseaccept our apologies for the inconvenience; it is unfortunate that itis becoming so difficult to send legitimate email as a smallbusiness.
- Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, gnupg2, and mongo-c-driver), Fedora (firefox, gpsd, linux-firmware, and seamonkey), Mageia (net-snmp), Oracle (kernel, podman, postgresql16, postgresql:13, postgresql:15, postgresql:16, and uek-kernel), Red Hat (libpq, net-snmp, and transfig), Slackware (libpng and mozilla), SUSE (avahi, bluez, capstone, curl, dpdk, firefox, firefox-esr, fluidsynth, glib2, kernel, kernel-devel, libmicrohttpd, libpcap, libpng16, libsoup, libsoup-3_0-0, libtasn1, libvirt, mcphost, openvswitch, ovmf, podman, poppler, python-tornado6, python311, qemu, rsync, and valkey), and Ubuntu (erlang, klibc, libpng1.6, and ruby-rack).
- [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for January 15, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: SFC v. VIZIO; GPLv2 requirements; Debian and GTK 2; OpenZL; kernel scheduler QoS; Rust concurrent data access; Asciinema. Briefs: OpenSSL and Python; LSFMM+BPF 2026; Fedora elections; Gentoo retrospective; EU lawmaking; Git data model; Firefox 147; Radicle 1.6.0; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
- The State of OpenSSL for pyca/cryptography
Paul Kehrer and Alex Gaynor, maintainers of the Python cryptography module, have put out some stronglyworded criticism of OpenSSL. Itcomes from a talk they gave at the OpenSSL conference in October 2025 (YouTube video). Thepost goes into a lot of detail about the problems with the OpenSSL codebase and testing, which has led the cryptography team toreconsider using the library. "The mistakes we see in OpenSSL'sdevelopment have become so significant that we believe substantial changesare required — either to OpenSSL, or to our reliance on it." They gofurther in the conclusion:First, we will no longer require OpenSSL implementations for new functionality. Where we deem it desirable, we will add new APIs that are only on LibreSSL/BoringSSL/AWS-LC. Concretely, we expect to add ML-KEM and ML-DSA APIs that are only available with LibreSSL/BoringSSL/AWS-LC, and not with OpenSSL.
Second, we currently statically link a copy of OpenSSL in our wheels (binary artifacts). We are beginning the process of looking into what would be required to change our wheels to link against one of the OpenSSL forks.
If we are able to successfully switch to one of OpenSSL's forks for our binary wheels, we will begin considering the circumstances under which we would drop support for OpenSSL entirely.
- [$] Format-specific compression with OpenZL
Lossless data compression is an important tool for reducing the storagerequirements of the world's ever-growing data sets. Yann Collet developedthe LZ4algorithm and designed the Zstandard (or Zstd)algorithm; he came to the 2025Open Source Summit Japan in Tokyo to talk about where data compressiongoes from here. It turns out that we have reached a point wheregeneral-purpose algorithms are only going to provide limited improvement;for significant increases in compression, while keeping computation costswithin reason for data-center use, turning to format-specific techniqueswill be needed.
- [$] Debian discusses removing GTK 2 for forky
The Debian GNOME team would like to remove the GTK 2 graphicstoolkit, which has been unmaintained upstream for more than fiveyears, and ship Debian 14 ("forky") without it. As one mightexpect, however, there are those who would like to find a way to keepit. Despite its age and declared obsolescence, quite a few Debianpackages still depend on GTK 2. Many of those applications areunlikely to be updated, and users are not eager to give themup. Discussion about how to handle this is ongoing; it seems likelythat Debian developers will find some way to continue supportingapplications that require GTK 2, but users may have to lookoutside official Debian repositories.
- Radicle 1.6.0 released
Version1.6.0 of the Radicle peer-to-peer, local-first code collaborationstack has been released. Notable changes in this release includesupport for systemdcredentials, use of Rust's clap crate forparsing command-line arguments, and more. LWN covered the project in March2024.
- Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (sssd), Debian (linux-6.1 and python-parsl), Fedora (chezmoi, complyctl, composer, and firefox), Oracle (kernel), Red Hat (buildah, libpq, podman, postgresql, postgresql16, postgresql:13, postgresql:15, and postgresql:16), SUSE (avahi, curl, ffmpeg-4, ffmpeg-7, firefox, istioctl, k6, kubelogin, libmicrohttpd, libpcap-devel, libpng16, libtasn1-6-32bit, matio, ovmf, python-tornado6, python311-Authlib, and teleport), and Ubuntu (angular.js, python-urllib3, and webkit2gtk).
- [$] A high-level quality-of-service interface
Quality-of-service (QoS) mechanisms attempt to prioritize some processes (ornetwork traffic, disk I/O, etc.) over others in order to meet a system'sperformance goals. This is a difficult topic to handle in the world of Linux,where workloads, hardware, and user expectations vary wildly. Qais Yousef spokeat the 2025 Linux Plumbers Conference, alongside his collaborators John Stultz,Steven Rostedt, and Vincent Guittot, about their plans for introducing ahigh-level QoS API for Linux in a way that leaves end users in control of itsconfiguration. The talk focused specifically on a QoS mechanism for thescheduler, to prioritize access to CPU resources differently for different kindsof processes.(slides;video)
- Firefox 147 released
Version147.0 of the Firefox web browser has been released. Notablechanges in this release include support for the XDG BaseDirectory specification, enabling localnetwork access restrictions for users with enhancedtracking protection (ETP) set to "Strict", and a fix that improvesFirefox's rendering with GNOME on fractionally scaleddisplays. Firefox 147 also includes a number of securityfixes, including several sandbox-escape vulnerabilities.
- Security updates for Tuesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (mariadb10.11, mariadb:10.11, mariadb:10.3, mariadb:10.5, and tar), Debian (net-snmp), Fedora (coturn, NetworkManager-l2tp, openssh, and tuxanci), Mageia (libtasn1), Oracle (buildah, cups, httpd, kernel, libpq, libsoup, libsoup3, mariadb:10.11, mariadb:10.3, openssl, and podman), SUSE (cpp-httplib, ImageMagick, libtasn1, python-cbor2, util-linux, valkey, and wget2), and Ubuntu (google-guest-agent, linux-iot, and python-urllib3).
- MSI PRO DP10 A14MG Features 14th-Gen Intel CPUs in a Compact Chassis
MSI has added the PRO DP10 A14MG to its Business & Productivity PC lineup. The system is built around a slim, vertical chassis intended for office environments where desk space, manageability, and connectivity are priorities. While physically compact, the platform targets everyday professional workloads rather than entry-level use. The PRO DP10 A14MG series supports 14th-generation […]
- Collabora Shows How to Run Debian on the OpenWrt One Using NVMe Storage
Collabora has shared a new project demonstrating how the OpenWrt One can be repurposed from a traditional networking appliance into a compact, general-purpose Linux system. The project, called openwrt-one-debian, enables users to install and run a full Debian operating system on the device by booting directly from NVMe storage. The OpenWrt One is designed as […]
- oVirt 4.5.7 Released After Two Years With New OS & CPU Support
The oVirt 4.5.7 open-source virtualization management platform released this week after not seeing any new releases in two years. While Red Hat had started the oVirt open-source project for which their Red Hat Virtualization platform is based, since they shifted that to maintenance mode to focus on the Red Hat OpenShift platform and stopped contributing to oVirt, it's been up to the open-source community to keep it going...
- Renesas Expands ForgeFPGA Line with New 2k-LUT Ultra-Low-Power Devices
Renesas Electronics has introduced three new ForgeFPGA devices that significantly expand the company’s low-density FPGA portfolio. The newly announced SLG47912, SLG47920, and SLG47921 more than double the available logic resources compared to earlier 1k-LUT ForgeFPGA parts, targeting space-constrained and cost-sensitive edge designs. Renesas notes that ForgeFPGA is positioned as an alternative to traditional low-end FPGAs, […]
- Intel Panther Lake GSC Firmware Published Ahead Of Laptop Availability
While Intel has been upstreaming various Panther Lake firmware bits to linux-firmware.git for pairing with their open-source kernel drivers ahead of Core Ultra Series 3 laptops shipping, one piece of the puzzle only published today is the GSC firmware for the Panther Lake graphics...
- $99 BeaglePlay Board Achieves "100% Open-Source" Upstream PowerVR Graphics
Going back many years Imagination PowerVR graphics were widely despised by open-source enthusiasts and Linux desktop users for their lack of an open-source GPU driver. But over the past few years the Imagination PowerVR driver focused on their Rogue graphics IP has matured nicely within the Linux kernel and the PowerVR Vulkan driver in Mesa taking shape too. Paired with Zink for OpenGL over Vulkan, there's a robust open-source PowerVR graphics experience now possible. For those interested in trying out said open-source driver stack, the TI AM62-powered BeaglePlay is an affordable way of doing so for that $99 USD single board computer...
- 'Star Wars' Boss Kathleen Kennedy Steps Down From Lucasfilm
After more than 13 years leading Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down. "When George Lucas asked me to take over Lucasfilm upon his retirement, I couldn't have imagined what lay ahead," said Kennedy. "It has been a true privilege to spend more than a decade working alongside the extraordinary talent at Lucasfilm." The Associated Press reports: The Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday that it will now turn to Dave Filoni to steer "Star Wars," as president and chief creative officer, into its sixth decade and beyond. Filoni, who served as the chief commercial officer of Lucasfilm, will inherit the mantle of one of the movies marquee franchises, alongside Lynwen Brennan, president and general manager of Lucasfilm's businesses, who will serve as co-president. Kennedy, Lucas' handpicked successor, had presided over the ever-expanding science-fiction world of "Star Wars" since Disney acquired it in 2012. In announcing Thursday's news, Bob Iger, chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Co. called her "a visionary filmmaker." Kennedy oversaw a highly lucrative but often contentious period in "Star Wars" history that yielded a blockbuster trilogy and acclaimed streaming spinoffs such as "The Mandalorian" and "Andor," yet found increasing frustration from longtime fans. Under Kennedy's stewardship, Lucasfilm amassed more than $5.6 billion in box office and helped establish Disney+ as a streaming destination -- achievements that easily validated the $4.05 billion Disney plunked down for the company. But Kennedy also struggled to deliver the big-screen magic that Lucas captured in the original trilogy from the late 1970s and early 1980s, and her relationship with "Star Wars" loyalists became a saga of its own.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- US Carbon Pollution Rose In 2025, a Reversal From Prior Years
In a reversal from previous years, U.S. carbon emissions rose 2.4% in 2025 compared with the year before. NBC News reports: The increase in greenhouse gas emissions is attributable to a combination of a cool winter, the explosive growth of data centers and cryptocurrency mining and higher natural gas prices, according to the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm. Environmental policy rollbacks by President Donald Trump's administration were not significant factors in the increase because they were only put in place this year, the study authors said. Heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas are the major cause of worsening global warming, scientists say. American emissions of carbon dioxide and methane had dropped 20% from 2005 to 2024, with a few one- or two-year increases in the overall downward trend. Traditionally, carbon pollution has risen alongside economic growth, but efforts to boost cleaner energy in recent years decoupled the two, so emissions would drop as gross domestic product rose. But that changed last year with pollution actually growing faster than economic activity, said study co-author Ben King, a director in Rhodium's energy group. He estimated the U.S. put 5.9 billion tons (5.35 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide equivalent in the air in 2025, which is 139 million tons (126 million metric tons) more than in 2024. The cold 2025 winter meant more heating of buildings, which often comes from natural gas and fuel oil that are big greenhouse gas emitters, King said. A significant and noticeable jump in electricity demand from data centers and cryptocurrency mining meant more power plants producing energy. That included plants using coal, which creates more carbon pollution than other fuel sources. A rise in natural gas prices helped create an 13% increase in coal power, which had shrunk by nearly two-thirds since its peak in 2007, King said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Study Finds Weak Evidence Linking Social Media Use to Teen Mental Health Problems
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Screen time spent gaming or on social media does not cause mental health problems in teenagers, according to a large-scale study. [...] Researchers at the University of Manchester followed 25,000 11- to 14-year-olds over three school years, tracking their self-reported social media habits, gaming frequency and emotional difficulties to find out whether technology use genuinely predicted later mental health difficulties. Participants were asked how much time on a normal weekday in term time they spent on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media, or gaming. They were also asked questions about their feelings, mood and wider mental health. The study found no evidence for boys or girls that heavier social media use or more frequent gaming increased teenagers' symptoms of anxiety or depression over the following year. Increases in girls' and boys' social media use from year 8 to year 9 and from year 9 to year 10 had zero detrimental impact on their mental health the following year, the authors found. More time spent gaming also had a zero negative effect on pupils' mental health. "We know families are worried, but our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems -- the story is far more complex than that," said the lead author Dr Qiqi Cheng. The research, published in the Journal of Public Health, also examined whether how pupils use social media makes a difference, with participants asked how much time spent chatting with others, posting stories, pictures and videos, browsing feeds, profiles or scrolling through photos and stories. The scientists found that actively chatting on social media or passive scrolling feeds did not appear to drive mental health difficulties. The authors stressed that the findings did not mean online experiences were harmless. Hurtful messages, online pressures and extreme content could have detrimental effects on wellbeing, but focusing on screen time alone was not helpful, they said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Amazon Is Making a Fallout Shelter Competition Reality TV Show
Amazon is expanding the Fallout universe with Fallout Shelter, a ten-episode reality competition show where contestants face survival-style challenges and moral dilemmas for a cash prize. Engadget reports: Prime Video has greenlit a unscripted reality show titled Fallout Shelter. It will be a ten-episode run with Studio Lambert, the team behind reality projects including Squid Game: The Challenge and The Traitors, as its primary producer. Bethesda Game Studios' head honcho Todd Howard is attached as an executive producer. Amazon's description of Fallout Shelter is: "Across a series of escalating challenges, strategic dilemmas and moral crossroads, contestants must prove their ingenuity, teamwork and resilience as they compete for safety, power and ultimately a huge cash prize." [...] The name echos the free-to-play mobile game Bethesda released in 2015. Fallout Shelter lets people build and improve their out Vault-Tec residence, managing the resources for a growing cadre of underground survivors. It seems pretty likely that there will be some type of tie-in between the game and the show, but any details about that might pop up closer to when the program is ready to air. It's currently casting, and no release timeline has been shared.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- New York Introduces Legislation To Crack Down On 3D Printers That Make Ghost Guns
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is proposing first-of-its-kind legislation that would require 3D printers sold in the state to include built-in software designed to block the printing of gun parts used to make "ghost guns." The plan would also add criminal penalties for making 3D-printed firearms and hold printer owners or manufacturers liable if safety controls aren't in place. 3D Printing Industry reports: "From the iron pipeline to the plastic pipeline, these proposals will keep illegal ghost guns off of New York streets, and enhance measures to track and block the production of dangerous and illegal firearms in our state," Hochul said. In addition to mandating printer-level safeguards and restricting access to CAD files, the proposed legislation would require law enforcement agencies to report any recovered 3D printed firearms to a statewide database. The measure also includes a provision requiring commercial gun manufacturers to redesign pistols so they cannot be easily converted for automatic fire. "These illegal firearms are being manufactured in homes and used in crimes right now, which is why I have been working with my colleagues in Albany and the private sector over the past several years to stop their proliferation. Passing these measures will reduce crime and strengthen public safety for all New Yorkers," said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Iran's Internet Shutdown Is Now One of the Longest Ever
Iran has imposed one of the longest nationwide internet shutdowns in its history, cutting more than 92 million people off from connectivity for over a week as mass anti-government protests continue. TechCrunch reports: As of this writing, Iranians have not been able to access the internet for more than 170 hours. The previous longest shutdowns in the country lasted around 163 hours in 2019, and 160 hours in 2025, according to Isik Mater, the director of research at NetBlocks, a web monitoring company that tracks internet disruptions. Mater said that the current shutdown in Iran is the third longest on record, after the internet shutdown in Sudan in mid-2021 that lasted around 35 days, followed by the outage in Mauritania in July 2024, which lasted 22 days. "Iran's shutdowns remain among the most comprehensive and tightly enforced nationwide blackouts we've observed, particularly in terms of population affected," Mater told TechCrunch. The exact ranking depends on how each organization measures a shutdown. Zach Rosson, a researcher who studies internet disruptions at the digital rights nonprofit Access Now, told TechCrunch that according to its data, the ongoing shutdown in Iran is on a path to crack the top 10 longest shutdowns in history. Further reading: Iran Shuts Down Musk's Starlink For First Time
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Astronauts Splash Down To Earth After Medical Evacuation From ISS
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Four astronauts evacuated from the International Space Station (ISS) have landed back on Earth after their stay in space was cut short by a month due to a "serious" medical issue. The crew's captain, Nasa astronaut Mike Fincke, exited the spacecraft first, smiling and wobbling slightly on his feet before lying down on a gurney, following normal procedures. Nasa's Zena Cardman, Japan's Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov followed, waving and beaming at cameras. "It's so good to be home!", said Cardman. It is the first time astronauts have been evacuated due to a health issue since the station was put into Earth's orbit in 1998. The team, known as Crew-11, will now receive medical checks before being flown back to land after the splash down off the coast of California. In a news conference after splash-down, Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman said the sick astronaut is "fine right now" and in "good spirits." Judging by past Nasa communications about astronauts' health, it is unlikely that the identity of the crew member or details of the health issue will be released to the public. Control of the ISS has been handed over to Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and two other crew members. The astronauts arrived on the ISS on August 1 expecting to complete a standard six and a half month stay. They were due to come home in mid-February. But last week, a scheduled spacewalk by Fincke and Cardman was called off at the last minute. Hours later, Nasa revealed a crew member had become ill.
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- ASUS Stops Producing Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB
Reports suggest ASUS has effectively ended production of NVIDIA's RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB GPUs due to a severe memory crunch driven by AI infrastructure demand, even as NVIDIA insists it's still shipping all GeForce SKUs. YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed broke the news in its most recent video where it states ASUS "explicitly" told them the RTX 5070 Ti is "currently facing a supply shortage" and has "placed the model into end of life status." The shift leaves PC gamers facing fewer high-VRAM options just as modern games increasingly demand more than 8GB. Engadget reports: Hardware Unboxed also spoke to retailers in Australia, who told the channel the 5070 Ti is "no longer available to purchase from partners and distributors," adding they expect that to be the case throughout at least the first quarter of the year. The 5060 Ti 16GB "is almost done as well," with ASUS stating it no longer plans to produce that model going forward either. Both GPUs are 16GB models, making them more expensive to produce in the current economic climate. And while there might be some hope of the 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB returning later this year, the channel suggests both are unlikely to make a comeback. NVIDIA will reportedly focus on 8GB models like the RTX 5050, 5060, and 5060 Ti 8GB, with the 12GB 5070 set to stick around for now. The 5080 and 5090 are seemingly safe as well, as more expensive, higher margin models, they offer more space for manufacturers to absorb component price increases. "Demand for GeForce RTX GPUs is strong, and memory supply is constrained. We continue to ship all GeForce SKUs and are working closely with our suppliers to maximize memory availability," a NVIDIA spokesperson told Engadget. The company did not say 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB are going out of production. However, it also didn't confirm they're sticking around either. ASUS did not immediately respond to Engadget's comment request.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Italy's Privacy Watchdog, Scourge of US Big Tech, Hit By Corruption Probe
The powerful data privacy watchdog in Italy long known for aggressively policing U.S. and Chinese AI giants is under investigation for possible corruption and embezzlement. Reuters reports: Rome prosecutors are investigating the agency's president, Pasquale Stanzione, and three other board members over alleged excessive spending and possible corruption behind its decisions, Italian news agencies including ANSA as well as the judicial source, who did not wish to be named, said. Stanzione, when asked by reporters to comment on the investigation, said he was "absolutely serene." The opposition 5-Star Movement said the agency's credibility had been undermined and called for Stanzione to resign. Stanzione declined to answer when asked repeatedly by reporters whether he would step down. The data privacy authority, known in Italy as the Garante, is one of the European Union's most proactive regulators in assessing AI platform compliance with the bloc's data privacy regime. It frequently takes initiatives -- such as requesting information or imposing fines or bans -- on matters affecting high-tech multinationals operating in the country.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Oracle Trying To Lure Workers To Nashville For New 'Global' HQ
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Oracle is trying -- and sometimes struggling -- to attract workers to Nashville, where it is developing a massive riverfront headquarters.The company is hiring for more roles in Nashville than any other US city, with a special focus on jobs in its crucial cloud infrastructure unit. Oracle cloud workers based elsewhere say they've been offered tens of thousands of dollars in incentives to move. Chairman Larry Ellison made a splash in April 2024 when he said Oracle would make Nashville its "world headquarters" just a few years after moving the software company from Redwood City, California, to Austin. His proclamation followed a 2021 tax incentive deal in which Oracle pledged to create 8,500 jobs in Nashville by 2031, paying an average salary above six figures. "We're creating a world leading cloud and AI hub in Nashville that is attracting top talent locally, regionally, and from across the country," Oracle Senior Vice President Scott Twaddle said in a statement. "We've seen great success recruiting engineering and technical positions locally and will continue to hire aggressively for the next several years." Still, Oracle has a long way to go in its hiring goals. Today, it has about 800 workers assigned to offices in Nashville, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. That trails far behind the number of company employees in locations including Redwood City, Austin and Kansas City, the center of health records company Cerner, which Oracle acquired in 2022. A lack of state income tax and the city's thriving music scene are touted by Oracle's promotional materials to attract talent to Nashville. Some new hires note they moved because in a tough tech job market, the Tennessee city was the only place with an Oracle position offered. To fit all of these workers, Oracle is planning a massive campus along the Cumberland River. It will feature over 2 million square feet of office space, a new cross-river bridge and a branch of the ultra high-end sushi chain Nobu, which has locations on many properties connected to Ellison, including the Hawaiian island of Lanai. [...] Oracle has been running recruitment events for the new hub. But a common concern for employees weighing a move is that Nashville is classified by Oracle in a lower geographic pay band than California or Seattle, meaning that future salary growth is likely limited, according to multiple workers who asked not to be identified discussing private information. A weaker local tech job market also gives pause to some considering relocation. In addition, many of the roles in Nashville require five days a week in the office, which is a shift for Oracle, where a significant number of roles are remote. For a global company like Oracle, the exact meaning of "headquarters" can be a bit unclear. Austin remains the address included on company SEC filings and its executives are scattered across the country. The city where Oracle is hiring for the most positions globally is Bengaluru, the southern Indian tech hub. Still, Oracle is positioning Nashville to be at the center of its future. "We're developing our Nashville location to stand alongside Austin, Redwood Shores, and Seattle as a major innovation hub," Oracle writes on its recruitment site. "This is your chance to be part of it."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Boeing Knew About Flaws in UPS Plane That Crashed in Louisville, NTSB Says
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a report this week that a UPS cargo plane that crashed in Louisville, Ky., last year, killing 15, had a structural flaw that the manufacturer Boeing had previously concluded would not affect flight safety. The New York Times: The N.T.S.B. has said that cracks in the assembly holding the left-side engine in place may have contributed to the November crash, though it has not officially cited a cause. The part had fractured in similar fashion on at least four other occasions, on three different airplanes, according to the report, which cited a service letter that Boeing issued in 2011 regarding the apparent flaw. In the service letter, which manufacturers issue to flag safety concerns or other problems to aircraft owners, Boeing said that fractures "would not result in a safety of flight condition," N.T.S.B. investigators wrote. The plane that crashed was an MD-11F jet, made by McDonnell Douglas, a company that Boeing acquired in the 1990s. It was taking off from Louisville and bound for Hawaii on Nov. 4 when a fire ignited on its left engine shortly after takeoff. The plane crashed into several buildings, including a petroleum recycling facility, on the outskirts of the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. The three crew members on board and 11 people on the ground were killed in the crash; a 12th person on the ground died of injuries sustained during the episode.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Raspberry Pi's New Add-on Board Has 8GB of RAM For Running Gen AI Models
An anonymous reader shares a report: Raspberry Pi is launching a new add-on board capable of running generative AI models locally on the Raspberry Pi 5. Announced on Thursday, the $130 AI HAT+ 2 is an upgraded -- and more expensive -- version of the module launched last year, now offering 8GB of RAM and a Hailo 10H chip with 40 TOPS of AI performance. Once connected, the Raspberry Pi 5 will use the AI HAT+ 2 to handle AI-related workloads while leaving the main board's Arm CPU available to complete other tasks. Unlike the previous AI HAT+, which is focused on image-based AI processing, the AI HAT+ 2 comes with onboard RAM and can run small gen AI models like Llama 3.2 and DeepSeek-R1-Distill, along with a series of Qwen models. You can train and fine-tune AI models using the device as well.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Why Go is Going Nowhere
Go, the ancient board game that China, Japan and South Korea all claim as part of their cultural heritage, is struggling to expand its global footprint because the three nations that dominate it cannot agree on something as basic as a common rulebook. When Go was registered with the International Mind Sports Association alongside chess and bridge, organizers had to adopt the American Go Association's rules because the East Asian trio failed to reach consensus. In 2025, China's Ke Jie withdrew from a title match at a Seoul tournament after receiving repeated penalties for violating a rule that the South Korean Go association had introduced mid-tournament. China's Go association responded by barring foreign players, most of them South Korean, from its domestic competitions. It also doesn't help that the game's commercial appeal is fading. Japan's Nihon Ki-in, the country's main Go association, has started exploring a potential sale of its Tokyo headquarters. Young people across the region are gravitating toward chess, shogi, and video games instead.
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- Students Increasingly Choosing Community College or Certificates Over Four-Year Degrees
DesScorp writes: CNBC reports that new data from the National Student Clearinghouse indicates that enrollment growth in four year degree programs is slowing down, while growth in two year and certification programs is accelerating: Enrollments in undergraduate certificate and associate degree programs both grew by about 2% in fall 2025, while enrollment in bachelor's degree programs rose by less than 1%, the report found. Community colleges now enroll 752,000 students in undergraduate certificate programs -- a 28% jump from just four years ago. Overall, undergraduate enrollment growth was fueled by more students choosing to attend community college, the report found. "Community colleges led this year with a 3% increase, driven by continued rising interest in those shorter job-aligned certificate programs," said Matthew Holsapple, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center's senior director of research.For one thing, community college is significantly less expensive. At two-year public schools, tuition and fees averaged $4,150 for the 2025-2026 academic year, according to the College Board. Alternatively, at four-year public colleges, in-state tuition and fees averaged $11,950, and those costs at four-year private schools averaged $45,000. A further factor driving this new growth is that Pell Grants are now available for job-training courses like certifications.
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- Microsoft is Closing Its Employee Library and Cutting Back on Subscriptions
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's library of books is so heavy that it once caused a campus building to sink, according to an unproven legend among employees. Now those physical books, journals, and reports, and many of Microsoft's digital subscriptions to leading US newspapers, are disappearing in a shift described inside Microsoft as an "AI-powered learning experience." Microsoft started cutting back on its employee subscriptions to news and reports services in November, with some publishers receiving an automated email cancellation of a contract. [...] Strategic News Service (SNS), which has provided global reports to Microsoft's roughly 220,000 employees and executives for more than 20 years, is no longer part of Microsoft's subscription list.
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- Bankrupt scooter startup left one private key to rule them all
Owner reverse-engineered his ride, revealing authentication was never properly individualized
An Estonian e-scooter owner locked out of his own ride after the manufacturer went bust did what any determined engineer might do. He reverse-engineered it, and claims he ended up discovering the master key that unlocks every scooter the company ever sold.…
- Over half of AI projects are shelved due to complex infrastructure
The answer seems to be educating the enterprise workforce, and creating smarter use cases
More than half of AI projects have been delayed or canceled within the last two years citing complexities with AI infrastructure, according to a research report commissioned by DDN, a data optimization company in partnership with Google Cloud and Cognizant.…
- Chinese spies used Maduro's capture as a lure to phish US govt agencies
What's next for Venezuela? Click on the file and see
What policy wonk wouldn't want to click on an attachment promising to unveil US plans for Venezuela? Chinese cyberspies used just such a lure to target US government agencies and policy-related organizations in a phishing campaign that began just days after an American military operation captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.…
- Flipping one bit leaves AMD CPUs open to VM vuln
Fix landed in July, but OEM firmware updates are required
If you use virtual machines, there's reason to feel less-than-Zen about AMD's CPUs. Computer scientists affiliated with the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Germany have found a vulnerability in AMD CPUs that exposes secrets in its secure virtualization environment.…
- Contagious Claude Code bug Anthropic ignored promptly spreads to Cowork
Office workers without AI experience warned to watch for prompt injection attacks - good luck with that
Anthropic's tendency to wave off prompt-injection risks is rearing its head in the company's new Cowork productivity AI, which suffers from a Files API exfiltration attack chain first disclosed last October and acknowledged but not fixed by Anthropic.…
- Apple, Google pulled into Grok controversy as campaigners demand app store takedown
The chatbot's challenges no longer just Elon Musk’s problem, as campaigners call on tech giants to step in
The ongoing Grok fiasco has claimed two more unwilling participants, as campaigners demand Apple and Google boot X and its AI sidekick out of their app stores, because of the Elon Musk-owned AI's tendency to produce illicit images of real people.…
- Teach an AI to write buggy code, and it starts fantasizing about enslaving humans
Research shows erroneous training in one domain affects performance in another, with concerning implications
Large language models (LLMs) trained to misbehave in one domain exhibit errant behavior in unrelated areas, a discovery with significant implications for AI safety and deployment, according to research published in Nature this week.…
- US regulator tells GM to hit the brakes on customer tracking
Smart Driver pitched as safety app, but feds claim it's a data-harvesting scheme that jacked up premiums
The Federal Trade Commission has banned General Motors and subsidiary OnStar from sharing drivers' precise location and behavior data with consumer reporting agencies for five years under a 20-year consent order finalized January 14.…
- Woman bailed as cops probe doctor's surgery data breach
Suspect assisting West Midlands Police over alleged theft at Walsall GP practice
The UK's West Midlands Police has released a woman on bail as part of an investigation into a data breach at a Walsall general practitioner's (GP) surgery.…
- Wine 11 runs Windows apps in Linux and macOS better than ever
Transparently runs 16, 32, and 64-bit Windows apps, but still doesn't use the Microsoft store.
The latest version of the Wine Windows app runner arrives a year after version 10. Given its annual release cycle, its magic is starting to seem almost boring and routine, but it's far from it.…
- Raspberry Pi 5 gets LLM smarts with AI HAT+ 2
40 TOPS of inference grunt, 8 GB onboard memory, and the nagging question: who exactly needs this?
Raspberry Pi has launched the AI HAT+ 2 with 8 GB of onboard RAM and the Hailo-10H neural network accelerator aimed at local AI computing.…
- Microsoft taps UK courts to dismantle cybercrime host RedVDS
Redmond says cheap virtual desktops powered a global wave of phishing and fraud
Microsoft has taken its cybercrime fight to the UK in its first major civil action outside the US, moving to shut down RedVDS, a virtual desktop service used to power phishing and fraud at global scale.…
- AWS flips switch on Euro cloud as customers fret about digital sovereignty
EU-only ops, German subsidiaries, and a pinky promise your data won't end up in Uncle Sam's hands
Amid continued trade and geopolitical volatility between Europe and the US, Amazon Web Services is making its European Sovereign Cloud generally available today and plans to expand so-called Local Zones.…
- Dell wants £10m+ from VMware if Tesco case goes against it
Retail giant's disty, reseller, and vendor all say they can't and won't sell
Exclusive Dell has filed a claim against VMware in the software licensing dispute brought by supermarket giant Tesco and wants the virtualization giant should fork over at least £10 million under certain circumstances.…
- Maker fight! SparkFun cuts ties with Adafruit in harassment dispute
Adafruit claims SparkFun aims to shoot the messenger for criticizing corporate tolerance of intolerance
Retailer SparkFun Electronics last month said it would no longer do business with electronics kit-maker Adafruit Industries, citing violations of SparkFun's Code of Conduct during online interactions.…
- CrowdStrike shareholders lose battle to recoup losses from 2024 outage
Investors didn't present a valid claim, says judge, but they're welcome to try again
A group of CrowdStrike shareholders who sued the company over losses sustained following its 2024 global outage will have to head back to the drawing board if they hope to recoup losses, as a Texas judge has deemed they failed to adequately state a claim.…
- New Linux malware targets the cloud, steals creds, and then vanishes
Cloud-native, 37 plugins … an attacker's dream
A brand-new Linux malware named VoidLink targets victims' cloud infrastructure with more than 30 plugins that allow attackers to perform a range of illicit activities, from silent reconnaissance and credential theft to lateral movement and container abuse. …
- There was so much fraud on COVID loans, the feds trained an anti-fraud AI on the applications
Had it been around in 2020, it could have flagged tens of billions before payouts, PRAC tells Congress
A fraud-detection AI model trained on COVID-19 loan data could have flagged potentially tens of billions of dollars in payments before they went out, reducing the feds' pay-and-chase cleanup, the US government's Pandemic Response Accountability Committee told Congress on Tuesday.…
- UK backtracks on digital ID requirement for right to work
U-turn leaves questions on costs, funding, and benefits unanswered
The UK government has backed down from making digital ID mandatory for proof of a right to work in the country, adding to confusion over the scheme's cost and purpose.…
- Stop dragging feet on AI nudification ban, UK government told
Committee raises concerns over delays and loopholes in proposed law
The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has criticized the UK government's handling of AI nudification tools, saying it is taking too long to ban apps, and that expedited legislation does not encompass multi-purpose platforms used to create nude images.…
- Buy servers now or cry later: DRAM price spike threatens infrastructure budgets
Component up 63% since September, more pricey memory coming to a supply chain near you
Enterprise IT infrastructure buyers are bracing for hefty price hikes across servers, storage systems, and networking kit, driven by steep inflation in memory component costs that industry analysts warn will soon cascade through the supply chain.…
- Windows 2000 rusts in peace by the sea
When salty coastal air meets memory errors in one of Portugal's rail ticket machines
Bork!Bork!Bork! It's back to the railways of Portugal for today's bork. Remember how we called Windows 2000 the unkillable cockroach of the IT world? Seems it's been upset by software peeking at memory where it shouldn't.…
- Security: Why Linux Is Better Than Windows Or Mac OS
Linux is a free and open source operating system that was released in 1991 developed and released by Linus Torvalds. Since its release it has reached a user base that is greatly widespread worldwide. Linux users swear by the reliability and freedom that this operating system offers, especially when compared to its counterparts, windows and [0]
- Essential Software That Are Not Available On Linux OS
An operating system is essentially the most important component in a computer. It manages the different hardware and software components of a computer in the most effective way. There are different types of operating system and everything comes with their own set of programs and software. You cannot expect a Linux program to have all [0]
- Things You Never Knew About Your Operating System
The advent of computers has brought about a revolution in our daily life. From computers that were so huge to fit in a room, we have come a very long way to desktops and even palmtops. These machines have become our virtual lockers, and a life without these network machines have become unimaginable. Sending mails, [0]
- How To Fully Optimize Your Operating System
Computers and systems are tricky and complicated. If you lack a thorough knowledge or even basic knowledge of computers, you will often find yourself in a bind. You must understand that something as complicated as a computer requires constant care and constant cleaning up of junk files. Unless you put in the time to configure [0]
- The Top Problems With Major Operating Systems
There is no such system which does not give you any problems. Even if the system and the operating system of your system is easy to understand, there will be some times when certain problems will arise. Most of these problems are easy to handle and easy to get rid of. But you must be [0]
- 8 Benefits Of Linux OS
Linux is a small and a fast-growing operating system. However, we can’t term it as software yet. As discussed in the article about what can a Linux OS do Linux is a kernel. Now, kernels are used for software and programs. These kernels are used by the computer and can be used with various third-party software [0]
- Things Linux OS Can Do That Other OS Cant
What Is Linux OS? Linux, similar to U-bix is an operating system which can be used for various computers, hand held devices, embedded devices, etc. The reason why Linux operated system is preferred by many, is because it is easy to use and re-use. Linux based operating system is technically not an Operating System. Operating [0]
- Packagekit Interview
Packagekit aims to make the management of applications in the Linux and GNU systems. The main objective to remove the pains it takes to create a system. Along with this in an interview, Richard Hughes, the developer of Packagekit said that he aims to make the Linux systems just as powerful as the Windows or [0]
- What’s New in Ubuntu?
What Is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is open source software. It is useful for Linux based computers. The software is marketed by the Canonical Ltd., Ubuntu community. Ubuntu was first released in late October in 2004. The Ubuntu program uses Java, Python, C, C++ and C# programming languages. What Is New? The version 17.04 is now available here [0]
- Ext3 Reiserfs Xfs In Windows With Regards To Colinux
The problem with Windows is that there are various limitations to the computer and there is only so much you can do with it. You can access the Ext3 Reiserfs Xfs by using the coLinux tool. Download the tool from the official site or from the sourceforge site. Edit the connection to “TAP Win32 Adapter [0]
- Going immutable on macOS
Speaking of NixOS use of 9P, what if you want to, for whatever inexplicable reason, use macOS, but make it immutable? Immutable Linux distributions are getting a lot of attention lately, and similar concepts are used by Android and iOS, so it makes sense for people stuck on macOS to want similar functionality. Apple doesnt offer anything to make this happen, but of course, theres always Nix. And I literally do mean always. Only try out Nix if youre willing to first be sucked into a pit of despair and madness before coming out enlightened on the other end I managed to only narrowly avoid this very thing happening to me last year, so be advised. Nix is no laughing matter. Anyway, yes, you can use Nix to make macOS immutable. But managing a good working environment on macOS has long been a game of “hope for the best.” We’ve all been there: a curl $ sh here, a manual brew install there, and six months later, you’re staring at a broken PATH and a Python environment that seems to have developed its own consciousness. I’ve spent a lot of time recently moving my entire workflow into a declarative system using nix. From my zsh setup to my odin toolchain, here is why the transition from the imperative world of Homebrew to the immutable world of nix-darwin has been both a revelation and a fight. ↫ Carette Antonin Of course its been a fight its Nix, after all but its quite impressive and awesome that Nix can be used in this way. I would rather discover what electricity from light sockets tastes like than descend into this particular flavour of Nix madness, but if youre really sick of macOS being a pile of trash for among a lot of other things homebrew and similar bolted-on systems held together by duct tape and spit, this might be a solution for you.
- Fun fact: theres Plan 9 in Windows and QEMU
If youre only even remotely aware of the operating system Plan 9, youll most likely know that it takes the UNIX concept of everything is a file! to the absolute extreme. In order to make sure all these files and thus the components of Plan 9 can properly communicate with one another, theres 9P, or the Plan 9 Filesystem Protocol. Several Plan 9 applications are 9P file servers, for instance, and even things like windows are files. Its a lot more complicated than this, of course, but thats not relevant right now. Since Plan 9 wasnt exactly a smashing success that took the operating system world by storm, you might not be aware that 9P is actually implemented in a few odd places. My favourite is how Microsoft turned to 9P for a crucial feature of its Windows Subsystem for Linux: accessing files inside a Linux VM running on Windows. To put it briefly: a 9P protocol file server facilitates file related requests, with Windows acting as the client. We’ve modified the WSL init daemon to initiate a 9P server. This server contains protocols that support Linux metadata, including permissions. A Windows service and driver that act as the client and talks to the 9P server (which is running inside of a WSL instance). Client and server communicate over AF_UNIX sockets, since WSL allows interop between a Windows application and a Linux application using AF_UNIX as described in this post. ↫ Craig Loewen at Microsofts Dev Blogs This implementation is still around today, so if youre using Windows Subsystem for Linux, youre using a little bit of Plan 9 as glue to make it all come together. Similarly, if youre using QEMU and sharing files between the host and a VM through the VirtFS driver, youre also using 9P. Both NixOS and GNU Guix use 9P when they build themselves inside a virtual machine, too, and theres probably a few other places where you can run into 9P. I dont know, I thought this was interesting.
- Just the Browser: scripts to remove all the crap from your browser
Are you a normal person and thus sick of all the nonsensical, non-browser stuff browser makers keep adding to your browser, but for whatever reason you dont want to or cannot switch to one of the forks of your browser of choice? Just the Browser helps you remove AI features, telemetry data reporting, sponsored content, product integrations, and other annoyances from desktop web browsers. The goal is to give you just the browser! and nothing else, using hidden settings in web browsers intended for companies and other organizations. This project includes configuration files for popular web browsers, documentation for installing and modifying them, and easy installation scripts. Everything is open-source on GitHub. ↫ Just The Browsers website It comes in the form of scripts for Windows, Linux, or macOS, and can be used for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox. Its all open source so you can check the scripts for yourself, but there are also manual guides for each browser if youre not too keen on running an unknown script. The changes wont be erased by updates, unless the specific settings and configuration flags used are actually removed or altered by the browser makers. Thats all theres to it a very straightforward tool.
- Haikus 6th beta is getting closer, but you really dont need to wait if you want to try Haiku
Despite December being the holiday month, Haikus developers got a lot of things done. A welcome addition for those of us who regularly install Haiku on EFI systems is a tool in the installer that will copy the EFI loader to the EFI system partition, so fewer manual steps are needed on EFI systems. Support for touchpads from Elantech has also been improved, and the FreeBSD driver compatibility layer and all of its Ethernet and WiFi drivers have been updated to match the recent FreeBSD 15 release. Of course, theres also the usual long list of smaller fixes, improvements, and changes. As for a new release milestone, beta 6 seems to be on the way. Not quite. There has been some discussion on the mailing list as the ticket list gets smaller, but there’s still at least some more regressions that need to be fixed. But it looks like we’ll be starting the release process in the next month or two, most likely… ↫ Haikus December 2025 activity report To be fair, though, Haikus nightly releases are more than able to serve their duties, and waiting for a specific release if youre interested in trying out Haiku is really not needed. Just grab the latest nightly, follow the installation instructions, and youre good to go. The operating system supports updating itself, so youll most likely wont need to reinstall nightlies all the time.
- Can you turn Windows 95s Windows 3.10-based pre-install environment into a full desktop without using Microsoft products?
Its no secret that the Windows 95 installer uses a heavily stripped-down Windows 3.10 runtime, but what can you actually do with it? How far can you take this runtime? Can it run Photoshop? It is a long-standing tradition for Microsoft to use a runtime copy of Windows as a part of Windows Setup. But the copy is so stripped-down, it cannot run anything but the setup program (winsetup.bin). OR IS IT? A mini-challenge for myself: create a semi-working desktop only based on runtime Windows 3.10 shipped with Windows 95 installer but not using any other Microsoft products. ↫ Nina Kalinina A crucial limitation here is that Kalinina is not allowing herself to use any additional Microsoft products, so the easy route of just copying missing DLLs and other files from a Windows 95 disk or whatever is not available to her; she has to source any needed files from other sources. This may seem impossible, but during those days, tons of Windows (and even DOS) applications would ship with various Microsoft DLLs included, so there are definitely places to get Windows DLLs that arent coming directly from Microsoft. As an example, since theres no shell of any kind included in the stripped-down Windows 3.10 runtime, Kalinina tried Calmira and WinBar, which wont work without a few DLLs. Where to get them if you cant get them straight from Microsoft? Well, it turns out programs compiled with later version of MSVC would include several of these needed DLLs, and AutoCad R12 was one of them. WinBar would now start and work, and while Calmira would install, it didnt work because it needs the Windows Multimedia Subsystem, which dont seem to be included in anything non-Microsoft. It turns out you can take this approach remarkably far. Things like Calculator and Notepad will work, but Pain or Paintbrush will not. Larger, more complex applications work too Photoshop 2.5.1 works, as does Netscape, but without any networking stack, its a little bit moot. Even Calmira XP eventually runs, as some needed DLLs are found inside Mom For Windows 2.0!, at which point the installation starts to look and feel a lot like a regular Windows 3.x installation, minus things like settings panels and a bunch of default applications. Is this useful? Probably not, but who cares its an awesome trick, and that alone makes it a worthwhile effort.
- Modern HTML features on text-based web browsers
Theyre easily overlooked between all the Chrome and Safari violence, but there are still text-based web browsers, and people still use them. How do they handle the latest HTML features? While CSS is the star of the show when it comes to new features, HTML ain’t stale either. If we put the long-awaited styleable selects and Apple’s take on toggle switches aside, there’s a lot readily available cross-browser. But here’s the thing: Whenever we say cross-browser, we usually look at the big ones, never at text-based browsers. So in this article I wanna shed some light on how they handle the following recent additions. ↫ Matthias Zöchling Text-based web browsers work best with regular HTML, as things like CSS and JavaScript wont work. Despite the new features highlighted in the article being HTML, however, text-based browser have a hard time dealing with them, and its likely that as more and more modern features get added to HTML, text-based browsers are going to have an increasingly harder time dealing with the web. At least OSNews seems to render decently usable on text-based web browsers, but ideal it is not. I dont really have the skills to fix any issues on that front, but I can note that Im working on a extremely basic, HTML-only version of OSNews generated from our RSS feed, hosted on some very unique retro hardware. I cant guarantee itll become available Im weary about hosting something from home using unique hardware and outdated software but if it does, yall will know about it, of course.
- The DEC PDP-10
The PDP-10 family of computers (under different names) was manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation between 1964 and 1983. Designed for time-sharing, batch and real-time systems, these computers were popular with universities, scientific companies and time-sharing bureaux. Several operating systems were available, some from DEC and some built by its users. It had a large influence on operating system design, artificial intelligence (especially at MIT and Stanford), programming languages (LISP, ML), applications (TeX, Emacs), online communication (ARPANET, Compuserve), games (Advent, Zork) and even helped development of Microsofts first version of BASIC. ↫ Rupert Lane The importance, impact, and legacy of the PDP series of computers cannot be understated, running like a red thread through the early days and development of several important and crucial technologies. Lane is going to cover a number of the operating systems created for the PDP-10, so if youre interested keep a bookmark.
- You are not required to close your `p>, `li>, `img>, or `br> tags in HTML
Are you an author writing HTML? Just so we’re clear: Not XHTML. HTML. Without the X. If you are, repeat after me, because apparently this bears repeating (after the title): You are not required to close your 8lt;pb, 8lt;lib, 8lt;imgb, or 8lt;brb tags in HTML. ↫ Daniel Tan Back when I still had to write OSNews stories in plain HTML yes, thats what we did for a very long time I always properly closed my tags. I did so because I thought you had to, but also because I think it looks nicer, adds a ton of clarity, and makes it easier to go back later and make any possible changes or fix errors. It definitely added to the workload, which was especially annoying when dealing with really long, detailed articles, but the end result was worth it. I havent had to write in plain HTML for ages now, since OSNews switched to WordPress and thus uses a proper WYSIWYG editor, so I havent thought about closing HTML tags in a long time until I stumbled upon this article. I vaguely remember I would fix! other peoples HTML in our backend by adding closing tags, and now I feel a little bit silly for doing so since apparently it wasnt technically necessary at all. Luckily, its also not wrong to close your tags, and I stick by my readability arguments. Sometimes its easy to forget just how old HTML has become, and how mangled its become over the years.
- Windows Explorer likely to get Copilot AI! sidebar
We all knew this was going to happen, so lets just get it over with. Microsoft is testing a new feature that integrates Copilot into the File Explorer, but it’s not going to be another ‘Ask Copilot’ button in the right-click menu. This time, Copilot will live inside File Explorer, likely in a sidebar or Details/Preview-pane-like interface, according to new references in Windows 11 preview builds. ↫ Mayank Parmar at Windows Latest What am I even supposed to say at this point? Who wants this? Why utterly destroy what little reputation and goodwill Windows has left? Has the hype bubble become this clouded and intoxicating? Even system administrators who want to turn off Copilot in their organisations or device fleets in an official, supported way are getting punched in the face by Microsoft. The company rolled out a new Group Policy to disable Copilot, but its such a useless mess it might as well not be there at all. This essentially means that IT admins will only be able to uninstall the Copilot app for customers where their device has both Copilot apps installed by either a clean install or by the IT team itself, as long as the Copilot app has not been opened in a month. So, even if you accidentally open the Copilot app for a second because its there in your Windows taskbar, the Copilot app wont be uninstalled. ↫ Usama Jawad at Neowin You shouldnt be using Windows.
- Phosh 2025 in retrospect
Posh, GNOMEs mobile shell, published a look back on the projects 2025. The Phosh developers focus from day one was to make devices running Phosh daily drivable without having to resort to any proprietary OSes as a fallback. This year showed improvements in some important areas people rely on like cell broadcasts and emergency calls, further improving usability and starting some ground work we’ll need for some upcoming features. ↫ Phosh developers In 2025, Posh gained support for cell broadcasts like the emergency messages regarding storms, or alerts about missing persons, that sort of stuff which is a pretty important feature in this day and age. Posh also improved its support for per-source audio volumes and one source of audio muting another, its on-screen keyboard, its compositor, and much more. Of course, the main problem for shells like Phosh is hardware support, which is handled by the underlying operating system, like PostmarketOS. These Linux mobile operating systems are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to hardware support, and while Android application support can fill some of the application shortcomings, youre going to be making pretty significant concessions by switching to mobile Linux at the moment. When even Android ROMs not sanctioned by Google are having issues with banking applications or government ID stuff, using mobile Linux will be even more of a problem. None of this is the fault of any of the people dedicating their free time to things like Phosh or PostmarketOS, of course its just a sad reality of a market we once again just gave up to a few megacorporations, with our governments too cowardly to stand up and fix this issue.
- Budgie 10.10 released
Budgie has fallen a bit by the wayside in recent years, but its still in development and making steady progress. The projects just released Budgie 10.10, the final release in the 10.x series which also marks the end of the transition to Wayland. Budgie 10.10 is a brand new release series for Budgie Desktop, marking our first release to migrate Budgie from X11 to Wayland. This release series brings to a close just over a decade of Budgie 10 development; we are formally putting Budgie 10 into maintenance mode to focus our efforts on Budgie 11. ↫ Joshua Strobl Budgie is taking a very interesting approach for its move to Wayland; instead of writing every single component of their desktop environment from scratch or porting their X11 tools, the project opted to reuse and implement a ton of established, well-tested, and popular Wayland tools like swaybg, swayidle, labwc, and so on. This obviously saves on development time, but also ensures the transition to Wayland is relatively smooth. Things like the panel, applets, the Budgie Control Center, and so on, have been updated or rewritten. Theres also some new features, as well as a ton of bug fixes and smaller improvements. As noted, this release marks the end of the road for the 10.x series, with development now shifting to Budgie 11. Upcoming releases of major distributions will have Budgie 10.10 in their repositories.
- OpenBSD on the Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100
OpenBSD on a Sharp Zaurus Linux-based PDA from 2005? Of course, why not? Installing OpenBSD was easy. The instructions in INSTALL.zaurus are pretty straightforward. My 5.6 install was smooth. Installing sets took ~10-15 minutes. The Microdrive is really slow. Ill replace it with a CF card soon, which should be slightly faster (and more reliable). ↫ goldfish Of course, it includes a working X desktop, which is neat and makes the device a lot more useful. I have a slightly older Zaurus PDA, and this post has made me interested in doing something similar to it.
- GNU/Hurd gets dhcpcd port, further SMP improvements
Since we entered a new year, we also entered a new quarter, and that means a new quarterly report from the Hurd, the project that aims to, to this day, developer a kernel for the GNU operating system. Over the course of the fourth quarter of 2025, an important undertaking has been to port dhcpcd to Hurd, which will ultimately bring IPv6 support to Hurd. For now, the port only supports IPv4, only works on Ethernet, and is still generally quite limited when it comes to its functionality. Its a great start, though, and an amazing effort. Furthermore, Q4 2025 also saw improvements in symmetric multiprocessing support on x86, not exactly a small feat. Theres a ton of work left to be done, but progress is being made and thats important considering todays processor landscape. Theres also the usual load of fixes, smaller improvements, and changes all over the operating system, and the report makes it clear that Debians recent announcement that APT will start requiring Rust is not a major issue for Hurd, as it already has a Rust port.
- MenuetOS 1.58.00 released
MenuetOS, the operating system written in x86-64 assembly, released version 1.58.00. Since the last time we talked about MenuetOS, the included X server has been improved, networking performance has been increased, theres now native versions of classic X utilities like XEyes, XCalc, and others, and more. Theres also the usual smaller improvements and bug fixes.
- The world is on fire, so lets look at pretty Amiga desktops
Theres so much shit going on in the world right now, and we can all use a breather. So, lets join Carl Svensson and look at some pretty Amiga Workbench screenshots. Combining my love for screenshots with the love for the Amiga line of computers, Ive decided to present a small, curated selection of noteworthy Amiga Workbenches Workbench being the name of the Amigas desktop environment. ↫ Carl Svensson I love how configurable and flexible the Amiga Workbench is, and how this aspect of it has been embraced by the Amiga community. All of these screenshots demonstrate a sense of purpose, and clearly reflect the kind of things their users do with their Amigas. I think Graphics Card Workbench #1 (1997)! speaks to me the most, striking a great balance between the blocky, pixelated old! Amiga look, and the more modern late 90s/early 00s Amiga look. The icon set in that one also vaguely reminds me of BeOS, which is always a plus. That being said, all of them look great and are instantly recognisable as Amiga desktops, and make me wish I had a modern Amiga capable of running Amiga OS 4.
- Improving the Flatpak graphics drivers situation
The solution the Flatpak team is looking into is to use virtualisation for the graphics driver, as the absolute last-resort option to keep things working when nothing else will. Its a complex and interesting solution to a complex and interesting problem.
- Introducing Loss32: A New Lightweight Linux Distro With a Focus on Legacy Hardware
by George Whittaker Introduction
A fresh entry has just appeared in the world of Linux distributions: Loss32, a lightweight operating system built from scratch with one goal in mind — giving old and low-resource computers a new lease on life. Announced by its small but passionate development team, Loss32 aims to be fast, respectful of older hardware, and friendly to users who want simplicity without sacrificing modern usability.
Whether you’re rediscovering an old laptop in a drawer or building a tiny home server, Loss32 promises to deliver a capable computing experience with minimal overhead.
A Distribution Born from a Simple Idea
Loss32 began as a personal project by a group of open-source enthusiasts frustrated with how quickly modern software has moved past older machines. They noticed that even relatively recent hardware can struggle with mainstream operating systems, leaving many devices underutilized.
Their solution: build a distro that boots fast, uses minimal RAM and disk space, and still provides a complete desktop environment for everyday tasks.
The name Loss32 stems from its focus on “losing” unnecessary bloat — keeping only what’s essential — and the fact that it targets 32-bit and low-resource systems that many other distros are abandoning.
Key Features of Loss321. Runs on Older CPUs and Low Memory
Loss32 supports:
32-bit and 64-bit CPUs
Machines with as little as 512 MB of RAM
Hard drives and SSDs down to 4 GB usable space
These minimums open the distro up to machines that newer Linux distros won’t even install on.
2. Lightweight Desktop — Fast and Simple
Instead of heavy desktop environments, Loss32 ships with a customized Xfce/XF-Lite hybrid:
Classic panel layout for easy navigation
Small memory footprint for snappy response
Simple app launchers and taskbars
This ensures a familiar feel while staying lean.
3. Essential App Suite Included
Out of the box, Loss32 includes a careful selection of applications:
Web browsing — light browser with Web standards support
Email and calendar — basic, responsive client
Media playback — audio and video codecs included
Simple document editing and PDF viewing
File manager optimized for speed
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- Linux Kernel 6.19-rc4 Released as Development Marches On
by George Whittaker
The Linux kernel development cycle continues with the release of Linux 6.19-rc4, the fourth release candidate in the lead-up to the final 6.19 stable kernel. As with previous RC builds, this release is aimed squarely at developers, testers, and early adopters who help identify bugs and regressions before the kernel is finalized.
Release candidates are not feature drops — they are checkpoints. And rc4 reflects exactly that role.
What Does rc4 Mean in the Kernel Cycle?
By the time the fourth release candidate arrives, the merge window is long closed. That means all major features for Linux 6.19 are already in place, and the focus has shifted entirely to:
Fixing bugs introduced earlier in the cycle
Addressing regressions reported by testers
Refining drivers, subsystems, and architecture-specific code
In other words, rc4 is about stability and correctness, not surprises.
What’s Changed in Linux 6.19-rc4
While rc releases don’t usually headline major features, they do include a steady stream of important fixes across the kernel tree.
Driver and Hardware Fixes
Many of the changes in rc4 focus on hardware support, including:
GPU driver fixes for stability and edge-case behavior
Networking device driver cleanups
Updates for input devices and platform-specific drivers
These changes help ensure Linux continues to run reliably across a wide range of systems, from desktops and laptops to servers and embedded hardware.
Filesystems and Storage
Several filesystems see incremental fixes in this release, addressing corner cases, error handling, and consistency issues. Storage-related updates also touch block-layer code and device-mapper components, helping improve reliability under load.
Architecture-Specific Updates
As usual, rc4 includes fixes tailored to specific CPU architectures, such as:
x86 refinements
ARM and ARM64 cleanups
RISC-V and other platform-specific adjustments
These changes may not affect all users directly, but they’re crucial for maintaining Linux’s broad hardware compatibility.
Regression Fixes and Testing Feedback
A large portion of rc4 is dedicated to resolving regressions reported by testers running earlier release candidates. This includes:
Fixes for boot issues on certain configurations
Corrections for performance regressions
Cleanup of warnings and build errors
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- Top 6 B2B Software Comparison Websites for Software Vendors (2026)
by George Whittaker
As a software vendor, getting your product in front of the right audience is crucial. One of the best ways to reach business buyers is by leveraging B2B software comparison and review platforms. These websites attract millions of in-market software buyers who rely on peer reviews and ratings to make purchasing decisions. In fact, 88% of buyers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations [1]?. By listing your software on these platforms, you can gather authentic user feedback, build credibility, and dramatically improve your visibility to potential customers. Below we rank the top six B2B software comparison websites – and highlight what makes each one valuable for vendors looking to boost exposure and win more business. Now updated for 2026.
1. SourceForge
SourceForge tops our list as a powerhouse platform for software vendors. Why SourceForge? For starters, it boasts enormous traffic – over 20 million monthly visitors actively searching for software solutions [2]?. In fact, SourceForge drives more traffic than any other B2B software directory (often more than all other major sites combined!) [2]?. Semrush even estimates SourceForge's November 2025 traffic at 27.51 million visitors[3]?. This means listing your product here can put you in front of a vast pool of potential business buyers. SourceForge offers a complete business software and services comparison platform where buyers can find, compare, and review software. As the site itself says: “Selling software? You’re in the right place. We’ll help you reach millions of intent-driven software and IT buyers and influencers every day.” For a vendor, this translates into incredible visibility and lead generation opportunities.
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- Looking Ahead: What 2026 Holds for the Linux Ecosystem
by George Whittaker
Linux has always been more than just a kernel, it’s a living, breathing world of innovation, community collaboration, and divergent use cases. As we roll into 2026, the landscape is poised for exciting growth. From continuing evolution of core kernel infrastructure to newfound momentum in areas like gaming, AI-augmented tooling, hardware support and security, the coming year promises both refinement and transformation. Whether you’re a developer, system administrator, gamer, or casual user, here’s what you can expect from the Linux world in 2026.
1. Kernel Evolution: Performance, Security, and AI-Driven Behavior
The Linux kernel remains the beating heart of the OS. In 2026, we’ll likely see:
New Long-Term Support (LTS) Baselines: With releases like 6.18 already declared LTS and successor branches maturing, distributions will rally around kernels that offer both performance gains and security longevity.
AI-Driven Infrastructure: Kernel subsystems may start experimenting with machine-learning-informed scheduling, resource management, or dynamic power/performance tuning, not via heavy inference at runtime, but via control-plane advice integrated at build or boot time.
Security Innovation: Hardware vulnerabilities like VMScape and speculative execution side channels have taught us that kernel mitigations remain crucial. Expect continued work on microarchitecture hardening, pointer tagging, and improved isolation.
The overall trend points to a kernel that is both more performant and more robust, without compromising the modularity that makes Linux adaptable across systems from supercomputers to handhelds.
2. The Desktop Experience: Polished, Consistent, and Accessible
For desktop users, 2026 should bring visible improvements to everyday workflows:
Wayland Maturity: Wayland adoption continues to solidify across distributions, with fewer fallbacks to legacy X11 backends. Compositors and toolkits will refine scaling, multi-monitor behavior, and screen capture APIs.
Accessibility Gains: Distros will invest more in accessibility, bringing improved screen reader support, better keyboard navigation, and wide internationalization.
Distribution Diversity: More polished newcomers and revitalizations of existing distros will continue, especially projects aimed at lowering the barrier to entry for users migrating from Windows or macOS.
The promise here is a Linux desktop that feels friendly without diluting depth for advanced customization.
3. Cloud, Edge, and Server Infrastructure: Linux Everywhere
Linux powers the backbone of the modern server and cloud world. In 2026:
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- Top Linux Distributions for Beginners: Friendly, Stable, and Easy to Learn
by George Whittaker Introduction
Linux has long been known as the operating system of developers and power users, but today it’s far more accessible than ever before. Thanks to user-friendly distributions that prioritize simplicity, stability, and support, even someone who’s never used Linux can get up and running quickly. In this guide, we’ll explore some of the best Linux distributions (distros) for beginners, what sets them apart, and who each one is best suited for.
Whether you’re switching from Windows or macOS, using a PC for the first time, or simply curious about Linux, there’s a distro here that fits your comfort level and workflow.
1. Ubuntu: The Standard for New Users
Why it’s great: Ubuntu is one of the most recognizable Linux distributions, and for good reason. It offers a polished graphical interface, a massive community, and extensive documentation. If you’ve ever wanted a desktop that “just works,” Ubuntu delivers with minimal setup.
Key Features:
Intuitive GNOME desktop environment
Regular releases and a Long-Term Support (LTS) version with five years of updates
Large software repository and excellent hardware support
Strong community forums and extensive official documentation
Good for: Users completely new to Linux or those switching from Windows or macOS.
Best for: Desktops, laptops, beginners.
2. Linux Mint: Familiar Feel for Former Windows Users
Why it’s great: Linux Mint focuses on a familiar desktop experience. Its Cinnamon edition resembles the classic Windows layout, making the transition easier for users coming from that platform. Mint is stable, fast, and comes with many tools that simplify daily tasks.
Key Features:
Traditional desktop layout (like Windows)
Comes bundled with multimedia codecs and essential apps
Excellent performance on older hardware
Multiple desktop options (Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce)
Good for: Windows switchers looking for a gentle introduction.
Best for: Desktops, older machines, learners.
3. Zorin OS: A Windows-Like Experience With Style
Why it’s great: Zorin OS is designed with newcomers in mind. It’s polished, modern, and “comfortable” for users who may find traditional Linux desktops intimidating. Its interface can mimic Windows or macOS out of the box, and Zorin includes tools to effortlessly install popular applications.
Key Features:
Look-and-feel switcher (Windows, macOS styles)
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- What’s New in KDE Gear 25.12 — A Major Update for KDE Software
by George Whittaker Introduction
The KDE community has just published KDE Gear 25.12, the newest quarterly update to its suite of applications. This refresh brings a mix of enhancements, bug fixes, performance refinements, and new features across many popular KDE apps, from Dolphin file manager and Konsole terminal to Krita and Spectacle. With this release, KDE continues its tradition of incremental yet meaningful upgrades that make everyday use smoother and more productive.
KDE Gear updates are not limited to the KDE Plasma desktop; they also benefit users of other desktop environments who install KDE apps on their systems. Whether you’re running KDE on Linux, BSD, or even Windows via KDE Windows builds, Gear 25.12 delivers improvements worth checking out.
Highlights from KDE Gear 25.12Dolphin: Better File Browsing and Thumbnails
Dolphin, KDE’s file manager, receives several enhancements in this update:
Improved thumbnail generation for more file types, making previews quicker and more dependable.
UI polish in the sidebar for easier navigation between folders and mounted drives.
Better handling of network shares and remote locations, improving responsiveness and reducing hangs.
These changes combine to make everyday file exploration more responsive and visually informative.
Konsole: Productivity Boosts
The KDE terminal emulator, Konsole, gets attention too:
Search field improvements help you find text within long terminal scrollbacks faster and with fewer clicks.
Tab and session indicators are clearer, helping users manage multiple tabs or split views more easily.
Stability fixes reduce crashes in edge cases when closing multiple sessions at once.
For developers and power users who spend a lot of time in a terminal, these refinements are genuinely useful.
Krita: More Painting Power
Krita, KDE’s professional painting and illustration application, also benefits from this release:
Improvements to brush performance, reducing lag on large canvases and complex brush sets.
Better color management and palette handling, smoothing workflows for digital artists.
Fixes for certain configuration edge cases that previously caused settings not to persist across sessions.
Artists and digital illustrators should notice fewer interruptions and smoother performance when working on large projects.
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- Linux Kernel 5.4 Reaches End-of-Life: Time to Retire a Workhorse
by George Whittaker
One of the most widely deployed Linux kernels has officially reached the end of its lifecycle. The maintainers of the Linux kernel have confirmed that Linux 5.4, once a cornerstone of countless servers, desktops, and embedded devices, is now end-of-life (EOL). After years of long-term support, the branch has been retired and will no longer receive upstream fixes or security updates.
A Kernel Release That Defined a Generation of Linux Systems
When Linux 5.4 debuted, it made headlines for bringing native exFAT support, broader hardware compatibility, and performance improvements that many distributions quickly embraced. It became the foundation for major OS releases, including Ubuntu LTS, certain ChromeOS versions, Android kernels, and numerous appliance and IoT devices.
Its long support window made it a favorite for organizations seeking stability over bleeding-edge features.
What End-of-Life Actually Means
With the EOL announcement, the upstream kernel maintainers are officially done with version 5.4. That means:
No more security patches
No more bug fixes or performance updates
No regressions or vulnerabilities will be addressed
Some enterprise vendors may continue backporting patches privately, but the public upstream branch is now frozen. For most users, that makes 5.4 effectively unsafe to run.
Why This Matters for Users and Organizations
Many devices, especially embedded systems, tend to run kernels for much longer than desktops or servers. If those systems continue using 5.4, they now risk exposure to unpatched vulnerabilities.
Running an unsupported kernel can also create compliance issues for companies operating under strict security guidelines or certifications. Even home users running older LTS distributions may unknowingly remain on a kernel that’s no longer protected.
Upgrading Is the Clear Next Step
With 5.4 retired, users should begin planning an upgrade to a supported kernel line. Today’s active long-term support kernels include more modern branches such as 6.1, 6.6, and 6.8, which provide:
Better CPU and GPU support
Significant security improvements
Enhanced performance and energy efficiency
Longer future support windows
Before upgrading, organizations should test workloads, custom drivers, and hardware, especially with specialized or embedded deployments.
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- Linux Distros Designed for Former Windows Users Are Picking Up Steam
by George Whittaker
For years, Windows users frustrated with constant changes, aggressive updates, and growing system bloat have flirted with switching to Linux. But 2025 marks a noticeable shift: a new generation of Linux distributions built specifically for ex-Windows users is gaining real traction. One of the standout examples is Bazzite, a gaming-optimized Fedora-based distro that has quickly become a go-to choice for people abandoning Windows in favor of a cleaner, more customizable experience.
Why Many Windows Users Are Finally Jumping Ship
Microsoft’s ecosystem has been slowly pushing some users toward the exit. Hardware requirements for Windows 11 left millions of perfectly functional PCs behind. Ads on the Start menu and in system notifications have frustrated many. And for gamers, launcher problems, forced reboots and background processes that siphon resources have driven a search for alternatives.
Linux distributions have benefited from that frustration, especially those that focus on simplicity, performance and gaming readiness.
Gaming-First Distros Are Leading the Movement
Historically, switching to Linux meant sacrificing game compatibility. But with Valve’s Proton layer and Vulkan-based translation technologies, thousands of Windows games now run flawlessly, sometimes better than on Windows.
Distros targeting former Windows users are leaning into this new reality:
Seamless Steam integration
Automatic driver configuration for AMD, Intel and NVIDIA
Built-in performance overlays like MangoHUD
Proton GE and tools for modding or shader fixes
Support for HDR, VR and modern controller layouts
This means a new Linux user can install one of these distros and jump straight into gaming with almost no setup.
Bazzite: A Standout Alternative OS
Bazzite has become the poster child for this trend. Built on Fedora’s image-based system and the Universal Blue infrastructure, it offers an incredibly stable base that updates atomically, similar to SteamOS.
What makes Bazzite so attractive to Windows refugees?
Gaming-ready out of the box no tweaking, no driver hunts
Rock-solid performance thanks to an immutable system layout
Support for handheld PCs like the Steam Deck, ROG Ally and Legion Go
Friendly workflows that feel familiar to new Linux users
Customization without the risk of breaking the system
It’s no surprise that many “I switched to Linux!” posts now mention Bazzite as their distro of choice.
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- Linux Kernel 6.18 Is Out: What’s New and Important
by George Whittaker
The stable release of Linux Kernel 6.18 was officially tagged on November 30, 2025.
It’s expected to become this year’s major long-term support (LTS) kernel, something many users and distributions care about.
Here’s a breakdown of the most significant changes and improvements in this release:
Core Improvements: Performance, Memory, Infrastructure
The kernel’s memory allocation subsystem gets a major upgrade with “sheaves”, a per-CPU caching layer for slab allocations. This reduces locking overhead and speeds up memory allocation and freeing, improving overall system responsiveness.
A new device-mapper target dm-pcache arrives, enabling use of persistent memory (e.g. NVDIMM/CXL) as a cache layer for block devices, useful for systems with fast non-volatile memory, SSDs, or hybrid storage.
Overall memory management and swapping performance have been improved, which should help under memory pressure or heavy workloads.
Networking & Security Enhancements
Networking gets a boost: support for Accurate Explicit Congestion Notification (AccECN) in TCP, which can provide better congestion signals and more efficient network behaviour under load.
A new option for PSP-encrypted TCP connections has been added, a fresh attempt to push more secure transport-layer encryption (like a more efficient alternative to IPsec/TLS for some workloads) under kernel control.
The kernel now supports cryptographically signed BPF programs (eBPF), so BPF bytecode loaded at runtime can be verified for integrity. This is a noteworthy security hardening step.
The overall security infrastructure and auditing path, including multi-LSM (Linux Security Modules) support, has been refined, improving compatibility for setups using SELinux, AppArmor, or similar simultaneously.
Hardware, Drivers & Architecture Coverage
Kernel 6.18 brings enhanced hardware support: updated and new drivers for many platforms across architectures (x86_64, ARM, RISC-V, MIPS, etc.), including improvements for GPUs, CPU power management, storage controllers, and more.
In particular, support for newer SoCs, chipsets, and embedded-board device trees has been extended, beneficial for people using SBCs, ARM-based laptops/boards, or niche hardware.
For gaming rigs, laptops, and desktops alike: improvements to drivers, power-state management, and performance tuning may lead to better overall hardware efficiency.
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- Wine 10.19 Released: Game Changing Support for Windows Reparse Points on Linux
by George Whittaker Introduction
If you use Linux and occasionally run Windows applications, whether via native Wine or through gaming layers like Proton, you’ll appreciate what just dropped in Wine 10.19. Released November 14 2025, this version brings a major enhancement: official support for Windows reparse points, a filesystem feature many Windows apps rely on, and a host of other compatibility upgrades.
In simpler terms: Wine now understands more of the Windows filesystem semantics, which means fewer workarounds, better application compatibility, and smoother experiences for many games and tools previously finicky under Linux.
What Are Reparse Points & Why They MatterUnderstanding Reparse Points
On Windows, a reparse point is a filesystem object (file or directory) that carries additional data, often used for symbolic links, junctions, mount points, or other redirection features. When an application opens or queries a file, the OS may check the reparse tag to determine special behavior (for example “redirect this file open to this other path”).
Because many Windows apps, installers, games, DRM systems, file-managers, use reparse points for features like directory redirection, path abstractions, or filesystem overlays, lacking full support for them in Wine means those apps often misbehave.
What Wine 10.19 Adds
With Wine 10.19, support for these reparse point mechanisms has been implemented in key filesystem APIs: for example NtQueryDirectoryFile, GetFileInfo, file attribute tags, and DeleteFile/RemoveDirectory for reparse objects.
This means that in Wine 10.19:
Windows apps that create or manage symbolic links, directory junctions or mount-point style re-parsing will now function correctly in many more cases.
Installers or frameworks that rely on “when opening path X, redirect to path Y” will work with less tinkering.
Games or utilities that check for reparse tags or use directory redirections will have fewer “stuck” behaviors or missing files.
In effect, this is a step toward closer to native behavior for Windows file-system semantics under Linux.
Other Key Highlights in Wine 10.19
Beyond reparse points, the release brings several notable improvements:
Expanded support for WinRT exceptions (Windows Runtime error handling) meaning better compatibility for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and newer Windows-based frameworks.
Refactoring of “Common Controls” (COMCTL32) following the version 5 vs version 6 split, which helps GUI applications that rely on older controls or expect mixed versions.
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