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Do a presentation at NTLUG.
What is the Linux Installation Project?
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- Debian's Request Tracker 5 SQL Injection Vulnerability Leads to DSA-6324-1
Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Request Tracker, an extensible trouble-ticket tracking system, which could result privilege escalation, information disclosure, SQL injections, LDAP authentication bypass, cross-site scripting or spreadsheet (CSV/formula) injection. For the oldstable distribution (bookworm), these problems have been fixed
- [$] Moving beyond fork() + exec()
Since the earliest days of Unix, two of the core process-oriented systemcalls have been fork(), which creates a child process as a copy ofthe parent, and exec(), which runs a new program in the place ofthe current one. In Linux kernels, those system calls are better known asclone()and execve(),but the core functionality remains the same. While there is elegance tothis process-creation model, there are shortcomings as well. A recent proposal fromLi Chen to add "spawn templates" to the kernel will not be accepted in itscurrent form, but it may point the way toward a new process-creationprimitive in the future.
- Ruby's Bundler adds a cooldown feature
Version4.0.13 of Ruby's Bundlerpackage-manager has addeddependency cooldowns in order to help mitigate the effect ofsupply-chain attacks:
Most supply-chain attacks against RubyGems exploit a narrow window:an account is compromised, a malicious version ships, and anybundle install in the minutes that follow resolvesstraight to it. Bundler 4.0.13 introduces cooldown, a time-basedfilter that refuses to resolve to a version until it has been publicfor at least N days. Releases too new to have been scrutinized arepassed over in favor of ones that have aged past the window.
The feature was designed inthe open, drawing on howother ecosystems approach the same problem. It is opt-in, andcomplements rather than replaces existing defenses like mandatory 2FAand trusted publishing.
LWN covereddependency cooldowns in April, and the takeover of RubyGems andBundler in October 2025.
- Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel), Debian (dovecot, exim4, frr, and haveged), Fedora (cockpit, freeipa, jpegxl, libre, nextcloud, perl-Cpanel-JSON-XS, perl-Crypt-Argon2, perl-Dist-Build, perl-ExtUtils-Builder, perl-ExtUtils-Builder-Compiler, perl-HTTP-Tiny, perl-libwww-perl, python-starlette, rubygem-yard, rust-sequoia-cert-store, rust-sequoia-chameleon-gnupg, rust-sequoia-octopus-librnp, rust-sequoia-sop, rust-sequoia-sq, rust-sequoia-wot, samba, and transmission), Red Hat (image-builder), Slackware (dnsmasq and libinput), SUSE (evince, glibc, google-guest-agent, hplip, ignition, LibVNCServer, libzypp, libsolv, python-Pillow, salt, thunderbird, and vim), and Ubuntu (apache2, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-intel-iotg, linux-kvm, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-azure-fips, linux-bluefield, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gcp-fips, linux-iot, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux, linux-azure, linux-azure-4.15, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-aws-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, nano, postfix, robocode, tomcat6, tomcat7, and yard).
- Dave Airlie on Linux Kernel Maintenance (SE Radio)
The Software Engineering Radio podcast has put up aninterview with graphics maintainer Dave Airlie. Much of what is inthere will not be news to LWN readers, but it is an interesting overview ofthe life of a large-subsystem maintainer.
I was talking to a few of the Rust people, and I thought: these are very young people, these are a group of people in their 20s, maybe 30s, they are a younger cohort of developers than the people I am normally used to dealing with. I thought there was maybe a good way we could bring these groups together. I think that having young people coming into the kernel using Rust is valuable... So I thought that I should be supportive of bringing Rust into the kernel.
- [$] Splicing out vmsplice()
The splice()and vmsplice()system calls are meant to improve performance for certain data-movementtasks by minimizing (or avoiding altogether) system calls and the copyingof data. They also have a long history of security problems. The recentflood of LLM-discovered vulnerabilities has drawn attention, once again, tosplice() and vmsplice(); as a result, they may end upbeing removed altogether.
- One step forward, two steps back on CA age bill (EFF Deeplinks Blog)
The EFF has a blogpost looking at a new bill in California that would exemptopen-source operating systems from the Digital Age Assurance Actpassed last year, but has problems of its own:
While the open source exemption, if passed, would improve the law, theremaining amendments proposed by AB 1856 would require all webbrowsers and websites to request and collect users' ages. This is anexpansion of last year's AB 1043's age-bracketing system thatcompounds its constitutional harms to users' speech, privacy, andsecurity.
[...] EFF understands this amendment to exempt open-sourceoperating systems from the requirement to collect and transmit users'age-bracket data. That is a definite win for open-sourcedevelopers. The bill is narrower now than it was before, and lawmakersclearly responded to concerns raised by EFF and the broaderopen-source community.
Some important questions still remain—for example, it is unclearhow the law would apply when an open-source operating system isincorporated into a commercial product or service. And, given thestructure of where the exemption is placed under the "operating systemprovider" definition, lawmakers could stand to clarify that theexemption applies to open-source operating systems andapplications.
LWN coveredCalifornia's age-attestation law in March.
- Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 10.0, compat-openssl10, compat-openssl11, delve, expat, httpd:2.4, libexif, mod_http2, openssl, ruby4.0, samba, thunderbird, unbound, and vim), Debian (ceph and sudo), Fedora (libsoup3, pie, roundcubemail, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Mageia (lxc), Oracle (expat, gnutls, kernel, php:8.2, thunderbird, and uek-kernel), Slackware (httpd, net, proftpd, tigervnc, and xorg), SUSE (apache-sshd, apptainer, atril, bind, busybox, cloudflared, evolution-data-server, golang-github-prometheus-prometheus, golang-github-v2fly-v2ray-core, grafana, helm, kernel, libgphoto2-6, libjxl-devel, libsoup, libsoup-2_4-1, libsoup-3_0-0, memcached, ovmf, python-cairosvg, python-flask, python-pip, python-pymupdf, python-pyOpenSSL, python-urllib3, python-urllib3_1, python3-pyOpenSSL, restic, rsync, salt, sdbootutil, tor, tree-sitter, vorbis-tools, and yq), and Ubuntu (exim4, frr, gst-plugins-base1.0, libtemplate-perl, libwww-perl, mysql-8.0, nginx, python-pip, python-urllib3, and twisted).
- [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for June 4, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: MeshCore; x32 ABI; Open-source security; Package-manager metadata; More LSFMM+BPF coverage; Loadable crypto module. Briefs: Lightwell; jqwik protestware; RedHat package compromise; DistroWatch; Fedora election; Rust 1.96.0; rsync; Vim Classic 8.3; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
- [$] Open-source security is not a solo activity
Over time, many open-source maintainers face the same problem: theylack the time to do all of the work that their project needs, and noone else is stepping up to provide adequate help. Maintainers, though,are often reluctant to throw in the towel. The result is suboptimalall around; the maintainer is stressed out, project quality suffers,and users face security risks that they may not be fully aware of. Atthe 2026 OpenSource Summit North America, Robin Bender Ginn spoke about thisproblem, when it might be time for maintainers to pass the torch, andthe responsibilities of users.
- [$] BPF in the agentic era
Alexei Starovoitov gave "less of a presentation, more of a scream ofrealization" at the BPF track of the 2026Linux Storage, Filesystem,Memory-Management, and BPF Summit. He shared a set of ideas for how BPF couldchange to avoid being swept away by the sea-change in programming represented by modernlarge language models (LLMs) and the coding agents based on them.In a follow-up session, the discussion coveredmore problems with how coding agents use tools like bpftrace, and the current deluge ofpatches in need of review in the BPF subsystem.
- Tridgell: rsync and outrage
Andrew Tridgell has written a blogpost responding to complaints that he has begun using LLM tools inhis work maintaining rsync:
Like many developers of open source packages I've been hit by aflood of security reports lately in my role as the rsyncmaintainer. Many of those reports are AI generated (not all though,there are some notable ones with very careful and high quality manualanalysis).
As this flood started to get more intense I realised I needed toraise the defences on rsync a lot — we needed much more thorough testsuites, code coverage analysis, CI testing on a lot more platforms,deliberate and thorough scanning for possible security issues (so Ifind at least some of them before other people!) and the addition of awhole lot of defence-in-depth hardening techniques.
[...] Now to the future, because we're not done yet by a longshot. The security reports keep rolling in. I'm working on a bunch ofCVEs right now. Luckily I've been joined by some other very gooddevelopers with great systems development skills and securityknowledge. Some of these people came to my attention partly because ofall the rage happening at the moment, so I get some rage storm cloudshave silver linings. Watch out for some credits for some great newrsync developers in the next release.
- Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by Debian (php-twig), Fedora (hplip, python-wsgidav, roundcubemail, and xorg-x11-server), Oracle (compat-openssl10, httpd:2.4, and kernel), Red Hat (osbuild-composer), SUSE (busybox, cloudflared, cockpit, cups, ffmpeg-4, gnutls, google-osconfig-agent, helm, hplip, kernel, kubelogin, libjxl, libsoup, libunbound8, LibVNCServer-devel, mapserver, nvidia-open-driver-G06-signed, nvidia-open-driver-G07-signed, openssh, python-idna, qemu, rqlite, shadowsocks-v2ray-plugin, ucode-intel, unbound, vim, vorbis-tools, and xorg-x11-server), and Ubuntu (age, dovecot, editorconfig-core, gobgp, libapache-mod-jk, libcommons-lang-java, libcommons-lang3-java, libeconf, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-6.8, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-realtime, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-azure-6.17, linux-hwe-6.17, linux-nvidia-6.17, linux-oem-6.17, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.17, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.17, linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-ibm, linux-nvidia, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-aws-6.17, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.17, luanti, mysql-8.0, mysql-8.4, node-tar-fs, and unbound).
- [$] Caching for extended attributes
Extendedattributes (xattrs) provide a way to attach key/value metadata toinodes—files, directories, and the like—in a filesystem. As with manyLinux filesystems, the FUSE filesystemsupports xattrs. In a filesystem-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, FUSE maintainer MiklosSzeredi led a discussion about caching xattrs in kernel memory; he wouldlike to create some common infrastructure that could be used by FUSE andshared with other filesystems.
- [$] Trying to make sense of package-manager metadata
Package managers for operating systems and programming languages have beenaround for decades. Each package manager, and its accompanying packaging format,has been shaped by the needs of its respective ecosystem, but there is a growingneed to make use of package metadata for more than software management: forexample, in vulnerability scans, software bills of materials (SBOMs), and more. OnMay 19, Damián Vicino spoke at the Open Source Summit North America 2026about his experiences in the past year trying to make sense of the variedmetadata provided by more than 20 package managers.
- Vim Classic 8.3 released
Version8.3 of Vim Classic has beenreleased. This is the first release of the Vim fork since the projectwas announcedin March.
This release is based on Vim 8.2.0148, with a number of bug fixesand patches conservatively backported from future versions of Vimupstream. We elected to clean up this version of Vim, prepare it for arelease, and imagine an alternate history where Vim 8.3 was releasedwithout Vim9 script. The result is Vim Classic 8.3. We chose to takethis approach in order to reduce the long-term maintenance burden ofVim Classic, acknowledging that our fork lacks the resources andinstitutional knowledge available to Vim upstream. However, aconsequence is that there are some Vim plugins which are notcompatible with Vim Classic.
We have made a special effort to assess patches from Vim upstreamwhich mitigate some of the many CVEs affecting Vim which werediscovered and fixed between versions 8.2 and modern-day Vim, but wecan't be sure we've got all of the security patches which areapplicable to Vim Classic (and practically exploitable). This versionof Vim Classic is therefore recommended for early adopters who arecomfortable adopting a security posture which accounts for the factthat we may have overlooked some bugs.
LWN covered VimClassic and another Vim fork, EVi, in April.
- Sparrow Hawk runs Linux on Renesas R-Car V4H SoC
The Sparrow Hawk from Retronix Technology is a single-board computer built around the Renesas R-Car V4H processor. Originally developed for automotive applications, the R-Car V4H combines Arm Cortex-A76 and Cortex-R52 CPU cores with integrated graphics and AI acceleration. Retronix cites robotics, smart manufacturing, computer vision, and industrial edge systems as example use cases. The board […]
- ARM Linux Server Performance Up More Than 7x Geo Mean In 8 Years, As Much As 15x With NVIDIA Vera CPU
NVIDIA's Vera CPU is delivering the fastest ARM performance I have ever seen. For putting it into perspective how far the ARM server CPU hardware has come in just the last decade and for some "fun" benchmarks as part of Phoronix marking 22 years of Linux hardware reviews and benchmarking, here are some benchmarks showing the Ampere eMAG from September 2018 to the performance now with NVIDIA Vera. Not even factoring in the many software optimizations across the stack over the period, from simply the hardware side the ARM server CPU performance has advanced by more than 7x in eight years and in some workloads nearly 15x faster.
- All-flash and hybrid NAS systems feature multi-gigabit networking and Fygo OS
Radxa has announced two upcoming NAS systems, the DragonStation and DragonBay. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon platform and shipping with Fygo OS pre-installed, the systems combine high-speed storage, multi-gigabit networking, media management, and private cloud functionality in aluminum enclosures. While Radxa has not disclosed the specific Snapdragon processor used, both products are designed to provide […]
- Ubuntu 26.10 To Begin Laying Foundation For Context-Aware Desktop, Other New Features
Jean Baptiste Lallement of the Canonical Desktop Team today posted a roadmap of many development items they are hoping to tackle for Ubuntu 26.10 due out in October. Some of these desktop plans are more ambitious and will take multiple release cycles to fully realize, but it goes to show their continued investment into the Ubuntu desktop...
- CUDA-Oxide 0.2 Brings Early Improvements To Pure Rust CUDA Kernels
Last month CUDA-Oxide was introduced as an experimental Rust-to-CUDA compiler. From pure Rust programming language code, one can write CUDA GPU kernels in a "safe(ish)" manner with the CUDA-Oxide compiler emitting NVIDIA PTX output directly. Out today is the second update to CUDA-Oxide...
- Contributing to Fedora Infrastructure and the Power of Flock!
Flock to Fedora is more than a conference – it’s where the Fedora community comes alive. As part of the In the Commit History campaign, we sat down with confirmed Flock 2026 speakers to hear their stories: what brought them to Fedora, what Flock means to them personally, and what they’re hoping for in Prague […]
- Linux 7.2 Will Be Able To Boot On Apple M3 Macs - But Far From Useful For End-Users
The upcoming Linux 7.2 mainline kernel is expected to be able to boot on Apple M3 devices including the M3-powered iMac and MacBook products. But before getting too excited it's still a long ways to go before it will actually be useful for any Apple M3 daily usage under Linux with the overall support at this stage still being very limited for these 2~3 year old Apple Macs...
- Linux 7.1 + Mesa 26.1 Performance With The Radeon RX 9070 GRE, RX 9070 XT
With this week's launch day review of the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE, Ubuntu 26.04 with its Linux 7.0 and Mesa 26.0 default driver stack was used for testing. That choice was made since the Ubuntu 26.04 release is still fresh, the RDNA4-based RX 9070 GRE was working without issue there, and from other RDNA4 testing knowing there isn't much uplift from the in-development Linux 7.1 kernel or the current stable Mesa 26.1 OpenGL RadeonSI / Vulkan RADV drivers. But for those interested, here are those tests...
- Benchmarking The BORE Scheduler Performance With CachyOS Linux
Earlier this week I ran benchmarks of different CachyOS Linux kernel flavors that proved interesting from the performance overhead of their hardened kernel build to various other interesting performancr takeaways. One kernel flavor I hadn't tested though was their build with the BORE scheduler. Given the interest and feedback from Phoronix readers, here is an article focused on looking at the performance of the BORE scheduler for the Linux kernel on CachyOS.
- Ladybird Browser Stops Accepting Public Pull Requests
The Ladybird browser isn't opposed to AI coding tools, but it's just brought a new change to their code-contributing policies. February 23: "Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI."I used Claude Code and Codex for the translation. This was human-directed, not autonomous code generation. I decided what to port, in what order, and what the Rust code should look like. It was hundreds of small prompts, steering the agents where things needed to go... The requirement from the start was byte-for-byte identical output from both pipelines. The result was about 25,000 lines of Rust, and the entire port took about two weeks. The same work would have taken me multiple months to do by hand. June 5 (Friday):We will no longer accept public pull requests... A pull request no longer tells us as much as it used to about the person submitting it. A substantial patch used to imply substantial effort, and that effort was a reasonable proxy for good faith. That assumption no longer holds.... We have already seen patient, well-resourced campaigns in open source to earn maintainer trust and abuse it. What has changed is how much faster and cheaper it has become to produce work that looks like a serious contribution... Whether code was typed by hand is beside the point. What matters is who is responsible for it once it enters the browser. Ladybird is becoming a browser for real users. The people introducing changes to it must be the people who decide those changes belong in the project, and who will answer for the consequences. As part of this change, we will close all currently open public pull requests. We are grateful for the work people put into them, but keeping the existing queue open would keep that contribution path open in practice. There is no perfect time to make this change, so we are making it now. Going forward, pull requests will only be available to project maintainers. There will not be a separate process for submitting patches by other means. We do not want to create a shadow contribution system through issues, comments, email, or forks... Outside involvement still matters: clear bug reports, reductions, website testing, standards discussion, design discussion, security reports, and technical feedback all help move the project forward. This is the right change for Ladybird now. We are preparing to ship a browser to real users, and our development process has to match that responsibility.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- New Power Banks Released By BMX With Safer Semi-Solid-State Batteries
From Android Authority:Singapore-based BMX has announced that its SolidSafe magnetic power bank lineup, first showcased at CES 2026, is now available for purchase through its website and Amazon US, with prices starting at $59. What sets these power banks apart is their use of semi-solid-state batteries. Traditional lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries rely on liquid electrolytes to move energy between electrodes. Semi-solid-state batteries significantly reduce the amount of flammable liquid inside the cell, improving thermal stability and lowering the risk of overheating, swelling, or fire... BMX says the power banks are designed to remain stable under extreme conditions and show greater resistance to physical damage and thermal stress than conventional battery packs. The company has also launched the SolidSafe Air, a 5,000mAh magnetic power bank that it claims is the world's thinnest semi-solid-state Qi2 power bank... BMX is positioning the device as a travel-friendly alternative for users who want added safety and the convenience of a magnetic battery pack without the bulk. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader destinyland for sharing the article.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Teen Social Media Bans Risk Strengthening Big Tech's Dominance, Warns Bluesky Exec
Bluesky's chief operating officer believes teen social media bans "risk entrenching Big Tech's dominance," reports CNBC:Rose Wang, Bluesky's chief operating officer, told CNBC on the sidelines of SXSW in London on Wednesday that the smaller open-source platform isn't opposed to regulation but that smaller players in the industry should be protected. "I support the protection and the safety of youth... The question that we have then is at what cost? Because essentially what I'm scared of is in the long term, we're headed to a world where there's about three to five platforms, and extreme heavy regulation of those platforms... "Basically the whole compliance teams of these platforms are 10 times the size of our entire team," Wang said. "So, basically, we're living in a world where it's almost impossible for smaller entrants to come in and build healthier spaces." The article notes Bluesky had grown to 43 million users as of March, "which is still only around 10% of X's estimated 450 million users. Bluesky has struggled to maintain popularity, and by the end of October last year, it had reportedly seen a 40% drop in daily mobile active users over the past 12 months."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Early Research Suggests a Path to Predict and Prevent Lung Cancer
Scientists "have made a discovery that may help prevent some people from developing lung cancer," reports the New York Times, noting that lung cancer "kills more people worldwide than any other cancer."A team of more than 80 researchers working across four continents have identified a set of proteins in the blood that accurately predict lung cancers more than five years before diagnosis. The scientists also found early evidence that an existing anti-inflammatory drug could significantly reduce lung cancer risk in people with elevated concentrations of these proteins, which they linked to inflammation. More research is needed before a test based on these proteins could be ready for use in patients. And scientists would still need to run a randomized trial to determine whether the drug prevents lung cancers. Still, outside experts said the findings, which were published on Thursday in the journal Cell, offer a promising starting point toward a long-held public health goal... Led by Dr. Swanton, Dr. Tej Pandya, a Ph.D. student, and other researchers took a set of 48,000 blood samples from the UK Biobank and used machine learning to identify 14 proteins associated with the development of lung cancer. When the researchers looked at the presence of those proteins and also took into account a patient's age, smoking status and history of lung disease, they were able to predict who would develop lung cancer more accurately than the best risk assessment models currently in use... Using mouse and cell models, the scientists showed that these proteins increased when a specific inflammatory pathway was activated. Smoking and air pollution can activate that pathway. This adds to the evidence that it isn't just genetic mutations caused by smoking, pollution or other factors that are driving lung cancers. Rather, Dr. Swanton said, the findings suggest that "smoke causes mutations and inflammation, which together cause cancer." They also found that the signature was increased in people who later developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pulmonary fibrosis, pointing to a common inflammatory environment upstream of all three diseases.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Criticisms Rise Before Vote on America's Cryptocurrency 'Clarity Act'
An upcoming vote in a few weeks on America's cryptocurrency "Clarity Act" is "rattling Wall Street and consumer advocates," reports CNN, with its proposal to regulate the bulk of crypto markets through America's Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "It allows crypto companies to operate, at long last, in compliance with U.S. rules, rather than what they have been doing — essentially running their businesses within a patchwork of state and federal legal gray areas."Even for Jamie Dimon, the banking titan who's not known to mince words, it was a surprising shot across the bow when he described a fellow financier as "full of sh*t." "No one's gonna bow down to this guy or that company," Dimon told Fox Business last week. "This guy" being Brian Armstrong, and "that company" being cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The Dimon-Armstrong tension isn't new, but it is boiling over publicly as the Senate inches closer to a floor vote on the crypto industry's No. 1 legislative priority, known as the Clarity Act. Dimon, a longtime crypto skeptic, broadly supports crypto regulation but takes issue with a provision in the Clarity Act that would allow companies like Coinbase to "effectively pay interest on deposits... without the protection they should have." The spicy comment about Armstrong came after Dimon rattled off other concerns about the Clarity Act, including what he sees as its insufficient anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer safeguards that banks have had in place for decades... "If (Armstrong) takes deposits like a bank, he should have bank rules," Dimon said in the Fox Business interview... The immediate concern from banks (and many consumer advocates) is that crypto exchanges like Coinbase would, in the grand tradition of Silicon Valley innovation, lure customers in with huge rewards and then phase those benefits out over time. Deposits in a crypto exchange are also not insured by the federal government the way bank deposits are, but that's the kind of fine print that customers tend to overlook until it's too late. JPMorgan Chase spokesperson Trish Wexler underscored that the bank wants the bill to pass, with some "fixes," like prohibiting rewards on stablecoin holdings and strengthening anti-money-laundering guardrails. Coinbase's CEO responded in an interview with Politico:Armstrong pointed to restrictions on rewards paid to idle cryptocurrency balances and disclosures on stablecoins as part of a handful of policies included in the bill to appease the banking industry's requests. "I think it'd be good for the banks," Armstrong said of the bill. "It would be great for crypto companies as well ... Hopefully we can get past the absolutisms and just see if we can get this bill over the finish line." But CNN notes concerns about weaving cryptocurrency — "a historically self-contained financial system prone to stomach-churning booms and busts" — more deeply into America's traditional finance infrastructure:"It's not just a crypto story, it's a broad deregulation of our securities markets story," Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University who specializes in banking and cryptocurrency, said in an interview. And that should concern everyone, Allen says, even if they have no investments at all, because "if we get a financial crisis in this space... no one comes out of that unscathed."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- 2027's 'Tomb Raider' Remake: Unreal Engine 5 and AI-Assisted Assets 'Refined' By Humans
An official trailer dropped this week for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. It's "a full-blown remake of the original 1996 Tomb Raider game," reports Kotaku, "rebuilt from the ground up using Unreal Engine 5." Developed by Flying Wild Hog (with assistance/guidance from longtime Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics), "it will also make some changes to puzzles, combat, platforming..." The game's Steam page acknowledges that AI-assisted tools were used during development "to support some early exploration and temporary development content," but that any AI-assisted assets were "either replaced or refined by humans in order to maintain the creative and artistic vision of the development team." In a statement to Eurogamer, Crystal Dynamics clarifies that they "leverage" AI tools "to help our teams iterate on ideas faster and more efficiently, while ensuring that all finished content in the final product is human-crafted." (But are they considering AI-assisted assets "refined" by humans as "human-crafted"?) Polygon reports that "The early response to the news has been mixed to negative on the Tomb Raider subreddit, ranging from vague hopes that the generative-AI craze will simply go away to grim resignation that this is the future of game development." Beyond labor concerns, art theft worries, and environmental issues, the most straightforward reason AI art has been unpopular is that many players find it hideous. We'll find out for sure whether Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis' use of AI is particularly blatant when it comes out in February 2027. Its release date is February 12, 2027 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Utah Residents Sue Officials Over Kevin O'Leary Data Center Plan
Utah residents and a progressive nonprofit are suing officials over Kevin O'Leary's planned Stratos Project AI data center, arguing that the special authority overseeing it gives unelected officials too much control over land use, taxation, public health, and local governance. The lawsuit comes as O'Leary has agreed to shrink the proposed 40,000-acre project by 75% amid mounting political and community pushback. NBC News reports: The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Utah's 3rd District Court by the Alliance for a Better Utah and the group of anonymous residents. The plaintiffs hope to challenge the constitutionality of the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) -- a special entity that oversees the data center's proposal -- and its approval of the project, a spokesperson for the nonprofit said. Attorney David Irvine, who is representing the plaintiffs, alleges that MIDA is exercising powers as an unelected body that "the Utah Constitution never authorized." "Under the Stratos plan, it would hold permanent, irrevocable control over public health, safety, taxation, and land use across tens of thousands of acres of Box Elder County, with no voter recourse," he said in a statement. The lawsuit alleges that allowing MIDA to oversee the data center's development "irrevocably" cuts off Box Elder County citizens' rights by not allowing sufficient public input in the project. "The Stratos Project Area Plan, and actions taken by MIDA and the Commission to enact the same, puts lawmaking power respecting questions of public health, safety, welfare, morals, taxation, zoning, land use, and the like, in relation to a significant swath of county territory in a non-elected MIDA Board," the complaint reads. In addition to MIDA and the Box Elder County Commission, the lawsuit names Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams and state Sen. Jerry Stevenson, who also serve as MIDA board members. Irvine said Adams and Stevenson's presence on the MIDA board as active legislators "appears to violate the prohibition on holding more than one office of public trust simultaneously," and claimed this should render the data center's approval "null and void."
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- Scientists Find Wind Blowing From Our Milky Way's Black Hole
After 50 years of searching, astronomers say they have finally found evidence of a long-sought "wind" blowing from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. "Unless a black hole exists in a perfect vacuum, it must blow a wind somehow. And there is no perfect vacuum in the universe," team co-leader and Northwestern University researcher Mark Gorski said in a statement. "With new observations, this is the first time we've had a clean enough view to see the wind's imprint. We looked at the data and said, 'There it is. There is the thing that everybody's been looking for for 50 years.'" Space.com reports: Scientists have been aware for some time that feeding black holes launch powerful outflows of material around them, including jets and winds. Winds are caused when matter falling to the black hole is accelerated to near light-speed, generating pressure that pushes infalling material away. That has been seen with ravenously feeding black holes before, but not the barely feeding Sgr A*. Its sparse consumption of material and the fact it is obscured by the plane of the Milky Way from our vantage point have made tracing this wind difficult. Gorski's Northwestern colleague and team co-leader Lena Murchikova pointed out that the scientists were the first to detect molecular gas very close to Sgr A* feeding the supermassive black hole. That makes Sgr A* reassuringly like other supermassive black holes. "The wind is not powerful, and its direction probably wanders with time. It shows that our black hole is not unique, and our place in the universe is not unique," Murchikova added. "To observe our own black hole, we have to look through the plane of our galaxy. That means we have to peer through gas, dust and ionized structures, and you can't really see through all of that easily." While the team's results confirm that Sgr A* is extremely quiet compared to the supermassive black holes that sit in bright, turbulent regions of other galaxies called active galactic nuclei (AGN), this black hole wind is no slouch. In fact, the scientists think that it has been raging for around 20,000 years. "The majority of other galaxies spend most of their lives in a state where they are not particularly active," Murchikova said. "But we can only see them when they are in a fireworks stage. It is very attractive to study black holes when they are in the fireworks stage, but that's not actually their dominant state. "Sgr A* finally gives us a window into the life of a black hole in this quiet state." The team's research was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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- Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Reaches Criticality In First Test
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Just over a year ago, the Trump Administration issued an executive order meant to accelerate the development of nuclear power in the US. While an entire startup ecosystem has developed around the use of different -- and typically smaller -- reactor designs, only one of them has been fully licensed so far, and there are no plans to actually build any instances of that design. The executive order directed the Department of Energy to have three different reactor designs reach criticality in a bit over a year. On Thursday, a startup called Antares announced that a test reactor it had placed at the Idaho National Laboratory had reached criticality, making it the first new design to cross this threshold. Criticality means that the nuclear reactions inside the hardware had become self sustaining; it does not mean the reactor had started to generate power. [...] At the moment, Antares is just testing what it calls a Mark 0 reactor, which is not connected to the power-generation portion. Instead, it's being used to validate the company's modeling of the physical conditions in its reactors and generate safety data that can be used during licensing applications. Attempts to run the entire system, including electrical generation, are expected to happen next year. While the work was done at a Department of Energy Lab, the company is working with the Department of Defense's Project Pele program for developing a mobile nuclear reactor. The company has also received support from NASA.
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- The US Military Quietly Turned GPS Into a Global 'Numbers Station,' Evidence Suggests
A security researcher says evidence suggests the U.S. military has been using an obscure GPS message field for nearly 20 years to broadcast encrypted key-distribution data, effectively turning GPS satellites into a global "numbers station." The hidden-looking 176-bit messages appear tied to the Pentagon's Over-the-Air Distribution system for remotely updating cryptographic keys, meaning ordinary GPS receivers may have been receiving the traffic all along without anyone outside the military noticing. The findings have been detailed by Steven Murdoch, an information security expert, in a new article in Inside GNSS. 404 Media reports: [...] From the beginning, he suspected that the subframe field contained encrypted transmissions because the data was so random. "Random data is actually very unusual to get in nature," Murdoch said. "If you see it, either it's been carefully designed to be random -- but then, why is someone sending out random data? -- or it's encrypted data. I thought encrypted data is by far the most likely explanation." He returned to the subframe on and off over the years, and solicited guesses about its content on Stack Exchange in 2023. Ahmed Kamruddin, a master's student at UCL, developed the project further in 2025. Then, this year, Murdoch put the last pieces of the puzzle together over several weeks by analyzing open archive Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) recordings collected since 2007 and kept by GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences. This dataset included more than 12 million observations of Subframe 4, Page 17, yielding 3,994 unique 176-bit messages. Within this corpus, Murdoch pinpointed key-repeating "sentinels" including a pattern that appeared in February 2010 and was broadcast on and off across dozens of satellites for more than a decade. Murdoch discovered that this particular sentinel was transmitted by all 31 operational satellites within a window of a few hours on May 26, 2011, potentially heralding the activation of a new operational system. He confirmed that this timeline coincided with the rollout of the military's Over-the-Air Distribution (OTAD) and the Over-the-Air Rekeying (OTAR) by cross-referencing declassified documents, including a 2015 presentation about the dates of the operation. "There was a perfect match between the timeline and that presentation and the change points that were automatically identified from the data," Murdoch said. "That was the smoking gun that made me think: This is what it's for." These automated systems replaced the cumbersome manual distribution of cryptographic keying material, allowing military GPS receivers around the world to be rekeyed remotely through satellite broadcasts rather than through onsite procedures. For the next 11 years, this expansive rekeying operation was overlooked in public GPS data. In 2022, the system entered a new phase, according to Murdoch's analysis. The shift was characterized by a slowing in the message rotation rate. Later, in December 2023, broadcasts carrying a distinctive "TEXT" prefix emerged then gradually spread across the constellation. Murdoch isn't sure what explains the recent transition, though it could be a possible modernization of the infrastructure or the introduction of a new protocol. But to him, the bigger takeaway is that the signals were always available for anyone willing to take a closer look, a discovery that suggests that there could be more revelations hidden for the cryptographically curious among us. "Every receiver in the world decodes Subframe 4, Page 17," Murdoch said in his new article. "Almost none of them have ever looked at it. The lesson generalizes: There is more to learn from the bytes already arriving at our antennas than from the bytes we wish were specified differently. The data are publicly available. The signal is overhead, twice a day, every day."
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- Google Will Pay SpaceX $920 Million Per Month For Compute
Ahead of its upcoming IPO, SpaceX announced that Google will pay the company $920 million per month for access to roughly 110,000 Nvidia GPUs and related compute infrastructure. Google says the agreement is short-term "bridge capacity" to meet stronger-than-expected demand for Gemini Enterprise, while SpaceX is using deals like this and its Anthropic contract to bolster its pitch for a historic public offering. TechCrunch reports: The deal is similar in length and scope to the one SpaceX announced with Anthropic in late May. As part of that deal, Anthropic agreed to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month through 2029 to rent all the available compute from its Colossus 1 data center near Memphis, Tennessee that xAI -- now part of SpaceX -- originally built for its own artificial intelligence efforts. Google's deal appears to be paying for roughly half the amount of compute that Anthropic has access to at Colossus 1. SpaceX didn't say which specific data center Google would be using. CEO Elon Musk has previously suggested his company would reserve the Colossus 2 data center for xAI. Anthropic was significantly limited in its compute capacity prior to its deal with SpaceX, raising usage limits on the same day the deal was announced. Google is in a very different position, with some estimates naming it as the world's largest single owner of AI compute. [...] Also like the Anthropic deal, the agreement with Google includes a cancellation clause. Both SpaceX and Google have the option to terminate the agreement with 90 days notice after December 31, 2026. Google's access to the data center will ramp up "through September at a reduced fee," according to the filing. "If we fail to deliver access to the committed amount of GPUs by September 30, 2026, then following a one-month grace period, Google may immediately terminate the agreement or accept the number of GPUs provided" with a reduction in the monthly fees, it reads.
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- Bitcoin Falls To $60,000 As Zcash Bug Rocks Crypto
Bitcoin briefly fell below $60,000 on Friday, "extending its weekly loss to nearly 20% and threatening to fall below $59,000," reports CoinDesk. Crypto was also hit by a 40%-plus plunge in Zcash after Shielded Labs disclosed a years-old bug that could have allowed undetected counterfeit ZEC creation. From the report: Now, with stocks in plunge mode -- the Nasdaq down nearly 4% on Friday -- bitcoin finds itself perfectly correlated. "Short term, Bitcoin feels like swallowing broken glass," wrote Jeff Swanson Friday. "The chart goes up. It goes down. It makes grown men cry into their Robinhood accounts and CNBC anchors smugly declare the funeral, for the eleventh time." "Here's what uncomfortable people don't understand: the discomfort is the yield. Every paper-handed panic seller is handing their future to someone with a longer time horizon and a colder storage device." [...] Earlier, Shielded Labs, a nonprofit developer on the privacy token system, disclosed a critical vulnerability in Zcash's (ZEC) Orchard privacy pool that could have threatened the integrity of the token's supply. The vulnerability, if exploited, could have allowed an attacker to create an unlimited number of counterfeit ZEC tokens, completely undetected. "Think of it as someone secretly gaining access to the Federal Reserve's dollar printing press, except in this case, even the Fed wouldn't be able to tell these extra dollars were printed," wrote Omkar Godbole. Importantly, the vulnerability was discovered with help from Anthropic's recently released Opus 4.8 AI model, raising difficult questions for the entire crypto industry. More to come on that. ZEC is now down 42% over the past 24 hours. On Wednesday, the Zcash Foundation said: "The vulnerability was caught before any known exploitation occurred. There is no evidence of unauthorized value creation. Zcash's turnstile mechanism (which tracks the total ZEC balance across all value pools) confirmed that the total supply remained intact throughout. User privacy was not affected. Sapling and transparent transactions continued operating normally throughout the incident."
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- 340 Local News Outlets Now Blocking the Internet Archive
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: Earlier this year Nieman Lab broke the story that major news publishers, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today Co., had started blocking the Internet Archive for fear that AI companies might scrape the nonprofit's repositories for training data. As one of the last bastions of archival history, that is, in case you're not aware, not very good for the public interest. Four months later and Nieman Lab now notes that the number of news outlets blocking the archive has soared to around 340 organizations: "Our new analysis shows that more than 340 local news sites across the United States are now limiting the Internet Archive's ability to access and preserve their stories. Many sites in our sample are owned by five of the seven largest local news publishers in the country: USA Today Co., McClatchy, Advance Local, MediaNews Group, and Tribune Publishing. The latter two are both subsidiaries of the "vulture hedge fund" Alden Global Capital." [...] Regardless of motivation, hiding whatever local news remains behind paywalls, then blocking it from the Internet Archive, in turn makes it harder for everyone else to do real journalism that relies on the historical record, local journalists tell Nieman Lab: "I cover news within a larger news desert in New York's Rockland, Sullivan, and Rockland counties. This means I need to heavily rely on archival data of old news articles from now deceased, or zombie-fied, media outlets," wrote B.J. Mendelson, the editor of The Monroe Gazette newsletter, in one recent petition signed by over 200 journalists. "Without the Internet Archive, my [work] would be incredibly difficult to do." The Internet Archive says it is listening to the concerns raised by local news outlets, while also partnering with journalism groups to train hundreds of newsrooms on archival preservation: "In December, the Internet Archive partnered with the Poynter Institute and Investigative Reporters and Editors to train a cohort of 33 local and national news outlets on how to develop and implement an archiving strategy. The initiative, funded through a Press Forward grant, aims to train 300 newsrooms in digital preservation and in using the Internet Archive's services by the end of 2027."
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- GOV.UK Goes Dutch On Payments As It Dumps Stripe
The UK's Government Digital Service is replacing Stripe with Dutch payments provider Adyen for many GOV.UK Pay transactions, including local authorities, police forces, and armed forces units. The three-year deal covers about 1,000 services and is meant to make payments more flexible while keeping the user experience largely unchanged. The Register reports: According to the tender notice published in February 2025, the contract covers around 17 percent of payments made through GOV.UK Pay but more than 70 percent of its organizations and includes the only option allowing users to start taking payments within one working day. At that point the contract had an estimated maximum value of £49 million, although with no guarantees over volume. In a blogpost about the contract award on 2 June, GDS said it will migrate around 1,000 services to the new supplier. "We will make migration as straightforward as possible while complying with Know Your Customer legislation that protects everyone from fraud," wrote Alan Maddrell, senior content designer for the service. "Most importantly, there will be no discernible difference for paying users and no loss in functionality." He added that the change of supplier will help introduce new options including pay by bank, which transfers money directly between bank accounts using open banking services and avoids the need to type in card details. GDS will continue to use WorldPay to process payments for central government, linked organizations and NHS bodies.
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- BSA Lashes Out At Mandatory Open-Source Licensing
Longtime Slashdot reader Elektroschock writes: The American Business Software Alliance (BSA) does not consider mandatory open-source licensing to be an appropriate indicator of sovereignty. This is among the "pointed messages" they sent to the French government consultation (closed) today. "What protects Europe is the ability to govern, audit, and mitigate risk, not where a company files its corporate papers," said Thomas Boue of BSA. "Criteria of this kind raise costs, reduce access to best-in-class security solutions, and risk conflicting with the EU's international trade commitments."
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- 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]
- This mini PC with the latest RISC-V SoC might actually be worth it
RISC-V has been in the promising! phase for a long time now, especially for general purpose computing, never really breaking through into the mainstream in any measurable way. While I think that breakthrough is still relatively far away, we now do have newer RISC-V SoCs on the market supporting the RVA23 baseline RISC-V profile. One of them is the SpacemiT Key Stone KЗ, which promises to deliver a massive performance increase over previous RISC-V offerings. Its exactly this chip thats finding its way into complete, turnkey mini PC solutions, like this one from a company called Firefly. The base model comes with 8GB of LDDPR5 RAM and 128GB of storage, at a price of about €300 or so (theres also a 32GB/128GB model at well over €600). This is the first time Im looking at a complete RISC-V solution where I feel like it might actually make for a good moment to jump in for us enthusiasts. No, the performance wont rival anything Intel or AMD has to offer, but it seems capable enough for a lot of day-to-day tasks, and Im curious to see just how far along the Linux world is when it comes to RISC-V support. Its not part of our current set of fundraiser incentives, but if youd like to see this RISC-V mini PC reviewed here on OSNews, you can always donate and add a note that you specifically want to see such a review (so I can gauge interest not just from our few commenters, but also from the more than 99% of our readers who only lurk). As always, you can donate through Ko-Fi, or, if youre European, via a SEPA direct bank transfer (Name: Thom Holwerda – IBAN: SE08 8000 0820 1684 4657 8414 – BIC: SWEDSESS).
- When su replaced login for becoming another UNIX login
Ive mentioned it before, but Chris Siebenmann is basically the Raymond Chen of the UNIX world, and today hes filling that role perfectly once again. I recently read Simon Tathams Nitpicking the shell history scene in Tron: Legacy, where one thing that surprised Tatham was the film using login -n root to become root instead of su. This surprised me because I found that perfectly ordinary, and this turns up both a bit of Unix history and a difference between modern Unixes. Plain su can let you become another user, including root, but what it explicitly doesnt do by default is create a new login shell for that user. If you do su root, the new root shell normally inherits most of your environment, your current directory, and so on. Sometimes this is what you want and sometimes you really want a new login environment, and originally in Unix how you got the latter was to run login from your existing shell session (and this meant that login was setuid root, like su). ↫ Chris Siebenmann Unsurprisingly, this distinction has persisted to this day in various UNIX-like operating systems, but in different ways. Some maintain the explicit distinction, while others have more or less standardised on using su for both use cases. Its an interesting bit of UNIX archeology.
- Roku launches open-source embedded Roku LT OS
Roku, the company that makes TV boxes and sells ad space based on your usage patterns, has released its remote control operating system as open source and by remote control I dont mean robot stuff or whatever, but actual remote controls, the thing you use to control your TV or whatever from the couch. Roku has announced the official availability of Roku LT OS a lightweight, highly deterministic open-source operating system that is already used in our industry-changing Roku remote controls. In addition to high-performance automotive platforms, Roku LT OS is designed to be accessible to the broader developer community. The operating system ships with native support for the ESP32 platform, a highly popular SoC among hobbyists and makers. Because ESP32 development boards are widely available online for just a few dollars, developers can get started with Roku LT OS with minimal hardware investment. ↫ Rokus developers blog As far as I can tell, this operating system is entirely new and not based on Linux or something else, but the available documentation is light on details so I cant make much more out of it. Regardless, its nice to have another open source embedded operating system.
- The placeholder name for the Windows 8 experience was “modern”
Raymond Chen shares some history regarding Windows 8s development: During the development of Windows`8, we needed a name for “that thing we’re creating.” Not being a particularly clever bunch when it comes to code names, we just called it “the modern experience,” to distinguish it from what we had in Windows`7, which was called “the classic experience.” And then, as Microspeak demands, we started abbreviating like mad. ↫ Raymond Chen Basically, they added mo! for modern! in front of everything, so the Metro shell became MoSh!, the Settings application MoSet!, and so on. And yes, the code name for the Photos application was exactly what it sounds like.
- Microsoft continues migration from NTLM to Kerberos
For the past few years, Microsoft has been phasing out NTLM in Windows in favor of Kerberos-based alternatives. Starting with the next versions of client and server editions of Windows, Microsoft will also be disabling the legacy authentication protocol by default. In the latest security baseline package for Windows Server 2025, the company is already allowing customers to audit incoming configurations. Now, it has announced a wave of changes to further reduce dependencies on NTLM. With an upcoming Insider release of Windows 11 client and server, certain scenarios which previously required NTLM will be able to fall back on Initial and Pass-Through Authentication using Kerberos (IAKerb) and Local Key Distribution Center (LocalKDC). ↫ Usama Jawad at Neowin Im sure this is very important to IT Pros!.
- Microsoft brings coreutils to Windows
At its Build conference, Microsoft announced coreutils for Windows. Coreutils for Windows is a Microsoft-maintained set of UNIX-style command-line utilities that run natively on Windows — the same commands and pipelines you use on Linux, macOS, and WSL. It ships as a single multi-call binary that exposes each utility under its standard name (cat.exe, grep.exe, find.exe, and so on), giving you the everyday tools developers already use on other platforms to script, automate, and process text. For the full list, see Commands. The goal is to remove friction when moving between Linux, macOS, WSL, containers, and Windows. The same commands, flags, and pipelines work the same way, so existing scripts and habits carry over without translation. Each command supports the standard --help flag for full syntax and options. ↫ Windows Developer Tools website Its a port of the Rust-based rewrite of the GNU coreutils, findutils, and grep. There are a few caveats though, since these ports have to deal with a number of Windows-isms. The first thing that comes to mind for most of us are path separators; these ports will handle both the correct and incorrect Windows/DOS one, but since some tools may output only the incorrect one this may affect piping. You should also take into account things like Windows ACLs vs. POSIX permission bits, the lack of /dev/null, and a few other oddities. Furthermore, there are a bunch of commands that rely on POSIX-only concepts, so those arent included, and a few other commands that arent useful on Windows are excluded as well. Since a number of commands conflict with built-in commands from cmd.exe and PowerShell, which commands run will depend on the shell, the PATH order, and PowerShells alias table. Everythings in preview, and installable through WinGet.
- Basic multicore support for DOS demo uncovered
On the Vogon forums, user MarkDastedt posted an interesting bit of source code he discovered on an old company DVD: a very basic, very rudimentary implementation of multicore support for DOS. Another user, dartfrog, took a closer look and had this to say: Interesting stuff nonetheless. A worker core is running with no interrupt handlers, no page tables, no memory protection, and no OS. Thats about as close to bare metal as you can get, meanwhile the other core is still running DOS. Fascinating. ↫ MarkDastedt at the Vogon forums Its effectively a simple demo, but according to other users in the thread, it fits in neatly with sporadic other attempts to bring some form of SMP or multicore-awareness to DOS. For instance, Michael Chourdakis worked on something similar to this demo for a series of articles now only available on the Wayback Machine. It makes for a cool demo, but moving from this to something robust and usable in DOS is not an easy task. Still, the possibilities are definitely there, even if you dont implement full, modern SMP or multicore support. You could have specific DOS applications offloading dedicated tasks to different cores, but as others in the same thread note, individual cores are already stupidly powerful for anything DOS can do, making the use case for additional cores rather moot.
- Serena OS: a modern operating system for classic Amigas
A hobby operating system, not written in Rust, not targeting Qemu, not targeting a Raspberry Pi. Yes, it still happens. Serena OS is what you get when modern operating system design and implementation meets vintage hardware like the Amiga computers. It is based on dispatch queues rather than threads, supports multiple users, is inspired by POSIX, yet retains its own character, is strongly object-oriented in terms of design and implementation and prepared for a cross platform future. ↫ Serena OS GitHub page Serena OS supports most (all?) of the classic Amigas, but the 500, 600, and 2000 need at least 1MB of RAM and a 68020 accelerator. It has code privilege separation between kernel and userspace, basic memory management, its own custom file system, drivers for input devices and graphics, an interactive console with VT52 and VT100 support, and much more. It also comes with a C99-compatible libc, and has its own shell. Note that AI! chatbot Claude is listed as a contributor to the project.
- Rsync opens the slopgates, regressions and bugs ensue
Andrew Tridgell, developer of rsync, has published a blog post addressing the massive surge in AI! code submissions and the string of regressions supposedly caused by them. He explains rsync was flooded with AI!-generated security reports, and he couldnt handle the volumes anymore. As this flood started to get more intense I realised I needed to raise the defences on rsync a lot — we needed much more thorough test suites, code coverage analysis, CI testing on a lot more platforms, deliberate and thorough scanning for possible security issues (so I find at least some of them before other people!) and the addition of a whole lot of defence-in-depth hardening techniques. This is all a huge amount of work. I’m retired (though my wife may dispute that!) and I’d rather be out sailing than working on rsync security issues, so I have reached for several AI tools to help with what needs to be done. I have absolutely no regrets about doing that, although from the storm of anti-AI rage it’s clear that many people think I should be hung up by my toe nails and flogged for even considering doing this. ↫ Andrew Tridgell The entire rsync codebase is around 65k lines, and the recent flood of AI!-generated submissions amount to +16k/-6k lines of code within a few weeks. Thats an absolutely insane amount of changes in a really short time to a project that most people deemed stable and done!. If you take a look at the activity graph, its clear that a project that was silently and carefully doing its job is seeing a massive amount of changes, almost exclusively generated by AI!, all in recent weeks. Its no surprise, then, that people get annoyed when something they deemed done! and stable is suddenly causing issues for them because its maintainer decided to open the slopgates. Tridgell is, of course, an incredibly accomplished and capable programmer, but so is Kent Overstreet and he thinks his AI! girlfriend is sentient and conscious, he reprogrammed it after someone convinced his AI! girlfriend was lesbian and trans, and he thinks that he gave his AI! girlfriend an orgasm, so being an accomplished and capable programmer doesnt mean youre immune from AI!-hyperbole, or worse, AI!-induced psychosis. Tridgells blog post already has all the usual talking points from AI! techbros about how the tools sucked last but theyre good now, trust me I know how these tools work, humans are actually the same as these AI! tools, really what is intelligence anyway, and yeah we got a whole slew of new issues caused by the AI! code but more AI! code will surely fix that, and so on. Theres some red flags that give me the ick, because Ive seen them all before from people entirely losing themselves in AI! hype. Tridgell also takes pot shots at openrsync, a reimplmentation of rsync developed by the OpenBSD team, also shipped by default on macOS. Openrsync has nothing to do with any of the current issues rsync is facing, as the project was started way back in 2018 or so. Taking pot shots at this project in this particular blog post feels childish and unnecessary, and reeks of insecurity; focus on the issues your own project is facing before attacking some other project. This feels like another red flag. Quite a few people have experienced regressions with rsync in recent weeks, but it seems like more are going to come as the slopgates will remain open, and will probably be opened even further. For such a cornerstone open source project, that raises a lot of questions, and Im sure theres quite a few people pondering if they should, perhaps, switch to openrsync just like Apple did.
- WinUtils: shell-powered CLI tools for Windows 95
WinUtils started in 1996-1997 as a way to build my programming chops. I was poking around the Windows 95 shell APIs, found the file operation functions, and thought it would be cool to have CLI tools that called them instead of doing raw file I/O. The payoff was practical: because the operations went through the shell, the same confirmation prompts, progress dialogs, and Recycle Bin behavior you got from Windows Explorer came along for free. ↫ Code Naked Code Naked their alias, not mine recently dug these old executables and code back up, and published them on GitHub. Back then, though, there were no centralised distribution platforms, so they just uploaded them to various download and shareware websites and kept track of the download tickers. Very neat little tools, and fun to have them immortalised.
- Google offers opt-out of AI! search results for websites, promises it wont affect regular search rankings
Google is adding a switch to allow website owners to opt out of being featured in their AI! overviews and related slopsearch results. With this new toggle in Search Console, website owners can decide if they want their site to appear in and help ground responses in our generative AI Search features (like AI Overviews, AI Mode or AI Overviews in Discover). Sites that opt out will not receive traffic or impressions from our generative AI features. This control will not be used as a ranking signal for search results outside of these generative AI Search features. This work builds on our long history of designing tools, like snippet controls and Google-Extended, that give websites more choice. ↫ Mrinalini Loew at Googles The Keyword blog While its nice of Google to offer such an opt-out to website owners, their claim that opting out wont effect your regular search ranking rings hollow to me. I simply just do not trust Google in any way, shape, or form to not weaponise their AI! against anyone who doesnt want to be sucked up, regurgitated, and spat out in one of their slopsearch tools. On top of that, regular Google Search is dead anyway, so even if they keep their promise, its moot because Google users are going to be force-fed the slopsearch tools instead of the regular Google Search. I honestly have no idea how much traffic OSNews gets from Google at this point, and while I can look it up, I just dont really care, and think its probably not that much. I could opt us out, but the real problem is that such an opt-out wont stop Googles slopbots or anyone elses slopbots from taking our writing and training their AI! tools on it, so whats the point of going through the effort? I doubt Google is relevant enough for us.
- Preparing for KDE Plasma’s last X11-supported release
With KDE Plasma 6.7 almost ready for release, developers have moved on to working on 6.8, and with that release comes probably one of the biggest deprecations in KDEs history: as of today, the X11 session is gone from KDE. Of course, this change wont make it to peoples computers until 6.8 actually releases, but as far the code goes, the X11 session is gone. Once 6.8 is actually released, you will only be able to log into a Wayland KDE session. This wont affect KDE applications running in other X11 desktop environments, and of course, X11 applications will keep working in KDE as well thanks to XWayland. Its also important to note that this wont affect anyone sticking to older versions of KDE Plasma; its not like X11 session support will be yanked retroactively. From here on out, a lot of X11 code will be removed from KDE, and developers will be able to focus on just one code path, instead of accommodating the lowest common denominator in X11. Our internal metrics within KDE show that over 95% of users of Plasma 6.6 are on Wayland, with a gradual increase every release. The metrics also show that basically no one is testing or developing Plasma on X11 anymore. The platform was already, for all intents and purposes, abandoned by KDE contributors. ↫ David Edmundson The transition from legacy X11 to Wayland has been a long, painful journey, but Im glad were finally reaching the destination. If youre still having issues with KDE on Wayland, be sure youre using an up-to-date distribution not an LTS one and see how that goes for you.
- The newest Instagram exploit! is the goofiest Ive seen!
Yesterday, a slew of Instagram accounts, including some high profile ones like the Obama White House account, seemingly got hacked. Look, I’m no spring chicken. I’ve spent almost a decade and a half identifying vulnerabilities and exploits at unicorn scale, but this is hands down the most unserious, almost too stupid to be true! of them all. ↫ Sid at 0xsid.com 0its AI! isnt it? All the attacker needs to kick this off is your account username. Then, they hop on a VPN or proxy close to your city so Instagrams security algorithms dont suspect a thing. (You can quite easily get this from your public profile or About! section or a hundred other ways.) Once it looks like the request is coming from the correct region, they tell the Meta support AI that the account is hacked and ask it to send the verification codes to an arbitrary email address they control. ↫ Sid at 0xsid.com Its AI!. Yes, all that you need to do to gain control over big, massively popular Instagram accounts is ask Facebooks AI! to send the verification codes to whatever email address you desire. Thats it. Theres no other steps, no other checks, no other verification. And the worst part is that this isnt even a hack; this is AI! working entirely as intended. And these tools are now coding the Linux kernel, LLVM, systemd, PulseAudio, rsync, your browser, and so much more. What could possibly go wrong?
- Microsoft is intentionally bricking all Office for Mac 2019/2021 installations
Youre a smart cookie, so you opted to buy a copy of Microsoft Office for macOS back in 2019 or 2021, eschewing the Office 365 subscription, so you could keep on using Office 2019/2021 forever if you wanted to. Just like in the old days. Ive got some bad news. Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion (2026) is a scheduled remote degradation of perpetually-licensed Microsoft Office software for macOS and iOS, set for July 13, 2026 when a license-validation certificate used by the Office apps expires. After Office 2019 for Mac reached end of support in October 2023, Microsoft assured customers their installed apps would continue to function.! The July 13, 2026 conversion instead drops the apps into a Microsoft-defined reduced functionality mode,! in which files can be opened and viewed but not edited or saved. By May 30, 2026, the original 2023 end-of-support page had been re-dated and rewritten on Microsofts site; the continue to function! clause was removed. ↫ Consumer Rights Wiki Microsofts advice to the users theyre stealing from is to keep using the applications as mere viewers, switch to the free Office 365 web applications, pay for a 365 subscription, or buy a brand new regular copy of Office 2024. None of these make any sense, and clearly, all of this should be illegal, but its not because the software industry is a clown show. Proprietary software is unethical.
- NVIDIA unveils RTX Spark chip for laptops and desktop PCs
It was an open secret that NVIDIA was working on an ARM-based system-on-a-chip for laptops and desktops, and today at Computex 2026 the company unveiled what its been working on. Its surely a beast, and unsurprisingly, its lathered in AI! buzzwords. At full strength, this chip offers up to 20 Arm CPU cores, a Blackwell GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores, 128GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and up to 300 GB/s of memory bandwidth. That powerful CPU and GPU, connected over NVLink C2C, and the large memory pool give AI agents and 120-billion-parameter models plenty of power and space for long-running tasks with context lengths stretching to a million tokens, according to Nvidia. RTX Spark will power high-end laptops from partners including Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, and MSI and notably, a new Surface Ultra laptop from Microsoft. Nvidia says it’s worked with those partners to create “the most extraordinary laptops ever built,” with tandem OLED G-Sync displays, “all-day” battery life, premium aluminum chassis with large glass touchpads. ↫ Jeffrey Kampman at Toms Hardware I couldnt care less about the AI! nonsense, but the chip itself seems like an absolute monster for laptops and mini PCs. With that much power and a solid NVIDIA GPU, these are also great for gaming and creative tasks, making them feel like the first true competition in the PC space to Apples M series of chips. Theyre planned for late 2026, and tellingly, theres no pricing information just yet.
- You dont love systemd timers enough
My favorite metonymic technology term is cron job!: even though cron may not literally be the daemon that executes actions on a schedule, we apply the term to anything that walks like a cron and quacks like a cron. As Patrick McKenzie likes to point out, cron jobs are one of the most eminently useful computing primitives. They offer utility thats almost immediately obvious for plenty of use cases that almost everybody has: do this every day; do that once a month. And yet. You probably shouldnt use literal cron (or its more modern cousins) for scheduled tasks! In 2026 there are more modern options available, and my favorite is the humble systemd timer. I love systemd timers. If you dont love them yet, maybe I can show you the reasons why you should love them, too. ↫ Tyler Langlois These are just timers. They are not consuming your computer or taking over the open source world. They do not phone home to Red Hat. These are just timers.
- How Digital Software Is Powering Innovation in Modern Product Design
by Will Jones
By enabling digitized production design, this digital software is freeing up businesses and individuals across numerous industries to work smarter, not harder.
To design a new product or tool is often a lengthy, labor-intensive process. Even the most successful and streamlined physical design process is intensive and iterative by nature; it is the process of taking something that begins as little more than an idea and turning it into reality. Inherently, that is going to take a great deal of translation, as well as trial and error. When working with real-world, physical elements, this also makes for a costly endeavor, as each new trial effort may prove essential to the long-term success of the design, but still has adverse financial effects. Dassault Systèmes offers CAD software to help businesses stay on top of advancements in their industries.
Before digital design software became widely adopted, engineers and designers often relied heavily on hand-drawn technical sketches and manual drafting methods during product development. Revising a design could require redrawing entire sections of a project, making the process both time-consuming and resource-intensive. Modern digital design systems have significantly changed these workflows by allowing teams to make rapid adjustments, automate calculations, and store detailed design information within a single platform. This shift has contributed to the broader adoption of digital tools across industries seeking more streamlined development processes.
Fortunately, though, in this new world of ever-advancing technological tools, the design process doesn’t have to be fraught with issues and obstacles anymore, thanks to systems such as CAD software. This new software is now enabling businesses to design smarter, faster, and more accurately by digitizing product development processes and improving collaboration across engineering and manufacturing teams.
Digital Design as the Foundation of Innovation
Digital software allows engineers to create precise digital models that can then serve as the foundation for product development. Compare this to the physical alternative, which has long been a well-thought-out sketch of the product in question. Even the most comprehensive of sketches is only going to be dealing with two dimensions, and is likely to leave room for confusion or error based on the interpretation of the subjective rendering.
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- GNOME Files Supercharges Search with Faster Results, Smarter Filters, and Better File Discovery
by George Whittaker
The GNOME project continues refining one of its most frequently used applications: GNOME Files (formerly known as Nautilus). Recent development efforts have focused heavily on improving the file manager’s search capabilities, making it easier to locate documents, media files, and folders across increasingly large storage volumes.
For many Linux users, file search has become one of the most important daily workflows. As personal data collections grow and SSDs make local storage faster than ever, GNOME developers are investing in tools that help users find information more quickly and efficiently. GNOME Files already relies on indexing technologies such as Tracker (now GNOME LocalSearch) to deliver fast results, and recent improvements are building on that foundation.
A Redesigned Search Experience
One of the most noticeable improvements is a redesigned search interface that makes searching feel more integrated into the overall file management experience.
Recent GNOME development previews introduced:
A cleaner search popover Inline result previews Improved keyboard navigation Faster access to search filters Better visibility of search options within the file manager interface
These refinements reduce the number of clicks required to narrow down results and help users locate files without leaving their current workflow.
Smarter Filtering Options
Search filters have become increasingly important as users store larger collections of documents, images, videos, and audio files.
GNOME Files has been expanding its filtering capabilities, allowing users to narrow searches more effectively based on:
File type Media category Search location Recent activity Indexed metadata
Earlier updates expanded support for additional audio and video file formats, making it easier to locate multimedia content directly from the search interface. This is particularly useful for users managing large media libraries.
Improved Search Performance
Fast search results are just as important as accurate ones.
GNOME Files continues leveraging the GNOME indexing framework to provide near-instant search results while minimizing system overhead. The file manager works closely with the LocalSearch indexing service to locate files quickly without repeatedly scanning entire drives.
This approach provides several benefits:
Faster file discovery Reduced CPU usage during searches Better scalability on large storage volumes More responsive user experience
For desktop users who frequently work with thousands of files, these performance gains can significantly improve productivity.
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- NixOS 26.05 ‘Yarara’ Released with Systemd Initrd by Default and Major Infrastructure Updates
by George Whittaker
The NixOS project has officially released NixOS 26.05, codenamed “Yarara,” continuing the distribution’s unique approach to Linux system management through declarative configuration, atomic upgrades, and reproducible deployments. The release introduces several important platform-level changes, modernized infrastructure components, and continued refinement of the Nix ecosystem.
As one of the most distinctive Linux distributions available today, NixOS continues attracting developers, DevOps engineers, and advanced Linux users who value predictable system behavior and highly reproducible environments.
What Makes NixOS Different?
Unlike traditional Linux distributions that install packages directly into shared system locations, NixOS is built around the Nix package manager, which stores software in isolated, versioned paths and generates complete system configurations declaratively.
This architecture provides several advantages:
Atomic system upgrades Reliable rollback capabilities Reproducible environments Easier infrastructure automation Reduced dependency conflicts
These features have helped NixOS gain popularity among developers managing complex systems and cloud infrastructure.
Systemd-Based Initrd Becomes the Default
One of the most significant changes in NixOS 26.05 is the move to a systemd-based Stage 1 initrd by default. The older scripted implementation is now deprecated and scheduled for removal in NixOS 26.11.
The initrd (initial RAM disk) is responsible for preparing the system during early boot before the main operating system loads.
According to the release notes:
Systemd now handles Stage 1 initialization by default The previous scripted implementation remains temporarily available Users can still revert using boot.initrd.systemd.enable = false Long-term migration toward the systemd-based approach is encouraged
This change is expected to improve consistency and simplify maintenance across modern NixOS deployments.
Continuing the Twice-Yearly Release Cycle
NixOS continues its established release cadence of publishing stable versions twice per year—typically around May and November. The 26.05 “Yarara” release follows the previous 25.11 “Xantusia” release and continues the project's steady development rhythm.
The 26.05 development cycle involved extensive staging, package testing, and release management work coordinated through the NixOS community.
Large-Scale Package and Infrastructure Updates
Like previous NixOS releases, 26.05 includes a massive collection of package updates across the software ecosystem.
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- GNOME 51 Development Officially Begins as ‘A Coruña’ Cycle Gets Underway
by George Whittaker
The GNOME Project has officially opened the development cycle for GNOME 51, the next major release of one of Linux’s most widely used desktop environments. Following the recent launch of GNOME 50 “Tokyo,” developers are already shifting focus toward the next chapter of the desktop’s evolution, which will carry the codename “A Coruña.”
While it’s still very early in the process, the release schedule is now taking shape, giving Linux users and developers an early look at what to expect over the coming months.
GNOME 51 “A Coruña” Is Now in Development
The new release is named A Coruña, after the Spanish city that will host GUADEC 2026, the annual GNOME Users and Developers European Conference. The event serves as one of the most important gatherings for GNOME contributors, where future desktop plans, technologies, and development priorities are discussed.
As soon as GNOME 50 was finalized, development work for GNOME 51 officially began, continuing GNOME’s well-established six-month release cadence.
Release Schedule Already Published
The GNOME team has outlined the preliminary roadmap for the GNOME 51 cycle.
Current milestone dates include:
GNOME 51 Alpha: June 27, 2026 GNOME 51 Beta: August 1, 2026 GNOME 51 Release Candidate (RC): August 29, 2026 GNOME 51 Final Release: September 16, 2026
These milestones provide time for:
Feature integration Public testing Bug fixing Performance optimization Final stabilization before release
As always, dates may shift slightly depending on development progress.
Still Too Early for Major Feature Announcements
Because the development cycle has only just started, GNOME developers have not yet revealed a finalized feature list. Most major design discussions and merge requests are still in their early stages.
However, several areas are already attracting attention.
Wayland Improvements Are Likely a Major Focus
One of the biggest transitions in recent GNOME history happened with GNOME 50, which completed the project’s move away from X11 by removing remaining X.Org support from the desktop environment.
Because GNOME is now fully committed to Wayland, many observers expect GNOME 51 to focus heavily on:
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- Alpine Linux Experiments with Systemd Compatibility While Keeping Its Lightweight Identity
by George Whittaker
Alpine Linux, one of the most recognizable non-systemd Linux distributions, is reportedly experimenting with an optional systemd compatibility layer, a move that has sparked intense discussion across the Linux community.
For years, Alpine has stood apart from mainstream Linux distributions by avoiding both glibc and systemd, instead relying on:
musl libc BusyBox OpenRC as its init system
Now, growing software compatibility pressures, especially around desktop applications, containers, and enterprise tooling, appear to be pushing Alpine developers to explore new approaches.
Why Alpine Linux Avoided Systemd for So Long
Alpine Linux built its reputation around simplicity, security, and minimalism. Unlike many mainstream distributions, Alpine intentionally avoided systemd in favor of the lighter and more modular OpenRC init system.
This design philosophy made Alpine extremely popular for:
Containers and Docker images Embedded systems Lightweight virtual machines Security-focused deployments
Its tiny footprint and reduced dependency chain became major advantages in cloud and container environments.
The Compatibility Problem Is Growing
Despite Alpine’s popularity, avoiding systemd has increasingly created compatibility challenges.
Many modern Linux applications now assume the presence of:
libsystemd systemd APIs glibc-specific behaviors
This has become particularly problematic for:
Desktop software Proprietary enterprise applications Monitoring agents Certain gaming and multimedia tools AI and container orchestration software
Historically, Alpine users often relied on:
Compatibility layers like gcompat Flatpak containers Docker workarounds Manually patched packages
The growing complexity of those workarounds appears to be one reason compatibility discussions are intensifying.
What the Experimental Compatibility Layer Actually Means
Importantly, Alpine Linux is not replacing OpenRC with systemd.
Instead, the project appears to be exploring:
Optional compatibility packages libsystemd support Improved API compatibility for software expecting systemd components
Experimental efforts already exist in the broader ecosystem. For example, unofficial projects have packaged portions of systemd, particularly libsystemd, for Alpine systems specifically to satisfy software dependencies without running full systemd services.
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- Debian Experiments with AI-Assisted Bug Triage as Open-Source Projects Face Growing Report Overload
by George Whittaker
The Debian project has begun exploring AI-assisted bug triage workflows, joining a broader movement across the open-source world to manage the rapidly increasing volume of software bug reports and vulnerability submissions.
While Debian developers are approaching the idea cautiously, the effort reflects a growing reality for large open-source projects: modern software ecosystems are producing more bugs, duplicate reports, and security findings than human maintainers can efficiently process alone.
The discussion arrives during a period of intense debate within Linux and open-source communities about how artificial intelligence should be integrated into software development and maintenance.
Why Debian Is Looking at AI-Assisted Triage
Debian is one of the largest and most complex Linux distributions in existence, maintaining tens of thousands of software packages across multiple architectures and release branches. Managing bug reports at that scale has always been challenging.
Now, AI-assisted vulnerability scanning and automated testing tools are dramatically increasing report volumes across open-source projects. Maintainers are increasingly facing:
Duplicate vulnerability reports Low-quality automated submissions Massive triage backlogs Security mailing list overload Increasing maintainer burnout
AI-assisted bug triage systems are being explored as a way to help organize, prioritize, and categorize incoming reports before human maintainers review them.
What AI-Assisted Bug Triage Actually Means
Importantly, Debian is not handing software maintenance over to AI systems.
Instead, AI-assisted triage generally focuses on repetitive administrative tasks such as:
Detecting duplicate bug reports Categorizing issues by severity Routing bugs to appropriate maintainers Summarizing lengthy reports Identifying missing reproduction details Prioritizing security-related submissions
The goal is to reduce the amount of manual sorting work maintainers must perform before actual debugging begins.
The Open-Source Community Is Divided
Debian’s experiments come during an ongoing debate about AI’s role in open-source development.
Some maintainers view AI-assisted tooling as necessary because software complexity has outpaced human review capacity. Others worry about:
Low-quality AI-generated reports Maintainer overload False positives Loss of contributor accountability “Drive-by” AI contributions with little human understanding
The Debian community itself has spent months discussing how AI-assisted contributions should be handled, but no final project-wide policy has yet been adopted.
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- BudsLink Brings Advanced Earbud Controls to Linux Desktops
by George Whittaker
Linux users have long faced a frustrating limitation with wireless earbuds: basic Bluetooth audio usually works, but advanced features often remain locked behind proprietary mobile apps. A new open-source project called BudsLink is trying to change that.
Designed specifically for Linux desktops, BudsLink adds support for battery monitoring, Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) controls, ambient sound modes, gesture customization, and other premium earbud features that are typically unavailable outside Android or iOS ecosystems.
For Linux users who rely on devices like AirPods, Sony earbuds, Samsung Galaxy Buds, or Nothing earbuds, this is a significant quality-of-life improvement.
What Is BudsLink?
BudsLink is an independent open-source application that communicates directly with supported Bluetooth earbuds using Linux Bluetooth protocols such as L2CAP and RFCOMM sockets. Instead of treating earbuds as simple audio devices, the application exposes many of the advanced controls usually hidden behind vendor apps.
The project currently supports multiple device families, including:
Apple AirPods and Beats Sony audio wearables Samsung Galaxy Buds Nothing and CMF earbuds
The application is available through Flatpak and can run across multiple Linux distributions.
Features Linux Users Normally Don’t Get
Traditionally, Linux Bluetooth support has focused mainly on audio playback and microphone functionality. BudsLink goes much further by exposing premium earbud features directly within Linux.
Current capabilities include:
Monitoring earbud battery levels Viewing charging case battery status Switching between ANC and ambient sound modes Conversation awareness support on compatible devices Automatic volume reduction during conversations In-ear detection for automatic pause/resume Gesture and stem control configuration Customizable icons and appearance settings
For many Linux users, these are features they’ve never had access to outside mobile apps.
Closing a Long-Standing Linux Gap
Bluetooth earbuds have become increasingly dependent on proprietary ecosystems. Features like adaptive audio, transparency modes, or touch controls often require vendor-specific mobile applications that are unavailable on Linux.
That has created a frustrating situation where:
The earbuds technically work on Linux But users lose many of the features they paid for
BudsLink aims to bridge that gap by reverse-engineering communication protocols and exposing those controls natively on Linux desktops.
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- Ubuntu 26.10 Development Officially Begins as ‘Stonking Stingray’ Takes Shape
by George Whittaker
Canonical has officially kicked off development planning for Ubuntu 26.10, the next interim release of the popular Linux distribution. Codenamed “Stonking Stingray,” the release is scheduled to arrive on October 15, 2026, continuing Ubuntu’s predictable six-month development cycle.
Although Ubuntu 26.10 is still in the early planning stages, the release roadmap already offers hints about what users can expect from the next generation of Ubuntu.
A New Interim Release After Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Ubuntu 26.10 follows the recently released Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon”, which introduced major platform changes including Linux 7.0, GNOME 50, Wayland-only sessions, and expanded TPM-backed security features.
Unlike the LTS release, Ubuntu 26.10 will be a short-term support release, receiving updates for nine months instead of the five years offered by LTS editions.
These interim releases are typically used to introduce newer technologies and prepare the groundwork for future long-term Ubuntu versions.
The “Stonking Stingray” Codename
Canonical confirmed that Ubuntu 26.10 will carry the codename “Stonking Stingray.”
As with previous Ubuntu releases, the codename follows the project’s long-running naming convention using:
An adjective An animal beginning with the same letter
The playful naming tradition remains one of Ubuntu’s most recognizable characteristics.
Development Schedule Already Published
Canonical has already published the preliminary roadmap for Ubuntu 26.10 development. Major milestones currently include:
Feature Freeze: August 20, 2026 Beta Release: September 24, 2026 Kernel Freeze: October 1, 2026 Final Release: October 15, 2026
The toolchain upload process reportedly began in late April, officially opening the development cycle.
Expected Technologies in Ubuntu 26.10
While Canonical has not yet finalized the complete feature set, several components are widely expected based on current development schedules.
GNOME 51
Ubuntu 26.10 is likely to ship with GNOME 51, which is expected to be released roughly one month before Ubuntu 26.10 itself.
This would continue Ubuntu’s strategy of tracking recent GNOME desktop releases in interim versions.
Linux Kernel 7.2 or 7.3
Reports suggest Ubuntu 26.10 may include either:
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- Linux 7.1-rc2 Released with Driver Fixes, Steam Deck OLED Audio Repair, and Growing AI Patch Trends
by George Whittaker
Linus Torvalds has officially released Linux kernel 7.1-rc2, the second release candidate in the Linux 7.1 development cycle. While Torvalds described the update as a “fairly normal” RC release, the kernel includes a broad collection of driver fixes, subsystem cleanups, and stability improvements that continue shaping the next major Linux kernel release.
Although still an early testing version intended mainly for developers and enthusiasts, Linux 7.1-rc2 already delivers several notable fixes—especially for graphics hardware, networking, and gaming devices like the Steam Deck OLED.
A Strange-Looking Release—But for a Good Reason
One of the first things Torvalds mentioned in the release announcement was the unusually large patch statistics. At first glance, the release appears much larger than expected, but there’s an explanation behind the inflated numbers.
Much of the activity comes from a large cleanup effort in the KVM selftests subsystem, where developers renamed variables and types to better match Linux kernel coding conventions. Because thousands of lines were renamed rather than fundamentally rewritten, the patch count looks dramatic even though the underlying functional changes are relatively modest.
Torvalds specifically advised testers not to overreact to the “big and strange” diff statistics.
Graphics and Driver Fixes Take Center Stage
As is common during early release candidates, a large portion of the work in Linux 7.1-rc2 focuses on hardware drivers. GPU and networking drivers account for a significant share of the meaningful fixes in this release.
Notable improvements include:
Additional fixes for AMD GPU support Intel Xe graphics driver adjustments and tuning Networking stability improvements Filesystem fixes, including NTFS driver updates Memory leak patches and race-condition corrections
These kinds of updates are critical during the RC phase because they help stabilize hardware compatibility before the final release reaches mainstream distributions.
Steam Deck OLED Audio Finally Gets Fixed
One of the more interesting fixes in Linux 7.1-rc2 addresses a long-standing issue affecting the Steam Deck OLED. According to reports, audio support for Valve’s handheld had been broken in the mainline Linux kernel for nearly two years, forcing Valve and some handheld-focused distributions to carry their own downstream patches and workarounds.
With Linux 7.1-rc2, an upstream fix for the audio issue has finally landed, potentially simplifying support for Linux gaming handhelds moving forward.
For Linux gamers and portable gaming enthusiasts, this is one of the more practical improvements included in the release candidate.
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- LibreOffice 26.4 Beta Experiments with AI Writing Features and Smarter Editing Tools
by George Whittaker
The upcoming LibreOffice 26.4 Beta is introducing early AI-powered writing capabilities, signaling a new direction for the open-source office suite. While LibreOffice has traditionally focused on privacy, local processing, and open standards, the beta release shows that The Document Foundation is now exploring how artificial intelligence can assist users without fully embracing cloud-dependent ecosystems.
The result is a cautious but notable step toward AI-enhanced productivity on Linux and other desktop platforms.
AI Writing Assistance Comes to LibreOffice
One of the biggest additions connected to LibreOffice 26.4 Beta is expanded support for AI-assisted writing tools through integrations such as WritingTool, an open-source LibreOffice extension designed to enhance editing workflows.
These AI features focus on practical writing assistance rather than aggressive automation. Current capabilities include:
Grammar and style suggestions Paragraph rewriting and refinement Text expansion and summarization Translation assistance AI-assisted content generation
Unlike many proprietary AI platforms, these tools can operate using local AI models, allowing users to avoid sending documents to external cloud services.
A Privacy-Focused Approach to AI
LibreOffice’s AI direction differs from the strategies used by many commercial office suites. Instead of tightly integrating mandatory cloud AI services, the project appears focused on:
Optional AI functionality User-controlled integrations Support for local inference servers Compatibility with self-hosted AI solutions
The WritingTool project specifically highlights support for local AI backends and OpenAI-compatible APIs, including self-hosted tools like LocalAI.
This approach aligns closely with the values of many Linux and open-source users who prioritize privacy and transparency.
What AI Tools Can Actually Do
The AI writing features currently being tested are aimed at improving productivity rather than replacing human writing entirely.
Examples include:
Grammar and Style Improvements
AI can analyze text for readability, awkward phrasing, and stylistic consistency.
Paragraph Rewriting
Users can ask the assistant to:
Simplify text Make writing more formal or casual Expand short sections Rephrase unclear sentencesContent Assistance
The tools can also help generate outlines, draft paragraphs, or suggest alternative wording for documents.
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