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- LineageOS 24 released
The LineageOS project, which produces anAndroid-based distribution for mobile devices, has announced the release ofLineageOS 24.0.
We're a bit sentimental about this release, as it precedes a really funupcoming milestone.
On December 24, 2026, LineageOS will celebrate 10 years. It's a remarkablemilestone for a project built by a passionate community of developers,maintainers, contributors, and users who have kept so many devices alive alongthe way.
[...] We've been hard at work rebasing all of our changes and features sinceAndroid 17's release in June. Android 17's first release mainly containediterative improvements and some UI/UX refinements, but due to our previousefforts adapting to Google's heavy refactoring over the last several versions,we were able to rebase onto Android 17's code-base faster than anticipated. Yesyou read that right: We're early this year!
- Security updates for Monday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (cjose, compat-openssl10, compat-openssl11, curl, dogtag-pki, dovecot, emacs, glibc, kernel, openssl, python3.12, python3.14, and sssd), Debian (chromium, ghostscript, tor, and vips), Fedora (kernel, libical, markdownlint-cli2, openbao, openvpn, php-getid3, python3.10, python3.11, and python3.13), Mageia (capnproto, chirp, flatpak, freetype2, hamlib, mingw-pcre2, pcre2, openssl, tomcat, tomcat-native, and xdg-dbus-proxy), Oracle (bind, cjose, dogtag-pki, dovecot, firefox, kernel, nodejs:24, openssl, pki-core:10.6, python3.12, python3.14, ruby:2.5, rust-sequoia-sq, sssd, and tftp), Red Hat (libxml2), Slackware (mutt), SUSE (apache-sshd, bind, ccache, chromium, cpp13, dash, expat, fetchmail, flatpak, golang-github-prometheus-prometheus, grafana, system-user-grafana, incus, libpng16-16, libsoup, logback, openssh8.4, perl-DBI, php8, python3-paramiko, python312, python313-asyncpg, python313-azure-identity, python313-Babel, python313-Beaker, python313-bjoern, python313-black, python313-Brotli, python313-CairoSVG, python313-Flask-Cors, python313-FontTools, python313-Jinja2, python313-jwcrypto, python313-MechanicalSoup, python313-oauthlib, python313-PyJWT, python313-PyMySQL, python313-PyYAML, python313-virtualenv, python313-XStatic-jquery-ui, qemu, rsyslog, shadowsocks-rust, squid, stunnel, swtpm, trivy, unbound, wpa_supplicant, and yast2-users), and Ubuntu (libdbi-perl).
- Kernel prepatch 7.3-rc7
The 7.3-rc7 kernel prepatch is out fortesting. According to Linus: "As always, I would have preferred to see a smallerrc, but it's not like anything in here looks like a reason to delaythe final release. So that's still set for next weekend unlesssomething new comes up."
One notable change that slipped into the mainline this week is the deprecationof the ext4 data=journal mode; it will be removed entirely at thebeginning of 2028.
- Python 3.15 released
Version3.15 of the Python programming language has been released. Notable changesin this release include the addition of the sentinel and frozendict built-in types,the use of UTF-8 encoding by default, packagestart-up configuration files, as well as improvements in the experimentalJIT compiler. See the "What's new in Python3.15" article for an in-depth look at new features in this release, and thechangelogfor a full list of changes.
- [$] Adding kernel control-flow-integrity checking to GCC
While many developers are struggling to keep up with the flood ofvulnerability reports, others are still focused on preventing those reportsfrom happening in the first place. Control-flow integrity (CFI) is theterm for preventing (or at least detecting) exploits that divert the flowof control from its intended paths. At the 2026 GNU Tools Cauldron, Kees Cookpresented his changes to the GCC compiler suite to support forward-edge CFIfor the kernel.
- [$] The state of systemd: 2026 edition
At the 2026 All Systems Go!conference, systemd maintainers Luca Boccassi and Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmekdelivered the traditional "state of the project" session with an overview of thesystemd project's accomplishments in the past year. That was followed by amaintainer round table where Boccassi, Jędrzejewski-Szmek, Daan De Meyer, andproject leader Lennart Poettering fielded questions about systemd's size,health, and if it might replace Kubernetes. (It will not.)
- Let's Encrypt moving to 64-day certificate lifetimes in 2027
Let'sEncrypt, the nonprofit that provides free TLS certificates for millions ofsites, has announced thatit will be moving to certificates with 64-day lifetimes on February 10,2027:
This means that any certificate we issue or renew on and after that date willhave a 64 day validity period, and we expect the last 90-day certificate toexpire on May 11, 2027. We will not revoke valid certificates as a part of thisprocess.
This is the second stage of Let's Encrypt's plan, announced in 2025,to move to 45-day certificate lifetimes as required by the the CA/BrowserForum Baseline Requirements. In 2028, Let's Encrypt will switch to 45-day certificates.
- Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bind, bind9.16, freerdp, glibc, kbd, mod_auth_openidc, openssl, perl-DBI, python3.12, python3.14, and tftp), Debian (rails and twitter-bootstrap3), Fedora (barman, cockpit, hcloud, libmodsecurity, nginx-mod-modsecurity, perl-DBI, sudo, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Mageia (libxfont2), Oracle (bind9.18, firefox, kernel, nodejs24, perl-DBI, and vim), Red Hat (kernel, libreswan, opentelemetry-collector, osbuild-composer, rhc, and runc), SUSE (alloy, amazon-ecs-init, bind, busybox, distribution, emacs, ghostscript, glibc, GraphicsMagick, hauler, helm, helm3, jackson-annotations, jackson-core, jackson-databind, kernel, libpoppler-cpp3, libxtst, logback, nvidia-open-driver-G07-signed, perl-DBI, php-composer2, pi-coding-agent, portprotonqt, pvetui, python-hpack, python313-GitPython, and wpa_supplicant), and Ubuntu (apache2, bluez, libarchive, libde265, libgit2, libpng1.6, libxml2, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux-aws-7.0, linux-azure, linux-azure-6.8, linux-azure-fde, linux-azure-fde-6.8, linux-azure-fips, linux-azure-7.0, linux-azure-fde-7.0, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gcp-7.0, linux-hwe-7.0, linux-oracle-7.0, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-oracle, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-nvidia, and linux-oem-6.17).
- [$] An update on Rust's project goals
Tomáš Šedovič is a program manager at the Rust Foundation. He co-leads thegoals team, which helpsorganize the Rust project'soverall goals, including making sure that the peoplewho have agreed to work on one have the support they need.At Kangrejos 2026, he provided an overview of the Rust project's goal processesaimed at ensuring that the Rust for Linux developers were aware of how theproject organizes, tracks, and amends goals.TheRust for Linux projecthas inspired several current project goals, so he thought that getting an insideview of the process might be helpful.
- [$] The [vx]swap showdown
The kernel's swap layer has undergone somesignificant changes over the course of the last year and a number oflongstanding problems have been addressed. One problem that has notyet been solved in the mainline is the direct tie between slots in the swapcache and space in persistent swap files, which can cause highlyinefficient resource use. There are two competing solutions for thisproblem, neither of which has, as yet, reached readiness for merging; alengthy discussion on possible paths forward shows ongoing disagreementover the best path forward.
- Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bind, firefox, freerdp, ghostscript, glibc, kernel, kernel-rt, perl-DBI, python3.12, rust-rpm-sequoia, rust-sequoia-sq, rust-sequoia-sqv, and vim), Debian (gst-plugins-base1.0, python3.11, and xz-utils), Fedora (7zip, chromium, curl, docker-buildx, kernel, Lmod, and sos), Mageia (tesseract), Oracle (dovecot, firefox, freerdp, gd, ghostscript, kernel, librabbitmq, perl-DBI, python3.12, rust-rpm-sequoia, rust-sequoia-sqv, sg3_utils, vim, and virtuoso-opensource), Slackware (xorg-server), SUSE (aliyun-cli, busybox, cadvisor, chromedriver, chromium, crane, distribution-registry, fetchmail, fio, ghostscript, golang-github-prometheus-alertmanager, google-osconfig-agent, govulncheck-vulndb, libsoup, libXtst, openexr, prometheus-blackbox_exporter, python-fsspec, rpcbind, rsyslog, rustup, wireshark, wpa_supplicant, and zcode), and Ubuntu (erlang, golang-golang-x-net, gst-plugins-ugly1.0, lxml, poppler, and sudo).
- [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 8, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: Kernel bugs; Gentoo's Chromium package; Rust smart pointers; Sashiko; Charon; LAVD scheduler; Python random-number modules. Briefs: OpenSSH 10.6; RustConf recordings; Rust 1.99.0; Picard 3.0; Zig 0.17; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
- [$] Analyzing Rust programs with Charon
Nadrieril is a long-time Rust contributor, and the maintainer of the rustcpattern-matching infrastructure. During his involvement with Rust, he hasnoticed a problem with the usability of the language: it is difficult toautomatically extract information from a Rust crate for use with other tooling.The Charon project aims to fix that by providing a stable API for accessinginternal information from the Rust compiler.
- Zymbit ZYMKEY 5 Security Module Offers 640 Key Slots for Raspberry Pi
Zymbit’s ZYMKEY 5 is a compact hardware security module for Raspberry Pi systems, offering 640 key slots, filesystem encryption, device authentication, and physical tamper detection. It also supports additional cryptographic algorithms compared to its predecessor. The ZYMKEY 5 measures 39 × 14 × 5.3mm and uses a mini-HAT form factor that connects to the first […]
- What is SystemD on Linux?
This article will teach you what systemd is and why it replaced SysVinit; what systemd unit files are; how to list all and specific unit files; and how to view the content of a unit configuration file.
- Linus Torvalds Working On A Hefty Linux Kernel Improvement With Claude Code
Linux creator Linus Torvalds has been known to use AI to help with kernel debugging and outside of the kernel tree has also done some vibe coding with Google's Antigravity. He has previously said he views AI as a useful tool. It turns out he's even now using Claude Code for working on new Linux kernel features...
- Linux Landing Kernel Workaround For AMD TLBI Erratum #1718
AMD TLBI Erratum #1718 was worked around in CPU microcode for addressing a defect in certain Zen CPUs where the Translation Lookaside Buffer Invalidate Instruction use could lead to to stale translation entries. But for those on affected AMD CPUs and not running the updated microcode, a kernel workaround is being introduced with today's Linux 7.3-rc7 kernel and to be back-ported to prior kernel versions...
- 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: October 11th, 2026
The 313th installment of the 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup is here for the week ending October 11th, 2026, keeping you updated on the most important developments in the Linux world.
- Abietec AX61 Wireless Modules Leverage Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and Matter
image Abietec, a subsidiary of Raytac, offers the AX61 series of wireless modules based on NXP’s RW612 and RW610 microcontrollers. The compact modules support Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and Matter connectivity, with multiple antenna configurations and an accompanying development kit for embedded and IoT applications. The AX61 series integrates a 260MHz Arm Cortex-M33 processor with […]
- Drgn 0.3 Released For This "Natural" Programmable Debugger From Meta
Drgn is the open-source project out of Meta developing a very versatile debugger with the intent being a debugger focused on programmability with it striving to "make scripting as natural as possible so that debugging feels like coding." Drgn 0.3 released this weekend with the latest round of improvements...
- Rolling Release Distros Superior To LTS Distros In The Patch-Heavy GenAI Era?
As some interesting food for thought and weekend forum discussions, this week at the Linux Plumbers Conference in Prague, Qualcomm engineer Khem Raj questioned the relevance of Linux Long Term Support (LTS) distributions in the era of generative AI with the constantly heavy patch flow and bug reports. Khem Raj argued the benefits of rolling release distributions in the GenAI era and the benefits it provides staying up-to-date with mainline...
- Should We Beware of Other License Plate Surveillance Companies Besides Flock?
NPR reports:Police officers in cities across the U.S. are quick to extol the virtues of real-time crime centers as a game changer that helps them find missing children, monitor large events from the skies and scope out dangerous scenes before putting an officer in harm's way. Hundreds of police departments have one of these central hubs, which have existed for years. But many are now being powered with AI software, such as Fusus, from the public-safety technology giant Axon... synthesizing the data it pulls in and allowing police command centers to watch an entire city from one place. Flock cameras, the automated license plate readers (ALPRs), have faced intense backlash in recent months amid stories of abuse. Yet privacy experts say they're just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to police surveillance. "I have been watching the debate about Flock with a little bit of puzzlement," says Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University. "Because real-time crime centers have not just ALPR cameras and sensors, but video analytics and drones and essentially a way to create a visual single-pane-of-glass vision of what's going on in a city, with time machine capabilities where you can go back and investigate crime." Tools like Axon Fusus, which is a leader in this type of software, also pull in footage and data from police body cameras, law enforcement dashcams, 911 dispatch, gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras, including sometimes those of private businesses that opt in. Its use is growing fast. In 2024, the technology news site 404 Media reported that just over 100 law enforcement agencies had deployed Fusus, which was then its own company and was acquired by Axon that year. The number of law enforcement agencies using the tool has more than doubled since then, according to Axon. Even the American Civil Liberties Union warned concerned citizens in August that "Flock is far from the only vendor," adding that "it's important to realize that its competitors aren't so great either, and that simply replacing Flock surveillance with another company's surveillance won't necessarily solve any of the privacy and other civil liberties problems posed by this mass surveillance technology."Communities can't simply assume that their residents will be better off from a privacy and civil liberties perspective by dropping Flock and replacing it with another ALPR provider, as some customers have done. They should ask hard questions about whether they really want to create that kind of a system, and if they do, ensure it doesn't function as a mass surveillance system... One of Flock's most significant competitors is Motorola. This company, which has been expanding its police technology offerings through an aggressive acquisition strategy in recent years, offers a nationwide law enforcement data sharing system similar to Flock's called the National Vehicle Location Service, operated by Motorola unit Vigilant Solutions. In addition to collecting data from law enforcement clients' cameras, it also runs a large separate commercial ALPR unit that makes deals for tow trucks and other fleet vehicles to carry cameras and collect data for Motorola as they drive around, amassing billions of plate reads (a claimed 500 million monthly, subject to no apparent data retention policy). Known as the Digital Recognition Network, that unit sells its data for commercial purposes but also makes it available to its law enforcement customers for an extra charge. Motorola tells agencies they can have "access to billions of detections beyond your own." Abandoning Flock for another system doesn't protect privacy, their article argues. "If a jurisdiction decides to allow license scanners to be installed, how that system operates is more important than which vendor provides it..." They recommend strong restrictions like data retention limits — and imposing them by law rather than in the language of contracts with vendors (which could always be renegotiated).
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- How the US Nuclear Plant Fleet Is Leaning Into AI
"This year, nearly the entire fleet of 94 U.S. nuclear reactors has been offered the chance to integrate AI into its operations, and most have taken it," reports IEEE Spectrum:In August, California-based Atomic Canyon launched NIVA, the Nuclear Industry Virtual Assistant, which was developed in cooperation with nuclear-industry groups. The assistant was pilot-tested in nuclear plants run by Constellation Energy and is now available to the United States' entire fleet of reactors.... Meanwhile, the AI-for-nuclear startup Nuclearn says its products have gone to work with more than 65 U.S. partners, a total that includes many traditional plants but also an integration with NuScale Power Corp. that is working toward advanced small nuclear reactors. Microsoft and Nvidia have collaborated on a project to apply AI toward optimizing "the entire life cycle of a nuclear plant, spanning site permitting, design, construction, and continuous operations." The reason for the rapid adoption, according to Nuclearn CFO and cofounder Jerrold Vincent, is twofold. First, the technology companies banking their futures on AI are also keen on a revival of nuclear power to provide the electricity for all those data centers. Vincent says AI is also ideal for addressing some of the nuclear industry's most pressing problems. Many of the things that make reactors so difficult to operate — intricate regulations, along with complex systems for management and maintenance — are exactly the kinds of tasks that AI is good at. The industry is staggering to deal with aging hardware and an aging workforce. If it is going to survive, and have a real shot at a nuclear revival, it will need help from machine intelligence, Vincent says... Right now, the principal output of a nuclear reactor (aside from electricity) is paperwork. Nuclear plants produce piles of documentation to demonstrate regulatory compliance and to record how they respond to any potential problem, from a crack in the sidewalk to a fault in the reactor... Nuclearn's AI products help plants search through large repositories of data more efficiently to more quickly file paperwork with the federal government or figure out how a particular problem was solved in the past. "If you think of it as ChatGPT for nuclear," he says, "it's actually not a bad place to start." It's especially important because the nuclear power industry "has a remarkably skilled but quickly shrinking workforce tasked with keeping old reactors online and possibly starting up new ones to meet surging demand for electricity," the article points out. It also stresses that "So far, both the Nuclearn and NIVA large language models used in the nuclear world report to humans and don't go anywhere near power plant operations."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Let's Encrypt to Cut SSL Certificate Lifetimes to 64 Days in February 2027
Let's Encrypt "will shorten the default validity period of its TLS certificates from 90 days to 64 days, starting February 10, 2027," reports the blog Linuxiac:All certificates issued or renewed from that date will have a 64-day lifespan unless users explicitly select one of the shorter options already available: 45 or six days. Existing certificates will remain valid until their expiration dates. Let's Encrypt expects the final 90-day certificate to expire on May 11, 2027. The organization also confirmed no valid certificates will be revoked during the transition. To help administrators prepare, Let's Encrypt will introduce 64-day certificates in its staging environment on October 14, 2026, allowing users to test their renewal setups before the change reaches production. The move is part of a broader effort to improve web security by reducing how long compromised or incorrectly issued certificates remain usable... Looking further ahead, the organization plans to reduce the default certificate lifetime again, this time to 45 days in 2028. That makes the upcoming 64-day limit an intermediate step rather than the final destination. "Administrators using cron jobs or scripts with hardcoded renewal intervals should review their configurations," the article suggests. "Another upcoming change concerns domain validation. Let's Encrypt will reduce the period during which a previously completed domain authorization can be reused from 30 days to 10 days. In 2028, that period will shrink further to just seven hours."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Game Console Market Craters: Xbox and PS5 Sales Plummet Over 25%
"Video game console sales in the U.S. have cratered," reports Tom's Hardware, with sales through August far below where they'd been in 2025:Mat Piscatella, the video game industry advisor at research firm Circana, shared the numbers on his Bluesky account — PlayStation 5 sales have dropped by 25%, putting it at its lowest point since 2013, when gamers held off buying PlayStation consoles in anticipation of the arrival of the PS4, while Xbox's retail figures have cratered by 33% YTD, putting its sales numbers at an all-time low since its launch almost 25 years ago. Piscatella said price sensitivity is becoming a real problem among gamers, especially as the chip shortage has pushed console manufacturers to raise prices. Microsoft has raised the price of the Xbox three times in the past two years, with the 512GB versions jumping by $100 and 1TB models becoming $150 more expensive. Worse, the company has killed off the 2TB model. This brought the Xbox Series S to $499.99 (512GB) and $599.99 (1TB), while the Xbox Series X now costs $749.99 for the Digital Edition, and the disc version costs $50 more at $799.99. PlayStation fans haven't escaped these price hikes, as Sony raised prices for that console by $100 to $150. The base Digital Edition PS5 now costs $599.99, while the version with an optical drive is priced at $649.99. If you want the PS5 Pro, you'll have to shell out $899.99, while those who want to stream games from their console via the PlayStation Portal must now pay $249.99 — $50 higher than its $199.99 launch price. Even used consoles didn't escape inflation, with Sony bumping the price of refurbished PS5 Slim consoles by $100, bringing them to $399. "Still, Piscatella says the U.S. hardware market has never been more precarious since the early 1980s."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Research Firm Calls Anthropic's Upcoming IPO 'Unprecedented Test of Investor Gullibity'
CNBC reports:As Anthropic barrels toward a potential $2 trillion market cap on the Nasdaq, one research firm is valuing the artificial intelligence company at a mere $150 billion and says Wall Street is about to face an "unprecedented test of investor gullibility." In a report on Tuesday, independent financial research provider New Constructs called Anthropic's upcoming offering the "most ridiculous IPO of 2026." To reach its desired valuation, the firm estimates Anthropic would need to record double the trailing year of profit for Nvidia, the world's most valuable tech company. Nvidia's net income over the past four quarters topped $190 billion. Meanwhile, Anthropic's revenue in 2025 was $4.6 billion as the company racked up a net loss of $42 billion, according to Reuters, which cited a leaked copy of the company's prospectus.Anthropic's mounting operating losses coupled with emerging competition from a plethora of open-source models led New Constructs to conclude that, "We don't think Anthropic has a viable business...." Anthropic didn't respond to a request for comment... The New Constructs report also notes that Anthropic's assertion that AI could pose "a catastrophic or existential risk to humanity" is another reason why investors should avoid the IPO. Reuters reported that Anthropic's IPO prospectus "highlights risks associated with its AI models, which it said could exhibit 'self-preserving behaviors,' including attempts to 'resist shutdown,' to 'conceal or manipulate information' and behavior 'resembling blackmail.'" Now Bloomberg writes that "investors considering Anthropic's planned mega-IPO are grappling with an unusual, and more than a little scary, conundrum: How to value a company that some fear could help wipe out the human race?" Anthropic's valuation also drew some scrutiny froma senior analyst at PitchBook."A $2 trillion price is about 435 times 2025 revenue, less than 44 times the annualized second-quarter revenue of more than $46 billion and just under 31 times the July run rate."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Gas Cars Fall Below 50% of Global New Car Sales for the First Time
"Gas cars are now a minority of the world's new car sales," reports Electrek.Gasoline-only vehicles made up 49% of global new-vehicle sales in the first half of 2026, down from 73% in 2021, according to Mobility Global data first reported by Nikkei. It's the first time on record that they've been under half. But there's a catch: most of the cars taking their place still have a gas tank... [The share of gas-only vehicles] fell three points in a single year, from 52% to 49%. Battery-electric vehicles grew 12% to 6.87 million units and took 17% of the market, up three points. Conventional hybrids grew 10% to 7.27 million units, or 18%... [T]he rest is diesel, plug-in hybrids and a few minor fuels. Nikkei ties the acceleration to oil. Fuel prices spiked with the conflict in the Middle East, and buyers went looking for lower running costs. The whole car market shrank about 5% in the first half, according to the IEA, so gas-only sales fell twice as fast as the market. Gas car sales dropped the most in China, down 26%, followed by Europe at 13%... Mobility Global has battery-electric sales up 32% in Europe to 1.81 million, up 81% in Southeast Asia to 350,000, and more than doubling in Oceania to 110,000... Yoshiaki Kawano, an associate director at Mobility Global, told Nikkei that few EV buyers go back to gasoline cars or hybrids. He expects demand based on "genuine consumer needs rather than subsidies" to grow as prices come down... [Hybrids] outsold battery-electric vehicles in the first half, 7.27 million to 6.87 million... Only the 17% that's battery-electric burns no fuel at all. So about 83% of the new vehicles sold in the world this year still came with an engine. The article notes that U.S. hybrid sales were up 23%, reaching a record 16.3% of vehicles sold in the second quarter of 2026, while the share of ICE vehicles went down. Gas-only cars went from 73% to 49% of the market in less than five years, and nothing in the data suggests they're getting that share back. The last time gasoline wasn't on top was the early 1900s, when steam and electric cars outsold it in the US. I hate seeing media headlines claiming that "EV sales are down" and that "EV growth has stalled." The data is clear: that's true in the US, but only in the US. The rest of the world is moving to electric vehicles, and it is not slowing down.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- 'The Social Reckoning' Bombs with $5.5 Million Opening
Why didn't The Social Reckoning enjoy the box office success of 2010's The Social Network, asks IndieWire/A>:[T]here wasn't the same urgency in the story being told. The Social Reckoning focuses less on Zuckerberg, and more on data engineer Frances Haugen's decision to blow the whistle on how Facebook's algorithms were promoting political content that radicalized users, as well as the company's awareness of how its products were contributing to a rise in bullying and teen suicide... [B]ut The Social Reckoning arrives as a much greater threat has emerged from Silicon Valley. Artificial intelligence is dominating the headlines, as fears mount about the economic disruptions it will unleash when millions of jobs are replaced by machines, and, graver still, its potential to trigger a world-ending event... And it's not like Haugen's testimony led to lasting change at Facebook... As IndieWire's Ryan Lattanzio put it, "'The Social Reckoning' argues that the aftermath of their whistleblowing is still somehow felt today. In actuality, living as we do in 2026, it pretty much feels like... no one cared, and nothing changed?" After the first movie's director bowed out, Sony Pictures shied away from selling it as a sequel — but the problems run deeper, the article adds. "The Social Reckoning isn't just a financial failure, it's a critical one, too. The reviews were blistering..." Although on the bright side, "Sony wisely kept The Social Reckoning's budget at $30 million, meaning it won't face losses on the scale of a Digger... " Variety writes that Digger "cratered in its second weekend with $3.2 million from 3,321 theaters, a 60% decline from its dismal $8 million debut. So far, the Tom Cruise satire has limped to $14 million domestically and $35.3 million globally. Warner Bros. spent above $160 million to produce the film, which is shaping up to be one of the biggest bombs ever..."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Blade Runner, Star Trek, Godzilla, Star Wars + Marvel (and Legos): News From New York Comic-Con
There was some Blade Runner news at New York Comic-Con this weekend — and also some news about Godzilla. Ars Technica reports:We got our first look at Prime Video's new sci-fi series Blade Runner 2099 in July at San Diego Comic-Con. With the show's premiere roughly six weeks away, the streamer unveiled the full trailer this weekend at New York Comic-Con... Prime Video will drop all eight episodes of Blade Runner 2099 on November 25, 2026. [It's already earned 2.1 million views in the last 17 hours]. We also got a new trailer for Godzilla Minus Zero, the sequel to director Takashi Yamazaki's gloriously grounded kaiju epic, Godzilla Minus One, which became a major international hit and snagged an Oscar for best visual effects. [1.2 million views in its first five hours] And StarWars.com brings news from the Star Wars universe:Kevin Smith has already announced his Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles crossover comic, interweaving the Marvel universe and the Star Wars galaxy like never before. Now, you're cordially invited to add your own creative ideas to the mix through a LEGO Ideas challenge celebrating the milestone 50th anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope. Using physical or virtual LEGO bricks, fans are challenged to build "their own epic mash-ups," according to Lego's web site, "in three categories: Character Fusion, Vehicle Fusion, and Scene Fusion." ("Write an engaging description and upload great images of your creation without using AI tools...") Meanwhile, Star Trek fan site TrekMovie.com covered the major Star Trek announcements:There was an interview with 95-year-old William Shatner by Star Trek super-fan Ben Stiller, which ended "with Stiller surprising Shatner by revealing the original Gorn head from his personal Star Trek memorabilia collection."Also announced was a new documentary about the disastrous fan-organized convention in 1982 that tried reuniting cast members from the original series. (Its title? The Con of Wrath: The Craziest Convention Ever!)Gates McFadden (who played Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation) will write a new comic book to "bridge the 20 year in-universe gap in Crusher's story between the events of the film Star Trek Nemesis and the television series Star Trek: Picard."Paramount+ offered a panel about their series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (which returns for a second season in 2027).Nacelle Toys even announced new action figures of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and Lucile Ball, owner of Desilu Productions.Reuters also has photos of costumed attendees. But there was also some excitement when an unruly fan shouted over a panel for the Prime Video animated series Helluva Boss. Entertainment Weekly reports it culminated with series star Brandon Rogers shouting "You need to shut the f--- up right now. I'm going to jump over this fence and end you. It's not cute."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- A College Told Flock to Remove Its Cameras. The Company Refused.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:When Elgin Community College hired Flock Safety to install six surveillance cameras in April 2025, President Peggy Heinrich thought they would "enhance the safety and security of students...." They were supposed to help locate stolen cars and missing people. But Heinrich started to wonder if the cameras were actually making students less safe after seeing news reports that data captured by Flock cameras in Illinois had been shared with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Then in September 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained an Elgin Community College student in a campus parking lot. More than half of students at the far west suburban Chicago campus identify as Latino. Heinrich said enrollment dipped. Students were afraid to come to class. College officials decided the cameras had to go... College officials asked Flock to remove the surveillance cameras "out of an abundance of caution for our students," Heinrich said. But getting the cameras taken down was not as simple as it sounds, especially because Flock retains ownership of the company's equipment.... Surveillance experts say the company is financially incentivized to have as many cameras gathering data as possible even in places that no longer want them, because potential clients are looking for the surveillance network with the greatest reach.... Elgin Community College staff notified Flock in October 2025 that they wanted to cancel their contract and have the cameras taken down. Within a day, Heinrich said, Flock rejected the request and refused to uninstall the equipment on the basis that the company had not breached their agreement. College officials reached out again in December 2025 and said they would pay for the remaining five months of the contract — they just wanted the cameras taken down. "We never received a response back from Flock," Heinrich said. That's when things got weird. Heinrich said Elgin Community College staff began to cover the cameras using black trash bags and zip ties so that they would not be able to capture footage. But workers in an unmarked vehicle, which Heinrich assumed belonged to Flock, repeatedly removed the coverings... This strange dance continued, Heinrich said, until Elgin Community College's contract with Flock expired in April this year and the company uninstalled the cameras for good.
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- Original RFC1149 Packet Up For Auction At Christies
Long-time Slashdot reader badger.foo writes: As some of you may remember, in 2001 RFC1149 (TCP/IP over carrier pigeon) was implemented. Now one of the packets preserved from that event is up for auction at Christies. Direct link to the auction (current bid: USD 2600) is here. This is a unique chance to own a piece of Internet history!
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- US Agency To Rewrite Rules To Finally Address Vehicle Headlight Glare
America's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration "said on Tuesday that it will rewrite its vehicle lighting standards," reports Reuters, "to address concerns about headlight glare and allow for the latest safety-improving lighting technologies."NHTSA said it plans to improve rules for LEDs, dusk sensors, automatic high beams and replaceable light sources. The agency will also evaluate headlamp height and aim and how they impact driver visibility and address headlight glare and make appropriate changes. Complaints about glare from headlights have increased and some lawmakers have urged the government to set a maximum headlight brightness standard. A growing number of taller trucks and SUVs on roads has also led to more complaints about glare. LEDs, which now account for most headlights in new cars, are much brighter than traditional halogen headlights... The issue still accounts for a small number of nighttime crashes, according to a study last year from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The study noted that headlight glare contributes to far fewer crashes than insufficient visibility... Federal headlight standards for minimum and maximum brightness have not changed since 1997, IIHS noted. The study found that drivers older than 70 appear to be most affected by headlight glare. In 2022, NHTSA said it would allow automakers to install adaptive driving beam headlights on new vehicles. The devices adjust the headlight beam pattern to dim portions directed at other vehicles. Thanks to Slashdot reader technology_dude for sharing the news.
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- NASA Releases Data from Artemis II Moon Mission, Calls It 'Sights and Sounds of Science'
"What did four astronauts see, notice, and document as they traveled around the Moon during NASA's Artemis II mission?" asks a new NASA web page, offering some fascinating pictures and video:Through photographs, spoken observations, drawings, and annotations, the Artemis II crew created a unique scientific record — one that is now available to the science community and the public for further study... As part of the mission science plan, lunar scientists asked the Artemis II crew to watch for tiny flashes sparked by rocky fragments hitting the Moon. Even so, some scientists were astonished when astronauts reported seeing five extremely faint "pinprick" bursts of light from 46,000 miles away. After ruling out other sources — cosmic rays or reflections from the spacecraft — the science team confirmed the sightings... The impact flash observations happened during a planned loss of communications while the Artemis II crew was on the far side of the Moon... Apollo astronauts saw similar flashes from lunar orbit, but the Artemis crew likely caught the faintest ever seen with the unaided eye. From the brightness of the flashes, scientists estimated that incoming rocks were each no more than a couple of inches wide. Despite their size, they were traveling thousands of miles per hour, producing just enough light upon impact to be visible. The nearly hour-long total solar eclipse that the crew experienced while passing by the Moon's far side created ideal dark conditions for spotting such subtle bursts. With no atmosphere to slow or burn up incoming debris, projectiles slam freely into the lunar surface. The crew's direct observations of this process on the Moon's far side provided a rare dataset that will help us understand how often these small impacts occur, which is essential for assessing long-term risks to future lunar habitats and infrastructure... The crew reported seeing subtle hues of gray, black, brown, tan, white, green, and blue across the Moon's surface. This muted rainbow offers clues to the rocks and minerals that make up different lunar regions, helping scientists piece together how the Moon — and, by extension, Earth — evolved over time. "Amazing news," Mission Control responded when they heard about the flashes. Space.com reports that when a Mission Control operator looked over at the Science Evaluation Room, "they were jumping up and down, literally." NASA blogged this week that more than 800 gigabytes of Artemis II lunar science data — some previously unreleased — "have been uploaded to NASA's Planetary Data System, the public archive for NASA's planetary missions."This data release includes more than 11,000 full-resolution images and video of the Moon from the crew's handheld cameras and the Orion spacecraft's cameras, 8.5 hours of audio recordings of the crew's scientific observations of the lunar surface, and crew-annotated images... Along with this data, NASA has released the Artemis II Preliminary Lunar Science Report, the Artemis II Lunar Science Operations Report, and the Artemis II Lunar Science Data User Guide.
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- FBI Arrests Cybersecurity Executive Over Data Breach After Contractor Fails to Update Oracle HR Platform
CNN reports:The FBI arrested a Canadian cybersecurity executive and ransomware expert as part of the investigation of a damaging hack that exposed the sensitive data of current and former FBI employees, according to court documents and people familiar the investigation. Edward Dubrovsky was arrested in the Philadelphia area in recent days... Dubrovsky is facing charges related to extortion and making threats. He has been transferred to Texas's Eastern District for a scheduled detention hearing, according to court records and a law enforcement official. FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrest on Friday but did not disclose where it occurred or what role the man is suspected of playing in the hack. Patel also didn't name Dubrovsky, but CNN confirmed the defendant is believed to be tied to the FBI hack through multiple people familiar with the investigation... A LinkedIn profile under Dubrovsky's name lists years of experience in the Canadian cybersecurity industry and describes Dubrovsky as a 'globally recognized cybersecurity expert.' An Ed Dubrovsky is also the author of a book on handling ransomware negotiations with cybercriminals... There has also been an inquest at the FBI over how such a critical security lapse happened. The FBI determined that a contractor managing the bureau's jobs portal failed to update software "explicitly issued to secure the platform," [senior FBI cyber official, Brett Leatherman said last week]. The FBI has "removed the contractor," he said. The software in question is a human-resources platform made by Oracle, ShinyHunters has said. The hackers previously used a flaw in the software to attack targets in the education sector in May and June, according to Google's Threat Intelligence Group. But months later, the FBI contractor apparently still had not applied a security patch that was available for the software. "The inmate locator at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website reports that a 54-year-old Edward Dubrovsky is currently being held at a federal facility in Philadelphia," reports security researcher Brian Krebs. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
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- Ubuntu Confirms Thursday's Distributed Denial of Service Attack Against Its Web Infrastructure
On Thursday those trying to access the Ubuntu website, ISO downloads, and similar Ubuntu resources on Thursday found the site "inoperable," reports Phoronix, with the disruption confirmed as a distributed denial of service attack. "Our team is working diligently to resolve the incident," according to a Thursday post on Ubuntu Discourse — followed by a later announcement. "At this time our team continues to work on restoring affected services, most of them are now available. We appreciate your patience and understanding." Ubuntu's status page shows the Ubuntu.com outage lasting for 2 hours and 27 minutes on Friday — though with four-hour outages Wednesday (and other outages affecting other Ubuntu sites). Today "All components are Operational," the status page reports.
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- UK Vegetables 20-50% Less Nutritious Than In the 1960s
The Telegraph reports that the nutritional value of fruit and vegetables has fallen by up to 50% since the Sixties, according a new study from researchers at startup studio Deep Science Ventures. The study "found that humans needed to consume twice the number of vegetables to get the same level of minerals such as potassium, magnesium or copper as would have been present in their food 60 years ago."The study found that many crops had lost 20% to 50% of several key nutrients... The decrease in nutrient and vitamin value is thought to be down to declining soil quality and crops being selectively bred for their ability to grow quickly, rather than there being any focus on their health benefits... It raises the prospect that the advice to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, introduced in the UK in 2003, may need to be updated. The report added that people on weight-loss drugs could be most at risk from the lack of nutrients, as the treatments could cause them to consume less food... Nature-friendly farming techniques, such as planting crops that restore nutrients to the soil, could help improve the health benefits of vegetables, according to the researchers. In short, according toWill Summers, a senior associate at the firm, "we've been quietly hollowing out what's inside our food." Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.
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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]
- Inside the Windows I/O Manager: deep dive into how read I/O requests are initialized
In this article. I am going to explain the different steps the I/O manager follows when initializing an I/O operation starting from determining the right target, choosing the right path and finally sending the request to be processed by the right drivers. To make it easier I choose to focus on read requests only since the major steps are common by all types of requests. ↫ Win-Ware A very in-depth look at Windows I/O Manager.
- A minimal kernel in Swift, running in QEMU
At OSNews, we love us a hobby operating system project. I started a small experiment: writing a very basic kernel in Swift, and running on QEMU. The goal is obviously not to replace Linux or any other popular kernel, but just to have fun and understand what is required to make a program run without an operating system underneath it. Actually I made a similar experiment years before with arOS 10 years ago. For the moment, the kernel does only one thing: it prints a message through QEMU and then waits forever, which is enough for a first deep dive. ↫ Carette Antonin This is effectively a hello world! kernel, as it doesnt actually do much else at this point. Still, theres a ton of details in the article for the aspiring kernel developers among you.
- Microsoft is overhauling and redesigning search in Windows, and it seems nice?
Whenever Microsoft starts messing with something like the search function in Windows, a lot of people are going to be holding their breath and expecting the worst. Well, get ready, because theyre redesigning the whole thing. In July, we shared how we are improving the Windows Search Box with less clutter and more control. We introduced a calmer home screen, removed promotional content from web results, and gave you more choice over whether web and Microsoft Store suggestions appear. Today, we’re carrying those investments forward with a new Windows Search experience built on WinUI 3. This modern foundation makes Windows Search faster and more efficient with resources, while delivering an even more streamlined and focused design. ↫ Anshul Rawat at the Windows Blogs The company claims this new version of search is faster and uses less memory, which, if true, are very welcome improvements. Its also just a single column of results now, and theyre adding inline previews for things like weather and files on your machine, as well as for answers to all kinds of queries you might normally go to an online search engine for. You can now also use search to perform all kinds of tasks in Windows, like turning on dark mode, managing windows, and so on. All of this can be done using relatively natural language, and Microsoft claims theyve implemented better detection of typing errors and synonyms, which is quite welcome. Weirdly enough, though, its not yet integrated into the Start menu, since its a preview just for testers, but thats something theyre working on for future releases. Judging by the videos and screenshots, Im actually kind of positively surprised. This looks quite decent and nice, and if the promised performance improvements actually materialise, this may actually be an upgrade to search worth looking forward to. Of course, this is still Microsoft, so its just as likely theyll screw up somewhere between now and when this goes live to regular users. Still, I think it looks decent.
- Chimera Linux: creating distribution build tooling for a small community
Chimera Linux is a relatively new Linux distribution, and quite a unique on at that, as it combines the core tools from FreeBSD, the LLVM toolchain, and the Musl C library instead of the usual suspects. Despite being relatively new, it still has some serious pedigree as the project was started by Nina q66!, who was part of the Void Linux team. At Void, she maintained the various PowerPC/POWER ports of the distribution until Chimera became her sole focus. Nina published a detailed blog post today about how the Chimera team builds the tooling for their distribution, as well as the goals its trying to achieve. It covers everything from a bit of personal history, the rationale behind the project, who its catering to, how its tooling works and why, and the infrastructure theyve built that underpins it all. Theres a lot to process here, with one of the most interesting little details at least to me, as someone who has two POWER9 machines the fact that Chimera started with the ppc64le target only. The article is an incredibly interesting look at not just the how of Chimera, but also the why, which makes for some really fascinating reading.
- KDE developer takes a look at COSMIC
KDE contributor and developer Niccolò Venerandi has published an article about COSMIC, System76s brand new desktop environment. Its been almost a year since Ive last tried COSMIC; though development since then has mostly been centered around stability (going from late alpha to stable releases now!) there have been a fair bit of user-facing changes too which I adore. I thus have to ask myself: should I switch to COSMIC? The answer obviously is no, but thats just because I got addicted to KDE Plasma, so lets try to be more objective here. ↫ Niccolò Venerandi Honestly, this is one of the best reviews! Ive seen of COSMIC, and paints System76s hard work in a really positive light. Venerandi spots countless really nice touches hed love to see adopted by KDE, while also hitting on what I agree is COSMICs biggest shortcoming at this point: theres basically no ecosystem around it. COSMIC uses its own Rust-based toolkit instead of GTK or Qt, but of course, theres very few other applications that actually use said toolkit. The end result is that if you run COSMIC, youre going to have to supplement it with countless GTK and Qt application, none of which will inherit all the nice features, touches, and graphics from COSMIC. This isnt really a complaint about COSMIC itself or the work its developers are putting into it, but more a fact of life for such a new desktop environment using an otherwise unpopular (as of right now) toolkit. This may very well change in the future, but for now, if you choose to run COSMIC, youre going to have to accept a very inconsistent and messy desktop. This wont matter to everyone, but it sure does matter to me, and its the one reason why at this point I have zero interest in running COSMIC. I really hope this changes in the future competition is good but its going to be a long road.
- Microsoft claims its optimising Windows for 8GB of RAM
Speaking of Windows and performance, how about that RAM crisis? Microsoft is feeling the squeeze too, and is apparently doing work up and down the Windows stack to improve its memory consumption. Microsoft’s Windows chief Pavan Davuluri has admitted that the rising cost of memory is pushing the company to make Windows 11 use less RAM. Microsoft is working on the Windows memory manager, memory compression, WinUI 3 and WebView2, and has made “memory optimization for 8GB and above” an official priority for the rest of 2026. ↫ Abhijith M B at Windows Latest This might be the only positive consequence of the RAM crisis.
- Windows legacy 8.3 filename support actually negatively affects performance
To this day, Windows retains full support for the old MS-DOS 8.3 filename limitation, and it does this by creating 8.3 aliases for files with longer names. Apparently, this has a measurable effect on performance, so naturally, people are going to turn it off to make their Windows installations perform better. According to the user, this resulted in noticeably smoother scrolling in Tile view. They subsequently repeated the process on several folders they regularly use and reported that searching through files became much faster. The user also claimed that external hard drives became faster and that browsing an Android directory over USB or FTP behaved more like a regular Windows folder, including when copying large numbers of music files. ↫ Sayan Sen at Neowin You can disable this legacy feature in Windows per volume or globally, but Microsoft is warning users not to do so. Even in 2026, applications and registry entries may depend on 8.3 filenames being available, so removing them can lead to unexpected outcomes. Its just one of those things you wouldnt expect to still be around or have a measurable impact in the days of fast SSDs, but theres enough credibly evidence out there to suggest that yes, it actually does negatively affect performance. If youre doing a lot of file operations in Windows, it might be worthwhile to do some testing of your own to see if you can speed things up. Or, you know, you can just not use a house of cards disguised as a serious operating system.
- Apple changes Full Disk Access permission in macOS
Apples macOS has a Full Disk Access permission, designed to allow backup applications full access to, well, the disk, so they can perform their job properly. Apple posted a notice on its website that its going to further restrict this permission, because some applications were abusing this permission to gain access to users messages, emails, and so on, which it obviously isnt intended for. What kind of applications, you may ask? Going forward, we will introduce additional controls to ensure that users who genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access can only do so with very explicit user action. Addressing this is critical. As AI agents become increasingly capable and autonomous, the risks associated with this level of access will grow substantially. We are committed to ensuring users clearly understand these risks before granting such access, so they can make informed decisions about their own data and privacy. ↫ Announcement from Apple This was prompted by a story a few weeks ago, where Facebooks Muse AI! tool was apparently reading peoples private messages and other data, and even sent messages on users behalf, without informing its users. Its incredibly naive to think Facebook software in 2026 would not do creepy things, so Im honestly not at all surprised. It makes sense in Apples worldview to further restrict permissions in response, but Im sure more experienced macOS users are not going to like this.
- Klassik brings KDE3s look and feel to KDE Plasma 6
The KDE project recently brought back its classic Oxygen and Air themes, but what if you prefer something0 A little older? A modern recreation of the classic KDE 3 desktop experience for KDE Plasma 6, built entirely using Qt 6 and Qt Quick, with full support for Wayland and fractional scaling. ↫ Klassik GitHub page Neat.
- SquirrelOS is an operating system named after the squirrel
I like squirrels. Apparently, theres a SquirrelOS. Its a small hobby OS learning project from five years ago, developed by Immanuel Daviel A. Garcia. A simple DOS like OS made in Assembly and C with a ported version of Stephen Brennans Shell. ↫ SquirrelOS GitHub page Why do I like squirrels? I dont know man, theyre just cute.
- Google breaks promise to provide 10 years of updates to Chromebooks
Google launched its Googlebooks platform a week ago, and a lot of people were wondering what this meant for Chrome OS and Chromebooks. Since Googlebooks and its Android-based Googlebook OS lack the management frameworks markets like schools require, Chromebooks will continue to be available for now, until such time Googlebooks catch up in that regard. However, in a support document, Google states that update support for all Chromebook devices will end in 2034: ChromeOS devices will continue to receive regular updates and security patches through mid-2034. For qualifying devices purchased today whose 10-year support lifecycle extends beyond 2034, Google is committed to supporting your transition to Googlebook OS, with many devices offering direct migration paths. ↫ Google support document Google promised 10 years of updates for all Chromebooks, and its now breaking that promise for anyone buying a Chromebook between now and whenever the last Chromebook rolls off the production line. Sadly, we live in a world where corporations are free to make and break whatever promises they want virtually free of consequences, and as society were so used to it that anti-consumer behaviour like this barely elicits a shrug. Google does state that many newer commercial Chromebook models will be capable of upgrading to Googlebook OS!, but that, too, is just another promise and a vague, one at that so who knows how many devices will actually be capable of upgrading out in the real world. On top of that, we have no idea if Googlebooks will just be yet another in a long line of quickly abandoned Google tablet/laptop projects, further adding to the uncertainty. Stuff like this should not be legal.
- macOS Golden Gate is a buggy mess!
In June 2008 Apple announced Mac OS X Snow Leopard, proudly boasting that it would have no new features!. Instead of piling on new things, Snow Leopard aimed to build on the success of its predecessor, Leopard, opting to focus on under-the-hood performance and stability improvements throughout the system. 18 years later, Apple is taking a similar approach with macOS 27. Golden Gate aims to fix the missteps of last years Tahoe, promising an expansive set of improvements and a more responsive and delightful experience!. Does it hold up? Here are just some of the bugs I’ve encountered in my daily use over the past couple of weeks. ↫ Chester at SquareOrbits Im getting some real Windows 11 vibes from this long list of bugs and issues, further underlining my perception that Apple completely lost the plot when it comes to Mac OS X (in the past) and MacOS (today). These are not the kind of things youd find in the heydays of Mac OS X, back when I was a devout user, and makes me glad I abandoned ship long, long ago (around the time of the Intel transition). I dont see stuff like this in GNOME or KDE, and while not nearly as bad as Windows 11, the cracks are obvious. I am by no means an expert at how Apple is run and how it organises itself, but as a layperson I do wonder if the company is simply trying to do too much too many different platforms, too many different crucial components it all develops internally, too many different markets to please. Things are going to fall through the cracks when you try to keep this many plates spinning.
- Tcl/Tk 9.1 released
A brand new Tcl/Tk release, in the form of Tcl/Tk 9.1. The new features in Tcl are a bit difficult for me to properly parse as a non-developer, but Tks improvements are easy to understand: it brings supports for screen readers, initial supports for bidirectional and RTL scripts, improved listbox selection colours, and more. It also happens to drop support for Windows XP appearances, if thats something that matters to you.
- WSL containers are now generally available
Microsoft has announced WSL containers for developers who arent already using Docker, Podman, or Rancher on their Windows workstations. WSL containers is now generally available! Check out this blog post to learn more about this overall feature enabling seamless access to Linux containers on Windows via the new “wslc.exe” command. This new Linux container platform comes with multiple architectures changes compared to WSL, which we’ll detail in this post. ↫ Pierre Boulay at the Microsoft Dev Blogs If you already have WSL installed, you can run wsl -update to get this new container feature, or you can download it straight from GitHub.
- MotifCentral: all things Motif/Xt/Xlib
Over the last few days and weeks or so, a few of the people I follow and interact with on Fedi have been talking about centralising information, tools, applications, and expertise from the Motif (and Xt, Xlib, and X11) ecosystem. Theres a ton of information, resources, and actively maintained applications out there, but its all spread out and sometimes difficult to find, and so Thomas Adam one of the core developers of FVWM, among other things, as well as creator of CoW (FVWM for Wayland, more or less) has created an effort to centralise all of this. Motif Central brings together information about Motif, Xt, Xlib and X11: how they fit together, how to program with them, and where to find the manuals, examples and historical material that explain them. Begin with the X programming stack, build your first Motif application, or explore the programming resources. The history pages describe the libraries origins, while the archive guide helps you navigate older documentation. ↫ MotifCentral Theres been a whole flurry of activity around Motif lately, including the updated and maintained fork we talked about a few weeks ago. The people loosely collaborating on MotifCentral also submitted patches to CDE to make sure it works on the new Motif fork, with the CDE developers setting up a build pipeline for easier testing. Making sure CDE, the classic Motif desktop environment, works well with the maintained Motif fork quite a few people seem to be rallying around is a worthwhile effort. Were still quite far from a complete(-ish) modern Motif ecosystem, but its very heartwarming to see just how many people are actually still interested in it. My perhaps misguided hope is that we can somehow get to a modernised Motif/CDE desktop environment and applications, making it possible to more easily run a modern Motif environment on Linux and the BSDs. One may dream.
- Windows 10 breaks far less often than Windows 11
Windows 11 received its September update on the 8th of this month, and within days Microsoft had acknowledged or investigated problems involving Remote Desktop, USB audio, Linux and WSL-based apps like Claude Cowork, and enterprise domain issues. Windows Latest also found File History failures, Explorer.exe crashes, and AMD GPU instability, with an emergency update following on September 14 that still did not fix everything. This got us curious, and we looked back across the nine monthly updates released from January through September 2026 and, rather unsurprisingly, Windows 10 update history isn’t infected with nearly as many bugs as that of Windows 11. ↫ Abhijith M B at Windows Latest Of course, Windows 10 also isnt getting nearly as much attention from Microsoft, but thats kind of the whole point, isnt it? Whenever Microsoft touches something, especially over the last 5 years or so, its one cascade of failures after the other, eroding trust in Windows updates even more (if thats even possible). In that light, why would you want to use Windows 11 and all the headaches that come with it, when Windows 10 is right there, still being supported, albeit without the latest bells and whistles that only seem to break Windows 11 anyway? If you really do need or want to use Windows, consider switching back to Windows 10 whenever the usual Windows reinstallation time draws near. You wont lose much, but will gain quite a bit in the process. Of course, this wont be a responsible or usable choice forever, but at this point in time, I definitely think its the optimal choice for quite a few people.
- Linux Moves Closer to Retiring the x32 ABI After Years of Limited Adoption
by George Whittaker
Linux kernel developers are renewing efforts to retire the x32 application binary interface (ABI), a little-used compatibility feature that attempted to combine the advantages of 64-bit processors with the smaller memory footprint of 32-bit applications. A revised patch series submitted on October 8, 2026, proposes the first steps toward disabling the interface, potentially ending support for an architecture experiment introduced more than 14 years ago.
The latest proposal comes from Sebastian Andrzej Siewior, a Linux kernel developer at Linutronix who has been working on the removal effort throughout 2026. Rather than immediately deleting every component associated with x32, the proposed approach would first prevent the feature from being enabled through normal kernel configuration. This would give remaining users and distribution maintainers an opportunity to respond before the underlying implementation is removed.
The effort reflects a broader challenge in Linux development: maintaining compatibility with older or rarely used technologies while keeping the kernel manageable, secure, and efficient. Although x32 offered theoretical performance and memory advantages, it never achieved widespread adoption. With conventional x86_64 software dominating modern Linux systems, developers are increasingly questioning whether the additional maintenance burden remains justified.
Understanding the Linux x32 ABI
The x32 ABI was introduced with Linux kernel 3.4 in 2012 as an alternative to conventional 32-bit and 64-bit application environments. Its goal was to provide applications with access to the architectural improvements of x86_64 processors while retaining smaller data types and pointers associated with 32-bit software.
Traditional 32-bit x86 applications use the i386 ABI, which operates with a more limited register set and 32-bit execution conventions. Standard x86_64 applications, meanwhile, benefit from additional general-purpose registers, wider registers, and modern calling conventions, but they normally use 64-bit pointers. Those larger pointers can increase memory consumption in applications that maintain large numbers of pointer-heavy data structures.
The x32 ABI attempted to offer a compromise. Applications would execute using the x86_64 instruction set and its larger register file while retaining 32-bit integers, long values, and pointers. This programming model is commonly described as ILP32, meaning that integers, long integers, and pointers are all 32 bits wide.
The distinction can be illustrated by comparing the expected sizes of common C data types:
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- Google's Kage Project Rethinks Linux Kernel Security With Isolated Device Drivers
by George Whittaker
Google is exploring a new approach to Linux kernel security that could significantly change how device drivers interact with the operating system. The experimental project, known as Kage, uses compiler-based sandboxing to isolate drivers inside the kernel, potentially limiting the damage caused by memory corruption, programming errors, and exploitable vulnerabilities without requiring drivers to run as separate user-space processes.
The research was presented at the Linux Plumbers Conference 2026, held October 5–7, with Stanford University and Google researcher Zachary Yedidia discussing how LLVM's Lightweight Fault Isolation (LFI) technology can create restricted execution environments for native kernel code. Unlike conventional isolation techniques, which often depend on separate processes or virtual machines, Kage attempts to preserve the performance advantages of kernel-space execution while reducing the amount of memory individual drivers can access.
Early prototypes have already demonstrated the concept using NVMe storage, networking, and Wi-Fi drivers. However, Kage remains an experimental research project rather than a feature available in mainstream Linux distributions. Its developers are still investigating performance, hardware access, and compatibility with more complicated drivers, including graphics hardware.
Why Device Drivers Remain a Major Linux Security Challenge
Linux device drivers are responsible for connecting the operating system to hardware components, including graphics cards, network adapters, storage controllers, USB devices, and wireless chipsets. Most traditional Linux drivers execute in kernel space, giving them privileged access to system resources and the ability to interact directly with hardware. This architecture is one reason Linux can deliver high performance across such a broad range of devices, but it also creates a significant security challenge.
When an ordinary application encounters a memory error, the operating system can often terminate that process without affecting the rest of the system. Kernel drivers operate under different conditions. Because they typically share the kernel's address space and privileges, an invalid memory access or exploitable vulnerability can affect unrelated kernel components, potentially resulting in a system crash, privilege escalation, or complete compromise of the operating system.
The challenge becomes more complicated when considering the enormous number of drivers supported by Linux. Some are maintained by large organizations with extensive testing infrastructure, while others receive contributions from smaller development teams or individual maintainers. Even carefully reviewed drivers can contain bugs, particularly when they interact with complicated hardware, asynchronous operations, and memory-management mechanisms.
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- Speech Synthesis on Linux: Adding a Voice to Scripts and Systems
by George Whittaker
Linux users have long had a pragmatic relationship with text-to-speech. The classic open-source engines have been available for years, wired into accessibility tools and the occasional script, dependable but unmistakably robotic. They do the job where the job is simply to convert text to some kind of speech, but the mechanical output has kept them out of anything where the voice actually matters. The arrival of high-quality speech synthesis delivered over an API changes what is possible, letting Linux users add genuinely natural voices to scripts, services, and applications without hosting a heavyweight model themselves.
The Familiar Trade-Off
Anyone who has used the traditional Linux speech engines knows the trade-off. They are free, local, and scriptable, which fits the Linux ethos perfectly, but the voices are clearly synthetic. For accessibility and for utilitarian tasks where intelligibility is all that counts, that has been acceptable. For anything user-facing where the quality of the voice shapes the experience, it has not.
The alternative of running a modern, high-quality speech model locally is possible but comes with real costs: significant computational requirements, model management, and the ongoing maintenance of a demanding piece of infrastructure. For many use cases, particularly on servers, embedded systems, or ordinary workstations, that overhead is disproportionate to the need. This is the gap that an API-based approach fills, offering the quality of a large modern model without the burden of hosting one.
The API Approach on Linux
Delivering speech synthesis over an API fits naturally into how Linux users already build things. Rather than installing and maintaining a model, you make a request to a service and receive audio back, which you can then play, save, or pipe into whatever comes next. A Go to Full Article
- Archinstall 4.5 Released with AArch64 Support, Real-Time Kernels, and Major Installer Fixes
by George Whittaker
The Arch Linux project has released Archinstall 4.5, the latest version of its guided text-based installer, bringing expanded AArch64 support, new real-time Linux kernel options, additional translations, security improvements, and numerous fixes for installation workflows.
Archinstall 4.5 was released on September 29, 2026, roughly three months after Archinstall 4.4. The new version arrives just ahead of Arch Linux's October installation media refresh and has already been packaged as archinstall 4.5-1 for Arch Linux repositories.
While Archinstall remains optional, it provides users with a guided way to configure an Arch Linux installation without manually performing every step described in the Arch installation guide. Version 4.5 concentrates primarily on hardware support, installer reliability, security, and expanding the range of systems that can use the guided installation process.
AArch64 Support Gets a Major Upgrade
One of the biggest changes in Archinstall 4.5 is improved support for AArch64, the 64-bit ARM architecture.
The installer can now handle GRUB and Limine EFI installations on AArch64 systems. It also gains support for the proper AArch64 root partition type GUID.
Previously, parts of Archinstall's bootloader configuration were more heavily oriented toward x86_64 installations. The latest changes make its guided installation workflow more useful on ARM64 hardware.
AArch64 has become increasingly important throughout the Linux ecosystem. The architecture can now be found in cloud servers, development boards, laptops, workstations, and specialized computing platforms.
Supporting both GRUB and Limine EFI installations gives Archinstall more flexibility when preparing these systems.
GRUB Can Now Be Installed on AArch64
GRUB remains one of the most widely used Linux bootloaders, and Archinstall 4.5 extends its installation logic to AArch64 EFI systems.
This allows ARM64 installations to use a bootloader workflow much closer to what Archinstall already provides on conventional x86_64 UEFI computers.
The change doesn't mean every ARM device will automatically become compatible with Arch Linux. ARM hardware can still have highly platform-specific firmware and boot requirements.
It does, however, remove an important Archinstall limitation for AArch64 machines that provide conventional UEFI environments.
Limine EFI Support Expands to ARM64
The same architectural expansion applies to Limine.
Limine is a modern multiprotocol bootloader supported as one of Archinstall's bootloader choices. Archinstall 4.5 extends its EFI installation support to AArch64 as well.
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- systemd 262 Released with Static PID 1, Intel TDX, TPM Improvements, and New Container Features
by George Whittaker
The systemd project has officially released systemd 262, delivering another substantial update to the system and service manager used by most major Linux distributions. The final release was tagged on September 22, 2026, following three release candidates earlier in the month.
Systemd 262 introduces improvements across service management, containers, virtualization, encrypted storage, TPM security, networking, journal recovery, system updates, and unattended installations. Among the most interesting additions are the ability to build systemd as a single statically linked PID 1 binary, Intel TDX support in systemd-vmspawn, Live Update Orchestrator integration, improved TPM-backed encryption, and new fallback unit files embedded directly into the systemd manager.
The release also contains a rather unusual development safeguard: an AI/LLM canary intended to help identify code contributions generated by AI that haven't been properly reviewed by a human before submission.
systemd 262 Is Officially Available
The final systemd 262 source was tagged by systemd developer Luca Boccassi on September 22.
The upstream tag identifies commit 8cc40e0c5e9234bf45084751ac53b1fbfe70b492 as systemd v262, following release candidates published throughout September.
The release has already begun reaching Linux distribution development repositories.
Debian accepted systemd 262-1 into Debian Unstable on September 22, while Fedora has prepared systemd 262 packages for Fedora 45.
As usual, the speed at which systemd 262 reaches ordinary users will depend on each distribution's update policy.
systemd Can Now Become a Single Static PID 1 Binary
One of the most interesting changes in systemd 262 is support for building systemd as a single statically linked PID 1 and executor binary.
The feature is primarily intended for extremely small container environments.
Normally, systemd depends on a collection of dynamically linked libraries and supporting components. That architecture makes sense for a complete Linux distribution, but containers sometimes need a much smaller runtime environment.
The new static configuration makes it possible to create a more self-contained systemd executable suitable for minimal container images.
These builds avoid dynamically loading optional libraries and use simplified mechanisms for resolving users and groups rather than relying on the complete Name Service Switch infrastructure.
This doesn't mean normal Linux distributions will suddenly replace their standard systemd packages with a giant static executable. The capability is specifically useful for specialized container and minimal-system deployments.
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- Ubuntu Container Escape Vulnerability Gets Public Exploit Before Kernel Patch Arrives
by George Whittaker
Ubuntu administrators running containerized workloads have a new Linux kernel security problem to watch closely. Public exploit code is now available for CVE-2026-80521, a Linux kernel use-after-free vulnerability that can allow an unprivileged process inside a container to escape and obtain root privileges on the underlying host.
Security firm DepthFirst published its research and exploit on September 22, 2026, demonstrating the attack against Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. The underlying Linux kernel vulnerability had already been fixed upstream on August 6, but as of September 23, Ubuntu's security tracker still lists the main kernel package in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS as "Vulnerable, work in progress," while Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is also listed as vulnerable.
The situation is particularly important for Docker, Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, and other environments that run potentially untrusted workloads because the vulnerable kernel functionality can be reached through ordinary operations available inside standard containers.
There is currently no confirmed evidence that CVE-2026-80521 is being actively exploited in real-world attacks, and the vulnerability isn't listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The availability of working public exploit code nevertheless makes the patch gap considerably more important.
CVE-2026-80521 Is a Linux Kernel Vulnerability
Although Ubuntu is receiving much of the attention because the newly published exploit specifically targets it, CVE-2026-80521 is fundamentally a Linux kernel vulnerability.
The problem exists in the kernel's AF_UNIX socket subsystem, specifically within its garbage collection mechanism.
AF_UNIX sockets, commonly called Unix-domain sockets, provide local inter-process communication between applications running on the same system.
Unlike conventional network sockets, they don't need to communicate across a network. They are widely used by Linux applications and services for fast communication between local processes.
They also support passing file descriptors between processes through SCM_RIGHTS messages, and it is the kernel's management of these references that creates the conditions for CVE-2026-80521.
A Race Condition Leads to Use-After-Free
At the technical level, CVE-2026-80521 involves a race condition inside the AF_UNIX garbage collector.
The kernel needs to track references between Unix sockets when file descriptors are passed between processes. Circular references can develop, where one socket effectively references another while that socket references something else in the same group.
Linux represents these relationships internally and periodically determines which references can safely be removed.
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- Fedora Linux 45 Beta Released with Python 3.15, GCC 16.2, and Major Security Changes
by George Whittaker
The Fedora Project has officially released Fedora Linux 45 Beta, giving users an early look at the technologies expected to form the foundation of the final Fedora 45 release. The beta became available on September 15, 2026, after Fedora's Quality team approved Release Candidate 1.3 for publication.
Fedora 45 Beta brings significant changes throughout the operating system, including Python 3.15, GCC 16.2, glibc 2.44, GNU Binutils 2.47, Go 1.27, LLVM 23, Podman 6, stricter RPM signature verification, improved DNF5 protections, a new userspace virtual console, standardized desktop secret storage, and substantial installer improvements.
The release is available across Fedora Workstation, KDE Plasma Desktop, Server, Cloud, IoT, Atomic Desktops, Spins, and Labs, although a few prerelease images are excluded.
Fedora 45 Beta Is Now Available
Fedora Linux 45 Beta represents the final major public testing milestone before Fedora 45 reaches stable status.
Fedora describes its beta releases as code-complete previews that closely represent what users should expect from the final version. Development isn't finished, however, and bugs or incomplete migrations can still be discovered during real-world testing.
Fedora 45 Beta is currently available in several major editions:
Fedora Workstation 45 Beta Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 45 Beta Fedora Server 45 Beta Fedora Cloud 45 Beta Fedora IoT 45 Beta Fedora Atomic Desktops Fedora Spins Fedora Labs
Existing Fedora installations can also be upgraded to the beta using Fedora's DNF system-upgrade process.
Fedora's official Workstation download page confirms Beta 1.3 images for both x86_64 and AArch64 systems.
A New Virtual Console with kmscon
One of Fedora 45's more unusual system-level changes is the replacement of the traditional in-kernel console with kmscon.
Fedora describes kmscon as a modern userspace virtual terminal implementation that provides smoother rendering, better internationalization and font handling, improved visual integration, and security improvements compared with the older console infrastructure.
This affects the virtual terminals users encounter outside their normal graphical desktop session.
Most desktop users spend relatively little time interacting directly with these consoles, but they remain important for troubleshooting, system administration, servers, recovery operations, and systems running without a graphical environment.
Moving that functionality into userspace also gives Fedora more flexibility for future development instead of relying entirely on the legacy kernel console implementation.
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- Thunderbird 156 Released with OAuth Improvements, OpenPGP Updates, and Major Linux Fixes
by George Whittaker
The Thunderbird team has officially released Thunderbird 156, bringing another round of new features, security improvements, authentication enhancements, and reliability fixes to the popular open-source email client. Released on September 15, 2026, the update is available for Linux alongside Windows and macOS.
Thunderbird 156 is not a dramatic redesign of the desktop mail client. Instead, it concentrates on improving areas that matter to everyday users and system administrators, including OAuth authentication, OpenPGP, POP3, IMAP, Exchange Web Services, SMTP, attachments, calendars, enterprise policies, and security.
For Linux users in particular, the release delivers several fixes affecting common mail protocols and account configurations while retaining support for Linux environments using GTK+ 3.14 or newer.
Thunderbird 156 Arrives on Linux
Thunderbird 156 follows version 154, which arrived in August with features including optional system tray operation and Microsoft Graph support for Microsoft 365.
Version 156 continues the project's monthly release cycle with a more targeted collection of authentication, security, compatibility, and reliability improvements.
According to Thunderbird's official release notes, version 156 requires:
Linux: GTK+ 3.14 or newer Windows: Windows 10 or newer macOS: macOS 10.15 or newer
Thunderbird 156 was officially released on September 15.
Linux distribution availability will vary because distributions can package Thunderbird according to their own schedules. Users receiving Thunderbird through another packaging channel may therefore see version 156 at a different time.
Custom OAuth Support Expands
One of the most significant areas of development in Thunderbird 156 is OAuth authentication.
Thunderbird now supports custom OAuth configurations containing an issuer ID and client secret for IMAP and POP3 accounts. Custom OAuth support has also been extended specifically to POP3.
OAuth has become increasingly important as email providers move away from conventional username-and-password authentication toward token-based authentication.
For Thunderbird, broader custom OAuth support means users and organizations have greater flexibility when connecting the client to mail services that don't fit Thunderbird's predefined provider configurations.
This can be particularly useful in enterprise environments, self-hosted infrastructure, and organizations operating their own identity systems.
Exchange Custom OAuth Setup Fixed
Exchange users receive an important related correction.
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- KDE Plasma 6.7.5 Released with Discover, KWin, Wayland, and HDR Fixes
by George Whittaker
The KDE Project has officially released KDE Plasma 6.7.5, delivering another round of bug fixes and stability improvements for the Plasma 6.7 desktop series. Released on September 8, 2026, the update contains roughly a month of fixes and updated translations contributed since Plasma 6.7.4 arrived in early August.
Unlike a major Plasma release, version 6.7.5 doesn't introduce a large collection of new desktop features. Instead, KDE has focused on fixing problems affecting Discover, KWin, Wayland, networking, System Monitor, Plasma Desktop, RPM-OSTree systems, Snap updates, HDR rendering, and several other components.
For users already running Plasma 6.7, this makes version 6.7.5 primarily a maintenance upgrade intended to make the desktop more dependable ahead of the next major Plasma series.
KDE Plasma 6.7.5 Arrives as the September Bugfix Release
KDE describes Plasma 6.7.5 as its September bugfix release for the Plasma 6 desktop.
The broader Plasma 6.7 series originally arrived in June 2026, followed by a succession of maintenance releases:
Plasma 6.7.1 on June 23 Plasma 6.7.2 on June 30 Plasma 6.7.3 on July 14 Plasma 6.7.4 on August 4 Plasma 6.7.5 on September 8
KDE's official download infrastructure confirms that the Plasma 6.7.5 source packages became available on September 8.
This slower maintenance cadence later in a Plasma series is normal. Once the most urgent post-release problems have been addressed, KDE generally shifts more development attention toward the next feature release while continuing to provide important fixes for the current branch.
Discover Receives Several Important Fixes
KDE's Discover software center receives some of the most noticeable improvements in Plasma 6.7.5.
One particularly annoying problem could cause Discover to become stuck while checking for updates when its Snap backend was installed but no Snap applications actually had updates available.
That problem has now been corrected.
Discover also behaves more reliably when fwupd, the Linux firmware update service, is unavailable. Previously, a broken or intentionally masked fwupd service could interfere with Discover's normal operation. Plasma 6.7.5 allows the rest of the application to continue functioning correctly in that situation.
This is useful for systems where firmware updating isn't supported, where administrators intentionally disable the service, or where fwupd encounters a configuration problem.
Firmware Updates No Longer Incorrectly Require Reboots
Another Discover correction addresses a regression involving firmware updates.
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- Slackware 16 Alpha 1 Released with Linux 6.18 LTS, GCC 16.2, and Plasma 6
by George Whittaker
One of Linux's oldest surviving distributions is moving closer to its next major release. Slackware 16 Alpha 1 became available on September 5, 2026, marking the first formal alpha milestone on the road toward Slackware Linux 16. The release follows a major rebuild of Slackware-current using a substantially newer GNU toolchain and brings together several upgrades that have accumulated since Slackware 15.0 arrived more than four years ago.
The alpha combines Linux 6.18 LTS, GCC 16.2.0, glibc 2.44, GNU Binutils 2.47, KDE Plasma 6, and numerous updated user-space packages while retaining much of the deliberately traditional architecture that has distinguished Slackware for decades.
For longtime Slackware users, Alpha 1 is particularly significant because it provides the clearest indication yet that the lengthy Slackware 16 development cycle is moving toward an eventual stable release.
Slackware 16 Finally Reaches Alpha
Slackware doesn't operate according to the predictable six-month or annual release schedules used by many other Linux distributions.
Instead, development takes place continuously through the Slackware-current branch. Patrick Volkerding and other contributors update that development tree until it reaches a state considered suitable for a stable release.
The previous major version, Slackware 15.0, was released in February 2022. More than four and a half years later, Slackware-current has now officially reached the first alpha milestone for version 16.
Volkerding marked the milestone following a complete rebuild of the distribution with its newly upgraded compiler, C library, and binary utilities.
The short changelog announcement even suggested there might finally be "a light at the end of the tunnel," a promising indication for Slackware users waiting for version 16.
The Entire Distribution Was Rebuilt
One of the most consequential changes behind Alpha 1 is a complete package rebuild.
Slackware's development toolchain has moved to:
GCC 16.2.0 glibc 2.44 GNU Binutils 2.47
After introducing those components, Slackware rebuilt the distribution's packages against the updated environment.
A full rebuild is much more significant than simply replacing three packages.
GCC is responsible for compiling much of the software distributed with Slackware, glibc provides fundamental C library functionality used throughout Linux user space, and Binutils supplies essential development utilities including the GNU assembler and linker.
Rebuilding the distribution against these versions gives Slackware 16 a considerably newer foundation than its predecessor.
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