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- KeePassXC 2.8.0 released
Version2.8.0 of the KeePassXC password-management application has beenreleased.
The new release brings a lot of long-awaited new features, many bugfixes, andseveral security updates. Among the major features are the migration from Qt5 toQt6, Auto-Type on Wayland (Linux), configurable keyboard shortcuts, remotedatabase synchronization with external tools, quick unlock with password onmacOS, and quick unlock via Polkit on Linux. Version 2.8.0 is also the firstversion for which we ship native ARM64 builds for Windows and an experimentalAArch64 (i.e., ARM64) AppImage for Linux.
See the changelogfor a full list of new features, major changes, and bug fixes.
- [$] Rust features in the future
There are several Rust features that kernel developers have been hoping tostabilize, but Josh Triplett wanted to describe all of the otherfeatures that the Rust project is currently working on. He spoke about the topicat Kangrejos 2026, leaving the assembled kernel developers with several ideasabout how to use these upcoming Rust features in the kernel.The features included refinements to the type system, small syntax improvements, and asmarter borrow checker.
- Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, cockpit-files, cockpit-machines, fetchmail, glycin-loaders, go-toolset:rhel8, golang, hostapd, jackson-core, kernel, kernel-rt, librsvg2, lrzsz, mariadb11.8, openexr, openssh, openssl, perl-DBI:1.641, python-urllib3, python3.12-urllib3, qt5-qtbase, rust-sequoia-sq, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Arch Linux (php and php-legacy), Debian (bind9, firefox-esr, nginx, php8.2, and php8.4), Fedora (ca-certificates, dolphin, gnome-shell-extension-gsconnect, libdigidocpp, linux-firmware, nicotine+, perl-ExtUtils-Typemaps-Default, php, python-cairosvg, qdigidoc, rust-rustls-webpki, rust-webpki-root-certs, and rust-webpki-roots), Gentoo (PHP), Mageia (php8.5, php8.4), Oracle (perl-URI), Red Hat (go-toolset:rhel8, golang, grafana-pcp, kernel, kernel-rt, nodejs-nodemon, nodejs22, nodejs24, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, rhc, and sudo), Slackware (php), SUSE (aliyun-cli, bouncycastle, buildah, ca-certificates-mozilla, chromedriver, cifs-utils, cyrus-sasl, docker, firefox, gimp, git-bug, GraphicsMagick, libheif, libpng16, libraw, libsoup-2_4-1, mutt, onefetch, openexr, openssh, openssl-certs, php7, php8, poppler, python-hpack, python310, python313-Django4, qemu, rootlesskit, tiff, xwayland, and yt-dlp), and Ubuntu (c-ares, ghostscript, libsoup3, libxs-parse-keyword-perl, nss, php5, php7.0, php7.2, php7.4, php8.1, php8.3, php8.5, poppler, pyjwt, u-boot, and unbound).
- [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 22, 2026
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: Android vendor hooks; Reproducible builds and kernel integrity; Rust data structures; NFS server changes; Setting no_new_privs for PID 1; Rust XArray; Rust cross-crate declarations; 7.3 statistics; Nix flakes. Briefs: eMudhra CA compromise; PHP RCEs; Node.js and musl vulnerabilities; GNOME OS; OpenBSD 8.0; Ubuntu 26.10; TAB results; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
- Today's PHP Security Release, and How We're Strengthening PHP Security (PHP Foundation)
The PHP Foundation has put out ablog entry explaining how the vulnerabilities disclosed today cameabout and why they took so long to fix.
To fix the OOM problem, the PHP security team developed several competing approaches, but each came with its own trade-offs: backward compatibility breaks, new denial-of-service potential, or requiring changes to many third-party extensions which seemed impossible to coordinate. The PHP security team, operating on consensus, struggled to choose between these and feared the repercussions of shipping the wrong choice. Combined with the lack of a known path to remote code execution and the small team of core developers with the necessary deep knowledge of the engine occupied with many responsibilities, this decision process caused work on a fix to stall and restart repeatedly over months. We won't pretend otherwise: the delay was a structural failure, caused by both the security team's decision process and its lack of resources.
- More vulnerabilities in widely deployed software
The Node.js project hasreleaseda number of security updates to fix, among other vulnerabilities, aremote-code-execution bug affecting programs that use Brotli compression. And,in case any programmers who use compiled languages thought they could relax, themusl libc project has also announced anew vulnerability: anout-of-boundswrite that could potentially lead to remote code execution, although thathas not been demonstrated.
- Upstreaming Tyr: Rust, DRM, and the Linux Kernel (Collabora)
The Collabora blog providesan update on Tyr, a driver for Arm Mali GPUs.
One of our biggest challenges has been developing Tyr while the Rust kernel abstractions and driver interfaces are also being developed. As the driver interfaces are naturally revised and improved, we have rewritten Tyr several times to adapt to the larger Rust ecosystem. This not only makes progress much slower than it would be with a mature API, but also stalls progress for capabilities, such as job scheduling, while the abstraction is properly designed, reviewed, tested, and merged upstream.
But working in this evolving environment is also precisely where Tyr is able to provide the most value. As a user of these new Rust abstractions, Tyr helps to expose their requirements and limitations.
- [$] Understanding Nix flakes
Nix flakes are anexperimental feature of the Nix package-managementtool designed to build projects in a more self-contained and reproducibleway. Despite the feature's experimental status, it has become increasinglypopular for open-source projects to publish flake.nix files that offerpredefined development environments and build automation even when thoserepositories may not offer an upstream package or module for the NixOS Linux distribution. AlthoughNix flakes have a complicated history, and the path for stabilization isuncertain, flakes can provide useful capabilities for projects that choose toinclude them.
- PHP patches released for two critical RCEs
The PHP project has published PHPversions 8.5.12,8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35 to addresstwo critical vulnerabilities that could allow unauthenticated remote codeexecution.
Who is at risk: all PHP installations serving web requests,including PHP-FPM, Apache with mod_php, php-cgi, FrankenPHP and LiteSpeed. Weconsider the risk highest for mod_php, with a demonstrated exploit where anunauthenticated request can trigger the attack before any application coderuns.
The vulnerabilities:
RCE via OOM corruption, CVE-2026-109618 (GHSA-w8hw-w9fx-j79w): out-of-memoryhandling can interrupt PHP while internal request data is only partially initialized. Request cleanup may then treat the invalid data as valid.RCE via stale global state, CVE-2026-109619 (GHSA-6wmf-4rv5-p3rp): request-ownedinternal state can survive after its backing memory has been freed. A laterrequest handled by the same worker may use that stale state before normalinitialization resets it.
PHP versions older than 8.1 will not receive updates from the project, thoughthe project has provided some patches for PHP7.4, PHP8.0, and PHP8.1 to assist in creating backports. According to theannouncement, Linux distributions and vendors received patches in advance, soupdated packages should be coming soon.
- Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bubblewrap, emacs, gimp:2.8, glibc, jackson-databind, kernel, kernel-rt, librabbitmq, openexr, openssh, postgresql:16, postgresql:18, python3, resteasy, wireshark, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Debian (ca-certificates, firefox-esr, git-lfs, and libssh), Fedora (aom, assimp, bind, bind-dyndb-ldap, freerdp, ghostscript, gopass, gopass-jsonapi, ImageMagick, libpng12, libpng15, nebula, perl-GD-SecurityImage, perl-Net-IDN-Encode, perl-Net-Whois-Raw, rust-backtrace, rust-object, rust-object0.37, rust-object0.38, rust-object0.39, rust-ruzstd, and xen), Gentoo (ca-certificates), Mageia (x11-server, x11-server-wayland, tigervnc), Oracle (bubblewrap, ca-certificates, emacs, fetchmail, gimp:2.8, hostapd, jackson-databind, librabbitmq, lrzsz, openexr, openssh, openssl, postgresql:18, python-urllib3, python3, python3.12-urllib3, resteasy, webkit2gtk3, wireshark, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Red Hat (.NET 8.0, dogtag-pki, flatpak-builder, ghostscript, glycin-loaders, go-toolset:rhel8, golang, gvfs, jackson-core, jackson-databind, librsvg2, multiple packages, pki-core, pki-core:10.6, sudo, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Slackware (c-ares, ca-certificates, mozilla-firefox, mozilla-nss, mozilla-thunderbird, and python-certifi), SUSE (agama, aspell, bcel, bind, bouncycastle, busybox, chromium, containerd, coredns, cosign, cpp15, cups-filters, cyrus-sasl, fetchmail, firefox, gcc13, gh, ghostscript, gitoxide, glibc, go1.26, go1.27, google-osconfig-agent, grafana, grok-build, hashcat, hawk2, helm, ImageMagick, inspektor-gadget, iperf, jupyter-jupyterlab-templates, kernel, kernel-devel, libheif, libpng16, librsvg, libX11, libXi, libxls, libXpm, libxreaderdocument3, mutt, ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs, openssl-1_0_0, openssl-3, openvpn, pacemaker, perl-DBI, perl-XS-Parse-Keyword, pgvector, podman, putty, python-anyio, python-hpack, python-joserfc, python-jwcrypto, python-oauthlib, python-PyJWT, python-tornado6, python-urllib3, python-virtualenv, python-WebOb, python3, python311, rekor, squid, strongswan, stunnel, suseconnect-ng, tinyproxy, traefik, unbound, varnish, virtiofsd, webkit2gtk3, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (ca-certificates, dotnet8, dotnet10, dotnet11, protobuf, rust-sudo-rs, squid, squid3, and xz-utils).
- Critical PHP security update coming
The PHP security team has let it beknown that there is a high-stakes security update coming at14:00 UTC on October 21. "All PHP users are encouraged toprepare now so they can upgrade as soon as the release is available".Anybody running a PHP site probably needs to be prepared for this one.
- [$] SUSE's efforts to disable setuid system-wide
Setuid (and setgid) binaries have long been a source of headaches, and securityvulnerabilities, on Linux systems. They are largely seen as something to beavoided; SUSE's security team, for example, forbidsthe inclusion of setuid or setgid binaries in packages unless they have beenreviewed and explicitly allowed. Thorsten Kukuk wants to go a step further anddisallow them entirely. At the 2026 All Systems Go! conference, he spokeabout his work to disable setuid system-wide, as well as some of the hurdlesthat remain.
- [$] Discussing a rewrite of XArray
The work to support block sizes larger than the page size on XFS has beendifficult. Many users of XFS run stable kernels, which means that they aren't testingnew XFS code as it is released. That has made Daniel Gomez wonder whetheradopting Rust for some of the data structures underlying XFS, particularlyXArrays, could reduce the number of bugs lurking in the code. AtKangrejos 2026, he led a discussion about the potential problems with convertingXArray to Rust. The assembled kernel developers had a number of reasons to becautious about replacing the XArray code, but Gomez was determined to experimentwith the possibility, citing both security and performance improvements.
- Solder-down COM brings i.MX95 to Linux dev kit
ADLINK’s I-Pi OSM IMX95 is an industrial development kit based on NXP’s six-core i.MX95 processor with an integrated 2 TOPS NPU. It pairs a solder-down OSM 1.2 module with a 4-inch carrier board, offering dual Gigabit Ethernet, display connectivity, and expansion options for edge AI applications. The I-Pi OSM IMX95 integrates ADLINK’s OSM-IMX95 computer-on-module with […]
- Distro of the Week: Ubuntu 26.10 'Stonking Stingray'
After significant fanfare, Canonical released Ubuntu 26.10 'Stonking Stingray' to a lukewarm response from the Linux press. But while Ubuntu's latest may not be earth-shattering, its improvements provide the next step in the distro's natural order, as well as a foundation for further improvements to come.
- Linux Coredumps Via Sockets Can Be Much Smaller Now With Sparse Support
Added to the Linux kernel last year was Coredump support via Unix domain sockets as an alternative to the pipe-based Coredumps. With code now merged for Linux 7.4, the core dumps via sockets has the potential of being much smaller thanks to sparse support. In extreme cases they can be 1% of the size without sparse support...
- Google Staff Resign In Backlash Over Its AI Contracts With Military
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Google is facing a backlash from some staff members over the company's deployment of its AI technology for military use. The BBC has spoken to several tech workers who have either recently resigned from Google's AI company, Google DeepMind, or are in the process of leaving, over concerns with the tech firm's military contracts. Sofia Liguori, a London-based research engineer, is one of them. She resigned from Google DeepMind this week and spoke about her concerns exclusively with the BBC, despite her contract restricting her from doing so. "Realizing my company is pushing more and more for AI systems in military operations makes me feel ashamed to work at Google," Liguori said, speaking in a personal capacity. [...] After working for the company for three years, Liguori said she decided to resign over Google's increasing work with the US and Israeli militaries. "I don't agree with this direction and this has led me to lose faith in my company being true to its stated ethical values," she said. Those values, according to Google's AI Principles, include implementing AI with "human oversight" and aligning the technology with "international law and human rights." But former and current staff at the company, and experts the BBC spoke to, said they were concerned about the level of human oversight at critical moments. The tech workers said they are particularly worried about the AI military deals signed this year, because they greatly increase the scope of what the Pentagon can use the technology for. Andreas Kirsch, an AI researcher, also resigned from Google DeepMind earlier this month over his concerns. Kirsch told the BBC that he believes "Google's governance and oversight are not sufficient or meaningful enough to deploy AI safely and responsibly in military and classified settings" or "to develop artificial superintelligence safely in the future." "Google seems to have no right to control or veto how the Pentagon uses its AI and also seems to have limited visibility into how it's being deployed," he added. [...] Employees at Google have told the BBC that staff are scared to speak out about AI safety and its uses in warfare because their employment contracts prohibit them from publicly criticizing the company. "In principle I'm not allowed to criticize Google for the duration of my life," Sofia Liguori told the BBC. But she decided to do so "because I believe it's important for these things to be known and I also think that talking about facts is not criticizing." Liguori added that at Google "people are scared of retaliation and putting their career at risk. You feel you are being watched, you can't speak." A current employee at Google DeepMind, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, told the BBC that "a lot of motivated employees who signed up for [the company's] original mission could leave -- but there's also a pipeline of people at the start of the careers who could fill those positions. It could be a changing of the guard." Another Google DeepMind staff member, who also wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC: "A lot of people have left the company that feel strongly about this [how Google DeepMind has changed its ethics position]." "Some people are putting up a fight, others are thinking: 'it's a big company. What do you expect to change?'", the employee said. In response, a Google spokesperson told the BBC: "We work with public sector organisations worldwide and follow a consistent process for reviewing and entering these contracts, including compliance with our acceptable use policies and AI principles." "We also have dedicated channels for employees to safely raise any concerns -- ranging from business ethics to misconduct -- and have strict workplace policies in place to prevent retaliation of any kind."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Airbnb Bans Making Guests Do Dishes, Take Out the Trash
Airbnb is banning hosts from requiring guests to perform time-consuming checkout chores, including washing dishes, stripping beds, doing laundry, and taking trash off-site. The updated policy applies to reservations booked on or after November 20. The Verge reports: Airbnb is displaying hosts' requests more prominently now in a new "rules and requests" section on listings. You might see an "includes cleaning requests" warning if a host leaves chore requests in their listing after the new policy goes into effect. Hosts aren't allowed to sneak in extra rules in messages to guests or on signs around their property, either. Some hosts pushed back on the house rules restrictions on Airbnb's forums, saying they pose health risks and arguing that guests can simply choose not to stay at listings with overly-strict rules. Airbnb says there can be exceptions to the limits on checkout chores, like asking guests to "dispose of trash in an animal-proof container in bear country."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- America's War Department Will Test Heat Ray Weapon For Potential Use
Longtime Slashdot reader destinyland shares a report from CNN: The Pentagon has given the Department of Homeland Security permission to test a military-grade heat ray and develop tactics to potentially use it in operations at the southern US border, according to a memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month and obtained by CNN. The heat ray, officially known as the Active Denial System, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away, according to the US military. The energy beam causes a burning sensation when it comes into contact with the human skin -- which Pentagon officials have previously compared to feeling a blast of heat when opening a hot oven. Military officials have said the resulting "tingling effect" lasts between 10 and 15 minutes but also generates "an instinctive and irresistible urge to run from the effect."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Startup Claims To Use AI-Created Viruses To Treat a Patient
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: For the first time, scientists say they have used viruses designed by artificial intelligence to treat a human patient. Researchers announced on Tuesday that they had administered the virus, known as a phage, to a patient suffering from a deadly bacterial infection. Phages attack bacteria, and the hope is that this one will kill the microbes causing the infection.Radical Numerics, the start-up that created the viruses, posted a technical report about them on its website. But the company declined to provide information about the patient or the doctors running the trial, citing confidentiality requirements. [...] In 2025, researchers at the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., created an A.I. model called Evo 2, which they trained on millions of DNA sequences, including phage genes. They prompted Evo 2 to make new genomes similar to those in a group of phage species. The A.I. generated 700,000 virus genomes. The team synthesized DNA molecules from 285 genomes and inserted them into bacteria. The researchers found that 16 of the genomes gave rise to viable viruses. Three members of the Evo team, including Dr. Nguyen, left to found Radical Numerics. In June, the company unveiled a new A.I. model, called Omnii, based on some of the same principles as Evo. Omnii can be trained not just on DNA but also on other aspects of biology, such as the structures of proteins and molecules that keep genes turned on or off. The company is now using Omnii to tackle a range of challenges, including designing cancer vaccines and recognizing the risk that a virus may cause a pandemic. Among these efforts is the first trial of A.I.-designed phage therapy. The researchers created variations of a phage called T7. The virus, which only infects E. coli, looks like a microscopic Apollo lunar lander: a ball-shaped protein shell that holds its DNA atop six leglike protrusions. To infect a bacterium, T7 lands on its surface, using its legs to anchor in place. It then injects its DNA into the cell. Omnii generated new viral genes altering the shapes of T7's legs, according to Dr. Nguyen and his colleagues. While some of the new legs were significantly different from natural ones, Omnii's phages could still infect bacteria. Once the researchers were confident their strategy had worked, they partnered with doctors treating a patient with a stubborn E. coli infection. The bacteria had resisted not just antibiotics but all the available phages. The researchers said they had trained Omnii with information about the resistant strain and told it to design T7 phages with legs that could grab onto the bacteria. Once the A.I. generated genomes for new viruses, the scientists said they produced the corresponding DNA molecules and inserted them in bacteria. The bacteria became infected and produced T7 phages that could successfully infect, and kill, other microbes. After running tests to make sure the phages were safe, Radical Numerics presented them to the doctors. The F.D.A. authorized a trial. While the trial was authorized by the FDA, it's worth noting that the research has not yet been peer-reviewed in a scientific journal and there's no guarantee the AI-designed phages will work. However, if it does prove successful, it could help speed phage therapy by cutting down the time it takes to create a new virus tailored to each patient's infection. "We think we can get it done in days," said Dr. Eric Nguyen, the chief executive officer of Radical Numerics.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- eBay to Cut 9% of Workforce
eBay plans to cut about 1,000 jobs, or 9% of its workforce, as CEO Jamie Iannone moves to redirect resources toward the company's fastest-growing businesses. Reuters reports: The company had 12,300 employees at the end of last year. It also let go about 6% of its workforce, or 800 employees, in February as part of efforts to streamline operations. EBay has set itself apart from rivals by pushing into authenticated luxury goods, collectibles and refurbished products, which draw enthusiasts willing to pay more for valuable items. That has helped its shares rise nearly 40% this year, outperforming the benchmark S&P 500's around 12% gain. "Our strategy is working," Iannone said in the memo, adding that "continuing to capture the significant opportunity ahead requires us to make thoughtful choices about where we focus and invest." He said affected staff would be informed in the coming days.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- AMD Brings Ryzen Overclocking Driver to Linux
AMD has published Linux kernel patches for an official Ryzen overclocking driver that allows users to adjust CPU power and current limits through a firmware interface exposed via sysfs. Phoronix reports: AMD engineer Shyam Sundar S K posted the patches for the AMD Overclocking "AOD" WMI driver as an interface to the platform firmware for managing overclocking and power/current limits of modern Ryzen CPUs. The driver in its initial form allows setting via sysfs a number of CPU tunables including the Package Power Tracking (PPT), Thermal Design Current (TDC), and Electrical Design Current (EDC) limits along with reading their supported range. SMT toggling can also be done via the interface as an alternative to the likes of Linux's "nosmt" option in disabling SMT at the platform level rather than kernel disabling. The current memory clocks can also be read via this AOD driver. The power tunables aren't applied in real-time but go into effect at next reboot. The firmware does support many more commands compared to the few initially wired up and hopefully in time more of these controls will be enabled with this driver.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- More Than 1.5 Million Canadian Crime Stoppers Tips Leaked
A CBC investigation found that more than 1.5 million Canadian Crime Stoppers tips spanning 25 years were exposed in a breach of the P3 Global Intel tip-management platform. About 850,000 records contained personally identifiable information, including addresses, phone numbers, emails, license plates and some banking details. Longtime Slashdot reader doconnor shares the report: The data was stolen last March by hacktivist collective Internet Yiff Machine. In a manifesto, the group said it wanted to disprove the claim by P3 Global Intel -- the company hired by Crime Stoppers to manage its tips -- that the platform was "anonymous" and "secure." A copy of the hacked data was made available to researchers and journalists, including CBC, by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a U.S. non-profit that archives and publishes hacked and leaked documents it deems to be in the public interest. The report found that more than 4,300 Crime Stoppers tipsters identified themselves by their full name, with hundreds of records containing staff warnings that individuals had "self-identified" or been "exposed," yet their information remained unredacted. The leaked data included sensitive allegations involving murder, terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime, with nearly 49,000 tips linked to cases cleared through arrests or criminal charges. Cybersecurity experts criticized the retention of decades-old records... "If a tip is closed, does that need to stay online?" asked cybersecurity expert Ben Coon. "The answer to that, to me, is no." The RCMP was initially told Canadian data was unaffected, then assured that exposed Canadian records contained no personally identifiable information. This appears to contradict the CBC's findings. Furthermore, affected individuals have not been systematically notified because contacting them could further jeopardize their anonymity. "For a system that has been designed to promise anonymity to the users, that has failed categorically," said Prof. Ali Dehghantanha, the Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity and Threat Intelligence at the University of Guelph.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Microsoft Reportedly Projects $1,200 To $1,800 Price For Next-Gen Xbox
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We haven't heard many details about Microsoft's upcoming "Project Helix" gaming hardware since the company announced it in March as a device that will "play your Xbox and PC games." In a new wide-ranging profile of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, though, Fortune alludes to a dual release strategy for upcoming Microsoft gaming hardware, with "a next-generation handheld device" planned by the end of next year and a 2028 holiday season console release that could cost between $1,200 and $1,800. That future console price range is based on what has "internally been projected" at the company, according to Fortune. But the price for consumers could come down if "Microsoft decides to subsidize the cost," the outlet says, as many console makers have done in the past. While a $1,200 starting price would be historically high for the game console market, even accounting for inflation, it also reflects a new normal: The slowdown in Moore's Law and AI-driven component shortages mean cutting-edge gaming hardware just isn't as cheap as it used to be. This year, the Steam Machine broke the $1,000 starting price, while the 2-year-old technology in the PlayStation 5 Pro is now going for $900, and the 6-year-old Xbox Series X now starts at $750.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Meta Ordered to Pay New Mexico $25 Billion for Deceiving Users About Privacy On Facebook
A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found Facebook liable for deceiving users about privacy during the Cambridge Analytica scandal. State Attorney General Raul Torrez called it "one of the largest, if not the single largest state verdict against a company in American history." While Meta plans to appeal the ruling, the funds that are to be collected will go toward state education spending. The Associated Press reports: Jurors in September found Meta liable for over 43 million violations of New Mexico consumer protection laws when a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, harvested Facebook user data to generate targeted political ads for the 2016 election. Forty-eight other states settled with Facebook in a nationwide case, but New Mexico chose to take the social media company to court on its own. [...] During the trial, jurors assessed whether Facebook misled users about privacy and content moderation 34 separate times. State prosecutors, though, argued Facebook's statements deceived the entire population of New Mexico and extended beyond social media users. In the end, jurors agreed with this premise and found Facebook liable for 2.1 million violations on certain counts, bringing the total number of violations to over 43 million. Facebook's attorneys have argued in subsequent court filings that the state's consumer protection laws don't apply to people in New Mexico who weren't using the platform at the time. [...] In one of the few wins for the defense, jurors found the state didn't prove that Facebook made false claims about removing harmful content, including misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. The state said the company favored certain accounts and allowed for violent or inaccurate content to proliferate. Attorney Randi McGinn said in her closing argument for the state that Facebook profited off harmful content, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied during his video deposition. Zuckerberg said the company has to carefully balance freedom of speech with content moderation. Attorneys for Facebook said the company has adapted its policies since the state's lawsuit was filed in 2021 and that it removes 99% of content that violates standards.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- EA Is Shutting Down BioWare
"According to a recent report by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier (paywalled), EA has reportedly decided to shut down BioWare," the studio behind the Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, writes longtime Slashdot reader atari_kid. Quartz reports: Chief Studios Officer Cam Weber and Chief Operating Officer David Tinson wrote that "over the past several months, we've taken a hard look at our business." They said a small BioWare team had been doing early groundwork on a Mass Effect game, but EA chose to drop the effort. That decision means closing the studio and its Edmonton workspace, they wrote. "We do not take this decision lightly," Weber and Tinson said of the BioWare closure, according to Variety. EA will keep investing in Apex Legends and is continuing work on two upcoming launches, Marvel's Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, the executives said. They added that EA's Respawn and DICE studios will join forces on an upcoming project, in addition to new Battlefield titles. Bloomberg said the project is probably a new installment of the Star Wars: Battlefront franchise.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- OpenAI Models Are Now On All Three Major US Cloud Platforms
OpenAI is bringing its models to Google Cloud's model garden and Antigravity coding tool, putting its technology on all three major U.S. cloud platforms after Microsoft's exclusive license ended earlier this year. "Google Cloud's longstanding investment in machine learning and AI has made it a destination for AI workloads and the developers and data scientists building them," OpenAI said in a blog post. It continues: [...] The integration will pair OpenAI's frontier models with Google Cloud's built-in access controls, centralized data governance, and high-performance infrastructure to support demanding enterprise workloads. Google Cloud customers will be able to purchase OpenAI frontier models via model garden, transacted through the Google Cloud Marketplace. Enterprises with Google Cloud spend commitments will be able to draw down their GCP commitments for these purchases. Additionally, OpenAI models will soon be available in Google Antigravity and the Gemini Agent, providing enterprise customers with model choice flexibility and the best model for each task. [...] For context, Microsoft previously held exclusive licensing rights to OpenAI's intellectual property, but that arrangement ended less than six months ago as OpenAI began expanding its partnerships with other cloud providers. Just one day after Microsoft's exclusivity ended, Amazon announced plans to host OpenAI's models on its cloud platform in April.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Government Websites Go Dark After Severe PHP Vulnerabilities Disclosed
"PHP disclosed two critical vulnerabilities in their programming language and urged web site operators to immediately apply the fix," writes longtime Slashdot reader smooth wombat. "As a result, government web sites in Europe and elsewhere temporarily went dark on Wednesday as operators worked to protect their systems." The Independent reports: Dane Knecht, the chief technology officer of Web and cloud security firm Cloudflare, said that attacks were emerging and Cloudflare was updating its firewall rules as a stopgap measure. "We are seeing early attacks emerging and are updating mitigations as new vectors show up. This is a STOPGAP only. Patch as soon as PHP releases the update," he said on X. Officials have said that all PHP versions from PHP 5 onward could be affected, although PHP has not yet disclosed which versions are vulnerable. Special thanks to Slashdot readers Alain Williams and mrspoonsi for sharing this critical PHP security release. For more details, read the official PHP announcement and guidance on what to do next.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- PHP Warns It Plans To Release 2 Emergency Patches Imminently
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Website admins, brace yourselves. Fixes for what are believed to be uncommonly severe vulnerabilities are scheduled to drop in a little more than 12 hours for PHP, a programming language that powers websites and Web applications everywhere. PHP maintainers said Monday that they planned to release patches for two vulnerabilities, both with severity ratings of 9.2 out of a possible 10. "All PHP users are encouraged to prepare now so they can upgrade as soon as the release is available," the advisory stated. "We reserve the right to release earlier should details of either vulnerability become public, or should evidence of active exploitation appear in the wild." The maintainers published the advisory following the leaking of purported details, which have yet to be confirmed. The report showed a video of an exploit tool dubbed PHP2Shell executing code on webservers running WordPress 7.1.3, MediaWiki 1.46.2, phpBB 3.3.17, Magento 2.4.9, Joomla 6.2.0, Laravel 13.36.0, Laravel 8.83.29, Symphony 8.1.9, Drupal 11.4.10, and WHMCS 9.0.9, all of which use PHP. A video depicting the tool has been reposted here. Attempts to locate the unconfirmed report were unsuccessful, but security firm watchTowr said it claimed to affect every PHP version from PHP 5, released in 2004, onward. The security firm went on to say it has confirmed that the vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, are real. Researchers from separate security firm Sansec said they "expect mass attacks to start within 15 minutes of the release." A third security firm, Webfence, also urged admins to prepare now. Huntress has also issued an advisory.
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- Tesla-SpaceX Merger Being Considered
Elon Musk says a merger between Tesla and SpaceX is under active consideration, with special committees at both companies evaluating a deal that could combine businesses valued at roughly $3.5 trillion. "Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes," Musk said during a call with financial analysts over the quarterly business results of SpaceX on Tuesday. The BBC reports: While Musk noted the certainty of such a merger should not be assumed, and it would need shareholders' support, he said special committees within both companies have been formed to examine the move. "The special committees have not reached agreement on terms of any transaction and there's no guarantee that they will," Musk added. "But I do think there is a lot of merit to merging and a lot to be gained." [...] The company, which builds space rockets and Starlink internet satellites, is now expanding into offering cloud compute capacity for other tech companies, like Anthropic and Google. That line of business has become the most profitable part of SpaceX, bringing in $7.5bn according to the latest quarterly results (PDF). Starlink also tallied revenue of $5.2bn. SpaceX as a whole, however, is not profitable and has lost $1.1bn so far this year. [...] Musk said on Tuesday a full merger between the two companies would make sense for the work each is doing around chips, artificial intelligence, software and more. He described himself as a "conflicted party" as the chief executive of Tesla and of SpaceX. Even commenting on the possibility of a merger between the two companies, Musk compared to "tap dancing through a minefield." He added a merger would ultimately be decided by shareholders. At least 50% of Tesla's shareholders would need to approve the merger, which Musk described as "quite a high hurdle to achieve."
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- Russian Satellite's Close Shadowing of Radar Imaging Satellite Is a Big Deal
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from TWZ: A Russian satellite, Kosmos 2612, may have passed within approximately 85 feet (26 meters) of a U.S.-registered satellite belonging to commercial imagery provider ICEYE. This would be an extraordinarily close and potentially dangerous pass-by for two objects in space traveling at thousands of miles per hour. For weeks beforehand, ICEYE-X36, which would be of special interest to Russia, had already found itself in increasingly close orbital alignment with its pursuer. The two satellites now look to be drifting further and further apart, but the episode has been a clear sign of what is to come as the potential for conflict in space only continues to grow. Publicly available space tracking data from the satellitemap.space and orbitalradar.com websites show that Kosmos 2612 (also written sometimes Cosmos 2612 and abbreviated K2612) and ICEYE X36 had their especially close encounter at approximately 16:07 UTC today. Private space services company LeoLabs also told TWZ today that it could not "confirm or contradict what other data sources have stated publicly," but that it has "high-confidence that the objects came within approximately [emphasis in the original] 500 meters [1,640 feet] of each other." Kosmos 2612 had been making progressively closer passes by ICEYE X36 in recent days. "This is the most advanced and potentially dangerous uncooperative RPO we've observed," Adam Marsh, LeoLabs vice president for technical solutions, separately told Breaking Defense. "It's important to note that 'red' on 'blue' engagements, such as this, are relatively uncommon in Low Earth Orbit (LEO)," LeoLabs' report points out. At the same time, "this was not a routine conjunction or 'fly by.' The sequence included a controlled approach, changes in relative position, close-proximity loitering, additional small maneuvers, and a controlled departure. The behavior is consistent with sophisticated rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO)." "We can only speculate about the operation's goal, but it could have been anything from simply intimidation to outright destruction or sabotage of a U.S.-registered satellite," CSIS' Clayton Swope told TWZ. "Perhaps the operation is on hold. There are, however, several other satellites that shadowed ICEYE X36 back in May that could be brought in[to] action too."
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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]
- How to install an app on your Commodore 64
Graybeards like me remember trying to painstakingly type source code from a magazine. This is a very accurate account of what a young computer user in 1986 needed to do to get a new game for the Commodore 64, complete with an immersive emulation. It’s time to install an app! But here in 1986, we still call them “programs,” not apps. So, you’ll want to set aside some time to get started installing a program.
- Apple stops pretending macOS is UNIX
Early 2025, I wrote about how I think macOS UNIX certification was basically a lie. It required so many convoluted and cumbersome changes to macOS that literally nobody applies to their system that it the certification had kind of become a farce. At the end of the article I wondered for how much longer Apple would be playing this little charade to hammer macOS through a meaningless UNIX-shaped hole, and it turns out the answer was about 18 months!. When you go to the Open Groups website and the list of certified UNIX operating systems, macOS is no longer listed. For the past few weeks, it was still listed if you drilled down specifically to the UNIX 03 certification, but that, too, has now been removed. Assuming macOS 27 doesnt return in the near future with a brand new certification, we can safely say that Apple got tired of paying a few employees to get its desktop operating system certified. With one more operating system gone from the list, theres now only one UNIX operating systems left: AIX. While the registry also lists HP-UX, z/OS, and UnixWare/OpenServer, those either only conform to really old UNIX certifications (from the 90s), or simply arent developed anymore (HP sunset HP-UX at the end of last year). Only one operating system version conforms to the latest version of the certification, UNIX 07, and thats AIX 7.2 TL5 and later!, which possibly includes AIX 7.3, the most recent version of AIX. Not that any of this really matters.
- OpenBSD 8.0 released
Hot on the heels of Wine being ported to OpenBSD, we now have the release of OpenBSD 8.0. It adds hibernate support for arm64, switches the sparc64 toolchain to LLVM, and updates the DRM graphics drivers to Linux 6.18.53, which also adds support for Intel Arc A-Series (DG2/Alchemist) graphics cards. Theres a whole bunch of improvements, fixes, and changes for RISC-V and ARM in general, of course, as well as to the various Wi-Fi drivers. On top of that, it also comes with new versions of OpenSSH and LibreSSL, as well as a massive list of other improvements and fixes. If youve never installed OpenBSD before, be sure to read this detailed guide to know what to do once everythings installed, while listening to the official release song, of course.
- Apple adds mystery folder to your PATH and everyone is apparently just okay with that
Apparently, macOS 27 comes with a small mystery people are trying to figure out. Recently, while troubleshooting a PATH issue, I noticed an entry for /pkg/env/global/bin. At first, I worried that something had gone horribly wrong. Turns out, this is part of macOS 27.0… though no one is sure what it’s for yet. In a post about how macOS’s boot volume structure has been updated, Howard Oakley explains that the pkg directory was added to the Data volume in macOS 26.4, but not added to the root of the Signed System Volume until 27.0. He also notes that this is sort of a big deal. The weird thing is, as far as I can tell, no one seems to know what this new directory is for! It’s odd that Apple would update their filesystem structure, add it to everyone’s PATH, and there not be some explicable reason. ↫ Gavin Anderegg I guess well find out eventually, but this does highlight something that I find extremely unsettling about this. With proprietary software like macOS, you literally are at the mercy of whatever Apple decides to do to your! operating system. You install an update, and aside from all the documented changes, theres going to be changes you simply have no idea what theyre for, or why theyre there. Dont get me wrong, theres obviously not something nefarious going on in this particular case, but it still feels wild to me that people just willingly accept this. In the open source world, stuff like this simply does not happen. Youre not going to install a bunch of Fedora updates one day and find a mysterious, undocumented folder in your PATH. Such a change will be documented, but even in the unlikely event its not, you can just go through the commit history and find out exactly why the new folder is there, and what its intended purpose is or is going to be. Considering the state of the world and the people corporations like Apple really answer to, I would not be comfortable with letting them dictate even something as simple as my PATH.
- Wine ported to OpenBSD, runs modern Windows games
In what is quite a major achievement, Wine has been ported and made to work on OpenBSD. We have since tested several dozens of 64-bit Windows software, mostly successfully. See screenshots, livestream recordings for example. Even the Remaster of The Witcher 3 which released just last month runs, and runs well (requires adding in vkd3d-proton; see README; livestream which looks less fluent than it is due to the on-system recording with ffmpeg). ↫ Thomas Frohwein The biggest limitation seems to be the lack of support for WoW64, so 32bit Windows software wont work. Still, this is a massive milestone for OpenBSD, and makes especially gaming a somewhat viable option on OpenBSD.
- Single-partition encrypted NetBSD 11 root
What if a regular, normal NetBSD installation is too plebeian for you? This is a quick overview which attempts to synthesize DW Armstrongs tutorial on NetBSD encryption with the cgdroot page from the NetBSD wiki in a single MBR partition, divided into multiple disklabel slices to preserve MBR entries. ↫ indigoparadox Web Zone What if you need this?
- Linux 7.3 released
Significant changes in this release include some significant binfmt_misc extensions, some group-scheduling work aimed at improving performance on large systems, the new failfs filesystem that fails all operations, the fchroot() system call, global per-CPU data for BPF programs, the completion of the sched_ext subscheduler feature, working-set tracking for virtual machines, alternative data-stream support in the ntfs3 filesystem, a long list of SMB server improvements, and much more. ↫ corbet! at LWN.net Itll make it way to your distribution of choice soon enough.
- Inside the Intel 8087 chip: floating-point addition and subtraction
In 1980, Intel introduced the 8087, a chip that made floating-point operations much faster in the IBM PC and other systems. Although the 8087 supports advanced operations such as tangents, square roots, and logarithms, this article focuses on basic arithmetic operations: addition and subtraction. The 8087 provided a spectacular speed improvement over the 8086 processor, speeding up addition by a factor of almost 100, and complicated operations by even more. In this article, I examine the 8087s microcode and circuitry to explain exactly how floating-point addition and subtraction are implemented, including numerous special cases for infinities and other special values. ↫ Ken Shirriff Shirriff took an actual chisel to the 8087 coprocessor to gain access to the insides for highly detailed photographs, taken with a microscope. They look amazing.
- Source code for the Palm OS port of Lemmings
Only a few day ago I linked to a massive collection of original Palm OS development resources, and today we can take a look at what it was like to put all of those resources into practice: the original source code for the Palm OS port of Lemmings. With these resources combined, theres no excuse to not building any Palm OS applications. Id really like a modern email client, a Fediverse client, and a slightly more modern browser surely wouldnt hurt. Get on it!
- GNOME OS moves to preview stage
It’s been two years since my initial post about making GNOME OS an end-user general purpose OS. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve hit a major milestone! TL;DR: We’re launching a new edition called “GNOME OS Preview”, which is built from the latest stable GNOME release. This means that GNOME OS is no longer just a nightly OS for GNOME developers and testers! ↫ Aaron Ardiri A number of changes and improvements have made the move from nightly status to preview status possible. Theyve made GNOME OS handle environments with limited amounts of RAM much better not a luxury, these days including the ability to dynamically increase the swap space if needed. In addition, the work to make it much easier to install and test daily Flatpak builds of applications is now part of GNOME OS, as is the effort to make command-line utilities manageable in the same way as Flatpaks. As the blog post notes, theres still a ton of work left to do before GNOME OS is ready for everyone. Theyre going to bet heavily on systemd-homed to enable, among other things, per-user disk encryption, and theres a new installer coming, as well. They also want to ship GNOMEs preinstalled applications as Flatpaks, integrate delta updates, and much more. It all looks incredibly appealing, even if I am not the target user for something like GNOME OS.
- Palm OS developer archive: Palm OS development resources, SDKs, documentation, and utilities
This repository contains approximately 1 GB of historical Palm OS development material, collected over many years of working with the platform. The archive includes a mixture of publicly distributed development resources, personal development material, technical references, and historical artifacts. ↫ Aaron Ardiri An incredible resource for anyone wishing to dive into Palm OS programming and development in this day and age.
- VSI launches how-to portal for OpenVMS
OpenVMS isnt exactly the easiest platform to get into, with even the first major hurdle licensing! being a bit of a complex issue. To address this and other issues people new to OpenVMS might run into, VSI, the company currently developing OpenVMS, launched its new VSI How-to Portal. For now, it covers things like licensing, installing and updating OpenVMS for x86, TCP/IP configuration, and setting up SSH. The company plans to expand the portal with more articles based on customer and user feedback, so hopefully more information will appear soon. Most of us are probably not particularly not particularly experienced with OpenVMS, so having a portal like this can really help get you started.
- Microsoft claims Windows 11 is now up to 20% more responsive!
Microsofts been claiming for a while now that theyre working on improving performance and responsiveness in Windows, with a particular focus on making more efficient use of memory. This is probably the only positive thing to come out of the RAM crisis Microsoft helped create and is currently still fueling. The companys now claiming that Windows 11 is up to 20% more responsive! thanks to these efforts. The result is a Windows experience that’s up to 20% more responsive, with improvements you can feel as soon as you boot into your PC and extending to Start, File Explorer, Search, Snipping Tool, Microsoft 365, Edge and more. A big part of that work is making smarter use of memory and system resources. We’ve improved memory management and efficiency across Windows to help keep more of your PC’s resources focused on what you’re actively doing. That work can make an especially meaningful difference on PCs with 8GB of memory. Windows can now keep up to 2GB more of your active data in memory instead of moving it to slower storage, helping your PC stay responsive as you open more apps or browser tabs. Windows is also making additional memory-saving improvements that reduce background memory use. For example, on PCs with 8GB of memory or less, Widgets load only when you open them, making more than 200 MB of memory available for your apps and other work. It’s one example of the broader work underway to reduce the Windows memory footprint and deliver a fast, responsive experience across the PCs people use every day, an area we’ve made an explicit focus for Windows. ↫ Navjot Virk on the Windows Blogs If, for a moment, we take these claims at face value, theyre simply good news for every Windows 11 user, and legitimately the only good thing to come out of the RAM crisis. These kind of claims are always hard to measure, especially considering just how varied the Windows software and hardware ecosystem is, but Im sure people good at benchmarking are going to try and find some more definitive answers here. In the same blog post, Microsoft also highlights several other recent improvements its made to Windows 11, like the new search experience we talked about recently, a brand new Photos application, some new whiteboard-like application, and several more things. Considering how complex Windows versioning scheme and various branches have become, I have no idea when these features and improvements actually make their way to your machine. On a slightly related note, Microsoft also unveiled that its bringing Microsoft Defender to Linux, with a particular focus on desktop Linux. Even Microsoft has to face the reality of the rising popularity of Linux on the desktop.
- Costa: a modern, maintained graphical shell for DOS
Graphical user interfaces for DOS were a dime-a-dozen back in the 90s, but of course faded into irrelevance as time went on. But what if you still run DOS today, and want a maintained graphical shell instead of the rather limited DOS command line? Costa is a small and lightweight application which runs on top of MS-DOS or compatible operating systems. It replaces the DOS-prompt with a clean, user-friendly interface a so-called GUI (Graphical User Interface). Costa comes packed with a bunch of useful accessories and can be used with or without a mouse. Developed by Jacob Palm, a Danish IT-professional and hobby developer, the first release of Costa came way back in 2004. Over the years and through several releases Costa has gradually evolved into what it is today, with new releases still coming out regularly as of 2025. ↫ Costa website Costa comes bundled with a number of useful utilities, a few games, and useful features like a desktop with custom icons, virtual desktop support, a file selector, and much more. The latest release, version 1.8.0, was released in late 2024, and should run on just about any IBM PC-compatible, but a 386 is recommended. Its been tested with a variety of DOS flavours, including FreeDOS ad DOSBox, so it should run pretty much anywhere.
- Ubuntu 26.10 released
Ubuntu 26.10 has landed. Ubuntu 26.10 brings significant progress for security, and strengthens the platform with the full adoption of Rust-based coreutils, post-quantum-ready package signing, and expanded TPM-backed full-disk encryption support. Enterprise authentication gains deeper integration with Microsoft Entra ID, including password and multi-factor authentication. Linux kernel 7.3 extends support for the latest hardware, alongside new RISC-V desktop images and optimized amd64v3 installation images. ↫ Ubuntu 26.10 release announcement Of course, it comes with the latest version of GNOME, and the whole family of Ubuntu variants focusing on other desktops have also been updated. While I doubt many people here run Ubuntu, its still quite popular, and serves as the base for countless other distributions.
- KDE Plasma 6.8 released
KDE turns 30 today, and theyre celebrating it with a brand new KDE Plasma release: version 6.8 is here. On the accessibility front, 6.8 brings a new dwell clicker function (meaning a click will register if the pointer is held still for a short while) and support for the Bikram Sambat calendar and the Amharic language. I always love it when I see support for new languages and scripts, especially when, as is the case here, its a language spoken as a first language by 25 million people. The Plasma remote desktop has also been improved with bi-directional copy/paste, performance and quality improvements, and more, and you can now record microphone and audio while screen recording with Spectacle. In System Monitor, you can now assign processes and tasks to specific processors/cores, which is a great feature for people running intensive tasks but who would still like to, you know, do other things while those tasks are running. KDE 6.8 drops support for X11, focusing entirely on Wayland. Of course, X11 applications will remain usable thanks to Xwayland, and KDEs applications will continue to support X11 in case youre using them outside of KDE. This release also further expands the Union theming system, now adding support for styling Qt Widgets. Union is still in beta, so youll have to enable it to test it. Theres a ton more, too, but these are some of the highlights. KDE Plasma 6.8 will find its way to your distribution of choice soon enough.
- KDE Plasma 6.8 Marks 30 Years With a Major Shift to Wayland and a More Powerful Linux Desktop
by George Whittaker
The KDE Project has officially released KDE Plasma 6.8, introducing a substantial collection of desktop improvements while celebrating three decades of open-source software development. Released on October 14, 2026, exactly 30 years after Matthias Ettrich announced the original KDE project, this anniversary edition brings significant changes to display management, accessibility, graphics performance, remote desktop functionality, system monitoring, and application theming.
Perhaps the most consequential development is KDE's decision to retire native X11 desktop sessions in Plasma 6.8, completing its transition toward Wayland as the primary display architecture. The release also introduces NVIDIA triple buffering by default, improved HDR support, a more capable remote desktop server, CPU affinity controls in System Monitor, and expanded capabilities for the experimental Union theming engine. These improvements reflect KDE's effort to modernize the Linux desktop while maintaining the customization and flexibility that have defined Plasma for years.
Plasma 6.8 is therefore more than a commemorative release. It represents an important architectural transition for one of Linux's most widely used desktop environments, with changes that affect both everyday users and developers building applications for the next generation of Linux desktops.
KDE Celebrates Three Decades of Open-Source Desktop Development
KDE's history began on October 14, 1996, when Matthias Ettrich proposed creating a consistent graphical desktop environment for Unix-like operating systems. At the time, Linux was becoming increasingly capable as a free operating system, but its graphical experience remained fragmented. Users could choose from several window managers and applications, yet there was no universally integrated desktop environment comparable to the commercial graphical systems available elsewhere.
The original KDE initiative sought to address that limitation by building a cohesive desktop around the Qt application framework. Over the following decades, the project evolved through several major generations, introducing increasingly sophisticated desktop technologies while expanding into applications, development frameworks, mobile interfaces, and other open-source projects.
Plasma 6.8 arrives as KDE marks its 30th anniversary, but its development priorities are focused primarily on the future. Rather than introducing a purely cosmetic anniversary edition, KDE has concentrated on modernizing underlying desktop infrastructure while improving accessibility, usability, and performance. The result is a release that combines immediately visible enhancements with architectural changes intended to support future development.
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- 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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