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Do a presentation at NTLUG.
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(Two Column)
- [$] The state of the kernel Rust experiment
The ability to write kernel code in Rust was explicitly added as anexperiment — if things did not go well, Rust would be removed again. Atthe 2025 Maintainers Summit, a session was held to evaluate the state ofthat experiment, and to decide whether the time had come to declare theresult to be a success. The (arguably unsurprising) conclusion was thatthe experiment is indeed a success, but there were some interesting pointsmade along the way.
- Three new stable kernels
Greg Kroah-Hartman has released the 6.18.1, 6.17.12, and 6.12.62 stablekernels. Each contains important fixes; users of those kernelsare advised to upgrade.
- [$] Best practices for linux-next
One of the key components in the kernel's development process is thelinux-next repository. Every day, a large number of branches, eachcontaining commits intended for the next kernel development cycle, ispulled into linux-next and integrated. If there are conflicts betweenbranches, the linux-next process will reveal them. In theory, many othertypes of problems can be found as well. Some developers feel thatlinux-next does not work as well as it could, though. At the 2025Maintainers Summit, Mark Brown, who helps to keep linux-next going, led asession on how it could be made to work more effectively.
- KDE Gear 25.12 released
KDE has announced therelease of KDE Gear 25.12. This release adds more"extractors" to the Itinerary travel-assistantapplication, improved Git support in the Kate text editor, better PDFexport in Konqueror, andmuch more. See the changelogfor all new features, improvements, and bug fixes.
- Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (firefox, luksmeta, mysql, mysql:8.0, mysql:8.4, tomcat, and wireshark), Debian (chromium, kernel, and tzdata), Fedora (brotli, dr_libs, perl-Alien-Brotli, python-urllib3, singularity-ce, wireshark, and yarnpkg), Oracle (firefox, grafana, lasso, libsoup3, luksmeta, ruby, ruby:3.3, tomcat, and wireshark), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (container-suseconnect, kubernetes-client, libpoppler-cpp2, postgresql14, postgresql15, and python3), and Ubuntu (c-ares, keystone, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-azure, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iotg, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-azure, linux-azure-4.15, linux-oracle,, linux-fips, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-fips, linux-aws-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-hwe-6.8, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-intel-iot-realtime, and python-urllib3).
- Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS released
Version 24.04 LTS of the Ubuntu-based Pop!_OS distribution hasbeen released with the COSMIC Desktop Environment:
Today is special not only in that it's the culmination of overthree years of work, but even more so in that System76 has built acomplete desktop environment for the open source community. We'reproud of this contribution to the open source ecosystem. COSMIC isbuilt on the ethos that the best open source projects enable people tonot only use them, but to build with them. COSMIC is modular andcomposable. It's the flagship experience for Pop!_OS in its own way,and can be adapted by anyone that wants to build their own unique userexperience for Linux.
In addition to the COSMIC desktop environment, Pop!_OS is nowavailable for Arm computers with the 24.04 LTS release, and thedistribution has added hybrid graphics support for better batterylife. LWN covered analpha version of COSMIC in August 2024.
- Rust 1.92.0 released
Version1.92.0 of Rust has been released. This release includes a numberof stabilized APIs, emits unwind tables by default on Linux, validatesinput to #[macro_export], and much more. See the separaterelease notes for Rust,Cargo,and Clippy.
- [$] Toward a policy for machine-learning tools in kernel development
The first topic of discussion at the 2025 Maintainers Summit has been inthe air for a while: what role — if any — should machine-learning-basedtools have in the kernel development process? While there has been a fairamount of controversy around these tools, and concerns remain, it seemsthat the kernel community, or at least its high-level maintainership, iscomfortable with these tools becoming a significant part of the developmentprocess.
- Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by Debian (ffmpeg, firefox-esr, libsndfile, and rear), Fedora (httpd, perl-CGI-Simple, and tinyproxy), Oracle (firefox, kernel, libsoup, mysql8.4, tigervnc, tomcat, tomcat9, and uek-kernel), SUSE (alloy, curl, dovecot24, fontforge, glib2, himmelblau, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, kernel, krb5, lasso, libvirt, mozjs128, mysql-connector-java, nvidia-open-driver-G07-signed-check, openssh, poppler, postgresql17, postgresql18, python-cbor2, python-Django, python310, python311-Django, runc, strongswan, tomcat11, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (binutils, libpng1.6, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.14, linux-gcp, linux-hwe-6.14, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-realtime, and qtbase-opensource-src).
- [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for December 11, 2025
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
Front: Rust in CPython; Python frozendict; Bazzite; IETF post-quantum disagreement; Distrobox; 6.19 merge window; Leaving the TAB. Briefs: Let's Encrypt retrospective; PKI infrastructure; Rust in kernel to stay; CNA series; Alpine 3.23.0; cmocka 2.0; Firefox 146; 2024 Free Software Awards; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
- 10 Years of Let's Encrypt Certificates
Let's Encrypt has publisheda retrospective that covers the decade since it published its firstpublicly trusted certificate in September 2015:
In March 2016, we issued our one millionth certificate. Just two yearslater, in September 2018, we were issuing a million certificates everyday. In 2020 we reached a billion total certificates issued and as oflate 2025 we're frequently issuing ten million certificates perday. We're now on track to reach a billion active sites, probablysometime in the coming year.
- Kroah-Hartman: Linux CVEs, more than you ever wanted to know
Greg Kroah-Hartman is writinga series of blog posts about Linux becoming a CertificateNumbering Authority (CNA):
It's been almost 2 full years since Linux became a CNA (CertificateNumbering Authority) which meant that we (i.e. the kernel.orgcommunity) are now responsible for issuing all CVEs for the Linuxkernel. During this time, we've become one of the largest creators ofCVEs by quantity, going from nothing to number 3 in 2024 to number 1in 2025. Naturally, this has caused some questions about how we areboth doing all of this work, and how people can keep track of it.
So far, Kroah-Hartman has published the introductory post, as wellas a detailedpost about kernel version numbers that is well worth reading.
- [$] Mix and match Linux distributions with Distrobox
Linux containers have made it reasonably easy to develop, distribute, anddeploy server applications along with all the distribution dependencies that theyneed. For example, anyone can deploy and run a Debian-based PostgreSQL container on a Fedora Linux host. Distrobox is a project that is designed tobring the cross-distribution compatibility to the desktop and allow users tomix-and-match Linux distributions without fussing with dual-booting, virtualmachines, or multiple computers. It is an ideal way to installadditional software on image-based systems, such as Fedora's Atomic Desktopsor Bazzite, and alsoprovides a convenient way to move a development environment orfavorite applications to a new system.
- Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (abrt and kernel), Debian (libpng1.6, libsoup2.4, pdns-recursor, webkit2gtk, and wordpress), Fedora (imhex, libwebsockets, lunasvg, python3-docs, and python3.14), Mageia (python3 and webkit2), Red Hat (abrt, firefox, mysql8.4, and postgresql:15), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (gegl, gnutls, go1.24, go1.25, libpng16-16, openssh, postgresql13, python-Jinja2, and sssd), and Ubuntu (fonttools and netty).
- The (successful) end of the kernel Rust experiment
The topic of the Rust experiment was just discussed at the annualMaintainers Summit. The consensus among the assembled developers is thatRust in the kernel is no longer experimental — it is now a core part of thekernel and is here to stay. So the "experimental" tag will be coming off.Congratulations are in order for all of the Rust for Linux team.
(Stay tuned for details in our Maintainers Summit coverage.)
- Ubuntu Studio 26.04 May Modernize Its Desktop Layout
Ubuntu Studio is the variant of Ubuntu Linux focused on content creation and audio recording needs, video editing, and other creative workloads. Ubuntu Studio's desktop hasn't seen too many changes since Ubuntu 12.04 LTS some 13+ years ago. But Ubuntu Studio developers are now considering desktop layout changes to help modernize its appearance...
- 4 cool new projects to try in Copr for December 2025
This article series takes a closer look at interesting projects that recently landed in Copr. Copr is a build-system for anyone in the Fedora community. It hosts thousands of projects with a wide variety of purposes, targeting diverse groups of users. Some of them should never be installed by anyone, some are already transitioning into the […]
- System76 Launches Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS With COSMIC Desktop
Back in October System76 announced a planned release date for Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS and the COSMIC Desktop... And they've made it! The new Pop!_OS 24.04 is now available for download as the long-awaited update atop an Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base while using their Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment...
- NVIDIA GTX 980 Through RTX 5080: Open-Source Nouveau/Mesa Drivers vs. NVIDIA 580 Linux Drivers
With the NVIDIA 590 Linux driver series removing GeForce 900 series "Maxwell" and GeForce 10 series "Pascal" as part of punting it off to the latest legacy driver branch, it's time for a last look at how the mainline NVIDIA Linux driver is performing with these aging graphics cards relative to the current state of the upstream open-source NVIDIA Linux drivers. In this article is a look at how the open-source and upstream Nouveau kernel driver with Nouveau/NVK Mesa drivers are performing relative to the NVIDIA 580 series with its Maxwell and Pascal support. For further perspective is also tossing in newer graphics cards too for providing a end-of-year GeForce 980 / 1080 / 2080 / 3080 / 4080 / 5080 series comparison between these different Linux drivers.
- D7VK 1.0 Released For "Production Ready" Direct3D 7 On Vulkan
The D7VK project recently started as the Direct3D 7 API implemented atop the Vulkan API akin to DXVK and VKD3D-Proton with newer versions of Microsoft Direct3D. Today marks the D7VK 1.0 release for this project in now declaring itself "production ready" for Linux gamers...
- Muzi Unveils Launches Modular BASE Board System for Meshtastic Mesh Networking
Muzi Works, in collaboration with Elecrow, has announced the Meshtastic BASE board system, a modular platform designed for off-grid mesh communication. The lineup includes the Base Uno, Base Duo, and an optional Super IO expansion module, forming a standardized and power-efficient foundation for custom LoRa radios and portable communication devices. The Base Uno and Base […]
- Renesas Releases Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth LE MCUs on Cortex-M33 Architecture
Renesas has introduced the RA6W1 and RA6W2 microcontrollers, bringing Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth LE options to its IoT portfolio. The RA6W1 offers dual-band Wi-Fi 6, while the RA6W2 adds integrated Bluetooth LE, both targeting low-power connected devices with features such as Target Wake Time to extend battery life. The MCUs are based on an Arm […]
- Framework Raises DDR5 Memory Prices By 50% For DIY Laptops
Framework Computer raised DDR5 memory prices for its Laptop DIY Editions by 50% due to industry-wide memory shortages. Phoronix reports: Framework Computer is keeping the prior prices for existing pre-orders and also is foregoing any price changes for their pre-built laptops or the Framework Desktop. Framework Computer also lets you order DIY laptops without any memory at all if so desired for re-using existing modules or should you score a deal elsewhere. Due to their memory pricing said to be more competitive below market rates, they also adjusted their return policy to prevent scalpers from purchasing DIY Edition laptops with memory while then returning just the laptops. The DDR5 must be returned now with DIY laptop order returns. Additional details can be found via the Framework Blog.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Doom Studio id Software Forms 'Wall-To-Wall' Union
id Software employees voted to form a wall-to-wall union with the CWA, covering all roles at the Doom studio. "The vote wasn't unanimous, though a majority did vote in favor of the union," notes Engadget. From the report: The union will work in conjunction with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which is the same organization involved with parent company ZeniMax's recent unionization efforts. Microsoft, who owns ZeniMax, has already recognized this new effort, according to a statement by the CWA. It agreed to a labor neutrality agreement with the CWA and ZeniMax workers last year, paving the way for this sort of thing. From the onset, this union will look to protect remote work for id Software employees. "Remote work isn't a perk. It's a necessity for our health, our families, and our access needs. RTO policies should not be handed down from executives with no consideration for accessibility or our well-being," said id Software Lead Services Programmer Chris Hays. He also said he looks forward to getting worker protections regarding the "responsible use of AI."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- US To Mandate AI Vendors Measure Political Bias For Federal Sales
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. government will require artificial intelligence vendors to measure political "bias" to sell their chatbots to federal agencies, according to a Trump administration statement (PDF) released on Thursday. The requirement will apply to all large language models bought by federal agencies, with the exception of national security systems, according to the statement. President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in July to avoid buying large language models that he labeled as "woke." Thursday's statement gives more detail to that directive, saying that developers should not "intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments" into a chatbot's outputs. Further reading: Trump Signs Executive Order For Single National AI Regulation Framework, Limiting Power of States
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Russian Hackers Debut Simple Ransomware Service, But Store Keys In Plain Text
The pro-Russian CyberVolk group resurfaced with a Telegram-based ransomware-as-a-service platform, but fatally undermined its own operation by hardcoding master encryption keys in plaintext. The Register reports: First, the bad news: the CyberVolk 2.x (aka VolkLocker) ransomware-as-a-service operation that launched in late summer. It's run entirely through Telegram, which makes it very easy for affiliates that aren't that tech savvy to lock files and demand a ransom payment. CyberVolk's soldiers can use the platform's built-in automation to generate payloads, coordinate ransomware attacks, and manage their illicit business operations, conducting everything through Telegram. But here's the good news: the ransomware slingers got sloppy when it came time to debug their code and hardcoded the master keys -- this same key encrypts all files on a victim's system -- into the executable files. This could allow victims to recover encrypted data without paying the extortion fee, according to SentinelOne senior threat researcher Jim Walter, who detailed the gang's resurgence and flawed code in a Thursday report.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Bill Gates' Daughter Secures $30 Million For AI App Built In Stanford Dorm
Phoebe Gates, Bill Gates' youngest daughter, has raised $30 million for the AI shopping app she built in her Stanford dorm room with classmate Sophia Kianni. The app is called Phia and is pitched as a way to simplify price comparison and secondhand shopping. "Its AI-powered search engine -- available as an app and as a browser extension for Chrome and Safari -- pulls listings from more than 40,000 retail and resale sites so users can compare prices, surface real-time deals, and determine whether an item's cost is typical, high or fair," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The app has reached 750,000 downloads in eight months and is valued at $180 million. From the report: Gates told Elle that when she first floated the idea to her parents, they urged her to keep it as a side project -- advice she followed by enrolling in Stanford's night program after moving to New York and finishing her degree in 2024. "They were like, 'Okay, you can do this as a side thing, but you need to stay in school.' I don't think people would expect that from my family, to be honest," she said. Her father dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to launch Microsoft. Kianni even paused her degree temporarily "to learn, as quickly as possible, as much as we could about the industry that we would be operating in," she told Vogue. Bill Gates has not invested in the company, though he has publicly supported its mission.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Translate Expands Live Translation To All Earbuds On Android
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google has increasingly moved toward keeping features locked to its hardware products, but the Translate app is bucking that trend. The live translate feature is breaking out of the Google bubble with support for any earbuds you happen to have connected to your Android phone. The app is also getting improved translation quality across dozens of languages and some Duolingo-like learning features. The latest version of Google's live translation is built on Gemini and initially rolled out earlier this year. It supports smooth back-and-forth translations as both on-screen text and audio. Beginning a live translate session in Google Translate used to require Pixel Buds, but that won't be the case going forward. Google says a beta test of expanded headphone support is launching today in the US, Mexico, and India. The audio translation attempts to preserve the tone and cadence of the original speaker, but it's not as capable as the full AI-reproduced voice translations you can do on the latest Pixel phones. Google says this feature should work on any earbuds or headphones, but it's only for Android right now. The feature will expand to iOS in the coming months. [...] The new translation model, which is also available in the search-based translation interface, supports over 70 languages.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- The Data Breach That Hit Two-Thirds of a Country
Online retailer Coupang, often called South Korea's Amazon, is dealing with the fallout from a breach that exposed the personal information of more than 33 million accounts -- roughly two-thirds of the country's population -- after a former contractor allegedly used credentials that remained active months after his departure to access customer data through the company's overseas servers. The breach began in June but went undetected until November 18, according to Coupang and investigators. Police have called it South Korea's worst-ever data breach. The compromised information includes names, phone numbers, email addresses and shipping addresses, though the company says login credentials, credit card numbers, and payment details were not affected. Coupang's former CEO Park Dae-jun told a parliamentary hearing that the alleged perpetrator was a Chinese national who had worked on authentication tasks before his contract ended last December. Chief information security officer Brett Matthes testified that the individual had a "privileged role" giving him access to a private encryption key that allowed him to forge tokens to impersonate customers. Legislators say the key remained active after the employee left. The CEO of Coupang's South Korean subsidiary has resigned. Founder and chair Bom Kim has yet to personally apologize but has been summoned to a second parliamentary hearing.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- New Kindle Feature Uses AI To Answer Questions About Books - And Authors Can't Opt Out
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has quietly added a new AI feature to its Kindle iOS app -- a feature that "lets you ask questions about the book you're reading and receive spoiler-free answers," according to an Amazon announcement. The company says the feature, which is called Ask this Book, serves as "your expert reading assistant, instantly answering questions about plot details, character relationships, and thematic elements without disrupting your reading flow." Publishing industry resource Publishers Lunch noticed Ask this Book earlier this week, and asked Amazon about it. Amazon spokesperson Ale Iraheta told PubLunch, "The feature uses technology, including AI, to provide instant, spoiler-free answers to customers' questions about what they're reading. Ask this Book provides short answers based on factual information about the book which are accessible only to readers who have purchased or borrowed the book and are non-shareable and non-copyable." As PubLunch summed up: "In other words, speaking plainly, it's an in-book chatbot." [...] Perhaps most alarmingly, the Amazon spokesperson said, "To ensure a consistent reading experience, the feature is always on, and there is no option for authors or publishers to opt titles out."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Arkansas Becoming 1st State To Sever Ties With PBS, Effective July 1
joshuark writes: Arkansas is becoming the first state to officially end its public television affiliation with PBS. The Arkansas Educational Television Commission, whose members are all appointed by the governor, voted to disaffiliate from PBS effective July 1, 2026, citing the $2.5 million annual membership dues as "not feasible." The decision was also driven by the loss of a similar amount in federal funding after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was defunded by Congress. PBS Arkansas is rebranding itself as Arkansas TV and will provide more local content, the agency's Executive Director and CEO Carlton Wing said in a statement. Wing, a former Republican state representative, took the helm of the agency in September. "Public television in Arkansas is not going away," Wing said. "In fact, we invite you to join our vision for an increased focus on local programming, continuing to safeguard Arkansans in times of emergency and supporting our K-12 educators and students." "The commission's decision to drop PBS membership is a blow to Arkansans who will lose free, over the air access to quality PBS programming they know and love," a PBS spokesperson wrote in an email to The Associated Press. The demise of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is a direct result of President Donald Trump's targeting of public media, which he has repeatedly said is spreading political and cultural views antithetical to those the United States should be espousing. Trump denied taking a big should on television viewers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Amazon Prime Video Pulls AI-Powered Recaps After Fallout Flub
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon Prime Video has pulled its AI-powered video recap of Fallout after viewers noticed that it got key parts of the story wrong. The streaming service began testing Video Recaps last month, and now they're missing from the shows included in the test, including Fallout, The Rig, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Upload, and Bosch. The feature is supposed to use AI to analyze a show's key plot points and sum it all in a bite-sized video, complete with an AI voiceover and clips from the series. But in its season one recap of Fallout, Prime Video incorrectly stated that one of The Ghoul's (Walton Goggins) flashbacks is set in "1950s America" rather than the year 2077, as spotted earlier by Games Radar.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Berlin Approves New Expansion of Police Surveillance Powers
Berlin's regional parliament has passed a far-reaching overhaul of its "security" law, giving police new authority to conduct both digital and physical surveillance. From a report: The CDU-SPD coalition, supported by AfD votes, approved the reform of the General Security and Public Order Act (ASOG), changing the limits that once protected Berliners from intrusive policing. Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) argued that the legislation modernizes police work for an era of encrypted communication, terrorism, and cybercrime. But it undermines core civil liberties and reshapes the relationship between citizens and the state. One of the most controversial elements is the expansion of police powers under paragraphs 26a and 26b. These allow investigators to hack into computers and smartphones under the banner of "source telecommunications surveillance" and "online searches." Police may now install state-developed spyware, known as trojans, on personal devices to intercept messages before or after encryption. If the software cannot be deployed remotely, the law authorizes officers to secretly enter a person's home to gain access. This enables police to install surveillance programs directly on hardware without the occupant's knowledge. Berlin had previously resisted such practices, but now joins other federal states that permit physical entry to install digital monitoring tools.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- 'Apple Tax is Dead in the USA'
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has almost entirely upheld a scathing April ruling that found Apple in willful violation of a 2021 injunction meant to open up iOS App Store payments in its long-running legal battle against Epic Games. A three-judge panel affirmed that Apple's 27% fee for developers using outside payment options had a "prohibitive effect" and that the company's design restrictions on external payment links were overly broad. The appeals court also agreed that Apple acted in "bad faith" by rejecting viable, compliant alternatives in internal discussions. One divergence from the lower court: the appeals court ruled that Apple should still be able to charge a "reasonable fee" based on its actual costs to ensure user security and privacy, rather than charging nothing at all. What qualifies as "reasonable" remains to be determined. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told reporters he believes those fees should be "super super minor," on the order of "tens or hundreds of dollars" every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review. "The Apple Tax is dead in the USA," he wrote on social media. Sweeney also alleged that a widespread "fear of retaliation" has kept many developers paying Apple's default 30% fees, claiming the company can effectively "ghost" apps by delaying reviews or burying them in search results.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- China Leads Research in 90% of Crucial Technologies - a Dramatic Shift this Century
China is leading research in nearly 90% of the crucial technologies that "significantly enhance, or pose risks to, a country's national interests," according to a technology tracker run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) -- an independent think-tank. Nature: The ASPI's Critical Technology Tracker evaluated research on 74 current and emerging technologies this year, up from the 64 technologies it analyzed last year. China is ranked number one for research on 66 of the technologies, including nuclear energy, synthetic biology, small satellites, while the United States topped the remaining 8, including quantum computing and geoengineering. The results reflect a drastic reversal. At the beginning of this century, the United States led more than 90% of the assessed technologies, whereas China led less than 5% of them, according to the 2024 edition of the tracker. "China has made incredible progress on science and technology that is reflected in research and development, as well as in publications," says Ilaria Mazzocco, who researches China's industrial policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a non-profit research organization based in Washington DC. Mazzocco says the general trend identified by the ASPI is not a surprise, but it is "remarkable" to see that China is so dominant and advanced in so many fields compared with the United States.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- The Immediate Post-College Transition and its Role in Socioeconomic Earnings Gaps
A new study of roughly 80,000 bachelor's degree recipients from a large urban public college system finds that characteristics of a graduate's first job can explain nearly two-thirds of the otherwise-unexplained earnings gap between students from low-income and high-income families five years after graduation. The research [PDF], published as an NBER working paper by economists at Columbia University, tracked graduates from 2010 to 2017 using administrative education data linked to state unemployment insurance records. Low-income students -- defined as those receiving Pell grants throughout their undergraduate enrollment -- earned about 12% less than their high-income peers at the five-year mark. A substantial gap of roughly $4,900 persisted even after the researchers controlled for GPA, college attended, major, and other pre-graduation characteristics. That residual gap fell to about $1,700 once first-job variables entered the equation. Graduates from lower-income families tended to start at employers paying lower average wages and were less likely to have their first job secured before graduation. Just 34% of low-income graduates continued at a pre-graduation employer compared to 40% of their higher-income peers. The firms employing low-income graduates paid average wages that were 18% lower than those employing high-income graduates. The researchers say that while the study cannot establish causation, the patterns suggest that supporting low-income students during their transition from college to the labor market may be a fruitful area for policy intervention.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Washington Post's AI-Generated Podcasts Rife With Errors, Fictional Quotes
The Washington Post's top standards editor Thursday decried "frustrating" errors in its new AI-generated personalized podcasts, whose launch has been met with distress by its journalists. From a report: Earlier this week, the Post announced that it was rolling out personalized AI-generated podcasts for users of the paper's mobile app. In a release, the paper said users will be able to choose preferred topics and AI hosts, and could "shape their own briefing, select their topics, set their lengths, pick their hosts and soon even ask questions using our Ask The Post AI technology." But less than 48 hours since the product was released, people within the Post have flagged what four sources described as multiple mistakes in personalized podcasts. The errors have ranged from relatively minor pronunciation gaffes to significant changes to story content, like misattributing or inventing quotes and inserting commentary, such as interpreting a source's quotes as the paper's position on an issue. According to four people familiar with the situation, the errors have alarmed senior newsroom leaders who have acknowledged in an internal Slack channel that the product's output is not living up to the paper's standards. In a message to other WaPo staff shared with Semafor, head of standards Karen Pensiero wrote that the errors have been "frustrating for all of us."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Microsoft RasMan DoS 0-day gets unofficial patch - and a working exploit
Exploit hasn't been picked up by any malware detection engines, CEO tells The Reg
A Microsoft zero-day vulnerability that allows an unprivileged user to crash the Windows Remote Access Connection Manager (RasMan) service now has a free, unofficial patch - with no word as to when Redmond plans to release an official one - along with a working exploit circulating online.…
- New React vulns leak secrets, invite DoS attacks
And the earlier React2Shell patch is vulnerable
If you're running React Server Components, you just can't catch a break. In addition to already-reported flaws, newly discovered bugs allow attackers to hang vulnerable servers and potentially leak Server Function source code, so anyone using RSC or frameworks that support it should patch quickly.…
- Trump gives state AI regulation the presidential middle finger
Executive order sidesteps Congress and sets up Litigation Task Force
President Trump and his patrons in big tech have long wanted to block states from implementing their own AI regulations. After failing twice to do so in Congress, the US president has issued an executive order that would attempt to punish states that try to restrain the bot business.…
- Workday project at Washington University hits $266M
Protests force disclosure of costs totaling $16,000 per student over 7 year rollout replacing 80 legacy systems
The total cost of a Workday implementation project at Washington University in St. Louis is set to hit almost $266 million, it was revealed after the project was the subject of protests from students.…
- The CRASH Clock is ticking as satellite congestion in low Earth orbit worsens
It's getting crowded up there
Earth's orbit is starting to look like an LA freeway, with more and more satellites being launched each year. If you're worried about collisions and space debris making the area unusable – and you should be – scientists have proposed a new metric to contribute to your anxiety: the CRASH Clock.…
- AI datacenter boom could end badly, Goldman Sachs warns
Bank sketches four scenarios in which monetization falters or demand swamps supply by 2030
Goldman Sachs warns that datacenter investments may fail to pay off if the industry is unable to monetize AI models, but hedges its bets by saying that demand could also overwhelm available capacity by 2030.…
- Microsoft promises more bug payouts, with or without a bounty program
Critical vulnerabilities found in third-party applications eligible for award under 'in scope by default' move
Microsoft is overhauling its bug bounty program to reward exploit hunters for finding vulnerabilities across all its products and services, even those without established bounty schemes.…
- UK watchdog urged to probe GDPR failures in Home Office eVisa rollout
Rights groups say digital-only record is leaking data and courting trouble
Civil society groups are urging the UK's data watchdog to investigate whether the Home Office's digital-only eVisa scheme is breaching GDPR, sounding the alarm about systemic data errors and design failures that are exposing sensitive personal information while leaving migrants unable to prove their lawful status.…
- Half of exposed React servers remain unpatched amid active exploitation
Wiz says React2Shell attacks accelerating, ranging from cryptominers to state-linked crews
Half of the internet-facing systems vulnerable to a fast-moving React remote code execution flaw remain unpatched, even as exploitation has exploded into more than a dozen active attack clusters ranging from bargain-basement cryptominers to state-linked intrusion tooling.…
- Salesforce opts for seat-based AI licensing as customers demand predictability
Analysts say the shift offers stability, but embedded usage caps ensure vendors keep control
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff last week came closer to answering a multibillion-dollar question when he said seat-based pricing – with some caveats – was becoming the norm for its AI agents after flirting with pricing based on consumption and per-conversation payments.…
- User insisted their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't
Getting that confession took hours, during which L1 and L2 support gave up
On Call Welcome once more to On Call, the Friday column in which we share stories of tech support incidents that went pear-shaped until cunning Reg readers stepped in to save the day.…
- AI superintelligence is a Silicon Valley fantasy, Ai2 researcher says
The dream of electric sheep gets a reality check from Moore’s Law
You want artificial general intelligence (AGI)? Current-day processors aren't powerful enough to make it happen and our ability to scale up may soon be coming to an end, argues well-known researcher Tim Dettmers.…
- VMware kills vSphere Foundation in parts of EMEA
Broadcom told The Register that EMEA customers need to check with their local dealer to see if VVF remains on the menu
Exclusive Broadcom has recently killed off VMware vSphere Foundation in parts of EMEA, the company told The Register, dealing a blow to smaller customers, one of whom told us they would likely switch to a rival hypervisor as a result.…
- Disney turns to dark side, licenses IP to OpenAI for videos, images
Begun, these AI wars have
Amid controversy over its ability to generate content with copyrighted characters, OpenAI has struck a three-year deal with Disney to license more than 200 Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars characters for use in Sora videos and ChatGPT Images.…
- European cloud trade group says EU should have blocked VMware-Broadcom merger
Org argues that the approval process was flawed and regulators should have known better
A trade group of European cloud providers has laid into the European Commission’s decision to allow the VMware-Broadcom merger to go ahead, alleging that it failed to assess the infrastructure and semiconductor company’s incentives to massively raise prices on customers.…
- Space-power startup claims it can beam energy to solar farms
So far, Overview Energy says it has only beamed power from a moving aircraft to standard solar panels
You can't generate solar power at night unless your panels are in space. A startup that wants to beam orbital sunlight straight into existing solar farms has just emerged from stealth, claiming a world-first power-beaming demo, but with a lot of critical information left unreported. …
- Google fixes super-secret 8th Chrome 0-day
No details, no CVE, update your browser now
Google issued an emergency fix for a Chrome vulnerability already under exploitation, which marks the world's most popular browser's eighth zero-day bug of 2025.…
- LastPass hammered with £1.2M fine for 2022 breach fiasco
UK data regulator says failures were unacceptable for a company managing the world's passwords
The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) says LastPass must cough up £1.2 million ($1.6 million) after its two-part 2022 data breach compromised information from up to 1.6 million UK users.…
- Trump's AI 'Genesis Mission' emerges from Land of Confusion
DOE lays out $320M plan for science platform linking national labs, industry, and academia
President Trump's "Genesis Mission" is taking shape with the award of more than $320 million from the Department of Energy (DOE) to advance AI in scientific research.…
- Microsoft research shows chatbots seeping into everyday life
Copilot – your cuddly companion for nighttime introspection
Microsoft analyzed 37.5 million de-identified Copilot conversations from January to September 2025, excluding commercial and educational accounts. The findings reveal distinct usage patterns based on device, time, and day.…
- 10K Docker images spray live cloud creds across the internet
Flare warns devs are unwittingly publishing production-level secrets
Docker Hub has quietly become a treasure trove of live cloud keys and credentials, with more than 10,000 public container images exposing sensitive secrets from over 100 companies, including a Fortune 500 firm and a major bank.…
- Airbus exec: Most CIOs in Europe will not finish SAP ECC6 migration by 2030
Aerospace giant faces 'massive work' to move legacy ERP systems to S/4HANA as support deadline looms
Exclusive Airbus is undertaking a major overhaul to migrate its sprawling SAP environment to S/4HANA – and potentially to the cloud – as the aerospace giant grapples with the same deadline pressures facing thousands of enterprise customers worldwide.…
- NASA loses contact with MAVEN Mars orbiter
Didn’t phone home as expected on December 6th and nobody knows why
Houston, we have a problem: NASA has lost contact with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft.…
- Oracle raises AI spending estimate, spooks investors
But if you assume cloud IOUs will be fulfilled, business is booming
Oracle expects its FY 2026 capital expenditures will be $15 billion higher that previously predicted, as the cloudy database biz invests to accommodate AI workloads.…
- US teens not only love AI, but also let it rot their brains
Yeah, not shocking, but with other studies linking AI to weaker learning and mental-health risks, it’s a worry
Alongside TikTok and Instagram, teens have added ChatGPT to the mix. Pew says about two-thirds of US teenagers have tried an AI chatbot, with nearly a third using one every day. Negative mental-health warnings be damned!…
- Really Simple Licensing spec lets web publishers demand their due from AI scrapers
Publishers now have more comprehensive tools for managing automated content harvesting
Most big AI providers scrape the open web, hoovering up content to improve their chatbots, which then compete with publishers for the attention of internet users. However, more AI orgs might have to pay up soon, because the Really Simple Licensing (RSL) spec has reached version 1.0, providing guidance on how to set machine-readable rules for crawlers.…
- US extradites Ukrainian woman accused of hacking meat processing plant for Russia
The digital intrusion allegedly caused thousands of pounds of meat to spoil and triggered an ammonia leak in the facility
A Ukrainian woman accused of hacking US public drinking water systems and a meat processing facility on behalf of Kremlin-backed cyber groups was extradited to the US earlier this year and will stand trial in early 2026.…
- Welcome to America - now show us your last five years of social media posts
Countries subject to newly proposed rule include supposed trusted friends like the UK, France, and Germany
The next time someone visits the US, customs may ask to see their passport, their Facebook feed, and all of their Instagram posts. The United States maintains a list of 42 countries whose citizens are allowed to enter without a visa, but visitors from those nations may soon have to provide five years' worth of their social media history in order to gain entry. …
- Crisis in Icebergen: How NATO crafts stories to sharpen cyber skills
1,500 military digital defenders spent the past week cleaning up a series of cyberattacks on fictional island
feature Andravia and Harbadus – two nations so often at odds with one another – were once again embroiled in conflict over the past seven days, which thoroughly tested NATO's cybersecurity experts' ability to coordinate defenses across battlefield domains.…
- Vibe coding will deliver a wonderful proliferation of personalized software
They're now good enough to do things well, if you take the time to learn how to steer them
Opinion For most of the last year, the phrase 'vibe coding' seemed more punchline than possibility. That outlook altered significantly over the last month after step-changes in quality mean vibe coding tools now generate code that’s good enough to rewrite expectations about how IT will operate before the end of this decade.…
- 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]
- Haiku gets new Go port
Theres a new Haiku monthly activity report, and this ones a true doozy. Lets start with the biggest news. The most notable development in November was the introduction of a port of the Go programming language, version 1.18. This is still a few years old (from 2022; the current is Go 1.25), but it’s far newer than the previous Go port to Haiku (1.4 from 2014); and unlike the previous port which was never in the package repositories, this one is now already available there (for x86_64 at least) and can be installed via pkgman. ↫ Haiku activity report As the project notes, theyre still a few versions behind, but at least its a lot more modern of an implementation than they had before. Now that its in the repositories for Haiku, it might also attract more people to work on the port, potentially bringing even newer versions to the BeOS-inspired operating system. Welcome as it may be, this new Go port isnt the only big ticket item this month. Haiku can now gracefully recover from an app_server crash, something it used to be able to do a long time ago, but which was broken for a long time. The app_server is Haikus display server and window manager, so the ability to restart it at runtime after a crash, and have it reconnect with still-running applications, is incredibly welcome. As far as I can tell, all modern operating systems can do this by now, so its great to have this functionality restored in Haiku. Of course, aside from these two big improvements, theres the usual load of fixes and changes in applications, drivers, and other components of the operating system.
- Rethinking sudo with object capabilities
Alpine Linux maintainer Ariadne Conill has published a very interesting blog post about the shortcomings of both sudo and doas, and offers a potential different way of achieving the same goals as those tools. Systems built around identity-based access control tend to rely on ambient authority: policy is centralized and errors in the policy configuration or bugs in the policy engine can allow attackers to make full use of that ambient authority. In the case of a SUID binary like doas or sudo, that means an attacker can obtain root access in the event of a bug or misconfiguration. What if there was a better way? Instead of thinking about privilege escalation as becoming root for a moment, what if it meant being handed a narrowly scoped capability, one with just enough authority to perform a specific action and nothing more? Enter the object-capability model. ↫ Ariadne Conill To bring this approach to life, they created a tool called capsudo. Instead of temporarily changing your identity, capsudo can grant far more fine-grained capabilities that match the exact task youre trying to accomplish. As an example, Conill details mounting and unmounting with capsudo, you can not only grant the ability for a user to mount and unmount whatever device, but also allow the user to only mount or unmount just one specific device. Another example given is how capsudo can be used to give a service account user to only those resources the account needs to perform its tasks. Of course, Conill explains all of this way better than I ever could, with actual example commands and more details. Conill happens to be the same person who created Wayback, illustrating that they have a tendency to look at problems in a unique and interesting way. Im not smart enough to determine if this approach makes sense compared to sudo or doas, but the way its described it does feel like a superior, more secure solution.
- One too many words on AT8Ts $2000 Korn shell and other Usenet topics
Unix has been enormously successful over the past 55 years. It started out as a small experiment to develop a time-sharing system (i.e., a multi-user operating system) at AT8T Bell Labs. The goal was to take a few core principles to their logical conclusion. The OS bundled many small tools that were easy to combine, as it was illustrated by a famous exchange between Donald Knuth and Douglas McIlroy in 1986. Today, Unix lives on mostly as a spiritual predecessor to Linux, Net/Free/OpenBSD, macOS, and arguably, ChromeOS and Android. Usenet tells us about the height of its early popularity. ↫ Gábor Nyéki There are so many amazing stories in this article, I honestly have no idea what to highlight. So first and foremost, I want you to read the whole thing yourself, as everyones bound to have their own personal favourite section that resonates the most. My personal favourite story from the article which is just an aside, to illustrate that even the asides are great is that when Australia joined Usenet in 1983, new posts to Usenet were delivered to the country by airmail. On magnetic tape. Once per week. The overarching theme here is that the early days of UNIX, as documented on Usenet, were a fascinating wild west of implementations, hacks, and personalities, which, yes, clashed with each other, but also spread untold amounts of information, knowledge, and experience to every corner of the world. I hope Nyéki will write more of these articles.
- COSMIC Desktop reaches first stable release
System76, creator of Pop!_OS and prominent Linux OEM, has just announced the release of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS normally not something I particularly care about, but in this case, it comes with the first stable release of COSMIC Desktop. COSMIC is a brand new desktop environment by System76, written in Rust, and after quite some time in development, its now out in the wild as a stable release. Today is special not only in that it’s the culmination of over three years of work, but even more so in that System76 has built a complete desktop environment for the open source community. We’re proud of this contribution to the open source ecosystem. COSMIC is built on the ethos that the best open source projects enable people to not only use them, but to build with them. COSMIC is modular and composable. It’s the flagship experience for Pop!_OS in its own way, and can be adapted by anyone that wants to build their own unique user experience for Linux. ↫ Carl Richell You dont need to run Pop!_OS to try out COSMIC, as its already available on a variety of other distributions (although it may take a bit for this stable version to land in the respective repositories).
- Windows 3.1s infamous Hot Dog Stand! colour scheme was not a joke
Im sure most of us here are aware of the bright red-and-yellow colour scheme called Hot Dog Stand!, included in Windows 3.1. While its not the only truly garish colour scheme included in Windows 3.1, its name probably did a lot to make it stand out from the others. Theres been a ton of speculation about the origins of the colour scheme, and why it was included in Windows 3.1, but it seems nobody ever bothered to look for someone who actually worked on the Windows 3.1 user interface until now. PC Gamers Wes Fenlon contacted Virginia Howlett, Microsofts first user interface designer who joined the company in 1985, and asked her about the infamous colour scheme. It turns out that the origin story for the infamous colour scheme is rather mundane. In Howletts own words: I do remember some discussion about whether we should include it, and some snarky laughter. But it was not intended as a joke. It was not inspired by any hot dog stands, and it was not included as an example of a bad interface—although it was one. It was just a garish choice, in case somebody out there liked ugly bright red and yellow. ↫ Virginia Howlett, quoted by Wes Fenlon in PC Gamer Howlett then lists a few other included colour schemes that were just as garish, or even more so, as examples to underline her point. Personally, Im a huge proponent of allowing users to make their interfaces as ugly and garish as they want, as the only arbiter on whats on your screen is you, and nobody else. Hot Dog Stand and similar garish themes need to make a comeback, because theres bound to be some people out there whose vibes align with it.
- Using AI! to manage your Fedora system seems like a really bad idea
IBM owns Red Hat which in turn runs Fedora, the popular desktop Linux distribution. Sadly, shit rolls downhill, so were starting to see some worrying signs that Fedora is going to be used a means to push AI!. Case in point, this article in the Fedora Magazine: Generative AI systems are changing the way people interact with computers. MCP (model context protocol) is a way that enables generate AI systems to run commands and use tools to enable live, conversational interaction with systems. Using the new linux-mcp-server, let’s walk through how you can talk with your Fedora system for understanding your system and getting help troubleshooting it! ↫ Máirín Duffy and Brian Smith at Fedora Magazine This linux-mcp-server! tool is developed by IBMs Red Hat, and of course, IBM has a vested interest in further increasing the size of the AI! bubble. As such, it makes sense from their perspective to start pushing AI! services and tools all the way down to the Fedora community, ending up with articles like this one. Whats sad is that even in this article, which surely uses the best possible examples, its hard to see how any of it could possibly be any faster than doing the example tasks without the help! of an AI!. In the first example, the AI! is supposed to figure out why the computer is having Wi-Fi connection issues, and while it does figure that out, the solutions it presents are really dumb and utterly wrong. Most notably, even though this is an article about running these tools on a Fedora system, written for Fedora Magazine, the AI! stubbornly insists on using apt for every solution, which is a basic, stupid mistake that doesnt exactly instill confidence in any of its other findings being accurate. The second example involves asking the AI! to explain how much disk space the system is using, and why. The prompt! (the human-created question! the AI! is supposed to answer!) is bonkers long its a 117 words long monstrosity, formatted into several individual questions and the output is so verbose and it takes such a scattershot approach that following-up on everything is going to take a huge amount of time. Within that same time frame, it wouldve been not only much faster, but also much more user-friendly to just open Filelight (installed by default as part of KDE), which creates a nice diagram which instantly shows you what is taking up space, and why. The third example is about creating an update readiness report for upgrading from Fedora 42 to Fedora 43, and its prompt! is even longer at 190 words, and writing that up with all those individual questions mustve taken more time than to just0 Do a simple dry-run of a dnf system upgrade which gets you like 90% of the way there. Here, too, the AI! blurts out so much information, much of which entirely useless, that going through it all takes more time than just manually checking up on a dnf dry run and peaking at your disk space usage. All this effort to set all of this up, and so much effort to carefully craft complex prompts!, only to end up with clearly wrong information, and way too much superfluous information that just ends up distracting you from the task you set out to accmplish. Is this really the kind of future of computing were supposed to be rooting for? Is this the kind of stuff Fedoras new AI! policy is supposed to enable? If so, Im afraid the disconnect between Fedoras leadership and whatever its users actually use Fedora for is far, far wider than I imagined.
- FreeBSD debates sunsetting power64/power64le support
I have some potentially devastating news for POWER users interested in using FreeBSD, uncovered late last month by none other than Cameron Kaiser. FreeBSD is considering retiring powerpc64 prior to branching 16, which would make FreeBSD 15 the last stable version to support the architecture. (32-bit PowerPC is already dropped as of FreeBSD 14, though both OpenBSD and NetBSD generally serve this use case, and myself I have a Mac mini G4 running a custom NetBSD kernel with code from FreeBSD for automatic restart.) Although the message says powerpc64 and powerpc64le! it later on only makes specific reference to the big-endian port, whereas both endiannesses appear on the FreeBSD platform page and on the download server. ↫ Cameron Kaiser Theres two POWER9 systems in my office, so this obviously makes me quite sad. At the same time, though, its hard not to understand any possible decision to drop powerpc64/powerpc64le at this point in time. Raptors excellent POWER9 systems the Blackbird, which I reviewed a few years ago, and the Talos II, which I also have are very long in the tooth at this point and still quite expensive, and thanks to IBM royally screwing up POWER10, we never got any timely successors. There were rumblings about a possible POWER11-based successor from Raptor back in July 2025, but its been quiet on that front since. In other words, there are no modern powerpc64 and powerpc64le systems available. POWER10 and brand new POWER11 hardware are strictly IBM and incredibly expensive, so unless IBM makes some sort of generous donation to the FreeBSD Foundation, I honestly dont know how FreeBSD is supposed to keep their powerpc64 and powerpc64le ports up-to-date with the latest generation of POWER hardware in the first place. Its important to note that no final decision has been made yet, and since that initial report by Kaiser, several people have chimed in to argue the case that at least powerpc64le (the little endian variant) should remain properly supported. In fact, Timothy Pearson from Raptor Engineering stepped up the place, and stated hes willing to take over maintainership of the port, as Raptor has been contributing to it for years anyway. Raptor remains committed to the architecture as a whole, and we have resources to assist with development. In fact, we sponsor several FreeBSD build machines already in our cloud environment, and have kernel developers working on expanding and maintaining the FreeBSD codebase. If there is any concern regarding hardware availability or developer resources, Raptor is willing and able to assist. ↫ Timothy Pearson Whatever decision the FreeBSD project makes, the Linux world will be fine for a while yet as IBM contributes to its development, and popular distributions still consider POWER a primary target. However, unless either IBM moves POWER hardware downmarket (extremely unlikely) or the rumours around Raptor have merit, I think at least the FreeBSD powerpc64 (big endian) port is done for, with the powerpc64le port hopefully being saved by people hearing these alarm bells.
- US government switches to Times New Roman because Calibri is woke!
Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department’s official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a “wasteful” sop to diversity. While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio’s directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork. ↫ Michael Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz at The New York Times
- What do Linux kernel version numbers mean?
If youre old enough, you no doubt remember that up until the 2.6.0 release of the Linux kernel, an odd number after the first version number indicated a pre-release, development version of the kernel. Even though this scheme was abandoned with the 2.6.0 release in 2003 and since then every single release has been a stable release, it seems the ghosts of this old versioning scheme still roam the halls, because prominent Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman just published an explainer about Linux kernel versions. Despite having a stable release model and cadence since December 2003, Linux kernel version numbers seem to baffle and confuse those that run across them, causing numerous groups to mistakenly make versioning statements that are flat out false. So let’s go into how this all works in detail. ↫ Greg Kroah-Hartman I genuinely find it difficult to imagine what could possibly be unclear about Linux kernel version numbers. The Linux kernel uses a very generic major.minor scheme, but thats not where the problems lie its the actual development process of each of these numbered release thats a bit more complex. This is where we have to talk about things like the roughly 10-week release cycle, containing a 2-week merge window, as well as Torvalds handing off the stable branch to the stable kernel maintainers. The other oddity is when the major version number gets incremented the first number in the version number. Theres no real method to this, as Kroah-Hartman admits Torvalds increments this number whenever the remaining numbers get too high and unwieldy to deal with. Very practical, but it does mean that going from, say, 5.x to 6.x doesnt really imply theres any changes in there that are any bigger or more disruptive than when going from 6.8.x to 6.9.x or whatever. Theres a few more important details in here, of course, like where LTS releases come from, but thats really it nothing particularly groundbreaking or confusing.
- Microsoft will allow you to remove AI! actions from Windows 11s context menus
With the current, rapidly deteriorating state of the Windows operating system, you have to take the small wins you can get: Microsoft is now offering the option of removing AI! actions from Windows 11s context menus. buried deep in the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7344 release notes, theres this nugget: If there are no available or enabled AI Actions, this section will no longer show in the context menu. ↫ Windows Insider Preview release notes If you then go to Settings > Apps > Actions and uncheck all the AI! actions, the entire submenu in Windows 11s context menus will vanish. While this is great news for those Windows users who dont want to be bothered by all the AI! nonsense, I wish Microsoft would just give users a proper way to edit the context menu that doesnt involve third party hackery. KDEs Dolphin file manager gives me full control over what does and does not appear in its context menu, and I cant imagine living without this functionality theres so many file-related operations I never use, and having them clutter up the context menu is annoying and just slows me down. Theres more substantial and important changes in this Insider Preview Build too, most notably the rollout of the Update Orchestration Platform, which should make downloading and installing application updates less cumbersome, but since its a new feature, application wont support it right away. This release also brings the new Windows MIDI Services, and Microsoft hopes this will improve the experience for musicians using MIDI 1.0 or MIDI 2.0 on Windows. Theres a slew of smaller changes, too, of course. Im not exactly sure when these new features will make their way to production installations who does, honestly, with Microsofts convoluted release processes but I hope its sooner rather than later.
- The anatomy of a macOS application
When Mac OS X was designed, it switched to the bundle structure inherited from NeXTSTEP. Instead of this multitude of resources, apps consisted of a hierarchy of directories containing files of executable code, and those with what had in Mac OS been supporting resources. Those app bundles came to adopt a standard form, shown below. ↫ Howard Oakley A short, but nonetheless informative overview of the structure of a macOS application. Im sure most people on OSNews are aware that a macOS application is a bundle, which is effectively a glorified directory containing a variety of files and subdirectories that together make up the application. I havent used macOS in a while, but I think you can right-click on an application and open it as a folder to dig around inside of it. Im trying to remember from my days as a Mac OS X user 15-20 years ago if there was ever a real need to do so, but Im sure there were a few hacks you could do by messing around with the files inside of application bundles. These days, perhaps with all the code-signing, phoning-home to Apple, and other security trickery going on, such acts are quite frowned upon. Does making any otherwise harmless changes inside an application bundle set off a ton of alarm bells in macOs these days?
- Applets are officially gone, but Java in the browser is better than ever
The end of an era, perhaps. Applets are officially, completely removed from Java 26, coming in March of 2026. This brings to an official end the era of applets, which began in 1996. However, for years it has been possible to build modern, interactive web pages in Java without needing applets or plugins. TeaVM provides fast, performant, and lightweight tooling to transpile Java to run natively in the browser. And for a full front-end toolkit with templates, routing, components, and more, Flavour lets you build your modern single-page app using 100% Java. ↫ Andrew Oliver As consumers, we dont really encounter Java that much anymore unless we play Minecraft, but that doesnt mean Java no longer has a place in this world. In fact, it still consistently ranks in the top three of most popular programming languages, so any tools to make using Java easier, both for programmers and users, are welcome.
- OSNews needs your donations to survive
OSNews is funded entirely by you, our readers. There are no ads on OSNews, we are not part of a massive corporate publishing conglomerate like virtually every other technology news website, there are no wealthy (corporate) benefactors its just whatever funds you, our readers, send our way. As such, I sometimes need to remind everyone about this, and December, the holiday month, seems as great a time as any to do this. If you want to support a truly independent technology news website, free from the corrupting influences of corporate interests, advertising companies, managers pushing AI!, and all the other nonsense destroying the web we once loved, you can do so by donating to keep OSNews alive. This gives me the time and means to write 9000 words about dead computer ecosystems, and Im already working on an article about the next final UNIX workstation. Every single donation, large or small, is deeply appreciated and keeps the lights on around here. There arent many websites like OSNews left, especially not independent ones that answer to nobody. Your support keeps OSNews going, with June 2026 marking a special moment for me: it will mark twenty years since I took over this place. Im not expecting a party youre paying me to work, not to party but it is still a meaningful anniversary for me personally.
- Porting rePalm to Pixter devices
Some of you may be aware of rePalm, a project by Dmitry Grinberg to port the PalmOS to various devices it was never supposed to run on. We covered rePalm back in 2019 and again in 2023. His latest project involved porting PalmOS to a set of digital toys that were never intended to run PalmOS in any way. Fisher-Price (owned by Mattel) produced some toys in the early 2000 under the Pixter brand. They were touchscreen-based drawing toys, with cartridge-based extra games one could plug in. Pixter devices of the first three generations ( classic!, plus!, and 2.0!) featured 8080 black-and-white screens, which makes them of no interest for rePalm. The last two generations of Pixter ( color! and multimedia!) featured 160160 color displays. Now, this was more like it! Pixter was quite popular, as far as kids toys go, in USA in the early 2000s. A friend brought it to my attention a year ago as a potential rePalm target. The screen resolution was right and looking inside a Pixter Color! showed an ARM SoC a Sharp LH75411. The device had sound (games made noises), and touch panel was resistive. In theory a viable rePalm target indeed. ↫ Dmitry Grinberg Considering the immensely limited ARMv7 implementation he had to deal with no cache, no memory management unit, no memory protection unit its a miracle Grinberg managed to succeed. To make matters even harder, the first revision boards of the color! model only had 1MB of flash, which is incredibly small even for PalmOS 5, so he had to rewrite parts of it to make it fit. Implementing communication over infrared was also a major difficulty, but that, too he managed to get working on a device that doesnt have IrDA SIR modulation. Wild. Grinberg went above and beyond, making sure the buttons on the devices work, developing and building a way to put PalmOS on a game! cartridge, reverse-engineering the display controller to make sure things like brightness adjustment works, adding screen type detection for that one small run of Pixter Color devices that came with a TFT instead of an STN screen, and so, so much more. Until you read the article, you have no idea how much work Grinberg put into this project. I continue to be in awe of Grinbergs work every time I come across it.
- Haiku highlights interesting stalled commits you might want to adopt
Now this is a great initiative by the Haiku team: highlight a number of stale commits thatve been without interaction for years, explain why theyve stalled, and then hope renewed interest might grow (part 1 and part 2). Recently some discussions on the forum led to asking about the status of our Gerrit code review. There are a lot of changes there that have been inactive for several years, with no apparent interest from anyone. To be precise, there are currently 358 commits waiting for review (note that Gerrit, unlike Github and other popular code review tools, works on a commit-by-commit basis, so each commit from a multiple-commit change is counted separately). The oldest one has not seen any comments since 2018. Today, let’s have a look at some of these changes and see why they are stalled. Hopefully it will inspire someone to pick up the work and help finishing them up. ↫ Pulkomandy at the Haiku website Browsing through the highlighted stalled commits, theres a few that seem quite interesting and relatively easy for a (new?) contributor to seek their teeth into. For instance, theres a stalled commit to remove GCC from Haiku images built with clang/llvm, which stalled mostly because there are still other issues when building Haiku with clang/llvm. For a more complex problem, theres the issue of how every menu in BeOS/Haiku is also a window, including its own thread, which means navigating deeply nested menus creates and destroys a lot of threads, that all need to be synchronised, too. If you want to get really ambitious, theres the stalled commit to add initial 64bit PowerPC support. Theres more of these, of course, so if you have the skills and will to contribute to a project like Haiku, this might be a great place to start and get your feet wet. Now that these commits are back in the spotlight, theres sure to be team members and regular contributors lined up to lend an extra hand, as well.
- Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU 87 released
Oracle has released Solaris 11.4 SRU 87, which brings with it a whole slew of changes, updates, and fixes. Primarily, it upgrades Firefox and Thunderbird to their latest ESR 140.3.0 releases, and adds GCC 15, alongside a ton of updated other open source packages. On more Solaris 11-specific notes, useradds account activation options have been changed to address some issues caused by stricter enforcement introduced in SRU 78, theres some preparations for the upgrade to BIND 9.20 in a future Solaris 11 release, a few virtualisation improvements, and much more. If youre unclear about the relationship between this new release and the Common Build Environment or CBE release of Solaris 11.4 for enthusiasts, released earlier this year, the gist is that these SRU updates are only available to people with Oracle Solaris support contracts, while any updates to the CBE release are available to mere mortals like you and I. If you have a support contract and are using the CBE, you can upgrade from the CBE to the official SRU releases, but without such a contract, youre out of luck. A new CBE release is in the works, and is planned to arrive in 2026 which is great news, but I would love for the enthusiast variant of Solaris 11.4 to receive more regular updates. I dont think making these SRU updates available to enthusiasts in a non-commercial, zero-warranty kind of way would pose any kind of threat to Oracles bottom line, but alas, I dont run a business like Oracle so perhaps Im wrong.
- Linux Kernel 5.4 Reaches End-of-Life: Time to Retire a Workhorse
by George Whittaker
One of the most widely deployed Linux kernels has officially reached the end of its lifecycle. The maintainers of the Linux kernel have confirmed that Linux 5.4, once a cornerstone of countless servers, desktops, and embedded devices, is now end-of-life (EOL). After years of long-term support, the branch has been retired and will no longer receive upstream fixes or security updates.
A Kernel Release That Defined a Generation of Linux Systems
When Linux 5.4 debuted, it made headlines for bringing native exFAT support, broader hardware compatibility, and performance improvements that many distributions quickly embraced. It became the foundation for major OS releases, including Ubuntu LTS, certain ChromeOS versions, Android kernels, and numerous appliance and IoT devices.
Its long support window made it a favorite for organizations seeking stability over bleeding-edge features.
What End-of-Life Actually Means
With the EOL announcement, the upstream kernel maintainers are officially done with version 5.4. That means:
No more security patches
No more bug fixes or performance updates
No regressions or vulnerabilities will be addressed
Some enterprise vendors may continue backporting patches privately, but the public upstream branch is now frozen. For most users, that makes 5.4 effectively unsafe to run.
Why This Matters for Users and Organizations
Many devices, especially embedded systems, tend to run kernels for much longer than desktops or servers. If those systems continue using 5.4, they now risk exposure to unpatched vulnerabilities.
Running an unsupported kernel can also create compliance issues for companies operating under strict security guidelines or certifications. Even home users running older LTS distributions may unknowingly remain on a kernel that’s no longer protected.
Upgrading Is the Clear Next Step
With 5.4 retired, users should begin planning an upgrade to a supported kernel line. Today’s active long-term support kernels include more modern branches such as 6.1, 6.6, and 6.8, which provide:
Better CPU and GPU support
Significant security improvements
Enhanced performance and energy efficiency
Longer future support windows
Before upgrading, organizations should test workloads, custom drivers, and hardware, especially with specialized or embedded deployments.
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- Linux Distros Designed for Former Windows Users Are Picking Up Steam
by George Whittaker
For years, Windows users frustrated with constant changes, aggressive updates, and growing system bloat have flirted with switching to Linux. But 2025 marks a noticeable shift: a new generation of Linux distributions built specifically for ex-Windows users is gaining real traction. One of the standout examples is Bazzite, a gaming-optimized Fedora-based distro that has quickly become a go-to choice for people abandoning Windows in favor of a cleaner, more customizable experience.
Why Many Windows Users Are Finally Jumping Ship
Microsoft’s ecosystem has been slowly pushing some users toward the exit. Hardware requirements for Windows 11 left millions of perfectly functional PCs behind. Ads on the Start menu and in system notifications have frustrated many. And for gamers, launcher problems, forced reboots and background processes that siphon resources have driven a search for alternatives.
Linux distributions have benefited from that frustration, especially those that focus on simplicity, performance and gaming readiness.
Gaming-First Distros Are Leading the Movement
Historically, switching to Linux meant sacrificing game compatibility. But with Valve’s Proton layer and Vulkan-based translation technologies, thousands of Windows games now run flawlessly, sometimes better than on Windows.
Distros targeting former Windows users are leaning into this new reality:
Seamless Steam integration
Automatic driver configuration for AMD, Intel and NVIDIA
Built-in performance overlays like MangoHUD
Proton GE and tools for modding or shader fixes
Support for HDR, VR and modern controller layouts
This means a new Linux user can install one of these distros and jump straight into gaming with almost no setup.
Bazzite: A Standout Alternative OS
Bazzite has become the poster child for this trend. Built on Fedora’s image-based system and the Universal Blue infrastructure, it offers an incredibly stable base that updates atomically, similar to SteamOS.
What makes Bazzite so attractive to Windows refugees?
Gaming-ready out of the box no tweaking, no driver hunts
Rock-solid performance thanks to an immutable system layout
Support for handheld PCs like the Steam Deck, ROG Ally and Legion Go
Friendly workflows that feel familiar to new Linux users
Customization without the risk of breaking the system
It’s no surprise that many “I switched to Linux!” posts now mention Bazzite as their distro of choice.
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- Linux Kernel 6.18 Is Out: What’s New and Important
by George Whittaker
The stable release of Linux Kernel 6.18 was officially tagged on November 30, 2025.
It’s expected to become this year’s major long-term support (LTS) kernel, something many users and distributions care about.
Here’s a breakdown of the most significant changes and improvements in this release:
Core Improvements: Performance, Memory, Infrastructure
The kernel’s memory allocation subsystem gets a major upgrade with “sheaves”, a per-CPU caching layer for slab allocations. This reduces locking overhead and speeds up memory allocation and freeing, improving overall system responsiveness.
A new device-mapper target dm-pcache arrives, enabling use of persistent memory (e.g. NVDIMM/CXL) as a cache layer for block devices, useful for systems with fast non-volatile memory, SSDs, or hybrid storage.
Overall memory management and swapping performance have been improved, which should help under memory pressure or heavy workloads.
Networking & Security Enhancements
Networking gets a boost: support for Accurate Explicit Congestion Notification (AccECN) in TCP, which can provide better congestion signals and more efficient network behaviour under load.
A new option for PSP-encrypted TCP connections has been added, a fresh attempt to push more secure transport-layer encryption (like a more efficient alternative to IPsec/TLS for some workloads) under kernel control.
The kernel now supports cryptographically signed BPF programs (eBPF), so BPF bytecode loaded at runtime can be verified for integrity. This is a noteworthy security hardening step.
The overall security infrastructure and auditing path, including multi-LSM (Linux Security Modules) support, has been refined, improving compatibility for setups using SELinux, AppArmor, or similar simultaneously.
Hardware, Drivers & Architecture Coverage
Kernel 6.18 brings enhanced hardware support: updated and new drivers for many platforms across architectures (x86_64, ARM, RISC-V, MIPS, etc.), including improvements for GPUs, CPU power management, storage controllers, and more.
In particular, support for newer SoCs, chipsets, and embedded-board device trees has been extended, beneficial for people using SBCs, ARM-based laptops/boards, or niche hardware.
For gaming rigs, laptops, and desktops alike: improvements to drivers, power-state management, and performance tuning may lead to better overall hardware efficiency.
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- Wine 10.19 Released: Game Changing Support for Windows Reparse Points on Linux
by George Whittaker Introduction
If you use Linux and occasionally run Windows applications, whether via native Wine or through gaming layers like Proton, you’ll appreciate what just dropped in Wine 10.19. Released November 14 2025, this version brings a major enhancement: official support for Windows reparse points, a filesystem feature many Windows apps rely on, and a host of other compatibility upgrades.
In simpler terms: Wine now understands more of the Windows filesystem semantics, which means fewer workarounds, better application compatibility, and smoother experiences for many games and tools previously finicky under Linux.
What Are Reparse Points & Why They MatterUnderstanding Reparse Points
On Windows, a reparse point is a filesystem object (file or directory) that carries additional data, often used for symbolic links, junctions, mount points, or other redirection features. When an application opens or queries a file, the OS may check the reparse tag to determine special behavior (for example “redirect this file open to this other path”).
Because many Windows apps, installers, games, DRM systems, file-managers, use reparse points for features like directory redirection, path abstractions, or filesystem overlays, lacking full support for them in Wine means those apps often misbehave.
What Wine 10.19 Adds
With Wine 10.19, support for these reparse point mechanisms has been implemented in key filesystem APIs: for example NtQueryDirectoryFile, GetFileInfo, file attribute tags, and DeleteFile/RemoveDirectory for reparse objects.
This means that in Wine 10.19:
Windows apps that create or manage symbolic links, directory junctions or mount-point style re-parsing will now function correctly in many more cases.
Installers or frameworks that rely on “when opening path X, redirect to path Y” will work with less tinkering.
Games or utilities that check for reparse tags or use directory redirections will have fewer “stuck” behaviors or missing files.
In effect, this is a step toward closer to native behavior for Windows file-system semantics under Linux.
Other Key Highlights in Wine 10.19
Beyond reparse points, the release brings several notable improvements:
Expanded support for WinRT exceptions (Windows Runtime error handling) meaning better compatibility for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and newer Windows-based frameworks.
Refactoring of “Common Controls” (COMCTL32) following the version 5 vs version 6 split, which helps GUI applications that rely on older controls or expect mixed versions.
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- Firefox 145: A Major Release with 32-Bit Linux Support Dropped
by George Whittaker Introduction
Mozilla has rolled out Firefox 145, a significant update that brings a range of usability, security and privacy enhancements, while marking a clear turning point by discontinuing official support for 32-bit Linux systems. For users on older hardware or legacy distros, this change means it’s time to consider moving to a 64-bit environment or opting for a supported version.
Here’s a detailed look at what’s new, what’s changed, and what you need to know.
Major Changes in Firefox 145End of 32-Bit Linux Builds
One of the headline items in this release is Mozilla’s decision to stop building and distributing Firefox for 32-bit x86 Linux. As per their announcement:
“32-bit Linux (on x86) is no longer widely supported by the vast majority of Linux distributions, and maintaining Firefox on this platform has become increasingly difficult and unreliable.”
From Firefox 145 onward, only 64-bit (x86_64) and relevant 64-bit architectures (such as ARM64) will be officially supported. For those still running 32-bit Linux builds, Mozilla recommends migrating to 64-bit or switching to the Extended Support Release (ESR) branch (Firefox 140 ESR) which still supports 32-bit for a limited period.
Usability & Interface Enhancements
Firefox 145 brings several improvements designed to make everyday web browsing smoother and more flexible:
PDF viewer enhancements: You can now add, edit, and delete comments in PDFs, and a comments sidebar helps you easily navigate your annotations.
Tab-group preview: When you hover over the name of a collapsed tab group, a thumbnail preview of the tabs inside appears, helpful for reorganizing or returning to work.
Access saved passwords from the sidebar, without needing to open a new tab or window.
“Open links from apps next to your active tab” setting: When enabled, links opened from external applications insert next to your current tab instead of at the end of the tab bar.
Slight UI refinements: Buttons, input fields, tabs and other elements get more rounded edges, horizontal tabs are redesigned to align with vertical-tab aesthetics.
Privacy, Security & Under-the-Hood Upgrades
Mozilla has also doubled down on privacy and risk reduction:
Fingerprinting defenses: Firefox 145 introduces new anti-fingerprinting techniques that Mozilla estimates reduce the number of users identified as unique by nearly half when Private Browsing mode or Enhanced Tracking Protection (strict) is used.
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- MX Linux 25 ‘Infinity’ Arrives: Debian 13 ‘Trixie’ Base, Modern Tools & A Fresh Installer
by George Whittaker Introduction
The team behind MX Linux has just released version 25, carrying the codename “Infinity”, and it brings a significant upgrade by building upon the stable base of Debian 13 “Trixie”. Released on November 9, 2025, this edition doesn’t just refresh the desktop, it introduces modernized tooling, updated kernels, dual init-options, and installer enhancements aimed at both newcomers and long-time users.
In the sections that follow, we’ll walk through the key new features of MX Linux 25, what’s changed for each desktop edition, recommended upgrade or fresh-install paths, and why this release matters in the wider Linux-distribution ecosystem.
What’s New in MX Linux 25 “Infinity”
Here are the headline changes and improvements that define this release:
Debian 13 “Trixie” Base
By moving to Debian 13, Infinity inherits all the stability, security updates, and broader hardware support of the latest Debian stable release. The base system now aligns with Trixie’s libraries, kernels, and architecture support.
Kernel Choices & Hardware Support
The standard editions ship with the Linux 6.12 LTS kernel series, offering a solid baseline for most hardware.
For newer hardware or advanced users, the “AHS” (Advanced Hardware Support) variants and the KDE Plasma edition adopt a Liquorix-flavored Linux 6.16 (or 6.15 in some variants) kernel, maximizing performance and compatibility with cutting-edge setups.
Dual Init Option: systemd and SysVinit
Traditionally associated with lighter-weight init options, MX Linux now offers both systemd by default and SysVinit editions (particularly for Xfce and Fluxbox variants). This gives users the freedom to choose their init system preference without losing new features.
Updated Desktop Environments
Xfce edition: Ships with Xfce 4.20. Improvements include a revamped Whisker Menu, updated archive management tools (Engrampa replacing File Roller in some editions).
KDE Plasma edition: Uses KDE Plasma 6.3.6, defaults to Wayland for a modern session experience (with X11 still optionally available), adds root-actions and service menus to Dolphin, and switches TLP out for power-profiles-daemon to resolve power widget issues.
Fluxbox edition: Offers a more minimal, highly customizable environment: new panel layouts, updated “appfinder” configs for Rofi, toolbar changes and themes refined. Defaults the audio player to Audacious (instead of the older DeaDBeeF).
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- Arch Linux November 2025 ISO: Fresh Snapshot, Smarter Installer (Archinstall 3.0.12) & Pacman 7.1
by George Whittaker
Arch Linux has shipped its November 2025 ISO snapshot (2025.11.01), and while Arch remains a rolling distribution, these monthly images are a big deal, especially for new installs, labs, and homelab deployments. This time, the ISO lands alongside two important pieces:
Archinstall 3.0.12 – a more polished, smarter TUI installer
Pacman 7.1 – a package manager update with stricter security and better tooling
If you’ve been thinking about spinning up a fresh Arch box, or you’re curious what changed under the hood, this release is a very nice jumping-on point.
Why Arch Still Ships Monthly ISOs in a Rolling World
Arch is famous for its “install once, update forever” model. Technically, you could install from a two-year-old image and just run:
sudo pacman -Syu
…but in practice, that’s painful:
Huge initial update downloads
Possible breakage jumping across many months of changes
Outdated installer tooling
That’s why the project publishes a monthly snapshot ISO: it rolls all current packages into a fresh image so you:
Start with a current kernel and userland
Spend less time updating right after install
Get the latest Archinstall baked in (or just a pacman -Sy archinstall away)
The 2025.11.01 ISO is exactly that: Arch as of early November 2025, ready to go.
What’s Inside the November 2025 ISO (2025.11.01)
The November snapshot doesn’t introduce new features by itself, it’s a frozen image of current Arch, but a few details are worth calling out:
Ships with a Linux 6.17.x kernel, including improved AMD/Intel GPU support and updated Btrfs bits.
Includes all the usual base packages plus current toolchains, drivers, and desktop stacks from the rolling repos.
The image is intended only for new installs; existing Arch systems should keep using pacman -Syu for upgrades.
You can download it from the official Arch Linux download page or via BitTorrent mirrors.
One small twist: the ISO itself still ships with Archinstall 3.0.11, but 3.0.12 was released the same day – so we’ll grab the newer version from the repos before running the installer.
Archinstall 3.0.12: What’s Actually New?
Archinstall has evolved from “nice experiment” to “pretty solid way to install Arch” if you don’t want to script everything yourself. Version 3.0.12 is a refinement release focused on stability, storage, and bootloader logic.
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- AMD Confirms Zen 5 RNG Flaw: When ‘Random’ Isn’t Random Enough
by George Whittaker
AMD has officially confirmed a high-severity security vulnerability in its new Zen 5–based CPUs, and it’s a nasty one because it hits cryptography right at the source: the hardware random number generator.
Here’s a clear breakdown of what’s going on, how bad it really is, and what you should do if you’re running Zen 5.
What AMD Just Confirmed
AMD’s security bulletin AMD-SB-7055, now tracked as CVE-2025-62626, describes a bug in the RDSEED instruction on Zen 5 processors. Under certain conditions, the CPU can:
Return the value 0 from RDSEED far more often than true randomness would allow
Still signal “success” (carry flag CF=1), so software thinks it got a good random value
The issue affects the 16-bit and 32-bit forms of RDSEED on Zen 5; the 64-bit form is not affected.
Because RDSEED is used to feed cryptographically secure random number generators (CSPRNGs), a broken RDSEED can poison keys, tokens, and other security-critical values.
AMD classifies the impact as:
Loss of confidentiality and integrity (High severity).
How the Vulnerability Works (In Plain English)What RDSEED Is Supposed to Do
Modern CPUs expose hardware instructions like RDRAND and RDSEED:
RDRAND: Gives you pseudo-random values from a DRBG that’s already been seeded.
RDSEED: Gives you raw entropy samples suitable for seeding cryptographic PRNGs (it should be very close to truly random).
Software like TLS libraries, key generators, HSM emulators, and OS RNGs may rely directly or indirectly on RDSEED to bootstrap secure randomness.
What’s Going Wrong on Zen 5
On affected Zen 5 CPUs:
The 16-bit and 32-bit RDSEED variants sometimes return 0 much more often than a true random source should.
Even worse, they simultaneously report success (CF=1), so software assumes the value is fine rather than retrying.
In cryptographic terms, this means:
Entropy can be dramatically reduced (many key bits become predictable or even fixed).
Keys or nonces derived from those values can become partially or fully guessable.
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- The Most Critical Linux Kernel Breaches of 2025 So Far
by George Whittaker
The Linux kernel, foundational for servers, desktops, embedded systems, and cloud infrastructure, has been under heightened scrutiny. Several vulnerabilities have been exploited in real-world attacks, targeting critical subsystems and isolation layers. In this article, we’ll walk through major examples, explain their significance, and offer actionable guidance for defenders.
CVE-2025-21756 – Use-After-Free in the vsock Subsystem
One of the most alarming flaws this year involves a use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel’s vsock implementation (Virtual Socket), which enables communication between virtual machines and their hosts.
How the exploit works:A malicious actor inside a VM (or other privileged context) manipulates reference counters when a vsock transport is reassigned. The code ends up freeing a socket object while it’s still in use, enabling memory corruption and potentially root-level access.
Why it matters:Since vsock is used for VM-to-host and inter-VM communication, this flaw breaks a key isolation barrier. In multi-tenant cloud environments or container hosts that expose vsock endpoints, the impact can be severe.
Mitigation:Kernel maintainers have released patches. If your systems run hosts, hypervisors, or other environments where vsock is present, make sure the kernel is updated and virtualization subsystems are patched.
CVE-2025-38236 – Out-of-Bounds / Sandbox Escape via UNIX Domain Sockets
Another high-impact vulnerability involves the UNIX domain socket interface and the MSG_OOB flag. The bug was publicly detailed in August 2025 and is already in active discussion.
Attack scenario:A process running inside a sandbox (for example a browser renderer) can exploit MSG_OOB operations on a UNIX domain socket to trigger a use-after-free or out-of-bounds read/write. That allows leaking kernel pointers or memory and then chaining to full kernel privilege escalation.
Why it matters:This vulnerability is especially dangerous because it bridges from a low-privilege sandboxed process to kernel-level compromise. Many systems assume sandboxed code is safe; this attack undermines that assumption.
Mitigation:Distributions and vendors (like browser teams) have disabled or restricted MSG_OOB usage for sandboxed contexts. Kernel patches are available. Systems that run browser sandboxes or other sandboxed processes need to apply these updates immediately.
CVE-2025-38352 – TOCTOU Race Condition in POSIX CPU Timers
In September 2025, the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.
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- Steam Deck 2 Rumors Ignite a New Era for Linux Gaming
by George Whittaker
The speculation around a successor to the Steam Deck has stirred renewed excitement, not just for a new handheld, but for what it signals in Linux-based gaming. With whispers of next-gen specs, deeper integration of SteamOS, and an evolving handheld PC ecosystem, these rumors are fueling broader hopes that Linux gaming is entering a more mature age. In this article we look at the existing rumors, how they tie into the Linux gaming landscape, why this matters, and what to watch.
What the Rumours Suggest
Although Valve has kept things quiet, multiple credible outlets report about the Steam Deck 2 being in development and potentially arriving well after 2026. Some of the key tid-bits:
Editorials note that Valve isn’t planning a mere spec refresh; it wants a “generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life”.
A leaked hardware slide pointed to an AMD “Magnus”-class APU built on Zen 6 architecture being tied to next-gen handhelds, including speculation about the Steam Deck 2.
One hardware leaker (KeplerL2) cited a possible 2028 launch window for the Steam Deck 2, which would make it roughly 6 years after the original.
Valve’s own design leads have publicly stated that a refresh with only 20-30% more performance is “not meaningful enough”, implying they’re waiting for a more substantial upgrade.
In short: while nothing is official yet, there’s strong evidence that Valve is working on the next iteration and wants it to be a noteworthy jump, not just a minor update.
Why This Matters for Linux Gaming
The rumoured arrival of the Steam Deck 2 isn’t just about hardware, it reflects and could accelerate key inflection points for Linux & gaming:
Validation of SteamOS & Linux Gaming
The original Steam Deck, running SteamOS (a Linux-based OS), helped prove that PC gaming doesn’t always require Windows. A well-received successor would further validate Linux as a first-class gaming platform, not a niche alternative but a mainstream choice.
Handheld PC Ecosystem Momentum
Since the first Deck, many Windows-based handhelds have entered the market (such as the ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go). Rumours of the Deck 2 keep spotlight on the form factor and raise expectations for Linux-native handhelds. This momentum helps encourage driver, compatibility and OS investments from the broader community.
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