All the News that Matters

• Call for topics for the 2026 Maintainers Summit
  The Maintainers Summit is an annual, invitation-only gathering of kerneldevelopers and maintainers to discuss development-process issues; see LWN's 2025 Maintainers Summit coverage for anexample. The call fortopics for the 2026 gathering (Prague, October 8) has gone out.One of the best ways to obtain an invitation to the Summit is with a goodtopic proposal. For best consideration, topics should be submitted beforeJuly 24.

• [$] Sending packets directly from BPF
  Tetragon, the BPF-based security monitoring tool,uses BPF to monitor different aspects of a running kernel andenforce user-specified policies. It sends its data to a user-space process,which forwards the data to a central monitoring service elsewhere in thenetwork, however. Thispresents a point of vulnerability: if an attacker can kill Tetragon's user-spaceagent, it won't be able to properly report on the situation. Song Liu, MahéTardy, and Liam Wiseheart spoke about their work removing the need for theuser-space agent at the 2026Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, andBPF Summit.
  

• Security updates for Tuesday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (389-ds:1.4, buildah, freeipmi, freerdp, gegl, gimp, golang, kernel, libreoffice, maven:3.9, openexr, perl-DBI, plexus-utils, podman, tomcat, tomcat9, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Debian (imagemagick, p7zip, and redis), Fedora (breezy, calibre, and golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb), Mageia (ffmpeg, gzip, haproxy, libheif, libtiff, libxml2, packages, perl-List-SomeUtils-XS, and perl-Socket), SUSE (alsa, chromedriver, curl, dhcpcd, docker-compose, glibc, haproxy, ImageMagick, jq, kernel, kubernetes, libpng15, libredwg-devel, libslirp, nghttp2, php8, python-Pillow, python313-Django, python313-weasyprint, qemu, rust-keylime, sccache, and systemd), and Ubuntu (cifs-utils, libexif, libreoffice, libssh2, openssh, and pipewire).

• [$] Shielding running kernels against exploits with BPF
  Cisco has some unusual challenges when it comes to deploying security patchesacross the company's many devices running custom kernels. John Fastabend spokeabout his work preventing exploits with BPF at the 2026Linux Storage,Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit.The technique could substantially reduce the time necessary to respond to kernelvulnerabilities, but it will not be fully effective unless more hooks are addedto the kernel.
  

• Final normal Debian bookworm release
  Debian hasannounced the final normal update for Debian 12 ("bookworm"). Long-term-support updates will continue until 2028. As may be expected from a stable version, the update is mostly limited to security fixes. Still, it may be time for Debian users to look into upgrading to a more recent version. Conveniently, Debian 13 ("trixie") alsoreceived an update this weekend, with many of the same security fixes.
  

• Security updates for Monday
  Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, libxfont, mesa, opam, and wireless-regdb), Fedora (acl, attr, chromium, cjson, composer, docker-compose, jfrog-cli, librabbitmq, libssh2, libXfont2, log4cxx, OpenImageIO, openssh, p11-kit, perl-Crypt-DSA, perl-HTML-Gumbo, prometheus, python-dulwich, python-idna, python-pillow, python-tornado, sssd, tmux, upower, webkitgtk, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Mageia (libarchive and vim), Oracle (389-ds:1.4, buildah, cups, edk2, freerdp, golang, grafana, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, gstreamer1-plugins-good, gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free, kernel, libexif, libsolv, libtasn1, libxml2, nginx:1.24, nginx:1.26, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, oci-seccomp-bpf-hook, podman, postgresql:18, python-urllib3, tigervnc, tomcat, unbound, and xorg-x11-server), Slackware (p11-kit), and SUSE (agama, dash, dracut, flannel, go1.26, gsasl, gstreamer-plugins-good, ImageMagick, imagemagick, kernel, krb5, krb5, krb5-mini, libIex-3_4-33, libmbedtls23, libxfont2, nasm, nghttp2, perl-CGI-Session, perl-dbi, perl-List-SomeUtils-XS, python-pillow, python-social-auth-app-django, python-urllib3, python313-Django4, python313-Django6, python313-pytest-html, python313-sqlparse, python313-websockets, rclone, rust-keylime, rustup, sccache, spectre-meltdown-checker, sssd, terraform-provider-aws, terraform-provider-azurerm, terraform-provider-external, terraform-provider-google, terraform-provider-helm, terraform-provider-kubernetes, terraform-provid, thunderbird, tiff, traefik2, xorg-x11-server, and xwayland).

• Kernel prepatch 7.2-rc3
  The 7.2-rc3 kernel prepatch is out fortesting. Linus said: "Things continue to look normal (the 'new normal'with slightly higher rates of commits, although I do get the feeling thatwe're seeing that slightly balanced out by people starting to go on summervacation)".

• [$] An update on the scraper situation
  Our article "Fighting the AI scraper botscourge", published in early 2025, discussed the problem of widespreadscraping of web sites in search of training data for large language modelsand related projects. This activity overwhelms sites with traffic. Over ayear after that article is published, the problem is still growing. Thehammering of sites by shadowy actors has reached new heights, and the openweb is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Where is this trafficcoming from, and what can be done about it?

• [$] QBE 1.3: metaprogramming, performance, and cross-platform support
  QBE, a compact compiler backend developed by Quentin Carbonneaux, is alightweight alternative to larger compiler backends such as LLVM and GCC.Designed to be small enough for a single developer to understand, QBE uses astatic single-assignment (SSA) intermediate representation (IR), supports the C ABI,and serves as the backend for projects such as Hare andthe cproc C11 compiler. Frontendsemit the textual form of QBE's IR directly; QBE then takes care of register allocation,optimization, and native-code generation, producing assembly for the targetarchitecture.
  

• Security updates for Friday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (aardvark-dns, cups, edk2, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, gstreamer1-plugins-good, gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free, kernel, libsolv, libtasn1, libxml2, nginx:1.24, nginx:1.26, oci-seccomp-bpf-hook, python-urllib3, and tomcat), Debian (rlottie), Fedora (c-ares, k9s, kind, libXfont2, nmap, pam, perl-DBI, php, python-pendulum, tmux, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Mageia (7zip and ack), Slackware (tigervnc), SUSE (alloy, cargo-c, chromium, clamav, cosign, dirmngr, firefox, flannel, fluidsynth, gnutls, go1.25, go1.26, gol, GraphicsMagick, helm, kernel-devel, libaom, libexif, openQA, os-autoinst, python-Django, python-idna, python-sqlparse, rust-keylime, rustup, sccache, SUSE Manager Client Tools, SUSE_Multi-Linux_Manager Client Tools, transmission, and warewulf4), and Ubuntu (curl, expat, golang-go.crypto, libheif, libidn, libraw, libsoup2.4, linux, linux-azure-4.15, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-raspi, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, and python2.7, python3.5).

• [$] Kitty chases the mouse
  Kitty is a terminalemulator thatruns on Linux, macOS, and the BSDs, which is notable for its speed and featuressuch as image support and advanced font handling. It is under active development; arecent major release adds anew level of mouse support. Here, we will look at some of those featuresand show how the program can also be used as platform fortext-based applications. Kitty is free software, releasedunder the GPLv3.

• Rust 1.97.0 released
  Version1.97.0 of the Rust programming language has been released. Changesinclude using a new symbol-mangling scheme by default, support for denyingwarnings in Cargo, and an end to the practice of hiding the linker's outputafter a successful build.

• Security updates for Thursday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (389-ds-base, aardvark-dns, buildah, compat-openssl10, freeipmi, frr, gnutls, grafana, grafana-pcp, kernel, kernel-rt, libyang, nginx, openexr, pcs, perl-HTTP-Daemon, postgresql:18, python3.14-pip, skopeo, tomcat9, and wireshark), Debian (chromium and pgextwlist), Fedora (openssh, opkssh, perl-CSS-Minifier-XS, python-jiter, python-nh3, python-pendulum, rust-jiter, and upower), Mageia (openvpn and vips), Oracle (389-ds-base, aardvark-dns, compat-openssl10, container-tools:ol8, freeipmi, kernel, libyang, perl-HTTP-Daemon, python3.14-pip, and skopeo), Slackware (libXfont2, proftpd, and xorg-server), SUSE (alloy, apache2, apptainer, assimp, chromium, clamav, docker, docker-compose, dracut, glib-networking, go-sendxmpp, go1.26-openssl, gstreamer-plugins-good, haproxy, hauler, jackson-annotations, jackson-bom, jackson-core, jackson- databind, jackson-dataformats-binary, jackson-modules-base, jackson-parent, kernel, krb5, kubevirt, libslirp, libXfont2, mpv, libkpipewirerecord6, ffmpegthumbs-kf5, netty, netty-tcnative, openqa, os-autoinst, podman, python-maturin, python-msgpack, python313-yt-dlp, radare2, rust-keylime, systemd, systemd, systemd-mini, tomcat11, trivy, xorg-x11-server, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (apache2, clamav, linux-raspi, and mailcap).

• [$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 9, 2026
  Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
  Front: Cryptography API; Iomap explanation; Negative dentries; Faster RCUs and lockless allocation for BPF; LLMs in memory-management code Briefs: Guix vulnerabilities; OpenSSH 10.4; trusted publishing; kernel archive; CalyxOS; Quotes; ... Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

• OpenMandriva: Statement regarding attempted distribution sabotage
  Over on the OpenMandrivaforum, the Linux distribution has reportedsabotage of its repositories by a disgruntled contributor withadministrative credentials. According to "AngryPenguin", an abusiveincident in a distribution Matrix chat led to a user being kicked out ofthe chat; that "triggered a cascade of events", which led to peopleresigning from the distribution. Eventually, one of those people usedtheir administrative privileges to delete part of the distribution's GitHubrepository and to "publish an empty package in the cookerrepository, which obsoleted all gnome and cosmic packages, which could havedamaged the systems of people using gnome or cosmic".We are currently working to restore the deleted repositories and restorethe functionality of the obsolete packages.
  [...] We performed a full system audit and, aside from the removedpackages, we found no other violations.

Linux Insider"LinuxInsider"

• The Linux Foundation Uses DNS to Give AI Agents a Trusted Identity
  The Linux Foundation has announced two open-source initiatives that aim to strengthen enterprise AI by giving AI agents trusted identities through DNS and creating standardized frameworks for evaluating AI systems. The post The Linux Foundation Uses DNS to Give AI Agents a Trusted Identity appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Flipper One Takes Hardware Hacking Into Uncharted Waters
  Flipper One combines Linux, SDR, satellite communications, and open hardware while inviting the community to help shape the device before launch. The post Flipper One Takes Hardware Hacking Into Uncharted Waters appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Anthropic9s Mythos AI Finds Decades-Old Open-Source Bugs
  Project Glasswing is using advanced AI models to expose hidden vulnerabilities across critical open-source software, putting new pressure on already overwhelmed maintainers. The post Anthropic9s Mythos AI Finds Decades-Old Open-Source Bugs appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Dirty Frag Linux Vulnerability Raises New Root Access Risks
  A newly disclosed Linux privilege escalation flaw dubbed "Dirty Frag" is raising concerns among security researchers who warn it could give attackers reliable root access across a wide range of enterprise environments. The post Dirty Frag Linux Vulnerability Raises New Root Access Risks appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• GitHub Flaw Reveals Dangers of Implicit Trust
  A recently patched GitHub RCE flaw is raising broader questions about implicit trust in software supply chains. CodeHunter CEO Ken Ammon explains why trusted users and platforms no longer guarantee safe code. The post GitHub Flaw Reveals Dangers of Implicit Trust appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Edera Is Closing the GPU Security Gap for Autonomous AI
  As AI agents move into production, traditional container security is failing at scale. Edera is addressing this gap with hypervisor-based isolation designed for GPU-heavy, multi-tenant environments. The post Edera Is Closing the GPU Security Gap for Autonomous AI appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Super Productivity App: The Closest I9ve Come to a Workflow That Sticks
  Super Productivity stands out with flexible workflows, offline-first design, and free syncing. It adapts to how you work instead of forcing structure, making it one of the most practical tools I've used. The post Super Productivity App: The Closest I9ve Come to a Workflow That Sticks appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• ClusterAPI Simplifies Provisioning but Leaves Ops Gaps
  ClusterAPI simplified Kubernetes provisioning, but operations remain complex. Teams still must correlate fragmented signals across systems, driving demand for AI-driven visibility and faster issue resolution. The post ClusterAPI Simplifies Provisioning but Leaves Ops Gaps appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Percona, Chainguard Advance Secure-by-Default Open-Source Databases
  Percona and Chainguard aim to cut CVE patching and reduce overhead with secure-by-default images for open-source databases. The post Percona, Chainguard Advance Secure-by-Default Open-Source Databases appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Rocky Linux Expands Into Enterprise AI Infrastructure
  CIQ is expanding Rocky Linux with enterprise and AI-focused versions designed to simplify deployments and improve GPU performance. The post Rocky Linux Expands Into Enterprise AI Infrastructure appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• IBM's mainframe sales get mugged by AI hardware panic
  CEO Krishna: Customers blew their Z budgets on servers and storage before prices spike, Q2 financials 'disappointing'

• Sun sets on Vulcan Centaur as NASA moves SunRISE to SpaceX Falcon Heavy
  Solar observatory awaits a new launch date after its original ride hit booster trouble

• Engineer shoves Linux peg through Sega 32X-shaped hole
  'Performance is abysmal, bus contention is bonkers, but it does work'

• Musk promises purge after Grok Build caught sending entire repos to the cloud
  Researcher confirms the uploads have stopped, but says xAI's privacy command was not what fixed them

• 'The bots are alive!' Jailbroken Gemini spun up new C2 server for Russian fraudster in just 6 minutes
  Human did 10% of the job,AI did 90%

• Hands off our VPNs, privacy groups tell UK ministers
  Mozilla, Proton, Tor warn ministers that targeting the tech risks creating more problems than it solves

• Baddies caught exploiting extensions bugs with perfect 10 scores on vulnerable Joomla websites
  Flaws in iCagenda, Balbooa Forms extensions can impact open source CMS that powers a million sites worldwide

• Frame: A new X11 server – implemented directly in assembly
  Joins yserver, Phoenix, and of course XLibre – and outlier Arcan

• India's crewed space mission is ready for splashdown, but not launch
  Gaganyaan was supposed to fly in 2022 and make the country only the fourth to put people into orbit

• How do you solve a problem like Capita?
  Bringing troubled contracts in-house requires skills Whitehall is already struggling to recruit

• Ministers arm under-16s social media ban with least surprising study of the year
  Boffins confirm: taking away teens' phone makes them act like humans again

• Anthropic's extravagant tokenizer complicates AI pricing
  Token consumption doesn't tell the whole tale but it shouldn't be ignored

• Big Blue thinks small, again, with POWER tower
  The last proprietary minicomputer, now in ‘deskside’ form if you fancy that

• India’s tech services giant HCL is getting into the AI datacenter business
  Starting small with $37m and maybe 50MW but reckons full-stack service plan can succeed

• Gobi X: Creating more energy for AI, not taking it from society
  PARTNER CONTENT: How Envision is reversing the datacenter playbook by making computing chase abundant desert power, not the other way around

• Zuck's AI ambitions put Meta on course to become America's next big cloud provider
  Renting out spare compute is simply the natural progression for any sufficiently large infra company

• Zig creator calls Bun’s Claude Rust rewrite ‘unreviewed slop’
  The port took just 11 days and about $165,000 at API pricing

• Excel competition goes extreme, makes spreadsheet geeks compete from the street
  Defending world champ Diarmuid Early wins again despite being forced to solve puzzles outdoors

• The price is wrong: AI cost calculation has to consider task completion rates, not just token costs
  Cheap can be expensive

• Microsoft chief turns hostile on frontier AI labs, warns companies to guard their IP
  Lock it down, warns Satya Nadella, seemingly forgetting the billions Redmond chipped in to OpenAI back in the good old days

• German firm files for insolvency, blames cybercrims who shut down production for 6 weeks
  ZEGO-TVZ says the financial fallout from a March cyberattack left shutting its doors as the only option

• Astronomers find sugar near the creamy center of the Milky Way (no caramel, though)
  First interstellar monosaccharide suggests some of life's ingredients may be scattered across the galaxy

• Philips to replace bricked Hue Bridge Pro devices
  Company releases a fresh firmware update. Go on, install it, we dare you...

• EU and UK officially blame Russian spies for cyberattack on Poland's power grid
  Sweeping sanctions and condemnation follow op that could have left half a million without power in the depths of winter

• SREs to AI agents: Prove yourself before you touch production
  SPONSORED FEATURE: 696 experts find co-pilot welcome, autopilot not so much

• Sticker shock has execs rethinking this whole AI thing
  This week on The Reg's Kettle podcast, we wonder whether tokenminning is going to bring the industry back down to Earth

• Lucky 13: SpaceX aims for July 16 Starship flight test
  Hopefully, the rocket won't go in the same direction as the company's share price

• Microsoft emails Windows 10 holdouts: Fine, keep your old PC another year
  Consumer security updates now run to October 2027, and Redmond doesn't mention Windows 11 once

• World Cup grudge attackers may have scored Argentine FA access via year-old infostealer infection
  Footie fans? Overreacting? There's a first time for everything

• HTTP gets a QUERY method so complex searches can stop pretending to be POST
  New verb carries request content while remaining safe, idempotent, and cacheable

• Progress orders emergency ShareFile server shutdown over mystery security threat
  Vendor insists there's no evidence of unauthorized access, but it's asking customers to take one of the most drastic precautions available

• Backup and running? Not this digital sign
  Nagware goes large on the mean streets of Derby

• Photovoltaics are still running after a year under Swiss trains
  Solar boss reckons challenges are regulatory, not technological

• Microsoft is losing the battle to protect license lucre. It better get used to the feeling
  Time for the Clone Wars remake

• AI needs a home, not a hotel
  PARTNER CONTENT: Firms crafting internal AI must choose a permanent residence for their tech, not just rent server space by the hour.

• Apple accuses OpenAI of stealing its core tech secrets
  Lawsuit alleges job-swappers took secrets with them, helped by coaching on how to avoid scrutiny

• User crippled a network while trying to learn Nmap
  IT department was not pleased, but was also easily fooled

• Meta admits its first ‘superintelligence’ was too stupid to survive for three days
  Pulls AI-powered image tweaker after allowing free-for-all

• Lenovo denies using banned Chinese SSDs where they're not allowed
  PLUS: Canadian/Bhutanese datacenter for India; China re-uses a rocket; Australia signals AI intervention; And more!

• Memory makers are slaves to the boom-bust rollercoaster, and the AI boom is the wildest ride of all
  The RAMpocalypse may be the precursor to the AIpocalypse

• It's an AI web, and we're just rats in the walls
  Bots, not people, are now the ones who use the internet the most

• AI customers are coming around to the idea that small is beautiful
  OpenAI and Anthropic have built AI Swiss Army Knives, but the future may be smaller built-for-purpose tools

• Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity
  Consumption rose another 10% while restrictions on most new grid connections remained around Dublin

• Slothful summer app lets you scroll simply by tilting your head
  ScrollPods is Mac-only, and you'll need compatible AirPods

• Destructive Windows backdoor stuffs multiple wipers and ransomware code into a single package
  Microsoft says GigaWiper combines at least 3 malware families into one modular tool

• LisaFPGA brings Apple's magnificent misfire back in programmable logic
  Open source recreation costs a fraction of the original and may even work with Twiggy drives

• Orbital datacenter gold rush needs an environmental review, FCC told
  Green groups want licenses frozen before a million satellites litter the exosphere

• OpenAI's Atlas browser doesn't make it to its first birthday
  Standalone experiment killed after less than 12 months as model maker redirects agentic ambitions towards workplace productivity

• AI-driven datacenter builds drive Microsoft's emissions up a quarter in one year
  Firm faces quandary of wanting to help the environment, but also wanting to force AI on everyone

• EU puts 'addictive' design of Facebook, Instagram under the DSA microscope
  Brussels says Meta failed to properly assess or mitigate risks posed by infinite scroll, autoplay, and more

• Linux Foundation9s Latest Foray Is To Standardize Internet-Native Payments For AI Agents
  There is yet-another-foundation being stewarded by the Linux Foundation that further broadens its scope outside of the typical Linux/open-source umbrella. Today the Linux Foundation announced the launch of the x402 Foundation for aiming to standardize Internet-native payments for AI agents and applications...

• Linux Kernel Graphics Driver Proposed For GlandaGPU: An Open-Source Soft GPU Core
  A new Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel graphics driver has been sent out for GlandaGPU, an open-source custom 3D graphics core designed in VHDL and running on FPGA hardware...

• Intel IGC 2.38.2 Brings Latest Round Of Graphics Compiler Improvements
  Ahead of the next Intel Compute Runtime release, IGC 2.38.2 was released today as the newest feature update to this open-source graphics compiler used by Intel iGPU/dGPU hardware on both Windows and Linux...

• Intel Vulkan Driver Now Supports H.265 10-bit Video Encoding
  Hyunjun Ko with Igalia continues advancing the Vulkan Video capabilities of the Intel open-source "ANV" Vulkan driver for Linux systems...

• Linux Dealing With Apple9s Wild Mess Of Sensors On Apple Silicon SoCs
  While there has been the Apple System Management Controller "SMC" hardware monitoring driver with the intent on exposing battery/power stats as well as thermal and more for Apple Silicon SoCs on Linux, it hasn't yet been working out properly on the mainline kernel. Between missing Device Tree nodes to the hodgepodge mess of sensors between the different Apple M-Series SoCs, it's a mess...

• Haiku Merges NVMM For Initial Virtualization Support, But It Doesn9t Yet Fully Work
  The BeOS-inspired Haiku open-source operating system project has published their June 2026 status report. In the past month the developers merged their NVMM VM monitor support, hardware driver improvements, and progressed toward the upcoming Haiku sixth beta release...

• "Light" GRUB Alternative Package For Confidential Computing Approved For Fedora 45
  A month ago there was a change proposal raised for offering a "light" version of the GRUB2 bootloader for use in confidential computing environments. While there were some differing views on the matter for this alternative, stripped-down GRUB package as opposed to just using other bootloaders like systemd-boot, ultimately, the proposal is now approved...

• Weston 16.0 Compositor Released With HDR Improvements, Vulkan Fixes
  Overnight the Weston 16.0 release occurred as the latest milestone for this reference Wayland compositor...

• New Linux Patches Aim To Better Handle Multiple Swap Devices
  For those having Linux systems with multiple swap devices, such as for swap tiering or layered swap handling, a set of patches posted today for the Linux kernel are looking to improve the situation...

• Graviton5 Outperforming Intel Xeon Granite Rapids But Falls Short Of AMD EPYC Turin
  Following the recent GA of the AWS M9g series as the first instances powered by the new Graviton5 CPUs, I recently ran benchmarks looking at Graviton4 vs. Graviton5 CPU performance. There was very nice generational gains for the new AWS Graviton processors with the shift from Arm Neoverse-V2 to Neoverse-V3 cores and from DDR5-5600 to DDR5-8800 memory, among other improvements. For those wondering how the Graviton5 ARM server processors compare to AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon, here are some additional comparison data points from the Amazon EC2 cloud.

• FreeBSD Desktop Installer Option Working Through NVIDIA Driver Handling, Licensing
  Alfonso Siciliano, who has been one of the FreeBSD developers leading the effort on adding a KDE-based desktop option to the FreeBSD installer, provided an update on recent work around adding integrating this desktop option...

• GNOME OS Creating "Test Center" As Its Take On Apple TestFlight For Experiment Software
  GNOME developers working on GNOME OS have received funding from Germany's Prototype Fund to work on creating the GNOME OS "Developer Tool Suite" or also tentatively called their "Test Center" to help in testing experimental applications/libraries in a modern Linux computing world with systemd-sysext, Buildstream, and other newer tech...

• Reworked System Call Entry Handling Slated For Linux 7.3
  Stemming from looking at a proposed Linux kernel patch to alter the Linux kernel's system call number handling, veteran Linux kernel developer Thomas Gleixner went down a rabbit hole of the kernel's system call entry handling to make a number of clean-ups and improvements to the code. That rework to the system call entry handling is now expected to land for the Linux 7.3 kernel cycle...

• Raspberry Pi 5 IOMMU Driver Being Worked On For The Mainline Linux Kernel
  While the Raspberry Pi 5 is already over two and a half years old, one of the missing elements of its support from the mainline Linux kernel has been the IOMMU driver. We are now seeing Raspberry Pi's downstream IOMMU driver being adapted for mainline with hopes of getting it into the upstream kernel...

• Cloud Hypervisor 53 Released With Offloaded Snapshot/Restore Daemon
  Cloud Hypervisor 53.0 is now available for this open-source, Rust-based VMM focused on cloud workloads and modern security needs. Originally started at Intel, Cloud Hypervisor continues seeing new development these days by Microsoft, Meta, Arm, and other organizations...

• Linux 7.2-rc3 Released: Close To The "New Normal"
  Linux 7.2-rc3 is now available for testing in working toward the stable Linux 7.2 kernel version coming up in August...

• Linux 7.2 Enabling UltraRISC RISC-V Support In The Default Kernel Build
  Similar to Linux 7.2 enabling Eswin SoC support by default in the RISC-V "defconfig" kernel build, UltraRISC RISC-V coverage is also now being enabled by default for RISC-V kernel builds in Linux 7.2...

• HFI BIOS Aims To Provide A POST-Like Power On Screen & BIOS Setup Utility For RISC-V
  The Harmonic Firmware Initiative "HFI" is trying to provide a generic, standardized power-on firmware experience for RISC-V boards. Akin to the x86 world with having immediate graphics card initialization to provide a display while the system is booting and also having a BIOS setup utility for system configuration, HFI is trying to do the same for the RISC-V world...

• Linux 7.2-rc3 Bringing Fixes For The SEGA Dreamcast Drivers In 2026
  It wasn't on my bingo card for the week but merged to Git ahead of today's Linux 7.2-rc3 kernel release are a number of fixes for the SEGA Dreamcast drivers...

• Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi Linux Driver Hardened Against Malicious WiFi Access Points
  The staging driver fixes that were sent out this week ahead of the Linux 7.2-rc3 release is predominantly made up of hardening the Realtek RTL8723BS WiFi driver. In particular, a number of fixes for addressing out-of-bounds behavior when connecting to "bad" WiFi hosts...

• Debian 13.6 Released To Ship All The Latest Security Fixes, Reverts GeoIP Database
  Debian 13.6 is out today as the newest point release of Debian Trixie to ship the latest security fixes and other maintenance updates...

• Linux 7.2-rc3 Bringing Display Detection Improvement To Help Some Multi-GPU Systems
  Sent out today was this week's round of x86 (x86_64) fixes ahead of the Linux 7.2-rc3 kernel test candidate due out on Sunday...

• LLVM Merges x86 LFI "Lightweight Fault Isolation" Target For In-Process Sandboxing
  Stanford researchers have been developing Lightweight Fault Isolation "LFI" compiler passes and targets for LLVM as a means of efficient, native code sandboxing. The AArch64 LFI target was previously upstreamed while this week the x86/x86_64 LFI target was also upstreamed for this means of in-process sandboxing...

• KDE Developers Continue Landing More Features For Plasma 6.8
  KDE developers continue to be very busy this summer landing more features for the upcoming Plasma 6.8 desktop...

• Mesa9s Rusticl Now Enables Arm Mali Panfrost Driver Support By Default
  A change upstreamed to Mesa by an Arm engineer now enables the Panfrost Gallium3D driver for Arm Mali graphics to work with the Rusticl driver by default...

• Pop!_OS Rolls Out Its "Frosted Glass" Desktop Style For COSMIC
  System76 developers have for the past number of weeks been working on developing a "frosted glass" appearance for the COSMIC desktop environment featured on their Pop!_OS Linux distribution. For Pop!_OS users this frosted glass feature is now available and will become more widespread for other Linux distributions once the next COSMIC release is formally tagged...

• Wine 11.13 Better Supports Input Pointers, Improved Keyboard Scancode Mapping For X11
  Wine 11.13 is out today as the newest bi-weekly development release for this open-source software enabling support for running Windows games and applications on Linux...

• KDE Plasma 6.7 X11 vs. Wayland Session Gaming Performance For NVIDIA On CachyOS
  With KDE Plasma 6.7 now having seen a few point releases to further polish this last version with X11 support ahead of Plasma 6.8 going Wayland-only, here are some NVIDIA Linux gaming benchmarks between the X11 and Wayland sessions on Plasma 6.7.2 using the popular Arch Linux based CachyOS.

• Linux 7.3 Enabling Second Graphics Pipe For Modern AMD APUs
  AMD on Thursday sent out another round of AMDGPU kernel graphics driver and AMDKFD kernel compute driver updates to DRM-Next of new feature material ahead of the Linux 7.3 merge window...

• Linux DT Patches Provide Very Basic Support For Apple M3 Pro / Max / Ultra
  Upstreamed for the Linux 7.2 kernel was initial support for booting Linux on the Apple M3 SoC devices. But just the barebones suppport for booting with not yet any accelerated graphics or other typical function needed for daily use of M3 Apple devices on Linux, just booting to a console. Now this work is complemented by additional Device Tree patches for also booting M3 Pro / Max / Ultra devices on Linux...

• HiZ Plane Optimization Merged For Intel Vulkan Linux Driver For Some Performance Benefit
  After two years being on the TODO list for a possible performance optimization, the Intel open-source "ANV" Vulkan driver has now merged an HiZ plane optimization that can yield up to a few percent frame-rate improvement for Linux gaming/graphics on newer Intel integrated and discrete graphics hardware...

• LLVM Clang Merges Initial Support For NVIDIA Rigel Core With Next-Gen Rosa CPU
  Earlier this week NVIDIA confirmed some basic details around their next-gen Rosa CPU that succeeds Vera. Among the public confirmation was that it will feature a "Rigel" Armv9.2-A core iterating on their Olympus core design. With the basic details published, NVIDIA immediately introduced Rigel core support into the GCC compiler. Now they have also upstreamed their initial Rigel core enablement into the LLVM Clang compiler...

• How early SunOS did diskless workstations before NFS
  I have a love-hate relationship with Suns NFS. Since it was so prevalent, its a go-to for getting stuff on and off the classic UNIX workstations I love to explore, but at the same time, it also never seems to work right away. However, the technology NFS was designed to replace was apparently quite a bit worse. Sun sold diskless workstations before NFS, which used something called nd (network disk). The problems with nd stem from a limitation of SunOS at the time. Since SunOS only provided support for a maximum of eight partitions per physical disk, nd offered the ability to create subpartitions, of which you had to manually create and remember the start and end sectors. Thats a recipe for problems. But wait, theres more! For extra bonus problems, you might run out of available partitions to use on your server disk because you needed all of the available ones for regular filesystems and your swap area. If you were in this situation you could take the dangerous but necessary step of specifying your network disks using the special c partition (cf dkinfo(8)), which was conventionally used to provide access to the entire disk. This was extra dangerous because you had to make sure that the nd disks you specified werent overlapping into any regular partitions that you were using, since as nd(8) says, nd itself did no sanity checking. If you said sectors X to Y were network disk X, thats what they were, and goodness help you if some of them were also something else. ↫ Chris Siedenmann And this isnt even everything. Every part of this sounds horrid, and I can totally understand seeing NFS as a godsend compared to nd. Its depressing that were in 2026 now, and the basic task of sending a file from one computer to another over your own network often still a total clusterfuck.

• Nokia’s 14 years of mobile-phone supremacy ended in an afternoon
  OSNews covered the downfall of Nokia extensively back when it was happening, but I must admit that seeing this whole story in retrospectives! now makes me feel so incredibly old. This story played out roughly between 2007 and 2016  in the grand scheme of things, the end of Nokias phone business wasnt that long ago! Zeit, bitte bleib stehen. Anyway, heres another retrospective, but this one I definitely like a bit more than the countless others weve seen, because it ends on the part of the story often left out: Nokia not only survived, its actually thriving. The company itself ultimately survived, even if the transition wasn’t painless. Nokia’s revenues, which peaked in 2007, fell sharply through the mid-2010s before the company refocused on a decades-old business line—telecom infrastructure—that many had forgotten Nokia was even in. Nokia now ranks among the world’s top three suppliers of 5G network equipment, serving carriers across more than 125 countries, alongside Ericsson and Huawei. Although the company could never quite crack the smartphone, it now plays a key role in providing the network backbone those smartphones run on. ↫ Chris Chinchilla at IEEE Spectrum From a business perspective, I honestly doubt Nokias phone business couldve survived to this day, even if they had responded to the arrival of the iPhone sooner, and even if they didnt do the stupid thing of focusing on Windows Phone first and had just embraced Android right away. Obviously, a Nokia with its own touch-era smartphone operating system would never have survived  none of them did  and even if they went with Android from the onset, I think the eventual onslaught of Samsung, which has killed many a popular smartphone brand, wouldve trampled Nokia too. In a better version of our world, Nokia wouldve survived with its own smartphone operating system, based on Symbian or not, and it wouldve been Europes strong, consistent answer to the Americans iOS and Android. While Nokia wouldve still been a business and wouldve undoubtedly tried the same anti-user shenanigans as Apple and Google, theyd at least be easier to reign in regulatory-wise. Youd hope. The EU shouldve never allowed Nokias smartphone business to be sold to Microsoft.

• Apple sues OpenAI for theft of trade secrets!
  Apple sued OpenAI on Friday, alleging the AI company has stolen the iPhone maker’s trade secrets to develop its own yet-to-be-unveiled AI gadgets. In the suit, filed in the District Court of Northern California, Apple accuses OpenAI of trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract. ↫ Lisa Eadicicco and Hadas Gold at CNN I find this about as interesting and watching artificial grass grow, but with the common wisdom being that Apple is behind on AI!, it was honestly only a matter of time before the lawsuits came. After all, thats usually what companies who cant win in the market do. At the very least this will give corporate tech news websites a whole slew of new material. I just hope they both implode. Wed all be better off for it.

• Redox gets GTK3, Tcl
  Redox did the develop cools stuff thing again for a month, so weve got progress to talk about. This past month, GTK3 has been ported to Redox, as well as the Tcl programming language. Support for per-window fractional scaling has been added to Orbital, Redox desktop environment, but its still relatively limited for now. Theres also new USB gamepad support, which already works in quite a few emulators, as well as details about how Redox intends to improve its support for running in a virtual environment over the coming 12 months, an effort sponsored by NLnet. Of course, theres also the usual bugfixes and updates to various drivers, the kernel, Relibc, and more.

• Understanding Windows monthly updates: Servicing explained
  Windows has a fairly complex update ecosystem, so every now and then, the company feels like it needs to publish clarifications and explainers so people can keep up with whats going on. Most individuals and organizations regularly deploy monthly security updates, released on the second Tuesday of each month. Windows also provides optional non-security preview updates, which give IT teams and early adopters an opportunity to validate upcoming fixes before theyre included in the next monthly security update. This guide explains the purpose of each update type, when updates are released, and how they fit into the modern Windows servicing model. ↫ Chris Morrissey at the Windows IT Pro Blog Its easy to make fun of Microsoft and Windows for just how complex and obtuse the update ecosystem really is, but in all honestly its kind of understandable. Windows is a sprawling platform used by so many different people, companies, and organisations, under so many different circumstances and in so many different environments, it makes sense that Microsoft wants to address the multitude of needs that arise from that complexity. And so we end up not only with a dizzying array of update types and a long corpus of mystic terminology, but also a long list of complex different management tools to deploy said updates. And then theres the various preview channels making everything even more complex. Im definitely not smart, qualified, or experienced enough to come up with a better solution, but I do think choosing better names for the various update types, and perhaps a centralised settings panel inside Windows that gave users a better idea of what each type of update actually does, would go a long way to improving clarity. During my month with Windows 11, I also found it deeply frustrating just how little information Microsoft provides about each of the updates Windows is installing. As a user, I was expected to copy/paste the KB number and then hope that would lead me to useful information, while it would be much more convenient if such information was available right then and there inside Windows Update. If you cant reduce complexity, you should try to improve transparency.

• You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month: heres how it went
  You all donated en masse to have me use Windows 11 for a month, and so I did. What was it like for a long-time Linux user to go back and experience Windows as it exists now? Is it really as bad as weve collectively made it out to be? Did my month with Windows 11 consist of nothing but pain and misery, or are there good things to say, too? Or, was it an unexpected pleasant surprise? And ultimately, did I stay with Windows 11, or move back to the Linux world? � Donate through Ko-Fi � Donate through SEPA transfer* � Buy merch from our store � Why a fundraiser? *Name: Thom Holwerda  IBAN: SE08 8000 0820 1684 4657 8414  BIC: SWEDSESS This year, Im celebrating the milestone of having posted 20000 stories on OSNews during my 21 years as managing editor of OSNews. This is my full-time job, and since nobody is going to give me any bonuses, stock options, or golden pens, were running a big fundraiser to keep OSNews going. To add some spice to the whole thing, I added some incentives, with the first being using Windows 11 for a month. Were slowly but steadily approaching the next incentive, too, which is a proper video tour of my office, (unique) computers, and massive devices collection. Theres a similar incentive to this Windows 11 one, but for macOS. Yikes. The rules for the Windows 11 incentive are simple: use stock Windows 11 for a month for my computing tasks (with the exception of gaming  converting my Linux gaming PC to Windows just to play the same games seemed silly). I wasnt allowed to use any debloating tools, but as an EU citizen, I do have the ability to remove a ton of Windows stuff thanks to the success of the Digital Markets Act. I also tried to stick to Microsofts own applications as much as possible, for that true ecosystem experience!, and wasnt allowed to hack my way into a normal local user account. I was all-in. So what was it like? Setting it all up The installation process posed a number of challenges and issues. First and foremost, the Windows 11 installation process is incredibly barebones, and basically assumes no other operating system exists in the world. It has no clue anything other than Windows filesystems exist, making it dangerously easy to accidentally damage or outright delete any other operating systems you might have installed. My laptop happens to have two M.2 SSDs in, so I could safely dedicate one of them to Windows 11 without interfering with the other SSD with Fedora installed on it, but if youre experimenting with Windows 11 on your Linux machine with just one drive, you might want to reconsider. I also had to perform the first portion of the installation process  the WinPE section  with just my keyboard, since apparently, my trackpad was not supported and did not work at all. Once the system went through its first of what would be many reboots to come and loaded into the phase of the installation where youre actually already running Windows 11, my trackpad came to life, but without any gestures support  so no scrolling. Not a gamebreaker or anything, but definitely annoying. A bigger issue was that the Wi-Fi 7 Intel BE200 chip in my laptop was not supported out of the box by Windows 11. This meant that I had to install these drivers during the installation process, which involves going to the Intel website and finding the correct drivers to use. To make this process more obtuse and less intuitive, you cant use the normal driver installer; you have to specifically opt for the Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software and Wi-Fi Drivers for IT Administrators , download the ZIP, unpack it on a different computer, put the unpacked drivers on a USB stick, and point the Windows 11 installer to this USB stick. Mind you, the BE200 chip was launched almost three years ago, and theres no excuse for Windows 11 not supporting this chip out of the box  like Linux does. The remainder of the installation process involved dodging a lot of tracking and telemetry prompts, reboots, a lot of waiting, setting up the dreaded online account, waiting some more, and then finally ending up at the desktop. I then set out to enjoy my EU privileges by removing whatever applications I didnt need and turning off features I didnt want, as well as making sure all the drivers were up to date. This mostly involved installing the Intel Driver 8 Support Assistant and the Intel graphics drivers. Curiously, this is where I hit a returning issue: after installing the Intel GPU drivers for the first time, as well as after every subsequent update, the screen would go black and stay that way, forcing a reboot. Windows graphics stack is supposed to be able to gracefully handle driver updates, but clearly, some bug or problem was preventing the updated Intel driver from being reinitialised. Once those initial setup tasks were behind me, I experienced two more problems. First, sleep/wake was entirely broken and simply did not work. It turns out Windows 11 really doesnt like S3 sleep, and I had to specifically go into my laptops Dasharo Coreboot firmware to switch to S0ix get sleep/wake to work on Windows 11. Windows defaults to something it calls Modern Standby!, which requires the S0ix state to be enabled. You can also disable Modern Standby which would presumably make sleep/wake work with S3 (?), but this is a whole ordeal and clearly not something Microsoft wants you to do. Of course, the correct way of handling this would be for Windows 11 to adapt its sleep/wake settings to what the firmware reports, but alas. Another problem were the laptops cooling fans seemingly leading lives of their own, spinning up loudly at entirely random times, irrespective of use. It was so bad and loud

• The state of accessibility in GNOME
  With July being Disability Pride Month, GNOMEs Sophie Herold published a blog post taking stock of where GNOME stands on this front, progress thats been made, as well as areas where the project comes short. One particular paragraph from her introduction really hits the nail on the head about accessibility discussions in tech circles: The reality of tech communities is that they are often ableist and elitist. Probably more so than the average population. If a user or contributor struggles with a tool, blame is shifted to a “skill issue,” if an interface is simplified to make it accessible to more people, it’s “dumbed down”. Assistive technologies are often developed by abled people, without involving and paying disabled people. This also leads to an attitude where contributors expect gratefulness from disabled people for providing them with the most basic needs. All these issues are also not absent from the GNOME community. ↫ Sophie Herold Even as someone who isnt disabled and doesnt use any tools classically shelved under the accessibility! moniker, I encounter the attitudes she mentions in the quoted paragraph basically every day. While we can have normal, productive discussions and differences of opinion about accessibility  for instance, I strongly believe robust theming support is absolutely crucial to accessibility, while the wider GNOME community does not  the dismissive attitudes towards people with accessibility needs in the software world is shameful. Even if you dont have accessibility needs today, you will definitely be needing them at some point in your life. If accessibility isnt one of the first words you jot down on your mood board or whatever when you start a new software project, youve already done millions of people a massive disservice. Get educated, learn what you can about accessibility, listen to people with accessibility needs, and make your software better for everyone. Youll thank yourself one day.

• Next release of Cinnamon finally supports Wayland
  Linux Mints Cinnamon is one of the last desktops to still not support Wayland, and is relegated to only being compatible with legacy X11 environments. With the next release of Cinnamon, however, this is finally going to change. We worked really hard on Wayland and we got to the point where it feels solid and the experience is almost on par with X11. Wayland support will no longer be considered “experimental”. In the next version of Cinnamon, both X11 and Wayland will be fully supported. ↫ Clement Lefebvre on the Linux Mint blog The next release of Cinnamon, version 6.8, will be part of the next release of Linux Mint, scheduled for Christmas of this year.

• Most slopcode projects are abandoned and deleted within months of release
  About a month ago, Flathub announced a ban on slopcoded applications. Evangelos GeopJr! Paterakis, developer of a number of popular Linux applications and ton of other things, did some research into just how many applications tagged with AI slop!, a tag Flathub reviewers used to keep track of slopcoded applications submitted to Flathub, actually survived the test of time. The results are exactly what youd expect. Of the 120 unique repos, 32 were maintained and 88 were abandoned. No seriously, a big portion of them was completely deleted, nowhere to be found, others stopped 6 months ago, right after submitting to Flathub. ↫ Evangelos GeopJr! Paterakis Thats absolutely soul-crushing. Why should Flathubs reviewers spend their precious, limited time talking to lazy slopcoders AI! agents to get their slopcoded applications into Flathub, when 70% of these applications are abandoned or outright deleted from existence within mere months of being submitted? Minimal effort for the slopcoders, maximum effort for the reviewers. Just dump a bunch of shitty code over the fence, let a chatbot handle the interactions with the reviewers, and pretend you made a valuable contribution. This is the contradiction slopcode enthusiasts really dont want to talk about. If these AI! tools are so great, where is all the amazing new software? Wheres the massive gains in software quality? Isnt the story that AI! tools do the menial work, giving programmers more time to focus on improving their software? Reality does not seem to match the story were being sold. Despite these slopcode tools being out and available for years now, theres no influx of great applications and other software, theres no rise in software quality, nothing. What we mostly seem to be getting are slopcoded projects nobody, not even their creators! care about, so they just get abandoned and deleted as quickly as they were dredged up from the bottom of the programming barrel. These arent applications created because someone wanted them to exist; these are applications created because some mid programmer got high on their AI! supply and fancied themselves better at programming than they really are  only to realise once the comedown hits theyve got crappy, barely working, entirely unmaintainable gibberish vaguely looking like code nobody can make head nor tails of. And then they abandon the project, ready for the next high  leaving everyone else to clean up their mess. What a miserable workflow.

• Linux ported to the Atari Jaguar
  Only a few days ago we had Linux on the Mega Drive, and someone took that as a challenge, so now we have Linux on the Atari Jaguar. The Jaguar has a very different architecture than the Mega Drive, but does happen to use a processor from the same 68000-family. Interestingly enough, to this day, Linux has architecture code for the 68000-family of processors. 68040, 68030, 680100 and even the original base 68000 processor. All neatly structured under arch/m68k/. ↫ Joel Bueno And, well, that means Linux can indeed be made to work on the Jaguar, with some hacking and magic, of course.

• Review: iodéOS offers a frictionless de-Googled Android experience
  Wherever in the world you go, the smartphone landscape is dominated by Android and iOS, and while this has always been problematic, recent events have made the dependency on two American tech giants for what is probably our most personal computing device even more problematic than it already was. We use our smartphones to keep our secrets, do our banking, interact with our governments, share our deepest thoughts with our friends and family, and a whole lot more. Having this invaluable tool the vast majority of us depend on tied entirely to Google and Apple is not just bad for the market, its also a downright threat to the national security of anyone not living in the US. Here in Europe, theres been an awakening lately, with governments, companies, and people alike finally realising that having our entire digital infrastructure controlled by foreign, adversarial interests is a terrible idea. Sadly, breaking free from our Android and iOS chains is not so easy. The most ideal solution would be a truly open source alternative smartphone operating system, but thats a hard sell for 99.9% of smartphone users who need the applications required to do their finances, talk to their friends, or interact with their governments. The cold and harsh truth is that with very few exceptions, these applications simply do not (yet) exist for smartphone operating systems that arent Android or iOS. The only viable alternative at this point in time is to take whatevers left of the Android Open Source Project, remove anything that ties it to Google and its services, fill in the gaps with alternative services and applications, and sell it as a Google-free or de-Googled Android platform. Theres several projects in this space, and with Europe drunkenly stumbling out of the technological hole it dug itself into, its no surprise that two of the more popular alternatives to Apple or Google-controlled smartphones come from Europe (and from the same country, no less). Today, were taking a look at one of these: iodéOS. Iodé is a company based in Toulouse, France, which focuses on offering a Google-free Android called iodéOS, either preinstalled on phones you can buy, or as a ROM you can install yourself on supported devices. As a company, iodé makes its money through selling devices with iodéOS preinstalled, through an optional premium subscription (that I didnt take a look at), and through donations, and all of their code is published as open source on their Gitlab instance hosted in France. Iodé loaned me a Fairphone 6 with iodéOS preinstalled, one of he many smartphones and tablets they sell through their online store for review. This isnt going to be an Android review; you already know what Android is like, and theres no need for me to rehash any of that. Instead, I want to focus on the things that make using de-Googled Android different from using Google Android. Dont be afraid of microG There are various ways to go about making a de-Googled Android variant, and iodéOS chose the LineageOS route, with microG installed on top. For those unaware, microG is a project which aims to replace the various proprietary parts of Google Play Services, required by many Android applications, with open source reimplementations. While it doesnt offer 100% compatibility, it works exceptionally well, and youll be hard-pressed to find applications just dont work at all with microG. IodéOS updates its microG installation through a dedicated F-Droid repository thats obviously enabled by default, so you dont have to do anything yourself. Using microG instead of Google Play Services doesnt mean you have to rely solely on whatevers available in F-Droid, since there are a variety of alternative Play Store frontends available. IodéOS ships with the Aurora Store, which is an open-source frontend to the Play Store that can be used with or without a Google account. If you use it with your Google account, youll gain access to whatever applications you already own, including paid ones, but you wont be able to buy applications inside Aurora. You can, however, buy an application on the Play Store website, after which it will show up in Aurora as well, assuming youre logged in with the same account. Aurora also comes with something something called FakeStore, which is sadly an important part of the puzzle; its a stub application that has the same package name as the real Play Store. Some applications check whether the Play Store is available before working properly, so this is sadly needed to ensure maximum compatibility. The only issue I sometimes ran into with Aurora is that it would load up its listings, but then any application I tapped on said it was unavailable. When this happened, reloading the Aurora application always fixed the issue. Annoying, but not gamebreaking. A few things did not work for me when using microG on iodéOS, and theyre exactly the things youd expect not to work. If you have a WearOS device, youre out of luck; WearOS devices simply do not work when using microG, but there is a bounty to add support for it. If you want to use a smartwatch with iodéOS, there are various options available, such as Garmin devices, which is what I used during my testing and it worked flawlessly. Another feature from regular! Android that simply wont work is RCS. Theres only one RCS client available on Android, Google Messages, and as you can imagine, Google is in no rush to allow devices without Google Play Services to register for and use RCS messaging. Tying to register with Google Messages will fail, and there are no other RCS clients available (save for a few China and India-specific clients). Theres a microG bounty for this, too, but no luck so far. Of course, there are countless messaging platforms that work just fine on iodéOS  regular SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, and so on  and especially if youre European, its unlikely RCS support matters to you at all. I just dont

• Improved DEC Alpha emulator runs Windows 2000 for Alpha and OpenVMS and Tru64 with X11
  Colour me positively surprised, as I had no idea Alpha emulation had progressed this much. As you might know, Im involved a bit in the OpenVMS community and the Alpha emulation side via AXPBox. AXPBox (github) is a fork of the es40 alpha emulator by Camiel Vanderhoeven (who is now Chief Architect at VSI, the company that makes OpenVMS, for x86 nowdays). There have been many forks of es40 in the past and recently a new one has popped up with some great new features. Like speedups via a JIT compiler, S3 graphics port from MAME and ARC support, resulting in the ability to run Windows 2000 for the DEC Alpha. ↫ Remy van Elst Not only can you run the unreleased Alpha version of Windows 2000 on this forked emulator, its also capable of running OpenVMS and Tru64 UNIX. In fact, both OpenVMS and Tru64 can run their full X11 CDE desktops on the emulator as well, which is incredibly cool and a huge milestone. As the name of the original emulator implies, its emulating an AlphaServer Es40 from the turn of the century, which should be fast enough for enthusiast use. The last AlphaStation ever made, the ES47, is still very high on my list of computers I desperately want but will never have  they are incredibly rare, and whenever they do come up for sale, incredibly expensive. If you have one, consider yourself lucky, and please, write about it! Tell the world!

• LineageOS and Androids upcoming developer verification: what it is, and how it affects you
  LineageOS, the de-Googled Android ROM that serves as the backbone for pretty much the entire custom Android ROM community, has published an article about what the Android developer verification changes mean for them. I really like the factual tone of their article, especially this part: Critics such as F-Droid, EFF, and “Keep Android Open” point out that this also happens to route every install path through Google-controlled infrastructure, hands Google a kill switch over any app or developer worldwide, and arrives shortly after Google’s antitrust lawsuits. Both things can be true at once: real fraud is a problem and the restriction of developers is a convenient side effect of solving it this way  and we’re not in a position to pretend we know Google’s internal reasoning. We’re just telling you what they’ve said and what it changes; you can weigh the “why” yourself. ↫ Nolen Johnson on the LineageOS website For LineageOS, these new verification measures dont really mean much, as they dont affect the projects work or software. The developer verification infrastructure is a separate application that is part of Google Mobile Services, and LineageOS does not ship GMS nor does it ever intend to. As such, they dont have to do anything, as this wont be an issue unless LineageOS users choose to install a GApps package that happens to include the developer verification infrastructure. If Google were to move the developer verification infrastructure into Play Services in the future, LineageOS makes it clear theyll disable it globally, as they have done with a number of other annoying Play Services-provided over-the-air update implementations . There really isnt much more they can do; the rest is up to users and projects that use LineageOS as their base.

• Composite video on the NES: whys it so wobbly?
  The Nintendo Entertainment System. Is it the platonic ideal of an 8-bit video game system? Well, only because it’s so prominent and successful– it’s actually kind of an oddball in its expandability and design. But there’s something else about it. The picture is a bit… wobbly. Well, over composite video anyway. Let’s dig in and learn a little big more about the nitty-gritty of composite video. ↫ Nicole Branagan As usual, the information density in this article by Branagan is kind of remarkable, especially when you consider it never overwhelms you. Such a great read.

• ReactOS implements very first NT6 system call
  A fairly big moment for the ReactOS project: it has just received its very first system call from NT6. The system call that has been added is NtGetCurrentProcessorNumberEx, which is used for returning the processor number of the logical processor that a caller is running on. It’s unclear how long it will take ReactOS to become compatible with Windows Vista software, but it took Microsoft around half a decade to develop Vista after the release of XP and marked a major upgrade, even if it didn’t land well with users at the time. ↫ Paul Hill at Neowin Its a milestone for sure, but not one thats going to make a huge difference for ReactOS at this moment in time. Still, its a sign of things to come, even if the very nature of the ReactOS project means that whatever things are coming tend to take a while to arrive.

• Microsoft settles centuries of religious debate by providing clearest definition of hell to date: Windows with a website-based shell running only Copilot
  For how often people invoke it, the concept of hell! in Christianity is remarkably vague and nebulous, as both the Old and New Testament barely go into detail about the concept. As such, Im glad Microsoft has now given us a clear vision of hell and what, exactly, it looks like, ending centuries of denominational disagreements. Microsoft is currently selling the idea of Windows and Copilot as two separate things: an OS and an assistant riding along on top of it. However, a leaked video shows Project Aion, an internal prototype where Copilot doesnt just sit inside Windows, it becomes Windows, swallowing the Start menu, the taskbar, and three decades of desktop conventions in the process. The footage is reportedly two years old, so Aion is most likely dead by now. But its the clearest look yet at how far Microsoft was willing to take its agentic AI ambitions. ↫ Alfonso Maruccia at Techspot Everything about this is dreadful. Obviously replacing the entire shell with AI! nonsense is the main crime against usability here, but on top of that, this new shell is all just websites, all the way down, so everything is slow and stuttery. Since this runs on something called Win3!, which appears to be a very minimal, stripped-down version of Windows intended to only run the Edge browser engine, you cant run Win32 applications. If you do try to run a Win32 application, it will load the application in a remote virtual machine running in the cloud, which I;m sure does wonder for performance, responsiveness, and latency. We can all thank the lord this project is two years old and most likely cancelled by now, but we have no way of knowing if Microsoft is still intending for this to be the future direction of Windows. Since people dont want to use AI! of their own volition, it only makes sense in the technology industrys sick, twisted mind to force people into using AI! with efforts like this. Consent has never been Silicon Valleys strength, after all. At the time of writing, Microsoft is 225 billion dollars in the red on AI!, so I wouldnt be surprised if attempts to replace the regular Explorer shell with something AI!-based is still very much on the table in Redmond.

• New Linux Flaw Lets Attackers Escape VMs
  A 16-year-old vulnerability allows an attacker to escape a virtual machine, gain access to the host, and execute malicious code.
  

• Hannah Montana Linux Is Back!
  Developer Noah Cagle decided the world needed the once obscure but beloved Linux distribution and gave it a decidedly pink refresh.
  

• System76 Refreshes the Lemur Laptop
  If you're looking for a laptop with tons of power and battery, look no further than the latest iteration of the System76 Lemur Pro.
  

• More than 43 Million Lines of Code in Linux Kernel 7.2
  Using the cloc utility, Michael Larabel of Phoronix discovered that Linux kernel 7.2 has over 43 million lines of code.
  

• Kubuntu Focus Goes Ultra
  The Kubuntu Focus team has upped the performance ante of its M2 and Zr laptops with the latest, greatest CPUs from Intel.
  

• Linux Gamers May Soon See Less Mouse Lag in KDE Plasma
  Gamers using KDE’s Plasma desktop have been suffering from a slight input delay in mouse movement that could lead to getting fragged.
  

• Three Lines of Code Improve Linux Storage Performance
  A developer changed three lines of code, giving Linux storage performance a 5% bump.
  

• AUR Hit Again with Malicious Packages
  Once again the Arch User Repository is plagued by a high volume of malicious packages.
  

• Alpine Linux 3.24 Features Fresh Desktops and a Newer Kernel
  If you're a fan of Alpine Linux, it's time to upgrade because the latest version has been released with KDE Plasma 6.6, Gnome 50, and Linux kernel 6.18 LTS.
  

• EU Open Source Strategy Plays Key Role in Tech Sovereignty Package
  Comprehensive measures adopted by the European Commission aim to reduce dependency on non-EU countries.
  

• Linux Foundation Report Indicates AI Driving Tech Hiring
  Within growing security and skills gaps, AI has been found to be a positive driving force behind tech hiring trends in Europe.
  

• United Nations Open Source Portal Goes Live
  A new open source portal seeks to coordinate and scale open source efforts across the United Nations system.
  

• KDE Linux Drops AUR
  KDE Linux developers have dropped the Arch User Repository from the build pipeline due to security concerns; other distributions should consider doing the same.
  

• California May Exempt Linux from Its Age-Verification Law
  After backlash from the Linux community, California may be backing off on its promise to force all operating systems to verify age, but one platform may still have to comply.
  

• Another Logic Bug Found in Linux Kernel
  Qualys has discovered a vulnerability in the Linux kernel that can be used to elevate standard user privileges.
  

• Ubuntu Core 26 Offers Game-Changing Enterprise Features
  Ubuntu Core 26 could be a game-changer for organizations looking for increased security and reliability.
  

• AI Flooding the Linux Kernel Security Mailing List
  AI is giving Linus Torvalds a headache, but not in the way you might think.
  

• Top Priorities for Open Source Pros Seeking a New Job
  Professional fulfillment tops the list, according to LPI report.
  

• Container-Based Fedora Hummingbird Designed for Agent-First Builders
  Fedora Hummingbird brings the same approach to the host OS as it does to containers to level up security.
  

• Linux kernel Developers Considering a Kill Switch
  With the rise of Linux vulnerabilities, the kernel developers are now considering adding a component that could help temporarily mitigate against them… in the form of a kill switch.