All the News that Matters

• [$] Protecting privacy with Tails
  Tails is an unusual Linuxdistribution developed by the Tor Project; itis designed to help users work around internet censorship and avoidsurveillance. It is a "portable" operating system that is meant to berun from a USB stick or ISO image and to leave no trace on thecomputer it was run on. Tails routes connections to the internet overthe Tornetwork and includes a selection of applications and toolssuited to working with sensitive documents, communicating securely,and preserving users' anonymity. The tradeoff, of course, is thatTails is less convenient and requires users to learn a new set oftools to avoid compromising their own security and anonymity. Tails 7.1 wasreleased in October, and it seemed like as good a time as any to takeit for a spin.
  

• Security updates for Tuesday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bind, expat, kernel, osbuild-composer, qt6-qtsvg, runc, valkey, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Debian (incus), Fedora (cef and dotnet8.0), Mageia (strongswan), Red Hat (fence-agents and python-requests), SUSE (chromium, colord, erlang26, java-1_8_0-openjdk, libsoup, python-django, thunderbird, tiff, and warewulf4), and Ubuntu (intel-microcode and rust-sudo-rs).

• Public-inbox 2.0.0 released
  Version 2.0.0 of public-inbox, the mail archiving system behindlore.kernel.org and LWN's email archive, has been released. "Thisrelease includes several new features and fixes; mostly around improvedintegration between inboxes and coderepos for solver. Portability andreliability is also improved, especially in the internal process managementof lei."

• [$] Magic kernel functions for BPF
  When programs written in BPF (the kernel's hot-loadable virtual-machine bytecode) call kernel functions (kfuncs), it may be usefulfor those functions to have additional information about the context in whichthose BPF programs are executing. Rather than requiring it to supplythat information, it would be convenient to let the BPF verifier pass thatinformation to the called function automatically. That is already possible, buta recent patch set from Ihor Solodrai would make it more ergonomic.It allows kerneldevelopers to specify that a kfunc should be passed additionalparameters inferred by the verifier, invisibly to the BPF program. Thediscussion included concerns that Solodrai's implementation was unnecessarily complex, however.
  

• Pytest 9.0.0 released
  Version9.0.0 of pytest has been released. Notable changes in this releaseinclude the addition of subtests,native support for TOML configuration files, and a new strictmode. See the changelogfor a complete list of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes.
  
  
  

• Security updates for Monday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (galera and mariadb, kernel, kernel-rt, mingw-libtiff, redis:7, tigervnc, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Fedora (bind, bind-dyndb-ldap, bpfman, chromium, dolphin-emu, dotnet9.0, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, kea, libnbd, luksmeta, python-cloudpickle, python-pydantic, python-pydantic-core, python-uv-build, ruby, ruff, rust-get-size-derive2, rust-get-size2, rust-regex, rust-regex-automata, rust-reqsign, rust-reqsign-aws-v4, rust-reqsign-command-execute-tokio, rust-reqsign-core, rust-reqsign-file-read-tokio, rust-reqsign-http-send-reqwest, singularity-ce, uv, xen, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Mageia (libxml2, libxslt, opencontainers-runc, and xen), Oracle (bind, galera and mariadb, libsoup, linux-firmware, mariadb:10.5, mingw-libtiff, osbuild-composer, qt5-qt3d, tigervnc, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), SUSE (chromium, erlang, google-osconfig-agent, govulncheck-vulndb, java-11-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-1_8_0-openj9, opentofu, python-djangorestframework-simplejwt, python311-Django, python315, squid, thunderbird, tiff, tomcat, tomcat11, and xen), and Ubuntu (linux-fips, linux-hwe-6.14, and linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-raspi).

• Kernel prepatch 6.18-rc5
  The 6.18-rc5 kernel prepatch is out fortesting. "In other words: it all looks just the way I like it at thispoint: small and boring."

• About KeePassXC's code quality control (KeePassXC blog)
  The KeePassXC project has recently updated its contributionpolicy and READMEto note its policy around contributions created with generative AItools. The project's use of those tools, such as GitHub Copilot, haveraised a number of questions and concerns, which the project hasrespondedto:
  
  There are no AI features inside KeePassXC and there neverwill be!
  
  The use of Copilot for drafting pull requests is reserved for verysimple and focused tasks with a small handful of changes, such assimple bugfixes or UI changes. We use it sparingly (mostly becauseit's not very good at complex tasks) and only where we think it offersa benefit. Copilot is good at helping developers plan complex changesby reviewing the code base and writing suggestions in markdown, aswell as boilerplate tasks such as test development. Copilot can messup, and we catch that in our standard review process (e.g., bycommitting a full directory of rubbish, which we identified andfixed). You can review our copilot instructions. Would we ever let AIrewrite our crypto stack? No. Would we let it refactor and rewritelarge parts of the application? No. Would we ask it to fix aregression or add more test cases? Yes, sometimes.
  
  Emphasis in the original. See the full post to learn more about theproject's processes and pull requests that have been created with AIassistance.
  
  
  

• A proposed kernel policy for LLM-generated contributions
  The kernel community is currently reviewing aproposed policy for contributors who are using large language models toassist in the creation of their patches; the primary focus is on disclosureof the use of those tools. "The goal here is to clarify communityexpectations around tools. This lets everyone become more productive whilealso maintaining high degrees of trust between submitters andreviewers."

• [$] Bootc for workstation use
  The bootc project allows users tocreate a bootable Linux system image using the container tooling that manydevelopers are already familiar with. It is an evolution of OSTree(now called libostree), which is used to create FedoraSilverblue and other image-based distributions. While creatingcustom images is still a job for experts, the container technologysimplifies delivering heavily customized images to non-technicalusers.
  

• Security updates for Friday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bind, bind9.16, libsoup, mariadb:10.5, and sssd), Debian (chromium, keystone, and swift), Fedora (apptainer, buildah, chromium, fcitx5, fcitx5-anthy, fcitx5-chewing, fcitx5-chinese-addons, fcitx5-configtool, fcitx5-hangul, fcitx5-kkc, fcitx5-libthai, fcitx5-m17n, fcitx5-qt, fcitx5-rime, fcitx5-sayura, fcitx5-skk, fcitx5-table-extra, fcitx5-unikey, fcitx5-zhuyin, GeographicLib, libime, mbedtls, mingw-poppler, mupen64plus, python-starlette, webkitgtk, and xen), Mageia (dcmtk, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-11-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-latest-openjdk, libvpx, and sqlite3), Oracle (bind, bind9.16, kernel, libsoup, libsoup3, osbuild-composer, qt6-qtsvg, sssd, and valkey), Red Hat (kernel and kernel-rt), SUSE (bind, gpg2, ImageMagick, python-Django, and runc), and Ubuntu (linux-azure, linux-azure-4.15, linux-fips, linux-aws-fips, inux-gcp-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gke, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-realtime, linux-raspi-5.4, and linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8).

• Mastodon 4.5 released
  Version4.5 of the Mastodondecentralized social-media platform has been released. Notablefeatures in this release include quoteposts, native emoji support, as well as enhanced moderation andblocking features for server administrators. The project also has a postdetailing new features in 4.5 for developers of clients and othersoftware that interacts with Mastodon.
  
  
  

• Freedesktop.org now hosts the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
  The future of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) has been under discussion for some time; now,Neal Gompa has announcedthat the FHS is "hosted and stewarded" by Freedesktop.org.
  For those who are unaware, the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) is the definition for POSIX operating systems to organize system and user data. It is broadly adopted by Linux, BSD, and other operating systems that follow POSIX-like conventions.
  See thispage for the specification's new home.

• [$] Toward fast, containerized, user-space filesystems
  Filesystems are complex and performance-sensitive beasts. They can alsopresent security concerns. Microkernel-based systems have long pushedfilesystems into separate processes in order to contain any vulnerabilitiesthat may be found there. Linux can do the same with the Filesystem inUserspace (FUSE) subsystem, but using FUSE brings a significantperformance penalty. Darrick Wong is working on ways to eliminate thatpenalty, and he has a massive patchset showing how ext4 filesystems can be safely implemented in user space byunprivileged processes with good performance. This work has the potentialto radically change how filesystems are managed on Linux systems.

• Security updates for Thursday
  Security updates have been issued by Debian (unbound), Fedora (deepin-qt5integration, deepin-qt5platform-plugins, dtkcore, dtkgui, dtklog, dtkwidget, fcitx-qt5, fcitx5-qt, fontforge, gammaray, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, kddockwidgets, keepassxc, kf5-akonadi-server, kf5-frameworkintegration, kf5-kwayland, plasma-integration, python-qt5, qadwaitadecorations, qt5, qt5-qt3d, qt5-qtbase, qt5-qtcharts, qt5-qtconnectivity, qt5-qtdatavis3d, qt5-qtdeclarative, qt5-qtdoc, qt5-qtgamepad, qt5-qtgraphicaleffects, qt5-qtimageformats, qt5-qtlocation, qt5-qtmultimedia, qt5-qtnetworkauth, qt5-qtquickcontrols, qt5-qtquickcontrols2, qt5-qtremoteobjects, qt5-qtscript, qt5-qtscxml, qt5-qtsensors, qt5-qtserialbus, qt5-qtserialport, qt5-qtspeech, qt5-qtsvg, qt5-qttools, qt5-qttranslations, qt5-qtvirtualkeyboard, qt5-qtwayland, qt5-qtwebchannel, qt5-qtwebengine, qt5-qtwebkit, qt5-qtwebsockets, qt5-qtwebview, qt5-qtx11extras, qt5-qtxmlpatterns, qt5ct, and xorg-x11-server), Mageia (binutils, gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad, libsoup, libsoup3, mediawiki, net-tools, and tigervnc, x11-server, and x11-server-xwayland), Red Hat (tigervnc), SUSE (aws-efs-utils, fetchmail, flake-pilot, ImageMagick, java-1_8_0-ibm, java-1_8_0-openjdk, kernel-devel, kubecolor, OpenSMTPD, sccache, tiff, and zellij), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.14, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.14, linux-oem-6.14, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.14, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux, linux-aws, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-6.8, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-realtime-6.14, poppler, python-django, and various linux-* packages).

Linux Insider"LinuxInsider"

• Red Hat’s Evolution: How a Subsidiary Became an AI Powerhouse
  Red Hat has become a foundational player in enterprise AI by combining open-source infrastructure with hybrid cloud flexibility, maintaining independence while leveraging IBM’s global scale. The post Red Hat’s Evolution: How a Subsidiary Became an AI Powerhouse appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Open-Source Security Tool AdaptixC2 Fueling Ransomware Attacks
  Ransomware gangs are exploiting AdaptixC2, an open-source command-and-control framework originally built for red team testing, to support stealthy post-exploitation operations. The post Open-Source Security Tool AdaptixC2 Fueling Ransomware Attacks appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Open-Source Model Near Breaking Point Despite Trillions in Value
  A coalition of open-source stewards warns that the software industry’s reliance on goodwill to maintain critical infrastructure is unsustainable, despite open source fueling trillions in global economic value. The post Open-Source Model Near Breaking Point Despite Trillions in Value appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• The Linux Foundation Expands Agentic AI Push With Third Major Project
  The Linux Foundation has launched its third major agentic AI initiative in three months, designed to secure communication, enhance interoperability, and drive open-source innovation in multi-agent environments. The post The Linux Foundation Expands Agentic AI Push With Third Major Project appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• TuxCare’s In-Memory CVE Scanner Enhances Linux Security With Radar
  TuxCare Radar is an in-memory CVE scanner that reduces false positives, speeds compliance, and delivers real-time Linux vulnerability detection. The post TuxCare’s In-Memory CVE Scanner Enhances Linux Security With Radar appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Linux Patch Blind Spot Exposes Critical Cybersecurity Risks
  Linux patch delays leave enterprises exposed to long-standing vulnerabilities. Experts warn automation and consistent management are essential to closing this critical security gap. The post Linux Patch Blind Spot Exposes Critical Cybersecurity Risks appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• The Year of the Linux Desktop? This Time, the Data Says Yes
  Linux is making real gains on the desktop. New data shows its market share passing 5% in the U.S., signaling a long-awaited breakthrough. The post The Year of the Linux Desktop? This Time, the Data Says Yes appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• From Kernel to Cloud: Open Source Takes On Security Trade-Offs
  Open-source systems are adopting live patching and isolation technologies to support always-on security and meet enterprise compliance demands in the cloud. The post From Kernel to Cloud: Open Source Takes On Security Trade-Offs appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Kubernetes Cost Optimization May Be Doing More Harm Than Good
  Slashing Kubernetes costs sounds smart — until it backfires. Here’s how to reduce spend safely while improving platform stability and speed. The post Kubernetes Cost Optimization May Be Doing More Harm Than Good appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Is a Security Baseline Enough for Open-Source Software?
  The OpenSSF’s new baseline sets minimum security expectations for open-source projects — but not all developers agree it’s practical, scalable, or sufficient. The post Is a Security Baseline Enough for Open-Source Software? appeared first on LinuxInsider.

• Rocket Lab's Neutron slips to 2026: 'Our aim is to make it to orbit on the first try'
  Hungry Hippo won't move to the launchpad until next year
  Aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider Rocket Lab has confirmed what many have long suspected: its "Hungry Hippo" Neutron rocket won't be hitting the launchpad until 2026 at the earliest.…
  

• EU's reforms of GDPR, AI slated by privacy activists for 'playing into Big Tech’s hands'
  Lobbying efforts gain ground as proposals carve myriad holes into regulations
  Privacy advocates are condemning the European Commission's leaked plans to overhaul digital privacy legislation, accusing officials of bypassing proper legislative processes to favor Big Tech interests.…
  

• US taxpayers being kept in the dark over datacenter subsidies
  Disclosure? We've heard of it
  The US datacenter industry is reaping huge benefits from state-level subsidies, but transparency around these incentives is limited and states that do calculate their returns find they are losing money on the deals.…
  

• OWASP Top 10: Broken access control still tops app security list
  Risk list highlights misconfigs, supply chain failures, and singles out prompt injection in AI apps
  The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) just published its top 10 categories of application risks for 2025, its first list since 2021. It found that while broken access control remains the top issue, security misconfiguration is a strong second, and software supply chain issues are still prominent.…
  

• UK unveils roadmap for replacing animal testing
  Years of development still needed but AI, 3D printing, and other alternative options on the horizon
  The UK Government has unveiled a roadmap to replace animal testing with AI-driven options and other alternatives, targeting the elimination of certain regulatory tests by the end of 2026.…
  

• Hitachi-owned GlobalLogic admits data stolen on 10k current and former staff
  Clop's Oracle EBS exploit spree shows no sign of slowing, claims nearly 30 more casualties in media, finance, and tech.
  Digital engineering outfit GlobalLogic says personal data from more than 10,000 current and former employees was exposed in the wave of Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) attacks attributed to the Clop ransomware gang. The Hitachi-owned biz joins a growing roster of high-profile victims that also now includes The Washington Post and Allianz UK.…
  

• UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely
  Norwegian testers claim maker has remote access, while UK importer says supplier complies with the law
  UK governmental is working with the National Cyber Security Centre to understand and "mitigate" any risk that China-made imported electric buses could be remotely accessed and potentially disabled.…
  

• Battery trade war hits booming datacenter industry
  Tariffs can't stop cheaper, better Chinese tech, says Jefferies. Tesla is Amercia's great hope
  Battery energy storage systems (BESS) could become standard at datacenters as AI infrastructure expand, with analysts forecasting 20 GW of capacity deployed over the next decade.…
  

• Cyber insurers paid out over twice as much for UK ransomware attacks last year
  Massive increase in policy claims… and data doesn’t even cover the major attacks of 2025
  The number of successful cyber insurance claims made by UK organizations shot up last year, according to the latest figures from the industry's trade association.…
  

• UK's Ajax fighting vehicle arrives – years late and still sending crew to hospital
  Continuous track of long awaited AFV hits the ground ... and the terrain is pretty bumpy
  The British Army just received its first new armored fighting vehicle (AFV) for nearly three decades, but it is years late, hit by rising costs, is still reportedly injuring its crew, and there are questions about whether it remains relevant in the age of drone warfare. …
  

• AI isn't throttling HPC. It is HPC
  Your real problem: 40kW racks, melting datacenters and rising power bills
  Opinion In recent discussions with industry vendor sales/marketing types, I've been hearing that HPC demand is falling off while AI system demand is continuing to increase. I've also seen articles implying that AI is somehow displacing HPC. Huh?…
  

• Intel CTO and AI boss quits to join OpenAI after just six months in the job
  Sachin Katti was one of new Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan's first appointments
  Sachin Katti, the exec Intel promoted to chief technology and AI officer in April, will leave the x86 giant to join OpenAI after just six months in the job.…
  

• Superintelligence probably not happening, but AI will still reshape society, expert panel says
  Ask 339 people, get 339 answers
  Experts may be skeptical about corporate AI hype to varying degrees, but they share the view that machine learning models will have a significant effect on society.…
  

• LLM side-channel attack could allow snoops to guess what you're talking about
  Encryption protects content, not context
  Updated Mischief-makers can guess the subjects being discussed with LLMs using a side-channel attack, according to Microsoft researchers. They told The Register that models from some providers, including Anthropic, AWS, DeepSeek, and Google, haven't been fixed, putting both personal users and enterprise communications at risk.…
  

• Secret setting hints haptic feedback coming to Windows 11 UI
  Microsoft has generated some buzz about generating some buzz
  Most phones and tablets include little motors that buzz when you perform common actions such as typing, or when apps notify users of important events. Microsoft may be about to bring similar good vibrations to the PC with features that see Windows 11 make your mouse or touchpad tremble when you perform UI actions such as snapping windows into place.…
  

• AI companies keep publishing private API keys to GitHub
  Security biz Wiz says 65% of top AI businesses leak keys and tokens
  Leading AI companies turn out to be no better at keeping secrets than anyone else writing code.…
  

• AI slop hits new high as fake country artist hits #1 on Billboard digital songs chart
  It sounds a lot like everything else
  AI slop has reached a new level of ascendancy, as a country song by an AI artist has hit number one on Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales chart.…
  

• Altman sticks a different hand out, wants tax credits instead of gov loans
  We can't let supply chain shortages burst the bubble boy's balloon
  Free money is always better than a loan! OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said he doesn't want government-backed loans to fuel his AI ambitions, but he's more than okay with the idea of Uncle Sam handing out tax credits under the US CHIPS Act to subsidize AI server production, bit barns, and grid components.…
  

• Critical federal cybersecurity funding set to resume as government shutdown draws to a close - for now
  Resolution acquiesced to by 8 Dems includes CISA Act funding, layoff reversals, and could be easily undone
  The US Senate voted on Sunday to advance a short-term funding bill for the federal government, moving the country closer to ending its longest-ever shutdown. Part of the spending bill also restores critical cybersecurity programs that lapsed as the shutdown began. …
  

• Phishers try to lure 5K Facebook advertisers with fake business pages
  One company alone was hit with more than 4,200 emails
  More than 5,000 businesses that use Facebook for advertising were bombarded by tens of thousands of phishing emails in a credential- and data-stealing campaign.…
  

• How to bluff your way to AI credibility with the right buzzwords
  As Gartner offers another serving of word salad, it’s time to know your skillatrophy from your pipeline choke
  A Gartner survey of 700 CIOs indicates that, by the end of the decade, all business IT work will involve AI, while bots will do 25 percent of that work by themselves. Good news: The analyst firm claims AI causes only one percent of job losses. Bad news: You'll have to learn some new jargon.…
  

• Ironclad OS project popping out Unix-like kernel in a unique mix of languages
  There's more to safer systems languages than Rust
  If you're looking for a Unix-like, POSIX-compatible, real-time kernel, there's no shortage of projects trying to build one. Ironclad stands out for using the Ada programming language and its formally verifiable SPARK subset.…
  

• Another chance for JPEG XL? PDF will support format as 'preferred solution'
  Format declared obsolete by Google Chrome team wins PDF support
  The PDF Association will add support for the JPEG XL (JXL) image format to the PDF spec, according to a recently published presentation from the org's European conference. This inclusion means that JXL may yet gain mainstream adoption, despite being declared obsolete by the Chromium team.…
  

• Windows 11 26H1 is coming ... for new processors only
  It's OK to look: New Canary channel build supports specific silicon while 26H2 remains the main 2026 update
  Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 version 26H1 is coming, but only with changes to support "specific silicon" – possibly Qualcomm's latest chips due next year – meaning ordinary users are unlikely to see it soon.…
  

• Russian broker pleads guilty to profiting from Yanluowang ransomware attacks
  Aleksei Volkov faces years in prison, may have been working with other crews
  A Russian national will likely face several years in US prison after pleading guilty to a range of offenses related to his work with ransomware crews.…
  

• SpaceX and Musk called on to rescue China's Shenzhou-20 crew
  Technical and political obstacles block collaboration following suspected space debris strike on craft
  SpaceX and Elon Musk are once again being called upon to rescue spacefarers — this time, the Chinese crew of Shenzhou-20, delayed on China's Tiangong space station after suspected space debris damage.…
  

• De-duplicating the desktops: Let's come together, right now
  Here come old FlatPak, it comes grooving up slowly...
  opinion The tendency of Linux developers to reinvent wheels is no secret. It's not so much the elephant in the room, as the entire jet-propelled guided ark ship full of every known and unknown member of the Proboscidea from Ambelodon to Stegodon via deinotheres, elephants, mammoths and other mastodons.…
  

• Allianz UK joins growing list of Clop’s Oracle E-Business Suite victims
  Insurance giant’s UK arm says cybercriminals misattributed the real victim
  Allianz UK confirms it was one of the many companies that fell victim to the Clop gang's Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) attack after crims reported that they had attacked a subsidiary.…
  

• Big Tech's control freak era is breaking itself apart
  AI slop, Trump tantrums, and zero humans answering phones
  Opinion When the first generation of microcomputers landed on desktops, they promised many things. Affordability, flexibility, efficiency, all the good things still selling IT to this day. Mostly, though, they offered control.…
  

• UK military looking for tactical comms, systems suppliers in deal worth up to £9.6B
  Major battle field technology refresh will be open to the rest of public sector
  The UK government is launching a competition for military grade communications hardware and software in a tender worth up to £9.6 billion ($12.5 billion) including tax.…
  

• Cisco creating new security model using 30 years of data describing cyber-dramas and saves
  Doubles parameters to over 17 billion, to detect threats and recommend actions
  Exclusive Cisco is working on a new AI model that will more than double the number of parameters used to train its current flagship Foundation-Sec-8B.…
  

• Techie ran up $40,000 bill trying to download a driver
  In the dialup age, small mistakes could cost big money
  Who, Me? Welcome to another week in the world of work, and therefore also to another edition of Who, Me? It’s The Register’s Monday reader-contributed column in which you admit to the error of your ways.…
  

• Microsoft teases agents that become ‘independent users within the workforce’
  Licensing expert worries they’ll be out of control on day one
  Microsoft has teased what it’s calling “a new class” of AI agents “that operate as independent users within the enterprise workforce.”…
  

• Data breach at Chinese infosec firm reveals cyber-weapons and target list
  PLUS: India’s tech services exports growing fast; South Korea puts the bite on TXT spam; NTT gets into autonomous vehicles; and more!
  Asia In Brief Chinese infosec blog MXRN last week reported a data breach at a security company called Knownsec that has ties to Beijing and Chinas military.…
  

• Louvre's pathetic passwords belong in a museum, just not that one
  PLUS: CISA layoffs continue; Lawmakers criticize camera security; China to execute scammers; And more
  Infosec in brief There's no indication that the brazen bandits who stole jewels from the Louvre attacked the famed French museum's systems, but had they tried, it would have been incredibly easy.…
  

• Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks
  Two different groups want this valuable spectrum, but can they share?
  A row is brewing in Europe over the 6 GHz part of the wireless spectrum, between those who believe it should be licensed for use by cellular networks and others that want it reserved for Wi-Fi.…
  

• Here's one way to cut support ticket volume… send them to another company entirely
  Misdirection is the new resolution at major video game house
  The CEO of the company behind note-taking app Obsidian says the well-known video game house of the same name has sent one of its customer queries to his own team – claiming that "off-the-shelf AI support software" is why the gaming firm gave a user the wrong email address.…
  

• Who's watching the watchers? This Mozilla fellow, and her Surveillance Watch map
  Esra'a Al Shafei spoke with The Reg about the spy tech 'global trade'
  interview Digital rights activist Esra'a Al Shafei found FinFisher spyware on her device more than a decade ago. Now she's made it her mission to surveil the companies providing surveillanceware, their customers, and their funders.…
  

• Microsoft's lack of quality control is out of control
  At one point, Microsoft's QC was legendary. Now, it's the wrong kind of legend
  OPINION I have a habit of ironically referring to Microsoft's various self-induced whoopsies as examples of the company's "legendary approach to quality control." While the robustness of Windows NT in decades past might qualify as "legendary", anybody who has had to use the company's wares in recent years might quibble with the word "quality."…
  

• Meta can't afford its $600B love letter to Trump
  The Zuck better hope his finance bros have deep pockets and a whole lotta patience to pull this off
  Meta on Friday floated plans to invest $600 billion in US infrastructure and jobs by 2028 as part of a massive datacenter expansion.…
  

• ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok make very squishy jury members
  All three acquitted a teen in a mock trial based on a case where a judge ruled guilty
  Law students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law last month held a mock trial to see how AI models administer justice.…
  

• Previously unknown Landfall spyware used in 0-day attacks on Samsung phones
  'Precision espionage campaign' began months before the flaw was fixed
  A previously unknown Android spyware family called LANDFALL exploited a zero-day in Samsung Galaxy devices for nearly a year, installing surveillance code capable of recording calls, tracking locations, and harvesting photos and logs before Samsung finally patched it in April.…
  

• AI benchmarks are a bad joke – and LLM makers are the ones laughing
  Study finds many tests don't measure the right things
  AI companies regularly tout their models' performance on benchmark tests as a sign of technological and intellectual superiority. But those results, widely used in marketing, may not be meaningful.…
  

• Blackwell a no-sell in China as trade deal fails to materialize
  Xi and Trump haven't gotten to discuss the chips, though they were supposed to
  Nvidia's latest generation of Blackwell accelerators won't be available in China anytime soon, according to CEO Jensen Huang, who said there were no "active discussions" about selling the coveted chips to the Middle Kingdom.…
  

• 52-year-old data tape could contain only known copy of UNIX V4
  It might have the first-ever version of UNIX written in C
  A tape-based piece of unique Unix history may have been lying quietly in storage at the University of Utah for 50+ years. The question is whether researchers will be able to take this piece of middle-aged media and rewind it back to the 1970s to get the data off.…
  

• China warns Dutch away from Nexperia as it lets chip exports resume
  Netherlands court still overseeing governance at the chipmaker
  Tensions between China and the Netherlands over the state of chipmaker Nexperia have begun to ease, but the battle for company control doesn't appear to be entirely resolved yet. …
  

• Google's Gemini Deep Research can now read your Gmail and rummage through Google Drive
  Even with more info, web giant says agent can't be trusted to keep you healthy, wealthy, and wise
  Google's Gemini Deep Research tool can now reach deep into Gmail, Drive, and Chat to obtain data that might be useful for answering research questions.…
  

• Cybercrims plant destructive time bomb malware in industrial .NET extensions
  Multi-year wait for destruction comes to an end for mystery attackers
  Security experts have helped remove malicious NuGet packages planted in 2023 that were designed to destroy systems years in advance, with some payloads not due to hit until the latter part of this decade.…
  

• Researchers want to kill the vibe, propose better model for AI coding
  MIT researchers offer cure for illegible software
  A pair of MIT researchers have detailed a proposed new model for software that would help both humans and AI code generators alike create better and more transparent applications. No more vibing!…
  

• Musk gets approval for bumper Tesla payout but, unlike his robot, there are strings attached
  Behold the one trillion dollar man
  Tesla is awarding its CEO Elon Musk a package worth a possible $1 trillion, however, it relies in part on a dramatic increase in the value of the electric vehicle manufacturer.…
  

• Intel Core Ultra 7 255H Linux CPU Performance
  Lenovo recently sent over their new ThinkPad P1 Gen 8 laptop for review under Linux. My Linux review on that ThinkPad P1 Gen 8 laptop will be coming up in the near future along with some other benchmarks from that premium mobile workstation. But with this being the first time I9ve had an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H "Arrow Lake H" device at Phoronix, here are some standalone benchmarks looking at the CPU performance of that 16-core mobile processor compared to various other Intel and AMD SoCs in different laptops while running Ubuntu Linux.

• 15h.org Ships Updated Open-Source Firmware For Aging AMD Bulldozer/Piledriver Hardware
  While there is the AMD openSIL project for open-source CPU silicon initialization for platforms moving forward with plans to ultimately replace AGESA and be more friendly toward the likes of Coreboot, for those on aging AMD Bulldozer and Piledriver era platforms there is some updated open-source firmware available thanks to an independent free software project...

• Intel LPMD 0.1 Released With Support For Panther Lake
  Intel on Monday released version 0.1 of their Low Power Mode Daemon, the open-source daemon in development for several years now for optimizing active idle power on modern Intel Core (Ultra) CPUs under Linux...

• How System76 & Red Hat Hope To Finally Improve The Linux Multi-GPU Experience
  System76 engineer Victoria Brekenfeld and Red Hat engineer Sebastian Wick presented at the recent XDC2025 developer conference with their hopes of finally fixing the multi-GPU experience on Linux. As part of this is getting the necessary Wayland protocols in order as well as a new gpu-daemon service for proper multi-GPU handling for the Linux desktop...

• New Linux Patches To Expose AMD Ryzen AI NPU Power Metrics
  New Linux kernel patches currently undergoing review will allow AMD Ryzen AI NPU power metrics to be exposed under Linux. In turn this is useful for helping to gauge the utilization of the neural processing unit and also helping to evaluate the actual power efficiency of leveraging the AMD Ryzen AI NPU...

• Intel Xe Linux Driver Working Toward UALink & High Speed Fabrics Support
  The YouTube video recordings for the X.Org Developers' Conference 2025 that took place at the end of September in Austria are finally available. Among the many interesting XDC2025 presentations was Intel engineer Matthew Brost talking about the GPU Shared Virtual Memory (SVM) within Intel's modern Xe kernel graphics driver...

• SDL3 Now Implements Render Batching For Direct3D, Metal & Vulkan
  The SDL3 library that is popular with cross-platform games for abstracting various software/hardware features has implemented render batching for its built-in rendering API. This render batching is successfully wired up now for Direct3D 11/12, Apple Metal, and Vulkan APIs for more efficient graphics rendering...

• AMD Posts New "amd_vpci" Accelerator Driver For Linux
  While there is already AMDXDNA as one of the few currently mainline drivers in the accelerator "accel" subsystem for supporting AMD Ryzen AI NPUs, another AMD accel driver is on the way: amd_vpci. The new amd_vpci driver patches were posted today for review as AMD continues to further expand their diverse offerings in the ecosystem...

• EasyEffects 8.0 Released In Porting From GTK4 To Qt / QML / Kirigami
  EasyEffects is the open-source application formerly known as PulseEffects that transitioned to using native PipeWire filters for providing simple audio effects on the Linux desktop. EasyEffects makes it easy to apply different audio effects like bass enhancer, compressor, pitch shift, reverberation, and many more. With this week's release of EasyEffects 8.0, the user interface has been rewritten in Qt / QML / Kirigami rather than GTK4...

• GNU Coreutils 9.9 Brings Numerous Fixes
  Following yesterday's release of Rust Coreutils 0.4, GNU Coreutils 9.9 is now available as the latest update to this set of core utilities common to Linux systems and other platforms...

• Google Cloud N4D Delivers Great VM Performance & Value Powered By AMD EPYC Turin
  Google Cloud today is rolling out their N4D compute instances that are optimized for cost/price-performance and geared for general purpose workloads. The N4D instances are powered by 5th Gen AMD EPYC "Turin" processors and offer very nice performance and value over their prior-generation general purpose VMs.

• Can openSUSE Tumbleweed Compete With CachyOS Performance?
  Last week when delivering some CachyOS benchmarks against Fedora 43 and Ubuntu 25.10 on the Framework Desktop with AMD Ryzen AI Max+, a few Phoronix readers wrote in with the question or belief that openSUSE Tumbleweed would better perform against CachyOS given the distribution9s select x86_64-v3 packages and other advantages. As it9s been a while since running any benchmarks of the rolling-release openSUSE Tumbleweed, here are those benchmarks now in the mix for seeing how the performance compares.

• Firefox 145 Binaries Available - Aside From 32-bit Linux Being Removed
  Firefox 145 release binaries are now available. Most notable with this release is what's not there: the 32-bit Linux builds are no more...

• POLYVAL Work Bringing More Performance Gains To Linux Crypto Subsystem
  Whenever seeing Linux kernel mailing list patches from Google engineer Eric Biggers it tends to be about performance optimizations to the Linux kernel's cryptography subsystem. That was once again the case on Sunday with the newest patch series providing some nice gains...

• Tencent Proposes Semantics-Aware vCPU Scheduling For Over-Subscribed KVM Linux VMs
  Tecent engineers have been working on addressing long-standing inefficiencies within the Linux kernel scheduler code around over-subscribed virtualized environments...

• Fish 4.2 Shell Brings Interactive Improvements, Updated Rust Minimum Version
  Fish 4.2 is now available as the latest version of this popular shell on Linux, macOS, and other systems...

• LoongArch LA32 Target Proposed For The GCC Compiler
  While LoongArch 64-bit is already part of the GCC compiler for the past several years, LoongArch 32-bit is now being proposed for the GNU Compiler Collection...

• Patches Proposed For Radeon GCN 1.1 GPUs To Use AMDGPU Linux Driver By Default
  For those still using an AMD GCN 1.1 "Sea Islands" GPU like the Radeon R9 290/390 series, HD 7790 / 8870, or other Radeon Rx 200 / Rx 300 series GPUs, there is an exciting early Christmas present this year. Timur Kristóf of Valve's Linux graphics driver team sent out the patch series on Sunday for enabling the GCN 1.1 GPUs to use the newer AMDGPU driver on Linux by default in place of the existing "Radeon" driver. This can mean better performance, Vulkan driver support out-of-the-box, and other improvements compared to using that older Radeon driver...

• Rust Coreutils 0.4 Released With Better GNU Compatibility & Faster Performance
  Rust Coreutils continues moving fast on their goal "toward full GNU compatibility" with the GNU Coreutils. The uutils project announced Rust Coreutils 0.4 this evening with better compatibility, performance optimizations, and other improvements...

• Linux 6.18-rc5 Released: "Small And Boring"
  As we work toward the stable Linux 6.18 kernel release expected around the end of December, out today is the Linux 6.18-rc5 test kernel...

• The Linux Kernel Looks To "Bite The Bullet" In Enabling Microsoft C Extensions
  Two patches queued into the Linux kernel's build system development tree, kbuild-next, would enable the -fms-extensions compiler argument everywhere for allowing GCC and LLVM/Clang to use the Microsoft C Extensions when compiling the Linux kernel. Being in kbuild-next these patches will likely be submitted for the Linux 6.19 kernel merge window next month but remains to be seen if there will be any last minute objections to this change...

• Lenovo IdeaPad Linux Driver Adding Support For Rapid Charge Mode
  Queued into the platform-drivers-x86 "for-next" Git branch ahead of the Linux 6.19 merge window is introducing the handling for the "Rapid Charge" USB-C charging mode to the Lenovo IdeaPad laptop driver...

• Linux 6.19 Will Better Deal With Corrupt Minix File-Systems
  For anyone dealing with Minix file-systems still for this nearly 40 year old creation, the upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel is expected to bring some fixes to the Minix driver for better handling corrupted file-system images...

• AMD Preps More Graphics Driver Changes For Linux 6.19
  AMD continues preparing more kernel driver code for Linux 6.19. This week another round of AMDGPU kernel graphics driver updates were submitted to DRM-Next ahead of the early December merge window...

• Cloud Hypervisor 49 Released With AArch64 + Microsoft Hyper-V Improvements
  For what began as an Intel open-source project focused on delivering a modern VMM for cloud workloads and written in Rust is seeing increasingly more exposure on AArch64 and Microsoft Windows platforms. In fact, Intel remains largely inactive now with Cloud Hypervisor after their lead maintainer left the company last year and has now been one year since seeing any significant contributions from Intel to this open-source project...

• SquashFS Tools 4.7.3 Brings Optimizations For As Much As "1500 Times" Speed Improvement
  For those dealing with SquashFS compressed, read-only file-systems, a new version of the user-space tools were released this week...

• Linux 6.18-rc5 To Cut Down Performance Regression Observed On IBM POWER CPUs
  Merged today ahead of the Linux 6.18-rc5 kernel due out on Sunday is a partial fix for a performance regression observed on IBM POWER hardware...

• Ryzen AI Software 1.6.1 Advertises Linux Support
  Ryzen AI Software as AMD's collection of tools and libraries for AI inferencing on AMD Ryzen AI class PCs has Linux support with its newest point release. Though this "early access" Linux support is restricted to registered AMD customers...

• AMD Sends Out Initial GNU Binutils Patch For AMD Zen 6 - Confirms New AVX-512 Features
  AMD has begun their open-source compiler enablement upstreaming effort for Zen 6 processors! The first "Znver6" patch was sent out on Friday in preparing for new instructions to be found with these next-generation AMD Ryzen and EPYC processors...

• oneDNN 3.10 Continues Preparing For Future Intel CPUs With AVX 10.2
  Released one Friday was the newest version of oneDNN as this library started off by Intel and now officially under the UXL Foundation umbrella for serving as building blocks for deep learning software...

• Qt Merges Wayland Color Management "color-management-v1"
  The Qt toolkit has merged support for Wayland's color-management-v1 protocol to replace the former xx-color-management-v4 protocol shipped by this open-source toolkit. The change was merged for Qt 6.11 development but also back-ported for the Qt 6.10 series...

• Linux Kernel Patches & Device Tree Additions For PCIe M.2 Connectors
  On ACPI-enabled systems Linux users can enjoy PCIe M.2 connected peripherals that "just work" without any extra fuss. But for those relying on Device Tree (DT) handling by the kernel, new patches from Qualcomm are working on representing PCIe M.2 connectors within DT files...

• VMS/XDE: an OpenVMS x86 development environment for Linux and Windows/WSL
  VMS/XDE is an OpenVMS x86 development environment for Linux and WIndows (via WSL). It provides a familiar user experience for OpenVMS developers working in Linux and Windows yet offers 100% binary and file system compatilibilty with OpenVMS. VMS/XDE includes OpenVMS V9.2-3 user, supervisor and executive mode operating system environments and a set of x86 native compilers and layered products geared towards OpenVMS software development and testing. ↫ VMS/XDE website VMS/XDE is a beta version, and comes with the usual annoying OpenVMS x86 time bombs, this time exploding on 3 January 2026. If you intend to use the finalised commercial version after the beta period ends, youll have to employ the same licenses as regular OpenVMS. Its a bit of a mess, but thats the OpenVMS way, sadly  and I dont blame them, either, as Im sure theyre hamstrung by a ton of agreements and restrictions imposed upon them by HP. Regardless, VMS/XDE brings a zero setup OpenVMS environment to the operating system youre already using, making it easier to develop and cross-compile for the platform. I still have absolutely no clue just how many people OpenVMS is still relevant for, but I absolutely adore the fact VMS Software Inc. is working on this. In a world where so many of its former competitors are being held hostage by corporate indifference, its refreshing to see VMS still moving forward.

• Plasma Mobile 6.5 keeps improving
  As part of the KDE Plasma 6.5 release, we also got a new release of Plasma Mobile. As theres a lot of changes, improvements, and new features in Plasma Mobile 6.5, the Plasma Mobile Team published a blog post to highlight them all. The biggest improvement is probably the further integration of Waydroid, a necessary evil to run Android applications until the Plasma Mobile ecosystem manages to become a bit more well-rounded. Waydroid can now be managed straight from the settings application and the quick settings dropdown. Furthermore, the lockscreen has been improved considerably, theres been a ton of polish for the home screen and the user interface in general, the quick settings panel can now be customised to make it fit better on different form factors, the first early test version of the new Plasma mobile keyboard is included, and so much more. This is definitely a release I would want to try out, but since I dont have any of the supported devices, Im a bit stuck. This is, of course, one of the two major problems facing proper mobile Linux: the lack of device support. Its improving due to the tireless work of countless volunteers, but theyre always going to be swimming upstream. The other major problem is, of course, application availability, but at least Waydroid can bridge the gap for the adventurous among us.

• Tribblix m38 released
  Tribblix, the Illumos distribution focused on giving you a classic UNIX-style experience, has released a new version. Milestone 38 isnt the most consequential release of all time, but it does bring a few small changes accompanied by the usual long list of updated open source packages. The zap install command now installs dependencies by default, while zap create-user will now restrict new home directories to mode 0700 by default. Meanwhile, int16h at Cryogenix published an article about using a Bhyve VM running FreeBSD to act as a Wi-Fi bridge for laptops with 802.11xx chips that Tribblix doesnt support. This is a great, albeit somewhat convoluted option if your hardware uses any Wi-Fi chips Tribblix doesnt support. Theres honestly a solution for everything, isnt there?

• Setting up a combined 68k/PA-RISC HP-UX 9 cluster
  Jonathan Pallant got lucky and managed to score a massive haul of 90s UNIX workstations, one of which was an HP 9000 Model 340, a HP-UX workstation built around a Motorola 68030 processor at 16.7 MHz. It doesnt come with a hard drive or even a floppy controller, though, so he decided to borrow a PA-RISC-based HP 9000 Model 705 to set up an HP-UX 9 cluster. But wait, how does that work, when were dealing with two entirely different architectures? Whats more fun though, is putting it into a cluster with the Model 705 and network booting it. Yes, that a 68030 machine network booting from a PA-RISC machine 0 and`sharing the same root filesystem. But arent PA-RISC binaries and 68K binaries quite different? Oh yes, they really are. So, how does that work? ↫ Jonathan Pallant HP-UX is far more interesting and fascinating than a lot of people give it credit for, and while my interest lies with HP-UX 11i, I find what Pallant is doing here with HP-UX 9 just as fascinating. You first need to install HP-UX 9 for PA-RISC on the 700 series machine, convert it to a cluster server, and then install HP-UX 9 for 68k on top of that PA-RISC installation. After this is done, you effectively end up with a single root file system that contains both PA-RISC and 68k binaries, and you can network boot the 68k-based Model 340 right from it  using the same root filesystem on both machines. Absolutely wild. No, these are not universal binaries or some other trick you might know of from more modern system. In fact, installing the 68k version of HP-UX 9 into! the PA-RISC HP-UX 9 cluster server, you end up with something called a Context Dependent Filesystem. To get a better idea of what this means and how this works, you should really head on over to Pallants excellent article for all the details.

• Ironclad 0.7.0 and 0.8.0 released, adds RISC-V support
  Weve talked about Ironclad a few times, but theres been two new releases since the 0.6.0 release we covered last, so lets see what the projects been up to. As a refresher, Ironclad is a formally verified, hard real-time capable kernel written in SPARK and Ada. Versions 0.7.0 and 0.8.0 improved support for block device caching, added a basic NVMe driver, added support for x86’s SMAP, switched from KVM to NVMM for Ironclad’s virtualization interface, and much, much more. In the meantime, Ironclad also added support for RISC-V, making it usable on any 64 bit RISC-V target that supports a Limine-protocol compatible bootloader. The easiest way to try out Ironclad is to download Gloire, a distribution that uses Ironclad and the GNU tools. It can be installed in both a virtual machine and on real hardware.

• Mac OS 7.6 and 8 for CHRP releases discovered
  For those of us unaware  unlikely on OSNews, but still  for a hot minute in the second half of the 90s, Apple licensed its Mac OS to OEMs, resulting in officially sanctioned Mac clones from a variety of companies. While intended to grow the Macs market share, what ended up happening instead is that the clone makers outcompeted Apple on performance, price, and features, with clones offering several features and capabilities before Apple did  for far lower prices. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he killed the clone program almost instantly. The rather abrupt end of the clone program means theres a number of variants of the Mac OS that never made their way into the market, most notable variants intended for the Common Reference Hardware Platform, or CHRP, a standard defined by IBM and Apple for PowerPC-based PCs. Thanks to the popular classic Mac YouTuber Mac84, we now have a few of these releases out in the wild. These CDs contain release candidates for Mac OS 7.6 and Mac OS 8 for CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) systems. They were created to support CHRP computers, but were never released, likely due to Steve Jobs returning to Apple in September 1997 and eliminating the Mac Clone program and any CHRP efforts. ↫ Mac OS 7.6/8 CHRP releases page Mac84 has an accompanying video diving into more detail about these individual releases by booting and running them in an emulator, so we can get a better idea of what they contain. While most clone makers only got access to Mac OS 7.x, some of them did, in fact, gain access to Mac OS 8, namely UMAX and Power Computing (the latter of which was acquired by Apple). Its not the clone nature of these releases that make them special, but the fact theyre CHRP releases is. This reference platform was a failure in the market, and only a few of IBMs own machines and some of Motorolas PowerStack machines properly supported it. Apple, meanwhile, only aid minor lip service to CHRP in its New World Power Macintosch machines.

• FreeBSD now builds reproducibly and without root privilege
  The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that it has completed work to build FreeBSD without requiring root privilege. We have implemented support for all source release builds to use no-root infrastructure, eliminating the need for root privileges across the FreeBSD release pipeline. This work was completed as part of the`program commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Agency. ↫ FreeBSD Foundation blog This is great news in and of itself, but theres more: FreeBSD has also improved build reproducability. This means that given the same source input, you should end up with the same binary output, which is an important part of building a verifiable chain of trust. These two improvements combined further add to making FreeBSD a trustworthy, secure option  something it already is anyway. In case you havent noticed, the FreeBSD project and its countless contributors are making a ton of tangible progress lately on a wide variety of topics, from improving desktop use, to solidifying Wi-Fi support, to improving the chain of trust. I think the time is quite right for FreeBSD to make some inroads in the desktop UNIX-y space, especially for people to whom desktop Linux has strayed too far from the traditional UNIX philosphy (whatever that means).

• LXQt 2.3.0 released
  LXQt, the other Qt desktop environment, released version 2.3.0. This new version comes roughly six months after 2.2.0, and continues the projects adoption of Wayland. The enhancement of Wayland support has been continued, especially in LXQt Panel, whose Desktop Switcher is now enabled for Labwc, Niri, …. It is also equipped with a backend specifically for Wayfire. In addition, the Custom Command plugin is made more flexible, regardless of Wayland and X11. ↫ LXQt 2.3.0 release announcement The screenshot utility has been improved as well, and lxqt-qdbus has been added to lxqt-wayland-session to make qdbus commands easier to use with all kinds of Wayland compositors.

• WINE gaming in FreeBSD Jails with Bastille
  FreeBSD offers a whole bunch of technologies and tools to make gaming on the platform a lot more capable than youd think, and this article by Pertho dives into the details. Running all your games inside a FreeBSD Jail with Wine installed into it is pretty neat. Initially, I thought this was going to be a pretty difficult and require a lot of trial and error but I was surprised at how easy it was to get this all working. I was really happy to get some of my favorite games working in a FreeBSD Jail, and having ZFS snapshots around was a great way to test things in case I needed to backtrack. ↫ Pertho at their blog No, this isnt as easy as gaming on Linux has become, and it certainly requires a ton more work and knowledge than just installing a major Linux distribution and Steam, but for those of us who prefer a more traditional UNIX-like experience, this is a great option.

• Tape containing UNIX v4 found
  A unique and very important find at the University of Utah: while cleaning out some storage rooms, the staff at the university discovered a tape containing a copy of UNIX v4 from Bell Labs. At this time, no complete copies are known to exist, and as such, this could be a crucial find for the archaeology of early UNIX. The tape in question will be sent to the Computer History Museum for further handling, where bitsavers.org will conduct the recovery process. I have the equipment. It is a 3M tape so it will probably be fine. It will be digitized on my analog recovery set up and Ill use Len Shusteks readtape program to recover the data. The only issue right now is my workflow isnt a while you wait! thing, so I need to pull all the pieces into one physical location and test everything before I tell Penny its OK to come out. ↫ bitsavers.org Its amazing how we still manage to find such treasures in nooks and crannies all over the world, and with everything looking good so far, it seems well soon be able to fill in more of UNIX early history.

• There is no such thing as a 3.5 inch floppy disk
  Wait, what? The term`3.5 inch floppy disc`is in fact a misnomer. Whilst the specification for 5.25 inch floppy discs employs Imperial units, the later specification for the smaller floppy discs employs metric units. The standards for these discs are all of which specify the measurements in metric, and only metric. These standards explicitly give the dimensions as 90.0mm by 94.0mm. Its in clause 6 of all three. ↫ Jonathan de Boyne Pollard Even the applicable standard in the US, ANSI X3.171-1989, specifies the size in metric. We couldve been referring to these things using proper measurements instead of archaic ones based on the size of a monks left testicle at dawn at room temperature in 1375 or whatever nonsense imperial or customary used to be based on. I feel dirty for thinking I had to use inches! for this. If we ever need to talk about these disks on OSNews from here on out, Ill be using proper units of measurement.

• Servo ported to Redox
  Redox keeps improving every month, and this past one is certainly a banger. The big news this past month is that Servo, the browser engine written in Rust, has been ported to Redox. Its extremely spartan at the moment, and crashes when a second website is loaded, but its a promising start. It also just makes sense to have the premier Rust browser engine running on the premier Rust operating system. Htop and bottom have been ported to Redox for much improved system monitoring, and theyre joined by a port of GoAccess. The version of Rust has been updated which fixed some issues, and keyboard layout configuration has been greatly improved. Instead of a few hardcoded layouts, they can now be configured dynamically for users of PS/2 keyboards, with USB keyboards receiving this functionality soon as well. Theres more, of course, as well as the usual slew of low-level changes and improvements to drivers, the kernel relibc, and more.

• MacOS 26’s new icons are a step backwards
  On the new MacOS 26 (Tahoe), Apple has mandated that all application icons fit into their prescribed squircle. No longer can icons have distinct shapes, nor even any fun frame-breaking accessories. Should an icon be so foolish as to try to have a bit of personality, it will find itself stuffed into a dingy gray icon jail. ↫ Paul Kafasis The downgraded icons listed in this article are just0 Sad. While theres no accounting for tastes, Apples new glassy icons are just plain bad, void of any whimsy, and lacking in artistry. Considering where Apple came from back when it made beautifully crafted icons that set the bar for the entire industry. Almost seems like a metaphor for tech in general.

• A lost IBM PC/AT model? Analyzing a newfound old BIOS
  Some people not only have a very particular set of skills, but also a very particular set of interests that happen to align with those skills perfectly. When several unidentified and mysterious IBM PC ROM chips from the 1980s were discovered on eBay, two particular chips dumped contents posed particularly troublesome to identify. In 1985, the FCh model byte could only mean the 5170 (PC/AT), and the even/odd byte interleaving does point at a 16-bit bus. But there are three known versions of the PC/AT BIOS released during the 5170 familys lifetime, corresponding to the three AT motherboard types. This one here is clearly not one of them: its date stamps and part numbers dont match, and the actual contents are substantially different besides. My first thought was that this may have come from one of those more shadowy members of the 5170 family: perhaps the AT/370, the 3270 AT/G(X), or the rack-mounted 7532 Industrial AT. But known examples of those carry the same firmware sets as the plain old 5170, so their BIOS extensions (if any) came in the shape of extra adapter ROMs. Whatever`this`thing was  some other 5170-type machine, a prototype, or even just a custom patch  it seemed Id have to inquire within for any further clues. ↫ VileR at the int10h.org blog Ill be honest and state that most of the in-depth analysis of the code dumped from the ROM chips is far too complex for me to follow, but that doesnt make the story it tells any less interesting. Theres no definitive, 100% conclusive answer at the end, but the available evidence collected by VileR does make a very strong case for a very specific, mysterious variant of the IBM PC being the likely source of the ROMs. If youre interested in some very deep IBM lore, heres your serving.

• The Microsoft SoftCard for the Apple II: getting two processors to share the same memory
  We talked about the Z80 SoftCard, Microsofts first hardware product, back in 2023, but thanks to Raymond Chen and Nicole Branagan, weve got some more insights. The Microsoft Z-80 SoftCard was a plug-in expansion card for the Apple II that added the ability to run CP/M software. According to Wikipedia, it was Microsoft’s first hardware product and in 1980 was the single largest revenue source for the company. ↫ Raymond Chen at The Old New Thing And Chen links to an article by Branagan from 2020, which goes into even more detail. So there I was, very happy with my Apple ][plus. But then I saw someone on the internet post, and it seems that my Apple is an overpriced box with a toy microcontroller for a CPU, while real computers use an Intel 8080, 8085 or Zilog Z80 to run something called “CP/M”… but I’ve already spent so much money on the Apple, so can I turn it into a real computer? ↫ Nicole Branagan I have a soft spot for this particular subgenre of hardware  add-in cards that allow you to run an entirely different architecture inside your computer  and soon, Ill be diving into a particularly capable example here on OSNews.

• bluetui and restterm: two beautiful TUI applications
  Theres something incredibly enticing and retrofuturistic about a well-designed TUI, or text-based user interface. Theres an endless list number of these, but two crossed my path these past few days, and I found them particularly appealing. First, weve got bluetui, an application for managing Bluetooth connections on Linux systems with bluez installed. The second is resterm. Resterm is a terminal-first client for working with`HTTP,GraphQL, and`gRPC`services. No cloud sync, no signups, no heavy desktop app. Simple, yet feature rich, terminal client for .http/.rest files. It pairs a Vim-like-style editor with a workspace explorer, response diff, history, profiler and scripting so you can iterate on requests without leaving the keyboard. ↫ restterm GitHub page I dont use TUIs or the command line in general all that much, but these are two excellent examples of just how beautiful and user-friendly a good text-based user interface can really be. The command line is about a lot more than just archaic, cryptic incantations designed in the 1960s.

• TUXEDO Computers Announces a New InfinityBook
  TUXEDO Computers is at it again with a new InfinityBook that will meet your professional and gaming needs.
  

• SUSE Dives into the Agentic AI Pool
  SUSE becomes the first open source company to adopt agentic AI with SUSE Enterprise Linux 16.
  

• Linux Now Runs Most Windows Games
  The latest data shows that nearly 90 percent of Windows games can be played on Linux.
  

• Fedora 43 Has Finally Landed
  The Fedora Linux developers have announced their latest release, Fedora 43.
  

• KDE Unleashes Plasma 6.5
  The Plasma 6.5 desktop environment is now available with new features, improvements, and the usual bug fixes.
  

• Xubuntu Site Possibly Hacked
  It appears that the Xubuntu site was hacked and briefly served up a malicious ZIP file from its download page.
  

• LMDE 7 Now Available
  Linux Mint Debian Edition, version 7, has been officially released and is based on upstream Debian.
  

• Linux Kernel 6.16 Reaches EOL
  Linux kernel 6.16 has reached its end of life, which means you'll need to upgrade to the next stable release, Linux kernel 6.17.
  

• Amazon Ditches Android for a Linux-Based OS
  Amazon has migrated from Android to the Linux-based Vega OS for its Fire TV.
  

• Cairo Dock 3.6 Now Available for More Compositors
  If you're a fan of third-party desktop docks, then the latest release of Cairo Dock with Wayland support is for you.
  

• System76 Unleashes Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta
  System76's first beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 is an impressive feat.
  

• Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
  Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
  

• Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
  If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
  

• Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
  The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
  

• Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
  Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
  

• USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
  Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
  

• Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
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