All the News that Matters

• Let's Encrypt to reduce certificate lifetimes
  Let's Encrypt has announcedthat it will be reducing the validity period of its certificates from90 days to 45 days by 2028:
  
  Most users of Let's Encrypt who automatically issue certificateswill not have to make any changes. However, you should verify thatyour automation is compatible with certificates that have shortervalidity periods.
  
  To ensure your ACME client renews on time, we recommend using ACMERenewal Information (ARI). ARI is a feature we've introduced to helpclients know when they need to renew their certificates. Consult yourACME client's documentation on how to enable ARI, as it differs fromclient to client. If you are a client developer, check out thisintegration guide.
  
  If your client doesn't support ARI yet, ensure it runs on aschedule that is compatible with 45-day certificates. For example,renewing at a hardcoded interval of 60 days will no longer besufficient. Acceptable behavior includes renewing certificates atapproximately two thirds of the way through the current certificate'slifetime.
  
  Manually renewing certificates is not recommended, as it will needto be done more frequently with shorter certificate lifetimes.
  
  
  

• FreeBSD 15.0 released
  FreeBSD15.0 has been released. Notable changes in this release include a newmethod for installingthe base system using the pkg package manager, an updateto OpenZFS 2.4.0-rc4,native support for the inotify(2)interface, and the addition of Open Container Initiative (OCI) imagesto FreeBSD's release artifacts. See the releasenotes for a full list of changes, hardwarenotes for supported hardware, and check the erratabefore installing or upgrading.
  
  
  

• [$] Zig's new plan for asynchronous programs
  The designers of theZig programming language have been working to find asuitable design for asynchronous code for some time.Zig is a carefully minimalist language, and itsinitial design forasynchronous I/O did not fit well with its otherfeatures. Now, the project hasannounced (in a Zig SHOWTIME video) a new approach to asynchronous I/O thatpromises to solve thefunction coloring problem, and allows writing code that will executecorrectly using either synchronous or asynchronous I/O.
  

• Security updates for Tuesday
  Security updates have been issued by Fedora (gnutls, libpng, mingw-python3, python-spotipy, source-to-image, unbound, and webkitgtk), Mageia (libpng), SUSE (bash-git-prompt, gitea-tea, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, kernel, openssh, python, and shadowsocks-v2ray-plugin, v2ray-core), and Ubuntu (binutils, openjdk-17-crac, openjdk-21-crac, and openjdk-25-crac).

• [$] Checked-size array parameters in C
  There are many possible programmer mistakes that are not caught by theminimal checks specified by the C language; among those is passing an arrayof the wrong size to a function. A recent attempt to add some safetyaround array parameters within the crypto layer involved the use of someclever tricks, but it turns out that clever tricks are unnecessary in thiscase. There is an obscure C feature that can cause this checking tohappen, and it is already in use in a few places within the kernel.

• [$] Some 6.18 development statistics
  Linus Torvalds releasedthe 6.18 kernel as expected on November 30, closing the last fulldevelopment cycle of 2025. It was another busy cycle, featuring a recordnumber of developers. The time has come for a look at where the code camefrom for this kernel release, but also for the year-long long-term-supportcycle which has also reached its conclusion with this release.

• Security updates for Monday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bind9.18, cups, gimp, ipa, kernel, libssh, mingw-expat, openssl, pcs, sssd, tigervnc, and valkey), Debian (gnome-shell-extension-gsconnect, mistral-dashboard, pagure, python-mistralclient, pytorch, qtbase-opensource-src, sogo, tryton-server, and unbound), Fedora (cef, drupal7, glib2, linux-firmware, migrate, pack, pgadmin4, rnp, and unbound), Slackware (libxslt), SUSE (cpp-httplib, curl, glib2, grub2, kernel, libcoap-devel, libcryptopp, libwireshark19, postgresql15, and postgresql17), and Ubuntu (edk2).

• Three stable kernels for Monday
  Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 6.17.10, 6.12.60, and 6.6.118 stable kernels. As usual, eachcontains a number of important fixes throughout the tree. Users areadvised to upgrade.
  
  
  

• The 6.18 kernel has been released
  Linus has released the 6.18 kernel, as expected.
  So I'll have to admit that I'd have been happier with slightly less bugfixing noise in this last week of the release, but while there's a few more fixes than I would hope for, there was nothing that made me feel like this needs more time to cook. So 6.18 is tagged and pushed out.
  Headline changes in this release includethe abilityto manage namespaces with file handles,support for the AccECNcongestion-control protocol,initial support for signing of BPFprograms,improved memory management with sheaves,the Rust binder driver,better control over transparent hugepages,and a lot more.This release also saw the removalof the bcachefs filesystem.
  See the LWN merge-window summaries (part 1, part 2)and the KernelNewbies 6.18page for more information.

• NixOS 25.11 released
  Version25.11 of the NixOS distribution has been released. "The 25.11release was made possible due to the efforts of 2742 contributors, whoauthored 59430 commits since the previous release". Changes include7,002 new packages, GNOME 49, LLVM 21, a new COSMIC desktopenvironment beta, firewalld support, and more; see therelease notes for details.

• Landlock-ing Linux (prizrak.me)
  The prizrak.me blog is carrying an introduction to theLandlock security module.
  Landlock shines when an application has a predictable set of files or directories it needs. For example, a web server could restrict itself to accessing only /var/www/html and /tmp.
  Unlike SELinux or AppArmor, Landlock policies don't require administrator involvement or system-wide configuration. Developers can embed policies directly in application code, making sandboxing a natural part of the development process.

• Security updates for Friday
  Security updates have been issued by Debian (krita and tryton-server), Oracle (bind9.18, ipa, kernel, libssh, redis, redis:7, sqlite, sssd, and vim), Slackware (cups), SUSE (containerd, cups, curl, dovecot24, git-bug, gitea-tea, glib2, grub2, himmelblau, java-25-openjdk, kernel, libmicrohttpd, libvirt, pnpm, powerpc-utils, python311, python313, redis, rnp, runc, sssd, tomcat11, unbound, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (cups, libxml2, openvpn, and webkit2gtk).

• Security updates for Thursday
  Security updates have been issued by Debian (kdeconnect, libssh, and samba), Fedora (7zip, docker-buildkit, and docker-buildx), Oracle (bind, buildah, cups, delve and golang, expat, firefox, gimp, go-rpm-macros, haproxy, kernel, lasso, libsoup, libtiff, mingw-expat, openssl, podman, python-kdcproxy, qt5-qt3d, runc, squid, thunderbird, tigervnc, valkey, webkit2gtk3, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), SUSE (buildah, cloudflared, containerd, expat, firefox, gnutls, helm, kernel, libxslt, mysql-connector-java, ongres-scram, openbao, openexr, openssh, podman, python311, python312, ruby2.5, rubygem-rack, runc, samba, sssd, tiff, unbound, and yelp), and Ubuntu (edk2, ffmpeg, h2o, python3.13, rust-openssl, and valkey).

• KDE Plasma 6.8 will be Wayland-only
  KDE's Plasma team has announcedthat KDE Plasma will drop X11 session support with Plasma 6.8:
  
  The Plasma X11 session will be supported by KDE into early2027.
  
  We cannot provide a specific date, as we're exploring thepossibility of shipping some extra bug-fix releases for Plasma6.7. The exact timing of the last one will only be known when we getcloser to its actual release, which we expect will be sometime inearly 2027.
  
  What if I still really need X11?
  
  This is a perfect use case for long term support (LTS)distributions shipping older versions of Plasma. For example,AlmaLinux 9 includes the Plasma X11 session and will be supporteduntil sometime in 2032.
  
  See the blog post for information on running X11 applications(still supported), accessibility, gaming, and more.
  
  
  

• Security updates for Wednesday
  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bind, binutils, delve and golang, expat, firefox, haproxy, kernel, libsoup3, libssh, libtiff, openssh, openssl, pam, podman, python-kdcproxy, shadow-utils, squid, thunderbird, vim, xorg-x11-server-Xwayland, and zziplib), Debian (cups-filters, libsdl2, linux-6.1, net-snmp, pdfminer, rails, and tryton-sao), Fedora (chromium, docker-buildkit, docker-buildx, and sudo-rs), Gentoo (librnp), Mageia (webkit2), SUSE (amazon-ssm-agent, buildah, curl, dpdk, fontforge-20251009, kernel, libIex-3_4-33, librnp0, python311, rclone, and sssd), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-ibm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-oracle, linux-aws-6.14, linux-oracle-6.14, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, mupdf, openjdk-17, openjdk-8, and openjdk-lts).

Linux Insider"LinuxInsider"

• Inside the Wind River–ServiceNow Deal Bringing AI On-Prem
  Wind River’s latest partnership with ServiceNow brings AI workloads back under enterprise control by enabling on-prem deployment of the ServiceNow AI Platform. The post Inside the Wind River–ServiceNow Deal Bringing AI On-Prem appeared first on 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.

• Windows 11 still barely pulling ahead of 10 despite end-of-support push
  Statcounter shows the gap narrowing as users cling to older hardware and familiar workflows
  Windows 11 has not significantly widened its market share lead over Windows 10, despite support for many versions of the latter ending almost two months ago.…
  

• Newly launched civil service pension portal from Capita is crapita, users report
  Awarded a £239M contract, outsourcer apologizes for any inconvenience to 1.5M members
  Pension scheme members are facing a string of errors and malfunctions as they try to log into and retrieve account details from the UK's civil service portal the government is paying Capita £239 million ($318 million) to build and run.…
  

• Pat Gelsinger's EUV lithography gig gets $150M wink from Uncle Sam
  Commerce Department wants equity in xLight as it backs a free-electron laser to challenge ASML
  The US Department of Commerce has signed a preliminary letter of intent to provide up to $150 million to xLight, a Palo Alto-based startup led by former Intel chief Pat Gelsinger, that is working on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.…
  

• Linux 6.18 arrives as the year's final drop and likely next LTS
  Bye-bye bcachefs, but hello there bhyve
  The last new kernel release of 2025 is here, and it's looking likely this will be the new LTS kernel release.…
  

• Here’s your worst nightmare: E-tailer can only resume partial sales 45 days after ransomware attack
  Japan’s Askul still can’t run all its sites, but at least the fax line held up OK
  Japanese e-tailer Askul has resumed online sales, 45 days after a ransomware attack.…
  

• China using AI as ‘precision instrument’ of censorship and repression, at home and abroad
  Think tank ASPI says Beijing is even using it to steal fish from the ocean
  China has embraced AI to help it censor and surveil its citizens and is exporting its techniques to the world, according to a new report by think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).…
  

• Indian government reveals GPS spoofing at eight major airports
  Extra infosec investments are taxiing towards the runway
  India’s Civil Aviation Minister has revealed that local authorities have detected GPS spoofing and jamming at eight major airports.…
  

• Amazon is forging a walled garden for enterprise AI
  AWS Chief Matt Garman lays out his vision bringing artificial intelligence to the enterprise
  Re:Invent Amazon wants to make AI meaningful to enterprises, and it’s building yet another walled garden disguised as an easy button to do it.…
  

• AWS offers AI-in-a-box for enterprise datacenters
  If sovereignty or on-prem AI matters, the new AI Factories could be for you
  re:invent Many businesses and government agencies require that all sensitive data stay on-premises for legal or security reasons. If those orgs want to work with AI, they can't rely on regular public clouds, but now they can let AWS build and manage AI hardware and software in their datacenters.…
  

• AWS admits AI coding tools cause problems, reckons its three new agents fix 'em
  Autonomous AI triages DevOps issues and pushes code to repositories, while checking security
  Re:Invent Amazon is all-in on agentic AI when it comes to software development, and it sincerely hopes you are too, based on Tuesday's AWS re:Invent keynote. …
  

• Two Android 0-day bugs disclosed and fixed, plus 105 more to patch
  Christmas comes early for attackers this year
  Two high-severity Android bugs were exploited as zero-days before Google issued a fix, according to its December Android security bulletin. …
  

• NASA nominee 'committed' to uprooting Shuttle Discovery for Houston trophy piece
  Isaacman backs Texas relocation amid warnings that costs could top $150M
  US President Donald Trump's nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, is "committed to move the Space Shuttle Discovery to Houston," according to the office of Senator John Cornyn (R-TX).…
  

• University of Pennsylvania joins list of victims from Clop's Oracle EBS raid
  Ivy League school warns more than 1,400 people after attackers siphon data via zero-day
  The University of Pennsylvania has become the latest victim of Clop's smash-and-grab spree against Oracle's E-Business Suite (EBS) customers, with the Ivy League school now warning more than a thousand individuals that their personal data was siphoned from its systems.…
  

• Microsoft mops up Mesh after another metaverse misfire
  Dreams of a virtual world linger on in Teams
  As of December 1, mixed reality collaboration platform Microsoft Mesh is no more, and Redmond has directed customers to immersive events in Teams.…
  

• HPE backs AMD's Helios AI rack with Juniper's scale-up switch
  Hardware bundle ties next-gen accelerators to an Ethernet fabric arriving in 2026
  HPE is throwing its weight behind AMD's Helios rack-scale architecture and will offer this as part of its AI portfolio next year, including a purpose-built Juniper Networks scale-up switch.…
  

• Apple swaps one ex-Google AI chief for another
  Amar Subramanya spent mere months at Microsoft before replacing John Giannandrea
  Apple's failure to deliver advanced AI capabilities has triggered a changing of the guard. AI chief John Giannandrea is stepping down in favor of a new leader to steady the Siri ship.…
  

• MongoDB talks up its AI chops by talking down PostgreSQL
  CEO touts win from 'super-high growth' customer that couldn't scale on rival system
  At the risk of protesting too much in the shifting database landscape, NoSQL-based MongoDB has attempted to trash the competition by claiming PostgreSQL systems lack scalability to keep up with the demands of AI workloads.…
  

• French AI shop Mistral rolls out full suite of Apache-licensed models
  Lineup spans 3B to 14B parameters, from edge devices to multi-GPU rigs
  Mistral AI has released a suite of open source models under the Mistral 3 banner, aiming to scale from a mobile device or drone up to multi-GPU datacenter beasts.…
  

• Europol nukes Cryptomixer laundering hub, seizing €25M in Bitcoin
  Operation Olympia pulls Swiss servers offline and scoops up 12TB of data in latest crime infrastructure crackdown
  Law enforcement agencies in Germany and Switzerland have shut down cryptocurrency laundering platform Cryptomixer in Europe's latest pushback against cybercrime infrastructure.…
  

• AWS joins Microsoft, Google in the security AI agent race
  Preview tool promises quicker reviews and faster flaw-finding for cloud apps
  Re:Invent AI agents are key to launching applications more quickly – and making them more secure from the start, Amazon says.…
  

• Amazon primed to fuse Nvidia's NVLink into 4th-gen Trainium accelerators
  Meanwhile, Trainium3 makes its debut promising million-chip training clusters
  Re:Invent Amazon says that its next generation of homegrown silicon will deliver 6x higher performance thanks to a little help from its buddy Nvidia.…
  

• Kensington and Chelsea confirms IT outage was a data breach after all
  Borough says attackers copied 'historical' info as three-council cyber woes drag on
  Kensington and Chelsea Council has admitted that data was quietly lifted from its systems during last week's cyber meltdown, confirming that the outage was not just an IT faceplant but a bona fide data breach.…
  

• London grid crunch delays new housing amid datacenter boom
  Assembly report urges clearer planning as soaring AI power demands strain capital's network
  Access to electricity has become a major source of delay for housebuilding in London, and datacenters are inevitably tied up in this, leading to calls for greater oversight of energy and construction planning so that they keep pace with demand.…
  

• FTC schools edtech outfit after intruder walked off with 10M student records
  Regulator says Illuminate ignored years of warnings, stored kids' data in plain text, and kept districts in the dark
  US edtech provider Illuminate Education just got dinged by the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly failing to keep an attacker from pilfering data on 10 million students.…
  

• Waymo chalks up another four-legged casualty on San Francisco streets
  Passenger recounts chaotic scene after robotaxi runs over small dog
  Self-driving car company Waymo has confirmed that one of its vehicles ran over a dog in San Francisco on Sunday.…
  

• Apply here to win a Microsoft Ugly Sweater. It's uglier than ever
  2025 Xmas knitware nightmare could be yours if you make us smile: When was peak Microsoft?
  Free Wear It's that time of year again when Microsoft dispatches its latest Ugly Sweater to The Register, and we spoil a lucky reader that makes us smile by sending you the garment in time for Christmas.…
  

• Whatever legitimate places AI has, inside an OS ain't one
  We're getting it baked into Windows whether we like it or not
  Opinion Making software would be the perfect job if it wasn't for those darn users. Windows head honcho Pavan Davuluri would be forgiven for feeling this of late as his happy online paean about Windows becoming an "agentic OS" was met by massive dissent in the comments. "Agentic schmentic, we want reliability, usability, and stability" was the gist.…
  

• UK sinks to fifth in ESA funding league behind Spain
  Brit astro Tim Peake's much-vaunted mission to the ISS a distant memory
  Nearly ten years after Brit astronaut Tim Peake visited the International Space Station (ISS), the UK has slipped behind Spain in European Space Agency funding rankings.…
  

• Two paths to Enlightenment: AV Linux 25 and MX Moksha step forward
  Whether you want a studio rig or a featherweight desktop, MX Linux spins have you covered
  AV Linux and MX Moksha are a pair of distros tweaked for audio and music production, each using a different branch of the Enlightenment family of desktops.…
  

• Defra admits Windows 10 refresh letter to MPs was wrong – machines were already on Windows 11
  Corrected document clears up rollout timeline and confirms switch well ahead of deadline
  The UK's Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has confirmed its £312 million Windows 10 laptop refresh was, in fact, followed by a Windows 11 upgrade after an earlier letter to Parliament misstated the department's operating system timeline.…
  

• Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling
  Paying Ingress NGINX maintainers for their work might have avoided this outcome
  Opinion There were lots of announcements about Kubernetes at KubeCon North America in Atlanta. I should know, I was there from beginning to end. But the biggest Kubernetes story of all didn't get much attention. Kubernetes is retiring its popular Ingress NGINX controller. Ingress NGINX goes to that big bit farm in the sky in March 2026. After that, "there will be no further releases, no bugfixes, and no updates to resolve any security vulnerabilities that may be discovered."…
  

• Samsung reveals its first tri-fold phone – and its desktop mode
  Buyers get a one-time discount on screen repairs, which hardly screams ‘we nailed this three-screen thing’
  Samsung has revealed its first tri-fold phone, and it runs the Korean giant’s DeX desktop environment without the need for an external monitor.…
  

• Unofficial IETF draft calls for grant of five nonillion IPv6 addresses to ham radio operators
  Would not massively deplete IPv6, might challenge internet governance
  Early in the history of the internet, the powers that be granted amateur radio operators over 16 million IPv4 addresses. Now a proposal has emerged suggesting the same community be granted a substantial chunk of the IPv6 numberspace.…
  

• India demands smartphone makers install a government app on every handset
  'Sanchar Saathi' shares data to help fight fraud and protect carrier security
  India’s government has issued a directive that requires all smartphone manufacturers to install a government app on every handset in the country and has given them 90 days to get the job done – and to ensure users can’t remove the code.…
  

• Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service
  Zig prez complains about 'vibe-scheduling' after safe sleep bug goes unaddressed for eons
  The Foundation that promotes the Zig programming language has quit GitHub due to what its leadership perceives as the code sharing site's decline.…
  

• AWS: How do you do, fellow kids? Please watch our keynotes in Fortnite
  Drive around a virtual track in Las Vegas while watching Matt Garman speak on in-game billboards
  RE:INVENT Amazon Web Services has decided to stream all five keynotes from its re:Invent conference in the hit multiplayer game Fortnite, which is more than a little bit bonkers.…
  

• OpenAI money-go-round sees it invest in company that invested in OpenAI
  Thrive will use the AI-maker's tech in its managed services and accounting businesess
  Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. OpenAI says that it has taken an undisclosed ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, the management-focused offshoot of private equity heavyweight Thrive Capital, which itself is a major investor in the ChatGPT maker.…
  

• Google Antigravity vibe-codes user's entire drive out of existence
  Caveat coder
  In what appears to be the latest example of a troubling trend of "vibe coding" software development tools behaving badly, a Reddit user is reporting that Google's Antigravity platform improperly wiped out the contents of an entire hard drive partition. …
  

• UK gov blames budget leak on misconfigured WordPress plugin, server
  Predictable URLs break security through obscurity and lack of server access controls don't help
  WordPress is the world's most popular content management system, but not so much with the UK government. The country's Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has blamed an inadvertent budget disclosure last week on misconfiguration of its WordPress website.…
  

• Nvidia plows $2B into Synopsys to make GPUs a must-have for design, simulation customers
  You could do that on a CPU, but who can say no to a 30x GPU speed boost?
  As part of its effort to spread GPUs everywhere, Nvidia is investing $2 billion into simulation giant Synopsys. …
  

• Stealthy browser extensions waited years before infecting 4.3M Chrome, Edge users with backdoors and spyware
  And some are still active in the Microsoft Edge store
  A seven-year malicious browser extension campaign infected 4.3 million Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge users with malware, including backdoors and spyware sending people's data to servers in China. And, according to Koi researchers, five of the extensions with more than 4 million installs are still live in the Edge marketplace.…
  

• Search the pre-ChatGPT internet with the Slop Evader browser extension
  Surf Google SERPs like it's November 29, 2022, with this workaround for the age of AI slop
  ChatGPT's public debut on November 30, 2022, is widely seen by critics as the start of the AI-slop era online. Those yearning for a more human-written web can get some relief from a browser extension that filters Google searches to pre-ChatGPT results.…
  

• Four arrested in South Korea over massive IP camera snooping spree
  Plus: Aussie Wi-Fi phisher and Brit dark web dealer nailed
  Cybercrime suspects and offenders across three continents have been rounded up this week, with cases spanning hacked IP cameras in South Korea, evil twin Wi-Fi traps in Australia, and a dark web drug empire in rural England.…
  

• HSBC partners with Mistral AI as banking giants spend billions looking for LLM boost
  Move follows Bank of America's $4B new tech war chest
  Global bank HSBC and Mistral AI have announced a deal they say will spread the use of generative AI across the financial institution, saving employees time and improving processes.…
  

• HPE pumps AI cloud lineup with extra Nvidia capabilities
  Blackwell GPUs, Juniper integration, and a planned France lab aim to speed enterprise rollouts
  HPE is upgrading its Private Cloud AI stack with Nvidia technology and preparing a France-based AI Factory Lab where customers will be able to test out workloads.…
  

• Windows 11 needs an XP SP2 moment, says ex-Microsoft engineer
  Stop AI bloat, fix the operating system, implores veteran software developer Dave Plummer
  The Windows operating system is buckling under AI features that seem designed more for shareholders than users, and retired Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer says it's time to hit pause.…
  

• Dutch study finds teen cybercrime is mostly just a phase
  Only a select few continue into later life, mainly for the love of the game
  Young threat actors may be rebels without a cause. These cybercriminals typically grow out of their offending ways by the time they turn 20, according to data published by the Dutch government.…
  

• AWS and Google build a fix for multi-cloud barriers they said didn't exist
  After reassuring regulators all was well, pair debut interconnect to smooth the bumps
  Re:invent AWS and Google Cloud are promoting a jointly developed multi-cloud connectivity service, despite recently assuring competition authorities that no technical barriers existed for customers wanting to operate across multiple clouds.…
  

• South Korea's answer to Amazon admits breach exposed 33.7M customers
  Coupang confirms internationally routed intrusion compromised more than half of the country's population
  South Korean retail behemoth Coupang has admitted to a data breach that exposed the personal details of 33.7 million customers, turning the company's famed "Rocket Delivery" logistics empire into an express shipment for personal information.…
  

• Asda's 'self-inflicted' SAP mess after Walmart divorce stalls financial revival
  Overbudget Project Future will continue to cause problems into Q2 next year, chairman admits
  Asda's delayed tech divorce from Walmart, which involved a complete SAP ERP upgrade, has caused "severe disruption" hitting the UK retailer's quarterly revenue.…
  

• Sound Open Firmware 2.14 Released With Intel Wildcat Lake & Nova Lake Support
  Sound Open Firmware is one of the projects started originally by Intel but has grown into a multi-vendor initiative for open-source audio digital signal processing (DSP) firmware and development tooling for a variety of platforms under the Linux Foundation umbrella...

• Scoped User Access In Linux 6.19 To Reduce Speculation Barriers & Its Performance Hit
  Merged yesterday to the Linux 6.19 Git codebase was the "core/uaccess" pull that introduces new scoped user-mode access with auto-cleanup functionality. This can reduce the number of speculation barriers encountered when needing to access user-mode memory and thereby avoiding some of the performance penalties incurred by speculation barriers...

• AES-GCM Optimizations Land In Linux 6.19 - Benefiting AMD Zen 3, AVX-512 CPUs Too
  Google engineer Eric Biggers who is known for his many Linux crypto subsystem performance optimizations has seen his latest pull requests land in Linux 6.19. Notable among them are some AES-GCM optimizations benefiting AMD Zen 3 processors and separately AVX-512 processors also benefit too from this latest round of optimization work...

• X.Org Server9s xkbcomp Updated For Four Security Issues Dating Back Years
  Red Hat's Peter Hutterer announced the release today of xkbcomp 1.5, the CLI utility used for compiling X Keyboard Extension (XBD) keyboard descriptions for the X.Org Server. Driving this new xkbcomp release are fixes for four security issues...

• Intel LASS, SGX EUPDATESVN & Microcode Staging Features Land In Linux 6.19
  In addition to new AMD CPU features being merged today for Linux 6.19, there are also some new Intel CPU features that hit Linux Git today that are worth highlighting...

• AMD Zen 6 RAS Preparation, AMD SDCI Features Merged For Linux 6.19
  Linus Torvalds just merged another set of pull requests to Git for the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel. With the latest round of merges, there are two separate AMD changes worth highlighting...

• 3mdeb Ports Their Dasharo Firmware To A Recent ASRock Rack Motherboard
  Open-source firmware consulting firm 3mdeb published a blog post today outlining their work on bringing their Coreboot-downstream Dasharo to the ASRock Rack SPC741D8/2L2T, a recent server motherboard for supporting Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids processors...

• Important Performance Work: Overhaul Of RSEQ & CID Management Merged For Linux 6.19
  An important set of patches were just merged a few minutes ago to Linux Git for the ongoing Linux 6.19 kernel with some important performance implications...

• Linux 6.19 Merges "klp-build" As New Livepatch Module Generation Solution
  Merged as part of the objtool changes for the Linux 6.19 kernel is introducing the "klp-build" script as a new solution to generate livepatch modules using a source .patch file as the input. This klp-build effort was spearheaded by Josh Poimboeuf with ideas learned from the out-of-tree Kpatch project over the past decade...

• TornadoVM 2.0 Released For Java On NVIDIA PTX, OpenCL & SPIR-V Devices
  TornadoVM 2.0 is out today as the newest feature release for this OpenJDK and GraalVM plug-in that allows Java programs to run on heterogeneous hardware. TornadoVM targets continue to be OpenCL, NVIDIA PTX, and SPIR-V compatible devices for a range of accelerator support for use from conventional Java code...

• Linux 6.19 To Allow File-Systems To Increase The Writeback Chunk Size
  Linux has maintained a default 4MB minimum writeback chunk size but with the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel it will allow file-systems to override that minimum value. This in turn can help avoid fragmentation and yield a better experience for zoned rotation media and other uses...

• NVIDIA 590.44.01 Beta Linux Driver Released With Wayland Improvements
  NVIDIA today released the 590.44.01 Linux driver build as the first beta of their R590 series driver branch for Linux customers...

• Canonical Now Offering Ubuntu Pro For WSL
  Evidently Canonical has been pretty pleased with the uptake of Ubuntu on Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) within enterprise/corporate environments as they are now offering Ubuntu Pro for WSL...

• openSUSE Begins Rolling Out Intel NPU Support
  Via the openSUSE Innovator Initiative, packaging of the Intel Neural Processing Unit (NPU) driver for the openSUSE ecosystem has begun. This is helping to jump-start the Intel NPU support within the openSUSE space although user-space applications ready to leverage the Intel NPU still remains very limited...

• Optimized NUMA Distances For Intel GNR & CWF, Other Scheduler Improvements In Linux 6.19
  The big set of kernel scheduler changes were merged on Monday for the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel...

• Kernel Credential Guards Merged For Linux 6.19
  Merged yesterday for the Linux 6.19 kernel were "substantial" improvements to the kernel's credential infrastructure to provide guard-based management that allows for kernel code simplification and avoiding manual reference counting across many subsystems...

• Steam On Linux Use Easily Hits An All-Time High In November
  The Steam Survey results are out for November 2025 and continue to be very positive for the growing adoption of Linux gaming thanks to the success of the Steam Deck, the underlying Steam Play (Proton) software, and now further excitement thanks to the upcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame...

• FreeBSD 15.0 Now Officially Available With Many Software Updates, Reproducible Builds
  FreeBSD 15.0 is officially released as the newest major update to this leading BSD operating system...

• Btrfs In Linux 6.19 Adds Experimental Features, Continues Preparations For FSCRYPT
  SUSE engineer David Sterba submitted the Btrfs pull request for Linux 6.19 on Friday, ahead of the Linux 6.18 stable kernel release that took place on Sunday. This copy-on-write file-system continues seeing some enticing feature work and other improvements for this next version of the Linux kernel...

• Fedora 44 Granted Approval For A Nicer NTSYNC Experience For Wine & Steam Play
  Fedora stakeholders have been eyeing a nicer experience for NTSYNC usage with Wine and Steam Play by being able to have the NTSYNC kernel module load when it's likely to be used. That approval has now been granted by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) for the Fedora 44 release...

• AMD GPU Managed Memory Support Merged For The GCC 16 Compiler
  When it comes to AMD Radeon/Instinct GPU compiler support much of the emphasis is on the LLVM/Clang compiler stack with their official AMDGPU LLVM shader compiler back-end as well as having the AOMP downstream compiler fork and the like. But the GNU Compiler Collection "GCC" does continue allow targeting AMD GPU targeting with its "AMDGCN" back-end and using the likes of the OpenMP API. It's not too often seeing new AMD GPU activity there for GCC but merged today is now support for managed memory...

• AI Is Being Used To Help Modernize The Ubuntu Error Tracker
  While some Linux distributions have begun establishing AI policies, we haven't seen any communicated from the Ubuntu camp yet but will apparently be permitted at least for project infrastructure. AI is being used currently in an effort to help modernize the Ubuntu Error Tracker...

• Rust Updates For Linux 6.19, Rust Minimum Baseline To Likely Follow Debian Stable
  Miguel Ojeda has already submitted the core Rust programming language infrastructure updates intended for the Linux 6.19 merge window. In the pull request he also notes that moving forward the minimum supported Rust version for compiling the Linux kernel will likely follow whatever the minimum Rust version currently in use by the latest Debian stable release...

• Intel Gaudi 3 Driver Support Already Rejected For Linux 6.19
  Last night Intel finally posted their Gaudi 3 accelerator open-source driver support for the mainline Linux kernel with hopes of getting that long-delayed AI accelerator support into the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel. But as I pointed out, the pull request was coming unusually late for being such a large set of patches and would face an uphill battle to make it for the Linux 6.19 merge window. Sure enough, the pull request was already rejected and withdrawn from being v6.19 material...

• Linux 6.19 Adding New Option For More Detailed Bug Reporting But Cost Of Greater Memory
  Among the big flow of pull requests today for this first day of the Linux 6.19 merge window are some core kernel bug handling improvements...

• Fwupd 2.0.18 Enables Linux Firmware Updating For More Hardware
  Fresh off Framework Computer becoming a new corporate sponsor of the LVFS / Fwupd, there is a new Fwpd 2.0.18 update for this solution that enables convenient and easy system and device/peripheral firmware updating under Linux...

• GNU Linux-libre 6.18 Neuters More Functionality Due To Blobs With Intel Xe, NVIDIA Nova
  Following yesterday's Linux 6.18 kernel release, GNU Linux-libre 6.18-gnu is out today as the latest release of this free software purist kernel that will drop/block drivers from loading microcode/firmware considered non-free-software and other restrictions in the name of not pushing binary blobs even when needed for hardware support/functionality on otherwise open-source drivers...

• New Rockchip RKCIF & RKVDEC HEVC Media Drivers For Linux 6.19
  The media subsystem updates were sent out this morning for the now-open Linux 6.19 merge window. There are some new Rockchip drivers and other media drivers that are new for Linux 6.19...

• Raspberry Pi Announces Price Hikes Due To RAM Demand, 1GB Raspberry Pi 5 Launched
  Due to the ongoing RAM shortages in the industry amid ongoing massive demand for AI servers,Raspberry Pi announced today they are having to raise prices on the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 single board computers. They have also launched a 1GB Raspberry Pi 5 version too for those not needing much memory and wanting to keep pricing to a minimum...

• Apple HFS/HFS+ File-System Drivers Receive Corruption Fixes & More For Linux 6.19
  It was just earlier this year that Linux developers considered dropping the Apple HFS and HFS+ file-system drivers from the mainline Linux kernel for being unmaintained. But then some new developers stepped up to maintain the drivers and there has been new HFS/HFS+ file-system patches each kernel cycle since. With the now in-development Linux 6.19 kernel there are some nice year-end clean-ups to these file-system drivers...

• Open-Source Nouveau+NVK vs. NVIDIA 580 Linux Gaming/Graphics & Compute Driver Performance
  This Black Friday is an in-depth look at the current performance of the open-source NVIDIA Linux driver stack with the Nouveau kernel driver (the Nova driver not yet being ready for end-users) paired with the latest Mesa NVK driver for open-source Vulkan API support. With that NVK Vulkan driver is also looking at the OpenGL performance using the Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan driver used now for OpenGL on modern NVIDIA GPUs rather than maintaining the Nouveau Gallium3D driver. Plus the Rusticl driver for OpenCL compute atop the NVK driver. This fully open-source and latest NVIDIA Linux driver support was compared to NVIDIA9s official 580 series Linux driver. Both RTX 40 Ada and RTX 50 Blackwell graphics cards were tested for this thorough GPU driver comparison.

• Intel Battlemage Graphics Enjoyed Nice GPU Compute Performance Gains In 2025
  In addition to Intel Arrow Lake desktop performance evolving nicely on Linux over the course of 2025, the Intel Arc B-Series graphics that launched last December with the Arc B580 have evolved quite nicely too with their open-source driver stack. With it coming up on one year since the Arc B580 launch, here is a look at how the GPU compute performance has evolved since that point. Similar Intel Arc B580 Linux graphics comparisons are also coming up in a follow-up comparison on Phoronix.

• FreeBSD 15.0 released with pkgbase
  The FreeBSD team has released FreeBSD 15.0, and with it come several major changes, one of which you will surely want to know more about if youre a FreeBSD user. Since this change will eventually drastically change the way you use FreeBSD, we should get right into it. Up until now, a full, system-wide update for FreeBSD  as in, updating both the base operating system as well as any packages you have installed on top of it  would use two separate tools: freebsd-update and the pkg package manager. You used the former to update the base operating system, which was installed as file sets, and the latter to update everything you had installed on top of it in the form of packages. With FreeBSD 15.0, this is starting to change. Instead of using two separate tools, in 15.0 you can opt to deprecate freebsd-update and file sets, and rely entirely on pkg for updating both the base operating system as well as any packages you have installed, because with this new method, the base system moves from file sets to packages. When installing FreeBSD 15.0, the installer will ask you to choose between the old method, or the new pkg-only method. Packages (pkgbase / New Method): The base system is installed as a set of packages from the FreeBSD-base! repository. Systems installed this way are managed entirely using the pkg(8) tool. This method is used by default for all VM images and images published in public clouds. In FreeBSD 15.0, pkgbase is offered as a technology preview, but it is expected to become the standard method for managing base system installations and upgrades in future releases. ↫ FreeBSD 15.0 release announcement As the release announcement notes, the net method is optional in FreeBSD 15 and will remain optional during the entire 15.x release cycle, but the plan is to deprecate freebsd-update and file sets entirely in FreeBSD 16.0. If you have an existing installation you wish to convert to using pkgbase, theres a tool called pkgbasify to do just that. Its sponsored by the FreeBSD Foundation, so its not some random script. Of course, theres way more in this release than just pkgbase. Of note is that the 32bit platforms i386, armv6, and 32-bit powerpc have been retired, but of course, 32bit code will continue to run on their 64bit counterparts. FreeBSD 15.0 also brings a native inotify implementation, a ton of improvements to the audio components, improved Intel Wi-Fi drivers, and so, so much more.

• Windows drive letters are not limited to A-Z
  On its own, the title of this post is just a true piece of trivia, verifiable with`the built-in`subst`tool`(among other methods). Heres an example creating the drive +:\ as an alias for a directory at C:\foo: The +:\ drive then works as normal (at least in cmd.exe, this will be discussed more later): However, understanding why its true elucidates a lot about how Windows works under the hood, and turns up a few curious behaviors. ↫ Ryan Liptak Fascinating doesnt even begin to describe this article, but at the same time, it also makes me wonder at what point maintaining this drive letter charade becomes too burdensome, clunky, and complex. Internally, Windows NT does not use drive letters at all, but for the sake of backwards compatibility and to give the user what they expect, a whole set of abstractions has been crafted to create the illusion that modern versions of Windows still use the same basic drive letter conventions as DOS did 40 years ago. I wonder if well ever reach a point where Windows no longer uses drive letters, or if its possible today to somehow remove or disable these abstractions entirely, and run Windows NT without drive letters, as Cutler surely intended. Vast swaths of Windows programs would surely curl up in fetal position and die, including many core components of the operating system itself  as this article demonstrates, very few parts of Windows can handle even something as mundane as a drive letter outside of A-Z  but itd make for a great experiment. Someone with just the right set of Windows NT skills mustve tried something like this at some point, either publicly or inside of Microsoft.

• Migrating Dillo away from GitHub
  What do you do if you develop a lightweight browser that doesnt support JavaScript, but you once chose GitHub as the home for your code? Youre now in the unenviable position that your own browser can no longer access your own online source repository because it requires JavaScript, which is both annoying and, well, a little awkward. The solution is, of course, obvious: you move somewhere else. Thats exactly what the Dillo browser did. They set up a small VPS, opted for cgit as the git frontend for its performance and small size, and for the bug tracker, they created a brand new, very simple bug tracker. To avoid this problem, I created my own bug tracker software, buggy, which is a very simple C tool that parses plain Markdown files and creates a single HTML page for each bug. All bugs are stored in a git repository and a git hook regenerates the bug pages and the index on each new commit. As it is simply plain text, I can edit the bugs locally and only push them to the remote when I have Internet back, so it works nice offline. Also, as the output is just an static HTML site, I dont need to worry about having any vulnerabilities in my code, as it will only run at build time. ↫ Rodrigo Arias Mallo Theres more considerations detailed in the article about Dillos migration, and it can serve as inspiration for anyone else running a small open source project who wishes to leave GitHub behind. With GitHubs continuing to add more and more complexity and AI! to separate open source code from its licensing terms, we may see more and more projects giving GitHub the finger.

• Landlock-ing Linux
  Landlock is a Linux API that lets applications explicitly declare which resources they are allowed to access. Its philosophy is similar to OpenBSD’s`unveil()`and (less so)`pledge(): programs can make a contract with the kernel stating, “I only need these files or resources — deny me everything else if I’m compromised.” It provides a simple, developer-friendly way to add defense-in-depth to applications. Compared to traditional Linux security mechanisms, Landlock is vastly easier to understand and integrate. This post is meant to be an accessible introduction, and hopefully persuade you to give Landlock a try. ↫ prizrak.me blog I had no idea this existed, even though it seems to plug a hole in the security and sandboxing landscape on Linux by not requiring any privileges and by being relatively simple and straightforward to use. Theres even an additional supervisor! proposal that would bring Android-like permissions not just to, say, desktop applications (see Flatpak), but to every process trying to access anything for the first time. Im not knowledgeable enough to make any statements about Landlock compared to any other options we have for securing desktop Linux in a user-friendly, non-intrusive manner, but I definitely like its simplicity.

• System 7 natively boots on the Mac Mini G4
  Only a few weeks ago, the CHRP variants of Mac OS 7.6 and 8 were discovered and uploaded to the internet for posterity, but were already seeing the positive results of this event unfold: Mac OS 7.x can now run on the Mac Mini G4  natively. The very short of it is as follows. First, the CHRP release of Mac OS 8 contains a ROM file that allows Mac OS 8 to boot on the G4 Mac Mini. Second, the CHRP release of 7.6 contains a System Enabler that allows 7.6 earlier versions to run by using the aforementioned ROM file. Third, the ROM has been modified to add compatibility with as many Mac models as possible. Theres a lot more to it, of course, but the end result is that quite a few more older, pre-9.x versions of Mac OS can now run on G4 and G3 Macs, which is quite cool. Of course, there are limitations. Note that, although I describe many of these as stable!, I mean you can use much of it normally (sound/video/networking aside) without it crashing or misbehaving, at least not too hard, but that is not to say everything works, because that is just not the case. For example, when present, avoid opening the Apple System Profiler, unless you want a massive crash as it struggles trying to profile and gather all the information about your system. Some other apps or Control Panels might either not work, or work up to a certain point, after which they might freeze, requiring you to Force Quit the Finder to keep on going. And so on. ↫ Jubadub at Mac OS 9 Lives Issues or no, this is amazing news, and great work by all involved.

• Genode OS Framework 25.11 released
  The release 25.11 wraps up our year of rigidity, clarity, performance! with a bouquet of vast under-the-hood improvements. Genodes custom kernel received special tuning of its new CPU scheduler for Sculpt-OS workloads, and became much more scalable with respect to virtual-memory management. Combined, those efforts visibly boost the performance of Sculpt OS on performance-starved hardware like the PinePhone or the i.MX8-based MNT Reform laptop. On account of improving clarity, our new configuration format  now named human-inclined data (HID)  proliferates throughout Genodes tooling. We are also happy to report that almost all Genode components have become interoperable with both XML and HID by now. ↫ Genode OS Framework 25.11 release notes The Genode Framework 25.11 also brings a major change to how important shared components that arent strictly part of the framework are handled, such as ports like libSDL, sqlite, or gnutls. Before, these could only be built with the Genode build system, which was suboptimal because this isnt designed for building individual components. Several changes have been made to now enable the use of multiple build systems and the Goa SDK, which should make it a lot easier to these crucial components to become the responsibility of wider parts of the community. Theres way more, of course, such as the usual driver improvements, including the addition of support for serial-to-USB adapters.

• Dell: about 1 billion PCs will not or cannot be upgraded to Windows 11
  During a Dell earnings call, the company mentioned some staggering numbers regarding the amount of PCs that will not or cannot be upgraded to Windows 11. “We have about 500 million of them capable of running Windows 11 that haven’t been upgraded,” said Dell COO Jeffrey Clarke on a Q3 earnings call earlier this week, referring to the overall PC market, not just Dell’s slice of machines. “And we have another 500 million that are four years old that can’t run Windows 11.” He sees this as an opportunity to guide customers towards the latest Windows 11 machines and AI PCs, but warns that the PC market is going to be relatively flat next year. ↫ Tom Warren at The Verge The monumental scale of the Windows 10 install base that simply wont or cannot upgrade to Windows 11 is massive, and its absolutely bonkers to me that were mostly just letting them get away with leaving at least a billion users out in the cold when it comes to security updates and bug fixes. The US government (in better times) and the EU shouldve 100% forced Microsofts hand, as leaving this many people on outdated, unsupported operating system installations is several disasters waiting to happen. Aside from the dangerous position Microsoft is forcing its Windows 10 users into, theres also the massive environmental and public health impact of huge swaths of machines, especially in enterprise environments, becoming obsolete overnight. Many of these will end up in landfills, often shipped to third-world countries so we in the west dont have to deal with our e-waste and its dangerous consequences directly. I can get fined for littering  rightfully so  but when a company like Microsoft makes sweeping decisions which cause untold amounts of dangerous chemicals to be dumped in countless locations all over the globe, governments shrug it off and move on. At least we will get some cheap eBay hardware out of it, I guess.

• CDE 2.5.3 released
  So my love for the Common Desktop Environment isnt exactly a secret, so lets talk about the projects latest release, CDE 2.5.3, released a few days ago. As the version number suggests, this first new version in two years is a rather minor release, containing only a few bug fixes. For instance, CDEs window manager dtwm picked up support for more mouse buttons, its file manager dtfile now uses sh to find files instead of ksh, and a few more of these rather minor, but welcome, changes and bugfixes. Ever since CDE was released as open source over thirteen years ago, and while considerable work has been done to make it build, install, and run on modern platforms, thats kind of where the steam ran out. CDE isnt being actively developed to build upon its strengths and add new and welcome features and conveniences, but is instead kept in a sort of buildable stasis. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this  it keeps CDE accessible on modern platforms, and thats a huge amount of work that deserves respect and gratitude  but itd be nice if we lived in a world where there was enough interest (and time and money) to have people work on actually improving it. Of course, the reality is that thered be very little interest in such an improved CDE, and thats exactly why it isnt happening. On top op the current work the CDE team is doing, youd need to not only develop new features, but also improve the Motif toolkit to make such new features possible, and make sure such improvements dont break anything else. With such an old codebase, that cant possible be an easy task. Still, I will continue to daydream of a slightly more modernised CDE with some additional niceties weve come to expect over the past 30 years, even if I know full well its futile.

• Moss: a Linux-compatible kernel written in Rust
  Moss is a Unix-like, Linux-compatible kernel written in Rust and Aarch64 assembly. It features a modern, asynchronous core, a modular architecture abstraction layer, and binary compatibility with Linux userspace applications (currently capable of running most BusyBox commands). ↫ Moss GitHub page I mean, hobby operating systems and kernels written in Rust arent exactly the most unique right now, but that doesnt make them any less interesting for the kinds of people that frequent a site called OSNews. Moss has quite a few things going for it, including support for enough Linux system calls to run most BusyBox commands, complex memory and process management, use of Rusts async/await model in the kernel, and much more.

• I work for an evil company, but outside work, I’m actually a really good person
  I love my job. I make a great salary, there’s a clear path to promotion, and a never-ending supply of cold brew in the office. And even though my job requires me to commit sociopathic acts of evil that directly contribute to making the world a measurably worse place from Monday through Friday, five days a week, from morning to night, outside work, I’m actually a really good person. ↫ Emily Bressler at McSweeneys The tech industry is full of people like this.

• KDE to drop X11 session in KDE Plasma 6.8
  The KDE project has made the call. Well folks, it’s the beginning of a new era: after nearly three decades of KDE desktop environments running on X11, the future KDE Plasma 6.8 release will be Wayland-exclusive! Support for X11 applications will be fully entrusted to Xwayland, and the Plasma X11 session will no longer be included. ↫ The Plasma Team Theyre following in the footsteps of the GNOME project, who will also be leaving the legacy windowing system behind. What this means in practice is that official KDE X11 support will cease once KDE Plasma 6.7 is no longer supported, which should be somewhere early 2027. Do note that the KDE developers intend to release a few extra bugfix releases in the 6.7 release cycle to stabilise the X11 session as much as possible for those people who are going to stick with KDE Plasma 6.7 to keep X11 around. For people who wish to keep using X11 after that point, the KDE project advises them to switch to LTS distributions like Alma Linux, which intend to keep supporting Plasma X11 until 2032. Xwayland will handle virtually all X11 applications running inside the Wayland session, including X11 forwarding, with similar functionality implemented in Wayland through Waypipe. Also note that this only applies to Plasma as a whole; KDE applications will continue to support X11 when run in other desktop environments or on other platforms. As for platforms other than Linux  FreeBSD already has relatively robust Wayland support, so if you intend to run KDE on FreeBSD in the near future, youll have to move over to Wayland there, as well. The other BSD variants are also dabbling with Wayland support, so it wont be long before they, too, will be able to run the KDE Plasma Wayland session without any issues. What this means is that the two desktop environments that probably make up like 95% of the desktop Linux user base will now be focusing exclusively on Wayland, which is great news. X11 is a legacy platform and aside from retrocomputing and artisanal, boutique setups, you simply shouldnt be using it anymore. Less popular desktop environments like Xfce, Cinnamon, Budgie, and LXQt are also adding Wayland support, so it wont be much longer before virtually no new desktop Linux installations will be using X11. One X down, one more to go.

• Microsoft will start preloading Explorer because its so slow
  With all the problems Windows is facing, I think one area where Microsoft can make some easy, quick gains is by drastically improving Explorer, Windows file manager. It seems that in the latest developer releases, theyre doing just that. The most impactful change  possibly  is that Microsoft is going to preload Explorer. We’re exploring preloading File Explorer in the background to help improve File Explorer launch performance. This shouldn’t be visible to you, outside of File Explorer hopefully launching faster when you need to use it. If you have the change, if needed there is an option you can uncheck to disable this called “Enable window preloading for faster launch times” in File Explorer’s Folder Options, under View. ↫ Windows Insider Program Team Microsoft is also reordering the context menu in Explorer, and while this may seem like a small set of changes, the new context menu does look much tidier and less busy. They achieve this by moving a few top-level items to a submenu, and reordering some other elements. Sadly, the context menu still retains its own context menu ( Show more options!), which is a traditional Win32 menu  which I still think is one of the most Windows of Windows things of all time. Regardless, I hope these small changes make Explorer more bearable to use for those of you still using Windows, because we all know you need it.

• Googles Android for desktops and laptops is called Aluminium
  Google has made it very clear that its intending to bring Android to laptops and desktops, and replace Chrome OS with Android in the process. We now have a codename, and some more information about what this will look like in practice. Over the weekend, a tipster on Telegram named Frost Core shared a link to an intriguing Google job listing for a ‘Senior Product Manager, Android, Laptop and Tablets.’ While we already know Google is bringing Android to the PC, the listing explicitly states that the role involves ‘working on a new Aluminium, Android-based, operating system.’ This effectively confirms that Aluminium is the codename for the new unified platform. The name appears to be a nod to the project’s roots: like Chromium (the open-source version of ChromeOS), Aluminium is a metal ending in ‘-ium.’ The choice of the British spelling — emphasizing the ‘Al’ prefix — likely pays homage to Android serving as the project’s foundation.” ↫ Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority So we have the codename, and of course, what we also have is a strong focus on AI!, which will be at the core! of desktop Android. Further details uncovered in job openings include a focus not just on entry-level hardware, but also midrange and premium laptops and desktops, as well as Chrome OS being replaced by this new desktop Android variant. I somehow doubt existing Chrome OS devices will be updated to this new desktop Android variant, so Chrome OS will continue to exist as a product for at least quite a few years to come. I still have a considerable amount of doubt that Google would be able to pull this off in a successful way. Its already hard enough to get anyone to buy any laptop that isnt running Windows or macOS, and I doubt the Android operating system has the kind of pull with consumers to make them consider switching to it on their laptops or desktops. Enthusiasts will surely eat it up  if only to try  but without any clear, massive success, this desktop Android thing runs the real risk of ending up at Googles graveyard. These Android laptops can be incredible products, but even if they are, I just wont trust Google to remain interested in it.

• Microsoft admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken
  You may have noticed a sharp increase in problems and issues in Windows recently  following the rise of the AI! hype cycle, entirely coincidentally, Im sure  and it seems Microsoft is finally starting to acknowledge just how bad Windows has become. On the positive side though, following all that backlash, Microsoft acknowledged Windows has issues, and as if on cue, the company in a new support article has admitted that there are problems on almost every major Windows 11 core feature. The issues are related to XAML and this impacts all the Shell components like the Start Menu, Taskbar, Explorer, and Windows Settings. ↫ Sayan Sen at Neowin Its wild how many core components like this have apparently been broken due to these problems since July of this year. This means countless Windows users have been experiencing weird issues on a daily basis in multiple components for four months now, which is absolutely wild. On top of all the more structural problems in Windows, I wonder how people can get anything done at all  only a few days ago, I had to manually clean out the Installer folder in the Windows folder on my wifes gaming PC, because for some inexplicable reason, Windows decided to permanently store 18GBs worth (!) of past Adobe Acrobat updates and installers in there. Its impossible to reliably say that Microsofts incessant focus on crypto NFTs AI! lies at the root of all of these problems, but if 30% of new! code in Microsoft is indeed regurgitated by AI!, its hard not to conclude as such.

• The privacy nightmare of browser fingerprinting
  I suspect that many people who take an interest in Internet privacy don’t appreciate how hard it is to resist browser fingerprinting. Taking steps to reduce it leads to inconvenience and, with the present state of technology, even the most intrusive approaches are only partially effective. The data collected by fingerprinting is invisible to the user, and stored somewhere beyond the user’s reach. On the other hand, browser fingerprinting produces only statistical results, and usually can’t be used to track or identify a user with certainty. The data it collects has a relatively short lifespan – days to weeks, not months or years. While it probably can be used for sinister purposes, my main concern is that it supports the intrusive, out-of-control online advertising industry, which has made a wasteland of the Internet. ↫ Kevin Boone My view on this matter is probably a bit more extreme than some: I believe it should be illegal to track users for advertising purposes, because the data collected and the targeting it enables not only violate basic privacy rights enshrined in most constitutions, they also pose a massive danger in other ways. This very same targeting data is already being abused by totalitarian states to influence our politics, which has had disastrous results. Of course, our own democratic governments hands arent exactly clean either in this regard, as they increasingly want to use this data to stop terrorists! and otherwise infringe on basic rights. Finally, any time such data ends up on the black market after data breaches, criminals, organised or otherwise, also get their hands on it. I have no idea what such a ban should look like, or if its possible to do this even remotely effectively. In the current political climate in many western countries, which are dominated by the wealthy few and corporate interests, its highly unlikely that even if such a ban was passed as lip service to concerned constituents, any fines or other deterrents would probably be far too low to make a difference anyway. As such, my desire to have targeted online advertising banned is mostly theory, not practice  further illustrated by the European Union caving like cowards on privacy to even the slightest bit of pressure. Best I can do for now is not partake in this advertising hellhole. I disabled and removed all advertising from OSNews recently, and have always strongly advised everyone to use as many adblocking options as possible. We not only have a Pi-Hole to keep all of our devices at home safe, but also use a second layer of on-device adblockers, and I advise everyone to do the same.

• Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it’s costing the economy!
  We need to consume. The average American now holds onto their smartphone for 29 months, according to a`recent survey by Reviews.org, and that cycle is getting longer. The average was around 22 months in 2016. While squeezing as much life out of your device as possible may save money in the short run, especially amid widespread fears about the strength of the consumer and job market, it might cost the economy in the long run, especially when device hoarding occurs at the level of corporations. ↫ Kevin Williams at CNBC Line must go up. Ļ̷̩̺̾i̶̼̳͍͂̒ͅn̵͕̉̾e̴̞͛̓̀̍ ̴͙̙̥͋͐m̸͚̉̆u̴̖̰̪̽̔ͅs̶̨̛̾ţ̷̢̂͛̆͝ ̵̱̐̓̾̔͜ğ̷͕̮̮͆o̷̟͈̐̏̄͝ ̷̢̨̞̉u̴̢̪̭̱̿͑͛̌p̴͈̜̫̖̌.

• Zorin OS 18 Hits over a Million Downloads
  If you doubt Linux isn't gaining popularity, you only have to look at Zorin OS's download numbers.
  

• TUXEDO Computers Scraps Snapdragon X1E-Based Laptop
  Due to issues with a Snapdragon CPU, TUXEDO Computers has cancelled its plans to release a laptop based on this elite hardware.
  

• Debian Unleashes Debian Libre Live
  Debian Libre Live keeps your machine free of proprietary software.
  

• Valve Announces Pending Release of Steam Machine
  Shout it to the heavens: Steam Machine, powered by Linux, is set to arrive in 2026.
  

• Happy Birthday, ADMIN Magazine!
  ADMIN is celebrating its 15th anniversary with issue #90.
  

• Another Linux Malware Discovered
  Russian hackers use Hyper-V to hide malware within Linux virtual machines.
  

• 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.