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LinuxSecurity - Security Advisories











LWN.net

  • Kernel prepatch 7.1-rc4
    The 7.1-rc4 kernel prepatch is out fortesting.
    Some of the documentation updates might be worth highlighting: the continued flood of AI reports has basically made the security list almost entirely unmanageable, with enormous duplication due to different people finding the same things with the same tools. People spend all their time just forwarding things to the right people or saying "that was already fixed a week/month ago" and pointing to the public discussion.
    Which is all entirely pointless churn, and we're making it clear that AI detected bugs are pretty much by definition not secret, and treating them on some private list is a waste of time for everybody involved - and only makes that duplication worse because the reporters can't even see each other's reports.
    (He is referring to thispull request with patches from Willy Tarreau defining what constitutes a securitybug and responsibleways to use AI to find bugs).


  • RIP Peter G. Neumann
    We have receivedword that Peter G. Neumann, who, among many other things, ran the RISKS Digest for decades, haspassed away. He will be much missed.
    Update: the New York Times has published anobituary of Dr. Neuman.



  • [$] Controlling memory management with BPF
    Roman Gushchin began his session in the memory-management track of the2026 Linux Storage,Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit by saying that thecommunity has seen a lot of proposals adding BPF-based interfaces formemory management. None of them have made their way into the mainline,though. He wanted to explore the ways in which BPF might be helpful andthe obstacles that have kept BPF-based solutions out so far. This sessionwas followed by a discussion led by Shakeel Butt on what the requirementsfor a new, BPF-based interface for memory control groups might look like.


  • Seven new stable kernels with patches for CVE-2026-46333
    Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the 7.0.8, 6.18.31, 6.12.89, 6.6.139, 6.1.173, 5.15.207, and 5.10.256 stable kernels. These kernelscontain a patch for CVE-2026-46333a vulnerability reportedby the Qualys Security Advisory team, though Jann Horn proposeda patch in 2020. The vulnerability has a proof-of-conceptexploit published already. Some of the kernels have additionalpatches for other bugs; as always, users are advised to upgrade.




  • Security updates for Friday
    Security updates have been issued by Debian (ffmpeg, gsasl, nodejs, postgresql-15, postgresql-17, python3.9, and thunderbird), Fedora (expat, firefox, freerdp, GitPython, kernel, php, rust-podman-sequoia, rust-rpm-sequoia, rust-sequoia-chameleon-gnupg, rust-sequoia-git, rust-sequoia-keystore-server, rust-sequoia-octopus-librnp, rust-sequoia-openpgp, rust-sequoia-sop, rust-sequoia-sq, and rust-sequoia-sqv), Mageia (awstats, libreoffice, perl-HTTP-Tiny, and tomcat), Oracle (corosync, freerdp, gimp, git-lfs, glib2, jq, kernel, krb5, libsoup3, libtiff, openexr, thunderbird, uek-kernel, and yggdrasil), Red Hat (podman and skopeo), SUSE (amazon-ssm-agent, avahi, c-ares, cairo, containerd, cpp-httplib, dnsmasq, dovecot24, ffmpeg-4, firefox, helm, ImageMagick, iproute2, kernel, krb5, libtpms, ongres-scram, ongres-stringprep, plexus-testing, maven, maven-doxia, mojo-parent, sisu, openCryptoki, openssh, perl-Text-CSV_XS, php8, python-lxml, python-Twisted-doc, python311-click, python311-GitPython, rclone, regclient, and syncthing), and Ubuntu (avahi).


  • [$] Policy groups for memory management
    The kernel's control-groupsubsystem works well for resource management, Chris Li said at thebeginning of his memory-management-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. Control groups workless well for other use cases, though. He was there to present hisproposed enhancement, called "policy groups", that would address some ofthe shortcomings that he has encountered. A consensus on how this featureshould look still seems distant, though.


  • [$] Buffered atomic writes, writethrough, and more
    In back-to-back sessions at the start of the 2026 Linux Storage,Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit (which spilled over intoa third slot), the atomic-buffered-writesfeature was discussed. In the first session, Pankaj Raghav and AndresFreund set the stage with an introduction to the problem, along with a usecase for its solution: the PostgreSQL database system. In the second, Ojaswin Mujoodescribed a potential way forward for the feature using an approach basedon writethrough, which effectively means that the kernel immediately writesthe data to disk instead of waiting for writeback from the page cache to occur. As might beexpected, there was quite a bit of discussion among the assembledfilesystems and storage developers during the combined sessions for thosetracks.


  • Three stable kernels for Thursday
    Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 7.0.7, 6.18.30, and 6.12.88 stable kernels. These kernels donot include a patch for the Fragnesialocal-privilege-escalation exploit that came to light onMay 13, but do include many other important fixes throughout thetree. Users are, as always, advised to upgrade.




LXer Linux News


  • Rockchip unveils RK3572 processor with 4 TOPS NPU and LPDDR5X support
    The newly announced RK3572 by Rockchip is an octa-core processor targeting AIoT, edge computing, and embedded applications. Built on an 8nm process, it combines dual Cortex-A73 cores, six Cortex-A53 cores, a 4 TOPS NPU, Mali-G310 GPU, LPDDR5/LPDDR5X support, and 8K video decoding. The RK3572 uses a heterogeneous CPU arrangement consisting of a dual-core Cortex-A73 cluster, […]


  • 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: May 17th, 2026
    The 292nd installment of the 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup is here for the week ending May 17th, 2026, keeping you updated on the most important developments in the Linux world.


  • Forlinx rolls out FET3572-C SoM and OK3572-C board with Rockchip RK3572
    Following the Rockchip RK3572 announcement, Forlinx Embedded has introduced the FET3572-C SoM and accompanying OK3572-C development board. The platform combines an octa-core CPU configuration, 4 TOPS NPU, LPDDR5/LPDDR5X support, and multimedia capabilities extending to 8K decoding. As mentioned in our previous article, the RK3572 processor integrates dual Cortex-A73 performance cores together with six Cortex-A53 efficiency […]



  • BudsLink Brings Advanced Earbud Controls to Linux Desktops
    Linux users have long faced a frustrating limitation with wireless earbuds: basic Bluetooth audio usually works, but advanced features often remain locked behind proprietary mobile apps. A new open-source project called BudsLink is trying to change that.






Linux Insider"LinuxInsider"












Slashdot

  • Linus Torvalds: AI-Detected Bug Reports Make Kernel Security List 'Almost Entirely Unmanageable'
    Today Linus Torvalds announced another Linux release candidate on the kernel mailing list. But he also highlighted "documentation updates" to address a new problem. "The continued flood of AI reports has basically made the security list almost entirely unmanageable, with enormous duplication due to different people finding the same things with the same tools." (The new documentation says the security team has found "bugs discovered this way systematically surface simultaneously across multiple researchers, often on the same day.")TORVALDS: People spend all their time just forwarding things to the right people or saying "that was already fixed a week/month ago" and pointing to the public discussion. Which is all entirely pointless churn, and we're making it clear that AI-detected bugs are pretty much by definition not secret, and treating them on some private list is a waste of time for everybody involved — and only makes that duplication worse because the reporters can't even see each other's reports. AI tools are great, but only if they actually help, rather than causeunnecessary pain and pointless make-believe work. Feel free to usethem, but use them in a way that is productive and makes for a betterexperience. The documentation may be a bit less blunt than I am, but that's thecore gist of it. The new documentation offers this overview. "It turns out that the majority of the bugs reported via the security team are just regular bugs that have been improperly qualified as security bugs due to a lack of awareness of the Linux kernel's threat model." "So just to make it really clear," Torvalds said at the end of his post. "If you found a bug using AI tools, the chances are somebody else found it too. "If you actually want to add value, read the documentation, create a patchtoo, and add some real value on *top* of what the AI did. Don't be thedrive-by 'send a random report with no real understanding' kind ofperson. Ok?"


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • America's Library of Congress Officially Inducts... the Soundtrack for the Videogame 'Doom'
    America's Library of Congress "is preserving a little piece of Hell," jokes Engadget, "by inducting the soundtrack to the original Doom into the National Recording Registry." The album of demon-slaying tracks is joined by several other notable 2026 additions to the registry, like Weezer's self-titled debut album (colloquially known as "The Blue Album"), Taylor Swift's "1989," Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) and the original "Mambo No. 5." "Doom" was created by Bobby Prince, a freelance composer who worked on lots of id Software games, and also scored Doom's '90s rival Duke Nukem 3D. The soundtrack draws clear inspiration from metal bands, but also touches on techno and ambient music throughout its track list, making for an eclectic soundscape for tearing through enemies. That it all fits together is also impressive in its own right: All of the music for Doom was written before the game had completed levels to play through, according to Prince. The official announcement from the Library of Congress says Doom "brought a heavy metal energy to MS-DOS systems across the globe," while also pioneering first-person shooter videogames."Key to Doom's popularity was the adrenaline-fueled soundtrack created by freelance video game music composer Bobby Prince. Prince, a lifelong musician and practicing lawyer, was fascinated by the MIDI technology that rose in prominence in the mid-1980s as a means for instrument control and composition... For "Doom," Prince took inspiration from a pile of CDs loaned by the game's chief designer, John Romero, including seminal works by Alice in Chains, Pantera and Metallica. Despite the limitations of the 1993-era sound card drivers, Prince composed the perfect riff-shredding accompaniment for the game's demon-slaying journey to hell and back. Taking advantage of his knowledge of MIDI, Prince even worked to ensure that the sound effects he created could cut through the music by assigning them to different MIDI frequencies.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Booed During Graduation Speech About AI
    Today former Google CEO Eric Schmidt "was booed multiple times," reports NBC News, "while discussing AI during a commencement speech at the University of Arizona." Schmidt had started by remembering how computer platforms "gave everyone a voice" but also "degraded the public square... They rewarded outrage. They amplified our worst instincts. They coarsen the way we speak to each other, and that way, and in the way that we treat each other, is in the essence of a society." But then Schmidt "drew a parallel between artificial intelligence and the transformative impact of the computer — and was immediately met with boos.""I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you," Schmidt said, addressing the crowd as many continued to boo him. "There is a fear ... there is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics is fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create, and I understand that fear." He went on to argue that the future remains unwritten and that the graduating class of 2026 has real power to shape how AI develops — a claim that drew further disapproval from parts of the audience... He closed by congratulating the class and offering them closing words. "The future is not yet finished. It is now your turn to shape it." 404 Media shared a video on YouTube of the crowd's booing — and what Schmidt said that provoked them: SCHMIDT: "If you don't care about science that's okay because AI is going to touch everything else as well. [Very loud booing] Whatever path you choose, AI will become part of how work is done..." "You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts that you could never accomplish on your own. [Loud booing] When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on... The rocket ship is here."


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Small Town Fights Over Flock's AI-Enhanced Network of License Plate-Reading Cameras
    160 miles north of New York City, a man was convicted of manslaughter "with the help of license plate reader technology," reports a local news station. In the small town of Troy (population: 51,000), the mayor described the cameras as "a critical tool" in that investigation. But locals and city officials "have raised concerns about who can access the data collected locally, along with data security, privacy invasions and use by federal authorities, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reports WNYT:When Troy's contract came up for renewal, Mayor Carmella Mantello wanted to keep paying Flock and the council paused payments. The mayor then issued a public safety emergency declaration to keep the license plate readers active. The council has filed a lawsuit to overturn that..."If this illegal emergency order is left unchallenged, we give this mayor and any future mayor regardless of their political party or ideology, unchecked authority to issue an emergency declaration whenever they disagree with the council on any issue," [said Troy council president Sue Steele]. "The technology that's in place today is not the technology of six years ago," council president Steele told another local news station. "We have AI, we have rapidly changing and advancing technology. So that begs the need for regulations to protect certain data." The American Civil Liberties Union warns that Flock will use AI to let law enforcement search its trove of videos.But "Listen, if it was infringing on people's rights, people's liberties, we'd be the first to get rid of it. We have safeguards in place," [mayor] Mantello responded. Mantello noted that data captured by Troy's Flock cameras is only being shared with other local municipalities. Steele said the data had been shared nationally until she and other elected officials raised concerns. "As far as sharing with local law enforcement, that's necessary in the normal course of investigations. The concern is what Flock does with this data: sharing it with ICE, for instance, and other nefarious outlets," Steele said. As the debate continues over the small city's 26 Flock cameras, a columnist in Albany wrote that "it's a good thing. We should be asking questions about the growing surveillance state. We should be debating whether this is the future we want."As the American Civil Liberties Union noted, [Flock] has quietly built a broad mass-surveillance infrastructure, with cameras installed in 5,000 communities around the country, and is continually expanding how that network is used. Did we ask for that? Did we vote for it? Not really. The cameras have been installed in municipality after municipality, mostly with little discussion or controversy, which makes us like the proverbial frogs who didn't notice the water getting warmer until it was boiling. Suddenly, surveillance cameras are everywhere; we're always being watched... [T]he City Council's Democratic majority is considering legislation that, among other steps, would require that data collected by the cameras be generally deleted after 48 hours and that the city be more transparent about how the cameras are used. The controversy and pushback continues to draw local coverage. The mayor complains the proposed rules restricts the cameras "almost exclusively to cases involving individuals with outstanding felony arrest warrants or situations where officers can determine in advance that an incident will result in a felony charge... This is beyond reckless." But the Albany columnist still argues many of America's Flock cameras are unnecessary and are "being installed just because... It's worth considering where this might lead and whether the future we're installing is the future we want."


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerability Actively Exploited, in a Bad Week for Microsoft
    Forbes describes it as "definitely already out there, and under active exploitation according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, urging all organizations to prioritize timely remediation as the attack vector poses a significant risk." "We have issued CVE-2026-42897 to address a spoofing vulnerability affecting Exchange Outlook Web Access (OWA)," Microsoft told SecurityWeek. "We recommend customers enable EEMS to be better protected, and to follow our guidance available here."Microsoft this week patched 137 vulnerabilities with its Patch Tuesday updates and the cybersecurity industry was surprised to see that the latest updates did not address any zero-days. However, a zero-day was disclosed just 48 hours later, on May 14... described as a spoofing and XSS issue affecting Exchange Server Subscription Edition, 2016, and 2019. "Improper neutralization of input during web page generation ('cross-site scripting') in Microsoft Exchange Server allows an unauthorized attacker to perform spoofing over a network," Microsoft said in its advisory. The company noted that the vulnerability affects Exchange Outlook Web Access (OWA) and an attacker can exploit it by sending a specially crafted email to the targeted user. "If the user opens the email in Outlook Web Access and certain interaction conditions are met, arbitrary JavaScript can be executed in the browser context," Microsoft explained. CSO Online shares more details. "Admins should note there are known issues once the mitigation is applied either manually or automatically through the EM Service."- OWA Print Calendar functionality might not work. As a workaround, copy the data or screenshot the calendar you want to print, or use Outlook Desktop client. - Inline images might not display correctly in the recipient's OWA reading pane. As a workaround, send images as email attachments or use Outlook Desktop client... - Admins may get a message saying "Mitigation invalid for this Exchange version." in mitigation details. This issue is cosmetic and the mitigation does apply successfully if the status is shown as "Applied". Microsoft is investigating how to address this glitch. Forbes notes "It's been something of a rough few days for Microsoft Exchange on the security vulnerability front," since this week also saw a zero-day demonstrated at the Pwn2Own Berlin hacking event, "which has been responsibly disclosed and not released into the wild."The Berlin event got off to a flying start on May 14 as Windows 11 was hit by no less than three zero-day exploits. On day two, hacking teams were no less successful, chaining together three new vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange in order to achieve the holy grail of SYSTEM-level remote code execution. Such was the level of this achievement that Orange Tsai from the DEVCORE Research Team was rewarded with a $200,000 bounty payment in return for immediately handing over all the technical details to the event organizers. "This is, in fact, good news," Forbes writes, since "full details of the vulnerabilities underlying the exploits, along with the technical nature of the exploit code itself, will be handed over to Microsoft, which will then have 90 days to provide a fix before any details are made public."


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • 'We Still Can't See Dark Matter. But What If We Can Hear It?'
    "We may have accidentally detected dark matter back in 2019," writes ScienceAlert. "What if instead of trying to see dark matter, scientists attempted to hear it instead?" asks Space.com:New research suggests dark matter could leave a tiny but discernible imprint in the cacophony of ripples in spacetime called "gravitational waves" that ring through the cosmos when two black holes slam together and merge... Fortunately, when it comes to detecting gravitational waves from colliding black holes, humanity's instruments, such as LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), are getting more and more sensitive all the time... Vicente and colleagues searched through data gathered by LIGO and its fellow gravitational wave detectors, KAGRA (Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector) and Virgo, focusing on 28 of the clearest signals from merging black holes. Of these, 27 appeared to have come from mergers that occurred in the relative vacuum of space. One signal, however, GW190728, first heard on July 19, 2019, and the result of merging binary black holes with a combined mass of 20 times that of the sun and located an estimated 8 billion light-years away, seemed to carry the telltale trace of this merger occurring in a region of dense, "buttery" dark matter. The team behind this research is quick to point out that this can't be considered a positive detection of dark matter, but does say it gives us a hint at what to look for and thus where to direct follow-up investigations... "We know that dark matter is around us. It just has to be dense enough for us to see its effects," said team leader Josu Aurrekoetxea, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Physics. "Black holes provide a mechanism to enhance this density, which we can now search for by analyzing the gravitational waves emitted when they merge." They published their results this week in the journal Physical Review Letters.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • US Math/Reading Scores Continue 13-Year Decline. Researchers Blame Reduced Testing and Social Media
    Test scores "are lower than they were a decade ago in school districts across the U.S.," reports Times magazine, citing new data released Wednesday by Stanford researchers. "Reading scores were down roughly 0.6 grades in 2025 compared to 2015, and math scores were down about 0.4 grades. This means that students were 60% of one school year behind where their peers were in reading a decade earlier and 40% of one school year behind in math." But Stanford's announcement notes that America's schools "were in a 'learning recession' for seven years before the COVID-19 pandemic, with student test scores in math and reading on a steady decline since 2013."This reversal ended two decades of progress, according to Sean Reardon, the Professor of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford Graduate School of Education, whose data forms the backbone of the new research... The study reframes the narrative of pandemic-era learning loss, arguing that the crisis of the last few years was an acceleration of a problem that was already underway. "The pandemic was the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion in student achievement," said Professor Tom Kane, faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, and a lead author of the report... The study found that the slowdown in learning coincided with two major shifts in American childhood and education policy: the widespread dismantling of test-based accountability systems that defined the No Child Left Behind era and the rise of social media use among young people. Reading scores, in particular, suffered consistently, with the average annual loss in the years just before the pandemic being just as large as the loss during it... Today, 8th-grade reading scores on national assessments are at their lowest point since 1990. Compounding the problem, chronic student absenteeism remains a major obstacle to improving learning. Though down from its pandemic peak, 23 percent of students were chronically absent in the 2024-25 school year, far above the pre-pandemic rate of 15 percent. More context from Time magazine:Reading scores were down roughly 0.6 grades in 2025 compared to 2015, and math scores were down about 0.4 grades. This means that students were 60% of one school year behind where their peers were in reading a decade earlier and 40% of one school year behind in math... "The decline started around the time that social media's use among teens was exploding, and this was also occurring in a number of other countries," says Thomas Kane, one of the authors of the Educational Scorecard report and a professor at Harvard University... [H]e maintains that it is at the core of the decline in reading achievement. He points out that social media use was shown to be heaviest among the lowest achieving students. "Some states and school districts are making progress," notes the Associated Press, "largely by shifting toward phonics-based instruction and providing extra support for struggling readers." And "The picture is also brighter in math. Almost every state in the analysis saw improvements in math test scores from 2022 to 2025."


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • How Owners of EVs from Bankrupt Fisker Saved Their Cars With an Open Source Nonprofit
    An anonymous reader shared this report from Electrek:When Fisker Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2024, it left roughly 11,000 Ocean SUV owners holding the keys to vehicles that cost them anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000 — and that were rapidly losing the software brains that made them work. No more over-the-air updates. No more connected services. No more warranty. The manufacturer was dead. What happened next is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of the electric vehicle industry. Instead of accepting that their cars would become rolling paperweights, Fisker Ocean owners organized, reverse-engineered their vehicles' proprietary software, hacked into CAN bus networks, built open-source tools on GitHub, and effectively stood up a volunteer-run open-sourced car company from the ashes of Fisker...Within months of the bankruptcy filing, thousands of Ocean owners formed the Fisker Owners Association (FOA) — a nonprofit that quickly grew to 4,000 members and began operating as something between a car club, a tech startup, and an independent automaker. The FOA hired independent tech experts who began reverse-engineering Fisker's proprietary software patches. Members taught each other how to flash firmware. They organized bulk purchases of replacement parts — negotiating the price of key fobs down from roughly $1,000 each to a fraction of that through coordinated group buys. They hosted free global key fob pairing events, saving each owner $100 to $250... What started as desperate troubleshooting has evolved into a genuine open-source ecosystem around the Fisker Ocean. On GitHub, a developer named MichaelOE reverse-engineered the API behind Fisker's official "My Fisker" mobile app and built a Home Assistant integration that exposes every cloud API value as a sensor — with all the app's buttons available as Home Assistant controls... [Community members have also been systematically mapping CAN bus files.] The article noes this "is not an isolated incident. Nikola also filed for bankruptcy, leaving its owners in a similar bind. Canoo and Arrival are headed for liquidation auctions..."Consumer advocates are now pushing for structural changes: mandatory software escrow funds that would keep vehicle software running even if the manufacturer disappears, open-source mandates in bankruptcy proceedings, and shared repair data requirements... European automakers, meanwhile, are moving in a different direction entirely — Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and eight suppliers signed a memorandum in 2025 to develop a shared open-source automotive software platform.... The Fisker Owners Association has proven that a dedicated community can keep orphaned EVs on the road. But they shouldn't have had to... [O]wners shouldn't need to become hackers and parts brokers and quasi-manufacturers just to keep driving the cars they already paid for.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Sysadmin Creates 'ModuleJail' To Automatically Blacklist Unused Kernel Modules
    Long-time Slashdot reader internet-redstar shares an interestging response to "the recent wave of Linux kernel privilege escalation vulnerabilities like 'Copy Fail' and 'Dirty Frag'":Belgian Linux sysadmin and Tesla Hacker "Jasper Nuyens" got tired of the idea of manually blacklisting dozens or even hundreds of obscure kernel modules across large fleets of Linux systems in the near future.So he wrote ModuleJail, a GPLv3 shell script that scans a running Linux system and automatically blacklists currently unused kernel modules, reducing kernel attack surface without requiring a reboot. The idea is simple: many modern Linux privilege escalation bugs target obscure or rarely used kernel functionality that is still enabled by default on servers that do not actually need it. ModuleJail works across major distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora, AlmaLinux and Arch Linux, generating 1 modprobe blacklist rules file while preserving commonly-used modules. Nuyens argues that the increasing speed of AI-assisted vulnerability discovery will likely turn kernel hardening and attack surface reduction into a much bigger operational priority for sysadmins over the next few weeks and months.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Python Stays #1, R Rises in Popularity, Says TIOBE
    Are statistical programmers coalescing around a handful of popular languages? That's the question asked by the CEO of software assessment site TIOBE, which every month estimates the popularity of programming languages based on their frequency in search results:This month, the programming language R matched its all-time high by reaching position #8 in the TIOBE index once again. This is not a coincidence. The statistical programming language market is clearly undergoing a major consolidation. The biggest winners are Python and R, while many long-established alternatives continue to lose momentum. The era in which the statistical computing landscape was fragmented across many niche languages and platforms appears to be coming to an end. Several established players are steadily declining: — MATLAB is close to dropping out of the TIOBE top 20. — SAS is about to leave the top 30 for the first time since the TIOBE index began. — Wolfram/Mathematica remains well below its historical peak and is losing further ground. — SPSS dropped out of the top 100 last month.... Elsewhere in the index, Java and C++ swapped positions this month. Java gained momentum following the successful release of Java 26. Another notable riser is Zig, which is approaching the TIOBE top 30 for the first time. Zig's growing popularity appears to be driven by its rare combination of low-level performance, straightforward tooling, and relative ease of use compared to traditional systems programming languages. Their estimate for the most popular programming languages in May:PythonCJavaC++C#JavaScriptVisual BasicRSQLDelphi/Object PascalThe five next most popular languages on their rankings are Fortran, Scratch, Perl, PHP, and then Rust at #15. Rust is up for positions from May of 2025 — while Go has dropped to #16, seven ranks lower than its May 2025 position of #7.


    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


www.theregister.com - Articles












Linux.com



  • From DHCP to SZTP – The Trust Revolution
    By Juha Holkkola, FusionLayer Group The Dawn of Effortless Connectivity In the transformative years of the late 1990s, a quiet revolution took place, fundamentally altering how we connect to networks. The introduction of DHCP answered a crucial question, Where are you on the network?!, by automating IP address assignment. This innovation eradicated the manual configuration [0]

    The post From DHCP to SZTP – The Trust Revolution appeared first on Linux.com.









Phoronix

  • gkh_clanker_t1000 & gkh_clanker_2000 Continue Uncovering Linux Kernel Bugs
    As first reported on Phoronix in early April, Linux's second-in-command Greg Kroah-Hartman has been leveraging new AI fuzzing tools for uncovering Linux kernel bugs. Prominent due to his position within the Linux kernel community and also being the primary Linux stable maintainer. His AI-assistance for fixing Linux kernel bugs is based on a Framework Desktop powered by AMD Ryzen AI Max. The "gkh_clanker_t1000" continues assisting in Linux kernel development along with the less frequent "gkh_clanker_2000" references..



  • Ubuntu Concept ISOs Published For CIX P1 AI CPU
    Similar to Canonical engineers having published "Ubuntu Concept" ISOs for Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptops to provide the very latest hardware-specific support that hasn't yet worked its way to the mainline Linux kernel and other packages, Canonical has begun providing Ubuntu Concept ISOs for the CIX P1 as an "AI" focused platform...










Engadget"Engadget - Technology News & Expert Reviews"











OSnews

  • 21 years and 20000 posts later
    Almost exactly 21 years ago, in June 2005, at a mere 20 years old, I took over the managing editor role at OSNews from Eugenia. I had already published a few articles in the years prior, and had given Eugenia enough confidence to suggest me as her replacement. It was, and is, a great honour. In those 21 years and more than 20000 posts, Ive seen a lot of beautiful things. Linux grew from a curiosity among nerds into a popular desktop operating system, and often a better choice for gaming than Windows. The BSDs flourish steadily, growing into even stronger and capable alternatives to desktop Linux than they already were. On the commercial side of things, new offerings challenged the hegemony of Microsoft and Windows. While Android and Chrome OS are at best merely tolerated, the idea that a newcomer would produce not one, but two operating systems that would successfully take on Microsoft and Apple seemed unimaginable when I started in 2005. While many alternative operating systems of the early 2000s faded away, weve also seen success stories there. Haiku evolved from an unusable, unstable promise on the horizon into a stable, daily-drivable operating system. The unique Genode Framework and Sculpt OS keep exploring and redefining the boundaries of what a general purpose operating system should be. Redox has exploded onto the scene, and keeps making massive strides almost every month. OS/2 is still actively updated, maintained, and sold. The Amiga will outlast us all. Internet culture, too, is changing, and while things definitely look bleak right now, there are sparks of hope and joy. The general attitude towards the big technology companies among the general public has shifted from admiration to mistrust and dislike, corporate social media seems to be crumbling, and the youngest generations absolutely despise the latest hype, AI!. All is certainly not lost, and sometimes I feel shimmers of hope that the pendulum may swing back to a more people-focused web, a web weve been part of since 1997. In those 21 years and more than 20000 posts, Ive also seen a lot of hypes come and go, hypes that if I didnt embrace them, Id surely be left behind. The pivot to video , the cryptocurrency mania, NFTs, virtual reality and the metaverse, AI!  all technologies and concepts I recognised for the hypes that they were, and consequently ridiculed and ignored, much to the dismay of many believers. Ive got the angry emails and comments to prove it. This illustrates something about OSNews that I value and hold dear: OSNews doesnt jump on bandwagons, doesnt frantically try to follow the latest trends, doesnt cave under the pressure of big money interests. OSNews is constant, stable, deliberate, patient. Since 1997, weve covered the technology industry with interest, excitement, and wonder  tempered by a healthy dose of skepticism. When you follow this industry for almost three decades, you learn to spot the patterns and see the threads before anyone else does. Thats not to say we havent gone through changes. The most significant changes to OSNews happened in recent years, where instead of working on the site on a mostly voluntary basis with a pittance of ad revenue coming my way, Ive turned my work for OSNews into my job. As part of this change, I removed all advertising from our website, morphing OSNews into a fully reader-funded endeavour. No ads, no corporate interests, no media network breathing down my neck. OSNews is a truly independent technology news website, a rarity these days. I dont have to keep corporate overlords or advertisers happy, and youd be surprised to learn just how rare that is on the modern web. The OSNews website itself is fairly unchanging too, having gone through only a handful of redesigns since its founding in 1997. Weve been using our current design, developed by Adam Scheinberg, for as long as I can remember (10-15 years?), and thanks to our independent, ad-free nature, any possible future redesign would only make the site simpler and even faster than it already is. Theres no redesign in the cards at the moment, but rest assured, if it ever comes, well buck the trend of websites getting ever more complex and demanding and make OSNews lighter and even faster. And yes, despite commenters making up far less than one percent of our readership, Ill always opt to keep them. We might be a site of lurkers, but comments are a core part of OSNews. Even the annoying ones. Especially the annoying ones. That being said, theres going to be a small change to our design, rolling out today (it might take a few reloads for it to appear). To mark my 21 years and 20000 posts, OSNews is getting a new-ish logo, which combines the classic, intertwined beveled O-S! from the early 2000s with the modern logo weve been using over the past 15 years or so. The O and S are intertwined once again, highlighting the continuity and stability I want OSNews to bring in this chaotic industry (I can write corporatese if I want to). Fun fact: this new! logo was actually designed like 20 years ago, and weve had it in our back pocket ever since. Why create something new and of the times, when youve got something great sitting right there? Aside from the new logo, Ill be running a big fundraiser to mark this occasion early next week, with some silly incentives at various thresholds. If we reach the ultimate goal  a euro for every story Ive posted  Ill overcome some very deep-rooted fears and anxieties, and tattoo the OSNews logo on my body, as my very first tattoo. OSNews has been part of my life for more than two decades, and I have every intention to add at least another two  having such a core part of my life immortalised on my body only makes sense. Ive written about my anxiety disorder and how it affects me


  • Googles new AI! Health Coach started making shit up right away
    Google recently launched something called Health Coach, an AI! thing thats part of the companys new Fitbit products. Lets check in with how thats going. Put simply, Google’s paid replacement for Fitbit Premium immediately began hallucinating, even admitting to having made up the data before asking if, you know, maybe I’m the one who actually forgot to input a run. Remember, this is my very first report from this thing, making for an awful first impression. Even after this correction, the run data continues to exist within the AI-powered home screen layout, despite no record actually appearing within my account. It’s not exactly a great advertisement for a platform that costs $10 per month or $100 annually. ↫ Will Sattelberg at 9To5Google The entire US  and thus much of the worlds  economic growth is built on this trash. What could possibly go wrong?


  • Microsoft claims its fixing Windows Update so it wont downgrade your graphics drivers
    One of the top pieces of customer feedback in the graphics driver area is clear:  Windows Update downgrades my drivers.! Today, we are announcing a policy change to how display drivers are published through Windows Update — allowing 2-Part HWID + Computer Hardware ID (CHID) targeting for new devices. This change gives customers more control over their display driver of choice while preserving OEM control over the devices they ship. ↫ Garrettd at Microsofts Hardware Dev Center Windows Update randomly downgrading your graphics drivers seems to be a common enough occurrence that its supposed fix deserves its own feature announcement and blog post. This is a real operating system that runs on most of the worlds PCs.


  • The data is abundantly clear: the EU Digital Markets Act is working
    The EUs Digital Markets Act has been in effect for a mere two years, but despite all the obstructionism, malicious compliance, and steady stream of lies from US tech companies and Apple in particular, it seems this rather basic consumer protection legislation is already bearing fruit. In a two-year review report on the DMA, the European Commission notes that alternative browser usage has soared, data portability solutions are spreading, alternative application stores are growing, and much more. On top of that, end users can now opt out of companies combining various data sources for profiling, and a significant share! of EU users have apparently done so. Furthermore, end users in the EU can now remove preinstalled applications (whereas American users cannot) and they can download their data from big technology companies and authorise other companies to use that data. Mozilla published a blog post detailing how it has profited from the Digital Markets Act, and it aint no peanuts: every ten seconds, someone on iOS chooses Firefox on iOS browser choice screen, which amounts to more than six million Firefox users on iOS. They also tend to stick with Firefox on iOS, as retention is five times higher when this browser is chosen through a browser choice screen. Academic analysis points the same way. Independent researchers compared Firefox daily active users in the EU with 43 non-EU countries. Comparing the 15 months before and after browser choice screens rolled out on iOS, they found that Firefox daily active users (DAU) were 113% higher in the EU than it would have been without the DMA. On Android, it was 12% higher. The smaller Android effect is due to the fact that Firefox usage there started from a much higher base, and the Android rollout has been more uneven than on iOS. The research also shows that the DMA’s effect is growing over time. ↫ Gemma Petrie and Tasos Stampelos on the Mozilla blog Both the underlying data in the EC report and the data Mozilla provides indicates that the Digital Markets Act is having real and tangible effects, for end users, developers, and companies alike. The neverending barrage of anti-EU and anti-DMA propaganda from Apple, the US government, and their PR attack dogs seems to have been weirdly justified, from the American perspective: basic consumer protection legislation does, indeed, work to lessen the stranglehold major technology companies have on our lives. And considering just NVIDIAs market cap alone is now equal to more than 17% of the United States GDP, it makes sense the Americans are unhappy with the DMA. Thats going to make one hell of a sound when it pops.


  • Classic 7 combines Windows 7s Aero Glass with Windows 10
    Interest in classic user interface design is spiking, and today weve got another great example, highlighted yesterday by Micheal MJD. Classic 7 combined Windows 10 LTSC with a whole slew of themes and deep modifications to deliver Windows 10, but made to look, feel, and even act like Windows 7. Classic 7 is a Windows 10 (IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021) modification made to look 1:1 to Windows 7. It has all of the goodies that Windows 7 had along with some extras included! Classic 7 features a 1:1 OOBE recreation, meaning itll feel just like your PC simplified once more. ↫ Classic 7 website As Micheal MJDs video shows, this is much more than a mere theme, and extends far deeper into the operating system than these kinds of projects generally do. I have no idea how stable this really is, or if its even remotely legal to do something like this, but who the hell cares  this is incredibly fun, and seems quite well done.


  • Haiku gets basic SMP support for ARM64, and unveils its GSoC projects: Bluetooth improvements incoming
    The months, they dont stop coming, so heres another progress report for Haiku, our beloved successor to BeOS, the best operating system ever made. This past month the teams added basic support for SMP on ARM64 (enough to use it in QEMU), the MIME sniffer’s internals have been overhauled for some serious performance gains, and a long list of smaller, but no less important or impactful, changes. Beta 6 still seems to be a ways off due to a number of unfixed bugs and an upcoming WebPositive release, but my usual spiel applies: you dont need to wait for a beta to test Haiku. Its stable enough as it is, and a nightly release will do you just fine, including updating to newer nightlies and application releases. This past month also saw which projects Haikus GSoC people will be working on. Two projects will focus on improving Haikus Bluetooth stack, including adding HFP profile support and support for HID devices, as well as general Bluetooth improvements across the board. The third and final project will focus on improving and expanding Haikus Devices application to turn it into a real management utility along the lines of those available on many other modern operating systems.


  • EU weighs restricting use of US cloud platforms to process sensitive government data
    The European Union is considering rules that would restrict its member governments’ use of U.S. cloud providers to handle sensitive data, sources familiar with the talks told CNBC. ↫ Kai Nicol-Schwarz at CNBC The fact that this has only just become a possible reality now, and not decades ago, is beyond me, but better late than never, I suppose. The Americans voted en masse (not voting is a vote for the winner!) for Trump twice, and theres no indication they wont vote for such an anti-Europe basket case again. Their opinions and attitudes towards Europeans are clear: they dislike us deeply, and after the last few years, theres no going back. Violating trust is easy; restoring it takes decades. Relying on the Americans for our digital infrastructure is, therefore, a monumentally stupid and self-defeating idea. Of course, many members states are addicted to the cloud services from Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, so theres going to be many individual member states who simply wont reduce their dependency on the Americans of their own volition. My own country of origin, The Netherlands, only recently signed off on the sale of its government ID services company and associated personal data to an American company, despite the vast majority of the Dutch House of Representatives telling them not to. As such, it makes sense for the EU to step in and simply making it illegal to hand over sensitive data to the Americans. Of course, weve got a long way to go, and Im sure many of any possible proposed restrictions will be watered down considerably by pressure form major member states. Addiction is a harsh disease.


  • The anti-minimalist backlash is the bigger story behind Oxygen’s revival
    A few weeks ago, we talked about a project within KDE to revive two of their classic themes, Oxygen and Air, and polish them up to make them usable on the current versions of KDE. The developers and designers working on this project say theyve been utterly surprised by just how popular this news has proven to be, and Filip Fila published a blog post with some thoughts on this unexpected popularity. Why are people yearning so strongly for user interfaces from the past? That’s the real story underneath the retro-yearning. It isn’t a simply story of people wanting their childhood from the 2000s back. It’s that a lot of ‘the new’ we’ve been offering doesn’t satisfy. It doesn’t have personality. It doesn’t feel warm. It doesn’t feel like it was made with the idea of being anything more than a clean product that gets the job done. The escapism towards the past is a symptom. A symptom of unmet needs, not mere sentimentality. ↫ Filip Fila Fila uses modern architecture as an example, and I think its an apt one. While monumental modern architecture can easily be beautiful and striking, its the mundane buildings all around us that just dont seem to elicit any positive emotions, no sense of belonging or safety. As Fila also notes, the decades-long swing to minimalism in both architecture and UI design isnt merely because of a preference among designers, but also because minimalism is a hell of a lot cheaper to produce. A building with very little ornamentation and basic, straight lines is much easier, and thus cheaper, to design, construct, and maintain. The same applies to graphical user interface design. There are some signs that the pendulum is starting to swing back towards more instead of less, in all aspects of design. More and more people are loudly demanding buildings to adopt more classical elements, and as we can all attest to here on OSNews, the longing for aspects of UI design from the 90s and early 2000s to make a return is strong. And not just among us deep in the weeds, either; Ive lost count of the number of times Ive seen normal people utterly confounded by modern UI design. Anyway, bring back beveled edges.


  • Google gives early peek at Android laptops: Googlebooks
    The news that Google is working to move Chrome OS to the Android technology stack, and that it wants to start putting Android on laptops, is not exactly news, as the company has been talking about it for years. At an Android event today, the company finally unveiled the culmination of all this work: Googlebooks. We’re bringing together the best of Android, which comes with powerful apps on Google Play and a modern OS that’s designed for Intelligence, and ChromeOS, which comes with the world’s most popular browser. The result is Googlebook: a new category of laptops built with Gemini’s helpfulness at its core, designed to work seamlessly with the devices in your life and powered by premium hardware. We’re sharing a sneak peek into the Googlebook experience today and will have a lot more to share later this year. ↫ Alex Kuscher at The Keyword, a Google blog apparently The approach here seems very similar to Chromebooks, with Googlebooks being designed and built by various OEMs, but instead of Chrome OS they run Android in desktop mode. Of course, AI! has been creamed all over these things, to the point where not even the venerable mouse cursor is safe: if you wiggle your cursor, it will turn into Magic Pointer!, which will highlight various AI! actions as you hover over stuff on your screen. Google also showed off an AI!-based feature to create widgets, as well as the ability to access files on your phone right from a Googlebook. Thats about all we know as far as functionality and features goes. Theyre supposed to go on sale later this year, with models coming from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.


  • OpenBSD and slopcode: raindrop to a torrent?
    Every single software product is dealing with the question about what to do with AI!-generated code, but the question is particularly difficult to answer for open source operating systems like Linux distributions and the various BSDs, which often consist of a wide variety of software packages from hundreds to thousands of different developers. On top of that, they also have to ask the AI! question for every layer of their offering, from the base install, to the official repositories, to community-run ones. As users, we, too, are asking these same questions, wondering just how much AI! taint were willing to spread across our computers. I understand the difficult position Linux distributions are in with regard to AI!. I mean, when even the Linux kernel itself is tainted by AI!, a no- AI! policy is basically an empty gesture for them at this point. Personally, I find a policy of we dont do AI in our work, but we dont have control over the thousands of components we consist of! to be an entirely reasonable, if deeply unsatisfying, position to take. What else are they going to do? You cant really be a Linux distribution without, you know, the Linux kernel, which is, as Ive already said, utterly tainted by AI! at this point. Still, in the back of my mind, I always had a trump card: if all else fails, well always have OpenBSD. Its project leader Theo de Raadt is deeply principled, every OpenBSD user and contributor I know hates AI! deeply, and the project routinely sticks to their principles even when its difficult or inconvenient. Yes, this makes OpenBSD not the most ideal desktop operating system, but Id rather use that than something that embraces the multitude of ethical, environmental, quality, and legal concerns regarding AI! code completely. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that OpenBSD already contains slopcode in its base installation, with the projects leaders and developers remaining oddly silent about it. My friend and OSNews regular Morgan posted this on Fedi a few days ago: Nearly six weeks later, and the question of whether AI! generated code in tmux  not tool-assisted bug finding, not refactoring, actual LLM-generated slop with questionable license(1)  that was consequently merged into OpenBSD base, is considered acceptable by the lead devs, remains unanswered. Despite Theo de Raadts concrete stance against any code of questionable license origin polluting the project  and the tmux merge was indeed questionable  it seems this is being swept under the rug. This makes me extremely uncomfortable; its like seeing a fox in the henhouse but the farmers are all looking the other way and no one can convince them to admit they can see it and root it out. I really dont know what to do being just a user; I feel like even if I tried to chime in on the mailing list I would just be ignored like the others trying to raise the alarm. I hope, as they do, that this is being discussed internally, away from the public list, and that a positive outcome is near. Maybe they are waiting for the 7.9 release before setting anything in stone. Or maybe the AI! disease has infected one of the last pure operating system projects we have left and theres no going back. ↫ Morgan on Fedi I obviously share Morgans concerns, and like him, Im also afraid that opening the door to a few drops of slop in base will quickly grow into a torrent of slop as time goes by. Yes, its just a patch to tmux, but its in base, and the base! of a BSD is almost a sacred concept, and entirely the last place where you want to see code that raises ethical, environmental, quality, and legal concerns. For all we know, this patch of slop or the next one contains a bunch of GPL code because it just so happens thats where the ball tumbling down the developers pachinko machine ended up. GPL code that would then be in the base of a BSD. I echo the call for the OpenBSD project to address this problem, and to set clear boundaries and guidelines regarding AI! code, so users and developers alike know what level of quality and integrity we can expect from OpenBSD and its base installation going forward.



Linux Journal News

  • EU OS: A Bold Step Toward Digital Sovereignty for Europe
    Image
    A new initiative, called "EU OS," has been launched to develop a Linux-based operating system tailored specifically for the public sector organizations of the European Union (EU). This community-driven project aims to address the EU's unique needs and challenges, focusing on fostering digital sovereignty, reducing dependency on external vendors, and building a secure, self-sufficient digital ecosystem.
    What Is EU OS?
    EU OS is not an entirely novel operating system. Instead, it builds upon a Linux foundation derived from Fedora, with the KDE Plasma desktop environment. It draws inspiration from previous efforts such as France's GendBuntu and Munich's LiMux, which aimed to provide Linux-based systems for public sector use. The goal remains the same: to create a standardized Linux distribution that can be adapted to different regional, national, and sector-specific needs within the EU.

    Rather than reinventing the wheel, EU OS focuses on standardization, offering a solid Linux foundation that can be customized according to the unique requirements of various organizations. This approach makes EU OS a practical choice for the public sector, ensuring broad compatibility and ease of implementation across diverse environments.
    The Vision Behind EU OS
    The guiding principle of EU OS is the concept of "public money – public code," ensuring that taxpayer money is used transparently and effectively. By adopting an open-source model, EU OS eliminates licensing fees, which not only lowers costs but also reduces the dependency on a select group of software vendors. This provides the EU’s public sector organizations with greater flexibility and control over their IT infrastructure, free from the constraints of vendor lock-in.

    Additionally, EU OS offers flexibility in terms of software migration and hardware upgrades. Organizations can adapt to new technologies and manage their IT evolution at a manageable cost, both in terms of finances and time.

    However, there are some concerns about the choice of Fedora as the base for EU OS. While Fedora is a solid and reliable distribution, it is backed by the United States-based Red Hat. Some argue that using European-backed projects such as openSUSE or KDE's upcoming distribution might have aligned better with the EU's goal of strengthening digital sovereignty.
    Conclusion
    EU OS marks a significant step towards Europe's digital independence by providing a robust, standardized Linux distribution for the public sector. By reducing reliance on proprietary software and vendors, it paves the way for a more flexible, cost-effective, and secure digital ecosystem. While the choice of Fedora as the base for the project has raised some questions, the overall vision of EU OS offers a promising future for Europe's public sector in the digital age.

    Source: It's FOSS
    European Union


  • Linus Torvalds Acknowledges Missed Release of Linux 6.14 Due to Oversight

    Linus Torvalds Acknowledges Missed Release of Linux 6.14 Due to Oversight

    Linux kernel lead developer Linus Torvalds has admitted to forgetting to release version 6.14, attributing the oversight to his own lapse in memory. Torvalds is known for releasing new Linux kernel candidates and final versions on Sunday afternoons, typically accompanied by a post detailing the release. If he is unavailable due to travel or other commitments, he usually informs the community ahead of time, so users don’t worry if there’s a delay.

    In his post on March 16, Torvalds gave no indication that the release might be delayed, instead stating, “I expect to release the final 6.14 next weekend unless something very surprising happens.” However, Sunday, March 23rd passed without any announcement.

    On March 24th, Torvalds wrote in a follow-up message, “I’d love to have some good excuse for why I didn’t do the 6.14 release yesterday on my regular Sunday afternoon schedule,” adding, “But no. It’s just pure incompetence.” He further explained that while he had been clearing up unrelated tasks, he simply forgot to finalize the release. “D'oh,” he joked.

    Despite this minor delay, Torvalds’ track record of successfully managing the Linux kernel’s development process over the years remains strong. A single day’s delay is not critical, especially since most Linux users don't urgently need the very latest version.

    The new 6.14 release introduces several important features, including enhanced support for writing drivers in Rust—an ongoing topic of discussion among developers—support for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chip, a fix for the GhostWrite vulnerability in certain RISC-V processors from Alibaba’s T-Head Semiconductor, and a completed NTSYNC driver update that improves the WINE emulator’s ability to run Windows applications, particularly games, on Linux.

    Although the 6.14 release went smoothly aside from the delay, Torvalds expressed that version 6.15 may present more challenges due to the volume of pending pull requests. “Judging by my pending pile of pull requests, 6.15 will be much busier,” he noted.

    You can download the latest kernel here.
    Linus Torvalds kernel


  • AerynOS 2025.03 Alpha Released with GNOME 48, Mesa 25, and Linux Kernel 6.13.8
    Image
    AerynOS 2025.03 has officially been released, introducing a variety of exciting features for Linux users. The release includes the highly anticipated GNOME 48 desktop environment, which comes with significant improvements like HDR support, dynamic triple buffering, and a Wayland color management protocol. Other updates include a battery charge limiting feature and a Wellbeing option aimed at improving user experience.

    This release, while still in alpha, incorporates Linux kernel 6.13.8 and the updated Mesa 25.0.2 graphics stack, alongside tools like LLVM 19.1.7 and Vulkan SDK 1.4.309.0. Additionally, the Moss package manager now integrates os-info to generate more detailed OS metadata via a JSON file.

    Future plans for AerynOS include automated package updates, easier rollback management, improved disk handling with Rust, and fractional scaling enabled by default. The installer has also been revamped to support full disk wipes and dynamic partitioning.

    Although still considered an alpha release, AerynOS 2025.03 can be downloaded and tested right now from its official website.

    Source: 9to5Linux
    AerynOS


  • Xojo 2025r1: Big Updates for Developers with Linux ARM Support, Web Drag and Drop, and Direct App Store Publishing
    Image
    Xojo has just rolled out its latest release, Xojo 2025 Release 1, and it’s packed with features that developers have been eagerly waiting for. This major update introduces support for running Xojo on Linux ARM, including Raspberry Pi, brings drag-and-drop functionality to the Web framework, and simplifies app deployment with the ability to directly submit apps to the macOS and iOS App Stores.

    Here’s a quick overview of what’s new in Xojo 2025r1:
    1. Linux ARM IDE Support
    Xojo 2025r1 now allows developers to run the Xojo IDE on Linux ARM devices, including popular platforms like Raspberry Pi. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for developers who want to create apps for ARM-based devices without the usual complexity. Whether you’re building for a Raspberry Pi or other ARM devices, this update makes it easier than ever to get started.
    2. Web Drag and Drop
    One of the standout features in this release is the addition of drag-and-drop support for web applications. Now, developers can easily drag and drop visual controls in their web projects, making it simpler to create interactive, user-friendly web applications. Plus, the WebListBox has been enhanced with support for editable cells, checkboxes, and row reordering via dragging. No JavaScript required!
    3. Direct App Store Publishing
    Xojo has also streamlined the process of publishing apps. With this update, developers can now directly submit macOS and iOS apps to App Store Connect right from the Xojo IDE. This eliminates the need for multiple steps and makes it much easier to get apps into the App Store, saving valuable time during the development process.
    4. New Desktop and Mobile Features
    This release isn’t just about web and Linux updates. Xojo 2025r1 brings some great improvements for desktop and mobile apps as well. On the desktop side, all projects now include a default window menu for macOS apps. On the mobile side, Xojo has introduced new features for Android and iOS, including support for ColorGroup and Dark Mode on Android, and a new MobileColorPicker for iOS to simplify color selection.
    5. Performance and IDE Enhancements
    Xojo’s IDE has also been improved in several key areas. There’s now an option to hide toolbar captions, and the toolbar has been made smaller on Windows. The IDE on Windows and Linux now features modern Bootstrap icons, and the Documentation window toolbar is more compact. In the code editor, developers can now quickly navigate to variable declarations with a simple Cmd/Ctrl + Double-click. Plus, performance for complex container layouts in the Layout Editor has been enhanced.
    What Does This Mean for Developers?
    Xojo 2025r1 brings significant improvements across all the platforms that Xojo supports, from desktop and mobile to web and Linux. The added Linux ARM support opens up new opportunities for Raspberry Pi and ARM-based device development, while the drag-and-drop functionality for web projects will make it easier to create modern, interactive web apps. The ability to publish directly to the App Store is a game-changer for macOS and iOS developers, reducing the friction of app distribution.
    How to Get Started
    Xojo is free for learning and development, as well as for building apps for Linux and Raspberry Pi. If you’re ready to dive into cross-platform development, paid licenses start at $99 for a single-platform desktop license, and $399 for cross-platform desktop, mobile, or web development. For professional developers who need additional resources and support, Xojo Pro and Pro Plus licenses start at $799. You can also find special pricing for educators and students.

    Download Xojo 2025r1 today at xojo.com.
    Final Thoughts
    With each new release, Xojo continues to make cross-platform development more accessible and efficient. The 2025r1 release is no exception, delivering key updates that simplify the development process and open up new possibilities for developers working on a variety of platforms. Whether you’re a Raspberry Pi enthusiast or a mobile app developer, Xojo 2025r1 has something for you.
    Xojo ARM


  • New 'Mirrored' Network Mode Introduced in Windows Subsystem for Linux

    Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) continues to evolve with the release of WSL 2 version 0.0.2. This update introduces a set of opt-in preview features designed to enhance performance and compatibility.

    Key additions include "Automatic memory reclaim" which dynamically optimizes WSL's memory footprint, and "Sparse VHD" to shrink the size of the virtual hard disk file. These improvements aim to streamline resource usage.

    Additionally, a new "mirrored networking mode" brings expanded networking capabilities like IPv6 and multicast support. Microsoft claims this will improve VPN and LAN connectivity from both the Windows host and Linux guest. 

    Complementing this is a new "DNS Tunneling" feature that changes how DNS queries are resolved to avoid compatibility issues with certain network setups. According to Microsoft, this should reduce problems connecting to the internet or local network resources within WSL.

    Advanced firewall configuration options are also now available through Hyper-V integration. The new "autoProxy" feature ensures WSL seamlessly utilizes the Windows system proxy configuration.

    Microsoft states these features are currently rolling out to Windows Insiders running Windows 11 22H2 Build 22621.2359 or later. They remain opt-in previews to allow testing before final integration into WSL.

    By expanding WSL 2 with compelling new capabilities in areas like resource efficiency, networking, and security, Microsoft aims to make Linux on Windows more performant and compatible. This evolutionary approach based on user feedback highlights Microsoft's commitment to WSL as a key part of the Windows ecosystem.
    Windows


  • Linux Threat Report: Earth Lusca Deploys Novel SprySOCKS Backdoor in Attacks on Government Entities

    The threat actor Earth Lusca, linked to Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups, has been observed utilizing a new Linux backdoor dubbed SprySOCKS to target government organizations globally. 

    As initially reported in January 2022 by Trend Micro, Earth Lusca has been active since at least 2021 conducting cyber espionage campaigns against public and private sector targets in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. Their tactics include spear-phishing and watering hole attacks to gain initial access. Some of Earth Lusca's activities overlap with another Chinese threat cluster known as RedHotel.

    In new research, Trend Micro reveals Earth Lusca remains highly active, even expanding operations in the first half of 2023. Primary victims are government departments focused on foreign affairs, technology, and telecommunications. Attacks concentrate in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Balkans regions. 

    After breaching internet-facing systems by exploiting flaws in Fortinet, GitLab, Microsoft Exchange, Telerik UI, and Zimbra software, Earth Lusca uses web shells and Cobalt Strike to move laterally. Their goal is exfiltrating documents and credentials, while also installing additional backdoors like ShadowPad and Winnti for long-term spying.

    The Command and Control server delivering Cobalt Strike was also found hosting SprySOCKS - an advanced backdoor not previously publicly reported. With roots in the Windows malware Trochilus, SprySOCKS contains reconnaissance, remote shell, proxy, and file operation capabilities. It communicates over TCP mimicking patterns used by a Windows trojan called RedLeaves, itself built on Trochilus.

    At least two SprySOCKS versions have been identified, indicating ongoing development. This novel Linux backdoor deployed by Earth Lusca highlights the increasing sophistication of Chinese state-sponsored threats. Robust patching, access controls, monitoring for unusual activities, and other proactive defenses remain essential to counter this advanced malware.

    The Trend Micro researchers emphasize that organizations must minimize attack surfaces, regularly update systems, and ensure robust security hygiene to interrupt the tactics, techniques, and procedures of relentless threat groups like Earth Lusca.
    Security


  • Linux Kernel Faces Reduction in Long-Term Support Due to Maintenance Challenges

    The Linux kernel is undergoing major changes that will shape its future development and adoption, according to Jonathan Corbet, Linux kernel developer and executive editor of Linux Weekly News. Speaking at the Open Source Summit Europe, Corbet provided an update on the latest Linux kernel developments and a glimpse of what's to come.

    A major change on the horizon is a reduction in long-term support (LTS) for kernel versions from six years to just two years. Corbet explained that maintaining old kernel branches indefinitely is unsustainable and most users have migrated to newer versions, so there's little point in continuing six years of support. While some may grumble about shortened support lifecycles, the reality is that constantly backporting fixes to ancient kernels strains maintainers.

    This maintainer burnout poses a serious threat, as Corbet highlighted. Maintaining Linux is largely a volunteer effort, with only about 200 of the 2,000+ developers paid for their contributions. The endless demands on maintainers' time from fuzz testing, fixing minor bugs, and reviewing contributions takes a toll. Prominent maintainers have warned they need help to avoid collapse. Companies relying on Linux must realize giving back financially is in their interest to sustain this vital ecosystem. 

    The Linux kernel is also wading into waters new with the introduction of Rust code. While Rust solves many problems, it also introduces new complexities around language integration, evolving standards, and maintainer expertise. Corbet believes Rust will pass the point of no return when core features depend on it, which may occur soon with additions like Apple M1 GPU drivers. Despite skepticism in some corners, Rust's benefits likely outweigh any transition costs.

    On the distro front, Red Hat's decision to restrict RHEL cloning sparked community backlash. While business considerations were at play, Corbet noted technical factors too. Using older kernels with backported fixes, as RHEL does, risks creating divergent, vendor-specific branches. The Android model of tracking mainline kernel dev more closely has shown security benefits. Ultimately, Linux works best when aligned with the broader community.

    In closing, Corbet recalled the saying "Linux is free like a puppy is free." Using open source seems easy at first, but sustaining it long-term requires significant care and feeding. As Linux is incorporated into more critical systems, that maintenance becomes ever more crucial. The kernel changes ahead are aimed at keeping Linux healthy and vibrant for the next generation of users, businesses, and developers.
    kernel


  • Linux Celebrates 32 Years with the Release of 6.6-rc2 Version

    Today marks the 32nd anniversary of Linus Torvalds introducing the inaugural Linux 0.01 kernel version, and celebrating this milestone, Torvalds has launched the Linux 6.6-rc2. Among the noteworthy updates are the inclusion of a feature catering to the ASUS ROG Flow X16 tablet's mode handling and the renaming of the new GenPD subsystem to pmdomain.

    The Linux 6.6 edition is progressing well, brimming with exciting new features that promise to enhance user experience. Early benchmarks are indicating promising results, especially on high-core-count servers, pointing to a potentially robust and efficient update in the Linux series.

    Here is what Linus Torvalds had to say in today's announcement:
    Another week, another -rc.I think the most notable thing about 6.6-rc2 is simply that it'sexactly 32 years to the day since the 0.01 release. And that's a roundnumber if you are a computer person.Because other than the random date, I don't see anything that reallystands out here. We've got random fixes all over, and none of it looksparticularly strange. The genpd -> pmdomain rename shows up in thediffstat, but there's no actual code changes involved (make sure touse "git diff -M" to see them as zero-line renames).And other than that, things look very normal. Sure, the architecturefixes happen to be mostly parisc this week, which isn't exactly theusual pattern, but it's also not exactly a huge amount of changes.Most of the (small) changes here are in drivers, with some tracingfixes and just random things. The shortlog below is short enough toscroll through and get a taste of what's been going on. Linus Torvalds


  • Introducing Bavarder: A User-Friendly Linux Desktop App for Quick ChatGPT Interaction

    Want to interact with ChatGPT from your Linux desktop without using a web browser?

    Bavarder, a new app, allows you to do just that.

    Developed with Python and GTK4/libadwaita, Bavarder offers a simple concept: pose a question to ChatGPT, receive a response, and promptly copy the answer (or your inquiry) to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere.

    With an incredibly user-friendly interface, you won't require AI expertise (or a novice blogger) to comprehend it. Type your question in the top box, click the blue send button, and wait for a generated response to appear at the bottom. You can edit or modify your message and repeat the process as needed.

    During our evaluation, Bavarder employed BAI Chat, a GPT-3.5/ChatGPT API-based chatbot that's free and doesn't require signups or API keys. Future app versions will incorporate support for alternative backends, such as ChatGPT 4 and Hugging Chat, and allow users to input an API key to utilize ChatGPT3.

    At present, there's no option to regenerate a response (though you can resend the same question for a potentially different answer). Due to the lack of a "conversation" view, tracking a dialogue or following up on answers can be challenging — but Bavarder excels for rapid-fire questions.

    As with any AI, standard disclaimers apply. Responses might seem plausible but could contain inaccurate or false information. Additionally, it's relatively easy to lead these models into irrational loops, like convincing them that 2 + 2 equals 106 — so stay alert!

    Overall, Bavarder is an attractive app with a well-defined purpose. If you enjoy ChatGPT and similar technologies, it's worth exploring.
    ChatGPT AI


  • LibreOffice 7.5.3 Released: Third Maintenance Update Brings 119 Bug Fixes to Popular Open-Source Office Suite

    Today, The Document Foundation unveiled the release and widespread availability of LibreOffice 7.5.3, which serves as the third maintenance update to the current LibreOffice 7.5 open-source and complimentary office suite series.

    Approximately five weeks after the launch of LibreOffice 7.5.2, LibreOffice 7.5.3 arrives with a new set of bug fixes for those who have successfully updated their GNU/Linux system to the LibreOffice 7.5 series.

    LibreOffice 7.5.3 addresses a total of 119 bugs identified by users or uncovered by LibreOffice developers. For a more comprehensive understanding of these bug fixes, consult the RC1 and RC2 changelogs.

    You can download LibreOffice 7.5.3 directly from the LibreOffice websiteor from SourceForge as binary installers for DEB or RPM-based GNU/Linux distributions. A source tarball is also accessible for individuals who prefer to compile the software from sources or for system integrators.

    All users operating the LibreOffice 7.5 office suite series should promptly update their installations to the new point release, which will soon appear in the stable software repositories of your GNU/Linux distributions.

    In early February 2023, LibreOffice 7.5 debuted as a substantial upgrade to the widely-used open-source office suite, introducing numerous features and improvements. These enhancements encompass major upgrades to dark mode support, new application and MIME-type icons, a refined Single Toolbar UI, enhanced PDF Export, and more.

    Seven maintenance updates will support LibreOffice 7.5 until November 30th, 2023. The next point release, LibreOffice 7.5.4, is scheduled for early June and will include additional bug fixes.

    The Document Foundation once again emphasizes that the LibreOffice office suite's "Community" edition is maintained by volunteers and members of the Open Source community. For enterprise implementations, they suggest using the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners.
    LibreOffice


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  • France Says "Au Revoir" to Microsoft
    In a move that should surprise no one, France announced plans to reduce its reliance on US technology, and Microsoft Windows is the first to get the boot.
Page last modified on November 17, 2022, at 06:39 PM