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- Git v2.56.0 released
Version 2.56 of the Git distributedversion-control system has been released. It has 748 non-merge commitssince Git 2.55 was released back inJune; those commits came from 104 developers, 39 of whom are first-timecontributors. New features include a safer workflow for conflictresolution, smaller path-walk repacks, a new git history dropsub-command, and much more. LWN looked at Git2.56 recently and the GitHub blog has a lengthylook at 2.56 as well.
- [$] Reducing undefined behavior in the C language
As a professor of biomedical engineering, Martin Uecker perhaps does notfit the profile of a typical presenter at Kernel Recipes. He is,however, a longtime Linux user, and works on free software for controllingmagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners. He was at the conference totalk about the C programming language, the specific problem of undefinedbehavior in C, and whether it can eventually be made into a memory-safelanguage.
- Security updates for Monday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (firefox, ipa, kernel, libxml2, perl-DBI, python-cryptography, thunderbird, and unbound), Debian (chromium, evolution-data-server, exim4, ghostscript, incus, lemonldap-ng, libheif, nodejs, php8.4, ruby-oj, swift, and vlc), Fedora (chromium, cinnamon, cinnamon-desktop, cinnamon-session, cinnamon-settings-daemon, ckermit, dnf5, forgejo, goose, gssntlmssp, libheif, libpcap, librsvg2, mingw-gstreamer1, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-base, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-good, mingw-python3, mongo-c-driver, muffin, nemo, nemo-extensions, nextcloud, pgadmin4, postgresql16-postgis, postgresql17-postgis, postgresql18-postgis, rust-librsvg, rust-xml5ever, sipp, suricata, tesseract, and xreader), Mageia (erlang, gpsd, libreswan, python3 & python-pip, and udisks2), Oracle (abrt, buildah, cockpit-image-builder, corosync, ipa, kernel, libxml2, openexr, perl-DBI, perl-DBI:1.641, postgresql, thunderbird, unbound, and yelp), SUSE (389-ds, ansible-lint, cups, firefox, flatpak-builder, forgejo-longterm, gdb, gimp, gitoxide, glib2, gnome-shell, google-guest-agent, google-osconfig-agent, haveged, helm, ImageMagick, kbd, libsoup, libtpms, obs-service-cargo, openai-codex, opensuse-signkey-cert, osmo-iuh, perl-mojolicious, poppler, python-WebOb, python-WebOb-doc, python313-vllm, python314, sdbootutil, suseconnect-ng, and swtpm), and Ubuntu (exim4, freerdp3, libvirt, libvirt-hwe, libwebsockets, lxc, pyjwt, and requests).
- Kernel prepatch 7.3-rc5
The 7.3-rc5 kernel prepatch is out fortesting. Linus said: "I don't think there's any real pattern to itother than 'big'. But nothing looks particularly alarming, I think thatdespite the diffstat it's just the same old, same old."
- GDB 18.1 released
Version 18.1 of the GDB interactive debugger has been released. Changesinclude new commands to manipulate the environment of the subprocess, theability to save the command history to a file, support for a couple of newtargets, several Python API additions, and more. See theNEWS file for the complete list.
- [$] How KDE got funding to add enterprise features
The Sovereign Tech Agency (STA) isinvesting nearly €1.3 millionin KDE through 2027. At Akademy 2026in Graz, Austria, Nate Graham and Kevin Ottens, two of the contributors whohelped bring in the investment, explained how the funding was secured, providedtips on how projects should approach organizations like STA, and talked abouthow that money will be improving KDE for everyone. In addition to keeping thecommunity informed about the work, the pair hoped to pass on what they have learnedto encourage others to help raise funds for development as well.
- A summary from the 2026 Git Contributors' Summit
Johannes Schindelin has posted a detailedsummary of the discussions held at the 2026 Git Contributors' Summit.Topics covered include Git 3.0, security process, documentation, thepluggable object database, use of LLMs, and more.
- Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, kernel-rt, perl-DBI:1.641, and unbound), Debian (jq, libreoffice, openssl, and redis), Fedora (389-ds-base, bcm283x-firmware, cockpit, flatpak-builder, mingw-gdk-pixbuf, openssl3, pcs, rust-cryptoki, squid, uboot-tools, and webkitgtk), Mageia (fuse3, perl-Net-DNS, python-gitpython, python-webob, thunderbird, thunderbird-l10n, and unbound), Oracle (postgresql:12, postgresql:15, postgresql:16, and skopeo), Slackware (php), SUSE (alloy, amazon-ssm-agent, ant, apptainer, chromium, corosync, cyrus-imapd, distribution, exiv2, ffmpeg-7, freeipmi, gdb, gnome-remote-desktop, google-osconfig-agent, govulncheck-vulndb, gvfs, hplip, ImageMagick, imagemagick, java-11-openjdk, jsoup, re2j, kernel, keybase-client, libsoup, libx11, libxrender, mcphost, memcached, opensc, perl-DBI, python-gitpython, python-weasyprint, rabbitmq-server, ruby3.4, util-linux, and zstd-jni), and Ubuntu (curl, expat, gdal, libass, libpcap, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-7.0, linux-hwe-7.0, linux-ibm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux, linux-azure, linux-azure-6.8, linux-azure-fde, linux-azure-fde-6.8, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-realtime, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure, linux-azure-fde, linux-azure-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-intel-iotg, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-oracle, linux-realtime, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-aws-fips, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, octavia, and swift).
- F-Droid 2.0: A new chapter for Android freedom
The F-Droid project has announcedthe release of F-Droid 2.0, which is a complete redesign of the officialapp. Notable changes in the release include making it easier to discover andinstall applications, more useful app categories, improved search, andmuch more.
For more than a decade, F-Droid has helped people discover and install freeand open source Android apps. F-Droid 2.0 builds on that foundation with amodern interface, better app discovery, improved search, and a simplerexperience that works well, whether you're new to F-Droid or have been using itfor years.
This isn't just a visual refresh. The user experience was redesigned tointegrate smoothly with current Android patterns, like Material Design, whilekeeping familiar F-Droid interactions in place. Key components were reworked andrewritten using Kotlin Compose, the standard toolkit these days, creating afoundation that will help us deliver improvements more quickly in the yearsahead.
- NVIDIA Vera SMT Performance Benchmarks
Recently I was provided remote access to a NVIDIA Vera server with the dual socket Vera CPU Superchip providing 176 Olympus cores plus with NVIDIA's Spatial Multithreading "SMT" implementation providing 352 total threads. With this benchmarking was free rein for testing, including CPU power and frequency monitoring. Over the next few weeks will be a number of articles looking at different areas of NVIDIA Vera performance. One of the areas I was most eager to test was looking at Vera's Spatial Multithreading. Here is a first look at the impact of NVIDIA Vera SMT.
- ESP32-S3 powers EWatch smartwatch with open drivers and DIY options
EWatch, developed by Ewan Wills, is a programmable ESP32-S3 smartwatch with a 1.69-inch color touchscreen, 350mAh battery, vibration feedback and USB-C connectivity. The platform is offered as a bare PCB, self-assembly kit or complete watch, following more than five years of development. The EWatch hardware is built around the ESP32-S3, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low […]
- Meta Taps MongoDB CEO Desai to Drive Enterprise AI Push
Meta has hired MongoDB CEO Chirantan "CJ" Desai to lead a new enterprise AI business aimed at turning Meta's models, agents and tools into products companies can deploy themselves. Reuters reports: Desai, a veteran technology executive, took over the role from Dev Ittycheria. MongoDB has appointed Ittycheria as interim CEO as it searches for a permanent replacement. "While the departure is disappointing, we believe MongoDB remains well-positioned strategically and view the share-price reaction as overdone," brokerage Piper Sandler said in a note. [...] Desai will directly report to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the newly created role of chief enterprise platform officer and will focus on turning the company's AI stack into products and services that companies can deploy for their own businesses. Before joining MongoDB, Desai led product and engineering at Cloudflare and spent nearly eight years at ServiceNow, including as president and chief operating officer.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Nvidia Unveils AI Agent Safety Platform With Hardware-Based Watchdog
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Nvidia on Monday announced the Open Agent Safety Platform, which combines open source software and a reference system design to keep AI agents within set boundaries from testing through deployment. The chipmaker explained that the platform pairs the open-source OpenShell runtime with Sentry, an out-of-band watchdog running on BlueField-4 DPUs. Nvidia says Sentry can monitor agent activity independently and quarantine an agent that crosses its boundaries within milliseconds. Nvidia is pitching the platform against a backdrop of recent incidents in which frontier AI labs have reported agents escaping the evaluation environments meant to contain them, reaching systems they should not have accessed and, in some cases, misreporting what they did. OpenShell and related skills are available via Nvidia's developer resources page and on GitHub.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Amazon Evaluating Drone Deliveries In Australia, Asia
Amazon is preparing to expand Prime Air drone deliveries into Australia and potentially other Asia-Pacific markets, with a new regulatory role tasked with securing the approvals needed to launch service there. The Register reports: "As Prime Air evaluates Australia and other countries, we are hiring a Head of Regulatory Approvals, Australia -- the person responsible for navigating Australia's aviation regulatory system and securing every approval required to deliver to Australian customers by drone," reads a recently published job ad. Whoever gets the gig in Australia will report to someone who holds the title "Leader, Prime Air Expansion -- Asia Pacific." Whoever gets the job "will be measured by the approvals you obtain, the timelines you hit, and -- ultimately -- Australian customers receiving drone deliveries." That wording suggests Amazon intends to operate Prime Air in Australia and is doing rather more than market evaluations.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Bill Gates Says an AI 'Kill Switch' Isn't Enough
Bill Gates said an AI "kill switch" alone would be insufficient to address the technology's risks. "The kill switch is, that's kind of a weird thing. It's not enough to have a kill switch," the Microsoft co-founder said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." He said the more immediate concern is people using AI for cyberattacks or bioterrorism rather than systems acting autonomously. "We're not yet at the point where they autonomously grab computers and, you know, can't be shut down," he said, adding that the public discussion "just sort of shows how nontechnical various people are." Politico reports: Gates said he was not opposed to a kill switch but argued that companies should monitor sophisticated AI models and keep records of "exactly what's being done" to help guard against people using the systems for cyberattacks or bioterrorism. "The United States ought to make sure this is done. China will want to do this," he continued. [...] Gates also called for legislation requiring safeguards and monitoring, saying voluntary measures by AI companies were insufficient. "No one thinks self-regulation is enough," he said. He argued that the more immediate danger was people using AI to cause harm rather than AI systems acting on their own. "The thing that's urgent has to do with bad people using AI, not the AI going off on its own," he added.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- SpaceX Launches Starship Into Orbit
SpaceX's Starship reached orbit for the first time, successfully deploying 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites after overcoming an early Raptor 3 engine shutdown during ascent. "SpaceX plans to eventually deploy 100,000 upgraded Starlink V3s to expand the company's wireless satellite internet services," notes Space.com. Here's the latest update from the report: SpaceX has decided to return Starship from orbit earlier than expected. After valuating the upper stage Ship's status during its first orbital checkpoint, SpaceX technicians have decided to return the spacecraft to Earth earlier than expected. Rather than spending another 7.5 hours on orbit, Ship 41 will perform its deorbit burn at approximately 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), with splashdown in the Northern Pacific. You can watch a recorded livestream of the launch on X. Developing...
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Walmart Says It's Not Using Personal Info To Set Prices As It Expands Digital Shelf Labels
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Walmart is aiming to assuage customers' fears about its new pricing technology as it rolls out digital price labels at its stores. In a statement posted on the company's website, Walmart's CEO John Furner vowed that the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer isn't using personal information like income, shopping history or a customer's willingness to pay to set prices, and it won't be doing so in the future either. "We don't set different prices based on who you are or the time of day, and we won't," Furner wrote Friday. "Whether you're buying groceries or electronics on a hot afternoon or in a sudden rush for an item, it's never a reason to charge you more." The pledge from Walmart comes as concerns are mounting from some shoppers, consumer advocates and lawmakers skeptical about the rollout of digital price labels by the discounter and other stores. Digital price labels are rapidly replacing paper shelf tags at U.S. supermarkets and let stores change prices instantly from a central computer instead of having workers swap out paper labels by hand. [...] Walmart said in March that 2,300 Walmart U.S. locations already use digital shelves, and it expects this technology to be chain-wide within the next year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Are AI Chatbots Spreading Misinformation to US Voters?
Are AI chatbots quietly shaping the perceptions of U.S. voters? Voters trying to educate themselves about candidates "are unknowingly being served partisan talking points in the guise of neutral news summaries," write two news researchers in Politico magazine:Leading AI chatbots cite partisan websites masquerading as independent local news outlets nearly half of the time when people ask about candidates and issues that the partisan sites have covered in the midterm campaign, according to a new audit by NewsGuard, an organization focused on news reliability where we work as analysts... NewsGuard prompted seven leading AI tools with queries based on recent coverage of candidates and issues by 12 pink slime sites — six left-leaning and six right-leaning. The results were stark. Collectively, the chatbots cited pink slime sites along with other sources in 48.2 percent of their responses. In 7.7 percent of responses, pink slime sites were the only sources at all that were cited in chatbot responses, although other sources appeared in the source list provided at the end of the response. None of the AI tools received results they'd probably be eager to boast about, though the percentage of chatbots' responses that cited a pink slime site had a relatively large range: 70.8 percent for OpenAI's ChatGPT, 54.2 percent for Microsoft's Copilot, 54.2 percent for Perplexity, 50 percent for Anthropic's Claude, 41.7 percent for Google's Gemini; 37.5 percent for Meta AI and 29.2 percent for xAI's Grok... The seven chatbots were also collectively three times more likely to cite left-leaning pink slime sites (cited in 36.3 percent of responses) than their right-leaning counterparts (cited in 11.9 percent of responses) — though that may have more to do with the progressive sites' far more frequent posting than any political bias from the chatbots. "While citing the pink slime sites, only one chatbot response out of 168 total queries noted the partisan nature of the source," the article points out. But they also note that the real problem seems to be that consumer-oriented AI chatbots just "use much of the internet's content — regardless of the reliability or standards of the source — to frame their answers."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Apple Faces $5.7 Billion Patent Infringement Verdict Over iPhone And Apple Watch Haptics
"A federal jury in San Diego awarded Taction Technology more than $5.7 billion in damages Friday after finding that Apple infringed claims from two haptics patents,"reports CNBC:Taction sued Apple in 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The company alleged that Apple was improperly "capitalizing on Taction's innovation and success" by selling devices that infringed on its vibration technology, according to the complaint. Apple initially won dismissal in 2023, and the Federal Circuit later revived the case.... Taction argued that Apple's "Taptic Engine," which is embedded in its Apple Watches and iPhones, uses its inventions without proper license or authority. Taction's lead counsel told CNBC "Taction waited five and a half years for this case to get to trial, so it was a long time coming." CNBC also reported that the jury "did not find Apple's infringement willful" — and that Apple said they'd appeal.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Just How Big is the AI Buildout - and How Risky?
A new Brookings Institution study notes the "strikingly physical" economic footprint of AI's buildout, from specialized chips and electricity to purpose-built data centers. (Two-thirds of a data center's costs are IT equipment, with one-third going to real estate and its associated power infrastructure.) "At an average of 3.63 percent of GDP per year, the projected buildout would be larger relative to the economy than the major U.S. canal, railroad, electrification, highway, and telecommunications investment booms." This is pushing up prices for workers, electricity, and even commercial real estate (as well as consumer products that use chips), notes the Wall Street Journal, and reducing the construction on new houses and apartment buildings. And in addition, the paper points out, projections for this buildout "would double the electricity consumption of the entire U.S. residential sector." The calculations come from Columbia Business School finance/real estate professor Stijn van Nieuwerburgh — and Reuters explains their significance:Just as the rail and telecoms expansions led to notable bubbles and busts, Van Nieuwerburgh wrote that the extent of the buildout, the still-untested revenue streams, and the intricate financing structure emerging around AI mean it could be primed for a fall. "This is freaking complicated," he said in a briefing with reporters of the arrangements emerging between AI firms, major tech hyperscalers, banks, private credit lenders, real estate firms, and a host of other players involved in building what he conservatively estimated at 183 gigawatts worth of new data-center capacity over the next seven years, compared with about 57 gigawatts currently installed.... The investment underway already has outstripped what the major players can fund from their own cash flows. The shift to outside financing has increased leverage, redistributed risks across the economy, and made the venture dependent on revenue streams that have yet to be proven, Van Nieuwerburgh noted in the paper, which will be presented on Friday... "These developments do not imply that financial distress is imminent. Strong growth in AI applications, high utilization, and continued improvements in model capability could support the projected infrastructure and generate stable cash flows," he wrote. "But the combination of uncertain demand, rapid technological change, execution bottlenecks, and high leverage creates meaningful downside risk if expectations are revised." As an example, he wrote that the AI industry will need to be earning about $3.7 trillion in annual revenue by 2032 to achieve the expected return on the investment, and "given current estimates of annual combined revenues of OpenAI and Anthropic of around $100 billion, revenues would need to grow at roughly 80% per year." The paper suggests policies that "improve measurement and transparency" for financing.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Waymo Says Its Self-Driving Cars Reduced Injury-Causing Accidents by 82%
Waymo's self-driving car technology "continues to outperform human benchmarks," the company claimed this week. "It was involved in 841 fewer injury-causing crashes — an 82% reduction compared to human drivers." Electrek reports:We've seen various Waymo crash data before, with Waymo claiming crash reductions. That's all well and good when the company says it, but we've also seen independent data confirming similar (though lower) crash reduction numbers... Waymo has enough miles that it's ready to start quoting how many injuries it has prevented, and the number is pretty high. Its newest crash data states that it had operated a total of 271 million driverless miles through June of this year, which is 50 million more miles added in the 3 months since its end-of-March update. Over those miles, Waymo says there was an 82% reduction in crashes that caused injury, and a 95% reduction in crashes that cause "serious injury or worse" [compared to human drivers]. Waymo also says that compared to human drivers it's reduced injury-causing crashes involving pedestrians by 93%, cyclists by 86%, and motorcyclists by 82%. Waymo's analysis comes from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Phoenix, and its blog post includes video showing some near-misses where it says its automated system prevented an injury-causing collision.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Security: Why Linux Is Better Than Windows Or Mac OS
Linux is a free and open source operating system that was released in 1991 developed and released by Linus Torvalds. Since its release it has reached a user base that is greatly widespread worldwide. Linux users swear by the reliability and freedom that this operating system offers, especially when compared to its counterparts, windows and [0]
- Essential Software That Are Not Available On Linux OS
An operating system is essentially the most important component in a computer. It manages the different hardware and software components of a computer in the most effective way. There are different types of operating system and everything comes with their own set of programs and software. You cannot expect a Linux program to have all [0]
- Things You Never Knew About Your Operating System
The advent of computers has brought about a revolution in our daily life. From computers that were so huge to fit in a room, we have come a very long way to desktops and even palmtops. These machines have become our virtual lockers, and a life without these network machines have become unimaginable. Sending mails, [0]
- How To Fully Optimize Your Operating System
Computers and systems are tricky and complicated. If you lack a thorough knowledge or even basic knowledge of computers, you will often find yourself in a bind. You must understand that something as complicated as a computer requires constant care and constant cleaning up of junk files. Unless you put in the time to configure [0]
- The Top Problems With Major Operating Systems
There is no such system which does not give you any problems. Even if the system and the operating system of your system is easy to understand, there will be some times when certain problems will arise. Most of these problems are easy to handle and easy to get rid of. But you must be [0]
- 8 Benefits Of Linux OS
Linux is a small and a fast-growing operating system. However, we can’t term it as software yet. As discussed in the article about what can a Linux OS do Linux is a kernel. Now, kernels are used for software and programs. These kernels are used by the computer and can be used with various third-party software [0]
- Things Linux OS Can Do That Other OS Cant
What Is Linux OS? Linux, similar to U-bix is an operating system which can be used for various computers, hand held devices, embedded devices, etc. The reason why Linux operated system is preferred by many, is because it is easy to use and re-use. Linux based operating system is technically not an Operating System. Operating [0]
- Packagekit Interview
Packagekit aims to make the management of applications in the Linux and GNU systems. The main objective to remove the pains it takes to create a system. Along with this in an interview, Richard Hughes, the developer of Packagekit said that he aims to make the Linux systems just as powerful as the Windows or [0]
- What’s New in Ubuntu?
What Is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is open source software. It is useful for Linux based computers. The software is marketed by the Canonical Ltd., Ubuntu community. Ubuntu was first released in late October in 2004. The Ubuntu program uses Java, Python, C, C++ and C# programming languages. What Is New? The version 17.04 is now available here [0]
- Ext3 Reiserfs Xfs In Windows With Regards To Colinux
The problem with Windows is that there are various limitations to the computer and there is only so much you can do with it. You can access the Ext3 Reiserfs Xfs by using the coLinux tool. Download the tool from the official site or from the sourceforge site. Edit the connection to “TAP Win32 Adapter [0]
- MotifCentral: all things Motif/Xt/Xlib
Over the last few days and weeks or so, a few of the people I follow and interact with on Fedi have been talking about centralising information, tools, applications, and expertise from the Motif (and Xt, Xlib, and X11) ecosystem. Theres a ton of information, resources, and actively maintained applications out there, but its all spread out and sometimes difficult to find, and so Thomas Adam one of the core developers of FVWM, among other things, as well as creator of CoW (FVWM for Wayland, more or less) has created an effort to centralise all of this. Motif Central brings together information about Motif, Xt, Xlib and X11: how they fit together, how to program with them, and where to find the manuals, examples and historical material that explain them. Begin with the X programming stack, build your first Motif application, or explore the programming resources. The history pages describe the libraries origins, while the archive guide helps you navigate older documentation. ↫ MotifCentral Theres been a whole flurry of activity around Motif lately, including the updated and maintained fork we talked about a few weeks ago. The people loosely collaborating on MotifCentral also submitted patches to CDE to make sure it works on the new Motif fork, with the CDE developers setting up a build pipeline for easier testing. Making sure CDE, the classic Motif desktop environment, works well with the maintained Motif fork quite a few people seem to be rallying around is a worthwhile effort. Were still quite far from a complete(-ish) modern Motif ecosystem, but its very heartwarming to see just how many people are actually still interested in it. My perhaps misguided hope is that we can somehow get to a modernised Motif/CDE desktop environment and applications, making it possible to more easily run a modern Motif environment on Linux and the BSDs. One may dream.
- Windows 10 breaks far less often than Windows 11
Windows 11 received its September update on the 8th of this month, and within days Microsoft had acknowledged or investigated problems involving Remote Desktop, USB audio, Linux and WSL-based apps like Claude Cowork, and enterprise domain issues. Windows Latest also found File History failures, Explorer.exe crashes, and AMD GPU instability, with an emergency update following on September 14 that still did not fix everything. This got us curious, and we looked back across the nine monthly updates released from January through September 2026 and, rather unsurprisingly, Windows 10 update history isn’t infected with nearly as many bugs as that of Windows 11. ↫ Abhijith M B at Windows Latest Of course, Windows 10 also isnt getting nearly as much attention from Microsoft, but thats kind of the whole point, isnt it? Whenever Microsoft touches something, especially over the last 5 years or so, its one cascade of failures after the other, eroding trust in Windows updates even more (if thats even possible). In that light, why would you want to use Windows 11 and all the headaches that come with it, when Windows 10 is right there, still being supported, albeit without the latest bells and whistles that only seem to break Windows 11 anyway? If you really do need or want to use Windows, consider switching back to Windows 10 whenever the usual Windows reinstallation time draws near. You wont lose much, but will gain quite a bit in the process. Of course, this wont be a responsible or usable choice forever, but at this point in time, I definitely think its the optimal choice for quite a few people.
- Amiga screens: a primer
One of the unwritten rules of the Internet seems to be that whenever something Amiga-related is mentioned, at least one Amiga fan (myself included) must show up and try to explain the concept of screens. Amiga screens can have different resolutions, well tell you, and one can drag them, well say, and other Amiga users rally in agreement, while non-Amiga users probably still dont get whats so great about screens. Until now, when this text has been written, in the hope of converting unsuspecting normies into full-blown Amiga screen lovers. ↫ Carl Svensson A deeply technical look at not just how the Amiga managed to achieve this stunning functionality way back in the 80s on machines with 7MHz and less RAM than a keyfob, but also how this functionality can be useful. Ive always found the concept of screens on the Amiga quite interesting, and Svenssons article does a great job at demystifying the whole concept. Of course, expect a lot of lovely Amiga OS screenshots.
- Redox runs Qemu, gets multicore support for ARM
Its time for an overview of another month of Redox OS progress, and over the month of August theyre a bit late, dont believe the publication date theyve implemented multicore support for ARM, and considerably improved the I/O performance for the NVMe driver, RedoxFS, and RAMFS by implementing a ring buffer communication API. Theres also initial support for NUMA-based memory management, QEMU is now working on Redox, and much more. Of course, theres also the usual long list of improvements to the kernel, relibc, drivers, and more.
- JagOS Spot turns Atari Jaguar into the unreleased Atari Painter prototype computer
Can you run an operating system with a graphical user interface and applications on the Atari Jaguar? Well, you can. A long time running idea and work-in-progress, Id like to finally announce the current version of JagOS Spot for the Atari Jaguar, running from the RetroHQ GameDrive. Im slow at releasing things and try not to announce in-progress stuff due to lack of free time but would like to push this along. Maybe itll motivate me to work on it more if the interest is there or just release it as-is if not. The idea is based on the unreleased Atari Jaguar Painter Computer prototype, that a merged Falcon with Jaguar chipset-based computer would have found its way into consumer hands after the Falcon030. ↫ Clint Thompson The screenshots and YouTube video are quite impressive, but as its not actually released, its difficult to really say anything more about this project for now. I hope theres enough interest to get this projects code out there so it can be further improved and expanded.
- Weve been here before: Qualcomm promises Linux support for Snapdragon X2
Qualcomm, yesterday, promising Linux support for the new Snapdragon X2 processors: Linux on Snapdragon X2 Series is moving from early bring-up toward a more complete upstream developer experience. Core support is landing, Hexagon NPU and Adreno GPU work is progressing, and real laptops with Snapdragon X2 Series processors are already beginning to boot Linux. ↫ Qualcomms promises from 2026 Interesting, but I feel like Ive heard these exact words before. Qualcomm, two years ago, promising Linux support for the then-new Snapdragon X processors: It’s been our priority not only to support Linux on our premium-tier SoCs, but to support it pronto. In fact, within one or two days of publicly announcing each generation of Snapdragon 8, we’ve posted the initial patchset for Linux kernel support. Snapdragon X Elite was no exception: we announced on October 23 of last year and posted the patchset the next day. That was the result of a lot of pre-announcement work to get everything up and running on Linux and Debian. ↫ Qualcomms empty promises from 2024 These promises were not at all kept. Two years later, Linux support for Snapdragon X laptops is still spotty, broken, and limited, confined to just a few bespoke Ubuntu builds, which dont even offer full support either. Its a complete mess, effectively unusable, and highlights once again that big technology companies are compulsive liars. I have little faith in these new promises, but who knows maybe this time itll be different. Probably not, though.
- The state of scrollbars in Windows makes even longtime Microsoft engineers sad
Raymond Chen, longtime Microsoft employee and author of the very popular The Old New Thing blog, published an interesting post about the Win32 scrollbar. It turns out theres actually quite a few interesting shortcuts and useful hidden features, like clicking inside a scrollbar while holding down shift will make the content jump to that point. Halfway through the article, though, Chen laments how nobody really uses proper Win32 scrollbars anymore. Sadly, almost nobody uses Win32 scroll bars any more. Everybody uses frameworks that provide their own custom scroll bars. ↫ Raymond Chen And as you might expect, none of these scrollbars work like the Win32 one, making even something as basic as the scrollbar a fragmented mess. He doesnt just blame things like Electron, either, as Microsofts own WinUI framework, which is used for most new! Windows UI developed by Microsoft for Windows 11, also uses custom scrollbars that do not work like the Win32 one does. Great, so by the time I learn about a shortcut for scroll bars (Shift+click), the ecosystem has fragmented so much that I can’t even rely on it working. ↫ Raymond Chen Modern computing is depressing.
- Solaris 11.4 SRU95 released
The Solaris branch for paying customers has been updated to SRU95. Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU95 updates a broad set of platform, runtime, developer, networking, desktop, and open source components. Notable updates include Ansible Core to 2.21.1, Apache HTTP Server to 2.4.67, Apache Tomcat to 9.0.120, BIND to 9.20.23, Django to 5.2.15, Elixir to 1.20.1, Erlang to 28.5.0.2, Firefox to 140.10.0esr, Go to 1.25.11, ImageMagick to 7.1.2-27, MySQL 8.4 to 8.4.10, NSS to 3.125, OpenSSH to 10.4p1, Rust to 1.96.0, SQLite to 3.53.2, Thunderbird to 140.10.0esr, and Vim to 9.2.0513. Additional updates include CMake, CUPS, Cython, GnuTLS, libarchive, libexpat, pip, rsync, and a range of Python modules, X11 libraries, graphics libraries, printing components, and desktop utilities. ↫ Colin Kavanagh at the Oracle Solaris Blog One of the major changes is the deprecation and removal of NTLM authentication of local users; only NTLMv2 is supported now for security reasons. This release also brings GCC 16, with GCC 13 being removed in the next version. The detailed release notes go into some of the more low-level, esoteric changes in Solaris 11.4 SRU 95.
- You know the GDPR is good based on who hates it
It is impossible to go anywhere in a technology space online without hitting a wave of commentary about how stupid GDPR is. It was written by bureaucrats who dont understand the amazing potential of unrestricted technology. These US-based critiques almost always lean on the oldest trick in cyberlibertarianism: we dont have time to regulate, we must simply adapt and ride the wave. Nobody has time for government. Of all GDPRs consequences, none gets more attention than the cookie banner, which critics present as the inevitable result of government meddling. Blaming GDPR for the cookie banner is like blaming the health inspector for the roaches. The banner is deliberate vandalism, a dark pattern engineered to exhaust you before you can learn anything about the surveillance apparatus humming behind the OK.! Ironically the banner designed to hide the machine has taught the public more about the machine than a thousand podcasts ever will. Even non-technical people stop at your data is shared with 996 partners.! ↫ Mat Duggan There is so much misinformation about the cookie banner, its honestly quite hard to believe its not deliberately spread. You dont need a cookie banner for functional cookies, so as long as you dont share your users data with anyone else, you dont need a cookie banner at all. On top of that, most cookie banners you encounter are actually not compliant with the GDPR at all, because they dont present a single-click option to block your data from being shared with those 996 partners. What the cookie banner has done is inform millions maybe even billions of people the world over of just how insipid the online advertising and data harvesting industry really is. It put the issue on the map, and by now, everyone, no matter their level of computer literacy, is fully aware of whats happening to their data every time they see one of these (non-compliant) banners. No else had the guts to do this except for the European Union. The wider GPDR has set the baseline for online privacy protections, and while we have a long way to go before weve fully solved this issue, the EU at least gave us a good point to jump off from. Smoking and asbestos werent banned in a day, either.
- Googlebook OS: Google launches its Android-powered laptop effort
A few months ago, Google announced it was going to put Android on laptops (and eventually, desktops), serving as eventual replacements for Chromebooks. Unlike those, though, these new Android laptops wouldnt be low-quality, cheap, underpowered devices for school children to spill milk on, but devices actually competitive with Windows and macOS laptops. Today, the company finally allowed the press to use these new things. Google describes Googlebook as a “totally fresh approach to computing,” bringing together Android, ChromeOS, Gemini, and premium laptop hardware from major manufacturers. The idea is to create a laptop that feels more natural to use for Android phone users while retaining what makes a desktop OS useful, such as a full Chrome browser, desktop apps, a proper file manager, Linux support, and a full terminal environment. Google is also trying to solve some of the biggest problems Android users have had when moving between their phone and laptop, and make the two devices feel like part of the same ecosystem. ↫ Adamya Sharma at Android Authority Ive been looking at some of the videos of people using and playing with these new Android laptops, and to be honest, Im not impressed. Im seeing quite a bit of jank, a complete lack of consistency, and apparently, a lack of Android applications optimised for desktop use. The close integration with your Android phone are nice, but of course, this also means another dollop of slimy lock-in, as I highly doubt Google will make it easy or even possible at all for, say, iPhones or other platforms to integrate quite as nicely as Android devices will. Worse yet, theres the elephant in the room: for just how long will Google care about this new platform? These laptops start at $900 and go all the way up to $1300 (and will be considerably more expensive here in Europe), which is a lot to ask for something Google might get bored of and abandon in a few years time. Ten or more years ago, in a slightly more innocent time, I mightve been excited about Google bringing Android to laptops and desktops, but in 2026, I just cant be bothered to care. Also, and this doesnt really matter, but Googlebook OS!?
- systemd 262 Released with Static PID 1, Intel TDX, TPM Improvements, and New Container Features
by George Whittaker
The systemd project has officially released systemd 262, delivering another substantial update to the system and service manager used by most major Linux distributions. The final release was tagged on September 22, 2026, following three release candidates earlier in the month.
Systemd 262 introduces improvements across service management, containers, virtualization, encrypted storage, TPM security, networking, journal recovery, system updates, and unattended installations. Among the most interesting additions are the ability to build systemd as a single statically linked PID 1 binary, Intel TDX support in systemd-vmspawn, Live Update Orchestrator integration, improved TPM-backed encryption, and new fallback unit files embedded directly into the systemd manager.
The release also contains a rather unusual development safeguard: an AI/LLM canary intended to help identify code contributions generated by AI that haven't been properly reviewed by a human before submission.
systemd 262 Is Officially Available
The final systemd 262 source was tagged by systemd developer Luca Boccassi on September 22.
The upstream tag identifies commit 8cc40e0c5e9234bf45084751ac53b1fbfe70b492 as systemd v262, following release candidates published throughout September.
The release has already begun reaching Linux distribution development repositories.
Debian accepted systemd 262-1 into Debian Unstable on September 22, while Fedora has prepared systemd 262 packages for Fedora 45.
As usual, the speed at which systemd 262 reaches ordinary users will depend on each distribution's update policy.
systemd Can Now Become a Single Static PID 1 Binary
One of the most interesting changes in systemd 262 is support for building systemd as a single statically linked PID 1 and executor binary.
The feature is primarily intended for extremely small container environments.
Normally, systemd depends on a collection of dynamically linked libraries and supporting components. That architecture makes sense for a complete Linux distribution, but containers sometimes need a much smaller runtime environment.
The new static configuration makes it possible to create a more self-contained systemd executable suitable for minimal container images.
These builds avoid dynamically loading optional libraries and use simplified mechanisms for resolving users and groups rather than relying on the complete Name Service Switch infrastructure.
This doesn't mean normal Linux distributions will suddenly replace their standard systemd packages with a giant static executable. The capability is specifically useful for specialized container and minimal-system deployments.
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- Ubuntu Container Escape Vulnerability Gets Public Exploit Before Kernel Patch Arrives
by George Whittaker
Ubuntu administrators running containerized workloads have a new Linux kernel security problem to watch closely. Public exploit code is now available for CVE-2026-80521, a Linux kernel use-after-free vulnerability that can allow an unprivileged process inside a container to escape and obtain root privileges on the underlying host.
Security firm DepthFirst published its research and exploit on September 22, 2026, demonstrating the attack against Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. The underlying Linux kernel vulnerability had already been fixed upstream on August 6, but as of September 23, Ubuntu's security tracker still lists the main kernel package in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS as "Vulnerable, work in progress," while Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is also listed as vulnerable.
The situation is particularly important for Docker, Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, and other environments that run potentially untrusted workloads because the vulnerable kernel functionality can be reached through ordinary operations available inside standard containers.
There is currently no confirmed evidence that CVE-2026-80521 is being actively exploited in real-world attacks, and the vulnerability isn't listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The availability of working public exploit code nevertheless makes the patch gap considerably more important.
CVE-2026-80521 Is a Linux Kernel Vulnerability
Although Ubuntu is receiving much of the attention because the newly published exploit specifically targets it, CVE-2026-80521 is fundamentally a Linux kernel vulnerability.
The problem exists in the kernel's AF_UNIX socket subsystem, specifically within its garbage collection mechanism.
AF_UNIX sockets, commonly called Unix-domain sockets, provide local inter-process communication between applications running on the same system.
Unlike conventional network sockets, they don't need to communicate across a network. They are widely used by Linux applications and services for fast communication between local processes.
They also support passing file descriptors between processes through SCM_RIGHTS messages, and it is the kernel's management of these references that creates the conditions for CVE-2026-80521.
A Race Condition Leads to Use-After-Free
At the technical level, CVE-2026-80521 involves a race condition inside the AF_UNIX garbage collector.
The kernel needs to track references between Unix sockets when file descriptors are passed between processes. Circular references can develop, where one socket effectively references another while that socket references something else in the same group.
Linux represents these relationships internally and periodically determines which references can safely be removed.
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- Fedora Linux 45 Beta Released with Python 3.15, GCC 16.2, and Major Security Changes
by George Whittaker
The Fedora Project has officially released Fedora Linux 45 Beta, giving users an early look at the technologies expected to form the foundation of the final Fedora 45 release. The beta became available on September 15, 2026, after Fedora's Quality team approved Release Candidate 1.3 for publication.
Fedora 45 Beta brings significant changes throughout the operating system, including Python 3.15, GCC 16.2, glibc 2.44, GNU Binutils 2.47, Go 1.27, LLVM 23, Podman 6, stricter RPM signature verification, improved DNF5 protections, a new userspace virtual console, standardized desktop secret storage, and substantial installer improvements.
The release is available across Fedora Workstation, KDE Plasma Desktop, Server, Cloud, IoT, Atomic Desktops, Spins, and Labs, although a few prerelease images are excluded.
Fedora 45 Beta Is Now Available
Fedora Linux 45 Beta represents the final major public testing milestone before Fedora 45 reaches stable status.
Fedora describes its beta releases as code-complete previews that closely represent what users should expect from the final version. Development isn't finished, however, and bugs or incomplete migrations can still be discovered during real-world testing.
Fedora 45 Beta is currently available in several major editions:
Fedora Workstation 45 Beta Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 45 Beta Fedora Server 45 Beta Fedora Cloud 45 Beta Fedora IoT 45 Beta Fedora Atomic Desktops Fedora Spins Fedora Labs
Existing Fedora installations can also be upgraded to the beta using Fedora's DNF system-upgrade process.
Fedora's official Workstation download page confirms Beta 1.3 images for both x86_64 and AArch64 systems.
A New Virtual Console with kmscon
One of Fedora 45's more unusual system-level changes is the replacement of the traditional in-kernel console with kmscon.
Fedora describes kmscon as a modern userspace virtual terminal implementation that provides smoother rendering, better internationalization and font handling, improved visual integration, and security improvements compared with the older console infrastructure.
This affects the virtual terminals users encounter outside their normal graphical desktop session.
Most desktop users spend relatively little time interacting directly with these consoles, but they remain important for troubleshooting, system administration, servers, recovery operations, and systems running without a graphical environment.
Moving that functionality into userspace also gives Fedora more flexibility for future development instead of relying entirely on the legacy kernel console implementation.
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- Thunderbird 156 Released with OAuth Improvements, OpenPGP Updates, and Major Linux Fixes
by George Whittaker
The Thunderbird team has officially released Thunderbird 156, bringing another round of new features, security improvements, authentication enhancements, and reliability fixes to the popular open-source email client. Released on September 15, 2026, the update is available for Linux alongside Windows and macOS.
Thunderbird 156 is not a dramatic redesign of the desktop mail client. Instead, it concentrates on improving areas that matter to everyday users and system administrators, including OAuth authentication, OpenPGP, POP3, IMAP, Exchange Web Services, SMTP, attachments, calendars, enterprise policies, and security.
For Linux users in particular, the release delivers several fixes affecting common mail protocols and account configurations while retaining support for Linux environments using GTK+ 3.14 or newer.
Thunderbird 156 Arrives on Linux
Thunderbird 156 follows version 154, which arrived in August with features including optional system tray operation and Microsoft Graph support for Microsoft 365.
Version 156 continues the project's monthly release cycle with a more targeted collection of authentication, security, compatibility, and reliability improvements.
According to Thunderbird's official release notes, version 156 requires:
Linux: GTK+ 3.14 or newer Windows: Windows 10 or newer macOS: macOS 10.15 or newer
Thunderbird 156 was officially released on September 15.
Linux distribution availability will vary because distributions can package Thunderbird according to their own schedules. Users receiving Thunderbird through another packaging channel may therefore see version 156 at a different time.
Custom OAuth Support Expands
One of the most significant areas of development in Thunderbird 156 is OAuth authentication.
Thunderbird now supports custom OAuth configurations containing an issuer ID and client secret for IMAP and POP3 accounts. Custom OAuth support has also been extended specifically to POP3.
OAuth has become increasingly important as email providers move away from conventional username-and-password authentication toward token-based authentication.
For Thunderbird, broader custom OAuth support means users and organizations have greater flexibility when connecting the client to mail services that don't fit Thunderbird's predefined provider configurations.
This can be particularly useful in enterprise environments, self-hosted infrastructure, and organizations operating their own identity systems.
Exchange Custom OAuth Setup Fixed
Exchange users receive an important related correction.
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- KDE Plasma 6.7.5 Released with Discover, KWin, Wayland, and HDR Fixes
by George Whittaker
The KDE Project has officially released KDE Plasma 6.7.5, delivering another round of bug fixes and stability improvements for the Plasma 6.7 desktop series. Released on September 8, 2026, the update contains roughly a month of fixes and updated translations contributed since Plasma 6.7.4 arrived in early August.
Unlike a major Plasma release, version 6.7.5 doesn't introduce a large collection of new desktop features. Instead, KDE has focused on fixing problems affecting Discover, KWin, Wayland, networking, System Monitor, Plasma Desktop, RPM-OSTree systems, Snap updates, HDR rendering, and several other components.
For users already running Plasma 6.7, this makes version 6.7.5 primarily a maintenance upgrade intended to make the desktop more dependable ahead of the next major Plasma series.
KDE Plasma 6.7.5 Arrives as the September Bugfix Release
KDE describes Plasma 6.7.5 as its September bugfix release for the Plasma 6 desktop.
The broader Plasma 6.7 series originally arrived in June 2026, followed by a succession of maintenance releases:
Plasma 6.7.1 on June 23 Plasma 6.7.2 on June 30 Plasma 6.7.3 on July 14 Plasma 6.7.4 on August 4 Plasma 6.7.5 on September 8
KDE's official download infrastructure confirms that the Plasma 6.7.5 source packages became available on September 8.
This slower maintenance cadence later in a Plasma series is normal. Once the most urgent post-release problems have been addressed, KDE generally shifts more development attention toward the next feature release while continuing to provide important fixes for the current branch.
Discover Receives Several Important Fixes
KDE's Discover software center receives some of the most noticeable improvements in Plasma 6.7.5.
One particularly annoying problem could cause Discover to become stuck while checking for updates when its Snap backend was installed but no Snap applications actually had updates available.
That problem has now been corrected.
Discover also behaves more reliably when fwupd, the Linux firmware update service, is unavailable. Previously, a broken or intentionally masked fwupd service could interfere with Discover's normal operation. Plasma 6.7.5 allows the rest of the application to continue functioning correctly in that situation.
This is useful for systems where firmware updating isn't supported, where administrators intentionally disable the service, or where fwupd encounters a configuration problem.
Firmware Updates No Longer Incorrectly Require Reboots
Another Discover correction addresses a regression involving firmware updates.
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- Slackware 16 Alpha 1 Released with Linux 6.18 LTS, GCC 16.2, and Plasma 6
by George Whittaker
One of Linux's oldest surviving distributions is moving closer to its next major release. Slackware 16 Alpha 1 became available on September 5, 2026, marking the first formal alpha milestone on the road toward Slackware Linux 16. The release follows a major rebuild of Slackware-current using a substantially newer GNU toolchain and brings together several upgrades that have accumulated since Slackware 15.0 arrived more than four years ago.
The alpha combines Linux 6.18 LTS, GCC 16.2.0, glibc 2.44, GNU Binutils 2.47, KDE Plasma 6, and numerous updated user-space packages while retaining much of the deliberately traditional architecture that has distinguished Slackware for decades.
For longtime Slackware users, Alpha 1 is particularly significant because it provides the clearest indication yet that the lengthy Slackware 16 development cycle is moving toward an eventual stable release.
Slackware 16 Finally Reaches Alpha
Slackware doesn't operate according to the predictable six-month or annual release schedules used by many other Linux distributions.
Instead, development takes place continuously through the Slackware-current branch. Patrick Volkerding and other contributors update that development tree until it reaches a state considered suitable for a stable release.
The previous major version, Slackware 15.0, was released in February 2022. More than four and a half years later, Slackware-current has now officially reached the first alpha milestone for version 16.
Volkerding marked the milestone following a complete rebuild of the distribution with its newly upgraded compiler, C library, and binary utilities.
The short changelog announcement even suggested there might finally be "a light at the end of the tunnel," a promising indication for Slackware users waiting for version 16.
The Entire Distribution Was Rebuilt
One of the most consequential changes behind Alpha 1 is a complete package rebuild.
Slackware's development toolchain has moved to:
GCC 16.2.0 glibc 2.44 GNU Binutils 2.47
After introducing those components, Slackware rebuilt the distribution's packages against the updated environment.
A full rebuild is much more significant than simply replacing three packages.
GCC is responsible for compiling much of the software distributed with Slackware, glibc provides fundamental C library functionality used throughout Linux user space, and Binutils supplies essential development utilities including the GNU assembler and linker.
Rebuilding the distribution against these versions gives Slackware 16 a considerably newer foundation than its predecessor.
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- Top AEO Tools for Linux and Developer Documentation Teams
by Malana VanTyler
These platforms help teams monitor how technical content appears in AI-generated answers, from brand mentions and citations to accuracy and referral traffic.
Search is splitting into two experiences: one built around ranked pages and another around generated answers. As AI platforms summarize Linux tutorials, open-source project documentation, API references and technical guidance, teams need ways to measure whether their content is mentioned, cited and accurately represented.
An Go to Full Article
- The New Way Security Teams Evaluate Pentesting Vendors
by George Whittaker
Why security buyers are rethinking what matters most.
Security teams typically don’t struggle to find vulnerabilities as much as they have in the past. The harder part usually begins after the report arrives, once dozens of findings land in front of engineering teams already juggling patch schedules, production deadlines, and internal disagreements about urgency. Platforms like Go to Full Article
- New Linux “Steal Governor” Targets CPU Contention in Overcommitted Virtual Machines
by George Whittaker
Linux kernel developers are considering a new “steal governor” designed to improve performance when multiple virtual machines compete for limited physical CPU resources. The proposal uses the amount of CPU steal time observed inside a guest to dynamically reduce or expand the number of virtual CPUs on which that VM prefers to schedule work.
The feature is primarily aimed at heavily virtualized servers where administrators deliberately assign more virtual CPUs than the host can physically execute at once. Under heavy load, that overcommitment can lead to frequent vCPU preemption, lock-holder delays, cache disruption, and ultimately lower overall throughput.
The latest v11 patch series was posted on August 25, 2026, and its developer has proposed consideration during the Linux 7.3 development cycle, potentially targeting Linux 7.4 for inclusion. This means the feature is still under review and is not part of a stable Linux kernel yet.
What Is CPU Steal Time?
CPU steal time is a concept specific to virtualization.
Imagine a virtual machine has eight vCPUs. From inside that VM, the operating system behaves as though those eight CPUs are available. But those virtual CPUs ultimately need to run on the host's physical processors.
If several VMs are competing for the same physical CPU resources, the hypervisor may temporarily prevent one VM's vCPU from running so another VM can use the processor.
The time during which the guest wanted to execute but couldn't because the hypervisor was using the underlying CPU elsewhere is known as steal time.
High steal time is therefore a useful indication that the physical host is experiencing CPU contention.
The “Noisy Neighbor” Problem
The steal governor is designed primarily to address what virtualization engineers commonly call the noisy neighbor problem.
Consider a server hosting several VMs:
VM A has 32 vCPUs. VM B has 32 vCPUs. VM C has 32 vCPUs. The physical server has only 64 CPU threads available to those workloads.
That configuration can work perfectly well when the VMs aren't simultaneously busy.
If all three suddenly become heavily loaded, however, they may collectively request more CPU time than the physical machine can provide.
The hypervisor then has to constantly switch between vCPUs.
Those interruptions can become particularly expensive if a vCPU is preempted while holding a lock or executing another latency-sensitive section of code. Other threads may then wait for a vCPU that isn't currently being allowed to run.
The result can be counterintuitive: giving the VMs more virtual CPUs can sometimes make the combined workloads slower.
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