Linux Weekly News

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 6.17.6, 6.12.56, 6.6.115, 6.1.158, 5.15.196, 5.10.246, and 5.4.301 stable kernels. As always, each contains important fixes throughout the tree. Users of these kernels are advised to upgrade.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (gimp, python-authlib, and xorg-server), Fedora (chromium and git-lfs), Mageia (poppler and tomcat), Red Hat (kernel, kernel-rt, redis, and redis:6), SUSE (fetchmail, grafana, ImageMagick, kernel-devel, libluajit-5_1-2, proxy-helm, python-Authlib, and xen), and Ubuntu (linux-intel-iotg, linux-intel-iotg-5.15 and squid, squid3).

Fil-C is a memory-safe implementation of C and C++ that aims to let C code — complete with pointer arithmetic, unions, and other features that are often cited as a problem for memory-safe languages — run safely, unmodified. Its dedication to being "fanatically compatible" makes it an attractive choice for retrofitting memory-safety into existing applications. Despite the project's relative youth and single active contributor, Fil-C is capable of compiling an entire memory-safe Linux user space (based on Linux From Scratch), albeit with some modifications to the more complex programs. It also features memory-safe signal handling and a concurrent garbage collector.

The Fedora Project has announced the release of Fedora Linux 43, with "what's new" articles for Fedora Workstation, Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop, and Fedora Atomic Desktops.

For those of you installing fresh Fedora Linux 43 Spins, you may be greeted with the new Anaconda WebUI. This was the default installer interface for Fedora Workstation 42, and now it's the default installer UI for the Spins as well.

If you are a GNOME desktop user, you'll also notice that the GNOME is now Wayland-only in Fedora Linux 43. GNOME upstream has deprecated X11 support, and has disabled it as a compile time default in GNOME 49. Upstream GNOME plans to fully remove X11 support in GNOME 50.

See the release notes for a full list of changes in Fedora 43.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, kernel-rt, libtiff, squid:4, and thunderbird), Debian (strongswan and webkit2gtk), Fedora (pcre2, qt5-qtbase, squid, unbound, and xen), Mageia (icu and libtpms), Oracle (java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, kernel, squid:4, and thunderbird), Red Hat (libtiff, squid, squid:4, and webkit2gtk3), SUSE (cmake, dracut-saltboot, erlang, exim, expat, ffmpeg-4, firefox, golang-github-prometheus-alertmanager, haproxy, java-11-openjdk, kernel, libxslt, multi-linux-manager, openssl-3, podman, rabbitmq-server, spacewalk-web, strongswan, and wireshark), and Ubuntu (gst-plugins-good1.0, linux-aws-5.15, radare2, ruby2.3, ruby2.5, ruby2.7, and strongswan).

BPF lets users load programs into a running kernel. Even though BPF programs are checked by the verifier to ensure that they stay inside certain limits, some users would still like to ensure that only approved BPF programs are loaded. KP Singh's patches adding that capability to the kernel were accepted in version 6.18, but not everyone is satisfied with his implementation. Blaise Boscaccy, who has been working to get a version of BPF code signing with better auditability into the kernel for some time, posted a patch set on top of Singh's changes that alters the loading process to not invoke security module hooks until the entire loading process is complete. The discussion on the patch set is the continuation of a long-running disagreement over the interface for signed BPF programs.

The Python Software Foundation, earlier this year, successfully obtained a $1.5 million grant from the US National Science Foundation "to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and PyPI". The actual grant came with some strings attached though, in the form of a requirement not to pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. So the Foundation has withdrawn the proposal rather than agree to terms that run counter to its own mission.

We're disappointed to have been put in the position where we had to make this decision, because we believe our proposed project would offer invaluable advances to the Python and greater open source community, protecting millions of PyPI users from attempted supply-chain attacks. The proposed project would create new tools for automated proactive review of all packages uploaded to PyPI, rather than the current process of reactive-only review.

Version 0.3.0 of Rust Coreutils, part of the uutils project, has been released. This release adds safe directory traversal for several utilities, better error handling, and performance improvements. The project has upgraded its test suite reference from GNU coreutils 9.7 to 9.8, and added 16 new tests. It includes a fix for the date bug that affected automatic updates in Ubuntu 25.10.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (intel-microcode, openjdk-11, openjdk-17, openjdk-21, python-pip, request-tracker4, thunderbird, and tika), Fedora (cef, chromium, complyctl, cri-o1.31, cri-o1.32, cri-o1.33, cri-o1.34, docker-buildkit, docker-buildx, dovecot, fetchmail, gi-docgen, golang-github-facebook-time, insight, mbedtls, mingw-binutils, mingw-python3, mingw-qt5-qtsvg, mingw-qt6-qtsvg, moodle, openssl, perl-YAML-Syck, podman-tui, python-socketio, python-sqlparse, python3.10, python3.11, python3.12, python3.9, qt5-qtsvg, runc, samba, squid, sssd, suricata, valkey, wireshark, wordpress, and yarnpkg), Red Hat (libssh), SUSE (aaa_base, afterburn, bind, chromedriver, chrony, firefox, git, govulncheck-vulndb, grub2, ImageMagick, java-11-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, kernel, libssh, libunbound8, libxslt, micropython, mozilla-nss, netty, open-vm-tools, openbao, p7zip, podman, poppler, python-python-socketio, python-urllib3, ruby2.5, rust-keylime, vim, wireshark, and xen), and Ubuntu (linux-aws-6.14).

Version 3.26.0 of the Valgrind memory-profiling and debugging framework has been released. Notable changes include updated support for the Linux Test Project (LTP) to version v20250930, many new Linux syscall wrappers, and the license for Valgrind has been changed from GPLv2 to GPLv3.

Linus has released 6.18-rc3 for testing. "Things feel fairly normal, and in fact the numbers say it's been a bit calmer than usual, but that's likely just the usual fluctuation in pull request timing rather than anything else".

Version 0.14 of the Typst document processor has been released.

If you need to comply with accessibility-related regulations, Typst 0.14 has your back. Typst now generates accessible documents by default, with opt-in support for stricter checks. For those working with complex illustrations, PDFs are now supported as a native image format. In case you're typesetting a book, the new character-level justification will give your layout the final touch. And if you're building a website or blog, many improvements to Typst's HTML export are waiting for you.

LWN looked at Typst in September.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (webkit2gtk3), Debian (bind9, chromium, python-internetarchive, and tryton-sao), Fedora (dokuwiki and php-php81_bc-strftime), Mageia (firefox, nss & rootcerts and thunderbird), Slackware (openssl), SUSE (bleachbit, chromium, kernel, mozilla-nss, and python311-uv), and Ubuntu (fetchmail, golang-go.crypto, and linux-oracle-5.4).

Open-source foundations and projects that have charity status in the US may want to see if GoFundMe has created a profile for them without permission. The company has operated since 2010 as a self-service fundraising platform; individuals or groups could create pages to raise money for all manner of causes. In June, the company announced that it would expand its offerings to "manage all aspects of charitable giving" for users through its platform. That seems to include creating profiles for nonprofit organizations without their involvement. After pushback, the company said on October 23 that it would be removing the pages. It has not answered more fundamental questions about how it planned to disburse funds to nonprofits that had no awareness of the GoFundMe pages in the first place.

The Ubuntu Project has announced that a bug in the Rust-based uutils version of the date command shipped with Ubuntu 25.10 broke automatic updates:

Some Ubuntu 25.10 systems have been unable to automatically check for available software updates. Affected machines include cloud deployments, container images, Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server installs.

The announcement includes remediation instructions for those affected by the bug. Systems with the rust-coreutils package version 0.2.2-0ubuntu2 or earlier have the bug, it is fixed in 0.2.2-0ubuntu2.1 or later. It does not impact manual updates using the apt command or other utilities.

Ubuntu embarked on a project to "oxidize" the distribution by switching to uutils and sudo-rs for the 25.10 release, and to see if the Rust-based utilities would be suitable for the long-term-release slated for next April. LWN covered that project in March.

Greg Kroah-Hartman has released the 6.17.5, 6.12.55, and 6.6.114 stable kernels. As usual, each contains important fixes throughout the tree; users are advised to upgrade.

The Spectre class of hardware vulnerabilities truly is a gift that keeps on giving. New variants are still being discovered in current CPUs nearly eight years after the disclosure of this problem, and developers are still working to minimize the performance costs that come from defending against it. The masked user-space access mechanism is a case in point: it reduces the cost of defending against some speculative attacks, but it brought some challenges of its own that are only now being addressed.

The AlmaLinux project has announced that the upcoming 10.1 release will include support for Btrfs:

Btrfs support encompasses both kernel and userspace enablement, and it is now possible to install AlmaLinux OS with a Btrfs filesystem from the very beginning. Initial enablement was scoped to the installer and storage management stack, and broader support within the AlmaLinux software collection for Btrfs features is forthcoming.

Btrfs support in AlmaLinux OS did not happen in isolation. This was proposed and scoped in RFC 0005, and has been built upon prior efforts by the Fedora Btrfs SIG in Fedora Linux and the CentOS Hyperscale SIG in CentOS Stream.

AlmaLinux OS is designed to be binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL); Btrfs, however, has never been supported in RHEL. A technology preview of Btrfs in RHEL 6 and 7 ended with the filesystem being dropped from RHEL 8 and onward. AlmaLinux OS 10.1 is currently in beta.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (ipa, kernel, and thunderbird), Debian (gdk-pixbuf, gegl, gimp, intel-microcode, raptor2, request-tracker4, and request-tracker5), Fedora (samba and wireshark), Mageia (haproxy, nginx, openssl, and python-django), Oracle (kernel and thunderbird), Red Hat (redis and redis:7), Slackware (bind), SUSE (aws-cli, local-npm-registry, python-boto3, python- botocore, python-coverage, python-flaky, python-pluggy, python-pytest, python- pytest-cov, python-pytest-html, python-pytest-metada, cargo-audit-advisory-db-20251021, fetchmail, git-bug, ImageMagick, istioctl, kernel, krb5, libsoup, libxslt, python-Authlib, and sccache), and Ubuntu (bind9, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-azure-6.8, linux-gcp, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-oracle, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.15, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gke, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, and linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8).

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

• Front: Git 3.0 topics; Lazy imports for Python; RubyGems; LLMs for patch review; DebugFS.
• Briefs: Fedora AI policy; OpenBSD 7.8; DigiKam 8.8.0; Forgejo 13.0; KDE Plasma 6.5; RubyGems; Valkey 9.0.0; Quotes; ...
• Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.