Linux Weekly News

The Debian Project is voting on the usage of large language models (LLMs) to make contributions to the project. The first proposal, sent in late July by Matthias Geiger, would expressly forbid any contributions to Debian that are created by or with the assistance of LLMs. That kicked off a firestorm of discussion and a flood of alternate proposals. Debian developers are now voting on eight proposals in total that range from banning LLM-assisted contributions to explicitly approving them, as well as the standard "none of the above" option that would leave Debian with no agreed policy.

Version 0.11 of the Tuba fediverse client has been released. Notable changes in this release include support for Mastodon collections and quotes, ability to create custom thumbnails for attachments, a new emoji picker, a build for Android, as well as many other enhancements.

At the outset of his PyCon US 2026 talk, Trey Hunner said that his goal was for attendees to stop representing filesystem paths as strings and to use pathlib instead. That's kind of a tall order, at least for longtime Python users, since string-based paths have been pervasive—and mostly work. It is that "mostly" part that makes Hunner want to see things change, of course, so he set out to describe a lesser-known corner of the language and to try to change some minds.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 10.0, .NET 9.0, 389-ds-base, attr, curl, glib2, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free and gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free, gstreamer1-plugins-good, gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free, haproxy, kernel, libssh, libXfont2, nodejs22, pam, php, php8.4, sg3_utils, and unbound), Debian (librabbitmq, ruby-grape, spip, srt, and swift), Fedora (GitPython, lemonldap-ng, libgit2, libnfs, perl-Imager, perl-List-SomeUtils-XS, python3.12, python3.14, and radsecproxy), Oracle (.NET 10.0, 389-ds-base, 389-ds:1.4, bind, curl, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free and gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free, gstreamer1-plugins-good, gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free, haproxy, libssh, libXfont2, nodejs22, nodejs:22, pcp, and unbound), Red Hat (golang, grafana, grafana-pcp, osbuild-composer, and rhc), SUSE (erlang, forgejo-cli, go1.25, go1.26, htop, python-pypdf2, python313-tablib, and snphost), and Ubuntu (c3p0, dotnet8, dotnet10, kernel, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-aws-hwe, linux-fips, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gkeop, linux-oracle, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux-xilinx, linux-hwe-7.0, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.17, and linux-oracle-6.8).

Version 154.0 of the Firefox browser has been released. Changes include extending local network access protections to WebSocket connections, more flexible, per-site configuration of cookie and data clearing, and more.

The Linux kernel's user-space interface (AF_ALG) to the Crypto API has been linked to a number of recent high-profile security problems, including Copy Fail and successor vulnerabilities. It was deprecated earlier this year. Eric Biggers, and other kernel developers, have been working to remove it from the kernel. With that in mind, the Fedora Project is planning to restrict use of AF_ALG in the next Fedora release in the hopes of nudging remaining users of the API to prepare for its eventual removal.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 8.0, 389-ds:1.4, bind, haproxy, kernel, kernel-rt, libXfont2, nghttp2, and unbound), Debian (calibre, expat, ironic, and linux-6.12), Fedora (coturn, linux-firmware, php-phpseclib, and sqlite), Red Hat (fence-agents, osbuild-composer, pam, resource-agents, and sg3_utils), SUSE (ffmpeg, jetty-minimal, open-iscsi, python, python313-h2, python313-pysaml2, redis, redis7, rsync, sccache, texlive, and wasm-bindgen), and Ubuntu (engrampa, linux-aws-7.0, and linux-azure-fde-5.15).

Linus Torvalds released the 7.2 kernel on August 17, after noting that the number of fixes coming in was still "bigger than I would have wished for". In fact, 7.2 was one of the busiest development cycles in the kernel's history, adding nearly 600,000 lines of code. It's time to look at some statistics to get a handle on how the kernel's development community is changing.

This year's edition of the Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference, better known as "FOSSY", moved north to the beautiful (and enormous) campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada from its home for the three previous editions: Portland, Oregon, in the US. There were many different types of talks at FOSSY, from deeply technical kernel-track topics, through talks on legal and community issues, to the "FOSS in Daily Life" talks. In the "Toolchains and Other Development Tools" track, Timothy Sample gave a presentation about bootstrappable builds, which is somewhat less well-known than its cousin, reproducible builds, though LWN did look at the topic just over two years ago. In short, a bootstrappable build is one that starts with a tiny program that can build another slightly larger program, which can build yet another, and so on, until the entirety of a modern Linux user space is built from a small seed. Ultimately, it results in code with a completely understood origin—unlike a typical Linux user space today.

Version 5.0 of GNU Poke, a binary-data editor, has been released. This release includes a number of improvements to the Poke compiler, additions to the Poke language, as well as runtime and standard library updates. See below for the full list of changes.

The Software Freedom Conservancy has announced that Mark J. Wielaard has been honored with the second annual Distinguished Service Award in Software Freedom for his many years of service to software freedom.

Mark is one of many key FOSS developers who has designed his career so that his employers have funded much of his FOSS work. Nevertheless, Mark continues his volunteer work after hours as a key contributor who maintains Sourceware — the oldest FOSS collaboration and developer infrastructure hosting site in history.

In addition to his work on Sourceware, Wielaard is a member of the DWARF Debugging Standard Committee, the maintainer for Valgrind and elfutils, as well as a contributor to various other GNU projects.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, bind, dracut, freerdp, gnome-remote-desktop, kernel, and nghttp2), Debian (apr-util, docker.io, ironic, neutron, postgresql-15, unzip, and util-linux), Fedora (chromium, jfrog-cli, jrnl, libgsasl, libsoup3, pdns, pdns-recursor, perl-Archive-Tar, php-pear-PHP-CodeSniffer, rust-bat, rust-git-delta, rust-git-interactive-rebase-tool, rust-lsd, rust-pretty-git-prompt, rust-tokei, and stunnel), Gentoo (haveged, HTTP-Daemon, nginx, NTFS-3G, Portage, PostgreSQL, and X.Org X server, XWayland), Oracle (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, bind, dhcpcd, dracut, grafana, iscsi-initiator-utils, kernel, nodejs:24, openssh, osbuild-composer, python-idna, ruby, and ruby4.0), Slackware (proftpd), and SUSE (7zip, afterburn, ansible-lint, bouncycastle, cargo-audit, cargo-c, chromedriver, chromium, containerized-data-importer, dnsdist, dracut-112, ffmpeg-9-libavcodec-devel, firefox, freetype2, git-cliff, glib2, go1.25, go1.26, google-guest-agent, google-osconfig-agent, gzip, himmelblau, java-1_8_0-openjdk, kernel, kernel-devel, kubeshark-cli, kubevirt1.9-continer-disk, libkrun, libXfont2, molecule, net-tools, nginx, nodejs22, nodejs24, open-iscsi, perl, pgadmin4, php-composer2, php8, python-httplib2, python-sh, python-ujson, python3-ansible-compat, python313-nltk, rrdtool, rsyslog, samba, spice-vdagent, sssd, webkit2gtk3, wireshark, and wpa_supplicant).

The 7.2 kernel has been released. Linus said:

Well, this last week of the release was - once again - bigger than I would have wished for, but hey, with the whole "new normal" thing, if I delayed releases for that reason we'd probably never have a release at all.

Significant features in this release include common attributes support in the bpf() system call, cache-aware load balancing for the CPU scheduler, large-folio support in the Btrfs filesystem, further swap subsystem improvements, improvements to the Landlock security module, support for block devices with inline encryption hardware via the dm-inlinecrypt device-mapper target, and much more. See the LWN merge window summaries (part 1, part 2) and the KernelNewbies 7.2 page for more information.

Ihor Solodrai and Shung-Hsi Yu wrapped up the BPF track at the 2026 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit with a pair of sessions related to testing. Solodrai spoke about what has changed for BPF's continuous-integration (CI) testing. Yu spoke about what may be needed to test BPF updates in stable kernels more thoroughly. The BPF subsystem's CI tests are in a good place, they said; even so, Solodrai and Yu have a handful of possible avenues toward enabling better test coverage in the future.

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has announced the candidates running for the Python packaging council that was approved by the Python steering council in April.

This inaugural election fills all five seats on the PPC. The two candidates receiving the highest number of votes shall be designated Cohort A with a two year term, and the three candidates receiving the next highest number of votes shall be designated Cohort B with a one year term.

In future elections, each cohort will be elected for a full two-year term in alternating years, so that roughly half of the PPC turns over each cycle.

There are 17 candidates running for the five open seats. PSF voting-eligible members must affirm their intention to vote in this election by August 25. Voting begins on September 1, and ends on September 15.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, bind, bind9.16, and dracut), Debian (apr-util, chromium, postgresql-17, python-httplib2, unzip, and zip), Fedora (erlang-cowboy, erlang-cowlib, flatpak, and libnfs), Gentoo (Apache HTTPD, Bubblewrap, Dnsmasq, Exim, Flatpak, libinput, and rsync), Mageia (dhcpcd, qemu, and roundcubemail), Oracle (.NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, bind, bind9.16, freerdp, glib2, gnome-remote-desktop, grafana, gstreamer1-plugins-good, isns-utils, java-17-openjdk, kernel, libpng, libXfont2, nghttp2, perl-DBI:1.641, python-idna, python3.9, and xorg-x11-server), Slackware (rsync), SUSE (bouncycastle, chromium, dnsdist, dracut, java-1_8_0-ibm, kernel, libXfont2, nodejs22, nodejs24, php8, python-httplib2, rrdtool, rsyslog, samba, and wireshark), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-aws-hwe, linux-aws-hwe, linux-azure, linux-gcp, linux-hwe, linux-azure, linux-gcp, linux-hwe, linux-oracle, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-oracle, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-oem-7.0, linux-oracle, and node-axios).

Christopher Domas has published a proof of concept with a description showing how to use AMD memory controllers' bank swizzle mode to bypass memory protection and read or write arbitrary data, including CPU microcode definitions and memory belonging to the platform security processor. Among other things, this allows code running at the kernel level to directly manipulate the meaning of processor instructions, potentially bypassing other security measures such as memory encryption and virtual machine isolation.

This is not, strictly, unexpected behavior: it is documented in AMD's manual (on page 113 of that PDF). But the fact that it can be used to access arbitrary memory and thereby rewrite supposedly immutable parts of the computer's firmware without crashing the host machine seems like an unintentional side-effect of the design. Fortunately, since enabling bank swizzle mode requires kernel-level privileges, the vulnerability is not an immediate problem for most software. Still, it seems likely that this technique will end up being used for nefarious purposes eventually.

Version 3.5.0 of rsync has been released with a huge number of security fixes:

This release fixes 33 security issues found during a focused audit of rsync's path handling and daemon protocol, a companion daemon-protocol fuzzing pass, and reports from external researchers -⁠-⁠ plus several robustness hardenings. CVE IDs were assigned by VulnCheck (CNA); the precise "introduced in" version ranges accompany each advisory, and many are much narrower than "everything before 3.5.0". Every fix ships with a regression test in the test suite that fails on the unfixed tree.

The size of a processor's page-table entries directly limits how much physical memory that processor is able to access. Back in the 32-bit days, that limit was 4GB, an amount of memory that once seemed nearly infinite, but which would now struggle to hold a basic AI-enabled "hello world" app. The expansion to 64 bits on most popular architectures would seem to have removed those limits now; some Arm systems, for example, can use 56 of those bits to access up to 72PB of memory. So it might be surprising that the Arm architecture is evolving to support even larger page-table entries (PTEs). This patch set from Anshuman Khandual adds support for 128-bit PTEs, but who will benefit from this capability is not entirely clear.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (abrt, dhcpcd, edk2, freerdp, gegl04, grafana, gstreamer1-plugins-good, iscsi-initiator-utils, isns-utils, kernel, kernel-rt, keylime, libarchive, libyang, nodejs-nodemon, opencryptoki, osbuild-composer, pacemaker, postgresql-jdbc, postgresql18, python-idna, python3.9, udisks2, valkey, vim, xorg-x11-server-Xwayland, and yggdrasil-worker-package-manager), Debian (flatpak, lemonldap-ng, neutron, python-django, spip, xdg-dbus-proxy, and xorg-server), Fedora (apr-util, cri-o1.34, libcupsfilters, linux-firmware, sqlite, and vaultwarden), Gentoo (FreeType), Oracle (dovecot, evince, fence-agents, gnutls, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, gstreamer1-plugins-good, isns-utils, java-1.8.0-openjdk, kernel, libarchive, osbuild-composer, pipewire, postgresql, ruby, ruby:3.3, sudo, and udisks2), Red Hat (bind, bind9.16, gnome-remote-desktop, grafana, opentelemetry-collector, python-pillow, python3, python3.12, python3.14, python3.9, and rhc), SUSE (chromium, clusterctl, dracut, gd, git-cliff, gleam, govulncheck-vulndb, graphicsmagick, gzip, kernel, kubevirt, libheif, librest0_7, nodejs22, nodejs24, openssh, openvpn, python3, python313-scikit-learn, rpm, stunnel, and zk), and Ubuntu (kernel, libgit2, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, 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-ibm-6.8, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux-xilinx, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure, linux-azure-fde, linux-azure-fips, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-intel-iotg, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, linux-kvm, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-realtime, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure-4.15, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-kvm, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-azure-fde, linux-ibm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-azure, linux-azure-6.17, linux-gcp-6.17, linux-hwe-6.17, linux-oem-6.17, linux-realtime-6.17, node-follow-redirects, and yelp).