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listing all articles which are posted to the site front page.
Updated: 14 hours 47 min ago
Fri, 07/19/2024 - 11:05
The kernel will not consent to execute just any file that happens to be
sitting in a filesystem; there are formalities, such as the checking of
execute permission and consulting security policies, to get through first.
On some systems, security policies have been established to limit execution
to specifically approved programs. But there are files that are not
executed directly by the kernel; these include scripts fed to language
interpreters like Python, Perl, or a shell. An attacker who is able to get
an interpreter to execute a file may be able to bypass a system's security
policies. Mickaël Salaün has been working on closing this hole for years;
the
latest
attempt takes the form of a new flag to the
execveat()
system call.
Fri, 07/19/2024 - 10:19
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (firefox, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, libndp, openssh, qt5-qtbase, ruby, skopeo, and thunderbird), Debian (thunderbird), Fedora (dotnet6.0, httpd, python-django, python-django4.2, qt6-qtbase, rapidjson, and ruby), Red Hat (389-ds-base, firefox, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-11-openjdk, libndp, qt5-qtbase, and thunderbird), Slackware (httpd), SUSE (apache2, chromium, and kernel), and Ubuntu (apache2, linux-aws, linux-azure-fde, linux-azure-fde-5.15, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-aws-6.5, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5, linux-oracle-6.5, linux-starfive-6.5, and linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4).
Thu, 07/18/2024 - 18:39
The sad news that Peter de Schrijver has passed away has just reached us. An
obituary in Dutch relates that he passed in a Helsinki hospital on July 12. Mind Software Consulting, which he founded, has a
message of condolences as well.
De Schrijver was a Debian Developer and a Linux kernel contributor; he will be missed.
Thu, 07/18/2024 - 13:10
The
Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
has
announced
that it will be changing its logo to remove the feather that has been part
of its brand since 1997. ASF members will have input on the rebranding process and be
able to vote on the new logo, which will be unveiled at the
Community Over Code conference in October.
The feather is a well-loved and iconic part of the ASF brand. We know of community members who have ASF feather tattoos. People love taking photos with the feather at our flagship event each year.
So why would we change it? As a non-Indigenous entity, we acknowledge that it is inappropriate for the Foundation to use Indigenous themes or language. We thank Natives in Tech and other members of the broader open source community for bringing this issue to the forefront. Today we are announcing we will be retiring the feather icon and logo and replacing it with a new logo that embodies the Foundation's rich history of providing software for the public good.
Thu, 07/18/2024 - 11:31
The merge window for the 6.11 kernel release opened on July 14; as of
this writing, 4,072 non-merge changesets have been pulled into the mainline
repository since then. This merge window, in other words, is just now
beginning. Still, there has been enough time for a number of interesting
changes to land for the next kernel release; read on for a summary of what
has been merged so far.
Thu, 07/18/2024 - 11:28
Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium), Fedora (freeradius), Red Hat (firefox, java-1.8.0-openjdk, and java-17-openjdk), Slackware (openssl), SUSE (ghostscript, gnutls, podman, and python-Django), and Ubuntu (linux-hwe-6.5, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-oracle, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, and stunnel).
Wed, 07/17/2024 - 21:01
The LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 18, 2024 is available.
Wed, 07/17/2024 - 12:38
Version
4.2 LTS of the Blender
open-source 3D creation suite has been released. Major improvements
include a rewrite of the EEVEE
render engine, faster rendering, and much more. See the showcase
reel for examples of work created by the Blender community with
this release.
See the text release
notes for even more about 4.2 LTS, which will be maintained until
July 2026.
Wed, 07/17/2024 - 11:52
Maintenance of the kernel is a difficult, often thankless, task; how it is
being handled, the role of maintainers, burnout, and so on are recurring
topics at kernel-related conferences. At
the 2024
Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Josef Bacik and
Christian Brauner led a session to discuss possible changes to the way
filesystems are maintained, though Bacik took the lead role (and the podium). There are a number of interrelated topics,
including merging new filesystems, removing old ones, making and testing changes
throughout the filesystem tree, and more.
Wed, 07/17/2024 - 11:42
Version 8.4.0 of the digiKam photo editing and management
application has been released. This
release includes an update of the LibRaw RAW decoder which
brings support for many new cameras, a new version of the LensFun
toolkit, a feature for automatic translation of image tags, GMIC-Qt 3.4.0, and many
bug fixes. See the announcement for full details.
Wed, 07/17/2024 - 11:09
Gustavo A. R. Silva
describes
the path to safer flexible arrays in the kernel, thanks to the
counted_by attribute supported by Clang 18 and GCC 15.
There are a number of requirements to properly use the
counted_by attribute. One crucial requirement is that the
counter must be initialized before the first reference to the
flexible-array member. Another requirement is that the array must
always contain at least as many elements as indicated by the
counter.
See also: this article from 2023.
Wed, 07/17/2024 - 10:14
Security updates have been issued by Debian (kernel), Fedora (golang and krb5), Red Hat (cups, firefox, git, java-21-openjdk, kernel, linux-firmware, nghttp2, nodejs, and podman), SUSE (libndp, nodejs18, nodejs20, tomcat, and xen), and Ubuntu (gtk+2.0, gtk+3.0 and linux-hwe-5.4, linux-oracle-5.4).
Tue, 07/16/2024 - 13:30
SUSE has, in a somewhat clumsy
fashion, asked openSUSE
to consider rebranding to clear up confusion over the
relationship between SUSE the company and openSUSE as a community
project. That, in turn, has opened conversations about revising
openSUSE governance and more. So far, there is no concrete proposal to
consider, no timeline, or even a process for the community and company
to follow to make any decisions.
Tue, 07/16/2024 - 11:12
Redox has received a
grant to work on implementing POSIX-compatible signals. The
draft design calls for them to be implemented nearly completely in user space.
So far, the signals project has been going according to plan, and
hopefully, POSIX support for signals will be mostly complete by the
end of summer, with in-kernel improvements to process management.
After that, work on the userspace process manager will begin,
possibly including new kernel performance and/or functionality
improvements to facilitate this.
Tue, 07/16/2024 - 09:50
Security updates have been issued by Debian (kernel), Fedora (erlang-jose, mingw-python-certifi, and yt-dlp), Mageia (firefox, nss, libreoffice, sendmail, and tomcat), Red Hat (firefox, ghostscript, git-lfs, kernel, kernel-rt, ruby, and skopeo), SUSE (Botan, cockpit, kernel, nodejs18, p7zip, python3, and tomcat), and Ubuntu (ghostscript, linux, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.15, linux-gcp, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-gkeop-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-intel-iotg, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, linux-kvm, linux-nvidia, linux-oracle, linux-azure-6.5, linux-gcp-6.5, and linux-gke, linux-nvidia).
Mon, 07/15/2024 - 14:27
On June 25, Matthew Wilcox posted
a second version of a patch set
introducing a new
data structure called rosebush, which
"is a resizing, scalable, cache-aware, RCU optimised hash
table." The kernel already has generic hash tables, though, including
rhashtable. Wilcox believes that the design of
rhashtable is not the best choice for performance, and has written rosebush as
an alternative for use in the
directory-entry cache (dcache) — the filesystem cache used to speed up
file-name lookup.
Mon, 07/15/2024 - 12:52
The 6.10 kernel was
released
on July 14 after a nine-week development cycle. This time around,
13,312 non-merge changesets were pulled into the mainline repository — the
lowest changeset count since 5.17 in early 2022. Longstanding tradition
says that it is time for LWN to gather some statistics on where the new
code for 6.10 came from and how it got to the mainline; read on for the
details.
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