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Shadowfetch Linux is a desktop Linux distribution based on Debian's "Testing" branch and featuring a customised KDE Plasma desktop. The distribution intends to be a "creative workstation", with several software applications for creative work installed by default. Shadowfetch Linux also includes local artificial intelligence tools and various privacy-enhancing features, such as UFW firewall, MAC-address randomization and hardened sysctl attributes.

RED OS is an independently-developed Russian Linux distribution for workstations and servers. It uses the RPM and DNG tools for package management. The workstation edition provides a choice of three desktops, KDE Plasma, GNOME and MATE, while the server variant includes a custom server administration utility called RED ADM. The distribution is developed by Russia's RED SOFT, a company that also provides technical support and Linux training, as well as various administration, virtualisation and database software products.

ObsidianOS is a set of Linux distribution based primarily on Arch Linux. Its main feature is an A/B partition style (as used by Android or Chrome OS) so if an update causes some issues, it is possible to reboot into the first partition and restore the second one. It uses the ext4 filesystem exclusively. ObsidianOS offers three variants of the product - "Base", "KDE Plasma" and "COSMIC".

Manjaro Linux is a fast, user-friendly, desktop-oriented operating system based on Arch Linux. Key features include intuitive installation process, automatic hardware detection, stable rolling-release model, ability to install multiple kernels, special Bash scripts for managing graphics drivers and extensive desktop configurability. Manjaro Linux offers Xfce as the core desktop options, as well as KDE, GNOME and a minimalist Net edition for more advanced users. Community-supported desktop flavours are also available.

Version:next-20260721 (linux-next) Released:2026-07-21

Version 153.0 of the Firefox web browser has been released. Notable changes in this release include a change to the default local-file-access permissions for extensions, enabling LAN restrictions by default for all users, a visual indicator when a web site has access to the user's location, the ability to merge PDFs and add images as pages within PDFs, as well as experimental support for the JPEG XL image format.

See the release notes for developers for all changes that affect web developers, and security advisories for vulnerabilities fixed in this release.

Like many development communities, the kernel community has been struggling to determine how large language models will be used in its development process. The news has been dominated recently by a strongly worded missive from Linus Torvalds on the subject, but the discussion has been rather more wide-ranging and nuanced than that. Topics that have been considered recently include the LLM attribution requirement, code-review tools, dependence on proprietary tools, and whether there is a place for concerns about the ethics of LLMs.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (capstone, fence-agents, gimp, glib2, hplip, httpd, jackson-annotations, jackson-core, jackson-databind, jackson-jaxrs-providers, and jackson-modules-base, libtiff, maven:3.8, pacemaker, python3.14, and webkit2gtk3), Debian (samba), Fedora (c-ares, dnsx, freerdp, gpsd, libreswan, libseccomp, libtiff, mingw-python-idna, mingw-python-pip, openssh, python-pillow, wget1, and wireshark), Mageia (golang, graphicsmagick, haveged, libssh2, nginx, nilfs-utils, perl-CGI-Session, perl-Imager, perl-JavaScript-Minifier-XS, php, php8.4, php8.5, python-nltk, sqlite3, and xmlstarlet), Oracle (.NET 10.0, .NET 9.0, container-tools:ol8, firefox, giflib, glibc, go-fdo-client, go-fdo-server, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, grafana, grafana-pcp, hplip, httpd, image-builder, kernel, libtiff, mod_http2, pacemaker, perl-DBI:1.641, perl-HTTP-Daemon, php:8.2, python-markdown, ruby4.0, systemd, and thunderbird), Red Hat (buildah, container-tools:rhel8, dracut, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, libtiff, osbuild-composer, python-urllib3, python3.12-urllib3, python3.14-urllib3, and runc), SUSE (389-ds, chromedriver, gstreamer-plugins-bad, libreoffice, libsuricata8_0_6, podman, python311, and sssd), and Ubuntu (apache2, freerdp3, freetype, libde265, libxfont, linux, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-realtime, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux, linux-gcp, linux-gke, linux-realtime, linux-gcp-6.17, linux-realtime-6.17, linux-gcp-fips, linux-hwe-7.0, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-oem-7.0, nginx, php8.1, php8.3, php8.5, rlottie, sqlite3, and wget).

The Fedora Project is known for, among other things, having a well-defined set of processes for just about everything. It has extensive packaging guidelines that deal with the complexities of creating RPMs to install software, as well as processes for managing the legal questions that arise around shipping software. Fedora also has a well-defined change process for dealing with self-contained technical changes as well as major changes to the distribution, and other issues as they arise. At the moment, though, the project seems to be experiencing a sort of midlife crisis as it re-examines several of its change processes at once to determine if they are still effective.

Version:next-20260720 (linux-next) Released:2026-07-20

Michael Catanzaro, who has been managing GNOME security issue tracking since November 2020, has written a blog post that details some changes in how he will be managing GNOME vulnerability reports from now on due to an increase in AI-generated security reports. He will be switching from a 90-day deadline for disclosures to 30 days for issues reported on August 1, or later. "The shorter deadline would probably work better for GNOME even if not for the increase in AI-generated issue reports."

He also has indicated that he will be stepping away from the task of managing security issue tracking entirely by December 1, 2026, which means that there will be a gap to fill:

Currently nobody else is tracking GNOME security issues. If you are an experienced GNOME community member and you are interested in taking over this work, let me know and I will help you get started. (Security tracking is not a good task for newcomers.)

This may also be an opportunity to improve our tracking infrastructure. I use a wiki page, but this is fairly primitive and requires considerable manual upkeep. It's easy to forget to update the page when an issue report is closed, for example. Ideally, we would replace the wiki with a proper web app that dynamically updates based on the actual state of the issue.

Bluestar Linux is a GNU/Linux distribution that is based on Arch Linux. The Bluestar distribution features up to date packages, a full range of desktop and multimedia software in the default installation and a live desktop DVD.

Live Raizo is a live Linux distribution based on Debian "Stable". It's purpose is to experiment with system administration on simulated networks and real devices; it contains simulators of networks and systems (GNS3, QEmu, Docker, VPCS) and also Debian virtual machines already integrated into GNS3. Live Raizo also includes tools to interact with real devices, such as minicom, Putty, Wireshark, as well as DHCP, DNS, FTP, TFTP and SSH servers. The distribution uses the Fluxbox window manager and can optionally be installed to a hard drive.

The famfs filesystem, which is meant to provide shared access to huge memory-resident files on CXL and other devices, returned to the Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit (LSFMM+BPF) in 2026. It was first discussed at LSFMM+BPF 2024 and a new implementation was described at the 2025 gathering, but it still has not made its way into the kernel; LWN looked at a discussion about merging famfs back in April 2026.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (kernel, libnfs, roundcube, and tiff), Fedora (antlr4-project, chromium, erlang, libseccomp, libtiff, log4cxx, mbedtls, node-exporter, opam, openssh, proftpd, python-asyncssh, python-django5, python-libcst, python-orjson, python-uv-build, ruby, rust-astral_async_zip, spoofdpi, uv, and yq), Mageia (bind, clamav, erlang, libidn, libreoffice, nmap, nodejs, perl-Bytes-Random-Secure, perl-Config-IniFiles, perl-CSS-Minifier-XS, perl-HTML-Parser, perl-Mojolicious, perl-String-Util, python-pydantic-settings, rsync, and upower), Oracle (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, bind, cockpit, cockpit-image-builder, coreutils, delve, dnsmasq, dovecot, expat, fence-agents, flatpak, frr, gdk-pixbuf2, giflib, glib2, go-fdo-client and go-fdo-server, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, grafana, grafana-pcp, httpd, jq, kernel, keylime, krb5, libcap, libexif, libpng, libsndfile, libsolv, libsoup3, libtasn1, libtiff, libxslt, libyang, mariadb10.11, mod_http2, mod_md, opencryptoki, PackageKit, perl-Archive-Tar, perl-IO-Compress, poppler, postfix, postgresql-jdbc, python-urllib3, python3.14, python3.14-pip, python3.14-urllib3, qt6-qtdeclarative, rrdtool, rsync, ruby, ruby4.0, samba, skopeo, thunderbird, valkey, wireshark, xorg-x11-server-Xwayland, and yggdrasil-worker-package-manager), and SUSE (blender, chromium, containerized-data-importer1, cyrus-imapd, go1.26-openssl, gomuks, grafana, gstreamer-plugins-bad, kbfs, kubevirt1.8-container-disk, libxml2, lux, mariadb-connector-c, nginx, opam, openssl-3, oras, perl-DBI, php-composer2, python-django-haystack, python-paramiko, python-weasyprint, python311, python313-Pillow, python315, shibboleth-sp, system-user-zabbix, and wget).

IPFire is a Linux distribution that focuses on easy setup, good handling and high level of security. It is operated via an intuitive web-based interface which offers many configuration options for beginning and experienced system administrators. IPFire is maintained by developers who are concerned about security and who update the product regularly to keep it secure. IPFire ships with a custom package manager called Pakfire and the system can be expanded with various add-ons.

The 7.2-rc4 kernel prepatch is out for testing. Linus said: "This whole week I had the feeling that people were starting to go on summer vacation, but running the numbers shows that I must have been wrong - it all looks pretty normal."

Version:7.2-rc4 (mainline) Released:2026-07-19 Source:linux-7.2-rc4.tar.gz Patch:full (incremental)

Arcris is a live Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. It comes with an intuitive and beginner-friendly graphical installer that can be used to build a complete Arch Linux system. AcrisGUI, as the installation program is called, is built with the GTK toolkit and libadwaita interface library; it is designed primarily for Spanish-speaking users.

Adrian Mastronardi has released a book called Half a Second; it is a detailed look into the XZ backdoor attempt of 2024. The book is freely available under a (non-free) noncommercial, no-derivatives CC license.

Half a Second tells that story as one continuous narrative: the burned-out volunteer who maintained the code alone and was patiently, expertly manipulated into giving it up; the engineer whose half-second of curiosity caught the attack through a chain of luck and hard-won instinct; and the operator who built it, who has never been identified and, this book argues, may never be.