The kernel's unloved but performance-critical swapping subsystem has been
undergoing multiple rounds of improvement in recent times. Recent articles
have described
the addition of the swap
table as a new way of representing the state of the swap cache, and
the removal of the swap map as the way of
tracking swap space. Work in this area is not done, though;
this series from
Nhat Pham addresses a number of swap-related problems by replacing the
new swap table structures with a single, virtual swap space.
Douglas DeMaio has announced
that Jeff Mahoney's new governance
proposal for openSUSE, which was published in January,
is moving forward. The new structure would have three governance
bodies: a new technical steering committee (TSC), a community and
marketing committee (CMC), as well as the existing openSUSE
board.
The discussions during the meeting proposed that the Technical
Steering Committee should begin with five members with a chair elected
by the committee. The group would establish clear processes for
reviewing and approving technical changes, drawing inspiration from
Fedora's FESCo model. Decisions for the TSC would use a voting system
of +1 to approve, 0 for neutral, or -1 to block. A proposal passes
without objection. A -1 vote would require a dedicated meeting, where
a majority of attendees would decide the outcome. Objections must
include a clear, documented rationale.
Discussions related to the Community and Marketing Committee would
focus on outreach, advocacy, and community growth. It could also serve
as an initial escalation point for disputes. If consensus cannot be
reached at that level, matters would advance to the Board.
[...] No timeline for final adoption was announced. Project
contributors will continue discussions through the GitLab repository
and future community meetings.
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (edk2, glibc, gnupg2, golang, grafana, nodejs:24, and php), Debian (gimp and kernel), Fedora (fvwm3), Mageia (microcode and vim), Oracle (edk2, glibc, kernel, nodejs:24, and php), Red Hat (python-s3transfer), SUSE (abseil-cpp, avahi, azure-cli-core, fontforge, go1.24, go1.25, golang-github-prometheus-prometheus, libpcap, libsoup2, libxml2-16, mupdf, nodejs22, openCryptoki, openjpeg2, patch, python-aiohttp, python-Brotli, python-pip, python311-asgiref, rust1.93, and traefik), and Ubuntu (inetutils, libssh, linux-gcp, linux-gke, linux-hwe-6.8, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-lowlatency, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, and trafficserver).
SmartOS is an open-source UNIX-like operating system based on illumos, a community fork of OpenSolaris. It features four technologies - ZFS (a combined file system and logical volume manager), DTrace (a dynamic tracing framework for troubleshooting kernel and application problems), Zones (a lightweight virtualisation solution), KVM and bhyve (two full virtualisation solutions for running a variety of guest operating systems, including Linux, Windows, BSD and Plan9). SmartOS is designed to be particularly suitable for building clouds and generating appliances.
KDE neon is a Ubuntu-based Linux distribution and live DVD featuring the latest KDE Plasma desktop and other KDE community software. Besides the installable DVD image, the project provides a rapidly-evolving software repository with all the latest KDE software. Two editions of the product are available - a "User" edition, designed for those interested in checking out the latest KDE software as it gets released, and a "Developer's" edition, created as a platform for testing cutting-edge KDE applications.
Version:next-20260219 (linux-next)
Released:2026-02-19
EasyOS is an experimental Linux distribution which uses many of the technologies and package formats pioneered by Puppy Linux. The distribution features custom container technology called Easy Containers which can run applications or the entire desktop environment in a container. Packages, desktop settings, networking and sharing resources over the network can all be controlled through graphical utilities.
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
- Front: AI agent goes rogue; debuginfo; iocaine; revocable resource-management patches; 7.0 merge window; AccECN; LLMs and security; Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team.
- Briefs: upki; Asahi Linux progress; DFSG processes; Fedora in Syria; Plasma 6.6.0; Vim 9.2; ...
- Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
The "More Accurate Explicit Congestion Notification" (AccECN) mechanism is
defined by
this
RFC draft. The Linux kernel has been gaining support for AccECN with
TCP over the last few releases; the 7.0 release will enable it by default
for general use. AccECN is a subtle change to how TCP works, but it has
the potential to improve how traffic flows over both public and private
networks.
Justin Wheeler writes in Fedora
Magazine that Fedora is now available in Syria once again:
Last week, the Fedora Infrastructure Team lifted
the IP range block on IP addresses in Syria. This action restores
download access to Fedora Linux deliverables, such as ISOs. It also
restores access from Syria to Fedora Linux RPM repositories, the
Fedora Account System, and Fedora build systems. Users can now access
the various applications and services that make up the Fedora
Project. This change follows a recent update to the Fedora Export
Control Policy. Today, anyone connecting to the public Internet from
Syria should once again be able to access Fedora.
[...] Opening the firewall to Syria took seconds. However, months of
conversations and hidden work occurred behind the scenes to make this
happen.
The Asahi Linux project, which is working to implement support for Linux on
Apple CPUs, has published
a detailed 6.19
progress report.
We've made incredible progress upstreaming patches over the past 12
months. Our patch set has shrunk from 1232 patches with 6.13.8, to
858 as of 6.18.8. Our total delta in terms of lines of code has
also shrunk, from 95,000 lines to 83,000 lines for the same kernel
versions. Hmm, a 15% reduction in lines of code for a 30% reduction
in patches seems a bit wrong…
Not all patches are created equal. Some of the upstreamed patches
have been small fixes, others have been thousands of lines. All of
them, however, pale in comparison to the GPU driver.
The GPU driver is 21,000 lines by itself, discounting the
downstream Rust abstractions we are still carrying. It is almost
double the size of the DCP driver and thrice the size of the
ISP/webcam driver, its two closest rivals. And upstreaming work has
now begun.
Adam Harvey, on behalf of the crates.io
team has published a blog
post to inform users of a change in their practice of publishing
information about malicious Rust crates:
The crates.io team will no longer publish a blog post each time a
malicious crate is detected or reported. In the vast majority of cases
to date, these notifications have involved crates that have no
evidence of real world usage, and we feel that publishing these blog
posts is generating noise, rather than signal.
We will always publish a RustSec
advisory when a crate is removed for containing malware. You can
subscribe to the RustSec
advisory RSS feed to receive updates.
Crates that contain malware and are seeing real usage or
exploitation will still get both a blog post and a RustSec
advisory. We may also notify via additional communication channels
(such as social media) if we feel it is warranted.
Security updates have been issued by Debian (ceph, gimp, gnutls28, and libpng1.6), Fedora (freerdp, libpng, libssh, mingw-libpng, mingw-libsoup, mingw-python3, pgadmin4, python-pillow, thunderbird, and vim), Mageia (postgresql15), Red Hat (python-urllib3), SUSE (cdi-apiserver-container, cdi-cloner-container, cdi- controller-container, cdi-importer-container, cdi-operator-container, cdi- uploadproxy-container, cdi-uploadserver-container, cont, frr, gpg2, kubernetes, kubernetes-old, libsodium, libsoup-2_4-1, libssh, libtasn1, libxml2, nodejs22, openCryptoki, openssl-3, and python311-pip), and Ubuntu (frr, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-gkeop, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-oem-6.17, linux-realtime, linux-raspi-realtime, nova, and pillow).
Calculate Linux is a Gentoo-based family of three distinguished distributions. Calculate Directory Server (CDS) is a solution that supports Windows and Linux clients via LDAP + SAMBA, providing proxy, mail and Jabbers servers with streamlined user management. Calculate Linux Desktop (CLD) is a workstation and client distribution (with a choice of Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE or Xfce desktops) that includes a wizard to configure a connection to Calculate Directory Server. Calculate Linux Scratch (CLS) is a live CD with a build framework for creating a custom distribution.
Version:next-20260218 (linux-next)
Released:2026-02-18
GobMis GNU/Linux is a Linux distribution adopted to the needs of public administration offices in the Misiones province of Argentina. It is based on Devuan and uses the Xfce desktop environment. The distribution comes with a NextCloud and OpenVPN-based client software that connects to central work servers, as well as a selection of applications commonly used in government offices. The project uses free software and open document standards, and it also supports the objectives of sustainable development. GobMis GNU/Linux is available publicly and without any cost, inclusive of extensive documentation.
MODICIA O.S. is a Linux multimedia distribution designed primarily for musicians, graphic designers and video makers. It is based on Debian's "stable" branch, but uses the Cinnamon desktop and a recent Linux kernel. MODICIA O.S. comes with a set of carefully-selected, open-source multimedia software and tools, such as Audacity (audio editor), Brasero (disc-burning utility), Cheese (webcam application), Curlew (multimedia converter), GIMP (graphics editor), HandBrake (video transcoder), Kdenlive (video editor), MediaInfo (tool that provides technical data about media files), mpv (media player), Peek (animated GIF recorder), RawTherapee (photo processor), XnView (image viewer), and many others. The distribution also integrates the OnlyOffice software suite for general office tasks.
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