A number of problems related to negative directory entries (dentries) were
the topic of a filesystem-track session at
the 2026
Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. Negative dentries are
used to indicate that a file of a given name does not exist in a directory;
it is an optimization that short-circuits the lookup of the file name when
the answer is already known.
Miklos Szeredi led a
session that discussed
some problems that come from having too many negative dentries for a
directory.
Gnoppix Linux is a Debian-based distribution which can be run from a USB thumb drive or from a local drive. It is pre-loaded with essential Artificial Intelligence (AI) frameworks, libraries and development tools. It uses several popular desktop environments, including GNOME, KDE Plasma and Xfce. The project is an attempt to revive a Knoppix-based live distribution with the GNOME desktop that was first launched back in 2002.
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (389-ds-base, bind9.18, evince, fence-agents, freerdp, frr, frr10, gimp, gnutls, hplip, jmc, mariadb:11.8, mysql:8.4, php:7.4, postgresql-jdbc, postgresql:15, postgresql:16, valkey, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Debian (fastnetmon), Fedora (7zip, apptainer, cpp-httplib, mysql8.4, and nmap), Oracle (freerdp, giflib, glib2, glibc, kernel, libreoffice, libvirt, mariadb:10.11, postgresql, python3.11, python3.12, rrdtool, and thunderbird), Red Hat (buildah, podman, and skopeo), SUSE (alloy, apache2, buildah, c3p0, containerd, crun, cups, dhcpcd, dnsmasq, docker-stable, dracut, editorconfig-core-c, ffmpeg-7, fontforge, google-guest-agent, google-osconfig-agent, graphicsmagick, gstreamer-plugins-bad, gstreamer-plugins-good, helm, jackson-annotations, jackson-core, jackson-databind, jline3, kernel, kubectl-cnpg, lcms2, libslirp, libssh2_org, libxreaderdocument3, openbabel, openssl-3, pacemaker, perl-CGI-Session, perl-list-someutils-xs, python-lxml, python-tornado, python-tornado6, python3-onionshare, python311-python-engineio, sg3_utils, thunderbird, transmission, and trivy), and Ubuntu (cifs-utils, kernel, libvncserver, linux-aws-6.8, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-raspi, linux-xilinx, nghttp2, nginx, perl, and vim).
Whonix is an operating system focused on anonymity, privacy and security. It is based on the Tor anonymity network, Debian GNU/Linux and security by isolation. Whonix consists of two parts: One solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway, which is called Whonix-Gateway. The other, which is called Whonix-Workstation, is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through Tor are possible. With Whonix, you can use applications and run servers anonymously over the Internet. DNS leaks are impossible, and even malware with root privileges cannot find out the user's real IP.
Kicksecure is a security-hardened Linux distribution based on Debian's "Stable" branch, with Xfce as the default desktop user interface. It is a hardened operating system designed to be resistant to viruses, malware and attacks, and extensively reconfigured in accordance with an advanced multi-layer defense model, thereby providing in-depth security. Kicksecure provides protection from many types of malware in its default configuration with no customization required.
XIVA Studio is a multimedia-oriented Linux distribution derived from Manjaro Linux and BigLinux. It's main goal is to cater to the needs of professional creators in the area of video, audio, graphics and animation production. XIVA Studio provides optimised Linux kernels built for a number of popular processor and graphics cards configurations. It uses KDE Plasma as the default desktop environment.
Ultramarine Linux is a Fedora-based distribution featuring extra package repositories such as RPM Fusion and enabling multimedia codecs. Ultramarine can be considered a spiritual successor to Korora Project and aims to make Fedora a more desktop-friendly experience.
In August 2025, the CalyxOS privacy-focused
Android distribution announced
that it was pausing all releases while it reworked its
release process, security protocols, and changed its signing keys
following the departure of one of its founders. The project has now announced
that it is "officially back from the hiatus" with the
7.2.2.0 release.
CalyxOS 7.2.2.0 is signed by us using a new
HSM-based, open-source signing solution we designed to enhance the
security of the entire signing process, ensure redundancy, and remove
single points of failure. You can verify CalyxOS 7.2.2.0 and future
builds following these
instructions. For anyone who is interested, the security audit
report of the HSM provisioning ceremony script can be found here.
In addition, we also went through significant infrastructure
improvements. In particular, we have set up a cleaner server structure
to streamline each release. In response to Google's less frequent AOSP
source code releases, our team developed scripts to reduce the
overhead in applying monthly patches and updates. Please keep in mind,
additional manual steps are still needed to compensate for AOSP
changes, such as requesting and storing kernel sources with each
update. Currently, our lead engineer is continuing the maintenance of
the base device trees for both LineageOS and CalyxOS to bridge the gap
created by the absence of Google Pixel device trees.
Expirion Linux is a Devuan-based desktop distribution which offers LXQt and Xfce desktop editions. The project provides separate releases built from the latest "stable" and "testing" branches of Devuan, with runit and SysV as init system options. Expirion ships with a more recent kernel than Devuan does and it also adds some user-friendly touches, custom themes and wallpapers, as well as productivity applications, such as LibreOffice, Chromium, Firefox, Thunderbird, Audacity, Brasero and VLC.
Galactic Mandate Linux is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution featuring the Budgie desktop and a science fiction theme. It includes book-cover themes, live system telemetry, themed applications, alert modes, visual file tools, and practical Linux software, such as Firefox and OnlyOffice delivered as flatpak packages. The distribution is developed by M. R. Richardson, a science fiction writer and author of the Galactic Mandate series of science fiction books.
A few astute observers have noticed that some
content on kernel.org had disappeared and were understandably
concerned. Konstantin Ryabitsev has provided an update via
social.kernel.org:
There was an unfortunate error while changing the kernel.org
primary/secondary mirroring infrastructure, which resulted in the /pub
tree suddenly becoming empty. No data was lost, just public mirror
copies. Everything is now being restored, but deletes are fast and
restores are slow, so thank you for your patience!
The incident is
being tracked on the Linux Foundation's IT status page.
We were made aware today of an email sent to a reader that was
spoofed to appear to be from LWN. The message claimed, among other
things, that we were providing personal information about the reader
to another site user. As is explained in our privacy policy we do not,
and would not, provide such information.
If any other readers have received an odd message from LWN, it is
an attempt at a hoax; if in doubt, please check the DKIM header of the
email. Any email that does come from LWN will have a proper DKIM
signature in its headers.
If you receive such a message, please feel free to send it to us,
with its headers intact. But to reiterate, we are not providing any
user information upon request, nor banning any accounts. We hope this
will not be a recurring problem.
Aoife Moloney has, on behalf of the Fedora Council, posted an
announcement that the Fedora Council is "proposing we pause the
Community Initiatives process as an official project process"
because it has decided the current process is ineffective. It is also
closing discussion regarding the AI developer desktop
initiative covered by LWN in May.
The Fedora Objectives/Initiatives framework was never intended as a
mandatory prerequisite to do the work in Fedora. It supposed to help
by focusing the community on a certain work when needed, not to decide
what is allowed. The AI developer desktop initiative proposal
highlighted that the Community Initiatives process has failed to serve
as a good framework in Fedora where new ideas can surface, receive
respectful feedback, and gain Council support for work that fits the
project's present and/or future. This is something that the Council
must address.
As a first step, we would like to halt the community initiative
process immediately. Existing initiatives in flight (Fedora Forge,
Atomic, and Fedora Docs 2026) will continue with full Council
backing. Their underlying work will be completed as planned in their
current timeboxed state, though the administrative framework around
them may evolve.
As a second step, we would like to work out a new mechanism to allow
Council to set strategic direction in an open, transparent way that
more intentionally includes the community voice. We recognise that we
have to be better at being more open in our discussions and decision
making.
The council is considering the "sandbox" proposal as an
alternative or supplement to a process that replaces the Community
Initiatives.
The kernel community (like many other free-software projects) has recently
seen a large influx of patches developed with the assistance of large
language models (LLMs). Those patches tend to come from developers who
were previously unknown to the community. At the moment, though, the
memory-management developers are evaluating two large patch sets, developed
with LLM assistance, that were submitted by established and well-respected
developers. The rather different reception accorded to that work may give
insights into how LLM-generated contributions will be handled going
forward.
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (giflib, kernel, mariadb:10.11, mod_http2, php, rrdtool, ruby, ruby:3.3, and ruby:4.0), Debian (jq and node-lodash), Fedora (caddy, hut, ipp-usb, kernel, opkssh, rclone, thunderbird, and transmission), SUSE (389-ds, 7zip, alsa, amazon-ecs-init, avahi, cadvisor, cosign, cups, dnsdist, docker, dracut, firefox, firewalld, giflib, glib-networking, glycin-loaders, google-cloud-sap-agent, google-guest-agent, gsasl, hauler, helm, ImageMagick, kernel, keylime, krb5, libaom, libexif, libgcrypt, libnfs, libssh2_org, loupe, lrzip, mutt, ncurses, nodejs22, openCryptoki, openssh, openssl-3, pacemaker, perl-Config-IniFiles, perl-CSS-Minifier-XS, perl-DBI, perl-JavaScript-Minifier-XS, perl-libwww-perl, postfix, python-click, python-idna, python-Markdown, python-joblib, python-handy-archives, python-apache-libcloud, python-WebOb, python-PyGithub, python-soupsieve, python-pip, python-pytest-html, python-python-dotenv, python-python-multipart, python-starlette, python-tornado6, python-zeroconf, python311, python311-jupyter-server, rpcbind, sed, sg3_utils, tar, tiff, and util-linux), and Ubuntu (kernel, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.15, linux-azure-fde-5.15, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-intel-iotg, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-oracle, linux-realtime, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-ibm, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-oracle, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux-oem-6.17, and linux-oem-7.0).
Puppy Linux is yet another Linux distribution. What's different here is that Puppy is extraordinarily small, yet quite full-featured. Puppy boots into a ramdisk and, unlike live CD distributions that have to keep pulling stuff off the CD, it loads into RAM. This means that all applications start in the blink of an eye and respond to user input instantly. Puppy Linux has the ability to boot off a flash card or any USB memory device, CDROM, Zip disk or LS/120/240 Superdisk, floppy disks, internal hard drive. It can even use a multisession formatted CD-RW/DVD-RW to save everything back to the CD/DVD with no hard drive required at all.
MocaccinoOS is an independently-developed Linux distribution that has its origins in source-based Gentoo Linux and Sabayon Linux. It uses a custom-built package manager called "Luet", which acts as a front-end for container-based software. The distribution's main features are minimalism and small footprint, ease of use, native vanilla Linux kernels, and support for most important cloud technologies. MocaccinoOS is offered in several variants, including live images with GNOME, KDE Plasma, MATE and Xfce desktops, as well as command-line-only "Minimal Desktop" edition.
Ultimate Edition, first released in December 2006, was a fork of Ubuntu and Linux Mint though recent versions (starting in 2024) have been based on Arch Linux. The goal of the project is to create a complete, seamlessly integrated, visually stimulating, and easy-to-install operating system. Single-button upgrade is one of several special characteristics of this distribution. Other main features include custom desktop and theme with 3D effects, support for a wide range of networking options, including WiFi and Bluetooth, and integration of many extra applications and package repositories.
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
- Front: Xsnow protestware; Git 2.55; Rhombus; kernel hardening; More LSFMM+BPF coverage; 7.2 merge window; Secure Boot certificate expiration; Ceph and Garage; OSPM 2026.
- Briefs: Akrites; Mageia 10; Git 2.55.0; Podman 6.0; systemd v261; Creative Commons chat; Quotes; ...
- Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
Fatdog64 Linux is a small, desktop, 64-bit Linux distribution. Originally created as a derivative of Puppy Linux with additional applications, Fatdog64 has grown to become a distinct, separate project while maintaining much of the style of Puppy Linux.
Pages
