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:next-20260819 (linux-next)
Released:2026-08-19
CobaltX is an Arch-based Linux distribution built specifically for gamers. It features the KDE Plasma desktop and comes pre-installed with the complete Linux gaming stack, i.e. Steam, Heroic Games Launcher, Bottles, Lutris, Wine, RetroArch, MangoHud and GameMode. It is built using the Archiso tool with a custom Calamares system installer. Under the hood, the distribution deploys the Linux Zen kernel for low-latency desktop performance. CobaltX also provides support for NVIDIA GPUs via a single-click installation option in the distribution's Welcome app.
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.
Version:next-20260818 (linux-next)
Released:2026-08-18
CapivaraOS is a Brazilian desktop and server Linux distribution based on Fedora. It is available in three desktop editions - "Marsh" (KDE Plasma), "Snout" (GNOME) and "Pup" (Xfce), as well as a separate home server variant called "HERD". All editions are localised into Brazilian Portuguese. The distribution uses the Anaconda system installer and includes many popular web, productivity and multimedia applications.
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).
AUSTRUMI (Austrum Latvijas Linukss) is a bootable live Linux distribution based on Slackware Linux. It requires limited system resources and can run on any Intel-compatible system with a CD-ROM installed. The entire operating system and all of the applications run from RAM, making AUSTRUMI a fast system and allowing the boot medium to be removed after the operating system starts.
Mainstream Linux is an Arch-based Linux distribution with a highly customised desktop using the Quickshell toolkit on top of the Hyprland compositor. It includes a variety of user-friendly features, such as Material You desktop layout, per-workspace layout switching, a session restore option, a gaming mode, as well as a graphical settings tool to customise displays, themes, key bindings, networking and updates. The distribution uses the Calamares system installer with several install modes and applies automatic Btrfs snapshots before every update.
Slimbook OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution customised for the Slimbook line of Linux computers assembled in Spain. It offers a choice of GNOME or KDE Plasma desktops on a single ISO image which also includes some custom extensions and utilities. The distribution provides its own repositories for some software, prioritising DEB and Flatpak packages over Ubuntu's snap options. Some of the other interesting features of Slimbook OS include touchpad gestures (enabled by default), Slimbook service notifications, window tiling, the Terminator terminal emulator, a Ulauncher application for fast searching, and a day/night mode switcher.
Version:next-20260817 (linux-next)
Released:2026-08-17
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).
ZimaOS is an independently-developed, Linux-based operating system for personal servers and network-attached storage (NAS) devices. It features system-level support for remote access, RAID configuration, over-the-air (OTA) updates, and a browser-based user interface for managing the server. It is developed in China by IceWhale Technology Limited, which also produces and sells specialist storage hardware devices called "ZimaCube". Besides ZimaOS which is a complete, standalone operating system, the company also produces CasaOS, a lightweight software layer that can be installed on top of an existing Linux installation in order to turn it into a personal server or a NAS.
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.
Pages