Version:next-20260115 (linux-next)
Released:2026-01-15
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:
- Front: SFC v. VIZIO; GPLv2 requirements; Debian and GTK 2; OpenZL; kernel scheduler QoS; Rust concurrent data access; Asciinema.
- Briefs: OpenSSL and Python; LSFMM+BPF 2026; Fedora elections; Gentoo retrospective; EU lawmaking; Git data model; Firefox 147; Radicle 1.6.0; Quotes; ...
- Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
Paul Kehrer and Alex Gaynor, maintainers of the Python
cryptography module, have put out some
strongly
worded criticism of
OpenSSL. It
comes from a talk they gave at the
OpenSSL conference in October 2025 (
YouTube video). The
post goes into a lot of detail about the problems with the OpenSSL code
base and testing, which has led the cryptography team to
reconsider using the library. "The mistakes we see in OpenSSL's
development have become so significant that we believe substantial changes
are required — either to OpenSSL, or to our reliance on it." They go
further in the conclusion:
First, we will no longer require OpenSSL implementations for new functionality. Where we deem it desirable, we will add new APIs that are only on LibreSSL/BoringSSL/AWS-LC. Concretely, we expect to add ML-KEM and ML-DSA APIs that are only available with LibreSSL/BoringSSL/AWS-LC, and not with OpenSSL.
Second, we currently statically link a copy of OpenSSL in our wheels (binary artifacts). We are beginning the process of looking into what would be required to change our wheels to link against one of the OpenSSL forks.
If we are able to successfully switch to one of OpenSSL's forks for our binary wheels, we will begin considering the circumstances under which we would drop support for OpenSSL entirely.
CentOS as a group is a community of open source contributors and users which started in 2003 and has been sponsored by Red Hat since 2014. CentOS Linux versions up to CentOS Linux 8 are 100% compatible rebuilds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in full compliance with Red Hat's redistribution requirements. In 2020 it was announced CentOS Linux is being discontinued and replaced with CentOS Stream, a developer-focused distribution which acts as a middle-stream between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Mabox Linux is a Manjaro-based rolling-release distribution. It features the Openbox window manager as its default user interface and provides a welcome screen with access to utilities which add additional software to the operating system.
Lossless data compression is an important tool for reducing the storage
requirements of the world's ever-growing data sets. Yann Collet developed
the
LZ4
algorithm and designed the
Zstandard (or Zstd)
algorithm; he came to the
2025
Open Source Summit Japan in Tokyo to talk about where data compression
goes from here. It turns out that we have reached a point where
general-purpose algorithms are only going to provide limited improvement;
for significant increases in compression, while keeping computation costs
within reason for data-center use, turning to format-specific techniques
will be needed.
The Debian GNOME team would like to remove the GTK 2 graphics
toolkit, which has been unmaintained upstream for more than five
years, and ship Debian 14 ("forky") without it. As one might
expect, however, there are those who would like to find a way to keep
it. Despite its age and declared obsolescence, quite a few Debian
packages still depend on GTK 2. Many of those applications are
unlikely to be updated, and users are not eager to give them
up. Discussion about how to handle this is ongoing; it seems likely
that Debian developers will find some way to continue supporting
applications that require GTK 2, but users may have to look
outside official Debian repositories.
Version
1.6.0 of the Radicle peer-to-peer, local-first code collaboration
stack has been released. Notable changes in this release include
support for systemd
credentials, use of Rust's clap crate for
parsing command-line arguments, and more. LWN covered the project in March
2024.
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (sssd), Debian (linux-6.1 and python-parsl), Fedora (chezmoi, complyctl, composer, and firefox), Oracle (kernel), Red Hat (buildah, libpq, podman, postgresql, postgresql16, postgresql:13, postgresql:15, and postgresql:16), SUSE (avahi, curl, ffmpeg-4, ffmpeg-7, firefox, istioctl, k6, kubelogin, libmicrohttpd, libpcap-devel, libpng16, libtasn1-6-32bit, matio, ovmf, python-tornado6, python311-Authlib, and teleport), and Ubuntu (angular.js, python-urllib3, and webkit2gtk).
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.
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.
TROMjaro is a Manjaro-based Linux distribution with a customised Xfce desktop. Compared to its parent, TROMjaro offers several user-friendly utilities, such as Layout Switcher with six different layouts or Theme Switcher with several accent colours. It also provides various enhancements, including the integration of the Chaotic-AUR repository with pre-built binary packages, a selection of custom wallpapers and icon packs, and extra configuration options in Settings Manager. The distribution comes with support for AppImage files and a heavily-tweaked Firefox browser with custom add-ons.
Version:next-20260114 (linux-next)
Released:2026-01-14
TUXEDO OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution developed in Germany by TUXEDO Computers GmbH, designed and optimised for the company's own range of Linux-friendly personal computers and notebooks. The distribution uses KDE Plasma as the preferred desktop. Some of the differences between Ubuntu and TUXEDO OS include custom boot menu, the TUXEDO Control Centre, Calamares installer, availability of the Lutris open gaming platform, preference for the PipeWire audio daemon (over PulseAudio), removal of Ubuntu's snap daemon and snap packages, and various other tweaks and enhancements.
Quality-of-service (QoS) mechanisms attempt to prioritize some processes (or
network traffic, disk I/O, etc.) over others in order to meet a system's
performance goals. This is a difficult topic to handle in the world of Linux,
where workloads, hardware, and user expectations vary wildly. Qais Yousef spoke
at the 2025 Linux Plumbers Conference, alongside his collaborators John Stultz,
Steven Rostedt, and Vincent Guittot, about their plans for introducing a
high-level QoS API for Linux in a way that leaves end users in control of its
configuration. The talk focused specifically on a QoS mechanism for the
scheduler, to prioritize access to CPU resources differently for different kinds
of processes.
(slides;
video)
Linux Mint is an Ubuntu-based distribution whose goal is to provide a classic desktop experience with many convenient, custom tools and optional out-of-the-box multimedia support. It also adds a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools, and a web-based package installation interface. Linux Mint is compatible with Ubuntu software repositories. Besides its Ubuntu-based flavour, the project also produces a separate "Debian" edition (called LMDE), based on the latest stable Debian version.
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (mariadb10.11, mariadb:10.11, mariadb:10.3, mariadb:10.5, and tar), Debian (net-snmp), Fedora (coturn, NetworkManager-l2tp, openssh, and tuxanci), Mageia (libtasn1), Oracle (buildah, cups, httpd, kernel, libpq, libsoup, libsoup3, mariadb:10.11, mariadb:10.3, openssl, and podman), SUSE (cpp-httplib, ImageMagick, libtasn1, python-cbor2, util-linux, valkey, and wget2), and Ubuntu (google-guest-agent, linux-iot, and python-urllib3).
Q4OS is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution offering a choice of a classic-style user interface (Trinity) and a modern desktop environment (KDE Plasma). The project also develops various utilities, such as Desktop Profiler and Software Center, as well as installers for third party applications. In late 2024, Q4OS started offering FreeXP and Free10, two Q4OS variants with Windows-like themes to help users migrate from unsupported Windows versions to Linux.
BunsenLabs Linux is a distribution offering a light-weight and easily customizable Openbox desktop. The BunsenLabs distribution is based on Debian's Stable branch and is a community continuation of the CrunchBang Linux distribution.
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