All posts by jzb

Security updates for Wednesday

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1037471/

Security updates have been issued by Fedora (buildah, containers-common, glycin, loupe, podman, rust-matchers, and rust-tracing-subscriber), Red Hat (fence-agents, jackson-annotations, jackson-core, jackson-databind, jackson-jaxrs-providers, and jackson-modules-base, pki-deps:10.6, python-requests, python3.12-cryptography, redis:6, redis:7, and resource-agents), Slackware (libssh), SUSE (aide, cloud-init, iperf, java-1_8_0-openjdk, jq, kernel-devel, python-deepdiff, regionServiceClientConfigAzure, regionServiceClientConfigEC2, and regionServiceClientConfigGCE), and Ubuntu (gnutls28).

Anaconda WebUI: progress update and roadmap

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1037349/

Fedora’s Community Blog has a short
update
on the progress of Fedora’s new installer with a web-based
interface. The new installer was introduced for the Workstation
edition in Fedora Linux 42, it is now approved to be
included in all Fedora spins and the KDE edition for
Fedora 43. Final deprecation of the GTK-based installer is set
for Fedora 45. LWN covered the installer
changes in April.

[$] Testing the 2-in-1 Framework 12 Laptop

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1035758/

Framework Computer is a US-based
computer manufacturer with a line of Linux-supported, modular, easily
repairable and upgradeable laptops. In February, the company announced
a new model, the Framework Laptop 12,
an “entry-level” 12.2-inch convertible notebook that can be
used as a laptop or tablet. The systems were made available for pre-order
in April, I received mine in mid-August. Since then, I have been
putting it through its paces with Debian 13 (“trixie”) and
Fedora Linux 42. It’s a good choice for users who want a
Linux-friendly, lightweight, 2-in-1
device—if they are willing to make a few concessions on storage
capacity, RAM, and CPU/GPU choices.

Niri 25.08 released

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1036625/

Version
25.08
of the niri scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor has been
released. Notable changes include xwayland-satellite
integration, modal exit confirmation, and the introduction of basic
support for screen readers:

A series
of posts
by fireborn earlier this year on the screen reader
situation in Linux got me curious: how does one support
screen readers in a Wayland compositor? The documentation is
unfortunately scarce and difficult to find. Thankfully, @DataTriny from the AccessKit project came across my issue,
pointed me at the right protocols, and answered a lot of my questions.

So, as of this release, niri has basic support for screen readers!
We implement the org.freedesktop.a11y.KeyboardMonitor D-Bus
interface for Orca to listen and
grab keyboard keys, and we expose the main niri UI elements via
AccessKit. […]

The current screen reader support and further considerations are
documented on the new Accessibility wiki page.

LWN covered niri in
July.

Linux From Scratch 12.4 released

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1036624/

Version
12.4
of Linux From Scratch (LFS) and Beyond Linux From Scratch
(BLFS) have been released. LFS
provides step-by-step instructions on building a customized Linux
system entirely from source, and BLFS helps to extend an LFS
installation into a more usable system. Notable changes in this
release include updates to GNU Binutils 2.45, GCC 15.2, GNU C Library
(glibc) 2.42, and Linux 6.15.1. See the Changelog
for all updates since 12.3.

New ELF specification for public review

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1036569/

Cary Coutant has announced
a draft for version 4.3 of the
Executable and Linking Format (ELF) object file format. The
specification was formerly part of the Unix System
V Release 4 (SVR4) gABI document
:

The last published gABI documents were the Fourth Edition and a draft
of Edition 4.1, both published in March 1997. The ELF portions of the
document were updated several times between 1998 and 2015, published
online […]

I’ve published the last draft from 2015 as Version 4.2, and collected
the several changes since then, along with new e_machine values, as
Version 4.3.

The source for the draft is on GitHub in reStructuredText
format, and Coutant has collected the mailing list discussions for
changes in 4.3 as GitHub
issues
. Thanks to Jose E. Marchesi for the tip.

Security updates for Wednesday

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1036567/

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (httpd, kernel, and kernel-rt), Debian (python-eventlet and python-h2), Mageia (aide, gnutls, tomcat, and vim), Oracle (httpd, mod_http2, postgresql:15, python3.11, python3.12, python3.9, and udisks2), Red Hat (kernel, postgresql, postgresql:12, and postgresql:15), SUSE (dcmtk, jupyter-bqplot-jupyterlab, kured, libudisks2-0, munge, python-eventlet, python-future, python311-eventlet, rekor, traefik2, and ucode-intel), and Ubuntu (linux-aws, linux-azure-5.15, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-6.8, linux-nvidia,
linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-raspi, linux-gke, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-kvm, and protobuf).

[$] Removing Guix from Debian

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1035491/

As a rule, if a package is shipped with a Debian release, users can
count on it being available, and updated, for the entire
life of the release. If package foo is included in the stable
release—currently Debian 13
(“trixie”)—a user can
reasonably expect that it will continue to be available with security
backports as long as that release is supported, though it may not be
included in Debian 14 (“forky”). However, it is likely that the
Guix package manager will soon
be removed from the repositories for Debian 13 and
Debian 12 (“bookworm”, also called oldstable).

[$] Highlights from systemd v258: part one

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1028275/

The next release of systemd has been percolating for an unusually
long time. Systemd releases are usually about six months apart, but
v257 came out in
December 2024, and v258 just now seems to be nearing the finish
line; the third release candidate for v258 was published on
August 20 (release
notes
). Now is a good time to dig in and take a look at some of
the new features, enhancements, and removals coming soon to
systemd. These include new workload-management features, a concept for
multiple home-directory environments, and the final, once-and-for-all
removal of support for control
groups version 1
.

Python: The Documentary

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1035537/

Attendees at EuroPython had the chance to preview part of
Python: The Documentary during a
keynote panel
. The full film, created by CultRepo, is now available on YouTube:

This is the story of the world’s most beloved programming language:
Python. What began as a side project in Amsterdam during the 1990s
became the software powering artificial intelligence, data science and
some of the world’s biggest companies. But Python’s future wasn’t
certain; at one point it almost disappeared.

This 90-minute documentary features Guido van Rossum, Travis
Oliphant, Barry Warsaw, and many more, and they tell the story of
Python’s rise, its community-driven evolution, the conflicts that
almost tore it apart, and the language’s impact on… well…
everything.

The video
of the keynote is also available.

Rosenzweig: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1035332/

Alyssa Rosenzweig has written a blog post
about her work to help ship a “great driver” for the Apple M1
GPU that supports OpenGL, Vulkan, and enables gaming with Proton.

We’ve succeeded beyond my dreams. The challenges I chased, I have
tackled. The drivers are fully upstream in Mesa. Performance isn’t too
bad. With the Vulkan on Apple myth busted, conformant Vulkan is now
coming to macOS via LunarG’s
KosmicKrisp
project building on my work.

Satisfied, I am now stepping away from the Apple ecosystem. My
friends in the Asahi Linux orbit will carry the torch from here.

Rosenzweig indicates her next project will be working on Intel’s
Xe-HPG graphics architecture. LWN covered her talk on Apple
M1/M2 GPU drivers in October 2024.

[$] The tangled web of XSLT browser support

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1034560/

The Extensible
Stylesheet Language Transformations
(XSLT) language is used by web
browsers to style XML content to make it easily readable; XSLT is part of the
HTML living
standard
that is maintained by the Web Hypertext Application Technology
Working Group
(WHATWG). Only a small fraction of web sites serve
content that requires web browsers to support XSLT, in part because
major browser implementations have neglected the technology over the past 25
years. Now, it seems, they would like to rid themselves of it
entirely. A plan
to disable XSLT in Blink (Chrome’s rendering engine) and a pull request by
a Google Chrome developer to remove mentions of the specification from
the HTML standard have been met with opposition, but arguments in
favor of XSLT have proven ineffective.

GhostBSD 25.02 released

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1035321/

The GhostBSD project has released version 25.02 of the
FreeBSD-based desktop operating system. This release brings GhostBSD
up to date with FreeBSD 14.3,
includes enhancements for the Software Station package management
application, and introduces an “OS X-like” desktop environment
based on GNUstep called Gershwin:

This early preview includes:

  • GNUstep-based desktop environment with familiar OS X-style
    interface
  • Seamless integration with GhostBSD tools through wrappers for
    installer, Software Station, Backup Station, and Update Station
  • Support for running non-GNUstep applications alongside GNUstep
    apps
  • Several included GNUstep applications to get you started

LWN covered GhostBSD
in June 2024.

Security updates for Wednesday

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1035307/

Security updates have been issued by Debian (node-cipher-base), Fedora (keylime-agent-rust and libtiff), Oracle (aide, kernel, mod_http2, pam, pki-deps:10.6, python-cryptography, python3, python3.12, and thunderbird), SUSE (cheat, ffmpeg, firebird, govulncheck-vulndb, postgresql17, tomcat, tomcat10, tomcat11, ucode-intel-20250812, and v2ray-core), and Ubuntu (binutils, gst-plugins-base1.0, gst-plugins-good1.0, and linux-raspi-realtime).

PyCon US 2025 recap and recordings

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1034959/

The PyCon team has announced
that all PyCon US 2025 recordings are now available on its
YouTube channel.

We had an amazing and diverse group of community members join us for
PyCon US 2025, attending from 58 different countries! By the numbers,
we welcomed a total attendance of 2,225 Pythonistas to the David
L. Lawrence Convention Center. We couldn’t be more grateful for all
who supported the Python ecosystem and helped make PyCon US 2025 a
huge success.

See the LWN
conference index
for coverage of some of the talks from
PyCon US 2025.

Arch Linux recent service outages

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1034716/

The Arch Linux project has posted an
update
about recent service
outages
that have affected its infrastructure:

The Arch Linux Project is currently experiencing an ongoing denial
of service attack that primarily impacts our main webpage, the Arch
User Repository (AUR), and the Forums.

We are aware of the problems that this creates for our end users
and will continue to actively work with our hosting provider to
mitigate the attack. We are also evaluating DDoS protection providers
while carefully considering factors including cost, security, and
ethical standards.

The post contains information on workarounds to use during the
service disruption, and notes that Arch is not sharing technical
details about the attack or mitigation while the attack is still
ongoing.

Adding stubble to Ubuntu’s generic Arm64 Desktop ISOs

Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1034579/

Tobias Heider has written
an article that explains changes that are coming for Ubuntu’s generic
Arm64 desktop ISO images in the 25.10 release. The current solution,
Heider says, depends on GRUB features that are unavailable in secure
boot mode and require adding device-specific logic to multiple
packages. The new solution, called stubble,
is derived from systemd-stub:

A bundled stubble image contains stubble itself, a Linux kernel, a
HWID lookup table to map devices to device trees and multiple device
trees. When grub loads this “kernel”, stubble executes first, reads
the SMBIOS table to generate HWIDs, looks for a match in the embeeded
lookup table and loads a matching device tree before passing control
to the actual Linux kernel.

The elegance in this approach lies in how it interacts with the
rest of the system. Integrating stubble happens entirely at build time
in the kernel package. The stubble package is a build dependency for
the kernel. After building the kernel itself, we bundle it with
stubble and our DTBs and ship the combined binary instead. The
resulting stubble + kernel + dtb bundle can be loaded by grub like any
other Ubuntu kernel. No further changes in grub or other packages are
necessary to make it work.