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LWN.net

Three new stable kernels for Tuesday

Greg Kroah-Hartman has released the 7.3.4, 6.18.63, and 6.12.117 stable kernels. The 7.3.4 kernel has more than 1,250 patches, 6.18.63 contains more than 860, and 6.12.117 includes more than 1,530 patches. Users of these kernels are, of course, encouraged to upgrade.

LWN.net

[$] Synaptics patent claims stop work on DisplayLink drivers

Mike Lothian owns a docking station (or dock) that uses a DisplayLink chipset that had, at least in his opinion, subpar performance on Linux. He decided to try improving the Linux driver, with LLM assistance, but ran into one problem that he could not solve—so he asked for help, hoping that Synaptics's developers would lend a hand. (DisplayLink was acquired by Synaptics in 2022.) Rather than help him in improving the driver, however, the Synaptics legal team responded with patent infringement claims, a demand that he cease unauthorized implementation of DisplayLink technology, and threats of expensive legal penalties. For now, it appears that Linux users of the company's docks will have to continue to live without feature parity with other platforms.

LWN.net

Firefox 160 released

Version 160 of the Firefox web browser has been released. Notable features in this release include the ability to block sites from asking to handle "mailto:" links, ability to play Matroska files with FLAC, MP3, or PCM audio, playback speed controls in the picture-in-picture video player, and a new Mini Window feature that is in early development.