Linux NewsRed Hat's Lightwell Doesn't Wait for Upstream Maintainers to Act
A status update shows it clearing 400 vulnerabilities from Java libraries and a key service now being generally available.
Another Dozen Vulnerabilities Found In The X.Org Server & XWayland
With the assistance of AI, another dozen security vulnerabilities affecting both the conventional X.Org Server as well as XWayland were made public this evening...
New Patches For Linux's Zswap Show Major Improvements
Amid multiple ongoing innovations being pursued in the Linux memory management space amid sky high RAM prices, a new patch series posted on Monday aim to enhance the Zswap performance for this compressed RAM cache for swap pages...
3 quick Linux tools that protect your PC from bad updates and hackers
A few extra minutes during setup can mean the world later on.
Canonical Beefs Up Security for Ubuntu 26.10 with Slimmed-Down GRUB, Linux 7.3
Ubuntu 26.10 will introduce new security features like a signed, slimmed down GRUB bootloader, TPM-backed encryption on machines without a hardware root of trust, and hardware-token VPN sign-in in NetworkManager.
Canonical Reaffirms Plans For Ubuntu 27.04 To Use ntpd-rs By Default
Back in March Canonical announced switching to ntpd-rs was its next target as part of transitioning more Ubuntu Linux system components to Rust-based implementations. This time synchronization package is available for testing in the upcoming Ubuntu 26.10 release while it aims to be the default for Ubuntu 27.04...
Ubuntu 26.10 Will Bring Rust Coreutils, OpenSSL 4.0, and a Slimmer GRUB
Ubuntu 26.10, due on October 15, is set to bring Rust-based coreutils, OpenSSL 4.0, post-quantum cryptography, slimmer GRUB, and Linux kernel 7.3.
Google's Kage Project Rethinks Linux Kernel Security With Isolated Device Drivers
by George Whittaker Google is exploring a new approach to Linux kernel security that could significantly change how device drivers interact with the operating system. The experimental project, known as Kage, uses compiler-based sandboxing to isolate drivers inside the kernel, potentially limiting the damage caused by memory corruption, programming errors, and exploitable vulnerabilities without requiring drivers to run as separate user-space processes. The research was presented at the Linux Plumbers Conference 2026, held October 5–7, with Stanford University and Google researcher Zachary Yedidia discussing how LLVM's Lightweight Fault Isolation (LFI) technology can create restricted execution environments for native kernel code. Unlike conventional isolation techniques, which often depend on separate processes or virtual machines, Kage attempts to preserve the performance advantages of kernel-space execution while reducing the amount of memory individual drivers can access. Early prot
Raspberry Pi OS Updated with Battery and Squeekboard Dock Widgets
Raspberry Pi OS 2026-10-06 is now available for download with battery and squeekboard dock widgets, Control Centre improvements, and Linux kernel 6.18.50 LTS.
OpenSSH 10.6 Released with Security Hardening, Post-Quantum Support
OpenSSH 10.6 is out with security fixes, the new hybrid post-quantum ssh-mldsa44-ed25519 algorithm, and several new SSH and SFTP features.
[$] Python's two modules for random numbers
Python's random and secrets modules both include utilities for obtaining random values, but only one of them is suitable for generating passwords and security tokens. For much of Python's history, random was used for passwords and tokens anyway, despite documentation that called it unsuitable for cryptography. In 2015, Python's core team debated whether to fix that misuse by making random secure by default. Instead, in 2016, Python 3.6 added a second module: secrets. The random module is still misused at times, so it is instructive to look into how the random-number modules should be used.
Debian Trixie-Based Raspberry Pi Desktop Is Now Available for PC and Mac
Raspberry Pi Desktop for PC and Mac has been updated to the latest Debian 13 "Trixie" operating system series and comes with all the new features from Raspberry Pi OS.
Meta Engineer's Linux Patches For Boosting AMD P-State / Steam Deck Gaming Performance
Back in July I wrote about AMD P-State driver patches boosting 1%-low frame rates for gaming by as much as 31%. That work was done by David Vernet who is a Linux kernel engineer/hacker at Mesa. This week Vernet presented on the topic at the Linux Plumbers Conference happening in Prague...
[$] Last rites for Gentoo's Chromium package
Chromium, the open-source upstream project for Google's Chrome web browser, is the browser of choice for many Linux users. It has also gained a reputation as being difficult for Linux distributions to package and build: Chromium has a complex build system, the project bundles many of its dependencies, and it has frequent releases. All of that, plus user complaints, has led the maintainers of the Gentoo Chromium package to give up on trying to maintain the package.
OpenSSH 10.6 released
Version 10.6 of OpenSSH has been released. The announcement notes that the OpenSSH team has been receiving a large number of AI-assisted security bug reports. "We very much welcome these reports, especially when combined with human triage, analysis, test-cases and particularly when accompanied by proposed fixes". As a result, the project expects to be making more frequent releases to get updates to users more quickly rather than batching the bug fixes until the next planned release. Notable changes in this release include enabling the hybrid post-quantum ssh-mldsa44-ed25519 signature algorithm, addition of a -p option for sftp's lmkdir/mkdir commands, as well as disabling the LZ77 dictionary coder in ssh and sshd to mitigate side-channel leaks (which will result in reduced effectiveness of the Compression option). The scp -R option, which allows copies between two remote hosts, is being deprecated due to security risks; the option will be ignored in the future. See the announcement for