Latest Linux and open source news from around the web
For those interested in the Dolby Digital Plus "Enhanced AC-3" audio compression format for open-source software, the last of the patents for this widely-used format by streaming services and more appears to have expired...
GNOME developers had a busy week in preparing for the GNOME 50 beta release, many GNOME developers attending FOSDEM this weekend in Brussels, and other happenings...
The third Ubuntu 26.04 snapshot is out, giving you an easy way to test the 'Resolute Raccoon' ahead of its stable release in April. Details and links inside.
LastSignal is a self-hosted dead man’s switch that encrypts messages in the browser and releases them only after missed activity checks.
Not only for them, but any other non-European videoconferencing software.
Fedora test days are events where anyone can help make certain that changes in Fedora Linux work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. If you’ve never contributed to Fedora before, this is a perfect way to get started. There are two test periods […]
Emergency Tails 7.4.1 update patches critical OpenSSL flaws that could let malicious Tor relays deanonymize users. The post Tails 7.4.1 Ships Fast to Patch OpenSSL Bug Threatening Anonymity appeared first on FOSS Force.
Microsoft appears to be taking a cue from Linux with a new Command Palette Dock proposal for PowerToys. This would let Windows users add a second panel to their desktop with widgets, flexible positioning, and custom theming. Functionality that is standard across most Linux desktop environments (for decades), and a reminder of how inflexible Windows and its Taskbar are by default. The idea, posted by Microsoft designer Niels Laute on GitHub, is to add a Command Palette Dock in PowerToys to compliment the (popular) Command Palette. Command Palette is a newer PowerToys feature that provides a keyboard-driven launcher for extensions […]
A few years ago, the only way to compile Rust code was using the rustc compiler with LLVM as a backend. Since then, several projects, including Mutabah's Rust Compiler (mrustc), GCC's Rust support (gccrs), rust_codegen_gcc, and Cranelift have made enormous progress on diversifying Rust's compiler implementations. The most recent such project, Eurydice, has a more ambitious goal: converting Rust code to clean C code. This is especially useful in high-assurance software, where existing verification and compliance tools expect C. Until such tools can be updated to work with Rust, Eurydice could provide a smoother transition for these projects, as well as a stepping-stone for environments that have a C compiler but no working Rust compiler. Eurydice has been used to compile some post-quantum-cryptography routines from Rust to C, for example.
The truth behind Linux's security claims.
Chris Mason, the longtime Linux kernel developer most known for being the creator of Btrfs, has been working on a Git repository with AI review prompts he has been working on for LLM-assisted code review of Linux kernel patches. This initiative has been happening for some weeks now while the latest work was posted today for comments...
Leave these Windows tendencies at the door. You're in Penguin land now.
Daniel Stenberg, the recipient of last year's Award for Excellence in Open Source from the European Open Source Academy, presented that award to this year's recipient: Greg Kroah-Hartman. It's impossible to overstate the importance of the work Greg has done on Linux. In software, innovation grabs headlines, but stability saves lives and livelihoods. Every Android phone, every web server, every critical system running Linux depends on Greg's meticulous work. He ensures that when hospitals, banks, governments, and individuals rely on Linux, it doesn't fail them. His work represents the highest form of service: unglamorous, relentless, and essential.
The 6.18.8, 6.12.68, and 6.6.122 stable kernel updates have been released; each contains another set of important fixes.
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (curl, gimp:2.8, glibc, grafana, grafana-pcp, kernel, osbuild-composer, php:8.3, python-urllib3, python3.11, and python3.12), Debian (chromium), Mageia (ceph, gpsd, libxml2, openjdk, openssl, and xen), SUSE (abseil-cpp, assertj-core, coredns, freerdp, java-11-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, libxml2, openssl-1_0_0, openssl-1_1, python, python-filelock, and python311-sse-starlette), and Ubuntu (kernel, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-hwe, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-fips, and texlive-bin).
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