Version 4.19.0 of the shadow-utils project has been released. Notable changes in this release include disallowing some usernames that were previously accepted with the --badname option, and removing support for escaped newlines in configuration files. Possibly more interesting is the announcement that the project is deprecating a number of programs, hashing algorithms, and the ability to periodically expire passwords: Scientific research shows that periodic password expiration leads to predictable password patterns, and that even in a theoretical scenario where that wouldn't happen the gains in security are mathematically negligible (paper link). Modern security standards, such as NIST SP 800-63B-4 in the USA, prohibit periodic password expiration. [...] To align with these, we're deprecating the ability to periodically expire passwords. The specifics and long-term roadmap are currently being discussed, and we invite feedback from users, particularly from those in regulated environment
Security updates have been issued by Debian (mediawiki), Fedora (duc, golang-github-projectdiscovery-mapcidr, and kustomize), Slackware (wget2), and SUSE (cheat, duc, flannel, go-sendxmpp, python311, python312, python313, and trivy).
Archinstall 3.0.15 Arch Linux menu-based installer is now available for download with support for the rEFInd boot manager and other changes. Here's what's new!
As part of the various end-of-year annual benchmarking comparisons and the like on Phoronix, today is a look at how the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H "Meteor Lake" performance has evolved under Ubuntu Linux in the two years since launching. Plus with next-gen Intel Panther Lake laptops expected to be showcased next week at CES, it's a good time for revisiting the Meteor Lake performance to see the difference two years have made for Intel Meteor Lake laptops on Linux.
After a rough 2025, Jack Wallen maps out five practical resolutions for 2026, from covering BSD more seriously to actually speaking up when people complain about Windows. The post My Five Linux and Open Source 2026 Resolutions (Oh… and BSD) appeared first on FOSS Force.
Ahead of the January 2026 ISO refresh for Arch Linux, Archinstall 3.0.15 released today as the newest update to this convenient text-based OS installer...
Anaconda installer now supports installation of bootc based bootable container images using the new bootc command. It has supported several types of payload to populate the root file system during installation. These include RPM packages (likely the most widely used option), tarball images you may know from Fedora Workstation, ostree, and rpm-ostree containers. The newest […]
A New Year's Eve pull request is ready with several Intel/AMD laptop improvements for the ongoing Linux 6.19 kernel cycle. An x86 platform drivers pull request sent to Linus Torvalds today brings several notable driver enhancements with expanding the range of supported laptops...
The GCC compiler and the GNU toolchain ecosystem at large had a great year. From new language front-ends for the likes of Algol 68 and COBOL to maturing support for GCC Rust, new performance optimizations from GCC to Glibc, initial AMD Zen 6 "znver6" support merged for GCC 16, and much more. It's pretty safe to say GCC and the broader GNU ecosystem enjoyed a very successful 2025...
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