Latest Linux and open source news from around the web
Ahead of the Linux 6.20~7.0 cycle kicking off next month, the Apple Silicon Device Tree updates have been sent out for queuing ahead of that next merge window. Notable this round are the Device Tree additions for rounding out the USB 2.0/3.x support with the USB-C ports...
Fastfetch 2.58 system information tool improves system detection on Linux and macOS while fixing KDE Plasma 6.6-related bugs.
A new patch posted to the Linux kernel mailing list aims to address the high wake-up latency experienced on modern Intel Xeon server platforms. With Sapphire Rapids and newer, "excessive" wakeup latencies with the Linux menu governor and NOHZ_FULL configuration can negatively impair Xeon CPUs for latency-sensitive workloads but a 16 line patch aims to better improve the situation. That is, changing one line of actual code and the rest being code comments...
Prominent Intel Linux engineer H. Peter Anvin has posted a new patch series working to clean-up the Linux x86/x86_64 kernel boot code. Besides cleaning up the code, the kernel configuration would drop options around EFI stub mode and relocatable kernels in making those features now always enabled...
For those using the powerful PHPStan tool for static analysis on PHP code, this week's PHPStan 2.1.34 is promoting optimized performance with projects seeing around 25% to 40% faster analysis times...
A Raspberry Pi might be a single-board computer, but it's easy to make it a multi-OS system.
Konstantin Ryabitsev has put up a blog post about korgalore, a tool he has written to circumvent delivery problems experienced by kernel developers using the large, centralized email systems. We cannot fix email delivery, but we can sidestep it entirely. Public-inbox archives like lore.kernel.org store all mailing list traffic in git repositories. In its simplest configuration, korgalore can shallow-clone these repositories directly and upload any new messages straight to your mailbox using the provider's API.
One would assume that most LWN readers stopped running network-accessible telnet services some number of decades ago. For the rest of you, this security advisory from Simon Josefsson is worthy of note: The telnetd server invokes /usr/bin/login (normally running as root) passing the value of the USER environment variable received from the client as the last parameter. If the client supplies a carefully crafted USER environment value being the string "-f root", and passes the telnet(1) -a or --login parameter to send this USER environment to the server, the client will be automatically logged in as root bypassing normal authentication processes.
Mesa 26.0 was due to be branched last week and in turn start its feature freeze but ended up being pushed back to tomorrow (21 January) to allow some lingering features to land. It's been beneficial for the Radeon Vulkan driver "RADV" with several interesting merge requests having landed in time for Mesa 26.0...
After years of crypto wallet theft, scammers have escalated to domain takeovers.
This new draft code turns KDE Plasma into a full VR desktop
Intel Linux engineers have been working on enhancing the NVMe storage performance with today's high core count processors. Due to situations where multiple CPUs could end up sharing the same NVMe IRQ(s), performance penalties can arise if the IRQ affinity and the CPU's cluster do not align. There is a pending patch to address this situation. A 15% performance improvement was reported with the pending patch...
Mozilla has announced a repository with Firefox Nightly channel packages for RPM-based Linux distributions such as CentOS Stream, Fedora, and openSUSE. Mozilla has provided a Debian repository since 2023. Note that this repository only includes the nightly builds of The firefox-nightly package. Mozilla is not providing stable builds as RPMs at this time. However, the package will not conflict with a distribution's regular firefox package; both packages can be installed at the same time for those who wish to test the nightly builds. See the blog post for instructions on setting up the repository.
by George Whittaker The Linux Mint project has unveiled Linux Mint 22.3, carrying the codename “Zena”, the latest point release in the popular Mint 22 series. This new version continues Mint’s reputation for delivering a comfortable, user-friendly desktop experience while remaining stable and reliable. As a Long Term Support (LTS) release, Linux Mint 22.3 will receive updates and security patches through April 2029. Built on a Solid Ubuntu Base Zena is built on top of Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (“Noble Numbat”), bringing Mint’s traditional desktop approach together with Ubuntu’s well-tested foundation and extensive software repositories. It ships with the Linux kernel 6.14 and benefits from the Ubuntu Hardware Enablement stack, which improves support for newer hardware such as recent AMD and Intel chips. What’s New in Linux Mint 22.3 “Zena” Rather than revolutionize the distro, the Mint team focused on thoughtful refinements and quality-of-life improvements that make everyday usage smoother an
Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.5 adds macOS dark mode icon support, fixes the update dialog, and improves UI behavior across platforms.
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