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FOSS
Kernel, distros, and the wider free and open source software world.
664 stories archived
Servo 0.4.0 released
The Servo web-browser engine project has published an update about all of the changes that landed in June 2026, along with version 0.4.0 of the Servo Tech Demo. This release includes a record 558 commits, better layout correctness for web sites , improved WebGPU support, enhancements for users who are using the servoshell test browser, and many performance and stability fixes.
Nouveau Preparing To Finally Enable Atomic Mode-Setting By Default
In addition to the Nouveau kernel driver unblocking Vulkan Video H.264 support for the Mesa NVK driver, another feature change on the way is this open-source NVIDIA Linux driver finally preparing to enable atomic mode-setting by default...
Arch Linux AUR Under Another Wave Of Malicious Packages, Package Adoptions Halted
Last month the Arch Linux User Repository "AUR" saw more than 1,500 malicious packages amid a sophisticated malware attack and then also seeing an influx of spam and profanities amid this community/user-maintained repository for the popular Arch Linux distribution. Unfortunately, there is another round of AUR troubles...
[$] The future of libraries in BPF
Song Liu believes that the way that programmers assemble complex BPF programs will be changing rapidly in the future. At a session of the 2026 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit , he shared his thoughts on what that change could look like, though he did not have any concrete proposals for what, if anything, the BPF maintainers should do. He anticipates an ecosystem of Rust BPF packages developing, which is significant because BPF does not really have a package manager at the moment.
Arch Linux disables AUR package adoption
The Arch Linux DevOps team has announced that adoption of orphaned packages in the Arch User Repository (AUR) has been disabled due to " the current influx of malicious package adoptions and follow-up commits made via the AUR ". Michael Taggart has posted a brief analysis of the malware being added to a long list of packages in this round of attacks. The payload appears to be an remote-access trojan (RAT) that takes commands over the TOR network and attempts to upload a wide range of user data. The project had suspended new account registration in June. That followed a campaign in which an attacker or attackers created new accounts to adopt orphaned packages and push malicious updates to them that would install malware on user systems. AUR registration was reopened on July 13 after the DevOps team added some minor, and apparently ineffective, restrictions on creating new accounts.
Linux 7.3 To Allow Tuning AMD P-State Dynamic EPP With Per CPU Core Granularity
Sent out last night was the last batch of planned AMD P-State driver feature improvements targeting the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window...
Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, nodejs-nodemon, nodejs22, nodejs24, openssh, and vim), Debian (gsasl and ruby-rack), Fedora (dokuwiki, lego, libnbd, nasm, pack, unbound, and valkey), Mageia (389-ds-base, libxfont2, nghttp2, and perl-DBI), SUSE (apptainer, bind, ffmpeg-7, freerdp, google-osconfig-agent, graphicsmagick, helm, ImageMagick, java-17-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, keybase-client, kubernetes1.34-apiserver, kubernetes1.35-apiserver, kubernetes1.36-apiserver, kubevirt1.8-container-disk, libarchive, logcli, net-tools, openssl-3, PackageKit, perl-Net-DNS, prometheus-ha_cluster_exporter, python-dulwich, python-sqlparse, python-urwid, python3-pyOpenSSL, python313, python3, runc, s2n, tomcat, tomcat10, tomcat11, and valkey), and Ubuntu (libinput, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, openssl, python2.7, python3.5, and ruby-sinatra).
Servo 0.4 Browser Engine Gets More Websites Rendering Correctly
Servo 0.4 was just released for closing out the month of July. This month the Servo browser engine with its servoshell demo browser began rendering more real-world websites correctly...
Starling is a new Linux desktop built using AI in six months
Some Linux desktop environments were developed over decades, others in just a few years. Starling, which made the rounds online this week, claims to have been built by just one person in six months using AI coding tools. What’s more, a preview build is available as a .deb to install on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. Yup, this isn’t a ChatGPT mockup but a real working demo. According to the project’s GitHub and website, a developer used AI to rewrite Flutter’s framework layer from Dart to Swift, and left its C++ rendering engine unchanged. A traditional desktop uses a windowing system but […] You're reading Starling is a new Linux desktop built using AI in six months , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Nouveau Patch For Linux 7.3 Opens The Door For NVK Vulkan Video Atop NVIDIA NVDEC
This week's round of drm-misc-next patches for staging ahead of the Linux 7.3 kernel merge window bring an exciting change for the open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" driver...
x86_64 Shadow Stack By Default Retargeted For Fedora 46
In recent weeks there was a proposal to enable x86_64 Shadow Stack support by default with the upcoming Fedora Linux 45 release. That change has been approved now by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) but with the feature being punted off to Fedora 46 next year...
Vulkan 1.4.358 Released With New Image Tiling Control Extension
After two weeks without any Vulkan spec update, Vulkan 1.4.358 was released overnight. Besides the usual assortment of minor clarifications/fixes, Vulkan 1.4.358 introduces one new extension: VK_EXT_image_tiling_control...
Sound Fixes For Linux 7.2-rc6: "Far Larger Than Wished"
Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai of SUSE previously warned of many sound driver fixes due to AI/LLMs and a "new normal" of patch activity as a result. While we are approaching the end of the Linux 7.2 merge window with the stable release coming up in August, the sound patches continue trending higher and this week were "far larger than wished" ahead of Linux 7.2-rc6 due out on Sunday...
Linux 7.3 Will Treat Intel Nova Lake S Graphics As Stable
Ahead of the next-generation Intel Nova Lake processors expected to begin rolling out around the start of 2027, the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel cycle is going to begin treating Nova Lake S processors with their integrated graphics as stable...
AMD Posts Linux Patches For HDMI 2.1 Auto Low-Latency Mode "ALLM" & VRR
Following AMD posting AMDGPU patches for HDMI 2.1 FRL support after the HDMI 2.1 open-source support was long blocked by the HDMI Forum, as part of working toward a complete HDMI 2.1 implementation in this AMD Linux driver it was followed by HDMI 2.1 Display Stream Compression (DSC) support. Now the latest on the AMDGPU HDMI 2.1 enabling path is enabling Auto Low-Latency Mode (ALLM) as well as HDMI Variable Rate Refresh!..
There's Finally A New Game Powered By The Unigine 2 Engine
It's been about a decade since seeing any new games released on the visually-impressive, Linux-friendly Unigine Engine. Unigine Corp has mostly been focusing on Unigine Engine usage for simulations and other professional applications, but coming as a surprise today is a new game being developed on their latest Unigine 2 engine technology...
OPI Abstraction v0.1 Published With Aiming To Standardize DPU/IPU Ecosystems
The Linux Foundation hosted Open Programmable Infrastructure "OPI" announced its first coordinated release with OPI Abstraction v0.1. The work of the Open Programmable Infrastructure is hoping to standardize the data processing unit (DPU) and infrastructure processing unit (IPU) ecosystems...
Keychron Built Open Source Firmware for Gaming Mice, and Linux Users Stand to Gain the Most
Built on Zephyr RTOS and licensed under GPL-3.0, the firmware is scheduled to ship first on the Keychron G6 HE next year.
Nouveau vs. NVIDIA R610 On CachyOS With The GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU
With the Razer Blade 18 as the first laptop Razer's certifying for (Ubuntu) Linux use while testing it out I was predominantly using the NVIDIA R610 official driver stack. Some users were interested though in how well this laptop is working with the open-source, upstream Nouveau+NVK driver stack given Razer is marketing this high-end laptop for Linux use too. Before sending the review unit back I had run some graphics benchmarks to see how Nouveau+NVK was performing for this Razer Blade RZ09-0582 with the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU.
AMD Zen 6 Client HSMP Patches Point To "Ryzen Master" Functionality On Linux
In an interesting twist, patches this week posted to the Linux kernel mailing list are enabling AMD Zen 6 client desktop and laptop SoCs for the HSMP driver. Up to now the AMD HSMP Linux driver was just used for modern EPYC server processors while now we are seeing this HSMP driver supporting the upcoming Medusa and Olympic Ridge client platforms... Including mentions of overclocking and even noting "Ryzen Master" as the Windows-only software for overclocking and system management...
[$] Reconsidering O_CREAT|O_DIRECTORY
Linux provides a system call ( mkdir() ) to create a directory, and a few variants of open() that can open a directory. There is, however, no system call in Linux that can create and open a directory in a single, race-free call. Jori Koolstra has been working on remedying that situation, most recently by repurposing a set of open() flags that currently return an error. There are, however, concerns that show just how hard it can be to create user-space interfaces that do not present traps for application developers.
Another batch of single-fix stable kernels
Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 6.18.41 , 6.12.100 , 6.6.147 , 6.1.180 , 5.15.213 , and 5.10.262 stable kernels. Each of these kernels contains a single fix for a use-after-free vulnerability ( CVE-2026-64560 ). Users of these kernels are advised to upgrade.
Xen 4.22 Released With AMD Zen 5 BLT Support, Improved RISC-V Virtualization
The Xen Project today released Xen 4.22 as the newest feature release of this open-source hypervisor popular for open-source virtualization in automotive systems and other embedded use-cases as well as the cloud...
Huawei Considers Open-Sourcing A Half-Hearted Mesa Vulkan Driver
A Huawei engineer posted to the Mesa mailing list today over potentially upstreaming a Vulkan driver they have developed for an in-house GPU. However, at least in current form, this new in-house GPU Vulkan driver is likely dead in the water from being upstreamed into Mesa...