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FOSS
Kernel, distros, and the wider free and open source software world.
491 stories archived
Ubuntu Moving Ahead With Plans For Splitting Up Linux-Firmware, HWE Option
A few months back were discussions of a Linux firmware HWE package for Ubuntu to carry updated firmware blobs under the hardware enablement (HWE) umbrella. Plus also splitting up the monolithic linux-firmware package for easing of firmware updates. Those plans didn't materialize in time for the official Ubuntu 26.10 release but are now being pursued for Ubuntu 27.04 and may then be SRU'ed into Ubuntu 26.10 and potentially Ubuntu 26.04 LTS...
Linux Developers Look To Drop RT_GROUP_SCHED As It's "Broken Beyond Repair"
Linux kernel developers are looking at dropping the RT_GROUP_SCHED feature that is used for group scheduling of real-time tasks using cgroups...
Sound Subsystem Seeing Lots Of Fixes & Laptop/Device Quirks For Linux 7.4-rc2
The sound subsystem is seeing a "unsurprisingly high amount" fixes and device workarounds/quirks for this weekend's Linux 7.4-rc2 kernel release...
OpenCV 5.1 Brings More AVX-512 Optimizations, Other Improvements
OpenCV 5.0 debuted back in June with a rewritten DNN engine and many other exciting improvements for this widely-used computer vision (CV) library. Out today is OpenCV 5.1 with tons of fixes and other incremental improvements to this important code...
Firefox has a hidden game – here’s how to play it
If you get bored and fancy a quick game of something, you can play one in Firefox’s address bar – one you know how. Mozilla’s browser boasts an easter-egg, as spotted by Soeren Hentzschel, that is only triggered when using the address bar’s calculator feature. Normally, the sum of a calculation appears with an icon to copy the value to your clipboard. But if that sum is 150, a Firefox icon appears instead. Clicking this icon unfurls a drop-down with a playable version of the well-known mini-game Snake. To try it out, open Firefox, focus the address bar and type […] You're reading Firefox has a hidden game – here’s how to play it , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
AMDGPU Driver Seeing HDMI 2.2 FRL Fixes For Linux 7.4
With Linux 7.4 the AMDGPU driver enables HDMI 2.1 FRL functionality by default for driving higher refresh rate and higher resolution displays. That default enabling comes as HDMI FreeSync/VRR and ALLM features are also in place for Linux 7.4. Now coming by way of fixes for Linux 7.4 is also improving the Fixed Rate Link support with the newer HDMI 2.2 specification...
Linux 7.4's Build Time Performance From Optimizations But Also Larger Codebase
With Linux 7.4 the patches to speed-up the kernel build process began to land. This is the work that's yielded extremely fast incremental builds and noop builds. The patch series in full is also allowing kernel build times approaching just ten seconds with enough CPU cores. In today's article is a look at the Linux 7.3 vs. 7.4-rc1 build time performance on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro powered by Intel Panther Lake...
Linux's RAID6 Check Tool Sees 3x Performance Via Batching
For those that use Linux's raid6check command for checking/repairing an MD RAID6 software RAID array's device for errors, newly-merged code is showing up to a 3x performance improvement...
mpv 4.20 adds support for DVD & Blu-Ray menus, Wayland HDR
A new version of mpv, the open-source command line media player is out. mpv v0.42 is now able to navigate DVD menus, and the two menu systems that Blu-ray discs use, HDMV and BD-J (the latter requires Java). DVD-Audio support was also added, a nich format that offers higher-resolution audio. Plus, if you have any .iso backups of DVDs or Blu-ray Discs, mpv 0.42 can play those directly – no need to mount them first, which is neat. Elsewhere, a new libcurl based network backend was added, offering HTTP/2, HTTP/3 and connection reuse. Depending on the stream source and type, […] You're reading mpv 4.20 adds support for DVD & Blu-Ray menus, Wayland HDR , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Servo Browser Engine Continues Broadening Web Compatibility, New Features
The Servo open-source browser engine project is finally out with their status report highlighting the improvements made back in September. There is expanded web compatibility, new HTML and JavaScript features, WebGL2 improvements, and continued work on expanding the embed capabilities of this engine...
[$] User namespaces + file capabilities = trouble
User namespaces are a key part of the kernel's toolkit for assembling containers; processes within a user namespace can appear to have full root access to the system while gaining no extra privileges in the wider system. At least, that is the intent. In practice, keeping privilege contained within a user namespace has often turned out to be difficult. As an example, consider this small patch series from Josef Bacik, which is intended to address some situations where a process within a user namespace can elevate the privileges of processes outside of it.
Zlib 1.4 Released With More Than One Dozen Security Fixes
Zlib 1.4 is now available for this widely-used compression library. In these AI times, Zlib 1.4 ships with more than a dozen security fixes...
Linux Kernel Patches Posted For Review In Enabling Apple AirDrop Support
A set of Linux kernel patches have been posted for review with a hope of reaching the mainline kernel to provide Apple AirDrop support for Macs equipped with the T2 chip...
Mir 2.31 Released With Expanded Wayland Protocol Support
Mir 2.31 is now available as the latest feature release for this Canonical/Ubuntu solution for providing C++ libraries to build Wayland-based shells...
Ubuntu refreshes time zone data for Canadian clock changes
This time of the year, clocks spring forward and fall back across the globe, but some places are making permanent changes – and Ubuntu needs to keep pace. Over recent weeks, Canonical has refresh Ubuntu’s system time zone database package tzdata on all supported releases to ensure the system reflects the local time in parts of Canada, where: The system needs to show the right time for obvious reasons (alarms, calendar alerts, knowing when you need to go to bed), but some apps and tooling rely on the tzdata package when trying to calculate times and offsets. Thus, it’s helpful […] You're reading Ubuntu refreshes time zone data for Canadian clock changes , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.
Critical security vulnerability affects OpenSSH on Alpine Linux systems
Version 10.6p2 of OpenSSH has been released with a workaround for a critical vulnerability that affects Linux systems that use musl libc with PAM disabled, such as Alpine Linux . OpenSSH developer Damien Miller said : If you operate a Linux system that uses musl libc without PAM (Alpine Linux is one example) then stop reading and set PasswordAuthentication=no or disable SSH for these systems IMMEDIATELY. This vulnerability does not exist on non-Linux systems, Linux/glibc systems and Linux systems that use PAM for password authentication. We consider the root cause of this bug to be outside OpenSSH itself, but we're in a good position to deliver a mitigation quickly. The Alpine Linux project has announced that it will be backporting the OpenSSH fix " all the way back to Alpine 3.16 ", which was released in May 2022.
Linux'x New Core MM Tree Ready With Numerous Fixes For "Nasty Long-Standing Bugs"
New to the Linux 7.4 kernel cycle is the Core MM tree as the route for herding some of the core memory management Linux kernel patches to the mainline kernel rather than it all going through Andrew Morton's "MM" tree. As the second pull request from this new kernel tree, a number of fixes were sent out today to address "nasty long-standing bugs" within the kernel...
Mesa Merges A Common Vulkan Layer For Working Around Cross-Driver Game Bugs
Merged to Mesa 27.0-devel is a new common Vulkan layer within Mesa's Vulkan Runtime for being able to carry common game/engine/app workarounds that affect multiple drivers...
AMD-Backed Lemonade Local AI Server Ships Redesigned Desktop App & Web UI
The AMD-backed Lemonade local AI server shipped its version 2026.45.3 update on Wednesday that introduces a completely redesigned desktop app and web UI...
Omarchy 4.5 Released With Apple Silicon Support, More Desktop Customizations
Omarchy 4.5 is out today as a big feature update to this Arch Linux based operating system...
Systemd Wants Rust in, But its Core Will Have to Wait
The rustification is ongoing, with Rust-written programs now allowed and existing C code not being ported.
OpenAI Finds 948 Local Privilege Escalation Bugs In The Linux Kernel
OpenAI published a blog post outlining their work on autonomous vulnerability discovery. To showcase their AI potential, they found 948 valid local privilege escalation vulnerabilities within the Linux kernel...
MPV 0.42 Media Player Brings Wayland Improvements, Improved HDR
MPV as the open-source, cross-platform media player originally based on MPlayer/mplayer2 is finally out with a new release...
LXQt 2.5 Released With Enhanced QTerminal, Removing The Final LXDE Dependency
LXQt 2.5 released today as the newest feature update to this lightweight, Qt6-based desktop environment...