Slashdot: Linux

Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Within yesterday's Linux 6.9-rc4 release is an interesting little nugget by Linus Torvalds to battle Kconfig parsers that can't correctly handle tabs but rather just assume spaces for whitespace for this kernel configuration format. Due to a patch having been queued last week to replace a tab with a space character in the kernel tracing Kconfig file, Linus Torvalds decided to take matters into his own hand for Kconfig parsers that can't deal with tabs... To…

Ubuntu 24.10 [expected this October] and Debian GNU/Linux 13 "Trixie" [expected June-July 2025] "will feature a refined APT command-line interface," reports 9to5Linux: APT developer and Canonical engineer Julian Andres Klode took to LinkedIn to present the revamped APT interface powered by the upcoming APT 3.0 package manager that looks to give users a more concise and well-laid-out command-line output when updating, installing, or removing packages via the terminal emulator. The new APT 3.0 UI…

An anonymous reader shared this report from BleepingComputer: Researchers have demonstrated the "first native Spectre v2 exploit" for a new speculative execution side-channel flaw that impacts Linux systems running on many modern Intel processors. Spectre V2 is a new variant of the original Spectre attack discovered by a team of researchers at the VUSec group from VU Amsterdam. The researchers also released a tool that uses symbolic execution to identify exploitable code segments within the Lin…

According to StatCounter, Linux on the desktop has continued to rise and remain above 4%. GamingOnLinux reports: First hitting over 4% in February, their March data is now in showing not just staying above 4% but rising a little once again showing the trend is clear that Linux use is rising. Slow and steady wins the race as they say. [Last March, Linux on the desktop was at 2.85%.] Technically, ChromeOS is also Linux, and while people like to debate that if you do include Linux and ChromeOS tog…

The Document Foundation: Following a successful pilot project, the northern German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has decided to move from Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office to Linux and LibreOffice (and other free and open source software) on the 30,000 PCs used in the local government. As reported on the homepage of the Minister-President: "Independent, sustainable, secure: Schleswig-Holstein will be a digital pioneer region and the first German state to introduce a digitally soverei…

Bill Toulas reports via BleepingComputer: Firmware security firm Binarly has released a free online scanner to detect Linux executables impacted by the XZ Utils supply chain attack, tracked as CVE-2024-3094. CVE-2024-3094 is a supply chain compromise in XZ Utils, a set of data compression tools and libraries used in many major Linux distributions. Late last month, Microsoft engineer Andres Freud discovered the backdoor in the latest version of the XZ Utils package while investigating unusually …

"What a time we live in," writes Phoronix, "where Microsoft not only continues contributing significantly to the Linux kernel but doing so to further flesh out the design of the Linux kernel's Rust programming language support..." Microsoft engineer Wedson Almeida Filho has sent out the latest patches working on Allocation APIs for the Rust Linux kernel code and also in leveraging those proposed APIs [as] a means of allowing in-place module initialization for Rust kernel modules. Wedson Almeida…

BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: In a recent security announcement, Red Hat's Information Risk and Security and Product Security teams have identified a critical vulnerability in the latest versions of the 'xz' compression tools and libraries. The affected versions, 5.6.0 and 5.6.1, contain malicious code that could potentially allow unauthorized access to systems. Fedora Linux 40 users and those using Fedora Rawhide, the development distribution for future Fedora builds, are at risk…

An anonymous reader shares a report: Mutterings of alarm are emerging from the cloisters of Red Hat after the world's largest management consultancy was hired to help the IBM subsidiary focus engineers on their highest-value work. Red Hat confirmed the partnership with McKinsey & Company to The Reg, sharing this extract from an email from CTO Chris Wright to the Global Engineering Team: "Hey everyone -- as I mentioned during the recent Q1 All Hands, my goal is to have Global Engineering recogni…

Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Given the recent change by Redis to adopt dual source-available licensing for all their releases moving forward (Redis Source Available License v2 and Server Side Public License v1), the Linux Foundation announced today their fork of Redis. The Linux Foundation went public today with their intent to fork Valkey as an open-source alternative to the Redis in-memory store. Due to the Redis licensing changes, Valkey is forking from Redis 7.2.4 and will maintain…

BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu operating system, has announced a significant extension to the support lifecycle of its long-term support (LTS) releases. The new paid Legacy Support add-on for Ubuntu Pro subscribers will now provide security maintenance and support for an impressive 12 years, extending the previous 10-year commitment. This enhancement is available starting with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and will benefit both enterprises and in…

"Until recently, Linux kernel developers have been the ones keeping long-term support (LTS) versions of the Linux kernel patched and up to date," writes ZDNet. "Then, because it was too much work with too little support, the Linux kernel developers decided to no longer support the older kernels." Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Linux kernel maintainer for the stable branch, announced that the Linux 4.14.336 release was the last maintenance update to the six-year-old LTS Linux 4.14 kernel series. It was…

An anonymous reader shares a report: Linus Torvalds has released version 6.8 of the Linux Kernel. "So it took a bit longer for the commit counts to come down this release than I tend to prefer," Torvalds wrote on the Linx kernel mailing list on Sunday, "but a lot of that seemed to be about various selftest updates (networking in particular) rather than any actual real sign of problems." "And the last two weeks have been pretty quiet, so I feel there's no real reason to delay 6.8." So he deliver…

Ubuntu-based Linux Mint includes HexChat software by default "to offer a way for users of the distro to talk to, ask questions, and get support from other users," according to the Linux blog OMG Ubuntu. But in February HexChat's developer announced its final release... That got devs thinking. As is, IRC isn't user-friendly. It's a kind of an arcane magic involving strange commands. Its onboarding is obtuse. And the protocol doesn't natively support things like media sharing (screenshots are use…

"A 20-year-old Trojan resurfaced recently," reports Dark Reading, "with new variants that target Linux and impersonate a trusted hosted domain to evade detection." Researchers from Palo Alto Networks spotted a new Linux variant of the Bifrost (aka Bifrose) malware that uses a deceptive practice known as typosquatting to mimic a legitimate VMware domain, which allows the malware to fly under the radar. Bifrost is a remote access Trojan (RAT) that's been active since 2004 and gathers sensitive in…