Patrick Volkerding announced the formation of the third and final release candidate for the Slackware 15.0 distribution, which has reached the freeze stage with 99% of packages ready before release. A 3.4 GB (x86_64) installation image has been prepared for download, along with a minimal build for live mode. Among the final changes before the freeze is the update of the Linux kernel to version 5.15.14 (consideration is being given to […]
A vulnerability (CVE-2021-3997) has been identified in the systemd utility systemd-tmpfiles, allowing for uncontrolled recursion. This issue can be exploited to create a denial of service during system boot by generating a large number of nested subdirectories in the /tmp directory. A patch is currently available as a fix. Package updates addressing the issue have been proposed in Ubuntu and SUSE but are not yet available in […]
A vulnerability (CVE-2021-4204) has been discovered in the eBPF subsystem, which allows running handlers inside the Linux kernel in a special JIT virtual machine, enabling a local unprivileged user to escalate privileges and execute their code at the Linux kernel level. The issue has been present since Linux kernel 5.8 and remains unfixed (affecting the 5.16 release as well). The status of the updates in development is […]
Jiri Konecny from Red Hat announced efforts to modernize and improve the user interface of the Anaconda installer used in Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, and some other Linux distributions. Notably, instead of using the GTK library, the new interface will be built on web technologies and will allow for remote management via a web browser. It is noted that the decision to revamp the installer has already […]
A release of the specialized Tails 4.26 distribution (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) has been formed, based on the Debian package base and designed for anonymous internet browsing. Anonymous access in Tails is provided by the Tor system. All connections, except traffic through the Tor network, are blocked by the firewall by default. For storing user data in persistent mode between boots, […] is used.
The release of the SDL 2.0.20 library (Simple DirectMedia Layer) has taken place, aimed at simplifying the development of games and multimedia applications. The SDL library provides tools such as hardware-accelerated output of 2D and 3D graphics, input processing, sound playback, and 3D output via OpenGL/OpenGL ES/Vulkan, along with many other supporting operations. The library is written in C and is distributed under the zlib license. To utilize SDL’s capabilities, […]
The far2l project, which has been developing the Far Manager port for Linux, BSD, and macOS since 2016, has entered the beta testing stage, with corresponding changes committed to the repository on January 12. Currently, the port, described on the project page as a fork, supports both console and graphical modes, with plugins such as colorer, multiarc, tmppanel, align, autowrap, drawline, editcase, SimpleIndent, […]
The release of DXVK 1.9.3 is available, providing an implementation of DXGI (DirectX Graphics Infrastructure), Direct3D 9, 10, and 11, working through call translation to the Vulkan API. To use DXVK, drivers supporting Vulkan API 1.1 are required, such as Mesa RADV 20.2, NVIDIA 415.22, Intel ANV 19.0, and AMDVLK. DXVK can be used to run 3D applications and games in […]
The release of the Firefox 96 web browser has taken place. Additionally, an update for the long-term support branch — 91.5.0 — has been formed. The Firefox 97 branch has entered beta testing, with a release scheduled for February 8. Key innovations: The ability to force-enable dark or light themes for websites has been added. The color scheme is changed by the browser and does not require support from the website, which […]
Solo.io, a company developing products for the operation of cloud systems, microservices, isolated containers, and serverless computing, has published an open toolset called BumbleBee, aimed at simplifying the preparation, distribution, and execution of eBPF programs that run in a special virtual machine inside the Linux kernel and allow for network operation processing, access control, and system monitoring. The code is written in Go and is distributed under the […]
Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of the open messenger Signal and co-author of the Signal protocol, which is also used for end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp, has announced his departure from the position of head of Signal Messenger LLC, overseeing the development of the Signal app and protocol. Until a new leader is selected, the responsibilities of interim CEO will be taken on by Brian Acton, co-founder and head of […]
After seven months of development, the release of DragonFlyBSD 6.2 has been published, an operating system with a hybrid kernel created in 2003 for the alternative development of the FreeBSD 4.x branch. Features of DragonFly BSD include the distributed versioning file system HAMMER, support for booting 'virtual' system kernels as user processes, and the ability to cache file system data and metadata on SSDs, considering contextual variant symbolic […]