Blog Section
Ariadne Conill, the creator of the Audacious music player, initiator of the IRCv3 protocol development, and leader of the Alpine Linux security team, conducted research on how to optimize the cat utility, which outputs one or multiple files to the standard output stream. To improve the performance of cat in Linux, two optimization options have been proposed, based on using the system calls sendfile and splice […]
In the nightly builds of Firefox, from which the release of Firefox 104 will be formed on August 23, an editing mode has been added to the built-in PDF document viewer, offering features such as freehand annotations and comment attachments. To enable the new mode, a parameter pdfjs.annotationEditorMode has been proposed on the about:config page. Until now, the built-in capabilities of Firefox […]
Within the xfwm4-wayland project, an independent enthusiast is developing a version of the xfwm4 window manager adapted for the Wayland protocol and ported to the Meson build system. Support for Wayland in xfwm4-wayland is provided through integration with the wlroots library, developed by the Sway desktop environment creators, which offers essential functions for running a compositing manager based on Wayland. Xfwm4 is utilized in the Xfce desktop environment […]
The release of the T2 SDE 21.6 meta-distribution has taken place, providing an environment for creating custom distributions, cross-compiling, and maintaining current package versions. Distributions can be built based on Linux, Minix, Hurd, OpenDarwin, Haiku, and OpenBSD. Among the popular distributions built on the T2 system is Puppy Linux. The project offers basic bootable ISO images with minimal graphical environments in various […]
After a year of development, the release of the Arcan desktop engine version 0.6.2 has been published, which combines a display server, multimedia framework, and game engine for processing 3D graphics. Arcan can be used to create various graphical systems, from user interfaces for embedded applications to standalone desktop environments. Among other applications, the three-dimensional desktop Safespaces for virtual reality systems is being developed based on Arcan […]
An experimental release of the open implementation of WinAPI — Wine 7.13 — has occurred. Since the release of version 7.12, 16 bug reports have been resolved and 226 changes have been made. Major changes include: The Gecko browser engine has been updated to version 2.47.3. The USB driver has been transitioned to use the PE (Portable Executable) file format instead of ELF. Improved theme support has been implemented. Bug reports have been resolved, […]
The author of the standard C library Cosmopolitan and the Redbean platform has announced the implementation of the pledge() isolation mechanism for Linux. Originally developed by the OpenBSD project, pledge allows selectively prohibiting applications from making unnecessary system calls (a sort of whitelist of system calls is created for the application while all other calls are denied). Unlike the access restriction mechanisms available in Linux, such as […]
Google has announced the readiness of the Chrome OS Flex operating system for widespread use. Chrome OS Flex is a standalone variant of Chrome OS designed for use on standard computers, not just on devices originally shipped with Chrome OS, like Chromebooks, Chromebases, and Chromeboxes. The main use cases for Chrome OS Flex include upgrading existing […]
After 8 months of development, a significant release of the specialized Tor Browser 11.5 has been presented, continuing the functionality development based on the ESR branch of Firefox 91. The browser focuses on providing anonymity, security, and privacy, with all traffic routed only through the Tor network. It is impossible to connect directly via the current system's standard network connection, which prevents tracking the user's real IP address (in the case of […]
The release of Rocky Linux 9.0 has occurred, aimed at creating a free build of RHEL capable of taking the place of traditional CentOS. The release is marked as ready for production deployments. The distribution is fully binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and can be used as a replacement for RHEL 9 and CentOS 9 Stream. Support for the Rocky Linux 9 branch will be provided until May 31 […]
Google has released a build of the Rocky Linux distribution, positioned as an official solution for users who utilized CentOS 8 in Google Cloud but faced the need to migrate to another distribution due to the early termination of CentOS 8 support by Red Hat. Two system images are prepared for download: a standard one and one specifically optimized for maximum network performance […]
The developers of the Lubuntu distribution have announced the publication of the Lubuntu Backports PPA repository, offering packages for installation in Lubuntu/Ubuntu 22.04 of the latest release of the LXQt 1.1 user environment. The initial builds of Lubuntu 22.04 come with the outdated LXQt 0.17 branch, released in April 2021. The Lubuntu Backports repository is currently in beta testing and was created similarly to the repository with fresh versions of the desktop […]