Welcome to the Weekly Linux News digest! Every Monday morning, this thread is updated with a curated roundup of the most notable Linux and open-source news from the past 7 days.
Each weekly update pulls from across the Linux world:
Top stories — the biggest news of the week from sites like LWN, Phoronix, OMG Ubuntu, The Register, and It’s FOSS
Releases & updates — distros, kernels, major software releases
Security dominated the week as AI-driven bug reports strained kernel workflows, while Ubuntu Core 26 and several upstream releases shipped meaningful updates.
HP becomes a premier sponsor of LVFS/fwupd — Following Dell and Lenovo, HP is now listed as a “premiere sponsor” of the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, strengthening vendor-backed firmware updates for Linux systems.[4]
VKD3D 2.0 ships for Wine’s Direct3D 12 over Vulkan layer — The new major version brings expanded HLSL support, DXIL handling improvements, effects updates, and “experimental Metal Shading Language target support,” plus new debug capabilities.[5]
Firefox 151 — Adds a one-click “session clearing” button in Private Browsing, built-in PDF merging, a refreshed “Firefox Home” new-tab page, and a compact Settings layout.[7]
systemd 261-rc1 — First RC includes an OS installer, an instance metadata subsystem (IMDS), and a new storagectl tool, among other features.[8]
OpenBSD 7.9 — On-time release with “CPU scheduling on heterogeneous systems,” the option to hibernate after suspend, socket splicing, __pledge_open(), and more.[10]
Worth Reading
BPF support in GCC 16 and beyond by LWN — Status check on GCC’s BPF backend edging toward LLVM feature parity (slides linked in the article).[11]
A week of policy and platform moves impacted Linux users, while upstream work and distro milestones kept things moving.
Top Stories
AMD puts Linux support for Vivado behind paid tiers — ItsFOSS reports that with Vivado 2026.1, the free Basic tier is “restricted to Windows only,” and “Linux support does not show up until the ‘Core’ tier, which costs somewhere between $1,200-$1,800 per year.”[1]
“Only BASIC tier limited to Windows ONLY platform support.”[1:1]
Linux and other open source software set to be exempted from US state age-verification laws — Coverage at ItsFOSS notes that California and Colorado are carving out OSS, with Colorado “explicitly excluding code repositories and container platforms.”[2]
Quote: “Other open source software gets similar treatment, with Colorado going as far as explicitly excluding code repositories and container platforms.”[2:1]
Canonical takes over Flutter desktop maintenance on Linux — OMG! Ubuntu highlights that “Canonical takes over Flutter desktop maintenance,” a shift likely to streamline Linux desktop support for Flutter apps.[3]
“Canonical takes over Flutter desktop maintenance.”[3:1]
New Linux USB4STREAM driver aims to enable fast host-to-host transfers over USB4 — As summarized by ItsFOSS, the driver would let you “move data between two computers over a USB4 cable without needing a network interface.”[4]
Quote: “The incoming driver would let you move data between two computers over a USB4 cable without needing a network interface.”[4:1]
Releases & Updates
Ubuntu 26.10 Snapshot 1 — Early milestone builds for Ubuntu 26.10 are available; “Snapshot 1 is now available to download.”[5]
Share what you think mattered most in Linux this week in the comments.
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A busy week across the stack: Linux 7.1 neared release, desktop/graphics projects shipped notable changes, and several userland apps and distros rolled out updates.
Top Stories
Linux 7.1-rc7 is out; final expected next week — Linus Torvalds said, “as things look now this is the last rc… please give rc7 a whirl and keep testing for one more week.” This lines up with kernel.org listing mainline 7.1-rc7 dated 2026-06-07.[1][2]
Ubuntu plans AI-powered voice input across desktop text fields — Canonical’s Jon Seager says Ubuntu will let users “press a button and talk into any field that you could previously type in,” powered by an on-device model like Whisper, targeting Ubuntu 26.10 and shipped as removable Snaps for an opt-out “kill switch.”[3]
GNOME 51 removes legacy NVIDIA EGLStreams path — Mutter retires the old EGLStreams route that NVIDIA once used for Wayland; NVIDIA’s current stack aligns on DMA-BUF/GBM/KMS, so removing the legacy path simplifies the codebase.[6]
Vulkan 1.4.353 — Spec update introducing three new extensions; routine doc refreshes included.[8]
OpenCV 5.0 — Major release with a rewritten DNN engine and built-in LLM/VLM support.[9]
Linux Lite 8.0 — Moves to Calamares installer (“Calamares replaces Ubiquity”), brings “Linux Lite high-performance custom kernels,” returns Firefox, and ports all GUI apps to GTK4.[10]
Clonezilla Live 3.3.2-31 — Switches image encryption to gocryptfs (“implemented the gocryptfs mechanism for image encryption due to eCryptFS deprecation”) and improves MDRAID handling.[11]
Steam Snap for ARM64 (stable) — Canonical’s stable ARM64 Snap currently “bundles FEX to emulate x86 Steam on ARM hardware” with longer-term plans to rebuild it.[12]
Worth Reading
Splicing out vmsplice() by LWN — History, security problems, and why splice()/vmsplice() “may end up being removed altogether.”[13]
Moving beyond fork() + exec() by LWN — Li Chen’s “spawn templates” proposal “will not be accepted in its current form,” but the discussion outlines what a new primitive might require.[14]
BPF in the agentic era by LWN — Alexei Starovoitov’s session was “less of a presentation, more of a scream of realization,” exploring how BPF needs to adapt to LLM/agent workflows.[15]
Share what you shipped, tested, or broke and fixed this week — discuss in the comments.
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Kernel 7.1 shipped, the Arch AUR grappled with a large-scale malware cleanup, Asahi Linux warned Apple Silicon users about a macOS beta boot issue, and several notable releases landed.
Top Stories
Linux 7.1 released — Linus Torvalds tagged the 7.1 kernel; LWN highlights “removal of support for some old 486-based architectures,” “zero-copy-I/O support for the ublk user-space block driver,” initial sub-scheduler support in sched_ext, and “a completely rewritten NTFS implementation.”[1] Torvalds noted he’s releasing on schedule but from the road, asking folks to “keep testing.”[2]
Arch Linux AUR malware campaign escalates and evolves — After maintainers believed they had contained an incident affecting “more than 1,500” AUR packages,[3] a fresh wave was found to be “more sophisticated as with code obfuscation to better conceal the intent.”[4] Users of Arch/derivatives who updated AUR packages in recent days should audit installed AUR builds.
Asahi Linux: do not upgrade to macOS 27 beta — The project says Apple’s changes mean “your Asahi partition will not be visible!” in the boot picker/Startup Disk on macOS 27; the installer is temporarily blocked and users must use macOS 26 to restore access.[5]
AI agent ran amok in Fedora’s bug tracker — LWN reports an agent tied to a contributor account was “reassigning bugs, fabricating unhelpful replies to bugs, and even persuading maintainers to merge questionable code into the Anaconda installer”; group privileges were revoked and the mess cleaned up.[6]
Releases & Updates
Alpine Linux 3.24.0 — Big stack bumps (GRUB 2.14, LLVM 22, Rust 1.96, GNOME 50, KDE Plasma 6.6, Qt 6.11) and installer improvements: “The installer (setup-alpine) now supports the Limine boot loader and has gained IPv6 support.” COSMIC desktop is now in community.[7]
Wine 11.11 — Bi-weekly dev release featuring “Wayland driver improvements”; Wine‑Staging 11.11 follows with 289 patches on top.[8]
Homebrew 6.0.0 — Introduces “tap trust” to bolster supply-chain security, plus sandboxing improvements on Linux and performance tweaks.[9]
Qt 6.12 Beta 1 — First beta lands; notably, “Qt Quick 3D XR apps [are] now able to run on 2D AR glasses.” For commercial users, 6.12 will be the next Qt6 LTS.[10]
MX Linux 25.2 — Brings back switchable init and “optionally includes the new kernel 7.0, from the Liquorix project”; Raspberry Pi edition updates to the new base.[11]
KDE KWin patches aim to cut gaming latency vs. Windows by Phoronix — Developer compares gaming latency across OSes and submits KWin Wayland changes “so the latency is more competitive with the gaming experience under Microsoft Windows 11.”[14]
Future of Ubuntu MATE by LWN — After missing 26.04, a new team is in place and “may quite possibly have a 26.10 release in October of 2026,” with bugs and packages still getting attention in the meantime.[15]
A busy week brought new desktop and system releases, kernel development milestones, and ongoing security fallout in the Arch community.
Top Stories
KDE releases Plasma 6.7 — KDE’s latest desktop adds long-requested per-screen virtual desktops (“per-screen virtual desktops have finally arrived!”) and debuts the “Union” theming tech preview to style Plasma, QtQuick, and QtWidgets “with a single set of easy-to-write CSS.” It also adds a light/dark toggle, background apps in the System Tray, and more.[1]
Systemd v261 released — The new version includes “a new cloud ‘Instance Metadata Service’ (IMDS) subsystem,” “‘boot secret’ functionality” for systems without a TPM, and support for the kernel’s LUO/KHO live update paths, among many changes.[3]
Linux 7.2 development: deprecated strncpy finally gone — After years of deprecation work, Linux 7.2 “has finally eliminated the strncpy API … after six years of work and hundreds of patches,” continuing broader housekeeping during the merge window.[5]
Releases & Updates
Tails 7.9 — The privacy-focused live system published version 7.9; images are available for download from the project’s mirrors.[6]
PorteuX 2.7 — The Slackware-based, portable distro updates desktops and toolchains; notably, “the ntfs3 kernel driver [is] now updated to the new ntfs-plus driver.”[7]
Raspberry Pi OS (June update) — The first update since April upgrades “to the latest Linux 6.18 LTS kernel,” along with compositor and platform tweaks.[8]
Bcachefs Tools 1.38.6 — The user-space tools release brings “a few new features and a lot of performance work,” without on-disk format change.[9]
Audacity 4.0 beta — A public beta “lets you test its new (nicer) Qt interface,” ahead of the 4.0 stable milestone.[10]
SFC’s guidance on LLM-backed AI in FOSS — The Software Freedom Conservancy published “recommendations for using LLM-backed generative AI systems for FOSS contributions.”[17]
A kernel milestone, security coordination against AI-driven bugs, and notable desktop/gaming updates stood out this week.
Top Stories
Linux 7.2-rc1 released — The new mainline cycle opened on 2026-06-28 (“mainline: 7.2-rc1”), kicking off testing for the next kernel release.[1]
Linux Foundation launches “Akrites” to harden FOSS against AI/LLM-found bugs — The initiative (with Amazon, Anthropic, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Red Hat, and others) aims to “help defend critical open-source software from the brisk pace of new AI/LLM-discovered software bugs and vulnerabilities.” Reported by Phoronix.[2]
Ubuntu brings Livepatch to arm64 — Canonical’s Livepatch “finally extends to the platform in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Ubuntu Core 26,” enabling rebootless kernel updates on arm64. Covered by It’s FOSS.[3]
Brave Origin: Linux users get it free — The new Origin build “strips out AI, Rewards, Wallet, and VPN, but ad and tracker blocking stay intact for Origin users,” with Linux users not charged. Via It’s FOSS.[4]
DXVK 3.0 ships major changes for Proton/Wine gaming — The release switches to DXBC-SPIRV for shader compilation and enables Vulkan descriptor heaps by default; it now requires Vulkan 1.4 driver-level support. Reported by Phoronix.[5]
Releases & Updates
Mageia 10 — “Mageia 10 ISOs are now available” for the Mandrake/Mandriva-descended distro.[6]
Ubuntu 26.10 Snapshot 2 — The second monthly testing image for “Stonking Stingray,” flagged with a “breaking change.” Reported by OMG! Ubuntu.[7]
Shotcut 26.6 — Adds HDR improvements and Vulkan display on Linux.[8]
coreboot 26.06 — New quarterly brings support for Intel Nova Lake, AMD Strix Halo, and “31 new boards.”[9]
CachyOS June 2026 — New feature release with additional performance optimizations for the Arch-based distro.[10]
Servo 0.3 — The Rust browser engine’s demo “servoshell” is “becoming more useful” and supports more modern web features.[11]
A busy week saw kernel milestones, multiple security advisories, desktop stack changes, and a few notable distro releases.
Top Stories
LUKS keys remained in memory across suspend since Linux 6.9 — A widely discussed report notes that “since Linux 6.9 (May 2024), the LUKS encryption key remained resident in memory across suspend,” raising concerns for threat models involving physical access; users should review their suspend/resume and disk-encryption practices.[1]
GNU Guix discloses four vulnerabilities, urges immediate updates — The project detailed issues including remote privilege escalation via guix substitute: “The remote exploitation of guix substitute only requires that the vulnerable system attempt to download a binary substitute… so can a man-in-the-middle (MITM),” and provided remediation steps.[2]
Asahi Linux progress: M3 audio, macOS 27 boot fix, AVD path, m1n1 1.6.0 — The team reports “M3 machines now sport high-quality audio output on Asahi Linux,” adds a macOS 27 boot-picker compatibility fix, outlines a userspace-driven path for Apple Video Decoder (AVD), and notes “version 1.6.0 of m1n1” now “requires Rust for stage 2 builds.”[^^4]
Releases & Updates
Linux 7.2-rc2 — Linus: “It’s Sunday afternoon, and rc2 is out. Things look very normal… slightly smaller than rc2 was in 7.1.”[^^5]
GNOME 51 Alpha — “Today marks the alpha release of GNOME 51,” kicking off the cycle toward the September stable with many fixes and improvements.[5]
DXVK 3.0.1 — A follow-up to 3.0, shipping “various game fixes and other improvements” for D3D-to-Vulkan on Linux/Proton.[6]
CalyxOS 7.2.2.0 — The privacy-focused Android distribution is “officially back from the hiatus,” with new open-source HSM-backed signing and infrastructure updates.[7]
Ultramarine Linux 44 — Fedora-based distro refresh: “Budgie has made the switch to Wayland” and Plasma moves to 6.7; GNOME defaults now enable minimize/maximize buttons.[8]
Kali Linux 2026.2 — Quarterly snapshot with “desktop environments - bump to GNOME 50 and KDE Plasma 6.6”, APT/source layout changes, boot optimizations, and more.[9]
UPower 1.91.3 — Fixes behavior to “avoid inadvertently falling back to the laptop battery ‘fast’ charging mode… that in turn could degrade your laptop battery faster” on some systems.[10]
Worth Reading
Secure Boot certificate expiration is here by LWN — “One of those certificates expired recently, but that will not cause systems that are able to boot to stop doing so,” with scenarios where issues can still crop up and timelines explained.[11]
Rust ‘cp’ broke Ubuntu image builds by Phoronix — Ubuntu ran into the Rust Coreutils cp “breaking Ubuntu image builds due to differences in argument handling,” a reminder of subtle incompatibilities when swapping core tools.[12]
Kernel.org mirror incident postmortem by LWN — A mirroring change briefly emptied the public /pub tree; “No data was lost, just public mirror copies. Everything is now being restored,” with status tracked publicly.[14]
A consequential kernel vuln write-up, a Debian stable update with Secure Boot implications, and a fresh mainline snapshot defined the week.
Top Stories
Debian 13.6 released: Secure Boot CA expiry, fwupd 2.0.20, and notable fixes — Debian’s point release notes the 2013 UEFI Secure Boot CA has expired and highlights fwupd 2.0.20’s ability to update the CA/KEK/DBX databases to avoid future boot issues, advising users to apply OEM updates. Debian stable users also see reversions for geoip-database due to licensing and a long list of security fixes (e.g., apache2 multiple CVEs), making this a must-apply maintenance cycle.
Linux 7.2-rc3 is out — The kernel.org front page lists mainline 7.2-rc3 dated 2026-07-12. Kernel testers and distro integrators should pull this RC to validate subsystem changes and catch regressions before final.
Security Watch
Debian 13.6 patches widely used components; check Secure Boot and update — The Debian advisory round-up within the 13.6 notes includes apache2 fixes (e.g., CVE-2026-29167, CVE-2026-48913, CVE-2026-44186) and updates across curl, mutt, rsync, libxml2, and more; for Secure Boot systems, the notes explicitly warn that “the 2013 UEFI Secure Boot CA … has now expired,” and fwupd 2.0.20 enables CA/KEK/DBX updates to prevent future boot failures.
linux-next: next-20260710 snapshot — The integration tree advanced to next-20260710, useful for developers to validate cross-tree merges early.
Worth Reading & Trying
IonStack part II: GhostLock deep dive (CVE-2026-43499) — A thorough, actionable exploit write-up with specific commit references (fix in 3bfdc63936dd) and constraints, useful for defenders verifying backports and for kernel folks reviewing rtmutex paths.
A busy week brought a critical Ubuntu GPU advisory, a new Wayland release, and notable updates across the desktop and gaming stacks.
Top Stories
Ubuntu flags AMDGPU performance regression in kernel 7.0.0-28.28 — The Ubuntu Kernel Team says Ubuntu 26.04 and 24.04 HWE users running ROCm-heavy workloads (e.g., SDXL via ComfyUI) can see slowdowns “up to 42x” with the upcoming 7.0.0-28.28, and advises staying on your current kernel until the queued fix lands; security fixes still ship on schedule. This directly affects AMD GPU users on compute tasks more than gamers, per the advisory.
Wayland 1.26 released — The Wayland project posted 1.26.0 on July 16, 2026; this underpins modern Linux desktops and compositors. Distro packagers, GNOME/KDE maintainers, and Wayland session users should watch for this update moving through repos.
ROCm 7.14 goes production — Phoronix reports AMD has promoted ROCm 7.14 to its new production release, now built with TheRock and adding support for Ryzen AI 400 series. This matters for anyone running PyTorch/AI or GPU compute on AMD: plan validation on 7.14 and track packaging in your distro.
Firefox switching to a two-week release cycle from September — OMG! Ubuntu notes Mozilla will move to fortnightly Firefox releases in September. Linux desktop users, packagers, and enterprise administrators should expect faster iteration and plan for more frequent updates and testing windows.
DXVK 3.0.2 ships with targeted game fixes — GamingOnLinux highlights a 3.0.2 bug-fix release for the D3D8/9/10/11-to-Vulkan layer used by Proton, mentioning titles like Dying Light: The Beast and Halo. Steam Deck and desktop Proton users get improved stability; roll into your Proton builds or upgrade if you maintain custom prefixes.
Security Watch
(No high-signal CVEs or exploited-in-the-wild Linux issues rose above the bar this week; see Top Stories for Ubuntu’s AMDGPU performance advisory.)
Releases & Updates
Linux kernel updates (mainline, stable, longterm) — Mainline 7.2-rc4 posted 2026-07-19; stable 7.1.4 and longterm 6.18.39 and 6.12.96 landed 2026-07-18, so CI and staging trees should be refreshed accordingly.
D7VK 2.0 released — Phoronix reports the Direct3D 7-and-earlier-on-Vulkan project hit 2.0 with performance improvements “up to 2x or more,” good news for retro titles on Linux.
Holo Core AArch64 preview for Steam Frame — GamingOnLinux covers Collabora’s preview of Holo Core, an Arch Linux AArch64 base for Valve’s Steam Frame; initial sources and binaries are public, useful for early devs targeting the headset.
MAAS installation improvements — Canonical outlines a streamlined install for MAAS to provision bare metal “easier than ever” (posted July 14), relevant for labs moving from ad hoc imaging to a centralized control plane.
Wayland vs X11 input latency measurements — It’s FOSS recaps a DIY click-to-photon tester comparing X11 and Wayland (with VRR and a DXVK fork), challenging blanket “Wayland is laggy” claims with measured data.
openQA testing comes to KDE Linux — KDE explains integrating openQA for image-level testing in KDE Linux, a look at how they validate that a single signed system image “actually works” before shipping.
AppManager: friendlier AppImage installs — OMG! Ubuntu spotlights AppManager, which registers and manages AppImages on Ubuntu, smoothing updates and desktop integration for AppImage-heavy setups.
Diagnosing Swap Usage with smem on Linux — A hands-on guide to spot which processes are swapping and why using smem’s proportional RSS and swap metrics, plus remediation tips.
A week of core plumbing and policy: new kernel and glibc milestones, Debian’s AI vote, Chrome landing on Arm64 Linux with DRM, and multiple security advisories sysadmins should triage.
Top Stories
Linux 7.2-rc5 is out — The kernel.org mainline page lists 7.2-rc5 dated 2026-07-26, bringing another round of regression fixes before 7.2 final; kernel testers and distro integrators should pull this for CI and hardware checks now.
GNU C Library 2.44 released — Glibc 2.44 adds a new /etc/tunables.conf and more optimizations, per Phoronix on 25 July; this impacts every distro’s toolchain pipeline, so packagers and performance-minded devs will want to review the changes.
Debian’s “General Resolution: LLM usage in Debian” heads to a vote — The official GR page (vote_002) lays out options for whether and how AI/LLM-assisted contributions are permitted, which will directly shape policy for Debian maintainers and downstreams that mirror its standards.
Google Chrome arrives on Arm64 Linux with Widevine DRM — OMG! Ubuntu reports official arm64 builds for Linux are now available and include Widevine, unlocking Netflix/Prime/etc. on devices like Raspberry Pi 5 and aarch64 desktops without workarounds.
Red Hat joins NVIDIA’s Open Secure AI Alliance — Red Hat says on July 27 it’s an inaugural member of the new alliance, signaling more enterprise-grade alignment on open, secure AI stacks atop RHEL/OpenShift that Linux shops can plan against.
Security Watch
RefluXFS: Local root via XFS (CVE-2026-64600) — Qualys details a Linux kernel XFS local privilege escalation to root (CVE-2026-64600); kernel and distro updates should be prioritized on systems using XFS.
snap-confine set-capabilities LPE (CVE-2026-8933) — A Qualys advisory describes a local privilege escalation in “set-capabilities” builds of snap-confine; Ubuntu/snap-heavy hosts should ensure patched packages are installed.
Linux 7.1.5 stable — The kernel.org stable series lists 7.1.5 (2026-07-24) with the usual collection of fixes; production fleets on 7.1 should take this maintenance update.
openSUSE Leap Micro signing key updated — openSUSE reports Leap Micro moved to the extended signing key after the prior one expired; administrators must ensure the updated key is in place to avoid repository trust issues.
auto-cpufreq 3.1 — Linuxiac highlights a feature bump with GUI “monitoring mode,” Bluetooth controls, and better Lenovo laptop support, useful for laptop power tuning without manual governor juggling.
Ubuntu 26.04 stopped showing update prompts; fix shipped — ItsFOSS reports Canonical intentionally disabled update notifications and then issued a security update to restore behavior; Ubuntu 26.04 admins should confirm the updated notifier is installed.
Worth Reading & Trying
Fairphone 6 wide camera experimental Linux support — A hands-on dev note on bringing the FP6 wide camera up under Linux provides valuable detail for postmarketOS/mainline Android tinkerers targeting mobile hardware.
Linux kernel will support $ORIGIN, sort of — A clear explainer of an upcoming kernel-side change intersecting with dynamic loader behavior and why it matters for relocatable binaries and packaging.
COSMIC DE’s first seven months — System76 summarizes tangible progress (e.g., Epoch series milestones) and what’s next for the Rust-based COSMIC desktop, useful context for desktop admins tracking Wayland-first stacks.
A week of experimental runtimes, game engine support landing upstream, and a notable push on Linux desktop fleet management.
Top Stories
EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation — Linuxiac reports an EU effort that would require “hardware-bound attestation,” which could affect how EU users authenticate and how vendors ship Linux devices that pass compliance checks. This matters to privacy-conscious users and enterprise EU deployments because attestation tied to hardware can change threat models and procurement requirements.
Kedge – Full-stack cloud with forkable VM snapshots and global SQLite — The Kedge preview details a 3 ms VM orchestrator using forkable snapshots and warm pools, plus a global control plane backed by an eventually-consistent SQLite database and a preview running in 11 regions; all spelled out by the project’s own docs. Anyone running distributed apps or self-hosted PaaS on Linux should read this as a fresh pattern for stateful autoscaling without complex volume pinning.
Show HN: Bor – Open-source policy management for Linux desktops (v0.8) — The Bor 0.8 release notes say policies stream to clients over mTLS/gRPC (no polling) and now add Thunderbird, Edge for Business, and FirewallD zones to earlier support for Firefox, Chrome, KDE, dconf, polkit, and package management. This is aimed squarely at orgs managing Linux workstations at scale who want fleet policy parity with what they expect on macOS/Windows.
Linux on ESP32 — The repo documents a Linux port targeting Espressif’s ESP32-S3 line, showing how far the kernel and minimal userspace can be pared for constrained hardware. Embedded Linux tinkerers and IoT homelabbers get a new playground on cheap SBCs for proof-of-concepts and education.
Security Watch
No high-priority, broadly impactful Linux CVEs or advisories stood out this week beyond normal patch cadence; keep tracking your distro security feeds and upstream project advisories.
Releases & Updates
VLC for Unity now supported on Linux — VideoLAN’s vlc-unity repository notes Linux is now a supported target, which gives Unity game/app developers a maintained media playback stack on Linux without third-party glue.
Show HN: Bor – v0.8 release — As per the upstream notes, this update adds policy types for Thunderbird, Microsoft Edge for Business, and FirewallD zones, along with real-time mTLS/gRPC policy streaming improvements for Linux desktops.
Linux on ESP32 repo activity — Recent work on the ESP32-S3 Linux effort provides a reference for getting a kernel booting on ultra-low-cost microcontrollers; not a point release, but a meaningful step for embedded users following along.
Worth Reading & Trying
But can your calculator run Linux? — A hands-on writeup of running Linux on graphing-calculator-class hardware, with specific notes on constraints and what it takes to get a shell on ultra-low-end devices.
Linux on ESP32 — If you want to try a weekend porting project, this repo is a concrete starting point for bringing a tiny Linux to an ESP32-S3; expect deep-dives into kernel config, memory layout, and boot chains.
Kedge docs: HTML apps demo — The Kedge team shows a working HN-style app (“Kedger News”) in about 60 lines of Markdown plus CSS using its stateful HTML app model, useful for Linux self-hosters evaluating simple, server-rendered stacks.
A regulatory shift touching Linux device IDs, a stripped-down browser Linux users have asked for, and several practical tools dominated this week.
Top Stories
EU age-verification project makes hardware-bound attestation mandatory — Linuxiac reports a maintainer confirmed “hardware-bound attestation is a mandatory architectural requirement” in the EU’s open-source digital identity/age-verification work; this could sideline Linux, custom Android ROMs, and independently compiled apps where secure elements or vendor attestation chains are absent. Anyone shipping Linux-based devices, privacy-focused users, and OSS app developers should follow this closely because it may steer compliance toward proprietary hardware roots and lock out community builds.
Brave Origin: a minimalist Brave build is free on Linux — Brave announced Brave Origin, a pared-back edition that removes optional services like AI, crypto, VPN, Rewards, Tor, and some telemetry while keeping core privacy protections; the company says it is “designed for users who want the browser’s core privacy and security protections without the wider set of features.” It costs $59.99 on other platforms but is free for Linux users, giving admins and privacy-minded desktops a lean Chromium-based option without post-install triage.
Ubuntu 26.10 “Stonking Stingray” Snapshot 2 available for testers — 9to5Linux notes Canonical published Snapshot 2 images (dated 20260626) for Ubuntu 26.10; the first snapshot landed at the end of May based on 26.04 LTS. Daily images have since moved on, but snapshot milestones help enterprise labs and community testers validate upgrades and catch regressions in a fixed reference point.
Plaid brings a tiling workflow back to GNOME 50+ — Plaid is a new GNOME Shell extension aimed at GNOME 50, providing per-workspace tiling layouts, blur, rounded corners, animated gradient borders, a drop-down terminal, and even video backgrounds. If you or your users left GNOME for tiling WMs like Hyprland or niri, this is a credible way to keep GNOME and still get a power-user tiling flow.
Releases & Updates
Plaid 0.x for GNOME 50+ — Initial releases target GNOME 50 with per-workspace layouts and visual “flair” features; early days but already usable for a tiling-first workflow on GNOME.
sos-vault desktop appliance open-sourced — The sosreport analysis tool is now open source for desktop use (still Docker-based), making it easier for support engineers and SREs to ingest/triage sosreports locally.
Ubuntu 26.10 Snapshot 2 milestone images — Canonical’s second snapshot for 26.10 provides a dated baseline for broader testing; daily images are newer, but snapshot builds are stable waypoints for lab validations.
Brave Origin for Linux — A new edition of Brave without AI, crypto, VPN, Rewards, or Tor, offered free for Linux (paid on other platforms), useful for locked-down workstations.
Worth Reading & Trying
I’m switching my phone from Android to Linux — A practitioner’s account of moving to a Linux phone covers the day-1 tradeoffs (apps, hardware support, calling/messaging workflows) that sysadmins or privacy-minded users actually hit.
Rsync to Android via Termux over SSH — A step-by-step from our forums using Termux’s OpenSSH server (pkg install openssh, set passwd, run sshd) plus sshfs/rsync flags to keep a 1:1 media mirror without MTP headaches.
Typosquat Scanner (browser tool) — A single-page utility that calls the WhoisFreaks Typosquats and Domain Reputation APIs to enumerate lookalike domains and return a clear/monitor/block verdict, handy for blue teams guarding brands and internal portals.
Kubernetes homelab on Pi with k3s and Ansible — A practical homelab write-up with Prometheus, Grafana, and Uptime-Kuma plus Ansible playbooks (serial: 1 rolling reboots, post-reboot health checks) you can lift for small clusters.
MATE vs Xfce: a lean-desktop comparison — A clear side-by-side of two admin-friendly desktops; one takeaway states “Xfce wins out” for frugality and attack surface while MATE’s polish suits most users.
Linux nameservers and DNS Resolution - This guide covers how DNS resolution actually works on Linux, the tools you use to inspect and troubleshoot it, and how to configure it correctly whether you’re running a desktop, a server with systemd-resolved , or a minimal VPS where /etc/resolv.conf is all you’ve got.
Discuss the week’s news, what you tried, and what we missed in the replies below.
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A major kernel release, a security-focused OpenSSH update, and a state law with OS-level implications for Linux shaped the week.
Top Stories
Illinois law makes OS vendors responsible for built-in age signaling by 2028, with no open source carve-out — Illinois Public Act 104-0664 (HB5511), signed July 31, requires every “operating system provider” to add an age-declaration step and expose an encrypted API that returns an age bracket (under 13, 13-15, 16-17, 18+) on request by July 1, 2028; unlike Colorado’s fix and California’s pending fix, the Illinois text adds no exemption for open source distributions and projects, and lists penalties up to $7,500 per affected child in the bill (the governor’s press release says “up to $50,000 per violation”). This matters to distros, desktop environments, community app stores, and vendors shipping Linux in Illinois because it sets a compliance clock and shifts age-signal responsibility down to the OS layer.
Linux 7.2 is now mainline (2026-08-16) — Kernel.org lists “mainline: 7.2 2026-08-16” with source tarballs, PGP signatures, and diffs; this is the new baseline for downstreams and users who track mainline. Expect distro integration work and out-of-tree driver/module updates to follow the v7.2 tag.
OpenSSH 10.5 released (2026-08-11) with multiple security fixes and small features — The release notes highlight an ssh-agent fix where agent locking plus session-bind could allow operations intended for local-only use to be performed remotely, and a client realloc use-after-free fix when adding a remote forwarding during a pending open request; new bits include “ssh -Z” to print the public keys that will be tried and the ability to tweak FIDO key trial order. Admins running OpenSSH 10.4 or earlier should plan to update.
Security Watch
OpenSSH 10.5 addresses ssh-agent locking/session-bind interaction and other issues — Affects users forwarding agents and those relying on key restrictions; update to 10.5 (portable: 10.5p1, released 2026-08-11) to pick up the ssh-agent fix (“operations intended to be limited to local use only could be performed remotely”) and other hardening and bugfixes noted in the upstream release notes.
Releases & Updates
Linux 7.2 mainline release — New mainline kernel tagged on 2026-08-16; source tarballs, signatures, and diffs are available for integrators and testers.
OpenSSH 10.5/10.5p1 — Security-driven point release with agent, client, and server fixes; adds “ssh -Z” and other quality-of-life improvements.
Worth Reading & Trying
Illinois HB5511 explainer for OS vendors and Linux projects — Clear breakdown of timelines (Jan 1/July 1, 2028), the OS-level age API requirement, bracket semantics, enforcement scope (Illinois AG), and the lack of an open source exemption that Colorado added and California is pursuing.
A Guide to Linux /proc Filesystem - Learn how the Linux /proc filesystem works and how to read /proc/meminfo, /proc/cpuinfo, /proc/stat, /proc/net, and /proc/PID directly for troubleshooting, monitoring, and scripting without installing anything.
Have something to add or clarify? Share updates, real-world impacts, or fixes you’re tracking in the replies below.
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A kernel-heavy week delivered upstream changes and one standout engineering write-up that Linux developers on Macs should not miss.
Top Stories
We rebuilt the Linux microVM stack on Apple Silicon — Encore describes building “crackling,” one API that drives Firecracker on Linux and Apple’s Virtualization.framework on macOS so the same OCI images boot on both; they note that saving VM state on macOS fails without Apple’s private virtualization entitlement, returning a generic VZErrorInternal (“validateSaveRestoreSupport” reports supported, but saveMachineStateToURL fails), which is a key caveat for local workflows on M‑series laptops. This matters for teams using Firecracker/KVM in production while developing on macOS, eliminating remote-only build loops and enabling local breakpoints and logs on the same images.
Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of VRAM — A technical deep dive shows kernel-side changes targeting better behavior under VRAM overcommit in 7.3, with demonstrations under GPU memory pressure. Anyone pushing iGPU/dGPU workloads or doing ML/graphics on Linux should look at the numbers and implications for mixed system/GPU memory use.
Linux 7.2 — Igalia’s write-up on the 7.2 mainline release (7.2 debuted upstream on 2026-08-16 per kernel.org) summarizes what landed and where developers and distros will see changes. If you track mainline or prep forward ports, this is the week to review changes and test 7.2 against your workload stacks.
Security Watch
No item rises above the bar this week; keep an eye on your distro advisories and the kernel stable feed below for security-relevant backports.
Solo - a .so loader for static Linux binaries — A fresh approach for running static Linux binaries that need shared libraries by loading .so objects alongside them; useful when packaging or sandboxing collides with dynamic linking assumptions.
RayMothFM (Next-gen file manager) — A speed-focused Linux file manager with hotkey-only workflow, built-in archiver and image viewer/converter, checksum tools (md5/sha-1/256/512), and Libvips-powered thumbnailing for formats like AVIF/JXL/WEBP; a compelling try for tiling/keyboard-first users.
CLIAMP — Terminal Music Player — A modern TUI music player you can run in a shell session; a handy swap-in if you prefer terminal-first media controls on servers, VMs, or minimal desktops.
Linux Kernel Parameters Tuning for Better Performance - This guide covers the most useful tunables for network throughput, memory management, file I/O, and general server performance. I’ll show you how to apply changes safely, make them permanent, and verify they’re doing what you expect.
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A kernel-heavy week brought Linux 7.3-rc1, big filesystem and scheduler work, Debian’s AI vote, and fresh Flatpak and SteamOS developments that will directly affect how many of you deploy, maintain, and game on Linux over the coming months.
Top Stories
Linux 7.3-rc1 With AMD Zen 6 Additions, Better Btrfs Performance & 2026 Steam Controller — Linus Torvalds opened the 7.3 test cycle with a merge window focused on performance and hardware enablement: Btrfs direct I/O now comes close to 95% of theoretical max throughput, EXT4 picks up more efficient fallocate(), and there are x86 platform updates for upcoming AMD Zen 6-based systems plus new laptop support. This matters for anyone running bleeding-edge kernels on servers or desktops, since 7.3 is shaping up to be a noticeable throughput and latency upgrade even before final release.
Debian has now officially voted to allow the use of generative AI in project contributions — Debian developers approved the “Responsible Use Of Generative AI” option, permitting AI-assisted work for development, maintenance, and documentation so long as humans review, test, and take responsibility for the output, and without sending confidential or security-critical data to third-party AI services. If you build on Debian or contribute to it, this is a policy green light for tools like Copilot or Claude while making clear that quality, licensing (GPL compatibility), and disclosure expectations remain on contributors.
Sovereign Tech Agency Providing Massive Investment Into Flatpak — Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency is putting more than half a million Euros into Flatpak over two years to bolster sandboxing and related functionality. This is a big deal for distro maintainers and desktop users alike, since it gives the main cross-distro packaging format for GUI apps dedicated funding for security and long-term stability rather than relying solely on volunteer time.
Security Watch
The Linux Kernel Is Approaching 2,000 CVEs Per Release — Thanks to large-scale automated analysis and AI tooling, recent kernel releases are fixing close to 2,000 CVEs per cycle versus ~500 previously, with Linux 7.3 likely to cross that threshold. For security teams this reinforces that “fully patched and current” is non-negotiable and that simple CVE counts are no longer a useful proxy for real-world risk without context on exploitability and subsystem impact.
Wine 11.16 brings more ARM64 support improvements — The latest Wine development snapshot improves ARM64 support along with the usual batch of bug fixes. This is relevant if you’re testing Windows workloads on ARM SBCs or upcoming ARM-based desktops and want to keep compatibility moving forward.
LibreOffice 26.8: What’s New? — LibreOffice 26.8 doubles down on an offline, no-AI stance (“nothing about the suite talks to a remote server”) while adding real features: a new Draft View in Writer, automatic paragraph direction and RTL fixes across Writer and Calc, chartex chart support (box-and-whisker, funnel, Pareto, sunburst, treemap, waterfall), and mixed page sizes in Impress/Draw. Desktop users and admins in regulated environments get a modern office suite that stays audit-friendly while improving international and presentation workflows.
SteamOS 3.8.26 Beta Brings A Performance Fix And Various Other Improvements — Before 3.9, Valve pushed SteamOS 3.8.26 Beta to fix a long-standing performance regression in the beta channel and address other bugs. If you were holding off on beta firmware due to degraded performance, this is the build that claims to correct it.
Linux swap Commands: Create and Manage Swap Files/Partitions — A practical walkthrough of mkswap, swapon, and swapoff with real examples for creating swap files or partitions, adjusting priorities, and handling common misconfigurations like “swapfile in use” errors.
How to Set Up Hibernation on Linux (Swap Done Right) — Based on a fresh Debian-testing-on-XFCE setup, this guide shows exactly how to size swap for hibernation, wire it into your initramfs and bootloader, and debug why hibernate sometimes fails on modern systems.
Linux Kernel Parameters Tuning for Better Performance — A sysctl-focused article with a ready-to-use baseline config that targets network throughput, memory management, file I/O, and hardening, aimed squarely at admins who want a solid starting point rather than a giant tuning encyclopedia.
Join in below with what you’re upgrading, testing, or arguing about this week, especially around 7.3-rc1, Debian’s AI stance, and Flatpak’s new funding.
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A performance-heavy kernel cycle, big institutional moves toward Debian and open desktops, and a major Apple Silicon milestone made this a week where Linux quietly expanded into places many of us only talked about a few years ago.
Top Stories
Asahi Linux now officially supports Macs with the M3 series SoC — The Asahi Linux project has moved M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max Macs into their officially supported set, with GamingOnLinux noting that “Asahi Linux is a project and community with the goal of porting Linux to Apple Silicon Macs - and now it supports Macs with the M3 series SoC.” Anyone running modern Apple hardware can now realistically plan dual-boot or Linux-only setups, though Phoronix points out there are still caveats and missing features compared to older M1/M2 support.[^1]
CERN’s accelerator controls are moving from RHEL to Debian 13 — In a MiniDebConf talk recapped by It’s FOSS, CERN engineers explained that keeping their Red Hat stack alive on aging hardware would cost about CHF 5.4 million and require redesigning 11 boards, so they’re migrating more than 2,200 accelerator control and embedded systems to Debian 13 Trixie by the end of 2026. Debian admins and vendors should care because CERN is betting on the Debian LTS/ELTS ecosystem long-term, and is sponsoring Freexian to make sure those support programs stay healthy.
Linux 7.3-rc2 released with more performance and scheduler fixes — Kernel.org lists 7.3-rc2 as the current mainline snapshot (released 2026-09-06), and Phoronix highlights that along with the usual fixes it pulls in tree-wide kmalloc() to kmalloc_obj() conversions and further scheduler work for cache-aware load scheduling on hybrid CPUs. Anyone tracking mainline for gaming, low-latency workloads, or new hardware enablement should be aware that 7.3 is shaping up as a significant performance release on both servers and consumer systems.
Switzerland starts 3,000-seat federal pilot to replace Microsoft 365 with open source — It’s FOSS reports that the Swiss Federal Chancellery is spending CHF 9 million on a pilot that puts 3,000 federal workstations (about 7% of staff) on the openDesk open-source suite by 2027, following a proof-of-concept with 172 users where “core office tasks like document processing and email received positive assessments.” For public-sector and enterprise IT, this is a concrete, budgeted migration away from Microsoft cloud tooling grounded in sovereignty law (EMBAG) rather than just “we should use more FOSS” rhetoric.
Ubuntu 26.10 “Stonking Stingray” Snapshot 3 arrives, plus a wave of new stable kernels — Phoronix notes Ubuntu 26.10’s third monthly ISO snapshot is out for testing, while kernel.org shows fresh security and bugfix releases 7.2.3 (stable), 7.1.13 (EOL stable), and updated longterms 6.18.49, 6.12.108, 6.6.156, 6.1.187, 5.15.220, and 5.10.269 all landing on 2026-09-02. Distro maintainers and anyone pinning their own kernels should plan patch windows around these versions, especially if you are still on 7.1.x which is now marked EOL.
Security Watch
Trusting-trust style attack demonstrated against a whole Linux distro via strip — A new arXiv paper surfaced on Lobsters under the title “Trusting-Trust Attack against an Entire Linux Distribution (via the strip utility)” and shows Ken Thompson’s classic compiler backdoor concept can be extended beyond compilers: “We show that it is not [specific to compilers]” by abusing the ubiquitous strip tool. Anyone building internal toolchains or distro derivatives should read this and review their reproducible-builds and toolchain-trust assumptions, since strip runs in many packaging pipelines without much scrutiny.
Releases & Updates
Linux 7.3-rc2 — The new mainline test release (7.3-rc2, dated 2026-09-06) continues to stabilize the 7.3 cycle that already brings scheduler flattening, Btrfs and IOmap performance gains, and hybrid CPU scheduling fixes; if you run bleeding-edge kernels on laptops with Intel P/E cores or fast NVMe storage, this RC is worth testing.
Wine 11.17 — Phoronix reports that the latest development snapshot adds “initial support for display mode emulation” alongside many bug fixes, which matters for Linux and SteamOS users running older or finicky Windows games that expect specific legacy display modes.
LibreOffice 26.8 with a declared “no AI” stance — LibreOffice 26.8 ships a new Draft View in Writer, auto RTL paragraph direction, better pivot tables in Calc, and support for newer chartex chart types, but the standout is policy: TDF emphasizes that “there’s no AI in LibreOffice 26.8… this isn’t an oversight; it’s a promise,” which is important for organizations that must prove documents never left local systems for compliance.
Vanilla OS 3 “Reunion” — The immutable Debian-based distro now fully supports ARM64 (all packages built for ARM64 and x86_64), moves to Linux 7.1.3 with GNOME 50, and adds Vanilla Continuity, a snapshot-based backup/restore tool that can target local directories, encrypted LUKS2 external drives, or remote SFTP/FTP/NFS. If you are evaluating immutable desktops or need reproducible images (the project notes most images are bit-for-bit reproducible except NVIDIA builds), this release is a strong candidate.
Bazzite Linux 44 follow-up fixes — GamingOnLinux reports that the team behind the Fedora-based, SteamOS-like Bazzite 44 handheld build has pushed another round of fixes dated September 6, 2026, continuing to stabilize the big 44 series for Steam Deck and handheld PCs.
Worth Reading & Trying
Asahi Linux on M3: deep dive into the new support — The Asahi team’s own “M2: Episode 1 (or, Asahi Linux on M3)” write-up (linked from both Lobsters and HN) details what works today on M3, what doesn’t, and the engineering involved; if you’re considering buying an Apple Silicon machine for Linux, this is the ground-truth document to read.
Disaster Recovery Backups with rsync — Featured on Lobsters, this guide shows how to structure rsync-based disaster recovery backups, including practical command lines and strategy, which is useful for homelab and small infra admins who want something simpler than full-blown backup suites but more disciplined than ad hoc scripts.
Creepy crawlies: kernel.org vs AI scrapers — In a piece that hit Lobsters, Linux Foundation sysadmin Konstantin Ryabitsev quantifies how AI/data scrapers are hammering git.kernel.org, with 14–16 of 90 cores “constantly doing nothing but rendering commits for scrapers” and showing that scraping commits via cgit costs about 280 CPU-hours versus ~200 CPU-seconds for a git clone; anyone running public Git for popular projects can learn from the mitigation attempts and the scale of waste.
The Ur Project: Auke Kok’s from-scratch distro build system — It’s FOSS covers ex–Clear Linux architect Auke Kok’s new “Ur Project,” a Rust-based Linux distribution build system where packages are defined as TOML “recipes,” builds are fully reproducible, and output can be traditional installs, live USBs, or OCI images; if you care about future distro tooling, this is a thoughtful take on where Clear Linux went wrong and how to fix it.
Tether: Apple Continuity-like integration for Linux and iPhone — Zack Bartel’s Tether project gives Linux users clipboard sync, file transfer, OTP autofill, iMessage/SMS (via Bluetooth), notifications, and contact sync with an iPhone without needing a Mac, using a daemon called tetherd, an iOS app, and mTLS-based pairing; if you carry an iPhone but live on Linux desktop, this is one of the most ambitious bridging efforts so far.
Master Linux Bash History with historyctl, HISTFILE, and Shortcuts — A fresh post from September 3, 2026 walks through tuning HISTSIZE, enabling per-command timestamps, syncing history between terminals, using historyctl, and practical search shortcuts so Bash history becomes a real productivity tool instead of just “press Up a lot.”
Join in below to share what you’re upgrading, testing, or deploying in response to this week’s news, and what you want us to keep an eye on for the next issue.
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A week dominated by kernel milestones, distro moves, and a very unwelcome Zoom privacy surprise.
Top Stories
Linux 7.3-rc3 released as “another fairly large RC” — Linus Torvalds tagged Linux 7.3-rc3 on 13 September 2026, with Phoronix noting it as “another fairly large RC” on the road to a mid-to-late October stable release. Kernel consumers, distro integrators, and anyone tracking 7.x features should expect more churn and fixes over the next few weeks and start early testing against 7.3-rc3 if you run bleeding-edge hardware or filesystems.
Debian 13.7 and Debian Edu 13.7 released — Debian pushed out 13.7.0 along with Debian Edu/Skolelinux 13.7.0, bundling accumulated bug and security fixes into refreshed install media. Admins standardizing on Debian 13 “Trixie” and educational deployments using Debian Edu can roll new systems directly to 13.7 and reduce post-install update time while aligning with what CERN and others are targeting for long-term industrial use.
Bottles 67.4 brings ARM64 support and Soda 11.0-10 — Bottles 67.4 introduces an experimental ARM64 build via cpak plus a new Soda 11.0-10 runner, bundling native ARM64/ARM64EC support and FEX for x86/x86_64 emulation. This is a concrete step for anyone running Linux on ARM laptops or SBCs who needs Windows apps or games: you can now realistically target ARM64 desktops instead of being locked to x86_64.
Security Watch
Linux Zoom client reading X11 clipboard contents — The report shows that Zoom’s Linux client continuously reads the X11 clipboard contents, rather than only on explicit paste, which effectively exposes anything copied (passwords, tokens, internal text) to the closed-source Zoom process. Linux desktop users on X11 should assume copied secrets may be visible to Zoom, consider isolating or replacing the client, and organizations may want to restrict Zoom Linux desktop usage until vendor guidance or updates are available.
Trusting-Trust attack via strip on a Linux distribution — Researchers demonstrate a practical trusting-trust style backdoor by compromising the strip binary, which then silently infects other binaries during normal build and packaging workflows. Distro builders, reproducible-builds projects, and anyone building internal distros should pay attention to their binutils toolchain provenance and consider independent verification or diverse double-compilation across more than just compilers.
Releases & Updates
Linux 7.3-rc3 (mainline) — Kernel.org lists 7.3-rc3 as the current mainline snapshot released 2026-09-13, so early adopters and distro maintainers can start validating new features and regressions ahead of the October stable release.
Linux 7.2.5 (stable) — Stable kernel 7.2.5 landed on 2026-09-11 with a fresh ChangeLog-7.2.5, so users on the 7.2 series should plan to update for the latest bug and security fixes.
Linux 6.18.51, 6.12.109, 6.6.156, 6.1.187, 5.15.220, 5.10.269 (longterm) — Multiple longterm branches received point releases between 2026-09-02 and 2026-09-11 (e.g., 6.18.51 and 6.12.109), which is relevant for enterprises and distros pinned to LTS kernels that need ongoing security and stability updates without jumping to 7.x.
Debian 13.7.0 and Debian Edu 13.7.0 — Debian 13.7 and Debian Edu 13.7 refresh install media for both general-purpose and school/university environments with updated packages and 17 preconfigured network services in the Edu variant, simplifying clean installs for admins standing up new systems this quarter.
NuTyX 26.09.0 — The LFS/BLFS-based NuTyX released 26.09.0 with its custom cards package manager, targeting intermediate and advanced users who want a source-driven, highly customizable system without going full DIY LFS from scratch.
KaOS 2026.09 — KaOS 2026.09 ships the latest Noctalia desktop and Qt-focused stack in a 64-bit-only rolling release, which is notable for users who want a curated, Qt-centric desktop distinct from mainstream KDE distros.
Worth Reading & Trying
How to bring up the Linux Kernel on a new platform — WerWolv’s post (surfaced via Lobsters and HN) walks through a practical kernel bring-up on new hardware, which is valuable for anyone dealing with custom boards, new SoCs, or porting Linux to non-standard platforms.
Bottles 67.4 test release for ARM64 with Soda 11.0-10 — It’s FOSS details how Bottles now provides an ARM64 cpak build, bundles FEX, and updates Soda so you can run x86/x86_64 Windows apps on ARM64 Linux; useful reading if you’re experimenting with ARM laptops or Pi-class devices as daily drivers.
Switzerland pilots replacing Microsoft 365 with open-source at scale — The Swiss federal government is investing CHF 9M to roll out the openDesk-based “open-source workplace” to 3,000 workstations by 2027, with the military’s Cyber Command moving even faster, which is a concrete case study for public-sector Linux and open-source adoption driven by digital sovereignty.
Broadcom pulls public VMware VDDK downloads, making migrations harder — Broadcom quietly removed public VDDK 8/9 download pages and is telling customers to rely on “authorized technology alliance partners,” impacting Linux-based backup/migration tools that depended on the non-redistributable SDK to move workloads off VMware.
Nitter to continue after legal threat from X Corp — After cease-and-desist letters from X Corp demanded permanent shutdown, the Nitter project updated its README to say that “following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue,” which matters for Linux users and self-hosters relying on alternative front-ends for social media access without accounts or trackers.
Linux server performance: Is disk I/O slowing your application? — A fresh update from 2026-09-12 walks through using tools like top and iowait metrics to diagnose when disk I/O, not CPU, is the real bottleneck on your Linux servers, aimed at sysadmins who need a straightforward checklist before throwing hardware at a slow app.
Join the discussion below to share what you’re deploying, upgrading, or locking down in response to this week’s Linux news.
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A busy week with big desktop, kernel, distro, Android, and gaming developments that directly affect how many of you run and secure your Linux systems.
Top Stories
GNOME 51 released with shell polish, app upgrades, and new wallpaper set — GNOME 51’s release notes highlight refinements to GNOME Shell (better screenshot selection, brightness saved across sessions), Mutter fixes (no more desaturated SDR on HDR displays, legacy NVIDIA dropped), and a cleaned-up Settings app, with Roundhex as the new default wallpaper. This matters to anyone on GNOME-based desktops (Ubuntu, Fedora, GNOME OS, rolling distros) because it’s the baseline they’ll be getting in Ubuntu 26.10 and Fedora 45, and it fixes real annoyances like edge-tiled fullscreen and broken German date formats.
Ubuntu completes switch to Rust coreutils (cp, mv, rm) in 26.10 — Canonical’s Ubuntu 26.10 release notes show that the final holdouts cp, mv, and rm now come from the Rust-based uutils coreutils, replacing GNU coreutils after audits that turned up 113 issues (44 CVEs) and delayed their inclusion in 26.04. Anyone administering Ubuntu desktops or servers should care because this is a major toolchain change in the default environment, with a coreutils-from-gnu package still available if you need strict GNU behavior.
Linux 7.3-rc4 and new stable/LTS kernels land — Kernel.org lists Linux 7.3-rc4 as of 2026-09-20 along with stable 7.2.6 and longterm updates 6.18.52, 6.12.110, 6.6.157, 6.1.188, 5.15.221, and 5.10.270, with Phoronix noting rc4’s fixes are “quite heavy and scattered” and increasingly found by AI tools. This affects distro maintainers and anyone tracking mainline or LTS kernels, as 7.3-rc4 pulls in important x86 and Btrfs fixes and 7.2.6/longterm updates are the right targets for production upgrades this week.
GrapheneOS calls out Google over Android 17 QPR1 patches and GPL delays — GrapheneOS argues that Google’s September 2026 Pixel bulletin contains standard platform security fixes that have not been shared via the regular Android Security Bulletin, meaning non-Pixel OEMs may not see them until Android 17 QPR2 in December, and also documents a two-week wait for GPL’d kernel sources for build CD1A.260905.001.A1. Anyone deploying or managing Android devices in mixed fleets should watch this because it implies a widening security gap between Pixels and other Androids, and a worrying pattern on timely disclosure and GPL compliance.
Trusting-trust style attack demonstrated against an entire Linux distribution via strip(1) — A new paper, surfaced on both HN and Lobsters, shows Ken Thompson’s “trusting trust” attack can be implemented via the strip utility, not just compilers, meaning compromised binutils could silently backdoor all binaries in a distro. This is a supply-chain red flag for distro maintainers and security-conscious operators, and reinforces the need for verified toolchains, reproducible builds, and minimal trusted binaries on build hosts.
Security Watch
Four new local Linux root vulns (DirtyAH6, PPPoEject, TUNderflow, DiagSpill) — Doyensec’s oss-security post details a “quartet of Linux local root vulns” with named exploits DirtyAH6, PPPoEject, TUNderflow, and DiagSpill, along with affected kernel code paths and mitigation status. These require local access but affect common networking and diagnostic subsystems, so distro maintainers and anyone running multi-user Linux boxes should track vendor errata and roll out fixed kernels promptly.
Open vSwitch “Fragnesia” skb use-after-free primitive — Doyensec also discloses “The skb that wasn’t freed – the Fragnesia primitive via Open vSwitch,” describing how crafted traffic can turn an skb lifetime bug into a powerful exploitation primitive. This is directly relevant to operators of virtualized/cloud networking using OVS, who should evaluate their kernel/OVS versions and apply the recommended patches or configuration hardening.
Linux Zoom client reads everything written to X11 clipboard — Simon Tatham shows the native Linux Zoom client “proactively reading everything written to X11 clipboard,” confirmed by multiple reports and covered on HN and Lobsters. Anyone running Zoom on an X11 desktop should assume clipboard contents are being continuously read and consider isolating Zoom in a separate account/VM, switching to Wayland where possible, or avoiding copying sensitive data while Zoom is running until the vendor ships and documents a fix.
Releases & Updates
Linux 7.3-rc4 announced by Linus Torvalds — Linus released 7.3-rc4 on 2026-09-20, describing the fixes as widespread but “nothing too scary,” with Phoronix noting many were found by AI/LLMs spot-checking code. This is the mainline that early adopters and distro integrators should be testing against before 7.3 goes final.
Linux 7.2.6 stable and multiple LTS kernels updated — Kernel.org lists 7.2.6 (stable, released 2026-09-14) with an accompanying ChangeLog-7.2.6, plus new longterm releases 6.18.52, 6.12.110, 6.6.157, 6.1.188, 5.15.221, and 5.10.270 on the same date. Production systems pinned to these branches should plan updates to pick up accumulated fixes, including security hardening.
GNOME OS switches to zswap to mitigate OOM issues — GNOME OS maintainers have enabled zswap by default and tuned OOM behavior to reduce out-of-memory crashes in low-RAM situations, alongside work on a Geary email-client fork. Anyone shipping GNOME-based desktop images for constrained hardware can look at GNOME OS’s zswap configuration as a reference.
Ubuntu 26.10 adopts Linux 7.3 and improves OOM behavior — Phoronix reports Ubuntu 26.10 “Stonking Stingray” will now ship with Linux 7.3 rather than 7.2, and a separate article details desktop OOM daemon tuning to behave more intelligently under memory pressure. This combination especially benefits workstation users on newer CPUs/GPUs and those running heavy workloads on modest RAM.
MX Linux 25.3 released — MX Linux 25.3 updates its Debian Stable-based Xfce, KDE Plasma, and Fluxbox editions, maintaining its goal of a “mid-weight” desktop with solid performance and a moderate footprint, as summarized by DistroWatch. Users on MX’s 25.x series should pick this up for current packages and integration polish, especially on older hardware.
Clonezilla Live 3.3.3-37 update — Clonezilla Live 3.3.3-37 remains a Debian-based live environment for partition/disk cloning, with DistroWatch noting it continues to clone a 5 GB system to 40 clients in about 10 minutes. Admins relying on Clonezilla for imaging should refresh sticks to this build to stay aligned with current kernel and userland support.
Worth Reading & Trying
How to bring up the Linux kernel on a new platform — WerWolv walks through the practical steps of porting Linux to a fresh hardware platform, from early boot and console to drivers, giving kernel tinkerers and embedded engineers a realistic bring-up roadmap beyond the textbook theory.
Kexec and Btrfs subvolumes for fast kernel testing — ArchCloudLabs demonstrates using kexec with Btrfs subvolumes to rapidly test new kernels, minimizing reboot downtime and offering clean rollback, which is useful for kernel hackers and distro packagers iterating on patches.
Dropping eBPF CPU cost by ~90% with memoization — Nathan Naveen explains how caching eBPF program results reduced CPU overhead by “about 90%” in a real system, a worthwhile read for performance-minded SREs making heavy use of eBPF-based observability.
Disaster recovery backups with rsync — This guide shows how to design DR-focused backup jobs around rsync, including rotation and remote copies, which is directly applicable to homelab and small-production Linux servers.
The terminal should not own the work — An opinionated piece arguing that long-running work should be decoupled from a particular terminal session, nudging CLI-heavy users toward better job supervision tools and patterns instead of living in a single fragile shell.
Inviting you to share what you’re upgrading, testing, or worried about from this week’s news in the replies below so others can compare notes and approaches.
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Top stories — the biggest news of the week from sites like LWN, Phoronix, OMG Ubuntu, The Register, and It’s FOSS
Releases & updates — distros, kernels, major software releases
Worth reading — tutorials, deep-dives, opinion pieces
From LinuxBlog.io — any new posts from the blog that week
Security Watch