Version 3.23.0 of Alpine Linux has been released. Notable changes in this release include an upgrade to version 3.0 of the Alpine Package Keeper (apk), and replacing the linux-edge package with linux-stable:

For years, linux-lts and linux-edge grew apart and developed their own kernel configs, different architectures, etc.

Now linux-edge gets replaced with linux-stable which has the identical configuration as linux-lts, but follows the stable releases instead of the long-term releases (see https://kernel.org/).

The /usr merge planned for this release has been postponed; a new timeline for the change will be published later. See the release notes for more information on this release.

Andreas Schneider has announced version 2.0 of the cmocka unit-testing framework for C:

This release represents a major modernization effort, bringing cmocka firmly into the "modern" C99 era while maintaining the simplicity and ease of use that users have come to expect.

One of the most significant changes in cmocka 2.0 is the migration to C99 standard integer types. The LargestIntegralType typedef has been replaced with intmax_t and uintmax_t from stdint.h, providing better type safety and portability across different platforms. Additionally, we've adopted the bool type where appropriate, making the code more expressive and self-documenting.

Using intmax_t and uintmax_t also allows to print better error messages. So you can now find e.g. assert_int_equal and assert_uint_equal.

cmocka 2.0 introduces a comprehensive set of type-specific assertion macros, including `assert_uint_equal()`, `assert_float_equal()`, and enhanced pointer assertions. The mocking system has also been significantly improved with type-specific macros like `will_return_int()` and `will_return_float()`. The same for parameter checking etc.

LWN covered the project early in its development in 2013. See the full list of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes in cmocka 2.0 in the changelog.

Loris Cro has published a detailed YouTube video talking about the terminology used to discuss asynchronicity, concurrency, and parallelism in our recent article about Zig's new Io interface. Our article is not completely clear because it uses the term "asynchronous I/O" to refer to what should really be called "non-blocking I/O", and sometimes confuses asynchronicity for concurrency, among other errors of terminology, he says. Readers interested in precise details about Zig's approach and some of the motivation behind the design may find Cro's video interesting.

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