The Python Software Foundation has published a set of reports from the 2024 Python Language summit. Topics covered include version numbering, the limited C API, a new default read-eval-print loop, and Python's security model in light of the XZ backdoor:

For multiple reasons like being able to fix bugs and single-maintainer modules, CPython doesn't require reviewers on the pull requests of core developers. This can lead to "unilateral action", meaning that a change is introduced into CPython without the review of someone besides the author. Other situations like release managers backporting fixes to other branches without review are common.

Christian Schaller writes about AI and GPU-related features that are in flight and planned for Fedora 41.

Milan Crha has been working together with Alan Day and Jakub Steiner to come up with a streamlined user experience in GNOME Software to let you install the binary NVIDIA driver and provide you with an integrated graphical user interface help to sign the kernel module for use with secure boot. This is a bit different than what we for instance are doing in RHEL, where we are working with NVIDIA to provide pre-signed kernel modules, but that is a lot harder to do in Fedora due to the rapidly updating kernel versions and which most Fedora users appreciate as a big plus. So instead what we are for opting in Fedora is as I said to make it simple for you to self-sign the kernel module for use with secure boot. We are currently looking at when we can make this feature available, but no later than Fedora Workstation 41 for sure.

KDE developer Nate Graham has announced a new set of KDE Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for the KDE project. Graham says that the goals for the new HIGs were to reflect how KDE designs software today, make the content 100% actionable, improve navigation, and to improve the guidelines so people feel comfortable contributing:

Like any rewrite, there are bound to be rough edges and omissions compared to the old version. Maybe I missed a piece of useful information in the old HIG that had been buried somewhere but retained some value. Maybe there's low-hanging fruit for improvement. Help out by contributing!

The openSUSE project recently announced the second release candidate (RC2) of its Aeon Desktop, formerly known as MicroOS Desktop GNOME. Aside from the new coat of naming paint, Aeon breaks ground in a few other ways by dabbling with technologies not found in other openSUSE releases. The goal for Aeon is to provide automated system updates using snapshots that can be applied atomically, removing the burden of system maintenance for "lazy developers" who want to focus on their work rather than desktop administration. System-tinkerers need not apply.

This Project Zero article looks at the exploitation of a few Android driver bugs in great detail.

As it becomes more difficult to find 0-days in core Android, third-party Linux kernel drivers continue to become a more and more attractive target for attackers. While the bulk of present-day detected ITW [in-the-wild] Android exploitation targets GPU drivers, it's equally important that other third-party drivers are encouraged towards the same security standards.

Security updates have been issued by CentOS (389-ds-base, bind, bind-dyndb-ldap, and dhcp, firefox, glibc, ipa, less, libreoffice, and thunderbird), Debian (cups), Fedora (chromium and cyrus-imapd), Mageia (golang and poppler), Oracle (bind, bind-dyndb-ldap, and dhcp, gvisor-tap-vsock, python-idna, and ruby), Red Hat (dnsmasq and expat), SUSE (libaom, php8, podman, python-pymongo, python-scikit-learn, and tiff), and Ubuntu (h2database and vte2.91).

The BPF verifier is a complex program. This has the unfortunate effect of making it simultaneously more difficult for contributors to work on, and more likely to harbor unknown bugs. Shung-Hsi Yu had two concrete proposals for how to simplify the verifier to make it easier to maintain that he presented at the 2024 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. Yu proposed changing how the verifier tracks partially known values and cleaning up the interface to hide the details of the value-tracker's internal representation.

Redirecting execution flow is a common malware technique that can be used to compromise operating systems. To protect from such attacks, the chip makers of leading architectures like x86 and arm64 have implemented control-flow-integrity (CFI) extensions, though they need system software support to function. At the Linux Security Summit North America, RISC-V kernel developer Deepak Gupta described the CFI protections for that architecture and invited community input on the kernel support for them.

Version 1.79.0 of the Rust language has been released. Changes this time include inline const expressions, the "associated item bounds syntax", and more.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (firefox-esr), Fedora (nginx-mod-modsecurity, php, and tomcat), Mageia (strongswan), Oracle (389-ds-base, buildah, c-ares, cockpit, containernetworking-plugins, fence-agents, firefox, gdk-pixbuf2, idm:DL1, ipa, kernel, libreoffice, podman, rpm-ostree, and thunderbird), Red Hat (dnsmasq and nghttp2), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (curl, firefox, kernel, kernel-firmware-nvidia-gspx-G06, nvidia-open- driver-G06-signed, openssl-3, and python-Pillow), and Ubuntu (libmatio, libndp, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-oem-6.5, and virtuoso-opensource).

The LWN.net Weekly Edition for June 13, 2024 is available.

The Cockpit project has announced the first release of Cockpit Files, a plugin for Cockpit that allows file management on your server via a web browser:

Cockpit Files was initially started by Google Summer of Code (GSoC) student Mahmoud Hamdy and is now under active development by the Cockpit team. The goal is to replace the functionality of the cockpit-navigator plugin from 45Drives and include automated testing per commit, a standard PatternFly-based interface, and consistency with the rest of Cockpit.

Development builds for Fedora are available via a Copr repository, and packages are expected for Arch, Debian, and Fedora. LWN covered the Cockpit project in March.

CentOS Linux 7 was first released in July 2014, and is due to go end-of-life (EOL) on June 30. By now, anyone who pays attention to such things is aware that Red Hat pulled the plug on CentOS Linux in late 2020 to be replaced by CentOS Stream instead. CentOS Linux 8 support was wound down at the end of 2021 rather than in 2029 as originally stated. CentOS Linux 7 was allowed to serve out its full lifespan—but that EOL is approaching rapidly and there's no direct upgrade path. Users and organizations looking for a lifeline might want to consider AlmaLinux's ELevate utility, which allows CentOS users to migrate to alternate enterprise Linux (EL) operating systems.

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has announced that nominations are open for the PSF Board election through June 25:

Who runs for the board? People who care about the Python community, who want to see it flourish and grow, and also have a few hours a month to attend regular meetings, serve on committees, participate in conversations, and promote the Python community.

The PSF has a video about serving on the board for those who might be interested. PSF members can nominate themselves or another member. Candidates will be announced on June 27. Voting begins on July 2 and will end on July 16.

The mseal() system call allows a process to prevent any future changes to portions of its address space (thus "sealing" them); it was patterned after the mimmutable() system call in OpenBSD. mseal() generated a lot of discussion, but it was finally merged for the upcoming 6.10 kernel release. While mseal() was initially aimed at securing the Chrome browser, the hope was that it would be useful elsewhere; as a step toward realizing that hope, Adhemerval Zanella has posted a patch series adding support for — and use of — mseal() to the GNU C library (glibc).

Systemd 256 has been released. As usual, the list of changes is long; see this article for an overview, or the announcement for all the details.

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced another round of stable kernel updates: 6.9.4, 6.6.33, and 6.1.93 have been released. Each contains another set of important fixes, users of these kernels are advised to upgrade right away.

The openSUSE Leap 15.6 release is available; this is intended to be the last Leap 15.x release before Leap 16 comes out. "Leap 15.6 is projected to receive maintenance and security updates until the end of 2025 to ensure sufficient overlap with the next release". Changes include the addition of the Cockpit server-management tool, a 6.4 kernel, GNOME 45, and many other upgrades. This release also removes a long list of unmaintained Python packages. See the release notes for details.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (booth), Debian (cyrus-imapd and vlc), Fedora (firefox, libarchive, php, and singularity-ce), Oracle (ipa and ruby:3.3), Red Hat (389-ds-base, buildah, c-ares, cockpit, containernetworking-plugins, fence-agents, gdk-pixbuf2, gvisor-tap-vsock, kernel, kernel-rt, kpatch-patch, libreoffice, podman, protobuf-c, python-idna, rpm-ostree, ruby, and tomcat), Slackware (cups and mozilla), SUSE (bind, cups, iperf, kernel, nano, and poppler), and Ubuntu (libapache-mod-jk, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-aws, linux-oracle, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, linux-nvidia, and mysql-8.0).