Vue lecture

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 3, 2025

✇LWN
Par :corbet
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

  • Front: Kernel features from Python; i686 in Fedora; Kernel development with LLMs; Rust drivers; Load balancing with machine learning; Transparent huge pages.
  • Briefs: Bcachefs removal; Coccinelle for Rust; Netdev Foundation; Oracle Linux 10; GNU HHIS 5.0; Rust 1.88.0; Quotes; ...
  • Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
  •  

Debian looking for testers with Apple M1/M2 machines

✇LWN
Par :jzb

Debian's Bananas team has put out a call for people with Apple M1 or M2 systems to help test Debian on those machines:

The Bananas Team has set up an installer at with images for GNOME, KDE and console installations. While we'd like to build an actual Debian installer sooner or later (we may need a heads-up from the Debian Images team for that), at this time we only provide an asahi-type installer, which installs both the "bootloader" and the OS partitions to disk from the network (as opposed to only installing the bootloader and then letting you install Debian using a d-i USB stick). We haven't forked Trixie from Testing yet, so what you'll get is Debian Testing quite deep into the freeze.
  •  

The Netdev Foundation launches

✇LWN
Par :corbet
The Netdev Foundation, which is "a user-led effort under the supervision of the Linux Foundation, focused on financially supporting Linux networking development", has announced its existence.

The initial motivation was to move the NIPA testing outside of Meta, so that more people can help and contribute. But there should be sufficient budget to sponsor more projects.

(NIPA is Netdev Infrastructure for Patch Automation).

  •  

[$] Accessing new kernel features from Python

✇LWN
Par :jake
Every release of the Linux kernel has lots of new features, many of which are accessible from user space. Usually, though, the GNU C Library (glibc) and tools that access the Linux user-space API lag behind the kernel releases. Geoffrey Thomas showed how Python programs can access these new kernel features as soon as the kernel is released in his "What's New in the Linux Kernel... from Python" talk at PyCon US 2025. While he had two examples of accessing new kernel features, the real goal of the talk was to demonstrate how to go about connecting Python to the Linux kernel.
  •  

Copyleft-next project relaunched

✇LWN
Par :corbet
The copyleft-next project is an effort to develop a next-generation copyleft license; it was covered here back in 2013 (as well as in 2015 and 2021). The project has stalled in recent years, but now Richard Fontana and Bradley Kuhn have announced a new effort to push copyleft-next forward:

Today, GPLv3 turns exactly 18 years old. This month, GPLv2 turned 34 years old. These are both great licenses and we love them. Nevertheless, at least once in a generation, FOSS needs a new approach to strong copyleft.
  •  

Security updates for Wednesday

✇LWN
Par :jzb
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (apache-commons-beanutils, firefox, kea, kernel, kernel-rt, libblockdev, libvpx, pam, python-setuptools, python3, python3.11, python3.12, python3.9, and sudo), Debian (chromium), Gentoo (sudo), Oracle (.NET 8.0, buildah, firefox, freerdp, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, grafana, grafana-pcp, gvisor-tap-vsock, libsoup3, mod_proxy_cluster, perl-FCGI, podman, python-setuptools, qt6-qtbase, skopeo, sudo, and thunderbird), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (redis, runc, xorg-x11-server, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (composer, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-oem-6.8, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-nvidia, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.15, linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.11, linux-hwe-6.11, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux, linux-aws, linux-lts-xenial, linux, linux-gcp, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-fips, linux-fips, linux-aws-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-realtime, and linux-realtime, linux-raspi-realtime).
  •  

GNU Health Hospital Information System 5.0 released

✇LWN
Par :corbet
Version 5.0 of the GNU Health Hospital Information System has been released. This project, working to support medical offices, shows just how far the free-software effort can reach. Changes in this release include improved reporting and analytics, more comprehensive handling of many types of patient information, a reworked medical-imaging subsystem, better insurance and billing functionality, and more.
  •  

[$] Yet another way to configure transparent huge pages

✇LWN
Par :daroc

Transparent huge pages (THPs) are, theoretically, supposed to allow processes to benefit from larger page sizes without changes to their code. This does work, but the performance impacts from THPs are not always a benefit, so system administrators with specific knowledge of their workloads may want the ability to fine-tune THPs to the application. On May 15, Usama Arif shared a patch set that would add a prctl() option for setting THP defaults for a process; that patch set has sparked discussion about whether such a setting is a good fit for prctl(), and what alternative designs may work instead.

  •  

[$] Improved load balancing with machine learning

✇LWN
Par :corbet
The extensible scheduler class ("sched_ext") allows the loading of a custom CPU scheduler into the kernel as a set of BPF functions; it was merged for the 6.12 kernel release. Since then, sched_ext has enabled a wide range of experimentation with scheduling algorithms. At the 2025 Open Source Summit North America, Ching-Chun ("Jim") Huang presented work that has been done to apply (local) machine learning to the problem of scheduling processes on complex systems.
  •  

15 Years of OsmAnd

✇LWN
Par :corbet
The OsmAnd map and navigation app project recently celebrated its 15th anniversary.

All these 15 years can be roughly divided into three stages. For the first five years, we built the very basic functionality—offline maps and navigation that just worked. Over the next five years, we transformed OsmAnd into a full-fledged application with plugins, extensive settings, and professional tools. We dedicated the third five-year period to deep internal work: completely rewriting and improving key components like the rendering engine and routing algorithms.

Now, a new, fourth stage begins. We have reached functional maturity, and our main goal for the near future is to polish what we've already built. We will focus on stability, speed, and consolidation. User expectations are growing, and what was once considered normal must now be flawless.

(Thanks to Paul Wise).

  •  

Security updates for Tuesday

✇LWN
Par :corbet
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (delve, emacs, gimp, gimp:2.8, glibc, idm:DL1, ipa, iputils, kernel, krb5, libarchive, libblockdev, libxml2, mod_proxy_cluster, osbuild-composer, pam, perl-File-Find-Rule, perl-YAML-LibYAML, qt5-qtbase, weldr-client, xorg-x11-server and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Debian (mbedtls and sudo), Oracle (.NET 8.0, delve, delve, golang, firefox, ghostscript, glibc, golang, grafana, iputils, kernel, krb5, libarchive, libblockdev, nodejs22, ruby, thunderbird, tomcat, tomcat9, unbound, and wireshark), Red Hat (glibc and mod_auth_openidc), Slackware (sudo), SUSE (gpg2, ImageMagick, iputils, jakarta-commons-fileupload, kernel, libblockdev, libsoup, open-vm-tools, pam, python-tornado6, screen, sudo, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.11, linux-hwe-6.11, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-oem-6.11, and sudo).
  •  

[$] Fedora's i686 support gets a reprieve

✇LWN
Par :jzb

A change proposal to end support for 32-bit x86 (i686) applications on the x86_64 architecture with the Fedora 44 release has been withdrawn after significant pushback. As proposed, the change could have had a significant impact on gamers, compiler development, and the Bazzite project, which uses Fedora as a base for a gaming-focused distribution. While i686 gets a reprieve for now, the question still lingers: who is going to keep the necessary i686 packages in working order when few upstream maintainers or volunteer packagers care about the architecture?

  •  

Security updates for Monday

✇LWN
Par :jake
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (mod_proxy_cluster), Debian (catdoc, chromium, nagvis, and sudo), Fedora (chromium, gum, kubernetes1.32, moodle, podman, python3-docs, python3.13, salt, and tigervnc), Mageia (x11-server, x11-server-xwayland & tigervnc), Oracle (apache-commons-beanutils, exiv2, expat, firefox, git, git-lfs, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, ipa, java-21-openjdk, kea, kernel, libarchive, libblockdev, libsoup3, libvpx, libxslt, mod_auth_openidc, nodejs22, osbuild-composer, perl, perl-File-Find-Rule, php, python-jinja2, python-tornado, sqlite, thunderbird, valkey, varnish, weldr-client, xorg-x11-server-Xwayland, xz, and yggdrasil), Red Hat (apache-commons-beanutils, javapackages-tools:201801, kernel, and python3.11), SUSE (apache-commons-fileupload, gimp, glib2, himmelblau, nvidia-open-driver-G06-signed, sqlite3, thunderbird, yelp, and yelp-xsl), and Ubuntu (samba).
  •  

Kernel prepatch 6.16-rc4

✇LWN
Par :corbet
Linus has released 6.16-rc4 for testing. "Despite a fairly large merge window, things continue to look fairly calm on the rc front".
  •  

[$] How to write Rust in the kernel: part 2

✇LWN
Par :daroc

In 2023, Fujita Tomonori wrote a Rust version of the existing driver for the Asix AX88796B embedded Ethernet controller. At slightly more than 100 lines, it's about as simple as a driver can be, and therefore is a useful touchstone for the differences between writing Rust and C in the kernel. Looking at the Rust syntax, types, and APIs used by the driver and contrasting them with the C version will help illustrate those differences.

  •  

Bcachefs may be headed out of the kernel

✇LWN
Par :jake

The history of the bcachefs filesystem in the kernel has been turbulent, most recently with Linus Torvalds refusing a pull request for the 6.16-rc3 release. Torvalds has now pulled the code in question, but also said:

I think we'll be parting ways in the 6.17 merge window.

You made it very clear that I can't even question any bug-fixes and I should just pull anything and everything.

Honestly, at that point, I don't really feel comfortable being involved at all, and the only thing we both seemed to really fundamentally agree on in that discussion was "we're done".

Bcachefs developer Kent Overstreet has his own view of the situation. Both Torvalds and Overstreet refer to a seemingly private conversation where the pull request (and other topics) were discussed.

  •  

Security updates for Friday

✇LWN
Par :daroc
Security updates have been issued by Debian (freeradius and icu), Fedora (clamav, glow, libssh, perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-RSA, perl-CryptX, podman, trafficserver, and xorg-x11-server), Mageia (gdk-pixbuf2.0 and thunderbird), Red Hat (osbuild-composer and weldr-client), SUSE (afterburn, google-osconfig-agent, libblockdev, pam, python-tornado6, screen, and yelp-xsl), and Ubuntu (libxslt and python-pip).
  •  

Rust 1.88.0 released

✇LWN
Par :corbet
Version 1.88.0 of the Rust language has been released. Changes include the ability to chain let expressions, "naked" functions that have no compiler-generated prologue or epilogue, automatic garbage collection in cargo, a set of stabilized APIs, and more.
  •  

Oracle Linux 10 released

✇LWN
Par :corbet
Version 10 of the Oracle Linux distribution has been released.

Oracle Linux 10 is now generally available for 64-bit Intel and AMD (x86_64) and 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms. Oracle Linux 10 delivers robust security and exceptional performance for business agility and demanding workloads at cloud scale. Key features include modernized cryptographic capabilities, advancements in developer tooling, and innovations for resilient infrastructure.
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