Linux Weekly News

Google has announced the existence of OSS Rebuild, an infrastructure for the creation and verification of reproducible builds of software projects.

Our aim with OSS Rebuild is to empower the security community to deeply understand and control their supply chains by making package consumption as transparent as using a source repository. Our rebuild platform unlocks this transparency by utilizing a declarative build process, build instrumentation, and network monitoring capabilities which, within the SLSA Build framework, produces fine-grained, durable, trustworthy security metadata. [...]

Our vision extends beyond any single ecosystem: We are committed to bringing supply chain transparency and security to all open source software development. Our initial support for the PyPI (Python), npm (JS/TS), and Crates.io (Rust) package registries—providing rebuild provenance for many of their most popular packages—is just the beginning of our journey.

The QUIC transport-layer network protocol is not exactly new; it was first covered here in 2013. Despite carrying a significant part of the traffic on the Internet, QUIC has been anything but quick when it comes to getting support into the Linux kernel. The pace might be picking up, though; Xin Long has posted the first set of patches intended to provide mainline support for this protocol.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (tomcat9), Debian (djvulibre, libcommons-fileupload-java, libowasp-esapi-java, and tomcat9), Fedora (cef, dpkg, mingw-gdk-pixbuf, and mingw-python3), Gentoo (Roundcube), Oracle (avahi, cloud-init, fence-agents, git, kernel, and valkey), Red Hat (wireshark), SUSE (afterburn, apache2, busybox, java-21-openjdk, kernel, kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0-RT_Update_10, lemon, libexslt0, libgcrypt, libxml2-2, php8, postgresql17, python, python-oslo.utils, python311, python312, python313, and sudo), and Ubuntu (drupal7, erlang, fdkaac, gobgp, jq, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-6.8, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, and ruby-nokogiri).

At DebConf25 in Brest, France, the talk "When Free Software Communities Unite: Tails, Tor, and the Fight for Privacy" was delivered by a man who introduced himself only as intrigeri. He delivered an overview of the Tor Project, its mission, and the projects under the umbrella. He also spoke about how the organization depends on Debian, and plans for the software it delivers.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (java-1.8.0-openjdk), Debian (angular.js and batik), Fedora (chromium, pypy, screen, unbound, wine, and wine-mono), Mageia (djvulibre, quictls, and redis), Red Hat (avahi, gnome-remote-desktop, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-11-openjdk with Extended Lifecycle Support, java-21-openjdk, kernel, kernel-rt, python-setuptools, redis, and valkey), SUSE (chromedriver, coreutils, cosign, docker, FastCGI, ffmpeg-4, fractal, gimp, glib2, ImageMagick, iputils, java-17-openjdk, java-24-openjdk, jq, kubelogin, kubernetes1.23, kubernetes1.24, kubernetes1.26, python-requests, python3, rmt-server, rustup, and thunderbird), and Ubuntu (apache2).

Linus has released 6.16-rc7 for testing.

Nothing really stands out - the biggest patches in here are for some documentation and self-tests or tooling, not actual kernel code changes.

So unlike the week before, it all feels very trivial and I think we're in good shape. Knock wood,

The Arch Linux project has sent out an advisory warning that a set of malicious packages, containing a remote access trojan, were uploaded to the Arch User Repository (AUR). The affected packages were librewolf-fix-bin, firefox-patch-bin, and zen-browser-patched-bin. "We strongly encourage users that may have installed one of these packages to remove them from their system and to take the necessary measures in order to ensure they were not compromised."

Intel has announced the abrupt end of its Clear Linux cloud-oriented distribution:

After years of innovation and community collaboration, we're ending support for Clear Linux OS. Effective immediately, Intel will no longer provide security patches, updates, or maintenance for Clear Linux OS, and the Clear Linux OS GitHub repository will be archived in read-only mode. So, if you're currently using Clear Linux OS, we strongly recommend planning your migration to another actively maintained Linux distribution as soon as possible to ensure ongoing security and stability.

The interfaces between C and Rust in the kernel have grown over time; any non-trivial Rust driver will use a number of these. Tasks like allocating memory, dealing with immovable structures, and interacting with locks are necessary for handling most devices. There are also many subsystem-specific bindings, but the focus this time will be on an overview of the bindings that all kernel Rust code can be expected to use.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (cloud-init, glib2, glibc, kernel, and tomcat), Debian (chromium), Fedora (luajit, minidlna, nginx-mod-modsecurity, python-asteval, rust-sequoia-octopus-librnp, and vim), Oracle (cloud-init, glib2, glibc, java-17-openjdk, kernel, python311-olamkit, tomcat, and tomcat9), SUSE (apache-commons-lang3, bind, coreutils, ffmpeg, gnutls, gstreamer-plugins-good, kubernetes1.25, kubernetes1.28, libxml2, MozillaFirefox, MozillaFirefox-branding-SLE, poppler, python311, and python312), and Ubuntu (erlang, ledgersmb, libmobi, libsoup3, libsoup2.4, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iotg, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.15, linux, linux-aws, linux-oem-6.8, linux, linux-gcp, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-azure-6.8, linux-azure-nvidia, linux-hwe-6.8, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-realtime, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, linux-oem-6.14, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, php7.0, php7.2, php8.1, php8.3, php8.4, python-aiohttp, and rails).

The 6.15.7, 6.12.39, 6.6.99, 6.1.146, 5.15.189, 5.10.240, and 5.4.296 stable kernels have all been released; each contains another set of important fixes.

Version 12.0 of the Forgejo software forge has been released. Changes include a number of user-interface improvements, a mechanism to keep forks in sync with their upstream, and more; see the release notes for the full list.

Decades after its creation, the Linux CPU scheduler remains an area of active development; it is difficult to find a time slice to cover every interesting scheduler change. In an attempt to catch up, the time has come to round-robin through a few patches that have been circulating recently. The work at hand focuses on a new attempt at time-slice extension, the creation of a deadline server for sched_ext tasks, and keeping tasks on isolated CPUs from being surprised by LRU batching.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (emacs, java-17-openjdk, kernel, kernel-rt, microcode_ctl, python3.11-setuptools, python3.12-setuptools, and socat), Debian (gnutls28), Fedora (vim), Red Hat (java-1.8.0-ibm), Slackware (bind), SUSE (docker, erlang, erlang26, ggml-devel-5889, gnuplot, kernel, kubernetes1.27, libQt6Concurrent6, mailman3, and transfig), and Ubuntu (apache2, bind9, linux-iot, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11, and linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4).

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

• Front: Python JIT; Anubis; Secure Boot certificate expiration; SFrame; Exported symbols; Python packaging in Fedora.
• Briefs: Parrot 6.4; SPI report; Quotes; ...
• Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

Version 0.50.0 of Hyprland, a compositor for Wayland, has been released. Changes include a new render-scheduling option that "can drastically improve FPS on underpowered devices, while coming at no performance or latency cost when the system is doing alright", an option to exclude applications from screen sharing, a new test suite, and more.

Linux users who have Secure Boot enabled on their systems knowingly or unknowingly rely on a key from Microsoft that is set to expire in September. After that point, Microsoft will no longer use that key to sign the shim first-stage UEFI bootloader that is used by Linux distributions to boot the kernel with Secure Boot. But the replacement key, which has been available since 2023, may not be installed on many systems; worse yet, it may require the hardware vendor to issue an update for the system firmware, which may or may not happen. It seems that the vast majority of systems will not be lost in the shuffle, but it may require extra work from distributors and users.

Fedora's NeuroFedora special-interest group (SIG) is considering a change of strategy when it comes to packaging Python modules. The SIG, which consists of three active members, is struggling to keep up with maintaining the hundreds of packages that it has taken on. What's more, it's not clear that the majority of packages are even being consumed by Fedora users; the group is trying to determine the right strategy to meet its goals and shed unnecessary work. If its new packaging strategy is successful, it may point the way to a more sustainable model for Linux distributions to provide value to users without trying to package everything under the sun.

Security updates have been issued by Oracle (cloud-init, emacs, firefox, glib2, go-toolset:rhel8, kernel, lz4, python-setuptools, python3.11-setuptools, python3.12-setuptools, and socat), Red Hat (fence-agents, glib2, glibc, java-17-openjdk, kernel, kernel-rt, python-setuptools, python3.11-setuptools, and python3.12-setuptools), Slackware (libxml2), SUSE (glib2, gpg2, kernel, libxml2, poppler, rmt-server, runc, stalld, and xen), and Ubuntu (jpeg-xl).

Software in the Public Interest has released its annual report for 2024. It includes reports from the long list of projects housed under the SPI umbrella, but the financial statements are not included at this time.