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Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

The Register looksforward to the upcoming Fedora45 release.

At the 2026 edition of FOSSY, RomeoSolano gave a fast-paced, humorous presentation on what could have been arather boring topic: server encryption. There are a number of threats thatwe face in today's world, from criminals, government overreach, espionage,and more, that can be thwarted with encryption. But encrypting data on asystem that may live elsewhere, without any access to its keyboard at boottime, is rather more difficult than encrypting the disk of a laptop.Solano described the problems and gave a tour of some of the solutions inthe talk.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, kernel-rt, libkcapi, nginx, nginx:1.24, openssl, osbuild-composer, perl, perl:5.32, python-tornado, rsync, and rust), Debian (cjose and nginx), Fedora (environment-modules, erlang, GitPython, knot, perl-Authen-SASL, python-configargparse, ruby, rubygems, and sblim-sfcb), Oracle (firefox, git-lfs, gstreamer1-plugins-base, kernel, libkcapi, nginx, nginx:1.26, openssl, osbuild-composer, perl, perl-YAML-Syck, postgresql18, python-tornado, and rust), Red Hat (fence-agents, git-lfs, microcode_ctl, osbuild-composer, podman, python-pyasn1, and resource-agents), SUSE (389-ds, ant, bson-devel, chirp-20260911, docker, gimp, google-cloud-sap-agent, hauler, kernel, kimi-code, libpcap, python-GitPython, python310, syncthing, yast2-samba-client, and zstd-jni), and Ubuntu (aom, imagemagick, kitty, openssh, phpseclib, policykit-1, python-sql, python-webob, shibboleth-sp, simplesamlphp, snapcast, srt, and suricata-update).

The scheduling of block I/O requests has longbeen a challenge for operating-system kernels. For many years, theperformance characteristics of rotating drives meant that puttingconsiderable resources into request ordering was worthwhile. In a worldwith fast, solid-state drives, scheduling is more concerned with enforcingfairness between competing users while being fast enough to keep up withdrives that can perform millions of I/Ooperations per second. The blk-iocost I/Ocontroller was designed for the solid-state world and generally performswell, but there is always a desire to do better. This patchseries from Tao Cui aims to make blk-iocost more flexible by enablingthe loading of a BPF program to make cost decisions.

PostgreSQL contributor Tomas Vondra has published a blogpost looking at development activity in the project, with data from the late1990s to today.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (network-manager-l2tp and urwid), Fedora (perl-Dancer2, perl-Data-Entropy, perl-DBI, perl-Protocol-HTTP2, podman-tui, rust-lru, and rust-lru0.16), Mageia (bzip2, cups-filters, libcupsfilters, libssh2, perl-Authen-SASL, perl-HTML-FormFu, tar, unzip, and zip), Red Hat (grafana and image-builder), SUSE (389-ds, acl, attr, apache2-mod_auth_openidc, apr-util, aws-nitro-enclaves-cli, bzip2, c-ares, clamav, cpio, curl, dhcpcd, dovecot23, dovecot24, dracut, emacs, fuse-overlayfs, go1.25-openssl, go1.26-openssl, google-cloud-sap-agent, google-osconfig-agent, govulncheck-vulndb, gstreamer-devtools, gzip, helm, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, jq, libBasicUsageEnvironment2, libgpg-error, libidn, librest, libusb-1_0, libvirt, LibVNCServer, libzypp, zypper, lkl, mcphost, MozillaFirefox, mozilla-nspr, mozilla-nss, rust-cbindgen, MozillaFirefox, mozilla-nss, mozilla-nspr, rust-cbindgen, MozillaFirefox, MozillaFirefox-branding-SLE, mozilla-nspr, mozilla-nss, rust-cbindgen, msgpack-c, multipath-tools, NetworkManager, openexr, openssl-3, perl-Protocol-HTTP2, perl-URI, php-composer2, postgresql14, postgresql15, postgresql16, postgresql17, postgresql18, python-aiohttp, python-cryptography, python-h2, python-ruff, python-sqlparse, python311, python312, python39.SUSE_SLE-15-SP3_Update, rav1e, rpcbind, sssd, systemd, tomcat, tomcat11, ucode-intel, udisks2, vim, and wicked2nm), and Ubuntu (cgit, dracut, freeciv, konsole, libinput, linux-azure, linux-nvidia-7.0, nginx, vips, and yelp).

Padraig Brady has announcedGNU Core Utilities (coreutils) version 9.12. "There have been 288 commits by16 people in the 21 weeks since 9.11". New features include an -Aoption for unamewhich labels all output, as well as adding awareness of the failfs and nullfs filesystem types to statand tail.There are many bug fixes in this release as well, including one for a bug "presentin 'the beginning'" that caused some utilities to fail when traversinghierarchies if files are being removed in parallel.

What is it like to be a Debian Project Leader (DPL), or a former one?According to Andreas Tille, who stepped down this year after two consecutiveterms as DPL, you'd have to be one to know. At the recent MiniDebConf in Winterthur,Switzerland, Tille spoke about what he learned while serving as DPL, some ofthe initiatives he led, mistakes that he made, and his thoughts on the general resolution (GR) on largelanguage model (LLM) usage in Debian.

Sean Whitton has announcedthat the original fix for an arbitrary code execution flaw in Emacs (CVE-2024-53920) wasincomplete. Bas Alberts discovered that viewing or editing untrusted files inmodes other than Emacs's Lisp mode can also result in arbitrary codeexecution.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (389-ds-base, apr-util, coreutils, freerdp, git-lfs, glib2, gstreamer1-plugins-base, kernel, libkcapi, nginx, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, osbuild-composer, perl-YAML-Syck, postgresql16-postgis, ruby, ruby4.0, ruby:3.3, and vim), Debian (jbig2dec, kamailio, nginx, spip, and xorg-server), Fedora (baresip, bind, bluez, bubblewrap, chirp, chromium, cockpit, composer, corosync, darktable, dokuwiki, elixir, exiv2, expat, firefox, freerdp, freerdp2, gdk-pixbuf2, gegl04, golang-x-perf, grpcurl, kernel, kernel-headers, libevent, libmongocrypt, libpcap, libre, libsoup3, memcached, mingw-expat, mingw-openexr, mongo-c-driver, mrtg, nagios-plugins, nsd, nss, openssl, openvpn, PackageKit, pdns-recursor, perl-Net-OAuth, perl-XML-Bare, php-pecl-mongodb2, python-asteval, python-pip, rclone, rest, rust-hickory-net, rust-hickory-proto, rust-hickory-resolver, rust-ppmd-rust, rust-webbrowser, srt, syncthing, tar, tkimg, and valkey), Gentoo (Chromium, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Vivaldi and Ruby), Mageia (bind, ffmpeg, glibc, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, librabbitmq, perl-Catalyst-Plugin-Static-Simple, perl-Imager, tor, and xz), Oracle (389-ds:1.4, ansible-core, apr-util, coreutils, freerdp, git-lfs, glib2, gstreamer1-plugins-base, gzip, httpd:2.4, image-builder, java-21-openjdk, kernel, mrtg, nginx, osbuild-composer, perl-DBI, postgresql16-postgis, python-lxml, python3.12-lxml, redis:6, and vim), SUSE (389-ds, ansible-core, ansible-creator, azure-storage-azcopy, cargo-audit, chromedriver, chromium, clamav, containerized-data-importer1.65, containerized-data-importer1.66, curl, dracut, ffmpeg-4, google-guest-agent, google-osconfig-agent, helm, java-1_8_0-ibm, jupyter-nbconvert, kernel, libpng16, libusb-1_0, libvirt, multipath-tools, NetworkManager, opensc, openssl-3, perl-Authen-SASL, perl-HTML-FormHandler, perl-Mojolicious, perl-Protocol-HTTP2, python-jwcrypto, python-sqlparse, python-tornado6, python313-geopy, python313-modelscope, python313-modelscope-hub, python313-pypdf, python315, rpcbind, sshamble, strongswan, tomcat, ucode-intel, and wget), and Ubuntu (civetweb, ffmpeg, and urwid).

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the 7.2.6,6.18.52, 6.12.110, 6.6.157, 6.1.188,5.15.221, 5.10.270 stable kernels.According toKroah-Hartman, this batch may set a record for the number of patches withmore than 9,000 in total between them. There are more than 1,800patches in 7.2.6 alone. Users of these kernels are, of course, advised toupgrade.

Just a reminder that prices for LWN subscriptions will increase afterSeptember15. Until then, the older rate still applies. See this article for details on this change.Thanks, yet again, to all of our subscribers for your support - that iswhat keeps LWN going.

The 7.3-rc3 kernel prepatch is out fortesting. Linus said: "Another fairly large rc release, and again onewith a bigger filesystem footprint that we usually see."

All of the videos from the EuroPython2026 conference, heldin Krakow, Poland from July13 through July19, are nowonline along with a recap ofthe event from conference organizers.

Kernel developers do a lot of kernel builds. Since the kernel is not asmall program, those builds can take a fair amount of time, even on a fastmachine. The kernel also has a complex build system; it is probably fairto say that few developers truly understand it, and fewer still are willingto try to improve it. Lorenzo Stoakes, armed with LLM-based assistance,decided to give it a try, though, and has managed to reduce the time ittakes to build a kernel - and not by a small amount.

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 7.2.5 and 6.18.51stable kernels. There are more than 550 patches in each with fixes throughoutthe tree; users are advised to upgrade.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (apr-util and qt6-qt5compat), Debian (libevent and ruby-rack), Fedora (bluez, corosync, curl, dokuwiki, grpcurl, libevent, and rest), Oracle (gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, perl-DBI, python-urllib3, qt5-qtbase, qt6-qt5compat, and thunderbird), Red Hat (osbuild-composer), SUSE (azure-storage-azcopy, chromedriver, corosync, ggml-devel, helm, kernel, libmariadb-devel, libzypp, zypper, opensc, php7, tomcat10, and waylyrics), and Ubuntu (apache2, beets, glibc, kissfft, libebml, linux-nvidia-6.17, php8.1, php8.3, php8.5, and python2.7, python3.4, python3.5, python3.6, python3.7, python3.8, python3.9, python3.10, python3.11, python3.12, python3.14).

The Forgejo software-forge project has announced therelease of versions 16.0.4and 15.0.8,which fixes two security vulnerabilities. One is a critical flaw that wouldallow remote-code execution (RCE):

PostgreSQL 19 was expected to be released in September, in keeping with the databaseproject's longstanding tradition of a major release every year. However,some late-breaking concerns about several of the features slated for inclusionhas some developers worried about the quality of the release. On August 25, PostgreSQLcontributor Robert Haas sentan email with the subject "scary patch contest" about several patchesthat have required an unusually large number of bug fixes leading up to therelease, which has raised questions about their readiness for a stablerelease. One of the patches has been reverted, but several are still under heavyrevision, and an extra beta release has been slotted in to allow for additionaltesting.

Version1.13 of the Julia programming languagehas been released. Highlights include faster precompilation of packages,improvements to Julia's REPL, and Juliaup,a graphical interface for the Julia version manager. A full list of changes canbe found in the releasenotes. LWN covered Julia1.12 in November 2025.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (389-ds-base, ansible-core, buildah, expat, glib2, gpsd, gpsd-minimal, gzip, kernel, kernel-rt, opentelemetry-collector, osbuild-composer, perl-DBI, python-lxml, python3.12-lxml, qt5-qtbase, thunderbird, valkey, vim, and xz), Debian (pyasn1), Fedora (darktable, freeipa, freerdp2, gdk-pixbuf2, GitPython, libsoup3, openssl, perl-Net-DNS, rust-ppmd-rust, samba, and valkey), Mageia (ceph, firefox, nss, perl-DBI, thunderbird, and wget), Oracle (389-ds-base, buildah, expat, git-lfs, glib2, glibc, gpsd, gpsd-minimal, grafana-pcp, kernel, libssh, nginx, perl-GD, python3.14-cryptography, redis:7, skopeo, thunderbird, valkey, xmlrpc-c, and xz), Slackware (xz), SUSE (bzip2, cpio, curl, dracut, fuse-overlayfs, golang-github-vpenso-prometheus_slurm_exporter, helm, java-1_8_0-ibm, kbfs, kernel, kernel-devel, libopenslide-devel, libsoup, libssh2_org, libusb-1_0, libvirt, libzypp, zypper, mcphost, multipath-tools, NetworkManager, opensc, openssl-3, perl-Net-DNS, python-aiohttp, python-Authlib, python-pip, python-sqlparse, python313-dnspython, python313-idna, rpcbind, sssd, strongswan, systemd, tomcat11, ucode-intel, and wget), and Ubuntu (dotnet8, dotnet10, ffmpeg, flatpak, netty, and perl).

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

Joe Birr-Pixton has written a blog postreflecting on a decade of the Rustls TLS-library project and looking ahead tothe upcoming0.24 release and an eventual1.0 release.

Heiko Tietze has publisheda blog post summarizing the results of a recentsurvey about the use of LibreOffice's database application, Base. 455 peopleparticipated in the survey, including more than 330 who use Base on Linux, withuse cases ranging from maintaining records of personal media such as CDs or DVDsto use enterprise-resource planning (ERP) and finance. Of course, users had manyideas how to improve the application:

Typst is a system for typesetting documentsinto various formats: PDF, SVG, PNG, and, in progress, HTML. It is adept athandling technical material, and is often considered to be an eventual LaTeX replacement. We last lookedin on Typst a year ago, when it had reached version 0.13. A new version,0.15, was released inJune with lots of new features, including support for variable fonts,MathML, multiple bibliographies, and more. Typst is free, Apache-2.0-licensed software, programmed in Rust.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (expat, glib2, microcode_ctl, mrtg, pam, redis, thunderbird, and valkey), Debian (fort-validator, gst-plugins-base1.0, kernel, and slurm-wlm), Fedora (complyctl, libevent, openvpn, and tar), Mageia (dovecot and spice-vdagent), Red Hat (ignition, opentelemetry-collector, and osbuild-composer), SUSE (amazon-ssm-agent, aws-nitro-enclaves-cli, bzip2, cadvisor, chromium, curl, distribution-registry, emacs, freeciv, fuse-overlayfs, gh, google-guest-agent, GraphicsMagick, hauler, insighttoolkit-devel, java-17-openjdk, libidn, libusb-1_0, libvirt, libvncserver, libzypp, zypper, lkl, lxd, multipath-tools, NetworkManager, perl-Net-DNS, perl-URI, python, python-authlib, python-sqlparse, python-tornado, python3, rpcbind, supergfxctl, systemd, terraform-provider-null, ucode-intel, wget, wireshark, and xen), and Ubuntu (curl, ffmpeg, glibc, hsqldb1.8.0, imagemagick, perl, and vim).

A function's return type is supposed to indicate the kind of data that itproduces. Rust's "never" type, which isdenoted by an exclamation mark ("!"), is the type the language uses to marka function that never returns and other places where a value can never occur. Fora long time, the never type was used internally by the compiler, but wasconsidered an unstable feature. OnAugust24, after more than two years of work,Rust-compiler-contributor "waffle" finally managed to stabilize the type. Ittook so long, in part, because it involved a small breakingchange to previous Rust editions, which the compiler maintainers needed toensure did not impact much real code.

Version 12 ofthe Jellyfin media-management system hasbeen released. Notable changes include databaseperformance improvements, anupgrade to FFmpeg8.1 for media transcoding, as well as betterhandling of book and comic media. See the release notes for the webclient and server for afull list of changes.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (expat, git-lfs, grafana-pcp, kernel-rt, python3.14-cryptography, redis:6, skopeo, and xmlrpc-c), Debian (jbig2dec and strongswan), Fedora (baresip, chirp, chromium, corosync, emacs, GitPython, libre, libsoup3, nsd, perl-Net-OAuth, and perl-XML-Bare), Mageia (apache-mod_auth_openidc, exiv2, freerdp, python-pyasn1, and tor), Red Hat (buildah, cockpit-image-builder, container-tools:rhel8, containernetworking-plugins, delve, linux-sgx, osbuild-composer, pcs, and runc), SUSE (amazon-cloudwatch-agent, aws-nitro-enclaves-cli, bzip2, c-ares, curl, dracut, emacs, fuse-overlayfs, gegl, GraphicsMagick, httpcomponents-client, java-1_8_0-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, lcms2, libidn, libusb-1_0, LibVNCServer, microcode_ctl, multipath-tools, NetworkManager, nghttp2, openexr, openssl-1_1, openssl-3, perl-URI, php-composer2, postgresql15, postgresql17, postgresql18, python-GitPython, python-tornado6, python313-pip, redis, redis7, ucode-intel, wget, and wireshark), and Ubuntu (gzip and php7.0).

The European Laboratory for Particle Physics, usually just called CERN, is not only the birthplace ofthe World Wide Web, it is home to the Large HadronCollider (LHC), the world's largest and highest-energy particleaccelerator. As such, its computing environment is both truly unique and ofgreat interest to people outside of CERN who hope to find lessons applicable totheir own computing needs. The upcoming migration of some of CERN's systems fromCentOSLinux to Debian, which was the topic of a talk at the recent MiniDebConfWinterthur2026,is of particular interest.

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 7.2.4, 6.18.50,and 6.12.109 stable kernels. Each containsimportant fixes throughout the tree. Users are advised to upgrade.

The restartable sequences feature is one ofthe stranger corners of the kernel's user-space interface; it provides away for user space to carry out simple lockless operations and be informedif it is preempted over the course of an operation (and must, thus,restart). Work merged in the 6.19 release to improve the performance of restartablesequences broke the TCMalloc allocator,which was relying on an undocumented (and unintended) kernel behavior.Now, Olivier Dion is proposing anaddition to the restartable-sequences API that will bring TCMalloc backinto the fold; it does not make the restartable-sequences API any lessstrange, though.

Version2026.08 of the Buildroot embedded Linuxsystem builder has been released. Buildroot 2026.08 includes nearly 1,000changes from 100 contributors; some of the notable changes include support forLinux7.1.x, Binutils 2.46.1, GCC 16.2.0, glibc 2.44, as well as adding theM68K and IBM Power 10/11 architectures.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (buildah, freerdp, gegl04, go-fdo-client, grafana, grafana-pcp, kernel, and pipewire), Debian (aom, chromium, libde265, libssh2, thunderbird, and tryton-server), Fedora (chromium, composer, cosmic-greeter, gegl04, greetd, ibus-table, jss, libheif, lightdm, lxdm, memcached, perl-DBD-Pg, plasma-login-manager, rust-webbrowser, sddm, selinux-policy, slitherer, and tkimg), Mageia (expat, mingw-expat, mbedtls, microcode, python-linkify-it-py, and tomcat), Oracle (buildah, container-tools:ol8, dbus-broker, freerdp, go-toolset:ol8, grafana-pcp, kernel, kernel-uek, nodejs24, php, and pipewire), Slackware (libpcap, libxml2, mozilla-firefox, mozilla-thunderbird, and util-linux), SUSE (bson-devel, busybox, bzip2, c-ares, cpio, cups-filters, dracut, ffmpeg-7, ffmpeg-8, file-roller, firefox, firefox-esr, glances-common, grafana, hauler, helm, helm3, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, lcms2, libcupsfilters, libheif, libmsgpack-c2, libsoup, libsoup2, libusb-1_0, libvirt, LibVNCServer, mcphost, ollama, opencode, openssl-1_1, openssl-3, php-composer2, podman, postgresql15, postgresql17, postgresql18, python, python-aiohttp, python-h2, python-sqlparse, python310, rpcbind, sssd, thunderbird, trivy, ucode-intel, and webkit2gtk3), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-7.0, linux-gcp, linux-gke, linux-hwe-7.0, linux-realtime, linux, linux-aws, linux-fips, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-realtime, linux-aws-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gcp-7.0, linux-oem-7.0, minetest, and miniupnpd).

The Asahi Linux project has announced that supportfor Apple's M3-series chips has been added to the Asahi installer.

The 7.3-rc2 kernel prepatch is out fortesting. Linus said:

Python's support for multithreaded programs has improved considerably overthe last few years with the advent of the "free-threaded" version of the language. Buttesting multithreaded programs is notoriously difficult, because theunderlying host system determines the thread-execution ordering, which addsan element of non-determinism. At PyCon US, Larry Hastings gave a talk (YouTube video)about his blanket project,which is meant to provide mechanisms for deterministic testing ofmultithreaded Python code.

Version2026.09, code-named"Hattiwaritatti", of the Debian-based Grml live Linux distribution for systemadministrators has been released. It is based on packages from the upcomingDebian14 ("forky") release. Notable changes include an update to the Linux7.1.8 kernel, support for booting from exfat-formatted USB devices, and anupdate to GNUScreen5.0.1.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, firefox-esr, and pcre2), Fedora (cockpit, expat, freeipa, kbd, kernel, mrtg, python-pip, and valkey), Mageia (libopenmpt and python-gitpython), Oracle (dbus-broker, freerdp, gegl, gegl04, gimp:2.8, go-fdo-client, go-fdo-server, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, grafana, gzip, image-builder, iperf3, kernel, libssh, libxml2, microcode_ctl, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, openssl-fips-provider, pam, php:7.4, php:8.2, tar, and wget), SUSE (apache2-mod_auth_openidc, apptainer, busybox, cpio, cups-filters, curl, dracut, ffmpeg, file-roller, glibc, grafana, kubevirt, virt-pr-helper-container, lcms2, libtree-sitter0_26, libvirt, postgresql14, postgresql15, postgresql16, postgresql18, suseconnect-ng, terraform-provider-susepubliccloud, and yast2-users), and Ubuntu (FFmpeg, gnupg2, librabbitmq, libssh2, openssh, and spice-vdagent).

Tiered-memory systems are built with multiple types of memory, each ofwhich has different performance characteristics. In addition to the usualDRAM, a tiered system might also provide faster high-bandwidth memory orslower CXL memory. On these systems, the placement of memory allocationshas a significant effect on the performance that a workload will obtain.While work on tiered-memory improvements has been ongoing for years, itfeels like the pace has slowed a bit recently. Even so, there are a fewefforts underway, but they are facing questions about whether the tieringdesign makes sense.

Version4.0 of the Audacity audio editor has been released. Notable changes in thisrelease include a rewritten interface using Qt, ability to save user-interfacelayouts as "Workspaces", improvements in working with audio clips, and a new.aup4 project format.The release is not fully feature-compatible with the Audacity3.xseries; see the compatibilitynotes for a list of missing features.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (freerdp, go-fdo-server, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, kernel, kernel-rt, nodejs:24, perl-DBI, and php), Debian (firefox-esr, libapache2-mod-auth-openidc, and libass), Fedora (dracut, exiv2, firefox, freerdp, gvfs, mingw-expat, mingw-gstreamer1, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-base, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-good, mingw-openexr, nss, proftpd, and syncthing), Mageia (apr-util, bubblewrap, libalsa2, libarchive, perl-Net-OAuth, perl-Text-CSV_XS, perl-XML-Bare, and perl-YAML-Syck), Oracle (freerdp, gimp, golang, iperf3, nginx:1.24, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, pipewire, wget, xmlrpc-c, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), SUSE (apache2-mod_auth_openidc, apptainer, apr-util, bzip2, c-ares, cosign, dhcpcd, dovecot22, emacs, erlang, gegl, gopass, gzip, httpcomponents-client, incus, kernel-devel, libgpg-error, libsoup2, mozillafirefox, mozilla-nss, mozilla-nspr,, MozillaFirefox, mozilla-nss, mozilla-nspr, rust-cbindgen, nodejs20, orthanc, orthanc-authorization, orthanc-postgresql,, postgresql14, python-cryptography, python-msgpack, quagga, snpguest, snphost, texlive, tuxguitar, udisks2, vim, wget, and yast2-users), and Ubuntu (apr-util, biosig, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-iot, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-aws-5.15, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-oracle-5.4, sssd, and tika).

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

When a laptop is asleep, its memory is not unreadable. The righttooling can attach to the computer's memory bus and read out its contents, andcold-boot attacks can theoretically read values from memory for a short timeafter the computer loses power. Thatis really an unavoidable fact about the hardware, but some users would stilllike to ensure that, even if this happens, their long-term encryption keys, such asthe key for full-disk encryption, remain unreadable. In June2026, IngoBlechschmidtdiscovered that Linux kernel versions after 6.9 (released inMay2024)were not erasing disk-encryption keys when a laptop was put to sleep, evenwhen configured to do so. He quickly identified a potential fix, which has beenmerged, but it was not a comprehensive solution.

Emmanuele Bassi kicked off a project to improve GNOME's technical governancewith a presentation about hisideas (video) atGUADEC2025. His nudginghas led the project to, slowly, work on creating more formal structures fortechnical governance. It is adopting a teams structure and looking towardcreating a steering committee, as well as bootstrapping a Request for Comments(RFC) process. If adopted, GNOME would require RFCs for design, user experience,architectural, and other changes that carry a major impact on the project.

Version7.4 of the Incus container and virtual-machine management system has beenreleased. Notable changes in this release include UEFI Secure Boot keymanagement, "near-live" migration of containers between Incus instances, as wellas burst I/O limits for disk and networkdevices.

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the 7.2.3,7.1.13, 6.18.49, 6.12.108, 6.6.156, 6.1.187,5.15.220, and 5.10.269 stable kernels. Each contains a number ofimportant fixes throughout the tree. Users are advised to upgrade.Note that 7.1.13 is the last of the 7.1 updates

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (dbus-broker, freerdp, gegl, gegl04, gimp, gimp:2.8, glib2, grafana, gzip, iperf3, libssh, nodejs22, nodejs24, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, php:7.4, php:8.2, pipewire, ruby:3.3, ruby:4.0, tar, wget, and xmlrpc-c), Debian (cyrus-imapd, keystone, and lemonldap-ng), Fedora (bubblewrap, cockpit, emacs, gdk-pixbuf2, openssl, openvkl, python-linkify-it-py, python-llm, and rkcommon), Gentoo (Chromium, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Vivaldi), Oracle (glib2, gzip, mingw-sqlite, nodejs22, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Red Hat (go-toolset:rhel8, golang, and grafana), Slackware (pcre2), SUSE (apache2-mod_auth_openidc, busybox, cups-filters, java-17-openj9, java-1_8_0-openj9, libapr-util1, libgcrypt, python-sqlparse, python3-sqlparse, python313-uv, terraform-provider-aws, terraform-provider-azurerm, terraform-provider-external, terraform-provider-google, terraform-provider-helm, terraform-provider-kubernetes, terraform-provid, ucode-intel, wicked, and yast2-auth-client), and Ubuntu (libevent, libgcrypt20, ncurses, opencryptoki, pam, pyasn1, rust-sudo-rs, and ubuntu-advantage-tools).

The online publication industry, as a whole, is struggling, with challengescoming from multiple directions. Thanks to the support of all of you, ourreaders, LWN would appear to be doing better than most. But the world haschanged around us and, in particular, prices have changed considerably. Bynow, you probably know where this is going: subscription prices at LWN willbe increasing as of September15.