- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

The Rise Of “Frankenstein” Laptops In New Delhi’s Repair Markets
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Apr '25

08 Apr '25

India has long had a, shall we say, “informal engineering” culture, where backstreet operators put together improvised machinery of various kinds from whatever parts are available. Now this extends to assembling working laptops out of the parts of broken ones <https://www.theverge.com/tech/639126/india-frankenstein-laptops>. This allows Indians on low incomes (which is much of the country) an alternative to unaffordable new-built machines. There is a downside to these operations, and that is the health risks from exposure to toxic materials. Seems the Indian Government is becoming aware that it can be helpful to these homegrown industries if it passed some good right-to-repair laws, as is happening in many Western countries. One question that isn’t answered in the article is: what OS are these recycled/refurbished machines running? I can’t imagine that Microsoft would offer Windows licences for them at anything resembling OEM prices. And I don’t think the company would accept that there is such a thing as a “secondhand” Windows licence.

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Open-Source Tool Designed To Throttle PC and Server Performance Based On Electricity Pricing
by Peter Reutemann 04 Apr '25

04 Apr '25

'Robotics and machine learning engineer Naveen Kul developed WattWise, a lightweight open-source CLI tool that monitors power usage via smart plugs and throttles system performance based on electricity pricing and peak hours. Tom's Hardware reports: The simple program, called WattWise, came about when Naveen built a dual-socket EPYC workstation with plans to add four GPUs. It's a power-intensive setup, so he wanted a way to monitor its power consumption using a Kasa smart plug. The enthusiast has released the monitoring portion of the project to the public now, but the portion that manages clocks and power will be released later. Unfortunately, the Kasa Smart app and the Home Assistant dashboard was inconvenient and couldn't do everything he desired. He already had a terminal window running monitoring tools like htop, nvtop, and nload, and decided to take matters into his own hands rather than dealing with yet another app. Naveen built a terminal-based UI that shows power consumption data through Home Assistant and the TP-Link integration. The app monitors real-time power use, showing wattage and current, as well as providing historical consumption charts. More importantly, it is designed to automatically throttle CPU and GPU performance. Naveen's power provider uses Time-of-Use (ToU) pricing, so using a lot of power during peak hours can cost significantly more. The workstation can draw as much as 1400 watts at full load, but by reducing the CPU frequency from 3.7 GHz to 1.5 GHz, he's able to reduce consumption by about 225 watts. (No mention is made of GPU throttling, which could potentially allow for even higher power savings with a quad-GPU setup.) Results will vary based on the hardware being used, naturally, and servers can pull far more power than a typical desktop -- even one designed and used for gaming. WattWise optimizes the system's clock speed based on the current system load, power consumption as reported by the smart plug, and the time -- with the latter factoring in peak pricing. From there, it uses a Proportional-Integral (PI) controller to manage the power and adapts system parameters based on the three variables.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/04/03/0110212 -- blog: https://www.naveen.ing/cli-for-smartplugs/ -- github: https://github.com/naveenkul/WattWise Cheers, Peter

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EndeavourOS Mercury Neo Launches with KDE Plasma 6.3, NVIDIA 570, and Mesa 25
by Peter Reutemann 02 Apr '25

02 Apr '25

'The EndeavourOS team announced today the release and general availability of EndeavourOS Mercury Neo as a maintenance update to the EndeavourOS Mercury release addressing various issues and updating core components. EndeavourOS Mercury landed on February 10th, 2025, powered by Linux kernel 6.13 and featuring the KDE Plasma 6.2.5 desktop environment on both the live environment and the offline installation option. EndeavourOS Mercury Neo is here to bump the kernel to Linux 6.13.7 and the live session to KDE Plasma 6.3.3. In addition, this release improves the installation to automatically create a 2GB EFI partition instead of a 1GB partition when choosing systemd in the auto-install option. According to the devs, this change will give users more space and freedom to install multiple kernels and other desirable options. EndeavourOS Mercury Neo also removes the obsolete NVIDIA options from the NVIDIA boot menu, fixes the Arch Linux mirror ranking bug, and removes the xwaylandvideobridge package from the installation script since it was removed upstream. Moreover, it updates the NVIDIA graphics driver to version 570.124.04, the Mesa graphics stack to version 25.0.1, the Calamares graphical installer to version 25.02.2.1-2, the Mozilla Firefox web browser to version 136.0.2, and the XOrg Server display server to version 21.1.16. EndeavourOS Mercury Neo is available for download right now from the official website. Since EndeavourOS follows a rolling-release model where you install once and receive updates forever, existing users need only to update their installations by running the sudo pacman -Syu command in the Terminal app.' -- source: https://9to5linux.com/endeavouros-mercury-neo-launches-with-kde-plasma-6-3-… Cheers, Peter

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Linux Kernel Might Get Smarter Reboots
by Peter Reutemann 01 Apr '25

01 Apr '25

'Something interesting recently emerged on the Linux kernel front—a new patch series titled “Live Update Orchestrator,” authored by Google’s engineer Pasha Tatashin and built on top of an earlier set of patches commonly referred to as the KHO v5 patch series. It aims to enable smooth kernel updates—referred to as “Live Update”—so that certain devices remain fully operational during the transition from an old kernel to a new one. Essentially, the innovative Live Update Orchestrator (LUO) subsystem intends to minimize system downtime by preserving device states across a reboot, particularly benefiting dynamic cloud environments where even minor disruptions can be unwelcome. According to the developers, this approach uses a state-machine mechanism to orchestrate the transition. The LUO subsystem tracks progress through several states—“normal,” “prepared,” and “updated”—and ties them together through callback APIs. These callbacks allow other kernel subsystems (e.g., KVM, IOMMU, interrupts, the new dev_liveupdate device layer, and memory management) to integrate seamlessly into the live update workflow.' -- source: https://linuxiac.com/linux-kernel-might-get-smarter-reboots/ Cheers, Peter

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Google makes Android development private, will continue open source releases
by Peter Reutemann 27 Mar '25

27 Mar '25

'Google is planning a major change to the way it develops new versions of the Android operating system. Since the beginning, large swaths of the software have been developed in public-facing channels, but that will no longer be the case. This does not mean Android is shedding its open source roots, but the process won't be as transparent. Google has confirmed to Android Authority that all Android development work going forward will take place in Google's internal branch. This is a shift from the way Google has worked on Android in the past, which featured frequent updates to the public AOSP branch. Anyone can access AOSP, but the internal branches are only available to Google and companies with a Google Mobile Services (GMS) license, like Samsung, Motorola, and others. According to the company, it is making this change to simplify things, building on a recent change to trunk-based development. As Google works on both public and private branches of Android, the two fall out of sync with respect to features and API support. This forces Google to tediously merge the branches for every release. By focusing on the internal branch, Google claims it can streamline releases and make life easier for everyone. When new versions of Android are done, Google says it will continue to publish the source code in AOSP as always. Supposedly, this will allow developers to focus on supporting their apps without keeping track of pending changes to the platform in AOSP. Licensed OEMs, meanwhile, can just focus on the lively internal branch as they work on devices that can take a year or more to launch.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/google-makes-android-development-pr… Cheers, Peter

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Linux Kernel 6.14 Is a Big Leap Forward In Performance, Windows Compatibility
by Peter Reutemann 27 Mar '25

27 Mar '25

'A report from ZDNet, written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols: Despite the minor delay, Linux 6.14 arrives packed with cutting-edge features and improvements to power upcoming Linux distributions, such as the forthcoming Ubuntu 25.04 and Fedora 42. The big news for desktop users is the improved NTSYNC driver, especially those who like to play Windows games or run Windows programs on Linux. This driver is designed to emulate Windows NT synchronization primitives. What that feature means for you and me is that it will significantly improve the performance of Windows programs running on Wine and Steam Play. [...] Gamers always want the best possible graphics performance, so they'll also be happy to see that Linux now supports recently launched AMD RDNA 4 graphics cards. This approach includes support for the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards. Combine this support with the recently improved open-source RADV driver and AMD gamers should see the best speed yet on their gaming rigs. Of course, the release is not just for gamers. Linux 6.14 also includes several AMD and Intel processor enhancements. These boosts focus on power management, thermal control, and compute performance optimizations. These updates are expected to improve overall system efficiency and performance. This release also comes with the AMDXDNA driver, which provides official support for AMD's neural processing units based on the XDNA architecture. This integration enables efficient execution of AI workloads, such as convolutional neural networks and large language models, directly on supported AMD hardware. While Rust has faced some difficulties in recent months in Linux, more Rust programming language abstractions have been integrated into the kernel, laying the groundwork for future drivers written in Rust. [...] Besides drivers, Miguel Ojeda, Rust for Linux's lead developer, said recently that the introduction of the macro for smart pointers with Rust 1.84: derive(CoercePointee) is an "important milestone on the way to building a kernel that only uses stable Rust functions." This approach will also make integrating C and Rust code easier. We're getting much closer to Rust being grafted into Linux's tree. In addition, Linux 6.14 supports Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile processor, enhancing performance and stability for devices powered by this chipset. That support means you can expect to see much faster Android-based smartphones later this year. This release includes a patch for the so-called GhostWrite vulnerability, which can be used to root some RISC-V processors. This fix will block such attacks. Additionally, Linux 6.14 includes improvements for the copy-on-write Btrfs file system/logical volume manager. These primarily read-balancing methods offer flexibility for different RAID hardware configurations and workloads. Additionally, support for uncached buffered I/O optimizes memory usage on systems with fast storage devices.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/03/26/2110211 Cheers, Peter

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Developer Loads Steam On a $100 ARM Single Board Computer
by Peter Reutemann 24 Mar '25

24 Mar '25

'"There's no shortage of videos showing Steam running on expensive ARM single-board computers with discrete GPUs," writes Slashdot reader VennStone. "So I thought it would be worthwhile to make a guide for doing it on (relatively) inexpensive RK3588-powered single-board computers, using Box86/64 and Armbian." The guides I came across were out of date, had a bunch of extra steps thrown in, or were outright incorrect... Up first, we need to add the Box86 and Box64 ARM repositories [along with dependencies, ARMHF architecture, and the Mesa graphics driver]... The guide closes with a multi-line script and advice to "Just close your eyes and run this. It's not pretty, but it will download the Steam Debian package, extract the needed bits, and set up a launch script." (And then the final step is sudo reboot now.) "At this point, all you have to do is open a terminal, type 'steam', and tap Enter. You'll have about five minutes to wait... Check out the video to see how some of the tested games perform." At 720p, performance is all over the place, but the games I tested typically managed to stay above 30 FPS. This is better than I was expecting from a four-year-old SOC emulating x86 titles under ARM. Is this a practical way to play your Steam games? Nope, not even a little bit. For now, this is merely an exercise in ludicrous neatness. Things might get a wee bit better, considering Collabora is working on upstream support for RK3588 and Valve is up to something ARM-related, but ya know, "Valve Time"... "You might be tempted to enable Steam Play for your Windows games, but don't waste your time. I mean, you can try, but it ain't gonna work."' -- source: https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/03/23/1922228 Cheers, Peter

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Rebooting A Retro PDP-11 Workstation - and Its Classic 'Venix' UNIX
by Peter Reutemann 24 Mar '25

24 Mar '25

'This week the "Old Vintage Computing Research" blog published a 21,000-word exploration of the DEC PDP-11, the 16-bit minicomputer sold by Digital Equipment Corporation. Slashdot reader AndrewZX calls the blog post "an excellent deep dive" into the machine's history and capabilities "and the classic Venix UNIX that it ran." The blogger still owns a working 1984 DEC Professional 380, "a tank of a machine, a reasonably powerful workstation, and the most practical PDP-adjacent thing you can actually slap on a (large) desk." But more importantly, "It runs PRO/VENIX, the only official DEC Unix option for the Pros." In that specific market it was almost certainly the earliest such licensed Unix (in 1983) and primarily competed against XENIX, Microsoft's dominant "small Unix," which first emerged for XT-class systems as SCO XENIX in 1984. You'd wonder how rogue processes could be prevented from stomping on each other in such systems when neither the Intel 8086/8088 nor the IBM PC nor the PC/XT had a memory management unit, and the answer was not to try and just hope for the best. It was for this reason that IBM's own Unix variant PC/IX, developed by Interactive Systems Corporation under contract as their intended AT&T killer, was multitasking but single-user since in such an architecture there could be no meaningful security guarantees... One of Venix's interesting little idiosyncrasies, seen in all three Pro versions, was the SUPER> prompt when you've logged on as root (there is also a MAINT> prompt when you're single-user... Although Bill Gates had been their biggest nemesis early on, most of the little Unices that flourished in the 1980s and early 90s met their collective demise at the hands of another man: Linus Torvalds. The proliferation of free Unix alternatives like Linux on commodity PC hardware caused the bottom to fall out of the commercial Unix market. The blogger even found a 1989 log for the computer's one and only guest login session — which seems to consist entirely of someone named tom trying to exit vi. But the most touching part of the article comes when the author discovers a file named /thankyou that they're certain didn't come with the original Venix. It's an ASCII drawing of a smiling face, under the words "THANK YOU FOR RESCUING ME". "It's among the last files created on the system before it came into my possession..." It's all a fun look back to a time when advances in semiconductor density meant microcomputers could do nearly as much as the more expensive minicomputers (while taking up less space) — leaving corporations pondering the new world that was coming: As far back as 1974, an internal skunkworks unit had presented management with two small systems prototypes described as a PDP-8 in a VT50 terminal and a portable PDP-11 chassis. Engineers were intrigued but sales staff felt these smaller versions would cut into their traditional product lines, and [DEC president Ken] Olsen duly cancelled the project, famously observing no one would want a computer in their home.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/22/1927247 Cheers, Peter

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Raspberry Pi Announces New Tool for Customized Software Images
by Peter Reutemann 24 Mar '25

24 Mar '25

'"For developers and organisations that require a custom software image, a flexible and transparent build system is essential," according to an announcement Friday at Raspberry Pi.com. "[T]o support these customers, we have created rpi-image-gen, a powerful new tool designed to put you in complete control of your Raspberry Pi images." If you're building an embedded system or an industrial controller, you'll need complete control over the software resident on the device, and home users may wish to build their own OS and have it pre-configured exactly the way they want... rpi-image-gen is an alternative to pi-gen, which is the tool we use to create and deploy the Raspberry Pi OS distribution. rpi-image-gen... offers a very granular level of control over file system construction and software image creation... [B]eing able to help reduce software build time, provide guaranteed ownership of support, and reuse standard methodologies to ensure authenticity of software were all of paramount importance, and among the reasons why we created a new home-grown build tool for Raspberry Pi devices... There is a small number of examples in the tree which demonstrate different use cases of rpi-image-gen [including the lightweight image slim and webkiosk for booting into browser kiosk mode]. All create bootable disk images and serve to illustrate how one might use rpi-image-gen to create a bespoke image for a particular purpose. The number of examples will grow over time and we welcome suggestions for new ones... Visit the rpi-image-gen GitHub repository to get started. There, you'll find documentation and examples to guide you through creating custom Raspberry Pi images. Some technical details from the announcement. - "Similar to pi-gen, rpi-image-gen leverages the power, reliability, and trust of installing a Debian Linux system for the device. However, unlike pi-gen, rpi-image-gen introduces some new concepts [profiles, image layouts, and config] which serve to dictate the build footprint and installation." - The tool also lets you exclude from your package "things that would otherwise be installed as part of the profile." - The tool's GitHub repository notes that it also allows you output your software bill of materials (SBOM) "to list the exact set of packages that were used to create the image." And it can even generate a list of CVEs identified from the SBOM to "give consumers of your image confidence that your image does not contain any known vulnerabilities."' -- source: https://build.slashdot.org/story/25/03/23/0012253 Cheers, Peter

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GIMP 3.0 Released
by Peter Reutemann 18 Mar '25

18 Mar '25

'GIMP 3.0 has been released after over a decade of development. Highlights include a refined GTK3 interface with scroll wheel tab navigation, a new splash screen, improved HiDPI icon support, enhanced color management, a stable public API, and support for more file formats. 9to5Linux reports: GIMP 3.0 also brings improvements to non-destructive editing by introducing an optional "Merge Filters" checkbox at the bottom of NDE filters that merges down the filter immediately after it's committed, along with non-destructive filters on layer groups and the implementation of storing version of filters in GIMP's XCF project files. Among other noteworthy changes, the GEGL and babl components have been updated with new features and many improvements, such as Inner Glow, Bevel, and GEGL Styles filters, some plugins saw small enhancements, and it's now possible to export images with different settings while leaving the original image unchanged. There's also a new PDB call that allows Script-Fu writers to use labels to specify filter properties, a brand new named-argument syntax, support for loading 16-bits-per-channel LAB PSD files, support for loading DDS images with BC7 support, early-binding CMYK support, and support for PSB and JPEG-XL image formats. On top of that, GIMP 3.0 introduces new auto-expanding layer boundary and snapping options, an updated search pop-up to show the menu path for all entries while making individual filters searchable, a revamped alignment tool, and support for "layer sets," replacing the older concept of linked layers. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/17/1948219 Cheers, Peter

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Wine Releases Framework Mono 6.14
by Peter Reutemann 11 Mar '25

11 Mar '25

'Today marks the release of Framework Mono 6.14, the first major Mono release in five years and the first under WineHQ's stewardship. This update includes long-awaited improvements such as native macOS ARM64 support, enhancements to System.Windows.Forms for X11, better COM interface support, and various stability fixes. Phoronix reports: In addition to the native macOS ARM64 support and System.Windows.Forms improvements for X11, some of the other Mono 6.14 improvements carried out over the past half-decade include improved support for generated COM interfaces, many warning fixes, addressing common cases where processes would hang on exit, and more. As for the "Framework Mono" name rather than just Mono, the release announcement explains: "Framework Mono is the project previously hosted at https://github.com/mono/mono, which was then simply called Mono. I have made this change to distinguish it from 'monovm' and 'Wine Mono', which are different projects. Framework Mono is a cross-platform runtime compatible with .NET Framework." ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/10/2055237 Cheers, Peter

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Emacs 30.1 Released: New Features, Installation, and Usage Guide
by Peter Reutemann 07 Mar '25

07 Mar '25

'GNU Emacs is one of the oldest text editors. It was created by Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software movement and GNU project. He is also the creator of the GNU C compiler and Debugger. Emacs is a versatile and highly configurable text editor with hundreds of keybindings and commands. With numerous configuration settings, it’s arguably one of the text editors with a steep learning curve, so most developers, system administrators, and regular Linux users prefer Nano or Vim editors. Despite the complexity of learning the ins and outs of Emacs, it’s not entirely hostile to beginners, and with the right learning strategy and guidance, you’ll be comfortable in no time. In this guide, we will hold your hand and walk you through the Emacs editor. By the end of this guide, you will have a decent amount of knowledge to get started with using the Emacs editor.' -- source: https://www.linuxtoday.com/blog/emacs-30-1-released-new-features-installati… Cheers, Peter

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Phrase Of The Week: “Vegetative Electron Microscopy”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Mar '25

05 Mar '25

Amusing summary <https://www.computerworld.com/article/3836728/you-thought-genai-hallucinati…> of research into how bad AIs can get in some of the rubbish results they produce. We knew they could lose their hold on reality and start making things up, but did you know they could also cheat, and tell lies about that cheating when confronted with it? For example, when given charge of doing share trades, and told not to (illegally) take advantage of insider information, they might do so anyway, and then simply deny it when challenged. Oh, and the phrase “vegetative electron microscopy” is complete nonsense; it originated when an AI was processing multicolumn text, and saw words next to each other which were in separate columns, not part of the same sentence at all, and ran them together anyway. From there, the phrase somehow spread to other publications ...

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Blender - Oscar win for Flow
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '25

03 Mar '25

'Making Flow – Interview with director Gints Zilbalodis Flow, the animated feature film following the mystical journey of a dark grey cat and his companions, is the manifestation of Blender’s mission, where a small, independent team with a limited budget is able to create a story that moves audiences worldwide, and achieve recognition with over 60 awards, including a Golden Globe for Best Animation and two Oscar nominations. In this interview, Gints Zilbalodis, writer and director (and more!) of the film, shares how Blender was instrumental in the creation of the film.' -- sources: https://www.blender.org/user-stories/making-flow-an-interview-with-director… https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/flow-wins-best-animated-feature-film-osca… Cheers, Peter

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Mozilla Revises Firefox's Terms of Use, Clarifies That They Don't Own Your Data
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '25

03 Mar '25

'"We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible," Mozilla explained Wednesday in a clarification a recent Terms of Use update. "Without it, we couldn't use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice." But Friday they went further, and revised those new Terms of Use "to more clearly reflect the limited scope of how Mozilla interacts with user data," according to a Mozilla blog post. More details from the Verge: The particular language that drew criticism was: "When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox." That language has been removed. Now, the language in the terms says: "You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content...." Friday's post additionally provides some context about why the company has "stepped away from making blanket claims that 'We never sell your data.'" Mozilla says that "in some places, the LEGAL definition of 'sale of data' is broad and evolving," and that "the competing interpretations of do-not-sell requirements does leave many businesses uncertain about their exact obligations and whether or not they're considered to be 'selling data.'" Mozilla says that "there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners" so that Firefox can be "commercially viable," but it adds that it spells those out in its privacy notice and works to strip data of potentially identifying information or share it in aggregate.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/01/2111254 Cheers, Peter

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Steam Deck & PC Gaming
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Feb '25

26 Feb '25

PC gaming is still a bigger business than consoles, according to <https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/01/way-more-game-makers-are-working-on-…>. And the Linux-powered Steam Deck has been pioneering the new handheld segment of the PC gaming market. But figures on Steam Deck sales are hard to come by. Here <https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/steam-deck-everything-you-were-afraid> is an attempt to tease out, from the available hints, how popular the product actually is. That article is over a year old by now, but it estimates that there were 3-4 million Steam Decks sold by that point. I think we can safely say another million or more in units has been added to that since then. One concrete figure from the Steam Hardware Survey <https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welc…> is that about 2.3% of all Steam users are on Linux. This looks like 0.7% specifically on the Steam Deck, so other Linux would be about 1.6%. Another linked survey reports that over half of Steam Deck users run other game emulation systems (e.g. PlayStation 2, Game Boy, GameCube) on their Decks.

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Pi-hole 6 Is Here: Now Faster, Smarter, and More Secu
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '25

25 Feb '25

'The much-anticipated Pi-hole 6, a network-wide ad blocker that acts as a DNS sinkhole to block advertisements, trackers, and malicious domains at the network level, has been officially released, now featuring an embedded web server and a new REST API directly integrated into the pihole-FTL binary. This eliminates the need for Lighttpd and PHP, reducing the installation footprint and boosting overall performance. Moreover, the new API introduces server-side pagination for the query log, ensuring a faster and more responsive user experience. Next, advanced filtering gets a boost by introducing support for subscribed allowlists, also known as “Antigravity.” These allowlists work similarly to traditional blocklists but allow domains rather than denying them, giving users more nuanced control over what content gets filtered. Additionally, configuration management has been made more user-friendly by consolidating multiple settings files into a single, richly commented TOML file located at “/etc/pihole/pihole.toml.” Whether you prefer direct file editing, command line tweaks, API usage, or environment variables—Pi-hole 6 has you covered. It’s also worth noting that the user interface has received a complete overhaul. With settings now divided into Basic and Expert modes, users can tailor their experience based on their comfort level.' -- source: https://linuxiac.com/pi-hole-6-is-here-now-faster-smarter-and-more-secure/ Cheers, Peter

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Greg Kroah-Hartman Supports Rust in the Kernel
by Peter Reutemann 24 Feb '25

24 Feb '25

'Report from Phoronix: Linux's second-in-command Greg Kroah-Hartman has also been a big proponent of Rust kernel code. He's crafted another Linux kernel mailing list post [Wednesdsay] outlining the benefits of Rust and encouraging new kernel code/drivers to be in Rust rather than C. Greg KH makes the case that the majority of the kernel bugs are due to "stupid little corner cases in C that are totally gone in Rust." "As someone who has seen almost EVERY kernel bugfix and security issue for the past 15+ years... and who sees EVERY kernel CVE issued, I think I can speak on this topic," Kroah-Hartman began. Here's some excerpts from his remarks. Citing corner cases like overwrites of memory, error path cleanups, use-after-free mistakes and forgetting to check error values, Kroah-Hartman says he's "all for... making these types of problems impossible to hit." That's why I'm wanting to see Rust get into the kernel, these types of issues just go away, allowing developers and maintainers more time to focus on the REAL bugs that happen (i.e. logic issues, race conditions, etc.)... [F]or new code / drivers, writing them in Rust where these types of bugs just can't happen (or happen much much less) is a win for all of us, why wouldn't we do this...? Rust isn't a "silver bullet" that will solve all of our problems, but it sure will help in a huge number of places, so for new stuff going forward, why wouldn't we want that...? Yes, mixed language codebases are rough, and hard to maintain, but we are kernel developers dammit, we've been maintaining and strengthening Linux for longer than anyone ever thought was going to be possible. We've turned our development model into a well-oiled engineering marvel creating something that no one else has ever been able to accomplish. Adding another language really shouldn't be a problem, we've handled much worse things in the past and we shouldn't give up now on wanting to ensure that our project succeeds for the next 20+ years. We've got to keep pushing forward when confronted with new good ideas, and embrace the people offering to join us in actually doing the work to help make sure that we all succeed together. Kroah-Hartman emphasized later that "a huge majority of the stupid things we do in C just don't happen in the same code implemented in Rust (i.e. memory leaks, error path cleanups, return value checking, etc.) " The complete thread contains over 140 messages — including Linus Torvalds' observation that " #pragma is complete garbage and should never be used."' -- source:https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/02/22/0543255 Cheers, Peter

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Brave Now Lets You Inject Custom JavaScript To Tweak Websites
by Peter Reutemann 11 Feb '25

11 Feb '25

'Brave Browser version 1.75 introduces "custom scriptlets," a new feature that allows advanced users to inject their own JavaScript into websites for enhanced customization, privacy, and usability. The feature is similar to the TamperMonkey and GreaseMonkey browser extensions, notes BleepingComputer. From the report: "Starting with desktop version 1.75, advanced Brave users will be able to write and inject their own scriptlets into a page, allowing for better control over their browsing experience," explained Brave in the announcement. Brave says that the feature was initially created to debug the browser's adblock feature but felt it was too valuable not to share with users. Brave's custom scriptlets feature can be used to modify webpages for a wide variety of privacy, security, and usability purposes. For privacy-related changes, users write scripts that block JavaScript-based trackers, randomize fingerprinting APIs, and substitute Google Analytics scripts with a dummy version. In terms of customization and accessibility, the scriptlets could be used for hiding sidebars, pop-ups, floating ads, or annoying widgets, force dark mode even on sites that don't support it, expand content areas, force infinite scrolling, adjust text colors and font size, and auto-expand hidden content. For performance and usability, the scriptlets can block video autoplay, lazy-load images, auto-fill forms with predefined data, enable custom keyboard shortcuts, bypass right-click restrictions, and automatically click confirmation dialogs. The possible actions achievable by injected JavaScript snippets are virtually endless. However, caution is advised, as running untrusted custom scriptlets may cause issues or even introduce some risk.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/02/10/2348258 Cheers, Peter

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This Keyboard Has A “SMOL” Key
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Feb '25

11 Feb '25

The review claims this is the “world’s largest keyboard”. <https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/keyboards/im-typing-this-on-the-wo…>. It is supposedly inspired by the legendary “Space Cadet” keyboard from the 1980s <https://www.deviantart.com/default-cube/art/Space-Cadet-Keyboard-650629356>, and is certainly a wonder to behold. Yet with all the modifiers it does provide (look, they found room for *two* “Meta” keys, both on the right-hand side!), they somehow decided to omit any CTRL keys. Note on modifiers: “Meta” is commonly a synonym for “Alt”, while the “Super” key is usually mapped to the one with the Windows logo on it, for those still stuck in the Microsoft world. The “Hyper” moodifier has no equivalent on a conventional keyboard. These are all names well-established from the days of high-powered workstations running Unix or doing AI work with Lisp. But what the heck is the “SMOL” key supposed to do?

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Tails 6.12 Rolls Out, Sealing Critical Security Gaps
by Peter Reutemann 11 Feb '25

11 Feb '25

'The Tails project announced the release of its privacy-focused Linux distro, Tails 6.12, featuring vital security patches alongside an array of functional updates. According to the development team, several vulnerabilities were discovered during an external security audit by Radically Open Security. In light of this, perhaps the most noteworthy highlights in Tails 6.12 are the fixes preventing attackers from monitoring Tor circuits and altering Persistent Storage settings. Here are some more details about it. Tor Circuit Monitoring Prevention In earlier versions (up to Tails 6.11), vulnerabilities within Onion Circuits and the Tor Browser wrapper could have allowed a hostile actor—who had already hijacked a running application—to monitor or modify Tor connections, potentially revealing user identities. The Tails developers emphasize that there is no indication these flaws were exploited in the wild. Persistent Storage Security Enhancements Another fix addresses a loophole that, if exploited, could have allowed attackers with existing control of an application to change Persistent Storage settings. This patch ensures that user data in the Persistent Storage remains more securely locked down even in the unlikely event of a breach.' -- source: https://linuxiac.com/tails-6-12-rolls-out-sealing-critical-security-gaps/ Cheers, Peter

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OpenWrt 24.10 Brings Kernel 6.6 and Initial WiFi 7 Support
by Peter Reutemann 11 Feb '25

11 Feb '25

'OpenWrt, a free and open-source Linux-based operating system primarily used for embedded devices, most notably residential gateways and routers, has just announced the first stable release of its 24.10 series. Most notable among the changes is the jump from Linux kernel 5.15 to 6.6 LTS, which promises better hardware support and long-term viability. Additionally, TLS 1.3 support is now standard in the default images, bolstering security capabilities for systems relying on encrypted connections. Another noteworthy improvement is the activation of POSIX Access Control Lists and file system security attributes on devices with larger flash memory sizes. Moreover, kernel support for Multipath TCP has been enabled on devices with greater storage capacity. Regarding wireless networking, OpenWrt 24.10 further refines WiFi6 (802.11ax) and adds initial, although still limited, support for WiFi7 (802.11be). Of course, each new release also expands device coverage, with OpenWrt 24.10 now supporting over 1,970 devices, adding compatibility for more than 100 new models compared to the previous release. And completely expected, their own OpenWrt One is now among them.' -- source: https://linuxiac.com/openwrt-24-10-brings-kernel-6-6-and-initial-wifi-7-sup… Cheers, Peter

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How To Make Any AMD Zen CPU Always Generate 4 As a Random Number
by Peter Reutemann 10 Feb '25

10 Feb '25

'Google security researchers have discovered a way to bypass AMD's security, enabling them to load unofficial microcode into its processors and modify the silicon's behaviour at will. To demonstrate this, they created a microcode patch that forces the chips to always return 4 when asked for a random number. Beyond simply allowing Google and others to customize AMD chips for both beneficial and potentially malicious purposes, this capability also undermines AMD's secure encrypted virtualization and root-of-trust security mechanisms.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/02/09/2021244 Cheers, Peter

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Red Hat Plans to Add AI to Fedora and GNOME
by Peter Reutemann 05 Feb '25

05 Feb '25

'In his post about the future of Fedora Workstation, Christian F.K. Schaller discusses how the Red Hat team plans to integrate AI with IBM's open-source Granite engine to enhance developer tools, such as IDEs, and create an AI-powered Code Assistant. He says the team is also working on streamlining AI acceleration in Toolbx and ensuring Fedora users have access to tools like RamaLama. From the post: One big item on our list for the year is looking at ways Fedora Workstation can make use of artificial intelligence. Thanks to IBMs Granite effort we know have an AI engine that is available under proper open source licensing terms and which can be extended for many different usecases. Also the IBM Granite team has an aggressive plan for releasing updated versions of Granite, incorporating new features of special interest to developers, like making Granite a great engine to power IDEs and similar tools. We been brainstorming various ideas in the team for how we can make use of AI to provide improved or new features to users of GNOME and Fedora Workstation. This includes making sure Fedora Workstation users have access to great tools like RamaLama, that we make sure setting up accelerated AI inside Toolbx is simple, that we offer a good Code Assistant based on Granite and that we come up with other cool integration points. "I'm still not sure how I feel about this approach," writes designer/developer and blogger, Bradley Taunt. "While IBM Granite is an open source model, I still don't enjoy so much artificial 'intelligence' creeping into core OS development. This also isn't something optional on the end-users side, like a desktop feature or package. This sounds like it's going to be built directly into the core system." "Red Hat has been pushing hard towards AI and my main concern is having this influence other operating system dev teams. Luckily things seems AI-free in BSD land. For now, at least." ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/02/04/2047240 Cheers, Peter

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Framework Laptop’s RISC-V board for open source diehards is available for $199
by Peter Reutemann 05 Feb '25

05 Feb '25

'We've covered the Framework Laptop 13 primarily as a consumer Windows laptop, reviewing versions with multiple Intel and AMD processors. But the system's modular nature makes it possible to expand it beyond Windows PC hardware, as we've seen with experiments like the (now-discontinued) Chromebook Edition of the laptop. Today Framework is expanding to something even more experimental: a DeepComputing RISC-V Mainboard targeted primarily at developers. RISC-V is a fully open source and royalty-free instruction set, making it possible for anyone to adopt and use it without having to license it (unlike x86, which is a maze of cross-licensed Intel and AMD technologies that other companies can't really buy into; or Arm, which is licensed by the company of the same name). First announced in June 2024, the board is available to order today for $199. The board is designed to fit in a Framework Laptop 13 chassis, which means that people who would prefer a desktop can also put it into the $39 Cooler Master Mainboard Case that Framework offers. Made in concert with DeepComputing, the board uses a StarFive JH7110 processor with four 1.5 GHz SiFive U74 CPU cores. The board can officially run either Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or Fedora 41, with tech support provided by DeepComputing.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/framework-laptop-expands-beyond-x86… Cheers, Peter

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