Coverage of a great talk from SCALE 22x about the making of the OpenWrt One router. Impressive what the Software Freedom Conservancy and OpenWrt project have pulled off in just such a short time. #OpenSource #OpenWrt #FreeSoftware
While open source seems like a "no-brainer" for government use, it turns out that governments can be surprisingly resistant to using FOSS for various reasons. Federico González Waite spoke at SCALE 22x to recount his experiences working with and for the Mexican government. #opensource
Zig is a low-level, memory-unsafe programming language that aims to compete with C instead of depending on it. The 0.14 release contains a number of new convenience features, broader architecture support, and the next steps toward removing Zig's dependency on LLVM. #opensource #zig #programming
Matrix provides an open network for secure, decentralized communication. At FOSDEM 2025, Matrix project lead Matthew Hodgson discussed the history of Matrix, its missteps in chasing mainstream adoption, its current status, and some of the wishlist features for taking Matrix into the mainstream.
LWN guest author Pankaj Raghav takes a look at some recent changes in the Linux kernel that allow filesystems to support larger block sizes than the kernel's page sizes.
There are many challenges involved with running a site like LWN. One of them is the task of fending off bots determined to scrape the entire Internet to (seemingly) feed into the insatiable meat grinder of AI training is certainly one of those. Read on for a description of a modern-day plague.
Recently, there has been a fair amount of attention given to a patch set merged for Linux 6.13 that, it is claimed, can improve processing efficiency (and, thus, power savings) in data centers by as much as 30%. #Linux #Networking
Most Linux systems depend on a suite of core utilities that the GNU Project started development on decades ago and are, of course, written in C. At FOSDEM 2025, Sylvestre Ledru made the case in his main stage talk that modern systems require safer, more maintainable tools.
By the time that Linus Torvalds released 6.14-rc1 and closed the merge window for this development cycle, some 9,307 non-merge changesets had been pulled into the mainline repository — the lowest level of merge-window activity seen in years. #Linux #LinuxKernel
Greg Kroah-Hartman has released three more stable kernels: 6.13.3, 6.12.14, and 6.6.78. There was a bit of confusion that resulted in the patch for CVE 2025-21687 getting applied twice — but that doesn't result in any problems for users of the kernel, just a bit of extra noise in the CVE database.
remember, signal is the only decent dm platform. all the others exist for sharing a signal handle, the way internet explorer is there to install chrome
I wrote an article for @lwndotnet.bsky.social about the major ways that Memcached has evolved since its launch more than 20 years ago: lwn.net/SubscriberLi... #Linux #FOSS
A "uretprobe" is a dynamic, userspace tracepoint injected by the kernel into a running process. A significant change to uretprobes in #Linux 6.11 improved their performance, but that change is also creating trouble for some users. The best way to solve the problem is not entirely clear. #LinuxKernel
Jonathan Bryce has announced two open community meetings to hear input on the topic of the OpenInfra Foundation migrating to the Linux Foundation. Bryce wrote that the OpenInfra board has carefully evaluated its options, and sees joining the Linux Foundation as the best way forward.
In the past 12 months or so, we've added a number of new features to LWN that readers and subscribers may not have noticed. Take a look at some of them, including EPUB downloads and the Kernel Source Database (KSDB) here: lwn.net/Articles/100...
The idea of adding None-aware operators to Python has sprung up once again. These would make traversing structures with None values in them easier, by short-circuiting lookups when a None is encountered. #Python #Linux #OpenSource
What's that you say? You'd like to read LWN on your favorite e-reader? Now you can -- today we took the wraps off a new feature for subscribers, the ability to download articles and/or the weekly edition as an #EPUB. #ebook #kindle #kobo Please let us know what you think!
The 6.13 development cycle ended on January 19 with the release of the 6.13 kernel. This cycle was, on its surface, one of the slowest we have seen in some time. The 6.13 kernel cycle brought in 12,928 non-merge changesets from 2,001 developers. #Linux #Kernel #OpenSource
Chimera Linux is a new distribution designed to be ""simple, transparent, and easy to pick up"". The distribution is built from scratch, and recently announced its first beta release.
The Fedora Project's annual contributor conference will be in Prague in June (not August!). Call for papers is open!
fedoramagazine.org/flock-to-fed...
#FlockToFedora
The death of Vim founder Bram Moolenaar raised concern about the future of Vim. At VimConf 2024, current Vim maintainer Christian Brabandt's keynote on "the new Vim project" detailed how the community has reorganized itself to continue maintaining Vim, and what the future looks like.
Linus has released the 6.13 kernel. Significant features in this release include the lazy preemption model for CPU scheduling, Arm64 Guarded Control Stack support, multi-grain file timestamps, the removal of the ReiserFS filesystem, and more. #Linux
In the past, LWN had a tradition of publishing a timeline of notable events from the previous year in early January. We thought we might try reviving that tradition in 2025 to see if our readers find it useful. #Linux #OpenSource #FreeSoftware
lwn.net/SubscriberLi...
Fedora's FESCo has made a series of missteps in deciding to revoke a longtime Fedora contributor's provenpackager status. FESCo made the decision during a closed session, based on private complaints--but publicly announced the revoked status without being prepared to answer questions.
LWN published a good summary of the discussion so far:
lwn.net/Articles/100...
@lwndotnet.bsky.social
Linux distribution security updates for Monday, 23 December: updates from Debian, Fedora, Mageia, SUSE, and Ubuntu. See LWN.net for the full list of packages updated. #Linux #Security
Matthew Wilcox has recently resurrected an old patch set that expands the concept of a "frozen" page in the Linux kernel — one that lacks a meaningful reference count — to the immediate benefit of the slab allocator but in the service of a longer-term goal as well. #Linux #OpenSource
Security updates have been issued by Debian, Fedora, Oracle, SUSE, and Ubuntu. See LWN for the full list of affected packages.
I'm working on CPython's internals documentation, collecting it all into one place, organising, updating and enhancing to fill in missing topics.
It's taking shape, but there are still gaps to fill. Contributions are welcome.
github.com/python/cpyth...
