Welcome to LWN.net
LWN.net is a reader-supported news site dedicated to producing the best coverage from within the Linux and free software development communities. See the LWN FAQ for more information, and please consider subscribing to gain full access and support our activities.
[$] Old-school calendaring at the command line with Remind
Remind is a command-line calendar and alarm program, with an optional Tk-based graphical interface, for Linux and Unix-like operating systems. It has its own scripting language that allows users to create reminders that are difficult (if not impossible) to specify in other calendaring programs. It is wholly unsuitable for use in corporate environments that require calendar sharing and exchanging meeting invitations; however, it may be precisely the calendaring tool for users who prefer the command line and fast, flexible tools that can help keep track of messy schedules.
[$] How to be safe from quantum computing
Practical quantum computers have been ten years away for the last several decades. Now, however, it's beginning to look as though they will be possible in just a few years. Recent research with obfuscated results demonstrated much lower memory requirements to factor ECDSA keys on a quantum computer, with work by other researchers in the open more than halving memory use compared to the state of the art in 2023. At the same time, computer manufacturers are boasting quantum processors that retain viable superpositions over longer periods. Given how slowly software updates filter out to stable systems, it's worth looking at what configuration changes and protocol updates are needed to be safe from quantum computers now.
[$] Considering the OpenMDW license
The open-source world has been struggling for a few years now to understand how to approach large language models (LLMs) and the licensing applied to them. What constitutes "freedom" with respect to a black box filled with numerical weights? The process taken by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in the development of its Open Source AI Definition was controversial at best, as was its output. Now, the Linux Foundation's Mike Dolan has brought a new license to the OSI for approval. It is called the OpenMDW ("Open Model, Data, and Weights"), and it aims to clarify licensing for the distribution of LLMs and related materials, but consensus is proving hard to find for this license as well.
[$] A look at the Quickshell desktop-component toolkit
Quickshell is a toolkit for building desktop components, such as toolbars or menus. It uses QML, which is a declarative language for designing GUI applications. Quickshell helps developers create graphical tools for common desktop use cases with a focus on ease of development. It offers a convenient method for writing user interfaces and has been adopted by a number of projects, such as caelestia-shell and DankMaterialShell, that provide desktop environments for minimal window managers like Sway and niri.
[$] The beginning of the 7.3 merge window
As of this writing, 2,346 non-merge changesets have been pulled into the mainline repository for the 7.3 kernel release. That, clearly, is a mere down payment on the flood that is to come. Even so, those early pulls brought in some noteworthy changes, including (but not limited to) a significant reworking of how group scheduling works on multiprocessor systems.
[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for August 20, 2026
Posted Aug 20, 2026 0:05 UTC (Thu)The LWN.net Weekly Edition for August 20, 2026 is available.
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition
- Front: Debian AI GR; Python pathlib; bootstrappable builds; Fedora and AF_ALG; Arm 128-bit PTEs; BPF CI; 7.2 statistics.
- Briefs: Brief news items from throughout the community.
- Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
[$] Debian weighs eight options in vote on LLM usage
The Debian Project is voting on the usage of large language models (LLMs) to make contributions to the project. The first proposal, sent in late July by Matthias Geiger, would expressly forbid any contributions to Debian that are created by or with the assistance of LLMs. That kicked off a firestorm of discussion and a flood of alternate proposals. Debian developers are now voting on eight proposals in total that range from banning LLM-assisted contributions to explicitly approving them, as well as the standard "none of the above" option that would leave Debian with no agreed policy.
[$] Representing Python paths using pathlib
At the outset of his PyCon US 2026 talk, Trey Hunner said that his goal was for attendees to stop representing filesystem paths as strings and to use pathlib instead. That's kind of a tall order, at least for longtime Python users, since string-based paths have been pervasive—and mostly work. It is that "mostly" part that makes Hunner want to see things change, of course, so he set out to describe a lesser-known corner of the language and to try to change some minds.
[$] Fedora prepares for the end of AF_ALG
The Linux kernel's user-space interface (AF_ALG) to the Crypto API has been linked to a number of recent high-profile security problems, including Copy Fail and successor vulnerabilities. It was deprecated earlier this year. Eric Biggers, and other kernel developers, have been working to remove it from the kernel. With that in mind, the Fedora Project is planning to restrict use of AF_ALG in the next Fedora release in the hopes of nudging remaining users of the API to prepare for its eventual removal.
[$] Development statistics for the 7.2 kernel
Linus Torvalds released
the 7.2 kernel on August 17, after noting that the number of fixes
coming in was still "bigger than I would have wished for
". In fact,
7.2 was one of the busiest development cycles in the kernel's history,
adding nearly 600,000 lines of code. It's time to look at some statistics
to get a handle on how the kernel's development community is changing.
mklinux-v7.0-mk2 released
For people who would like to experiment with the multi-kernel Linux concept, Cong Wang has announced the release of mklinux v7.0-mk2.
mklinux lets one machine run several independent Linux kernels at the same time on bare metal, without a hypervisor. A host kernel owns a pool of CPUs, memory and PCI devices, carves that pool into instances, and boots a spawn kernel into each instance through kexec_file_load(). Every spawn kernel runs natively on its own CPUs, its own physical memory and its own devices. Nothing is emulated and nothing is trapped; the only thing shared is what you choose to share.
Note that this is not the old MkLinux, which was a port to PowerPC Macintosh systems.
Vanilla OS 3 released
Vanilla OS 3, an immutable desktop Linux distribution, has been released. Notable changes in this release include support for Arm64, introduction of a Vanilla OS SDK, a rewrite of the Apx package manager using the new SDK, and much more. LWN covered Vanilla OS 2 in 2024.
Security updates for Tuesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (cups-filters, gstreamer1-plugins-base, gstreamer1-plugins-good, kernel, mrtg, NetworkManager, nginx, nginx:1.24, nodejs24, perl-Date-Manip, python-pyasn1, python-urwid, python3.12, python3.14, and qemu-kvm), Debian (erlang, thunderbird, webkit2gtk, and zfs-linux), Fedora (calibre, chromium, freeipa, java-21-openjdk, java-21-openjdk-portable, java-25-openjdk, java-latest-openjdk, jfrog-cli, kernel, libxls, nextcloud, perl-URI, and samba), Gentoo (Incus), Mageia (kernel and kernel-linus), Oracle (ansible-core, cups-filters, curl, firefox, kernel, libcupsfilters, libreoffice, mrtg, NetworkManager, perl-Date-Manip, php:8.2, php:8.3, python-urwid, python3.14, qemu-kvm, and sqlite), Red Hat (assertj-core, httpd, and osbuild-composer), SUSE (buildah, comfyui, dracut, erlang, erlang27, grafana, kernel, libssh2_org, openvswitch, perl-Dancer2-Plugin-Auth-Extensible, postgresql17, python-cryptography, python-sqlparse, python311, python313-hpack, rpm, suseconnect-ng, thunderbird, and vim), and Ubuntu (async-http-client, curl, and ffmpeg).
Emacs 31.1 released
Version 31.1 of the Emacs editor has been released. There is a long list of changes including the removal of the Emacs dumper, a new user Lisp directory feature, a "Send to..." menu item in context-menu-mode, and many other changes; see the NEWS file for more information. Mickey Petersen, author of Mastering Emacs, also has a rundown of some of the quality-of-life features appearing in this release.
Security updates for Monday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (ansible-core, cups-filters, curl, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, kbd, kernel, perl-Date-Manip, php:8.2, and php:8.3), Debian (designate, firefox-esr, gst-plugins-bad1.0, libnet-dns-perl, nvidia-graphics-drivers, openjdk-21, openjdk-25, spip, and thunderbird), Fedora (AusweisApp2, bluez, calibre, ceph, chromium, GitPython, kernel, pack, perl-URI, rsync, and tcpreplay), Gentoo (GNU Emacs and needrestart), Oracle (ansible-core, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, kbd, kernel, mysql:8.4, perl-Date-Manip, perl:5.32, and sssd), Red Hat (curl, dnsmasq, kbd, kernel, libcap, libreswan, openssh, rsync, samba, unbound, and vim), SUSE (389-ds, apptainer, avahi, bugwarden, chromium, ffmpeg-9-libavcodec-devel, firefox, firefox-esr, gimp, go1.27, helm, ignition, libarchive, libjxl-devel, libssh, multipath-tools, openssl-3, pcp, perl-Net-CIDR-Set, perl-Net-OAuth, postgresql14, postgresql15, python-msgpack, python-pyasn1, python-urllib3, python313, python313-pytest-html, redis, runc, sccache, sssd, util-linux, vim, weechat, and wget), and Ubuntu (linux-fips, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-hwe-7.0, linux-ibm, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, and linux-nvidia-6.17).
Sunday's stable kernel set
The 7.1.10, 6.18.46, 6.12.105, 6.6.153, 6.1.184, 5.15.217, and 5.10.266 stable kernels have all been released; each contains another set of important fixes.
Mourning Steve French
From Jeremy Allison we have the
sad news of the passing of Steve French. He was the maintainer of the
kernel's SMB filesystem code for many years, having only dropped that
role due to health issues in the last week. "I've known Steve for
over 20 years. He was a legend in the community, and a really good
friend. He will be greatly missed. Farewell Steve.
" He will indeed be missed.
Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (ansible-core and pcp), Debian (chromium, libgit2, python-httplib2, and sabnzbdplus), Fedora (dokuwiki, domoticz, dotnet10.0, dotnet8.0, dotnet9.0, firefox, i2c-display, libgit2, lyx, ntpsec, openssh, perl-DBI, php-phpseclib3, python-alembic, python-asyncmy, python-sqlalchemy, python3.13, roundcubemail, trafficserver, wireshark, and wordpress), Red Hat (compat-openssl10, compat-openssl11, fence-agents, gnutls, kernel, kernel-rt, libarchive, libreswan, multiple packages, openssl, python-idna, python-pillow, qemu-kvm, resource-agents, rh-podman-desktop, ruby, unbound, and vim), SUSE (buildah, chromium, container-suseconnect, containerd, cosign, ctop, docker, firefox, forgejo-cli, gitea-tea, go1.25, go1.26, helm, kubernetes, kubernetes-old, kubevirt1.8, podman, python-pytest-html, python-unearth, python311, python313, rootlesskit, and rsync), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-azure, linux-bluefield, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-iot, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-7.0, linux-ibm, linux-oem-7.0, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure-fips, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-intel-iotg, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, linux-kvm, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-realtime, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux-aws-6.8, linux-azure-5.15, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gke, linux-gke, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-hwe-6.8, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-7.0, linux-nvidia-bos, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-realtime, netty, postgresql-14, postgresql-16, postgresql-18, vim, and wget).
KDE Gear 26.08 released
Version 26.08 of the KDE Gear collection of applications has been released. Notable changes in this release include improvements in the signing features of Okular, improved file-grouping features in the Dolphin file manager, and a number of enhancements to the Kdenlive video editor. See the changelog for a full list of updates, enhancements, and bug fixes.
Supply chain attack on arrayref (Rust blog)
The Rust blog reports on a malicious crate, called proc-macro1, that was uploaded to the crates.io repository.
Furthermore, we discovered that the popular arrayref crate had recently been republished and made to depend on this crate, with the most recent versions yanked. We have removed the malicious version and unyanked the maliciously-yanked versions. Other crates by that author (internment, append-only-vec) were also affected so we have done the same for those, and locked the account as a precaution. We do not believe the author of arrayref to be acting maliciously, but their computer or credentials are likely compromised, and we are attempting to contact them.