Linux

When programs written in BPF (the kernel's hot-loadable virtual-machine bytecode) call kernel functions (kfuncs), it may be useful for those functions to have additional information about the context in which those BPF programs are executing. Rather than requiring it to supply that information, it would be convenient to let the BPF verifier pass that information to the called function automatically. That is already possible, but a recent patch set from Ihor Solodrai would make it more ergonomic. It allows kernel developers to specify that a kfunc should be passed additional parameters inferred by the verifier, invisibly to the BPF program. The discussion included concerns that Solodrai's implementation was unnecessarily complex, however.

Currently, kfuncs that need access to a BPF program's context information indicate this by adding the __prog annotation to one of their arguments. A BPF program calling the function passes NULL for that parameter, and the verifier automatically inserts a pointer to the program's bpf_prog_aux structure (which can be used to find or manipulate a control group associated with a BPF program, for example). That is awkward because if a kfunc is updated to require a program's context information, all of the BPF programs that call it need to be updated to pass the extra parameter.

As we work toward the stable Linux 6.18 kernel release expected around the end of December, out today is the Linux 6.18-rc5 test kernel.

Linus Torvalds christened the Linux 6.18-rc5 kernel just minutes ago. It's been another week of mostly small changes throughout kernel space. The changes on my radar this week include many DRM kernel graphics driver fixes, electronic privacy screen hotkey handling for some Dell laptops, and partially addressing a performance regression that is most prominent on IBM POWER CPUs.

The MX Linux team has officially released MX Linux 25 “Infinity”, the next major version of the popular Debian-based distribution, now built on Debian 13 “Trixie”.

The new version ships in several editions—Xfce, KDE Plasma, and Fluxbox—each updated to their latest stable versions. The release includes Xfce 4.20, Plasma 6.3.6, and Fluxbox 1.3.7.

Most ISO images come with the Linux kernel 6.12 LTS from Debian’s stable repositories, while the AHS (Advanced Hardware Support) variants feature the 6.16 Liquorix kernel for better performance on newer hardware.

The major change is that all releases now include systemd by default, although SysVinit variants of the Xfce and Fluxbox editions are still available for users who prefer the traditional init system. According to developers, this will improve compatibility and simplify future maintenance.

Catch up on the latest Linux news: MX 25, Devuan 6, IncusOS, Hyprland 0.52, Plasma 6.5.2, NPM 2.13, GNOME 50 ends the X11 era, Mint's new Cinnamon menu, and more.

Welcome to the 45th week of Linuxiac’s 2025 Weekly Roundup — your go-to source for all things Linux & Open Source. Here’s a look at the biggest Linux and FOSS highlights from the past week (Nov 3 – 9).

Nobody is immune to plane crashes, terrorist attacks, or fatal heart failure – not even Linus Torvalds, who still has the final say in the development of the kernel he named Linux. This worries many, as there is no public record of who or what would take over leadership in case of an emergency.

Archive link: https://archive.is/mZQg2

MyMan: A simple Pac-Man clone

NetHack: A very text-based rougelike

nudoku: Unlimited Sudoku puzzles

Queued into the platform-drivers-x86 "for-next" Git branch ahead of the Linux 6.19 merge window is introducing the handling for the "Rapid Charge" USB-C charging mode to the Lenovo IdeaPad laptop driver.

For anyone dealing with Minix file-systems still for this nearly 40 year old creation, the upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel is expected to bring some fixes to the Minix driver for better handling corrupted file-system images.

Syzbot has uncovered some corruption bugs within the Linux kernel's Minix file-system driver. When trying to mount and deal with corrupted Minix file-systems, some problems were uncovered that are now being addressed to be able to report said corruption and fixing the underlying bugs detected.

Two patches queued into the Linux kernel's build system development tree, kbuild-next, would enable the -fms-extensions compiler argument everywhere for allowing GCC and LLVM/Clang to use the Microsoft C Extensions when compiling the Linux kernel. Being in kbuild-next these patches will likely be submitted for the Linux 6.19 kernel merge window next month but remains to be seen if there will be any last minute objections to this change.

The -fms-extensions compiler option honored by the GNU Compiler Collection and LLVM/Clang allow enabling some non-standard C/C++ constructs used within Microsoft header files and honored by the the Microsoft Visual C/C++ compiler. For Linux kernel development purposes, enabling the Microsoft C Extensions would allow including a tagged struct or union anonymously in another struct/union.

The lightweight Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE), a continuation of the classic KDE 3.5 desktop, designed for users who value traditional layouts without the overhead of modern desktop shells, has announced the release of version 14.1.5, the fifth maintenance update in the R14.1 series.

Among the most notable highlights, TWin, TDE’s window manager, now supports tiling when multiple monitors are in use, bringing better workspace organization for users with complex setups.

I recently added a UPS to my server rack to keep my internet and home network running during a power outage. After unpacking it, I investigated its USB port and discovered it wasn’t for powering other devices. Instead, it connects to a host computer to provide information like battery charge status, remaining runtime, and current load.

I wanted to access this data without relying on third-party software, so I decided to see if I could reverse-engineer the protocol using Linux.

Professional Multi-Distribution Linux Environments for Android 🚀 Run Alpine, Debian, Ubuntu & Kali with full Android system integration

AndroSH is a professional-grade deployment platform that enables seamless execution of multiple Linux distributions on Android devices through advanced proot virtualization and Android System Integration via ADB/Shizuku. This solution provides Professional-level Linux environment management without compromising device security.

For those dealing with SquashFS compressed, read-only file-systems, a new version of the user-space tools were released this week.

SquashFS remains a popular choice for embedded systems for read-only file-system needs as well as the likes of Linux live images. The new 4.7.3 release while a point release does bring a few notable changes.

A tape-based piece of unique Unix history may have been lying quietly in storage at the University of Utah for 50+ years. The question is whether researchers will be able to take this piece of middle-aged media and rewind it back to the 1970s to get the data off.

The news was posted to Mastodon by Professor Robert Ricci of the University of Utah's Kahlert School of Computing.

While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #UNIX v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973

Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_Edition

We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum

MKVToolNix, a set of tools for creating, altering, and inspecting Matroska (MKV) files under Linux systems, has been updated today to version 96.0, a release that brings a couple of new features and several bug fixes.

MKVToolNix 96.0 comes almost a month after MKVToolNix 95.0 to introduce the --no-bom command-line parameter for disabling the writing of byte order marks to text files encoded with one of the UTF variants. This change fixes an unexpected UTF-8 BOM in mkvextract that occurred when extracting subtitles.

This release also improves the multiplexer feature in the MKVToolNix GUI by adding the <MTX_CHAPTERS_FILE_NAME> variable to the “run program after job completion” mechanism, which contains the absolute path to the chapters file name.

Several bugs were addressed in MKVToolNix 96.0, which improves the OBU reader feature in mkvmerge by fixing probing of files where the first frame ends after the 1MB mark, which is how big the memory buffer used for probing content is, as well as the VobSub reader feature in mkvmerge by correctly reading VobSub .idx files that start with a byte-order mark (BOM).

Bottles, an open-source software tool built on top of Wine that helps users run Windows applications and games on Linux systems by providing a user-friendly GUI, has just released its latest version, 52.1.

This update introduces a new feature – playtime tracking support. A backend has been added for collecting playtime data, complemented by a minimal frontend that begins exposing those statistics in the UI. For users running games via Bottles, this marks the first step toward native session tracking, eliminating the need for external launchers.

On ACPI-enabled systems Linux users can enjoy PCIe M.2 connected peripherals that "just work" without any extra fuss. But for those relying on Device Tree (DT) handling by the kernel, new patches from Qualcomm are working on representing PCIe M.2 connectors within DT files.

Ryzen AI Software as AMD's collection of tools and libraries for AI inferencing on AMD Ryzen AI class PCs has Linux support with its newest point release. Though this "early access" Linux support is restricted to registered AMD customers.

Earlier this year we reported on AMD previewing a new Linux runtime stack for Ryzen AI NPUs and built off their AMDXDNA kernel accelerator driver. That now appears to be bundled into the Ryzen AI Software collection, which previously was Windows-only. With the newest Ryzen AI Software 1.6.1 point release the only noted change in the release notes is Linux support:

I'm wondering if there are possibly any tools out there to do this: Declare a color scheme and set them to all apps CLIs and TUIs, either immediately on upon restart of each app individually. I'm on NixOS and looked at Stylix, once properly set up it automatically sets color schemes to apps. To change the color scheme I'd have to rebuild my nix configuration which is slow.

I almost succeeded to set my Librem 5 phone to work as UVC camera for the computer. Things you can almost do yourself on Linux phone are so much fun then propriety app that do them on android.
@tuxdevices
@Linux@linuxrocks.online
@linux@programming.dev

This week something that I know a lot of people have been wanting for a long time was implemented: the ability to limit virtual desktops to only the primary screen! Thanks very much to Kristen McWilliam for this long-awaited feature, which arrives in Plasma 6.6.

But wait, there’s more…

In addition to GNOME's Mutter compositor removing its X11 back-end support to focus exclusively on Wayland while keeping around XWayland client support, another notable GNOME change this week was the GTK toolkit adding a "reduced motion" accessibility option