week 30
21-27
OpenAPV 0.2 is available:
21/07/2025
The OpenAPV library has been released, providing a reference implementation of the APV (Advanced Professional Video) video codec, designed for professional video recording and processing without noticeable loss of quality. The library code is written in C and is distributed under the BSD license. The project is being developed by the Academy Software Foundation, established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts (USA) and the Linux Foundation to promote the use of open source software in the filmmaking process.
The new version adds support for APV families, which define typical codec configurations that meet certain size and bitrate requirements. The latest specification improvements have been taken into account. They also dded support for profiles like, 422-12, 444-10, 444-12, 4444-10, 4444-12 and 400-10. Optimizations have been made to reduce encoding and decoding time. Then they implemented protected methods for accessing the bitstream buffer and managing metadata and expanded the API.
→https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/openapv/releases/tag/v0.2.0.0
Google Introduces OSS Rebuild Project:
22/07/2025
Google has introduced the OSS Rebuild project, designed to detect hidden changes in ready-made packages published in repositories. OSS Rebuild is based on the concept of reproducible builds and comes down to checking the compliance of a package placed in the repository with a package obtained via rebuilding from the reference source code corresponding to the declared version of the package. The toolkit code is written in Go and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
Currently, OSS Rebuild supports verification of packages from NPM (JavaScript/TypeScript), PyPI (Python), and Crates.io (Rust) repositories. They plan to expanded the number of supported repositories in the future. In practice, the toolkit allows identifying “supply chain” class attacks, where, after the accounts of maintainers are compromised or sabotage is carried out within the project, a malicious update is published in the repository. At the same time, the code in the original repository of the main project remains correct, and malicious changes are made only to the finished packages.
After a specific version of a package has been verified, attestation data is generated that can be used by others to evaluate already verified packages. The verification can be done by running a command line utility or by checking a hash stored in a separate cloud storage. The infrastructure for checking packages can be deployed on your own server. You can also use information about the checks performed in Google for several thousand packages.
→https://security.googleblog.com/2025/07/introducing-oss-rebuild-open-source.html
MySQL 9.4.0 Release:
23/07/2025
Oracle has formed a new branch of the MySQL 9.4.0 DBMS. MySQL Community Server 9.4.0 builds are available for all major Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Windows distributions. In accordance with the release model introduced in 2023, MySQL 9.4 is classified as an “Innovation” branch. Innovation branches are recommended for those who want to get access to new functionality earlier, are published every 3 months, and are supported only until the next major release (for example, after the appearance of branch 9.4, support for branch 9.3 was discontinued). In the northern hemisphere fall, they plan to form an LTS release, 9.5, recommended for implementations that require predictability. Following that LTS branch, a new Innovation branch will be formed - MySQL 10.0.
→https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/
The XLibre project integrates drivers into the mainline X server:
23/07/2025
Enrico Weigelt, the XLibre project lead, has prepared a pull request after discussions with the community to integrate the core X11 drivers into the X server master branch. The stated reasons are the desynchronization of the X server and drivers due to the changing ABI that the drivers interact with, and the desire to provide all the necessary drivers together with the X server without having to manually search for compatible versions.
Some of the community criticize this decision, fearing that it will complicate the development of new drivers for XLibre, but Enrico insists on the need for such an approach. The arguments cited include a similar model for developing the Linux kernel, which actually does not have a stable ABI, as well as the “raw” state of the XLibre code base, which is still undergoing a full-scale refactoring. However, in the future, as the project matures, the developers do not rule out stabilizing the ABI. Developing new drivers for X11 outside the XLibre tree is possible, but ABI synchronization remains the baby of the developer. For those who do not want to install all the drivers together with the server, they promise to implement build flags.
→https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/pull/449
Release of OPNsense 25.7:
24/07/2025
The release of the distribution for creating firewalls OPNsense 25.7 has been published. In 2015, it separated from the pfSense project with the goal of developing a completely open distribution that could have the functionality at the level of commercial solutions for deploying firewalls and network gateways. The source code of the distribution components, as well as the tools used for assembly, are distributed under the BSD license. The builds are prepared in the form of a LiveCD and a system image for recording on Flash drives (490 MB).
The distribution can be used to create fault-tolerant configurations based on the CARP protocol and allowing a backup node to be launched in addition to the main firewall, which will be automatically synchronized at the configuration level and will take over the load in the event of a failure of the primary node. (failover) The administrator is given a web interface for configuring the firewall, built using the Bootstrap web framework and Phalcon MVC.
→https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic%3D48072.0
First release of Wayback:
24/07/2025
The first experimental release of the Wayback 0.1 project is presented. It allows you to run desktop environments tied to the X11 protocol using Wayland-based components. Wayback is a stripped-down Wayland composite server that supports only the capabilities necessary to run a full-screen X11 session using Xwayland (a DDX (Device-Dependent X) component for organizing the execution of X11 applications in Wayland-based environments). The project code is written in C and is distributed under the MIT license.
The Wayback code is based on tinywl, the reference composite server from the developers of the wlroots library, with its functionality stripped down to the bare minimum needed to run Xwayland standalone. It is intended that in the future, Wayback will be able to be used as a complete replacement for the Xorg executable (/usr/bin/X).
The first release of Wayback is presented as an alpha version, allowing to get acquainted with the concept implemented by the project. At this stage, there is no support for such features as multi-monitor configurations, screen blanking via DPMS, mouse pointer capture (prohibiting movement beyond a certain area on the screen), many Xorg options. Packages for testing Wayback are compiled for Alpine Linux, NixOS, Arch Linux and Fedora.
→https://wayback.freedesktop.org/news/2025/07/23/wayback-0.1-released/
CudaText Update 1.226.0:
25/07/2025
The release of the cross-platform free code editor CudaText 1.226.0, written using Free Pascal and Lazarus, has been published. The editor supports Python extensions and has a number of advantages over Sublime Text. It includes some features of an integrated development environment, implemented as plugins. More than 300 syntax lexers have been prepared for programmers. The code is distributed under the MPL 2.0 license. Builds are available for Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, Solaris and Haiku platforms. One of the main additions has been that they added an AI Local plugin to Plugins Manager, which uses Ollama to use large language models locally.
→https://cudatext.github.io/download.html
The Maintenance Fee initiative:
25/07/2025
The author of WiX, an open source toolkit for creating Windows installation packages, is developing the Maintenance Fee initiative to solve the problem of funding open source projects. The Maintenance Fee initiative allows for a small monthly fee (an option is $10) to ensure the financial sustainability of projects without limiting their openness or resorting to funding models like Open Core, which imply the delivery of an extended paid version.
The essence of Maintenance Fee is to conduct a monthly payment for users and companies that receive commercial benefits and directly or indirectly earn money from using an open source project. Payment is stimulated by adding a user agreement (EULA) to maintainers, regulating access to the infrastructure, binary assemblies and ready-made packages. They proposed to use the GitHub sponsorship system to transfer the fee.
According to the EULA, only paid subscribers and users who do not profit from the project can download binary release builds, participate in discussions, and submit issue requests. Access to the source code remains unchanged and is provided in accordance with the open licenses used by the projects. If a company that profits from the project does not want to pay a monthly fee, it can use the code from the repository and independently create builds for itself, but does not have the right to use ready-made release builds provided by the main project (it is prohibited to use official package builds among dependencies connected through package managers such as NPM and NuGet).
→https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id%3D44669858
Tails 6.18 release:
25/07/2025
The release of the specialized distribution Tails 6.18 (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), developed as part of the Tor project, is presented. The distribution is based on Debian 12, comes with the GNOME 43 desktop and is designed for anonymous network access using Tor. All connections, except for traffic through the Tor network, are blocked by default by the packet filter. When saving user data between launches, encryption is used. An iso image capable of working in Live mode, 1 GB in size, has been prepared for download.
The new version implements the ability to use network bridges based on WebTunnel transport to connect to the Tor network. WebTunnel simulates typical web traffic and can be used where obfs4 transport does not work. Tor Browser 14.5.5 and Thunderbird 128.12.0 have been updated.
→https://tails.net/news/version_6.18/
Rules for AI assistants used in the Linux kernel:
26/07/2025
NVIDIA's Sasha Levin, who maintains the LTS branches of the Linux kernel and is on the Linux Foundation's advisory board, has put forward a set of rules and documentation for developers to consider when generating changes to the Linux kernel. Links to the instructions are provided in configuration files prepared for the Claude, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Codeium, Continue, Windsurf, and Aider AI platforms.
To highlight changes prepared using AI, the commit is required to be tagged “Co-developed-by: $AI_NAME $AI_MODEL $AI_VERSION”. For example: “Co-developed-by: Claude claude-3-opus-20240229”, “Co-developed-by: GitHub-Copilot GPT-4 v1.0.0” and “Co-developed-by: Cursor gpt-4-turbo-2024-04-09”. At the same time, the AI assistant should not add itself to the “Signed-off-by” tag. This tag should only be added by a human to provide legally significant confirmation of the right to transfer code under an open license.
sudo 1.9.17p2 update:
27/07/2025
A new release of the sudo utility 1.9.17p2 is available. It is used for the execution of commands on behalf of other users. The new release fixes an issue that, under certain circumstances, would cause the SIGHUP signal (terminal connection lost) to be sent not to the running process, but to all processes in the system.
The problem is present since sudo 1.9.16 and is caused by the use of killpg() instead of kill() in some cases to terminate a child process. Unlike kill(), killpg() sends a signal to a process group, but as a group it can handle values greater than or equal to 0. When a negative group value is passed, the behavior is undefined and on some systems may result in the signal being sent to process number 1 (init) and all processes on the system being terminated.
Additionally, sudo has fixed an issue that could cause a failure when intercepting and verifying commands being run in configurations that used the “intercept and intercept_verify” options in the sudoers file. On Linux systems that support the ptrace_readv_string() function, processes that had command line arguments or environment variables larger than the memory page size (usually 4096 bytes) would crash.
→https://github.com/sudo-project/sudo/releases/tag/v1.9.17p2
Slackel 8.0 Release“
27/07/2025
Slackel 8.0 has been released. It is based on Slackware and Salix and is fully compatible with the repositories offered in them. The key difference of Slackel is the use of a constantly updated Slackware-Current branch. The graphical environment is based on the Openbox window manager. The size of the boot image, capable of working in Live mode, is 3.6 GB (i386 and x86_64).
The new release is synchronized with the Slackware Current branch and ships with Linux kernel 6.12.39. Updated programs include firefox 140.0.4, thunderbird 140.0.1esr, libreoffice 25.2.1, GIMP 3.0.4, smplayer 25.6.0, mpv 0.40.0, MPlayer 20250330, exaile 4.1.3, brasero 3.12.3, isomaster 1.3.17, pidgin 2.14.142, and transmission 2.94.
→https://slackel.sourceforge.io/forum/viewtopic.php?t%3D815
week 31
28-03
Linux kernel 6.16:
28/07/2025
After two months of development, Linus Torvalds presented the Linux kernel 6.16. Changes include: a driver for accelerating OpenVPN, a kernel extension handOver mechanism, enabling five-level memory page tables for x86 by default, removing the DCCP protocol, a zloop block driver, the ability to send core dumps via a UNIX socket, support for atomic writing to XFS, offload sound processing for USB devices, optimizations in Ext4, a virtual TPM (Trusted Platform Module) driver, a full implementation of Device Memory TCP, support for unnamed pipes in io_uring, preparation for the integration of the Asahi DRM driver, a “usermode queue” mechanism in the AMDGPU driver, support for Intel TDE (Trusted Domain Extensions) and Intel APE (Advanced Performance Extensions).
The new version accepted 15924 fixes from 2145 developers, the patch size is 50Mb (the changes affected 13793 files, 655451 lines of code were added, 316441 lines were deleted). The previous release had 15945 fixes from 2154 developers, the patch size was 59 MB. About 45% of all changes presented in 6.16 are related to device drivers, about 16% of changes are related to updating code specific to hardware architectures, 13% are related to the network stack, 4% - to file systems and 3% to internal kernel subsystems.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/7/27/337
OpenPrinting Project Leader laid off:
29/07/2025
Canonical has let Till Kamppeter go, the leader of the OpenPrinting project, which develops components for providing printing on Linux (among other things, since 2021 the development of the CUPS print server has been transferred to the OpenPrinting project after Apple lost interest in developing the project for platforms other than macOS). Till is a co-founder of OpenPrinting and has been maintaining the project since its inception in 2001. Since 2006, Till has been employed by Canonical, where he was engaged in the development of a printing system for Linux.
Canonical has not commented on the layoffs, but it is believed that they are related to a reduction in staff working remotely or on an external project.
https://ubuntu.social/@till/114932498368800052
Vulkan 1.4 support added to PanVK driver:
30/07/2025
Collabora announced that the PanVK Vulkan driver has been updated to support the Vulkan 1.4 graphics API for devices with V10-based ARM GPUs, such as the Mali-G610 and Mali-G310. The changes have been merged into the Mesa codebase and will be available to users in the Mesa 25.2 release candidate. The current stable release of Mesa 25.1 in PanVK only supports Vulkan 1.2.
Plans for further development of the PanVK driver include certification of Vulkan 1.4 support in the Khronos consortium, optimization of DDK performance when performing typical tasks, improved compatibility with existing applications, and implementation of support for additional Vulkan extensions. Separately, the intention to improve performance for older generations of Mali GPUs, such as Bifrost (V6 and V7), and to provide Vulkan support for the first generations of Valhall family GPUs (V9) is noted.
https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/panvk-now-supports-vulkan-1.4.html
CDE desktop environment on OpenBSD:
30/07/2025
The OpenBSD ports collection now includes the classic CDE (Common Desktop Environment), developed in the early nineties by Sun Microsystems, HP, IBM, DEC, SCO, Fujitsu, and Hitachi, and supplied for many years as the standard graphical environment for Solaris, HP-UX, IBM AIX, Digital UNIX, and UnixWare. In 2012, the CDE 2.1 code was opened by “The Open Group” under the LGPL license.
It includes an XDMCP-compatible login manager, user session manager, window manager, CDE FrontPanel, desktop manager, interprocess communication bus, desktop toolkit, shell and C application development tools, and third-party application integration components. The Motif library is used for the interface.
https://undeadly.org/cgi?action%3Darticle;sid%3D20250730080301
Vivo Open Sources BlueOS Kernel Written in Rust:
31/07/2025
Vivo, which occupies about 10% of the global smartphone market (5th place among smartphone manufacturers), presented the first official open release of the BlueOS operating system kernel (Blue River OS). The BlueOS operating system has been in development since 2018 and is already used in the Vivo Watch series smartwatches. Vivo is also working on using BlueOS in smart glasses, robots, smart terminals, and consumer AI devices. The kernel code is written in Rust and is open under the Apache 2.0 license. BlueOS system frameworks are also written in Rust.
The BlueOS kernel (Blue River Kernel) is optimized for minimal resource consumption and can be used on embedded platforms, mobile devices, and Internet of Things systems. In the minimum configuration, the kernel requires only 13 KB of RAM for its operation. At the same time, the kernel supports modern processor architectures, including ARM and RISC-V. On top of the kernel, there is a standard C library that supports the software interfaces defined in the POSIX standard, as well as the rust-std library.
Mozilla China Stops Providing Firefox Services in China:
31/07/2025
Mozilla China has announced that it is shutting down its services for Firefox users in China. Starting July 27, registration for the Chinese versions of Firefox Accounts (accounts.firefox.com.cn) and Firefox Community services has been suspended, and the ability to post messages and comments in the forum has been blocked. Starting September 29, the firefox.com.cn website, forum (mozilla.com.cn), home page (home.firefoxchina.cn), resources for downloading and updating the version of Firefox for China, as well as services for maintaining accounts and synchronizing settings (Firefox Sync) will cease to operate.
4MLinux 49.0 distribution release 01.08.2025 07:39
4MLinux 49.0 is now available, a minimalist user distribution that is not a fork of other projects and uses a graphical environment based on the JWM window manager. 4MLinux can be used both as a Live environment for playing multimedia files and solving user tasks, and as a system for recovery from failures and a platform for running mini-servers. A live image (x86_64, 1.7 GB) with a graphical environment and a stripped-down console build (x86_64, 16.2 MB) are available for download.
https://4mlinux-releases.blogspot.com/2025/07/4mlinux-490-stable-released.html
KDE Linux Testing Edition:
01/08/2025
The KDE project has begun publishing test builds of its own KDE Linux distribution -the KDE Linux Testing Edition, and has also posted a page on the main kde.org website dedicated to the distribution. System images (5.2 GB) are available for installation to create bootable USB drives that work in Live mode. KDE Linux is positioned as a reference implementation of the Linux distribution for the KDE desktop and applications, optimally combined with KDE technologies and developed without intermediaries by KDE developers.
KDE Linux Testing Edition is based on the master branch in Git and is designed for testing, quality control, and development tracking. Builds will be updated daily and reflect the current state of development of the project components. The primary target audience for KDE Linux Testing Edition is KDE developers and users who want to participate in quality control, feature testing, and bug reporting.
The system is separated from applications - additional applications can be installed to the home directory in AppImage, Snap or Flatpak formats. In addition, the Distrobox and Toolbox tools are included, allowing you to create containers in the home directory for installing arbitrary packages from other distributions. The user can also use the systemd-sysext utility to install System Extension images, the contents of which are superimposed on the /usr/ hierarchy using OverlayFS.
https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&hl=en-US&client=webapp&u=https://kde.org/linux/
Release of the embedded DBMS libmdbx 0.13.7:
01/08/2025
The release of the libmdbx 0.13.7 (MDBX) library has been published, implementing a high-performance compact embedded key-value database. The libmdbx code is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. All current operating systems and architectures are supported. libmdbx offers an advanced API for C++ , as well as enthusiast-supported bindings to Rust, Haskell, Python, NodeJS, Ruby, Go, Nim, Deno and Scala.
Historically, libmdbx is a deep reworking of the LMDB DBMS and surpasses its ancestor in reliability, feature set and performance. Compared to LMDB, libmdbx pays much more attention to code quality, stable API operation, testing and automatic checks. A utility for checking the integrity of the database structure with some recovery capabilities is also supplied. Technologically, libmdbx offers ACID, strict serialization of changes and non-blocking reading with linear scaling across CPU cores. Auto-compaction, automatic database size management, range query estimation are supported.
Release of FEX 2508 emulator:
02/08/2025
The FEX 2508 project release has been published. It develops an emulator for running games and applications compiled for x86 and x86-64 architectures in a Linux environment on systems with ARM64 (AArch64) processors. The FEX emulator is used by the Asahi project to run games from the Steam catalog compiled for the x86_64 architecture on systems with ARM chips. The project code is written in C++ with assembler inserts and is distributed under the MIT license.
To access host environment capabilities, such as audio and 3D graphics tools, thunk libraries are placed in the rootfs, which translate calls to libraries and code on the host system side (for example, calls to OpenGL and Vulkan can be redirected). These libraries can also be used on the host side to call code in the guest environment. Libraries available for forwarding are: libEGL, libGL, libSDL2, libX11, libVDSO, libasound, libdrm, libfex_malloc, libvulkan, libwayland-client and libxshmfence.
What's new:
Significant optimization of the JIT compiler was performed, which allowed FPS increase in the game Cyberpunk 2077 by 38.9%, Doom 2016 - by 30.9%, Stray - by 25.2%, Grim Fandango Remastered - by 24.7%, Teardown - 12.6%, God of War 2018 - by 4.6%. The greatest impact was made by optimizations of the call stack and returns (call-return), as well as the use of the TSO (Total Store Ordering) memory model in the wow64/arm64ec libraries, supported in Apple Silicon CPUs.
Week 32 04-10
The fourth experimental release of Orbitiny:
04/08/2025
The fourth release of the Orbitiny Desktop environment (DE), written from scratch using the Qt framework, has been published. The project tries to combine some innovative ideas that have not been seen in user environments before with traditional elements such as the panel, menus, and desktop icon placement. The code is written in C++ and is distributed under the GPL license.
In the new version, most of the changes are related to the expansion of the functionality of the Qutiny file manager and tools for working with files on the desktop. The device name has been added to the notes for mount points (E.g: If /dev/sdc1 is mounted on ”/mnt/my_mount_point“ and you navigate to /mnt, Qutiny file manager will append ”(/dev/sdc1)“ to the mounted directory's icon caption.), separate icons for mount points have been implemented, a list of mounted external media has been added to the sidebar, and a button for showing mount points has been added to the toolbar. The deletion confirmation dialog now shows the full path to the file being deleted. A tab with hashes and a field with data on the file owner have been added to the file properties dialog. The design of the file renaming dialog has been redesigned.
→https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1mfos7t/orbitiny_desktop_10_pilot_4_released/
Squid 7 stable release:
04/08/2025
The stable release of Squid 7.1 proxy server is now available for production use (7.0.x releases were beta versions). Once the 7.x branch is stable, it will only be used to fix vulnerabilities and stability issues, and minor optimizations may be made. New features will be developed in the new experimental 8.0 branch. Users of the previous stable 6.x branch are advised to plan their migration to the 7.x branch.
→https://www.mail-archive.com/squid-announce@lists.squid-cache.org/msg00131.html
openSUSE Leap 16 Release Candidate:
05/08/2025
The release candidate of the openSUSE Leap 16 is presented. It is built on the technologies of the next major branch of the commercial SLES 16 distribution, which is moving to the new SLFO (SUSE Linux Framework One) platform, previously known as ALP (Adaptable Linux Platform). openSUSE Leap 16 will retain the features of the classic distribution using traditional packages and for those who need an atomically updated system with basic filing in read-only mode, the openSUSE Leap Micro edition should be used. Builds for x86_64, ARM64, s390x and PowerPC architectures are available for testing. The release is scheduled for 1 October 2025.
→https://news.opensuse.org/2025/08/04/leap-16-rc/
Release of syncspirit 0.4.1:
05/08/2025
The release of syncspirit 0.4.1 is available. It allows you to organize automatic continuous synchronization of user files on several devices. The project solves problems similar to the proprietary Resilio Sync system (former BitTorrent Sync). Syncspirit is written in C++ and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. The graphical interface is built using the FLTK library; the domestic embedded DBMS libmdbx is used to store the database and the rotor actor framework is used to handle events. Ready-made builds are available for Linux (x86_64, AppImage), Windows (Windows XP is supported) and macOS .
Unlike the Syncthing project, which is written in Go and uses a client-server architecture and REST-API (with a web browser acting as a client), syncspirit provides both an implementation in the form of a background process syncspirit-daemon and a separate application with a graphical interface, allowing for more economical use of RAM.
→https://github.com/basiliscos/syncspirit
AlmaLinux Starts Providing NVIDIA Driver Packages:
06/08/2025
The developers of the AlmaLinux distribution announced packages with NVIDIA drivers for the AlmaLinux 9 and 10 branches. Packages with the driver and CUDA stack are also offered for installation. The drivers can be used in configurations with UEFI Secure Boot.
Kernel modules from the official set of proprietary drivers from NVIDIA cannot be loaded in UEFI Secure Boot mode, since they are not digitally signed by the distribution. This limitation was circumvented by using kernel modules open by NVIDIA, which are already used by default in the set of NVIDIA drivers for GPUs, starting with the Turing microarchitecture (GeForce GTX 1600 and RTX 2000).
Based on components open by NVIDIA, a proprietary nvidia-open-kmod package has been created with modules certified by the AlmaLinux digital signature. A separate almalinux-release-nvidia-driver package has been created with the configuration of an external repository supported by NVIDIA, from which CUDA drivers and proprietary NVIDIA driver components operating in user space are loaded (according to the terms of the license agreement, repackaging proprietary NVIDIA components is not allowed).
→https://almalinux.org/blog/2025-08-06-announcing-native-nvidia-suport/
Proxmox Backup Server 4.0 available:
06/08/2025
Proxmox, known for developing Proxmox Virtual Environment and Proxmox Mail Gateway products, has released the Proxmox Backup Server 4.0 distribution, which is presented as a ready-made solution for backing up and restoring virtual environments, containers, and server stuffing. The installation ISO image is freely available for download. Distribution-specific components are open under the AGPLv3 license. Both the paid Enterprise repository and two free repositories are available for installing updates, which differ in the level of update stabilization.
Proxmox Backup Server supports integration with the Proxmox VE platform for backing up virtual machines and containers. Backup management and data recovery are performed via a web interface. You can restrict user access to their data. All traffic transmitted from clients to the server is encrypted using AES-256 in GCM mode and the backups themselves are transmitted already encrypted using asymmetric encryption using public keys (encryption is performed on the client side, and compromising the server with backups will not lead to data leakage). The integrity of backups is controlled using SHA-256 hashes.
→https://www.proxmox.com/en/about/company-details/press-releases/proxmox-backup-server-4-0
Mesa 25.2 released:
07/08/2025
After three months of development, the release of the free implementation of the OpenGL and Vulkan APIs - Mesa 25.2.0 - is out. The first release of the Mesa 25.2.0 branch has an experimental status - after the final stabilization of the code, version 25.2.1 will be released.
Mesa 25.2 adds support for the Vulkan 1.4 graphics API in the ANV drivers for Intel GPUs, RADV drivers for AMD GPUs, NVK drivers for NVIDIA GPUs, Asahi drivers for Apple GPUs, Turnip drivers for Qualcomm GPUs, PanVK drivers for ARM Mali GPUs, the lavapipe software rasterizer (lvp), and emulator mode (vn). Vulkan 1.0 is supported in the v3dv drivers (Broadcom VideoCore GPUs for Raspberry Pi 4+) and dzn drivers (a Vulkan implementation on top of Direct3D 12).
Mesa also provides full OpenGL 4.6 support for the iris (Intel Gen 8+ GPUs), radeonsi (AMD), Crocus (older Intel Gen4-Gen7 GPUs), AMD (r600), zink, llvmpipe, virgl ( virgil3D virtual GPU for QEMU/KVM), freedreno (Qualcomm Adreno), d3d12 (OpenGL layer on top of DirectX 12), and asahi (AGX GPU used in Apple M1 and M2 chips). OpenGL 4.5 support is available for NVIDIA (nvc0) GPUs. OpenGL 3.3 support is available in the softpipe (software rasterizer) and nv50 (NVIDIA NV50) drivers. OpenGL 3.1 is supported in the panfrost (ARM Mali GPU) and v3d (Broadcom VideoCore GPU) drivers.
→https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-announce/2025-August/000815.html
Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS Released:
07/08/2025
An update for the Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS distribution has been released, which includes changes related to improved hardware support, an update to the Linux kernel and graphics stack, and bug fixes in the installer and bootloader. The release also includes current updates for several hundred packages related to fixing vulnerabilities and issues affecting stability. Similar updates for Kubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Budgie 24.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu MATE 24.04.3 LTS, Lubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Kylin 24.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Studio 24.04.3 LTS, Xubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, Edubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04.3 LTS, and Ubuntu Unity 24.04.3 LTS are also released.
→https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2025-August/000315.html
MariaDB 12.0 is available:
08/08/2025
MariaDB 12.0.2 has been released, marking it as the first stable release of the 12.0 branch. The MariaDB 12.0 branch is classified as a rolling release, continuing the gradual development of functionality and replaces the MariaDB 11.8 branch. MariaDB 12.1.1, which has the status of a release candidate, has been published at the same time. The MariaDB 12.0 branch will be supported until the 12.1.2 release is formed.
The MariaDB project is a fork of MySQL that maintains backward compatibility and features additional storage engines and advanced features. MariaDB development is overseen by the independent MariaDB Foundation, following an open and transparent development process that is independent of individual vendors. MariaDB is shipped as a replacement for MySQL in many Linux distributions (RHEL, SUSE, Fedora, openSUSE, Slackware, OpenMandriva, ROSA, Arch Linux, Debian) and is used in major projects such as Wikipedia , Google Cloud SQL and Nimbuzz.
→https://github.com/MariaDB/server/releases/tag/mariadb-12.0.2
Shotstars 4.7 update:
08/08/2025
The Shotstars 4.7 tool has been updated, tracking the movement, disappearance and appearance of fictitious “stars” in projects on GitHub. GitHub's standard capabilities do not provide users with information on the waning “stars” in a project and only allow information on their addition. The project is written in Python and is distributed under the GPLv3+ license.
→https://github.com/snooppr/shotstars/releases
Release of the PocketHandyBox:
09/08/2025
The PocketHandyBox 0007 distribution has been released. It is based on the Debian (and Devuan) package base and is intended for testing and servicing PCs and laptops. The distribution allows you to check the performance of the equipment, load the processor and video card, estimate the temperature, check SMART HDD and NVMe SSD. The distribution includes such applications as CPU-X, GSmartControl, GParted, Partimage, Partclone, TestDisk, ddrescue, WHDD. The user environment is based on Xfce. Versions based on Debian 12 “Bookworm” (Devuan “Daedalus”) and Debian 13 “Trixie” (Devuan “Excalibur”) are available.
→https://github.com/PocketHandyBox/pocket-handybox
Debian 13 Release:
09/08/2025
After two years of development, Debian 13 “Trixie” is now available for eight officially supported architectures : Intel IA-32/x86 (i686), AMD64/x86-64, ARM EABI (armel), ARM64, ARMv7 (armhf), RISC-V, PowerPC 64 (ppc64el), and IBM System z (s390x). Debian 13 will continue to receive updates for five years.
Installation images are available for download via HTTP, jigdo or BitTorrent. LiveUSBs are available for the amd64 architecture, with GNOME, KDE, LXDE, Xfce, Cinnamon and MATE variants, as well as a multi-arch DVD that combines packages for the amd64 platform with additional packages for the i386 architecture.
The repository contains 69830 binary packages, which is 5411 more than were offered in Debian 12. Compared to Debian 12, 14116 new binary packages were added, 8844 (12%) obsolete or abandoned packages were removed, 44326 (63%) packages were updated. The total combined size of the source code offered in the distribution is 1,463,291,186 lines of code. The total size of all packages is 403 GB.
For 96.9% of packages, support for reproducible builds are provided, which allows us to confirm that the executable file was built from the declared source code and does not contain any changes, for example, that can be made by attacking the build infrastructure or a backdoor in the compiler.
→https://www.debian.org/News/2025/20250809
Release Debian GNU/Hurd 2025:
10/08/2025
The Debian GNU/Hurd 2025 distribution, combining Debian’s software environment with GNU/Hurd kernel, is out. The Debian GNU/Hurd repository includes approximately 72% of the packages of the total size of the main Debian archive. Installation builds are available (364MB) for i386 and x86_64 architectures. To get acquainted with the distribution without installation, they have prepared ready-made images for virtual machines.
Debian GNU/Hurd remains the only actively developed Debian platform, created based off a kernel other than Linux (previously developed the Debian GNU/KFreeBSD port, but it has long been in an abandoned state). The GNU/Hurd platform is not one of the officially supported Debian architectures, so Debian GNU/Hurd releases are formed separately and have the status of informal release of Debian.
The GNU Hurd is a kernel developed as a replacement for the Unix kernel and designed as a set of servers running over the GNU Mach microkernel and implementing various system services such as file systems, network stack, file access control system. The GNU Mach microkernel provides an IPC mechanism used to organize the interaction of the components of GNU Hurd and the construction of a distributed multi-server architecture.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2025-08/msg00008.html
Week 33
11-17
Release of HandBrake 1.10.0:
11/08/2025
HandBrake 1.10.0, a tool for multi-threaded transcoding of video files from one format to another, has been released. The program is available both as a command-line version and as a GUI interface. The project code is written in C (uses the GTK4 library on Linux and .NET Desktop Runtime on Windows) and is distributed under the GPL license. Binary builds are prepared for Linux ( Flatpak ), macOS and Windows.
The program can transcode video from BluRay/DVD discs, copies of VIDEO_TS directories and any files whose format is supported by the libavformat and libavcodec libraries from FFmpeg. The output files can be output in WebM, MP4 and MKV, the following codecs can be used for video encoding: AV1, H.266, H.265, H.264, MPEG-2, VP8, VP9 and Theora, for audio - AAC, MP3, AC-3, Flac, Vorbis and Opus. Additional functions include: bitrate calculator, preview during encoding, image resizing and scaling, subtitle integrator, a wide range of conversion profiles for specified types of mobile devices.
→https://handbrake.fr/news.php?article%3D59
Redis 8.2 Released:
11/08/2025
The release of Redis 8.2 DBMS, which belongs to the NoSQL class of database systems, has been published. Redis provides functions for storing data in the key/value format, extended by support for structured data formats such as lists, hashes and sets, as well as the ability to execute Lua script handlers on the server side. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the AGPLv3 license.
Redis DBMS supports transactions, which allow you to execute a group of commands in one step, guaranteeing consistency and sequence of the execution of a given set of commands, (commands from other requests cannot intervene) and in case of problems, allowing you to roll back changes. All data is fully cached in RAM. Client libraries are available for most popular languages, including Perl, Python, PHP, Java, Ruby, and Tcl.
Commands such as increment/decrement, standard operations on lists and sets (union, intersection), key renaming, multiple selections and sorting functions are provided for data management. Two storage modes are supported: periodic data synchronization to disk and maintaining a change log on disk. In the second case, complete safety of all changes is guaranteed. You can organize master-slave data replication to several servers, carried out in a non-blocking mode. The “publish/subscribe” messaging mode is also available, in which a channel is created, messages from which are distributed to clients by subscription.
→https://redis.io/blog/redis-82-ga/
Bcachefs to be removed from Linux kernel:
12/08/2025
The Bcachefs file system will be removed from the main Linux kernel tree. Despite its technical merits and active development, the project's fate has been complicated by a protracted conflict between its author Kent Overstreet and the leading maintainers of the virtual memory (VM) and file systems (FS) subsystems.
The conflict between Kent and a number of key maintainers has been going on for several years. According to those involved, it is not so much about technical issues or violations of kernel development procedures, but rather about a loss of trust. A recent dispute over whether the journal_rewind function was a bug fix or new functionality was the last straw, and Linus Torvalds has stated outright that a long-term demonstration of constructive work with other maintainers is needed to restore trust.
CrossOver 25.1 Released:
12/08/2025
CodeWeavers has released the Crossover 25.1 package, based on Wine code and designed to run programs and games written for the Windows platform. CodeWeavers is one of the key participants in the Wine project, sponsors its development and returns to the project all the innovations implemented for its commercial products. The source code of the open components of CrossOver 25.1 can be downloaded on this page.
In the new version :
Issues with Electronic Arts (EA) and Ubisoft launchers have been resolved. Issues with game controllers have been resolved, including improved compatibility with Xbox and 8BitDo Pro controllers. The game compatibility database has been updated to provide the necessary settings. Fixed issues with downloading games from Steam when msync is enabled, as well as issues with connecting to Steam. Fixed issues connecting to an Outlook account in Office 365. Improved stability of MS Office 2016 on Linux.
→https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/announce/?t%3D24;msg%3D334116
Whonix 17.4 is released:
12/08/2025
The Whonix 17.4 distribution is now available. It is aimed at providing guaranteed anonymity, security and protection of private information. The distribution is based on Debian GNU/Linux and uses Tor to ensure anonymity. The project's code is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Virtual machine images in .ova format for VirtualBox (2.3 GB with Xfce and 1.5 GB console) are available for download, which can be converted for use with the KVM hypervisor.
Whonix-Workstation comes with the Xfce user environment by default. The package includes programs such as VLC, Tor Browser, Pidgin, etc. The Whonix-Gateway package includes a set of server applications, including Apache httpd, ngnix, and IRC servers that can be used to organize the operation of hidden Tor services. It is possible to forward tunnels over Tor for Freenet, i2p, JonDonym, SSH, and VPN. If desired, the user can use only Whonix-Gateway and connect their regular systems through it, including Windows, which allows for anonymous access for workstations already in use.
→https://forums.whonix.org/t/whonix-17-4-4-6-point-release/22053
NVIDIA Proprietary Driver 580.76.05:
13/08/2025
NVIDIA has published the release of the NVIDIA proprietary driver 580.76.05 (the first stable release of the new 580.76 branch). The driver is available for Linux (ARM64, x86_64), FreeBSD (x86_64), and Solaris (x86_64). NVIDIA 580.x became the eleventh stable branch after NVIDIA open-sourced its kernel-level components. The sources for the kernel modules nvidia.ko, nvidia-drm.ko (Direct Rendering Manager), nvidia-modeset.ko, and nvidia-uvm.ko (Unified Video Memory) from the new NVIDIA branch, as well as the common, non-OS-specific components they use, are hosted on GitHub. The firmware and user-space libraries, such as the CUDA, OpenGL, and Vulkan stacks, remain proprietary.
→https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules/releases/tag/580.76.05
New version of nginx 1.29.1:
14/08/2025:
The release of the main branch of nginx 1.29.1 has been published, in which the development of new features continues. In parallel, the stable branch 1.28.x is supported, only changes related to the elimination of serious errors and vulnerabilities are made. In the future, the stable branch 1.30 will be formed based off the main branch 1.29.x. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the BSD license.
→https://github.com/nginx/nginx/releases/tag/release-1.29.1
Release of KDE Gear 25.08:
14/08/2025
After four months of development, the August consolidated update of KDE Gear applications 25.08, developed by the KDE project, is presented. The set contains releases of 249 programs, libraries and plugins. Information about the availability of Live builds with new releases of applications can be found on their web page. New versions of individual applications can be downloaded from the Flathub and SnapCraft catalogs.
→https://kde.org/announcements/gear/25.08.0/
EasyOS 7.0 Released:
15/08/2025
Barry Kauler, the founder of the Puppy Linux project, has published the EasyOS 7.0 distribution, which combines Puppy Linux technologies with the use of container isolation to launch system components. The distribution is managed through a set of graphical configurators developed by the project. The boot image size is 1 GB.
→https://bkhome.org/news/202508/easyos-excalibur-series-version-70-released.html
Release of LibreELEC 12.2:
16/08/2025
The new release of the LibreELEC 12.2 project is presented. It is a fork of OpenELEC. The user interface is based on the Kodi media center. Images for working from a USB drive or SD card (32- and 64-bit x86, Raspberry Pi 2/3/4/5, various devices on Rockchip, Allwinner and Amlogic chips) are prepared for download. The build size for the x86_64 architecture is 270 MB.
With LibreELEC, you can turn any computer into a media center, which is no more difficult to work with than a DVD player or a TV set-top box. The main principle of the distribution is “everything just works” - to get a fully operational environment, simply download LibreELEC to a flash drive. The user does not need to worry about keeping the system up to date - the distribution uses a system of automatic download and installation of updates, activated when connected to the internet. It is possible to expand the functionality of the distribution through a system of add-ons that are installed from a separate repository developed by the project developers.
→https://libreelec.tv/2025/08/15/libreelec-omega-12-2-0/
Shotcut Video Editor Release 08/25:
17/08/2025
The release of the Shotcut 25.08 video editor, developed by the author of the MLT project and using this framework for editing video, has been published. Support for video and audio formats is implemented via FFmpeg. You can use plugins with the implementation of video and audio effects compatible with Frei0r and LADSPA. Shotcut features include the ability to multi-track editing with the composition of video from fragments in various source formats, without the need for their preliminary import or recoding. There are built-in tools for creating screencasts, processing images from a web camera and receiving streaming video. The code is written in C++ using the Qt framework and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Ready-made builds are available as AppImage , flatpak and Snap