Plus RISC-V gets a surprising benefactor, and the kernel feature we never thought would get merged that was just approved by Linus.

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Sign up using the link on this page and receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account.
• Ting: Save $25 off your first device, or $25 in service credit if you bring one!

Support Linux Action News

Links:

• SUSE Rancher 2.6 Launches After the Acquisition of Rancher Labs — The number of Kubernetes distributions SUSE Rancher 2.6 can support has been raised by two, with the addition of Microsoft Azure’s AKS and Google Cloud Platform’s GKE. Rancher 2.6 also will add support for SLE’s Base Container Images.
• SUSE Updates Rancher Platform for Kubernetes — Version 2.6 of SUSE Rancher adds a revamped user interface with improved logic-based workflows along with providing integration with SUSE Linux Enterprise Base Container Images (SLE BCI), a repository for container images for SUSE Linux.
• SUSE Rancher 2.6 Brings Enterprise Customers Improved Interoperability Across Multi-Cloud Cluster Environments
• Docker Desktop no longer free for large companies: New ‘Business’ subscription is here — Docker will restrict use of the free version of its Docker Desktop utility to individuals or small businesses, and has introduced a new more expensive subscription, as it searches for a sustainable business model.
• Docker is Updating and Extending Our Product Subscriptions - Docker Blog — The new Docker Personal subscription replaces the Docker Free subscription. With its focus on open source communities, individual developers, education, and small businesses – which together account for more than half of Docker users – Docker Personal is free for these communities.
• MongoDB tops $30 billion market cap in banner week for open source — MongoDB said second-quarter revenue climbed 44% to $199 million, while its Atlas cloud database grew 83% and now makes up more than half of total revenue.
• [Video] MongoDB CEO — "We now have 29,000 customers."
• CloudLinux offers CentOS 8 users a support lifeline — CloudLinux has announced it will provide updates and support for CentOS 8 through December 31, 2025.
• Linux on the Framework Laptop — We recommend using 5.12 or newer for a kernel to get solid platform, WiFi, and bluetooth functionality, along with libfprint 1.92.0 or newer for the fingerprint reader. All of the other hardware like speakers, microphones, headphones, webcam, hardware privacy switches, keyboard media keys, ambient light sensor, and all of the Expansion Cards should work completely.
• Apple Possibly Exploring Open-Source Alternative to Arm Architecture — According to a newly posted job alert, spotted by Tom's Hardware, Apple is looking for an engineer that specializes in RISC-V, an open-source architecture instruction set that allows device makers to build their own chips without having to pay a license or royalty.
• Apple M1 IOMMU Driver Merged For Linux 5.15, Intel Scalable Mode By Default — This IOMMU on the Apple M1 has been a bit challenging for the developers to deal with as the hardware is fixed to using a 16K pagesize while there is ongoing work to improve the infrastructure so it will play happy when using a kernel with 4K CPU pagesize.
• [Twitter] The M1 IOMMU driver (required for PCIe,WiFi,USB,display and almost everything else) was just merged by Linus — "Thanks again to Robin Murphy and @alyssarzg for reviewing and testing and ofc to @joergroedel for accepting it!"
• Merge tag 'iommu-updates-v5.15'
• KSMBD As An In-Kernel SMB3 File Server Merged For Linux 5.15 — KSMBD, developed by Samsung, is focused on delivering speedy SMB3 file serving performance and also supporting features more implemented in kernel-space, like RDMA support for SMB Direct. KSMBD doesn't aim to be as comprehensive as well known Samba for CIFS/SMB support in user-space but is just focused on the performance and kernel feature angle.
• KSMBD Kernel Docs

Plus, our thoughts on Steam possibly coming to ChromeOS and the game-changing feature coming to ZFS.

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Sign up using the link on this page and receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account.
• Ting: Save $25 off your first device, or $25 in service credit if you bring one!

Support Linux Action News

Links:

• Rust in the Linux kernel just got a big boost from Google — The main goal of the push to bring Rust to Linux is to wipe out an entire class of memory-related security bugs in the kernel. This is important because, as Microsoft has recently highlighted, 70% of all bugs it fixes are memory-related. Historically, key Linux drivers that make up the kernel have been written in C, which is not memory-safe.
• Supporting Miguel Ojeda’s Work on Rust in the Linux Kernel — While this is the first memory safety effort we’ve announced under our new Prossimo project name, our memory safety work began in 2020. You can read about our efforts to bring memory safety to curl and the Apache HTTP server, and to add improvements to the Rustls TLS library.
• ZFS fans, rejoice—RAIDz expansion will be a thing very soon — OpenZFS founding developer Matthew Ahrens opened a PR for one of the most sought-after features in ZFS history—RAIDz expansion—last week. The new feature allows a ZFS user to expand the size of a single RAIDz vdev.
• June 2021 FreeBSD Developer Summit - YouTube
• openzfs Pull Request: RAIDZ Expansion feature by ahrens
• ZFS 101—Understanding ZFS storage and performance
• Systemd 249-rc1 Released — The first release candidate of systemd 249 is now available for testing with yet more new and improved features.
• Systemd 249 release candidate includes better support for immutable OSes and provisioning images — The journey from RC1 to full release is likely to take a month or so, judging by past releases, so we can expect systemd 249 sometime in July.
• CloudLinux releases UChecker security tool for Linux servers — This newly open-sourced program, part of the company's TuxCare security services, scans Linux servers for out-of-date libraries both on disk and in memory.
• kernelcare.com — Live patching for Linux kernels & shared libraries, vulnerability scanners reporting & patch management assistance.
• cloudlinux/kcare-uchecker — A simple tool to detect outdated shared libraries
• Steam on ChromeOS: Not a Rumor Anymore — There are now some QA testers being hired to work on the “ChromeOS Steam Launch Team” to triage games, find defects and test performance in specific configurations.
• 🎉 nano-5.8 is released — "Why is it necessary to be special?"

Plus a major step in Apple M1 GPU support.

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Sign up using the link on this page and receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account.
• Ting: Save $25 off your first device, or $25 in service credit if you bring one!

Support Linux Action News

Links:

• FAQ: CentOS Stream Updates — CentOS Stream 9 will launch in Q2 2021 as part of the RHEL 9 development process.
• Fedora Linux 34 is officially here! — Following the introduction of BTRFS as the default filesystem on desktop variants in Fedora Linux 33, we’ve introduced transparent compression on BTRFS filesystems.
• Fedora 34 Changes
• Gnome40
• DefaultPipeWire
• XwaylandStandalone
• WaylandByDefaultForPlasma
• BtrfsTransparentCompression
• EnableSystemdOomd
• Remove Support For SELinux Runtime Disable
• UnifyGrubConfig
• An update on the UMN affair — None of the three patches that contained real bugs were accepted by maintainers, though the reasons for rejection were not always the bugs in question. The paper itself has been withdrawn and will not be presented in May as was planned.
• Owncast Streaming Application | Linode Marketplace | Linode
• “Full disclosure” from the University of Minnesota — The researchers at the University of Minnesota have posted a description of the work they did as part of their "hypocrite commits" project. It includes a list of the buggy commits they posted and how they were handled.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 arrives — The latest version of Red Hat's flagship Linux operating system is designed to be deployed on the computing edge.
• Rocky Linux 8.3 RC1 Released For This New RHEL Alternative — The first release candidate of Rocky Linux 8.3 is out, the project's inaugural release as a new binary-compatible alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
• Rocky Linux 8.3 Release Candidate 1 — The intent of a release candidate is for the community to test and validate expected functionality of Rocky Linux and report any bugs if present.
• CentOS replacement distro AlmaLinux gets commercial support options — CloudLinux Inc has announced that it will offer commercial support for the AlmaLinux community distribution. The new support plans will include regular patches and updates for AlmaLinux's kernel and core packages, patch delivery SLAs, and 24/7 incident support.
• Commercial Support for AlmaLinux OS from CloudLinux — CloudLinux Inc will start providing multiple support options for AlmaLinux OS in May 2021.
• 8.4 Beta of AlmaLinux Released — This is a BETA release and should not be used for production installations. The provided upgrade instructions should not be used on production machines, unless you don't mind if something breaks. 😉
• Ubuntu Bug Breaks EFI on 21.04 Update With Older Machines — The exact nature of the hardware likely to fail is still unclear. Canonical software engineer Dave Jones suggested modern machines would be unaffected but older machines such as a ThinkPad 420 from 2011 and a MacBook Air from 2012 were affected by the bug.
• elementary OS 6 Beta Available Today — Developers and testers, it’s the day you’ve been waiting for: elementary OS 6 Beta is available now! We first started talking publicly about elementary OS 6 in August of last year.
• New Spectre Exploits Beat All Mitigations: Fixes to Severely Degrade Performance — Researchers from two universities have discovered several new variants of Spectre exploits that affect all modern processors from AMD and Intel with micro-op caches. Existing Spectre mitigations do not protect the CPUs against potential attacks that use these vulnerabilities.
• PDF: I See Dead ﾂｵops: Leaking Secrets
• M1 Mesa Driver Upstreamed — I’ve begun a Gallium driver for the M1, implementing much of the OpenGL 2.1 and ES 2.0 specifications. With the compiler and driver together, we’re now able to run OpenGL workloads like glxgears and scenes from glmark2 on the M1 with an open-source stack. To top it off, the compiler and driver are now upstreamed in Mesa!
• mesa - Add asahi Gallium driver

Plus our reaction to SCO reigniting their decades-long fight with IBM and Red Hat, and the big news in GTK-land you might have missed.

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Sign up using the link on this page and receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account.
• Ting: Save $25 off your first device, or $25 in service credit if you bring one!

Support Linux Action News

Links:

• AlmaLinux Now Available For Download As RHEL/CentOS Alternative — As scheduled, AlmaLinux's initial release is available for download today from AlmaLinux.org. This initial AlmaLinux release is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3 sources.
• AlmaLinux OS on GitHub
• AlmaLinux Repo
• AlmaLinux Wiki
• Shop Almalinux
• CloudLinux Launches AlmaLinux, CentOS Linux clone
• How to migrate CentOS to AlmaLinux and avoid downtime in your data center
• AlmaLinux OS Homepage
• IBM, Red Hat face copyright, antitrust lawsuit from SCO Group successor Xinuos — Xinuos' lawsuit contends that IBM stole UnixWare and OpenServer code and incorporated it into the heart of its AIX, z/OS mainframe, and its midrange server operating systems.
• SCO vs. IBM looks like it’s over for good
• SCO slapped in latest round of eternal ‘Who owns UNIX?’ lawsuit
• Judge spanks SCO in ancient ownership of Unix lawsuit
• SCO vs. IBM battle resumes over ownership of Unix
• SCO keeps dying, and dying, and dying
• SCO trading suspended in US
• Xinuos sues IBM
• SCO Linux FUD returns from the dead
• Xinuos file suit against Red Hat and IBM
• Canonical releases Ubuntu on Windows Preview with early builds, new tools for the brave — The setup is more user-friendly thanks to the Subiquity installer, and a utility called ubuntuwsl.
• Announcing Ubuntu on Windows Community Preview
• Super Sneaky Ubuntu Link
• NVIDIA Proposes Mesa Patches To Support Alternative GBM Back-Ends — It looks like NVIDIA is finally taking the GBM route for supporting Wayland compositors with their proprietary driver...
• Mesa GitLab WIP Merge request — GBM alternate backend discovery and loading
• Introducing Libadwaita — This new libadwaita library intends to extend that concept by being the missing code part of Adwaita. and will be implemented as a direct GTK 4 continuation and replacement of libhandy.
• OBS Studio Now Ready With Wayland Capture Support — Well-known GNOME developer Georges Stavracas has been working on allowing good and native Wayland support for OBS Studio with the last of that work being merged upstream today.
• OBS Studio on Wayland – Georges Stavracas
• Arch Linux Packages - archinstall 2.1.3-1
• Arch Linux installer GitHub

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Sign up using the link on this page and receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account.

Support Linux Action News

Links:

• Element suspended on Google Play Store — At 2021-01-29 at 21:35 UTC Google suspended Element from the Play Store without warning or notification
• Element sees fivefold increase in signups after Whatsapp privacy debacle — After Whatsapp’s announcement, rival app Telegram reported a 500% increase in users and Signal saw an 18-fold increase in download numbers, putting it on track to cross 1m new users each day.
• Element team waiting hours — Update: we’re still waiting for a response from Google to our explanatory mail sent ~8 hours ago. Thanks all for your patience while we get this sorted...
• New Linux SUDO flaw lets local users gain root privileges — The issue is a heap-based buffer overflow exploitable by any local user (normal users and system users, listed in the sudoers file or not), with attackers not being required to know the user's password to successfully exploit the flaw. The vulnerability was introduced in the Sudo program almost 9 years ago, in July 2011.
• 10-year-old Sudo bug lets Linux users gain root-level access
• Buffer overflow in command line unescaping
• Sudo vulnerability allows attackers to gain root privileges on Linux systems (CVE-2021-3156) - Help Net Security — "This vulnerability is perhaps the most significant sudo vulnerability in recent memory (both in terms of scope and impact) and has been hiding in plain sight for nearly 10 years."
• New Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities Patched in All Supported Ubuntu Releases
• Mitre - CVE-2020-28374
• Red Hat Customer Portal: CVE-2020-28374
• Debian: CVE-2020-28374
• Ubuntu: CVE-2020-28374
• The killing of CentOS Linux: ‘The CentOS board doesn’t get to decide what Red Hat engineering teams do’ — Brian Exelbierd, responsible for Red Hat liaison with the CentOS project and a board member of that project, has told The Register that CentOS Linux is ending because Red Hat simply refused to invest in it.
• Rocky Linux gets a new sponsor—Gregory Kurtzer’s startup, Ctrl IQ — Rocky Linux is to be a beneficiary of Ctrl IQ's revenue, not its source—the company describes itself in its announcement as the suppliers of a "full technology stack integrating key capabilities of enterprise, hyper-scale, cloud and high-performance computing."
• Linux maintainer says long-term support for 5.10 will stay at two years unless biz world steps up and actually uses it — Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has responded to complaints that the current promise of two years for 5.10 is not enough, explaining that support is not automatic but requires commercial help.
• Rust Game Server One-Click App Linode — A free-for-all battle in a harsh open-world environment.

Plus Google's surprise for Chromium users, and we go hands-on with Podman's docker-compose support.

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Sign up using the link on this page and receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account.
• Datadog: Datadog - the unified monitoring and analytics platform for comprehensive visibility into cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

Support Linux Action News

Links:

• KDE Plasma 5.21 Brings Low-latency Compositing, New Kickoff Menu, and Wallpaper — A major addition is a complete redesign of the main KDE Plasma Application Launcher.
• This week in KDE: new KWin compositing, new Kickoff, new recording level visualization! — This week KWin’s compositing code was almost totally rewritten! It should broadly reduce latency throughout all compositing operations, and also adds a user-facing control in the System Settings Compositing page so people can choose for themselves whether they prefer lower latency or smoother animations.
• Check out our interview with Nate Graham in LUP 385
• Plasma Gitlab MR: Add fingerprint manager
• Fedora Proposed Change: Wayland By Default For Plasma
• Xfce 4.16 Released — Today, after 1 year and 4 months of work, we are happy to announce the release of the Xfce desktop 4.16, a new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.14.
• XFCE Nation on Twitter — Reminder to @ChrisLAS and @wespayne that Xfce 4.16 has been out since December 22nd but hasn’t been mentioned on @LinuxActionNews or @LinuxUnplugged.
• Xfce 4.16 Changelog
• Intel Preparing New Driver Option To Disable GPU Security Mitigations
• Wine 6.0 released — This release is dedicated to the memory of Ken Thomases, who passed away just before Christmas at the age of 51. Ken was an incredibly brilliant developer, and the mastermind behind the macOS support in Wine. We all miss his skills, his patience, and his dark sense of humor.
• Grab a Glass, Wine 6.0 Has Been Released
• The Wine team is proud to announce that the stable release Wine 6.0 — The core DLLs, including NTDLL, KERNEL32, GDI32, USER32, etc. are built in PE format. This should help a number of copy protection schemes that check that the DLL files on disk match the in-memory contents.
• CloudLinux readies CentOS Linux replacement: AlmaLinux — AlmaLinux will be a free, open-source, community-driven, 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL 8 (and future releases). For CentOS users, the company promises Lenix will provide an uninterrupted way to convert existing CentOS servers with absolutely zero downtime or need to reinstall anything
• AlmaLinux is born!!
• AlmaLinux - Forever-Free Enterprise-Grade Operating System
• Using Podman and Docker Compose — Up to now, support for Docker Compose, the command-line utility that orchestrates multiple Docker containers for local development, was missing. With Podman 3.0 now in development upstream, we have begun to support Compose.
• Chromium Blog: Limiting Private API availability in Chromium — During a recent audit, we discovered that some third-party Chromium-based browsers were able to integrate Google features, such as Chrome sync and Click to Call, that are only intended for Google’s use. We are limiting access to our private Chrome APIs starting on March 15, 2021.
• PSA: Vanilla Chromium ending some of Google’s API access such as syncing and spelling check starting on March 15, 2021
• MacOS update enables third party OSes on M1 — It's happening... macOS Big Sur 11.2 beta 2 is out with full custom kernel support.
• iBoot - Wikipedia — iBoot is the stage 2 bootloader for all Apple products. It replaces the old bootloader, BootX.