Linux

Fedora stakeholders have been eyeing a nicer experience for NTSYNC usage with Wine and Steam Play by being able to have the NTSYNC kernel module load when it's likely to be used. That approval has now been granted by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) for the Fedora 44 release.

NTSYNC has been in the mainline Linux kernel for a while now and the latest Wine 10.xx development builds along with the upcoming Wine 11.0 stable build allow making use of that kernel code for a faster implementation of emulating the Microsoft Windows NT synchronization primitives. But the issue at hand is the NTSYNC kernel module driver isn't auto-loaded when needed and without any users currently outside the likes of Wine or Wine-based software like Steam Play (Proton), there's little use having it unconditionally loaded.

The media subsystem updates were sent out this morning for the now-open Linux 6.19 merge window. There are some new Rockchip drivers and other media drivers that are new for Linux 6.19.

The first new Rockchip driver is the VICAP RKCIF driver. This driver has been in the works for a while and going through a number of rounds of review for supporting the Rockchip Camera Interface "CIF". This is used by the Rockchip PX30 Video Input Processor (VIP), Digital Video Port (DVP), and RK3568 Video Capture (VICAP) unit. This driver takes care of mainline support for this Rockchip Camera Interface and hardware-wise for Linux 6.19 is focused on the PX30, RK3568 VICAP DVP, and RK3568 VICAP MIPI interface.

Following yesterday's Linux 6.18 kernel release, GNU Linux-libre 6.18-gnu is out today as the latest release of this free software purist kernel that will drop/block drivers from loading microcode/firmware considered non-free-software and other restrictions in the name of not pushing binary blobs even when needed for hardware support/functionality on otherwise open-source drivers.

With Linux 6.18 there are more upstream kernel drivers dependent upon binary-only firmware/microcode. Among the drivers called out this cycle are the open-source NVIDIA Nova-Core Rust driver as well as the modern Intel Xe driver. Nova-Core is exclusively designed around the NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP) usage and thus without its firmware the driver is inoperable. Similarly, with the newer Intel Xe driver depending upon the GuC micro-controller without its firmware the support is also rendered useless.

KDE Connect is a popular cross-platform app that allows you to send files across devices and more - with a security advisory being sent out due to a woops. Noted as CVE-2025-66270, that woops could allow an attacker to entirely skip proper authentication.

An overview of the issue:

Versions of KDE Connect released after March 2025 implement version 8 of the KDE Connect protocol. In this version, the discovery of other devices with KDE Connect on your network involves an additional packet exchange between the two devices. While the first packet is used to determine if a device is paired or not, this additional packet is used to identify the device that is connecting.

The vulnerable implementations of KDE Connect were not checking that the device ID in the first packet and the device ID in the second packet were the same. This could be abused by first sending a device ID of an unpaired device which doesn't require authentication, followed by sending the device ID of a paired device in order to impersonate it.

The vulnerable versions they list are:

KDE Connect desktop >= 25.04 and < 25.12
KDE Connect iOS >= v0.5.2 and < 0.5.4
KDE Connect Android >= v1.33.0 and < 1.34.4
GSConnect >= 59 and < 68
Valent >= v1.0.0.alpha.47 and < v1.0.0.alpha.49

The KDE developers are suggesting you stop using KDE Connect until your Linux distribution releases an update for it, or to manually patch it yourself if you're able to.

See more in the security advisory.

Almost a month after the previous 2.0.17 release, fwupd, an open-source tool designed to simplify firmware updates on Linux-based systems, has reached version 2.0.18.

The release introduces a new MOTD message that appears when a staged update requires a reboot, along with the automatic creation of a reboot-required file. Additionally, the new version also records the system state for each composite emulation and allows USI docking stations to update without requiring a manual replug.

On the bug fixes side, firmware operations now properly detect Intel SPI BIOS lock issues on MTD devices, and systems without SecureBoot support can use UpdateCapsule more reliably. Parsing of UEFI capsule result headers and USB BOS descriptors has been corrected, and firmware deployment on x86_64 systems now uses the appropriate capsule flags.

While some Linux distributions have begun establishing AI policies, we haven't seen any communicated from the Ubuntu camp yet but will apparently be permitted at least for project infrastructure. AI is being used currently in an effort to help modernize the Ubuntu Error Tracker.

Catching my eye while going through last week's Ubuntu Foundations Team updates is Canonical employee Skia commenting on beginning to "play with AI" for helping port the Ubuntu Error Tracker web user interface to modern standards.

Last night Intel finally posted their Gaudi 3 accelerator open-source driver support for the mainline Linux kernel with hopes of getting that long-delayed AI accelerator support into the in-development Linux 6.19 kernel. But as I pointed out, the pull request was coming unusually late for being such a large set of patches and would face an uphill battle to make it for the Linux 6.19 merge window. Sure enough, the pull request was already rejected and withdrawn from being v6.19 material.

Overnight the Intel Gaudi 3 ambitions for Linux 6.19 already ended just hours after the code finally appeared in a pull request. Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) lead maintainer David Airlie of Red Hat who also oversees the accelerator "accel" area commented that the pull request was late. But beyond being late, in his preliminary look at the new code he also found "a few messy bits on initial review."

Miguel Ojeda has already submitted the core Rust programming language infrastructure updates intended for the Linux 6.19 merge window. In the pull request he also notes that moving forward the minimum supported Rust version for compiling the Linux kernel will likely follow whatever the minimum Rust version currently in use by the latest Debian stable release.

The Rust for Linux 6.19 updates include adding support for Syn as a parsing library for parsing strams of Rust tokens into a syntax tree of Rust source code.

The UBports team has officially released Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.1 and Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-11 as maintenance updates for supported devices.

The 24.04-1.1 update expands VoLTE support to additional hardware, including Fairphone 4 and the remaining Volla Phone 22 variants. Startup performance has been improved for users upgrading from the 20.04 series, reducing the first-boot delay.

Several long-standing issues have also been resolved, such as the media scanning daemon getting stuck at 100% CPU, notification badges not appearing for Phone and Messaging apps, and applications being unable to clear old notifications before posting new ones.

So. I've received this old HP Pavililon pc

• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5500U CPU @ 2.40GHz 2.39 GHz
• RAM: 8,00 GB
• HD: 932 GB HDD HGST HTS541010A9E680
• Graphic: NVIDIA GeForce 940M (2 GB), Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500 (128 MB)
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160
• Synaptics SMBus TouchPad

I've updated and skin to the bone win 10 (fk 11). I'll still keep some space for the old Granpa10 for some software but i'll give a good chunk of space to a linux distro for my daily use.

My favorite one are Fedora and Linux Mint (I'm a noob, i know). I've already installed Fedora on older pc with mixed results (everything works great except the wifi antenna), also i'm not a huge fan of the slider interface, i want some windows10-like dark interface and a decent support for all my hardware and the mid nvidia graphic.

I would like a smooth installation if possible. So, what you suggest?

update: The issue has been fixed! Turns out all I had to do was set the clock to use UTC time using "timedatectl set-local-rtc 0"...

For some odd reason, whenever I come home (16:00), the clock is set 8 hours ahead (0:00, date jumps to the next day). I have to set my clock manually every time or restart my computer to get the correct time again. ~~There isn't any weird time zone shenanigans~~, the automatic time zone is still correct, and I don't live somewhere with daylight savings. What's wrong with my clock???

I am using Fedora 43 KDE (note: the issue was a thing in 42 KDE as well, but not with 42 Workstation. Either this is a KDE bug or there is some weird conflict with the remnants of gnome stuff. Or maybe I borked something I shouldn't have, idk)

edit: It is time zone shenanigans! My timezone is GMT+8. I have ran "timedatectl set-local-rtc 0" (the warning mentioned this when I ran "timedatectl status" as one person said to do) so let's see if that fixes it

The good news is that Intel tonight posted a pull request for open-source Gaudi 3 accelerator support for the mainline Linux kernel! The bad news is that it's coming quite late in the product cycle, much later than the former excellent Habana Labs open-source track record, and their hopes of squeezing this code into the Linux 6.19 kernel may be dashed.

Going back to even the pre-Intel acquisition days, the Habana Labs accelerator driver had a good open-source track record. Initially it started off a bit rough until they had open-sourced their user-space bits and ultimately their compiler and other user-space software. But after that they were excellent open-source stewards friendly with the mainline kernel and punctually enabling new hardware support, helping craft the Linux kernel accelerator "accel" subsystem under the Direct Rendering Manager area, etc.

Linux kernel 6.18 brings expanded architecture support, BPF updates, new namespace file-handle features, and wide-ranging hardware enablement across CPUs, GPUs, and sensors.

Linus Torvalds has just announced the official release of the new Linux kernel 6.18.

“So I’ll have to admit that I’d have been happier with slightly less bugfixing noise in this last week of the release, but while there’s a few more fixes than I would hope for, there was nothing that made me feel like this needs more time to cook. So 6.18 is tagged and pushed out.”

KaOS, a rolling KDE-centric Linux distribution that uses the Pacman package manager and bets on the XFS file system, has released its November 2025 installation image, marking the first step toward adopting the Limine bootloader, now offered as an optional choice for UEFI installations via Calamares.

The release ships Plasma 6.5.3, KDE Gear 25.08.3, and Frameworks 6.20, all built on Qt 6.10.1. Plasma 6.5 adds automatic light–dark theme switching, pinned clipboard items for frequently reused text, an updated Wi-Fi and networking module showing nearby wireless networks, and improved KRunner fuzzy search.

The system base includes a wide set of version bumps: Boost 1.89.0, ICU 77.1, OpenCV 4.12, Poppler 25.11, GStreamer 1.26.8, PipeWire 1.4.9, CMake 4.2, OpenSSH 10.2, Bash 5.3, Protobuf 33.1, and Mesa 25.2.7.

As someone who grew up using windows, is there a series of tutorials or videos y'all recommend to learn Linux? I find myself running into issues, trying to find solutions online, and not even understanding the instructions. I'm sure most of this comes from not knowing bash (which I've started to learn using https://labex.io/linuxjourney).

Background: I'm a very competent windows user. I've built my own PC, etc. I mostly use it for gaming and Internet now but want to start self hosting some things. Oh, and I'm running bazzite.

Anyway, just trying to get out from Microsoft's thumb.

Cheers.

Edit: thanks for the replies everyone. I haven't had a chance to read through them all yet; the whole family is suddenly sick.

The Armbian team released Armbian 25.11 today as a major update to this Debian/Ubuntu-based distribution and build framework for ARM devices that enhances performance, security, and hardware compatibility.

Coming three months after the Armbian 25.8 release, Armbian 25.11 adds support for new ARM boards and chips, including Radxa ROCK 4D, Radxa CM4 IO, Radxa E54C, NanoPi R76S, NanoPi M5, ArmSoM Forge1, Banana Pi M5 Pro, NineTripod X3568 v4, ODROID-M1S, XpressReal T3, and Mekotronics R58-HD.

Armbian 25.11 also adds support for Linux kernel 6.17, support for building images based on Ubuntu 25.10, as well as the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Debian 14 “Forky”, SATA overlay support for Orange Pi 5, a user-friendly tool for interacting with Qualcomm devices, and a Wi-Fi injection patch for Linux 6.12 kernels.

Six months after the previous 25.05 “Warbler” release, the new stable version, NixOS 25.05 “Xantusia,” is officially here. Targeted at advanced users and developers, NixOS bets on an immutable design and an atomic update model, emphasizing reproducibility and reliability with the Nix package manager.

Nixpkgs adds 7,002 new packages and updates 25,252 existing entries. A cleanup effort removed 6,338 outdated packages to keep the repository manageable and secure. On the NixOS side, the release introduces 107 new modules, adds 1,778 configuration options, and removes older, unused components.

The desktop stack is updated to GNOME 49. This version ends X11 session availability, includes a new video player and document viewer, and ships a redesigned calendar application. Other applications across the GNOME suite receive updates as part of the regular upstream cycle.

TL:DW It's a 54:20 video of Fake Linus interviewing with Linus Torvalds. It goes over Linus's views on hardware choice, questions about Linux and several community questions.

The video is long, but it's a good listen.

While not strictly "linux" related - here is a interview/desktop build for the real linus, done by the fake one

Archinstall, a guided, user-friendly TUI installer for Arch Linux with a menu-driven setup that provides a semi-automated alternative to the traditional manual Arch installation process, has just rolled out version 3.0.14.

The update includes multiple snapshot-related fixes. Snapper-GRUB integration has been corrected to ensure snapshot entries are properly generated, and f-string handling in the snapshot debug installation has been fixed to avoid runtime errors during debugging.

Bootloader logic receives notable updates. A new dialog now allows the EFI bootloader to be installed to a removable location, improving support for systems that depend on EFI removable media.

With the upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel cycle there are yet more Rust kernel bindings being introduced and other additions to make it possible to write more Linux kernel drivers within the Rust programming language. Among the new Rust additions expected for Linux 6.19 are making it possible to write Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) bus drivers in Rust.

Queued in the past two weeks to the driver-core.git's driver-core-next Git branch are the patches enabling the Rust I2C bindings as well as sample drivers. Thus with the Linux 6.19 merge window expected to open as soon as tonight, Rust I2C drivers will become a possibility once the driver-core code gets submitted and merged.

Ubuntu’s roadmap for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon” (scheduled for release on April 23, 2026) has been published, revealing some interesting details.

The release will ship with GNOME 50, which is scheduled to appear a month earlier on March 18. Two new default applications will be introduced: Showtime, replacing Totem as the video player, and Resources, replacing the current system monitor. Both are designed to provide a more modern and consistent GNOME-native experience.

Wayland remains the default graphics session, and this cycle targets smoother performance and better reliability on a wider range of Nvidia hardware.

Landlock: What Is It?

Landlock is a Linux API that lets applications explicitly declare which resources they are allowed to access. Its philosophy is similar to OpenBSD’s unveil() and (less so) pledge(): programs can make a contract with the kernel stating, “I only need these files or resources — deny me everything else if I’m compromised.”

It provides a simple, developer-friendly way to add defense-in-depth to applications. Compared to traditional Linux security mechanisms, Landlock is vastly easier to understand and integrate.

This post is meant to be an accessible introduction, and hopefully persuade you to give Landlock a try.

Im a total child in terms oft Linux distros. Since im sick of Microsoft i decided to switch my gaming completely to Linux (Xbox to Tower with bazzite, switch to steamdeck). Im quite happy that i installed the distro by my self and found the place where i was able to change the keyboard layout. Because i want to play in my livingroom form the couch i got a bluetooth keyboard. The mouse i already have connected perfectly the keyboard didnt. I tried finding a solution online but soon realised that i have to learn to read the Linux lingo.

Can please someone teach me or point me in the right direction were i can learn the basics. Treat me like i know nothing about distros (because i dont) and PC (because i barely do).

This is also to try the Linux community. Show me what you got.

Edit: First of all, im very happy how this turned out. You people are very kind. I did manage to connect everything and got it running. Now i need to find out why dota 2 isnt running smothly.