Linux News and Information

SteamOS 3 , the operating system for the Steam Deck, has surprised many, especially because it deviates somewhat from what one typically perceives as an Arch Linux-based system. Among its unique features compared to its parent distribution, the most notable are its immutability and the use of atomic updates. SteamOS 3 uses an A/B partition scheme for system updates. This means there are two separate partitions, A and B, where the primary one hosts the current version of the operating system, while the other is reserved for future updates. Regarding the nature of system images, these are atomic and applied using RAUC and Casync. For users who like the Linux theme and who are aware of the different distributions that exist, the A/B partition system may sound familiar to them, since it is the one used by Vanilla OS. On the other hand, Google has been trying to push it in Android for a long time, but it was initially rejected due to the amount of disk space required. The update system use...

  Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we actually have to talk about four. The last one, in fact, is the oldest of the remaining ones. We're talking about Oracle Linux 9.4, and these are its new features. Or rather, we should say that these are the new features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4, which we reported on last week. All subsequent versions are derived from it, including this one. With one caveat: Oracle Linux is generally the clone most closely aligned with the upstream source, although this concept has been distorted by Red Hat's recent moves. Thus, in the releases of AlmaLinux 9.4 and Rocky Linux 9.4, we highlight the new "blend" both distributions used to bring these versions to life since the previously used sources are no longer available. In short, these versions are now based on CentOS Stream code, each with its own approach to building the system. And there are significant differences between them. As for EuroLinux 9.4, it wasn't quite clear how they did it...

Manjaro 24 is the latest major release of the most popular Arch Linux derivative, a "semi rolling-release" distribution—continually updated but more conservative—geared towards the general user who may have seen better days but remains a prominent face of desktop Linux. Furthermore, Manjaro 24, codenamed 'Wynsdey', is only a major version in terms of the installation image, as any user with the system already installed and up-to-date needs to do nothing more. And for those wanting to try their luck with Manjaro? This is indeed a good opportunity. The features of Manjaro 24.0, as detailed in the official announcement, are quickly covered, as the release relies on a few key components: the brand-new Linux 6.9, GNOME 46, and KDE Plasma 6, including KDE Gear 24.02, and looking further back, Xfce 4.18, which has many accumulated updates. To elaborate, Manjaro users can choose between the latest Linux kernel 6.9 or opt for the LTS versions, Linux 6.1 and 6.6, if they prefe...

Kubernetes 1.30, named “Uwurnetes,” has been released as the new stable version of the well-known container orchestrator, which originated at Google and is now under the umbrella of The Linux Foundation. The developers have described this release as "the most beautiful" in the history of the software and have announced it includes a total of 45 new features, with 17 in stable phase, 18 in beta, and 10 in alpha. However, here we will only mention the most important ones. The first notable update in Kubernetes 1.30 is the stable release of the Robust VolumeManager rebuild after restarting the kubelet. This involves a refactoring of the volume manager that allows the kubelet to complete additional information on how existing volumes are mounted during the kubelet's startup. Generally, this makes volume cleanup more robust after restarting the kubelet or the machine. Also arriving in stable phase is the prevention of unauthorized volume mode conversion during volume restora...

  In this post, we're going to take the opportunity to introduce Garuda Linux , a distribution of Indian origin based on Arch Linux that officially launched in 2020. It is distinguished by its unique aesthetic finish, the use of the well-known Calamares as the installer, and the default use of the Btrfs filesystem to utilize the snapshot feature, which is managed with the Snapper tool. Recently, Garuda Linux "Birds of Prey" was released, which not only updates the supplied software but also stands out as the first release to include KDE Plasma 6 in the Dr460nized edition. As a result of this, we find many new features that were announced at the end of February when the latest major version of the desktop was officially released. The Garuda Linux team has mentioned improvements in Wayland, which is now the default session, partial support for HDR, and better support for touchpad gestures. The transition to KDE Plasma 6 required work to replace certain plasmoids and update...

  Linux distributions targeted at the corporate sector tend to offer many years of support, about ten years to be more precise, but lately it seems that companies are competing to extend the maintenance of some older versions. This is where Red Hat comes in, having announced an Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) that provides an additional four years of support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. The IBM subsidiary reminded in the official announcement that all releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) follow a standard ten-year lifecycle. The first five years offer full support, covering fixes for software bugs, security patches, software enhancements, hardware enablement, and backported patches, while the following five years focus on maintaining around security patches and bug fixes. The version of RHEL that has completed its standard lifecycle moves into the Extended Life Phase, in which there is continuous access to previously published content on Red Hat's customer portal and the...

  Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux 6.9 , the latest major version of the kernel. Due to accelerated development, with more releases per year, the number of new features is not as substantial as in the past, but that doesn’t mean this release lacks interesting elements. Firstly, Linux 6.9 includes improvements for processors from the two major players in the x86 ecosystem: Intel and AMD. For Intel, performance and efficiency have been enhanced for Meteor Lake, one of Intel's latest generations aimed at laptops. Regarding AMD, the P-State driver can now utilize "preferred cores," a concept introduced in Zen 2, for tasks that have higher priority in the kernel scheduler, which should result in increased usage of these cores. Continuing with more enhancements for Intel and AMD processors, optimizations have been made to the functioning of KVM, the open-source virtualization module for the Linux kernel, allowing it to act as a hypervisor to run virtual machin...

  Rocky Linux 9.4 has been released as the latest version of the distribution derived from technologies developed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Like AlmaLinux, many features were announced with the release of RHEL 9.4, which is expected as one of its goals is to maintain maximum compatibility. Since it aims to stay as close as possible to RHEL 9.4, Rocky Linux 9.4 includes many of the new features found in the commercial distribution, such as SELinux user space 3.6, which has introduced deny rules to enhance the customization of security module policies. Continuing with security-related improvements, version 1.4.0 of the Linux kernel cryptography API (libkcapi) has added new options and tools, specifically the -T option that allows specifying destination file names in hash sum calculations. Version 5.71 of the TLS/SSL tunneling service stunnel changes OpenSSL 1.1 behavior, and Keylime's verifier and registrar are now available as containers. Rocky Linux 9.4 provides Python 3.12, R...

  Fedora Asahi Remix 40 has been announced as the latest version of the Fedora-based system designed to run on Mac computers with Apple Silicon processors. This version primarily represents an evolution of what was already present, which is quite significant given the project's potential to enhance the Linux desktop experience, particularly in areas like sound. According to Fedora Magazine, Fedora Asahi Remix is developed through close collaboration between the Asahi Linux team and the Fedora Asahi Special Interest Group (SIG). It's worth noting that Asahi Linux is not a traditional distribution but rather a technology platform that enables running Linux on Apple Silicon processors. However, this doesn't stop its Fedora remix from being a reference system. As expected, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 is based on Fedora 40 and uses KDE Plasma 6 as its desktop environment. Therefore, the Wayland session should be the default, especially given the strong support this system has for th...

AlmaLinux 9.4 is now available for download, the first Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clone to emerge with a new version following the launch of RHEL 9.4 earlier this week. Indeed, it is a true clone of "enterprise Linux," according to its developers, though that's not entirely accurate. This distinction is necessary because after Red Hat's changes to the distribution of its code last year, AlmaLinux was the only clone that adapted by offering an alternative process to continue its operations. Essentially, AlmaLinux shifted from maintaining binary compatibility to ABI-level compatibility, moving its base from RHEL to CentOS Stream. "AlmaLinux is built from the same sources as RHEL, promises full compatibility with RHEL , and is built from freely available open-source code," states the official announcement for AlmaLinux 9.4. "This makes it the only choice for anyone seeking a true open-source enterprise Linux," they add. Which is it? To explain t...

RHEL 9.4 has been released as the new version of Red Hat's corporate and paid distribution. As expected in a release of this type, the most prominent features are the accumulated fixes during the life cycle of the major version and certain minor updates and new features, but the IBM subsidiary has tried to delve deeper into one particular aspect. The first thing mentioned about RHEL 9.4 is that the image creator, starting with this release, allows specifying arbitrary custom mount points except for specific paths reserved for the operating system. It is possible to create different partition modes such as auto-lvm, lvm, and raw, and users can now customize the customization options of a profile and add them to the cyanotype customizations using selected and deselected options to add and remove rules. Regarding security, the 3.6 release of the SELinux user space has introduced denial rules as a way to further customize the security module policies; the server components, the veri...

  Systemd has become the standard framework used by most major distributions and has also emerged as a controversial software because it can implement a wide variety of different components. One of the features coming in the next major release of the framework is run0 , which is essentially a sudo clone for systemd. run0 was announced by Lennart Poettering, the creator of systemd and a current Microsoft employee, in a thread he posted on the social network Mastodon. The developer acknowledges the utility of the current sudo found in most Linux distributions, but notes that it "has serious issues. It is a relatively large SUID binary, meaning it's privileged code that non-privileged users can invoke from their own context. It has a complicated configuration language, loadable plugins (ldap!), hostname matches, etc." These factors contribute to a large attack surface. The alleged complexity of sudo has led some to develop alternatives, among which doas stands out. Originat...

Fedora 40 is now available as the new stable version of the community distribution sponsored by Red Hat, which serves as a testing ground for future technologies that will later be implemented in RHEL. This time, we essentially find an update of the usual features, but KDE Plasma manages to steal some of the spotlight from GNOME, and the repositories now include ROCm 6 and PyTorch. Starting with the more "tangible" aspects of desktop systems, the first thing we find is that the Xorg session is no longer pre-installed in the KDE Plasma spin , a change that has also been extended to the atomic desktop Kinoite. Fedora aims to launch KDE Plasma 6 with a bang by finally setting the Wayland session as the default, which, combined with the distribution's experimental nature, has prompted the decision we now know about. The second significant update in Fedora 40 is the inclusion of ROCm 6 in the repositories , the latest version of AMD’s framework that provides hardware accelera...

  GNU nano 8.0 has been released as the latest major version of the well-known text editor for command-line interfaces, and it is the default tool for this context in many Linux distributions. This release brings a handful of improvements aimed at refining the application’s usability. The first thing we notice in GNU nano 8.0 is that the control+F (^F) key combination is now dedicated to forward search, while control+B (^B) initiates a backward search. Meanwhile, M-F and M-B repeat the search in the corresponding direction. The second feature mentioned by the text editor's developers is `--modernbindings` (-/), which sets the following key combinations: control+Q (^Q): quit control+X (^X): cut control+C (^C): copy control+V (^V): paste control+Z (^Z): undo control+Y (^Y): redo control+O (^O): open a file control+W (^W): write to a file control+R (^R): replace control+G (^G): find again control+D (^D): find in reverse control+A (^A): set a marker control+T (^T): jump to a line con...