LWN.net

Seven stable kernels for Saturday

jzb — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 15:48:08 +0000

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 6.19.13, 6.18.23, 6.12.82, 6.6.135, 6.1.169, 5.15.203, and 5.10.253 stable kernels. Each contains a number of important fixes throughout the tree; users are advised to upgrade.

[$] A more efficient implementation of Shor's algorithm

daroc — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 15:53:30 +0000

Shor's algorithm is the main practical example of an algorithm that runs more quickly on a quantum computer than a classical computer — at least in theory. Shor's algorithm allows large numbers to be factored into their component prime factors quickly. In reality, existing quantum computers do not have nearly enough memory to factor interesting numbers using Shor's algorithm, despite decades of research. A new paper provides a major step in that direction, however. While still impractical on today's quantum computers, the recent discovery cuts the amount of memory needed to attack 256-bit elliptic-curve cryptography by a factor of 20. More interesting, however, is that the researchers chose to publish a zero-knowledge proof demonstrating that they know a quantum circuit that shows these improvements, rather than publishing the actual knowledge of how to do it.

[$] The 7.0 scheduler regression that wasn't

corbet — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 13:34:00 +0000

One of the more significant changes in the 7.0 kernel release is to use the lazy-preemption mode by default in the CPU scheduler. The scheduler developers have wanted to reduce the number of preemption modes for years, and lazy preemption looks like a step toward that goal. But then there came this report from Salvatore Dipietro that lazy preemption caused a 50% performance regression on a PostgreSQL benchmark. Investigation showed that the situation is not actually so grave, but the episode highlights just how sensitive some workloads can be to configuration changes; there may be surprises in store for other users as well.

Security updates for Friday

jzb — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 13:33:38 +0000

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, freerdp, libarchive, and thunderbird), Debian (chromium, openssh, and thunderbird), Fedora (aurorae, bluedevil, breeze-gtk, buildah, cockpit, extra-cmake-modules, flatpak-kcm, grub2-breeze-theme, kactivitymanagerd, kcm_wacomtablet, kde-cli-tools, kde-gtk-config, kdecoration, kdeplasma-addons, kf6, kf6-attica, kf6-baloo, kf6-bluez-qt, kf6-breeze-icons, kf6-frameworkintegration, kf6-kapidox, kf6-karchive, kf6-kauth, kf6-kbookmarks, kf6-kcalendarcore, kf6-kcmutils, kf6-kcodecs, kf6-kcolorscheme, kf6-kcompletion, kf6-kconfig, kf6-kconfigwidgets, kf6-kcontacts, kf6-kcoreaddons, kf6-kcrash, kf6-kdav, kf6-kdbusaddons, kf6-kdeclarative, kf6-kded, kf6-kdesu, kf6-kdnssd, kf6-kdoctools, kf6-kfilemetadata, kf6-kglobalaccel, kf6-kguiaddons, kf6-kholidays, kf6-ki18n, kf6-kiconthemes, kf6-kidletime, kf6-kimageformats, kf6-kio, kf6-kirigami, kf6-kitemmodels, kf6-kitemviews, kf6-kjobwidgets, kf6-knewstuff, kf6-knotifications, kf6-knotifyconfig, kf6-kpackage, kf6-kparts, kf6-kpeople, kf6-kplotting, kf6-kpty, kf6-kquickcharts, kf6-krunner, kf6-kservice, kf6-kstatusnotifieritem, kf6-ksvg, kf6-ktexteditor, kf6-ktexttemplate, kf6-ktextwidgets, kf6-kunitconversion, kf6-kuserfeedback, kf6-kwallet, kf6-kwidgetsaddons, kf6-kwindowsystem, kf6-kxmlgui, kf6-modemmanager-qt, kf6-networkmanager-qt, kf6-prison, kf6-purpose, kf6-qqc2-desktop-style, kf6-solid, kf6-sonnet, kf6-syndication, kf6-syntax-highlighting, kf6-threadweaver, kgamma, kglobalacceld, kinfocenter, kmenuedit, knighttime, kpipewire, krdp, kscreen, kscreenlocker, ksshaskpass, ksystemstats, kwayland, kwayland-integration, kwin, kwin-x11, kwrited, layer-shell-qt, libexif, libkscreen, libksysguard, libplasma, nix, ocean-sound-theme, oxygen-sounds, pam-kwallet, plasma-activities, plasma-activities-stats, plasma-breeze, plasma-browser-integration, plasma-desktop, plasma-dialer, plasma-discover, plasma-disks, plasma-drkonqi, plasma-firewall, plasma-integration, plasma-keyboard, plasma-login-manager, plasma-milou, plasma-mobile, plasma-nano, plasma-nm, plasma-oxygen, plasma-pa, plasma-print-manager, plasma-sdk, plasma-setup, plasma-systemmonitor, plasma-systemsettings, plasma-thunderbolt, plasma-vault, plasma-welcome, plasma-workspace, plasma-workspace-wallpapers, plasma-workspace-x11, plasma5support, plymouth-kcm, plymouth-theme-breeze, podman, polkit-kde, powerdevil, qqc2-breeze-style, sddm-kcm, skopeo, spacebar, spectacle, thunderbird, and xdg-desktop-portal-kde), Mageia (cockpit-338), Oracle (capstone, cockpit, firefox, fontforge, freerdp, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, kernel, nghttp2, nodejs:20, nodejs:24, openexr, and squid), Red Hat (gnutls, libarchive, libpng, libpng12, libpng15, libtiff, libvpx, libxslt, multiple packages, python, python3, python3.11, python3.12, and python3.9), Slackware (libxml2), SUSE (apache-pdfbox, azure-storage-azcopy, corosync, cups, freerdp, iproute2, libsdb2_4_2, libtpms, NetworkManager, openssl-1_1, ovmf, plexus-utils, python, python-CairoSVG, python-jwcrypto, python-PyJWT, python-pyOpenSSL, python-urllib3, python3, python314, rust1.93, shim, smc-tools, terraform-provider-local, terraform-provider-random, terraform-provider-tls, thunderbird, tiff, util-linux, and vim), and Ubuntu (libowasp-esapi-java, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-gcp, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-nvidia, linux-oracle, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-gcp, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux, linux-realtime, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.17, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-realtime, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux-realtime-6.17, ofono, and ruby-rack).

Rust 1.95.0 released

jzb — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 17:24:06 +0000

Version 1.95.0 of the Rust language has been released. Changes include the addition of a cfg_select! macro, the capability to use if let guards to allow conditionals based on pattern matching, and many newly stabilized APIs. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

Forgejo 15.0 released

jzb — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:04:34 +0000

Version 15.0 of the Forgejo code-collaboration platform has been released. Changes include repository-specific access tokens, a number of improvements to Forgejo Actions, user-interface enhancements, and more. Forgejo 15.0 is considered a long-term-support (LTS) release, and will be supported through July 15, 2027. The previous LTS, version 11.0, will reach end of life on July 16, 2026. See the announcement and release notes for a full list of changes.

[$] The first half of the 7.1 merge window

corbet — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:19:47 +0000

The 7.1 merge window opened on April 12 with the release of the 7.0 kernel. Since then, 3,855 non-merge changesets have been pulled into the mainline repository for the next release. This merge window is thus just getting started, but there has still been a fair amount of interesting work moving into the mainline.

KDE Gear 26.04 released

jzb — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:17:00 +0000

Version 26.04 of the KDE Gear collection of applications has been released. Notable changes include improvements in the Merkuro Calendar schedule view and event editor, support for threads in the NeoChat Matrix chat client, as well as the ability to add keyboard shortcuts in the Dolphin file manager "to nearly any option in any menu, plugin or extension". See the changelog for a full list of updates, enhancements, and bug fixes.

Security updates for Thursday

jzb — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:00:51 +0000

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (bind, bind9.16, bind9.18, cockpit, fence-agents, firefox, fontforge, git-lfs, grafana, grafana-pcp, kernel, nghttp2, nginx, nginx:1.24, nginx:1.26, nodejs:20, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, pcs, perl-XML-Parser, perl:5.32, resource-agents, squid:4, thunderbird, and vim), Debian (incus, lxd, and python3.9), Fedora (cef, composer, erlang, libpng, micropython, mingw-openexr, moby-engine, NetworkManager-ssh, perl, perl-Devel-Cover, perl-PAR-Packer, polymake, pypy, python-cairosvg, python-flask-httpauth, and python3.15), Mageia (kernel, kmod-virtualbox, kmod-xtables-addons and kernel-linus), Oracle (\cockpit, bind, bind9.16, bind9.18, firefox, git-lfs, go-toolset:ol8, grafana, grafana-pcp, grub2, kea, kernel, libtiff, nghttp2, nginx, nginx:1.24, nginx:1.26, nodejs22, nodejs24, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, perl-XML-Parser, python3.9, thunderbird, uek-kernel, and vim), Red Hat (delve, go-toolset:rhel8, golang, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, osbuild-composer, and rhc), SUSE (bind, Botan, cockpit, cockpit-subscriptions, expat, flatpak, glibc, goshs, himmelblau, kea, kernel, kubo, libpng16, libssh, log4j, mariadb, Mesa, netty, netty-tcnative, nfs-utils, nghttp2, nodejs20, openssl-3, pam, pcre2, python, python310, python311, python311-aiohttp, python311-rfc3161-client, python313, python36, rubygem-bundler, sqlite3, sudo, tigervnc, tomcat, tomcat10, tomcat11, util-linux, vim, and webkit2gtk3), and Ubuntu (dotnet8, dotnet9, dotnet10, frr, and linux-azure, linux-azure-4.15).

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for April 16, 2026

corbet — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:52:23 +0000

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

Front: LLM security reports; OpenWrt One build system; Vim forks; removing read-only THPs; 7.0 statistics; MusicBrainz Picard.
Briefs: OpenSSL 4.0.0; Relicensing; Servo; Zig 0.16.0; Quotes; ...
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

FSF clarifies its stance on AGPLv3 additional terms

jzb — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:30:55 +0000

OnlyOffice CEO Lev Bannov has recently claimed that the Euro-Office fork of the OnlyOffice suite violates the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3). Krzysztof Siewicz of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published an article on the FSF's position on adding terms to the AGPLv3. In short, Siewicz concludes that OnlyOffice has added restrictions to the license that are not compatible with the AGPLv3, and those restrictions can be removed by recipients of the code.

We urge OnlyOffice to clarify the situation by making it unambiguous that OnlyOffice is licensed under the AGPLv3, and that users who already received copies of the software are allowed to remove any further restrictions. Additionally, if they intend to continue to use the AGPLv3 for future releases, they should state clearly that the program is licensed under the AGPLv3 and make sure they remove any further restrictions from their program documentation and source code. Confusing users by attaching further restrictions to any of the FSF's family of GNU General Public Licenses is not in line with free software.

[$] Forking Vim to avoid LLM-generated code

daroc — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:51:41 +0000

Many people dislike the proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) in recent years, and so make an understandable attempt to avoid them. That may not be possible in general, but there are two new forks of Vim that seek to provide an editing environment with no LLM-generated code. EVi focuses on being a modern Vim without LLM-assisted contributions, while Vim Classic focuses on providing a long-term maintenance version of Vim 8. While both are still in their early phases, the projects look to be on track to provide stable alternatives — as long as enough people are interested.

Security updates for Wednesday

jzb — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:06:49 +0000

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (capstone, cockpit, firefox, git-lfs, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, kea, kernel, nghttp2, nodejs24, openexr, perl-XML-Parser, rsync, squid, and vim), Debian (imagemagick, systemd, and thunderbird), Slackware (libexif and xorg), SUSE (bind, clamav, firefox, freerdp2, giflib, go1.25, go1.26, helm, ignition, libpng16, libssh, oci-cli, rust1.92, strongswan, sudo, xorg-x11-server, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (rust-tar and rustc, rustc-1.76, rustc-1.77, rustc-1.78, rustc-1.79, rustc-1.80).

Zig 0.16.0 released

jzb — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:48:44 +0000

The Zig project has announced version 0.16.0 of the Zig programming language.

This release features 8 months of work: changes from 244 different contributors, spread among 1183 commits.

Perhaps most notably, this release debuts I/O as an Interface, but don't sleep on the Language Changes or enhancements to the Compiler, Build System, Linker, Fuzzer, and Toolchain which are also included in this release.

LWN last covered Zig in December 2025.

[$] Tagging music with MusicBrainz Picard

jzb — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:50:54 +0000

Part of the "fun" that comes with curating a self-hosted music library is tagging music so that it has accurate and uniform metadata, such as the band names, album titles, cover images, and so on. This can be a tedious endeavor, but there are quite a few open-source tools to make this process easier. One of the best, or at least my favorite, is MusicBrainz Picard. It is a cross-platform music-tagging application that pulls information from the well-curated, crowdsourced MusicBrainz database project and writes it to almost any audio file format.