Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 03/02/2023: WINE 8.1 and RapidDisk 9.0.0



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • Kubernetes BlogKubernetes Blog: Spotlight on SIG Instrumentation

        Observability requires the right data at the right time for the right consumer (human or piece of software) to make the right decision. In the context of Kubernetes, having best practices for cluster observability across all Kubernetes components is crucial.

      • Container JournalIs Kubernetes Fit For Purpose?

        Are Kubernetes clusters fit to run many of the applications being deployed on them? That question became the focal point of a panel discussion yesterday in Seattle, Washington, hosted by Tetrate, a provider of an instance of the Istio service mesh. Kelsey Hightower, principal engineer for Google Cloud, said one

    • Kernel Space

      • LWNNolibc: a minimal C-library replacement shipped with the kernel [LWN.net]

        The kernel project does not host much user-space code in its repository, but there are exceptions. One of those, currently found in the tools/include/nolibc directory, has only been present since the 5.1 release. The nolibc project aims to provide minimal C-library emulation for small, low-level workloads. Read on for an overview of nolibc, its history, and future direction written by its principal contributor.

        The nolibc component actually made a discreet entry into the 5.0 kernel as part of the RCU torture-test suite ("rcutorture"), via commit 66b6f755ad45 ("rcutorture: Import a copy of nolibc"). This happened after Paul McKenney asked: "Does anyone do kernel-only deployments, for example, setting up an embedded device having a Linux kernel and absolutely no userspace whatsoever?"

      • LWNHiding a process's executable from itself [LWN.net]

        Back in 2019, a high-profile container vulnerability led to the adoption of some complex workarounds and a frenzy of patching. The immediate problem was fixed, but the incident was severe enough that security-conscious developers have continued to look for ways to prevent similar vulnerabilities in the future. This patch set from Giuseppe Scrivano takes a rather simpler approach to the problem.

        The 2019 incident, which came to be known as CVE-2019-5736, involved a sequence of steps that culminated in the overwriting of the runc container-runtime binary from within a container. That binary should not have even been visible within the container, much less writable, but such obstacles look like challenges to a determined attacker. In this case, the attack was able to gain access to this binary via /proc/self/exe, which always refers to the binary executable for the current process.

        Specifically, the attack opens the runc process's /proc/self/exe file, creating a read-only file descriptor — inside the container — for the target binary, which lives outside that container. Once runc exits, the attacker is able to reopen that file descriptor for write access; that descriptor can subsequently be used to overwrite the runc binary. Since runc is run with privilege outside of the container runtime, this becomes a compromise of the host as a whole; see the above-linked article for details.

        This vulnerability was closed by having runc copy its binary image into a memfd area and sealing it; control is then be passed to that image before entering the container. Sealing prevents modifying the image, but even if that protection fails, the container is running from an independent copy of the binary that will never be used again, so overwriting it is no longer useful. It is a bit of an elaborate workaround, but it plugged the hole at the time.

      • LWNKernel code on the chopping block [LWN.net]

        Code that is added to the kernel can stay there for a long time; there is code in current kernels that has been present for over 30 years. Nothing is forever, though. The kernel development community is currently discussing the removal of two architectures and one filesystem, all of which seem to have mostly fallen out of use. But, as we will see, removal of code from the kernel is not easy and is subject to reconsideration even after it happens.

    • Graphics Stack

      • LWNX clients and byte swapping [LWN.net]

        While there are still systems with both byte orders, little-endian has largely "won" the battle at this point since the vast majority of today's systems store data with the least-significant byte first (at the lowest address). But when the X11 protocol was developed in the 1980s, there were lots of systems of each byte order, so the X protocol allowed either order and the server (display side) would swap the bytes to its byte order as needed. Over time, the code for swapping data in the messages, which was written in a more-trusting era, has bit-rotted so that it is now a largely untested attack surface that is nearly always unused. Peter Hutterer has been doing some work to stop using that code by default, both in upstream X.org code and in downstream Fedora.

        A Fedora 38 change proposal to disable support for byte-swapped clients by default in the X server was posted in mid-December. It is owned by Hutterer, who proposed adopting the work he was doing for the X.org server into Fedora. At the time, it was unclear whether the upstream changes would land in time, so the Fedora proposal was contingent on that happening. It turns out that Hutterer merged the changes on January 5, so that would not be an impediment to Fedora being an early adopter of the feature.

    • Applications

      • Petros KoutoupisRapidDisk 9.0.0 now available

        RapidDisk is an advanced Linux RAM Disk which consists of a collection of modules and an administration tool.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • ID RootHow To Install Brave Browser on Rocky Linux 9

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Brave Browser on Rocky Linux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc.

      • UNIX CopDolphin Emulator on Centos

        It is easily the most popular and best-supported emulator for the console on Linux.

      • UNIX CopHow To Install Kodi Media Server on CentOS 9/ Rocky Linux 9/ AlmaLinux 9

        In this guide, we will show you how to install Kodi Media Server in AlmaLinux, CentOS and RockyLinux servers. Kodi€ (formerly€ XBMC) is a€ free and open-source media player€ software application developed by the XBMC Foundation, a€ non-profit€ technology€ consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, with a software€ 10-foot user interface€ for use with televisions and€ remote controls.

      • UNIX CopHow To Install Mattermost Desktop onCentOS 9/ Rocky Linux 9/ AlmaLinux 9

        In this guide, we will show you how to install Mattermost Desktop on CentOS/AlmaLinux and RockyLinux systems.

      • UNIX CopHow do you install a pacemaker with Apache on RHEL 8?

        A pacemaker with apache high-availability€ cluster management tool in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 that monitors and manages services running on Apache servers. It provides failover capabilities for system failures. Pacemaker combines with httpd using a resource agent.

      • ZDNetWhat are VirtualBox guest snapshots and how do you take them?

        VirtualBox makes it easy to run multiple operating system guests on a single host. One feature you should be regularly using is snapshots. Here's what they are and how to use them.

    • WINE or Emulation

      • WINE Project (Official)WineHQ - Wine Announcement - The Wine development release 8.1 is now available.
        The Wine development release 8.1 is now available.
        
        

        What's new in this release: - Windows version set to Windows 10 for new prefixes. - Many code cleanups that were deferred during code freeze. - Various bug fixes.

        The source is available at:

        https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/8.x/wine-8.1.tar.xz

        Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:

        https://www.winehq.org/download

        You will find documentation on https://www.winehq.org/documentation

        You can also get the current source directly from the git repository. Check https://www.winehq.org/git for details.

        Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list.
  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Events

      • Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC)Linux Plumbers Conference: Preliminary Dates and Location for LPC2023

        The 2023 LPC PC is pleased to announce that we’ve begun exclusive negotiations with the Omni Hotel in Richmond, VA to host Plumbers 2023 from 13-15 November. Note: These dates arenot yet final(nor is the location; we have had one failure at this stage of negotiations from all the Plumbers venues we’ve chosen). We will let you know when this preliminary location gets finalized (please don’t book irrevocable travel until then).

    • Programming/Development

      • ButtondownImprove your debugging by asking broad questions

        I recently had to help a friend debug a Word issue where fonts would randomly change to Greek symbols. It got me thinking about theories of debugging in general. At my last job, I was the Debugging Guy.

      • Python

        • LWNPython packaging, visions, and unification [LWN.net]

          The Python community is currently struggling with a longtime difficulty in its ecosystem: how to develop, package, distribute, and maintain libraries and applications. The current situation is sub-optimal in several dimensions due, at least in part, to the existence of multiple, non-interoperable mechanisms and tools to handle some of those needs. Last week, we had an overview of Python packaging as a prelude to starting to dig into the discussions. In this installment, we start to look at the kinds of problems that exist—and the barriers to solving them.

          Our overview just scratched the surface of the Python packaging world, so we will pick up some of the other pieces as we go along. The recent discussions seem to largely stem from Brett Cannon's mid-November post to renominate himself to the steering council (SC) for the 2023 term; that thread also served to highlight the role of the Python Packaging Authority (PyPA) and its relationship to the Python core developers. Up until relatively recently, the PyPA was an informal organization with a membership that was not well-defined; it had an ad hoc style of governance. That changed in 2019 with the advent of PEP 609 ("Python Packaging Authority (PyPA) Governance"); the PEP formalized the governance of the PyPA.

  • Leftovers

    • James GHappy Groundhog Day

      As of my starting to write this post, there are 25 minutes left until midnight here in the UK. This is the first year that I have actively thought about Groundhog Day throughout the day.

    • ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆ Alert

      The history of everyone’s favorite attempt to keep the suspense going for just a little bit longer, the spoiler alert. People who spoil things are obviously evil. Obviously.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Why Would Anybody be Afraid of Talking to Richard Stallman?
We need to get rid of the baseless stigma
EPO on Strike
organisation operating outside the Rule of Law
Affirming What We Already Know: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is Profoundly Incompetent
"SRA ordered to pay solicitor £50k in costs after failed prosecution"
RMS Was Right 35 Years Ago
Stallman’s viewpoints have remained the same
 
Free Software in Swiss Media This Week
RMS is still going places with his Migros bag (Swiss retail giant)
TV Programs Disseminate False Numbers of Microsoft Layoffs (About 31,000 Laid Off Last Year, Not Including PIPs, Contractors and so on)
large-scale layoffs are inevitable, no matter how long Microsoft delays or procrastinates
Links 30/01/2026: Microsoft's "OpenAI Is Headed For Bankruptcy" and Bitcoin Crashes
Links for the day
Amutable is a Microsoft Proxy Like Xamarin, With Some IBM/Red Hat Staff Added for Good Measure
Amutable chasing money and trying to impose TPM etc. on everybody
The Letter Sent to the Ringleader of the Alicante Mafia This Week
Call for industrial actions to stop the salary erosion of EPO staff
Oracle's Debt Exploded by 22 Billion Dollars in 6 Months, the Ponzi Scheme With Scam Altman Was Classic 'Pump and Dump'
The founder of Oracle now uses his wealth for right-wing ideological reasons, nothing else
Facebook ('Meta') is Dead Meat, This GAFAM Company's Debt Exploded by Almost 33 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months (11 Billion Per Month)
we can expect many sales/contracts to get canceled
Australia's top nurse takes on Musk, Zuckerberg & rogue health influencers, birthkeepers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XVI - The Associates of Mr. Cocainegate Don't Want to Talk About Cocainegate (Right of Reply)
Nobody wanted to talk about cocaine at the EPO
The "Open Source" (Corporate Openwashing) Fake Community Rejects Democracy, Open Source Initiative is in Effect Dead
This is basically the end of the OSI
Cracks and Holes in Microsoft's Slop Bubble (Also, Windows is Declining)
"More Bad News For Xbox As Microsoft Blames Gaming For An Annual Decline In Its PC Business"
Microsoft's Debt Exploded by More Than 20 Billion Dollars This Past Year, Says Microsoft
Expect more mass layoffs
Strike at the EPO Today
Next month we'll start a new EPO series
State of the Slop and The Register MS Runs Ads as 'Articles'
Yesterday we could not find much slop about "Linux"
Gemini Links 30/01/2026: Announcing Crossyword and SYN Attack
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 29, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, January 29, 2026
Gemini Links 29/01/2026: Naps, Letting Go, and Terribly Cold Weather
Links for the day
Links 29/01/2026: Kennedy Center Officials Resigning and Amazon to Cut 16,000 Jobs
Links for the day
Goodbyes to Red Hat and IBM
PIPs let them do the same with less "wasted" on severance or with obscene narrative-shaping
The Need to Understand the Projection Tactics Against RMS
There's an old and common saying (or "wisdom") about who's guilty when there's a fart in elevators (lifts)
Links 29/01/2026: Neocities Is Blocked by Microsoft, “Intellectual Freedom Centers” as the New "Intelligent Design"
Links for the day
Microsoft XBox Dying Not Only as a Console, Reveals Microsoft
Microsoft is trying to rebrand or repurpose the brand
Don't be Mistaken, Microsoft Boasts About Money That Does Not Exist and Revenue (Buying From Oneself!) Is Not Income
the company's debt grew
Fedora is IBM and There's Hardly Any Community Left
It's more like an onboarding mechanism for unpaid labour at (and for) IBM
IBM's Financial Performance in IBM's Own Words: Money Down, Debt Up Sharply
IBM isn't a healthy company
In Dominica, GNU/Linux Has Risen to All-Time High in 2026
a lot of America is moving to Free software this year
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XV - EPO is on Strike Tomorrow, Lots to be Angry About (Except Money)
We'll soon finish the series
Gemini Links 29/01/2026: "Lady Audley's Secret" and "The Value Of Our Fear" (Carney's Speech)
Links for the day
Emmanuel Macron on Europe's GAFAM Addiction/Dependence: "There is No Such Thing as Happy Vassalage"
Microsoft has long worked to prevent commodification
It's Official, Mass Layoffs at IBM Again (2026)
In a matter of days we'll just see how much IBM's debt has grown
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 28, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Laos and Microsoft: About 10% Windows, 0% Bing
There are many more nations like it
EPO Technical Meetings Show no Breakthroughs, a Strike Goes Ahead This Friday
Apparently there was another (fourth) meeting today [...] The industrial actions are working already
Google News as the Sole Source of Slop About "Linux", a Feeder of Slopfarms or Serial Sloppers
At least it's no longer hard to 'contain' the slop problem, knowing which domains are the culprits and seeing that Google is their main 'feeder'
IBM to Announce 'Results' Shortly, Expect Lots of Chaff Like "Quantum" and "Hey Hi" (Nothing Material to Show)
We're still seeing layoffs and an exodus
Links 28/01/2026: ChatGPT Has Financial Problems, White House Sharing Fakes (or Deepfakes) in Official Accounts/Sites
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/01/2026: FlatCube NES Port Finished and "Why I Still Write on the Small Web in 2026"
Links for the day
Upcoming Techrights Series About the Public Appearances of Richard M. Stallman (RMS) in the United States
we plan to drop all pretences about "Open Source" and instead focus on Software Freedom
Upcoming Techrights Series About the Experiences of EPO Insiders
We'll start the new series some time next week
Links 28/01/2026: Microsoft Ordered to Stop Spying on School Children, Apple's Brand Tarnished by Its Complicity With Human Rights Abusers
Links for the day
Upcoming Techrights Series About the Failure of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to Stop Hired Guns Who Work for Americans That Abuse Women
The SRA has demonstrated nothing but considerable incompetence at many levels
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XIV - The EPO Vice-President Steve Rowan and the Hidden Alicante Connection is a Big Deal
We'll soon take a closer look at Ernst
Gemini Links 28/01/2026: Particle and AirMIDI
Links for the day
Amandine Jambert (EDPB/CNIL/FSFE), motive for lying, trust in blockchain and encryption
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 27, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, January 27, 2026