Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 08/05/2023: Linux 6.4 RC1 Out the Gate, Yocto Project Reaches 4.2



  • GNU/Linux

    • Kernel Space

      • 9to5LinuxLinus Torvalds Announces First Linux Kernel 6.4 Release Candidate

        The two-week merge window for Linux kernel 6.4 is now closed and the first Release Candidate is available to download from the kernel.org website or from Linus Torvalds’ git tree for early adopters, system integrators, and bleeding-edge users who want to get a glimpse of what’s about to be included in the final release.

        Linus Torvalds writes in his announcement post that the Linux 6.4-rc1 patch consists of about 55 percent updated and new drivers, about 20 percent architecture updates, and the rest is the usual random mix of documentation, tooling, networking, filesystem, and core kernel stuff.

      • LWNKernel prepatch 6.4-rc1

        This is just one more back in the long-running shadow-stack story; see this article for some background.

        In the end, 13,044 non-merge changesets were pulled during this merge window.

      • LWNLinux 6.4-rc1
        So here we are, two weeks later, with the merge window over, and -rc1
        tagged and pushed out.
        
        

        Things look pretty normal - the only somewhat unusual thing for me personally was that we had two different pull requests that ended up with me doing my own little series of updates on top.

        So both the ITER_UBUF update from Jens, and the x86 LAM support from Dave Hansen (really Kirill, but I see the pull from Dave) caused me to do some extra x86 user access cleanups.

        The reason I mention that isn't so much "oh, I got to code a bit again", but that this actually caused me to *finally* switch to a more modern default 'git diff' algorithm. The default git diff algorithm is the very traditional one (aka 'Myers algorithm'), and while it works just fine, there's been various heuristics updates to make for nicer diffs by default.

        So I'm now using the 'histogram' algorithm, that takes the "uniqueness" of a line into account when deciding on longest common subsequence, because some of my patches were just an unreadable mess with the plain Myers diff. Not that histogram always helps, but it does often make things more legible.

        Now, this shouldn't really impact anybody else, and I know some people were already using either the patience of histogram algorithms, but I mention it because it does occasionally cause line number differences in the diffstats, and thus affects the pull-request output.

        I'm already used to small differences, but *if* you send me pull requests, this does mean that it might be just slightly easier on me if you follow my lead on picking a diff algorithm, and do

        git config diff.algorithm histogram

        in your kernel tree. Or, if you find that you prefer it over-all, maybe add "--global" there to do it in your main gitconfig to affect all your trees.

        [ Or just edit your .gitconfig files manually, it's actually what I do, but when telling others "you might want to do this", it's simpler to just give the "git config" command line ]

        Anyway, this is absolutely *not* a requirement, and honestly, in 95% of all cases it probably won't even change the diff output at all. But I thought I might just mention it to make people aware (and to maybe minimize the number of pull requests where I go "ok, let's figure out why my end result isn't exactly the same as the one in the PR").

        As to the actual changes in this merge window: the mergelog below gives the high-level view. The diffstat is completely dominated by AMD GPU hardware description files once again, and this time the 'perf' tool has followed suite, and so the other big area ends up being all the perf event JSON file descriptions. Ugh.

        But if you ignore those two "massive, but uninteresting" parts of the changes, everything else looks fairly normal. Lots of development all over, with "that's interesting" mainly depending on the reader. Drivers, architecture updates, filesystems, networking, memory management - there's a bit of everything.

        The one feature that didn't make it was the x86 shadow stack code. That side was probably a bit unlucky, in that it came in as I was looking at x86 issues anyway, and so I looked at it quite a bit, and had enough reservations that I asked for a couple of fairly big re-organizations.

        We'll get to that at a later date, possibly the next release.

        Anyway, please do go test it all out,

        Linus

    • Applications

      • Linux Links6 Best Free and Open Source Subtitle Downloaders

        Asubtitle is a text representation of the dialogue, narration, music, or sound effects in a video file. Subtitles are available in multiple formats.

        Subtitles can literally make the difference between being immersed in a movie or only watching the screen, trying to keep up with developments. Good subtitling does not distract but actually enhances viewing pleasure, and even native speakers can find subtitles useful, not only where the individual is hearing-impaired.

        There is a good range of open source software that lets you download subtitles. This article showcases dedicated subtitle downloaders, but some media players (including VLC and SMPlayer) also let you download subtitles.

        Here are our recommendations summarised in one of our legendary ratings charts.

      • Neowin7-Zip 23.00 Beta

        7-Zip is a open source file archiver with a high compression ratio. The program supports 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP, WIM, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM, XAR, Z. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license. The unRAR code is under a mixed license: GNU LGPL + unRAR restrictions. Check license information here: 7-Zip license.

        You can use 7-Zip on any computer, including a computer in a commercial organization. You don't need to register or pay for 7-Zip.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Kushal Das: Fixing missing yubikey trouble on fedora 38

        From the time I updated to Fedora 38, I am having trouble with my Yubikey. If I remove the key, just plugging it back does not help. gpg can not detect it.

      • University of TorontoAdvisory file locks and mandatory file locks are two quite different things

        Advisory file locks are in effect a form of broadcast interprocess communication (IPC) between vaguely cooperating processes. Processes use 'file locking' to broadcast information about what they're doing (such as reading or modifying a file) and what other processes shouldn't do (such as modify or sometimes read the file). Generally there's a simple system to regulate who can broadcast what sort of messages; for example, in Unix you may need to be able to open a file for writing before you can obtain an exclusive lock on it (ie, to broadcast your desire that no one else access the file).

      • LinuxTechiHow to Setup High Availability Apache Cluster on RHEL 9/8
    • Games

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Plasma Sprint 2023 in Augsburg

          After what felt like an eternity we were finally able to come together in Augsburg, Germany for the Plasma Sprint that was originally planned for April of 2020, kindly hosted by TUXEDO Computers in their offices. There were sixteen attendees from six countries and it was great to have three newcomers on board, too.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • [Yocto] Release notes for 4.2 (mickledore)
    • LWNYocto Project 4.2 released

      Version 4.2 of the Yocto Project distribution builder has been released. It features improved Rust support, a number of BitBake enhancements, lots of updated software, and numerous security fixes.

    • Fernando BorrettiNixOS for the Impatient

      NixOS is a Linux distribution configured using Nix. It is declarative, meaning that the entire system state can be defined in a single .nix file; and reproducible, meaning you can have multiple computers set up identically.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • MichaÅ‚ WoźniakMastodon monoculture problem

      Mastodon-the-software is used by far by the most people on fedi. The biggest instance, mastodon.social, is home to over 200.000 active accounts as of this writing. This is roughly 1/10th of the whole Fediverse, on a single instance. Worse, Mastodon-the-software is often identified as the whole social network, obscuring the fact that Fediverse is a much broader system comprised of a much more diverse software.

      This has poor consequences now, and it might have worse consequences later. What also really bothers me is that I have seen some of this before.

    • Libre ArtsLibreArts Weekly recap — 7 May 2023

      Week highlights: Google Summer of Code 2023 project announced, new releases of DreamWorks MoonRay, BlenderBIM, dav1d, new features in FreeCAD and Ardour.

    • Education

      • Rlang5 new books added to Big Book of R

        Thanks to Niels Ohlsen for for helping me add the books, and to Adejumo Ridwan Suleiman and Mokandil for their submissions.

      • The Register UKDEF CON to set thousands of hackers loose on LLMs

        This year's DEF CON AI Village has invited hackers to show up, dive in, and find bugs and biases in large language models (LLMs) built by OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others.

        The collaborative event, which AI Village organizers describe as "the largest red teaming exercise ever for any group of AI models," will host "thousands" of people, including "hundreds of students from overlooked institutions and communities," all of whom will be tasked with finding flaws in LLMs that power today's chat bots and generative AI.

    • Licensing / Legal

      • IndiaExplained: What is Open Source Software and its relation to the AI race?

        That said, historically some of the most sophisticated and advanced technologies have been open sourced and that has been a way to develop at a rapid phase. While this is a great collaborative way to develop tech, little has been done to regulate the OSS models, making it equally dangerous if fallen into the wrong hands.

    • Programming/Development

      • ChrisWho Was On The Winning Team?

        However, there’s an easier way to do it by thinking combinatorically33 And this is the reason I wrote this up in the first place: I didn’t expect to be able to use the enumerative combinatorics I learned a few months ago, but thanks to spaced repetition it was still fairly accessible in my brain!: There are \({19 \choose 5}\) ways to select the members of the winning team from all 19 colleagues. There are \({15 \choose 5}\) ways to select the winning team without picking any Peter44 If we restrict the valid candidate pool to only those whose names are not Peter, there are 15 colleagues to choose from.. Thus, the probability that Peter is in the winning team is \[1 - {15 \choose 5} \bigg/ {19 \choose 5} = 74 \%.\]

        It was a fairly good guess!

      • 37signals LLCProgramming types and mindsets

        One of the longest running schisms in programming is that of static vs dynamic typing. I've heard a million arguments from both sides throughout my entire career, but seen very few of them ever convinced anyone of anything. As rationalizations masquerading as reason rarely do in matters of faith. The rider will always justify the way of the elephant.

      • Dr Werner VogelsMonoliths are not dinosaurs

        A great example can be found in two insightful blog posts written by Prime Video’s engineering teams. The first describes how Thursday Night Football live streaming is built around a distributed workflow architecture. The second is a recent post that dives into the architecture of their stream monitoring tool, and how their experience and analysis drove them to implement it as a monolithic architecture. There is no one-size-fits-all. We always urge our engineers to find the best solution, and no particular architectural style is mandated. If you hire the best engineers, you should trust them to make the best decisions.

      • Matt MightHello, Perceptron: An introduction to artificial neural networks

        The purpose of this article is to give programmers without much exposure to machine learning an understanding of the key building block powering generative AI: the artificial neuron.

      • 37signals LLCEscaping creative downturns

        If I'm stuck in a creative downturn, there's usually only one remedy: keep going. That is, accept the downturn, but continue to stare at the computer, waiting for it to pass. While staring at the computer, there's room for menial and managerial tasks put aside during more inspired times. Checking up on things, getting back to people, and reading copious amount of [Internet]. But it's still a creative deadzone.

  • Leftovers



Recent Techrights' Posts

Legal Attacks on Techrights Have Made Techrights More Popular and More Widely Read
The misogynists will have plenty of work to do this summer
SLAPP Censorship - Part 142 Out of 200: GemText is Not a Webpage, Gemini Protocol is Not the Web, and Capsules Are Not Websites
our intention to appeal (escalate to the Court of Appeal)
 
Links 08/08/2026: "Palantir Paid No Federal Income Tax" and "Who's Responsible for This Mess?"
Links for the day
Retained: The Time IBM's Red Hat Tried to Hijack or Take Offline Site of Critics, Failed on All Grounds (Meritless Action Intended to Harass Critics)
Replicated from adrforum.com
IBM's 'Final Solution': Censor Sites Not Controlled by IBM, Sites Where Dissent is Expressed
IBM has no culture of free speech
More Mass Layoffs Coming IBM's Way (Ones IBM Cannot Hide, Cannot Convince Enough People to Leave or Unjustifiably PIP Them When They Say No)
The company that was like a "father of modern computing" is now stingy when it comes to travel. Not a good sign.
What Will it Take for Mainstream Media to Report Silent or Secret Layoffs at IBM?
"Silent" or "secret" sometimes because the media won't cover them
Is the Future of IBM Red Hat Temporary Staff, Contractors?
They want cheap, obedient lemmings
Gemini Links 08/08/2026: Tribute to Lloyd Center, Radio Amateurism, Homeworlds
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 07, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, August 07, 2026
Microsoft Uses Slop to Find Defects and Then Uses Slop to Replace Code, What Could Go Wrong?
Botspam is the problem, it's not a constructive approach in any shape or form
analytics.usa.gov: GNU/Linux Up Some More This Week
Days ago it said 6.4%, now it's up to 6.8%
RA-pocalypse: IBM Tells Workers "Taking a Hike" is Their "Next Step" ('Voluntary' Layoffs), Now It Prepares to Sack Lots of Contractors
There definitely is something going on
Kai Stephens (Barkley Walsh) & British Democrats in Clacton by-election hustings
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Daniel Pocock 'Punching' Nazis in the UK
The so-called "cult" of so-called "Debianism" was left with nothing but massive legal bills
Microsoft: Our August 2026 Layoffs Are Not Layoffs Because... Reasons
That's like IBM making "spin-offs", then pretending that no layoffs are happening
Links 07/08/2026: UMG and Anthropic in Trouble Over Copyright Infringements Sold as "Training" (Slop)
Links for the day
Links 07/08/2026: "BMW Is Showing Commercials On Their Car's Dash Screens And They Want You To Think It's A Treat", Software Patents on Drones
Links for the day
What We Said About Red Hat's Fate Under IBM Turned Out to be Right on the Money (That IBM Lacks)
There are no layoffs at IBM
IRC Networks Show No Signs of Going Away, IRC Enters Its 39th Year
That IRC daemons are still actively developed and patched in summer of 2026 (over 38 years after IRC was born) says a lot about IRC's importance
Social [Control] Media Needs to Die
I am a bit shocked to recall that I wasted a lot of time on it
Some Malware is Legal Because It's Made and Distributed by Politically-Connected GAFAM
In reality, the security non-experts 'championed' (and salaried) by GAFAM are anti-security people who advocate back doors
The GNU/Linux Anniversary is Next Month, Not This Month
It'll turn 43
At Clacton by-election Hustings Event Daniel Pocock Says "Social [Control] Media Has Contributed to Some of the Anti Social Behaviour."
No doubt many problems in society are caused or at least amplified/accentuated by this horrible phenomenon
IBM Insiders Explain Why IBM is in Very Serious Trouble
Will IBM last long enough for any "quantum" deliverables to become a reality?
The Register MS Took Money From Broadcom to Publish Fake 'News' With "AI" Mentioned 35 Times
not legitimate or authentic journalism.
GNU/Linux Approaching 20% in Georgia (the Country)
Usage of GNU/Linux was near 0%, as measured by statCounter, several years ago
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 06, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, August 06, 2026
Gemini Links 07/08/2026: Radio Amateurism, Summer Updates, and Programming "Taste"
Links for the day
Links 06/08/2026: Billboard Chart Contaminated by Slop Plagiarists, Sheinbaum Blasts Social Control Media
Links for the day
A Long Break and What's Coming Next Year
Some time next year we definitely plan to show how the EFF failed women, failed bloggers, and basically prioritised GAFAM
Daniel Pocock on a "metre-long ballot paper"
The Debian "cult" (as he calls them collectively) is simply jealous of him
Links 06/08/2026: Disney and Fentanylware (TikTok) Deal, "Hearing Aids Shenanigans"
Links for the day
IBM Mass Layoffs Began Yesterday, They're Sold as "Voluntary", the "Offer" Runs for Two Weeks (Last Day August 19th 2026)
IBM will self-detonate while using contractual agreements to force people to smile
Start of September 2026 'Voluntary' Mass Layoffs at IBM, Start of October Red Hat Employees Forced Into the 'Bloodbath' (After Collapse of IBM's Shares)
Red Hat is in trouble
Many GNU/Linux PCs Are Not Connected to the Net or Don't Use the Web
Saying GNU/Linux user-agents are just "bots" (Microsoft Lunduke and other Microsofters say this) is like asserting that the Twin Towers fell not because of two giant planes but because of explosives
They Call Occupations "Professions" Because the "Pro" Means Something
If you want to find tech news online
New Conference Paper (Science of Cyber Security) Credits RMS With Delaying Passwords
When it comes to passwords, RMS was "right"
Removing Gender Barriers in Computer Science
It is not that "women aren't good at maths"
In Brunei, GNU/Linux Approaches International Average of 8.5%
a sharp rise from 0% to about 7.5% happened in a few years
15% of IBM Staff Marked for Layoffs ("RAs"), the Workers' Objective is to Find Another Employer and Leave
"That's not a workforce, that's a waiting room."
Maintenance to be Completed Tonight (IPv6)
Notice how, after 25+ years, we're still not fully adopting IPv6, we're only about 50% there
A Data Centres Hub Puts Everyone at Risk, Especially People Who Live Near Them at Times of War/s
Spoiler: Datacentres are military targets, they attract missiles, some with nuclear warheads
GAFAM Mass Layoffs and Mountains (Trillions of Dollars in 'Secret' or 'Off-the-Ledger') Debt
GAFAM is having layoffs this month
August 2026 Microsoft Layoffs Confirmed by Staff This Week
It's hard to assess how many are impacted but signed an NDA, preventing them from speaking about what really happened
analytics.usa.gov Says 7% of Sessions Come From GNU/Linux and ChromeOS. If ~40% (Mobile) Get Omitted, It's More Like 11%.
In desktops and in laptops GNU/Linux has become a big player
IBM Cannot Survive for Much Longer, There Are Limits to RAs and Offshoring, IBM Now Asks Workers to Quit
IBM is in very serious trouble
SLAPP Censorship - Part 141 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP Failed to Learn From the Mistakes of the European Patent Office (EPO)
my solicitor, David Allen Green, put them in their place
Texts of the Claims From Balabhadra (Alex) Graveley and Matthew J. Garrett Almost Identical, I am Suing for Abuse of Process
Half a decade ago Balabhadra (Alex) Graveley from Microsoft and GNOME was arrested for strangulation in Texas
Gemini Links 06/08/2026: "Eat That Frog", Mutt Terminal Email Guide, and BASICODE
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 05, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 05, 2026