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[$] A new major version of NumPy
The NumPy project released version 2.0.0 on June 16, the first major release of the widely used Python-based numeric-computing library since 2006. The release has been planned for some time, as an opportunity to clean up NumPy's API. As with most NumPy updates, there are performance improvements to several individual functions. There are only a few new features, but several backward-incompatible changes, including a change to NumPy's numeric-promotion rules. Changes to the Python API require relatively minor changes to Python code using the library, but the changes to the C API may be more difficult to adapt to. In both cases, the official migration guide describes what needs to be adapted to the new version.
[$] Restricting execution of scripts — the third approach
The kernel will not consent to execute just any file that happens to be sitting in a filesystem; there are formalities, such as the checking of execute permission and consulting security policies, to get through first. On some systems, security policies have been established to limit execution to specifically approved programs. But there are files that are not executed directly by the kernel; these include scripts fed to language interpreters like Python, Perl, or a shell. An attacker who is able to get an interpreter to execute a file may be able to bypass a system's security policies. Mickaël Salaün has been working on closing this hole for years; the latest attempt takes the form of a new flag to the execveat() system call.
[$] Filesystem testing for stable kernels
Leah Rumancik led a filesystem-track session at the 2024 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit on the testing needed to qualify XFS patches for the stable kernels. At last year's summit, Rumancik, Amir Goldstein, and Chandan Babu Rajendra presented on their efforts to test and backport fixes for the XFS filesystem to three separate stable kernels. There has been some longstanding unhappiness in the XFS-development community with the stable-kernel process, which led to backports ceasing for that filesystem until Goldstein started working on XFS testing for the stable trees a few years ago. In this year's session, Rumancik updated attendees on how things had gone over the last year and wanted to discuss some remaining pain points for the process.
[$] The first half of the 6.11 merge window
The merge window for the 6.11 kernel release opened on July 14; as of this writing, 4,072 non-merge changesets have been pulled into the mainline repository since then. This merge window, in other words, is just now beginning. Still, there has been enough time for a number of interesting changes to land for the next kernel release; read on for a summary of what has been merged so far.
[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 18, 2024
Posted Jul 18, 2024 0:01 UTC (Thu)The LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 18, 2024 is available.
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition
- Front: OpenSUSE; Nix alternatives; Linux Mint 22; Rosebush; 6.10 Statistics; Storage management; Filesystem maintenance; OSPM reports.
- Briefs: Linux 6.10; Rust for Linux study; counted_by attribute; Redox signals; Blender 4.2; digiKam 8.4.0; GNOME executive director; Quotes; ...
- Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
[$] Changing the filesystem-maintenance model
Maintenance of the kernel is a difficult, often thankless, task; how it is being handled, the role of maintainers, burnout, and so on are recurring topics at kernel-related conferences. At the 2024 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Josef Bacik and Christian Brauner led a session to discuss possible changes to the way filesystems are maintained, though Bacik took the lead role (and the podium). There are a number of interrelated topics, including merging new filesystems, removing old ones, making and testing changes throughout the filesystem tree, and more.
[$] SUSE asks openSUSE to consider name change
SUSE has, in a somewhat clumsy fashion, asked openSUSE to consider rebranding to clear up confusion over the relationship between SUSE the company and openSUSE as a community project. That, in turn, has opened conversations about revising openSUSE governance and more. So far, there is no concrete proposal to consider, no timeline, or even a process for the community and company to follow to make any decisions.
[$] Hierarchical storage management, fanotify, FUSE, and more
Amir Goldstein led a filesystem-track session at the 2024 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit on his project to build a hierarchical storage management (HSM) system using fanotify. The idea is to monitor file access in order to determine when to retrieve content from non-local storage (e.g. the cloud). The session was a follow-up to last year's introduction to the project, which covered some of the problems he had encountered; this year, he was updating attendees on its status and progress, along with some other problem areas that he wanted to discuss.
[$] A hash table by any other name
On June 25, Matthew Wilcox posted
a second version of a patch set
introducing a new
data structure called rosebush, which
"is a resizing, scalable, cache-aware, RCU optimised hash
table.
" The kernel already has generic hash tables, though, including
rhashtable. Wilcox believes that the design of
rhashtable is not the best choice for performance, and has written rosebush as
an alternative for use in the
directory-entry cache (dcache) — the filesystem cache used to speed up
file-name lookup.
[$] Development statistics for the 6.10 kernel
The 6.10 kernel was released on July 14 after a nine-week development cycle. This time around, 13,312 non-merge changesets were pulled into the mainline repository — the lowest changeset count since 5.17 in early 2022. Longstanding tradition says that it is time for LWN to gather some statistics on where the new code for 6.10 came from and how it got to the mainline; read on for the details.
NGI project may lose funding
The Next Generation Internet (NGI) project, an initiative of the EU's European Commission (EC), provides funding in the form of grants for a wide variety of open-source software, including Redox, Briar, SourceHut, and many more. But the NGI project is not among those that would be funded under the current draft budget for 2025, as The Register reports. More than 60 organizations have signed on to an open letter asking the EC to reconsider:
We find this transformation incomprehensible, moreover when NGI has proven efficient and economical to support free software as a whole, from the smallest to the most established initiatives. This ecosystem diversity backs the strength of European technological innovation, and maintaining the NGI initiative to provide structural support to software projects at the heart of worldwide innovation is key to enforce the sovereignty of a European infrastructure. Contrary to common perception, technical innovations often originate from European rather than North American programming communities, and are mostly initiated by small-scaled organizations.
Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (firefox, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, libndp, openssh, qt5-qtbase, ruby, skopeo, and thunderbird), Debian (thunderbird), Fedora (dotnet6.0, httpd, python-django, python-django4.2, qt6-qtbase, rapidjson, and ruby), Red Hat (389-ds-base, firefox, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-11-openjdk, libndp, qt5-qtbase, and thunderbird), Slackware (httpd), SUSE (apache2, chromium, and kernel), and Ubuntu (apache2, linux-aws, linux-azure-fde, linux-azure-fde-5.15, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-aws-6.5, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5, linux-oracle-6.5, linux-starfive-6.5, and linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4).
Peter de Schrijver RIP
The sad news that Peter de Schrijver has passed away has just reached us. An obituary in Dutch relates that he passed in a Helsinki hospital on July 12. Mind Software Consulting, which he founded, has a message of condolences as well. De Schrijver was a Debian Developer and a Linux kernel contributor; he will be missed.
Evolving the ASF Brand (Apache Software Foundation blog)
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has announced that it will be changing its logo to remove the feather that has been part of its brand since 1997. ASF members will have input on the rebranding process and be able to vote on the new logo, which will be unveiled at the Community Over Code conference in October.
The feather is a well-loved and iconic part of the ASF brand. We know of community members who have ASF feather tattoos. People love taking photos with the feather at our flagship event each year.So why would we change it? As a non-Indigenous entity, we acknowledge that it is inappropriate for the Foundation to use Indigenous themes or language. We thank Natives in Tech and other members of the broader open source community for bringing this issue to the forefront. Today we are announcing we will be retiring the feather icon and logo and replacing it with a new logo that embodies the Foundation's rich history of providing software for the public good.
A bunch of new stable kernels
Greg Kroah-Hartman has released seven new stable kernels: 6.9.10, 6.6.41, 6.1.100, 5.15.163, 5.10.222, 5.4.280, and 4.19.318. As usual, each contains important fixes throughout the kernel tree.
Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium), Fedora (freeradius), Red Hat (firefox, java-1.8.0-openjdk, and java-17-openjdk), Slackware (openssl), SUSE (ghostscript, gnutls, podman, and python-Django), and Ubuntu (linux-hwe-6.5, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-oracle, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, and stunnel).
Blender 4.2 LTS released
Version 4.2 LTS of the Blender open-source 3D creation suite has been released. Major improvements include a rewrite of the EEVEE render engine, faster rendering, and much more. See the showcase reel for examples of work created by the Blender community with this release. See the text release notes for even more about 4.2 LTS, which will be maintained until July 2026.
digiKam 8.4.0 released
Version 8.4.0 of the digiKam photo editing and management application has been released. This release includes an update of the LibRaw RAW decoder which brings support for many new cameras, a new version of the LensFun toolkit, a feature for automatic translation of image tags, GMIC-Qt 3.4.0, and many bug fixes. See the announcement for full details.
Silva: How to use the new counted_by attribute in C (and Linux)
Gustavo A. R. Silva describes the path to safer flexible arrays in the kernel, thanks to the counted_by attribute supported by Clang 18 and GCC 15.
There are a number of requirements to properly use the counted_by attribute. One crucial requirement is that the counter must be initialized before the first reference to the flexible-array member. Another requirement is that the array must always contain at least as many elements as indicated by the counter.
See also: this article from 2023.
Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by Debian (kernel), Fedora (golang and krb5), Red Hat (cups, firefox, git, java-21-openjdk, kernel, linux-firmware, nghttp2, nodejs, and podman), SUSE (libndp, nodejs18, nodejs20, tomcat, and xen), and Ubuntu (gtk+2.0, gtk+3.0 and linux-hwe-5.4, linux-oracle-5.4).