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[$] Recent work in memory tiering
Tiered-memory systems are built with multiple types of memory, each of which has different performance characteristics. In addition to the usual DRAM, a tiered system might also provide faster high-bandwidth memory or slower CXL memory. On these systems, the placement of memory allocations has a significant effect on the performance that a workload will obtain. While work on tiered-memory improvements has been ongoing for years, it feels like the pace has slowed a bit recently. Even so, there are a few efforts underway, but they are facing questions about whether the tiering design makes sense.
[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for September 3, 2026
Posted Sep 3, 2026 0:22 UTC (Thu)The LWN.net Weekly Edition for September 3, 2026 is available.
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition
- Front: Python JIT; rnull block driver; steal time; GNOME governance; 7.3 merge window; LUKS.
- Briefs: Kernel infrastructure; Debian AI; Dolphin 26.08; Firefox 155; Incus 7.4; OpenShot 4.0; Quotes; ...
- Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
[$] Securely suspending LUKS-encrypted disks
When a laptop is asleep, its memory is not unreadable. The right tooling can attach to the computer's memory bus and read out its contents, and cold-boot attacks can theoretically read values from memory for a short time after the computer loses power. That is really an unavoidable fact about the hardware, but some users would still like to ensure that, even if this happens, their long-term encryption keys, such as the key for full-disk encryption, remain unreadable. In June 2026, Ingo Blechschmidt discovered that Linux kernel versions after 6.9 (released in May 2024) were not erasing disk-encryption keys when a laptop was put to sleep, even when configured to do so. He quickly identified a potential fix, which has been merged, but it was not a comprehensive solution.
[$] Governing GNOMEs: how the project's technical decision-making is evolving
Emmanuele Bassi kicked off a project to improve GNOME's technical governance with a presentation about his ideas (video) at GUADEC 2025. His nudging has led the project to, slowly, work on creating more formal structures for technical governance. It is adopting a teams structure and looking toward creating a steering committee, as well as bootstrapping a Request for Comments (RFC) process. If adopted, GNOME would require RFCs for design, user experience, architectural, and other changes that carry a major impact on the project.
[$] A pause for the Python JIT
In 2024 the Python 3.13 release added an experimental just-in-time (JIT) compiler to optimize the way that CPython executes Python code. Since then, work has proceeded on the JIT, albeit perhaps less formally than some might like. In June, Python's steering council (SC) put out an announcement that no new development on the JIT land (with the exception of bug and security fixes) in Python's main branch, until it accepts a Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) that would make the case for the JIT as a supported part of CPython. That has led to the creation of PEP 836 ("JIT Go Brrr: The Path to a Supported JIT Compiler for CPython"), which is currently under discussion. As it stands, it seems likely that work on JIT will continue, but when that will happen is less certain.
[$] The rest of the 7.3 merge window
By the time Linus Torvalds released 7.3-rc1 and closed the merge window for this release, 15,267 non-merge changesets had been pulled into the mainline repository. That is the second-highest commit count for an -rc1 release in the kernel's history; only the 6.7-rc1 release, which included nearly 3,000 commits of bcachefs history, had more. About 13,000 of those commits entered the mainline after the first 7.3 merge-window summary was written so, needless to say, there are a lot of changes to cover.
[$] The "rnull" Rust block driver
The null block driver (null_blk) is a small driver that is mostly useful for benchmarking block-layer implementations. It accepts all requests and marks them complete as quickly as possible, doing as little work as possible. In June 2026, Andreas Hindborg shared a patch set implementing the same functionality in Rust, in order to show that a simple block driver is now possible to write using the kernel's Rust APIs and to enable comparisons between the C and Rust implementations. A minimal version of the "rnull" driver is already present in the mainline kernel, but Hindborg's patch set brings it up to feature parity with the C version.
[$] Using steal time to moderate CPU demands
Virtualization can increase CPU utilization by allowing a large number of virtual CPUs to share a smaller number of physical CPUs. The amount of CPU time that is actually available does not change, though, so heavy activity on too many virtual CPUs can lead to contention and significant performance loss. The steal governor patch series from Shrikanth Hegde is an attempt to address that problem with a mechanism that allows virtual machines to voluntarily reduce the number of virtual CPUs they use when contention is high.
LWN.net Weekly Edition for August 27, 2026
Posted Aug 27, 2026 0:54 UTC (Thu)The LWN.net Weekly Edition for August 27, 2026 is available.
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition
- Front: AGPL violations; OpenMDW license; quantum computing and encryption; 7.3 merge window; Remind; Quickshell.
- Briefs: arrayref; RIP Steve French; Armbian 26.8; Vanilla OS 3; Emacs 31.1; KDE Gear 26.08; LibreOffice 26.8; RPM 6.1.0; Quotes; ...
- Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
At FOSSY 2026, several people from the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), which organizes the conference, gave a presentation about an ongoing violation of the Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3). Bradley Kühn, Karen Sandler, and Denver Gingerich spoke about different aspects of the violation, which is in regard to 3D-printer software from Bambu Lab, and what is being done to try to provide users with alternatives. One aspect that is particularly interesting is that the circumvention that the company is employing is precisely what the AGPL was written to prevent.
Audacity 4.0 released
Version 4.0 of the Audacity audio editor has been released. Notable changes in this release include a rewritten interface using Qt, ability to save user-interface layouts as "Workspaces", improvements in working with audio clips, and a new .aup4 project format.
The release is not fully feature-compatible with the Audacity 3.x series; see the compatibility notes for a list of missing features.
Security updates for Thursday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (freerdp, go-fdo-server, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, kernel, kernel-rt, nodejs:24, perl-DBI, and php), Debian (firefox-esr, libapache2-mod-auth-openidc, and libass), Fedora (dracut, exiv2, firefox, freerdp, gvfs, mingw-expat, mingw-gstreamer1, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-base, mingw-gstreamer1-plugins-good, mingw-openexr, nss, proftpd, and syncthing), Mageia (apr-util, bubblewrap, libalsa2, libarchive, perl-Net-OAuth, perl-Text-CSV_XS, perl-XML-Bare, and perl-YAML-Syck), Oracle (freerdp, gimp, golang, iperf3, nginx:1.24, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, pipewire, wget, xmlrpc-c, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), SUSE (apache2-mod_auth_openidc, apptainer, apr-util, bzip2, c-ares, cosign, dhcpcd, dovecot22, emacs, erlang, gegl, gopass, gzip, httpcomponents-client, incus, kernel-devel, libgpg-error, libsoup2, mozillafirefox, mozilla-nss, mozilla-nspr,, MozillaFirefox, mozilla-nss, mozilla-nspr, rust-cbindgen, nodejs20, orthanc, orthanc-authorization, orthanc-postgresql,, postgresql14, python-cryptography, python-msgpack, quagga, snpguest, snphost, texlive, tuxguitar, udisks2, vim, wget, and yast2-users), and Ubuntu (apr-util, biosig, linux, linux-aws, linux-azure, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-iot, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-aws-5.15, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-oracle-5.4, sssd, and tika).
Incus 7.4 released
Version 7.4 of the Incus container and virtual-machine management system has been released. Notable changes in this release include UEFI Secure Boot key management, "near-live" migration of containers between Incus instances, as well as burst I/O limits for disk and network devices.
Eight stable kernels for Wednesday
Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the 7.2.3, 7.1.13, 6.18.49, 6.12.108, 6.6.156, 6.1.187, 5.15.220, and 5.10.269 stable kernels. Each contains a number of important fixes throughout the tree. Users are advised to upgrade.
Note that 7.1.13 is the last of the 7.1 updates
Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (dbus-broker, freerdp, gegl, gegl04, gimp, gimp:2.8, glib2, grafana, gzip, iperf3, libssh, nodejs22, nodejs24, nodejs:22, nodejs:24, php:7.4, php:8.2, pipewire, ruby:3.3, ruby:4.0, tar, wget, and xmlrpc-c), Debian (cyrus-imapd, keystone, and lemonldap-ng), Fedora (bubblewrap, cockpit, emacs, gdk-pixbuf2, openssl, openvkl, python-linkify-it-py, python-llm, and rkcommon), Gentoo (Chromium, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Vivaldi), Oracle (glib2, gzip, mingw-sqlite, nodejs22, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Red Hat (go-toolset:rhel8, golang, and grafana), Slackware (pcre2), SUSE (apache2-mod_auth_openidc, busybox, cups-filters, java-17-openj9, java-1_8_0-openj9, libapr-util1, libgcrypt, python-sqlparse, python3-sqlparse, python313-uv, terraform-provider-aws, terraform-provider-azurerm, terraform-provider-external, terraform-provider-google, terraform-provider-helm, terraform-provider-kubernetes, terraform-provid, ucode-intel, wicked, and yast2-auth-client), and Ubuntu (libevent, libgcrypt20, ncurses, opencryptoki, pam, pyasn1, rust-sudo-rs, and ubuntu-advantage-tools).
A note on subscription prices from LWN
The online publication industry, as a whole, is struggling, with challenges coming from multiple directions. Thanks to the support of all of you, our readers, LWN would appear to be doing better than most. But the world has changed around us and, in particular, prices have changed considerably. By now, you probably know where this is going: subscription prices at LWN will be increasing as of September 15.
Firefox 155 released
Version 155 of the Firefox web browser has been released. Notable changes include a count in the address bar of how many ad trackers Firefox has blocked, container reordering, and ensuring that mailto: links are only opened by explicit user actions. There is also a change of the domain used for "captive portals" (such as the ones used to sign into hotel WiFI): Firefox now uses "firefox-portal-detection.com" instead of "detectportal.firefox.com", which may require a change in network allow lists.
The release also includes a number of changes that may impact web developers, as well as a number of bug fixes and security fixes.
Security updates for Tuesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (gzip, iperf3, libxml2, mingw-sqlite, mysql:8.4, nginx:1.26, nodejs:24, php, and tar), Debian (expat and libdbd-csv-perl), Fedora (apache-ivy, bind, bluez, bubblewrap, curl, emacs, epiphany, expat, freerdp, gdk-pixbuf2, GitPython, hcloud, kbd, kernel, lego, libopenmpt, mqttcli, nebula, opkssh, python-mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin, python-pip, rpki-client, rubygem-mechanize, srt, and subfinder), Mageia (c-ares, clamav, expat, mingq-expat, firefox, nspr, nss, flatpak, hplip, jbig2dec, nodejs, openssl, perl-Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication, perl-Date-Manip, perl-HTML-FormHandler, perl-HTTP-Date, perl-Mojolicious, perl-Plack, postgresql15, postgresql18, python-hpack, redis, roundcubemail, thunderbird, varnish, and vim), Oracle (golang and libxml2), Red Hat (bind, bind9.18, dracut, glib2, golang, gzip, kernel, kernel-rt, openssl, osbuild-composer, tar, and unbound), SUSE (7zip, busybox, bzip2, c-ares, chromedriver, chromium, cpio, curl, dhcpcd, dovecot24, dracut, firefox, go1.25, go1.26, go1.26-openssl, google-cloud-sap-agent, gstreamer-plugins-bad, gzip, helm, ImageMagick, istioctl, jfrog-cli, jupyter-jupyterlab, libarchive, libcares2, libheif, liboqs, librest, openssl-1_1, openssl-3, owasp-modsecurity-crs, pcp, php-composer2, postgresql14, postgresql15, postgresql17, postgresql18, python-cryptography, python-httplib2, python-pip, python313, python313-djangorestframework, python313-starlette, qemu, qt6-svg, quagga, rav1e, rmt-server, rsync, rsyslog, snphost, sssd, thunderbird, unbound, vim, wget, xmlrpc-c, yast2-auth-client, and yast2-samba-client), and Ubuntu (attr, bind9, coreutils, cpio, diffutils, freerdp3, libssh, mysql-8.0, mysql-8.4, openjdk-17-crac, openjdk-21-crac, openjdk-25-crac, openssl, p11-kit, perl, pillow, udisks2, util-linux, webkit2gtk, zfs-linux, and zlib).
OpenShot 4.0 released
Version 4.0 of the OpenShot video editor has been released.
OpenShot 4.0 has arrived, bringing some of the biggest creative workflow upgrades in our history. You can now record your screen, webcam, microphone, and system audio directly into a project. You can correct and grade footage with color wheels, curves, LUTs, and professional video scopes. You can also isolate subjects with locally run machine learning models and create everything from animated audio visualizations to cinematic film looks.
See the release notes for a full list of changes.
Netdev 0x1A videos and slides are now live
The Netdev 0x1A conference was held in Rome, Italy from July 13 through July 16. Conference organizer Jami Hadi Salim has let us know that the videos and slides for all sessions are now available. Topics include Linux QUIC, shared memory socket transport, eBPF-based DDoS protection, and more.
