ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

[$] Building a Flutter application (part 2)

([Development] Aug 28, 2020 18:04 UTC (Fri) (coogle))

Our [1]previous article explored the fundamentals of [2]Flutter , a cross-platform open-source user-interface (UI) toolkit. We complete our introduction of Flutter by returning to the simple LWN [3]RSS feed headline viewer that was introduced in part one. We will be adding several new features to that application in part two, including interactive elements to demonstrate some of the UI features of Flutter.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/828475/

[2] http://flutter.dev/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS

A set of stable kernels

([Kernel] Aug 26, 2020 15:29 UTC (Wed) (ris))

Stable kernels [1]5.8.4 , [2]5.7.18 , [3]5.4.61 , [4]4.19.142 , [5]4.14.195 , [6]4.9.234 , and [7]4.4.234 have been released with important fixes throughout the tree. Users should upgrade.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/829611/

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/829612/

[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/829613/

[4] https://lwn.net/Articles/829614/

[5] https://lwn.net/Articles/829617/

[6] https://lwn.net/Articles/829618/

[7] https://lwn.net/Articles/829619/

Security updates for Wednesday

([Security] Aug 26, 2020 15:03 UTC (Wed) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (firefox-esr, ghostscript, php7.0, and proftpd-dfsg), Fedora (mod_http2 and thunderbird), Red Hat (chromium-browser and firefox), and SUSE (apache2, grub2, samba, and xorg-x11-server).

[$] Resource management for the desktop

([Development] Aug 27, 2020 13:27 UTC (Thu) (corbet))

For as long as we have had desktop systems, there have been concerns about desktop responsiveness and developers have been working to improve things in that area. Over the years, Linux has gained a number of capabilities — [1]control groups in particular — that are applicable to the problem of improving desktop performance, but use of these features has lagged behind their availability. At the [2]2020 Linux Plumbers Conference , Benjamin Berg outlined some of the work that is being done by the Linux desktop projects to put recent kernel features to work.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/604609/

[2] https://linuxplumbersconf.org/2020/

Security updates for Tuesday

([Security] Aug 25, 2020 14:14 UTC (Tue) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (icingaweb2 and mongodb), Fedora (nss), Gentoo (chromium and shadow), Mageia (ghostscript, kdepim-runtime, kmail-account-wizard, luajit, mysql-connector-python, and python-ipaddress), openSUSE (python, python3, and webkit2gtk3), Red Hat (kernel and kernel-alt), Slackware (firefox), SUSE (squid3), and Ubuntu (bind9, ghostscript, net-snmp, postgresql-10, postgresql-12, postgresql-9.5, and sane-backends).

The programmer's CAD: OpenSCAD

([Development] Aug 26, 2020 18:03 UTC (Wed) (coogle))

[1]OpenSCAD is a GPLv2-licensed 3D [2]computer-aided design (CAD) program best described as a "programmer's CAD"; it is available for Linux, Windows, several flavors of BSD, and macOS. Unlike the majority of 3D-modeling software packages which are point-and-click, the OpenSCAD website [3]describes the project as " something like a 3D compiler ", where models are generated using a scripting language. It is a unique way of approaching CAD and has many real-world applications that may be of interest.



[1] http://openscad.org

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_design

[3] https://www.openscad.org/about.html

Security updates for Monday

([Security] Aug 24, 2020 14:28 UTC (Mon) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (firejail, icingaweb2, inetutils, libjackson-json-java, proftpd-dfsg, python2.7, software-properties, and sqlite3), Fedora (chrony), Mageia (chrony), openSUSE (dovecot23, postgresql12, and python), Slackware (bind), SUSE (gettext-runtime and SUSE Manager Server 3.2), and Ubuntu (bind9).

Kernel prepatch 5.9-rc2

([Kernel] Aug 23, 2020 21:39 UTC (Sun) (corbet))

The [1]5.9-rc2 kernel prepatch is out for testing. " Nothing in particular stands out, there's a random collection of fixes and updates in here. "



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/829450/

Seven new stable kernels

([Kernel] Aug 21, 2020 14:58 UTC (Fri) (jake))

The [1]5.8.3 , [2]5.7.17 , [3]5.4.60 , [4]4.19.141 , [5]4.14.194 , [6]4.9.233 , and [7]4.4.233 stable kernels have been released. As usual, they contain lots of fixes all over the kernel tree. Users of those kernel series should upgrade.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/829292/

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/829293/

[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/829294/

[4] https://lwn.net/Articles/829295/

[5] https://lwn.net/Articles/829296/

[6] https://lwn.net/Articles/829297/

[7] https://lwn.net/Articles/829298/

Security updates for Friday

([Security] Aug 21, 2020 13:19 UTC (Fri) (jake))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (ghostscript), Fedora (curl and mod_http2), Mageia (ngircd), openSUSE (kernel), SUSE (libreoffice), and Ubuntu (curl).

Fuzzing in Go

([Development] Aug 25, 2020 14:31 UTC (Tue) (benhoyt))

[1]Fuzzing is a testing technique with randomized inputs that is used to find problematic edge cases or security problems in code that accepts user input. [2]Go package developers can use Dmitry Vyukov's popular [3]go-fuzz tool for fuzz testing their code; it has found [4]hundreds of obscure bugs in the Go standard library as well as in third-party packages. However, this tool is not built in, and is not as simple to use as it could be; to address this, Go team member Katie Hockman recently published a [5]draft design that proposes adding fuzz testing as a first-class feature of the standard go test command.



[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzing

[2] https://golang.org/

[3] https://github.com/dvyukov/go-fuzz

[4] https://github.com/dvyukov/go-fuzz#trophies

[5] https://go.googlesource.com/proposal/+/master/design/draft-fuzzing.md

[$] Rethinking fsinfo()

([Kernel] Aug 21, 2020 17:07 UTC (Fri) (corbet))

The proposed fsinfo() system call, which returns extended information about mounted filesystems, was first [1]covered here just over one year ago. The form of fsinfo() has not changed much in that year, but the debate over merging it continues. To some, fsinfo() is needed to efficiently obtain information about filesystems; to others, it is an unnecessary and over-engineered mechanism. Changes will probably be necessary if this feature is ever to make it into the mainline kernel.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/792628

[$] CAELinux 2020: Linux for engineering

([Distributions] Aug 24, 2020 17:42 UTC (Mon) (coogle))

[1]CAELinux is a distribution focused on [2]computer-aided engineering (CAE) maintained by Joël Cugnoni. Designed with students and academics in mind, the distribution is loaded with open-source software that can be used to model everything from pig livers to airfoils. Cugnoni's latest release, [3]CAELinux 2020 , was made on August 11; readers with engineering interests may want to take a look.



[1] http://caelinux.com

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_engineering

[3] https://www.caelinux.com/CMS3/index.php/download/62-caelinux-2020

LWN.net Weekly Edition for August 27, 2020


Security updates for Thursday

([Security] Aug 20, 2020 13:05 UTC (Thu) (jake))

Security updates have been issued by Fedora (ansible, libmetalink, roundcubemail, rubygem-kramdown, sqlite, and swtpm), Slackware (curl), SUSE (python and python3), and Ubuntu (qemu).

Four stable kernels

([Kernel] Aug 19, 2020 15:26 UTC (Wed) (ris))

Stable kernels [1]5.8.2 , [2]5.7.16 , [3]5.4.59 , and [4]4.19.140 have been released. There are many important fixes and users should upgrade.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/829104/

[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/829105/

[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/829106/

[4] https://lwn.net/Articles/829107/

Security updates for Wednesday

([Security] Aug 19, 2020 15:17 UTC (Wed) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (imagemagick and ruby-websocket-extensions), Fedora (libetpan, LibRaw, and php), Gentoo (nss), Mageia (apache, ark, clamav, claws-mail, dovecot, firefox, firejail, freerdp, golang, jasper, kernel, libssh, libx11, postgresql-jdbc, python-rstlib, radare2, roundcubemail, squid, targetcli, thunderbird, tomcat, and x11-server), Red Hat (rh-mysql80-mysql), SUSE (dovecot22, freerdp, libvirt, and postgresql12), and Ubuntu (curl and linux-hwe, linux-azure-5.3, linux-gke-5.3).

Walleij: How the ARM32 kernel starts

([Kernel] Aug 19, 2020 13:47 UTC (Wed) (corbet))

Linus Walleij [1]continues his exploration of the boot process for the 32-bit Arm kernel. " BAM! The MMU is on. The next instruction (which is incidentally an instruction cache flush) will be executed from virtual memory. We don’t notice anything at first, but we are executing in virtual memory. When we return by jumping to the address passed in r13 , we enter __mmap_switched at the virtual memory address of this function, somewhere below PAGE_OFFSET (typically 0xC0nnnnnn ). We can now facilitate absolute addressing: the kernel is executing as intended. "



[1] https://people.kernel.org/linusw/how-the-arm32-kernel-starts

The Rust language gets its own foundation

([Development] Aug 18, 2020 16:34 UTC (Tue) (corbet))

The Rust blog [1]announces the creation of an independent foundation for the language. " This foundation’s first task will be something Rust is already great at: taking ownership. This time, the resource is legal, rather than something in a program. The various trademarks and domain names associated with Rust, Cargo, and crates.io will move into the foundation, which will also take financial responsibility for the costs they incur. We see this first iteration of the foundation as just the beginning. There’s a lot of possibilities for growing the role of the foundation, and we’re excited to explore those in the future. "



[1] https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/08/18/laying-the-foundation-for-rusts-future.html

Security updates for Tuesday

([Security] Aug 18, 2020 14:59 UTC (Tue) (ris))

Security updates have been issued by Debian (sane-backends), Fedora (kernel, LibRaw, and wob), openSUSE (balsa, hylafax+, postgresql, postgresql96, postgresql10, postgresql12, and postgresql96, postgresql10 and postgresql12), Oracle (.NET Core 3.1), Red Hat (bash and bind), SUSE (dovecot23, firefox, fwupd, postgresql10, postgresql12, python-azure-agent, and zabbix), and Ubuntu (ark, gnome-shell, libonig, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux-raspi2, linux-snapdragon, linux-gke-5.0, linux-oem-osp1, and software-properties).
More

`O' LEVEL COUNTER CULTURE
Timewarp allowed: 3 hours. Do not scrawl situationalist graffiti in the
margins or stub your rollups in the inkwells. Orange may be worn. Credit
will be given to candidates who self-actualise.

(1) Compare and contrast Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath and say why
neither has street credibility.
(2) "Even Buddha would have been hard pushed to reach Nirvana squatting
on a juggernaut route." Consider the dialectic of inner truth
and inner city.
(3) Discuss degree of hassle involved in paranoia about being sucked
into a black hole.
(4) "The Egomaniac's Liberation Front were a bunch of revisionist
ripoff merchants." Comment on this insult.
(5) Account for the lack of references to brown rice in Dylan's lyrics.
(6) "Castenada was a bit of a bozo." How far is this a fair summing
up of western dualism?
(7) Hermann Hesse was a Pisces. Discuss.