lwn.net
[$] Atomic writes without tears
[$] Allocator optimizations for transparent huge pages
[$] Recent improvements to BPF's struct_ops mechanism
Kui-Feng Lee spoke early in the BPF track at the 2024 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit about some of the recent improvements to BPF. These changes were largely driven by the sched_ext work that David Vernet had covered in the previous talk. Lee focused on changes relevant to struct_ops programs, but several of those changes apply to all BPF programs.
[$] Readying DNF5 for Fedora 41
With the release of Fedora 40 it's time to start looking ahead to what Fedora 41 has in store. One of the largest changes planned for the next release is a switch to DNF5, a C++ rewrite of the DNF package manager. A previous attempt to make the switch, during the Fedora 39 cycle, was called off, and deferred to Fedora 41. The developers have had nearly a year to address compatibility problems and bring DNF5 to a state suitable to replace DNF4. Signs point to a successful switch in the upcoming release, though there may be a few surprises lurking for Fedora users.
[$] Large-folio support for shmem and tmpfs
BitKeeper, Linux, and licensing disputes: How Linus wrote Git in 14 days (Graphite blog)
When we think of history, we often romanticize it as being born of a sudden stroke of inspiration. But the creation of git shows the far harsher reality of invention: a slowly escalating disagreement over a license; the need for a scrappy backup solution to unblock work; and then continued polishing and iteration through years and years, led not by the inventor, but rather a community.
For those who weren't around in those days, a perusal of the LWN coverage from the time might be of interest too, including:
- Our first mention of BitKeeper in October 1998
- Not quite open source, 1999
- Linus tries out BitKeeper, 2002
- The free software community and proprietary packages, 2002
- The kernel and BitKeeper part ways, 2005
- How Tridge reverse engineered BitKeeper, 2005
- The guts of Git, 2005
...and a lot more for those who care to search for it.
Security updates for Friday
[$] A new swap abstraction layer for the kernel
[$] What's scheduled for sched_ext
David Vernet's second talk at the 2024 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit was a summary of the state of sched_ext, the extensible BPF scheduler that LWN covered a in early May. In short, sched_ext is intended as a platform for rapid experimentation with schedulers, and a tool to let performance-minded administrators customize the scheduler to their workload. The patch set has seen several revisions, becoming more generic and powerful over time. Vernet spoke about what has been done in the past year, and what is still missing before sched_ext can be considered pretty much complete.
KDE Gear 24.05.0
The KDE Project has announced the release of KDE Gear 24.05.0, with new features and updates for the more than 200 applications that are part of the project. In addition to new versions of the Dolphin file manager, Kdenlive video editor, and Elisa music player, this release includes five applications new to KDE Gear: the Audex CD-ripper application, an application Accessibility Inspector, the Francis Pomodoro timer, Kalm to teach breathing techniques, and a Sokoban-like game called Skladnik. See the full changelog for a complete list of changes.
[$] The twilight of the version-1 memory controller
Security updates for Thursday
[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for May 23, 2024
[$] Supporting larger block sizes in filesystems
[$] The path to deprecating SPARSEMEM
[$] Two sessions on CXL memory
[$] Documenting page flags by committee
[$] Merging msharefs
[$] Toward the unification of hugetlbfs
[$] The KeePassXC kerfuffle
KeePassXC is an open-source (GPLv3), cross-platform password manager with local-only data storage. The project comes with a number of build options that can be used to toggle optional features, such as browser integration and password database sharing. However, controversy ensued when Debian Developer Julian Klode decided to make use of these compile flags to disable these features to improve security in the keepassxc package uploaded to Debian unstable for the upcoming Debian 13 ("Trixie") release.