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[$] Fil-C: A memory-safe C implementation

2025-10-29 00:49:13

Fil-C is a memory-safe implementation of C and C++ that aims to let C code — complete with pointer arithmetic, unions, and other features that are often cited as a problem for memory-safe languages — run safely, unmodified. Its dedication to being "fanatically compatible" makes it an attractive choice for retrofitting memory-safety into existing applications. Despite the project's relative youth and single active contributor, Fil-C is capable of compiling an entire memory-safe Linux user space (based on Linux From Scratch), albeit with some modifications to the more complex programs. It also features memory-safe signal handling and a concurrent garbage collector.

Fedora Linux 43 released (Fedora Magazine)

2025-10-28 22:11:59

The Fedora Project has announced the release of Fedora Linux 43, with "what's new" articles for Fedora Workstation, Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop, and Fedora Atomic Desktops.

For those of you installing fresh Fedora Linux 43 Spins, you may be greeted with the new Anaconda WebUI. This was the default installer interface for Fedora Workstation 42, and now it's the default installer UI for the Spins as well.

If you are a GNOME desktop user, you'll also notice that the GNOME is now Wayland-only in Fedora Linux 43. GNOME upstream has deprecated X11 support, and has disabled it as a compile time default in GNOME 49. Upstream GNOME plans to fully remove X11 support in GNOME 50.

See the release notes for a full list of changes in Fedora 43.

Security updates for Tuesday

2025-10-28 21:15:02

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, kernel-rt, libtiff, squid:4, and thunderbird), Debian (strongswan and webkit2gtk), Fedora (pcre2, qt5-qtbase, squid, unbound, and xen), Mageia (icu and libtpms), Oracle (java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, kernel, squid:4, and thunderbird), Red Hat (libtiff, squid, squid:4, and webkit2gtk3), SUSE (cmake, dracut-saltboot, erlang, exim, expat, ffmpeg-4, firefox, golang-github-prometheus-alertmanager, haproxy, java-11-openjdk, kernel, libxslt, multi-linux-manager, openssl-3, podman, rabbitmq-server, spacewalk-web, strongswan, and wireshark), and Ubuntu (gst-plugins-good1.0, linux-aws-5.15, radare2, ruby2.3, ruby2.5, ruby2.7, and strongswan).

[$] BPF signing LSM hook change rejected

2025-10-28 02:46:17

BPF lets users load programs into a running kernel. Even though BPF programs are checked by the verifier to ensure that they stay inside certain limits, some users would still like to ensure that only approved BPF programs are loaded. KP Singh's patches adding that capability to the kernel were accepted in version 6.18, but not everyone is satisfied with his implementation. Blaise Boscaccy, who has been working to get a version of BPF code signing with better auditability into the kernel for some time, posted a patch set on top of Singh's changes that alters the loading process to not invoke security module hooks until the entire loading process is complete. The discussion on the patch set is the continuation of a long-running disagreement over the interface for signed BPF programs.

Python Software Foundation withdraws security-related grant proposal

2025-10-28 00:28:13

The Python Software Foundation, earlier this year, successfully obtained a $1.5 million grant from the US National Science Foundation "to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and PyPI". The actual grant came with some strings attached though, in the form of a requirement not to pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. So the Foundation has withdrawn the proposal rather than agree to terms that run counter to its own mission.

We're disappointed to have been put in the position where we had to make this decision, because we believe our proposed project would offer invaluable advances to the Python and greater open source community, protecting millions of PyPI users from attempted supply-chain attacks. The proposed project would create new tools for automated proactive review of all packages uploaded to PyPI, rather than the current process of reactive-only review.

Rust Coreutils 0.3.0 released

2025-10-27 21:46:00

Version 0.3.0 of Rust Coreutils, part of the uutils project, has been released. This release adds safe directory traversal for several utilities, better error handling, and performance improvements. The project has upgraded its test suite reference from GNU coreutils 9.7 to 9.8, and added 16 new tests. It includes a fix for the date bug that affected automatic updates in Ubuntu 25.10.