Tech News Digest - 2025-03-15
Dallas, a seasoned professional with a diverse background, transitions seamlessly between roles as a systems admin turned developer, technical writer, and curriculum developer at Red Hat. With a knack for unraveling complex concepts, he crafts engaging materials primarily in DocBook, guiding enthusiasts through the intricacies of Red Hat's certification courses. In his earlier days, Dallas's passion for Anime led him to contribute to Anime News Network, channeling his creativity and expertise into captivating content. His contributions extended beyond writing as he interviewed prominent figures in the Anime industry, offering insights into their creative processes and visions. Beyond his professional pursuits, he's a devoted husband and father, cherishing moments with his loved ones. Dallas's journey in the tech industry spans various roles, from a security developer at NTT Security to an operations architect overseeing Linux servers for commercial transcoding. His tenure at esteemed institutions like Goldman Sachs and Lockheed Martin has honed his skills as a systems engineer, instilling in him a deep-rooted understanding of complex systems. An avid FPV pilot, Dallas finds exhilaration in soaring through the skies with his drones, often contemplating the lessons learned from his aerial adventures. His diverse experiences, including serving as a naval submariner aboard the USS Alexandria and pursuing higher education in England, enrich his perspective and fuel his thirst for knowledge.
Closed-captioned for the ESP-impaired
Git 2.49.0 released
Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Fri, 14 Mar 2025 18:27:43 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:
Version 2.49.0 of the Git source-code management system has been released, featuring 460 non-merge commits and contributions from 89 people, including 24 new contributors. The release includes numerous improvements and bug fixes, with more details available on GitHub's highlights blog.
Version 2.49.0 of the Git source-code management system has been released. This release comprises 460 non-merge commits since 2.48.0, with contributions from 89 people, including 24 new contributors. There is a long list of improvements and bug fixes; see the highlights blog from GitHub's Taylor Blau for some of the more interesting features.
[Read more](https://lwn.net/Articles/1014226/)
[$] The burden of knowledge: dealing with open-source risks
Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Fri, 14 Mar 2025 13:54:04 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:
According to Max Mehl, relying on objective information and data to assess risks in an open-source software supply chain is insufficient and can even foster a passive mindset. Instead, he advocates for using qualitative data and direct participation in open-source projects to truly understand and address risks.
Organizations relying on open-source software have a wide range of tools, scorecards, and methodologies to try to assess security, legal, and other risks inherent in their so-called supply chain. However, Max Mehl argued recently in a short talk at FOSS Backstage in Berlin (and online) that all of this objective information and data is insufficient to truly understand and address risk. Worse, this information doesn't provide options to improve the situation and encourages a passive mindset. Mehl, who works as part of the CTO group at DB Systel, encouraged better risk assessment using qualitative data and direct participation in open source.
[Read more](https://lwn.net/Articles/1013614/)
Security updates for Friday
Category: Linux
Tags: Linux
Published: Fri, 14 Mar 2025 12:56:10 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:
Several Linux distributions have released security updates to address vulnerabilities, including Fedora, Mageia, Oracle, Red Hat, Slackware, SUSE, and Ubuntu. The updates fix issues in various packages such as Thunderbird, Firefox, .NET, Grub2, Kernel, and more, helping to improve the security of these operating systems.
Security updates have been issued by Fedora (iniparser, thunderbird, trafficserver, and xorg-x11-server), Mageia (opensc), Oracle (.NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, gcc, kernel, and libxml2), Red Hat (firefox, grub2, and krb5), Slackware (libxslt), SUSE (amazon-ssm-agent, bsdtar, build, ffmpeg-4, forgejo-runner, kernel, python, python3, python313, rubygem-rack-1_6, and tailscale), and Ubuntu (linux-azure, linux-azure-5.15, linux-azure-fde, linux-azure-fde-5.15).
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Choi: announcing Casual Make
Category: Linux
Tags: General
Published: Thu, 13 Mar 2025 18:10:59 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a summary of the text in 2 sentences:
Charles Choi has announced the release of Casual Make, a menu-driven interface for GNU Emacs' Makefile Mode that provides a user-friendly way to author and identify automatic variables. Casual Make is part of the Casual suite of tools and is available from MELPA as part of Casual 2.4.0, which was released on March 12 and includes documentation in Info format for the first time.
Charles Choi has announced the release of the Casual Make: a menu-driven interface, implemented as part of the Casual suite of tools, for Makefile Mode in GNU Emacs.
Emacs supports makefile editing with make-mode which has a mix of useful and half-baked (though thankfully obsoleted in 30.1) commands. It is from this substrate that I'm happy to announce the next Casual user interface: Casual Make.
Of particular note to Casual Make is its attention to authoring and identifying automatic variables whose arcane syntax is un-memorizable. Want to know what $> means? Just select it in the makefile and use the . binding in the Casual Make menu to identify what it does in the mini-buffer.
Casual Make is part of Casual 2.4.0, released on March 12 and is available from MELPA. The 2.4.0 update to Casual also includes documentation in the Info format for the first time.
[Read more](https://lwn.net/Articles/1014065/)
[$] Warming up to frozen pages for networking
Category: Linux
Tags: Linux
Published: Thu, 13 Mar 2025 15:01:58 +0000
TL;DR: Here is a 2-sentence summary:
The upcoming Linux kernel release, version 6.14, includes several internal changes aimed at improving performance, including the "frozen pages" memory-management optimization. However, a bug in frozen pages was recently reported, causing crashes and highlighting the need for additional work to properly resolve the issue.
When the 6.14 kernel is released later this month, it will include the usual set of internal changes that users should never notice, with the possible exception of changes that bring performance improvements. One of those changes is frozen pages, a memory-management optimization that should fly mostly under the radar. When Hannes Reinecke reported a crash in 6.14, though, frozen pages suddenly came into view. There is a workaround for this problem, but it seems there is a fair amount of work to be done that nobody had counted on to solve the problem properly.
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