Category Archives: Linux

Intel Fixes Microcode Bug that Could Expose Your Sensitive Data

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It was discovered that a sequence of processor instructions for some Intel processors leads to unexpected behavior that could allow an authenticated local user to escalate privileges (CVE-2023-23583). This bug, dubbed “Reptar,” could expose sensitive information or cause system crashes, resulting in a denial of service.

The post Intel Fixes Microcode Bug that Could Expose Your Sensitive Data appeared first on Linux Today.



Source: Linux Today – Intel Fixes Microcode Bug that Could Expose Your Sensitive Data

Open-Source NVIDIA Vulkan Driver NVK Reaches Vulkan 1.0 Conformance

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Collabora announced today that its open-source NVK graphics driver in Mesa is now officially conformant with the Vulkan 1.0 graphics API on NVIDIA Turing hardware.

The post Open-Source NVIDIA Vulkan Driver NVK Reaches Vulkan 1.0 Conformance appeared first on Linux Today.



Source: Linux Today – Open-Source NVIDIA Vulkan Driver NVK Reaches Vulkan 1.0 Conformance

RFC 9498: The GNU Name System

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The GNU Name System has now been formalized as RFC 9498.

GNS addresses long-standing security and privacy issues in the
ubiquitous Domain Name System (DNS). Previous attempts to secure
DNS (DNSSEC) fail to address critical security issues such as
end-to-end security, query privacy, censorship, and centralization
of root zone governance. After 40 years of patching, it is time for
a new beginning.



Source: LWN.net – RFC 9498: The GNU Name System

[$] Trust in and maintenance of filesystems

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The Linux kernel supports a wide variety of filesystems, many of which are
no longer in heavy use — or, perhaps, any use at all. The kernel code
implementing the less-popular filesystems tends to be relatively unpopular
as well, receiving little in the way of maintenance. Keeping old
filesystems alive does place a burden on kernel developers, though, so it
is not surprising that there is pressure to remove the least popular ones.
At the 2023 Kernel Maintainers Summit, the developers talked about these
filesystems and what can be done about them.

Source: LWN.net – [$] Trust in and maintenance of filesystems

Firefox 120.0 released

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Version
120.0 of the Firefox browser is out. Changes include a new “copy link
without site tracking” option, the ability to enable the Global Privacy Control
feature, and some additional privacy features seemingly restricted to users
in Germany. The browser will now also import TLS root certificates from
the operating system by default on Windows, macOS, and Android.

Source: LWN.net – Firefox 120.0 released

Ekstrand: NVK reaches Vulkan 1.0 conformance

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Faith Ekstrand has announced
that the NVK Vulkan driver for NVIDIA “Turing” GPUs has been certified as
being fully compliant with the Vulkan 1.0 API.

Practically, it means that we can pass the entire Vulkan
conformance test suite. From the Khronos perspective, it means that
NVK now meets the bar required to claim to support the Vulkan API
officially. (There are some legal implications to this which matter
to the Mesa project, but most users don’t care about them.) From
the perspective of users, it means the driver should pretty much
work on Turing and later GPUs.



Source: LWN.net – Ekstrand: NVK reaches Vulkan 1.0 conformance

Ubuntu Linux Squeezes ~20% More Performance Than Windows 11 On New AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

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With currently reviewing the HP Z6 G5 A workstation powered by the new 96-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX Zen 4 processor, one of the areas I was curious about was how well HP’s tuned Microsoft Windows 11 compares to that of Linux. In this article is looking at how the Microsoft Windows 11 performance is out-of-the-box with the HP Z6 G5 A workstation as configured by HP versus a clean install of Ubuntu 23.10 with the Linux 6.5 kernel.

Source: Phoronix – Ubuntu Linux Squeezes ~20% More Performance Than Windows 11 On New AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

Phoronix Premium Cyber Week Sale For Ad-Free, Single Page Articles & Native Dark Mode

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If you enjoy the original content on Phoronix each and every day covering Linux hardware, performance, open-source news, and more, you can show your support this holiday season. Phoronix depends upon advertisements to operate and thus those using ad-blockers only hurts and limits the ability to continue this nearly 20 year journey of covering Linux hardware. By joining Phoronix Premium you can show your support while enjoying the site ad-free, multi-page articles on a single page, native dark mode support, and other benefits…

Source: Phoronix – Phoronix Premium Cyber Week Sale For Ad-Free, Single Page Articles & Native Dark Mode

Linux 6.8 Looks To Upgrade Its Zstd Code For Better Compression Performance

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Back in Linux 6.2 the in-kernel Zstd compression/decompression code was updated against the Zstd 1.5 upstream state. Now for the Linux 6.8 kernel in the new year the plan is for updating to Zstd 1.5.5 that should provide better compression performance…

Source: Phoronix – Linux 6.8 Looks To Upgrade Its Zstd Code For Better Compression Performance

Evolving our online courses to help more people be computing educators

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Since launching our free online courses about computing on the edX platform back in August, we’ve been training course facilitators and analysing the needs of educators around the world. We want every course participant to have a great experience learning with us — read on to find out what we’re doing right now and into 2024 to ensure this.

Workshop attendees at a table.

Online courses for all adults who support young people

Educators of all kinds are key for supporting children and young people to engage with computing technology and develop digital skills. You might be a professional teacher, or a parent, volunteer, youth worker, librarian… there are so many roles in which people share knowledge with young learners.

Young people and an adult mentor at a computer at Coolest Projects Ireland 2023.

That’s why our online courses are designed to support any kind of educator to:

  • Understand the full breadth of topics within computing
  • Discover how to introduce computing to young people in clear and exciting ways that are grounded in the latest research

We are constantly improving our online courses based on your feedback, the latest education research, and the insights our team members gain through supporting you on your course learning journeys. Three principles guide these improvements: accessibility, scalability, and sustainability. 

Making our courses more relevant and accessible

Our online courses are used by people who live around the world and bring various knowledge and experiences. Some participants are classroom teachers, others have computing experience from their job and want to volunteer at a kids’ coding club, and some may be parents who want to support their children. It’s important to us that our courses are relevant and accessible to all kinds of adult learners. 

A parent and child work together at a Raspberry Pi computer.

We’re currently working to: 

  • Simplify the English in the courses for participants who speak it as a second language
  • Adapt the course activities for specific settings where participants help young people learn so that e.g. teachers see how the activities work in the classroom, and volunteers who run coding clubs see how they work in club sessions
  • Ensure our course facilitators have experience in a range of different settings including coding clubs, and in a variety of different contexts around the world

Making our courses useful for more groups of people

When we think about the scalability of our courses, we think about how to best support as many educators around the world as possible. If we can make the jobs of all educators easier, whatever their setting is like, then we are making the right choices.

An educator helps two young people at a computer.

We’re currently working to: 

  • Talk with the global network of educators we’re a part of to better understand what works for them so we can reflect that in the courses
  • Include a wider range of examples for settings beyond the classroom in the courses
  • Adapt our courses so they are relevant to participants with various needs while sustaining the high quality of the overall learning experience

Making the learning from our courses sustainable

The educators who take our courses work to achieve amazing things, and this means they are often busy. That they take the time to complete one of our courses to learn new things is a commitment we want to make sure is rewarded. The learning you get from participating in our online courses should continue to benefit you far beyond the time you spend completing it. This is what we mean by sustainability.

Kenyan educators work on a physical computing project.

We’re currently working to: 

  • Lay out clear learning pathways so you can build on the knowledge you gain in one course in the next course
  • Offer course resources that are easy to access after you’ve completed the course
  • Explore ways to build communities around our courses where you can share successes and learning outcomes with your fellow participants

Learn with us, and help us design better courses for you

Our work to improve the accessibility, scalability, and sustainability of our courses will continue into 2024, and these three principles will likely be part of our online training strategy for the following year too. 

If you’d like to support young people in your life to learn about computing and digital technologies, take one of our free courses now and learn something new. We have twenty courses available right now and they are totally free.

We are also looking for adult testers for new course content. So if you’re any kind of educator and would like to test upcoming online course content and share your feedback and experiences, please send us a message with the subject ‘Educator training’. 

The post Evolving our online courses to help more people be computing educators appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.



Source: Raspberry Pi – Evolving our online courses to help more people be computing educators