GNU Linux-libre 6.8-gnu is out as the newest downstream kernel variety endorsed by the Free Software Foundation that takes the upstream Linux kernel but does away with proprietary module support and stripping out drivers/functionality contingent upon binary-only microcode/firmware and other elements not deemed up to their free software standards.
GNU News Archives
1,069 GNU open-source and Linux related news articles on Phoronix since 2006.
GNUnet 0.21 has been released as a major update to this GNU project building a network stack for secure, decentralized, and privacy-preserving distributed applications. GNUnet continues striving for a "GNU internet" and with the v0.21 release has rolled out a new transport layer and working to address prior design shortcomings.
GDB 14.2 has been released to provide a few fixes for the GNU Debugger over its state found in last year's GDB 14.1.
Daniel Kiper with Oracle has provided a status update on current GRUB bootloader development activities, a look ahead, and plans for hopefully having out the next release in November.
GNU libmicrohttpd version 1.0.0 is out today as the first major release of this C library implementing an easy-to-run HTTP web server that is embed-friendly for use by other applications.
In addition to this week's release of GNU Binutils 2.42, ending out January is the release of the GNU C Library 2.39. This C library "libc" update comes with several new features, security fixes, and other enhancements.
Nick Clifton with Red Hat announced today the release of GNU Binutils 2.42, the newest feature release to this collection of binary utilities widely relied upon by Linux and Unix-like systems as part of the compiler toolchain.
Merged this afternoon to GCC Git ahead of the upcoming GCC 14.1 stable release is a big update to the GCC Rust "gccrs" compiler front-end.
While GNU Hurd predates the Linux kernel, its hardware support has been woefully behind with very limited and dated hardware support compared to modern PC/server hardware. Not only that, its been largely x86 limited but during Q4'2023 the developers involved have made progress on x86_64 support and begun tackling AArch64 porting.
AMD makes heavy use of the LLVM compiler infrastructure by their graphics drivers and compute stack while the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has to a lesser extent supported AMD graphics targets too in the context of GPU compute / OpenMP device offloading. That AMD Radeon/Instinct support for GCC has been carried out over the years by Mentor Graphics and other stakeholders. The latest on the AMD GPU expedition for GCC is that the upcoming GCC 14 compiler will finally be supporting AMD RDNA3 (GFX11) graphics hardware.
A release plan has been drafted for the upcoming GNU C Library "glibc" 2.39 release as well as some possible last minute changes.
With Linux 6.6, the mainline kernel finally landed support for Shadow Stack on Intel/AMD CPUs that was originally rolled out as part of Intel's Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) for better fending off ROP attacks. The GNU C Library "glibc" was recently updated with some changes around the CET / Shadow Stack support.
The GNU Boot project has been in the works as a Coreboot/Libreboot fork focused on "freedom respecting boot firmware" that is free from closed-source and proprietary components. But in working towards its inaugural v0.1 release, they discovered that they had inadvertently been shipping some non-free software around AMD CPU microcode updates and some motherboard ports with non-open-source code.
GRUB 2.06 was released back in June of 2021 and today it's finally been succeeded by... GRUB 2.12. This latest GRUB stable release has been a long time coming but it's finally out before the new year and it's packing many features for this widely-used open-source bootloader.
The GNU C Library "glibc" is the latest free software project to adopt a Code of Conduct (CoC) in aiming to encourage welcoming behavior and less controversy among developers and other stakeholders when engaging this key component to the Linux software ecosystem.
GDB 14.1 has been released today as the newest version of the GNU Debugger for source-level debugging of C/C++, Rust, Fortran, Go, Ada, and other languages.
One of the features that was merged yesterday into the GCC compiler just before shifting to its "bug fixing" phase of development was Intel's AVX10.1 support.
Feature development on GCC 14 is now largely over with today marking the start of their stage three of development that is the "general bugfixing mode" and moving past new features for this next annual GNU Compiler Collection release.
Michal Jires of SUSE posted a new set of patches on Friday for implementing Incremental LTO support for the GNU Compiler Collection. The goal here with Incremental LTO is for reducing compile times while doing quick edit-compile cycles while employing Link-Time Optimizations.
While not as popular as Rust or other languages these days, for COBOL enthusiasts and those continuing to maintain codebases in this 50's programming language, the out-of-tree GCC COBOL compiler support continues to be worked on in late 2023.
While the next revision of the C standard won't see its formal publishing until the 2024 calendar year, the ISO C standards committee already decided on keeping "C23" as the informal name for this next major C update. As such, with today's GCC 14 Git the -std=c23 compiler option for targeting C23 is now honored along with -std=gnu23 for the GNU dialect of C23.
The GCC 14 compiler has merged support for the Zhaoxin Yongfeng processors via the new -march=yongfeng and -mtune=yongfeng compiler options.
Following the Linux 6.6 release, the GNU FSFLA folks are out with their GNU Linux-libre 6.6 downstream that strips out support for proprietary kernel modules, code considered non-free, and other de-blobbing activities in the name of software freedom.
One month from today the GCC 14 feature development is expected to end as the GNU compiler developers transition to the bug-fixing stage.
Just as IBM was posting "future" processor compiler patches in 2019 for what ended up being early POWER10 enablement, they are once again repeating their same compiler enablement technique with sending out "PowerPC future" patches for what is likely to be POWER11.
Following discussions on the GCC mailing list in recent weeks, a GCC security policy was added for the GNU Compiler Collection codebase to outline the compiler project's security process.
A nasty vulnerability has been made public today concerning Glibc's dynamic loader that can lead to full root privileges being obtained by local users. This affects Linux distributions of the past two years with the likes of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, 23.04, Fedora 38, and others vulnerable to this local privilege escalation issue.
GNU Binutils has added support for the ARCv3 32-bit and 64-bit CPU architecture.
When it comes to Glibc HWCAPs for allowing the C library to load optimized libraries based upon the CPU features at run-time, it's mostly been focused on the x86_64 world for targeting higher x86-64 levels or being able to load optimized libraries for systems with AVX support. Loongson though has now contributed initial LoongArch HWCAPs support.
Following discussions among compiler developers and other stakeholders, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is preparing to add a "-fhardened" compiler option that will enable various hardening features aimed at increasing the security/robustness of the generated binaries.
Back in July Intel announced AVX10 as the future of AVX-512 and how they ultimately plan to support more Advanced Vector Extensions capabilities on both future P and E cores. Since then they've begun making preparations to the open-source compiler toolchains around enabling AVX10.
The first release candidate of the inaugural GNU Boot has been released with users sought to try out this fork of Libreboot that in turn is derived from Coreboot.
Released at the end of August was GNU Coreutils 9.4 while out this weekend is uutils 0.0.21 as the open-source, Rust-written re-implementation of the Coreutils utilities.
GNU Coreutils 9.4 is out today as the latest version of this collection of utilities common to GNU/Linux systems and other platforms.
A few days ago Intel compiler expert H.J. Lu landed an FMA-optimized log2 function for the GNU C Library that could yield up to a 69% performance improvement on tested Intel Skylake processors. Merged today to Glibc Git was another FMA-optimized function.
Intel engineer and open-source compiler expert H.J. Lu has landed a much faster log2() implementation within the GNU C Library (glibc) that makes use of FMA instructions with modern x86_64 CPUs.
Developers of the BeOS-inspired Haiku operating system have long been carrying patches for supporting the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) on their platform while this week the code was upstreamed for GCC 14.
Following the release this weekend of GNU Binutils 2.41, another important GNU software project just issued their latest update: the GNU C Library 2.38.
GNU Binutils 2.41 is out today as the latest major update to this important collection of binary utilities present on most Linux systems and other platforms.
GNU Emacs 29.1 is out this morning as the latest update to this popular and powerful text editor.
For those fond of the COBOL programming language and continuing to make use of it in new development efforts, GnuCOBOL 3.2 was released on Friday as the latest feature update for this 21+ year old free software effort around being an open-source COBOL implementation.
Released back in April was GCC 13.1 as the first stable release in the GCC 13 series that brought Modula-2 language support, more C++23/C23 features, and other new CPU targets supported from Arm to Intel. Debuting today is GCC 13.2 as the first point release in the series to ship dozens of bug fixes.
GNU Shepherd is the Guile-written service manager for handling daemons that is most notably used by the GNU Guix project as an alternative to the likes of SysV and systemd. With today's GNU Shepherd 0.10.2 some long-standing issues have finally been resolved.
GNU Boot 20230717 has been released as the fork of Libreboot that in turn is a downstream of Coreboot focused on providing system firmware support only where they are fully free software. With GNU Boot the game is upped further by removing select motherboard ports and documentation where they do not comply with the GNU System Distribution Guidelines.
GRUB 2.12 had been talked about for a mid-2022 release while one year later we are finally greeted by the first release candidate for this next major open-source bootloader release.
For those on the three-year-old GCC 10 compiler series, it's really time to move to a newer GNU Compiler Collection release for enjoying the latest language support, new hardware features, various optimizations, enhanced diagnostics, and more. But for those still bound to GCC 10 for whatever reason, GCC 10.5 was released today as one final update in the branch.
GNU Binutils 2.41 was branched today in its Git repository in preparations for releasing this collection of binary utilities widely relied upon by Linux and other platforms.
The in-development GCC 14 compiler has added support for the MIPS16e2 processor ISA.
Following yesterday's release of Linux 6.4, the FSFLA team has released GNU Linux-libre 6.4-gnu as the newest version of this downstream kernel that aims for "100% freedom" with removing any kernel remnants that depend upon non-free-software microcode/firmware or other binary blobs as well as removing the ability to load proprietary kernel modules.
Similar to LLVM Clang 17 adding -std=c++26 support as the open-source compiler begins work on the next major revision of the C++ programming language, the GCC 14 compiler code has now also added the -std=c++26 compiler option.
1069 GNU news articles published on Phoronix.