Innehållsförteckning för December 2025 från Linux Magazine

Dear Reader, It is no secret that AI is changing everything for professional programmers. They were once regarded as rock stars – pampered and adored by tech companies. Six figures straight out of college (or even out of high school, if you were really good) was pretty much the ground floor for many companies, with salaries scaling up depending on the skills, the need, and the competition. And then there were the perks: free gourmet lunches, big parties, massages, signing bonuses…. The sports cars of the anointed ones filled up the freeways of the South Bay. San Francisco got too expensive for the people who lived there because the coders kept bidding up the price of housing. Oh how swiftly things change. AI allowed tech companies to lay off more…

Cairo Dock finally supports Wayland. If your desktop environment uses Wayland, KDE Plasma’s KWin, Labwc, Wayfire, COSMIC, Sway, or Hyprland, then you too can install and use this popular dock. The one caveat is that Cairo Dock still does not support Gnome or Ubuntu Desktop. If you’re lucky enough to use Cairo, you’ll also be thrilled to know that it now supports high-resolution displays with integer scaling factors (HiDPI). Another new addition is support for systemd. That’s right, you can now control Cairo Dock as a standard Linux service (so long as your distribution uses systemd – which most do). If you’ve been a fan of Cairo Dock for some time, you’ve probably visited the official website for information and downloads. This has changed: The old site will be decommissioned,…

If you’re a gamer, you’ll be thrilled with the latest Linux kernel, which now supports the Core Ultra Series 3 laptops. In addition, for machines spec’d with a Core Ultra Series 2 CPU, the Intel IPU7 driver adds support for the built-in webcam. AMD hybrid GPUs did not miss out either, as SmartMux support has been added so that it will automatically switch between integrated and discrete modes, based on the current workload. To continue the gaming goodness, the Lenovo WMI gaming drivers have added support for Legion Go and the Legion Go S handheld gaming device. Even more important, however, is the kernel’s new ability to write zeros without I/O operations on NVMe SSDs. Only NVMe SSDs that support the DEAC bit and SCSI SSDs that support the UMMAP…

That’s right, my friends, the beta of the latest iteration of your favorite RPM-based distribution is now available for testing. The final release before the stable release is made available this fall, Fedora Linux 43 Beta has plenty of improvements and additions. First off, Fedora 43 Beta ships with kernel 6.17 and features the Anaconda WebUI installer to be used with more of the Fedora spins. This was done to create a more consistent installation process across the Fedora ecosystem. Along with that, the Anaconda installer now defaults to DNF5 to provide better support and debugging for package-based applications within the installer. Fedora 43 will now fall back to the default monospace font (should a specified font wind up missing). In addition, the GNU toolchain has been updated for security…

Digital encryption in the US At Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the mid 1980s, I was directly involved with an issue of Unix systems having encryption code embedded in the operating system. This was threatening to block the second release of our operating system, Ultrix, to many foreign countries, including (believe it or not) Great Britain. After all, we did have a couple of skirmishes with England, one in 1776 and another in 1812 – but I thought we had kissed and made up by 1986. DEC’s export department asked the question “Does Ultrix have encryption?” and our engineering group truthfully answered “yes.” So our export department told us we couldn’t ship to a wide variety of countries. Of course, we didn’t mention that all of AT&T’s Unix System V…

Sparkling gems and new releases from the world of Free and Open Source Software The Dark Side of Open Source? One of the beauties of open source software is that the code can be distributed freely under the same license. However, this advantage has been exploited recently by cybercriminals deploying various versions of Stealerium: an open source infostealer beloved by would-be sextortionists. It can monitor a device for when a browser is accessing NSFW content then take a screenshot and webcam photo simultaneously. Of course, this is done for illicit profits, in much the same way as unethical hackers offer Ransomware as a Service (RaaS). By placing the code for Stealerium on GitHub, bad actors were able to compose their own infostealer malware at no cost to themselves. GitHub has…

Users, developers, and vendors meet at Linux events around the world. We at Linux Magazine are proud to sponsor the Featured Events shown here. For other events near you, check our extensive events calendar online at https://www.linux-magazine.com/events. If you know of another Linux event you would like us to add to our calendar, please send a message with all the details to info@linux-magazine.com. FOSDEM 2026 Date: January 31 - February 1,2026 Location: Brussels, Belgium Website: https://fosdem.org/2026/ FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas, and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels. You don't need to register. Just turn up and join in! State of Open Con 2026 Date: February 3-4,…

It’s that time again: A Linux kernel has reached its end of life (EOL), so pour a drink out for yet another kernel that served us well. Greg Kroah-Hartman announced on the Kernel.org site (https://lwn.net/Articles/1041781) the following: “… this is the LAST 6.16.y kernel release, this branch is now end-of-life. Please move to the 6.17.y branch at this point in time.” Linux kernel 6.17 was released in September with features such as support for AMD’s Hardware Feedback Interface (HFI) and Intel Panther Lake Xe3 graphics, attack vector controls for CPU mitigations, live patching for AArch64 systems, support for the Raspberry Pi 5 RP1 I/O chip, improvements for filesystems like ext4 and Btrfs, and networking enhancements such as gateway routing for the MCTP subsystem. Fortunately, Linux kernel 6.17 has already found…

Just over a year ago, System76 released the first alpha of COSMIC desktop, with the intention of including it as the default desktop environment for Pop!_OS 24.04. With the beta release, they’ve succeeded in that and more. Now available for general testing, Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta is an LTS release (as it is based on Ubuntu 24.04), and COSMIC was built from the ground up, using the Rust language and the iced graphics toolkit. You won’t find X11 included in the new release, because it is strictly Wayland. If you have apps that do not support Wayland yet, COSMIC does include XWayland for compatibility. COSMIC also includes new apps for the file manager, text editor, terminal emulator, media player, settings app, and the app store. Each app opens quickly and runs…

Kali Linux 2025.3 adds 10 new hacking tools, several updates to Kali NetHunter, and beefs up support for Raspberry Pi devices. One of the more important additions to Kali Linux 2025.3 is the return of Nexmon support to enable monitor mode and advanced wireless capabilities to the Raspberry Pi 5. With this new addition, you’ll be able to sniff wireless packets and inject custom raw packets to assist with wireless security audits and assessments. This release also marks a change in how Kali Linux’s Vagrant packages are built. The Vagrant images are no longer generated with Packer. Instead, modifications to the images are now part of the virtual machine build scripts, and those scripts have also been upgraded to the Packer 2.0 standards. As far as the new hacking tools…

Porting Drivers to Rust Daniel Almeida submitted Tyr, a Rust port of the Panthor driver, done as a collaboration between his own employer Collabora, along with ARM and Google. The Panthor driver, written in C, gives support for ARM’s Mali series of graphics processing units (GPUs), which have become so all-important in artificial intelligence development and the fate of the universe. The Tyr port of Panthor, by Daniel and others, was an effort to migrate the driver to Rust. As Daniel put it, “The name ‘Tyr’ is inspired by Norse mythology, reflecting ARM’s tradition of naming their GPUs after Nordic mythological figures and places.” The transformation of the Linux kernel from the C language to Rust is a long-term ongoing project. I personally don’t know if the actual goal is…

Electricity is expensive. Where I live, in California, a kilowatt hour costs around 40 cents. If a new gadget consumes 20W in continuous operation, that adds up to 14kWh per month or almost $6. In addition, the price of electricity from my utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, is based on the time of day (Figure 1). A time-based power consumption breakdown for selected devices could offer ideas for potential savings. An energy monitor such as the TP-Link Tapo P110M (Figure 2) keeps you up to date with the amount of power you are currently using; it has an API to make the measurement results available to inquiring WiFi clients. Upon request, the small device reports the power currently being drawn in milliwatts by all consumers plugged into it. On top…

In the world of Linux and Unix-like systems, automation is key to efficiency. Whether it’s running backups, updating system packages, or executing custom scripts, cron is the go-to tool for scheduling and automating repetitive tasks. This time-tested utility has been a fundamental part of Unix-based operating systems for decades, providing users with a simple yet powerful way to manage scheduled jobs. Despite its simplicity, cron is often underutilized or misunderstood. Many users struggle with writing proper cron expressions or debugging jobs that don’t execute as expected. In this article, I will explore how cron works, its syntax, and practical use cases to help you master task automation on Linux. Whether you’re a beginner looking to schedule your first job or an advanced user aiming to fine-tune your automation workflow, this…

Amazon has built a new OS for Fire TV based on Linux. Given that Fire TV is one of Amazon’s most successful ventures, this should be big news (especially for Linux fans). According to Amazon Developer (https://developer.amazon.com/apps-and-games/blogs/2025/09/announcing-vega-os), the Fire TV Stick 4K Select is the first device to use the new Vega OS. The Amazon Developer site says that Vega OS is “highly responsive with an efficient footprint, enabling fast app launches and smooth navigation.” The Fire TV Stick 4K Select makes Vega OS run smoothly with only 1GB of RAM, which is 50-percent less than was used in earlier iterations of the device thanks to the Linux-based OS. If you’re a developer looking to jump on board the new Vega OS-powered devices, Amazon has created a set of developer…

Linux Magazine www.linux-magazine.com ADMIN Online http://www.admin-magazine.com/ Production Line • Thorsten Scherf The bootc project lets you use a container based workflow to create bootable operating system images. More TUI Tools for HPC Users • Jeff Layton Graphical user interface (GUI) tools are wonderful, but for those times when I encounter issues working on HPC systems that only allow terminal access, I need to know about tools for text-based user interfaces (TUIs). Managing IT Assets • Thorsten Scherf Open-AudIT inventories, manages, and monitors IT assets, whether hardware, software, network device, or virtual machine. Simplify Your Migration from Docker to Podman • Holger Reibold Podman has become an attractive alternative to Docker, not least because it doesn’t require a central daemon.…

If you’re a fan of Zorin OS (or Linux in general), it’s a good day to celebrate because the next iteration of the open source operating system (at least in beta form) is ready for testing. Zorin OS 18 Beta introduces a refreshed design with a more rounded appearance, a lighter color palette, increased tint for backgrounds and sidebars, a floating panel, a more reactive Activities button, and more. All of this UI polish comes together to make the default Zorin OS look more modern, sophisticated, and easier on the eyes. There are also changes to some of the default apps. For example, the Files app enjoys an updated sidebar and controls that have been reorganized. The Settings app has redesigned preference panels for easier navigation, the Calendar app now…

In the late 1970s, mathematician Donald Knuth brought something new into the world: a typesetting system called TeX [1]. Markup languages for typesetting documents already existed, but their output was of poor quality. They were especially poor at typesetting mathematics, a problem of particular concern to Knuth. The result was astonishing in the beauty of the output it generated. Gordon Bell, the Vice President of Engineering at the Digital Equipment Corporation, claimed [2] that the TeX system “in terms of importance could rank near the introduction of the Gutenberg press.” TeX, free software in all senses of the term, was different not only in that it produced output on par with high-quality manual typography; it was also a programming language, albeit a tricky one to program in. These qualities made…

#300/November 2025 – Celebrating 25 Years Create a Linux Virus Linux has built up some strong defenses through the years, but the top virus writers still have some tricks for getting in. If you want to keep your systems safe, you’d better learn to think like a virus. On the DVD: Linux From Scratch 12.4 and Debian 13.1 “trixie” #299/October Auditing Today’s cybercriminals have sneaky techniques for hijacking system files and system calls. By the time they settle in, it might be too late, so the best defense is vigilance. The Linux kernel auditing system watches events that could indicate an attack. We'll show you how to configure and manage kernel auditing. On the DVD: antiX 23.2 Full and Ubuntu MATE 25.04 #298/September Indie Game Studio Proprietary software is expensive…

Available Starting December 5 Independence still matters in the Linux space. Next month we study some gems from the open source gaming set. Also inside: • Booting without Grub • Stay organized with Donetick • Hacking your eReader • Rsyslog • And much more! Please note: Articles could change before the next issue. BE THE FIRST TO SEE WHAT’S NEXT The Linux Magazine Preview is a monthly email newsletter that gives you a sneak peek at the next issue, including links to articles posted online. Sign up at: https://bit.ly/Linux-Update…