[$] Truly portable C applications
Programming language polyglots are files that are valid
programs in multiple languages, and do different things in each. While polyglots
are normally nothing more than a curiosity, the Cosmopolitan Libc project has
been trying to put them to a novel use: producing native, multi-platform
binaries that run directly on several operating systems and architectures. There
are still some rough edges with the project's approach, but it is generally
possible to build C programs into a polyglot format with with minimal
tweaking.
Security updates for Wednesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (expat),
Fedora (chromium and golang-github-nvidia-container-toolkit), Mageia (curl,
expat, mpg123, networkmanager-libreswan, openssl, php-tcpdf, qbittorrent, and
x11-server, x11-server-xwayland, and tigervnc), Red Hat (kernel and libsoup),
Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (firefox, kernel, python-PyPDF2, and xen), and Ubuntu
(dotnet9, ghostscript, linux-aws, linux-oem-6.8, and pydantic).
[$] Progress on toolchain security features
Over the years, there has been steady progress in adding
security features to compilers and other tools to assist with hardening the
Linux kernel (and, of course, other programs). In something of a tradition in
the toolchains track at the Linux Plumbers Conference, Kees Cook and Qing Zhao
have led a session on that progress and further plans; this year, they were
joined by Justin Stitt (YouTube video).
Anaconda’s new "Web UI" (Fedora Magazine)
Garrett LeSage has written an in-depth article for Fedora
Magazine about a new web-based user interface (UI) for Fedora's Anaconda
installer, planned to ship with Fedora 42. The article looks at the
rationale for moving from GTK 3 to a web-based UI, provides a number of
screenshots and demo screencasts, as well as instructions on trying out the new
installer with Fedora Rawhide.
Security updates for Tuesday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux
(gstreamer1-plugins-base), Debian (chromium, ghostscript, libarchive, mpg123,
ruby-saml, and symfony), Fedora (buildah and podman), Red Hat (buildah,
containernetworking-plugins, podman, skopeo, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland),
Slackware (wget), SUSE (pcp), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws-5.15, linux-gcp,
linux-gcp-5.15, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-gkeop-5.15, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-
ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-kvm, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15,
linux-nvidia, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.15, linux-raspi, linux-xilinx-zynqmp
and mysql-8.0).