Systemd, Kernel update in Tumbleweed

This week saw openSUSE Tumbleweed level up with a new Linux Kernel.

The rolling release had many snapshots, but only recently did the zypper dup change the distribution to Linux Kernel 6.5.

The most recent snapshot to be released is 20230913. Mozilla Firefox 117.0.1 fixes a bug that causes extensions with long-running tasks to be terminated prematurely. The web browser resolves problems with audio for WebAssembly-based sites. An update of curl 8.3.0 removes Global Secure Kit and Network Security Services support. The package also fixes address issues like handling IPv6 addresses in response headers, reduces some timeouts and improves SSL and HTTP protocol handling. An update of virtualization tool qemu 8.1.0 improved live migration support for Virtual Function Input/Output (VFIO) and has some Advanced Encryption Standard acceleration for arm, PowerPC, and RISC-V architectures. An update of sudo 1.9.14p3 fixes a crash issue related to Python 3.12 and resolves output formatting problems when piping or redirecting output. Several other packages updated in the snapshot.

Text editor vim arrived in snapshot 20230912. The 9.0.1894 version took care of four Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures. CVE-2023-4751 was one of those and it had the potential for a buffer overflow. The package also improves error handling, and the update addresses some problems related to testing, syntax recognition and compatibility with different file types. An update of perl-Mojolicious 9.340.0 improves support for serving static files with a prefix, enhancements encoding option methods and addresses issues related to Perl features and fixes built-in templates to not require an internet connection. An update of yast2-trans provided Swedish, Indonesian and Russian translations. There were several other packages updated in the snapshot including libportal 0.7.1 that had an update earlier in the week.

The 6.5.2 kernel arrives on users machines with snapshot 20230911 and it introduces several features like improved support for server and cloud performance and Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support for RISC-V architecture. The kernel-sourcel from 6.4.12 to 6.5.2 also brings support for USB4 V2 for high-speed data transfer all while preparing for a future with support for Wi-Fi 7. The diagnostic, debugging and instructional userspace package strace also made a 6.4 to 6.5 jump; it introduces decoding for various syscalls and socket options. It also updates lists of constant values and ioctl (input/output control) commands from Linux 6.5. An update of systemd 254.3 introduced configurability for utmp, AppArmor, SELinux as well as improves package handling. The snapshot brought KDE Frameworks 5.110.0 that brought several improvements. Notable changes include the enhancement of KImageFormats with improved desktop file support along with support for libavif 1.0 for encoding and decoding .avif files. KIO now handles copy operations on CIFS mounts more effectively and fixes the Ask Jeeves search provider. Kirigami addresses property access, spacing and itemChange problems. KWayland resolves build issues related to XLib’s Bool definition, and several other updates were made with KDE Frameworks packages.

Snapshot 20230910 had many packages update in the snapshot. Mesa 23.1.7 introduces support for the OpenGL 4.6 Application Programming Interface; however, not all drivers support all OpenGL 4.6 features. Mesa also implements the Vulkan 1.3 API. An update to btrfsprogs 6.5 had some notable changes. The filesystem package published static binaries built with backward compatibility and including a 3x speedup in the CRC32C implementation. The package introduces stricter option combinations for btrfstune and adds some experimental feature updates and code refactoring. An update for dracut removes a microcode check that was previously based on the configuration settings related to AMD and Intel microcode. The package also disabled FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) and IMA (Integrity Measurement Architecture) features for an older specific architecture. An update of libvirt 9.7.0 enhances functionality with qemu providing basic support for “VFIO variant” drivers. The library also adds two new commands, net-desc and net-metadata. The GObject package for creating cabinet files, gcab, updated to version 1.6 and has a new feature that introduces an ability to specify allowed compression formats at runtime. Flatpak portal library, libportal 0.7, adds support for new methods in the Background and Remote Desktop portals. The library enhances documentation and also improves unit and integration tests. The 4.5.141 update of libstorage-ng had Swedish translations and now handles the json output of Btrfs 6.5 better.

The 20230908 snapshot brought a python311 3.11.5, which addresses various security and bug-related issues. It fixes security vulnerabilities in SSL sockets and resolves potential memory access issues on C APIs. The new python also enhances various aspects of the python-core, which was also updated in the snapshot, and built-in libraries. Numerous bug fixes and improvements were made in the update and the snapshot also brought several other Python Package Index updates. The kexec-tools 2.0.27 update adds various architecture-specific improvements, enhancements to documentation and the Xen support in ALP was disabled for the package. An update of sssd 2.9.2 introduces a new option called local_auth_policy and allows control over offline authentication methods. Caching DNS resolver unbound 1.18.0 brought new features such as metrics on collisions and support for Redis Unix sockets and passwords. The package also introduces NAT64 support. An update of perl-Bootloader 1.8 had improvements for a bootloader_entry script to accept an optional force-default argument. Several other packages were updated in the snapshot from last Friday.