Untitled Linux Show 274

Summary

The episode covers Linux software, hardware support, security, and open-source project news.

Creative software and AI-assisted development

• Artcraft is developing a suite of free, open-source creative applications for Linux, Windows, and macOS. The suite is intended to cover image editing, illustration, video, photography, PDFs, motion graphics, and publishing.
• Photocraft, Artcraft’s Photoshop alternative, is in early alpha. It aims to offer familiar tools, shortcuts, layers, masks, and layered PSD-file support. PSD compatibility is not yet perfect, and the other applications are still in development.
• The hosts discussed whether AI was involved in reverse-engineering or recreating existing software. They stressed that calling AI-generated work a “clean-room reimplementation” does not establish that it actually was one. The project’s origins and any copyright implications remain unclear.
• AI tools are also being used to find and fix security vulnerabilities. A dozen issues were reported in Xorg and Xwayland, several found with AI assistance. The hosts noted that AI coding assistants may help small teams maintain older software, while emphasizing that generated patches still need review and testing.
• The hosts discussed a proposal to add project guidance files for AI coding agents to the Linux kernel. Explicit instructions could help AI-assisted contributions better follow project conventions.

Ubuntu 26.10 and GRUB

• Ubuntu 26.10’s signed GRUB build for Secure Boot is being reduced to limit its pre-boot attack surface. The Secure Boot version is expected to support /boot on ext4, FAT, or ISO 9660/squashfs, while dropping support for Btrfs, XFS, ZFS, HFS+, LVM, LUKS-encrypted /boot, and software RAID, with RAID 1 cited as an exception. JPEG and PNG background-image loading is also being removed.
• The change affects /boot, not the rest of the filesystem. With Secure Boot disabled, the full-featured GRUB remains available, and standard Ubuntu installations are expected to be compatible.
• The hosts discussed objections from users who rely on encrypted /boot or Btrfs snapshots. They advised checking a system’s setup before upgrading and described staying on the 26.04 LTS release, changing the /boot configuration, or disabling Secure Boot as possible options.

ARM hardware and Linux support

• Qualcomm submitted Linux patches to identify a Snapdragon chip’s hardware-specific thermal limits and add static HDR support for DisplayPort and embedded DisplayPort. The HDR work targets HDR10 and BT.2020 RGB, has been tested on a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X, and does not add dynamic HDR or tone mapping. Both patch sets were still under review.
• The hosts emphasized that ARM laptop support depends on more than drivers: a reliable, standard boot path—ideally UEFI—and broad distribution compatibility also matter.
• A Radxa Dragon Q8B board was highlighted as a potentially faster Raspberry Pi alternative. It has 8 GB of memory, dual 2.5 Gb Ethernet, and multiple NVMe connections. However, the discussion raised concerns about its immature software support, including a vendor image and a warning that a routine apt upgrade could break the system.
• The board’s performance and features were discussed based on a Jeff Geerling video review. The hosts cautioned that the software caveats made it feel more like a beta product than a ready-to-use platform.

Blender, filesystems, and kernel security

• Blender 5.3 beta makes Vulkan the default for drawing its interface and viewport on Linux. This does not change Cycles rendering or its CUDA, OptiX, and HIP paths. Blender’s limited, single-system benchmark showed Vulkan outperforming OpenGL in the tested scenes, though results may vary by GPU. OpenGL remains an option, and Blender is retaining compatibility measures for older hardware.
• Huawei engineers presented XMFS, an experimental filesystem intended to expose memory shared across servers through familiar file operations. Possible uses include sharing container images. The prototype still faces challenges such as coordinating filesystem metadata, maintaining cache coherence, and fitting into Linux’s memory-tiering mechanisms. It had not been submitted for kernel inclusion.
• Google researchers presented Cage, an experimental approach to sandboxing Linux kernel modules and potentially drivers. The concepts include isolating code with lightweight fault isolation or routing hardware access through a virtualized, user-space path. The work could be relevant to security and safety-critical systems, but performance and practical support remain open questions.

Open-source project fork

• Siemens removed the public OpenRadioss repository and website after acquiring Altair, despite the project’s history of being released under the AGPLv3. The community responded by creating OpenCurrent, a continuation based on code that remains available under that license.
• Rebuilding the project required recreating its build pipeline and recovering a closed-source input-file reader from copies held by users. By October 6, the project reportedly had Linux builds for x86-64 and ARM, as well as Windows builds. Some newer input features were still missing.
• The discussion highlighted the distinction between the AGPL, which preserves access to code already released under it, and contributor license agreements, which may allow a company to relicense future contributions.

Tips and demonstrations

• pc gauge displays a terminal-based system dashboard for CPU, memory, storage, and network activity. The pc gauge --trend option adds trend lines.
• mokutil can check Secure Boot status with sudo mokutil --sb-state and inspect or manage Machine Owner Keys. The hosts explained how keys can be enrolled so Secure Boot permits locally built or DKMS kernel modules to load. They cautioned that disabling signature validation weakens security checks.
• The host demonstrated an Adafruit Raspberry Pi bonnet with joystick and button connectors. It uses I²C rather than consuming the Pi’s GPIO pins, making it useful for arcade projects and potentially compatible with other stacked hardware.

Main speakers and sources

• Jonathan — host and primary presenter
• Rob — co-host and contributor on the software and hardware stories
• Jeff — co-host and presenter of several Linux and security stories
• Ken — absent from the episode

Referenced sources included Jeff Geerling’s Radxa board review, project and developer posts, and articles linked in the show notes.