Glibc Now Enabling 2MB THP On AArch64 By Default For Better Performance
The GNU C Library’s malloc implementation is now enabling 2MB Transparent Huge Pages (THP) by default for AArch64 Linux. This is being done in the name of better performance – a healthy 6.25% performance improvement is noted for SPEC with this change… ⌘ Read more
AMD Starts Enabling Zen 6 “znver6” Compiler Support In GCC
Making for a bit more exciting weekend is that minutes ago AMD has posted their first patch for enabling Zen 6 processor support within the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) for -march=znver6 targeting… ⌘ Read more
AMD GPU Managed Memory Support Merged For The GCC 16 Compiler
When it comes to AMD Radeon/Instinct GPU compiler support much of the emphasis is on the LLVM/Clang compiler stack with their official AMDGPU LLVM shader compiler back-end as well as having the AOMP downstream compiler fork and the like. But the GNU Compiler Collection “GCC” does continue allow targeting AMD GPU targeting with its “AMDGCN” back-end and using the likes of the OpenMP API. It’s not too often seeing new AMD GPU activity there for GCC but mer … ⌘ Read more
GNU Linux-libre 6.18 Neuters More Functionality Due To Blobs With Intel Xe, NVIDIA Nova
Following yesterday’s Linux 6.18 kernel release, GNU Linux-libre 6.18-gnu is out today as the latest release of this free software purist kernel that will drop/block drivers from loading microcode/firmware considered non-free-software and other restrictions in the name of not pushing binary blobs even when needed for hardware support/functionality on otherwise open-source drivers… ⌘ Read more
Algol 68 Programming Language Front-End Merged Into GCC 16
Making for an exciting holiday weekend night is the Algol 68 programming language front-end “ga68” being merged into the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) codebase. After COBOL language support landed in GCC 15 earlier this year, next year’s GCC 16 release is adding support for the half-century old Algol 68 programming language… ⌘ Read more
@prologic@twtxt.net Your gitea thinks the LICENSE file in the yarn repository is SSPL-1.0 instead of GNU AGPL 3.0,
and I can’t help but giggle at that
GCC 16 Switches To Using C++20 Standard By Default
Following up on the discussion from earlier this month among GCC developers over switching to C++20 by default for the GCC compiler as the default C++ standard when not otherwise set, that change has indeed happened. Merged now is the change defaulting to C++20 (well, the GNU++20 dialect) rather than C++17/GNU++17 when not otherwise specified when compiling C++ code… ⌘ Read more
GNU C Library Sees Up To 12.9x Improvement With New Generic FMA Implementation
Just a few days ago I wrote about the Glibc math code seeing a 4x improvement on AMD Zen by changing the used FMA implementation. Merged overnight was a new generic FMA implementation for the GNU C Library and now yielding up to a 12.9x throughput improvement on AMD Zen 3… ⌘ Read more
Glibc Math Code Sees 4x Improvement On AMD Zen By Changing FMA Implementation
Merged this week to the GNU C Library “glibc” code is dropping the ldbl-96 FMA implementation from this library as in doing so they found a 4x improvement to throughput and latency on AMD Zen 3 hardware… ⌘ Read more
GCC Patch Enables Support For The Rust-Based Wild Linker
The Wild linker is a very speedy linker written in the Rust programming language that has become quite competitive with the likes of Mold. A patch sent out this weekend adds Wild support for use with the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)… ⌘ Read more
Debian 13.2 Released With Dozens Of Fixes
Debian 13.2 is out today as the latest maintenance update to this current stable version of Debian GNU/Linux… ⌘ Read more
GNU C Library Adds Linux “mseal” Function For Memory Sealing
Introduced last year in the Linux 6.10 kernel was the mseal system call for memory sealing to protect the memory mapping against modifications to seal non-writable memory segments or better protecting sensitive data structures. The GNU C Library has finally introduced its mseal function making use of this modern Linux kernel functionality… ⌘ Read more
GCC Compiler Developers Begin Considering C++20 Default
Compiler engineer Marek Polacek of Red Hat recently proposed making the C++20 language specification (or rather the GNU++20 dialect) the default C++ version when not otherwise specified… ⌘ Read more
GNU Coreutils 9.9 Brings Numerous Fixes
Following yesterday’s release of Rust Coreutils 0.4, GNU Coreutils 9.9 is now available as the latest update to this set of core utilities common to Linux systems and other platforms… ⌘ Read more
LoongArch LA32 Target Proposed For The GCC Compiler
While LoongArch 64-bit is already part of the GCC compiler for the past several years, LoongArch 32-bit is now being proposed for the GNU Compiler Collection… ⌘ Read more
Rust Coreutils 0.4 Released With Better GNU Compatibility & Faster Performance
Rust Coreutils continues moving fast on their goal “toward full GNU compatibility” with the GNU Coreutils. The uutils project announced Rust Coreutils 0.4 this evening with better compatibility, performance optimizations, and other improvements… ⌘ Read more
AMD Sends Out Initial GNU Binutils Patch For AMD Zen 6 - Confirms New AVX-512 Features
AMD has begun their open-source compiler enablement upstreaming effort for Zen 6 processors! The first “Znver6” patch was sent out on Friday in preparing for new instructions to be found with these next-generation AMD Ryzen and EPYC processors… ⌘ Read more
Rust Clone of Core Utils Breaks Ubuntu Updates
Ubuntu 25.10 dropped the battle tested GNU Core Utils, in favor of the untested, incomplete “uutils”. ⌘ Read more
Okay, now that I knew what to look for, I found existing bug reports:
Most importantly:
This is resolved in the groff trunk.
🥳
@prologic@twtxt.net No, this is a Linux manpage from the man-pages project: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/man/man7/ascii.7
I do have an idea what’s going on. Could be an unfortunate interaction between the table preprocessor tbl and the man macro package. 🤔
Ubuntu’s Rust GNU Utils Replacement 17x Slower & Buggy
Canonical plans to replace the battle tested GNU Coreutils with new, untested, Rust-based replacements. ⌘ Read more
@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org wouldn’t the PDF version be better? https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.pdf
Hmm, gnu.org is slow as heck. Shorter HTML pages load in about ten seconds. This complete AWK manual all in one large HTML page took a full minute: https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html Is there maybe some anti AI shenanigans going on?
In any case, I find the user guide super interesting. My AWK skills are basically non-existent, so I finally decided to change that. This document is incredibly well written and makes it really fun to keep reading and learning. I’m very impressed. So far, I made it to section 1.6, happy to continue.
@prologic@twtxt.net Yes, this is another instance of restricting “personal” computing. You won’t be able to install arbitrary software anymore (“sideloading”, as they call it).
It’s not unique, it’s not new. Boiling the frog alive.
We’re heading towards this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
mandoc is nicer to read/write than the man macro package and, most importantly, it’s semantic markup.
HTML output is a bit broken in GNU groff, though (OpenBSD on the left, GNU on the right):

🤔
Still, I’m inclined to convert my manpages to mandoc.
setpriv on Linux supports Landlock.
Another example:
$ setpriv \
--landlock-access fs \
--landlock-rule path-beneath:execute,read-file:/bin/ls-static \
--landlock-rule path-beneath:read-dir:/tmp \
/bin/ls-static /tmp/tmp/xorg.atom
The first argument --landlock-access fs says that nothing is allowed.
--landlock-rule path-beneath:execute,read-file:/bin/ls-static says that reading and executing that file is allowed. It’s a statically linked ls program (not GNU ls).
--landlock-rule path-beneath:read-dir:/tmp says that reading the /tmp directory and everything below it is allowed.
The output of the ls-static program is this line:
─rw─r──r────x 3000 200 07-12 09:19 22'491 │ /tmp/tmp/xorg.atom
It was able to read the directory, see the file, do stat() on it and everything, the little x indicates that getting xattrs also worked.
3000 and 200 are user name and group name – they are shown as numeric, because the program does not have access to /etc/passwd and /etc/group.
Adding --landlock-rule path-beneath:read-file:/etc/passwd, for example, allows resolving users and yields this:
─rw─r──r────x cathy 200 07-12 09:19 22'491 │ /tmp/tmp/xorg.atom
glibc 堆內存管理:原理、機制與實戰
在內存管理領域,glibc(GNU C Library)通過 brk 和 mmap 兩大系統調用,構建了一套高效的堆內存管理機制。這種設計大幅減少了系統調用的頻次,顯著提升內存利用率。在 glibc 的管理架構中,堆內存以層級化的方式組織,包含分配區(Arena)、堆(Heap)和內存塊(Chunk)。其中,主 Arena 依賴 brk 系統調用實現內存分配,而子 Arena 則通過 mmap 完 ⌘ Read more
Guy Buys GNU Emacs Book From Amazon… Gets “Hitler’s Table Talk” in Disguise
The cover was for “The Org Mode Reference Manual” for Emacs. ⌘ Read more
Goodbye GNU/Linux, Hello Rust/Linux
Ubuntu plans to ditch the battle-tested GNU Coreutils (chmod, Is, kill, & others), in favor of an unfinished Rust-based re-write, in the next few months. ⌘ Read more
Ironclad 0.6 released
It’s been a while, but there’s a new release of Ironclad, the formally verified, hard real-time capable kernel written in SPARK and Ada. Aside from the usual bugfixes, this release moves Ironclad from multiboot to Limine, adds x86_64 ACPI support for poweroff and reboot, improvements to PTY support, the VFS layer, and much more. The easiest way to try out Ironclad is to download Gloire, a distribution that uses Ironclad and the GNU tools. It can be installed in both a virtual machine an … ⌘ Read more
A look at Firefox forks
Mozilla’s actions have been rubbing many Firefox fans the wrong way as of late, and inspiring them to look for alternatives. There are many choices for users who are looking for a browser that isn’t part of the Chrome monoculture but is full-featured and suitable for day-to-day use. For those who are willing to stay in the Firefox “family” there are a number of good options that have taken vastly different approaches. This includes GNU IceCat, Floorp, LibreWolf, and Zen. ↫ Joe Brockm … ⌘ Read more
Ubuntu to replace classic coreutils and more with new Rust-based alternatives
After so much terrible tech politics news, let’s focus on some nice, easy-going Linux news that’s not going to be controversial at all: Ubuntu intends to replace numerous core Linux utilities with newer Rust replacements, starting with the ubiquitous GNU Coreutils. This package provides utilities which have become synonymous with Linux to many – the likes of ls, cp, and mv. In … ⌘ Read more
Exploring the (discontinued) hybrid Debian GNU/kFreeBSD distribution
For decades, Linux and BSD have stood as two dominant yet fundamentally different branches of the Unix-like operating system world. While Linux distributions, such as Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora, have grown to dominate the open-source ecosystem, BSD-based systems like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD have remained the preferred choice for those seeking security, performance, and licensing flexibility. … ⌘ Read more
The GNU Guix System
GNU Guix is a package manager for GNU/Linux systems. It is designed to give users more control over their general-purpose and specialized computing environments, and make these easier to reproduce over time and deploy to one or many devices. ↫ GNU Guix website Guix is basically GNU’s approach to a reproducible, functional package manager, very similar to Nix because, well, it’s based on Nix. GNU also has a Linux distribution built around Nix, the GNU Guix System, which is fully ‘libre’ as al … ⌘ Read more
@bender@twtxt.net The tagline of Timeline is “a single user twtxt/yarn pod” not just a yarn pod. Similar to GNU/Linux. When we came up with the concept of Yarn Social it was a way to rebrand twtxt with the extensions that makes conversations like this possible.
Go 命令行參數解析工具 pflag 使用
在使用 Go 進行開發的過程中,命令行參數解析是我們經常遇到的需求。儘管 Go 標準庫提供了 flag 包用於實現命令行參數解析,但只能滿足基本需要,不支持高級特性。於是 Go 社區中出現了一個叫 pflag 的第三方包,功能更加全面且足夠強大。在本文中,我們將學習並掌握如何使用 pflag。特點pflag 作爲 Go 內置 flag 包的替代品,具有如下特點:實現了 POSIX/GNU 風格的 ⌘ Read more
以 GNU Stow 來管理 dotfiles ⌘ Read more
This is the year of the GNU/Linux desktop
I’m playing around with snac2, which I think @stigatle@yarn.stigatle.no mentioned on here, and I have to say it’s extremely easy to set up and it’s been pretty straightforward so far. I wanted to experiment with having a presence on the Fediverse without going through the process of picking Mastodon vs. Gnu Social vs. Friendica vs. …, and I wanted to self-host instead of picking an instance of one of those. For now I’m abucci@buc.ci, but no guarantees that will remain stable; I’m just testing for the time being.
Mount iOS devices on GNU/Linux, great for photo backup: https://github.com/libimobiledevice/ifuse
@movq@www.uninformativ.de
Doesn’t even compile on my system, which is apparently broken:
> cc -Wall -Wextra -o win win.c $(pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk4)
cc: error: unrecognized argument in option ‘-mfpmath=sse -msse -msse2 -pthread -I/usr/include/gtk-4.0 -I/usr/include/gio-unix-2.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/harfbuzz -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/fribidi -I/usr/include/harfbuzz -I/usr/include/gdk-pixbuf-2.0 -I/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pixman-1 -I/usr/include/uuid -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include/libpng16 -I/usr/include/graphene-1.0 -I/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/graphene-1.0/include -I/usr/include/libmount -I/usr/include/blkid -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glib-2.0/include -lgtk-4 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lharfbuzz -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lcairo-gobject -lcairo -lgraphene-1.0 -lgio-2.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lglib-2.0’
cc: note: valid arguments to ‘-mfpmath=’ are: 387 387+sse 387,sse both sse sse+387 sse,387
This is the year of the GNU/Linux desktop.