NASA’s Swift Observatory Is Falling to Earth
joshuark shares a report from Wired: After 22 years in orbit and a failed rescue mission this summer, it is highly likely that the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory will crash into Earth sometime next week. It is not known where on the planet the spacecraft – which is roughly as big as a large elevator – will fall. Despite its size, experts say the risk to the public is relatively low … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.3 Will More Than Likely Be This Year’s LTS Kernel
While the Linux 7.4 kernel will be released in the 2026 calendar year in the last week or two of December if the schedule holds, it turns out Linux 7.3 is likely to be this year’s Long Term Support kernel version… ⌘ Read more

systemd With Its Initial Support For Rust
Systemd recently merged support for Rust programs. This initial systemd Rust support is limited to leaf components / individual binaries while eventually they hope to be able to support Rust within root components of systemd. More details on this initiative were shared this week… ⌘ Read more

Snap Reaches Settlement In Social Media Addiction Lawsuit Ahead of Trial
Snap has settled a lawsuit brought by two teenagers who alleged Snapchat was deliberately designed to be addictive and contributed to their mental health problems, avoiding a trial that was scheduled to begin this week. Snap was the last defendant to settle after Meta, Alphabet and TikTok resolved claims in the same case. CBS News … ⌘ Read more

Experts Expect ‘Security Reckoning’ As AI Tools Find And Exploit Software Bugs
The Washington Post reports:

Tens of thousands of South Koreans had their financial data exposed online in recent weeks after at least nine major banks there suffered cyberattacks that suggested a dark future for online security. One man, a 26-year-old living in southern China, was allegedly behind the attacks, according t … ⌘ Read more

In more frustrating news, I did something to my primary laptop, and now it crawls along like a 2005 Celeron trying to run Windows Vista.

My laptop is nothing too special (a Lenovo powered by an i7-1255U (4+8) @ 4.70 GHz with integrated “Iris Xe” graphics), but I’ve been running Manjaro Linux (with KDE Plasma) on it for the past couple of years, and apart from the odd pamac / pacman / “Add Remove Software” inconsistency (or Plasma widget issue), it’s been running pretty well.

Then, a few days ago, it started bugging about updates, and yesterday it added complaints about an unsupported kernel, so I finally pulled the trigger on it, and boy do I regret it.

I initially kept having issues downloading all of the updates (it was trying to download some kind of non-existent Quake-related library, which I had to remove), and I also had issues getting rid of the unsupported 7.1 kernel (due to some “meta” packages that had been installed), but in the end, I resolved both issues, got the kernel removed and the updates installed, and everything seemed fine after the post-update reboot… for about 10 minutes.

And that’s when the machine just decided to start moving at 1/3 speed: typing, moving the cursor, changing windows - everything started acting like it was 2008.

When I first tried to diagnose it, top showed kwin_wayland eating 50% of the CPU, and plasmashell another 10%, but it wasn’t consistent (they both came and went). I disabled all of the desktop effects, which helped some, as did blanking my plasma config (setting my desktop back to default), but things are still noticeably laggier than they were a few days ago.

Someone online suggested freeing up 25% space total on my root drive (which typically runs 90-95% full), so I’ve been cleaning up (and offloading) as much as I can. If that doesn’t work and I don’t find a solution by the end of the week, I’ll probably have to backup my data, wipe the machine clean, and start fresh. 🙃

Binance Reopens to $3.64 in Net Outflows. ‘98% Choose to Stay’, Says Its Founder
Binance now says it’s replenished 90% of assets stolen last week in a $6.3 billion security breach, its customers still “rushed to move funds off the platform” when it reopened Sunday, CNBC reports, and Binance “said it recorded $3.64 billion in net outflows after reopening withdrawals on Sunday.”

The exchange processed … ⌘ Read more

Amid AI Bans, Microsoft and OpenAI Plan a ‘Joyful’ Hour of AI for Kids
Generative AI was recently banned in America’s two largest school districts, just weeks after OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens.

But forging ahead, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org — now renamed CodeAI — has named OpenAI the “Lead Partner” for its 2026 Hour of AI (which last year replaced its signature event, “the Hour of Code”). Long-tim … ⌘ Read more

New Linux 7.4 Feature For Reducing AI Noise Already Reverted Due To A “Crazy Beast”
A new feature merged last week for Linux 7.4 to help reduce AI/LLM generated noise from invalid/irrelevant testing configurations is now reverted due to a “crazy beast” in the VFIO subsystem… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.9 Lands Some New Performance Optimizations
I love a good performance optimization and there are several this week in the KDE space with Plasma 6.9 development heating up… ⌘ Read more

AMD Ryzen Zen 6 Looks Like It Will Be In Good Shape With Linux 7.4, Laptop Improvements
The x86 platform driver changes were merged this week to the Linux 7.4 kernel ahead of the merge window closing this weekend… ⌘ Read more

Another Week, Another Vibe Coded OS; Closed-Source In The Name Of Security
With today’s AI/LLM capabilities, there is almost a new operating system heard about each week “coded from scratch” predominantly via AI agents. This week was no exception with another project hitting our email inbox. Though most of them are open-source, this one is closed-source in the name of security… ⌘ Read more

I3C Hub & HDR-DDR Support Merged For Linux 7.4
The I3C changes for Linux 7.4 were submitted this week by Bootlin’s Alexandre Belloni and subsequently merged… ⌘ Read more

Fedora Linux 45 Shipping Next Week On 3 November
Fedora 45 is ready to ship! It will be formally released on Tuesday, 3 November… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.4 Networking Brings Hardware Pacing Offload, New Drivers & More Performance
The many Linux wired and wireless networking driver improvements were merged this week for the ongoing Linux 7.4 merge window…. ⌘ Read more

Graphics/NPU Driver Changes Already Begin Queuing Up For What Will Be Linux 7.5
Since last week drm-misc-next pull requests have already been sent out to DRM-Next to begin staging new feature code for what’s intended for the Linux 7.5 kernel cycle kicking off at the end of the year… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.8.2 Released With Dozens Of Additional Bug Fixes
Debuting two weeks ago on the 30th anniversary of the KDE project was the Plasma 6.8 desktop with many exciting improvements. Last week it was succeeded by Plasma 6.8.1 with dozens of bug fixes and this week now brings Plasma 6.8.2 with yet more bug fixing… ⌘ Read more

Skydance Offers Buyouts, Gives 5-Day RTO Order
Skydance, as it begins integrating Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, is offering voluntary buyouts to some employees and imposing a five-day-a-week office requirement. Layoffs are also expected as the company targets more than $6 billion in annualized cost savings within three years. Variety reports: The new program was outlined by chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz … ⌘ Read more

Pick up many quality puzzle and physics games with two new Humble Bundles
Start your week with two more fresh sets of games with the Phunkier Physics and Puzzlers to Puzzle You bundles.

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Read the full article on GamingOnLinux. ⌘ Read more

Getty Images Files For US Bankruptcy, Advances Restructuring Plan
Reuters reports:

Last week, Getty announced plans to file for bankruptcy, marking a major reset after its planned merger with rival Shutterstock collapsed under the weight of heavy debt and growing competition from AI-generated imagery. Getty said the affiliates of the Getty family and Koch Equity Development, which committed to provide up to $533 m … ⌘ Read more

AV2 Video Codec Adoption Talked Up, SVT-AV2 Being Developed
Back in May the AV2 v1.0 specification was released for this next-generaton, royalty-free video codec. This week the Alliance For Open Media issued a press release talking up the early adoption of AV2… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.9 Stabilizes KWin’s Wayland Picture-In-Picture Support
With the wonderful KDE Plasma 6.8 having shipped just more than one week ago, KDE developers are beginning to go heavy on new features for Plasma 6.9… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.4 Power Management Preps For AMD Ryzen Zen 6 & Intel Rugged Panther Lake
The power management subsystem updates were merged this week for Linux 7.4 along with the related ACPI and thermal control updates too… ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.366 Released With SMPTE ST 2094-50 HDR Support
Vulkan 1.4.366 is out and representing the past two weeks of specification fixes, clarifications, and one new Vulkan API extension… ⌘ Read more

Fedora 45 Hits A Second NO-GO: Not Releasing Until November
Fedora 45 wasn’t released this week as its ideal early release target due to not having a release candidate build in time for last week’s Go/No-Go meeting. At today’s Go/No-Go meeting, Fedora 45 was delayed by at least one more week due to open blocker bugs… ⌘ Read more

Myrlyn 1.1 Released For SUSE/openSUSE GUI Package Manager
Myrlyn, the package manager GUI that began as YQPkg during a SUSE Hack Week and has evolved quite well, is out with version 1.1 as the first new feature update since the beginning of the year… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.4 Adapts AMD Zen 6 For Less Costly CPU Security Mitigation
The x86/bugs pull request was merged this week for the Linux 7.4 kernel. Most notable here is adjusting the CPU security mitigations for AMD Zen 6 processors… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.8.1 Released With Dozens Of Fixes
Following last week’s release of Plasma 6.8, the Plasma 6.8.1 point release is out today with dozens of bug fixes… ⌘ Read more

@kamme@twtxt.thanatos.be herbstluftwm! I haven’t had much luck with netbsd (skill issues). I had given it a try in a VM, ~4 years ago, and managed to brick it in less than a week xD The sad thing though, was deleting the VM. missing out on an opportunity to boot in single user mode and try fixing my mess.

AMD GAIA 0.25 Brings Several Improvements For Local AI Agents On Ryzen AI
AMD GAIA 0.25 is out this week as the latest feature release for this open-source project that began as “Generative AI Is Awesome” and is now going on a tag line of “AMD’s open-source agent factory” in building/using local AI agents on AMD Ryzen AI hardware… ⌘ Read more

Linus Torvalds’ AI Code Improved: Huge Performance Wins With Reworked Code
Last week I wrote about Linus Torvalds leveraging AI to come up with a hefty Linux kernel improvement using Claude Code. The code is for reading from the page cache without folio references to help workloads of small reads from a single file across many CPU threads. Meta engineer Kiryl Shutsemau has taken that code and reworked it and showing extremely promising performance results… ⌘ Read more

#Magic Update: This week, our Magic time was up against the local team’s Sportsball game, so we only had 4 players to start. I decided to try out a brand new deck, a lightly modified version of the new Jace, Multiverse Architect preconstructed deck that I picked up from my FLGS a few days ago, and let me tell you, that deck dominated, with everyone else quitting around the 90 minute mark. I know much of it was luck (especially in the early game), but it was so much fun to play, I look forward to breaking it out again… in a few weeks. 😁

By the time the second game started, the local team had won their Sportsball game (yay, sports team!), so it was one of our usual 5-player affairs. This time, I played my old-school Defenders of the Mirth deck, and it held up long enough for all but one other player to quit, and then I killed on my next turn with a truckload of unblockable commander damage at about the 2 hour mark. That put me at a rare 2/2 overall for the day. Good times! 🤘

Websites Are Closing Their Doors to AI Agents
The Verge reports:

OpenAI, Meta, Google, Instinct, and others promise their agents can scour the internet on your behalf, doing anything from booking a dinner reservation and cleaning out your inbox to buying new shoes. But what happens when the rest of the internet won’t play nice?

In recent weeks, users of services like Meta’s Muse, xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s Dots, and Instinct have reporte … ⌘ Read more

Tech Journalist Robert X Cringely has Died
BoingBoing reports:
Mark Stephens, better known under the pen name Robert X. Cringely, died last week at 73. Stephens chronicled the tech industry of the late 1980s and early 1990s — the age of Bill Gates’ rise, Steve Jobs’ repose, the dawn of the world wide web — and produced the famed documetary Triumph of the Nerds, based on his own bestselling Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon … ⌘ Read more

Blue Origin Announces $330M Upgrades to Rocket Facilities for ‘Multiple Flights Per Week’
“Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin said Friday it plans to make extensive upgrades to its Florida launch facilities,” reports CNBC, “with the goal of supporting multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.”

“The company will add two more launch and landing pads for New Glenn, its heavy-lift, partial … ⌘ Read more

Deno Acquired by Cloudflare, Will Work on Open Source Self-Hosting Platform for Applications
“Cloudflare has acquired Deno, the company behind the [server-side] JavaScript and TypeScript runtime created by Ryan Dahl, the inventor of Node.js,” Forbes reported last week.

But Deno “has no future at Cloudflare, which will maintain the runtime for another year before ending its d … ⌘ Read more

GNOME’s New Local/Cloud AI Chat App Gains More Features
Coming about the past few months has been Moose as a GNOME-aligned AI chat application built around GTK4 and libadwaita. It began as a local AI chat app for the GNOME desktop and grew to support cloud AI services as well. This past week marked the latest feature release for Moose… ⌘ Read more

17 More Security Vulnerabilities Made Public For X.Org Libraries
Just shy of two weeks since a dozen vulnerabilities were published for the X.Org Server and XWayland, more than one dozen vulnerabilities were made public today affecting multiple X.Org client libraries… ⌘ Read more

CoreWeave’s Debt Stress Tests Private Credit’s AI Financing Boom
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Private credit’s expanding role in financing AI infrastructure faced one of its clearest market tests this week as CoreWeave’s bonds fell to distressed levels, raising questions about how lenders are pricing a boom built on chips, data centers and customer contracts. CoreWeave has about $50 billion … ⌘ Read more

Fedora 45 Will Not Be Released Next Week
For those eager to run the pristine Fedora 45 media, you will need to wait at least one more week… ⌘ Read more

GTA 6 Is Reportedly Coming to PC In Early 2027
GamesBeat reports that Rockstar plans to release Grand Theft Auto VI on PC in the first quarter of 2027, just a few months after its November 19, 2026 launch on consoles. The report follows Microsoft’s announcement last week that it had secured exclusive cloud-streaming rights to the game. Since Rockstar has yet to officially announce a PC version, “this deal will allow Xbox to mar … ⌘ Read more

Firefox 159 Beta Released With Fix For Tabs On Wayland
With Firefox 158 released, Firefox 159 is now in beta ahead of its official release in two weeks… ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA’s Nova Driver Continues Leading The Way For Linux Rust GPU Drivers
The DRM Rust changes targeting the Linux 7.4 merge window have been submitted for pulling into DRM-Next ahead of that cycle kicking off (hopefully) next week. The NVIDIA Nova driver continues leading the way for the development of in-kernel Rust GPU drivers and in the process building out the Rust Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) infrastructure… ⌘ Read more

IREE 3.12 Introduces Rolls Out Rewritten Vulkan Driver, Experimental AMD HSA HAL
Rolling out last week was a new version of IREE as the Intermediate Representation Execution Environment for MLIR-based end-to-end compiler and run-time for lowering machine learning models into a unified IR and working across different hardware/driver stacks. Making IREE 3.12 notable is a rewrite to its Vulkan code… ⌘ Read more

Google’s Fitbit Edge Debuts a Replaceable Battery, Brings Back the Screen
Google has introduced the $179 Fitbit Edge, a new fitness tracker with a 1.34-inch OLED display, built-in GPS, ECG support, week-long battery life, and Fitbit’s first user-replaceable battery. “And unlike the Pixel Watch, it’s compatible with Android and iPhones via the Google Health app,” reports Wired. From the report: The Edge … ⌘ Read more

Amazon In Talks To Buy AI Startup Decart For Around $7 Billion
Amazon is reportedly in talks to acquire AI startup Decart in a deal that could value the company at up to $7 billion. Decart’s DOS software helps developers optimize AI models for different processors in weeks rather than months, a capability that could be particularly useful to AWS as it pushes its own Trainium chips. SiliconANGLE reports: The c … ⌘ Read more

Blade Runner, Star Trek, Godzilla, Star Wars + Marvel (and Legos): News From New York Comic-Con
There was some Blade Runner news at New York Comic-Con this weekend — and also some news about Godzilla. Ars Technica reports:

We got our first look at Prime Video’s new sci-fi series Blade Runner 2099 in July at San Diego Comic-Con. With the show’s premiere roughly six weeks away, … ⌘ Read more

Corsair Novablade Pro & 8BitDo Pro 2 Controllers To Be Supported With Linux 7.3-rc7
Sent out today as part of this week’s input subsystem fixes are device ID additions to the XPad driver for enabling two more gaming controllers to work nicely under Linux… ⌘ Read more

Another Woman Sues Flock For Mistaken Crime Accusation By Police - and for Surveillance
Last week a Florida woman sued Flock over its role in police officer accusing her of a crime she didn’t commit But she’s not the only one suing Flock over mistaken accusations, reports Gizmodo:
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A Ring video of a Colorado woman being handed a criminal summons for a porch-package theft she did not com … ⌘ Read more

Rolling Release Distros Superior To LTS Distros In The Patch-Heavy GenAI Era?
As some interesting food for thought and weekend forum discussions, this week at the Linux Plumbers Conference in Prague, Qualcomm engineer Khem Raj questioned the relevance of Linux Long Term Support (LTS) distributions in the era of generative AI with the constantly heavy patch flow and bug reports. Khem Raj argued the benefits of rolling release distributions in the GenAI era and the benefits it provides staying up-to-date with mai … ⌘ Read more