Science and Technology (old posts, page 252)

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[$] Improving control over transparent huge page use

The use of huge pages can significantly increase the performance of many workloads by reducing both memory-management overhead in the kernel and pressure on the system's translation lookaside buffer (TLB). The addition of transparent huge pages (THP) for the 2.6.38 kernel release in 2011 caused the kernel to allocate huge pages automatically to make their benefits available to all workloads without any effort needed on the user-space side. But it turns out that use of huge pages can make some workloads slower as the result of internal memory fragmentation, so the THP feature is often disabled. Two patch sets aimed at better targeting the use of transparent huge pages are currently working their way through the review process.

The 2025 Maintainers Summit call for topics

The call for topics for the 2025 Maintainers Summit has been posted. The Summit, to be held in Tokyo on December 10, will involve around 30 developers gathered to discuss development-process issues for the kernel. Anybody who is interested in attending is encouraged to post a nomination along with the topic they would like to discuss. Nominations and topics are best sent before September 10.

The call for topics for the Kernel Summit, which runs as a Linux Plumbers Conference track, is also out.

[$] Python performance myths and fairy tales

Antonio Cuni, who is a longtime Python performance engineer and PyPy developer, gave a presentation at EuroPython 2025 about "Myths and fairy tales around Python performance" on the first day of the conference in Prague. As might be guessed from the title, he thinks that much of the conventional wisdom about Python performance is misleading at best. With lots of examples, he showed where the real problems that he sees lie. He has come to the conclusion that memory management will ultimately limit what can be done about Python performance, but he has an early-stage project called SPy that might be a way toward a super-fast Python.

Security updates for Tuesday

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (python-requests), Fedora (mingw-libxslt), Red Hat (gdk-pixbuf2, jq, kernel, mod_security, ncurses, nodejs:22, opentelemetry-collector, python-setuptools, python3-setuptools, python3.12-setuptools, qt5-qt3d, redis, redis:6, redis:7, sqlite, and unbound), SUSE (apache2, cairo, chromium, djvulibre, govulncheck-vulndb, grub2, java-11-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, liblua5_5-5, nvidia-open-driver-G06-signed, python, python310, python314, python39, redis, sqlite3, and systemd), and Ubuntu (apport, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-hwe, linux-azure, linux-azure-4.15, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-azure, and linux-oracle).

[$] Debian grapples with offensive packages, again

A pair of packages containing fortune "cookies" that were deemed offensive have been removed from the upcoming Debian 13 ("trixie") release. This has, of course, led to a lengthy discussion and debate about what does, or does not, belong in the distribution. It may also lead to a general resolution (GR) to decide whether Debian's code of conduct (CoC) applies to the contents of packages.

Security updates for Monday

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (java-21-openjdk, kernel, libxml2, and lz4), Debian (exempi, ruby-graphql, and sope), Fedora (binutils, chromium, gdk-pixbuf2, libsoup3, poppler, and reposurgeon), Mageia (glib2.0 and wxgtk), Oracle (jackson-annotations, jackson-core, jackson-databind, jackson-jaxrs-providers, and jackson-modules-base and libxml2), Red Hat (kernel, pandoc, pcs, qemu-kvm, redis, and rsync), SUSE (chromedriver, coreutils, cosign, docker, gdk-pixbuf-devel, glib2, gnutls, grub2, gstreamer-plugins-base, helm, ignition, java-21-openjdk, jbigkit, jq, kernel, kubernetes1.28, kwctl, libxml2, nvidia-open-driver-G06-signed, opensc, pam-config, protobuf, python310, tgt, and valkey), and Ubuntu (linux-iot).