GoKawiil
Tech News
A developer working on a project to run Linux on the PlayStation 5 has dropped the effort after Sony patched the underlying exploit, which had reportedly been surfaced with the help of AI tools. The fix closed off the vulnerability the project relied on to gain low-level access to the console.
The systemd project, which provides the core init system and service manager for most Linux distributions, has released a formal brand identity guide. It specifies the official logo—designed by GNOME's Tobias Bernard in 2019 and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0—along with approved colors, typography, and correct spelling conventions for the project's name.
A newly published Nix flake automates installing Microsoft 365 (click-to-run Office) on Linux without a virtual machine, using the umu-launcher tool alongside GE-Proton, the gaming-focused Wine build from Valve and GloriousEggroll, with Bottles' ProtoSoda Wine core offered as an alternative runner. The project doesn't bundle any Microsoft software itself; instead its ms365 script fetches the Office Deployment Tool and Office files at install time, requiring users to supply their own Microsoft 365 license and sign in. The approach builds on prior community work, including Bottles' reports of Office 365 running on Wine and older ruados/eylenburg registry and DLL tweaks.
Andy 'TheFlow0' Nguyen, the veteran PlayStation hacker behind the PS5 Linux project that let PS5 owners run a full Linux OS, has announced he is quitting the PS5 modding scene entirely. He says the decision follows frustration with AI-assisted contributors submitting exploit code they don't understand, including a case where such a group reported a hypervisor bug he had also discovered to Sony for a bounty before it could be used for the Linux project.
Ubuntu has finished replacing the traditional GNU coreutils package with a Rust-based implementation across its system utilities. This marks a major step in the distribution's broader effort to rewrite core system components in memory-safe Rust rather than C.
An analysis traces the evolution of memory allocation from stack-based schemes to dynamic linked-list heaps, garbage collection, and jemalloc's 2006 introduction of 'arenas' for NUMA and multi-core memory management. It notes that standard malloc() implementations serialize concurrent allocation requests, causing multithreaded applications to slow down rather than scale as processor counts increase.
Researchers at Lumen's Black Lotus Labs identified a previously undocumented malware framework, BambooToken, active since 2023, that in its 2024-2025 variants switched to the MQTT messaging protocol for command-and-control. Infected systems subscribe to unique topics on a central broker to receive operator commands and report status, and the malware has infected servers tied to mobile apps, legal, financial, and software development firms via side-loading disguised as Tendyron OnKey USB-token software or a fake Kingsoft Office suite.
CSS-Tricks, the web development site DigitalOcean acquired in 2022 and briefly revived in mid-2024 under editor Geoff Graham, has gone inactive again with no explanation from its owner. Meanwhile, DigitalOcean quickly arranged a $3 million donation to Omarchy, a set of Arch Linux scripts led by David Heinemeier Hansson, and has also stopped small monthly payments to GNOME and Flathub infrastructure.
Valve has opened reservations for its standalone Steam Frame VR headset, priced at $1,059 for 256GB storage or $1,299 for 1TB, with sign-ups closing September 17 and invitations sent starting September 18. Every unit includes two controllers, a 6GHz wireless adapter, and a native Arm64 rebuild of Half-Life: Alyx that runs directly on the device.
Cua, a Y Combinator-backed startup building infrastructure for AI agents that operate computers and applications, is hiring its first dedicated go-to-market employee. The hire will work directly with founders to identify target customers, design sales and pilot processes from scratch, and help grow products built on Cua's Driver framework. Responsibilities span the entire commercial cycle, from technical discovery and demos to closing deals and expanding accounts.
OpenRGB, an open-source project, has reached its 1.0 release, offering a single lightweight application to control RGB lighting from multiple manufacturers instead of juggling separate proprietary apps. It runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS, and has been tested across x86, x86_64, Arm32 and Arm64 hardware including Raspberry Pi devices. The software is released under the GNU General Public License v2 and includes a network-based SDK for third-party integrations.
A new project called cpak introduces an OCI-compliant application package format aimed at Linux desktops, servers and devices. It packages software with a legible manifest and traceable origin, supports Dockerfile-style builds with layer caching but no container daemon, and lets apps bind directly to host GPU drivers rather than bundling their own.