KSMBD Finally Reaches a Stable State

KSMBD (the kernel SMB daemon) is the in-kernel module, developed by Samsung that implements the SMB/CIFS protocol for sharing files and folders over a network. The SMB 3 server could take the place of the traditional Samba software.

KSMBD was originally merged for Linux 5.15 but was tagged as experimental. That came about in 2021, and it has taken some time to get KSMBD to a state that was considered stable. That time has come, and KSMBD is planned for Linux kernel 6.6.

Why is KSMBD important? First off, it promises considerable performance gains and better support for modern features such as Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA). KSMBD also supports a number of features such as multiple dialects (SMB 2.1, SMB 3.0, SMB 3.1), oplock cache mechanism, compound requests, ACL, and DCE/RPC.

KSMBD also adds enhanced security, considerably better performance for both single and multi-thread read/write, better stability, and higher compatibility.

In the end, hopefully, this KSMBD will also mean easier share setups in Linux without having to jump through the same hoops one must with the traditional Samba setup.

Only time will tell. Until then, you can read more about KSMBD from this LWN article (https://lwn.net/Articles/865350/).

Nitrux 3.0.0 Released

Nitrux is a Linux distribution based on Debian that is fairly young but is already making a big impression.

Code-named "ut," Nitrux 3.0.0 brings some serious improvements to the operating system, which include new features, plenty of updates, and a number of performance optimizations.

The biggest changes come by way of the Nitrux Update Tool, which includes a rescue option that allows you to restore the root partition from a live session. This can be a real lifesaver should something go wrong during an update.

There also are plenty of tweaks to the Calamares installer (such as the disabling of auto-login by default), the removal of a deprecated kernel parameter, and a change to the order of execution of certain Calamares modules.

Other updates include Firefox 117.0, Mesa 23.3, Nitrux Update Tool 1.1.3, Kernel Boot 0.0.7, NVIDIA Linux x64 display driver 535.104.05, AMD open source driver for Vulkan 2023.Q3.1, zsync2, libappimageupdte 2.2.0-alpha-1-20230831+nitrux, and MauiKit and MauiKit Frameworks 3.0.1.

You can download an ISO for installation from SourceForge (https://sourceforge.net/projects/nitruxos/files/Release/ISO/) and read the full release notes here: https://nxos.org/changelog/release-announcement-nitrux-3-0-0/.

Linux From Scratch 12.0 Available

For those who prefer to build their own version of Linux, the Linux From Scratch (LFS) project has released version 12.0. The latest iteration has been released along with Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS) 12.0, which includes a systemd variant.

LFS v12.0 updates a number of packages including GCC 13.2, glibc 2.38, GNU Binutils 2.41, and the Linux 6.4.12 upstream kernel. In fact, you'll find 38 packages were updated since the last release. Other updates include libxcrypt and the new Python module flit-core.

As well, LFS now makes use of pkgconf (in place of pkg-config), which is an application that helps to configure compiler and linker flags for development libraries.

There was one major deprecation notice announced with LFS 12.0: Future versions of BLFS will remove the LXDE Desktop environment and the Reiser filesystem, both of which are no longer maintained.

LFS isn't just a system for building your own Linux distribution. It's also a book (or a collection of books) that provides step-by-step instructions for building your own, customized Linux distribution.

You can read the new LFS 12.0 book on line (https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/downloads/stable/) or download a PDF version (https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/read.html).