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Linux Mint Project Takes Over Development of Timeshift Backup Tool and Makes it a XApp

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There has been an interesting development in this month’s Linux Mint news segment regarding the future of the backup utility Timeshift which has become a core part of the distro in recent years. It turns out that Tony George, the developer behind the project doesn’t have time to work on Timeshift any longer and has agreed for the Mint team to take over. As part of the plans, Timeshift will now become a XApp, a suite of apps developed by the Mint team.

Rust-Written Replacement To GNU Coreutils Progressing, Some Binaries Now Faster

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Along with the broader industry trend of transitioning security-sensitive code to memory-safe languages like Rust, there has been an effort to  write a Rust-based replacement to GNU Coreutils. For nearly a year that Rust Coreutils has been able to run a basic Debian system while more recently they have been increasing their level of GNU Coreutils compatibility and in some cases now even outperforming the upstream project.

LVFS Exploring Alternate, Open-Source Firmware For Capable End-Of-Life Devices

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The Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) with Fwupd for firmware updating on Linux could soon be making it easier to transition older, end-of-life devices off official firmware packages and onto the likes of open-source Coreboot for capable aging PC hardware. This not only would make the system run on more free software but would extend the life of the hardware with firmware updates where the vendor has ceased their support.

Intel's Unaccepted Memory Support Updated For Substantially Faster Booting Of TDX VMs

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Way back in August Intel posted a set of Linux kernel patches for supporting "unaccepted memory" by the Linux kernel in preparation for next-generation Xeon processors and speeding up the boot time for guest virtual machines making use of Intel's Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) security feature. Unaccepted memory support hasn't yet made it to the mainline kernel but now a second iteration of the patches have been posted.