⚙️ Towards a reference QEMU for CHERI platform emulation: An update from the CHERI QEMU Working Group ⚙️

QEMU is one of the most popular open source machine emulators, with support for many CPU architectures, including x86_64, Arm and RISC-V.

As of January 2026, we are excited to announce that the CHERI Alliance hosts a reference QEMU implementation that supports multiple modern hashtag#CHERI platforms based on Arm and RISC-V. These include the Arm Morello platform, the CHERI RISC-V standard draft 0.9.3 and the University of Cambridge RISC-V ISA v9. The CHERI Alliance reference implementation is an important milestone for future development and integration of CHERI support in QEMU.

We expect 2026 to be an exciting year for the CHERI Alliance and the CHERI QEMU community as a whole. With no shortage of work in sight, we would like to encourage members of the Alliance and any other organisation interested in CHERI to check out the latest developments.

🔗 Find out more: https://cheri-alliance.org/towards-a-reference-qemu-for-cheri-platform-emulation/

You know how I always say picolibc isn't a Linux C library because it doesn't do all of the fancy Linux stuff? Well, it turns out you don't need much to get a semi-functioning system.

$ size test-hello-picolibc test-hello-glibc
text data bss dec hex filename
3632 144 4656 8432 20f0 test-hello-picolibc
645697 23704 22576 691977 a8f09 test-hello-glibc

I blame Kees Cook for nerd-sniping me on this one.

https://github.com/picolibc/picolibc/tree/native-linux

Anyone following the Artemis II project? Humans are going back to the moon. You can watch live here right now. The launch is a week or so away, so don't expect too much yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCrPD7tfcr0

And my Kernel Recipes talk is now available: https://youtu.be/qYPCL1KGdQA

A big "Thank you!" to everyone involved!

The #uapigroup hosts two brand new specifications at https://uapi-group.org/specifications

The VMClock specification comes from Amazon AWS and defines an efficient guest clock synchronization mechanism:
https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/vmclock/

The VMGenID specification defines a notification mechanism whenever a VM is cloned/copied so userspace and kernel can take appropriate action (e.g., changing machine ID or updating random seeds):
https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/vmgenid/

The #uapigroup is very happy to serve as a home for these specs.

Implementing transcendental functions in Ivy

https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2026/01/implementing-transcendental-functions.html

@etchedpixels the technical arguments re. behind the meter efficiency are surprising to me. They mention an attached report but I didn't see it. In any case, they say the power demand drops 1% for 1% voltage, which seems to point at efficiency of appliances which convert voltages down. Fix those instead? I also wonder if they've looked at the impact of increasing the max current draw for the same power, increases in copper losses and increased risk of fire via house wiring & switches.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@etchedpixels/115963032961281362

@azonenberg Looks like a Sherline mill.

RE: https://ioc.exchange/@azonenberg/115962847027721998

Spent an eternity today retuning a 10-pole cavity filter. Started to feel like I was in an episode of Severance, manipulating patterns by intuition on 80s tech.

I just sent out the CfP for LSF/MM/BPF 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia:

https://lore.kernel.org/20260110-lsfmm-2026-cfp-ae970765d60e@brauner

This year's committee is:

Javier González (Storage)
Martin K. Petersen (Storage)
Christian Brauner (Filesystems)
Amir Goldstein (Filesystems)
Jan Kara (Filesystems)
Vlastimil Babka (MM)
Matthew Wilcox (MM)
Daniel Borkmann (BPF)
Martin KaFai Lau (BPF)

Send us your proposals!

What happened to nanofarads?

Furiously (not really) building an S-Band receiver for the Artemis II mission.

Doh. Just discovered the 'up' alias for upgrade in dnf. I have wasted so many keystrokes.

@andrewbriscoe ♥️ PNW

RE: https://mastodon.social/@andrewbriscoe/115911203456338739

▶️ The CfP is now open, until March 15th:

🐧 https://sessionize.com/linux-security-summit-north-america-2026

RE: https://social.kernel.org/objects/3c52571b-e7fe-4e79-be5f-20b9485e2540

RE: https://mastodon.social/@brauner/115871045863565861

Be sure to request an invite to #lsfmmbpf 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia!

📢 Save the date! The 2026 Linux Security Summit North America (LSS-NA) will be held May 21-22 in Minneapolis, MN, co-located with OSS-NA.

🐧 https://events.linuxfoundation.org/linux-security-summit-north-america/

picolibc has been reformatted with clang-format. All PRs will now be checked to make sure they are formatted correctly, so any pending requests will need to be fixed and resubmitted. I'm looking forward to having only one coding style to deal with.

Thanks to all of the picolibc contributors over 2025 and best wishes for 2026.

Right on time to coincide with the end of the year I finished my #systemd259 series of posts. And I now also prepped a blog story linking to every single one of them here:

https://0pointer.net/blog/mastodon-stories-for-systemd-v259.html

Make sure to stay tuned for the #systemd260 series, most likely starting already in a few weeks!

Also, happy new year! 🎇

A few weeks ago, Michelle @abraxas3d visited us. She wrote a very nice report on "A day at Dwingeloo", detailing some of our recent experiments. The full story is at https://www.openresearch.institute/2025/11/12/a-day-at-dwingeloo/