Network Fixes and Security Hardening
Today we dive into a massive networking fix merge from Linus that touches 98+ files, plus some critical security patches including a vsock vulnerability fix and x86 page fault handling improvements. The Linux kernel maintainers are clearly in bug-squashing mode with fixes spanning wireless drivers, memory management, and crypto systems.
Duration: PT3M42S
Episode overview
This episode is a short developer briefing from Linux Kernel.
It explains recent repository work in plain language.
- Show: Linux Kernel
- Published: 2026-01-23T11:06:46Z
- Audio duration: PT3M42S
Transcript excerpt
This excerpt keeps the crawler page concise. Listen to the episode or use the RSS feed for the full update.
Hey there, amazing developers! Welcome back to another episode of Linux Kernel - I'm so glad you're here with me today. Grab your favorite beverage because we've got some really interesting stuff to dig into from January 23rd.
So here's what happened - we didn't see any merged pull requests today, but wow, did we get a flurry of commits! Sixteen commits total, and let me tell you, there's a story here about the kernel maintainers being in serious fix-it mode.
The big star of the show is this massive networking merge from Linus himself. And I mean massive - we're talking 96 individual commits rolled up into one, touching over 100 files! Jakub Kicinski, who's been doing incredible work on the networking stack, pulled together fixes from all over the place. There's CAN bus…
What's really interesting is the timing element here. Jakub mentioned that some of these fixes feel like they'd normally show up by release candidate 5 or 6, but holiday timing threw things off a bit. It's such a human reminder that even kernel development has to work around real life, you know?
Some of the coolest fixes in there include improvements to the virtio networking stack - they're now coalescing only…
Now,…
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