RepoJournal

$ cat linux/month/2026-10-01.log

Linux

Linux

the month in review · October 2026

Kernel merge window opens for 7.4

By RepoJournal · composed from the cited sources · human-reviewed weekly · methodology

♥

Linux 7.3 closed out its rc cycle while Omarchy shipped 4.0.5 on Qt 6.12 and put a 4.5.0 release candidate on test machines.

1048 commits 453 PRs merged 4 releases 31 briefings covered

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v4.0.5 basecamp/omarchy

by ryanrhughes

The point release moves Omarchy onto Qt 6.12, bumps the stable ring packages, and ships an updated kernel with the BORE scheduler. Existing installs upgrade in place; the notes frame it as tightening ahead of the next feature release.

v4.5.0-rc2 basecamp/omarchy

by ryanrhughes

This is a release candidate, and the notes say so plainly: "Expect bugs, rough edges, and the occasional thing that breaks outright." Test machines or a known-good snapshot only.

Merge tag 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/kvm torvalds/linux

by Linus Torvalds

The most intrusive change in the KVM batch reverts a 7.3-rc1 commit that made struct kvm too large, with the same issue fixed otherwise. Selftests again make up a large share of the lines.

Merge tag 'net-7.3-rc6' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net torvalds/linux

by Linus Torvalds

The 7.3-rc6 pull carries Bluetooth, WiFi and netfilter fixes, and maintainers are retargeting non-urgent work to the next cycle. One of the netfilter fixes addresses a crash from a recent feature regression.

Merge tag 'block-7.3-20261002' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/linux torvalds/linux

by Linus Torvalds

Among the block fixes, nvmet_auth_challenge() had an out-of-bounds write because sizeof() on a void pointer undercounted the challenge header. That is a memory-safety fix in the NVMe target auth path, not a configuration change.

Install OpenClaw as a self-updating copy under ~/.openclaw basecamp/omarchy

by spencerbull

Omarchy's openclaw package installed under /usr/lib/node_modules owned by root and pacman, so upstream's updater refused to run and the tool could not update itself on any machine installed that way. The fix installs a self-updating copy under ~/.openclaw.

Apply the system keyboard layout to the SDDM greeter basecamp/omarchy

by g-desoutter

The SDDM greeter starts its own Hyprland instance with no input block, so it always fell back to the built-in "us" layout. On a FR/AZERTY machine that meant a QWERTY password field and failed logins until the system layout was applied there too.

Translated 66 Nepali strings archlinux/archinstall

by nummbee01

Alongside: archinstall added 66 Nepali strings, reaching 398 of 608, and its Japanese translation hit 100%.

$ ls linux/month/ # the briefings behind this review

Thu Oct 1 archinstall's Nepali locale lands, Japanese translation hits 100% Fri Oct 2 KVM reverts a struct size regression, netfilter crash fixes land for 7.3-rc6 Sat Oct 3 NVMe auth fix lands, Omarchy makes OpenClaw self-updating Sun Oct 4 Linux 7.3-rc6 lands EDAC and drm fixes, Omarchy patches a UKI boot break Mon Oct 5 Omarchy fixes fingerprint lockout, kernel lands urgent x86, timer, perf fixes Tue Oct 6 omarchy bounds clipboard reads to stop history hangs Wed Oct 7 Scheduler and cpuset NULL derefs closed in 7.3-rc6 fixes Thu Oct 8 SoC and RCU fixes land in 7.3-rc, Omarchy tightens Herdr and overlays Fri Oct 9 ext4 data=journal gets a 2028 removal date Sat Oct 10 Mount refcounting bugs reworked, Omarchy adds remote-session indicator Sun Oct 11 DRM fixes land for 7.3-rc7 as Omarchy reworks keyboard and input setup Mon Oct 12 RISC-V fixes land for 7.3-rc7 as Omarchy rips out its polling loops Tue Oct 13 Omarchy hardens its router, shell, and keyboard seat against regression Wed Oct 14 Omarchy copies agent logins over SSH, kernel queues 7.4 merges Thu Oct 15 Poly1305 carry fix lands, Omarchy locks down N1x laptops and idle fingerprint readers Fri Oct 16 Netlink stops hashing the net pointer, stmmac clears a stuck RGMII interrupt Sat Oct 17 drm-fixes backs out dma-buf debug, vfs closes pathwalk use-after-frees Sun Oct 18 x86 segment override bug hides FS/GS, Omarchy 4.0.5 moves to Qt 6.12 Mon Oct 19 regmap's raw-spinlock allocation fix, and Omarchy's LUKS layout regression Tue Oct 20 Omarchy strips out its helper layer Wed Oct 21 LSM gets namespace hooks, AES moves into lib/crypto Thu Oct 22 Kernel drops insecure __get_user/__put_user, RCU calls gain NMI contexts Fri Oct 23 net-next 7.4 lands, keys stop leaking kernel addresses, Omarchy virtualizes huge tailnets Sat Oct 24 Kernel merge window opens with sysctl, printk and pKVM changes; Omarchy strips its notification UI Sun Oct 25 7.4 merge window: dm-writecache persistent-memory fix, SCSI sense codes unified Mon Oct 26 NFS 7.4 lands on both sides, exfat tightens valid_size handling Tue Oct 27 I2C gains dynamic timeouts, LED triggers learn hardware offload Wed Oct 28 VM_SPECIAL retires, tracing gains a "within" filter Thu Oct 29 7.4 merge window opens: remoteproc thermal mitigation, I3C hubs Fri Oct 30 bnxt XDP leak fixes, gdb remote parser overflows Sat Oct 31 SMB client fixes close kernel-byte leak into F_GETLK

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