Defeating the Epochalypse: GRUB 2.14 Arrives to Save Linux from Year 2038

Defeating the Epochalypse: GRUB 2.14 Arrives to Save Linux from Year 2038 reports that GRUB 2.14 is the definitive release after more than two years since 2.12, bringing a substantial set of improvements to Linux bootloading.

The update adds support for the EROFS read-only file system, refines LVM operations with LV integrity and cachevol, and for EFI platforms introduces NX protection alongside other systemic enhancements; it also includes the shim loader protocol, the Argon2 key derivation function, and TPM2 key protection, with Secure Boot support for PowerPC architectures.

Notable advancements include the ability to store GRUB environment blocks within Btrfs headers, plus support for BLS and UKI and zstdio decompression; crucially, the “Year 2038” problem has been resolved to ensure the bootloader functions beyond 1901–2038, alongside a new option to lock the command-line interface.

The development team has remediated numerous CVEs and bugs flagged by Coverity, and the libgcrypt library has been upgraded to version 1.11, according to CVE Watchtower, with the source code currently available for exfiltration from the GNU server and Windows binaries prepared for i386-pc, i386-efi, and x86_64-efi platforms.