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• Linux Tech Sustainability — The mainline Linux 6.4 kernel is set to see a new touchscreen driver for supporting the Novatek NVT-ts.
• Acer Iconia One 7 B1-730
• Unlocking the bootloader and disabling dm-verity on Android-X86 devices
• Here Comes WebGPU — After years of development, the Chrome team ships WebGPU.
• Chrome 113 To Ship WebGPU By Default
• Muse on Twitter — Breaking news🚨 Chrome's Web GPU has launched after 6 years of development! 🚀
• A Taste of WebGPU in Firefox
• Plasma 6 Early Builds — I’ve now got a working Plasma 6 dev session on my machine. It’s still rough, but it’s usable.
• Early KDE Plasma 6 Development State
• Rust Support Is Being Worked On For V4L2 — Daniel Almeida of Collabora sent out initial Rust V4L2 support patches on Thursday. This provides just enough for working with a prototype VirtIO camera driver written in Rust along with a Rust sample driver.
• Linux 6.4 Bringing Apple M2 Additions — Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin today sent in the Apple SoC DT updates targeting the Linux 6.4 cycle for queuing into the SoC tree ahead of the merge window opening around the end of the month.
• Btrfs Improvments — This week a number of patches from SUSE engineer Qu Wenruo were queued into kdave's linux.git for-next branch of the Btrfs file-system driver development code.

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• New FOSS Fund to Support Free and Open Source Projects — To help maintain and sustain this ecosystem, companies and nonprofits alike have experimented with a framework called a FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Contributor Fund.
• Bloomberg Launches Open-Source Funding Initiative
• Encrypted Fedora — Owen Taylor of Red Hat laid out a mailing list post and Discourse thread today around the future of encryption with Fedora.
• Google’s VM Turbo Charger — With this series, a workload running in a VM gets the same task placement and DVFS treatment as it would when running in the host.
• Linux Plumbers Conference 2022 CPUfreq/sched and VM guest workload problems
• Google Posts KVM-CPUFreq Driver To Dramatically Boost VM Performance, Power Efficiency
• KDE Discuss — KDE Discuss is a place for questions, requests, suggestions, banter, and in general interacting closely with the people actively involved in KDE, as well as with fellow users.
• KDE Discuss is a new discussion service from KDE for everybody who makes and uses KDE software
• New MSI Laptop Driver — Functions handled by the embedded controller on recent MSI laptops.
• new msi-ec driver patch
• Ubuntu 23.04 Beta Hands On
• Jupiter Broadcasting Meetup — Two meetups in the month of April, join us!

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• GNOME 44 Released — GNOME 44 is code-named “Kuala Lumpur”, in recognition of the work done by the organizers of GNOME.Asia 2022.
• GNOME 44 Released With Many Desktop Enhancements
• GNOME 44 Getting New Background Apps UI
• Ubuntu Touch OTA-1 Focal Release — This is the first OTA for Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal) with major features, this is an Opt-In and not mandatory update.
• First Ubuntu Touch OTA Release Based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Is Out Now
• Ubuntu Cinnamon Flavor Status Announcement — Ubuntu Cinnamon started as a small idea in my head, in 2019. I was ELEVEN.
• ItzSwirlz (Joshua Peisach)
• Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix Becomes Official Ubuntu Flavor
• Microsoft’s CBL-Mariner Linux Distribution Continues Cultivating More Packages — With today's CBL-Mariner 2.0.20230321 they have continued cultivating more packages for the distribution.
• CBL-Mariner GitHub
• We’re no longer sunsetting the Free Team plan — After listening to feedback and consulting our community, it’s clear that we made the wrong decision in sunsetting our Free Team plan.
• Google discloses CentOS Linux kernel vulnerabilities following failure to issue timely fixes — Google Project Zero's security researcher Jann Horn learned that kernel fixes made to stable trees are not backported to many enterprise versions of Linux.
• Google Security Researchers Accuse CentOS of Failing to Backport Kernel Fixes
• Project Zero Mailing List Thread on CentOS Kernel Patches
• CVE-2023-0590
• kernel-5.14.0-277.el9
• CVE-2023-1249
• CVE-2023-1252
• Berlin Meet Up #2 - Nextcloud Hackfest & Dev Community Introduction, Fri, Mar 31, 2023 — NOTE: the time detailed on Meetup.com is strictly set to PST, so don't be confused by the interface!

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• Android Gets RISC-Y — Google's keynote at the RISC-V Summit promises official, polished support.
• Keynote: The Android Open Source Project and RISC-V - Lars Bergstrom, Google Director of Engineering
• New Google Tool Goes Open — The OSV database is a distributed, open-source database that stores vulnerability information in the OSV format. The OSV-Scanner assesses a project's dependencies against the OSV database showing all vulnerabilities relating to the project.
• Ubuntu’s New Installer Milestone — With Ubuntu 23.04 "Lunar Lobster" in April that new desktop installer is poised to finally be used by default.
• HDR Beginning To Work For Linux Gaming — "New Linux gaming milestone: with the latest work from Josh Ashton, HDR can now be enabled for real games! Tested it tonight on my AMD desktop with Halo Infinite, Deep Rock Galactic, DEATH STRANDING DC. Very early and will still need some time to bake to be useful to most."
• Red Hat Planning HDR Hackfest
• GNOME Shell + Mutter 43 Alpha Released
• VKD3D-Proton 2.7 Released With Eight Months Worth Of Changes
• Google Home speakers allowed hackers to snoop on conversations — A bug in Google Home smart speaker allowed installing a backdoor account that could be used to control it remotely and to turn it into a snooping device by accessing the microphone feed.

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• Apple GPU drivers now in Asahi Linux — We’ve been working hard over the past two years to bring this new driver to everyone, and we’re really proud to finally be here. This is still an alpha driver, but it’s already good enough to run a smooth desktop experience and some games
• Asahi Linux Enables Early Apple GPU Driver Support - WIP OpenGL 2.1 + GLES 2.0
• Apple Silicon CPUFreq Driver Heading To Linux 6.2 — Sent in yesterday were the Arm CPUFreq updates to queue in the Linux power management tree ahead of the Linux 6.2 merge window.
• [GIT PULL] cpufreq/arm updates for 6.2 - Viresh Kumar
• Floppy Driver Update Ready For Linux 6.2 — This memory leak with the floppy disk driver has been in the mainline kernel since Linux 5.11
• Android memory safety vulnerabilities declined as Rust usage grew — Specifically, the number of annual memory safety vulnerabilities fell from 223 to 85 between 2019 and 2022. They are now 35% of Android’s total vulnerabilities versus 76% four years ago. In fact, “2022 is the first year where memory safety vulnerabilities do not represent a majority of Android’s vulnerabilities.”
• Google says Android runs better when covered in Rust
• Fedora 38 Cleared To Produce “Mobility Phosh” Spins — The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has provided their blessing to begin creating new x86_64 and AArch64 ISO images for mobile devices that feature the Phosh Wayland compositor.
• Ping bug potentially allows remote hack of FreeBSD systemsSecurity Affairs — A remote attacker can trigger the vulnerability, causing the ping program to crash and potentially leading to remote code execution in ping.
• D-Installer needs your help — Today we published a new prototype of D-Installer, fixing several bugs reported by early testers and improving the usage experience in some areas like the configuration of passwords and users. But beyond those improvements, a couple of new features deserve some attention.
• Bug 1205938 – D-Installer - Slowness initialization on real hardware
• GitHub - yast/d-installer: A service-based Linux installer
• openSUSE’s D-Installer Adds LVM & Full Disk Encryption Configuration

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• Plasma 5.26 Released — Plasma 5.26 comes with new and tweaked widgets, improves the desktop experience leaps and bounds, and Plasma Big Screen's app family grows
• These weeks in KDE: Akademy and Plasma 5.26
• Google Reveals ‘First Laptops Built For Cloud Gaming’ — Google says the Acer Chromebook 516 GE, ASUS Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip and Lenovo Ideapad Gaming Chromebook all have refresh rates of at least 120Hz, displays with up to 1600p resolution, immersive audio and, critically for cloud gaming, WiFi 6 or 6E connectivity.
• Intel Arc Graphics - A750 and A770 GPUs Release — The Intel Arc A750 and A770 GPUs officially launch today, October 12th in select markets. Everyone at Intel is beyond thrilled to get graphics cards with modern features and extremely competitive performance-per-dollar into your hands.
• Intel Arc Graphics Running On Fully Open-Source Linux Driver
• Canonical Launches Free Ubuntu Pro Subscriptions for Everyone — Ubuntu Pro is available for every supported Ubuntu LTS version, starting with Ubuntu 16.04 ESM and up to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
• Android leaks some traffic even when ‘Always-on VPN’ is enabled — The data being leaked outside VPN tunnels includes source IP addresses, DNS lookups, HTTPS traffic, and likely also NTP traffic.
• Incorrect VPN lockdown documentation [249990229] - Visible to Public - Issue Tracker
• Android leaks connectivity check traffic — As a closing note, we would like to recommend Google to adopt the ability to disable the connectivity checks, like on GrapheneOS, into stock Android.
• iOS VPN apps have another flaw: excluding many Apple apps — We confirm that iOS 16 does communicate with Apple services outside an active VPN tunnel. Worse, it leaks DNS requests. Apple services that escape the VPN connection include Health, Maps, and Wallet.

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• K9 mail to become Thunderbird on Android — Ultimately, K-9 Mail will transform into Thunderbird on Android.
• K-9 Mail – Open Source Email App for Android
• K-9 Mail joins the Thunderbird family
• Frequently Asked Questions: Thunderbird Mobile and K-9 Mail
• Ubuntu Working To Provide Good Support For The VisionFive Low-Cost RISC-V Board — The Starfive VisionFive is a currently $179 USD RISC-V board that is intended to run full-blown RISC-V Linux distributions.
• Fedora 37 Looks To Boost Its Cloud Posture As An Official Edition — Approved by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee this week is returning Fedora Cloud base to be listed as an official Fedora edition.
• Plasma 5.25 - Released — Plasma 5.25 brings new features and concepts to the desktop environment.
• 5 Neat New Features in KDE Plasma 5.25, Released Today
• Ventoy 1.0.76 — Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files.
• Super UEFIinSecureBoot Disk: Boot any OS or .efi file without disabling UEFI Secure Boot
• Adobe Plans To Make Photoshop on the Web Free To Everyone — The company is now testing the free version in Canada, where users are able to access Photoshop on the web through a free Adobe account. Adobe describes the service as “freemium” and eventually plans to gate off some features that will be exclusive to paying subscribers. Enough tools will be freely available to perform what Adobe considers to be Photoshop’s core functions.
• Photopea | Online Photo Editor

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• Linux 5.18 Released With Intel SDSi, New CPU & GPU Features — Linux 5.18 brings the controversial Intel Software Defined Silicon (SDSi) functionality.
• Thoughts on software-defined silicon — Its purpose is to disable access to specific processor capabilities in the absence of a certificate from Intel saying otherwise.
• Statistics from the 5.18 development cycle
• Btrfs Gets Some Buttery Good Improvements With Linux 5.19 — David Sterba of SUSE has submitted the ~4k lines of code worth of feature changes for the Btrfs file-system driver in the Linux 5.19 kernel.
• Our build and release infrastructure, and upcoming updates — This work will be incrementally deployed as each bit is finished. So be patient, and you will notice releases happening faster and faster!
• Google Summer of Code (GSOC 2022) Highlights of FOSS Projects — Google announced the GSoC 2022 projects, and the list includes some exciting improvements to the mainstream foss projects such as GNOME, Xfce, LibreOffice, etc.
• Ubuntu 22.10 Makes PipeWire Default for Audio — “That’s right, as of today the Kinetic ISO (pending, not yet current since the changes were just made) has been updated to run only PipeWire and not PulseAudio […] you can look forward to this for Kinetic”
• Broadcom-VMware Deal Said to Be Ready as Soon as This Week — Broadcom Inc. could announce an agreement to acquire cloud-computing company VMware Inc. as soon as this week
• Broadcom’s Potential VMware Acquisition: 5 Things About Dell, Stock Prices And Hock Tan To Know
• Broadcom in Talks to Pay About $60 Billion for VMware
• Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger Has Mixed Feelings on a Broadcom-VMware Deal

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• Docker rebounds with $105m Series C funding and $2.1b value — Troubled container company may escape confines of its doldrums
• LXD 5.0 LTS has been released — This is our 4th LTS release and quite an exciting one for anyone coming from LXD 4.0 as it significantly steps up LXD’s abilities, especially when operating in clustered environments.
• Anaconda is getting a new suit and a wizard — Before starting the redesign work for the Anaconda installer, the team reviewed user feedback and usability study data that we’ve gathered over the years.
• Fedora Workstation Brainstorming A Possible GUI-Based Linux Recovery Environment — This currently hypothetical GUI-driven recovery environment sounds like it could almost be like Apple's macOS recovery mode in that there may be the possibility of even downloading a new system image from this environment.
• Fwupd 1.7.7 Released For Firmware Updating More Logitech Devices On Linux - Phoronix
• Lutris 0.5.10 Released With Steam Deck Support — Lutris 0.5.10 brings proper Steam Deck support thanks to their collaboration with Valve and receiving a Steam Deck developer kit. Lutris' Flatpak version is still being improved upon as the next step in enhancing the Steam Deck support for this game manager.
• Mathieu Comandon on Twitter — We gotta stop this culture of "only install Flatpaks / using root is dangerous" before it extends beyond the Steam Deck. Last thing I want is for desktop Linux to become like Android or ChromeOS.
• meetup.com/jupiterbroadcasting

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• Linux has been bitten by its most high-severity vulnerability in years — Dirty Pipe has the potential to smudge people using Linux and Linux derivitives.
• Catalin Cimpanu on Twitter — “DirtyPipe (CVE-2022-0847) is a vulnerability in the Linux kernel since 5.8 which allows overwriting data in arbitrary read-only files. This leads to privilege escalation. It is similar to CVE-2016-5195 “Dirty Cow” but is easier to exploit.
• Ron Amadeo on Twitter — “By my count, Dirty Pipe affects only brand-new Android 12 devices like the Pixel 6 and S22. Linux 5.8 and above has only been an Android option for five months."
• Canonical Patches “Dirty Pipe” Vulnerability in Ubuntu 21.10 and 20.04 LTS
• BLASTY on Twitter: “Hacked up a quick Dirty Pipe PoC that spawns a shell by hijacking (and restoring) the contents of a setuid binary.”
• The Dirty Pipe Vulnerability — The Dirty Pipe Vulnerability documentation
• AMD Posts Some New Linux Job Openings From Client CPU To Server — AMD would need a lot more Linux engineers to achieve the same level of timely Linux support and low-level kernel enhancements that Intel has been focused on for years, especially when it comes to Intel's open-source work beyond just the actual hardware device enablement.
• Introducing Native Matrix VoIP with Element Call! — What’s more, Element Call is built entirely on Matrix: it doesn’t need any additional servers to get going. You can run it against your existing Matrix homeserver to provide complete self-sovereignty… while still being able to talk to anyone else anywhere on the wider Matrix network! We will also be able to automatically use Matrix’s end-to-end encryption to secure all Element Call conferences
• call.element.io
• https://github.com/vector-im/element-call/issues
• Extending Matrix’s E2EE calls to multiparty
• Danielle Foré on Twitter — Okay it’s been a full month and this situation still isn’t resolved, and it sucks for you to just be completely in the dark and it’s pretty obvious something is up and people are asking what’s going on, so here is my side of the story 🧵
• Danielle gives an update on elementary Reddit Thread
• Jupiter Broadcasting East Coast Meetup

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• Proton 7.0 out with Easy Anti-Cheat improvements — Proton 7.0 pulls in Wine 7.0 which it's based upon along with: upgrades to DXVK 1.9.4 for DirectX 9 / 10 / 11, newer VKD3D-Proton for DirectX 12 to Vulkan
• Pierre-Loup Griffais on Twitter
• Proton 7.0-1: A Major Milestone for Linux Gaming
• Canonical Will Begin Certifying Gigabyte Servers For Ubuntu Linux — Moving forward Gigabyte's server platforms are expected to obtain Ubuntu Server certification.
• GIGABYTE Partners with Canonical to Certify Servers for Ubuntu
• Canonical at MWC 2022
• Bcachefs Might Be Ready For Upstreaming In Linux This Year — The Bcachefs file-system that was born out of the Linux kernel's block cache code has over the past few years matured greatly. Now in 2022 the core fundamentals of the file-system are "pretty close to done" and will hopefully be mainlined this calendar year into the Linux kernel.
• Linux On The Apple M1 Preparing Better Performance With In-Development CPUFreq Driver — Fortunately, a proper CPUFreq driver for the Apple M1 is in development for Linux and is allowing for a combination of enticing performance and good battery life for this community-driven, open-source support around the Apple Silicon.
• Get Chrome OS Flex for PC or Mac — Chrome OS Flex is a free and sustainable way to modernize devices you already own. It’s easy to deploy across your fleet or simply try it to see what a cloud-first OS has to offer.
• Google announces Chrome OS Flex for ordinary PCs, Macs • The Register
• Chrome OS Flex is an ideal off-ramp for millions of PCs that can’t run Windows 11
• Google’s free Chrome OS Flex could breathe new life into old PCs and Macs

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• The world’s first RISC-V phone might be just around the corner — The Sipeed Maix Amigo kit from 2020 was among the first RISC-V PDAs
• A $16.90 Allwinner D1 Linux RISC-V board
• Sipeed’s $17 LycheeRV Board Has Allwinner RISC-V Processor
• LLVM Is Still Working On Relicensing, Needs Help Locating Some Past Contributors — LLVM is seeking help in trying to track down some past individual contributors and organizations so they can proceed with their relicensing of the massive code-base.
• LLVM relicensing - long tail - Google Sheets
• The LLVM Project Blog
• German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice — The north-German state of Schleswig-Holstein plans to switch to open source software, including LibreOffice, in its administration and schools.
• Amazon Linux 2022 Released - Based On Fedora With Changes — Amazon Linux / Amazon Linux 2 had been based on a combination of RHEL and Fedora packages while in today's Amazon Linux 2022 release they note it's explicitly based on Fedora.
• amazon-linux-2022: Amazon Linux 2022
• Announcing preview of Amazon Linux 2022

Plus Pwned Passwords goes open source, the public release of Fuchsia, and Valve's rumored Linux handheld.

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• After staff revolt, Freenode management takes over hundreds of IRC channels for ‘policy violations’ — All told, it appears something like 700 Freenode channels have been seized and re-permissioned, supposedly because the channels mentioned Libera Chat in violation of Freenode's advertising policy.
• Freenode IRC staff resign en masse after takeover by Korea’s “crown prince”
• IRC Announcement - Fedora Magazine
• Ubuntu, Wikimedia jump ship to the Libera Chat IRC network after Freenode channel confiscations
• One week of Libera Chat — It’s been an exciting first week, and we’d like to say a massive thank you for your support, enthusiasm, and patience as we continue to work to bring Libera.Chat up to full capacity. In these first few days, we’ve been able to reach 16,500 simultaneous connections and 20,000 registered accounts.
• kline󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 on mastodon: “andrew lee just seized over 700 channels on freenode”
• PSA: Ubuntu’s IRC Channels Have Moved from Freenode to Libera Chat
• Gentoo Freenode channels have been hijacked — Today (2021-05-26) a large number of Gentoo channels have been hijacked by Freenode staff, including channels that were not yet migrated to Libera.chat. We cannot perceive this otherwise than as an open act of hostility and we have effectively left Freenode.
• Pwned Passwords, Open Source in the .NET Foundation and Working with the FBI
• Pwned Passwords is now open source!
• Troy Hunt on Twitter RE: the news
• The FBI will feed compromised passwords to Have I Been Pwned — As Hunt explained, the FBI is involved into all sorts of investigations into digital crimes, such as botnets, ransomware, online child sexual exploitation and terrorism. The compromised passwords they find are often being used by crime rings, so the passwords' quick addition to the HIBP database would be extremely helpful. That said, the website doesn't have a way for the feds to quickly feed passwords into its database yet.
• Google is releasing Fuchsia OS, starting w/ 1st-gen Nest Hub — Google’s long-in-development, from-scratch operating system, Fuchsia, is now running on real Made by Google devices, namely, the first-generation Nest Hub.
• Here’s an easier way to try Fuchsia OS on your computer
• Linux Action Show 431
• Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC — On Tuesday, SteamDB operator Pavel Djundik spotted the change in Steam's code, which pointed to a new device named "SteamPal".
• New Audacity Owners Want a CLA — For those not yet aware, we are introducing a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), which contributors to Audacity will need to sign in order to contribute code to the project.
• Information About Our New Contributor License Agreement
• Nextcloud iOS app Open Sourced
• GitHub: nextcloud/ios/COPYING.iOS
• Nextcloud iOS app License Guidelines
• List of Open-Source iOS Apps
• Jami on the Mac App Store
• mediaU on the App Store
• Linux Game Development at Tesla? — Some of you might have heard, our dear technoking is bullish on games and making an awesome platform for all gamers in Tesla vehicles. The latest Model S on our website can give you a hint of what we're aiming for in terms of platform capability (sorry, can't divulge much more for now). The Tesla infotainment OS and platform software are based on a standard Linux, so of course, we're interested in helping the gaming community make Linux gaming excellent.

Plus Google adds its weight behind Rust in the Linux Kernel, and the new security features landing in WSL2.

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• Dell to spin out remaining VMware stake, cements Friends With Benefits status for at least five years — The proposed transaction has been pitched as delivering value for shareholders, both in the short term and once the two corporations have less complicated structures that will let them compete more aggressively.
• Dell Technologies Announces Planned VMware Spin-Off — Under terms of the planned spin-off, VMware will distribute a special cash dividend of $11.5 - $12 billion to all VMware shareholders, including Dell Technologies.
• Dell Buys EMC For $67B In Largest Deal In Tech History
• COSMIC to Arrive in June Release of Pop!_OS 21.04 — We’re providing a honed desktop user experience in Pop!_OS through our GNOME-based desktop environment: COSMIC. It’s a refined solution that makes the desktop easier to use, yet more powerful and efficient for our users through customization.
• There’s no place like GNOME: System 76 introduces COSMIC desktop GUI for its Pop!_OS Linux — System76 said that it studied user behaviour and sought to refine key elements of the desktop accordingly.
• pop-os/cosmic: — Computer Operating System Main Interface Components
• Carl Richell on Twitter — Yes, indeed. Pop!_Shell will remain a separate extension.
• Carl Richell on Twitter — Yes, tiling will remain a separate extension and can be used on other distros. COMIC can as well.
• Carl Richell on Twitter — The is an extension that creates a unique GNOME UX while maintaining compatibility with GNOME and the GNOME app ecosystem and HIG.
• Carl Richell on Twitter — Pop with the COSMIC desktop.
• Carl Richell on Twitter — We’re currently developing and testing on X and Pop 21.04 will default to X as well. However, we may be able to shift over to Wayland for future releases with the recent nvidia news about Wayland driver support.
• Google backs effort to bring Rust to the Linux kernel — "We feel that Rust is now ready to join C as a practical language for implementing the kernel."
• Google Supports Getting Rust Into The Linux Kernel
• HN: Linus Torvalds on Rust support in kernel
• Linux 5.12 Diverted From Release To Allow An Extra Week Of Testing — Due to still a number of fixes landing this week, .Linus Torvalds decided to be safe and go for the extra round of testing.
• The 12 Most Interesting Changes Of Linux 5.12
• A bumpy 5.12 is due for release
• Element Matrix Services launches bridging for Microsoft Teams — A single Microsoft Teams Bridge supports unlimited users across unlimited channels. Pricing is based on the number of active users using the bridge from MS Teams, at a cost of $0.50 per user per month. Traffic from Element (or any other Matrix-based client) is free.
• HN: Will this bridge be be open source?
• Servicing the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2 Linux kernel — We’ve just shipped the 5.10.16.3 WSL 2 Linux kernel version to Windows Insiders which brings exciting new changes: Support for the LUKS disk encryption, and some long-awaited bug fixes.
• Microsoft Docs: Release Notes for WSL kernel
• microsoft/WSL: Issues found on WSL
• Hangover 0.6.5 Released For Running Windows Software On ARM64, POWER — Wednesday's release of Hangover 0.6.5 now allows for starting QEMU automatically if needed.

Plus a PSA for GNOME users, and a recently improved tool for the Raspberry Pi.

Special Guest: Dalton Durst.

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• Ubuntu Touch OTA-16 Release — Today we are happy to announce the release of Ubuntu Touch OTA-16, our sixteenth stable update to the system!
• Find your device: devices.ubuntu-touch.io — This list shows the devices which are currently under development in the Ubuntu Touch ecosystem. Mature devices have easy access to installation through the UBports Installer. Devices in an early state generally need to follow a manual installation procedure.
• Ubuntu Touch Q&A 96
• Extensions Rebooted: Porting your existing extensions to GNOME 40 — Since there have been significant changes in GNOME Shell – it will be important to understand where those changes are and how they might affect the various extensions that are out there.
• Guide: Port Extensions to GNOME Shell 40
• XWayland 21.1 Standalone Released To Offer Better X11 Client On Wayland Experience — With no one willing to step up and manage the X.Org Server 1.21 release Red Hat engineers are now moving ahead with standalone XWayland releases.
• Cloud CPU Benchmarking Report
• Google is preparing for Fuchsia’s first releases — For years now, we’ve been watching and waiting as Google has gradually developed their Fuchsia operating system from the ground up. Now evidence has appeared pointing to Google’s Fuchsia OS getting its first — and second — proper release.
• Raspberry Pi Imager Now Lets You Control Advanced OS Features When Flashing Images — The biggest new feature in this release is the implementation of a hidden advanced options panel which lets you control additional features for the operating system you’re about to flash on an SD card or SSD drive.
• GitHub: rpi-imager v1.6

Plus our rundown of the feature-packed 5.11 release, a Fuchsia surprise, exciting hardware news, and more.

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• Dev creeped out after he fired up Ubuntu VM on Azure, was immediately approached by Canonical sales rep — "The creepiest thing," he said, "[was] the direct contact on my private LinkedIn account" – which he noted did not share "the same corporate email.
• ＣｙｂｅｒＡｎｔａｎｉ on Twitter
• KDE Plasma 5.21 is Packed with New Features — KDE Plasma 5.21 is going to be released on February 16 and when it arrives it’ll bring a barrel load of changes and enhancements with it.
• This week in KDE — Plasma 5.21 approaches!
• Linux 5.11 Is Heavy On New Features, Improvements For 2021 — There are a ton of Intel and AMD changes, Syscall User Dispatch for helping some newer Windows games run under Wine, continued IO_uring advancements, many Btrfs file-system improvements, Lenovo contributed ThinkPad palm sensor detection support, and much more.
• Linux 5.11 - Linux Kernel Newbies
• Syscall User Dispatch Appears Destined For Linux 5.11 To Help Windows Games On Linux
• AMD Ryzen, EPYC 5~6% Faster Out-Of-The-Box With Linux 5.11
• Intel Xe Graphics Are Looking Great On Linux 5.11 With Nice Performance Uplift
• OpenLiteSpeed WordPress Server | Linode Marketplace
• System76 Begins Detailing Their Open-Source “Launch Configurable Keyboard” — Like the Thelio computers, System76 is going to be manufacturing their own keyboards at their facility in Denver, Colorado.
• Keyboards Go Open Source With System76’s ‘Launch Configurable Keyboard’
• system76/launch on GitHub — System76 Launch Configurable Keyboard
• System76 on Twitter — “The Launch keyboard PCB! #system76 #launch #keyboard #linux #comingsoon #sneakpeek"
• AMD Is Currently Hiring More Linux Engineers — Several of these new job descriptions do begin with, "step up into a new organization built to engage more strategically and deeply with the technical teams of our commercial customers."
• AMD “Green Sardine” Firmware Published For Linux Users
• Google Fuchsia OS could run Android & Linux apps ‘natively’ — This week, a proposal has been put forward for an alternative solution for Fuchsia to run programs meant for Linux and Android. Instead of running Linux itself, Fuchsia would gain a system called “Starnix,” which would act as a translator between instructions for the Linux kernel and instructions for Fuchsia’s Zircon kernel.
• [rfc] Running unmodified Linux programs on Fuchsia
• Fuchsia - Starnix Proposal
• Hacker News Comments — Running unmodified Linux programs on Fuchsia
• Homework: Uncovering a 24-year-old bug in the Linux Kernel
• Homework: Visual guide to SSH tunnels
• Homework: FOSDEM 2021 Videos

Plus our reaction to Microsoft's Android subsystem that's in the works.

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• Prolonged AWS outage takes down a big chunk of the internet — Amazon noted that the issues are only affecting one of its 23 geographic AWS regions. But the problem was significant enough to take out a large number of internet services.
• Geoff Belknap on Twitter — “I… can’t vacuum… because us-east-1 is down.”
• Canonical publishes LTS Docker Image Portfolio on Docker Hub — The LTS Docker Image Portfolio comes with up to ten years Extended Security Maintenance by Canonical.
• Vivaldi Integrates Email Client, Feed Reader, and Calendar in a Browser — The Vivaldi team announced that they are bringing an Email client, a Feed Reader, and a Calendar – all of these together in the latest Vivaldi technical preview release.
• Introducing Vivaldi Mail in Technical Preview
• How to use the built-in GPG feature for Thunderbird
• Systemd 247 Released With Experimental Out-of-Memory Daemon, New Credentials Capability — systemd 247 is very heavy on new features, and one big change for udev.
• [systemd-devel] systemd 247 released
• NTFS read-write driver GPL implementation by Paragon Software — The Paragon NTFS kernel driver patch is now on its 13th iteration
• Microsoft is working on an Android subsystem for Windows 10 — This new initiative is called 'Project Latte,' and similar to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), will create a virtualized Android environment running directly within Windows 10.

Plus an important Let's Encrypt update, and the next billion-dollar tech coming to Linux.

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• Raspberry Pi 400: the $70 desktop PC — The Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit is the “Christmas morning” product, with the best possible out-of-box experience: a complete PC which plugs into your TV or monitor.
• Raspberry Pi 400 - First Impressions
• Raspberry Pi 400 review—the under-$100 desktop PC you didn’t know you needed
• Dell is Adding Webcam and Microphone Kill Switches — Dell is adding new code in Linux kernel that will enable you to disable newer Dell system’s webcam and microphone with keyboard shortcuts. Why? Because privacy.
• Dell Adding Hardware Privacy Driver For Linux
• Let's Encrypt warns about a third of Android devices will from next year stumble over sites that use its certs — Expiration of cross-signed root certificates spells trouble
• Standing on Our Own Two Feet - Let's Encrypt
• Chrome will soon have its own dedicated certificate root store — Currently, Chrome uses the certificate root store part of each operating system. Google plans to manage its own list of "approved" certificates from now on, similar to Firefox.
• BPF binaries: BTF, CO-RE, and the future of BPF perf tools — Two new technologies, BTF and CO-RE, are paving the way for BPF to become a billion-dollar industry.
• What is eBPF?
• eBPF: Put the Kubernetes Data Plane in the Kernel
• LINUX Unplugged 293: Netflix's Gift to Linux

Plus Mozilla and KaiOS team up to bring the modern web to feature phones, and the surprising way Microsoft is shipping a Linux kernel.

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• Firefox 74 arrives with stricter add-on rules, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 disabled — Starting with Firefox 74, users will need to take explicit action to install the extensions they want, and will be able to remove previously sideloaded extensions when they want to.
• Introducing GNOME 3.36: “Gresik” — GNOME 3.36 is the latest version of GNOME 3, and is the result of 6 months’ hard work by the GNOME community. It contains major new features, such as new login and unlock experience, and a dedicated app for managing extensions.
• GNOME 3.36 Released with New Lock Screen, Better Performance — Six months of development later and the official GNOME 3.36 release is finally here, with source code available to download from the usual places.
• Announcing Bottlerocket — Bottlerocket comes with a single-step update mechanism and includes only the essential software to run containers. These properties enable customers to use container orchestrators to manage OS updates with minimal disruptions, enabling better uptime for containerized applications and lower operational cost.
• Docker: Helping You and Your Development Team Build and Ship Faster — How are we going to do this? By focusing on developer experience through Docker Desktop, partnering with the ecosystem, and making Docker Hub the nexus for all the integrations, configuration, and management of the application components which constitute your apps and microservices.
• VMware Announces Expanded Portfolio of Products and Services to Help Customers Modernize Applications and Infrastructure — Tanzu, first introduced at the VMworld event in August 2019, is a portfolio of products centered on K8s. Also announced was vSphere 7, newly rearchitected using Kubernetes, and optimized to run both modern container-based and traditional virtual machine-based workloads.
• KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enable a healthy mobile internet for everyone — This partnership bolsters the security and performance of KaiOS-enabled smart feature phones, as well as the platform’s developer tools, security, and available functions, including better Progressive Web App and WebAssembly support.
• Magisk may no longer be able to hide bootloader unlocking from apps — Users have noticed that their bootloader-unlocked devices are failing SafetyNet’s Basic Integrity check even though they used Magisk to patch the boot image. According to Magisk creator John Wu, this is because Google may have implemented hardware-level key attestation to verify that the boot image has not been tampered with.
• Kernels for WSL2 will come from Windows Update — WSL2 will soon be officially available as part of Windows 10, version 2004! As we get ready for general availability, we want to share one additional change: updating how the Linux kernel inside of WSL2 is installed and serviced on your machine.

Plus, the sad loss of a community member, and more.

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• Peppermint project lead Mark Greaves has passed away. — His contributions to both Peppermint and to the desktop Linux world as a whole are incalculable and he will be sorely missed.
• Mozilla lays off 70 as it waits for new products to generate revenue — Mozilla has a strong line of sight to future revenue generation, but we are taking a more conservative approach to our finances.
• Readying for the Future at Mozilla
• DigitalOcean is laying off staff, sources say 30-50 affected
• Nextcloud Hub Announced — New generation of leading content collaboration platform integrates office document editing and collaboration apps, introduces workflows, rich work spaces, file locking and more
• Nextcloud 18 Changelog
• Huawei pitches its alternative to Google Play Store — Huawei Mobile Services wants to make a big splash in Europe, with thousands of apps already signed up
• Huawei Quick Apps is Huawei's alternative to Google Instant Apps
• Exclusive: Google is working to bring official Steam support to Chrome OS — The Chrome team is working—very possibly in cooperation with Valve—to bring Steam to Chromebooks.

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• Amazon takes aim at MongoDB with launch of Mongo-compatible DocumentDB
• MongoDB "open-source" Server Side Public License rejected
• Redis Labs raises $60 million for its NoSQL database
• Redis Labs changes its open-source license — again
• Keeping Open Source Open – Open Distro for Elasticsearch
• Chef goes 100% open source
• Google jumps into gaming with Google Stadia streaming service
• Google Stadia will be missing many features for Monday’s launch
• Supporting choice and competition in Europe
• Presenting search app and browser options to Android users in Europe
• Android Developers Blog: Welcoming Android 10!
• Project Mainline is Google’s new way to speed up security updates in Android Q
• Adiantum: encryption for the low end
• All Chromebooks will also be Linux laptops going forward
• Google gives most Chromebooks an extra year of software support
• Google and fwupd sitting in a tree
• Phoenix joins the LVFS
• Please welcome HP to the LVFS
• LVFS Project Announcement
• Announcing the Open Sourcing of Windows Calculator
• Introducing Windows Terminal
• Microsoft Will Release Their Edge Web Browser For Linux
• Microsoft Teams is now available on Linux
• Announcing WSL 2
• Ubuntu 19.04 'Disco Dingo' Released with New Features
• Intel 32bit packages on Ubuntu from 19.10 onwards
• Statement on 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS
• Enhancing our ZFS support on Ubuntu 19.10
• Ubuntu 19.10 Released
• Will Cooke, the Director of Engineering for the Ubuntu desktop, has left Canonical
• Canonical announces Ubuntu Pro for Amazon Web Services
• Red Hat Opens the Linux Experience to Every Enterprise, Every Cloud and Every Workload with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
• Red Hat crosses US$3b annual revenue for first time
• Announcing the release of Fedora 30
• IBM Closes Landmark Acquisition of Red Hat for $34 Billion; Defines Open, Hybrid Cloud Future
• Introducing Fedora CoreOS
• Presenting CentOS Stream
• Fedora 31 is officially here!

Plus Google Cardboard goes open source, and a neat machine-learning tool to pull songs apart.

Special Guest: Wes Payne.

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• Google gives most Chromebooks an extra year of software support — Seven Chromebooks from Lenovo recently had their support lifespan extended, and now Google has updated the EOL date for 135 more models from several manufacturers. Most models received another year of support, others only got another six months, and some now have two more years.
• What’s new in Chrome OS: Virtual Desks, simpler printing and more — Think of Virtual Desks as separate workspaces within your Chromebook. Use this feature to create helpful boundaries between projects or activities. If you’re working on multiple projects, you can dedicate a desk to each one. Open Overview and tap New Desk in the top right-hand corner of your screen to try out Virtual Desks.
• Google Enlists Outside Help to Clean Up Android's Malware Mess — Today Google is announcing a partnership with three antivirus firms—ESET, Lookout, and Zimperium—to create an App Defense Alliance.
• Open sourcing Google Cardboard — Today, we’re releasing the Cardboard open source project to let the developer community continue to build Cardboard experiences and add support to their apps for an ever increasing diversity of smartphone screen resolutions and configurations.
• Access ESM, now free to the community, via the updated Ubuntu Advantage client — Canonical is happy to announce that all community users are entitled to a free Ubuntu Advantage for Infrastructure account for access to Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) and Kernel Livepatch* for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) for up to three machines, and up to 50 machines for all official Ubuntu Members.
• Releasing Spleeter: Deezer Research source separation engine — We are releasing Spleeter to help the research community in Music Information Retrieval (MIR) leverage the power of a state-of-the-art source separation algorithm. It comes in the form of a Python Library based on Tensorflow, with pretrained models for 2, 4 and 5 stems separation.
• Microsoft Will Release Their Edge Web Browser For Linux — Microsoft announced at their Ignite conference in Seattle that their Edge web-browser will see a Linux release

Plus why you might actually want to use the new Dex, significant performance gains for a beloved project, and more.

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• NVIDIA Starts Publishing GPU Hardware Documentation To Help Open-Source Drivers — NVIDIA is releasing more GPU hardware documentation at long last.
• GitHub - NVIDIA/open-gpu-doc
• Enhancing our ZFS support on Ubuntu 19.10 — We are going to enhance ZFS on root support in the coming cycles. Ubuntu 19.10 is a first-round towards that goal. We want to support ZFS on root as an experimental installer option, initially for desktop, but keeping the layout extensible for server later on.
• Big performance improvements for LibreOffice — The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 6.3, a feature-rich major release of the LibreOffice 6 family with better performance, a large number of new and improved features, and enhanced interoperability with proprietary document formats:
• You might actually want to use the new DeX on the Galaxy Note 10 — Among the many new updates and features coming with the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus is a revamped take on DeX, Samsung’s desktop-like software that is powered by the phone.
• Huawei officially reveals Harmony OS — Harmony OS is microkernel-based, like Google’s in-development Fuchsia OS.
• Linux Journal Ceases Publication — On August 7, 2019, Linux Journal shut its doors for good. All staff were laid off and the company is left with no operating funds to continue in any capacity.
• Linux Format - Print or Digital

Plus how Sailfish OS 3.1 is stepping things up, the first 16-core RISC-V chip is revealed, and more.

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• Introducing Fedora CoreOS — A new Fedora edition built specifically for running containerized workloads securely and at scale.
• VLC developer debunks reports of ‘critical security issue’ — Widespread reports of a ‘critical security issue’ that supposedly impacted users of VLC media player have been debunked as “completely bogus” by developers.
• Android Phones Open to ‘Spearphone’ Eavesdropping — A Spearphone attacker can use the accelerometer in LG and Samsung phones to remotely eavesdrop on any audio that’s played on speakerphone, including calls, music and voice assistant responses.
• Sailfish OS 3.1 released — Redesigns to core apps such as People, Phone, Messages and Clock. Other areas that have been improved include; Document viewers, Email, Calendar, Dual SIM Card viewer information and Gallery gestures which have been improved.
• Mozilla debuts implementation of open source router firmware — Experimental builds of WebThings Gateway 0.9 are available on GitHub for the Turris Omnia router, with expanded support for routers and developer boards to come down the line.
• Alibaba Reveals 16-core RISC-V Chip — Alibaba Group’s chip subsidiary, Pingtouge Semiconductor, this week announced what it claims is the most powerful RISC-V based processor

Plus Google argues that keeping Huawei on their Android is better for all, and Chris gets sucked into Stadia.

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• Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default — At Firefox, we’re doing more than that. We believe that in order to truly protect people, we need to establish a new standard that puts people’s privacy first.
• Relicensing CockroachDB — But our past outlook on the right business model relied on a crucial norm in the OSS world: that companies could build a business around a strong open source core product without a much larger technology platform company coming along and offering the same product as a service. That norm no longer holds.   
• Microsoft and Oracle link up their clouds — Microsoft and Oracle announced a new alliance today that will see the two companies directly connect their clouds over a direct network connection so that their users can then move workloads and data seamlessly between the two.
• Google is fighting to keep doing business with Huawei — Three sources told the Financial Times that Google's argument is that cutting ties with Huawei could pose a national security risk.
• Stadia details announced — Stadia games run on custom Linux-based server hardware maintained by Google, promising "10.7 teraflops of power in each instance." Game audio and video is streamed from those servers to a user's device, and inputs are streamed from the user to the server over a network of what Google says are "7,500 edge nodes" around the world.

Plus Alpine Linux Docker images shipped for 3 years with root accounts unlocked, and Google's new attempt to send updates directly to your phone.

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• RHEL 8 released — Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is the operating system redesigned for the hybrid cloud era and built to support the workloads and operations that stretch from enterprise datacenters to multiple public clouds.
• Considerations in adopting RHEL 8
• IBM's Red Hat acquisition moves forward — The Department of Justice has approved IBM's acquisition of Red Hat.
• WSL 2 using LTS source from Kernel.org
• Canonical announces support for Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2
• WSL 2 deep dive - YouTube
• All new Chromebooks will run Linux apps — Google has announced that all new Chromebook devices will be Linux ready.
• Project Mainline is Google’s new attempt to send security updates directly to your phone — Google will start delivering some Android security updates through the Play Store
• Alpine Linux Docker Images Shipped for 3 Years with Root Accounts Unlocked — This vulnerability appears to be the result of a regression introduced in December of 2015.
• Alpine Linux's response to CVE-2019-5021
• Gartner says 90% of blockchain supply chain initiatives will go nowhere — Research firm Gartner is unimpressed.
• The Friday Stream

Also WebThings is launched and we think it might have a shot.

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• Ubuntu 19.04 'Disco Dingo' Released — Improved performance is what defines the ‘Disco Dingo’
• Open infrastructure, developers and IoT are 19.04's focus — Ubuntu 19.04 integrates recent innovations from key open infrastructure projects – like OpenStack, Kubernetes, and Ceph – with advanced life-cycle management for multi-cloud and on-prem operations – from bare metal, VMware and OpenStack to every major public cloud.
• Ubuntu 19.04 Flavours Available to Download
• Introducing Mozilla WebThings — Project Things is graduating from its early experimental phase and from now on will be known as Mozilla WebThings.
• WebThings Documentation
• Pyodide — Pyodide is an experimental project from Mozilla to create a full Python data science stack that runs entirely in the browser.
• OpenSSH 8.0 released — This release contains mitigation for a weakness in the scp(1) tool and protocol (CVE-2019-6111).
• Presenting search app and browser options to Android users in Europe — Following the changes we made to comply with the European Commission's ruling last year, we’ll start presenting new screens to Android users in Europe with an option to download search apps and browsers.  

Plus Microsoft open sources Windows Calculator, and a quick recap of SCaLE 17x.

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• Ubuntu Touch OTA-8 Released — OTA-8 is primarily a stability improvement release as we continue to work on using upstream technologies in Ubuntu Touch, increasing our project output.
• PureOS convergence — Purism’s PureOS showcasing adaptive convergent design
• Announcing Maru 0.6 Okinawa — In Maru 0.6 Okinawa, the game completely changes, laying the foundation to run Maru on nearly any Android device.
• Android app devs to get new monetisation method — Google Play is excited to announce rewarded products, a new product type now available in open beta in the Play Console.
• Google Glass’ second-gen enterprise model leaks — Google’s not-quite-there vision of the future is getting a second enterprise model
• Microsoft open-sources Windows Calculator — Today, we’re excited to announce that we are open sourcing Windows Calculator on GitHub under the MIT License.
• calc.exe is now open source

Plus Google's new Linux hardware, Flatpaks have met their critic, and more.

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• Ubuntu Touch OTA 5 released — While many have already joined the community on 16.04 with OTA-4, in addition to the long-term support of upstream Ubuntu development, OTA-5 will include a more stable experience, new tweaks, and new features to show off this next stage of Ubuntu Touch development.
• Plasma 5.14 released — A lot of work has gone into improving Discover, Plasma's software manager, and, among other things, we have added a Firmware Update feature and many subtle user interface improvements to give it a smoother feel. We have also rewritten many effects in our window manager KWin and improved it for slicker animations in your work day. Other improvements we have made include a new Display Configuration widget which is useful when giving presentations.
• User Error Episode 50: Understand The Hype — It seems to be all about Plasma these days so we want to know if the hype is justified.
• Website criticises Flatpaks — To make matters worse, the users are misled to believe the apps run sandboxed. For all these apps flatpak shows a reassuring "sandbox" icon when installing the app
• Redis modules forked — Redis put some of the program's code under the anti-open-source Common Clause license. Now, developers are counterattacking by forking the code.
• Microsoft joins OIN — Joining OIN reflects Microsoft’s patent practice evolving in lock-step with the company’s views on Linux and open source more generally.
• ChromeOS tablet launched — The Pixel Slate is a Chrome OS tablet with a detachable keyboard cover that turns it into something very closely resembling a laptop.
• Restyling apps at scale

Plus a new release of our favorite non-distro, GPL revoking debunking, and Android turns 10.

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• Android turns 10 — This was an era in which Android devices were responding to Apple, and not vice versa as we find today.
• Google's Project Zero criticises Linux distros for tardy kernel patches — Project Zero accuses Linux distributions of leaving users exposed to known kernel vulnerabilities for weeks.
• CVE-2018-17182 in Ubuntu — As of 2018-09-26, fixes for this issue are applied to all kernels uploaded to RELEASE-proposed today. and should be released around Monday, Oct 1, 2018.
• No, GPL can't be revoked — For anybody who has been concerned by the talk from a few outsiders about revoking GPL licensing, this new section in the Software Freedom Conservancy's copyleft guide is worth a read. Thus, anyone downstream of the contributor (which is anyone using the contributor’s code), has an irrevocable license from the contributor. A contributor may claim to revoke their grant, and subsequently sue for copyright infringement, but a court would likely find the revocation was ineffective and the downstream user had a valid license defense to a claim of infringement.
• KDE neon Rebased on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS — The KDE neon team is proud to announce the rebase of our packages onto Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver". We encourage all users to upgrade now. The installable ISOs and Docker images have also been updated to run on 18.04.
• At least half of Azure is running Linux — "it's about half now, but it varies on the day because a lot of these workloads are elastic, but sometimes slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux." Microsoft later clarified, "about half Azure VMs are Linux."
• Firefox can now tell you when you get pwned — Mozilla is taking this a step further by also letting you sign up for alerts for when your accounts appear in any (known) breaches in the future.
• Mintcast needs new hosts — Rob and Isaac talk about ending their time doing the podcast and ask who would like to take over.
• Linux Academy Job Openings

Plus some innovative tech gets an open source implementation, and NSA encryption removed from the kernel within weeks of inclusion.

Special Guest: Wes Payne.

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• GNOME 3.30 Released — The latest version of GNOME 3 has been released today. Version 3.30 contains six months of work by the GNOME community and includes many improvements and new features.
• Tor browser 8.0 released — Tor Browser 8.0, our first stable release based on Firefox 60 ESR, is now available from the Tor Browser Project page and also from our distribution directory. This release is all about users first.
• Official Tor browser for Android released — Tor Project, the not-for-profit body behind the anonymizing Tor browser, has launched the first official Tor mobile browser app.
• Librem 5 delayed — Purism has been working with the silicon vendor directly to evaluate the upcoming CPU for this silicon power management issue that would have a significant negative impact on the Librem 5’s battery life. Ultimately, this issue is going to lead to a three month delay in the production schedule for the final Librem 5 phone.
• Debian-Based Android WiFi RTT Indoor Location Tracking — CompuLab have introduced WILD, the first WiFi RTT access point to allow for WiFi indoor location detection/tracking with supported Android 9 smartphones.
• Speck to be removed from the kernel — The speck removal patch has been merged into the development crypto code base by subsystem maintainer Herbert Xu. The patch merged overnight strips the kernel of Speck.
• Kernel Maintainer’s Summit moved continents to accommodate Linus — The Maintainer's Summit will take place in Edinburgh, on Monday afternoon, October 22nd.

Plus mixed news for Google, and a surprising blockchain fact.

Special Guest: Wes Payne.

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• Ubuntu Touch OTA 4 Released — After eight months of work, the UBports Foundation is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu Touch OTA-4. This release features Ubuntu 16.04 as its base (previously 15.04), bringing security fixes and greater stability to unseen corners of the operating system.
• LMDE 3 released — The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 3 “Cindy” Cinnamon Edition.
• Mozilla publishes Firefox user data — As an organization, Mozilla has always championed transparency, and today, it’s taking this one step further by pulling back the curtains on its internal data for how many people regularly use Firefox and how they use the browser.
• Firefox to block tracking — In the near future, Firefox will — by default — protect users by blocking tracking while also offering a clear set of controls to give our users more choice over what information they share with sites.
• Google hands off Kubernetes to the community with $9M donation — As a testament to Kubernetes’ maturity, we’re excited to take the next step, and are opening the Kubernetes project's cloud resources up to contributors. We’re funding this move with a $9 million grant of GCP credits
• Blow for Google in Oracle Android case — Google will have to go to the US Supreme Court if it wants to contest the reversal of a verdict — in a long-running case with Oracle — that had found its use of 37 Java APIs in the Android mobile operating system was covered by fair use.
• Blockchain is a lot older than you might think — the world’s oldest blockchain predates Bitcoin by 13 years and it’s been hiding in plain sight, printed weekly in the classified section of one of the world’s most widely circulated newspapers: The New York Times.

Plus the EU fines Google over how they leverage Android, some follow up, and more.

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• REAPER 5.93 Brings New Linux-Native Builds
• REAPER | Technical Features — Forum
• Atari VCS update/FAQ
• Librem 5 update
• EU fines Google $5BN
• Google responds
• Introducing Data Transfer Project
• Slackware turns 25

Plus the reality of EFail, Steam Link on Android, and another shoe drops for Ubuntu's 32bit support.

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• AsteroidOS 1.0 released — AsteroidOS is built on standard Linux technologies including OpenEmbedded, opkg, Wayland, Qt5, systemd, BlueZ, and PulseAudio.
• EFAIL — EFAIL describes vulnerabilities in the end-to-end encryption technologies OpenPGP and S/MIME that leak the plaintext of encrypted emails.
• GnuPG's Efail press release Response
• Nautilus removes the ability to execute binaries — Or, to put it another way, you won’t be able to double-click on programs, scripts or apps to launch them using Nautilus.
• But then brings it back — A few cases appeared that we need to support, specially for enterprise and content creators. Specifically, cases similar to #434
• Steam Link on Android — Stream PC games to your Android smartphone
• Malware found in (and removed from) the Snap Store — This situation marks the first major “security” issue in the Snappy packaging system. But although unwelcome this particular fail is not necessarily as frightening as it sounds at first, nor is is necessarily a fault with the Snappy format.
• Kubuntu to drop 32-bit images — I'm reluctant to do this, however, I do not have the time or technical knowledge required to do this on my own, and the Kubuntu Devels want Kubuntu to stop issuing i386 images.
• Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is now on Windows 10 — Bionic beavering away on Windows
• TechSNAP Episode 368: EFail Explained

Plus a new magazine from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, several vulnerabilities in Intel's Management Engine, and more!

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• Google collected location data from Android users who didn't know — In a nutshell, the whereabouts of every active Android phone and tablet in the world were tracked even with location services disabled and no carrier SIM card inserted.
• Ubuntu want community input on Mir — However we’re also at the place where we need to reach out to the community and ask what are the aspects of your desktop that you value most, to help us figure out a direction for Mir.
• New magazine from the Raspberry Pi Foundation - Hackspace — The first issue of HackSpace magazine is here! Join us as we explore thinking machines, build a trebuchet, learn how Arduino changed the world, see how far we can overclock a Raspberry Pi using liquid nitrogen, and much more…
• Linus gets heated about kernel security — Linux Lord fires up over proposal to secure Linux by shutting down wonky processes
• Then calmly explains his position — His long post on the matter suggested to security practitioners that “'Do no harm' should be your mantra for any new hardening work.”
• Others act like children — So on the day of Kees' presentation, where he tried to drop a useless 0day on me and talk up how many upstream developers reviewed his code that did the same limitation *right*, I wrote an exploit of my own.
• Vulnerability in Intel Management Engine — Remote attackers could launch commands on a host of Intel-based computers, including laptops and desktops shipped with Intel Core processors since 2015.

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• Mint to add Flatpak support — The project says the upcoming release of Linux Mint 18.3 will come with “full support” for Flatpak out of the box. This will include integration with the Linux Mint Software Manager.
• Drop KDE edition — The Linux Mint crew has confirmed today they will be discontinuing future releases of their KDE spin following next month's Linux Mint 18.3 release.
• Oracle Could Still Make ZFS A First-Class Upstream Linux File-System — Mark wants to see ZFS become a core part of Linux. He wants it to become "the file-system of Linux" and "that could happen" for "core Linux." He later said, "it's a possibility... but I can't say how strong of a possibility," that includes talking with Oracle lawyers about the code license of both ZFS and Solaris.
• Open ZFS File-System Running On Windows
• Google Play Protect isn't very good at spotting malware — When exposed to recent Android malware samples, six of the 20 software suites sampled correctly flagged every single one as evil and prevented them from running. Eight more managed a 99 per cent or higher hit rate. Google's own system, Play Protect, only detected 65.8 per cent of threats.
• Mozilla helps out TOR and so can you — Today we’re launching our end-of-year crowdfunding campaign, “Powering Digital Resistance,” highlighting Tor’s work protecting essential human rights around the world. As part of this end-of-year campaign, Mozilla is matching donations up to a total of $500,000 -- so your donation to the Tor Project will go twice as far!
• Solus looking for help with aesthetics for Solus 4 — If you wanna help us improve the default experience for the next ISO, or you've some mad creative skills, let us know!
• Steam VR Marketshare Already Larger Than Steam Linux Marketshare — Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais‏ who is heavily involved in their Linux efforts as well as those around virtual reality has commented the VR market-share is already larger than the entire Steam Linux market-share.
• Putin Will Require Cryptocurrency Miners to Register With the Government — After months of conflicting statements, Russia has finally outlined its plan for cryptocurrencies.

Special Guest: Wes Payne.

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• GNOME officially on board for the Librem 5 — The GNOME Foundation is committed to partnering with Purism to create hackfests, tools, emulators, and build awareness that surround moving GNOME/GTK onto the Librem 5 phone.
• Replicant expands list of supported devices — A few months have passed since the initial Replicant 6.0 release and it’s time for another one. This release more than doubles the number of supported devices and contains a few important fixes and improvements.
• UBports release OTA 2 — The UBports project is excited to announce the immediate availability of Ubuntu Touch 15.04 OTA-2. This is a huge release for the Ubuntu Touch platform, bringing new supported devices, new features, and many bug fixes.
• Launching Pipewire! — Pipewire is the latest creation of GStreamer co-creator Wim Taymans. The original reason it was created was that we realized that as desktop applications would be moving towards primarly being shipped as containerized Flatpaks we would need something for video similar to what PulseAudio was doing for Audio.
• EFF quits W3C over Encrypted Media Extensions — In 2013, EFF was disappointed to learn that the W3C had taken on the project of standardizing “Encrypted Media Extensions,” an API whose sole function was to provide a first-class role for DRM within the Web browser ecosystem. By doing so, the organization offered the use of its patent pool, its staff support, and its moral authority to the idea that browsers can and should be designed to cede control over key aspects from users to remote parties.
• Facebook finally caves on react.js license — Next week, we are going to relicense our open source projects React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js under the MIT license. We're relicensing these projects because React is the foundation of a broad ecosystem of open source software for the web, and we don't want to hold back forward progress for nontechnical reasons.
• Red Hat Announces Broad Expansion to Open Source Patent Promise — The expanded Patent Promise, while consistent with Red Hat’s prior positions, breaks new ground in expanding the amount of software covered and otherwise clarifying the scope of the promise. Red Hat believes its updated Patent Promise represents the broadest commitment to protecting the open source software community to date.

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• Ubuntu Rally in NYC — The Ubuntu Rally, taking place in New York City September 25th-29th, is a forward-thinking five day software hackathon attended by major software vendors, Ubuntu developers working at every level of the stack, and community contributors.
• 17.10 Beta 1 of Ubuntu flavours released — The first beta is available today for the Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" release for the flavors opting in to participate in this development milestone ahead of the official launch in October.
• Reddit closes its source — Open-source makes it hard for us to develop some features "in the clear" (like our recent video launch) without leaking our plans too far in advance. As Reddit is now a larger player on the web, it is hard for us to be strategic in our planning when everyone can see what code we are committing.
• Phoenix OS urged to open source their kernel — So a dedicated fan of the platform, Karol Putra, has created a Change.org petition in hopes that it will change their minds.
• Petition update · Victory! — It's most likely really the Phoenix OS kernel as it carries slight unique modifications in comparison to Android-x86 and it's forks
• Google mandates 4.4+ kernel for Oreo — Starting this year with smartphones which ship with Android Oreo, Google is requiring that all SoCs productized in 2017 must launch with kernel 4.4 or newer.
• Essential underdelivers — Essential – a device, marketing team, and CEO that seem to blur the lines between fact and fiction and possible and impossible
• Then Essential royally screws up — Dozens of customers replied with their personal information, but those emails didn’t just go to Essential. Instead, they went out to everybody who had received the original email.
• Blockchain is big in big business — Hundreds of projects have collectively raised more than a billion dollars through “initial coin offerings” (ICOs). There are now tokens funding every conceivable endeavor
• Linux creeps above 3% browser marketshare — According to Net Applications' Netmarketshare, the Linux market share on the desktop as judged by browser interactions may now be above 3%.

Plus more good news for Firefox users, and why Google's "streaming OS updates" could be great for the Android ROM community.

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• Snaps in Solus — Occurs to me that I likely have to make some kind of statement or whathaveyou about the whole "Solus adopting snaps" thing.
• Ubuntu Community Hub Proposal — I propose we replace the Community Portal with a dynamic and collaboratively maintained site. The site would raise the profile of conversations and content, to improve our onboarding and communication issues.
• Ubuntu Artful Desktop Fit and Finish Sprint — First up is the Desktop Fit & Finish Sprint on August 24th and 25th.
• 50% CPU savings w/Hardware Accelerated Video Playback — We’re testing some patches to Chromium 60 in Artful to enable video acceleration and we’re seeing roughly a 50% saving in CPU overhead when using VA API.
• Nextcloud push into education — Today we are very proud to officially announce the Nextcloud Education Edition, developed in collaboration with Moodle, DeiC, regio iT, the TU Berlin and Univention.
• Firefox 55 — Performance changes include significantly faster startup times when restoring lots of tabs and settings that let users take greater control of our new multi-process architecture. We’ve also upgraded the address bar to make finding what you want easier, with search suggestions and the integration of our one-click search feature, and safer, by prioritizing the secure - https - version of sites when possible.
• Firefox 55 Advanced Performance Features — Firefox 55 introduces several new low-level capabilities that help improve the performance of demanding web applications
• Epiphany gets Firefox Sync — You can sync bookmarks, history, passwords, and open tabs with other Epiphany instances and as well as both desktop and mobile Firefox.
• Photon UI — Version 57 of Firefox is slated to be released sometime in November and the biggest user facing change is its new user interface.
• Android 8.0’s “streaming OS updates” will work even if your phone is full | Ars Technica — Starting with Android 8.0, the A/B system partition setup is being upgraded with a "streaming updates" feature. Update data will arrive from the Internet directly to the offline system partition, written block by block, in a ready-to-boot state.

Welcome to Linux Action News's debut episode. It’s our goal to build the show you go to when you want to hear an informed discussion about what’s happening.

We kick things off with a busy news week.

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• Canonical starts IPO path — At OpenStack Summit, Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth revealed in an interview that the recent changes in the Linux and cloud power were to ready Canonical for an IPO.
• Microsoft is bringing Ubuntu, SUSE, and Fedora to the Windows Store — With the new Fall Creators Update, users will be able to install Ubuntu, SUSE, and Fedora as apps on their device, allowing them to run Windows and Linux applications side-by-side without dual-booting.
• OpenWRT and LEDE agree on Linux-for-routers peace plan • The Register — The terms will see LEDE fold back into OpenWRT. Persisting with the latter name was deemed non-negotiable by the OpenWRT faction. The agreement also proposes closing the LEDE GitHub repo, rebuilding LEDE's web site so it ha OpenWRT branding and basically burying the LEDE brand. LEDE code will live on as OpenWRT will be required to keep forked trees available.
• Here comes Treble: A modular base for Android | Android Developers Blog — With Android O, we've been working very closely with device makers and silicon manufacturers to take steps toward solving this problem, and we're excited to give you a sneak peek at Project Treble, the biggest change to the low-level system architecture of Android to date.
• Google’s “Project Treble” solves one of Android’s many update roadblocks | Ars Technica — Project Treble" is a plan to modularize the Android OS, separating the OS framework code from "vendor specific" hardware code. In theory, this change would allow for a new Android update to be flashed on a device without any involvement from the silicon vendor. 
• Google’s “Fuchsia” smartphone OS dumps Linux, has a wild new UI | Ars Technica — Unlike Android and Chrome OS, Fuchsia is not based on Linux—it uses a new, Google-developed microkernel called "Magenta." With Fuchsia, Google would not only be dumping the Linux kernel, but also the GPL: the OS is licensed under a mix of BSD 3 clause, MIT, and Apache 2.0. 

• GrSecurity Kernel Patches Will No Longer Be Free To The Public - Phoronix
• Secure Boot booted from Debian 9 'Stretch'
• Devuan GNU/Linux 1.0 "Jessie" to Support Raspberry Pi 3, Acer Chromebook Devices
• Get a free AIY Projects Voice Kit with The MagPi 57! - The MagPi MagazineThe MagPi Magazine
• What is this bullsh*t, Google? Nexus phones starved of security fixes after just three years • The Register
• Full MP3 Support Being Added To Fedora Linux - Phoronix

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