Plus why the Simula One VR Linux computer could be worth a serious look.

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• TrueNAS Scale 22.02 Released and Resetting the NAS Paradigm — First off, let us start with what is TrueNAS Scale, and where are we in the process. TrueNAS Scale is based on Linux instead of FreeBSD like TrueNAS. We get all of the storage features we would expect in a modern solution like snapshotting, replication, iSCSI, SMB, NFS, and S3-compatible object storage.
• TrueCharts.org
• SCALE 22.02.0
• Intel Acquires Team behind PREMPT_RT patches — Linutronix is comprised of a team of highly qualified and motivated employees with a wealth of experience and involvement in the ongoing development of Linux. Led by CEO Heinz Egger and CTO Thomas Gleixner, Linutronix is the architect of PREEMPT_RT (Real Time) and the leading technology provider for industrial Linux. Gleixner has been the principal maintainer of x86 architecture in the Linux kernel since 2008.
• https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=PREEMPT_RT-Lack-Of-Funds
• Podman 4.0 | Hacker News
• Release v4.0.0 · containers/podman
• Neil McGovern Stepping down in 6 Months — Now, nearly 5 years later, I’ve decided the timing is right for me to step back and for GNOME to start looking for its next leader.
• Linux Action News 182
• GNOME 42 Beta Released
• Steam for Chrome OS gets minimum hardware specs — If you follow Chrome Unboxed or Chrome OS development in general, the name ‘Borealis‘ may provoke some feelings of excitement and anticipation.
• Here’s which Chromebooks should support gaming w/ Steam
• HP and Lenovo Chromebooks expected to support Steam
• SimulaVR
• https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula
• Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer
• Hacking on Simula (in Simula): Implementing proper window resizing - YouTube

Plus RISC-V gets a surprising benefactor, and the kernel feature we never thought would get merged that was just approved by Linus.

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• Linode: Sign up using the link on this page and receive a $100 60-day credit towards your new account.
• Ting: Save $25 off your first device, or $25 in service credit if you bring one!

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• SUSE Rancher 2.6 Launches After the Acquisition of Rancher Labs — The number of Kubernetes distributions SUSE Rancher 2.6 can support has been raised by two, with the addition of Microsoft Azure’s AKS and Google Cloud Platform’s GKE. Rancher 2.6 also will add support for SLE’s Base Container Images.
• SUSE Updates Rancher Platform for Kubernetes — Version 2.6 of SUSE Rancher adds a revamped user interface with improved logic-based workflows along with providing integration with SUSE Linux Enterprise Base Container Images (SLE BCI), a repository for container images for SUSE Linux.
• SUSE Rancher 2.6 Brings Enterprise Customers Improved Interoperability Across Multi-Cloud Cluster Environments
• Docker Desktop no longer free for large companies: New ‘Business’ subscription is here — Docker will restrict use of the free version of its Docker Desktop utility to individuals or small businesses, and has introduced a new more expensive subscription, as it searches for a sustainable business model.
• Docker is Updating and Extending Our Product Subscriptions - Docker Blog — The new Docker Personal subscription replaces the Docker Free subscription. With its focus on open source communities, individual developers, education, and small businesses – which together account for more than half of Docker users – Docker Personal is free for these communities.
• MongoDB tops $30 billion market cap in banner week for open source — MongoDB said second-quarter revenue climbed 44% to $199 million, while its Atlas cloud database grew 83% and now makes up more than half of total revenue.
• [Video] MongoDB CEO — "We now have 29,000 customers."
• CloudLinux offers CentOS 8 users a support lifeline — CloudLinux has announced it will provide updates and support for CentOS 8 through December 31, 2025.
• Linux on the Framework Laptop — We recommend using 5.12 or newer for a kernel to get solid platform, WiFi, and bluetooth functionality, along with libfprint 1.92.0 or newer for the fingerprint reader. All of the other hardware like speakers, microphones, headphones, webcam, hardware privacy switches, keyboard media keys, ambient light sensor, and all of the Expansion Cards should work completely.
• Apple Possibly Exploring Open-Source Alternative to Arm Architecture — According to a newly posted job alert, spotted by Tom's Hardware, Apple is looking for an engineer that specializes in RISC-V, an open-source architecture instruction set that allows device makers to build their own chips without having to pay a license or royalty.
• Apple M1 IOMMU Driver Merged For Linux 5.15, Intel Scalable Mode By Default — This IOMMU on the Apple M1 has been a bit challenging for the developers to deal with as the hardware is fixed to using a 16K pagesize while there is ongoing work to improve the infrastructure so it will play happy when using a kernel with 4K CPU pagesize.
• [Twitter] The M1 IOMMU driver (required for PCIe,WiFi,USB,display and almost everything else) was just merged by Linus — "Thanks again to Robin Murphy and @alyssarzg for reviewing and testing and ofc to @joergroedel for accepting it!"
• Merge tag 'iommu-updates-v5.15'
• KSMBD As An In-Kernel SMB3 File Server Merged For Linux 5.15 — KSMBD, developed by Samsung, is focused on delivering speedy SMB3 file serving performance and also supporting features more implemented in kernel-space, like RDMA support for SMB Direct. KSMBD doesn't aim to be as comprehensive as well known Samba for CIFS/SMB support in user-space but is just focused on the performance and kernel feature angle.
• KSMBD Kernel Docs

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• Standing up for developers: youtube-dl is back — Today we reinstated youtube-dl, a popular project on GitHub, after we received additional information about the project that enabled us to reverse a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown.
• Remove cipher algorithm and mentions of copyrighted material
• GitHub reinstates youtube-dl library after EFF intervention
• $6 billion Linux deal? SUSE IPO rumored — SUSE, the major European Linux company, may soon be spun out in a $6 billion IPO.
• EQT Said to Plan IPO of $6 Billion Software Developer SUSE
• Canonical Saw ~$119M Revenue In 2019 But Still Operating At A Loss — Ubuntu maker Canonical Holdings Limited recently submitted their UK financial report for their fiscal year ending 31 December 2019. During the pre-COVID times they generated around 22% more revenue than 2018 but still operated at a loss albeit more narrowly than in prior years.
• Librem 5 Mass Production Phone Has Begun Shipping — Purism has begun shipping its mass-produced Librem 5 phone to customers.
• Servo’s new home — Servo was incubated inside Mozilla, and served as the proof that important web components such as CSS and rendering could be implemented in Rust, with all its safety, concurrency and speed.
• Mozilla Punts Servo Web Engine Development To The Linux Foundation
• Starting January 4, 2021, Google will block all sign-ins to Google accounts from embedded browser frameworks — The browser must identify itself clearly in the User-Agent. The browser must not try to impersonate another browser like Chrome or Firefox.
• Guidance to developers affected by our effort to block less secure browsers and applications

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.