It’s also been a big week for Linux on Windows with Flatpaks and a new distro running on WSL, and a flawless Ubuntu VM experience.

Special Guest: Wes Payne.

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• Firefox VR browser released — Mozilla announced back in April that it was developing Firefox Reality, a next-generation web browser specifically for standalone VR and AR devices, and now it’s actually here. Firefox Reality 1.0 is available today as a set of free downloads for HTC Viveport, Oculus Go, and Daydream headsets.
• Google loosens grasp on AMP — we want to move to a model that explicitly gives a voice to all constituents of the community, including those who cannot contribute code themselves, such as end-users. The change we are proposing is based on months of research, through which we’ve decided to follow the lead of the Node.js project and move to a consensus-seeking governance model.
• Mir reaches 1.0.0 — We’re pleased to announce the release of Mir 1.0.0. The main things to note with this release are support for the Wayland xdg-shell (stable) extension and improved facilities for customizing display layouts.
• Ubuntu 14.04 to receive extended maintenance — With the End of Life of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in April 2019, and to support the planning efforts of developers worldwide, Canonical is announcing the availability of ESM for Ubuntu 14.04.
• Running Ubuntu VMs on Windows made easier — Today we’re very pleased to announce that an optimised Ubuntu Desktop image is available from the Hyper-V gallery. This will give an optimum experience when running Ubuntu Desktop as a guest on a Windows 10 Pro desktop host.
• First purpose-built distro available for WSL — WLinux is at its core a custom Linux distro built from Debian stable specifically for use on WSL.
• Flatpak running on WSL — Windows Subsystem for Linux fans, rejoice! Flatpak can now ease your dependency blues. Sort of.
• Linus takes a break and a new CoC for kernel devs

Steam Machines were pronounced dead and then alive this week, we'll try and clear things up, and Mozilla has a new project.

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• Linux kernel to remove several old CPU architectures — The architectures which will become deprecated are Blackfin, CRIS, FRV, M32R, Metag, MN10300, Score and Tile. Although not being deprecated, the Unicore32 and Hexagon architectures are also at risk but their maintainers are working on improving the situation so their support can be continued.
• RISC-V Support Continues Maturing Within The Mainline Linux Kernel — Linux 4.17 kernel include support for dynamic ftrace, clean-ups to their atomic and locking code, module loading support is now enabled by default, and other fixes.
• Save money using RISC-V rather than Arm — According to a report published last week by The Information, more than 80 tech goliaths including Nvidia, Google, Qualcomm, Samsung and Tesla are working to adopt RISC-V technology. The main reason behind the push to adopt RISC-V is said to be the processor's open-source design, which will facilitate "a much cheaper way to build chips for new technologies like autonomous vehicles," says the source.
• Debian now supports RISC-V — We've been working in the last few weeks to do a (second) boostrap of Debian for RISC-V, and after a few weeks of hard work it is now bootstrapped and has been imported into the Debian infrastructure,
• Linux-Libre prioritises freedom over security — One of their new changes on top of this deblobbed kernel is dropping error messages that suggest users update their CPU micrcode.
• Steam Machines disappear from Valve's site — Steam Machines no longer show up under the drop-down menu for "Hardware" on the main Steam store page. Promotional language and images for Steam Machines were also previously featured prominently on a hardware-focused landing page on the store (archived version), but that page now redirects to a simple search results page for the store's "hardware" category.
• Steam Machines aren't dead yet — We've taken a lot of feedback and have been heads-down on addressing the shortcomings we observed.
• TOR Messenger discontinued — “The adoption of Tor Messenger was low and the real need is for metadata-free alternatives"
• Mozilla Brings Firefox to Augmented and Virtual Reality — We believe that the future of the web will be heavily intertwined with virtual and augmented reality, and that future will live through browsers. That’s why we’re building Firefox Reality, a new kind of web browser that has been designed from the ground up to work on stand-alone virtual and augmented reality (or mixed reality) headsets.