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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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• 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 what's great about GIMP's biggest release in six years, and more.

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• Ubuntu Touch will be an official option on the Librem 5 — While the Librem 5 will ship with Free Software Foundation-endorsed PureOS by default, utilizing GNOME across all devices, Purism will support customers who want to easily install Ubuntu Touch offering great diversity for users around the world.
• Purism feel the icy breath of Intel on their neck — After receiving a courtesy request from Intel’s Director of Software Infrastructure, we have decided to remove this post’s technical contents while we investigate our options.
• Chrome OS moves a step closer to proper Linux — A new Terminal app has been added to the app drawer, and clicking it opens a dialog explaining the feature.
• Linux apps will look seamless in Chrome OS — First native Linux apps in Chrome OS, and they’ve opted for Adapta, a popular Material Design-inspired Gtk theme that can be used on many of your favorite GNU/Linux distributions.
• Huge GIMP Update — GIMP 2.10 is the result of six years of work that originally focused on porting the program to a new image processing engine, GEGL. However the new version ships with far more new features, including new and improved tools, better file formats support, various usability improvements, revamped color management support, a plethora of improvements targeted at digital painters and photographers, metadata editing, and much, much more.
• Ubuntu 18.04 released — Optimised for multi-cloud infrastructure, machine learning, AI and software development
• 18.04 flavours also released — Long-term support (LTS) releases of Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie and the (always magnificent) Ubuntu MATE are available to download.
• Clear focus on cloud and containers — “Multi-cloud operations are the new normal” said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical and founder of Ubuntu. “Boot-time and performance-optimised images of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on every major public cloud make it the fastest and most efficient OS for cloud computing, especially for storage and compute-intensive tasks like machine learning.”
• Ubuntu 18.04 even runs on a Nintendo Switch — I've written a script to build a full Ubuntu Desktop image for the Switch
• TechSNAP Episode 365: The Unfixable Exploit — ShofEL2, a Tegra X1 and Nintendo Switch exploit