Linux Action News

Linux Action News

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Linux Action News episodes

  • Linux Action News 79

    Ubuntu on select Samsung devices goes into beta, we cover the technicalities of Linux on the new Macs, one of our favorite desktop projects gets a big update, and the Librem 5 slips.

    Plus it's the end of the line for the Nexus devices, and more!

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    • Booting Linux on new Macs
    — Apple's T2 security chip being embedded into their newest products provides a secure enclave, APFS storage encryption, UEFI Secure Boot validation, Touch ID handling, a hardware microphone disconnect on lid close, and other security tasks. The T2 restricts the boot process quite a bit and verifies each step of the process using crypto keys signed by Apple.
  • WSL gets new features
    • — A slate of improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) feature in the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. 
  • Samsung announce Linux on DeX
    • — Samsung is announcing the beta launch of Linux on DeX which extends the value of Samsung DeX to Linux developers. Linux on DeX empowers developers to build apps within a Linux development environment by connecting their Galaxy device to a larger screen for a PC-like experience.
  • Linux on Dex
  • KDE Connect Updated
    • — Android Oreo introduced some restrictions in regard to apps running in the background. In the future in order to be able to run in the background KDE Connect needs to show a persistent notification. The good news is that you can hide the notification. The (slightly) bad news is that we cannot do it by default. To hide the notification you need to long-press it and switch it off. Other notifications from KDE Connect are unaffected by this.
  • GSConnect updated
    • — The GNOME Shell UI has been rewritten to better conform to design guidelines. Appearance is important to everyone and work will continue to improve usability for touchscreens, HiDPI and users requiring accessibility features.
  • Librem 5 slips again
    • — I am reluctant to give a new timeline for shipping the dev kits… What we know is that our new PCB fabrication here in the USA will be 11 business days. We will make over 300 of these boards, which are pretty complex—we have over 160 different parts and more than 500 components in total per board. This takes some time, even with the amazing SMT machines placing tiny parts.
  • Nexus devices finally dead
    • — An over-the-air (OTA) update, which is based on Android 8.1 Oreo, is now rolling out to both the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P (as well as to the Pixel/Pixel XL, the Pixel 2/Pixel 2 XL, and Pixel 3/Pixel 3 XL), bumping up both phones to the latest November security patches. But if Google’s update policies are to be followed here, then this will be the last update to be released to both Nexus phones, meaning that the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P have now officially reached end-of-life (EOL) status. Furthermore, online and phone support for both devices is also being discontinued.
    31 min
  • Linux Action News 78

    The new Fedora has a neat trick, The Register's KDE klickbait, and GhostBSD impresses.

    Plus Sailfish's release strategy gets refined, System76 announces their Thelio Linux hardware, and more.

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    • Fedora 29 released
    — This release is particularly exciting because it’s the first to include the Fedora Modularity feature across all our different variants. Modularity lets us ship different versions of packages on the same Fedora base. This means you no longer need to make your whole OS upgrade decisions based on individual package versions.
  • RHEL 7.6 released
  • The Register RHEL klickbait
    • — KDE Plasma Workspaces (KDE), which has been provided as an alternative to the default GNOME desktop environment has been deprecated. A future major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux will no longer support using KDE instead of the default GNOME desktop environment.
  • Jonathan Riddell explains things
    • — It is a pity that RHEL users won’t be there to enjoy it by default. But, then again, they never really were. KDE is collaborative, open, privacy aware and with a vast scope of interesting projects after 22 years we continue to push the boundaries of what is possible and fun.
  • Sailfish 3 released
    • — I’m happy to share with you that we have today released the first Sailfish 3 software release, and made it available for all Sailfish users who have opted-in for the early access updates.
  • GhostBSD 18.10 released
    • — GhostBSD 18.10 is our first official release of GhostBSD with TrueOS under the hood, and the official desktop is MATE
  • Endless OS shipping on (more) Asus hardware soon
    • — Kids get their own laptop great for school projects and a safe, virus-resistant space to explore, tinker and learn. Parents, prepare to reclaim your computers!
  • System76 release new desktop machines
    • — Thelio, Thelio Major, Thelio Massive, and Thelio Io are OSHWA certified open source hardware. Licensed under GPL v3 and CC-BY-SA, everyone can learn from what we've created, adapt it, improve it, and make derivative works inspired by the Thelio design.
    26 min
  • Linux Action News 77

    Linus is back in charge with the whole world watching, IBM is buying Red Hat, and Pine64 says they’re working on a Plasma phone.

    Plus Firefox has a new sales pitch for you, and how HTC's blockchain future is already fizzling out.

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    • Linus back in charge of the kernel
    — And with that, Linus, I'm handing the kernel tree back to you. You can
    have the joy of dealing with the merge window :)
  • Pine64 working on a KDE phone
    • — It’s a confirmed news that Pine64 is considering a budget Linux smartphone running KDE Plasma.
  • HTC’s blockchain phone is ready for preorder
  • Firefox to suggest paid VPN service
    • — A small, random group of US-based Firefox users will be presented with an offer to purchase a monthly subscription to a VPN service that’s been vetted and approved by Mozilla. After signing up for a subscription (billed securely using payment services Stripe and Recurly) they will be able to download and install the VPN software. Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android are all supported.
  • IBM to Acquire Red Hat
    • — Red Hat to operate as a distinct unit within IBM’s Hybrid Cloud team
    25 min
  • Linux Action News 76

    The Cosmic Cuttlefish is out, and we share our quick take. Juno finally lands and this one sets the bar, MongoDB gets hip to the license changes, and watch out Linux... Here come the pros!

    Plus we go over the newly publish Ubuntu statistics, and Google's new Android licensing scheme in Europe.

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    • Ubuntu 18.10 released
    — Ubuntu 18.10 introduces the GNOME 3.30 desktop and Yaru, the new community-developed default theme.
  • More Ubuntu statistics published
    • — This report is generated from basic, non-identifiable system data that was provided by users when installing Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
  • elementary OS 5.0 Juno released
    • — Juno is such an incredible release, and it’s here thanks to all of our supporters.
  • MongoDB makes change to license
    • — The SSPL explicitly states that anybody who wants to offer MongoDB as a service — or really any other software that uses this license — needs to either get a commercial license or open source the service to give back the community.
  • Google changes Android licensing policy in Europe
    • — Ad giant to charge for key applications amid license shakeup and antitrust fine
  • CoC Committee Added Plus Interpretation & Mediator
    • — It turns out Greg KH was working in private with various kernel maintainers/developers on addressing their feedback and trying to come up with solutions to the contentious issues in private.
    32 min
  • Linux Action News 75

    Another fork is brewing, Microsoft hands over their patents of mass destruction leaving us with a few questions, and the best features of the new Plasma release.

    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
    • 35 min
  • Linux Action News 74

    Red Hat's Stratis project reaches a major milestone, Microsoft's Linux powered dev boards go up for sale, and Fedora's hunt for buggy hibernation under Linux has begun.

    Plus Android App mirroring, how the islands of the clouds are getting bridged, and Chris channels his inner Shuttleworth.

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    • Red Hat's Stratis Storage Project Reaches Its 1.0 Stable Milestone
    — Stratis has been the Red Hat play two years in development for delivering next-gen Linux storage following their decision to abandon Btrfs support. Stratis offers ZFS and Btrfs like functionality and a lot of other new capabilities while this past week marked its first stable release.
  • Stratis Whitepaper
  • ​Red Hat Satellite integrated new, improved Ansible DevOps
    • — Red Hat is adding Ansible DevOps capabilities to its Red Hat Satellite system management program.
  • hibernation — does it work for you?
    • — We have had a long discussion about hibernate (suspend to disk) being unreliable. But there seems to be no hard data.
    Let's gather some!
  • Microsoft announces app mirroring to let you use any Android app on Windows 10
    • — The feature, which Microsoft is referring to as app mirroring and shows up in Windows as an app called Your Phone, seems to be work best with Android for now. Although Microsoft did announce the ability to transfer webpages from an iPhone to a Windows 10 desktop so you can pick up where you left off on mobile.
  • Microsoft’s Linux powered dev boards, Azure Sphere for sale
    • — An OS purpose built for security and agility to create a trustworthy platform for new IoT experiences. Our secured OS builds security innovations pioneered in Windows into an HLOS small enough for MCUs.
  • Azure Sphere MT3620 Development Board
    • — Azure Sphere MT3620 Development Kit_US Version
  • Microsoft open-sources Infer.NET AI code
    • — Infer.NET, which is on GitHub right now, takes a model-based approach to machine learning. The developer gives the framework a model, and the framework then develops a machine-learning algorithm directly from the model provided.
  • Node.js and JS foundations looking to merge
    • — “The Node.js Foundation and JS Foundation boards have met several times already to discuss a potential alignment of the communities. The Foundation leaders and key technical stakeholders believe that a tighter alignment of communities will expand the scope of the current Foundations and enable greater support for Node.js and a broader range of JavaScript projects,”
    22 min
  • Linux Action News 73

    Google's Project Zero criticizes Linux distros, Firefox can now tell you when you get pwned, and the growing elephant in the room about Azure.

    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
    • 25 min
  • Linux Action News 72

    Linus is taking a break from maintaining the kernel, AMP might be set free, and Firefox goes VR.

    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
    • 26 min
  • Linux Action News 71

    Fedora want help testing their innovations, Mozilla continue to focus on mobile, Chrome OS gets a major new feature, and Microsoft almost stepped in it bigtime.

    Plus new releases from nano and Nextcloud, huge news for Jupiter Broadcasting, and more.

    Special Guest: Wes Payne.

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    • Give Fedora Silverblue a test drive
    — Fedora Silverblue is a new variant of Fedora Workstation with rpm-ostree at its core to provide fully atomic upgrades. Furthermore, Fedora Silverblue is immutable and upgrades as a whole, providing easy rollbacks from updates if something goes wrong. Fedora Silverblue is great for developers using Fedora with good support for container-focused workflows.
  • nano 3.0 released
    • — GNU nano 3.0 "Water Flowing Underground" speeds up the reading of a file by seventy percent, roughly doubles the speed of handling ASCII text, changes the way words at line boundaries are deleted, makes wipe the next word and the preceding word...
  • Nextcloud 14 released
    • — The upcoming Nextcloud 14 introduces a series of improvements to make Nextcloud even easier to use and also more accessible to people with visual disabilities.
  • Firefox Focus to switch to Gecko
    • — In the next weeks, we’ll release a new version of Focus for Android, and for the first time, Focus will come bundled with Gecko, the browser engine that powers Firefox Quantum.
  • Chrome OS 70 brings native network file share support
    • — Chrome OS will have its NativeSmb flag to set to enabled by default
  • Microsoft planned to try and stop users installing alternative browsers in Win10 but then backtracked
  • Jupiter Broadcasting Joins Linux Academy
    • — As part of Linux Academy, we’re going to do more than create better content. We’re going to contribute back.
  • User Error is back!
    • — User Error is back with a new set of hosts! We answer some #AskError questions and talk about whether the Linux desktop will ever make money.
    Plus we wonder if dockless bike sharing is a good idea and whether travel really is as great as everyone seems to think.
    21 min
  • Linux Action News 70

    Great new releases for GNOME and Tor, delays for the Librem 5, and Linus proves to be extremely important.

    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.
    25 min

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Weekly Linux news and analysis by Chris and Wes. The show every week we hope you'll go to when you want to hear an informed discussion about what’s happening.