Linux Action News

Speed is the big story around GNOME 3.34, two new major Firefox security features start to roll out, and we explain the CentOS 8 delay.

Plus our thoughts on the PineTime, and more.

Links:

• GNOME 3.34 Released — Version 3.34 contains six months of work by the GNOME community and includes many improvements, performance improvements and new features.
• GNOME 3.34 Released with "Drastically Improved" Responsiveness
• GNOME Firmware 3.34.0 Release — With the new fwupd 1.3.1 you can now build just the libfwupd library, which makes it easy to build GNOME Firmware (old name: gnome-firmware-updater) in Flathub
• Please welcome Acer to the LVFS — Acer has now officialy joined the LVFS, promoting the Aspire A315 firmware to stable.
• Firefox’s Test Pilot Program Returns with Firefox Private Network Beta — It originally started as an Add-on before we relaunched it three years ago. Then in January, we announced that we were evolving our culture of experimentation, and as a result we closed the Test Pilot program to give us time to further explore what was next.
• Mozilla to gradually enable DNS-over-HTTPS later this month — Mozilla plans to enable support for the DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) protocol by default inside the Firefox browser for a small number of US users starting later this month.
• Google Unveils DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) Plan
• Wherefore Art Thou CentOS 8? — Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 was released on May 7th, 2019.
• PineTime on Twitter — "This is the #PineTime (actual photo) - a #Linux smartphone companion and a side-project of ours. Are you a @real_FreeRTOS or @ArmMbed developer with an interest in smartwatches? - let us know. https://t.co/j7ygDWNqbD" / Twitter

Android 10 has a lot we like while the PinePhone is real and closer than we thought.

Plus Red Hat's new desktop strategy, and what we think Mozilla is getting right.

Links:

• Welcoming Android 10! — Today we're releasing the Android 10 source code to Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and making it available to the broader ecosystem. We’re also starting the official Android 10 rollout to all three generations of Pixel devices worldwide.
• Google Releases Android 10 With "Vulkan Everywhere", Privacy Improvements
• The Verge Android 10 Review
• Android 10 adds warnings for USB port contamination and overheating
• The PinePhone is real & shipping soon — I am hereby happy to announce that the first PinePhones have now entered production and will start shipping to developers this month.
• Firefox 69 released — As of today, Enhanced Tracking Protection will be turned on by default
• Tor Blog: Browser Fingerprinting - An Introduction and the Challenges Ahead
• Introducing Red Hat CodeReady Containers — CodeReady Containers brings a minimal, preconfigured OpenShift 4.1 or newer cluster to your local laptop or desktop computer for development and testing purposes.

Microsoft continues to prove how much it loves Linux while Google tries to eat their lunch, mixed news from Mozilla, and good stuff from GNOME.

Plus Telegram's cryptocurrency is definitely happening. Honest.

Special Guest: Wes Payne.

Links:

• exFAT in the Linux kernel? Yes! — It’s important to us that the Linux community can make use of exFAT included in the Linux kernel with confidence. To this end, we will be making Microsoft’s technical specification for exFAT publicly available to facilitate development of conformant, interoperable implementations. We also support the eventual inclusion of a Linux kernel with exFAT support in a future revision of the Open Invention Network’s Linux System Definition, where, once accepted, the code will benefit from the defensive patent commitments of OIN’s 3040+ members and licensees.
• The Initial exFAT Driver Queued For Introduction With The Linux 5.4 Kernel — Greg lived up to his talk and today committed the exFAT driver to staging-next. This nearly eleven thousand lines of new code did get the sign-off of Microsoft and with it being in the "-next" branch will be set for inclusion into the Linux 5.4 mainline code-base once Linux 5.3 is released.
• Chris Beard to step down as Mozilla CEO — This is a good place to recruit our next CEO and for me to take a meaningful break and recharge before considering what’s next for me. It may be a cliché — but I’ll embrace it — as I’m also looking forward to spending more time with my family after a particularly intense but gratifying tour of duty.
• Thunderbird 68 released — Thunderbird version 68.0 is only offered as direct download from thunderbird.net and not as upgrade from Thunderbird version 60 or earlier. A future version 68.1 will provide updates from earlier versions. Note that add-ons are only supported if add-on authors have adapted them.
• What’s New in Thunderbird 68 — Thunderbird 68 focuses on polish and setting the stage for future releases. There was a lot of work that we had to do below the surface that has made Thunderbird more future-proof and has made it a solid base to continue to build upon. But we also managed to create some great features you can touch today.
• Chrome OS gets first Chromebook Enterprise devices, faster Admin Console, and managed Linux environments — Google today announced a slew of Chrome Enterprise updates, including a faster Google Admin console and managed Linux environments. The company also unveiled the first Chromebook Enterprise laptops: Dell’s Latitude 5300 for $819 and Latitude 5400 for $699.
• GNOME Firmware Updater — A few months ago, Dell asked if I’d like to co-mentor an intern over the summer. The task was to create a GTK “power user” application for managing firmware. The idea being that someone like Dell support could ask the user to run a little application and then read back firmware versions or downgrade to an older firmware version rather than getting them to use the command line.
• GNOME Foundation launches Coding Education Challenge — The GNOME Foundation, with support from Endless, has announced the Coding Education Challenge, a competition aimed to attract projects that offer educators and students new and innovative ideas to teach coding with free and open source software. The $500,000 in funding will support the prizes, which will be awarded to the teams who advance through the three stages of the competition. 
• Telegram will launch its Gram cryptocurrency by October 31 or bust — Telegram’s cryptocurrency— the Gram — may be going public after all. The encrypted messaging app company plans to deliver “the first batches” of the coin in the next two months, according to a report at The New York Times.

More tools to keep your Linux box and cloud servers secure this week, OpenPOWER responds to Risc-V competition, and we ponder the year-long open-source supply chain attacks.

Plus our reaction to Android dropping dessert names, the Confidential Computing consortium, and more.

Links:

• Today, 28 years ago Linus Torvalds announced Linux on comp.os.minix. — I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
• System76 announce new firmware updater — We’ve been working on the Firmware Manager project, which we will be shipping to all Pop!_OS users, and System76 hardware customers on other Debian-based distributions. It supports checking and updating firmware from LVFS and system76-firmware services, is Wayland-compatible, and provides both a GTK application and library.
• The Next Step in the OpenPOWER Foundation Journey — The OpenPOWER Foundation will now join projects and organizations like OpenBMC, CHIPS Alliance, OpenHPC and so many others within the Linux Foundation.
• IBM is moving OpenPower Foundation to The Linux Foundation
• Confidential Computing Consortium — Confidential computing focuses on  securing data in use. Current approaches to securing data often  address data at rest (storage) and in transit (network)but encrypting data in use is  possibly the most challenging step to providing a fully encrypted lifecycle for sensitive data.
• Confidential Computing Consortium Takes Shape
• The year-long rash of supply chain attacks against open source is getting worse — Backdoors snuck into 12 OSS packages were downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.
• Android to drop dessert names — So, this next release of Android will simply use the version number and be called Android 10. We think this change helps make release names simpler and more intuitive for our global community. And while there were many tempting “Q” desserts out there, we think that at version 10 and 2.5 billion active devices, it was time to make this change. 

We go hands-on with the big Xfce release that took four years and five months to develop. Kubernetes gets an audit that might just set a precedent, and Google has a new feature for AMP that has us all worked up.

Links:

• Xfce 4.14 released — After 4 years and 5 months of work, we are pleased to announce the release of the Xfce desktop 4.14, a new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.12.
• Xubuntu Daily
• Open Sourcing the Kubernetes Security Audit — The group created an open request for proposals, taking responsibility for evaluating the submitted proposals and recommending the vendor best suited to complete a security assessment against Kubernetes, bearing in mind the high complexity and wide scope of the project.
• wg-security-audit at master · kubernetes/community · GitHub
• Someone audited the Kubernetes source
• Server-side rendering for AMP — AMP now officially supports a technique called server-side rendering (SSR) which you can apply to your AMP pages to make them load even faster. Our tests show increases of up to a whopping 50% on the popular FCP metric.
• OSdisc.com Has Closed — In just the past couple days, a very popular Linux OS supply site has closed.

Ubuntu integrates ZFS even further, NVIDIA starts publishing GPU documentation, and Harmony OS makes its debut.

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

Links:

• 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

Manjaro's news starts us off and leads us into a bigger philosophical question about open source development.

Plus Gnome and KDE come together at the Linux App Summit, Mozilla's update on DNS-over-HTTPS, and the case for the VR desktop.

Links:

• Manjaro to ship FreeOffice by default — We will ship FreeOffice by default. This is possible since we partnered up with Softmaker. Enjoy the best compatibility to MS Office.
• Manjaro backtracks — Manjaro will not be installing FreeOffice by default.
• GNOME and KDE to co-host the Linux App Summit in November — The GNOME Foundation and KDE e.V. are proud to announce Linux App Summit 2019. The Linux App Summit will be held in Barcelona from November 12th to 15th, 2019.

Fedora CoreOS is introduced and its future looks bright, VLC's president debunks security claims, Mozilla debuts an open-source router firmware and the Android flaw that might be our favorite in years.

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

Links:

• 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.

We're pleasantly surprised by a new Linux distro, EvilGnome malware spies on Gnome Shell users, and more good news for MacBook Linux users.

Plus why RetroArch coming to Steam is a bit controversial, ubuntu-wsl is a cold drink for Windows users, and gpodder needs a new maintainer.

Links:

• EndeavourOS first stable release — We’re proud to present you our very first stable release of EndeavourOS.

Another project breach raises significant questions, Fedora considers dropping Snaps in Gnome Software, and has the ISPA let Mozilla off the hook?

Plus Microsoft makes it into linux-distros, the Raspberry Pi 4 charger issue, and more.

Links:

• Server breach at Pale Moon project goes undetected for 18 months — Server breach at Pale Moon browser project goes undetected for 18 months.
• Data breach post-mortem
• Firefox addons outage post mortem — Sorry this took so long to get out; we’d hoped to have this out within a week, but obviously that didn’t happen. There was just a lot more digging to do than we expected. In any case, we’re now ready to share the results.
• ISPA withdraws Mozilla Internet Villain Nomination and Category — In the 21 years the event has been running it is probably fair to say that no other nomination has generated such strong opinion.
• Firefox 68 Released
• Microsoft admitted to linux-distros list — I see no valid reasons not to subscribe Microsoft (or part(s) of it, see below) to linux-distros. The only voiced reasons not to, such as in Georgi Guninski's posting and in comments on some technology news sites that covered Microsoft's request, are irrelevant per our currently specified membership criteria.
• On Microsoft request to access private linux bugs
• Raspberry Pi 4 USB-C issues confirmed — The Pi's co-creator Eben Upton says that not every USB-C cable will power the Pi.
• IBM Red Hat deal closes — IBM and Red Hat announced today that they have closed the transaction under which IBM acquired all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total equity value of approximately $34 billion.
• Mathew Miller's comments
• Fedora to drop snap plugin in gnome-software — In Fedora 31 I'll be disabling the snap plugin from GNOME Software.
• Drop snap support (!253) · Merge Requests · GNOME
• Canonical’s Robert Ancell calls the merge request “premature”
• Remove GsAuth support. (!255) · Merge Requests — This used to be used in the Snap and Ubuntu Reviews plugins, but is now no longer required. The remaining usage in the Snap plugin is not a common case on desktop and not necessary to support anymore.