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Linux Action News
Linux Action News episodes
- Linux Action News 33
Chris and Joe look back at the big news stories of 2017, some notable trends, the changes that impacted Desktop Linux users, and the topics that dominated the community discussion.
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- Arch Drops 32 bit — The decision means that February ISO will be the last that allows to
install 32 bit Arch Linux. The next 9 months are deprecation period,during which i686 will be still receiving upgraded packages. Startingfrom November 2017, packaging and repository tools will no longerrequire that from maintainers, effectively making i686 unsupported.- Tails 3.0 will require a 64-bit processor — We have waited for years until we felt it was the right time to do this switch. Still, this was a hard decision for us to make.
- Ubuntu 17.10 Will Drop The 32-bit Desktop ISO — There will no longer be any "ubuntu-desktop-i386.iso" produced. There is no longer any effective QA or testing being done on the Ubuntu i386 desktop image on actual 32-bit-only hardware.
- Munich voted to return to Windows — Munich city council's administrative and personnel committee has decided to move any remaining Linux systems to Windows 10 in 2020.
- WSL added new distros and became easier to install — At its Build 2017 developer conference today, Microsoft announced that Ubuntu has arrived in the Windows Store
- Bitcoin Forked — It was created by Bitcoin supporters worried about growing congestion in the mainstream bitcoin network that has led to slow payment processing and high fees. Bitcoin Cash removes an important technical obstacle that has hampered the growth of the mainline Bitcoin network. In principle, that could allow Bitcoin Cash to become more widely used—and hence more valuable—in the long run.
- And Forked Again — The trouble began earlier this year when a group of cryptocurrency upstarts cloned Bitcoin to create their own version, called Bitcoin Cash. The split, called a "hard fork," came after a long and acrimonious disagreement about how to get Bitcoin to handle more traffic failed to resolve amicably. Now, another group of Bitcoiners wants to create yet another version of the world's most popular digital money on October 25. They're calling it Bitcoin Gold.
- And jumped around 20x in value this year — Bitcoin is now worth over $10,000. The cryptocurrency, which crossed the milestone for the first time since its creation in 2008, surged past $10,000 on Tuesday evening as it climbs toward $11,000, according to research site CoinDesk. Bitcoin has spiked 933 percent since the beginning of the year, when it traded at $968.23, reports the Wall Street Journal.
- The Ubuntu announcement that dominated the year — This has been, personally, a very difficult decision, because of the force of my conviction in the convergence future, and my personal engagement with the people and the product, both of which are amazing. We feel like a family, but this choice is shaped by commercial constraints, and those two are hard to reconcile.
- Cyanogenmod became Lineage OS — A new fork of CyanogenMod called Lineage OS is taking up the mantle, and it will keep most of what you loved about CyanogenMod.
- Sailfish carried on — Today it’s our pleasure to announce all the details for Sailfish X, aka Sailfish OS for Sony Xperia X!
- Android took a step towards solving the updates problem — With Android O, we've been working very closely with device makers and silicon manufacturers to take steps toward solving this problem, and we're excited to give you a sneak peek at Project Treble, the biggest change to the low-level system architecture of Android to date.
- Librem 5 funded — This Monday, 14 days early, we have crossed a historic milestone.
- Firefox OS officially died — Mozilla is shutting down its “connected devices” group, which was responsible for the failed smartphone operating system Firefox OS and, more recently, attempts to build the OS into devices like routers, streaming boxes, and even basic computers.
- Mozilla acquired Pocket — Pocket will join Mozilla’s product portfolio as a new product line alongside the Firefox web browsers with a focus on promoting the discovery and accessibility of high quality web content.
- Launched Firefox Focus — Firefox Focus allows you to browse the web without being followed by tracking ads which are notoriously known for slowing down your mobile experience.
- Project Common Voice — Voice is natural, voice is human. That’s why we’re fascinated with creating usable voice technology for our machines. But to create voice systems, an extremely large amount of voice data is required.
- Firefox Quantum — It’s by far the biggest update we’ve had since we launched Firefox 1.0 in 2004
- Faced a lawsuit over their Yahoo deal — We recently exercised our contractual right to terminate our agreement with Yahoo based on a number of factors including doing what’s best for our brand, our effort to provide quality web search, and the broader content experience for our users.
28 min - Linux Action News 32
Mozilla violates users' trust, Amazon has a new Linux, OpenSSH is coming to Windows, and Intel blocks disabling of the Management Engine.
Plus an update on the Conservancy's fight with the Software Freedom Law Center and more.
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- Introducing Amazon Linux 2 — Amazon Linux 2 provides a modern execution environment with LTS Kernel (4.9) tuned for optimal performance on Amazon Web Services (AWS), systemd support, and newer tooling (gcc 7.2.1, glibc 2.25, binutils 2.27).
- Amazon Linux 2 Benchmarks — With Amazon AWS this week having released Amazon Linux 2 LTS I was excited to put this updated cloud-focused operating system through some performance tests to see how it stacks up with the more well known Linux distributions.
- OpenSSH coming to Windows 10 — The software giant is now adding a native OpenSSH client to Windows 10. It’s available immediately as a beta option in the Fall Creators Update for Windows 10, and it’s easy to enable.
- Not just the client — we also shipped OpenSSH's sshd server, but it's a little tricky to configure right now. Expect a blog post this week. * This is not production-ready in the current version of Windows 10 (hence the "(Beta)" in the label), but we hope to be soon.
- Mozilla faces blowback after slipping Mr Robot plugin into Firefox — Firefox users noticed a strange new plug-in popping up in their browsers. A new plug-in called Looking Glass found its way into each instance of the new Firefox Quantum browser. It was disabled by default, but users were still alarmed to see a plugin they hadn’t installed.
- Steve Klabnik on Twitter — I am pretty upset with my employer, @mozilla, today
- Carol Nichols, Rus Dev on Twitter — "Mozilla wasn't paid for the Mr. Robot tie-in"
- Intel to slap hardware lock on Management Engine code to thwart downgrade attacks — From version 12 onward, ME-equipped chips will defend against patch rollbacks.
- Conservancy update on fight with Law Center — Today, Conservancy filed for summary judgment in SFLC's trademark cancellation action. As I understand from our lawyers, summary judgment is a mechanism to ask a Court to expediently handle a matter where the facts are straightforward and, as a matter of law, there is no plausible way that the party filing for summary judgment won't prevail.
- TechSNAP reboot — Systems, Network, and Administration Podcast. Every week TechSNAP covers the stories that impact those of us in the tech industry, and all of us that follow it. Every episode we dedicate a portion of the show to answer audience questions, discuss best practices, and solving your problems.
28 min - Linux Action News 31
The Ghost of Yahoo and Mozilla go to battle, the right way to abandon a project, the coming UK Bitcoin crackdown, and Android GO is released to OEMs.
Plus the Intel ME situation that's much worse than previously known.
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- Mozilla Files Cross-Complaint Against Yahoo Holdings and Oath — Yahoo Holdings and Oath filed a complaint against Mozilla on December 1, 2017, claiming that we improperly terminated the agreement between Mozilla and Yahoo. Today, in response, Mozilla filed a cross-complaint against Yahoo Holdings and Oath for breach of contract.
- Mozilla tackles fake news — The boundaries between truth and fiction are becoming harder to define, in part because of the proliferation of fake news and other forms of misinformation. Mozilla wants to shed light on this by sponsoring public demonstrations, using mixed reality and other art media that make the power of misinformation and its potential impacts visible and visceral.
- Classic Shell abandoned as open source — The source code is available at SourceForge, and the Classic Shell forum will remain online until the end of 2018 for folks that want to continue discussing the project.
- UK and EU plan Bitcoin crackdown — The Treasury plans to regulate bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to bring them in line with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financial legislation. Traders will be forced to disclose their identities, ending the anonymity that has made the currency attractive for drug dealing and other illegal activities.
- Android Go released to OEMs — Google’s stripped-down version of Android is ready for OEMs.
- Mediatek announce Go optimized SoCs — MediaTek’s MT6739, MT6737, and MT6580 SoCs, among others, now have board support packages available to run Android Oreo (Go edition). This marks one of the first times that entry-level SoCs are ready to be used shortly after the latest version of Android.
- Pwning Intel ME — The duo say they found a locally exploitable stack buffer overflow that allows the execution of unsigned code on any device with Intel ME 11, even if the device is turned off or protected by security software.
25 min - Linux Action News 30
Bitcoin breaks $10k and we ponder its true value, big companies join the compliance-first approach to GPLv2, we spot some red flags in the latest Raspbian x86 release, and Mozilla has a new open source project.
Plus Jolla gets in on the blockchain hype, and we clarify the Linux LTS situation.
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- Bitcoin surges past $10k — Bitcoin has spiked 933 percent since the beginning of the year, when it traded at $968.23
- Big companies join the compliance-first approach to GPLv2 — To provide greater predictability to users of open source software, Red Hat, Facebook, Google and IBM today each committed to extending the GPLv3 approach for license compliance errors to the software code that each licenses under GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 and v2.
- LTS kernel support window clarified — Just because +Greg Kroah-Hartman is doing it for 4.4 does not mean that all LTS kernels from now on are going to be maintained for that long.
- New x86 version of Raspbian Released — Today, we are launching the first Debian Stretch release of the Raspberry Pi Desktop for PCs and Macs, and we’re also releasing the latest version of Raspbian Stretch for your Pi.
- LOL
- Mozilla’s Open Source Speech Recognition Model and Voice Dataset — I’m excited to announce the initial release of Mozilla’s open source speech recognition model that has an accuracy approaching what humans can perceive when listening to the same recordings. We are also releasing the world’s second largest publicly available voice dataset, which was contributed to by nearly 20,000 people globally.
- Mozilla still loaded — The State of Mozilla 2016 is our annual report. This report highlights activities for 2016 and is accompanied by detailed financials.
- Jolla update — Sailfish X has been now out for six weeks
36 min - Linux Action News 29
Android tracking more invasive than previously known, Ubuntu wants your ideas for Mir, and Linus gets heated about Kernel security while we focus on the technical issue at the heart of the matter.
Plus a new magazine from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, several vulnerabilities in Intel's Management Engine, and more!
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- Google collected location data from Android users who didn't know — In a nutshell, the whereabouts of every active Android phone and tablet in the world were tracked even with location services disabled and no carrier SIM card inserted.
- Ubuntu want community input on Mir — However we’re also at the place where we need to reach out to the community and ask what are the aspects of your desktop that you value most, to help us figure out a direction for Mir.
- New magazine from the Raspberry Pi Foundation - Hackspace — The first issue of HackSpace magazine is here! Join us as we explore thinking machines, build a trebuchet, learn how Arduino changed the world, see how far we can overclock a Raspberry Pi using liquid nitrogen, and much more…
- Linus gets heated about kernel security — Linux Lord fires up over proposal to secure Linux by shutting down wonky processes
- Then calmly explains his position — His long post on the matter suggested to security practitioners that “'Do no harm' should be your mantra for any new hardening work.”
- Others act like children — So on the day of Kees' presentation, where he tried to drop a useless 0day on me and talk up how many upstream developers reviewed his code that did the same limitation *right*, I wrote an exploit of my own.
- Vulnerability in Intel Management Engine — Remote attackers could launch commands on a host of Intel-based computers, including laptops and desktops shipped with Intel Core processors since 2015.
24 min - Linux Action News 28
Fedora goes modular, Firefox makes a quantum leap, and a Linux classic makes a come back.
Plus a big moment for the Kernel, Red Hat goes ARM, and OpenPlus has a backdoor with a twist.
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- Fedora 27 released — The Workstation edition of Fedora 27 features GNOME 3.26. In the new release, both the Display and Network configuration panels have been updated, along with the overall Settings panel appearance improvement.
- Firefox 57 arrives — It’s by far the biggest update we’ve had since we launched Firefox 1.0 in 2004
- There's an option for people who don't like change — a fork of the Mozilla code-base pre-Servo/Rust... Basically for those not liking the direction of Firefox with v57 rolling out the Quantum changes, etc.
- Ubuntu Unity 7 flavour might be on the horizon — A proposal to create a new community Ubuntu flavor which uses the Unity 7 desktop by default is gathering support within the Ubuntu community.
- LTS kernel 4.14 released — Anyway, go out and test the new 4.14 release, that is slated to be the
next LTS kernel - and start sending me pull request for the 4.15 mergewindow.- RISC-V support may be coming to 4.15 — RISC-V is hoping to see mainline with Linux 4.15. We've known for a while now about their mainline ambitions for 4.15 and a pull request was sent today, but it remains to be seen yet if Linus Torvalds will pull it for this merge window.
- Red Hat announces ARM version of RHEL — Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 for ARM, the first commercial release for this architecture.
- Oneplus backdoor — OnePlus accidentally left in place a diagnostic testing application made by Qualcomm. After decompiling this application, he discovered that it can be exploited to grant root access—effectively acting as a backdoor.
28 min - Linux Action News 27
New details show Linux on Galaxy phones further along than expected, Bitcoin's bad week explained, and CrossOver enables Windows apps, on ChromeOS.
Plus Canonical puts out a call for help, Munich votes to return to Windows, and Steam on Linux turns 5.
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- SegWit2x Bitcoin fork called off — "Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together," Belshe said. "Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin’s growth."
- Eco friendly Bitcoin competitor announced — Cohen has just started a new company called Chia Network that will launch a cryptocurrency based on proofs of time and storage rather than bitcoin’s electricity-burning proofs of work. Essentially, Chia will harness cheap and abundant unused storage space on hard drives to verify its blockchain.
- More Linux On Galaxy details — Described as a “Concept Demo”, the vid has a couple of interesting moments.
- CrossOver enables Windows apps on ChromeOS — CodeWeavers has now announced the availability of their Wine-powered CrossOver software for Chrome OS.
- Canonical wants volunteers to create art for Ubuntu — A new theme based on Adwaita, the default GNOME GTK theme.
- Steam Linux client turns 5 — It was on 6 November 2012 when the Steam Linux beta roll-out began and gained more steam as the year came to a close.
- Munich votes to return to Windows — That means, that Munich will transition to Microsoft Windows 10 in a 2 year phase (till 2020) on 29,000 pcs. The cost for this transition is actually confidential, but is estimated to be more than 100 million euros (more than 116 million US dollars).
- Apple relicenses CUPS — The CUPS Common UNIX Printing System up to now had been developed under the GPLv2 license while now Apple will be switching it to the Apache 2.0 software license.
31 min - Linux Action News 26
It's a week of red flags and success. The Plasma Mobile project sets humble goals, Firefox learns new tricks, a TOR flaw for Linux users, and Canonical joins the Gnome Advisory Board.
Plus a new report claims every Bitcoin transaction uses as much energy as your house in a week, and two legal matters that may have long-term impacts on the Linux community.
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- Plasma Mobile Roadmap — Our development strategy is to build a basic system and platform around our core values first and then extend this.
- Librem 5 progressing with Plasma Mobile — In general, Plasma Mobile already provides a usable (albeit alpha-quality) mobile interface today. The Qt Quick/QML based Kirigami component library and interface guidelines also provide a nice framework for mobile application developers
- Firefox to remove canvas fingerprinting — The Mozilla Foundation is boosting privacy in an upcoming version of its Firefox browser by removing the snooping capability called canvas fingerprinting, a method of tracking users across multiple websites.
- Tor flaw: TorMoil — TorMoil threatens Mac and Linux versions of Tor browser; Windows and Tails not affected.
- Canonical joins GNOME Foundation Advisory Board — The GNOME Foundation is pleased to announce that Canonical, creator of the Ubuntu operating system, has joined the GNOME Foundation advisory board.
- SCO vs. IBM Lives on — As Groklaw records, this case kicked off in 2003. The dispute centres on “Project Monterey” a joint effort by SCO and IBM to build a unified UNIX capable of running on several different microprocessor architectures. SCO – at that time known as the Santa Cruz Operation – sold versions of UNIX and tossed some of its source code into the Project Monterey mix, as did IBM. The parties signed a “joint development agreement” (JDA) to formalise the deal.
- SFLC files a suit against Conservancy — This trademark action is in its early stages. SFLC filed a petition on September 22. Yesterday, we provided an answer that lists defenses that we plan to use.
24 min - Linux Action News 25
Big changes coming to Linux Mint, hope for ZFS upstream in Linux, and Mozilla helps out TOR. Plus how Russia may help legitimize cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and Solus makes a call for help.
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- Mint to add Flatpak support — The project says the upcoming release of Linux Mint 18.3 will come with “full support” for Flatpak out of the box.
This will include integration with the Linux Mint Software Manager.- Drop KDE edition — The Linux Mint crew has confirmed today they will be discontinuing future releases of their KDE spin following next month's Linux Mint 18.3 release.
- Oracle Could Still Make ZFS A First-Class Upstream Linux File-System — Mark wants to see ZFS become a core part of Linux. He wants it to become "the file-system of Linux" and "that could happen" for "core Linux." He later said, "it's a possibility... but I can't say how strong of a possibility," that includes talking with Oracle lawyers about the code license of both ZFS and Solaris.
- Open ZFS File-System Running On Windows
- Google Play Protect isn't very good at spotting malware — When exposed to recent Android malware samples, six of the 20 software suites sampled correctly flagged every single one as evil and prevented them from running. Eight more managed a 99 per cent or higher hit rate. Google's own system, Play Protect, only detected 65.8 per cent of threats.
- Mozilla helps out TOR and so can you — Today we’re launching our end-of-year crowdfunding campaign, “Powering Digital Resistance,” highlighting Tor’s work protecting essential human rights around the world.
As part of this end-of-year campaign, Mozilla is matching donations up to a total of $500,000 -- so your donation to the Tor Project will go twice as far!- Solus looking for help with aesthetics for Solus 4 — If you wanna help us improve the default experience for the next ISO, or you've some mad creative skills, let us know!
- Steam VR Marketshare Already Larger Than Steam Linux Marketshare — Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais who is heavily involved in their Linux efforts as well as those around virtual reality has commented the VR market-share is already larger than the entire Steam Linux market-share.
- Putin Will Require Cryptocurrency Miners to Register With the Government — After months of conflicting statements, Russia has finally outlined its plan for cryptocurrencies.
27 min - Linux Action News 24
The Linux desktop on Samsung phones, Intel ME disabled on Purism laptops, big Kernel news, and Ubuntu 17.10 is out.
Plus our brief thoughts on the new Ubuntu release, its various flavors, an important milestone, and the larger Open Source story.
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- Samsung enable Linux on their phones — Linux desktops will become available if users plug their phones into the DeX Station, the device that lets a Galaxy 8 run a Samsung-created desktop-like environment when connected to the DeX and an external monitor
- Purism Now Shipping Their Laptops With Intel ME Disabled — Purism has announced today all laptops to be shipping from their company will now have the Intel Management Engine (ME) disabled.
- Purism partner with Nextcloud on end-to-end encrypted storage — Purism plans to include Nextcloud in the Librem 5 phone, as well as within PureOS for its Librem 13 and Librem 15 laptops. Additionally, Purism will be discussing with Nextcloud about a future Purism NAS that runs completely free software including Nextcloud and services.
- LVFS/fwupd need donations — At the moment the secure part of the LVFS is hosted in a dedicated Scaleway instance, so any additional donations would be spent on paying this small bill and perhaps more importantly buying some (2nd hand?) hardware to include as part of our release-time QA checks.
- Linux Kernel Community Enforcement Statement — It adopts the same termination provisions we are all familiar with from GPL-3.0 as an Additional Permission giving companies confidence that they will have time to come into compliance if a failure is identified. Their ability to rely on this Additional Permission will hopefully re-establish user confidence and help direct enforcement activity back to the original purpose we have all sought over the years – actual compliance.
- Ubuntu 17.10 released — Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including
a new 4.13-based kernel, glibc 2.26, gcc 7.2, and much more.Ubuntu Desktop has had a major overhaul, with the switch from Unity asour default desktop to GNOME3 and gnome-shell.- Happy 13th Birthday — Ubuntu 4.10 ‘Warty Warthog’ wasn’t the most glamorous looking release, but it offered open-source enthusiasts of the day a simple, straightforward install from a single CD. The distro was notable for trying to “detect as much hardware as possible, simplifying the X install.”
GNOME 2.8, Firefox 0.9, Evolution 2.0 and OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 were among the software assembled for the formative release.- Ubuntu MATE — After six months of tireless work we present Ubuntu MATE 17.10, by far the best release we’ve ever produced.
- Xubuntu — Accelerated video playback with Intel hardware should now work more reliably out of the box.
34 min
About Linux Action News
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Weekly Linux news and analysis by Chris and Joe. The show every week we hope you'll go to when you want to hear an informed discussion about what’s happening.