Haiku R1 beta 3: 07/26/2021 After a year of development, the third beta release of the Haiku R1 operating system has been published. The project was originally created in response to the shutdown of BeOS and developed under the name OpenBeOS, but was renamed in 2004 due to claims related to the use of the BeOS trademark in the name. Several bootable Live images (x86, x86-64) have been prepared to evaluate the performance of the new release. The source code for most of the Haiku OS is distributed under the free MIT license, with the exception of some libraries, media codecs and components borrowed from other projects. Haiku OS is focused on personal computers, uses its own kernel, built on a modular architecture, optimized for high responsiveness to user actions and efficient execution of multithreaded applications. An object-oriented API is presented for developers. The system is directly based on BeOS 5 technologies and is aimed at binary compatibility with applications for this OS. Minimum hardware requirement: CPU Pentium II and 384 MB RAM (Intel Core i3 and 2 GB RAM recommended).

Release of nDPI 4.0 deep packet inspection system: 07/27/2021 The ntop project, which develops tools for capturing and analyzing traffic, has published a release of the nDPI 4.0 deep packet inspection toolkit, which continues the development of the OpenDPI library. The nDPI project was founded after an unsuccessful attempt to push changes to an unattended OpenDPI repository. The nDPI code is written in C and is licensed under the LGPLv3 license. The project allows you to determine the application-level protocols used in traffic by analyzing the nature of network activity without binding to network ports (it can determine known protocols whose handlers accept connections on non-standard network ports, for example, if http is sent not from port 80, or, conversely, when which they try to camouflage other network activity as http by running on port 80). https://www.ntop.org/ndpi/introducing-ndpi-4-0-dpi-for-cybersecurity-and-traffic-analysis/

PulseAudio 15.0 sound server released: 07/28/2021 The PulseAudio 15.0 sound server, which acts as an intermediary between applications and various low-level sound subsystems, abstracting the work with the equipment. PulseAudio allows you to control the volume and mixing of sound at the level of individual applications, organize the input, mixing and output of sound in the presence of several input and output channels or sound cards, allows you to change the audio stream format on the fly and use plug-ins, making it possible to transparently redirect the audio stream to another machine. PulseAudio code is distributed under the LGPL 2.1+ license. Supports Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, NetBSD, macOS and Windows. https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss/2021-July/032099.html

Release of OPNsense 21.7: 07/29/2021 OPNsense 21.7 is out, which is a fork of the pfSense project, created with the aim of forming a completely open distribution that could function at the level of commercial solutions for deploying firewalls and network gateways. Unlike pfSense, the project is positioned as not controlled by one company, developed with the direct participation of the community and has a completely transparent development process, as well as providing the opportunity to use any of its developments in third-party products, including commercial ones. The source code of the distribution's components, as well as the tools used for building, are distributed under the BSD license. Assemblies are prepared in the form of a LiveCD and a system image for writing to Flash drives (422 MB). The base distribution is based on the HardenedBSD code, which maintains a synchronized fork of FreeBSD, which integrates additional protection mechanisms and techniques for countering exploitation of vulnerabilities. https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=24112.0

Apache Cassandra 4.0 is available: 07/29/2021 The Apache Software Foundation has presented Apache Cassandra 4.0 DBMS. It belongs to the class of noSQL systems and is designed to create highly scalable and reliable storage of huge data arrays stored in the form of an associative array (hash). The release of Cassandra 4.0 is considered ready for production and has already been tested on Amazon, Apple, DataStax, Instaclustr, iland and Netflix infrastructures with clusters of more than 1000 nodes. The project code is written in Java and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. The DBMS allows you to create fault-tolerant storages: the data placed in the database is automatically replicated to several nodes of the distributed network, which can span different data centers. If a node fails, its functions are picked up on the fly by other nodes. Adding new nodes to the cluster and updating the Cassandra version is done on the fly, without additional manual intervention and reconfiguration of other nodes. https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-cassandra-project-releases SEE - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOf29M8qFts

Release of Siduction 2021.2: 07/29/2021 The Siduction 2021.2 project, which develops a desktop-oriented Linux distribution, built on the Debian Sid (unstable) package base, was released. Siduction is a fork of Aptosid that spun off in July 2011. The key difference from Aptosid is the use of a newer version of KDE from the experimental Qt-KDE repository as a user environment, as well as fresh versions of Xfce, LXDE, Cinnamon and LXQt (GNOME and MATE are skipped due to the lack of maintainers), as well as a minimalistic X.Org assembly based on the Fluxbox window manager and the “noX” assembly, supplied without a graphical environment for users who wish to build their own system. In the new release, the versions of the KDE Plasma 5.20.5 desktops have been updated, LXQt 0.16.0, Cinnamon 4.8.6.2, Xfce 4.16 and Lxde 11. The Linux kernel has been updated to version 5.13.6, and the system Systemd manager up to 247.3-6. The package base is in sync with the Debian Unstable repository as of July 28th. In Xorg and noX builds, as well as in the second build with Plasma 5.22.4, by default, the iwd daemon is used to connect to the wireless network instead of wpa_supplicant (in other builds, iwd is provided as an option). https://siduction.org/2021/07/release-notes-for-siduction-2021-2-0/

Open source Orbiter space flight simulator: 08/01/2021 The Orbiter Space Flight Simulator project has been announced, offering a realistic space flight simulator that complies with the laws of Newtonian physics. The motivation for opening the code is the desire to provide the community with the opportunity to continue the development of the project after the author has been unable to develop for several years for personal reasons. The project code is written in C++ with scripts in Lua and published under the MIT license. Only the Windows platform is currently supported, and compilation requires Microsoft Visual Studio. The published sources are for the “2016 Edition” with additional fixes. The program offers models of both historical and modern spacecraft, and hypothetically possible and fantastic spaceships. The key difference between Orbiter and computer games is that the project does not offer any missions, but provides an opportunity to simulate a real flight, covering such tasks as calculating an orbit, docking with other vehicles and planning a flight path to other planets. The simulation uses a fairly detailed model of the solar system. https://www.orbiter-forum.com/threads/orbiter-is-now-open-source.40023/

Latte Dock 0.10 released: 08/07/2021 After two years of development the Latte the Dock 0.10 is out, offering an elegant and simple solution for managing tasks and plasmoids. This includes effects like enlargement of icons in the style of macOS or the Plank. Latte panel is built on top of the KDE Frameworks framework and the Qt library. Integration with the KDE Plasma desktop is supported. The project code is distributed under the GPLv2 license. The project is based on the merger of similar panels in their tasks - Now Dock and Candil Dock. After the merger, the developers tried to combine the two into a new one, which works separately from the Plasma Shell, proposed in Candil, with the high-quality interface design inherent in Now Dock and using only the KDE and Plasma libraries without third-party dependencies. https://psifidotos.blogspot.com/2021/08/latte-dock-v0100-official-stable-release.html

Nmap 7.92 Released: 08/07/2021 The release of the Nmap 7.92 network security scanner is available, designed to audit a network and identify active network services. The new release resolves the Fedora Project's comments regarding incompatibility with the open source NPSL (GPLv2-based) license under which Nmap code is distributed. In the new version of the license, the mandatory requirement to purchase a separate commercial license when using the code in proprietary software is replaced by recommendations for using the OEM licensing program and the possibility of buying a commercial license if the manufacturer does not want to open the code of his product in accordance with the requirements of the copyleft license or intends to integrate Nmap into products incompatible with the GPL https://seclists.org/nmap-announce/2021/3

Bottlerocket 1.2, isolated container distribution released: 08/08/2021 Bottlerocket 1.2.0 is now available, developed with the participation of Amazon to efficiently and safely run isolated containers. The distribution and control components are written in Rust and are distributed under the MIT and Apache 2.0 licenses. Supported systems for running Bottlerocket: Amazon ECS, VMware, and AWS EKS Kubernetes clusters, as well as creating custom builds and revisions that allow for a variety of container orchestration and runtime tools. The distribution provides an atomically and automatically updated indivisible system image that includes the Linux kernel and a minimal system environment that includes only the components needed to run containers. The environment uses the systemd system manager, Glibc library, Buildroot build toolkit, GRUB bootloader, wicked network configurator , runtime for isolated containerd containers , Kubernetes container orchestration framework, aws-iam-authenticator, and Amazon ECS agent. Most of the system components are written in Rust, which provides means for safe memory handling to avoid vulnerabilities caused by accessing a memory area after it is freed, dereferencing null pointers, and overflowing buffer boundaries. https://github.com/bottlerocket-os/bottlerocket/releases/tag/v1.2.0

Release of the P2P platform GNUnet 0.15.0: 08/09/2021 The GNUnet 0.15 framework, intended for building secure decentralized P2P networks, is out. Networks created using GNUnet do not have a single point of failure and are able to guarantee the privacy of users, including excluding possible abuse by special services and administrators who have access to network nodes. GNUnet supports the creation of P2P networks over TCP, UDP, HTTP / HTTPS, Bluetooth and WLAN, and can work in F2F (Friend-to-friend) mode. NAT traversal is supported, including using UPnP and ICMP. A distributed hash table (DHT) can be used to address data allocation. Means for deploying mesh networks are provided. To selectively grant and revoke access rights, a decentralized exchange of identification attributes reclaimID is used , using GNS (GNU Name System) and Attribute-Based Encryption . The system is characterized by low resource consumption and the use of a multi-process architecture to ensure isolation between components. Flexible means of logging and statistics accumulation are provided. For the development of final applications, GNUnet provides APIs for the C language and bindings for other programming languages. To simplify development, it is suggested to use event loops and processes instead of threads. It includes a test library for the automatic deployment of experimental networks covering tens of thousands of peers. https://gnunet.org/en/news/2021-08-0.15.0.html

25th Alpha release available 0 AD: 08/09/2021 The twenty-fifth alpha release of the 0 AD - a free game has been published. It is a real-time strategy game with high-quality 3D graphics and gameplay very similar to the games in the Age of Empires series. The game's source code was released by Wildfire Games under the GPL after 9 years of development as a proprietary product. The game is available for Linux (Ubuntu, Gentoo, Debian, openSUSE, Fedora and Arch Linux), FreeBSD , OpenBSD, macOS and Windows. The current version supports network play and single-player game with bots on pre-modeled or dynamically created maps. The game spans over ten civilizations ranging from 500 BC to 500 AD. Non-code-related components of the game, such as graphics and sound, are licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA license for modification and use in commercial products, provided that derivative works are credited and redistributed under a similar license. The game engine 0 AD has about 150 thousand lines of code in C++, OpenGL is used to display 3D graphics, OpenAL is used to work with sound, and ENet is used to organize a network game. https://play0ad.com/new-release-0-a-d-alpha-25-yauna/

Tor Browser 10.5.4 and Tails 4.21: 08/10/2021 The specialized distribution Tails 4.21 (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), based on Debian and designed to provide anonymous access to the internet, has been released. Anonymous logging into Tails is provided by the Tor system. All connections, except for traffic through the Tor network, are blocked by the packet filter by default. Encryption is used to store user data between runs. A 1 GB iso image has been prepared for downloading, capable of working in Live mode. The new release has updated versions of Tor Browser 10.5.4 and Thunderbird 78.12. The installer has solved the problem with permanent data deletion when the “Cancel” button is selected during manual update of the distribution. At the same time, a new version of the Tor Browser 10.5.4 was released, focused on ensuring anonymity, security and privacy. The release is synchronized with the Firefox 78.13.0 ESR codebase, which has fixed 10 vulnerabilities. They also updated NoScript to 11.2.11. https://tails.boum.org/news/version_4.21/

Release of Elementary OS 6: 08/11/2021 16:36 Elementary OS 6, positioned as a fast, open and privacy-friendly alternative to Windows and macOS, is out. The main focus of the project is on quality design aimed at creating an easy-to-use system that consumes minimal resources and provides a high start-up speed. Users are offered their own Pantheon desktop environment. Bootable iso-images (2.36 GB) are available for the amd64 architecture (for free download from the project's website , enter 0 in the field with the donation amount). When developing the original components of Elementary OS, GTK3, Vala language and Granite's own framework are used. Elementary OS 6 is compatible with Ubuntu 20.04 at the package level and repository support. The graphical environment is based on the proprietary Pantheon shell, which combines such components as the Gala window manager (based on LibMutter), the WingPanel top panel, the Slingshot launcher, the Switchboard control panel, the Plank lower taskbar (the Docky panel rewritten in Vala) and the session manager Pantheon Greeter (based on LightDM). https://blog.elementary.io/elementary-os-6-odin-released/

The tenth ALT platform: 08/11/2021 ALT (p10) - a new stable branch, based on a repository of free software Sisyphus, is out. The platform is designed to develop, test, distribute, update and support complex solutions at all levels - from embedded devices to enterprise servers and data centers; created and developed by the ALT Linux Team , supported by the Basalt SPO company . http://basealt.ru/about/news/archive/view/desjataja-platforma-proekta-sizif-novyi-vitok-ehvolju/*

Thunderbird 91 Mail Client Released: 08/12/2021 A year after the publication of the last major release, the e-mail client Thunderbird 91, as developed by the community and based on Mozilla technologies, is out. The new release is categorized as a version with long-term support, updates for which are released throughout the year. Thunderbird 91 is based on the ESR codebase for Firefox 91. The release is available for direct download only, automatic updates from previous releases to version 91.0 are not provided and will only be generated in version 91.2. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/91.0/releasenotes/

PostgreSQL update with vulnerability fix: 08/12/2021 Corrective updates have been generated for all supported PostgreSQL branches: 13.4 , 12.8 , 11.13 , 10.18 and 9.6.23. Updates for branch 9.6 will be generated until November 2021, 10 until November 2022, 11 until November 2023, 12 until November 2024, 13 until November 2025. The new versions offer 75 fixes and fix the CVE-2021-3677 vulnerability, which allows reading the memory of a server process through a specially crafted request. The attack can be carried out by any user with access to execute SQL queries. Only PostgreSQL branches 11, 12 and 13. Known attack variants do not affect configurations with the max_worker_processes = 0 setting, but it is possible that there are options that do not depend on this setting. https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-134-128-1113-1018-9623-and-14-beta-3-released-2277/

Release of KDE Gear 21.08: 08/13/2021 The August Cumulative Update of Applications (21.08) developed by the KDE Project, is out. As a reminder, the KDE Consolidated Application Kit has been published since April under the name KDE Gear, instead of KDE Apps and KDE Applications. In total, within the framework of the update , releases of 226 programs, libraries and plugins have been published . Information on the availability of Live images with new releases of applications can be found on this page: https://community.kde.org/Plasma/LiveImages https://kde.org/announcements/gear/21.08.0/

Debian GNU / Hurd 2021 Available: 08/14/2021 The release of the Debian GNU / Hurd 2021 distribution, which combines the Debian software environment with the GNU / Hurd kernel, is out. The Debian GNU / Hurd repository contains approximately 70% of the total Debian archive size, including ported Firefox and Xfce. Debian GNU / Hurd remains the only actively developed Debian platform based on a non-Linux kernel (a port of Debian GNU / KFreeBSD was previously developed, but it has long been abandoned). The GNU / Hurd platform is not one of the officially supported architectures for Debian 11, so Debian GNU / Hurd 2021 is released separately and has the status of an unofficial Debian release. Prebuilt images provided with a specially crafted graphical installer, and packages are currently only available for the i386 architecture. The NETINST installation images, CDs and DVDs, as well as an image for launching in virtualization systems are prepared for downloading . GNU Hurd is a kernel developed as a replacement for the Unix kernel and is designed as a set of servers running on top of the GNU Mach microkernel and implementing various system services such as file systems, networking stack, and file access control system. The GNU Mach microkernel provides an IPC mechanism used to organize the interaction of GNU Hurd components and build a distributed multiserver architecture. https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2021/08/msg00040.html

Ardor 6.9 Free Sound Editor Released: 08/14/2021 Ardor 6.9 , intended for multichannel recording, processing and mixing of sound, is out. Ardor provides a multitrack timeline, an unlimited rollback level for the entire duration of working with a file (even after closing the program), and support for a variety of hardware interfaces. The program is positioned as a free alternative to professional tools like ProTools, Nuendo, Pyramix and Sequoia. The code is distributed under the GPLv2 license. Linux prebuilt builds are available in Flatpak format . https://discourse.ardour.org/t/ardour-6-9-released/106273

Debian 11 “Bullseye” Released: 08/15/2021 After two years of development the Debian the GNU / the Linux 11.0 ( Bullseye ), available for nine of officially supported architectures : Intel IA-32 / x86 (i686), AMD64 / x86-64, ARM EABI (armel), 64-bit ARM (arm64 ), ARMv7 (armhf), mipsel, mips64el, PowerPC 64 (ppc64el) and IBM System z (s390x). Updates for Debian 11 will be released for 5 years. Installation images, can be downloaded on the HTTP , jigdo or BitTorrent . Also, an unofficial nonfree installation image has been generated, which includes proprietary firmware. For amd64 and i386 architectures, LiveUSB has been developed, available in variants with GNOME, KDE, LXDE, Xfce, Cinnamon and MATE, as well as a multi-architecture DVD that combines packages for the amd64 platform with add-on packages for the i386 architecture. There are 59551 binary packages in the repository (42821 source packages), which is about 1848 packages more than what was proposed in Debian 10. Compared to Debian 10, 11294 new binaries were added, 9519 (16%) obsolete or abandoned packages were removed, 42821 updated (72%) packages. The total total size of all sources offered in the distribution is 1,152,960,944 lines of code. 6208 developers took part in the preparation of the release. For 95.7% of packages, support for repeatable builds are provided, which allows you to confirm that the executable file is built exactly from the declared sources and does not contain extraneous changes. https://www.debian.org/News/2021/20210814

Apache OpenMeetings 6.1 web conferencing server released: 08/16/2021 The Apache Software Foundation has announced the release of the Apache OpenMeetings 6.1, a web conferencing server which enables audio and video conferencing over the Web, as well as collaboration and messaging between participants. Both webinars with one speaker and conferences with an arbitrary number of participants interacting with each other are supported. The project code is written in Java and distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. Additional features include: tools for integrating with a calendar-scheduler, sending individual or broadcast notifications and invitations, sharing files and documents, maintaining the address book of participants, keeping an event protocol, jointly scheduling tasks, broadcasting the output of running applications (screencast demonstration), conducting polls and polls. One server can serve an arbitrary number of conferences held in separate virtual conference rooms and including its own set of participants. The server supports flexible permissions management tools and a powerful conference moderation system. Management and interaction of participants is carried out through the web interface. OpenMeetings code is written in Java. MySQL and PostgreSQL can be used as a DBMS. https://blogs.apache.org/openmeetings/entry/openmeetings-v6-1-0-webrtc

The PINE64 project introduced the PineNote e-book: 08/16/2021 The Pine64 community, unveilled the PineNote e-book, equipped with a 10.3-inch e-ink screen. The device is based on a Rockchip RK3566 SoC with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor, AI-accelerator RK NN (0.8Tops) and GPU Mali G52 2EE (OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0), which makes the device one of the highest performing devices in its class. PineNote is currently in a preproduction prototype stage. It is scheduled to go on sale this year for $ 399. PineNote software is based on Linux - support for the Rockchip RK3566 SoC is already included in the main Linux kernel during the development of the Quartz64 board. The e-paper screen driver is still under development but will be ready for production. The first batches are planned to be released with Manjaro Linux preinstalled and Linux 4.19 kernel. They plan to use KDE Plasma Mobile or a slightly modified KDE Plasma desktop desktop as a custom shell. However, the development has not yet been completed and the final software filling will depend on how the selected technologies behave on the screen based on electronic paper. https://www.pine64.org/2021/08/15/introducing-the-pinenote/

Slackware 15 RC Published: 08/16/2021 Patrick Volkerding announced testing of the release candidate for the Slackware 15.0 distribution, which marked the freeze of most packages prior to release and a focus on the remaining release-blocking bugs. An installation image of 3.1 GB in size (x86_64) is prepared for download, as well as a minimal image for running in Live mode. Slackware has been around since 1993 and is the oldest distribution in existence. The distribution's features are its lack of complications and a simple init system in the style of classic BSD systems, which makes Slackware an interesting solution for learning how Unix-like systems work, experimenting and getting to know Linux. Slackware 15 has updated versions of software, including the upgrade to the Linux 5.13 kernel, the GCC 11.2 compiler set, and the Glibc 2.33 system library. Desktop components have been updated to KDE Plasma 5.22 and KDE Gear 21.08. http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=x86_64

Git 2.33 source control released: 08/17/2021 After two months of development, the release of the distributed source control system Git 2.33 was published. Git is one of the most popular, reliable and high-performance version control systems, providing flexible non-linear development tools based on branching and merging. To ensure the integrity of history and resistance to changes “retroactively”, implicit hashing of the entire previous history in each commit is used, and it is also possible to certify with digital signatures, the developers of individual tags and commits. Compared to the previous release, 649 changes were adopted in the new version, prepared with the participation of 74 developers, of which 19 took part in the development for the first time. https://lkml.org/lkml/2021/8/16/1323

A new Pale Moon Browser version: 08/18/2021 A release of the Pale Moon 29.4 web browser is now available, a fork of the Firefox codebase to provide better performance, preserve the classic interface, minimize memory consumption, and provide additional customization options. Pale Moon builds are available for Windows and Linux (x86 and x86_64). The project code is distributed under the MPLv2 license (Mozilla Public License). The project adheres to the classic layout of the interface, without switching to the Australis interface integrated into Firefox 29, and providing ample customization options. Remote components include DRM, Social API, WebRTC, PDF viewer, Crash Reporter, code for collecting statistics, parental controls, and people with disabilities. Compared to Firefox, the browser retains support for XUL technology and retains the ability to use both full-fledged and lightweight themes. Pale Moon is built on the UXP (Unified XUL Platform) platform, where the Firefox components are forked from the Mozilla Central repository, free of bindings to the Rust code and not including the work of the Quantum project. https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=27260&p=219173

MATE 1.26 released: 08/19/2021 After a year and a half of development, the release of the MATE 1.26 desktop environment has been published. The development of the GNOME 2.32 code base has been continued while maintaining the classic desktop. Installation packages with MATE 1.26 will soon be ready for the Linux Arch, the Debian, of Ubuntu, the Fedora, the openSUSE , the ALT and other distributions. https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2021-08-08-mate-1-26-released/

LibreOffice 7.2 Released: 08/19/2021 The Document Foundation has presented the release of LibreOffice 7.2. Ready-made installation packages are prepared for various Linux, Windows and macOS distributions. In preparation for the release, 70% of the changes were made by people in charge of the project, such as Collabora, Red Hat, and Allotropia, and 30% of the changes were contributed by independent enthusiasts. The LibreOffice 7.2 release is tagged as “Community”, will be supported by enthusiasts, and is not intended for enterprise use. LibreOffice Community is available without restrictions to everyone without exception, including corporate users. For enterprises requiring additional services, the LibreOffice Enterprise family products are separately developed, for which partner companies will provide full support, the ability to receive long-term updates (LTS) and additional functions such as SLA (Service Level Agreements). https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2021/08/19/libreoffice-7-2-community/

Rspamd 3.0 spam filtering available: 08/19/2021 The spam filtering system Rspamd 3.0 is out, which provides tools for evaluating messages according to various criteria, including rules, statistical methods and blacklists, on which the final message weight is formed, which is then used to decide whether to block it or not. Rspamd supports almost all of the capabilities of SpamAssassin, and has a number of features that allow you to filter mail on average 10 times faster than SpamAssassin, as well as provide better filtering quality. The system code is written in C and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. The major increase in the version number is due to significant changes in the internal architecture, specially in the parts that ensure the parsing of HTML, which have been completely rewritten. The new parser parses HTML using the DOM and forming a tag tree. The new release also introduces a CSS parser that, when combined with the new HTML parser, allows you to correctly extract data from emails with modern HTML markup, including distinguishing between visible and invisible content. It is noteworthy that the parser code is written not in C, but in C++ 17, which requires a compiler with support for this standard. https://rspamd.com/announce/2021/08/19/rspamd-3.0.html

Manjaro Linux 21.1.0 Distribution Released: 08/19/2021 The release of the Manjaro Linux distribution, built on Arch Linux and aimed at novice users, was announced. The distribution is notable for the presence of a simplified and user-friendly installation process, support for automatic hardware detection and installation of the drivers necessary for its operation. Manjaro comes in live builds with the KDE (3 GB), GNOME (2.9 GB) and Xfce (2.7 GB) graphical environments. Builds with Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, LXDE, LXQt, MATE and i3 are additionally developed with community participation . To manage repositories, Manjaro uses its own BoxIt toolkit, designed in the same way as Git. The repository on a rolling basis, but new versions go through an additional stage of stabilization. In addition to its own repository, there is support for using the AUR (Arch User Repository) repository. The distribution is supplied with a graphical installer and a graphical interface for configuring the system. https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-21-1-0-pahvo-released/78663

Release of BusyBox 1.34: 08/20/2021 The release of the BusyBox 1.34 package is presented with the implementation of a set of standard UNIX utilities, designed in the form of a single executable file and optimized for minimum consumption of system resources when the package size is less than 1 MB. The first release of the new 1.34 branch is positioned as unstable, full stabilization will be provided in version 1.34.1, which is expected in about a month. The project code is distributed under the GPLv2 license. BusyBox is the main tool in the fight against GPL violation in firmware. The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), on behalf of BusyBox developers, have repeatedly successfully influenced companies that do not provide access to the source code of GPL programs through the courts and through the conclusion of out-of-court agreements. At the same time, the author of BusyBox strongly objects to such protection, believing that it breaks his business. https://busybox.net/news.html

Nftables Packet Filter 1.0.0 Released: 08/20/2021 The nftables 1.0.0 packet filter has been released, which unifies the packet filtering interfaces for IPv4, IPv6, ARP, and network bridging (aims to replace iptables, ip6table, arptables, and ebtables). Changes necessary for the release of nftables 1.0.0 to work are included in the Linux 5.13 kernel. A major change in the version number is not associated with any cardinal changes, but is only a consequence of the sequential continuation of numbering in decimal (the last release was 0.9.9). The nftables package contains user-space packet filter components, while the nf_tables subsystem, which has been part of the Linux kernel since release 3.13, provides kernel-level functionality. At the kernel level, only a generic interface is provided that is protocol agnostic and provides basic functions for extracting data from packets, performing data operations, and controlling flow. The filtering rules and protocol-specific handlers are compiled into user-space bytecode, after which this bytecode is loaded into the kernel using the Netlink interface and executed in the kernel in a special virtual machine resembling BPF (Berkeley Packet Filters). This approach allows you to significantly reduce the size of the filtering code working at the kernel level and move all the functions of parsing rules and logic for working with protocols into user space. https://www.mail-archive.com/netfilter-announce@lists.netfilter.org/msg00231.html

OpenSSH 8.7 released: 08/20/2021 After four months of development, OpenSSH 8.7 is presented, an open implementation of a client and server for working with the SSH 2.0 and SFTP protocols. Notably: An experimental data transfer mode has been added to scp using the SFTP protocol instead of the traditionally used SCP / RCP protocol. SFTP uses a more predictable method of handling names and does not use shell glob template processing on the other host's side, which poses a security problem. The “-s” flag has been proposed to enable SFTP in scp, but in the future it is planned to switch to this protocol by default. https://lists.mindrot.org/pipermail/openssh-unix-dev/2021-August/039543.html

Valve releases Proton 6.3-6: 08/21/2021 Valve published Proton 6.3-6 , which is based on Wine and aims to get games and applications to run on Linux, designed for Windows and presented in the Steam directory. The code is distributed under the BSD license. Proton allows you to directly run Windows-only gaming applications on the Steam Linux client. The package includes the implementation of DirectX 9/10/11 (based on the DXVK package ) and DirectX 12 (based on vkd3d-proton ), working through translation of DirectX calls to the Vulkan API, provides improved support for game controllers and the ability to use full screen mode regardless of supported in games screen resolutions. “ Esync ” (Eventfd Synchronization) and “ futex / fsync ” mechanisms are supported to increase the performance of multi-threaded games https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/releases/tag/proton-6.3-6b

Bubblewrap 0.5.0, sandboxes for creating isolated environments: 08/21/2021 Bubblewrap 0.5.0 sandboxed environment is available, typically used to restrict individual applications of unprivileged users. In practice, Bubblewrap is used by the Flatpak project as a layer to isolate bundled applications. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the LGPLv2+ license. For isolation, traditional Linux container virtualization technologies are used, based on the use of cgroups, namespaces, Seccomp and SELinux. To perform privileged operations on configuring the container, Bubblewrap is launched as root (an executable file with a suid flag) and then reset privileges after the initialization of the container is complete. The key difference from the similar Firejail project, which also uses a setuid launch model, is that in Bubblewrap the layer for creating containers includes only the necessary minimum of capabilities, and all the advanced functions necessary for launching graphical applications, interacting with the desktop and filtering calls to Pulseaudio, moved to the Flatpak side and are executed after the privileges are dropped. Firejail, on the other hand, combines all the related functions in one executable file, which makes it difficult to audit and maintain security at the proper level . https://github.com/containers/bubblewrap/releases/tag/v0.5.0

Shattered Pixel Dungeon 1.0 Released: 08/21/2021 The release of Shattered Pixel Dungeon 1.0, a turn-based game in the roguelike genreis out. It offers dynamically generated dungeon levels, collecting artifacts, training a character and defeating monsters. The game uses pixel graphics. The code is written in the Java language and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Launch files are prepared for Android, iOS and desktop systems. Release 1.0 is marked as the first full-fledged release of the project, which is no longer marketed as unfinished. The game offers a choice of four types of characters (warrior, magician, robber and huntress), each of which has strengths and weaknesses. In turn, a character, depending on experience, can occupy one of 8 subclasses. Additionally, over 100 talents are offered to enhance the player and 13 separate abilities that provide special strength in the final battle. More than 100 types of weapons and equipment are available. The player is invited to go through 26 underground floors with unique enemies and level schemes. There are over 60 types of enemies, 30 traps and 5 main villains. https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/shatteredpd-v100-and-ios-release.html