OpenBSD removes dhclient utility in favor of a background process called dhcpleased: 01/07/2024 Theo de Raadt made a change to the OpenBSD-current codebase, that is building toward the next major release, to remove the DHCP client dhclient . Instead of dhclient, he suggested the always running background process dhcpleased, which shipped with OpenBSD 6.9 and uses the ifconfig utility to enable auto-configuration of network interfaces via DHCP (enabled by running “ifconfig $if autoconf” or adding “inet autoconf” to /etc/hostname.$if ). Starting with OpenBSD 7.0, the dhcpleased background process was enabled by default and the dhclient utility was made an option. The dhcpleased code, along with resolvd, slaacd and unwind, was written by Florian Obser to simplify and unify auto-configuration of network interfaces. https://marc.info/?l%3Dopenbsd-cvs%26m%3D171976865018013%26w%3D2

Ladybird receives $1 million donation from GitHub co-founder: 01/07/2024 The developers of the free web browser Ladybird, which is being developed from scratch, announced they have received a donation of $1 million. The donation was provided by Chris Wanstrath , co-founder of GitHub. The Ladybird browser was previously a component of SerenityOS , a hobby project to develop a Unix-like operating system from scratch, which was founded by Andreas Kling, formerly of Nokia and developing Safari. In June 2024, Kling decided to separate the browser project from the operating system project and devote his time entirely to its development. According to a post on the project's website, Wanstrath and his family have decided to donate a million dollars to the project to further fund development because they believe in the need for an alternative project in the browser market that is not funded by Google in any way and does not rely on the technology stack of Google Chrome or any other browser. At the moment, the development team consists of four people, including Kling, who are employed on a permanent basis; In the future, they plan to hire three more. The project is focused on supporting Linux and macOS operating systems; There are no plans to release a version for Windows yet. The first alpha version is scheduled for release in 2026. http://ladybird.org/why-ladybird.html

MySQL 9.0.0 DBMS available: 02/07/2024 Oracle has created a new branch of the MySQL 9.0.0 DBMS. MySQL Community Server 9.0.0 builds are prepared for all major Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows distributions. As part of the release model introduced last year, MySQL 9.0 is classified as an “Innovation” branch, which will also include the next major releases of MySQL 9.1 and 9.2. Innovation branches are recommended for those who want early access to new functionality, are published every 3 months and are supported only until the publication of the next major release (for example, after the release of the 9.1 branch, support for the 9.0 branch will be discontinued). In about a year, they plan to create an LTS release, which will be recommended for implementations that require predictability and long-term unchanged behavior. Following the LTS branch, a new Innovation branch will be formed - MySQL 10.0. https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

Fedora 42 intends to implement telemetry: 02/07/2024 Fedora Workstation 42, scheduled for release next spring, will add components to collect and send metrics that will allow you to study the real preferences of users and take them into account when making decisions related to the development of the distribution, determining development priorities and improving the user experience. The proposal is still under discussion and has not been considered by the FESCo (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), which is responsible for the technical part of the development of the Fedora distribution. By default, telemetry collection will be disabled and can only be activated by explicit user action, while there are plans to provide separate options to enable telemetry collection on the local system and sending it to Fedora servers. The user will also be given the ability to view statistics collected on their system and remove telemetry-related components. To maintain confidentiality, they plan to collect only general metrics that do not allow identification of an individual user. For example, metrics will not cover information such as IP addresses, email, open sites and files. To send metrics, they plan to use the “ethical telemetry” technology Azafea , developed by the Endless distribution. https://www.mail-archive.com/devel-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/msg03320.html

Release of Apache 2.4.61: 03/07/2024 Apache HTTP Server 2.4.61 is available, which was published almost immediately after the release of 2.4.60 and includes a fix for the regression change that caused the vulnerability (CVE-2024-39884), which allows you to view the code of scripts that are configured to be processed using the AddType directive (you can create a specially designed request to a PHP script, which will lead to displaying its contents rather than executing it). https://www.mail-archive.com/announce@httpd.apache.org/msg00178.html

Release of Cozystack 0.8.0: 04/07/2024 The release of the free PaaS platform Cozystack 0.8.0, built on Kubernetes, was published. The project is aimed at providing a ready-made platform for hosting providers and a framework for building private and public clouds. The platform is installed directly on servers and covers all aspects of preparing infrastructure for the provision of managed services. Cozystack allows you to run and provision Kubernetes clusters, databases, and virtual machines. The platform code is available on GitHub and is distributed under the Apache-2.0 license. https://t.me/aenix_io/110

Release of FreeRDP 3.6: 04/07/2024 FreeRDP 3.6 has been released, offering a free implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol ( RDP ) developed, based on Microsoft specifications. The project provides a library for integrating RDP support into third-party applications and a client that can be used to connect remotely to the Windows desktop. The project code is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. https://www.freerdp.com/2024/07/04/3_6_2-release

Wireguard Developer Speeds Up Getrandom(): 05/07/2024 Jason A. Donenfeld, author of VPN WireGuard, introduced patches that significantly speed up the collection of random numbers from the system via the getrandom() function, implemented through the corresponding Linux system call. The advantage of this solution over using /dev/random or /dev/urandom is that it is not susceptible to file descriptor exhaustion attacks, which can result in uninitialized and non-random cryptographic keys. The proposed optimization is based on the use of the vDSO (virtual dynamic shared object) mechanism, which makes it possible to move the system call handler from the kernel to user space and avoid context switches. In the case of getrandom(), the implementation of the system call associated with this function is designed as a vDSO, the code of which is pre-loaded into the process address space directly by the kernel. This approach made it possible to speed up the production of random numbers in some situations by 15 times or more. Addition: Linus Torvalds expressed doubts about the advisability of including the proposed optimization in the kernel, since, if necessary, applications can use similar implementations on their side, without external manipulation through vDSO. Jason Donenfield explained that substitution through vDSO is necessary because it is important to ensure that the algorithm for generating pseudorandom numbers works identically in implementations running at the kernel level and in user space. Torvalds agreed that there was a point, and moved on to discuss the technical issues that need to be resolved in order for the patches to be accepted into the kernel. https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240703183115.1075219-1-Jason@zx2c4.com/

Release of GnuPG 2.5.0: A year and a half after the formation of the last major branch, the release of the GnuPG 2.5.0 (GNU Privacy Guard) toolkit is presented. It is compatible with the OpenPGP ( RFC-4880 ) and S/MIME standards and providing utilities for data encryption, working with electronic signatures, and key management and access to public key stores. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. GnuPG 2.5.0 is billed as the first release of a new codebase incorporating the latest changes. GnuPG 2.4 is presented as a stable branch, optimised for general use. GnuPG 1.4 continues to be maintained as a classic series that consumes minimal resources, is suitable for embedded systems, and is compatible with legacy encryption algorithms. https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-users/2024-July/067193.html

Fooyin 0.5 music player available: 07/07/2024 Fooyin 0.5 has been published, which has been developing since the beginning of this year and is aimed at providing ample opportunities for customizing and adapting the program to your preferences. The user is offered a set of widgets with various modes for managing your music collection and playing music. Additional features can be added in the form of plugins. To customize the interface, a special mode for editing ,s offererd, alllowing you to affect the layout of elements on the screen. The project is written in C++ using the Qt library and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Ready-made packages have been created for Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu (there is plans to update the package in flatpak format in the near future ). The new version adds support for CUE files, the ability to import/export playlists, and an output mode that displays thumbnails of album covers. Support for creating plugins for parsing tags and decoding audio formats has been implemented. In file navigation mode, the last opened directory is remembered. https://github.com/fooyin/fooyin/releases

Booting Arch Linux from Google Drive: 08/07/2024 Proof of concept - the ability to boot Arch Linux with the contents of the root partition placed in the Google Drive cloud storage. The idea was implemented by adding an initramfs RAM disk image, launched by the kernel at an early boot stage to mount the FS, a FUSE module google-drive-ocamlfuse, providing access to Google Drive content in the form of a virtual file system. The FUSE-based virtual file system is used to host the root partition on the Arch Linux system environment, to create the necessary initramfs stuffing, which, among other things, should set up a network connection to access Google Drive. The toolkit used was dracut, through the use of the FUSE module, s3fs. The method can also be applied to cloud storage that supports Amazon S API3. https://ersei.net/en/blog/fuse-root

GNOME switching font? 08/07/2024 A change has been made to GNOME Settings to set the interface to use the default Inter font, a font specifically designed for use in user interfaces and optimized for high clarity in small to medium sized characters) when displayed on computer screens. The change may be reverted if testing is found to be unsuccessful, before the fall release of GNOME 47, In the default mode, the Inter font has problems such as the same display of the uppercase letter “I” and lowercase “l”, as well as the letter “O” and the number “0”. This problem is successfully solved by setting the optional mode “ss02” in the font-feature-settings property supported in GTK. The reason for replacing the old Cantarell font, used in GNOME since 2010, is stagnation and maintenance problems, especially noticeable against the backdrop of the active development of the Inter font, where a large community has formed around it, continuing the development of the font, eliminating shortcomings, implementing new font features and testing display quality for different languages ​​and screen types. To test the new font on existing GNOME installations, you need to download and unzip the Inter font zip archive, double-click the InterVariable.ttf and InterVariable-Italic.ttf files in the GNOME Fonts application, and then activate it as an interface font in the GNOME Tweaks application or through the gsettings utility (“gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name 'Inter Variable 11'”). https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gsettings-desktop-schemas/-/merge_requests/85

**GDB Debugger 15: 08/07/2024

G.D.B. 15.1 (first release of the 15.x series, branch 15.0 was used for development) was just released. GDB supports source-level debugging for a wide range of programming languages ​​(Ada, C, C++, D, Fortran, Go, Objective-C, Modula-2, Pascal, Rust, etc.) on various hardware (i386, amd64, ARM, Power, Sparc, RISC-V, etc.) and software platforms (GNU/Linux, *BSD, Unix, Windows, macOS).

https://www.mail-archive.com/info-gnu@gnu.org/msg03302.html

Release of Box64 0.3.0: 09/07/2024

Box64 0.3.0 emulator, designed to run Linux programs compiled for the x86_64 architecture on hardware with ARM64, RISC-V and Loongarch64 processors. is out. The project pays great attention to launching of gaming applications and provides the ability to launch Windows builds through wine and Proton. The source code for the project is written in C and distibuted under MIT license.

A special feature of the project is the use of a hybrid execution model, where emulation is applied only to the machine code of the application itself and specific libraries. Typical system libraries including libc, libm, GTK, SDL, Vulkan and OpenGL, are replaced to variants native to the target platforms. This way, library calls are performed without emulation, resulting in significant performance gains.

Emulation of code for which there are no replacements native to the target platform, is performed using the dynamic recompilation (DynaRec) technique from one set of machine instructions to another. Compared to interpreting machine instructions, dynamic recompilation demonstrates 5-10 times higher performance.

https://box86.org/2024/07/new-box64-v0-3-0-released/

Shotstars 0.2: 10/07/2024

Shotstars 0.2, solves the problem of tracking the disappearance of “stars” for projects on GitHub. The standard capabilities of GitHub do not provide users with information on decreasing “stars” in a project and allow them to obtain information when new ones are added. The project is written in Python and distributed by licensed under GPLv3+

https://github.com/snooppr/shotstars/

Debian GNU/Hurd builds 71% of Debian packages: 10/07/2024

Developers of the Hurd project announced they were ensuring the ability to build 71% of Debian archive packages in the Debian GNU/Hurd distribution. Last year this figure amounted to 58%. Other GNU/Hurd achievements include the porting of the Mach kernel to the AArch64 architecture and the adoption of patches that allow GCC to be used to build GNU/Hurd programs for AArch64. Currently, the port does not yet provide all the desired functionality, but can already be used to run simple applications. The GNU Mach kernel provides experimental support for symmetric multithreading (SMP). Problems with builds using GCC 14 have been resolved. Support for the rustc compiler has been added, which allows you to build applications written in Rust for GNU/Hurd.

Debian GNU/Hurd combines the Debian software environment with the GNU/Hurd kernel and remains the only actively developed Debian platform created on the basis of a kernel other than Linux (a port of Debian GNU/KFreeBSD was previously developed, but it has long been abandoned). GNU Hurd is a kernel developed as a replacement for the Unix kernel and designed as a set of servers running on top of the GNU Mach microkernel and implementing various system services, such as file systems, a network stack, and a 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 multi-server architecture.

https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/news/2024-q2.html

Multi-user code editor Zed now supports Linux: 11/07/2024

Text editor development team “Zed” announced implementation support for Linux platforms. Ready-made builds, prepared for x86_64 and ARM64 architectures, support most Linux distributions. The editor is notable for its ability to collaborate on code, highly responsive interface, and window rasterization on the GPU.

The project is being developed under the leadership of Nathan Sobo, author of the Atom editor (the basis of VS Code) with the participation of teams former editor developers Atom, Electron platform and parsing libraries Tree-sitter. Source code of the server part, which provides multi-user editing, open under the AGPLv3 license, and the editor itself - under the GPLv3 license. To create the user interface, our own GPUI library is used, open under the Apache 2.0 license. The project code is written in Rust.

Zed combines a lightweight text editor and the functionality of modern integrated development environments in one product. During development, the experience of creating Atom was taken into account and an attempt was made to embody some ideas about what an ideal editor for a programmer should look like. Much attention is paid to the performance and responsiveness of the interface - according to the creators of the project, all editing actions should be performed instantly, and coding tasks should be solved in the most efficient way. The high performance of Zed is achieved through the active use of multithreading, using all available CPU cores and the involvement of the GPU in the rendering process.

https://zed.dev/blog/zed-on-linux

Clonezilla Live 3.1.3: 11/07/2024

Clonezilla Live 3.1.3, designed for fast cloning of disks (only used blocks are copied), was just released. The tasks performed by the distribution are similar to the proprietary product Norton Ghost. The size of iso image is: - 457MB (i686, amd64).

The distribution is based on Debian GNU/Linux and uses code from projects such as DRBL, Partition Image, ntfsclone, partclone and udpcast. Loading from CD/DVD, USB Flash and network (PXE) is possible. LVM2 and FS ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, btrfs, f2fs, nilfs2, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, UFS, minix, VMFS3 and VMFS5 (VMWare ESX) are supported. There is a mass cloning mode over the network, including traffic transmission in multicast mode, which allows you to simultaneously clone the source disk onto a large number of client machines. You can both clone from one disk to another and create backup copies by saving a disk image to a file. Cloning is possible at the level of entire disks or individual partitions.

https://sourceforge.net/p/clonezilla/news/2024/07/stable-clonezilla-live-313-11-released/

New version of Exim mail server 4.98: 11/07/2024

After eight months of development, the mail server Exim 4.98 was released, to which accumulated corrections have been made and new features have been added. The project code is written in C and distributed under GPLv2+ license. According to the June automated survey of about 400 thousand mail servers, Exim's share is 59.06% (a year ago 55.93%), Postfix is ​​used on 34.68% (37.40%) of mail servers, Sendmail - 3.42% (3.45%), MailEnable - 1.81% (1.86%), MDaemon - 0.37% (0.48%), Microsoft Exchange - 0.17% (0.25%).

https://lists.exim.org/lurker/message/20240710.155945.8823670d.en.html

Release of firewalld 2.2.0: 11/07/2024

A new release of dynamically managed firewall, firewalld 2.2, implemented in the form of a wrapper over the nftables and iptables packet filters, is out. Firewalld runs as a background process that allows you to dynamically change packet filter rules via D-Bus without having to reload the packet filter rules or breaking established connections. The project is already used in many Linux distributions, including RHEL 7+, Fedora 18+ and SUSE/openSUSE 15+. The firewalld code is written in Python and distributed by licensed under GPLv2.

To manage the firewall, the firewall-cmd utility is used, which, when creating rules, is based not on IP addresses, network interfaces and port numbers, but on the names of services (for example, to open access to SSH you need to run “firewall-cmd –add – service=ssh“, to close SSH - “firewall-cmd –remove –service=ssh”). To change the firewall configuration, the firewall-config (GTK) graphical interface and the firewall-applet (Qt) applet can also be used. Support for firewall management via the D-BUS API firewalld is available in projects such as NetworkManager, libvirt, podman, docker and fail2ban.

https://github.com/firewalld/firewalld/releases/tag/v2.2.0

FreeBSD switches to a shorter release cycle: 12/07/2024

Colin Percival, FreeBSD Release Team Leader, announced changes in the processes of generation and support of releases. Starting with the FreeBSD 15 branch, scheduled for the end of 2025, the maintenance time for major branches after the formation of their first release will be reduced from 5 to 4 years. At the same time, new major branches will be formed every two years.

Interim releases (15.1, 15.2, 15.3) will be developed as part of a fixed development cycle, implying the publication of new versions in one branch approximately every 6 months, and not once a year as before. Taking into account the simultaneous maintenance of two different major branches, a new intermediate release will be published once every 3 months (15.4, 16.1, 15.5, 16.2, etc.), with the exception of the preparation of the first releases of new major branches, where there will be a 6-month break in releases (for example, release 15.3 will be released in June 2027, 16.0 in December 2027, 15.4 in March 2028, 16.1 in June 2028).

It is noted that recent optimizations of interaction between teams responsible for generating releases and development have made it possible to reduce the process of preparing releases to 3 beta versions and one release candidate, instead of 3-4 beta versions and 3-6 release candidates. With this kind of development organization, 3 months to prepare an interim release is quite enough. Shortening the release preparation cycle will allow us to more quickly bring new features to users and reduce the burden of preparing each release. A common predictable development model will make it easier for users to plan for the transition to new releases, but if critical issues are identified, the developers reserve the right to delay the release until a fix is ​​ready.

https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2024-July/000143.html

Thunderbird email client 128: 12/07/2024

A year after the publication of the last major release, mail client Thunderbird 128 is out, community-driven and powered by Mozilla technology. Thunderbird 128 is built on the ESR release codebase Firefox 128 and is classified as a long-term support version, for which updates are released throughout the year.

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/07/welcome-to-thunderbird-128-nebula/

Release of the OBS Studio 30.2: 13/07/2024

OBS Studio 30.2, package for streaming, compositing and video recording, is out. The code is written in C/C++ and distributed by licensed under GPLv2. Assemblies formed for Linux (flatpak), Windows and macOS.

The goal of developing OBS Studio was to create a portable version of the application Open Broadcaster Software (OBS Classic), not tied to the Windows platform, supports OpenGL and is extensible through plugins. Another difference is the use of a modular architecture, which implies the separation of the interface and the core of the program. OBS supports transcoding of source streams, video capture during games and streaming to PeerTube, Twitch, Facebook Gaming, YouTube, DailyMotion, Hitbox and other services. To ensure high performance, you can use hardware acceleration mechanisms (for example, NVENC, Intel QSV and VAAPI).

Support is provided for compositing with scene construction based on arbitrary video streams, data from web cameras, video capture cards, images, text, the contents of application windows or the entire screen. During broadcasting, you can switch between several predefined scenes (for example, switch views with an emphasis on screen content and webcam image). The program also provides tools for audio mixing, filtering using VST plugins, volume equalization and noise reduction.

https://obsproject.com/blog/obs-studio-hybrid-mp4

Release of Whonix 17.2: 14/07/2024

Whonix 17.2 is available, aimed at providing guaranteed anonymity, security and protection of private information. The distribution is based on Debian GNU/Linux and uses Tor to ensure anonymity. The project is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Images of virtual machines in ova format for VirtualBox (2.1 GB with Xfce and 1.4 GB for console) have been prepared for downloading. The image can also be converted for use with the KVM hypervisor.

A feature of Whonix is ​​the division of the distribution into two separately launched components - Whonix-Gateway - a network gateway for anonymous communications and Whonix-Workstation with a desktop. Both components are shipped within the same boot image. Access to the network from the Whonix-Workstation environment is made only through the Whonix-Gateway, which isolates the working environment from direct interaction with the outside world and allows the use of only fictitious network addresses. This approach allows you to protect the user from leaking the real IP address in the event of a web browser being hacked and even when exploiting a vulnerability that gives the attacker root access to the system.

Hacking Whonix-Workstation will allow the attacker to obtain only fictitious network parameters, since the real IP and DNS parameters are hidden behind a network gateway powered by Whonix-Gateway, which routes traffic only through Tor. It should be taken into account that Whonix components are designed to run in the form of guest systems, i.e. the possibility of exploiting critical 0-day vulnerabilities in virtualization platforms that can provide access to the host system cannot be ruled out. Due to this, it is not recommended to run Whonix-Workstation on the same computer as Whonix-Gateway.

Whonix-Workstation provides the Xfce user environment by default. The package includes programs such as VLC, Tor Browser, Thunderbird+TorBirdy, Pidgin, etc. Whonix-Gateway includes a set of server applications, including Apache httpd, ngnix and IRC servers, which can be used for Tor hidden services. You can forward tunnels over Tor for Freenet, i2p, JonDonym, SSH and VPN. If desired, the user can make do with only Whonix-Gateway and connect his usual systems through it, including Windows, which makes it possible to provide anonymous access to workstations already in use.

https://forums.whonix.org/t/whonix-17-2-0-1-all-platforms-point-release/20078

Update to Qubes OS 4.2.2: 14/07/2024

Qubes 4.2.2 is available, which implements the idea of ​​using a hypervisor to strictly isolate applications and OS components (each class of applications and system services runs in separate virtual machines). For normal operation, they recommend a system with 16 GB of RAM (minimum 6 GB) and a 64-bit Intel or AMD CPU with support for VT-x with EPT/AMD-v with RVI and VT-d/AMD IOMMU technologies, preferably an Intel GPU (GPU NVIDIA and AMD are not well tested). The installation image size is 6 GB (x86_64).

Applications in Qubes are divided into classes depending on the importance of the data being processed and the tasks running. Each class of applications (for example, work, entertainment, banking), as well as system services (networking subsystem, firewall, storage, USB stack, etc.), run in separate virtual machines using the Xen hypervisor. At the same time, these applications are available within the same desktop and are highlighted for clarity with different window border colors. Each environment has read access to the base root file system and local storage, which does not overlap with the storage of other environments; a special service is used to organize application interaction.

Fedora and Debian can be used as a basis for creating virtual environments; templates for Ubuntu, Gentoo and Arch Linux are also supported by the community. You can organize access to applications in a Windows virtual machine, as well as create Whonix-based virtual machines to provide anonymous access via Tor. The user shell is built on top of Xfce. When a user launches an application from the menu, the application starts in a specific virtual machine. The content of virtual environments is determined by a set of templates.

https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2024/07/13/qubes-os-4-2-2-has-been-released/

Linux kernel 6.10 released: 15/07/2024

After two months of development, Linus Torvalds presented a new release of the Linux kernel, 6.10. The most notable changes include: the ntsync driver with Windows NT synchronization primitives, DRM Panic components to implement an analogue of the “blue screen of death”, discontinuation of support for older Alpha CPUs, the ability to verify integrity in a FUSE-based FS, restricting access to ioctl through the Landlock mechanism, a subsystem for profiling of memory allocation operations, mseal() system call, the ability to encrypt data exchange with TPM devices, support for high-priority work queues in dm-crypt, panthor driver for the tenth generation Mali GPU.

The new version includes 14,564 fixes from 1,989 developers, the patch size is 41 MB (the changes affected 12,509 files, 547,663 lines of code were added, 312,464 lines were deleted). The last release had 15680 fixes from 2106 developers, the patch size was 54 MB. About 41% of all changes introduced in 6.10 are related to device drivers, approximately 15% of changes are related to updating code specific to hardware architectures, 13% are related to the network stack, 5% are related to file systems, and 4% are related to internal kernel subsystems.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2024/7/14/250

Release of NomadBSD 141: 15/07/2024

A new release of the Live distribution, NomadBSD 141R-20240711 , which is an edition of FreeBSD, adapted for use as a portable desktop, bootable from a USB drive, is out. The graphical environment is based on Xfce. To mount drives, DSBMD is used (FS ISO-9660, FAT, NTFS, UFS, Ext2/3, Ext4, HFS+, exFAT, XFS and Btrfs are supported). Boot image size 2.5 GB (i386, amd64).

In the new release, the base environment has been updated to FreeBSD 14.1 . The fusefs module has been modified to reduce errors when using unionfs. NomadBSD-specific graphics utilities have been migrated from Qt5 to Qt6.

https://nomadbsd.org/index.html%2320240715

GNOME Foundation Executive Director Leaves: 16/07/2024

The GNOME Foundation, which oversees the development of the GNOME desktop environment, has announced a new executive director, who is responsible for managing and developing the GNOME Foundation as an organization, as well as interacting with the board of directors, advisory board and members of the organization.

Since October last year, the post of executive director has been occupied by Holly Million, who has attracted attention with a diverse range of interests - from producing documentaries and painting films to founding an institute of shamanic arts and herbal medicine. The reason for leaving is the desire to devote time to obtaining a PhD in psychology and to focus on developing her own private practice.

Richard Littauer, a SustainOSS community activist, one of the leaders of the CURIOSS organization, community engagement manager for the Open Source Collective, and a participant in the development of the Node.js and IPFS projects, has been appointed acting executive director of the GNOME Foundation. They intend to present the search plan for a permanent executive director at the GUADEC conference, which will take place from July 19 to 24.

https://foundation.gnome.org/2024/07/12/gnome-foundation-announces-transition-of-executive-director/

Release of Tails 6.5: 16/07/2024

A new release of Tails 6.5 (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), based on Debian 12, supplied with the GNOME 43 desktop and designed for anonymous access to a network, has been created. Anonymous access to Tails is provided by the Tor system. All connections other than traffic through the Tor network are blocked by the packet filter by default. Encryption is used to store user data in the save user data mode between runs. An iso image capable of working in Live mode, 1 GB in size, has been prepared for downloading .

The new version has significantly reduced installation time using the Tails Cloner utility (the 30-second delay when splitting partitions has been removed). The package base is synchronized with Debian 12.6. Tor Browser has been updated to version 13.5.1 (previously the 13.0 branch was supplied). Problems with connecting to the internet through mobile broadband, LTE and PPPoE DSL operators have been resolved.

https://tails.net/news/version_6.5/

Release of PeerTube 6.2; 16/07/2024

A new release of a decentralized platform for video hosting and video broadcasting, PeerTube 6.2 took place. PeerTube offers a vendor-neutral alternative to YouTube, Dailymotion and Vimeo, using a content distribution network based on P2P communications and linking visitors' browsers together. The project's developments are distributed under the AGPLv3 license.

https://joinpeertube.org/news/release-6.2

SUSE has asked to stop using the SUSE brand in the openSUSE project: 16/07/2024

The openSUSE developers have begun discussions about changing the name of the project, as well as restructuring management. The name change was necessary because SUSE asked the openSUSE project to stop using the SUSE brand to avoid confusion between SUSE and the community-driven openSUSE project.

Renaming openSUSE is not yet a strict requirement and is presented as a polite request to consider it, however, openSUSE is completely dependent on the SUSE company, which provides resources to the project and turns a blind eye to the work on openSUSE by some of its employees during working hours. Rebranding is at the initial stage of discussion, at which proposals for specific actions, timing and options for a new name have not yet been developed.

https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.opensuse.org/message/7IVGVJOAO4NIQILUYI3ZUL7NHCVBDQO7/

Release of nftables 1.1.0: 17/07/2024

A new release of packet filter, nftables 1.1.0 has been published, unifying packet filtering interfaces for IPv4, IPv6, ARP and network bridges (aimed at replacing iptables, ip6table, arptables and ebtables). The major change in the version number is not associated with any fundamental changes, but is only a consequence of the consistent continuation of numbering in decimal notation (the previous release was 1.0.9). At the same time, the release of the companion library libnftnl 1.2.7 was published, providing a low-level API for interacting with the nf_tables subsystem.

The nftables package includes packet filter components that run in user space, while the kernel-level work is provided by the nf_tables subsystem, which has been part of the Linux kernel since release 3.13 . The kernel level provides only a generic protocol-independent interface that provides basic functions for extracting data from packets, performing data operations, and flow control.

The filtering rules and protocol-specific handlers are compiled into bytecode in user space, after which this bytecode is loaded into the kernel using the Netlink interface and executed in the kernel in a special virtual machine reminiscent of BPF (Berkeley Packet Filters). This approach allows you to significantly reduce the size of the filtering code running 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/msg00265.html

Release of Audacity 3.6: 17/07/2024

A new release of the free sound editor, Audacity 3.6 has been published, providing tools for editing sound files (Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3 and WAV), recording and digitizing sound, changing sound file parameters, overlaying tracks and applying effects (for example, noise reduction, changing tempo and tone ). Audacity 3.6 was the sixth major release formed after the project was taken over by Muse Group. The Audacity code is licensed under GPLv3, with binary builds available for Linux, Windows and macOS.

https://www.audacityteam.org/blog/audacity-3-6/

Google has opened an application for creating 3D models using virtual reality: 17/07/2024

Google announced the open source code of the Google Blocks project, which provides a virtual 3D environment for creating scenes, objects and models for virtual and augmented reality systems. Work within the program is carried out using virtual reality helmets, which, instead of traditional processes of developing 3D elements using flat screens,allows you to create models directly inside a virtual three-dimensional environment. The code is written in C# using the Unity game engine and is open under the Apache 2.0 license. It supports 3D helmets like HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

https://opensource.googleblog.com/2024/07/google-blocks-is-now-open-source.html

Release of StartWine-Launcher 404: 17/07/2024

The StartWine-Launcher project, developed to run applications and games compiled for the Windows platform on Linux-based systems, is out. The main goal of developing StartWine-Launcher was to simplify the process for beginners to create Wine prefixes, a set of Windows libraries and dependencies necessary for running Windows applications on Linux. Features include a runimage-based container, no need to install system dependencies, and a friendly graphical interface. The StartWine-Launcher code is written in Python and distributed under the GPLv3 license. The interface is implemented based on the GTK library.

https://github.com/RusNor/StartWine-Launcher

Bcachefs implements the abilities: 18/07/2024

Kent Overstreet, the developer of the Bcachefs file system, proposed a change for inclusion in the Linux 6.11 kernel. With the implementation in the Bcachefs file system ability to automatically transparently recover problematic data using stored redundant error recovery codes. The operating logic of the proposed functionality resembles the implementation of a similar function in Btrfs: if an I/O error occurs during reading or a checksum mismatch is calculated, the problematic data block will be automatically rewritten, if there is redundancy to restore it.

Linus Torvalds delayed the release of this change into the 6.11 kernel due to problems with the design of the patches (he did a “git rebase” to a new branch) and unanswered questions about the changes the patches made to areas outside of fs/ bcachefs.

Update: Kent Overstreet submitted a second pull request for the 6.11 branch containing the fixes.

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/r75jqqdjp24gikil2l26wwtxdxvqxpgfaixb2rqmuyzxnbhseq@6k34emck64hv/

update: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/73rweeabpoypzqwyxa7hld7tnkskkaotuo3jjfxnpgn6gg47ly@admkywnz4fsp/

Release of nxs-backup 3.9.0: 18/07/2024

The backup tool, nxs-backup 3.9.0 has been published, allowing you to create backup copies, perform rotation and save to local or external storage. In addition to file backup, it supports creating backups of various DBMSs: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis. The project code is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.

Backups can be stored both locally and in remote storage (S3, FTP, SSH, SMB, NFS, WebDAV). Thanks to integration with monitoring, you can receive metrics such as backup file size, verification of backup collection, backup collection time, etc., in a Prometheus-compatible format. They also dded additional metric nxs_backup_creation_ts, containing a Unix timestamp of the date the backup was created. Each backup can be identified and configured with a corresponding alert, in addition to (or instead of) existing alerts using hooks, which allows you to more effectively manage the state of the backups.

https://github.com/nixys/nxs-backup/releases

NVIDIA summarized plans to transfer Linux drivers to open kernel modules: 18/07/2024

NVIDIA engineers have published a note summarizing plans to transition NVIDIA's proprietary drivers to open Linux kernel modules for GPUs, starting with the Turing microarchitecture (GeForce GTX 1600 and RTX 2000). The modules used in NVIDIA drivers for the Linux kernel were open sourced in the spring of 2022 under the MIT and GPLv2 licenses, and the plan to use them by default was announced two months ago. We are only talking about switching the default driver package to existing open modules that were previously supplied as an option. Providing core firmware functionality and user-space components, such as libraries for CUDA, OpenGL and Vulkan, remain proprietary.

Until now, proprietary drivers included both open source and proprietary variants of modules that were updated synchronously, but the proprietary modules were used by default. The difference between the available options comes down to the fact that open modules can only be used with GPUs equipped with a separate GSP (GPU System Processor) microcontroller, which made it possible to move the initialization and control operations of the GPU from the driver to the level of proprietary firmware. GSP comes in video cards based on microarchitectures such as Turing, Ampere, Ada and Hopper.

In addition to new GPUs, proprietary modules continue to support older GPUs that are not equipped with GSP, for example, GPUs based on Maxwell, Pascal and Volta microarchitectures. NVIDIA intends to stop implementing support for new GPUs in proprietary modules and focus only on the development of open ones. For example, support for new NVIDIA Grace Hopper and NVIDIA Blackwell platforms is already available in open modules, which are not supported in proprietary modules.

With the release of NVIDIA 560 drivers for regular GPUs starting with Turing, and for GPU virtualization starting with Ada, open versions of kernel modules nvidia.ko, nvidia-modeset.ko, nvidia-uvm.ko, nvidia-drm.ko will be installed by default and nvidia-peermem.ko, in situations where their use is possible. In Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE and openSUSE distributions, it is recommended you use the “nvidia-open” package to install the open module version of NVIDIA drivers, and in RHEL-based distributions it is recommended to use the “nvidia-driver:open-dkms” module.

If you want to install proprietary kernel modules into the system, you will need to specify the ”–kernel-module-type=proprietary“ option when running the run-archive with NVIDIA drivers, or change the default parameters in the interface shown by the installer. In addition, the nvidia-driver-assistant package has been prepared separately, which simplifies the selection of the optimal variant of kernel modules.

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/

Apache Foundation Announces Upcoming Rebranding: 18/07/2024

The Apache Software Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides a neutral, vendor-neutral development platform for about 400 open source products, announced a decision to completely change its logo, removing the image of the feather that has been used as a symbol of Apache projects since 1997. They plan to present the new logo, which will be chosen by voting by members of the organization, on October 7 at the Community Over Code conference.

Natives in Tech organization, which defends the interests of indigenous peoples, is cited as the reason for stopping the use of the former symbols. In addition to changing the logo, Indian rights activists also demanded that the organization be renamed and the use of the word Apache stopped, but the community has so far limited itself to renaming the ApacheCon conference to Community Over Code, but refused to rename the organization due to high costs and legal difficulties.

https://news.apache.org/foundation/entry/evolving-the-asf-brand

KDE crashes fixed and Wayland support improved: 18/07/2024

Nate Graham, QA developer for the KDE project, has published another report on KDE development. The most important changes over the past two weeks include the elimination of the five most common causes of KDE Plasma crashes, which were caused by both errors in the KDE code and regressive changes in Qt. To identify problems that require fixing first, a new automatic system for sending notifications about problems was used, which made it possible to understand which failures users encounter most often.

In addition, work has been done to implement support for the “sticky keys” mechanism in KDE when using Wayland. This mechanism allows people with impaired fine motor skills of their fingers to use keyboard combinations that require simultaneous pressing of several keys - in the “sticky keys” mode, modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, Alt) can be pressed in advance, before pressing another key (the modifier press is remembered and applied to the next key).

https://pointieststick.com/2024/07/19/this-past-two-weeks-in-kde-fixing-sticky-keys-and-the-worst-crashes/

Release of KaOS 2024.07: 20/07/2024

KaOS 2024.07, a distribution with a rolling update model aimed at providing a desktop based on the latest releases of KDE and applications using Qt, is out. Distribution-specific design features include the placement of a vertical panel on the right side of the screen. The distribution is developed with an eye on Arch Linux, but maintains its own independent repository of more than 1,500 packages, and also offers a number of its own graphical utilities. The default file system is XFS. Builds are published for x86_64 systems (3.7 GB).

https://kaosx.us/news/2024/kaos07/

Release of labwc 0.7.4: 20/07/2024

A new release of the labwc 0.7.3 project (Lab Wayland Compositor) has been published. They are developing a composite server for Wayland with capabilities reminiscent of the Openbox window manager (the project is presented as an attempt to create an Openbox alternative for Wayland). Next, a corrective update 0.7.4 was published with hot fixes made. Among the features of labwc are minimalism, compact implementation, extensive customization options and high performance. The project code is written in C language and distributed under the GPLv2 license.

The basis is the wlroots library, developed by the developers of the Sway user environment and providing basic functions for a composite manager based on Wayland. The extended Wayland protocols include; wlr-output-management for configuring output devices, layer-shell for the desktop shell, and foreign-toplevel for connecting custom panels and window switches.

You can connect add-ons to implement functions such as creating screenshots, displaying wallpaper on the desktop, placing panels and menus. Animated effects, gradients and icons are not supported at all. To run X11 applications in an environment based on the Wayland protocol, the use of the XWayland DDX component is supported. The theme, basic menu and hotkeys are configured through configuration files in xml format. There is built-in support for HiDPI screens.

In addition to the built-in root menu, you can connect third-party application menu implementations such as bemenu , fuzzel and wofi . You can use Waybar , sfwbar , Yambar or LavaLauncher as a panel . To manage connecting monitors and changing their parameters, it is suggested to use wlr-randr or kanshi . The screen is locked using swaylock .

https://github.com/labwc/labwc/releases

OpenMandriva ROME 24.07: 21/07/2024

The OpenMandriva project has published the release of OpenMandriva ROME 24.07, an edition of the OpenMandriva distribution that uses a rolling release model. The proposed edition allows you to gain access to new versions of packages developed for the OpenMandriva Lx 6 branch, without waiting for the classic distribution to be created. ISO images of 2.1-3.4 GB in size with KDE, GNOME and LXQt desktops that support loading in Live mode have been prepared for downloading . Builds for KDE and LXQt are prepared in x86_64 and “znver1” variants (build optimized for AMD Ryzen, ThreadRipper and EPYC processors) are availanle. Builds with KDE come in variants with Plasma 6 X11, Plasma 6 Wayland and Plasma 5. Builds for boards based on the ARM64 architecture are planned to be published in the near future.

https://www.openmandriva.org/en/news/article/openmandriva-rome-24-07-released

Release of Blender 4.2: 21/07/2024

The Blender Foundation has published the release of Blender 4.2 , a free 3D modeling package suitable for a variety of tasks related to 3D modeling, 3D graphics, computer game development, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, sculpting, animation and video editing. The code is distributed under the GPL license. Ready-made builds are created for Linux, Windows and macOS. The release has received extended life support (LTS) release status and will be supported until July 2026. The LTS branches of Blender 3.3 and 3.6 also continue to be supported , updates for which will be generated until September 2024 and June 2025.

https://studio.blender.org/blog/new-geometry-nodes-features-in-blender-42/