OpenBSD adds VA-API support: 22/07/2024 OpenBSD has adopted changes that add the libva 2.22.0 library to the Xenocara X11 stack , used in OpenBSD to create a graphical environment and based on modified versions of X.Org 7.7, X Server 21.1.11, freetype 2.13.0 and Mesa 23.1. 9. The libva library allows you to use the VA-API (Video Acceleration API) for hardware acceleration of video encoding and decoding in various formats. Hardware acceleration has been tested with drivers for Intel and AMD GPUs using the Firefox browser and mpv video player. The necessary drivers for Intel GPUs are offered in the graphics/intel-media-driver and graphics/intel-vaapi-driver ports, while standard components from Mesa are used to work with AMD GPUs. https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=172139969119269&w=2

Release of nxs-data-anonymizer 1.9.0: 22/07/2024 Nxs-data-anonymizer 1.9.0 is out - a tool for anonymizing PostgreSQL and MySQL/MariaDB/Percona database dumps. The tool is written in Go and released under the Apache License 2.0. The program supports data anonymization based on templates and functions of the Sprig library. Nxs-data-anonymizer can be used via unnamed pipes on the command line to redirect a dump from the source database directly to the target database with the necessary transformations. The anonymization process can be indexed - data on the progress of the operation is displayed at specified intervals. Thanks to external commands, by adding the “type: command” column to the value, you can set the value of the fields. Depending on the type of entities in the security settings, the tool anonymizes columns for tables with the rules described in the filters section. If the table does not contain any rules, the anonymizer will not include it in the resulting dump. In the new version, a “Link” block has been added to the column filter, which you can link the anonymization of database entities in different tables. This block stores the rules by which the tool anonymizes related columns in tables specified by the configuration throughout the database. Thus, cells in certain columns that had the same values ​​before anonymization will have the same values ​​after anonymization. https://github.com/nixys/nxs-data-anonymizer

Release of hostapd and wpa_supplicant 2.11: 23/07/2024 After two and a half years of development, hostapd/wpa_supplicant 2.11, a suite of IEEE 802.1X, WPA, WPA2, WPA3 and EAP wireless protocols, has been released. The set includes the wpa_supplicant application for connecting to a wireless network as a client and the hostapd background process to ensure the operation of the access point and authentication server, which includes components such as WPA Authenticator, RADIUS authentication client/server, EAP server. The source code of the project is distributed under the BSD license. https://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/hostap/2024-July/042847.html

Release of the MidnightBSD 3.2: 23/07/2024 MidnightBSD 3.2 was released, based on FreeBSD with elements ported from DragonFly BSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. The basic desktop environment is built on Xfce (optionally, you can install the GNUstep + Window Maker + GWorkspace combination). Unlike other FreeBSD desktop builds, MidnightBSD was originally developed as a fork of FreeBSD 6.1-beta, which was synchronized with the FreeBSD 7 codebase in 2011 and subsequently absorbed many features from the FreeBSD 9-12 branches. For package management, MidnightBSD uses the mport system, which uses a SQLite database to store indexes and metadata, or the Ravenports toolkit. A 949 MB installation image ( i386 , amd64 ) has been prepared for download . https://www.justjournal.com/users/mbsd/entry/33985

Restructuring the OpenSSL project: 24/07/2024 The developers of the OpenSSL cryptographic library have announced a complete transformation of the structure and methods of project management. To support the mission of the project, two equal divisions have been created - the non-profit organization OpenSSL Foundation and the commercial company OpenSSL Corporation , focused on the interests of the non-profit community and commercial enterprises. Both divisions operate completely independently and have separate decision-making processes. The project's mission embraces values ​​such as the importance of community, commitment to an open source development model, respect for privacy, and open and transparent governance practices. The previously existing OpenSSL Management Committee (OMC) has been abolished, and decision-making is entrusted to the joint boards of directors elected separately in the OpenSSL Foundation and OpenSSL Corporation. Both organizations have 10 voting members. In addition, the OpenSSL Foundation and OpenSSL Corporation elect oversight committees from community representatives and interested commercial companies - the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and the Business Advisory Committee (BAC), which can directly represent the interests of the community in the development of plans. The BAC will be formed at the end of October 2024 and the TAC at the end of April 2025. The project is no longer limited to the OpenSSL library and is open to other cryptography-related projects. The first two projects to join were Bouncy Castle (a crypto API for Java and C# APIs) and cryptlib (a high-level API for making it easier to add encryption and authentication to programs), which will now be developed under the auspices of the OpenSSL Foundation and OpenSSL Corporation. https://mta.openssl.org/pipermail/openssl-announce/2024-July/000313.html

Release of Linux Mint 22: 24/07/2024 A new release of the Linux Mint 22 distribution has been presented, switching to the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package base. The distribution is fully compatible with Ubuntu, but differs significantly in the approach to the user interface and the selection of default applications. Linux Mint developers provide a desktop environment that follows the classic canons of desktop layout, which is more familiar to users who do not accept the new methods of building the GNOME 3 interface. DVD builds based on the MATE 1.26 ( 3 GB ), Cinnamon ( 3 GB) shells and Xfce ( 3 GB ) are available for download. Linux Mint 22 is classified as a long-term support (LTS) release, for which updates will be generated until 2029. https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4731

Selectel has begun public beta testing of its own Linux server distribution: 25/07/2024 Selectel has begun open beta testing of its own Linux server distribution Selectel OS , built on Debian GNU/Linux 12. The installation iso image is prepared for x86_64 architecture and occupies 420 MB. The distribution is intended for installation both on new equipment and on existing servers, both inside and outside the Selectel infrastructure. Currently, builds are only available for processors with x86 architecture, but in the future they plan to add support for other hardware architectures. During testing, Selectel plans to work out the process of migrating current users to the new distribution in order to prepare the product for commercial launch, which is planned for the end of 2024. One of the features of the product is the SLA support guaranteed by Selectel. https://selectel-ru.translate.goog/about/newsroom/news/selectel-anonsiroval-otkrytoe-beta-testirovanie-servernoj-operaczionnoj-sistemy-sobstvennoj-razrabotki/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Release of Multipass 1.14: 26/07/2024 Canonical has published the release of multipass 1.14, a toolkit designed to simplify the installation of different versions of Ubuntu in virtual machines running on Linux, Windows and macOS virtualization systems. Multipass allows a developer to launch the desired version of Ubuntu in a virtual machine with one command without additional settings, for example, for testing the operation of an application. To run a virtual machine in Linux, KVM or VirtualBox is used, in Windows - Hyper-V, and in macOS - HyperKit. The project code is written in C++ and distributed under the GPLv3 license. A snap package has been prepared for quick installation of multipass in Ubuntu. Multipass independently extracts the required operating system image and keeps it up to date. Cloud-init can be used for configuration. You can mount disk partitions in a virtual environment (the “multipass mount” command) and transfer individual files between the host system and the virtual machine (the “multipass transfer” command). Full integration of the installed virtual machine with the main desktop is supported (application icons, system menus and notifications are added). https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/announcing-the-multipass-1-14-0-release/46668

Release of OPNsense 24.7: 26/07/2024 OPNsense 24.7 has been published, which 9 years ago separated from the pfSense project in order to develop a completely open distribution that could have functionality 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 components, as well as the tools used for building it, are distributed under the BSD license. The assemblies are prepared in the form of a LiveCD and a system image for Flash drives (488 MB). The distribution is based on FreeBSD. Among the features of OPNsense are a completely open build toolkit, the ability to install in the form of packages on top of regular FreeBSD, load balancing tools, a web interface for organizing user connections to a network (Captive portal), the presence of mechanisms for tracking connection states (stateful firewall based on pf), setting bandwidth limits, traffic filtering, creating a VPN based on IPsec, OpenVPN and PPTP, integration with LDAP and RADIUS, support for DDNS (Dynamic DNS), a system of visual reports and graphs. The distribution provides tools for creating fault-tolerant configurations based on the use of the CARP protocol and allowing you to launch, a failover to the main firewall, that will be automatically synchronized at the configuration level and will take over the load in the event of a failure of the primary node. The administrator is offered a modern and simple interface for configuring the firewall, built using the Bootstrap web framework and Phalcon MVC. https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic%3D41700.0

Zulip 9: 27/07/2024 The release of Zulip 9, a server platform for deploying corporate instant messengers suitable for organizing communication between employees and development teams, is available. The project was originally developed by Zulip and opened after its acquisition by Dropbox under the Apache 2.0 license. The server-side code is written in Python using the Django framework. Client software is available for Linux, Windows, macOS, Android and iOS , and a built-in web interface is also provided. The system supports both direct messaging between two people and group discussions. Zulip can be compared to Slack and considered as an internal corporate analogue of Twitter, used for communication and discussion of work issues in large groups of employees. It provides tools for tracking status and participating in multiple conversations simultaneously using a threaded message display model that is the optimal compromise between being tied to Slack rooms and the single public space of Twitter. By simultaneously threading all discussions, you can capture all groups in one place while maintaining a logical separation between them. Zulip's capabilities also include support for sending messages to the user in offline mode (messages will be delivered after appearing online), saving the full history of discussions on the server and tools for searching that archive, the ability to send files in Drag-and-drop mode, automatic highlighting syntax for code blocks transmitted in messages, built-in markup language for quickly creating lists and text formatting, tools for sending group notifications, the ability to create closed groups, integration with Trac, Nagios, Github, Jenkins, Git, Subversion, JIRA, Puppet, RSS, Twitter and other services, as wel as tools for attaching visual tags to messages. https://blog.zulip.com/2024/07/25/zulip-9-0-released/

Release ofLinks 2.30: 29/07/2024 A minimalistic web browser, Links 2.30 , has been released, supporting both console and graphical modes. When working in console mode, it is possible to display colours and use the mouse, if, supported by the terminal. Graphics mode supports image output and font smoothing. In all modes, tables and frames are displayed. The browser supports the HTML 4.0 specification, but ignores CSS and JavaScript. There is also support for bookmarks, SSL/TLS, background downloads and menu system management. When running, Links consumes about 5 MB of RAM in text mode and 20 MB in graphic mode. The new version improves the build using GCC 14, solves problems with displaying the window title in kwin-based environments, and disables asynchronous DNS operations on the Windows platform to work around some bugs in Cygwin. http://links.twibright.com/download.php

Release of SysVinit 3.10: 29/07/2024 The classic init system, SysVinit 3.10 , which was widely used in Linux distributions in the days before systemd and upstart, now continues to be used in distributions such as Devuan, Debian GNU/Hurd and antiX, had a new release. The code is written in C and distributed under a GPLv2 license. The versions of the insserv and startpar utilities used in conjunction with sysvinit have not changed. The insserv utility is designed to organize the boot process, taking into account dependencies between init scripts, and startpar is used to ensure the parallel launch of several scripts during the system boot process. The new release of SysVinit adds processing of the SIGRTMIN+4 signal and triggering the “shutdown -hP now” command to shut down when this signal is received. Processing the SIGRTMIN+4 signal was required because it is generated by systemd when the user executes the “machinectl stop” command to shut down the system. In addition, the new version fixes an issue in the bootlogd process that causes it to go into a loop when opening a device for writing without performing a write operation. https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/sysvinit-devel/2024-07/msg00016.html

Firmware release for Ubuntu Touch OTA-5 Focal: 30/07/2024 After six months of development, the UBports project , which took over the development of the Ubuntu Touch mobile platform after Canonical pulled out, presented their OTA-5 Focal (over-the-air) firmware. This is the fourth release of Ubuntu Touch, based on the Ubuntu 20.04 package base. The project is also developing an experimental port of the Unity 8 desktop, which has been renamed Lomiri. The Ubuntu Touch OTA-5 Focal update will be released in the coming days for Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1, F(x)tec Pro1 X, Fairphone 3/3+/4, Google Pixel 3a/3a XL, JingPad A1, Oneplus 5/5T devices /6/6T, Sony Xperia X, Vollaphone X/22/X23 and Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC / X3. Compared to the previous version, builds for OnePlus One, Samsung Galaxy S7, Xiaomi Redmi Note 9/9 Pro/9 Pro Max/9S and Xiaomi Poco M2 Pro devices will not be generated. It is noted that the release is mainly focused on bug fixes. https://ubports.com/en/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-5-focal-release-3933

Super Grub2 Disk 2.06s4, published: 31/07/2024 Five years after the publication of the last release, a new release of a specialized boot image Super Grub2 Disk 2.06s4 is presented, designed to boot any systems in situations where the user is faced with a damaged bootloader, the inability to boot the system, or overwriting the main bootloader in systems with multiple OSes. A menu-based console interface is offered to manage and search for bootable systems. Partitions with LVM and RAID, encrypted partitions (LUKS1, LUKS2 and geli), booting from EFI, ieee1275 and CoreBoot are supported. Recovery modes are provided for various Linux distributions, FreeBSD, FreeDOS, macOS, GNU/Hurd, ReactOS and various versions of Windows (starting with Windows 98). The size of the boot image for USB Flash drive is 97 MB. The new version [uses] the GNU GRUB 2.06 bootloader. They also added support for the LUKS2 disk encryption format, the BTRFS file system, booting Linux from the /boot partition, and working with disk partitions using labels. Support for loading the ReactOS operating system and Debian and Arch builds based on the GNU/Hurd kernel has been implemented. The ability to boot Debian and Ubuntu in UEFI Secure Boot mode is provided. https://www.supergrubdisk.org/2024/07/30/super-grub2-disk-2-06s4-released/

Funtoo Linux going to the big server in the sky: 31/07/2024 Daniel Robbins, the founder of the Gentoo distribution who stepped away from the project in 2009, announced the end of development of the Funtoo Linux distribution, which he had been developing since 2006, as a project to further improve the technologies available in Gentoo. Loss of interest and a desire to devote one's time to other things are cited as reasons for closing the project. There was no worthy candidate in the community to transfer control to, so it was decided to simply shut down the project, but those who wish, can continue its development by creating a fork. https://forums.funtoo.org/topic/5182-all-good-things-must-come-to-an-end/

Plan to end support for older ARM processors in the Linux kernel: 01/08/2024 Arnd Bergmann, in charge of kernel packages at SUSE, posted on the Linux kernel developer mailing list a plan to strip the GCC-based kernel and build tools of code to support older ARM CPUs and their associated ABIs, instruction sets, and kernel capabilities. The plan is still at the RFC stage, i.e. posted for community discussion. If the plan is approved, the removal of old ARM processors is proposed to begin in the Linux kernel 6.12, which is expected to be released in December. The first candidates for removal are ARMv4 (without removing ARMv4T), iWMMXt, BE32 and OABI. The cessation of support for old ARM CPUs in the kernel intersects with the cessation of their support in GCC - some of the CPUs submitted for removal are no longer supported in the latest branches of GCC, and some are planned to be removed in future releases, which will simplify the modernization and implementation of new features in the compiler. Removing support for an architecture in GCC will require removing support for it from the kernel if the minimum version of GCC supported by the kernel is increased (currently, at least GCC version 5.1 is required to build the kernel). https://lkml.org/lkml/2024/7/31/1242

Azure Linux 3.0: 02/08/2024 Microsoft has published the first stable update of the new branch of the Azure Linux 3.0, which was previously distributed under the name CBL-Mariner. The distribution is being developed as a universal base platform for Linux environments used in cloud infrastructure, edge systems and various Microsoft services. The project is aimed at unifying the Linux solutions used in Microsoft and simplifying the maintenance of Linux systems for various purposes up to date. The project's code is distributed under the MIT license. Package builds are generated for aarch64 and x86_64 architectures. The installation image size is 740 MB. https://github.com/microsoft/azurelinux/releases/tag/3.0.20240727-3.0?changelog_tagCFD0C5CECEC5D4

Amarok music player 3.1.0: 03/08/2024 After three months of development, a new release of Amarok 3.1.0 was published, which was very popular during the times of KDE 3 and KDE 4. After the release of KDE 5, the project was abandoned, but this year it was revived and ported to Qt5 and the KDE Frameworks 5 libraries. The project code is written in C++ and is distributed under the GPLv2 license. Amarok provides a three-panel mode for displaying information (collection, current song and playlist), it allows you to navigate through your music collection, tags and individual directories, it supports dynamic playlists and quick creation of your own playlists, it can automatically generate recommendations, statistics and ratings of popular songs, it supports downloading lyrics, covers and information about compositions from various services, and makes it possible to automate actions through scripts. https://blogs.kde.org/2024/08/02/amarok-3.1-tricks-of-the-light-released/

Open homomorphic encryption library: 03/08/2024 Apple has announced the creation of an open library that implements homomorphic encryption methods in the Swift language. The library allows you to create applications that process data that is only available in encrypted form, without intermediate decryption at any stage of the calculations. The output produces an encrypted result, which is similar to encrypting the result of performing the same calculations on the original unencrypted data. The project code is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. The implementation is based on the BFV (Brakerski-Fan-Vercauteren) scheme, which in turn is based on a ring-fault learning (RLWE) problem protected from cryptanalysis by quantum computers. Low-level encryption primitives are used from the Swift Crypto library. Working with data with homomorphic encryption comes down to the fact that the user encrypts the data and without disclosing the keys, transfers it to an external server for processing. The server performs the stated calculations and generates an encrypted result, without being able to determine what data it is working with. The user, using his keys, decrypts the issued data and receives the result in clear text. Homomorphic encryption can be used in cloud services for confidential computing, implementation of electronic voting systems, organizing work with encrypted data in a DBMS, and confidential training of machine learning systems. https://www.swift.org/blog/announcing-swift-homomorphic-encryption/

Manjaro Linux atomically updated version: 04/08/2024 The developers of the Manjaro Linux distribution, built on Arch Linux and aimed at novice users, announced the start of testing, of a new experimental build “Manjaro Immutable”. It is notable for delivering the base system in the form of a single monolithic image, mounted in read-only mode and updated entirely in atomic mode. mode. The boot image size is 1.7 GB. Only booting in UEFI mode is supported on both x86_64 hardware and virtualization and emulation systems such as VirtualBox and QEMU. After testing is completed, they plan to give the build the status of an official version of Manjaro. The team proposes to install programs as packages in Flatpak format and use environments created using Podman and Distrobox. You can disable blocking changes in the root partition and use the standard pacman package manager, but packages installed in this way will be lost after the next system update and will have to be installed again. https://manjaro.org/news/2024/manjaro-immutable-testing

Release of GNU Binutils 2.43: 05/08/2024 The GNU Binutils 2.43 set of system utilitiesis out, which includes programs such as GNU linker, GNU assembler, nm, objdump, dlltool, readelf, size, strings and strip. The project is also developing the debuginfod service for dynamically loading debugging symbols from an external server. https://www.mail-archive.com/info-gnu@gnu.org/msg03314.html

Release of the Nitrux 3.6.0: 05/08/2024 The Nitrux 3.6.0 distribution, built on Debian, KDE technologies and the OpenRC init system, is out. The project offers its own desktop, NX Desktop , which is an add-on to KDE Plasma. It is based on the Maui library, where a set of standard user applications are being developed for the distribution that can be used on both desktop systems and mobile devices. To install additional applications, AppImages are being promoted. The full boot image is 3 GB in size. The project's code is distributed under free licenses. The NX Desktop offers a different style, its own implementation of the system tray, notification center and various plasmoids, such as a network connection configurator and a multimedia applet for adjusting the volume and controlling the playback of multimedia content. Applications built using the MauiKit framework include the Index file manager, the Note text editor, the Station terminal emulator, the VVave music player, the Clip video player, the NX Software Center and the Pix image viewer. https://nxos.org/changelog/release-announcement-nitrux-3-6-0/

Vortex 2.2 is available: 07/08/2024 A new release of the Vortex 2.2 project has been published, developing an open GPGPU based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture, designed to perform parallel computing using the OpenCL API and the SIMT (Single Instruction, Multiple Threads) execution model. The project can also be used in research in the field of 3D graphics and in the development of new GPU architectures. Schemes, descriptions of hardware blocks in Verilog language, simulator, drivers and accompanying design documentation are distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. The core of GPGPU is a generic RISC-V ISA, enhanced with some additional instructions needed to support GPU functionality and thread control. At the same time, changes in the RISC-V instruction set architecture are kept to a minimum and, whenever possible, existing vector instructions are used. Additional instructions include: “tex” to speed up texture processing, vx_rast to control rasterization, vx_rop to handle fragments, depth and transparency, vx_imadd to perform multiply and add operations, vx_wspawn, vx_tmc and vx_bar to activate instruction edges and threads in them (wavefront, a set of threads executed in parallel by the SIMD Engine), vx_split and vx_join. The evolving GPGPU supports 32- and 64-bit RISC-V RV32IMF and RV64IMAFD instruction set architectures, and can include optional shared memory, L1, L2 and L3 caches, and a configurable number of cores, warps and threads. In turn, each core has the ability to include a configurable number of ALUs, FPUs, LSUs and SFUs. FPGAs that can be used for prototyping are Altera Arria 10, Altera Stratix 10, Xilinx Alveo U50, U250, U280 and Xilinx Versal VCK5000. Verilator (Verilog simulator), RTLSIM (RTL simulation) and SimX (software simulation) can be used to simulate the operation of the chip . For application development, a toolkit is offered, including variants of PoCL (compiler and runtime OpenCL), LLVM/Clang, GCC and Binutils adapted for working with Vortex . The project supports the OpenCL 1.2 specification and, through translation to OpenCL, supports the intermediate representation of SPIR-V shaders. For graphics based on Vortex technologies, an open GPU Skybox is being developed that supports the Vulkan graphics API. The Skybox prototype, created, based on the Altera Stratix 10 FPGA and including 32 cores (512 threads), made it possible to achieve a fill performance of 3.7 gigapixels per second (29.4 gigatransactions per second) at a frequency of 230 MHz. https://github.com/vortexgpgpu/vortex/releases/tag/v2.2

Release of Puppeteer 23: 07/08/2024 A new release of the JavaScript library Puppeteer 23, designed to automate the testing and management of web browsers, is out. The library is suitable for automatically performing standard operations with a browser, as well as for testing browsers and simulating user work. The project code is written in TypeScript using Node.js and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. For example, Puppeteer allows you to create a script that launches the browser, sets the desired window size, opens a specific page, sets focus on a given search field, enters data into the field and sends a request, then follows a link to the first result in the list and saves the resulting page. The library also provides capabilities for downloading the latest version of the selected browser, simulating the selected hardware device (for example, on the Pixel 5 smartphone), and processing authentication forms. In the process, you can monitor, intercept, modify or block network requests and responses, as well as manipulate HTTP headers and execute your scripts in the context of the pages being opened. The release of Puppeteer 23 is notable for providing official support for the Firefox browser, in addition to the natively supported browsers based on the Chromium engine (the Puppeteer project is supported by the developers of the Chrome Browser Automation extension). The CDP (Chrome DevTools Protocol) and WebDriver BiDi protocols are supported for interaction with browsers. By default, browsers launch in headless mode. It is noted that the stabilization in the new version of support for Firefox and WebDriver BiDi allows using Puppeteer as a universal tool for automating testing of web applications in different browsers. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2024/08/puppeteer-support-for-firefox/

First alpha release of the COSMIC desktop environment: 08/08/2024 After nearly two years of development, System76, the developer of the Linux distribution Pop!_OS, has unveiled the first alpha release of the COSMIC desktop environment, written in Rust (not to be confused with the old COSMIC , which was based on GNOME Shell). Two iso images with COSMIC were generated - for systems with NVIDIA ( 3 GB ) and Intel/AMD ( 2.6 GB ) GPUs, built on a test build of the Pop!_OS 24.04 distribution. Pre-built packages are also available for Fedora , NixOS , Arch Linux and Serpent OS. The shell is being developed as a universal project, not tied to a specific distribution and meeting the Freedesktop specifications. To build the interface, COSMIC uses the Iced library , which uses safe types, modular architecture and a reactive programming model , and also offers an architecture familiar to developers familiar with the Elm declarative interface building language. Multiple rendering engines are provided, supporting Vulkan, Metal, DX12, OpenGL 2.1+ and OpenGL ES 2.0+. Developers are offered a ready-made set of widgets, the ability to create asynchronous handlers and use adaptive layout of interface elements depending on the size of the window and screen. The project is also developing a composite server, cosmic-comp, based on Wayland. The alpha release marked the completion of a minimum core set of features that define a working product suitable for everyday use and is the basis for final honing of functionality and improved usability, taking into account feedback received from users. Distributions are given the opportunity to create customized versions of COSMIC, supplied with their own color scheme, applets, settings and theme. https://system76.com/cosmic

LibreCUDA project to run CUDA code on NVIDIA GPUs without proprietary Runtime: 09/08/2024 The LibreCUDA project is developing an open implementation of the CUDA driver API, which allows you to run CUDA code on NVIDIA GPUs without using the proprietary CUDA Runtime. Operation without Runtime is achieved by directly accessing the hardware, using driver-provided ioctl calls and manipulating the command queue via MMIO (Memory-mapped I/O). The project code is written in C and is distributed under the MIT license. The project is still at an early stage of development and is marked as not ready for use in production systems. Features include support for loading CUDA executable files in ELF format into the GPU, launching CUDA kernels through a command queue, allocating and freeing memory in the GPU, as well as mapping GPU memory for access from code executed on the CPU. https://github.com/mikex86/LibreCuda

Ubuntu is moving to the latest kernel versions in upcoming releases: 09/08/2024 Kernel package maintainers from Canonical (Canonical Kernel Team) have announced changes to the Linux kernel version selection process, for upcoming Ubuntu releases. It was decided to supply the distribution with the latest Linux kernel at the time of release. Accordingly, stabilization and preparation of kernel packages in the process of preparing new versions of Ubuntu can now be carried out not only assemblies of an existing kernel release, but also on the basis of published release candidates. Until now, the kernel version for the next Ubuntu release was chosen based on the stable kernel release that already existed at the time the functionality of the future Ubuntu release was frozen. Taking into account the fact that new kernel branches are formed every 2-3 months, a situation often arose when the previous kernel branch was included in the Ubuntu release, despite the publication of a new stable branch shortly before the Ubuntu release, which caused dissatisfaction among users who wanted to get the latest kernel with up-to-date functionality and hardware support. The new version selection process allows the selection of a kernel that is in the Ubuntu feature freeze phase, accepting changes or early release candidates. To approve the kernel version by the time the beta version is formed (about a month before the release of Ubuntu), the kernel must be at the release stage or late release candidates (rc4 and later). In the latter case, the kernel release will be released shortly before the release of Ubuntu, and the package with the kernel for Ubuntu will be tested based on preliminary versions, which after 4 release candidates are generally quite workable and include only bug fixes. For example, the October release of Ubuntu 24.10 plans to ship not the already available 6.10 kernel, but the 6.11 kernel, which is expected to be released at the end of September. https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/kernel-version-selection-for-ubuntu-releases/47007

Ladybird browser moves to Swift: 10/08/2024 The developers of the experimental Ladybird browser have announced their intention to use the Swift programming language as the main language for their project. Inclusion in Swift code is planned to begin in the fall, after the release of Swift 6. Thanks to the ability to combine code in C++ and Swift, Swift will be implemented gradually without rewriting existing code. Swift was chosen due to a number of advantages, including memory-safe practices, protection against race conditions, modern syntax, and ergonomics. Of particular importance to the Ladybird team is Swift's object-oriented nature, which allows it to more accurately model web specifications and browser internals. The developers also note improving Swift support for non-Apple platforms and active work on compatibility with C++, which paves the way for the gradual introduction of the language into the project. Despite Swift's historical ties to Apple, the language is becoming increasingly independent, as evidenced by, for example, moving its repository to a separate organization on GitHub. Andreas Kling, founder of the Ladybird project, shared his thoughts on Rust. According to Kling, while Rust has an impressive ecosystem, it is less suitable for developing long-lived programs with large, complex object graphs. Additionally, Kling described the Rust community as “toxic.” https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1822236888188498031

Firefox ported to Haiku OS: 10/08/2024 After more than a year of development, the first working port of the Firefox browser has been prepared for the open operating system Haiku, which continues the development of BeOS's ideas. It is noted that the port is not yet suitable for the average user, as it has not been fully tested and does not operate stable enough. Ready-made installation builds are not published; those who want to test Firefox in Haiku are encouraged to build from source code. Until now, Haiku has offered WebPositive, Epiphany and Falkon browsers, which have been difficult due to some websites being too suspicious of them. According to one of the Haiku developers, in the early 2000s, BeOS OS enthusiasts became one of the inspirations for the creation of Firefox. At that time, within the framework of the Bezilla project, a port of the Mozilla Suite package for the BeOS OS was being developed. Since the package was too bloated, the BeOS community tried to create a lightweight version of it, which left only the browser and removed all other components, such as the email client and web page editor. Developers from Mozilla considered the idea worthy of attention and released their own stand-alone version of the browser under the name Phoenix, later renamed Firebird due to overlap with the trademark, and then again renamed Firefox due to overlap with the name of the free DBMS. https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/progress-on-porting-firefox/13493/143

wcurl has been accepted into the Curl project: 12/08/2024 Daniel Stenberg, author of curl, announced the adoption of the wcurl utility into the project. The wcurl utility is now recognized as an official curl project, but its development will be continued by the original maintainers in a separate repository, independent of curl. The utility is developed by one of the Debian maintainers who maintains the curl package. In Debian Testing, Debian Unstable and Debian 12 backports, the wcurl utility is already supplied as part of the curl package . The wcurl utility code is written in Shell and distributed under the Curl license (a variant of the MIT license). The new utility is a wrapper over curl that implements a simplified interface for downloading files, reminiscent of the launch principle of the wget utility and relieving the user of the need to remember specific parameters for launching curl (for example, many people find it easier to install wget than to type “curl -L -O -” every time C –remote-time“). Unlike curl, wcurl allows you to specify multiple download links at once, automatically handles redirections, and retries downloads if failures occur. Instead of outputting to standard stream, wcurl saves the downloaded information into files whose names are chosen based on the content of the specified links or the name returned by the server, and the file modification time is set to the value that the server returns in the Last-modified HTTP header. If a file with the chosen name already exists, wcurl does not overwrite it, but rather adds an extra digit to the name. When specifying several links, their parallel loading is ensured. The utility also disables processing of ”{}“ and ”[]“ substitutions in URLs and allows the use of spaces in links, independently replacing them with the ”%xx“ format. Using the ”–curl-options“ option, the user is given the opportunity to set any curl options, and through the ”–dry-run“ option, defining a line to run curl without actually performing the operation. The announcement also mentions the trurl utility , which was created by the author of curl last year and complements curl with URL parsing and manipulation capabilities. Using the trurl utility, you can quickly perform actions in scripts such as replacing the host name, pages and individual parameters in a link, extracting a host and path from a link, converting a URL into a separate representation of elements in JSON format. The trurl code is written in C and Perl, and is distributed under the Curl license. https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/08/08/curl-welcomes-wcurl-to-the-team/

Release of Frigate 0.14: 12/08/2024 A new release of the Frigate 0.14 project is available, providing tools for creating network video recorders (NVR, Network Video Recorder) that analyze video transmitted from IP surveillance cameras in real time, as well as detect and record changes and objects. For example, the system can save images of people passing by the camera. To identify objects, a machine learning model is used, executed on the local system without accessing external services. The platform code is written in Python and is distributed under the MIT license. OpenCV and Tensorflow are used to process images transmitted from the camera and identify objects. The system is optimized for minimal resource consumption and uses a multi-process model launch model. To reduce the load, object detection is performed only in conjunction with change and movement detection. Integration with various home automation systems that support the MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) protocol, such as Home Assistant and OpenHab , is possible . Control is carried out via a web interface, which can be integrated directly into the Home Assistant interface. https://frigate.video/

Release of Hyprland 0.42: 12/08/2024 A new release of the composite server Hyprland 0.42, using the Wayland protocol, has been published. The composite server is focused on tiling window layout, but also supports classic random placement of windows, grouping of windows in the form of tabs, pseudo-tiling mode and full-screen windows. Elements for creating visually appealing interfaces are supported, such as gradients in window frames, blurs, animation effects and shadows. Plugins can be connected to expand functionality, and socket-based IPC is provided for external operation control. The code is written in C++ and distributed under the BSD license. To improve gaming performance, it is possible to disable vertical synchronization (VSync) with a vertical damping pulse, used prevent tearing. Configuration is carried out via a configuration file, changes are picked up on the fly without restarting. Features also include support for dynamically created virtual desktops, two built-in modes for arranging elements on the screen, and a global hotkey processing system. The new release is notable for completely getting rid of the connection to the wlroots library in favor of its own release of the Wayland protocol and the aquamarine rendering library, which implements backends for Wayland, DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) and working without a screen (Headless). The new version also adds support for the ” explicit sync “ mechanism, which makes it possible to reduce latency, get rid of artifacts and eliminate stutters when outputting graphics on systems with NVIDIA GPUs. https://hyprland.org/news/update42/

RebeccaBlackOS 2024-08-12: 13/08/2024 RebeccaBlackOS 2024-08-12 distribution has been released, aimed at introducing the latest developments related to Wayland support in various desktop environments and applications. The distribution is built on Debian and includes fresh builds of the Wayland libraries (cut from the master branch), a Weston composite server and the KDE, GNOME, Wayfire (with MATE components), Sway , LXQt and Xfce environments pre-configured to work on top of Wayland. The environment is selected through the login manager menu, and you can launch a shell from an already running environment in the form of a nested session. A 1.7 GB iso image is available for download . The distribution includes the latest versions of the Clutter, SDL, GTK, Qt, FreeGLUT, GLFW, KDE Frameworks and Gstreamer libraries, compiled with Wayland support, and the Xwayland component, which allows you to run regular X applications in an environment created using the Weston composite server. The distribution also includes versions of the mpv media player and KDE applications compiled as Wayland clients. To configure udev and the parameters of multiseat configurations, where several people with their own keyboards and mice can simultaneously work at the same desktop (each user has their own independent cursor), a special graphical configurator is provided. Weston includes RDP support. The delivery includes the waypipe utility for remotely launching Wayland-based applications. https://sourceforge.net/projects/rebeccablackos/files/2024-08-12/

Release of Tails 6.6: 13/08/2024 A release of a specialized distribution, Tails 6.6 (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, saved between runs. An iso image capable of working in Live mode, 1 GB in size, has been prepared for download. The new version updates Tor Browser 13.5.2 , Thunderbird 115.14.0 email client, and firmware packages. They improved support for new graphics cards and wireless adapters and you are allowed to enable multiple network interfaces simultaneously. The maximum waiting time before displaying an error when persistent storage cannot be unlocked has been increased to 4 minutes. They improved reliability of creating persistent storage when launching for the first time from a USB drive, as well as resolved an issue with connecting to the Tor network using the default set of bridge nodes. https://tails.net/news/version_6.6/

Release of Minetest 5.9.0: 14/08/2024 After nine months of development, a release of Minetest 5.9.0 has been published, a free cross-platform sandbox game engine that allows you to create games in the style of Minecraft, using various voxel blocks for players to jointly form various structures and buildings that form a semblance of a virtual world. The gameplay provided by the engine is entirely dependent on a set of mods created in the Lua language. The engine is written in C++ using the 3D library IrrlichtMt (fork of Irrlicht ). The Minetest code is licensed under LGPL, and game assets are licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Ready-made buils are generated for various distributions of Linux, Android, FreeBSD, Windows and macOS. https://blog.minetest.net/2024/08/12/5.9.0-released/

Release of Mesa 24.2: 15/08/2024 After three months of development, a release of the free implementation of the OpenGL and Vulkan API - Mesa 24.2.0 was published. The first release of the Mesa 24.2.0 branch has an experimental status - after that, a stable version 24.2.1 will be released when ready. Mesa 24.2 supports the Vulkan 1.3 graphics API in anv for Intel GPUs, radv for AMD GPUs, NVK for NVIDIA GPUs, tu for Qualcomm GPUs, lavapipe software rasterizer (lvp), emulator mode (vn) and v3dv (GPU Broadcom VideoCore for Raspberry Pi 4+). Vulkan 1.0 support is implemented in the dzn driver (Vulkan implementation on top of Direct3D 12). Mesa also provides full OpenGL 4.6 support for iris (Intel Gen 8+ GPUs), radeonsi (AMD), Crocus (older Intel Gen4-Gen7 GPUs), zink, llvmpipe, virgl ( Virgil3D virtual GPU for QEMU/KVM), freedreno drivers (Qualcomm Adreno), d3d12 (a layer for organizing OpenGL work on top of DirectX 12) and asahi (AGX GPU used in Apple M1 and M2 chips). OpenGL 4.5 support is available for AMD (r600) and NVIDIA (nvc0) GPUs. OpenGL 3.3 support is present in the softpipe (software rasterizer) and nv50 (NVIDIA NV50) drivers. https://www.mesa3d.org/news/releases/mesa-24-2-0-is-released/

Debian 11 has been moved to LTS maintenance stage: 15/08/2024 The Debian project has announced the end of full-time support for the Debian 11 “Bullseye” distribution, which was released three years ago. Going forward, vulnerability updates for Debian 11 will be released through the Extended Support (LTS) program, which will last until August 31, 2026. Regular support of the current Debian 12 branch will last until June 10, 2026, after which LTS updates will be released for this branch until June 30, 2028. The release of updates for the LTS branch is carried out by a separate group of developers, the LTS Team, formed from enthusiasts and representatives of companies interested in long-term delivery of updates for Debian. The LTS Team will take over from the Debian Security Team and will continue to support Debian 11 without interruption. Updates will only be released for i386, amd64, arm64 and armhf architectures. https://www.debian.org/News/2024/20240814

Release of Deepin 23: 15/08/2024 A new release of Deepin 23 has been published, developing its own Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), as well as about 40 user applications, including the DMusic music player, the DMovie video player, the DTalk messaging system, the installer and the Deepin Software Center. The project was founded by a group of developers from China, but has transformed into an international project. The distribution repository includes more than 8,000 packages. All developments are distributed under the GPLv3 license. The size of the boot iso image is 3.3-5 GB (amd64, arm64 and loongarch64, in the process of preparing an assembly for RISC-V). Desktop components and applications are developed using C/C++ and Go languages. The graphical interface is built using the Qt library. The key feature of the Deepin desktop is the panel, which supports multiple operating modes. In classic mode, open windows and applications offered for launch are more clearly separated, and the system tray area is displayed. Effective mode is somewhat reminiscent of Unity, mixing indicators of running programs, favorite applications and control applets (volume/brightness settings, connected drives, clock, network status, etc.). The program launch interface provides two modes - viewing favorite applications and navigating through the catalog of installed programs. https://www.deepin.org/en/deepin-v23-is-officially-released/

Outertale game open source: 16/08/2024 The Outertale project is now open source, developing a fan interpretation of the game Undertale, which placed the previous story in the vastness of space. The game is cross-platform and is distributed in versions for Linux, Windows, macOS and Android, as well as as a web application for browsers. Scene data is stored in JSON files. The game engine is written in TypeScript and distributed under the ISC license. Standalone builds use the Electron framework. https://spacey-432.itch.io/outertale

Release of Godot 4.3: 16/08/2024 After eight months of development, the free game engine Godot 4.3, suitable for creating 2D and 3D games, has been released. The engine supports an easy-to-learn game logic language, a graphical environment for game design, a one-click game deployment system, extensive animation and simulation capabilities for physical processes, a built-in debugger, and a system to identify performance bottlenecks. The code of the game engine, game design environment and related development tools (physics engine, sound server, 2D/3D rendering backends, etc.) are distributed under the MIT license. The engine was open sourced in 2014 by OKAM, after ten years of developing a professional-grade proprietary product that has been used to create and publish many games for PC, game consoles and mobile devices. The engine supports all popular desktop and mobile platforms (Linux, Windows, macOS, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Android, iOS, BBX), as well as game development for the Web. Ready-to-run binaries have been created for Linux , Android, Windows and macOS. https://godotengine.org/article/godot-4-3-a-shared-effort/

OutWiker 3.3 released: 16/08/2024 A new stable version of the program for storing notes, OutWiker 3.3, has been published. A special feature of the program is that notes are stored in the form of directories with text files, an arbitrary number of files can be attached to each note, the program allows you to write notes using various notations: HTML, wiki, Markdown (if the appropriate plugin is installed). Also, by using plugins, you can add the ability to place formulas in LaTeX format on wiki pages and insert a block of code with colorized keywords for various programming languages. The program is written in Python (wxPython interface), distributed under the GPLv3 license and available in builds for Linux (snap and flatpak) and Windows. https://github.com/Jenyay/outwiker/releases/tag/3.3.0-stable

Russian Open OS Challenge 2024: 17/08/2024 The first stage of the open system software competition has started - Open OS Challenge 2024, which is conducted by the community of developers of the Linux distribution OpenScaler, the company Sberbank Technologies (SberTech) and the ANO Center for the Development of Innovative Technologies “IT Planet”. The competition is aimed at popularizing systems development and open source software. Participants will be offered tasks related to programming, administering and using the OpenScaler Linux distribution, compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The prize fund of the competition is one million rubles (1st place - 400 thousand rubles, 2nd place - 300 thousand rubles, 3rd place - 200 thousand rubles, 4th and 5th places - 50 thousand rubles). Five winners will also have the opportunity to attend the OpenAtom developer conference in China in December. Both professional engineers and programmers who actively use open source in their work, as well as amateurs, enthusiasts and students, at least 18 years old, studying system programming and administration based on Linux, can participate in the competition. Registration for participation in the competition is open from August 15 to September 22, 2024 inclusive. Event period from August 15 to October 27, 2024. https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&hl=en-US&client=webapp&u=https://openscaler.braim.org/

Release of labwc 0.8.0: 17/08/2024 A release of the labwc 0.8.0 project (Lab Wayland Compositor) has been published, 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). The features of labwc include; minimalism, compact implementation, extensive customization options and high performance are mentioned. Animated effects, gradients and icons, with the exception of window buttons, are not supported at all. The project code is written in C and is 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. You can connect add-ons to implement functions such as creating screenshots, displaying wallpaper on the desktop, placing panels and menus. 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 high pixel density (HiDPI) screens. In addition to the built-in root menu, configured through the menu.xml file, 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, they suggest you use wlr-randr or kanshi. The screen is locked using swaylock . https://github.com/labwc/labwc/releases/tag/0.8.0

Release of MiniOS 3.3.4: 17/08/2024 A new release of MiniOS 3.3.4 is available, a lightweight modular live Linux distribution designed for use on removable USB drives and developed by an author from Russia. The project was founded in 2009 and was initially based on Mandriva Linux, but after the liquidation of Mandriva it switched to using Debian as a base. A special feature of the distribution is the ability to add or remove modules to create a live environment that meets your own needs. Fluxbox, LXQt and Xfce are supported as custom shells. There are various ISO image options available for download . Depending on the build option, the distribution takes up 350-1660 MB of disk space. https://github.com/minios-linux/minios-live/releases/tag/v3.3.4

A Catchy update: 19/08/2024 CachyOS, based on Arch Linux and developed within the framework of a continuous update delivery model is updated. The distribution is notable for its inclusion of optimizations to improve performance and the ability to install different desktop environments. In addition to the base KDE-based environment, GNOME, XFCE, i3WM, Wayfire, LXQT, OpenBox, Cinnamon, Cosmic, UKUI, LXDE, Mate, Budgie, Qtile, Hyprland and Sway are available for installation. The size of the installation iso image is 2.6 GB. Btrfs, zfs, ext4, xfs and f2fs can be used as file systems. By default, the BORE task scheduler is enabled, optimized to reduce desktop latency and increase the priority of interactive processes. The kernel and packages are built to include LTO optimizations and use instructions available in processors based on x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4 and Zen4 microarchitectures. When assembling basic packages, PGO (Profile-Guided Optimization) or BOLT (Binary Optimization and Layout Tool) optimizations are additionally used . The distribution comes with the Cachy-Browser web browser, based on Firefox and including changes to enhance security and improve performance, as well as patches from the Librewolf project. https://cachyos.org/blog/2408-august-release/

Cockroaches close up shop: 19/08/2024 CockroachDB has announced a change in licensing policy, discontinuation of the Core version of its DBMS and a significant limitation of free options. The changes will be applied starting with release 24.3, scheduled for November. The CockroachDB code will continue to be available, but under a restrictive license (the “code available” model). Until now, the company has offered two DBMS options: the free CockroachDB Core, which offers basic functionality, and the paid CockroachDB Enterprise, which includes advanced features and optimizations related to fault tolerance, scaling and information protection. The free version of CockroachDB Core is now being discontinued and instead, two new Enterprise editions are offered for deploying CockroachDB on your servers, which contain all the advanced features, but have restrictions on use: the CockroachDB Enterprise Trial, which can only be used for 30 days, and CockroachDB Enterprise Free, which has no time limit but can only be used by individual developers, students, and companies with less than $10 million in annual revenue. https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/enterprise-license-announcement/

Minuet in Allegretto: 20/08/2024 The MenuetOS 1.53 operating system has been released, where the core is developed entirely in assembly language. MenuetOS builds are prepared for 64-bit x86 systems and can be run under QEMU. The system build occupies 1.4 MB and is created in the form of a floppy disk image and an iso image for burning to CD (running in VirtualBox is supported). The source code of the Menuet64 project is distributed under a restrictive license requiring approval for any commercial use, and Menuet32 is licensed under the GPL. The system supports preemptive multitasking, booting on UEFI systems and SMP on multi-core systems. The project also develops its own X server and provides a built-in graphical user interface with support for themes, Drag&Drop operations, UTF-8 encoding and switching keyboard layouts. For developing applications in assembly language, it offers its own integrated development environment. The operating system includes a network stack, drivers for Ethernet and USB 2.0, AC97 and Intel HDA (ALC662/888) audio codecs. The project develops a simple HTTPC web browser, mail and ftp clients, a VNC client, ftp and http servers, applications for viewing images, editing texts, working with files, watching videos, playing music. To navigate through files, they suggest using the NDN (Necromancer's Dos Navigator) file manager, ported for MenuetOS. It is possible to run a DOS emulator and games such as Quake and Doom. Recent changes to MenuetOS include the inclusion of the MPlayer multimedia player, a new design of the interface and menu system, support for executable files in the ELF format, and the provision of components for compatibility with Linux. Compatibility with Linux is ensured by a POSIX base layer that allows you to create GUI applications that can run on Menuet and Linux/X11, as well as a native X server written in assembly language, to which you can redirect the output of an application running on an external system with Linux, to display its interface in MenuetOS. http://www.menuetos.net/index.htm

A ship named Solaris: 20/08/2024 Oracle has published the Solaris 11.4 operating system release SRU 72 (Support Repository Update), which offers a series of major changes and improvements for the Solaris 11.4 branch. To install the fixes offered in the update, simply run the 'pkg update' command. Users can also take advantage of the free Solaris 11.4 CBE (Common Build Environment) edition, which is developed using a continuous release model. https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris/post/announcing-oracle-solaris-114-sru72

Office freedom: 22/08/2024 The Document Foundation presenteda new release of LibreOffice 24.8. Ready-made installation packages are prepared for various Linux, Windows and macOS distributions. 166 developers took part in preparing the release, of which 108 are volunteers. 57% of the changes were made by 49 employees of the three companies overseeing the project - Collabora, Red Hat and Allotropia, 20% - by eight employees of The Document Foundation, and 23% of the changes were added by 115 independent enthusiasts. The LibreOffice 24.8 release is labeled “Community”, will be supported by enthusiasts and is not aimed at enterprise use. LibreOffice Community is available free of charge to everyone without exception, including corporate users. For enterprises that need additional services, products of the LibreOffice Enterprise family are being developed separately , for which partner companies will provide full support, the ability to receive updates over a long period of time (LTS) and additional functions such as SLA (Service Level Agreements). https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2024/08/22/libreoffice-248/

Gear'd up: 23/08/2024 After four months of development, the August consolidated update of the KDE Gear 24.08, applications developed by the KDE project is presented. This is the third major update to the suite of applications published as part of the KDE 6 branch and after the transition to using the Qt 6 library. The suite contains releases of 250 programs, libraries and plugins. Information about the availability of Live builds with new application releases can be obtained on this page. New versions of individual applications can be downloaded from the Flathub and SnapCraft stores . https://kde.org/announcements/gear/24.08.0/

GIMP Freeze: 23/08/2024 The developers of the graphics editor GIMP announced that they are moving the GIMP 3 branch to the string data freeze stage, which stops making changes to the text strings shown in the interface. Freezing these strings is one of the final stages of release preparation and is done to give time (at least a month) to the teams involved in translating the interface into various languages ​​to complete their work, so that they are not distracted by tracking changes in already translated elements. An exception is made only when correcting typos and errors that lead to changes in lines. It is assumed that all functionality planned for a future release is already ready and the remaining tasks will not require line changes. The next stage will freeze the API from making changes. Before the final release, a release candidate (GIMP 3.0.0-RC1) will also be generated and work will be carried out to identify and correct errors identified in it. Depending on the test results, a second release candidate may be published. The timing of freezing the API and generating release candidates has not yet been determined. The GIMP 3.0 branch offers improvements such as a transition to GTK3, native support for Wayland and HiDPI, basic support for the CMYK color model (late binding), significant cleanup of the codebase, a new API for plugin development, render caching, support for selecting multiple layers (Multi- layer selection), editing in the original color space, initial implementation of non-destructive editing mode. https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gimps-master-branch-string-freeze/22895

Twelve bells, CO: 24/08/2024 After seven months of development, the console file manager Midnight Commander 4.8.32 has been released . It has been developed since 1994 and providing a two-pane interface in the style of Norton Commander. Midnight Commander features things like mouse support, a built-in file viewer and text editor with syntax highlighting, the use of virtual files for navigation within archives, packages and network storage (SFTP, SSH), connecting handlers for various file types, and a quick transition to terminal mode to run commands, use bookmarks to navigate to frequently used places in the file system, flexible search tools. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the GPLv3+ license. https://github.com/MidnightCommander/mc/releases/tag/4.8.32

Phantasmagorical news: 24/08/2024 The SurrealEngine project develops the open implementation of the first versions of the Unreal Engine game engine and aims to provide the ability to run games using maps from the original Unreal Tournament (UT99) game released in 1999, without using the original proprietary engine. In addition to Windows, the project supports Linux using the SDL2, waylandpp and libasound2 libraries. The project is written in C++ and distributed under the zlib open license. At the current stage of development, the SurrealEngine engine can load and draw maps, and also supports almost all the capabilities of UnrealScript scripts (only arrays and some networking capabilities have not yet been implemented). It supports detection of resources from the following games based on the Unreal Engine 1: Unreal Tournament, Unreal, Unreal Gold, Deus Ex, Klingon Honor Guard, NERF Arena Blast, TNN Outdoors Pro Hunter, Rune Classic, Clive Barker's Undying, Tactical-Ops: Assault on Terror and Wheel of Time. Most are still crashing though. https://github.com/dpjudas/SurrealEngine Caching bees: 24/08/2024

When discussing the next batch of fixes proposed for inclusion in the 6.11-rc5 kernel by the author of Bcachefs, Linus Torvalds wrote that he was beginning to regret that he had accepted the Bcachefs file system into the kernel. Torvalds' dissatisfaction is due to the fact that Kent Overstreet, the author of Bcachefs, at the stage of final release candidates, sends too voluminous fixes, which, in fact, not only correct errors, but also continue to develop functionality, despite the fact that functional changes are allowed only at the initial stage of development of a new branch, and at the rc5 stage only individual small fixes are accepted, the size of which should preferably not exceed 100 lines of code.

The patch sent for Bcachefs, which added 1309 lines and deleted 671 lines in 39 files, included two significant changes in addition to bug fixes: support for a new data structure for managing the list of free elements in the cache and the ability to transform hash tables for the cache. A new structure has been added to eliminate unnecessary cache locks and avoid situations that could lead to lock contention in multi-threaded workloads.

This is not the first time that major fixes for Bcachefs have been pushed after the push window, nor is it the first time that simple bug fixes have been pushed to include heavier feature additions through push requests in the final stages of a new branch's development.

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/sctzes5z3s2zoadzldrpw3yfycauc4kpcsbpidjkrew5hkz7yf@eejp6nunfpin ===== 19 ====== Saving the best for last: 25/08/2024

On August 25, 1991, after five months of development, 21-year-old student Linus Torvalds announced on the comp.os.minix newsgroup the creation of a working prototype of a new Linux operating system, for which the completion of ports, of bash 1.08 and gcc 1.40 was noted. The first public release of the Linux kernel was announced on September 17th. Kernel 0.0.1 was 62 KB in size in compressed form and contained about 10 thousand lines of source code. The modern Linux kernel has more than 35 million lines of code.

Linus originally thought of calling the kernel Freax, from the words “free”, “freak” and X (Unix). But the name “Linux” was given to the kernel thanks to Ari Lemmke, who, at Linus’s request, posted the kernel on the university’s FTP server, naming the directory with the archive not “freax,” as Torvalds requested, but “linux.” Enterprising businessman William Della Croce registered the Linux trademark and wanted to collect royalties over time, but later changed his mind and transferred all rights to the trademark to Linus. The official mascot of the Linux kernel, Tux the penguin, was chosen as a result of a competition held in 1996. The name Tux stands for Torvalds UniX.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awb/linux.history.html**