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Release of iwd 3.0: 21/10/2024
The release of the Wi-Fi daemon iwd 3.0 (iNet Wireless Daemon), developed by Intel as an alternative to the wpa_supplicant toolkit for connecting Linux systems to a wireless network, is available. Iwd can be used both independently and as a backend for the network configurators NetworkManager, ConnMan or systemd-networkd. The project is suitable for use on embedded devices and is optimized for minimal memory and disk space consumption. Iwd does not use external libraries and only accesses the capabilities provided by the standard Linux kernel (the Linux kernel and Glibc are sufficient for operation). It includes its own implementation of the DHCP client and a set of cryptographic functions. The project code is written in C and is licensed under the LGPLv2.1 license.
In addition to bug fixes, the new release adds support for external authentication mode on systems with chips based on the FullMAC architecture, which implies the implementation of the wireless stack on the chip firmware side, not the system driver. The external authentication mode (CMD_EXTERNAL_AUTH) can be used with drivers that do not support full processing of the SAE (Simultaneous Authentication of Equals) authentication protocol on the firmware side and do not provide the CMD_ASSOCIATE and CMD_AUTHENTICATE commands. In this case, the firmware can provide the CMD_EXTERNAL_AUTH command to use an external authenticator to process SAE frames in user space.
Minetest gets a name: 21/10/2024
After years of discussion, the Minetest game engine has been renamed and will now be developed under the name Luanti. The new name is a combination of the Finnish word luonti, which translates as “creation” (the project's creator is from Finland), with the name of the Lua programming language used in the engine. The need for a renaming arose due to confusion caused by the similarity of the name Minetest to the name of the game Minecraft, which misled users and gave reason to think that the project was developing a clone of Minecraft. On the other hand, the presence of the word “test” in the name suggested that this was a test product.
The project develops a free cross-platform sandbox game engine that allows you to create Minecraft-style games 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 Lua. The engine is written in C++ using the IrrlichtMt 3D library (a fork of Irrlicht ). The code is distributed under the LGPL license, and the game resources are licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
https://blog.minetest.net/2024/10/13/Introducing-Our-New-Name/
Release of SysVinit 3.11: 22/10/2024
The classic SysVinit 3.11 initialization system has been published. It was widely used in Linux distributions in the days before systemd and upstart, and now continues to be used in such distributions as Devuan, Debian GNU/Hurd and antiX. The code is written in C and is distributed under the 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 the dependencies between init scripts, and startpar is used to ensure parallel launch of several scripts during the system boot process.
The new release implements the ability to link shell commands in the inittab file with logical operators, allowing you to launch a command only if the previous command completed successfully (“cmd1 && cmd2”) or, conversely, to execute the next command only if an error code was returned when running the previous command (“cmd1 || cmd2”). For example:
ww:c:once:/usr/bin/command1 && echo "Success" > /var/log/command" ww:c:once:/usr/bin/command1 || echo "Command failed" > /var/log/command
https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/sysvinit-devel/2024-10/msg00000.html
Kitten 10: 22/10/2024
The developers of the AlmaLinux project have published the first release of the new Kitten 10 distribution, based on CentOS Stream 10, used to develop the future major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10. Kitten 10 is presented as a test distribution, allowing you to get acquainted with the capabilities being developed for RHEL 10, and is a precursor to the future stable release of AlmaLinux 10. The installation assemblies of the distribution are made for the x86_64, x86_64_v2, aarch64, ppc64le and s390x architectures.
The Kitten repository uses a rolling release model. The installation builds will be updated every three months. The Kitten repositories are used as an upstream for the AlmaLinux 10 branch - fixes and new features are first tested in the Kitten repositories and then pushed to AlmaLinux. The Kitten repositories are also used as a platform for integration and collaboration with upstream projects such as CentOS Stream and Fedora.
https://almalinux.org/blog/2024-10-22-introducing-almalinux-os-kitten/
Release of OpenSSL 3.4, LibreSSL 4.0, Botan 3.6 and Rustls 0.23.15 cryptographic libraries: 23/10/2024
Several new versions of cryptographic libraries have been published:
OpenSSL 3.4.0 library release with implementation of SSL/TLS protocols and various encryption algorithms. OpenSSL 3.4 will be supported until October 2025. Support for previous OpenSSL 3.3, 3.2, 3.1 and 3.0 LTS branches will last until April 2026, November 2025, March 2025 and September 2026 respectively. The project code is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
Release of the LibreSSL 4.0.0 project , developing a fork of OpenSSL, aimed at providing a higher level of security and high-quality support for SSL/TLS protocols by removing unnecessary functionality, adding additional security features, and conducting a significant cleaning and reworking of the code base. A major change in the version number is associated with the use of decimal numbering (after 3.9 comes version 4.0).
Botan 3.6.0 , a cryptographic library used in the NeoPG project, a fork of GnuPG 2, is now available. The library provides a large collection of ready-made primitives used in the TLS protocol, X.509 certificates, AEAD ciphers, TPM modules, PKCS#11, password hashing, and post-quantum cryptography (hash-based signatures and McEliece-based key agreement). The library is written in C++ and is released under the BSD license.
Rustls 0.23.15, developing client and server implementation of TLS1.2 and TLS1.3 protocols for projects in Rust. Rustls does not provide its own implementation of cryptographic primitives, but uses pluggable providers of cryptographic functions (the supported algorithms are ECDSA, Ed25519, RSA, ChaCha20-Poly1305, AES128-GCM and AES256-GCM). By default, Rustls uses a cryptographic provider based on the aws-lc-rs library , which is developed by Amazon and is based on the C++ code of AWS-LC , forked from the BoringSSL project (a fork of OpenSSL maintained by Google). The ring library , partially based on BoringSSL and combining code in assembly, C++ and Rust, can also be used as a cryptographic provider .
https://openssl-library.org/post/2024-10-22-openssl-3-4-final/
Steam OS 3.6.19: 24/10/2024
Valve has released a stable update to the Steam OS 3.6.19 operating system, which ships with the Steam Deck gaming console. The Steam OS 3 project is based on Arch Linux, uses the Gamescope composite server based on the Wayland protocol to speed up game launches, comes with a read-only root FS, uses an atomic update mechanism, supports Flatpak packages, uses the PipeWire multimedia server, and provides two interface modes (Steam shell and KDE Plasma desktop).
SteamOS releases are created only for Steam Deck devices, but enthusiasts develop unofficial builds SteamFork and HoloISO, suitable for installation on regular computers and gaming consoles other than Steam Deck. In addition, Valve has long promised to provide official builds of SteamOS for PC and is working on implementing support for consoles from other manufacturers.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1675200/announcements/detail/4676514574283544995
Release of Cozystack 0.17.0: 24/10/2024
The release of the free PaaS platform Cozystack 0.17.0, built on Kubernetes, has been published. The project aims to provide 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 the infrastructure for providing managed services. Cozystack allows you to launch and provide Kubernetes clusters, databases, and virtual machines. The platform code is available on GitHub and is distributed under the Apache-2.0 license.
Talos Linux and Flux CD are used as the base technology stack. Images with the system, kernel and necessary modules are generated in advance and updated atomically, which allows to do without components such as dkms and a package manager, and guarantee stable operation. A simple installation method is provided in an empty data center using PXE and a debian-like installer talos-bootstrap .
The platform includes a free implementation of the network infrastructure (fabric) based on Kube-OVN and uses Cilium to organize the service network, MetalLB to announce services to the outside. The storage is implemented on LINSTOR , which suggests using ZFS as a base layer for storage and DRBD for replication. There is a pre-configured monitoring stack based on VictoriaMetrics and Grafana. To launch virtual machines, KubeVirt technology is used , which allows you to launch classic virtual machines directly in Kubernetes containers and already has all the necessary integrations with the Cluster API to launch managed Kubernetes clusters inside a “hardware” Kubernetes cluster.
https://github.com/aenix-io/cozystack/releases/tag/v0.17.0
Vivaldi 7.0 Browser with New Interface Design: 24/10/2024
The release of the proprietary browser Vivaldi 7.0, developed on the Chromium engine, is out. Vivaldi builds are prepared for Linux, Windows and macOS. The changes made to the Chromium code base are distributed by the project under an open license. The browser interface is written in JavaScript using the React library, the Node.js platform, Browserify and various ready-made NPM modules. The implementation of the interface is available in source code, but under a proprietary license.
The browser is being developed by former Opera Presto developers and aims to create a customizable and functional browser that preserves the privacy of user data. The main functions include a tracking and advertising blocker, note, history and bookmark managers, private browsing mode, end-to-end encrypted synchronization, tab grouping mode, sidebar, configurator with a large number of settings, horizontal tab display mode, and a built-in mail client, RSS reader and calendar in test mode.
https://vivaldi.com/blog/read-all-about-vivaldi-7-0/
Bitwarden SDK Moved from Proprietary License to GPLv3: 25/10/2024
The developers of the Bitwarden password manager have translated the Bitwarden Secrets Manager SDK to the GPLv3 license. The SDK provides a set of bindings for various programming languages, allowing you to create extensions to the password manager and integrate the functionality and data models used in Bitwarden products into your programs.
The client and server code was previously open sourced under the GPLv3 and AGPLv3 licenses, but the SDK content was distributed under a proprietary license. A few weeks ago, the SDK was included in the build dependencies of the Bitwarden desktop client, which formally transferred the client part of the Bitwarden password manager to the category of proprietary software, since the SDK license prohibited its use for creating applications used with services other than Bitwarden.
Bitwarden developers took note of the comment about the license issues and restructured the Bitwarden SDK codebase, as a result of which the main components of the SDK used in building and running the client software were transferred to the GPLv3 license and moved to the sdk-internal repository , and the old repository, which includes code for creating business products, was renamed to sdk-secrets.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41940580
Ubuntu Sway Remix 24.10: 27/10/2024
The Ubuntu Sway Remix 24.10 distribution is available, providing a pre-configured and ready-to-use desktop based on the Sway tiled compositing manager. The distribution is an unofficial edition of Ubuntu 24.10, created with an eye on both experienced GNU/Linux users and beginners who want to try an environment with a tiled window manager without the need for lengthy configuration. Builds for amd64 and arm64 (Raspberry Pi) architectures are available for download.
The distribution environment is built on the basis of Sway - a compositing manager that uses the Wayland protocol and is fully compatible with the i3 tiled window manager, as well as the Waybar panel, the PCManFM-GTK3 file manager and utilities from the NWG-Shell project, the Azote desktop wallpaper manager , the nwg-drawer full-screen application menu, the nwg-wrapper program for displaying the contents of scripts on the screen (used to display hotkey hints on the desktop), the nwg-look GTK theme, cursor and font settings manager and the Autotiling script , which automatically composes the windows of open applications in the manner of dynamic tiled window managers.
The distribution includes programs with both a graphical interface, such as Firefox, Qutebrowser, Audacious, Transmission, Libreoffice, Pluma and MATE Calc, and console applications and utilities, such as the Musikcube music player, MPV video player, Swayimg image viewer, Zathura PDF document viewer, Neovim text editor, Ranger file manager and others.
Another feature of the distribution is the complete refusal to use the Snap package manager, all programs are supplied as regular deb packages, including the Firefox web browser, for the installation of which the official Mozilla Team PPA repository is used. The distribution installer is based on the Calamares framework.
https://github.com/Ubuntu-Sway/Ubuntu-Sway-Remix/releases/tag/24.10
TileOS 1.2: 27/10/2024
A minor release of TileOS 1.2 “T-Rex” is now available , a Debian-based distribution that offers a desktop environment that uses tiling window managers. TileOS follows the same goals as the Ubuntu Sway Remix distribution (developed by the same author), offering a ready-to-use interface that requires no additional configuration and is aimed at both experienced Linux users and beginners who want to try out a tiling window manager environment without spending a lot of time on setting it up.
Unlike Ubuntu Sway Remix, TileOS is much more open to various changes and customizations, and is also free of any potential copyright issues (Ubuntu Sway Remix uses registered trademarks of Canonical, but there is still no official response regarding the inclusion of the distribution in the official Ubuntu family). Builds for the amd64 architecture are available for download (in the future, there are plans to provide support for arm64, in particular Raspberry Pi boards). The source code of TileOS components is available on GitLab.
TileOS focuses on window managers using the Wayland protocol. Editions with the Sway and River desktops are officially presented, editions with SwayFX (a fork of Sway, supplemented with various desktop effects) and Qtile are in development. The distribution uses the Debian Stable package base, but various improvements, more recent versions of some software and graphics drivers are transferred from the testing branch. In addition, a number of fixes are included in the composition, optimizing the disk subsystem and memory, and some improvements from Ubuntu are transferred, for example, mounting disks in the file manager without asking for a password, and others.
https://gitlab.com/tile-os/tileos/-/releases/v1.2
Sway 1.10 User Environment Released: 28/10/2024
After 8 months of development, the Sway 1.10 compositing manager has been released. It is built using the Wayland protocol and is compatible with the i3 tiling window manager and the i3bar panel. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the MIT license. The project is aimed at Linux and FreeBSD.
Sway allows you to arrange windows on the screen logically rather than spatially. Windows are arranged in a grid that optimally uses the screen space and allows you to quickly manipulate windows using only the keyboard. Compatibility with i3 is provided at the level of commands, configuration files, and IPC, which allows you to use Sway as a transparent replacement for i3, using Wayland instead of X11.
To create a complete user environment, the following accompanying components are offered: swayidle (background process with standby mode implementation), swaylock (screen saver), mako (notification manager), grim (creating screenshots), slurp (selecting an area on the screen), wf-recorder (video capture), waybar (application panel), virtboard (on-screen keyboard), wl-clipboard (working with the clipboard), wallutils (desktop wallpaper management).
https://github.com/swaywm/sway/releases/tag/1.10
Raspberry Pi OS switched to Wayland: 29/10/2024
The developers of the Raspberry Pi project have presented a new version of Raspbian, based on Debian 12 and the Linux 6.6 kernel. About 35 thousand packages are available in the repository. Three builds have been prepared for download - a reduced one ( 438 MB ) for server systems, with a basic desktop ( 1.1 GB ) and a full one with an additional set of applications (2.9 GB), available for 32- and 64-bit architectures. Additionally, an update has been formed for the old edition of Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy), based on the Linux 6.1 kernel and the Debian 11 package base.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/a-new-release-of-raspberry-pi-os/
The Flock project: 29/10/2024
The Flock project is presented, which is a fork of the Flutter user interface framework developed by Google under a BSD license. The initiator of the fork was Matt Carroll, a former Google employee who was previously part of the Flutter development team. The reason for creating the fork is the insufficient amount of resources that Google invests in the project.
The expansion of the Flutter core development team was stopped by Google in 2023, and in 2024 the company laid off some employees. According to the founders of the fork, the remaining developers and outsourced participants at Google are not enough for the full development of the project. As a result, the shortage of Flutter developers led to a change in priorities and stagnation in the development of the framework for desktop platforms (development for 3 of the 6 supported platforms is now limited to work related only to maintaining the existing code base). The shortage of developers also negatively affects the elimination of problems - some error messages can remain in the queue for years.
The Flock project does not intend to split the established community and views itself as “Flutter+” - a fork synchronized with the main project, adding on top of the main Flutter community-requested improvements and bug fixes that the main Flutter development team at Google cannot or does not want to implement. The stated goal of the project is to accelerate development and expand the resources involved in development at the expense of the community not associated with Google. At the moment, the content of the Flock repository is completely consistent with the Flutter repository.
https://flutterfoundation.dev/blog/posts/we-are-forking-flutter-this-is-why/
Fedora Linux Release 41: 29/10/2024
Fedora Linux release 41 is out. Products available for download are Fedora Workstation , Fedora Server , Fedora CoreOS , Fedora Cloud Base, Fedora IoT Edition , Fedora Silverblue , Fedora Kinoite and Live builds, delivered in the form of spins with desktop environments KDE Plasma, Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE, Phosh, Miracle, LXQt, Budgie and Sway. The builds are generated for the x86_64, Power64 and ARM64 (AArch64) architectures.
https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-linux-41/
X.Org Server 21.1.14 Update with Vulnerability Fix: 29/10/2024
Corrective releases of X.Org Server 21.1.14 and the DDX (Device-Dependent X) component xwayland 24.1.4 have been published. They enable X.Org Server to run X11 applications in Wayland-based environments. The new versions fix a vulnerability ( CVE-2024-9632 ) that can be exploited to escalate privileges on systems where the X server is running with root privileges, as well as for remote code execution in configurations where X11 session redirection via SSH is used for access.
The problem is caused by a buffer overflow in the _XkbSetCompatMap() function, which occurs when attempting to change the size of the sym_interpret buffer while processing a specially formatted bitmap. Due to an error in setting the new size, the change only changed the value of num_si, but left the value of size_si unchanged. The problem has been present since the release of xorg-server-1.1.1, published in 2006.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/tags/
Shotcut Video Editor 10/24: 30/10/2024
Shotcut 24.10 video editor, has been published. It is being developed by the author of the MLT project and uses this framework for editing video. Support for video and audio formats is implemented via FFmpeg. It is possible to use plugins with the implementation of video and audio effects compatible with Frei0r and LADSPA. Features include, the ability to do multi-track editing with the composition of video from fragments in various source formats, without the need for their preliminary import or recoding. There are built-in tools for creating screencasts, processing images from a web camera and receiving streaming video. Qt is used to build the interface. The code is written in C++ and is distributed under the GPLv3 license. Ready-made assemblies are available for Linux ( AppImage , flatpak and snap ), macOS and Windows.
https://shotcut.org/blog/new-release-241029/
Release of Audacity 3.7: 30/10/2024
The free audio editor Audacity 3.7, has been released. It provides tools for editing audio files (Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, and WAV), recording and digitizing audio, changing audio file parameters, overlaying tracks, and applying effects (such as noise reduction, tempo, and tone changes). Audacity 3.7 is the seventh major release since the project was acquired by Muse Group. Audacity's code is licensed under the GPLv3 license, and binary builds are available for Linux, Windows, and macOS.
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/releases/tag/Audacity-3.7.0
Release of TrueNAS SCALE 24.10: 30/10/2024
iXsystems has released TrueNAS SCALE 24.10, a distribution based on the Linux kernel and Debian (previously released products by this company, including TrueOS, PC-BSD, TrueNAS, and FreeNAS, were based on FreeBSD). Like TrueNAS CORE (FreeNAS), TrueNAS SCALE can be downloaded and used for free. The iso image size is 1.4 GB. The source code for TrueNAS SCALE-specific build scripts , web interface , and layers is available on GitHub.
The Linux-based TrueNAS SCALE edition is now the main edition, and the FreeBSD-based TrueNAS CORE branch has been moved to maintenance mode, where it plans to continue to fix bugs and security issues for several more years. New features and new component versions will only be developed in the TrueNAS SCALE branch. TrueNAS SCALE is not the only Linux-based FreeNAS variant - in 2009, FreeNAS forked the OpenMediaVault distribution, which was ported to the Linux kernel and Debian package base.
https://www.truenas.com/blog/truenas-electric-eel-powers-up-your-storage/
Pentesters ready: 31/10/2024
After a year of development, the release of BackBox Linux 9 has been published. It is based on Ubuntu 24.04 and comes with a collection of tools for checking system security, testing exploits, reverse engineering, analyzing network traffic and wireless networks, studying malware, stress testing, detecting hidden or lost data. The user environment is based on Xfce. The size of the iso image is 6 GB (x86_64).
The new version marks the transition to Ubuntu 24.04, an update to the Xfce environment and the Linux kernel (6.8), the delivery of new versions of security testing tools and improvements in anonymous mode.
In addition, the release of Parrot 6.2 has been published, based on Debian 12 and including a selection of tools for checking the security of systems, conducting forensic analysis and reverse engineering. The Parrot distribution is positioned as a portable laboratory with an environment for security experts and forensic experts, focusing on tools for checking cloud systems and Internet of Things devices. The distro also includes cryptographic tools and programs for providing secure access to a network, including TOR, I2P, anonsurf, gpg, tccf (Two Cents Cryptography Frontend), zulucrypt, veracrypt, truecrypt and luks. ISO images with the MATE environment are offered for download.
The new release updates system packages and specialized applications, including Linux kernel 6.10, Airgeddon 11.30, Anonsurf 5.0.0, Bind 9.18.28, Chromium 129, Codium, Firefox ESR 128.3, Flatpak 1.14.10, LibreOffice 24.8.2 Maltego 4.7.0, OpenJDK 17.0.12, VirtualBox 7.0.20, VLC 3.0.21 and Tor 0.4.8.12.
https://blog.backbox.org/2024/10/30/backbox-linux-9-released/
https://parrotsec.org/blog/2024-10-23-parrot-6.2-release-notes
Tizen Studio 6.0 Development Environment Released: 04/11/2024
A release of Tizen Studio 6.0, SDK and development environment for creating, assembling, debugging and profiling mobile applications, for the Tizen platform using Web API and Native API, is out. The development environment is built on the latest release of the Eclipse platform, has a modular architecture and allows you to select and install only the necessary functionality at the installation stage or through a special package manager. Plugins for development using the VS Code editor and the Visual Studio integrated environment are also provided.
Tizen Studio includes a set of Tizen-based device emulators (smartphone, TV, smartwatch emulator), a set of training examples, tools for developing applications in C/C++ and using web technologies, components for providing support for new platforms, system applications and drivers, utilities for building applications for Tizen RT (a version of Tizen based on the RTOS kernel), tools for creating applications for smartwatches and TVs.
https://developer.tizen.org/development/tizen-studio/
Release of NethSecurity 8.3: 04/11/2024
NethSecurity 8.3, a distribution for creating network firewalls based on the NethServer platform and designed for quick deployment of a network firewall, has been published . In addition to packet filtering, it provides capabilities for detecting and preventing intrusions, anti-virus scanning, ad blocking, prioritizing different types of traffic, deep packet inspection (DPI), and content filtering. Deployed in a corporate network, NethSecurity can also selectively block Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and other services that can distract employees from work. The size of the bootable image in compressed form is 52 MB.
The platform is built as a complete solution that can be used for installation on physical servers and virtual machines, as well as for creating bootable USB drives that turn any computer into a firewall. It supports the creation of tunnels via IPsec and OpenVPN, deployment of wireless access points, and operation via several external Internet connection channels (MultiWAN).
Management and administration is carried out via a web interface, which, among other things, provides options for creating/restoring backup copies of the configuration, resetting to factory settings, managing the installation of updates, and connecting via SSH (web interface for the SSH client). When used in the infrastructure of servers based on the NethServer distribution, centralized remote management of all hosts with NethSecurity via the NethServer interface is possible, as well as connection to the general monitoring and log collection system.
FFmpeg speeds up some operations by 94 times: 05/11/2024
The FFmpeg project developers reported the implementation of new assembler optimizations,where, thanks to the use of the AVX-512 instruction set, it was possible to speed up some operations used in video decoding. The performance increase of the assembler code with AVX-512 instructions was 94, 44, 64 and 4.24 times compared to the basic implementation written in C without using SIMD instructions. In the assembler code with optimizations based on AVX-2 instructions, the increase was 67, 27, 55 and 4.38 times, respectively, and based on SSSE3 instructions - 40, 21, 29 and 2.49 times. The changes were added to the dav1d library , which offers an alternative decoder for the AV1 video encoding format. AVX-512 instructions are available in AMD processors based on the Zen 4 and 5 microarchitectures , and in Intel processors based on microarchitectures such as Skylake-X , Ice Lake , Tiger Lake , and Rocket Lake .
https://twitter.com/FFmpeg/status/1852542388851601913
Updating DogLinux build: 05/11/2024
An update of the specialized DogLinux distribution build (a Debian LiveCD in the style of Puppy Linux) has been published. It is based on Debian 12 and is intended for testing and servicing PCs and laptops. The distribution includes applications such as GPUTest, Unigine Heaven, CPU-X, GSmartControl, GParted, Partimage, Partclone, TestDisk, ddrescue, WHDD, DMDE. The distribution allows you to check the performance of the equipment, load the processor and video card, check SMART HDD and NVMe SSD. The size of the Live image , running from USB drive, is 1.35 GB ( torrent ).
LXQt 2.1.0 Released: 05/11/2024
After six months of development, the LXQt 2.1.0 desktop environment (Qt Lightweight Desktop Environment)is out. It continues the development of the LXDE and Razor-qt projects. The LXQt interface follows the ideas of the classic desktop layout, but introduces a modern design and techniques that increase convenience. LXQt is positioned as a lightweight, modular, fast and convenient environment that has absorbed the best features of LXDE and Razor-qt. The code is posted on GitHub and is supplied under the GPL 2.0+ and LGPL 2.1+ licenses. The appearance of ready-made builds is expected for Ubuntu (LXQt is offered by default in Lubuntu), Arch Linux , Fedora , openSUSE , Mageia , FreeBSD , etc.
The new version continues the work on implementing full support for the Wayland protocol. A new component lxqt-wayland-session has been added to the composition, allowing you to run LXQt in combination with various Wayland composite managers. The ability to select the desired composite manager has been added to the session settings. Currently, support is provided for LabWC , WayFire , kwin_wayland , Sway , Hyprland , River and Niri. By default, the X11-based environment continues to be offered, and the Wayland-based session is classified as experimental options. To run X11 applications in a Wayland-based session, you can use the DDX (Device-Dependent X) component XWayland.
Note that in a Wayland-based session, the most stable output is observed when using the Labwc composite manager, and the most functional session can be obtained using kwin_wayland, thanks to the installation of additional packages from KDE. In addition, kwin_wayland is currently the only composite manager supported in the panel for switching virtual desktops and in the power management interface for turning off the monitor. Visual effects for the desktop are available when choosing kwin_wayland, Wayfire or Hyprland. The screensaver can be used with the waylock, swaylock, hyprlock and kwin_wayland composite servers (kwin offers its own implementation, enabled by the “loginctl lock-session” command).
https://lxqt-project.org/release/2024/11/05/release-lxqt-2-1-0/
Firewalld 2.3.0 Released: 05/11/2024
The dynamically managed firewall, firewalld 2.3 has been released, implemented as a wrapper over the nftables and iptables packet filters. Firewalld runs as a background process, allowing dynamically changing packet filter rules via D-Bus, without the need to reload packet filter rules and without 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 under the GPLv2 license.
The firewall is managed by the firewall-cmd utility, which creates rules based not on IP addresses, network interfaces, and port numbers, but on service names (for example, to open access to SSH, run “firewall-cmd –add –service=ssh”, to close SSH, run “firewall-cmd –remove –service=ssh”). The firewall-config graphical interface (GTK) and the firewall-applet (Qt) can also be used to change the firewall configuration. Support for managing the firewall 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/v2.3.0
webOS Open Source Edition 2.27: 06/11/2024
The webOS Open Source Edition 2.27, open platform is released , which can be used on various portable devices, boards, and in-car infotainment systems. Raspberry Pi 4 boards are considered as a reference hardware platform. The platform is developed in a public repository under the Apache 2.0 license, and the development is supervised by the community, adhering to a collaborative development management model.
https://www.webosose.org/about/release-notes/webos-ose-2-27-0-release-notes/
Lima 1.0: 07/11/2024
The Lima 1.0 toolkit has been released. It was originally developed as a WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)-like layer for running Linux applications on macOS (LInux-on-MAc), but then grew into a universal toolkit for running Linux virtual machines on various operating systems. Currently, Lima can be used on macOS, Linux, Windows, and BSD systems. The key goal of the project is to provide an easy way to run arbitrary Linux distributions in isolated containers or virtual environments, while providing automatic network port forwarding and file sharing. The project code is written in Go and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
To run an isolated Linux environment in Linux and BSD systems, runtime containerd and various container isolation engines (Apptainer, Docker, Podman, LXD) can be used. In macOS, QEMU with the HVF accelerator or the standard macOS virtualization toolkit Virtualization.framework is used. To run Linux environments in Windows, the WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) layer is used. You can run Linux distributions built for the x86_64 architecture on host systems with the ARM64 architecture and vice versa. In experimental mode, there is support for the riscv64 and ARM32 architectures.
For quick deployment of environments, templates are provided, prepared for various versions of AlmaLinux, Alpine, Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSUSE, Oracle Linux, Rocky and Ubuntu distributions. To build your own system images, they suggest you use the BuildKit toolkit. The ability to use Lima to launch Linux environments is integrated into the Finch (Amazon), Rancher Desktop (SUSE), Colima and Podman Desktop (Red Hat) toolkit. Separately, a proprietary graphical user interface Lima GUI is being developed , written using Qt.
https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/releases/tag/v1.0.0
The first release candidate of GIMP 3.0: 07/11/2024
The date of the final release has not yet been determined and will depend on the activity of user testing and the problems identified. Most likely, a second release candidate will be formed before the final release. Ready-made builds of GIMP 3.0-RC1 are formed for Linux ( flatpak ), Windows and macOS.
The 3.0 branch has reached maturity six and a half years after the last stable branch, 2.10, was formed, so the developers have decided to reform the release process and move to a more predictable and frequent schedule of publishing new stable branches. In preparing the next major releases, the developers will try not to push many major changes at once, but will try to focus on polishing individual new features. The next major branch, GIMP 3.2, is planned to be published about a year after the release of GIMP 3.0.
Key improvements in GIMP 3.0 include the move to the GTK3 library and a CSS-like style definition system, native support for Wayland and HiDPI, a new design theme, a significant interface modernization, basic support for the CMYK color model (late binding), significant codebase cleanup, a new API for plugin development, rendering caching, support for multi-layer selection, the ability to edit in the original color space, a brush stroke selection tool, a built-in extension manager, an automatic layer expansion mode, editing outside the canvas, improved import and export in PSD (Adobe Photoshop) format, support for the JPEG-XL format, a non-destructive editing mode, a significant modernization of the color management code, and improved support for graphics tablets and light pens.
https://www.gimp.org/news/2024/11/06/gimp-3-0-RC1-released/
QNX free for non-commercial use: 08/11/2024
BlackBerry QNX has made its QNX real-time microkernel operating system freely available for non-commercial use. They have also announced the start of QNX 8.0 system image generation for Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 boards. Commenting on the issue of the QNX project returning to publishing source code, the developer relations manager noted that the company is moving towards greater openness and transparency, but he cannot yet say anything about the timing of such changes.
In 2007, an initiative was launched to open source QNX under a license that allowed modifications. The code for the QNX Neutrino microkernel, file systems, system library, drivers, microGUI, network stack, and utilities included in the package were published in the public domain. In 2010, Research In Motion (RIM), the owner of the BlackBerry brand, acquired QNX Software Systems, after which, the code publication ceased. Currently, QNX open source initiatives are limited to a repository in GitLab, which contains ports of open source applications for QNX, frameworks, components for the QNX Hypervisor, and sample applications.
https://forums.openqnx.com/t/topic/47580
Release of GSmartControl 2.0: 08/11/2024
Seven years after the publication of the last major update, the GSmartControl 2.0 project has been released. It develops a graphical interface for the smartmontools toolkit, allowing you to monitor the status of drives that support SMART technology (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology). It supports operation on PATA and SATA drives, NVMe drives, USB converters and some RAID controllers. The project code is written in C using the GTK library and is distributed under the GPL 3.0 license.
The program allows you to run internal tests of the drives' performance and inspect the results of their execution. In addition, such functions as enabling/disabling SMART, generating reports and detecting anomalies, setting up device-specific SMART parameters, and displaying detailed information about the drive are available. Reports can be generated either by accessing the drive or by loading a text file in which the output of the smartctl command was saved on another system. The build is supported on Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD and other BSD systems.
The new release is notable for adding support for NVMe drives and switching to the JSON format when parsing the output of the smartctl utility. The code has been refactored and switched to using the features proposed in the C++17 and C++20 standards (building now requires a compiler that supports C++20, such as GCC 13+, Clang 17+, and Apple Clang 15+). The Autotools toolkit has been replaced with the CMake build system. The interface uses icons from the Oxygen set instead of Crystal.
https://github.com/ashaduri/gsmartcontrol/releases/tag/v2.0.0
Ubuntu Touch OTA-6 Focal Mobile Platform Released: 08/11/2024
After six months of development, the UBports project, which took over the Ubuntu Touch mobile platform after Canonical stepped away from it, has released the OTA-6 Focal (over-the-air) firmware. This is the sixth 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.
Ubuntu Touch OTA-6 Focal update will be rolling out in the coming days to Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1, F(x)tec Pro1 X, Fairphone 3/3+/4, Google Pixel 3a/3a XL, JingPad A1, Oneplus 5/5T/6/6T, OnePlus Nord N10 5G/N100, Sony Xperia X, Vollaphone X/22/X23, and Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC/X3.
https://ubports.com/en/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-6-focal-release-3942
Debian 12.8 Released: 09/11/2024
The eighth corrective update of the Debian 12 distribution has been generated, which includes accumulated package updates and adds fixes to the installer. The release includes 68 updates with fixes for stability issues and 50 updates with fixes for vulnerabilities. Among the changes in Debian 12.8, we can note the update to the latest stable versions of the systemd, clamav, dpdk, galera-4, intel-microcode, openssl and wireshark packages.
For downloading and installing “from scratch”, installation builds of Debian 12.8 are prepared. Systems installed earlier and maintained in the current state receive updates present in Debian 12.8 through the standard update installation system. Security fixes included in new Debian releases are available to users as updates are released through the security.debian.org service.
https://www.debian.org/News/2024/20241109
Release of iptables1.8.11: 10/11/2024
After a year of development, the release of the classic toolkit for managing the iptables packet filter 1.8.11 has been published. The development has recently been focused on components for maintaining backward compatibility - iptables-nft and ebtables-nft, providing utilities with the same command line syntax as in iptables and ebtables, but translating the received rules into nftables bytecode. The original set of iptables programs, including ip6tables, arptables and ebtables, was deprecated in 2018 and has already been replaced by nftables in most distributions.
https://www.mail-archive.com/netfilter-announce@lists.netfilter.org/msg00270.html
The tools wget 1.25 and Curl 8.11 are now available: 12/11/2024
GNU Wget 1.25 is released, a program for automating file downloads using HTTP/HTTPS and FTP/FTPS protocols. The utility supports features such as resuming interrupted downloads, mirroring sites with filtering downloaded data by masks, converting links inside documents, setting cookies, and only updating changed files. The project code is written in C and is distributed under the GPLv3 license.
Daniel Stenberg, the author of the curl project, presented an initiative to support LTS releases, updates with fixes for serious errors and vulnerabilities, which will be published for at least 5 years. The first LTS project announced is the 8.9.x branch, for where a corrective release 8.9.2 has already been formed with the elimination of two vulnerabilities. Access to LTS updates are provided only to customers who have signed a support agreement.
The code of the LTS releases continues to be distributed under the previous Curl license (a variant of MIT), but upon a separate request, you can supply it under a separate commercial license. The funds received will be spent on supporting the project and funding developers. New LTS branches are planned to be formed every 8-24 months. Using the LTS branch will allow you to get a stable base, free from the possibility of regressive changes.
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/11/07/rock-solid-curl/
CachyOS 241110 Released: 12/11/2024
CachyOS 241110 release has been published. It is based on Arch Linux and is being developed within the framework of a continuous update delivery model. The distribution is notable for the inclusion of optimizations to improve performance and the ability to install various desktop environments. In addition to the basic 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 2.7 GB. Separately supplied are builds for wearable devices (Handheld Edition) with a GameMode-style interface and components for computer gamers.
The supported file systems are btrfs, zfs, ext4, xfs, and f2fs. The BORE task scheduler is enabled by default, optimized to reduce desktop latency and prioritize interactive processes. The kernel and packages are built with LTO optimizations enabled and instructions available in x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4, and Zen4-based processors enabled. The base packages are additionally built with PGO (Profile-Guided Optimization) or BOLT (Binary Optimization and Layout Tool) optimizations enabled. The distribution comes with the Cachy-Browser web browser, based on FireFox and incorporating security and performance enhancements, as well as patches from the Librewolf project.
https://cachyos.org/blog/2411-november-release/
Release of Luanti 5.10.0: 11/11/2024
After three months of development , the free game engine Luanti 5.10.0 is now available . It allows you to create Minecraft-style games using the Lua API, using various voxel blocks for players to jointly form various structures and buildings that form a semblance of a virtual world. The project was previously developed under the name Minetest, but was renamed due to the fact that the old name could create a false impression that it was an unfinished clone of Minecraft. The engine is written in C++ using the IrrlichtMt 3D library (a fork of Irrlicht ). The code is distributed under the LGPL-2.1 license, and the game assets are licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t%3D31123
DXVK 2.5 Release: 13/11/2024
DXVK 2.5 is now available, providing an implementation of DXGI (DirectX Graphics Infrastructure), Direct3D 8, 9, 10, and 11, running via call translation to the Vulkan API. DXVK requires drivers that support the Vulkan 1.3 API, such as Mesa RADV 24.0, NVIDIA 535.183.01, Intel ANV 24.0, AMDVLK 2024.Q1.3, AMDGPU-PRO, and NVK 24.1. DXVK can be used to run 3D applications and games on Linux using Wine, serving as a higher-performance alternative to Wine's built-in Direct3D implementations that run on top of OpenGL.
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases/tag/v2.5
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Beta Release and RHEL 9.5 Release: 13/11/2024
Red Hat has released a beta version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 distribution and released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5. Ready-made installation images have been prepared for registered users of the Red Hat Customer Portal (to evaluate the functionality, you can also use the CentOS Stream 10 and CentOS Stream 9.5 iso images, as well as free RHEL builds for developers). Repositories with RHEL 10 binary packages are publicly available. Releases are generated for the x86_64, s390x (IBM System z), ppc64le and Aarch64 (ARM64) architectures. The release of RHEL 10 is expected in the first half of next year.
The source code of RHEL 10 rpm packages is published for free download. RHEL 9.5 packages are not placed in the public repository git.centos.org and are provided to the company's clients only through a closed section of the site, which has a user agreement (EULA) prohibiting the redistribution of data, which does not allow using these packages to create derivative distributions. RHEL 9.5 sources remain available in the CentOS Stream repository, but it is completely out of sync with RHEL and the latest versions of packages do not always match those in RHEL. Rocky Linux, Oracle and SUSE reproduce the source code of RHEL release rpm packages as part of the OpenELA project .
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-enterprise-linux-95-release
Debian Junior Project: 14/11/2024
The developers of the Debian Junior project, which is developing opportunities for children with the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, announced the formation of Live-builds (3 GB), containing a user environment optimized for children and a selection of programs, useful and interesting to children under the age of 12. The proposed Live-build is planned to be updated weekly. Initially, Debian Junior was aimed at improving standard Debian and maintaining a set of packages for children.
The user environment is based on the IceWM window manager, which allows it to be used even on outdated computers with a small amount of RAM. Thunar from the Xfce project is supplied as a file manager, Epiphany (GNOME Web) is offered for web navigation, Dino-IM is for messaging, Evolution for e-mail, LibreOffice is for writing documents, VLC for playing multimedia content, Evince for viewing PDF's, and Eye of GNOME for viewing images. The distro also includes educational applications such as GCompris (lessons for preschool and primary school children), Stellarium (planetarium), kturtle (programming training), pySioGame (educational games).
https://lists.debian.org/debian-jr/2024/11/msg00009.html
Phosh 0.43.0,: 15/11/2024
Phosh 0.43 has been released, a mobile desktop shell based on GNOME technologies and the GTK library. The environment was initially developed by Purism as an analogue of GNOME Shell for the Librem 5 smartphone, but then became one of the unofficial GNOME projects and is used in postmarketOS, Mobian, Droidian, some firmware for Pine64 devices and the Fedora edition for smartphones. Phosh uses the Phoc composite server running on top of Wayland, as well as its own on-screen keyboard squeekboard. The project's code is distributed under the GPLv3+ license.
https://phosh.mobi/releases/rel-0.43.0/
OpenWrt switches to APK package manager: 16/11/2024
The developers of the OpenWrt distribution, aimed at use in various network devices such as routers, switches and access points, announced the transition to the APK package manager, developed by the Alpine project. In the November snapshots created off the main OpenWrt branch that is in development, the previously used opkg package manager has already been replaced by the apk toolkit.
The OpenWrt 24.10 testing branch continues to use opkg for now, but will soon be migrated to APK (OpenWrt 24.10 will be the first APK-based release). The OpenWrt 23.05 stable branch will continue to use opkg until the end of its maintenance. Once the migration to the new package manager is complete, opkg will be deprecated and will no longer be developed as part of the OpenWrt project.
The move to APK will allow for more powerful package management capabilities. Reasons cited for the move include better handling of APK metadata and the ability to streamline the process of updating the entire system to a new version of the distribution. In addition, APK by default, requires all packages to have valid digital signatures (unless the “–allow-untrusted” option is specified), while opkg does not check locally installed packages.
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/major-change-notice-new-package-manager/215682
Release of Archinstall 3.0.0: 17/11/2024
The Archinstall 3.0, installer has been released, which has been included as an option in Arch Linux installation ISO images since April 2021. Archinstall runs in console mode and can be used instead of the default manual installation mode of the distribution. The Archinstall code is written in Python and is distributed under the GPLv3 license.
Archinstall provides guided and automated modes of operation. In the automated mode, you can use scripts to deploy typical configurations. The installer also supports installation profiles, for example, the “desktop” profile for selecting a desktop (KDE, GNOME, Awesome) and installing the packages required for it, or the “webserver” and “database” profiles for selecting and installing web server and DBMS components. Four years ago, an attempt was made to create an Archinstall variant with a graphical installation interface, but it did not see the light of day.
The new version of Archinstall has a completely redesigned console user interface, which has been converted to use the Curses library. Using Curses has made it possible to improve the appearance, increase the usability and implement a more complex layout of interface elements, which now has a separate screen area with a constantly visible menu. In addition, work has been done to improve the quality of the code and expand the coverage during testing.
https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/releases/tag/v3.0.0