FOSS World News: May 2019

Friday, May 31, 2019

After 6 Years, Google To Face Antitrust Lawsuit From US Government: Report

For the past few weeks, the US Department of Justice has been preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against search and advertising behemoth Google. This comes almost six years after a previous antitrust investigation against Google by the Federal Trade Commission. Back then, Google managed to avoid any legal action. Before that, Google faced an […]

The post After 6 Years, Google To Face Antitrust Lawsuit From US Government: Report appeared first on Fossbytes.

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Development Release: FreeBSD 11.3-BETA2

Glen Barber has announced the availability of the second beta build of FreeBSD 11.3: "The second BETA build of the 11.3-RELEASE release cycle is now available. A summary of changes since 11.3-BETA1 includes: the fsck_readdir() and dircheck() functions have been rewritten for clarity and correctness; contrib/zlib has been....

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openSUSE Leap 42.3 Linux OS to Reach End of Life on June 30th, 2019

Unity Editor is Now Officially Available for Linux

Unity Editor for the cross-platform gaming engine Unity is now officially available for Linux. It comes with support for Ubuntu and CentOS. Read more about using it on Linux.

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GParted Live Linux Distribution Updated with the Latest GParted 1.0 Release

GParted developer Curtis Gedak announced the release and general availability of the Debian-based GParted Live 1.0.0 GNU/Linux distribution following the release of the GParted 1.0.0 open-source partition editor.

After more than 14 years, the popular and open-source GParted partition editor reached 1.0 milestone this week, a release that finally ports the software to the latest GTK3 (Gtkmm 3) toolkit and the GNOME 3 yelp-tools documentation infrastructure.

In addition, GParted 1.0 comes with support for reading disk usage, grow and check on F2FS filesystems, support for enabling online resizing of extended partitions, better refreshing of NTFS filesystems, and lots of other bugs fixes and improvements.

GParted Live 1.0.0 is now available for download<... (read more)

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antiX MX Linux 18.3 Released with Latest Debian GNU/Linux 9.9 "Stretch" Updates

A new version of the antiX-derived MX Linux distribution has been released with all the latest updates from the Debian GNU/Linux 9.9 "Stretch" operating system.

MX Linux 18.3 is now available and ships with Linux kernel 4.19.37-2 and it's fully synced with the software repositories of the latest Debian GNU/Linux 9.9 "Stretch" operating system release, which means that it is fully patched against the recently disclosed Intel MDS (Microarchitectural Data Sampling) security vulnerabilities found in Intel microprocessors.

This release also includes an updated installer (mx-installer) that now lets users input system configuration selections during installation while the installer copies the system files to speed up the installation process. The UEFI boot installation was improved as well in MX Linux 18.3, which should... (read more)

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Dell releases more high-end Ubuntu Linux laptops

Linux PCs are growing in popularity for professional programmers and Dell continues to back them.

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Authenticator, a 2FA Token Generator for Linux, Gets Updated

authenticator Gtk app If you’re big into two-factor authentication — and in this merciless rag-tag world of the internet, you dang well should be — keeping an app like Authenticator within easy reach is a smart move. As […]

This post, Authenticator, a 2FA Token Generator for Linux, Gets Updated, was written by Joey Sneddon and first appeared on OMG! Ubuntu!.

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Debian Announces Interns for Outreachy and Summer of Code, Unity Editor for Linux Now Available, DistroWatch Turns 18 Today, Google Announces New Privacy Protections for Chrome Extensions and KStars v3.2.3 Released

News briefs for May 31, 2019.

Debian announces it has chosen seven interns—two people for Outreachy and five people for the Summer of Code. See the post for the list of interns and the projects they'll be working on.

Unity announces its Unity Editor for Linux, after years of offering an experimental Unity Editor for Linux. It's currently available as a preview for Ubuntu and CentOS, and it's expected it to be fully supported by Unity 2019.3. You can get the latest builds from the Unity Hub, and feedback is welcome at the Unity for Linux Editor Forum.

DistroWatch is 18 today. It started as "a single page comparing a dozen Linux distributions in a table format, with major features and package versions". Today the database contains "a total of 899 operating systems of which nearly 300 are considered active". Happy Birthday DistroWatch!

Google yesterday announced new privacy protections for Chrome extensions as well as new rules for the Google Drive API and Drive third-party apps. According to ZDNet, "The new rules are part of what Google calls Project Strobe, an initiative to improve the privacy and security of users' data, which the company set in motion after discovering a serious bug in Google+ that exposed the personal details of over 500,000 users. Project Strobe's main mission is to limit the amount of data third-parties can access about Google users via the company's many services, APIs, and tools."

KStars v3.2.3 has been released. This is likely the last release of the v3.2.x series, with development beginning on 3.3.0 now. The release contains a few minor bug fixes and also some convenience fixes thaat users had requested. Go here to download KDE's KStars.

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Hello Again, Linux

by Richard Mavis

My first MacBook was the first computer I really loved, but I wasn't happy about the idea of buying a new one. I decided it's important to live your values and to support groups that value the things you do.

After ten years of faithful service, last year the time finally came to retire my MacBook. Not many laptops last ten years—not many companies produce a machine as durable and beautiful as Apple does—but, if one was available, I was willing to invest in a machine that might last me through the next ten years. A lot has changed in ten years—for Apple, for Linux and for myself—so I started looking around.

The Situation

Prior to 2006, I had used only Windows. Around that time, there was a lot of anxiety about its upcoming successor to Windows XP, which at the time was code-named Project Longhorn. My colleagues and I all were dreading it. So, rather than go through all that trouble, I switched to Linux.

However, my first experience with Linux was not great. Although 2006 was The Year of the Linux Desktop (I saw headlines on Digg proclaiming it almost every day), I quickly learned, right after wiping my brand-new laptop's hard drive to make way for Fedora, that maybe it wasn't quite The Year of the Linux Laptop. After a desperate and miserable weekend, I finally got my wireless card working, but that initial trauma left me leery. So, about a year later, when I decided to quit my job and try the digital nomad freelance thing, I bought a MacBook. A day spent hunting down driver files or recompiling my kernel was a day not making money. I needed the assurance and convenience Apple was selling. And it proved a great investment.

During the next decade, I dabbled with Linux. Every year seemed to be The Year of the Linux Desktop—the real one, at last—so on my desktop at work (freelancing wasn't fun for long), I installed Ubuntu, then Debian, then FreeBSD. An article in this journal introduced me to tiling window managers in general and DWM in particular. The first time I felt something like disappointment with my MacBook was after using DWM on Debian for the first time.

Through the years, as my MacBook's hardware failures became increasingly inconvenient, and as my personal preference in software shifted from big beautiful graphical applications to small command-line programs, Linux started to look much more appealing. And, Linux's hardware compatibility had expanded—companies had even started selling laptops with Linux already installed—so I felt reasonably sure I wouldn't need to waste another weekend struggling with a broken wireless connection or risk frying my monitor with a misconfigured Xorg.conf.

Go to Full Article

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WWDC 2019: What To Expect, Rumors, And How To Watch Apple’s Big Event

Apple is set to kick-off this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 3. It is the biggest Apple event next to the company’s autumn event when it unveils new iPhones. Like every year, Apple will introduce new operating systems for its hardware devices including iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch, Apple TV and MacBooks. Apple enthusiasts all […]

The post WWDC 2019: What To Expect, Rumors, And How To Watch Apple’s Big Event appeared first on Fossbytes.

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Microsoft Wanted To Create History With UWP; Now It’s Turning Back

The UWP is dead. That’s what the internet and various reports have started to say about the platform. In addition to many reasons, what led to this conclusion is one big announcement made by Microsoft that its app store will now offer support for Win32 games. Win32 is the same old legacy platform Redmond wanted […]

The post Microsoft Wanted To Create History With UWP; Now It’s Turning Back appeared first on Fossbytes.

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How to Run Google Chromium OS from USB Drive

Have you ever thought of working on Google’s Chrome OS? We all know that it comes pre-installed only with Google’s Chromebook which might not be affordable by everyone. Fret not, you do not certainly need to buy another laptop to experience this amazing Operating system announced in July’2009 by Google and developed on the basis […]

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Thursday, May 30, 2019

Microsoft Is Bringing ‘Unlimited’ Gaming Subscription For Windows 10 Users

If you’re fond of playing games on your Windows 10 PC, then Microsoft has some good news for you. The company is bringing a PC version of its popular Xbox Game Pass subscription service. Known as Netflix for gaming, Game Pass for Microsoft’s Xbox line of gaming consoles was launched back in 2017. It offers […]

The post Microsoft Is Bringing ‘Unlimited’ Gaming Subscription For Windows 10 Users appeared first on Fossbytes.

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16-Year-Old Indian Boy Dies After Playing PUBG For Straight 6 Hours

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or popularly known as PUBG, is a famous battle royale game, that has faced severe criticism in India to the extent that the government imposed a ban on the game in a few states. The ban seems just as another boy has died because of the game. A 16-year-old boy in Madhya Pradesh […]

The post 16-Year-Old Indian Boy Dies After Playing PUBG For Straight 6 Hours appeared first on Fossbytes.

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Goodbye Windows: Russian Military’s Astra Linux Adoption Moves Forward

Just earlier this week, we reported regarding the Chinese Military’s plan to ditch the Windows operating system and adopt a new operating system. At the moment, there are no reports of a Linux-based or Unix-like OS being adopted to ditch the proprietary software. As per various reports, it seems that Russia is also acting swiftly […]

The post Goodbye Windows: Russian Military’s Astra Linux Adoption Moves Forward appeared first on Fossbytes.

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Memory Corruption Zero-Day Bug Found In Windows Notepad App

Security researcher Tavis Ormandy, who is a part of the Google Project Zero team, has already unearthed some serious bugs and threats in the past. This time, he found a new zero-day vulnerability in the Notepad app which affects users of the Windows operating system. The zero-day exploit can be used to open a Windows […]

The post Memory Corruption Zero-Day Bug Found In Windows Notepad App appeared first on Fossbytes.

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Distribution Release: GParted Live 1.0.0-1

Curtis Gedak has announced the release of GParted Live 1.0.0-1, a milestone release from the project that develops the GParted partition management tool as well as this bootable CD/USB image that also contains various disk management and data rescue utilities. From the release announcement: "The GParted team is....

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Best VPN Services for Privacy Minded Linux Users

Here are our recommendations for best VPN services for Linux users to secure their privacy and enhance their online security. Check it out.

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Foliate is an Epic eBook Reader App for Linux Desktops

foliate ebook reader screenshot Foliate is a new ebook reader app for Linux desktops whose streamlined, stylish GUI recently caught my eye. While I, personally, still find it easier to read ebooks on a dedicated e-reader device with an […]

This post, Foliate is an Epic eBook Reader App for Linux Desktops, was written by Joey Sneddon and first appeared on OMG! Ubuntu!.

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Dell Launches Three New Dell Precision Laptops Powered by Ubuntu Linux

Dell announced today three new Dell Precision mobile workstation Developer Edition models shipping with the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

Meet the Dell Precision 5540, Dell Precision 7540, and Dell Precision 7740, the latest Ubuntu-based Dell Precision laptops promising a powerful computing boost over previous models, namely Dell Precision 3530, 5530, 7530, and 7730, which were introduced at the end of 2018.

"Today we are announcing the Precision 5540, Precision 7540 and Precision 7740. If mobile power is what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place. And if AI is your need, the Precision 7540 and 7740 might just be what you’ve been looking for," said Dell's Barton George in his latest blog post.

Technical specs of Dell Precision 5540, 7540, and 7740

The Dell Precision 5540 is the cheapest of the... (read more)

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Cheating In Exams? This AI Program Will Catch You With 90% Accuracy

Do you remember your school days when you were tempted to cheat in the exams just to score a few extra marks? Well, that thrill might be a case of yesteryear! A survey of about 70,000 high school students in the United States found that 95% of students cheated in some manner — studies like […]

The post Cheating In Exams? This AI Program Will Catch You With 90% Accuracy appeared first on Fossbytes.

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After 14 Years, GParted Finally Hits v1.0

gparted 1.0 Open-source GUI partition editor GParted has finally reached the version 1.0 milestone, after more than 14 years of 0.x numbered releases.

This post, After 14 Years, GParted Finally Hits v1.0, was written by Joey Sneddon and first appeared on OMG! Ubuntu!.

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Dell Announces More Ubuntu-Based Precision Developer Edition Laptops, Mozilla's Alan Davidson Testifies on Internet Privacy, Canonical Announces the Release of Multipass 0.7.0 Beta, GParted Reaches 1.0 Milestone and New HiddenWasp Malware

News briefs for May 30, 2019.

Dell announces its Precision 5540, Precision 7540 and Precision 7740 developer edition laptops, the next in the line of Dell's Ubuntu-based Precision mobile workstations. From the announcement: "What started 5+ years ago as a blog post explaining how to get Ubuntu up and running on the Precision M3800 soon became a line of mobile workstations. With today's announcement, project Sputnik's Ubuntu-based mobile workstation line is now in its 4th generation. What's next for project Sputnik? Stay tuned..." See the announcement for specs and further details.

Mozilla's Alan Davidson, Vice President of Global Policy, Trust and Security, testified yesterday before the International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy and Democracy. Alan's testimony focused "on the need for better product design to protect privacy; getting privacy policy and regulation right; and the complexities of content policy issues. Against the backdrop of tech's numerous missteps over the last year, our mission-driven work is a clear alternative to much of what is wrong with the web today." See the Mozilla blog for more details, or read Alan's statement here.

Canonical yesterday announced the release of Multipass 0.7.0 beta. The announcement notes that "the big part is that we added a preview of VirtualBox support for Windows and macOS!" Highlights include improved concurrency, a new primary instance feature and more, along with several bug fixes. See the announcement for download links and how to provide feedback.

GParted (GNOME Partition Editor) has reached the 1.0 milestone after 15 years of development, now requiring gtkmm3 instead of gtkmm2. Softpedia News reports that this version features "support for the F2FS file system to read disk usage, grow, and check, the ability to enable online resizing of extended partitions, better refreshing of NTFS file systems, and port to Gtkmm 3 (GTK+3) and GNOME 3 yelp-tools." See the release notes for all the details.

Researchers have discovered new strain of malware targeting Linux machines. According to ZDNet, it "appears to have been created by Chinese hackers and has been used as a means to remotely control infected systems. Named HiddenWasp, this malware is composed of a user-mode rootkit, a trojan, and an initial deployment script." The ZDNet article quotes Nacho Sanmillan, a security researcher at Intezer Labs, "Unfortunately, I don't know what is the initial infection vector. Based on our research, it seems most likely that this malware was used in compromised systems already controlled by the attacker."