Ubuntu 18.04 Will Get 10-Year Support (Instead of the Usual 5 Years)

The long-term support (LTS) releases of Ubuntu used to get support for five years. This is changing now. Ubuntu 18.04 will now be supported for ten years. Other LTS releases might also get an extended support.

Manjaro Linux 18.0 – Review and Features

Manjaro has finally released a stable version of Manjaro 18.0 also codenamed “Illyria“. Manjaro always provided a lot of lot of emphasis on a user-friendly experience and Illyria is lived upto that to a great extent. The open source operating system is designed in such a way that it work completely out of the box straight away as it comes with a lot of pre-installed software. So once complete the installation of Manjaro 18.0, you don’t need to go installing other software that is needed for your day to day tasks. And Manjaro 18.0 has come out with fixes for a lot of issues and some improvements as well. Manjaro Linux 18.0 is certainly one of the easy-to-use and simple Arch Linux desktop version.

today's leftovers

• QOwnNotes 18.11.3

  QOwnNotes is a open source (GPL) plain-text file notepad with markdown support and todo list manager for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, that (optionally) works together with the notes application of ownCloud (or Nextcloud). So you are able to write down your thoughts with QOwnNotes and edit or search for them later from your mobile device (like with CloudNotes) or the ownCloud web-service. The notes are stored as plain text files and you can sync them with your ownCloud sync client. Of course other software, like Dropbox, Syncthing, Seafile or BitTorrent Sync can be used too.

 

• Getting Started with Scilab

• Huawei’s New Stance On Bootloader Lockdown Is An Unpopular One, Here’s How You Can Bypass It

  Let’s start with the basics. What do you mean by a bootloader? In simple words, Bootloader is a piece of code that runs before any operating system is running. Bootloader is used to boot other operating systems and usually each operating system has a set of bootloaders specific to it. Alternatively, the bootloader can start up recovery mode. When a phone is in recovery, it can execute large pieces of code that totally rewrite the Android operating system. The bootloader is important because it loads up both of these pieces of software. Without a working bootloader, your phone is a useless brick. A locked or unlocked bootloader is what gives you access to “root.” “Root” is another big word in the Android community. If you “root” a device, it means you have “superuser” access or “administrator” access to the operating system that runs on your phone. With an unlocked bootloader, you can install boot images that aren’t signed by the device maker. That includes custom images needed to boot an AOSP-based ROM, boot images patched to support Magisk root, and more. Now as handy and efficient as this might seem, it’s not a popular option publicised or encouraged by smartphone manufacturers. While companies like OnePlus and Google make it seamless by just having to enable “OEM unlocking” in Developer Options, and then entering a few fastboot (fastboot is a protocol for sending commands from a PC to the bootloader of your device) commands while your phone is in the bootloader menu; companies like Huawei or Honor (Huawei sub-brand) have stopped providing forms for allowing users to unlock their bootloader. That means there’s no longer an official way to get the bootloader unlock code for your Huawei or Honor smartphone or tablet. Nobody has yet figured out how these bootloader unlock codes are generated, so it’s impossible to generate one yourself.

• Google’s Wear OS Version H Announced; Brings Battery Saver Mode

  Google quietly announced its Wear OS Version H (it’s basically version 2.2 of Wear OS) for smart wearables this morning. The new update will be rolled out as a system update and majorly, brings battery llife-related improvements to Wear OS watches.

 

• The Huge Security Problem With C/C++ And Why You Shouldn’t Use It

  Alex Gaynor gives an example of a program that has a list of 10 numbers. Theoretically, in an event where someone asks for the 11th element, the program is expected to show an error of some sort, or at least that’s what a “memory safe” programming language (like Python or Java) would do. However, in case of a memory unsafe language like C/C++, the program looks for the 11th element wherever it is supposed to be (if it existed) and accesses its content. This is called a “buffer-overflow” vulnerability that is exploited by bugs like HeartBleed to access up to 60 KB data past the end of a list — that often includes passwords and other sensitive data.

• The Power of Web Components

  As a group, the standards are known as Web Components. In the year 2018 it’s easy to think of Web Components as old news. Indeed, early versions of the standards have been around in one form or another in Chrome since 2014, and polyfills have been clumsily filling the gaps in other browsers. After some quality time in the standards committees, the Web Components standards were refined from their early form, now called version 0, to a more mature version 1 that is seeing implementation across all the major browsers. Firefox 63 added support for two of the tent pole standards, Custom Elements and Shadow DOM, so I figured it’s time to take a closer look at how you can play HTML inventor! Given that Web Components have been around for a while, there are lots of other resources available. This article is meant as a primer, introducing a range of new capabilities and resources. If you’d like to go deeper (and you definitely should), you’d do well to read more about Web Components on MDN Web Docs and the Google Developers site. Defining your own working HTML elements requires new powers the browser didn’t previously give developers. I’ll be calling out these previously-impossible bits in each section, as well as what other newer web technologies they draw upon.

OSS Leftovers

• OpenStack regroups

  Only a few years ago, OpenStack was the hottest open-source project around, with a bustling startup ecosystem to boot. The project, which gives enterprises the tools to run the equivalent of AWS in their own private data centers, ran into trouble as it tried to tackle too many individual projects at the same time and enterprises took longer than expected to adopt it. That meant many a startup floundered or was acquired before it was able to gain traction while the nonprofit foundation that manages the project started to scale back its big tent approach and refocused on its core services.

• SD Times news digest: Docker and MuleSoft’s partnership, ActiveState’s open-source language automation category, and Instana’s automatic Python instrumentation

  Docker and MuleSoft have announced a new partnership to modernize applications and accelerate digital transformation. As part of the partnership, the companies will work together to deliver new capabilities for legacy apps with APIs, legacy apps without APIs and new apps created in Docker. In addition, MuleSoft’s Anypoint platform will be combined with Docker Enterprise.

• ActiveState Creates Open Source Language Automation Category

• New open source cloud discovery tool arrives from Twistlock

  Cloud Discovery connects to cloud providers' native platform APIs to discover services such as container registries, managed Kubernetes platforms, and serverless services, and requires only read permissions. Other key features include:

• Google Open-Sources "Amber" Multi-API Shader Test Framework

  The newest open-source graphics project out of Google is called Amber and it's a multi-API shader testing framework focused on capturing and communicating of shader bugs. Google's Amber tries to make it easier to capture/communicate shader bugs with a scripting-based workflow. The captured shaders can be in binary form, SPIR-V assembly, or a higher-level shading language. Amber is currently focused on supporting the Vulkan and Dawn graphics APIs.

• Microsoft allies with Facebook on AI software [Ed: Evil likes/attracts evil. Now they can do their crimes together while blaming "AI". Longtime Microsoft propagandist Jordan Novet has decided to add the Microsoft lie (PR campaign) "Microsoft loves Linux" (in photo form) to an article that has nothing to do with Linux.]

• Microsoft alliance with Facebook signals shift in AI approach