KDE: Akademy 2018, Chakra GNU/Linux, and Krita Interview with Margarita Gadrat

• Akademy 2018

  The time for Akademy came this year as well, this year it was in the gorgeous Vienna, Austria. This year marks my 10th Akademy in a row, starting from my first one in Belgium in 2008. Talks have been awesome as usual, but what’s always awesome for me year by year is all the face to face conversation with so much diverse and smart people in out awesome KDE community.

• Notes on the Akademy 2018

  This year I attended to my fourth Akademy, the annual KDE summit. The conference is always a good place to meet old and new KDE people. This year we had a lot of new faces showing up there, which is very good because new people might mean new ideas coming, more hands to work on KDE projects, and more mouths to spread our message From Brazil we had three new contributors attending for the first time, Lays, Caio and Eliakin, from a total of eight Brazilians who participated this year. I think we can count with Tomaz and Helio although they are living in Germany

• Chakra GNU/Linux Users Can Now Install KDE Plasma 5.13.4, KDE Applications 18.08

  Users of the Chakra GNU/Linux operating system can now install the latest KDE software, including KDE Plasma 5.13.4, KDE Applications 18.08, and KDE Frameworks 5.49 from the main repositories. In early July 2018, Chakra GNU/Linux users have got their taste of the latest KDE Plasma 5.13 desktop environment, but now they can update their installations to the recently released KDE Plasma 5.13.4 point release, which brings more than 45 bug fixes and improvements.

• Interview with Margarita Gadrat

  Nothing that really annoys me. Krita is awesome and complete software! Maybe a couple of little things, but I don’t really use them. Like text tool, which is now getting better and better. And I’d like to be able to move the selection form not while selecting, but after it is selected.

Kernel: Linux 4.19, 2018 Linux Plumbers Conference and More

• Icelake LPSS, ChromeOS EC CEC Driver On Way To Linux 4.19 Kernel

  The Linux "multi-function device" code updates were sent in overnight for the 4.19 kernel merge window with a few interesting additions. Worth pointing out in the MFD subsystem for the Linux 4.19 kernel includes: - The ChromeOS EC CEC driver being added. Google's embedded controller for ChromeOS devices is able to expose an HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) bus for interacting with HDMI-connected devices for controlling them via supported commands. The Linux kernel's HDMI CEC support has got into shape the past few kernel cycles and now the ChromeOS EC support can expose its HDMI CEC abilities with this new driver.

• Testing and Fuzzing Microconference Accepted into 2018 Linux Plumbers Conference

  Testing, fuzzing, and other diagnostics have greatly increased the robustness of the Linux ecosystem, but embarrassing bugs still escape to end users. Furthermore, a million-year bug would happen several tens of times per day across Linux’s installed base (said to number more than 20 billion), so the best we can possibly do is hardly good enough.

• Latest Linux 4.19 Code Merge Introduces ChromeOS EC CEC Drivers and Cirrus Logic Detection

  Some interesting code updates were just recently put into the Linux 4.19 kernel merge window regarding “multi-function device” capabilities – mostly, this includes several new drivers and driver support, but perhaps most interesting is the ChromeOS EC CEC driver being added. Google’s embedded controller for ChromeOS has been able to expose an HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) bus for interacting with HDMI-connected devices, which in turn is able to control them via supported commands. So now Linux kernel’s HDMI CEC support has been improved over the past few kernel cycles until now, which means that the ChromeOS EC support will be able to expose the HDMI CEC abilities utilizing the new driver added in this merge window.

• Linux 4.19 Had A Very Exciting First Week Of New Features

  The Linux 4.19 kernel merge window opened one week ago and there's been a lot of new features and improvements to be merged during this front-half of the merge period. If you are behind on your Phoronix reading, here's a look at the highlights for week one.

Games Leftovers

• Polygod is a fast-paced FPS with a weapon you constantly upgrade and it's now out

  If you think you have good aim and fast reflexes, Polygod is probably a good FPS for you to check out with single-player and online play.

• Railway Empire heads into Canada with The Great Lakes DLC out now

  Railway Empire - The Great Lakes is a new DLC out now that adds some interesting new content for the rail network sim.

• Soldak's latest action RPG Din's Legacy now has an action-packed trailer

  Din's Legacy [Official Site] is promising some interesting gameplay features, along with full Linux support like their previous titles. Due sometime in the 4th quarter of 2018, it now has a trailer.

• The rather good jet-combat game Hyperspace Dogfights to get a juicy free update next month

  Hyperspace Dogfights impressed me when I took a look at it back in May and development is set to continue with a free content update next month.

• Fictorum, the action RPG with destructible environments looks like it's now on the way to Linux

  Fictorum is an action RPG with destructible environments from Scraping Bottom Games, they said last year they planned a Linux version and it looks like it's now happening. The tip comes from NuSuey/TuxDB where it showed a Linux content depot turning up recently. Checking SteamDB seems to indicate this is indeed true as of early this morning. When checking on their public roadmap, it seems they solved some issues they were having with a Linux version recently so this does indicate it's quite likely to release.

• There's some great Linux games on sale right now

  Time to set your week up by grabbing some fresh Linux games, here's a lot at some hot stuff on sale right now.

• Airships: Conquer the Skies will have you build a Steampunk airship full of cannons, out now

  Not many games will allow you to build a flying Steampunk fortress, while you brace for impact as a massive flying Kraken smashes it to pieces - Airships: Conquer the Skies let's you do that.

• RTS game Krush Kill 'N Destroy to be unofficially revived with the OpenRA game engine

  Krush Kill 'N Destroy 1 and 2 are two classic real-time strategy titles from the 90's and a team of coders are looking to revive them using the open source OpenRA game engine. Thanks to the power of OpenRA it will be open source, support Linux, Mac and Windows along with having online play, modding support and more. They don't currently have the source available for viewing yet, seems like that will come along with the first release.

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