Games Leftovers

• Satellite Reign is currently free in the Humble Store, lots of Linux games on sale across different stores

  It seems every week there's a new deal going on you don't want to miss! Right now Humble Store is offering free copies of Satellite Reign and other stores also have sales on. The current Humble Monthly will also allow you to unlock the recently released Linux port of RUINER along with Kerbal Space Program.

• Check your privacy settings on GOG, as they're rolling out a new profile system

  Buried in the GOG forum, a staff member has noted that GOG accounts have new privacy options ahead of the release of their own version of user profiles. It seems GOG are continuing to become a little like Steam as time goes on, with their Galaxy client that still isn't on Linux (and isn't a priority last we heard) and now this.

• Sword fighter 'Blade Symphony' has delayed the next update that was due to get Linux support

  It seems the developer of Blade Symphony [Steam] has had a case of feature-creep and so the next update that was due with Linux support is going to be late.

Linux and Linux Foundation

• V3D DRM Driver Steps Towards Mainline Kernel, Renamed From VC5

  The Broadcom VC5 driver stack is being renamed to V3D and developer Eric Anholt is looking at merging it into the mainline Linux kernel. The VC5 DRM/KMS and Mesa code has been for supporting the next-generation Broadcom VideoCore 5 graphics hardware that's only now beginning to appear in some devices, well, it seems one device so far. Though as I pointed out a few months back, there's already "VC6" activity going on too as the apparent successor to VC5 already being in development.

• Azure Sphere Makes Microsoft an Arm Linux Player for IoT [Ed: Microsoft marketing at LF (only runs on/with Windows and Visual Studio etc.)]

• Keynotes Announced for Automotive Linux Summit & OS Summit Japan [Ed: "Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft" in there; LF has once again let Microsoft infiltrate Linux events; in the words of Microsoft’s chief evangelist, “I’ve killed at least two Mac conferences. […] by injecting Microsoft content into the conference, the conference got shut down. The guy who ran it said, why am I doing this?”]

  Automotive Linux Summit connects those driving innovation in automotive Linux from the developer community with the vendors and users providing and using the code, in order to propel the future of embedded devices in the automotive arena.

Android Leftovers

• Force: This one's for the butterfingered Android lovers

• Motorola's new Beta Experiences program will let you test new Moto features before they're public

• 9 Android settings that'll strengthen your security

• Moto G6 Plus and G6 Play photos and details pop up on Carphone Warehouse's site

ExTiX, the Ultimate Linux Operating System, Is Now Based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

ExTiX is dubbed the "Ultimate Linux System," and it's been updated earlier today by developer Arne Exton to version 18.4, based on Canonical's upcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS operating system. However, ExTiX is using the lightweight and modern LXQt 0.12.0 as default desktop environment instead of GNOME, and it's powered by the latest Linux 4.16.2 kernel. "After removing GNOME I have installed LXQt 0.12.0," said Arne Exton in today's announcement. "Programs won’t crash or anything like that. And I haven’t discovered any bugs to report. While running ExTiX LXQt 18.4 live or from the hard drive you can use Refracta tools (pre-installed) to create your own live installable Ubuntu system. A ten-year child can do it."