VirtualBox 6.1.20 Released with Linux Kernel 5.11 Support, CentOS Stream Improvements

Three months in the works, VirtualBox 6.1.20 is here to introduce support for the latest and greatest Linux 5.11 kernel series for both hosts and guests. This means that you’ll now be able to install VirtualBox on GNU/Linux distributions powered by Linux kernel 5.11, as well as to run Linux 5.11-based distros in virtual machines. On top of that, this release improves support for the CentOS Stream operating system, as well as for the upcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 operating system release by making sure the kernel module is correctly built, and fixes the compilation of the vboxvideo module for the Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series.

Firefox 89 Enters Beta Testing with Stunning New Look, Improved Privacy

You might have heard of Firefox’s forthcoming new design, and it’s finally happening with the Firefox 89 release, due out early this summer. Mozilla was working hard during the past few months on a fresh new look for its open source and free web browser, and let me tell you that it looks stunning. The biggest change in this release being a fresh new designed to make your browsing experience more enjoyable, faster, cleaner, and easier to use. Firefox 89’s stunning new look consists of a modern and great looking toolbar with floating tabs, a simplified and cleaner new tab design that easy to customize, streamlined menus, updated infobars and modals, more consistent styling, as well as a brand-new first-run welcome page.

today's leftovers

• ARM in the Datacenter

  ARM processors have seen unprecedented growth in the last three years and are now being used in everything from smart watches to Apple's new M1 desktop and laptop systems, but there is one sector where they have yet to take hold: the enterprise market. For years, many of the largest cloud providers have designed computers around ARM chips, and in December 2020, Microsoft said it was joining the fray by designing its own ARM-based chips for Azure and Surface PCs. Now we are seeing technology based on ARM chips float down from the cloud providers and rise up from the consumer market and start to take hold in the datacenter. In this article, I will highlight some different ARM devices and discuss ways that they have made their way into the datacenter.

• Hacked Codecov uploading script leaked creds for two months

  Scores of projects potentially affected by supply chain attack. A malicious alteration to a shell script lay undetected since January this year at software testing coverage report provider Codecov, sparking fears of another significant supply chain attack. Forensic analysis shows that an unknown threat actor exploited an error in Codecov's Docker container image creation process, and gained access to the credential that allowed the modification to the company's Bash Uploader script. Codecov said a Google Cloud Storage key was accessed starting January 31 this year, and not secured until April 1 US time. The script is normally used to upload coverage reports to Codecov, but it was altered to transmit the UNIX shell environment, which can be used to store variables. [...] The company said it has rotated all credentials, including the key that was captured by the attackers, and set up monitoring and auditing to ensure that the Bash Uploader cannot be compromised like this again.

• Security updates for Tuesday

  Security updates have been issued by Debian (xorg-server), Fedora (CImg, gmic, leptonica, mingw-binutils, mingw-glib2, mingw-leptonica, mingw-python3, nodejs, and seamonkey), openSUSE (irssi, kernel, nextcloud-desktop, python-django-registration, and thunderbird), Red Hat (389-ds:1.4, kernel, kernel-rt, perl, and pki-core:10.6), SUSE (kernel, sudo, and xen), and Ubuntu (clamav and openslp-dfsg).

• Google plans to tidy up search on Chromebooks

  While the exact categories are still up in the air, we could see the company going for something similar to the Linux distro Ubuntu, which organizes system search results into different categories for applications, files, folders, websites, and more.

• Linux Desktops in the Cloud with Shells.com [Ed: A lot of YouTube has become paid-for spam and pseudo 'reviews']

• These guys made me a CUSTOM gaming laptop, running LINUX!

  I received this laptop, which has been custom-made for me by a company called Eurorra. It's a bit of a weird story, and this won't be a traditional laptop review, because... well, you'll see.