The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces that the first beta release of PostgreSQL 12 is now available for download. This release contains previews of all features that will be available in the final release of PostgreSQL 12, though some details of the release could change before then.

In the spirit of the open source PostgreSQL community, we strongly encourage you to test the new features of PostgreSQL 12 in your database systems to help us eliminate any bugs or other issues that may exist. While we do not advise you to run PostgreSQL 12 Beta 1 in your production environments, we encourage you to find ways to run your typical application workloads against this beta release.

Also: PostgreSQL 12 Beta Released With Performance Improvements

The feature-packed and long-desired ZFS On Linux 0.8 release has finally taken place! ZoL 0.8 is out there!

ZFS On Linux 0.8 has debuted today as the newest feature release for this ZFS file-system port for Linux systems. ZFS On Linux 0.8 supports up through the latest Linux 5.1 stable series while still working going back to the Linux 2.6.32 kernel days, but the SIMD support isn't available on stock 5.0+ kernels leading to big performance penalties.

• Ubuntu 19.10 To Bundle NVIDIA's Proprietary Driver Packages As Part Of Its ISO

  For Ubuntu 19.10 the developers are adding the NVIDIA driver packages onto the ISO. The NVIDIA binary drivers won't be activated by default, but will be present on the install media to make it easier to enable post-install.

  The open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" drivers will remain the default for NVIDIA graphics on new Ubuntu installations, but this change is positioning the mainline and legacy NVIDIA proprietary drivers onto the Ubuntu ISO so that they can be easily obtained locally post-install. The main driver here is allowing users to enable the NVIDIA proprietary graphics on Ubuntu even if you don't have an Internet connection. NVIDIA has already okay'ed the distribution of their driver packages with the Ubuntu ISO.

• Snapcraft parts & plugins

  Last week, we published Introduction to snapcraft, a tutorial that provided a detailed overview of the snap build process. We touched on the concepts like snap ecosystem components, snapcraft command line, snapcraft.yaml syntax, and more. We’d like to expand on the first lesson, and today, we are going to talk about parts and plugins, used in the build process of snaps.

• Arronax – Graphical Tool to Create Desktop Launcher in Ubuntu

  For those who want to manually create desktop shortcut launcher in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04, Arronax is a good choice with graphical user interface.

  Other than creating .desktop file via Linux command, Arronax offers a graphical interface to create (and also edit) desktop shortcut for application, executable file, or URL.

• Valve's Proton Pulls In Latest DXVK, Steam Networking Updates, Controller Layout Fixes

  The Valve developers maintaining their Proton fork of Wine for use by Steam Play have outed a new update, version 4.2-5.

• Wine & Mingw-w64 Might Tighten Up Their Relationship - Possible "WineSDK"

  Developers between the Wine and Mingw-w64 projects are discussing the potential for further embracing their relationship given the overlap in trajectory and both benefiting from close collaboration. This extended relationship could also involve Mingw-w64 potentially adopting Wine's branding.

  While all Phoronix readers should be aware of Wine, for those not familiar with Mingw-w64 it's the off-shoot of MinGW focused on 64-bit support and other features over the original MinGW for providing an open-source development toolchain for Microsoft Windows. Mingw-w64 remains quite active in working on its GCC-based compiler toolchain support for Windows.

• Wine and mingw-w64 cooperation

• IRKALLA, an incredibly stylish looking pixel-art tactical-action platformer is coming to Linux

  The developers behind IRKALLA emailed in today and it grabbed my interest right away with the supremely stylish art behind it. The odd setting has my curiosity too, with mechs versus demons!

  According to the developer, it's a "platform-tactic game" so it has elements of an action platformer with character progression and some form of base defence building. IRKALLA has been in development for quite a few years now with their TIGForum post dating all the way back to 2013. We've been emailed today, as it seems development on it has been picked back up as they told me it's "finally coming together" and a Linux release is also confirmed of course.

• Roguelike fantasy adventure 'Vambrace: Cold Soul' has a new feature trailer ahead of release next week

  The release of Vambrace: Cold Soul on May 28th is getting close now, it's quite an impressive looking game that I've been playing and they have a new feature trailer. I won't say too much on it myself before release but since I've had access for a while, I can say it works great on Linux.

• Surreal adventure game 'ZED' about an artist suffering from dementia is releasing in June

  ZED, a game that will tell the story of an artist suffering from dementia from Eagre Games and Cyan Ventures now has a release date and it's quite soon.

  The Windows version is now scheduled in for June 4th, with the Linux (and Mac) version to be "later in June". Great to see it continue to be confirmed and although there is a delay, it's not going to be long it seems. Good thing too, as I'm damn excited for this one.

• art of rally is bringing a stylized racing experience to Linux later this year

  Funselektor Labs, the developer of Absolute Drift has announced their latest game, art of rally. It might look stylish but it's not just a pretty face, as the developer is also focused on how the cars handle too.

  While we have a few racing games now like Grid Autosport, DiRT Rally/4 and some F1 games (plus a few that work with Steam Play), they're all quite serious business. art of rally looks to be taking a slightly less realistic focus while still providing a challenge, especially with the top-down view you get a better picture of what's up ahead.

The Rust team is happy to announce a new version of Rust, 1.35.0. Rust is a programming language that is empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.

Also: Rust 1.35 Released With Support For Empty Debug Macro, ~4x Faster ASCII Case Conversions

We are delighted to announce GNU Guile 2.9.2, the second beta release in preparation for the upcoming 3.0 stable series. See the release announcement for full details and a download link.

This release extends just-in-time (JIT) native code generation support to the ia32, ARMv7, and AArch64 architectures. Under the hood, we swapped out GNU Lightning for a related fork called Lightening, which was better adapted to Guile's needs.

The GParted graphical partition editor for Linux systems has been around for 14 years and finally it's looking like the version 1.0 release is on the horizon.

GParted 1.0 could be the release succeeding last December's GParted 0.33 release, including for the GParted Live operating system that is a live Linux distribution designed for an easy workflow of managing the partitions/disks on your system.

GParted Live 1.0 Beta appeared today with the latest GParted bits. This Linux distribution also pulls in the latest packages against Debian Sid experimental, updates to using the Linux 4.19.37 kernel, updates the boot menu options, and is based on the upstream GParted 1.0 beta code.

• How to Check if a File or Directory Exists in Python

• How to Install ArangoDB NoSQL Database on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• How to Install CS-Cart on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• How to Install Kodi on Linux

• How to Install PyCharm on Linux Mint 19

• How to enable fingerprint scanner support on Linux

• How to install Peppermint OS 10

• How to get Ubuntu 19.04 wallpapers on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

• How to Keep Ubuntu Up to Date

• How to Install the Latest AMD Drivers on Debian 10 Buster

• How To Force fsck (Filesystem Consistency Check) After Reboot

• Lack of Secure Coding Called a National Security Threat

  The "call to action" report, "Software Security Is National Security: Why the U.S. Must Replace Irresponsible Practices with a Culture of Institutionalized Security," discusses systemic issues with the software development landscape and what needs to be done to rectify the problem of negligent coding. But solving the problem won't be easy, given the problems of speed-to-market pressures and the sheer number of IoT devices being produced, the report notes.

• [Attackers] have been holding the city of Baltimore’s computers hostage for 2 weeks [Ed: Windows]

  Here’s what’s happening: On May 7, [attackers] digitally seized about 10,000 Baltimore government computers and demanded around $100,000 worth in bitcoins to free them back up. It’s a so-called “ransomware” attack, where hackers deploy malicious software to block access to or take over a computer system until the owner of that system pays a ransom.

  Baltimore, like several other cities that have been hit by such attacks over the past two years, is refusing to pay up. As a result, for two weeks, city employees have been locked out of their email accounts and citizens have been unable to access essential services, including websites where they pay their water bills, property taxes, and parking tickets. This is Baltimore’s second ransomware attack in about 15 months: Last year, a separate attack shut down the city’s 911 system for about a day. Baltimore has come under scrutiny for its handling of both attacks.

• [Windows] Ransomware Cyberattacks Knock Baltimore's City Services Offline

  With no key, Rubin said the city will have to rebuild its servers from the ground up. That will likely take months, he said, and will involve implementing new hardware and software and restoring any data the city may have backed up.

• After 2 Years, WannaCry Remains a Threat

  And while the immediate dangers associated with WannaCry have faded, the ransomware still lurks, and many systems have not been patched to prevent exploits by EternalBlue and EternalRomance.

• ARM latest firm to suspend business with Huawei; Intel mum

  Chip designer ARM says it has to suspend business with Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies, a report claims.

• The case against Huawei, explained

  This morning, ARM announced that it was cutting ties with Huawei, in the interest of “complying with all of the latest regulations set forth by the U.S. government.” It’s a catastrophe for Huawei’s device business, halting its access to current and future chip designs and coming on the heels of similar breaks from Google and Microsoft. Huawei is in deep, deep trouble, and we still don’t have a clear picture of why.

  Security experts have been warning about Huawei for more than a year, but it’s only in the last week that those warnings have escalated into an all-out trade blockade on the company’s US partners. There’s never been a full accounting of why the US government believes Huawei is such a threat, in large part because of national security interests, which means much of the evidence remains secret. But it’s worth tracing out exactly where the concerns are coming from and where they could go from here.

• First official version of Tor Browser for Android released on the Play Store

• Huawei's Android License With Google Seems Safe...For Now

• Huawei's Android License With Google Seems Safe...For Now

• Geek Pick: Samsung Galaxy S10+ Is A Powerful, Premier Android Phone

• Walmart-brand Android tablets launch for just $64

Tails 3.14 is here two months after the release of Tails 3.13 mainly to address the recently discovered MDS (Microarchitectural Data Sampling) security vulnerabilities in Intel microprocessors. To fully mitigate these flaws and protect you against Fallout, RIDL, and ZombieLoad attacks, the SMT function must be disabled.

Furthermore, Tails 3.14 ships with long-term supported Linux 4.19.37 kernel and the all the latest firmware packages to provide you with up-to-date hardware support and compatibility with newer graphics and Wi-Fi devices, as well as other components, and utilizes the recently released TOR Browser 8.5 anonymous web browser.

• Huawei puts Honor above Android at new smartphone launch

• Here's how I arrived at the perfect Android theming setup (and how to build your own)

• How to record your Android screen

• Google Android's Radical Lens Update Comes To Dinner

• Google Is Making Android As Difficult To Hack As iPhone—And Cops Are Suffering

• Samsung Galaxy A8s gets Android Pie update in China

• Samsung’s Android license deal was renewed in February

• The best free games for Android in 2019

On May 14th, 2019, Intel published details about four new security vulnerabilities discovered by various security researchers, which are affecting several of its Intel microprocessor families. Intel released updated microcode firmware to mitigate them, and they landed on the same day for all supported Ubuntu Linux operating system series.

Now, Canonical has released an updated intel-microcode firmware that addresses these new security vulnerabilities on systems running Intel Cherry Trail and Intel Bay Trail processors. The updated intel-microcode packages are now available in the official software repositories of Ubuntu 19.04, Ubuntu 18.10, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 14.04 ESM.

With Firefox 67 having released this week, Firefox 68 is in beta and its performance from our tests thus far on Ubuntu Linux are looking real good. In particular, if enabling the WebRender option that remains off by default on Linux, there are some nice performance gains especially.

Curious how the Firefox performance is looking following the optimization work in Firefox 67 and the maturing state of WebRender, I ran some benchmarks. On an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX + AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 workstation running Ubuntu 19.04 with the Linux 5.1 kernel, I ran various benchmarks using the generic Firefox Linux x86_64 binaries. Tests were done on Firefox 66.0.5, Firefox 67.0, and Firefox 68.0b3. With both Firefox 67 and Firefox 68 Beta, secondary runs were also done when forcing WebRender usage.

Atos’ suitcase-sized “BullSequana Edge” server runs Linux on a 6th Gen Xeon-D and supports AI edge processing via optional Nvidia T4 GPUs and FPGAs. Other specs include SATA, USB 3.0, GbE, and optional 10GbE, WiFi, 3G/4G, and LoRa.

Establishing our scope of coverage on the low end is pretty easy — aside from the occasional new Arduino board, we tend to limit our coverage to embedded devices that run Linux. Yet, on the high end, where Linux runs on just about everything and edge computing is the latest craze, it’s increasingly difficult to draw lines between servers and high-end embedded gear. Size matters in this delineation, which is one reason why we’re covering Atos’ suitcase-sized, Linux-driven BullSequana Edge.

• OSMC's May update is here

  Last month, we released Kodi v18 for OSMC devices. Since then, we've been working on a number of improvements and bug fixes to keep things running smoothly.

• Linux Mint 17.x Reached End Of Life (EOL)

  We came to know from the Linux Mint monthly (April-2019) newsletter, the Linux Mint team reported that Linux Mint 17.x has reached the end of its supported life.

  After 5 good years of service, Linux Mint 17.x (i.e. 17, 17.1, 17.2 and 17.3) reached “End Of Life”.

  Although the repositories will continue to work they will no longer receive security updates.

• Intel's 'Islay Canyon' NUCs Announced

  Introducing the first Intel® NUC with 8th Generation Intel® Core™ processors and Radeon* 540X discrete graphics for all your gaming and entertainment needs. Play casual games, binge watch the latest series, or stream digital music like never before with a quad-core processor that delivers 2x faster performance.

• Avoiding Big Tech to Protect Your Privacy

  In a recent opinion piece by Jennifer Senior, titled If We Care So Much About What Google Knows, Why Do We Keep Telling it Everything?, she properly describes the privacy paradox as what happens when a person consistently acts in ways that are contradictory to the privacy values professed by that same person.

  The reasons behind the privacy paradox have been highlighted numerous times by our team at Purism: it all boils down to a simple word, convenience. It is convenient to give up your digital rights, it is simple to just click past a privacy wall, and easy to sign up for a service you know exploits you. It is inconvenient to learn about the best practices for privacy protection, from software to browser plugins and applications – let alone to find what service to use that isn’t entirely designed to spy on everything you do.

  The solution to the privacy paradox has also been answered many times by our team at Purism. It all boils down to the same simple word, convenience. People want convenient products that respect them by default, that they can trust will not exploit them, that allow them to participate in digital society with peace of mind, knowing they are in complete control.

• Google and Binomial Partner to Open Source Basis Universal Texture Codec

  

  Google and Binomial have announced a partnership to open source the Basis Universal texture codec to improve the performance of transmitting images on the web and within desktop and mobile applications, while maintaining GPU efficiency. This release fills an important gap in the graphics compression ecosystem and complements earlier work in Draco geometry compression.

• Say Goodbye to the Physical Kilogram (and Perhaps much More)

  Once upon a time we lived in a society that was not only completely analog but infinitely simpler. A time when it seemed the physical world could be understood and described, perhaps even tamed, purely through the application of rational thought. Contemporaries dubbed that era the Age of Enlightenment and looked forward to the wonders that this brave new world would bring. This week, one of the last icons of that heady time was dethroned and retired to a museum in Paris.

  I am speaking, of course, about the kilogram, the last of the seven International System of Units measures to be represented by a physical object rather than an “invariant constant of nature.” But where did it come from? And why, after two hundred twenty years, has it been replaced?

  The story begins with the same school of humanists that provided the philosophic justification for the French revolution which began honorably before descending into a campaign of terror. When they decided to rationalize the multiple systems of weights and measures, the results were both more benign and long-lasting, perhaps because they took their inspiration from the grand canvas of the physical world around them. The metre became the fundamental unit of length and was fixed at one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. Weight, in turn, would henceforth be calculated in reference to the kilogram, defined as the mass of one decimetre of pure water at sea level at a set temperature and barometric pressure.

• g2k19 hackathon report from Claudio Jeker

• The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 810

• The NAS Fleet | BSD Now 299

  Running AIX on QEMU on Linux on Windows, your NAS fleet with TrueCommand, Unleashed 1.3 is available, LLDB: CPU register inspection support extension, V7 Unix programs often not written as expected, and more.

• FLOSS Weekly 531: Bareos

  Bareos is a reliable, cross-network open source software for backup, archiving and recovery of data for all well-established operating systems. It offers among other features LTO hardware encryption, bandwidth limitation and new practical console commands.

• Peppermint OS 10 overview | A lightning fast, lightweight Linux based OS.

  In this video, I am going to show an overview of Peppermint OS 10 and some of the applications pre-installed.

• What Is New Features In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8)?

  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8) was released on 2019-05-07. The first beta was announced on 14 November 2018.

  There are lot of opportunities in Devops to improve the IT infra to next generation so, Red Hat is more focus on this area.

  To give more space to developers, they were added a lot of tools that developer-friendly capabilities.

  IT infra has been moved from Physical servers to Virtual servers. Now, we are migrating from Virtual servers to Containers & Kubernetes.

• Distribution Release – Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

• The future of Docker containers

  Michael Crosby is one of the most influential developers working on Docker containers today, helping to lead development of containerd as well as serving as the Open Container Initiative (OCI) Technical Oversight Chair. At DockerCon 19, Crosby led a standing-room-only session, outlining the past, present and — more importantly — the future of Docker as a container technology. The early history of Docker is closely tied with Linux and, as it turns out, so too is Docker's future.

  Crosby reminded attendees that Docker started out using LXC as its base back in 2013, but it has moved beyond that over the past six years, first with the docker-led libcontainer effort and more recently with multi-stakeholder OCI effort at the Linux Foundation, which has developed an open specification for a container runtime. The specification includes the runc container runtime which is at the core of the open source containerd project that Crosby helps to lead. Containerd is a hosted project at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and is one of only a handful of projects that, like Kubernetes, have "graduated", putting it in the top tier of the CNCF hierarchy in terms of project stability and maturity.

• Why Organizations Want A Kubernetes-based Container Service for Cloud

• The technology that powers IG

  Instagram run in Ubuntu Linux 11.04 (“Natty Narwhal”). Engineers found past variants of Ubuntu had a wide range of flighty solidifying scenes on EC2 under high traffic, yet Natty has been strong and exceptional

• Olivia: Cloud-Based Music Player With YouTube Support And Over 25,000 Online Radio Stations

  Olivia is a fairly new free, open source Qt5 cloud-based music player for Linux. It can play music from YouTube, comes with more than 25,000 Internet radio stations, it supports themes, has a mini player mode, it can save songs for offline playback, and much more.

  The cloud-based music player is available as alpha software for testing right now. Even so, it works quite well, though lacking some features which I'll mention later on.

  Olivia is well integrated with YouTube, allowing users to search for songs and add them to the play queue, browse trending YouTube music with the ability to change the country, and more. To save bandwidth, Olivia only plays the audio of YouTube streams.

• MariaDB 10.3.15 Release And What’s New

  The MariaDB Foundation is pleased to announce the availability of MariaDB 10.3.15, the latest stable release in the MariaDB 10.3 series.

 

• Annual Report 2018: New releases of LibreOffice

  Thanks to your generous donations, and contributions from our ecosystem of certified developers, we released two major releases of LibreOffice in 2018: 6.0 on January 31, and version 6.1 on August 8.

  In addition, 14 minor releases were also made available throughout the year, for the 5.4, 6.0 and 6.1 branches. Meanwhile, several Bug Hunting Sessions were held in preparation for the new major releases. These typically took place on a single day between set times, so that experienced developers and QA engineers could help new volunteers to file and triage bugs via the IRC channels and mailing lists. The Bug Hunting Sessions for LibreOffice 5.4 were held on April 27, May 28 and July 3 – while those for LibreOffice 6.2 took place on October 22, November 19 and December 21.

• The Document Foundation welcomes Adfinis SyGroup to the project’s Advisory Board

  The Document Foundation (TDF) announced today that Adfinis SyGroup – a Swiss FOSS company headquarted in Bern, with offices in Basel, Zurich and Crissier (Vaud) – has joined the project’s Advisory Board.

  Adfinis SyGroup is using LibreOffice for office productivity, in addition to providing professional consultancy to customers with SLA contracts to support migrations from proprietary software to LibreOffice. The company has helped to organize the LibreOffice Conference in 2014, when the event was hosted by the Bern University, is contributing patches to the source code, and is also hosting various TDF servers and buildbots on their infrastructure.

• parallel @ Savannah: GNU Parallel 20190522 ('Akihito') released

  GNU Parallel 20190522 ('Akihito') has been released. It is available for download at: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/parallel/
  GNU Parallel is 10 years old in a year on 2020-04-22. You are here by invited to a reception on Friday 2020-04-17.
  See https://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/10-years-anniversary.html

• How To Enable Or Disable SSH Access For A Particular User Or Group In Linux?

• How to install DNS server on RHEL 8 Linux

• 7 Elasticsearch Basic CRUD Operation Examples – Index, Update, Get and Delete

• How to Find Free Wi-Fi Hotspots Near You

• How to install Waterfox Browser on Ubuntu 18.04

• Easy guide to setup Nagios monitoring using SSH (check_by_ssh)

• Install OpenNMS Network Monitoring Tool in CentOS/RHEL 7

• Hardware bootstrapping with Ansible