• Android Q: Everything we know so far about Google’s next mobile OS

• Details about Google's next version of the Android operating system — Android 'Q' — are already starting to come out (GOOG)

• Nokia X5 received Android 9 Pie

• Nokia 3.1 now appears running Android Pie at Geekbench

• The LG G7 ThinQ is now receiving the stable Android Pie update

• This week in Android: It’s weird phone week

• 12 essential apps for any Android phone

• Apps to enhance your Android phone

• Android: 5 games news you should have read this week

• 20 best new Android games released this week including Oddmar, Hang Line: Mountain Climber, and Galaxy Stack

• Are Android updates getting faster? Let’s look at the data

• Parsing scientific names

• How to Check MySQL Database & Tables Size on linux ?

• How to Install Minecraft Server on CentOS 7

• Facebook open sources Spectrum for efficient uploading of images

• FreeBSD Journal column

  As of the January issue, the FreeBSD Journal will be free. You can access it, and all back issues, through a browser. You’ll need to register for it–the Foundation is still using it for fund-raising, but in a less direct manner.

• Keeping casual open source contributors happy and more news

  In this edition of our open source news roundup, we look at how scholars are bringing medieval literature into the digital age using open source software, keeping casual contributors to open source projects happy, the release of the Fifth Internet Edition of The Linux Command Line, and more.

• Create equalizer feature for video editing program

• Designing the future of cybersecurity in Europe

  I have been appointed the European Parliament’s rapporteur, so I will be leading the negotiations on the Parliament position. Read my draft report here.

  Cybersecurity is the process of enhancing the security of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is important to understand that security cannot be improved by buying a product, like a virus scanner or a firewall, for example.

• ON Semiconductor Increases Support for Idaho State University Department of Electrical Engineering

  ON Semiconductor continues its support of, and collaboration with, the Idaho State University Department of Electrical Engineering by recently donating an industrial-grade Linux server, eight state-of-the-art computer workstations and associated design software.

  The new workstations will be used to train ISU electrical engineering students, and eventually to provide professional graduate-level education to ON Semiconductor employees.

  “We have already started using the donated equipment for current coursework related to semiconductor design. In addition to the equipment and software donation, ON Semiconductor design engineers are working with us to create a new course that they will also help teach this spring.” said Steve Chiu, director of the ISU electrical engineering program.

• How running websites has changed in the last two decades (for an Ars IT guru)

  I was a true nerd growing up in the 1980s—not in the hipster way but in the 10-pound-issue-of-Computer-Shopper-under-my-arm way (these things were seriously huge). I was thoroughly addicted to BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems) by the time I was 10. Maybe it's no surprise I ended up as a technical director for a science and tech site.

  In fact, I'd actually draw a direct line between the job of managing your own BBS (aka SysOping) to managing a modern Web infrastructure. And with everyone around Ars looking back given the site's 20th anniversary, let's make that line a bit clearer. It won't be an exhaustive history of websites, but here's how my own experiences with managing websites have evolved in the past two decades—plus how the tools and thinking have changed over time, too.

• Kernel sources for the Nokia 8 Sirocco and Xiaomi Redmi Note 2/2 Pro/Note 3 (MediaTek) are now available

  Xiaomi’s kernel source release policy, as per my conversation with senior officials as well as official statements made by them, is that the company would aim to release the kernel source of a device within three months after its launch. This policy decision was to apply prospectively and not retrospectively, though the company did show interest in providing kernel sources for older devices as well as it was still bound by the GPL.

• Help to spread the word about LibreOffice!

  Millions of people around the world use LibreOffice every day – but there are still some people who haven’t heard about our free, powerful, open source, Microsoft-compatible office suite.

• Wayland's Weston Moving Towards Its Next Release Soon

  Longtime Wayland developer Derek Foreman is working on coordinating the next release of the Weston reference compositor. Here are those early details and his hope to ship this next feature release in March.

  Derek is tentatively proposing a February feature freeze and for this next Weston update to debut in March. At this time there are no plans for an updated Wayland release with there being no pressing changes on the horizon.

• Full Circle Weekly News #118

• mintCast 300.4 interview 4 Rob

• GNU World Order 13x4

• This week in Usability & Productivity, part 54

  This week in KDE’s Usability & Productivity initiative, something big landed: virtual desktop support on Wayland, accompanied by a shiny new user interface for the X11 version too. Eike Hein has been working on this literally for months and I think he deserves a round of applause! It was a truly enormous amount of work, but now we can benefit for years to come.

• KDE Now Has Virtual Desktop Support On Wayland

  KDE landing virtual desktop support on Wayland this week is certainly quite exciting while also a new UI was added for the X11 virtual desktop support too. Some of the other KDE improvements that landed this week and relayed by Nate Graham include the digital clock widget now allowing adjustments to the date formatting, the KDE Information Center's USB devices section will now actually display all USB devices, wallpaper chooser view improvements, and various other improvements.

• Robolinux 10.4 LXDE Screenshot Tour

• deepin 15.9 Screenshot Tour

• Parrot 4.5 Screenshot Tour

• Parrot OS 4.5 KDE Run Through

  In this video, we look at Parrot OS 4.5.

With the Linux 5.1 kernel cycle that should get underway in just over one month's time, there will now be the long in development work (it's been through 15+ rounds of public code review!) for supporting atomic replace and cumulative patches.

• Exo 0.12.4 Released

  Exo 0.12.4 is now available with an improved icon view, better icon rendering, and reduced disk usage.

• My Name is Handy, Lib Handy

  Libhandy 0.0.7 just got released!

  [...]

  A common pattern in GNOME applications is lists, which are typically implemented via GtkListBox. More specific patterns arose, where rows have a title at the start, an optional subtitle below it, actions at the end and an icon or some other widget like a radio button as a prefix. These rows can also be expanded to reveal nested rows or anything else that fits the need.

  So far every application using these patterns implemented the rows by hand for each and every row. It made using these a bit cumbersome and it led to inconsistencies in sizing, even inside a single application. To make these patterns easier to use, we implemented HdyActionRow, HdyComboRow and HdyExpanderRow.

The Linux mascot is a penguin named Tux, so we thought it appropriate to celebrate Penguin Awareness Day for the conservation of penguin habitats and talk a little bit (more) about Linux.

A few fun penguin facts: These furry creatures are flightless yet part of the bird family. Some are large, like the Emperor penguin, and some are small, like those found in New Zealand. And, the Gentoo penguin is known to swim up to a speed of 21 miles per hour!

Now, for the Linux bit. I asked our writer community to describe the moment they learned about Linux or the moment they got it up on running on their machine. Here's what they shared.

New year, new update ready for testing! We have been busy over the holidays and are bringing you an update that is packed with new features and many many performance improvements.

This is quite a long change log, but please read through it. It is worth it!

With yesterday's release of Wine 4.0-RC7, the regression/bug count is low enough and the situation looking good that the stable Wine 4.0.0 release should be tagged in the next few days.

Wine 4.0-RC7 should be the final release candidate and the stable 4.0 release tagged and issued in a short period of time. Wine founder Alexandre Julliard who manages the releases commented today, "Things are looking good for 4.0, we've made quite a bit of progress on the regressions, thank you to everybody who helped! rc7 should be the last release candidate, please give it a good last check. If no last minute issues are found, I'll release final 4.0 in a couple of days, and lift code freeze :-)"

• How to secure, protect, and completely lock down your Android phone

• Android 9 Pie available for Nokia X7

• Android 9 in development for the vivo V11i, benchmark listing reveals

• Nokia 3.1 Plus, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 spotted running Android 9 Pie at Geekbench

• LG G7 ThinQ getting stable Android Pie update in South Korea

• This week’s top stories: Android Q leak, Note 8 Pie beta, leaked Pixel 3 Lite review, more

• The best NES emulators for Android and PC

• Smartphones under 7000: The Best 9 Android Phones You Can Buy For Under Rs 7,000 in 2019

• 14 new and notable Android apps from the last two weeks including Actions by Moleskine, Albert: Spend Smarter, and THE LEGO MOVIE 2 Movie Maker (1/6/19 - 1/19/19)

• Shinco 65-inch Android-powered smart 4K LED TV coming to India for Rs 49,990

• Google Maps will now display speed limits for its Android and iOS apps

• Android smartphone makers are quietly making Facebook impossible to delete

• Android Battery Draining Fast? Fix Problem Using These Tips

• Android WARNING: Millions of phones infected by popular Google Play Store apps

There seems to be a mad rush at the beginning of every year to find ways to be more productive. New Year's resolutions, the itch to start the year off right, and of course, an "out with the old, in with the new" attitude all contribute to this. And the usual round of recommendations is heavily biased towards closed source and proprietary software. It doesn't have to be that way.

Here's the eighth of my picks for 19 new (or new-to-you) open source tools to help you be more productive in 2019.

• The Indian Ministry of Commerce Tries to Bend Patent Law in Favour of Foreign Monopolies
• The EFF Must Return That ‘Internship’ Money to Google or It Would Disgrace the Patent Reform Movement (by Association)
• EPO Defying Patent Restrictions/Limits From the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Countries It Claims to Represent
• The UPC is Dead. But Bristows is Now Fully Engaged in Necrophilia.
• Links 19/1/2019: Wikipedia Cofounder Moves to GNU/Linux, Wine 4.0 RC7 Released, Godot 3.1 Beta 2, NomadBSD 1.2 RC1
• Links 18/1/2019: Mesa 18.3.2, Rust 1.32.0
• Links 17/1/2019: ZFS Debate Returns, AWS Pains Free Software

• Bo Weaver on Cloud security, skills gap, and software development in 2019

  Bo Weaver, a Kali Linux expert shares his thoughts on the security landscape in the cloud. He also talks about the skills gap in the current industry and why hiring is a tedious process. He explains the pitfalls in software development and where the tech is heading currently.

  Bo, along with another Kali Linux expert Wolf Halton were also interviewed on why Kali Linux is the premier platform for testing and maintaining Windows security. They talked about advantages and disadvantages for using Kali Linux for pentesting. We also asked them about what they think about pentesting in cybersecurity, in general. They have also talked about their stance about the role of pentesting in cybersecurity in their interview titled, “Security experts, Wolf Halton and Bo Weaver, discuss pentesting and cybersecurity”

  [...]

  I laugh and cry at this term. I have a sticker on my laptop that says “There is no Cloud…. Only other people’s computers.” Your data is sitting on someone else’s system along with other people’s data. These other people also have access to this system. Sure security controls are in place but the security of “physical access” has been bypassed.

  You’re “in the box”. One layer of security is now gone.
  Also, your vendor has “FULL ACCESS” to your data in some cases. How can you be sure what is going on with your data when it is in an unknown box in an unknown data center? The first rule of security is “Trust No One”. Do you really trust Microsoft, Amazon, or Google? I sure don’t!!! Having your data physically out of your company’s control is not a good idea. Yes, it is cheaper but what are your company and its digital property worth?

  [...]

  In software development, I see a dumbing down of user interfaces. This may be good for my 6-year-old grandson, but someone like me may want more access to the system. I see developers change things just for the reason of “change”. Take Microsoft’s Ribbon in Office. Even after all these years, I find the ribbon confusing and hard to use. At least, with Libre Office, they give you a choice between a ribbon and an old school menu bar. The changes in Gnome 3 from Gnome 2. This dumbing down and attempting to make a desktop usable for a tablet and a mouse totally destroyed the usability of their desktop. What used to take 1 click now takes 4 clicks to do.

• Security experts, Wolf Halton and Bo Weaver, discuss pentesting and cybersecurity [Interview]

• Cloud security products uninstalled by mutating malware [Ed: Affects already-compromised servers]

  Linux is more prevalent than one might think, Microsoft Azure is now predominantly run on Linux servers - it's not just the Chinese cloud environments being hosted via Linux, it's likely that your business is running at least one cloud service on a Linux server too.

• Google Play still has a clone problem in 2019 with no end in sight

  A fake app tries to clone another app in name, looks, and functionality, often also adding something like malware. Despite Google’s best efforts, both types of apps were fairly common in 2018.

• GNU Binutils 2.32 Branched Ahead Of Release With New Features

  A new release of the GNU Binutils programming tools will soon be available. The upcoming Binutils 2.32 release is primarily made up of new CPU ports. 

  GNU Binutils 2.32 is bringing a MIPS port to the Loongson 2K1000 processor and the Loongson 3A1000/3A2000/3A3000 processors, all of which are based on the MIPS64r2 ISA but with different instruction set extensions. These new GPUs are exposed via -march=gs264e, -march=gs464, and -march=gs464e flags. With Binutils 2.32, the utilities like objdump and c++filt now have a maximum amount of recursion that is allowed while demangling strings with the current default being 2048. There is also a --no-recurse-limit for bypassing that limit. Objdump meanwhile allows --disassemble to specify a starting symbol for disassembly.

• Building Qt apps with Travis CI and Docker

  I recently configured Travis CI to build Nanonote, my minimalist note-taking application. We use Jenkins a lot at work, and despite the fact that I dislike the tool itself, it has proven invaluable in helping us catch errors early. So I strongly believe in the values of Continuous Integration.

  When it comes to CI setup, I believe it is important to keep your distances with the tool you are using by keeping as much setup as possible in tool-agnostic scripts, versioned in your repository, and making the CI server use these scripts.

• PyPI Security and Accessibility Q1 2019 Request for Proposals Update

  Earlier this year we launched a Request for Information (RFI) followed by the launch of a Request for Proposals (RFP) in November to fulfill a contract for the Open Technology Fund (OTF) Core Infrastructure Fund.

   The initial deadline for our RFP was December 14th. We had hoped to begin work with the selected proposers in January 2019, but ultimately fell short of the ability to do so.

• GStreamer 1.15.1 Released With Work On AV1, V4L HEVC Encode/Decode

  GStreamer 1.15.1 was announced on Friday as the first development release in the trek towards GStreamer 1.16 for this powerful open-source multimedia framework.

• GStreamer 1.15.1 development release

  The GStreamer team is pleased to announce the first development release
  in the unstable 1.15 release series.

  The unstable 1.15 release series adds new features on top of the
  current stable 1.14 series and is part of the API and ABI-stable 1.x
  release series of the GStreamer multimedia framework.

  The unstable 1.15 release series is for testing and development
  purposes in the lead-up to the stable 1.16 series which is scheduled
  for release in a few weeks time. Any newly-added API can still change
  until that point, although it is rare for that to happen.

• Is C++ fast?

  A library that I work on often these days, meshoptimizer, has changed over time to use fewer and fewer C++ library features, up until the current state where the code closely resembles C even though it uses some C++ features. There have been many reasons behind the changes - dropping C++11 requirement allowed me to make sure anybody can compile the library on any platform, removing std::vector substantially improved performance of unoptimized builds, removing algorithm includes sped up compilation. However, I’ve never quite taken the leap all the way to C with this codebase. Today we’ll explore the gamut of possible C++ implementations for one specific algorithm, mesh simplifier, henceforth known as simplifier.cpp, and see if going all the way to C is worthwhile.

• Python Counters @PyDiff

• Report: (clxi) stackoverflow python report

• Regular Expressions in Python

• Starting on a new map rendering library

  Currently in Maps, we use the libchamplain library to display the bitmap map titles (based on OpenStreetMap data and aerial photography) that we get from our tile provider, currently MapBox. This library is based on Clutter and used via the GTK+ embed support within libchamplain, which in turn makes use of the Clutter GTK embed support. Since this will not be supported when moving along to GTK+ 4.x and the Clutter library is not maintained anymore (besides the copy of it that is included in the GNOME Shell window manager/Wayland compositor, Mutter) eventually Maps will have to find a replacement. There's also some wonky bugs especially with regards to the mixing of event handling on the Clutter side vs. the GTK+ side.

  So to at least get the ball rolling a bit, I recently decided to see how hard it would be to take the code from libchamplain and keep the grotty deep-down internals dealing with tile downloading and caching and such and refocus the top-level parts onto new GTK+ 4 technologies such as the Snapshot, GSK (scene graph), and render node APIs.

• How to keep a Debian Network installation up-to-date

• Emacs Org Mode, Part 1

• Install Zabbix 4.0 on Ubuntu

• Inkscape 0.92.4 Released, How to Install it in Ubuntu 18.04

• How to Use SCP Command to Transfer Files/Folders in Linux

• How to Use grep Command in Linux with Examples

• Rambox

LibreELEC 9.0 (Leia) Beta 3 has finally arrived after a long gestation period. Based upon Kodi v18 RC5.2, the 9.0 Beta 3 release contains many changes and refinements to user experience and a complete overhaul of the underlying OS core to improve stability and extend hardware support. Kodi v18 also brings new features like Kodi Retroplayer and DRM support that (equipped with an appropriate add-on) allows Kodi to unofficially stream content from services like Netflix and Amazon.

The Lubuntu community has grown exponentially since our switch to LXQt. With new users, contributors, and Lubuntu enthusiasts among many other people who have decided to join our community, we are finding the need to scale the project further than the unwritten technically-led oligarchy that we currently have in the Lubuntu project. Therefore, we are pleased to announce the Lubuntu Council.

Not much will change; the same people will be working to put together a high-quality Lubuntu release every six months. However, this ensures that Lubuntu’s processes stay structured and resilient for years to come.

• Valve put out another Steam Beta Client with minor Steam Play changes

  Valve are pushing out updates rather often to the Steam client lately, with the fourth this month now out.

  On top of removing Steam Play options for Mac and Windows, along with a Steam Input bug fix we also saw these updated to the Steam Play integration on Linux...

• itch A Gaming Platform For Indie Games Lovers

  itch is another gaming platform that is similar to Steam and is available for multiple operating systems including Linux. This platform provides users with the latest indie games instead of AAA games. If you are open to creativity and likes playing/trying out different games, I guarantee you’ll love itch platform too. Similar to steam, itch also provides both free and non-free games, indicates game system requirements (except without the specifications), and some other common features. Read on below to learn more about this app.

• Render game scene with Panda 3D

  Today we will continue to explore Panda 3D, after a day of searching online for the method to export the whole mesh created with Blender which can then be used in Panda 3D’s game I have found two of them. 1) Exporting the mesh in the Direct (x) format 2) Using YABEE to export the mesh in the egg file format

• Mesa 19.0 Can Cut In Half The Amount Of Memory For Team Fortress 2

  Timothy Arceri of Valve's open-source Linux graphics driver team has landed patches in Mesa 19.0 that drastically reduce the amount of system memory used when firing up the Team Fortress 2 game.

  Arceri started off with a patch on Friday to ensure GLSL IR optimizations are run during the initial shader compilation process. That patch partially reverts work done a year ago that delayed some of these optimizations since it would speed-up Deus Ex: Mankind Divided start times by about twenty seconds. So games with a ton of shaders like Deus Ex will go back to starting up slower on initial shader compiles until optimized and cached, but applying these optimizations reduced the memory use in Team Fortress 2 from 1.5GB to 1.3GB.