The Flatpak Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework has been updated today to version 1.5, a major release that introduces many improvements and new features. Highlights of the Flatpak 1.5 release include new “–or-update” option for the “flatpak install” command to perform an update operation if the application is already installed, as well as a new “flatpak mask” command that allows pinning of app versions and avoids automatic downloads. (SoftPedia)
Microsoft Wants To Port Its Web Browser to Linux
In December 2018, Microsoft announced its intention to abandon EdgeHTML as the browser’s rendering engine in favor of Chromium, the same rendering engine Google Chrome uses. In the months since the announcement, Microsoft has worked on versions of Edge for Windows 7, 8 and 10, as well as Xbox One, macOS, iOS and Android. Now, Microsoft has teased the possibility of Edge making its way to Linux as well. Sean Larkin, a member of the Edge development team, took to Twitter to solicit feedback from Linux developers:
https://twitter.com/TheLarkInn/status/1177326174826975233?s=20
6WIND Announces 6WINDGate 5.0 Source Code for Linux
6WIND, a high-performance networking software company, announced 6WINDGate 5.0 packet processing software for Linux networking. 6WINDGate is a complete Layer 2 through Layer 4 networking stack available in source code form factor optimized for standard Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) servers. For two decades, 6WINDGate has been integrated by OEM vendors to develop a complete networking appliance, solution or system. (PRWire)
Software Company Chef Won’t Renew ICE Contact After All
Last week on Thursday, the CEO of Seattle software company Chef defended the firm’s contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after a former employee as a protest deleted open source projects used by Chef customers. Come Monday, Crist reversed course. In a new blog post, Crist said that Chef won’t renew contracts with ICE and the US Customs and Border Protection when they expire next year, and that the company will donate this year’s revenue from the contracts to charities that help families affected by the agencies’ family separation and detention policies. (Wired)
Fedora drops 32-bit Linux
Fedora is pulling the plugs on 32-bit architecture. Fedora kernel maintainer Justin Forbes explained, “There are not enough members of the community willing to do the work to maintain the architecture. Don’t worry, though — Fedora is not dropping all 32-bit packages. Many i686 packages are still being built to ensure things like multilib, wine, and Steam will continue to work.” (ZDNet)
Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 to Be Dubbed “Debbie,” New Linux Mint Logo Unveiled
Clement Lefebvre, the founder of Linux Mint, has revealed the codename of the upcoming LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) 4 operating system series as “Debbie,” which he said it suits the Debian base quite well. As you know, the LMDE edition is based on Debian GNU/Linux instead of Ubuntu as the regular Linux Mint OS is, providing a rolling release model. No release data was announced for Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 though. (Softpedia)
Intel Reveals USB 4 Linux Kernel Support Patches
Intel revealed USB4 patches to the Linux kernel mailing list on Tuesday. If approved, these patches will provide basic USB4 support to the Linux kernel. The USB Implementers Forum first announced USB4 specs in early September. Some of the new features include 40 Gbps maximum speed, some backward compatibility with Thunderbolt 3 devices and USB Type-C Port support. Here you’ll find everything we know about USB4. Phoronix initially reported on the patches. There are 22 total to help provide USB4 support. The new support code is essentially re-using the kernel’s Thunderbolt drive. (Tom’s Hardware)
CNCF’s Envoy report card shows Google, Lyft are top of contributing class
The CNCF has delivered a report card on Envoy, the open source edge and service proxy which is usually mentioned alongside the words Kubernetes or service mesh. The report comes a year after Envoy graduated from the CNCF incubation process, and the headline scores are 1,700 contributors, who have made 10,300 code commits, 5,700 pull requests and 51,000 contributions overall. (DevClass)
Kong Employs Machine Learning to Extend Services Control
At the Kong Summit 2019 conference, Kong today announced it has acquired Insomnia, an open source testing tool for application programming interfaces (APIs). In addition, it has added support for REST, Kafka Streams, gRPC, GraphQL and plugins written in Go to its service control platform. (DevOps)
IBM and Canonical work together in financial services
Mark Shuttleworth, founder and CEO of Canonical, Ubuntu Linux’s parent company, and Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM Z and LinuxONE, jointly hosted an event for senior IT financial services executives. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols wrote that during the event the two companies told the managers about the advantages of running financial services on mainframe cloud systems based on Ubuntu Linux. Why? After all, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) runs just as well on the Z series as Ubuntu Linux. In an interview, Shuttleworth explained, “Customers want the security of the mainframe and the flexibility of Ubuntu. Some ask for Ubuntu and Z and IBM gives them that option.” (ZDNet)