Recent | Linux Journal

Kata Containers Now Available as a Snap, First Point Release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, New NetSpectre Attack Vulnerability, IBM and Google Launch Knative, and Google Play Store Bans Cryptocurrency Mining Apps

News briefs for July 27, 2018. Kata Containers, the lightweight, fast booting, open-source VM, is now available as a Snap from the Snap Store. According to the Ubuntu blog post, "Kata Containers are compatible with the OCI specification for Docker and CRI for Kubernetes which means they can be managed like a traditional container. Its agnostic design allows Kata Containers to run on multiple architectures like amd64, ppc64 and aarch64 with different hypervisors including QEMU."

A Git Origin Story

A look at Linux kernel developers' various revision control solutions through the years, Linus Torvalds' decision to use BitKeeper and the controversy that followed, and how Git came to be created.

OSCON at 19, Open Source at 20, Linux at 27

Cooperation isn't as exciting as conflict, but it does get the most done. Now that Linux has achieved World Domination, seems it has nothing but friends. Big ones.

New Version of KStars, Google Launches Edge TPU and Cloud IoT Edge, Lower Saxony to Migrate from Linux to Windows, GCC 8.2 Now Available and VMware Announces VMworld 2018

News briefs for July 26, 2018. A new version of KStars—the free, open-source, cross-platform astronomy software—was released today. Version 2.9.7 includes new features, such as improvements to the polar alignment assistant and support for Ekos Live, as well as stability fixes. See the release notes for all the changes.

Progress with Your Image

Learn a few different ways to get a progress bar for your dd command. The dd tool has been a critical component on the Linux (and UNIX) command line for ages. You know a command-line tool is important if it has only two letters, and dd is no exception.

Red Hat's "Road to A.I." Film, Google Chrome Marks HTTP Connections Not Secure, BlueData Launches BlueK8s Project, Linux Bots Account for 95% of DDoS Attacks and Tron Buys BitTorrent

News briefs for July 25, 2018.

Some of Intel's Effort to Repair Spectre in Future CPUs

Dave Hansen from Intel posted a patch and said, "Intel is considering adding a new bit to the IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES MSR (Model-Specific Register) to tell when RSB (Return Stack Buffer) underflow might be happening. Feedback on this would be greatly appreciated before the specification is finalized." He explained that RSB:

Security Keys Work for Google Employees, Canonical Releases Kernel Update, Plasma 5.14 Wallpaper Revealed, Qmmp Releases New Version, Toshiba Introduces New SSDs

News briefs for July 24, 2018. Google requires all of its 85,000 employees to use security keys, and it hasn't had one case of account takeover by phishing since, Engadget reports. The security key method is considered to be safer than two-factor authentication that requires codes sent via SMS.

Building a Bare-Bones Git Environment

How to migrate repositories from GitHub, configure the software and get started with hosting Git repositories on your own Linux server. With the recent news of Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub, many people have chosen to research other code-hosting options. Self-hosted solutions like GitLabs offer a polished UI, similar in functionality to GitHub but one that requires reasonably well-powered hardware and provides many features that casual Git users won't necessarily find useful.

New Neptune OS V5.4, Slax 9.5.0 Now Available, GNOME Redesigning Icons, KDE Applications 18.08 Enters Beta Testing and Kernel 4.18-rc6 Released

News briefs for July 23, 2018. Neptune OS released V5.4, which is a complete update with many enhancements and fixes to the Debian-based distro. New features include a GUI makeover with dark themes in mind, increased hardware support, and several software and app updates. See the post on Appuals for all the details and the changelog.