Half Life Alyx on Linux, Marketshare times 2, and Huawei vulnerabilities - Linux news 1-15th May
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These are your Linux, open source, and privacy news for the first half of May 2020. This month, we have huge advancements to the Firefox password manager, the release of Inkscape 1.0, Halo 2 working on Linux, and some concerns over Huawei’s cointributions to the Linux kernel.
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Mozilla released Private Relay, a Firefox extension that allows you to generate email aliases that redirect to your real email address. https://relay.firefox.com/
Inkscape 1.0 was released, after 3 years of development, using GTK3
https://inkscape.org/news/2020/05/04/introducing-inkscape-10/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6UHXkND4Sc&feature=emb_logo
Star Labs, a computer maker, now ships its laptops with manjaro.
https://starlabs.systems/pages/distributions
Firefox 76 was released, and it strengthens the browser’s security even more: if your saved passwords have leaked, or have been reused, the password manager will issue a warning, and prompt you to update your password.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/76.0/releasenotes/
It seems like Linux usage might have doubled in April, as reported by net Market share, with a full 2.87% of desktop market share compared to 1.36% in march.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/05/linux-marketshare-april-2020
Ubuntu Studio announced that 20.04 will be their last version to use XFCE by default, as they’ll be switching to KDE Plasma for 20.10.
https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-studio-opts-for-kde/
GNOME 3.36 added an option in the app launcher to start applications using a dedicated GPU on hybrid graphics machine, well this feature is now part for the freedesktop specification so other desktop environments can now implement it as well.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/05/the-linux-desktop-entry-specification-gets-a-way-to-automatically-use-a-discrete-gpu-merged-into-gnome
Wine 5.8 was released, with Support for Plug & Play device notifications, more progress on their Wine Direct 3D Vulkan backend, and the usual bugfixes, namely 44 this time, including for GTA 4, Total War Shogun 2, Warcraft 3, Darksiders, or Street Fighter 5 Arcade Edition.
https://www.winehq.org/announce/5.8
Halo 2 was released on PC as part of the master Chief Collection, and the single player component runs on Linux with proton, just like Combat evolved, which makes 3 halo games playable on linux.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1064270/Halo_2_Anniversary/
Huawei submitted a patch to the linux kernel called Huawei Kernel Self Protection, supposed to harden Kernel security, with a big problem: it seems that this patch would add a trivially easy to use vulnerability in the kernel.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/huawei-denies-involvement-in-buggy-linux-kernel-patch-proposal/
Linux is now the most used platform on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud service. Lnux based systems account for 60% of all used OSes on the platform.
https://fossbytes.com/forget-windows-linux-is-the-most-in-demand-os-on-microsoft-azure/
The city of Munich, in Germany, is switching back to open source software. They had already made the switch to Linux, before going back to microsoft solutions, and now they’re turning around again and moving to open source software.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back-from-microsoft-to-open-source-again/
The new version of Ubuntu Touch has been released, based on Unity8, also called Lomiri. This new over the air update brings a lot of good stuff, with a new home screen, a lot of small tweaks to the theme to make it pop a little more and bring more contrast, and a ton of web browser improvements. https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-blog-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-12-release-276
Half Life Alyx is now available natively for Linux, using Vulkan.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/05/half-life-alyx-now-available-on-linux-with-vulkan