Linux and Free Software News You Might Have Missed in May 2019
1,001Here are a few Linux and open source news you might have missed for the month of May 2019 !
Support the channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment
Duck Duck Go has proposed a "Do not track act of 2019" to enforce the DNT setting in user's browsers.
https://spreadprivacy.com/do-not-track-act-2019/
Ubuntu closed down its merch shop.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/05/canonical-shop-ubuntu-closed
A glitch broke all of Firefox's extensions for a while.
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/05/technical-details-on-the-recent-firefox-add-on-outage/
DXVK 1.1.1 has been released, followed by versions 1.2, and 1.2.1, bringing improved performance and fixes for a lot of games.
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/
The Linux Kernel version 5.1 has been released, bringing support for Model A+ of the Raspberry Pi 3, some intel wifi hardware, as well better support for AMD Vega GPus.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/5/5/278
Microsoft will ship a Linux kernel and update it through Windows update.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/
Microsoft will also launch a new terminal, with tabs and profile support.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-windows-terminal/
D9VK, a tool enabling the use of Vulkan to run DirectX9 games, has seen its first 0.1 release, quickly followed by version 0.11 and 0.12.
https://github.com/Joshua-Ashton/d9vk
At Google I/O, the web giant announced that all Chromebooks will also be linux laptops going forward.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/later-versions-of-chromebooks-to-be-linux-ready-out-of-the-box/
Wine 4.8 has been released, followed by 4.9, bringing a ton of bugfixes, better support for controllers, and initial support for plug and play drivers.
https://www.winehq.org/announce/4.9
BattleEye announced that they'll be working with Valve to bring their anti cheat software to SteamPlay. This should enable PUBG, and most ARMA3 servers to work on Linux.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/battleye-now-say-theyre-working-with-valve-to-support-steam-play.14111
Valve released Proton 4.2-4 and 4.2-5, bringing day one support for Rage 2, Mordhau, and fixing a bunch of issues across the board. Initial support for the steam networking API is also included.
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Changelog
Mark Shuttleworth had a talk with TFIR on "why Linux on the desktop failed". He explains the reasons why Unity and Convergence failed, blaming Canonical as well as the community.
https://www.tfir.io/2019/05/15/why-linux-on-desktop-failed-mark-shuttleworth/
Valve pushed a new beta of its Steam client, fixing crashes when launching games. Developers will now also be able to try Proton settings and configs before whitelisting the game. A second beta released later and fixed a bunch of issues with controllers and rumble support.
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta#announcements/detail/1611638091301723544
The KDE Plasma 5.16 beta has been released, with a ton of improvements to the desktop experience. Highlights include a new notification system, a revamped "appearance" panel, and support for the proprietary Nvidia driver on wayland.
https://kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.15.90.php
Purism reached its goal for its Librem One suite of applications and services. They gained more than 5000 backers in about 2 weeks, and that proves there is a growing interest for more ethical services.
https://librem.one/
Firefox released version 67 of its web browser, featuring improved performance, and support for enabling fingerprinting and cryptomining protection directly from the settings.
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/05/21/latest-firefox-release-is-faster-than-ever/
After 7 years, the Antergos distribution is shutting down. The Arch based distro had gathered around 1 million downloads since 2014, but the team lacked the time to properly maintain the project.
https://antergos.com/blog/antergos-linux-project-ends/
GitHub launched a new feature called Sponsors, aimed at letting users reward the developers, directly from their Github repository.
https://github.com/sponsors
Many GTK application developers signed an open letter on GTK theming, asking distributions to stop theming their applications and changing their icons.
https://stopthemingmy.app/
Ubuntu ISOs will now ship with nvidia drivers included, starting from 19.10. Anyone with an nvidia card and no internet connection will still be able to benefit from the proprietary driver out of the box. The Nouveau Driver will still be the default.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/05/ubuntu-19-10-nvidia-drivers-iso
Krita 4.2 was released, bringing a ton of new features and improvements to the leading open source drawing tool.
https://krita.org/en/krita-4-2-release-notes/
A new malware has been detected on Linux, dubbed HiddenWasp.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/advanced-linux-backdoor-found-in-the-wild-escaped-av-detection/