Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 558 for the week of December 16 - 22, 2018.

In this Issue

Ubuntu Stats

Hot in Support

Lo Co Events

Mir News: 21st December 2018

Multipass 2018.12.1 release

Sunsetting i386

Canonical News

In the Blogosphere

In Other News

Featured Audio and Video

Meeting Reports

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Updates and Security for 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, and 18.10

And much more!

Ubuntu Stats

Bug Stats

Open: 135639 (-33)

Critical: 393 (+1)

Unconfirmed: 66236 (-65)

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started, please see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

Translations

Ukrainian: 87.29% (34715/901)

Spanish: 84.90% (41234/2545)

German: 84.87% (41327/186)

Bosnian: 79.96% (54715/154)

French: 79.45% (56126/6174)

Hot in Support

Ask Ubuntu Top 5 Questions

How do I set up the simplest HTTP local server? [on hold] - https://askubuntu.com/questions/1102594/how-do-i-set-up-the-simplest-http-local-server

After accidentally renaming /etc, how do I rename it back? - https://askubuntu.com/questions/1102836/after-accidentally-renaming-etc-how-do-i-rename-it-back

signature verification error for wine - index files failed to download - changing mirror doesn't help - https://askubuntu.com/questions/1103240/signature-verification-error-for-wine-index-files-failed-to-download-changin

Does Ubuntu 18.04 show filenames containing emojis in colour? - https://askubuntu.com/questions/1102715/does-ubuntu-18-04-show-filenames-containing-emojis-in-colour

Script to check if some program is already installed - https://askubuntu.com/questions/1103860/script-to-check-if-some-program-is-already-installed

Ask (and answer!) questions at: https://askubuntu.com/

Ubuntu Forums Top 5 Threads

Installing ubuntu and then use MATE and/or how to install UEFI grub? - https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2408351

Overheating problem with Ubuntu OS - https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2408458

Bros Trend (AC5) AC600 driver installation instructions. - https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2408678

Files from a network drive - https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2408597

Kubuntu 18.10: Alfa AWUS036ACH Finding No Networks and Not Connecting - https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2408700

Find more support at: https://ubuntuforums.org/

LoCo Events

The following Lo Co team events are currently scheduled in the next two weeks:

Sierra Vista Ubuntu Hour, Arizona Lo Co Team: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-arizona/3758-sierra-vista-ubuntu-hour/

Tempe Ubuntu Hour, Arizona Lo Co Team: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-arizona/3791-tempe-ubuntu-hour/

Tempe Ubuntu Hour, Arizona Lo Co Team: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-arizona/3809-tempe-ubuntu-hour/

Looking beyond the next two weeks? Visit the Lo Co Team Portal to browse upcoming events around the world: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/

The Hub

Mir News: 21st December 2018

Alan Griffiths (alan_g) gives a synopsis of 2018 Mir accomplishments, who is packaging for which distro, two ways to install Mir as a snap, an UBports status, and finally a comment on what the team will be working on in the coming year.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/mir-news-21st-december-2018/9174

Multipass 2018.12.1 release

Christopher Townsend (townsend) announces the release of 2018.12.1 public beta Multipass. Christopher lists numerous notable changes and provides links for additional details.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/multipass-2018-12-1-release/9163

The Planet

Sunsetting i386

Simon Quigley (tsimonq2) writes to inform of the demise of 32 bit support in the Lubuntu release. He cites the reasons and advises that 18.04 will be the last release to support the i386 (32 bit) architecture. Links are provided to detail future aspirations of the team and the means to contribute to the efforts.

https://lubuntu.me/sunsetting-i386/

Canonical News

Unity8: a project that uses Mir - https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/12/19/unity8-uses-mir

Our Kubernetes deployment pipeline - https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/12/21/our-kubernetes-deployment-pipeline

In the Blogosphere

Vulkan 1.1.96 Released With Many Corrections & Clarifications

Michael Larabel reports that with the release of Vulkan 1.1.96, the fix is in for the VK_EXT_pci_bus_info extension. The PCI domains have been corrected to 32 bit. Other fixes are outlined in the provided Git Hub announcement.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Vulkan-1.1.96-Released

Ubuntu's Dock CPU Usage To Be Lowered By A Third, Other Perf Fixes Inbound

Michael Larabel relates to us the performance tuning of GNOME-based Ubuntu desktop thanks to efforts made by Daniel Van Vugt. Of greater note is the work within Ubuntu Dock. Other performance work was in a high CPU regression, Mutter, and the cursor. In addition is some NVIDIA EGLStreams work for GNOME on Wayland. A link is provided for more details.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Dock-CPU-Use-Third

OpenSSL 1.1.1 With TLS 1.3 Being Back-Ported To Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Michael Larabel advises on OpenSSL 1.1.1's availability. In the planned SRU updates will be added TLS 1.3 support that yield better protection, a rewritten random number generator, and various other crypto improvements. Links are provided for additional information.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-18.04-OpenSSL-1.1.1-TLS

Marius Nestor reports on this fourth incremental update to the bleeding edge Libre Office 6.1 series. The 125 fixes are for all components in the office suite and for those with the 6.1 series installed, as a non enterprise deployment, you are encouraged to update. Marius gives us a roadmap to the Libre Office 6.2 release and numerous supporting links are provided.

https://news.softpedia.com/news/libreoffice-6-1-4-office-suite-released-with-more-than-125-bug-fixes-update-now-524328.shtml

Mir 1.1 Released With EGLStreams KMS Support To Work With NVIDIA's Binary Driver

Michael Larabel reports that with the release of Mir 1.1 there is now NVIDIA proprietary driver support within the Wayland compositor, though it does break the Mir platform graphics ABI. Further, Michael tells us that there are improvements around switching logic, musl libc compatibility work, and other fixes. A link is provided for more details that also depict its Mir Kiosk Snap and EGMDE example desktop.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Mir-1.1-Released

Purism's Librem 5 Developer Kits Finally Shipping, Linux Phone Price Going Up To $699

Michael Larabel informs us that Purism is shipping their Librem 5 developer kit with the i.MX8M-based hardware; though a lot of work remains to make the dev kit fully functional. The goal remains to ship the Librem 5 smartphone around April of 2019 and that due to expenses with the phone's development and future engineering costs the price of the phone is increased to $699 USD.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librem-5-Dev-Kits-Shipping

VirtualBox 6.0 Released With Better HiDPI Support, VMSVGA 3D Graphics On Linux

Michael Larabel relates that Oracle VM Virtual Box 6.0 is now officially available. The release is a big update and includes support for exporting virtual machines to the Oracle Cloud, a file manager for host/guest file copies, OS/2 shared folder support, better audio/video recording support of guest VMs, enables VMSVGA graphics by default for Linux guests as emulation of the VMware SVGA II graphics adapter, user-interface refinements - including much better HiDPI support, various audio improvements, support up through the Linux 4.20 kernel and more. A link is provided to Virtual Box.org for the details.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Oracle-VirtualBox-6.0-Released

Chrome 72 Beta Deprecates TLS 1.0/1.1, Steps Towards Deprecating FTP

Michael Larabel informs us that Google has released the beta of the Chrome 72 web browser. Though dropping HTTP-based public key pinning, rendering of FTP resources, depreciating TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1, and other changes; support is added for public class fields in scripts, user activation query, JSON stringify behavior, various interoperability aspects, and some improvements for Wayland. A link is provided to Chromium.org for more details.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Chrome-72-Beta-Released

Wine-Staging 4.0-RC2 Yields 810 Patches Atop Upstream Wine

Michael Larabel writes on the rebased Wine-Staging 4.0-RC2 with 810 patches. In the patches are addresses for key translations, DWMAPI, and UCRTBASE. We are advised that this latest code is available via Git Hub and that Wine 4.0.0 is expected to be released in January.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Wine-Staging-4.0-RC2-Released

HandBrake 1.2 Released: Switches Over To FFmpeg, Early Support For GTK4

Michael Larabel informs us that the latest update to the open-source video transcoder, Hand Brake 1.2, is now available. Handbrake 1.2 now uses FFmpeg for the video transcoding. While dropping a number of depreciated/legacy presets, new presets, supports and fixes have been added. Of particular note is support for building against the in-development GTK4 tool-kit. Michael gives the link to the project's Git Hub for more details.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=HandBrake-1.2-Released

GNU Sed 4.6 Released With Better Write Performance

Michael Larabel reports on the Sed 4.6 release that with fully-buffered output should "noticeably improve performance". The behavior is switchable for those that still prefer line-buffered outputs. Michael notes two other improvements and that there are memory fixes and other changes. A link is provided to savannah.gnu.org for more details.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNU-Sed-4.6-Released

Radeon ROCm 2.0 Officially Out With OpenCL 2.0 Support, TensorFlow name 1.12, Vega 48-bit VA

Michael Larabel tells us that the Radeon Open Compute "ROCm" 2.0 Linux stack is available for AMD GPU computing. Binaries for ROCm 2.0 are available for Ubuntu and other distros as well. ROCm 2.0 has full OpenCL 2.0 support, an updated Tensor Flow port, Vega 7nm support and more, with link provided.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Radeon-ROCm-2.0-Arrives

Wine 4.0-RC3 Released With 27 Bug Fixes

Michael writes that Wine 4.0 is getting closer as evidenced by another RC3 out ready for testing. This RC3 release includes 27 known bug fixes with more details provided in Michael's article, or the provided WineHQ link.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Wine-4.0-RC3-Released

Proton 3.16-6 Beta Improves Several Windows Games On Linux During Steam's Winter Sale

Michael Larabel reports that Valve has released a new version of their Wine-based Proton layer, Proton 3.16-6 Beta. Notable improvements include the addition of DXVK 0.94, support for newer GnuTLS (3.0+), various networking fixes, a large-address-aware mode, and further improvements to the FAudio integration. Michael gives a link to Git Hub for more details and advises that the beta is available when starting the Steam client. With the increased support for a number of games, and that Steam's annual Winter/Christmas sale is presently taking place, Michael remarks "you can fetch some great deals on a variety of games".

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Proton-3.16-6-Beta-Released

Marius Nestor alerts us to updated patches that fix several vulnerabilities discovered by security researchers. Fixes for CVE-2018-18710, CVE-2018-14734 and other recent CVEs have been made, and users are advised to update their systems as soon as possible. More details and links are provided.

https://news.softpedia.com/news/canonical-outs-important-linux-kernel-updates-for-all-supported-ubuntu-releases-524377.shtml

In Other News

Rugged, Jetson TX2 based computer targets AI on the edge

Eric Brown reports that Axiomtek’s fanless, IP67-protected “eBOX800-900-FL” computer runs Ubuntu 16.04 on a Arm-based Jetson TX2 module. The eBOX560-900-FL is an industrial edge AI computer designed for smart city, smart manufacturing, and smart transportation applications and supports machine learning algorithms. Eric gives the hardware specs, options, provides screenshots, and a link to the manufacturer for more information.

http://linuxgizmos.com/rugged-jetson-tx2-based-computer-targets-ai-on-the-edge/

Featured Audio and Video

Ubuntu Security Podcast: Episode 16

"Last episode for 2018! This week we look at CVEs in lxml, CUPS, pixman, FreeRDP & more, plus we discuss the security of home routers as evaluated by C-ITL."

https://ubuntusecuritypodcast.org/episode-16/

Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S11E41 – Forty-One Jane Doe’s

"This week we have been playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate and upgrading home servers from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04. We discuss Discord Store confirming Linux support, MIPS going open source, Microsoft Edge switching to Chromium and the release of Collabora Online Developer Edition 4.0 RC1. We also round up community news and events."

http://ubuntupodcast.org/2018/12/20/s11e41-forty-one-jane-does/

Ubuntu Portugal Podcast: S01E16 - McCloud MacCloudface file

"With the clothes impregnated with the smell of fritters typical of this block, we offer to everyone another 1 impressive episode of the best podcast on Ubuntu, in Portuguese, this time dedicated to Free Music Archive, UBports, Browsers, LXD and much more!"

https://podcastubuntuportugal.org/2018/12/20/s01e16-arquivo-mccloud-maccloudface/

Meeting Reports

Design and Web team – 19 December 2018 - https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/12/19/design-and-web-team-summary-19-december-2018

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Desktop Team: Tue, December 25, 3:30pm – 4:30pm

Kernel Team: Tue, December 25, 5pm – 6pm

Ubuntu Foundations: Thu, December 27, 4pm – 5pm

For more details and farther dates please visit: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/calendars/

[LSN-0046-1] Linux kernel vulnerability - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004718.html

[USN-3846-1] Linux kernel vulnerability - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004711.html

[USN-3847-1] Linux kernel vulnerabilities - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004712.html

[USN-3847-2] Linux kernel (HWE) vulnerabilities - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004716.html

[USN-3847-3] Linux kernel (Azure) vulnerabilities - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004710.html

[USN-3848-1] Linux kernel vulnerabilities - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004713.html

[USN-3848-2] Linux kernel (Xenial HWE) vulnerabilities - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004714.html

[USN-3849-1] Linux kernel vulnerabilities - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004717.html

[USN-3849-2] Linux kernel (Trusty HWE) vulnerabilities - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/2018-December/004715.html

End of Life: April 2019

End of Life: April 2021

End of Life: April 2023

End of Life: July 2019

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Archive

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Further News

As always you can find more Ubuntu news and announcements at:

Conclusion

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See you next week!

Credits

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

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Wild Man

And many others

Glossary of Terms

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