News briefs for July 19, 2019.

Oracle yesterday announced the release of Oracle Linux 8. New features include Application Streams, a "Dandified Yum", RPM improvements and much more. From the announcement: "With Oracle Linux 8, the core operating environment and associated packages for a typical Oracle Linux 8 server are distributed through a combination of BaseOS and Applications Streams. BaseOS gives you a running user space for the operating environment. Application Streams provides a range of applications that were previously distributed in Software Collections, as well as other products and programs, that can run within the user space."

Microsoft this week announced it was giving away software to help secure American voting machines. According to NBC News, "The company said it was rolling out the free, open-source software product called ElectionGuard, which it said uses encryption to 'enable a new era of secure, verifiable voting.' The company is working with election machine vendors and local governments to deploy the system in a pilot program for the 2020 election. The system uses an encrypted tracking code to allow a voter to verify that his or her vote has been recorded and has not been tampered with, Microsoft said in a blog post."

Linux Mint 19.2 "Tina" Cinnamon beta was released this week. Some highlights in version 19.2 include improved kernel support in the update manager, improved software manager and a new look and layout for system reports. Go here to read about all the new features, and read the release notes here.

The first beta of Latte Dock for v0.9 (v0.8.97) has been released. New features include a new colors mechanism, online indicator, shared layouts and more. v0.9 is scheduled for release at the end of the month. The Psifidotos blog notes that you can help by finding bugs or with translations.

Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish) officially reaches end of life today. Package updates will no longer be accepted to 18.10, and security notices will no longer include information or package updates for 18.10. To upgrade, visit https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DiscoUpgrades.