Linux / Unix

Unveiled back at CES 2018, the Intel Kaby Lake-powered Asus Chromebox 3 is now available for pre-order via TigerDirect and NextWarehouse. Although it is also listed as out of stock and there is no release date public yet, those interested can place their orders to be sure they get their devices as soon as they become available.

Thanks to a collaboration between Purism and UBports, the upcoming crowd-funded Librem 5 smartphone now officially supports Purism's own PureOS and Ubuntu Touch. Ubuntu Touch, which was abandoned by Canonical last year, was picked up by the UBports team for further development and may finally find a more permanent home on the Librem 5.

The new Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 is a less powerful — but convertible — sibling of the 15.6-inch Precision 5530 mobile workstation. Its specs are similar to those of the Dell XPS 9575, but this mobile workstation features Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics and is scheduled to hit the market in July/August.

Available in Platinum Silver and Brushed Onyx, the 15.6-inch Dell Precision 5530 is the brand's smallest mobile workstation. Its comprehensive list of hardware options includes 8th generation Intel Core i5, i7, and i9 processors, two IGZO 4 displays, NVIDIA Quadro P2000 graphics, as well as up to 32 GB of 2,666 MHz memory.

Although Microsoft's former CEO, Steve Ballmer, called it a few years ago nothing less than "a cancer," Linux is now at the core of an IoT solution that comes from Redmond. Azure Sphere includes microcontrollers, a cloud-based security service, and an operating system that includes a custom Linux kernel.

Red Hat has now spent 25 years developing and supporting Linux and other related open-source projects. Originally started by Bob Young and Marc Ewing in a small residential room, it has now grown to have annual revenue of US$2.9 billion and 11,400 employees, making it the largest open-source based company in the world.

Mini PCs are growing in popularity. Linux Mint users in need of an insanely tiny machine might be interested in the Apollo Lake-powered Mintbox Mini 2, which the team behind Linux Mint is hoping to deliver concurrently with Mint 19 sometime in June of this year.

After months of delays and speculation, the Atari VCS (formerly the Ataribox) finally debuted in physical form at GDC. There's still a lot of information about the console that Atari is keeping close to the chest, but we do know that Atari VCS will be more akin to a Linux PC than a dedicated gaming console, which should expand its capabilities (and possibly appeal).

Raspberry have announced the new Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, an update to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B that originally released two years ago. The most significant improvements are in networking (wired and wireless) and an increase in SoC clock speed.

Google could be set to make its Chrome OS a much more potent threat to Microsoft if a new commit in the Chromium source is any guide. A developer project known as Crostini shows signs of Google officially introducing support for Linux virtual machines on Chrome OS.

After 4 years of development, the Smach Z handheld PC could finally see the light of day in H2 2018. Smach partnered with AMD to include a custom embedded RX-421B CPU that integrates an 8CU R7 GPU, and the device will also include at least 4 GB of DDR4-2400 RAM and 64 GB of storage.

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is Microsoft's technology stack that enables native Linux binaries to run in a Windows user environment without the need to install a full fledged Linux distro — native or virtual. This tutorial will help you to get started with getting WSL up and running on your Windows 10 PC. We will also look at some tricks to get basic GUI apps to work in WSL.

The Spanish-made KDE Slimbook II notebook is now available starting around US$855. When compared to the first generation, the list of upgrades includes DDR4 memory, Kaby Lake processors, a 1 TB SSD option, an improved WiFi antenna, and more.

Not long after they revealed a custom boot screen on a Nintendo Switch, a group of hackers calling themselves fail0verflow apparently managed to run a Linux-based operating system on this game console.

The first version of the "Vetinari" branch, VLC 3.0.0 is capable of streaming to Chromecast devices even in non-native formats, also supporting 4K and 8K hardware decoding on a wide range of devices, including Android flagships.

The vertical reading mode introduced by Vivaldi Browser 1.14 is one of the best ways for reading texts in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Next to this new feature, the update also brings customizable web panels and Markdown support for notes.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Intel had informed select customers about the Meltdown/Spectre vulnerabilities. What's news, however, is that somehow the Chinese Government could have gotten to know about the vulnerabilities much before the US Government did.

Launched earlier today, Firefox 58 promises to deliver smoother graphics, improved support for progressive web apps on Android devices, faster page loading, tracking protection, and more.

Wine 3.0 is now available as the second annual release of this well-known compatibility layer and arrives more than 24 years since the initial release. This new version comes with improved compatibility with Android, Direct3D 10 and 11 support, and more.

The next version of Linux Mint, Linux Mint 19, will release sometime in May or June this year. The popular Linux distro will be based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Updated with response from Intel. A security flaw has been found in the way that Intel processors from the last ten years handle kernel memory. The solution being implemented in the Windows and Linux kernels can vary from virtually no impact up to 20% or 30% for processes that involve a high number of kernel calls, such as writing to databases.

Google has expanded the testing of its mysterious Fuchsia OS to its recently released Pixelbooks. The operating system differs from Google's Android and Chrome operating systems, although Google has yet to reveal its purpose.

Everybody's favorite Department of Death Travel Agent, Manny Calavera, can now lead your PC to the Ninth Underworld for free, courtesy of GOG.com.

Atari is set to release its first all-new gaming console in years. The Ataribox will be powered by a custom AMD chipset and is going up for pre-order this week.

While Intel is working with the big brands to patch the major security holes recently discovered in its Management Engine firmware, System76 plans to take it all to the next level by disabling IME entirely via a firmware update.

A member of Dell's Project Sputnik has posted on Reddit confirming that while they are skipping the Kaby Lake-R refresh of the XPS 13, there will be an Ubuntu 'developer edition' with the 8th gen processor in early 2018.

The new Ubuntu Linux 17.10 release is nicknamed "Artful Aardvark" and comes with the latest version of GNOME as the default desktop, thus dropping Canonical's Unity graphical shell.

The Librem 5, a smartphone currently in development by Purism, recently reached its USD$1.5 million crowdfunding goal. The device will be designed with privacy in mind and will run a mobile flavor of Purism's own PureOS.

Retro Games Ltd. has just revealed that its modern Commodore 64 compact replica is on its way to an early 2018 launch as the C64 Mini. This US$69.99 game console is expected to hit the market loaded with 64 licensed games such as Paradroid or Impossible Mission.

In a newsletter sent out today, Atari gave some more information about the upcoming Ataribox. The console will be running a version of Linux, and users will have full access to the underlying operating system. No word on games yet, but apparently, the console won't be powerful enough to play AAA titles.

Armis Labs discovered a Bluetooth vulnerability codenamed BlueBorne that could affect billions of devices including smartphones like Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy, tablets like Samsung Galaxy Tab, smartwatches like LG Watch Sport, or audio systems like the Pumpkin Car Audio System. BlueBorne can also attack unpatched Windows and Linux PCs, and a variety of smart appliances like TVs and security cameras. In order to avoid the proliferation of the BlueBorne vulnerability, users are cautioned to permanently disable their Bluetooth connections until proper patches are issued.

Although new users will get the new uni-bar design by default, existing Firefox users who will update their browser will not lose the traditional search bar.

The Librem 5, currently up for preorder through a crowdfunding campaign, is Purism's attempt to create a privacy-focused smartphone. The phone will run a mobile variant of PureOS, which is Purism's own custom GNU/Linux-based operating system.

Although its archrival KDE has been around since 1996 and its initial release only arrived in 1999, GNOME can be considered to be two decades old now, since the GNOME Project was born on August 15, 1997.

The Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL) can now be deployed on Windows Server installations starting with Build 16257, making it easy for IT admins to run that elusive Linux command line tool without having to install and configure an entire virtual machine or disk installation.

Adobe will be shifting efforts into promoting HTML5 through its Premiere Pro and Animate software tools while letting its deprecated Flash Player die a slow death.

EC DREAM has a Celeron N3350 powered compute stick which is available at US$100 for the next five days. While not as powerful as 2016's Core M powered Intel Compute Stick, it comes in at a significantly cheaper price point and could act as a basic media center PC.

After recording a record profit in the first quarter of 2017, SK Hynix has broken that record by reporting a second consecutive record profit. Operating profit increased by 24% and net profit by 30% between the first and second quarters.

Nine months after its release, the "Yakkety Yak" Ubuntu release, also carrying the version number 16.10, reaches its last day of support. Those still using it should upgrade to Ubuntu 17.04.

Insiders running the latest Windows Insider Preview builds can now get a taste of a native Ubuntu experience directly from the Windows Store and play around with popular Linux developer tools without the hassle of managing multi-boot setups.

After three delays faced by the alpha release and two for the beta, Fedora 26 is now on track, and the torrent downloads are already available, although the official website has not been updated with the news yet.

The Orwl mini PC includes a plethora of security features including the protection against physical tempering, which triggers a "self-destruct" mechanism even if the device is unplugged.

The new media-centric single-board PC from Pine64 is powered by a Rockchip RK3328 with support for the H.265 codec and 4K video playback.

This new build is a long term support version that is set to get support until 2021. Linux Mint 18.2 features Cinnamon 3.4, a Linux kernel 4.8, as well as an Ubuntu 16.04 package base.

Members of the Windows Insiders program can now download SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and openSUSE directly via Microsoft's Windows Store. Windows 10 users who are not members of the program can view both programs in Windows Store, but cannot download them.

Following in the footsteps of the now-discontinued NES Classic Edition, Nintendo will continue to capitalize on the retro gaming market with the SNES Classic Edition. The new mini-console will feature 21 SNES games and will retail for $80 on September 29.

A serious bug in the microcode for Intel's Kaby Lake and Skylake CPUs has been found. The bug can cause misbehavior of software and loss of data. It affects all 6th and 7th-gen CPUs with Hyperthreading enabled.