Tails, the secure live-boot Linux made famous by Edward Snowden, has had a major revision release to Version 1.3. The new version, released after testing since February 12, combines various security fixes with new apps and simplified install, the developers say.

In this week's edition of our open source news roundup, we take a look at Docker and the Oceanic Society, Linux kernel version 4.0, a mini-farm, and more!

Was that former Linux Outlaw Dan Lynch on FLOSS Weekly 326 earlier this week? It most certainly was. Dan joins regular host Randall Schwartz in talking about the Open Source Initiative with Simon Phipps and Patrick Masson in this particular episode, which is well worth a watch. It’s always great to see Randall on his show, and it’s great that he has such fantastic “guest help” from time to time.

The Ubuntu Kylin 15.04 Beta 1 (Vivid Vervet) operating system has also been released alongside the Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, and Ubuntu MATE distributions, bringing a wide range of improvements, numerous updated components, as well as the usual bug fixes. We took the distribution for a test drive and created a nice screenshot tour for all users of the Chinese Ubuntu community.

Welcome to the Opensource.com Weekly Top 5!Do you want to know how the magic happens? It's not rocket science of course, but I thought you might like to know how I make the Weekly Top 5 video and article for you every week.read more

In today's open source roundup: Get the latest version of VLC. Plus: Ubuntu MATE is now an official spin, and developers don't care if Linus is nice.

Google has open-sourced something called “gRPC” that it says represents “a brand new framework for handling remote procedure calls” using HTTP/2. The Chocolate Factory says it has dogfooded gRPC on its own microservices and that it “enables easy creation of highly performant, scalable APIs and microservices” and offers “bandwidth and CPU efficient, low latency way to create massively distributed systems that span data centers, as well as power mobile apps, real-time communications, IoT devices and APIs.”

This month, the GIMP lost its User eXperience (UX) maintainer.

GE unveiled a rugged COM Express Type 10 Mini module that runs Linux on a 2GHz Tegra K1 and offers soldered 2GB RAM and support for CUDA and VisionWorks. GE’s Intelligent Platforms business, a division of GE Energy Management headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., is primarily focused on the military/aerospace segment. The 84 x 55mm mCOM10K1 computer-on-module, which conforms to the COM Express Type 10 “Mini” form factor, is designed in part for SWaP-constrained mil/aero applications like image and video processing, sensor processing and electronic warfare. However, it also has broader applications in industrial Internet and Internet of Things applications, says GE. These are said to include industrial process automation, automotive and transportation, and medical imaging.

Writebox is a simple text editor that provides almost no features. Despite this, it's one of the simplest and most trustworthy WYSIWYG text editors around if you just want something simple for writing.

Vine Linux 6.3 (Malartic-Lagraviere). Vine Linux 6.3 has following features (highlights): update the software collection; update Linux kernel to 3.4.106 (latest LTS kernel 3.4.y); bundle newer software - Firefox 33.0, Thunderbird 24.0, Sylpheed 3.4.2, LibreOffice 4.3.5, OpenSSL 1.0.1; stability improvement; improvements of look and feel; newer hardware support; new user-friendly tools. Since this is not a commercial version (Vine Linux CR), non-free applications and fonts are not included on the CD/DVD. Instead of proprietary ATOX X/Wnn7/Wnn8/VJE Japanese inputs and Ricoh/Dynacomware fonts, this FTP edition contains Anthy and free TrueType fonts.

Red Hat's OpenShift Commons invites open-source programmers and users to work on its OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service cloud.

Juniper and Canonical have partnered on Contrail Cloud Platform, an OpenStack-based SDN and NFV solution for carriers that is based on open standards, according to the companies.

The cheapest and simplest Raspberry Pi robot you're going to find on the market. Is it a perfect entry-level kit?

Can a Linux company and a networking power join forces to make an open-source cloud and software defined network that's good enough for telecommunications data-centers? Canonical and Juniper think so.

Midokura open-sourced MidoNet in November 2014, in a bid to make it more accessible and encourage broader developer participation. In the three months since then, Midokura's development process for MidoNet has evolved somewhat.

Magicka is a very popular action/adventure game that is set to have a sequel soon, and the likelihood of Magicka 2 coming to Linux just went up.

The release this week of Docker's Machine, Swarm and Compose orchestration tools will help protect against vendor lock-in on the open source containerization platform, Docker says.

GNOME 3.16 promises to be one of the best releases made so far and numerous changes have been already announced. The new notification system is one of them and it's definitely something to look forward to.

Vagrant is an highly efficient tool for managing virtual machines via CLI. This increases your and your team's productivity and flexibility. This tutorial will cover the installation of Vagrant on Ubuntu 14.10, explain the basics of this great virtualisation tool and will guide you trough the creation of your first Vagrant instance.