Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) Enters Final Freeze Ahead of October 17th Release

As of October 10th, the Ubuntu 19.10 release is officially in Final Freeze, the last step of its development stage, which means that only release critical bugs affecting the ISO images or the installers will be accepted in the archives. Release Candidate images are also now available for testing to ensure an uneventful and smooth release. "We will shut down cronjobs and spin some RC images late Friday or early Saturday once the archive and proposed-migration have settled a bit, and we expect everyone with a vested interest in a flavour (or two) and a few spare hours here and there to get to testing to make sure we have another uneventful release next week," said Adam Conrad.

KDE neon 5.17

KDE neon 5.17 is out. You can upgrade your existing KDE neon User Edition install or install fresh from an ISO image or run the Docker image. Featuring Plasma 5.17 it is packed full of new features according to OMG Ubuntu.

Games: The Universim, POSTAL 4: No Regerts, RPCS3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Games Archive and X-Plane

• City building god sim 'The Universim' will now let you launch rockets with satellites into orbit

  The Universim is slowly turning into a city building god game truly worth playing, with the Sky High update now available expanding the game into planetary orbit. Being able to actually launch things into space is a stepping stone towards visiting other planets. Currently, the Cosmodrome will allow you to send up Defence Satellites that will enable ground to air defences for your Defence Towers. So now you have a reasonable chance to take down meteors and other threats from space.

• POSTAL 4: No Regerts released into Early Access, Linux version likely in future

  Running With Scissors are back, with a surprise release of POSTAL 4: No Regerts on Steam and a Linux version is looking likely in future. Naturally, someone posted on Steam to ask about the possibility of Linux support. This is something that happens a lot but here it's a bit different. RWS already supported Linux with multiple previous Postal releases.

• PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 is coming along quickly with their August progress report up

  Delayed as usual due to the progress reports being done by contributors, the team working on the PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 have another post up to show off more incredible progress. To start with, they have again changed how they list what games are playable and not with the removal of games that won't work due to servers being shut down. They said even if RPCS3 becomes 100% complete, they wouldn't work unless someone accurately emulated and hosted servers for them. With that in mind, they also did a lot of testing of games that previously only went in-game to see how many are now properly playable. Thanks to all the testing, the Playable category has jumped up to 1,426 titles!

• Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition arrives on Linux on November 5th

  Feral Interactive have finally confirmed the Linux release date for Shadow of the Tomb Raider after announcing it for Linux back in November last year. They've said today it will officially release as "Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition" on November 5th! Looking around at dates, technically this is the earliest we've seen any of the newer Tomb Raider series arrive on Linux. The first Tomb Raider came to Linux in 2016 after an original 2013 release, with Rise of the Tomb Raider arriving on Linux 2018 after an original 2016 release and we get the final game in the reboot trilogy next month!

• The Internet Archive website has added another 2,500 MS-DOS games

  Another point scored for game preservation. The Internet Archive have added another 2,500 MS-DOS games you can play right in your browser. In their official announcement, they said that while they've added a few more to their collection here and there this is the biggest yet and it ranges from "tiny recent independent productions to long-forgotten big-name releases from decades ago".

• 2,500 More MS-DOS Games Playable at the Archive

  Another few thousand DOS Games are playable at the Internet Archive! Since our initial announcement in 2015, we’ve added occasional new games here and there to the collection, but this will be our biggest update yet, ranging from tiny recent independent productions to long-forgotten big-name releases from decades ago.

• Vulkan support is not far away now for the flight sim X-Plane 11, physics & flight model updates coming

  X-Plane 11, the detailed flight simulator is finally closing in on an update that will bring in Vulkan support as detailed in a new developer blog post.

7 Linux Applications You Should Start Using Right Now

Linux used to be the go-to operating system among the tech-savvy crowd. Because back in the day, it was a lot more demanding to use. Now Linux has modern, user-friendly distributions such as Ubuntu and Mint. The application repository they have in common has matured too. Customizing it to your heart’s desire is now easier than ever before. And this should be the end goal — to mold the OS into a tool that’s custom-tailored to your needs. So if you haven’t already, consider installing the following types of applications.