Android Low-Memory Killer--In or Out?

One of the jobs of the Linux kernel—and all operating system kernels—is to manage the resources available to the system. When those resources get used up, what should it do? If the resource is RAM, there's not much choice. It's not feasible to take over the behavior of any piece of user software, understand what that software does, and make it more memory-efficient. Instead, the kernel has very little choice but to try to identify the software that is most responsible for using up the system's RAM and kill that process. The official kernel does this with its OOM (out-of-memory) killer. But, Linux descendants like Android want a little more—they want to perform a similar form of garbage collection, but while the system is still fully responsive. They want a low-memory killer that doesn't wait until the last possible moment to terminate an app. The unspoken assumption is that phone apps are not so likely to run crucial systems like heart-lung machines or nuclear fusion reactors, so one running process (more or less) doesn't really matter on an Android machine.

today's leftovers

• Linux on things that don't normally have Linux

• The Fridge: Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 583

• Debian's Apt 1.9 Moves To Experimental, Coming To Ubuntu 19.10

  Debian's Apt packaging system was tagged today as 1.9.0 experimental and is already in the process of being added to Ubuntu 19.10. Apt 1.9 is working towards the eventual Apt 2.0 release.  The Apt 1.9 packaging system is a big update that does include API/ABI breakage, including necessary changes to the Python and Perl interfaces. Apt 1.9 is working towards an eventual Apt 2.0 release, but for now Apt 1.9 is what's being targeted by Ubuntu 19.10 and will be available via Debian experimental.

 

• Cloudflare’s new open-source project helps anyone obtain truly random numbers

  Randomness sits at the heart of everything we do online

• Algorand, a Proof-of-Stake Blockchain Company, Goes Open Source

  Algorand, a permission-less, proof-of-stake blockchain and technology company, announced that their node repository is now open source. Part of Algorand’s ongoing mission to develop and promote a decentralized blockchain, the company has made several of its projects open source over the past year, including a Verifiable Random Function and their Developer SDKs.

• Embracing open source could be a big competitive advantage for businesses

  As companies chase the transformational technologies that will deliver exponential returns, they should turn their attention from the “what” to the “how.” One type of software underpins many of the most exciting, cutting-edge innovations today, including AI, cloud, blockchain, and quantum computing: open source.

• Facebook researchers open-source AI Habitat for embodied AI research and introduced Replica, a dataset of indoor space reconstructions

• You Wouldn't Download A Nuclear Reactor, But Could You?

  Scratching an exceptionally surprising entry off that list is Transatomic, who late last year uploaded the design for their TAP-520 nuclear reactor to GitHub. That’s right, now anyone with git, some uranium, and a few billion dollars of seed money can have their very own Molten Salt Reactor (MSR). Well, that was the idea at least. So six months after Transatomic dumped a little under 100 MB worth of reactor documentation on GitHub, is the world any closer to forkable nuclear power?

• US chip firms seeking to ease ban on Huawei: report

  American processor companies are lobbying the government to ease the ban on supplying components to Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies, a report claims.

• U.S. chipmakers quietly lobby to ease Huawei ban: sources

  Executives from top U.S. chipmakers Intel and Xilinx Inc attended a meeting in late May with the Commerce Department to discuss a response to Huawei’s placement on the black list, one person said.

  The ban bars U.S. suppliers from selling to Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment company, without special approval, because of what the government said were national security issues.

Security Leftovers

• Microsoft & Pentagon are quietly hijacking US elections (by Lee Camp)

  Good news, folks! We have found the answer to the American rigged and rotten election system. The most trustworthy of corporations recently announced it is going to selflessly and patriotically secure our elections. It’s a small company run by vegans and powered by love. It goes by the name “Microsoft.” (You’re forgiven for never having heard of it.) The recent headlines were grandiose and thrilling: “Microsoft offers software tools to secure elections.” “Microsoft aims to modernize and secure voting with ElectionGuard.” Could anything be safer than software christened “ElectionGuard™”?! It has “guard” right there in the name. It’s as strong and trustworthy as the little-known Crotch Guard™ – an actual oil meant to be sprayed on one’s junk. I’m unclear as to why one sprays it on one’s junk, but perhaps it’s to secure your erections? (Because they’ve been micro-soft?)

• Netflix Researchers Just Fixed 4 Severe Linux And FreeBSD Vulnerabilities

• Netflix Uncovers TCP Bugs Within The Linux & FreeBSD Kernels

  As Netflix's first security bulletin for 2019, they warned of TCP-based remote denial of service vulnerabilities affecting both Linux and FreeBSD. These vulnerabilities are rated "critical" but already being corrected within the latest Git code.

Games: Project Zero Deaths, Littlewood, Ravenfield, ENCODYA

• Project Zero Deaths, a new free to play online platform shooter has Linux support

  A free game to start the day with, as the multiplayer platform shooter Project Zero Deaths recently entered Early Access and it includes Linux support.

• The peaceful building RPG 'Littlewood' is now available in Early Access with Linux same-day support

  Littlewood from developer Sean Young arrived on Steam in Early Access today and it looks like a very promising and peaceful RPG. Funded thanks to the help of nearly four thousand people on Kickstarter, Littlewood is set after the world has been saved and you're the hero tasked with rebuilding a town.

• Ravenfield, the fun single-player FPS now has a built-in map editor and destructible object support

  The amount of content being added into Ravenfield is quite impressive and now anyone can easily make their own maps for it, without the need of Unity. Early Access Build 16 went live recently, with a custom-made map editor that works on Linux and it's surprisingly easy to use. You no longer need the Ravenfield mod tools for Unity, making it far more accessible. It comes with all of the official Ravenfield props, meaning you can place down all sorts of things. When ready, it also has Steam Workshop support built in for you to publish it.

• Science Fiction point-and-click Encodya has a demo released, will go to Kickstarter

  The background story of the upcoming science fiction point and click game Encodya is the Kickstarter campaign for the animation short movie Robot Will Protect You. Getting over 23.000€ from an initial target of 8.750€, it reached several stretch goals, the last one being "We'll start developing a game!". And so they did... The game, named "ENCODYA", grabbed my attention in a Facebook group about point and click adventures. Drawn by the art, I asked if a Linux version would be possible. Indeed it was, and I was asked if I could test it. As it's using Unity, I expected it to a) fail on trying to play a video, b) show graphical problems or c) just run like the Windows version. First a) it was. But the author was eager to make the Linux version and a fix was attempted. After struggling with finding the right output options for the studio's intro video, we found that everything seems to be working just like on Windows. So Hooray for the game engines supporting the OS of our choice!