• BREAKING: Stable Galaxy Note 8 Android Pie update released

• Moto G6 and G6 Play are getting the Android Pie update, starting in Brazil

• Nokia 6 and Nokia 8 Android Pie update in India to be rolled out soon

• Asus Zenfone Max Pro M2 receives Android Pie Update in India

• Huawei P30 series screen resolutions and Android Versions uncovered

• 5 best compass apps for Android!

• These paid Android games are now free for a limited time, grab them while you can!

After addressing Android support in KF5Notifications another fairly generic task that so far required Android specific code is next: opening files. Due to the security isolation of apps and the way the native “file dialog” works on Android this is quite different from other platforms, which makes application code a bit ugly. This can be fixed in Qt though.

• For some reason, these 4 smartphone OEMs have less NFC support now than in 2015

• Freedom launches ZTE Z557 Android Go smartphone

• Google Decides Android Things Will Only Be for Smart Speakers and Displays

• Eleven Sports launches on Amazon Fire Sticks and Android TVs

• Where to buy the Honor 8X

• Android 9 Brings Crippling Bug To Chrome OS 72: What You Need To Know

• Full Circle Magazine: Full Circle Weekly News #121

• Debian on the Raspberryscape: Great news!

  I already mentioned here having adopted and updated the Raspberry Pi 3 Debian Buster Unofficial Preview image generation project. As you might know, the hardware differences between the three families are quite deep ? The original Raspberry Pi (models A and , as well as the Zero and Zero W, are ARMv6 (which, in Debian-speak, belong to the armel architecture, a.k.a. EABI / Embedded ABI). Raspberry Pi 2 is an ARMv7 (so, we call it armhf or ARM hard-float, as it does support floating point instructions). Finally, the Raspberry Pi 3 is an ARMv8-A (in Debian it corresponds to the ARM64 architecture).

  [...]

  As for the little guy, the Zero that sits atop them, I only have to upload a new version of raspberry3-firmware built also for armel. I will add to it the needed devicetree files. I have to check with the release-team members if it would be possible to rename the package to simply raspberry-firmware (as it's no longer v3-specific).

  Why is this relevant? Well, the Raspberry Pi is by far the most popular ARM machine ever. It is a board people love playing with. It is the base for many, many, many projects. And now, finally, it can run with straight Debian! And, of course, if you don't trust me providing clean images, you can prepare them by yourself, trusting the same distribution you have come to trust and love over the years.

• SVT-AV1 Already Seeing Nice Performance Improvements Since Open-Sourcing

  It was just a few weeks ago that Intel open-sourced the SVT-AV1 project as a CPU-based AV1 video encoder. In the short time since publishing it, there's already been some significant performance improvements. 

  Since the start of the month, SVT-AV1 has added multi-threaded CDEF search, more AVX optimizations, and other improvements to this fast evolving AV1 encoder. With having updated the test profile against the latest state as of today, here's a quick look at the performance of this Intel open-source AV1 video encoder.

• Find a LibreOffice community member near you!

  Hundreds of people around the world contribute to each new version of LibreOffice, and we’ve interviewed many of them on this blog. Now we’ve collected them together on a map (thanks to OpenStreetMap), so you can see who’s near you, and find out more!

• What I learned during my internship with the FSF tech team

  Hello everyone, I am Hrishikesh, and this is my follow-up blog post concluding my experiences and the work I did during my 3.5 month remote internship with the FSF. During my internship, I worked with the tech team to research and propose replacements for their network monitoring infrastructure.

  A few things did not go quite as planned, but a lot of good things that I did not plan happened along the way. For example, I planned to work on GNU LibreJS, but never could find enough time for it. On the other hand, I gained a lot of system administration experience by reading IRC conversations, and by working on my project. I even got to have a brief conversation with RMS!

  My mentors, Ian, Andrew, and Ruben, were extremely helpful and understanding throughout my internship. As someone who previously had not worked with a team, I learned a lot about teamwork. Aside from IRC, we interacted weekly in a conference call via phone, and used the FSF's Etherpad instance for live collaborative editing, to take notes.

  The first two months were mostly spent studying the FSF's existing Nagios- and Munin-based monitoring and alert system, to understand how it works. The tech team provided two VMs for experimenting with Prometheus and Nagios, which I used throughout the internship. During this time, I also spent a lot of time reading about licenses, and other posts about free software published by the FSF.

• We're Hiring: Techie Bookkeeper

  Software Freedom Conservancy is looking for a new employee to help us with important work that supports our basic operations. Conservancy is a nonprofit charity that promotes and improves free and open source software projects. We are home to almost 50 projects, including Git, Inkscape, Etherpad, phpMyAdmin, and Selenium (to name a few). Conservancy is the home of Outreachy, an award winning diversity intiative, and we also work hard to improve software freedom generally. We are a small but dedicated staff, handling a very large number of financial transactions per year for us and our member projects.

• Here We Go Again: 127 Million Accounts Stolen From 8 More Websites

  Several days ago, a hacker put 617 million accounts from 16 different websites for sale on the dark web. Now, the same hacker is offering 127 million more records from another eight websites.

• Hacker who stole 620 million records strikes again, stealing 127 million more

  A hacker who stole close to 620 million user records from 16 websites has stolen another 127 million records from eight more websites, TechCrunch has learned.

  The hacker, whose listing was the previously disclosed data for about $20,000 in bitcoin on a dark web marketplace, stole the data last year from several major sites — some that had already been disclosed, like more than 151 million records from MyFitnessPal and 25 million records from Animoto. But several other hacked sites on the marketplace listing didn’t know or hadn’t disclosed yet — such as 500px and Coffee Meets Bagel.

  The Register, which first reported the story, said the data included names, email addresses and scrambled passwords, and in some cases other login and account data — though no financial data was included.

• Vendors Issue Patches for Linux Container Runtime Flaw Enabling Host Attacks

• How did the Dirty COW exploit get shipped in software?

  An exploit code for Dirty COW was accidentally shipped by Cisco with product software. Learn how this code ended up in a software release and what this vulnerability can do.

In this article, we will share 10 cool software projects to try in Fedora distribution. All the apps or tools covered here can be found in COPR repository. However, before we move any further, let’s briefly explain COPR.

• Extensions in Firefox 66

  I want to start by highlighting an important change that has a major, positive impact for Firefox users. Starting in release 66, extensions use IndexedDB as the backend for local storage instead of a JSON file. This results in a significant performance improvement for many extensions, while simultaneously reducing the amount of memory that Firefox uses.

  This change is completely transparent to extension developers – you do not need to do anything to take advantage of this improvement. When users upgrade to Firefox 66, the local storage JSON file is silently migrated to IndexedDB. All extensions using the storage.local() API immediately realize the benefits, especially if they store small changes to large structures, as is true for ad-blockers, the most common and popular type of extension used in Firefox.

  The video below, using Adblock Plus as an example, shows the significant performance improvements that extension users could see.

• Jingle Smash: Geometry and Textures

  I’m not a designer or artist. In previous demos and games I’ve used GLTFs, which are existing 3D models created by someone else that I downloaded into my game. However, for Jingle Smash I decided to use procedural generation, meaning I combined primitives in interesting ways using code. I also generated all of the textures with code. I don’t know how to draw pretty textures by hand in a painting tool, but 20 years of 2D coding means I can code up a texture pretty easily.

  Jingle Smash has three sets of graphics: the blocks, the balls, and the background imagery. Each set uses its own graphics technique.

Out of 446 eligible voters, 46 more openSUSE Members than last elections, only 231 — 6 fewer than last elections — chose to cast their votes, leaving last spring’s elections holding the record both for most ballots cast and largest percentage of Members who took enough interest in openSUSE to take the time to cast their votes.

Incumbent Christian Boltz aka cboltz garnered the most votes with a total of 141 votes — more than half of those who voted — confirming the Community’s confidence in him. He was followed closely by Marina Latini aka deneb_alpha with 119 votes — also more than half of the active voters — and Dr. Axel Braun aka DocB with 104 votes, almost half.

As incumbent, Christian is already sitting on the Board and will continue his duties for his second two-year term. Marina and Axel are expected to join him and take their seats for their first two-year terms sometime within the next couple of weeks.

While the current Wayland/Weston release cycle is a bit behind schedule, it has allowed time for another addition to be made to the Weston 6.0 compositor.

Weston 6.0 now has support for the XDG-Shell stable protocol where as previously it only exposed the XDG-Shell v6 unstable protocol. The two versions of the XDG-Shell protocol are quite close so it wasn't much work involved, but newer Wayland-supported apps like the MPV video player are explicitly looking for the stable version of the protocol.

Also: The Linux Vendor Firmware Service Has Served Up More Than 5 Million Firmware Files

Latte Dock v0.8.6 has been released containing important fixes and improvements!

Also: The Long Road to Long-Term Goals

Linux Mint 19.1 XFCE is the latest release of Linux Mint 19.1 that uses lightweight Xfce desktop environment 4.12. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop experience more comfortable.

The Update Manager is able to list mainline kernels and to show their support status. The Software Sources tool was given a new look. Similar to the welcome screen, it’s now using an Xapp sidebar and a headerbar. The Language Settings and the Input Methods are now two separate applications and the user interface for the Input Methods tool was revamped. It uses an icon sidebar and now shows a dedicated page for each supported language.

Based on Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS an powered by Linux Kernel 4.19, Linux Mint 19.1 Xfce edition also include pre-installed applications Thunar File Manager 1.6.15, Mozilla Firefox 65, Archive Manager 3.28, Gnome Disk 3.28, Hexchat 2.14, Thundebird 60, GIMP 2.8, Transmission Torrent Client 2.92, Rythmbox Music Manager 3.4.2, VLC Player 3.0.4, Xfce Dictionary 0.8, Libre Office Suite 6.0.6, Xfce Terminal 0.8, GNOME Fonts 3.28, Synaptic package Manager 0.84.

• VirtualBox: resize hard disk - with modifyhd and snapshots

• 4 Methods To Change The HostName In Linux

• How to install Kitematic on Pop!_OS

• How to set up a DHCP server with Ubuntu server 18.04

• Etcher – Write .iso’s to USB sticks in 3 clicks

• [Update: Pulled] T-Mobile's Android 9 Pie updates for Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ arrive with RCS Universal Profile in tow

• Poll: Is Your Phone on Android Pie Yet?

• Galaxy Note 8 full Android Pie update now rolling out in Eastern Europe

• OnePlus announces Google Duo integration for all its devices with Android 9.0 Pie update

• Nokia 6 and Indian Nokia 8 to get Android Pie next week

• Nokia's most exciting Android phone ever just leaked

• Nintendo Switch emulator released for Android

• There’s a Nintendo Switch emulator for Android out in the wild

• Eleven Sports adds Amazon Fire TV stick and Android TV apps

• Where is the best place to buy the Honor View 20?

• New Samsung smartwatch, fitness trackers, and earbuds all confirmed in major leak

• Android Messages vs SMS Organizer: How Do They Differ

• Google Chrome for Android is testing a new grid layout for tabs

• Happy Australian Birthday to Google’s Android as today marks 10 years since the HTC Dream release

• 10 years on, what was your first Android phone?

• Android Circuit: Galaxy S10 To Launch February 20th, On Sale Early March, Here Are The New Features

• System76 refreshes Serval WS Linux laptop with 9th Gen Intel Core CPUs and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20-Series GPUs

  Nowadays, many consumers put a premium on having a thin and light computer. This is understandable, as no one wants to lug around a big and heavy notebook. With that said, some people only care about raw power -- weight and size be damned. System76's Serval WS is one such laptop -- insanely powerful, but boy howdy, it is a biggun! The 15-inch model weighs 7.5 pounds, while the 17-inch variant tips the scales at 8.6!

  Today, System76 launches a refreshed version of the Linux laptop. It features desktop-class 9th Generation Intel Core processors, which is cool, but arguably more intriguing is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20-Series GPU options -- 2060, 2070, or 2080. Yeah, this refreshed Serval WS is an absolute beast!

• HP Chromebook X2 down to $399 for My Best Buy members

  Wow. I just heard from Scott, an About Chromebooks reader, who tipped me off to a $200 savings on the HP Chromebook X2. This is specifically for my Best Buy members as part of an early access President’s Day sale, which is open to all consumers starting Friday. Normally priced at $599.00, the HP Chromebook X2 is down to $399 until midnight tonight, central time.

• Samsung Announces Galaxy Tab S5e Tablet with Android 9 Pie, Ultra Thin Design

  Samsung announced today the Galaxy Tab S5e tablet with a stylish and versatile design, and components to help you enjoy the best possible content from your favorite streaming services.
  The Galaxy Tab S5e tablet is built for connectivity and entertainment, says Samsung, which means that it comes with support for 4K UHD (Ultra HD) content so you won't have to make any compromise when watching your favorite TV shows and movies. Its 10.5-inch Edge to Edge Super AMOLED display features 16:10 screen ratio and UHD 4K (3840x2160) at 60fps video playback.

• Windows 10 Will Finally Offer Easy Access to Linux Files [Ed: No, this is more WSL entrapment. They try to prevent people from using proper GNU/Linux with the actual kernel, either standalone or dual-boot. This is also about surveillance on one's files, keys, keystrokes, everything.]

• Zowe Makes Mainframe Evergreen [Ed: Swapnil Bhartiya greenwashing and openwashing 2-in-1]

  Zowe also offers a vendor-agnostic experience allowing users to mix and match tooling and technologies. It provides interoperability, through the latest web technologies, products, and solutions from multiple vendors, and it allows developers to use the familiar, industry-standard, open source tools to access mainframe resources and services.

• The ibmvnic driver with SR-IOV is now supported by SLES 12 and SLES 15 on IBM POWER9 processor-based systems

  The ibmvnic driver enables PowerVM Single Root I/O Virtualizations (SR-IOV) for improved network capabilities including reduced systems processor utilization, decreased network latency, and enforcement of network Quality of Service.

• Hollow Knight: Silksong Announced for PC, Mac, Linux, and Switch

  The new sequel is coming to Windows PC, Mac, and Linux, with no release date. Featured above, you can view the announcement trailer for the game.

• Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus Now Available for Mac, Linux

  The game launched for Windows PC via Steam back in November, and the developers have now updated the game with official Mac and Linux support. The developers have also teased some free content coming soon, including new Troops, additional maps, a new Discipline, and multiple difficulty settings. You can read the full patch notes here.

• Retro FPS Dusk is out on Mac and Linux

  Mac and Linux users can now get cracking in Dusk, a retro FPS inspired by classics like Doom and Quake.

• Archman – KDE Plasma Edition 2019.02 – Kararlı Sürüm Hazır

• ARCOLINUX -D -B 19.2

  Now the iso , packages and tutorials for Xmonad have been created, it was time to make the tutorials about deepin. It was an ideal time to take another look at deepin and see what we can improve before making the tuto’s.

  Deepin can be a very eye-candy desktop just of the box. With some minor tweaking you can change it to your liking.

• ArcoLinux 19.02 Run Through

  In this video, we look at ArcoLinux 19.02. Enjoy!

• Mir 1.1.1 - release candidate

  I’ve just kicked off the process for a bugfix release of Mir. An initial release-candidate is currently building in ppa:mir-tream/rc.

• Mir 1.1.1 RC1 Has Fixes For PostmarketOS, Demo Shells Using Wayland

  Mir 1.1 was released back in December as the first post-1.0 feature update while now preparing for release is the Mir 1.1.1 maintenance milestone.

  Canonical's Alan Griffiths has tagged the Mir 1.1.1 release candidate today as the newest bug-fix release. Highlights include:

  - Fixing issues with PostmarketOS support, particularly around its usage of the musl C library rather than Glibc. PostmarketOS is the mobile Linux distribution derived from Alpine Linux that's been having a steady following in recent times and running on the Nexus 5/7, Nokia N9, and other devices.

• The developer’s dilemma: Choosing between Go and Rust

  If you were to make a list of important programming languages that have appeared in the past decade, Go and Rust would almost certainly be featured on it.

  Similarly, if you were to sit down and think about which programming languages are best suited to developing secure, microservices-friendly frameworks or applications today, you might find yourself debating between Go and Rust.

  If you’re struggling to decide whether Go or Rust is a better language for your development needs, keep reading. This post compares Go and Rust, explaining how they are similar, how they’re different, and what each can do for you.

• pprint.isrecursive: Check if object requires recursive representation

• Performance benchmark on mdds R-tree

  I must say that I am overall very pleased with the performance of R-tree. I can already envision various use cases where R-tree will be immensely useful. One area I’m particularly interested in is spreadsheet application’s formula dependency tracking mechanism which involves tracing through chained dependency targets to broadcast cell value changes. Since the spreadsheet organizes its data in terms of row and column positions which is 2-dimensional in nature, R-tree can probably be useful for speeding things up in that area.

• In memory of Monty Hall

  To explore this a bit further and to have a nice exercise with R, a small simulation of games is created.