The UBports community has released this past weekend the second OTA (Over-the-Air) update to supported Ubuntu Phone devices, bringing support for some old devices that were requested by the community, as well as a set of new features.

• Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" Preview Part 6: The New Tweaks

  Artful will have a new GNOME Tweak Tool, version 3.26, which is called Tweaks now. This tool provides you capability to alter your desktop, such as moving control buttons from left to right, adjusting options, or disabling/enabling Shell extensions. Take a look to its new stuffs below.

• You'll Soon Be Able to Run GNOME 3.26 Apps on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS via Snaps

  Don't know if you recall, but we told you that Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system, is working on a packaging more GNOME apps as Snaps for Ubuntu and other Snappy-enabled distros.

  Well, it turns out that they've been working on a Platform Snap for the recently released GNOME 3.26 desktop environment, which should allow users of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system to run the latest apps from the GNOME 3.26 Stack as Snaps, as well as developers to package their apps as Snaps.

  "We’ve been working on a Platform Snap for GNOME 3.26 to allow you to run the latest GNOME apps on Xenial as well as making Snaps for the new apps," reveals Will Cooke, Ubuntu Desktop Director at Canonical, in his latest weekly report. "This should be ready for testing soon and we’d appreciate some feedback."

• Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: September 22, 2017

  We’re less than a week away from Final Beta! It seems to have come round very quickly this cycle. Next week we’re at the Ubuntu Rally in New York City where we will be putting the finishing touches to the beta. In the meantime, here’s a quick rundown on what happened this week:

• Canonical Distribution of Kubernetes: Development Summary 2017.38

  In our current sprint we’ve started testing 1.8.0 in anticipation of the upstream release at the end of this month. We’re also testing with docker 1.13.1, which will soon become the default in CDK.

• Ubuntu Community Council 2017 election under way!

  The Ubuntu Community Council election has begun and ballots sent out to all Ubuntu Members. Voting closes September 27th at end of day UTC.

  The following candidates are standing for 7 seats on the council:

      Anis El Achèche – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/elacheche
      Leo Arias – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/elopio
      Danial Behzadi – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/danialbehzadi
      (incumbent) Marco Ceppi – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/marco-ceppi
      Aaron Honeycutt – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AaronHoneycutt
      Walter Lapchynksi – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/wxl
      Marius Quabeck – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/marius.quabeck
      José Antonio Rey – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/jose
      Larry Tavin – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/wildmanne39
      Iulian Udrea – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IulianUdrea
      Martin Wimpress – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MartinWimpress
      Naeil Zoueidi – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/nzoueidi

Greg Kroah-Hartman published on Wednesday new maintenance updates for various of the supported Linux kernel branches that he maintains, including the Linux 4.12 series, which appears to have reached end of life.

• There's Now a Windows 10 Installer for the Debian-Based Q4OS Linux Distribution

  The Q4OS development team is pleased to inform us today about the immediate availability for download of a Windows installer for their Debian-based GNU/Linux distribution, Q4OS, allowing users to create a dual-boot environment on their PCs.

  For those not familiar to Q4OS, it's an open-source and free Linux distro based on the popular Debian GNU/Linux operating system and built around the Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE), which resembles the look and feel of the old-school KDE 3.5 desktop environment.

  Created with an emphasis on Windows users who want to migrate to a free, open-source, and more secure operating system, Q4OS now lets them install the distribution alongside Microsoft Windows in an easy manner, without having to do any modifications to your personal computer or install any other apps.

• Ubuntu Dock Now Has Dynamic Transparency

  Ubuntu devs have listened to our gripe on the jarring contrast between GNOME 3.26's transparent top bar and the Ubuntu Dock.

• Ubuntu Dock Features Adaptive Transparency on Ubuntu 17.10, Here's How It Works

  Ubuntu contributor Didier Roche continues his development on the look and feel of the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system, and today he announced that Ubuntu Dock is getting adaptive transparency.

  Canonical confirmed that Ubuntu 17.10 would come with the GNOME 3.26 desktop environment by default, though the default session has suffered numerous modifications compared to the vanilla one to make things easier for those using the Unity interface on Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) or Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus).

  Most probably, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS users won't upgrade to Ubuntu 17.10, but we're sure Ubuntu 17.04 users will because it'll reach end of life in about four months from the moment of writing, sometime in January 2018. Therefore, Canonical wants to make their Unity to GNOME transition as painless as possible.

• LXD: Weekly Status #15

  This week has been pretty quiet as far as upstream changes since half the team was attending the Open Source Summity, the Linux Plumbers Conference and the Linux Security Summit in Los Angeles, California.