Canonical's Mir 2018 Plans Include Some Potentially Interesting IoT Features

Most interesting is the third item for Mir next year... It will certainly be interesting to see what comes of these "keen opportunities" since right now Mir is basically evolving into a glorified Wayland compositor. Alan also said "maybe" of seeing the Mir 1.0 release in 2018.

Mir: 2017 end of year review

2017 was a wild year for Mir: when Canonical withdrew from a major downstream project (Unity8) the future of Mir seemed uncertain. And, indeed, we needed to re-organize and re-plan.

But at the end of 2017, Mir is doing well: We’ve a new website, released a raft of new functionality, and the last two releases of Mir have been made available on both Ubuntu and Fedora.

Maybe it's you? Nope, Ubuntu Trusty tells us.

No, it is not me. Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr shows, once again, that it is the undisputed king of professionalism and quality, and it is the best Ubuntu ever made. What happened more recently is just slow asphyxiation of enthusiasm and happiness. So there you have it. The same laptop, the same user, the same method, a different distro.

After testing this system, I am amazed by how much the recent editions have regressed, across the board. Stability, performance, overall quality, fine details, hardware support, even the basics. Better yet, not only is Trusty better than all these other distros, it's also better than its former self! It has improved - less memory, less CPU, more stability! And all these other distros ... Well. It is appalling and alarming. It is disheartening. You can read those reviews and weep. One thing is sure. Aardvark and friends take the entire distroscape back to 2005. Question asked, answer provided. See you around.

Canonical pulls Ubuntu update after BIOS corruption issue affecting laptops

Canonical has pulled the release of its Ubuntu 17.10 distribution of Linux after many users found that the release had corrupted the BIOS on their laptops.

Canonical temporarily disables Ubuntu 17.10 download

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu has seemingly disabled downloads of its latest release, Ubuntu 17.10. Those attempting to grab the build will have the option of downloading the 16.04 LTS release but when scrolling to the new 17.10 release, it says that users are "discouraged" from using this version due to a bug which corrupts the BIOS on many Lenovo laptops.

Ubuntu 17.10 corrupts the BIOS on some Lenovo, Toshiba and Acer laptops

Following reports of BIOS corruption on a number of Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba laptops, Canonical is now discouraging users from downloading Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" from its website.

The bug, which is labeled "critical" by the team behind Ubuntu, can cripple the BIOS on over 20 devices, as acknowledged in this report. This issue also affects other versions of the popular Linux-based distribution, including the older Ubuntu 16.04 "Xenial Xerus" -- in the "OEM" and "HWE-EDGE" packages.

Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S10E42 – Tangy Orange Chairs - Ubuntu Podcast

Security Team Weekly Summary: December 21, 2017

The Security Team weekly reports are intended to be very short summaries of the Security Team’s weekly activities.

UBports Releases Updated Ubuntu Touch (OTA-3)

While Ubuntu Touch may be dead to Canonical, UBports continues to work where the convergence / Unity 8 developers left off with trying to make this mobile platform a reality.

As an early Christmas present, the UBports team released Ubuntu Touch OTA-3. This update brings some new features and bug fixes atop the Ubuntu Touch 15.04 base. New features include some new packages requested by the community, the default start page and search provider was changed over to DuckDuckGo, and not displaying the keyboard when working with multiple windows. This over-the-air update has also removed the Ubuntu Store from the App Scope.

Ubuntu News: No 32-bit Support For Ubuntu Server 18.04, Ubuntu 17.10 Links Pulled, New Spotify Snap

This week has been pretty eventful when it comes to the developments taking place in the world of Ubuntu. So, I thought I’d tell all about them, in brief, to keep you updated. Let’s take a look:

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) Server Edition Won't Ship with a 32-Bit ISO

Canonical engineer Josh Powers posted a message today on the ubuntu-server mailing list to confirm the removal of the 32-bit (i386) daily ISO images of Ubuntu Server starting with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Following in the footsteps of Ubuntu Desktop, the Ubuntu Server official flavor won't be shipping with 32-bit ISO images when the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system will be released next year in April. Therefore, you won't be able to install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS as a server, nor desktop OS on an old 32-bit computer.

"After no objections or issues were brought up on the ubuntu-server mailing list, I am requesting the removal of the Ubuntu Server i386 daily images starting with 18.04. As with the desktop i386 ISO change, there are no other changes requested to d-i, mini.iso, archive, or the upgrade paths," writes Josh Powers on the mailing list.

Spotify made it easier to install its app on Linux

Spotify now available as a Snap for Linux

If you are a user of Linux on the desktop, you know it can be quite annoying when you can’t use a popular app or service that is available on other platforms. While Windows and Mac certainly have more access to premium apps, Linux is no slouch. In fact, Linux is getting more and more love from developers nowadays. For example, Linux-based operating systems have official support for programs like Dropbox, Skype, and Spotify.

Spotify Made it Simpler to Install Its App on Linux

Ubuntu Insights: Canonical welcome Spotify as a snap for Linux users

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, is happy to announce that Spotify, the world’s leading music streaming service, is now available as a snap, the universal Linux app packaging format.

By launching as a snap, it enables users to enjoy Spotify natively on all Linux distributions that support snaps including Linux Mint, Manjaro, Debian, OpenSUSE, Solus as well as Ubuntu.

Canonical Makes It Easier to Install Spotify for Linux on Ubuntu, Other Distros

Canonical announced today that Spotify has launched its Spotify for Linux desktop client as a Snap universal binary package for all supported Ubuntu Linux releases and other Snappy-enabled GNU/Linux distros.

Running the official Spotify for Linux client on a GNU/Linux distro like Ubuntu or Solus isn't all that easy these days, but with the availability of the Snap universal binary package across more and more distros, you can install the app with a single command on any Snappy-powered system, thanks to the Snapcraft team over at Canonical.

Intel SPI Driver in Ubuntu 17.10 Release Might Corrupt Your Laptop Bios

Canonical has pulled their latest Ubuntu 17.10 release because there are many reports of Lenovo and other brand laptops experiencing corrupted BIOS when the OS is installed. At this time it looks like the Intel SPI driver is the culprit. Once a new kernel can be compliled without these drivers the OS will be made available for download once again. If you downloaded this before this morning then you shouldn't install on your laptop. In some cases only a motherboard replacement will fix the bad BIOS. Beware.

Latest Ubuntu release pulled due to BIOS corruption bug

A bug report said, "Many users are reporting issues with BIOS corruption with 17.10. This seems to stem from enabling the Intel-SPI-* drivers in the kernel, which don't appear to be ready for use on end-user machines."