BSD: DragonFlyBSD's Latest and NetBSD 8.0 Release Candidate 1

• DragonFlyBSD Implements Part Of Linux's IRQ Subsystem, Improves DRM Driver Portability

  DragonFlyBSD has implemented a portion of the Linux IRQ subsystem within its kernel. The purpose of implementing some Linux IRQ subsystem functionality within this BSD kernel is to improve the portability of the Linux DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) driver code.

• NetBSD 8.0 Release Candidate 1

  The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 8.0 RC 1, the first release candidate for the upcoming NetBSD 8.0 release.

• Celebrating 25 Years Of Work, NetBSD 8.0 RC1 Officially Released With USB3 & UEFI

  Last week I wrote about the NetBSD 8.0 RC1 images being available and the changes coming in this big update to this popular BSD platform. This morning that official NetBSD 8.0 RC1 announcement was issued. With NetBSD 8.0 they are celebrating 25 years since the first official release of their operating system: NetBSD 0.8 was released back on 19 April 1993.

Games Leftovers

• The Once Very Promising Unvanquished Game Hasn't Seen A New Release In Two Years

  Going back several years one of our most favorite open-source games to monitor was the Unvanquished game project with its roots in the Tremulous game and built off the Daemon Engine that is a distant fork to ioquake3 by way of the also once very promising ET: XreaL work. Back in 2012 I considered Unvanquished to be one of the most promising open-source games and was pumping out decent artwork and visuals compared to many other open-source/indie games. The engine work they were doing while building off the ioquake3/XreaL lifting was also fascinating to watch.

• Pirates, Vikings, and Knights II updated with character dismemberment

  The free multiplayer action game Pirates, Vikings, and Knights II [Steam] was updated recently with a character dismemberment system and plenty more. [...] The latest update brings in the ability to slice and dice your enemies along with blood spray and explosion particles. On top of that, they've added the ability for players to call a vote, added a bunch of new animations, more achievements to hunt down and lots of general bug fixes.

• The fun top-down shooter State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem recently had a big content update

  For those who love their top-down shooters, State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem [Steam] is a pretty good one that recently had a big free content update.

• Fallout-inspired ATOM RPG has another big content update

  For those of you wanting another RPG to play, one perhaps a bit like the old Fallout games it seems ATOM RPG might be a good choice.

• All four chapters of the text-parser driven adventure game 'Snail Trek' are now on Linux

  Do you miss the days of the classic adventure games? The Snail Trek [Official Site] chapters might be exactly what you're after. They're all "bite-sized" adventures, with all four chapters each having between 20-90 minutes gameplay time depending on how you play. What makes them interesting, is that they're style liked early Sierra Online adventure games, including an interface that sees you typing out what to do, although it includes modern enhancements like auto-correct and auto-suggest to make it a little easier.

• The action-RPG 'Last Epoch' that's currently crowdfunding has a working Linux demo now

  . There's also now a Linux demo available.

• The huge 'Opportunity Update' for Surviving Mars is out

  Surviving Mars just got quite a bit nicer, thanks to the effort from Haemimont Games based on player feedback.

What's New in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

Have a look at the new features coming to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

today's leftovers

• Google looks set to offer Linux on Chromebooks in the next few months

  If that wasn't enough, a new commit in the parent Chromium OS offers "new device policy to allow Linux VMs on Chrome OS." Which about seals it. Read the accompanying Gerrit documentation and you get further confirmation: "At this time, in order for Linux VMs to run, the Finch experiment also needs to be enabled. After this feature is fully launched, the Finch control logic will be removed."

• xorg-server 1.19.99.905

  More bugfixes, and streams support for Xwayland. This will almost certainly be the last RC.

• X.Org Server 1.20 RC5 Released, Adds EGLStreams To Let NVIDIA Work With XWayland

  Adam Jackson of Red Hat today announced the X.Org Server 1.20 Release Candidate 5, which he believes will be the last test release before going gold. Most excitingly about this new release candidate is the merged support for allowing the NVIDIA proprietary driver to work with XWayland.

• Darktable Receives Support for Fujifilm X-H1 and Sony Alpha A7 Mark III Cameras

  darktable, the open-source and cross-platform RAW image editor supporting GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows operating systems, has been updated today to version 2.4.3. darktable 2.4.3 is a maintenance update that brings support for new digital cameras, including the recently released Fujifilm X-H1 and Sony Alpha A7 Mark III (includes noise profiles and white balance presets), as well as the Kodak EOS DCS 3, Olympus PEN E-PL9, Panasonic Lumix DC-GX9, and Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX1R II cameras. The update also brings noise profiles for the Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark III and Nikon D7500 digital cameras, and a bunch of new features like support for ratings and tags in the watermark module, a script to help users convert .dtyle files to the .xmp format, and support for building and installing noise tools.

 

• Compact action-RPG 'The Swords of Ditto' is out with day-1 Linux support

  The Swords of Ditto is the new compact action-RPG from developer onebitbeyond and publisher Devolver Digital and it just released, although it has a big flaw right now on Linux. Sadly, Devolver Digital didn't respond to our review request. Thankfully, the Linux heroes over at GOG sent over a copy for me.

• Q4OS Centaurus 3.2 - new testing release

  A new updated image of the Q4OS Centaurus testing live media has been just released, its core is based on the latest Debian Buster testing and Trinity Desktop 14.0.5 testing versions.

• Ubuntu Touch lives on in Purism's Librem 5 smartphone

  Not quite five years ago, Canonical tried to challenge Apple iOS and Google Android with Ubuntu Touch, an alternative smartphone Linux. Users, phone carriers, and the open-source community failed to support it, so Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth closed the door on Ubuntu Touch development. But, in open source, programs don't die until its last developer gives up on it. Purism and UBports have partnered to offer Ubuntu Touch on Purism's Librem 5 smartphone.

• Saying Something in April 2018

  Being able to bang on (that is to say, percussively test) Bionic Beaver has been a blast. I haven't done ISO testing this round. Instead, I've been using my Xubuntu desktop daily watching things break and have been watching apport file bugs. Doing so makes me realize that, frankly, I am not normal in terms of installed packages or workflow. I have quite a bit of LaTeX installed due to church work. I have many ham radio-related things installed. Audio production and video production packages are installed too. Yes, sometimes I break down and even use LibreOffice. I don't have the whole package archive installed but I have a visible chunk of it in place as I use many things in many ways.

• “Unpatchable” Nintendo Switch Bug Lets Hackers Fullfill Their Wild Dreams

• Spectral Monitoring for Drone Defense Applications

  The USRP Embedded Series platform uses the OpenEmbedded framework to create custom Linux distributions tailored to application specific needs. The default operating system is pre-installed with the UHD software API and a variety of third party development tools such as GNU Radio. Support for the RFNoC FPGA development framework enables deterministic computations for real-time and wideband signal processing.

• How To Make Your Phone Look Like Android P

• Friday Free Software Directory IRC meetup time: April 27th starting at 12:00 p.m. EDT/16:00 UTC

• PyRoMine uses NSA exploits to mine Monero and disable security features [Ed: NSA back doors in Microsoft Windows is a gift that keeps giving... to crackers]

  In an age where cryptomining software is beating out ransomware as the go-to for most hackers, a Python-based Monero miner is using stolen NSA exploits to gain an edge. In 2016 the Shadow Brokers leaked several hacking tools and zero-day exploits including ETERNALBLUE and ETERNALROMANCE  that targeted versions of Windows XP/Vista/8.1/7/10 and Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016 and took advantage of CVE-2017-0144 and CVE-2017-0145. Fortinet researchers spotted a malware dubbed “PyRoMine” which uses the ETERNALROMANCE exploit to spread to vulnerable Windows machines, according to an April 24 blog post. The malware isn't the first to mine cryptocurrency that uses previously leaked NSA exploits the malware is still a threat as it leaves machines vulnerable to future attacks because it starts RDP services and disables security services.