Ubuntu Pro is an optional security feature that Ubuntu LTS users can enrol in to get critical updates for more than 25,000 packages that would otherwise sit unpatched. If you use Ubuntu 24.04 LTS you will have seen Ubuntu Pro security updates in Software Updater (or when running apt commands). And you will have noticed you can't install those updates without having an Ubuntu Pro subscription. Businesses, or those with fleets of machines to manage, need to pay for an Ubuntu Pro/ESM plan, but Ubuntu Pro is entirely free for home users (on up to 5 computers) so the only […]

You're reading How to Hide Ubuntu Pro Updates in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

24 Dec 2024 5:04pm GMT

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 871 for the week of December 15 - 21, 2024. The full version of this issue is available here.

In this issue we cover:

• Vote Extension: 2024 Ubuntu Technical Board
• Welcome New Members and Developers
• Ubuntu Stats
• Hot in Support
• LXD: Weekly news #376
• Rocks Public Journal; 2024-12-20
• Other Meeting Reports
• Upcoming Meetings and Events
• UbuCon Latin America, Barranquilla 2024!
• LoCo Events
• Advanced Intel® Battlemage GPU features now available for Ubuntu 24.10
• Other Community News
• Ubuntu Cloud News
• Canonical News
• In the Blogosphere
• Other Articles of Interest
• Featured Audio and Video
• Updates and Security for Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, and 24.10
• And much more!

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

• Krytarik Raido
• Bashing-om
• Chris Guiver
• Wild Man
• Din Mušić
• Cristovao Cordeiro - cjdc
• And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

.

23 Dec 2024 9:15pm GMT

Technology procurement directly influences business success. The equipment you procure will determine how your teams deliver projects and contribute to your success. So what does being "well-equipped" look like in the world of Linux laptops? In this blog, we'll lay down the best practices for procurement professionals who have been tasked with procuring Linux laptops. […]

23 Dec 2024 5:35pm GMT

Technology procurement directly influences business success. The equipment you procure will determine how your teams deliver projects and contribute to your success. So what does being "well-equipped" look like in the world of Linux laptops?

In this blog, we'll lay down the best practices for procurement professionals who have been tasked with procuring Linux laptops. We'll cover how you can ensure you get the most out of your hardware, meet your compliance goals and ensure long-term success.

Defining Linux laptops

You've received your requirements, and your mission is to stay faithful to them. Whether you're procuring Linux laptops for specialized use cases (like AI and graphics), or general desktop use, it's important to define the term "Linux laptop".

Given that by design, Linux is hardware agnostic, you could describe nearly every laptop as a "Linux laptop." All you have to do is install Linux. However, given the diversity of Linux distributions, and the different support models available from both software and hardware vendors, the task goes beyond just hardware. Procuring Linux laptops requires taking the whole picture into account - starting with balancing hardware and software.

Balancing software and hardware

Hardware and software are interdependent: you need to find the right combination to reach your security, stability and performance goals. You'll likely find that the more specialized the use case, the more of a role hardware will play in your overall decision. That's because specialized hardware is less abundant. Whilst Linux broadens your horizons, your choice of distribution and support model will likely need to accommodate stricter performance requirements than you would find with a general desktop.

By choosing a Linux distribution that is proven to perform at a high-level across a range of different laptops, you can ensure that you retain a large degree of choice at the hardware level. That's where certification comes in.

The value of certification

Regardless of which Linux distribution you choose to use, you need to know that it works on the hardware in question, and can support your specific needs. This is where certification programs come in. Certification programs are when a publisher tests and optimizes their OS, in a laboratory setting, to ensure it can run smoothly on the hardware. This is especially important if your Linux laptops are for specialized use cases where there is no tolerance available for malfunctions.

Consistent experience

It's important to check how thorough an organization's certification program is, and that they're transparent about how they decide to award (or not) certification. For example, Ubuntu is certified for over 1,000 laptops, from consumer and corporate to prosumer and workstation devices. Canonical documents Ubuntu laptop compatibility and the thorough testing that each device receives in coverage guides, with certification being withheld in the case that a device does not meet the required standard. This ensures a consistent experience for all users.

Continuous performance

Certification is not just about creating a consistent experience across different devices, but ensuring they continue to perform as required, through updates and patching. Taking Canonical as an example, all Ubuntu certified laptops receive support, through patching and maintenance, until the specific Ubuntu release reaches end of life. In addition, through direct partnerships with Dell, Lenovo and HP, Canonical works proactively to meet device-specific needs. We work closely to fix any issues during the certification process, ensuring that each device performs as expected.

Demonstrating compliance

What makes a compliant Linux laptop? This is decided by the compliance requirements of your organization and the legislation that governs where you operate. It suffices to say that it's a non-starter if your laptop fails your compliance tests.

Certification is an important part of compliance. By using an OS that is supported on your specific laptop model, you reduce the risk of unexpected behaviors or processes that may give rise to vulnerabilities or exploits. Taking Ubuntu as an example, certification includes the testing of in-built security features like secure boot, to ensure they function as intended. This enables you to demonstrate that your chosen hardware-software combination is supported and secure.

In addition, Ubuntu long term support releases include security and patching for 5 years, with the option of extending this to 12 years with an Ubuntu Pro subscription and Legacy support add-on. This demonstrates the importance of selecting both the right distro and the right support model - it can make the difference between your laptop's end of life and continued high performance.

Beyond certification

Certification is an important part of the procurement picture, but it's important to also consider what the OS brings to the table outside of certification. Beyond keeping your laptops up and running, you'll need an OS that helps you achieve your goals at scale, across a fleet of laptops. This section will focus on manageability, and use Ubuntu to illustrate the key points you should consider.

Support for modern enterprise applications

Your Linux laptops have the ultimate goal of performing to the standards your end users expect. Beyond your OS running smoothly with your hardware, at the application level you should be on the lookout for a mature ecosystem of applications that can run natively on your OS.

Linux offers the flexibility to onboard new apps via APIs, however you should aim for this to be the exception, rather than the rule. It's simply not scalable for your administrators to spend time on onboarding and maintaining the core applications for a fleet of laptops with diverse needs. Additionally, non-native applications may not deliver the performance your end users expect.

By selecting an OS like Ubuntu, you gain access to an extensive ecosystem of over 36,000 toolchains and applications that span from productivity to coding, graphics and AI. Backed by both a community of users who are passionate about contributing to Ubuntu, and Canonical's long-term security maintenance and support, end users gain access to an ecosystem that runs natively and is stable.

Compliance hardening tools

Auditing, hardening and maintaining Linux systems in order to conform to standards like CIS or DISA-STIG is a time consuming, but essential process. Choosing a distro that incorporates tools for compliance and hardening will reduce both time and errors in the process. A distro that commits to these tools is likely to be a reliable long-term choice.

Taking Ubuntu as an example, Canonical tests its long-term support release against standards such as FIPS-140, NIST, DISA-STIG and Common Criteria, and offers automated hardening tools for these standards and others, through an Ubuntu Pro subscription.

IT management and governance

Going beyond individual laptops, your laptop fleet as a whole needs to be manageable from a governance perspective. Manually managing large fleets of laptops is inefficient, but also dangerous. A report by Verizon estimates that sysadmins are responsible for around 11% of data breaches, usually due to misconfigurations. Even with the most secure hardware in the world, without the right approach your Linux laptops will be vulnerable.

Your chosen OS must provide you with both visibility, in order to audit the current state of your devices, and manageability, allowing you to manage access and roll out updates at scale without large amounts of manual effort.

For example, Ubuntu supports identity management protocols such as Entra ID (for Microsoft) and AuthD, the open standard supported by the vast majority of enterprise and consumer identity providers. Ubuntu can also be integrated with your chosen device management platform, or you can use Canonical Landscape.

Minimal attack surface

The best distros will build on the hardware security built into your Linux laptops through regular firmware patching, and ensure that the software layer is secure by adopting a zero trust approach. Overall, your distro should actively work to reduce the attack surface of your Linux laptop, rather than increase it.

Taking Ubuntu as an example, you would encounter a set of pre-configurations designed to reduce the attack surface of your laptops to the bare minimum, by ensuring that any access to your Linux laptops is granted on a "need to know" basis, rather than by default. This includes automatic security patching, password hashing, no open ports (important for physical security) and restrictions on unprivileged users.

Long-term support: where compliance and performance meet

Ultimately, your Linux laptop needs to last the distance, which means remaining supported and secure. If either of these two criteria stop being true, then it usually means you've reached the end-of-life. When does this occur?

You should aim for a laptop that can realistically outlast your desired lifespan in order to give yourself some breathing room.

This is where the value of long term support comes into play. You should investigate the support offered by both your hardware vendor and your software provider, in order to calculate an accurate estimate. Ubuntu LTS releases are maintained for 5 years as standard, with the option of expanded security maintenance taking the total to up to 12 years. This includes security patching and maintenance for over 36,000 packages, wherever Ubuntu LTS is running - including on any certified devices.

Find out more about where to find the best Ubuntu laptops by visiting our certification page.

Further reading

• Find the best Ubuntu laptops on our certification page
• Discover Ubuntu: the world's favorite enterprise Linux distribution
• Learn about Ubuntu Pro: the most comprehensive subscription for open source software security

23 Dec 2024 5:35pm GMT

A new version of OpenShot video editor is out (a video editor which doesn't have the best reputation for stability hence the nickname OpenShut). OpenShot-more accurately, ChatGPT or similar-says "OpenShot 3.3 is here to transform your editing experience! This release is as powerful as it is beautiful […] Take your video editing to the next level with OpenShot 3.3. Download it now and see the difference". The headline change in OpenShot 3.3 is the use of a new default theme called Cosmic Dust. This apparently offers a "modern editing experience". The new theme looks nice, it I'm not sure it […]

You're reading OpenShot Video Editor Puts Out an Effortless, Seamless, Etc Update, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

22 Dec 2024 11:31pm GMT

My current playlist is this diorama of Lulu the Piggy channeling Tupac Shakur in a toy vending machine in the basement of New World Mall in Flushing Chinatown.

21 Dec 2024 11:06pm GMT

In deep mid-winter nothing beats curling up with a good book, in-front of a roaring fire - the crackle of all the unwanted Christmas tat your nearest and dearest bought you chars, melts, and burns providing a warm aural soundtrack. Thankfully, not everyone's feeling as seasonably irascible as I am - like the folks behind open-source ebook reader, manager, and converter Calibre. They've hand-wrapped a bug-fix update to help tide us over the festive season. Hurrah! As gifts that arrive in late December go, Calibre 7.23 is a modest one: more 'last-minute box of chocs' than something you really wanted […]

You're reading Bah Hum-bugfix - it's the Christmas Update to Calibre!, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

21 Dec 2024 2:37pm GMT

Introduction

The Linux Containers project maintains Long Term Support (LTS) releases for its core projects. Those come with 5 years of support from upstream with the first two years including bugfixes, minor improvements and security fixes and the remaining 3 years getting only security fixes.

This is now the third round of bugfix releases for LXC, LXCFS and Incus 6.0 LTS.

LXC

LXC is the oldest Linux Containers project and the basis for almost every other one of our projects. This low-level container runtime and library was first released in August 2008, led to the creation of projects like Docker and today is still actively used directly or indirectly on millions of systems.

Announcement: https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/lxc-6-0-3-lts-has-been-released/22402

Highlights of this point release:

• Added support for PuzzleFS images in lxc-oci
• SIGHUP is now propagated through lxc.init
• Reworked testsuite including support for 64-bit Arm

LXCFS

LXCFS is a FUSE filesystem used to workaround some shortcomings of the Linux kernel when it comes to reporting available system resources to processes running in containers. The project started in late 2014 and is still actively used by Incus today as well as by some Docker and Kubernetes users.

Announcement: https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/lxcfs-6-0-3-lts-has-been-released/22401

Highlights of this point release:

• Better detection of swap accounting support
• Reworked testsuite including support for 64-bit Arm

Incus

Incus is our most actively developed project. This virtualization platform is just over a year old but has already seen over 3500 commits by over 120 individual contributors. Its first LTS release made it usable in production environments and significantly boosted its user base.

Announcement: https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/incus-6-0-3-lts-has-been-released/22403

Highlights of this point release:

• OS info for virtual machines (incus info)
• Console history for virtual machines (incus console --show-log)
• Ability to create clustered LVM pools directly through Incus
• QCOW2 and VMDK support in incus-migrate
• Configurable macvlan mode (bridge, vepa, passthru or private)
• Load-balancer health information (incus network load-balancer info)
• External interfaces in OVN networks (support for bridge.external_interfaces)
• Parallel cluster evacuation/restore (on systems with large number of CPUs)
• Introduction of incus webui as a quick way to access the web interface
• Automatic cluster re-balancing
• Partial instance/volume refresh (incus copy --refresh-exclude-older --refresh)
• Configurable columns, formatting and refresh time in incus top
• Support for DHCP ranges in OVN (ipv4.dhcp.ranges)
• Support for changing the backing interface of a managed physical network
• Extended QEMU scriptlet (additional functions)
• New log file for QEMU QMP traffic (qemu.qmp.log)
• New get_instances_count function available in placement scriptlet
• Support for --format in incus admin sql
• Storage live migration for virtual machines
• New authorization scriptlet as an alternative to OpenFGA
• API to retrieve console screenshots
• Configurable initial owner for custom storage volumes (initial.uid, initial.gid, initial.mode)
• Image alias reuse on import (incus image import --reuse --alias)
• New incus-simplestreams prune command
• Console access locking (incus console --force to override)

What's next?

We're expecting another LTS bugfix release for the 6.0 branches in the first quarter of 2025.
We're also actively working on a new stable release (non-LTS) for LXCFS.
Incus will keep going with its usual monthly feature release cadence.

Thanks

This LTS release update was made possible thanks to funding provided by the Sovereign Tech Fund (now part of the Sovereign Tech Agency).

The Sovereign Tech Fund supports the development, improvement, and maintenance of open digital infrastructure. Its goal is to sustainably strengthen the open source ecosystem, focusing on security, resilience, technological diversity, and the people behind the code.

Find out more at: https://www.sovereign.tech

20 Dec 2024 5:39pm GMT

Canonical and Intel have announced they're making it easier for Ubuntu users to get cutting-edge drivers for Intel's newest discrete GPUs. The effort brings "ray tracing and improved machine learning performance" for Intel Arc B580 and B570 "Battlemage" discrete GPUs to users on Ubuntu 24.10, building on that releases' preexisting support for Intel Core Ultra Xe2 iGPUs. "For the past decade, Ubuntu has been one of the first distributions to enable the latest Intel architectures. Building upon this strong collaboration, Intel and Canonical are excited to announce the availability of an Ubuntu graphics preview for [24.10]", they say. Users with […]

You're reading Ubuntu Users Get Easier Access to Cutting-Edge Intel Drivers, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

20 Dec 2024 5:18pm GMT

One of the most critical gaps in traditional Large Language Models (LLMs) is that they rely on static knowledge already contained within them. Basically, they might be very good at understanding and responding to prompts, but they often fall short in providing current or highly specific information. This is where Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG) comes in; RAG addresses these critical gaps in traditional LLMs by incorporating current and new information that serves as a reliable source of truth for these models.

In our previous blog in this series on understanding and deploying RAG, we walked you through the basics of what this technique is and how it enhances generative AI models by utilizing external knowledge sources such as documents and extensive databases. These external knowledge bases enhance machine learning models for enterprise applications by providing verifiable, up-to-date information that reduces errors, simplifies implementation, and lowers the cost of continuous retraining.

In this second blog of our four-part series on RAG, we will focus on creating a robust enterprise AI infrastructure for RAG systems using open source tooling for your Gen AI project. This blog will discuss AI infrastructure considerations such as hardware, cloud services, and generative AI software. Additionally, it will highlight a few open source tools designed to accelerate the development of generative AI.

RAG AI infrastructure considerations

AI infrastructure encompasses the integrated hardware and software systems created to support AI and machine learning workloads to carry out complex analysis, predictions, and automation. The main challenge when introducing AI in any project is operating the underlying infrastructure stack that supports the models and applications. While similar to regular cloud infrastructures, machine learning tools require a tailored approach to operations to remain reliable and scalable, and the expertise needed for this approach is both difficult to find and expensive to hire. Neglecting proper operations can lead to significant issues for your company, models, and processes, which can seriously damage your image and reputation.

Building a generative AI project, such as a RAG system, requires multiple components and services. Additionally, it's important to consider the cloud environment for deployment, as well as the choice of operating system and hardware. These factors are crucial for ensuring that the system is scalable, efficient, secure, and cost-effective. The illustration below maps out a full-stack infrastructure delivery of RAG and Gen AI systems:

Let's briefly examine each of these considerations and explore their pros and cons.

Hardware

The hardware on which your AI will be deployed is critical. Choosing the right compute options-whether CPUs or GPUs-depends on the specific demands and use cases of your AI workloads. Considerations such as throughput, latency, and the complexity of applications are important; for instance, if your AI requires massive parallel computation and scalable inference, GPUs may be necessary. Additionally, your chosen storage hardware is important, particularly regarding read and write speeds needed for accessing data. Lastly, the network infrastructure should also be carefully considered, especially in terms of workload bandwidth and latency. For example, a low-latency and high-bandwidth network setup is essential for applications like chatbots or search engines

Clouds

Cloud infrastructure provides computing power, storage, and scalability, and meets the demands of AI workloads. There are multiple types of cloud environments - including private, public, and bare-metal deployments - and each one has its pros and cons. For example, bare-metal infrastructure offers high performance for computing and complete control over security. However, managing and scaling a bare-metal setup can be challenging. In comparison, public cloud deployments are currently very popular due to their accessibility, but these infrastructures are owned and managed by public cloud providers. Finally, private cloud environments provide enhanced control over data security and privacy compared to public clouds.

The good thing is that you can relatively easily blend these different elements of the cloud together into hybrid cloud environments that offer the pros of each one while covering the flaws that single-environment cloud setups may present.

Operating system

The operating system (OS) plays a crucial role in managing AI workloads, serving as the foundational layer for overseeing hardware and software resources. There are several OS options suitable for running AI workloads, including Linux and enterprise systems like Windows.

Linux is the most widely used OS for AI applications due to its flexibility, stability, and extensive support for machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Hugging Face. Common distributions used for AI workloads include Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and many more. Additionally, Linux environments provide excellent support for containerized setups like docker containers and CNCF-compliant setups like Kubernetes.

Gen AI services

Generative AI projects, such as RAG, may involve multiple components, including a knowledge base, large language models, retrieval systems, generators, inferences, and more. Each of these services will be defined and discussed in greater detail in the upcoming section titled "Advanced RAG and Gen AI Reference Solutions with Open Source."

While the RAG services may offer different functionalities, it is essential to choose the components that best fit your specific use case. For example, in small-scale RAG deployments, you might need to set aside fine-tuning and early-stage model repositories as these are advanced Gen AI reference solutions. Additionally, it is crucial that all these components integrate smoothly and coherently to create a seamless workflow. This helps reduce latency and accommodates the required throughput for your project.

RAG reference solution

When a query is made in an AI chatbot, the RAG-based system first retrieves relevant information from a large dataset or knowledge base, and then uses this information to inform and guide the generation of the response. The RAG-based system consists of two key components. The first component is the Retriever, which is responsible for locating relevant pieces of information that can help answer a user query. It searches a database to select the most pertinent information. This information is then provided to the second component, the Generator. The Generator is a large language model that produces the final output.

Before using your RAG-based system, you must first create your knowledge base, which consists of external data that is not included in your LLM training data. This external data can originate from various sources, including documents, databases, and API calls. Most RAG systems utilize an AI technique called model embedding, which converts data into numerical representations and stores it in a vector database. By using an embedding model, you can create a knowledge model that is easily understandable and readily retrievable in the context of AI. Once you have a knowledge base and a vector database set up, you can now perform your RAG process; here is a conceptual flow:

This conceptual flow follows 5 general steps:

1. The user enters a prompt or query.
2. Your Retriever searches for relevant information from a knowledge base. The relevance can be determined using mathematical vector calculations and representations through a vector search and database functionality.
3. The relevant information is retrieved to provide enhanced context to the generator.
4. The query and prompts are now enriched with this context and are ready to be augmented for use with a large language model using prompt engineering techniques. The augmented prompt enables the language model to respond accurately to your query.
5. Finally, the generated text response is delivered to you.

Advanced RAG and Gen AI reference solution with open source

RAG can be used in various applications, such as AI chatbots, semantic search, data summarization, and even code generation. The reference solution below outlines how RAG can be combined with advanced generative AI reference architectures to create optimized LLM projects that provide contextual solutions to various Gen AI use cases.

Figure: RAG enhanced GenAI Ref solution (source: https://opea.dev/)

The GenAI blueprint mentioned above was published by Opea (Open Platform for Enterprise AI), a project of the Linux Foundation. The aim of creating this blueprint is to establish a framework of composable building blocks for state-of-the-art generative AI systems, which include LLM, data storage, and prompt engines. Additionally, it provides a blueprint for RAG and outlines end-to-end workflows. The recent release 1.1 of the Opea project showcased multiple GenAI projects that demonstrate how RAG systems can be enhanced through open source tools.

Each service within the blocks has distinct tasks to perform, and there are various open source solutions available that can help to accelerate these services based on enterprise needs. These are mapped in the table below:

This table provides an overview of the key components involved in building a RAG system and advanced Gen AI reference solution, along with associated open source solutions for each service. Each service performs a specific task that can enhance your LLM setup, whether it relates to data management and preparation, embedding a model in your database, or improving the LLM itself.

The rate of innovation in this field, particularly within the open source community, has become exponential. It is crucial to stay updated with the latest developments, including new models and emerging RAG solutions.

Conclusion

Building a robust generative AI infrastructure, such as those for RAG, can be complex and challenging. It requires careful consideration of the technology stack, data, scalability, ethics, and security. For the technology stack, the hardware, operating systems, cloud services, and generative AI services must be resilient and efficient based on the scale that enterprises require.

There are multiple open-source software options available for building generative AI infrastructure and applications, which can be tailored to meet the complex demands of modern AI projects. By leveraging open source tools and frameworks, organizations can accelerate development, avoid vendor lock-in, reduce cost and meet the enterprise needs.

Now that you've been introduced to Blog Series #1 - What is RAG? and this Blog Series #2 on how to prepare a robust RAG AI infrastructure, it's time to get hands-on and try building your own RAG using open source tools in our next blog in this series, "Build a one-stop solution for end-to-end RAG workflow with open source tools". Stay tuned for part 3, to be published soon!

Canonical for your RAG and AI Infra needs

Build the right RAG architecture and application with Canonical RAG and MLOps workshop

Canonical provides workshops and enterprise open source tools and services and can advise on securing the safety of your code, data, and models in production.

Canonical offers a 5-day workshop designed to help you start building your enterprise RAG systems. By the end of the workshop, you will have a thorough understanding of RAG and LLM theory, architecture, and best practices. Together, we will develop and deploy solutions tailored to your specific needs. Download the datasheet here.

Explore more and contact our team for your RAG needs.

Learn and use best-in-class Gen AI tooling on any hardware and cloud

Canonical offers enterprise-ready AI infrastructure along with open source data and AI tools to help you kickstart your RAG projects. Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, a Linux operating system that operates on public cloud platforms, data centres, workstations, and edge/IOT devices. Canonical has established partnerships with major public cloud providers such as Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS. Additionally, Canonical collaborates with silicon vendors, including Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and RISC-V, ensuring their platform is silicon agnostic.

Secure your stack with confidence

Enhance the security of your GenAI projects while mastering best practices for managing your software stack. Discover ways to safeguard your code, data, and machine learning models in production with Confidential AI.

20 Dec 2024 8:18am GMT

How to create a robust enterprise AI infrastructure for RAG systems using open source tooling?A highlight on how open source can help

20 Dec 2024 8:18am GMT

A sizeable update to the free, open-source video editor Kdenlive is now available to download. Kdenlive 24.12 arrives stuffed like a seasonal bird with bug fixes, performance tweaks, and usability enhancements. Additionally, the editor's developers have removed support for Qt5 so that, as of this release, it is entirely Qt6. Subtitling gets a big boost with the arrival of Advanced SubStation Alpha (ASS) subtitle support. The key benefit of these subtitles (I'll swerve calling them ASS) is greater customisation, including things like text strokes, drop shadows, margins, and even effects like masking. A new Subtitle Manager makes editing, ordering, and […]

You're reading Kdenlive Update Adds New Subtitle Tools, Effects + More, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

20 Dec 2024 1:30am GMT

Life at Canonical: Victoria Antipova's perspective as a new joiner in Product Marketing

19 Dec 2024 12:34pm GMT

The Incus team is pleased to announce the release of Incus 6.8!

This is the last release for 2024 but it still packs a punch with a bunch of VM related improvements, including the ability to move a running VM between storage pools, a new authorization backend, improvements to volume handling for application containers and more.

The highlights for this release are:

• Storage live migration for VMs
• Authorization scriptlet
• Console screenshots for VMs
• Initial owner and mode for custom storage volumes
• Small updates to the OpenFGA model
• Image alias reuse on import
• New incus-simplestreams prune command
• Console access locking

The full announcement and changelog can be found here.
And for those who prefer videos, here's the release overview video:

You can take the latest release of Incus up for a spin through our online demo service at: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/try-it/

Some of the Incus maintainers will be present at FOSDEM 2025, helping run both the containers and kernel devrooms. For those arriving in town early, there will be a "Friends of Incus" gathering sponsored by FuturFusion on Thursday evening (January 30th), you can find the details of that here.

And as always, my company is offering commercial support on Incus, ranging from by-the-hour support contracts to one-off services on things like initial migration from LXD, review of your deployment to squeeze the most out of Incus or even feature sponsorship. You'll find all details of that here: https://zabbly.com/incus

Donations towards my work on this and other open source projects is also always appreciated, you can find me on Github Sponsors, Patreon and Ko-fi.

Enjoy!

19 Dec 2024 7:50am GMT

A concerned nutritional epidemiologist in Tokyo realizes that if you are what you eat, that means…

It's a similar situation in Seoul, albeit with less oil and more confidence.

19 Dec 2024 2:49am GMT

Mozilla's overall revenue saw a sizeable boost in 2023, despite a drop in income from its lucrative search engine deals. According to its latest financial report, Mozilla's revenue in 2023 hit ~$653 million (US), up from ~$593 million in 2022. The cause of the increase? Not any flashy new products, services, or deals - just ol' fashioned interest and dividends (~$47 million) and returns on its investments (~$24 million). In fact, Mozilla's income from search engine deals actually fell by ~$15 million in 2023. Revenue from ads, sponsored links, and its own product subscriptions (like Pocket) also dipped by ~$9 […]

You're reading Mozilla Revenue Jumped in 2023, But Search Deal Cash Fell, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

19 Dec 2024 1:36am GMT

O Diogo viajou até à Idade Média e descobriu a sensação de viver num tempo diferente, em que não tem velocidades de 1Gbps! Uma barbaridade! O Miguel viajou até à Idade do Cobre e relata-nos o que é viver com apenas 100 Mpbs. Depois, viajaram os dois até à Idade do Alumínio Anodizado, abrindo um pacote com uma misteriosa caixa, de um azul faíscante…que surpresas encerrará?!

Já sabem: oiçam, subscrevam e partilhem!

• OpenWRT: https://liliputing.com/openwrt-one-wifi-6-router-is-now-available-for-89/
• Preços OpenWRT: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2024/nov/29/openwrt-one-wireless-router-now-ships-black-friday/
• Slimbook Zero: https://slimbook.com/zero
• Intel N100: https://www.intel.com.br/content/www/br/pt/products/sku/231803/intel-processor-n100-6m-cache-up-to-3-40-ghz/specifications.html
• Intel N100 (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder_Lake
• ExPhone: https://open-store.io/app/com.github.jmlich.exphone
• LoCo PT: https://loco.ubuntu.com/teams/ubuntu-pt/
• Nitrokey: https://shop.nitrokey.com/shop?aff_ref=3
• Mastodon: https://masto.pt/@pup
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/PodcastUbuntuPortugal

Apoios

Podem apoiar o podcast usando os links de afiliados do Humble Bundle, porque ao usarem esses links para fazer uma compra, uma parte do valor que pagam reverte a favor do Podcast Ubuntu Portugal. E podem obter tudo isso com 15 dólares ou diferentes partes dependendo de pagarem 1, ou 8. Achamos que isto vale bem mais do que 15 dólares, pelo que se puderem paguem mais um pouco mais visto que têm a opção de pagar o quanto quiserem. Se estiverem interessados em outros bundles não listados nas notas usem o link https://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=PUP e vão estar também a apoiar-nos.

Atribuição e licenças

Este episódio foi produzido por Diogo Constantino, Miguel e Tiago Carrondo e editado pelo Senhor Podcast. O website é produzido por Tiago Carrondo e o código aberto está licenciado nos termos da Licença MIT. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). A música do genérico é: "Won't see it comin' (Feat Aequality & N'sorte d'autruche)", por Alpha Hydrae e está licenciada nos termos da CC0 1.0 Universal License. Este episódio e a imagem utilizada estão licenciados nos termos da licença: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), cujo texto integral pode ser lido aqui. Estamos abertos a licenciar para permitir outros tipos de utilização, contactem-nos para validação e autorização.

19 Dec 2024 12:00am GMT

Last week I was bitten by a interesting C feature. The following terminate function was expected to exit if okay was zero (false) however it exited when zero was passed to it. The reason is the missing semicolon after the return function.

The interesting part this that is compiles fine because the void function terminate is allowed to return the void return value, in this case the void return from exit().

18 Dec 2024 5:43pm GMT

Broadcom has released updates for VMware Workstation Pro for Windows and Linux, the first to arrive since the software became entirely free to use. Earlier this year, Broadcom made VMware Workstation Pro and its Mac equivalent Fusion Pro free for personal usage, and later for commercial usage. Anyone can download and install VMware's desktop virtualisation software to use for whatever they want. - Assuming they have the patience to wade through rerouting links, portals, checkboxes, and dense documentation sites to locate the actual download. A blog post from a VMware team member walks through the 11 step (!) process. As […]

You're reading VMware Workstation Pro Update Brings Linux Fixes, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

18 Dec 2024 3:21pm GMT

In software, patches are updates that are designed to overcome problems, flaws or vulnerabilities in the programming. Patch management is the process of gathering and applying these patches to the target software, devices or systems.

18 Dec 2024 10:40am GMT

A paint splatter, super-tired face, and a harp are among new emoji users of Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 LTS will be able to see and type after installing an update to the Noto Color Emoji font. Ubuntu, which has shipped the font by default since 2017, is preparing to release an updated version containing the 8 new emoji added as part of the Unicode 16.0 standard. Unicode 16.0 went live in September, introducing a total of 5,185 new characters, including 7 new emoji code points and 1 new emoji sequence to create the official flag of the Island of Sark. The new […]

You're reading Ubuntu Adds Support for Unicode's Newest Emoji, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

17 Dec 2024 11:48pm GMT

The goal of this guide is to show you how to develop a model capable of classifying different species of Iris flowers based on their characteristics, such as sepal length and petal width. This will help you to learn the fundamentals of building and deploying machine learning models, which will serve you well in more complex projects down the line.

17 Dec 2024 12:00pm GMT

Ubuntu and Ubuntu Pro support Microsoft's Azure Cobalt 100 Virtual Machines, featuring their new 64-bit Arm processors. With over 95% of packages compiled for this architecture, users can deploy a wide range of workloads-from application servers to machine learning-while benefiting from Ubuntu's robust security and extensive ecosystem.

17 Dec 2024 12:17am GMT

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 870 for the week of December 8 - 14, 2024. The full version of this issue is available here.

In this issue we cover:

• Ubuntu Stats
• Hot in Support
• Rocks Public Journal; 2024-12-13
• Other Meeting Reports
• Upcoming Meetings and Events
• LoCo Events
• Announcing the Multipass 1.15.0 release
• Kernel 6.14 planned for Plucky Puffin
• Canonical News
• In the Blogosphere
• Other Articles of Interest
• Featured Audio and Video
• Updates and Security for Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, and 24.10
• And much more!

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

• Krytarik Raido
• Bashing-om
• Chris Guiver
• Wild Man
• Din Mušić
• Cristovao Cordeiro - cjdc
• And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly Newsletter, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

.

16 Dec 2024 9:02pm GMT

A new version of Tuba, the open-source Mastodon client for Linux desktops, is out - and it's a whopper! Tuba 0.9.0 delivers a wide array of new features, enhancements, and general finesse touching nearly every aspect of the client's top-tier Fediverse experience. Chief among the highlights for is the addition of support for scheduled and draft posts. Posts can be scheduled from the composer, and a list of scheduled (not yet shared) posts can be accessed from a new sidebar entry, where scheduled posts and be edited/amended. With no official draft posts API to use, Tuba instead uses scheduled posts […]

You're reading Linux Mastodon App Tuba Adds Post Scheduling, Drafts + More, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

16 Dec 2024 8:36pm GMT

Christmas has arrived early for fans of the Xfce desktop environment, with the release of a major new version. Two years in development, Xfce 4.20 serves as the latest stable release of the revered lightweight desktop environment. New features, visual changes, and a sizeable set of foundational prep work furthering support for Wayland are included. Add in a slate of bug fixes, code cleanups, and performance tweaks, and Xfce 4.20 is a solid upgrade over the Xfce 4.18 release from 2022 - not revolutionary, but that's not really Xfce's USP: familiarity, reliability, and sticking with what works is. Note: some of the […]

You're reading Xfce 4.20 Released with New Features, Settings + More, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

16 Dec 2024 3:26pm GMT

Canonical is pleased to announce security patching and support for Valkey through the Ubuntu Pro subscription. Ubuntu Pro is a subscription service for open-source software security, compliance and support that expands the maintenance period for all packages distributed in Ubuntu repositories. This extension applies to all the open source software on Ubuntu, including Valkey.

16 Dec 2024 7:45am GMT

OCI (open container initiative) images are the standard format based on
the original docker format. Each container image is represented as an
array of 'layers', each of which is a .tar.gz. To unpack the container
image, untar the first, then untar the second on top of the first, etc.

Several years ago, while we were working on a product which ships its
root filesystem (and of course containers) as OCI layers, Tycho Andersen
(https://tycho.pizza/) came up with the idea of 'atomfs' as a way to
avoid some of the deficiencies of tar
(https://www.cyphar.com/blog/post/20190121-ociv2-images-i-tar). In
'atomfs', the .tar.gz layers are replaced by squashfs (now optionally
erofs) filesystems with dm-verity root hashes specified. Mounting an
image now consists of mounting each squashfs, then merging them with
overlay. Since we have the dmverity root hash, we can ensure that the
filesystem has not been corrupted without having to checksum the files
before mounting, and there is no tar unpacking step.

This past week, Ram Chinchani presented atomfs at the OCI weekly
discussion, which you can see here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUyH319O9hM starting at about 28
minutes. He showed a full use cycle, starting with a Dockerfile,
building atomfs images using stacker, mounting them using atomfs, and
then executing a container with lxc. Ram mentioned his goal is to have
a containerd snapshotter for atomfs soon. I'm excited to hear that, as
it will make it far easier to integrate into e.g. kubernetes.

Exciting stuff!

14 Dec 2024 3:52am GMT

How does opensearch work? OpenSearch is an open-source search and analytics suite. Developers build solutions for search and more!

13 Dec 2024 8:42am GMT

RAG explained: is a technique that enhances generative AI models by utilizing external knowledge sources such as documents and extensive databases.

13 Dec 2024 8:13am GMT

A new version of Miracle-wm, a Mir-based tiling window manager, is out. Miracle-wm 0.4 continues to make inroads in fleshing out its support for i3 IPC, vital work needed to make sure popular tools like waybar, nwg-shell, etc work well as well here as they do in Sway, i3, hyprland, et al. Workspace improvements aplenty make it in, also. Workspaces can be assigned names and those names relayed to shell components, while new commands make it easier for users to change workspaces and/or move containers to workspaces. And there's been a big focus on addressing 'issues around stability and performance' […]

You're reading New Version of Mir-Based Tiling Window Manager Miracle-WM Out, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

13 Dec 2024 2:55am GMT

A beta version of Linux Mint 22.1 "Xia" is now officially available to download, ahead of an anticipated stable release at the end of December. Linux Mint 22.1 is an in-series update to Linux Mint 22, released earlier back in July. As such, it continues to be based on Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS and powered by the Linux 6.8 kernel (although new kernel versions are coming as part of Ubuntu's HWE, which Mint 22.x now tracks by default). But there are substantive changes elsewhere, not least to the default Cinnamon desktop environment, underlying package management tools, and burgeoning compatibility with the […]

You're reading Linux Mint 22.1 Beta is Now Available to Download, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

12 Dec 2024 3:00pm GMT

Vulnerability management is the holistic process of identifying and handling security risks in an organization's networks, systems and devices. Vulnerability management serves an overarching strategy that describes and outlines the many individual efforts and steps taken to reduce cyber incident risk to acceptable levels and improve overall organizational cybersecurity posture (for example, asset inventory, vulnerability intelligence, patch management, bug fixes, vulnerability monitoring, mitigation through hardening, and so forth).

12 Dec 2024 10:37am GMT

Continuam as discussões sobre auto-alojamento («self-hosting»), onde recebemos sugestões e opiniões de ouvintes que exploraram esse tema; o Miguel continua a não poder usar um VPN no telefone; abordámos o roteiro de lançamento da próxima versão de Ubuntu, Plucky Puffin e o próximo encontro da Comunidade em Sintra; demos as boas-vindas a novos Snaps criados pela Comunidade e babámos um bocadinho com novos brinquedos da gama Raspberry Pi! E no fim, os patronos tiveram direito a um teatro de fantoches com a República.

Já sabem: oiçam, subscrevam e partilhem!

• RPi CM5: https://9to5linux.com/raspberry-pi-compute-module-5-launches-as-a-modular-version-of-raspberry-pi-5
• Rpi 500 + Monitor: https://9to5linux.com/raspberry-pi-500-computer-launches-with-the-official-raspberry-pi-monitor
• Jeff Geerling testa um Pi500: https://youtu.be/5YfJWYELA3k
• Leepsvideo testa um Pi500: https://youtu.be/JY_Zv7DCFrI
• Jeff Geerling descasca um Pi500: https://youtu.be/omYWRb1dLA4
• Jogo Capitals em Snap: https://snapcraft.io/capitals
• Jogo Capitals no Github: https://github.com/lapisdecor/capitals
• LoCo PT: https://loco.ubuntu.com/teams/ubuntu-pt/
• Nitrokey: https://shop.nitrokey.com/shop?aff_ref=3
• Mastodon: https://masto.pt/@pup
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/PodcastUbuntuPortugal

Apoios

Podem apoiar o podcast usando os links de afiliados do Humble Bundle, porque ao usarem esses links para fazer uma compra, uma parte do valor que pagam reverte a favor do Podcast Ubuntu Portugal. E podem obter tudo isso com 15 dólares ou diferentes partes dependendo de pagarem 1, ou 8. Achamos que isto vale bem mais do que 15 dólares, pelo que se puderem paguem mais um pouco mais visto que têm a opção de pagar o quanto quiserem. Se estiverem interessados em outros bundles não listados nas notas usem o link https://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=PUP e vão estar também a apoiar-nos.

Atribuição e licenças

Este episódio foi produzido por Diogo Constantino, Miguel e Tiago Carrondo e editado pelo Senhor Podcast. O website é produzido por Tiago Carrondo e o código aberto está licenciado nos termos da Licença MIT. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). A música do genérico é: "Won't see it comin' (Feat Aequality & N'sorte d'autruche)", por Alpha Hydrae e está licenciada nos termos da CC0 1.0 Universal License. Este episódio e a imagem utilizada estão licenciados nos termos da licença: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), cujo texto integral pode ser lido aqui. Estamos abertos a licenciar para permitir outros tipos de utilização, contactem-nos para validação e autorização.

12 Dec 2024 12:00am GMT

macOS 15.2 is rolling out today (December 11), and my tech feeds are hyped with its highlights. Among the (non-AI) changes I spotted: the option to display weather info in the menu bar - native, built-in, ready to go. Seeing a "news peg" (as they're called), I figured I'd use that as motivation to get around to writing about Advanced Weather Companion. It's yet-another GNOME Shell weather extension to display temperature and current conditions in the top bar. Advanced Weather Companion doesn't technically do anything existing weather add-ons don't, it just surfaces information in a slightly different way. If you […]

You're reading Advanced Weather Companion GNOME Shell Extension, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

11 Dec 2024 11:11pm GMT

I'm pleased to introduce uCareSystem 24.12.11, the latest version of the all-in-one system maintenance tool for Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian and its derivatives. This release brings some major changes in UI, fixes and improvements under the hood. Continuing on the path of the earlier release, in this release after many many … many … did […]

11 Dec 2024 1:10pm GMT

Fresh off of adding support for automatic window snapping, the developers behind GNOME Shell's most configurable and feature-packed window tiling extension are back with another update. Tiling Shell v15.1 introduces support for smart border radius. This is one a small sounding feature but it has a big impact on the way borders (which are an optional feature) are drawn around focused application windows, either in tiled mode or when free-floating on he desktop: Domenico Ferraro, the chief developer of the extension, explains the impetus in tackling this: "In GNOME, different windows may have different border radius. Drawing a border around […]

You're reading Tiling Shell Extension Gains Smart Border Radius Detection, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

10 Dec 2024 10:10pm GMT

RPCS3 is an open-source emulator (and debugger) for the Sony PlayStation 3, making it possible for users to play and debug PlayStation 3 games on non-PS3 hardware, like Intel/AMD desktop PCs and laptops running Windows, macOS, or Linux. Now, RPCS3 is available for the Raspberry Pi 5 too. A major new version of of RPCS3 was released this week adding native ARM64 support for Linux, macOS (Apple Silicon) (although not ready yet) Windows too. As no architecture 'translation' tools are involved, gaming performance is better. "How far can we challenge the limits of emulating the console known for being the […]

You're reading PlayStation 3 Emulator Adds Support for Raspberry Pi 5, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

10 Dec 2024 6:31pm GMT

An SBOM boils down to a detailed and accessible list of all the components that make up your software and where they come from. n this article, we'll examine what an SBOM is, what information it must include, and the approaches that developers and manufacturers alike should be considering as they start building their SBOM.

10 Dec 2024 2:35pm GMT

We are pleased to announce that SiFive, ESWIN Computing and Canonical are enabling Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on the HiFive Premier P550, a development platform that offers a premium RISC-V development experience, an important milestone for the RISC-V development community. This collaboration ensures that developers who purchase the HiFive Premier P550 can take full advantage of […]

10 Dec 2024 2:29pm GMT

Raspberry Pi today announced the Raspberry Pi 500, an updated version of its keyboard PC, this one powered by the guts of the Raspberry Pi 5. And it's also announced a device many won't have expected: an official monitor! Throughout 2024, Raspberry Pi has announced 20+ new and updated products, ranging from hardware add-ons like a AI accelerator and USB hub, to official branded SD cards and SSDs, to updated devices like the new Compute Module 5 and Pico 2 - plus more! It's crazy to think there anything left for them to announce. Yet rumour has it the company […]

You're reading Raspberry Pi 500 & Official USB Monitor Announced, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

09 Dec 2024 5:35pm GMT

The new Firebuild release contains plenty of small fixes and a few notable improvements.

Experimental macOS support

The most frequently asked question from people getting to know Firebuild was if it worked on their Mac and the answer sadly used to be that well, it did, but only in a Linux VM. This was far from what they were looking for. 🙁

Linux and macOS have common UNIX roots, but porting Firebuild to macOS included bigger challenges, like ensuring that dyld(1), macOS's dynamic loader initializes the preloaded interceptor library early enough to catch all interesting calls, and avoid using anything that uses malloc() or thread local variables which are not yet set up then.

Preloading libraries on Linux is really easy, running LD_PRELOAD=my_lib.so ls just works if the library exports the symbols to be interposed, while macOS employs multiple lines of defense to prevent applications from using unknown libraries. Firebuild's guide for making DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES honored on Macs can be helpful with other projects as well that rely on injecting libraries.

Since GitHub's Arm64 macOS runners don't allow intercepting binaries with arm64e ABI yet, Firebuild's Apple Silicon tests are run at Bitrise, who are proud to be first to provide the latest Xcode stacks and were also quick to make the needed changes to their infrastructure to support Firebuild (thanks! ).

Firebuild on macOS can already accelerate simple projects and rebuild itself with Xcode. Since Xcode introduces a lot of nondeterminism to the build, Firebuild can't shine in acceleration with Xcode yet, but can provide nice reports to show which part of the build is the most time consuming and how each sub-command is called.

If you would like to try Firebuild on macOS please compile it from the GitHub repository for now. Precompiled binaries will be distributed on the Mac App Store and via CI providers. Contact us to get notified when those channels become available.

Dealing with the 'Epochalypse'

Glibc's API provides many functions with time parameters and some of those functions are intercepted by Firebuild. Time parameters used to be passed as 32-bit values on 32-bit systems, preventing them to accurately represent timestamps after year 2038, which is known as the Y2038 problem or the Epochalypse.

To deal with the problem glibc 2.34 started providing new function symbol variants with 64-bit time parameters, e.g clock_gettime64() in addition to clock_gettime(). The new 64-bit variants are used when compiling consumers of the API with _TIME_BITS=64 defined.

Processes intercepted by Firebuild may have been compiled with or without _TIME_BITS=64, thus libfirebuild now provides both variants on affected systems running glibc >= 34 to work safely with binaries using 64-bit and 32-bit time representation.

Many Linux distributions already stopped supporting 32-bit architectures, but Debian and Ubuntu still supports armhf, for example, where the Y2038 problem still applies. Both Debian and Ubuntu performed a transition rebuilding every library (and their reverse dependencies) with -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 set where the libraries exported symbols that changed when switching to 64-bit time representation (thanks to Steve Langasek for driving this!) . Thanks to the transition most programs are ready for 2038, but interposer libraries are trickier to fix and if you maintain one it might be a good idea to check if it works well both 32-bit and 64-bit libraries. Faketime, for example is not fixed yet, see #1064555.

Select passed through environment variables with regular expressions

Firebuild filters out most of the environment variables set when starting a build to make the build more reproducible and achieve higher cache hit rate. Extra environment variables to pass through can be specified on the command line one by one, but with many similarly named variables this may become hard to maintain. With regular expressions this just became easier:

firebuild -o 'env_vars.pass_through += "MY_VARS_.*"' my_build_command

If you are not interested in acceleration just would like to explore what the build does by generating a report you can simply pass all variables:

firebuild -r -o 'env_vars.pass_through += ".*"' my_build_command

Other highlights from the 0.8.3 release

• Fixed and nicer report in Chrome and other WebKit based browsers
• Support GLibc 2.39 by intercepting pidfd_spawn() and pidfd_spawnp()
• Even faster Rust build acceleration

For all the changes please check out the release page on GitHub!

(This post is also published on The Firebuild blog.)

06 Dec 2024 9:53pm GMT

I am still here. Sadly while I battle this insane infection from my broken arm I got back in July, the hackers got my blog. I am slowly building it back up. Further bad news is I have more surgeries, first one tomorrow. Furthering my current struggles I cannot start my job search due to hospitalization and recovery. Please consider a donation. https://gofund.me/6e99345d

On the open source work front, I am still working on stuff, mostly snaps ( Apps 24.08.3 released )

Thank you everyone that voted me into the Ubuntu Community Council!

I am trying to stay positive, but it seems I can't catch a break. I will have my computer in the hospital and will work on what I can. Have a blessed day and see you soon.

Scarlett

04 Dec 2024 5:30pm GMT

The new feature bug templates in Launchpad aims to streamline the bug reporting process, making it more efficient for both users and project maintainers.

In the past, Launchpad provided only a basic description field for filling bug reports. This often led to incomplete or vague submissions, as users may not include essential details or steps to reproduce an issue. This could slow down the debugging process when fixing bugs.

To improve this, we are introducing bug templates. These allow project maintainers to guide users when reporting bugs. By offering a structured template, users are prompted to provide all the necessary information, which helps to speed up the development process.

To start using bug templates in your project, simply follow these steps:

• Access your project's bug page view.
• Select 'Configure bugs'.
• A field showing the bug template will prompt you to fill in your desired template.
• Save the changes. The template will now be available to users when they report a new bug for your project.

For now, only a default bug template can be set per project. Looking ahead, the idea is to expand this by introducing multiple bug templates per project, as well as templates for other content types such as merge proposals or answers. This will allow project maintainers to define various templates for different purposes, making the open-source collaboration process even more efficient.

Additionally, we will introduce Markdown support, allowing maintainers to create structured and visually clear templates using features such as headings, lists, or code blocks.

03 Dec 2024 12:58pm GMT