Ubuntu 17.04 code named Zesty Zapus is the 26th release for Ubuntu and is available to the end users. The release was in development from some time and will be supported for 9 months from April. The new Ubuntu release will support Kubernetes, Docker, LXD and Snaps and contains various bug fixes and software updates. With Mark Shuttleworth announcing the shutting down of Unity DE, the 17.04 and 17.10 release will run Unity 7 only. 

What's new in Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus 

Running on Linux Kernel 4.10, Ubuntu 17.04 has various new features and updates. 

• LibreOffice updated to 5.3
• Supports printers which allow printing without printer-specific drivers. 
• 32-bit PowerPC support dropped 
• Default DNS resolver is now systemd-resolved.
• For new installs, a swap file is used instead of swap partition. 
• Apps provided by Gnome has been updated to 3.24.
• Calendar app has a week view now.
• Unity 8 is available as an alternative session. 

and more. You can read the complete update logs here.

The Ubuntu 17.04 release will use a swap file instead of swap partitions making the use of OS a bit faster in a resource crunch situation. Also, the Snaps is now been supported across 10 distributions including Arch and Fedora. Snap is a packaging tool from Canonical. There is support for AMD Ryzen and Intel Kaby Lake processors. 

Download Ubuntu 17.04 Zest Zapus 

You can download the latest Ubuntu release from the official website : https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop. You can find download links and torrents links to download Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus. 

Upgrading to Ubuntu 17.04 from Ubuntu 16.10

To upgrade to Ubuntu 17.04 from 16.10, open Dash and search for Software Updater. 

• In Software Updater, Select Updates and set the Notify me of a new Ubuntu version drop down menu to For any new version. 

• Press Alt + F2 and type update-manager which will open the update manager confirming you for a new release availability. 

• Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions to upgrade to Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus. 

My Thoughts

If you are running the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS release, I will suggest to stick to it and wait for the next years 18.04 LTS release since the 17.04 Zesty Zapus do not pack something great. However, if you are a Ubuntu lover and wants to remain updated, go for it. 

Unity / GNOME

In a surprising move, Mark Shuttleworth announced in a blog post the shifting of default Ubuntu DE Unity to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Along with it, he also announced the shutting down of Convergence and Ubuntu Phones and that Canonical will no longer invest in them. Canonical has worked a lot over refining the Unity desktop over these years and the shift to the classic GNOME desktop environment is something which the Ubuntu users are finding hard to believe. Some Linux users who switched from Ubuntu just because they didn't like the Unity interface are more than happy, though. 

Mark Shuttleworth writes: 

I’m writing to let you know that we will end our investment in Unity8, the phone and convergence shell. We will shift our default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

He also wrote that Canonical will keep on investing in Ubuntu Desktop, servers, VMs, Cloud and IoT. The Ubuntu Desktop will feature GNOME desktop by default from 18.04 LTS and will get constant updates. 

Now, there are 2 sides of this announcement. One side is happier with Ubuntu returning to GNOME who always found Unity horrible and switched to Linux Mint or other Ubuntu derivatives after the frustration Unity caused to them. The other side feels Unity was the thing that kept Ubuntu a different OS than other. If anyone wants to use GNOME, he can switch to Debian for example. Plus. spending a good amount of time and resources refining a DE and then ditching it is a bad move!

It's been 6 years when Ubuntu switched to Unity as default user interface and there are chances that Unity will continue as a community-driven project along side Ubuntu touch and Convergence. However, it won't be supported/invested from the company anymore. 

Time will tell if this decision of switching from Unity to GNOME is right. However, shutting down the Convergence is undoubtedly not a good news. With the aim of single OS for different devices and plugging a phone to a desktop and a keyboard to use it as an equivalent to PC is a great thing. Microsoft is trying the same with Continuum and I had hoped Ubuntu will succeed the race. Now, with dropping the development there is no choice anymore!

Are you happy with the decision of GNOME over Unity? Why / Why not, let us know in the comments. Lets have a healthy discussion.

If you prefer Notepad++ over other source code editor, it's time for an update. Wikileaks has revealed in its update : "Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed" how CIA has hijacked scilexer.exe with their own modified copy on a compromised PC in Windows. The vulnerability or security issue is not with Notepad++ but Notepad++ has sent an update where Notepad++.exe checks for the certificate validation in scilexer.exe before loading it, and if the certificate is missing or invalid, then it won't be loaded and Notepad++ fails to launch. 

This vulnerability fix is mainly for Windows OS and not for Linux. There are other bug fixes and enhancements for which you will need to update to v7.3.3.

Notepad++ v7.3.3 bug-fixes and enhancements:

• Fix CIA Hacking Notepad++ issue (https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_26968090.html).
• Fix mouse wheel to task list scroll crash bug.
• Fix flickering issue while switching back after modifying or deleting a document from outside.
• Support Motorola S-Record, Intel and Tektronix extended hex file formats.
• Improve multi-line tab: maintaining the selected tab position.
• Fix add char into word char list bug.
• Add Shift+Enter in Find dialog for searching in the opposite direction.
• Fix a regression that delimiter settings is not retained correctly.
• Add clear command button in shortcut mapper.
• Enhancement: file extension supported in Load/Save Session dialog if a session file extension is set.

Notepad++ team issues the warning along with the update which I quote: 

Just like knowing the lock is useless for people who are willing to go into my house, I still shut the door and lock it every morning when I leave home. We are in a f**king corrupted world, unfortunately.

It's really a serious issue where a Government organisation is trying to record and analyse (without permission) everything you type. They may not (I assume) be interested in your coding skills or the blog posts I type in my Notepad++ but by hacking the scilexer.exe, it stops any red flags while the infected DLL does data collection in the background. 

If you are Windows user, I would suggest you to immediately update to v7.3.3 and if you are on Linux, you can still update Notepad++ for a better performance. 

Online source code repository similar to github, GitLab went offline for more than 12 hours after one of the SysAdmin deleted the wrong folder in production. The service has been restored as of now and the data loss would impact less than 1% of the user base specifically peripheral metadata that was written during a 6 hours window. 

GitLab, in a Google Docs File kept updating their operations. The possible impact according to the docs are : 

Impact

• ±6 hours of data loss
• 4613 regular projects, 74 forks, and 350 imports are lost (roughly); 5037 projects in total. Since Git repositories are NOT lost, we can recreate all of the projects whose user/group existed before the data loss, but we cannot restore any of these projects’ issues, etc.
• ±4979 (so ±5000) comments lost
• 707 users lost potentially, hard to tell for certain from the Kibana logs
• Webhooks created before Jan 31st 17:20 were restored, those created after this time are lost

Also, there were several problems encountered during the restoration process.

• LVM snapshots are by default only taken once every 24 hours. YP happened to run one manually about 6 hours prior to the outage
• Regular backups seem to also only be taken once per 24 hours, though YP has not yet been able to figure out where they are stored. According to JN these don’t appear to be working, producing files only a few bytes in size.
• SH: It looks like pg_dump may be failing because PostgreSQL 9.2 binaries are being run instead of 9.6 binaries. This happens because omnibus only uses Pg 9.6 if data/PG_VERSION is set to 9.6, but on workers this file does not exist. As a result it defaults to 9.2, failing silently. No SQL dumps were made as a result. Fog gem may have cleaned out older backups.
• Disk snapshots in Azure are enabled for the NFS server, but not for the DB servers.
• The synchronisation process removes webhooks once it has synchronised data to staging. Unless we can pull these from a regular backup from the past 24 hours they will be lost
• The replication procedure is super fragile, prone to error, relies on a handful of random shell scripts, and is badly documented
• SH: We learned later the staging DB refresh works by taking a snapshot of the gitlab_replicator directory, prunes the replication configuration, and starts up a separate PostgreSQL server.
• Our backups to S3 apparently don’t work either: the bucket is empty
• We don’t have solid alerting/paging for when backups fails, we are seeing this in the dev host too now.

GitLab in it's blog said, "Losing production data is unacceptable, and in a few days we'll post the five why's of why this hapened and a list of measures we will implement". 

Twitter is praising GitLab for the transparency with which the company has handled the things. Everything was updated through the blog / twitter account and the Google Docs. This was a really great way of keeping the users and press updated and GitLab surely deserves a praise for it. Though, I doubt neither GitLab nor any other organisation will even dream of any such worst situation. 

Fedora 25

Fedora Project has announced the launch of Fedora 25 which runs on Linux Kernel 4.8 and comes with GNOME 3.22. Fedora 25 comes with next-generation Wayland display server on the workstation edition replacing the legacy X11 system to provide a better and smoother graphical experience. It's released in 3 editions - Workstation, Serve and Atomic Host. Atomic Host is the replacement for Fedora Cloud. The latest update provides many bug fixes and enhancements including: 

• Docker 1.12 container for packaging your application into a standardized unit for software development
• Node.js 6.9.1 - latest version of server side javascript engine for building fast and scalable network applications 
• Support for Rust - another stable and fast programming language 
• Multiple Python versions 

The Fedora Project is an open source Linux Distribution which is community-driven and is sponsored by Red Hat Inc. Fedora 25 is a stable release and focused on truly open source software. By default, it comes with GNOME 3.22 desktop environment.

The Fedora Workstation introduces the Wayland display server replacing the legacy X11 to give the users a better graphical experience and capabilities for modern graphics hardware. It makes easier for the Windows and Mac OS X users to switch to Fedora by including Fedora Media Writer which helps user to find and download the current Fedora release and write it to removable disks and USB to test and use it. You can then install Fedora 25 in Virtual Box or along with Windows 10. 

If you are already running Fedora 24, it's easier for you to upgrade Fedora 24 to Fedora 25.

You can get Fedora 25 from the official site : https://getfedora.org/

Atomic host has replaced Fedora Cloud in Fedora 25 which is a lightweight, immutable platform designed to run containerized applications. It uses the same package repositories as Fedora server and provides the latest versions of the Atomic. 

Fedora Server is a community sponsored server OS helping you to manage your system with Cockpit's powerful and modern interface, view and monitor system performance and status and deploy and manage container based services. It brings an enterprise-class scale-able database server powered with PostgreSQL.

You can read the complete release announcement on Fedora Website : https://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-25-released/ 

Update: Lenovo has confirmed through a press release that it has no intention of not allowing people to run Linux on their systems. It's actually the RAID SSDs for which there isn't a driver in open source world.

We still want you read our advice.

In all these years of Evolution, Linux now delivers a pleasant experience to even an average non-techy person. People who have tried / used Linux for once always make their way back to it even after using Microsoft Operating Systems. Dual booting a Windows PC with any Linux Distribution is a common practice for almost all Linux users for the purpose of enjoying the power of Linux and using Windows for software / games that are particular to Windows. Some have managed to switch completely to Linux, some just dual boot it. 

But, here is a caution for you, if you buy a (crap, of course) piece of hardware like Lenovo Yoga 900 ISK2 UltraBook, you may never be able to install a Linux Distribution in it. Microsoft explains these Signature PCs as a significant better experience PCs, meeting the Windows hardware certifications, better in keyboard quality and touchpad etc. But this all comes at a cost. 

In a Reddit post, a Lenovo Yoga buyer complains of not being able to install Ubuntu on his system. When he asked to Lenovo about it, the reply he got was : 

This system has a signature edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft. 

This is ridiculous! If I am paying a huge sum for a hardware running whatever the OS out of the box for which I already paid and I should have the freedom of running any software/OS/app on it. 

Microsoft has already used the Secure Boot feature in it's surface laptops and while other than Windows 10 versions allowed to disable Secure Boot, some of the manufacturers like Lenovo (to some of their product like Ultrabook) has locked the BIOS and do not allow you disable the secure boot. There are some alternative methods that worked but they are just too techy and something going wrong is highly likely crashing your system altogether. 

Advice : Do not buy anything (literally anything) that says "Signature PC" if you love Linux. 

Also, we believe that a developer is free to make his work open source / paid and it's his choice! But putting limitations on a hardware such that you can only use the OS that it is shipped with is totally unacceptable. 

Read more about it at FossBytes.

Let us know your views in the comment section!

Linux Mint had finally rolled out the KDE Edition based on Ubuntu 16.04. It was in beta stage earlier and the final roll out is available to download from September 09. The Linux Mint KDE Edition is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and will receive updated for 5 years. 

Credit : Linux Mint Blog

In an official announcement, Clement Lefebvre announced for Sarah KDE edition. The new roll out features KDE Plasma 5.6 Desktop Environment and various improvements to update manager. There are various System Improvements and many new artworks in the form of wallpapers are there to soothe your eyes. It is based on Linux Kernel 4.4.

Minimum System Requirements for Linux Mint 18 KDE Edition includes 2 GB RAM, 10 GB of storage (20 GB recommended), and 1024x768 resolution screen. 

How to upgrade to Linux Mint Sarah KDE Edition

If you are looking for a clean install, download the ISO from here, and burn it to a disc. If you are already running the BETA version, click on refresh button in Update Manager and apply any pending level 1 update.

Note : You cannot upgrade from Linux Mint 17.3 KDE since it uses Plasma 5, so you will need to opt for a clean install in that case. 

I will be trying it in a day or two and write about it more. Thanks for reading by. 

The news is about a week old (well, almost), but just to warn you; If you are running on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus ans still not updated your Linux Kernel, you should do so immediately. On Aug 29, Canonical rolled out a Kernel patch for Ubuntu and it's derivatives that included 8 fixes. The USN-3070-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities patch includes several security issue fixes for the kernel. 

The kernel fixes includes: 

CVE-2016-1237 : Missing permission check when settings ACLs in nfsd, can be exploited by a local user to gain access to any file by setting an ACL.

CVE-201605244 : Information leak in the RDS implementation used by the local attacker to obtain sensitive information from kernel memory.

CVE-2016-5400 : The airspy USB device in kernel do not handle certain error conditions, can be used for Denial of Service attacks by someone with a physical access. 

CVE-2016-5696 : A flaw in TCP implementation of handling acknowledgements, can be used to cause Denial of Service or injecting content in TCP stream.

CVE-2016-5728 : Race condition in MIC VOP driver in Linux, can be used to obtain potentially sensitive information from memory. On PowerPC platforms, Kernel mishandled transaction memory state on exec(), can be used to execute arbitrary code. 

CVE-2016-5829 : Heap based buffer overflow existence in kernel, can result in Denial of Service attacks, or execute arbitrary code.

CVE-201606197 : OverlayFS implementation in kernel do not verify dentry state before proceeding with unlink and rename operations, resulting in DoS attacks. 

How to upgrade your Linux System

You need to update your system by following the below steps. 

For Desktops:

Chances are that your Ubuntu system has already notified about the security update. Or alternatively, open Update Manager and review and select the pending updates. Once selected, click on Install Updates button to upgrade to the latest version. You won't need to restart your system after the upgrades. 

For Servers: 

Login to the server, and type in the following commands to update your system. 

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

The strength of Linux lies in the patching of known vulnerabilities as soon as they are discovered, and you should always keep your system up-to-date. Thanks for reading by.

Canonical in one of the article announced a security breach on Ubuntu forum using the widely known hacking technique, SQL injection. The security breach was discovered on July 14th, after a Ubuntu Forum Council member notified the the Canonical's IS team about a person claiming to have a copy of Forums database. 

Ubuntu Forum screenshot. Source: UbuntuForums.org

The hackers used the SQL injection technique to read data from the user tables thus gaining access to the username, email address and IP address for more than 2 million users. Since the Ubuntu Forums uses single sign on for logins, no active passwords were accessed. 

Canonical also claims that the attacker was not able to have access to Ubuntu Code repository and user passwords. Neither were they able to escalate past remote SQL read access and gain remote SQL write access to the forums database.

If you are unaware, Ubuntu forum is a Q/A place for Ubuntu users. Canonical found out that the breach was due to a vulnerability in the third party vBuleting platform that powers the forum, and they have patched it. They backed up the servers running vBulletin, wiped them clean and rebuilt them from the ground up. They also had reset the system and database passwords. The monitoring of third party vBulletin has been tightened and ModSecuriy, a web application firewall has been installed to help prevent similar attacks in future. 

This should not in any case makes you think Linux us less secure. Ubuntu Forum is a website and the hack has been possible due to a third - party app. The Linux and Ubuntu, and other Linux distributions are perfectly safe to use and offers the best security. 

The popular Linux Distribution Linux Mint has released it's MATE and Cinnamon edition for the users. The Linux Mint 18 is a Long Term Support release which is to be supported till 2021. The new launches comes with many refinements and performance enhancements along with new features.

Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon / MATE Edition features 

Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon Edition

Linux Mint 18 MATE Edition

Linux Mint 18 comes with the latest Cinnamon 3.0. X-apps has been integrated to produce better generic applications for desktop environments and use the modern toolkits and technologies in a traditional user interface. These X-apps are developed to work in every environments amd provide the functionality users enjoy. The following X-apps are there in Linux Mind 18.

• Xed - default text editor
• Xviewer - default image viewer
• Xreaders - default pdf reader
• Xplayer - default media player for music and videos 
• Pix - app to organise the photos 

The update manager received many improvements with new settings and the ability to select kernel updates is there now. The configuration of update manager has been eased out in the latest release. There are various other improvements and artworks improvements. You can read the complete features here. 

System requirements for Linux Mint Cinnamon edition and MATE editions are same : 

• 512mb of RAM
• Min of 9GB free space
• 1024 x 768 resolution 

Download links:

Linux Mate 18 Cinnamon Edition

Linux Mint 18 MATE Edition

In 2010, 6 years earlier Liinux Mint introduced a beautiful metallic theme called Mint-X. With the new Mint 18 release, Linux Mint has introduced Mint-Y interface that looks much modern, clean and professional. This theme is based on the popular Arc theme. 

Have you already upgraded to Linux Mint 18 Sarah? How's your experience till now, tell us in the comments. 

Canonical in a newsletter confirmed that they are targeting Kernel v4.8 for its next stable release Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak. It's been more than a month since Ubuntu 16.04 LTS has been rolled out and the development for Ubuntu 16.10 is gaining momentum now. 

As of now, the 16.10 development has been based on the Kernel version v4.4 used by 16.04 and now the Canonical has confirmed that they are shifting to v4.6 and subsequently to 4.7 and then v4.8. 

Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak will be a standard version and will be held for 9 months, unlike the Ubuntu 16.04 which a LTS version with 5 years of support. The team has reported that Ubuntu 16.10 will jump to Kernel 4.6 and then on 4.7. Finally it will be launched with Linux Kernel 4.8 for better system performance and greater security. The development for Linux 4.8 is speculated to start between July 17-24, after the release of Linux 4.7.

The final version of Kernel v4.8 will be ready by end og Spetember just before the arrival of Ubuntu 16.10.

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus is out now

The wait for Ubuntu 16.04 code named Xenial Xerus has finally ended and Canonical released the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on 21st April. The LTS is long term support ensuring a support and maintenance for 5 years. Ubuntu is the world's most widely used Linux platform across desktop and the new release introduces much more features and stability, reliability and security. 

Built on a modified version of Linux 4.4 kernel, Ubuntu 16.04 introduces a new application format, snap for new robust and secure app format. Snap can be installed along with the the .deb package and aims at robust updates and secure applications for devices running on Ubuntu. 

Ubuntu 16.04 tries to move a step further in its convergence program. Convergence ensures a common computing platform across all Ubuntu devices be it desktop, tablet, and Ubuntu for phones. 

It has added support for LXD Pure-container hypervisor with OpenStack Mitaka and now supports Mainframes for the first time. 

We will discuss what's new in Ubuntu 16.04 some other times. If you wish to download Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus for your desktop, here's the resources and link that will be useful. 

The recommended System Requirements for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS are: 

• 2 GHz dual core processor or better
• 2 GB system memory
• 25 GB of free hard drive space
• Either a DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
• Internet access is helpful

You can download Ubuntu for Desktop from here: Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop Download

There are bit-torrents links to download ; you can see the complete list here : Ubuntu 16.04 torrent download link

Follow this link for different Ubuntu Flavors download. 

Microsoft announced on Wednesday the "Ubuntu on Windows" to bring Linux command line tool Bash to Windows 10 Operating System in its Microsoft's annual developer conference. Both Microsoft and Canonical has partnered together to allow Bash on Windows 10 natively without any containers and Virtualization. Although this has been done from a long time from third party tools like Cygwin, it has its own limitations and providing a native support for Bash command line to Windows 10 is a step to invite outside developers. 

The "Ubuntu on Windows" will be available as an Upgrade later this year for Windows 10 user. This comes as a surprize for Open Source world, since Microsoft has always confined itself within "propretory" limitations and a partnership with Canonical was something highly unexpected. 

Bash i.e. Bourne Again SHell, is an open source unix shell and command line interpreter for the GNU operating systems. 

Microsoft in its blog said that the "Ubuntu on Windows" is an attempt to make working with open source tools on Windows easier. SO, they has decided to provide the native support for Bash which run directly on Windows in an environment that behaves like Linux. 

Once it will be released, developers/users will be able to run Bash scripts, Linux command line tools like sed, awk, grep and can even try Linux-first tools like Ruby, Git, Python directly on Windows. Accessing your Windows filesystem within Bash will be easier. However, it wont support Windows Application interaction so you might not able to open a Windows app say Notepad from Bash. One a lighter note, this may remind you of something opposite to "Wine for Linux".

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical addressed it as something that was unpredicted. 

In our journey to bring free software to the widest possible audience, this is not a moment we could have predicted. Nevertheless, we are delighted to stand behind Ubuntu for Windows, committed to addressing the needs of Windows developers exploring Linux in this amazing new way, and are excited at the possibilities heralded by this unexpected turn of events.

Microsoft wil release it first to the Insiders and then susequently for all Windows 10 users. WHat do you think, is it something that will benefit both Microsoft and Linux?

A major kernel update has been released from Canonical for Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr where about 13 vulnerabilities that has been discovered by developers and hackers have been patched. Canonical has asked the Ubuntu users running Trusty Tahr LTS to update their system immediately. 

Updating your kernel package to linux-image-3.13.0-83 (3.13.0-83.127), linux-image-3.16.0-67 (3.16.0-67.87~14.04.1), linux-image-3.19.0-56 (3.19.0-56.62~14.04.1), or linux-image-4.2.0-34 (4.2.0-34.39~14.04.1) will ensure these patches. 

You can update your kernel by following these steps. 

Open Unity Dash > Software updater and run the application. It will check for the updates that are available for your system.

Once done, it will notify you the updates available and will ask you for update along with the size of files needed to be download. I have started the update to be installed and as you can see below, linux-image-4.2.0.34-generic is being downloaded and installed in my Ubuntu 14.04 which contains this Kernel patch.

You can also update Kernel from the pre packaged kernel available via ppa:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kernel-ppa/ppa

You are doing that on your own risk though.

ambarish@ambarish-ubuntu:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kernel-ppa/ppa

[sudo] password for ambarish: 

 Ubuntu Kernel Team Daily Build PPA - this PPA typically contains experimental packages. The quality of these packages is such that you had better know what you're doing. Don't come crying to the kernel team if it kills all of your kittens.

 More info: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-ppa/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

and you are done.

Some of the third party modules may need to be built again, after the kernel update. Have you updated your Kernel? 

Mozilla has released Firefox Version 37.0 on March 31, 2015 to the world with various security fixes and HTML 5 support. Firefox is an open source web browser developed by Mozilla Foundation and supports various platforms. The new version Mozilla Firefox 37.0 introduces HTTPS bing search for secure searching, improved performance, extending HTML support by adding support for CSS display:contents, implementing subset of Media Source Extensions API to allow native HTML 5 playback on YouTube and various other security fixes. Let's discuss what's new in Firefox 37.0.

What's new in Mozilla Firefox 37.0

• Yandex as the default search provider for the Turkish people. 

• Bing now will use HTTPS for secure searching. 

• Improved performance against phishing sites. 

• Encryption of HTTP traffic where the server supports HTTP/2 AltSvc. 

• Extended SSL error reporting.

• Inproved WebGL rendering on Windows Operating System.

• Adding Media Source Extentions MSE API to allow native HTML5 playback on YouTube. 

• Extending HTML 5 support by adding CSS diplay:contents

• Various security fixes.

Download Firefox 37.0

Firefox 37.0 is available for Windows, MacOS, andoird and for various distributions of Linux. Here's where you can download Firefox version 37.0.

Firefox for desktop https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/desktop/

Freifox for Android Download here.

Firefox for Linux

• Download Firefox from the Firefox download page to your home directory.
• Open a Terminal and go to your home directory: cd ~
• Extract the contents of the downloaded file: tar xjf firefox-*.tar.bz2
• Close Firefox if it's open.
• To start Firefox, run the firefox script in the firefox folder: ~/firefox/firefox

This way, you can have an open source web browser for your use. Firefox has recently improved its navigation features and has worked on making it lighter for its users, resulting in a fast and more secure way of browsing the web. 

Note: I will try to be short and clear. 

First of all, let us see what Wikipedia says about Net neutrality:

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.

This mean that your ISP is free to charge or overcharge or can ask for a million dollar for 1000mB of data or charge you more for a higher speed data plan - and then you decide you want to take the plan or not. But what they cannot is - they cannot restrict you in any way to use that data plan. You are free to type either Google.com, tweet something, upload a pic to Instagram, watch a YouTube video, download a free pdf, or utilize your data plan reading Tom and Jerry cartoons.

So, why this Net Neutrality and #SaveTheInternet in India all of a sudden?

The reason for this sudden #NetNeutrality and #SaveTheInternet is a little complex but clear. With WhatsApp and Viber, text message services has gone outdated and the revenue these telecom operators would have still been generating is counting as a loss to them. Plus with WhatsApp calling feature, Line free voice calls, Viber free video calls and then we have skype too, the telecom operators feels that soon the VoIP will replace normal calling and all a user will need is an Internet Pack. They are trying to restrict this freedom.

Not to forget the recent Airtel announcement to offer free usage for Flipkart App [Flipkart is a online shopping website] limiting or compelling the users to ignore competition.

Airtel even tried to charge differently for Voice over Internet Protocols - in simple language, the free calls you do from any app, or the video calls you do using Skype. But a protest delayed it.

The telecom operators are still trying to lobby TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) for this, what we can call, anti-net-neutrality. 

What you need to do to #SaveTheInternet? 

Watch this #AIB video first:

TRAI has asked public opinions and the above video explains what you need to do. Visit the website http://www.savetheinternet.in/  and send TRAI a message.

The Logical Indian in its recent article Explained everything about net neutrality in short and precise manner.

Wake up guys. You need to act to continue using Internet the way you are doing for last 20 years.

Be Open. Be Free. Keep the Internet Open. #BeOpenSource requests you to give a shout. 

-ambarish

Linux Kernel 3.15 has finally been announced by Linus Torvalds and there's much more to offer from Linux. 

What's new in Linux Kernel 3.15

• USB: Avoid runtime suspend loops for HCDs that can't handle suspend/resume
• drm/radeon/dpm: resume fixes for some systems
• USB: serial: option: add support for Novatel E371 PCIe card
• x86, vdso: Fix an OOPS accessing the HPET mapping w/o an HPET
• usb: cdc-wdm: export cdc-wdm uapi header
• Btrfs: send, fix corrupted path strings for long paths 

You can read what Linus Torvalds has to say and all the things Linux Kernel 3.15 has to offer at https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/6/8/70

Install / Upgrade to Linux Kernel 3.15 

Run these commands in a terminal one-by-one to install / upgrade to Linux kernel 3.15.

For 32-bit system

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500-generic_3.15.0-031500.201406081435_i386.deb 

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500_3.15.0-031500.201406081435_all.deb 

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-image-3.15.0-031500-generic_3.15.0-031500.201406081435_i386.deb 

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.15.0-*.deb linux-image-3.15.0-*.deb

For 64-bit system

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500-generic_3.15.0-031500.201406081435_amd64.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-headers-3.15.0-031500_3.15.0-031500.201406081435_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-utopic/linux-image-3.15.0-031500-generic_3.15.0-031500.201406081435_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.15.0-*.deb linux-image-3.15.0-*.deb

Once done, restart your computer to see the changes. 

If for some reason, the Linux Kernel 3.15 install / upgrade do not works properly, you can roll back to previous stable kernel by Navigating to Grub > Advanced > Select previous kernel and running this command to uninstall it

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.15.0-* linux-image-3.15.0-*

and updating the grub menu

sudo update-grub

Mozilla do not want to give up on its Firefox OS despite the market dominance of iOS and Android and the emergence of Windows Phone after Nokia acquisition. Mozilla has tied up with low-end low cost handset makers in India to bring smartphones under $25 or Rs. 2000. The handsets are to be released within few months and no expected date is yet announced. 

These handsets will target the Indian and Chinese market and are basically targeting people who can't afford a high end Android device. Mozilla chief operating officer Li Gong has confirmed the tie ups and added that these under $25 handsets will provide a momentum to the growing market of Firefox OS. 

Ubuntu 14.04 is the next Long Term Support Ubuntu version which means Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will be supported for 5 years for Ubuntu desktop and server, Ubuntu core, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Ubuntu Kylin. All other flavors will be supported for a time span of 3 years.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS codenamed Trusty Tahr, is releasing today on April 17, 2014. The Beta versions were available for download but the stable version is releasing today. You can wait to see it when the download link for Ubuntu 14.04 appears on the Ubuntu download page.

Upgrading from Ubuntu 13.10 

Open Software Sources and press Alt + F2 to open the command box.

Type update-manager and open it. You will find the option New distribution release '14.04 LTS' is available.

Click upgrade and follow the steps to proceed.

What's new in Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.

You can have a first look of Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr from PuppyLinuxWorld. 

A comparison of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to the last Long term support release 12.04. 

 

Source: http://www.technicalexplore.com/computers/ubuntu-1404-lts-vs-ubuntu.html

You can read the press release Here.

You can try Ubuntu try Ubuntu without installing through booting from USB/DVD or you can install install linux ubuntu on oracle vm virtual box.

Mohammad Khamash in his article Open Source Owns the Web shows the increasing dominance of Open Source over the web.

Courtesy: http://www.jordanopensource.org