Linux Ending Support for the Floppy Drive, Unity 2019.2 Launches Today, Purism Unveils Final Librem 5 Smartphone Specs, First Kernel Security Update for Debian 10 "Buster" Is Out, and Twitter Is Switching from Mesos to Kubernetes
News briefs for July 30, 2019
Linux won't support the floppy drive much longer. ZDNet reports that Linus Torvalds has "declared the floppy drive project 'orphaned'". The article quotes Linus: "Actual working physical floppy hardware is getting hard to find, and while Willy was able to test this, I think the driver can be considered pretty much dead from an actual hardware standpoint. The hardware that is still sold seems to be mainly USB-based, which doesn't use this legacy driver at all."
Unity 2019.2 launches today. From the Unity blog: "We have over 1000 developers dedicated to extending and improving Unity for you. In this release, you get more than 170 new features and enhancements for artists, designers, and programmers. We've updated ProBuilder, Shader Graph, 2D Animation, Burst Compiler, UI Elements, and many more." See this video for more details on all the new features, and go here to download.
Purism has unveiled the final specs for the Librem 5 Smartphone, which should begin shipping in Q3 2019 (Display: 5.7" IPS TFT screen @ 720x1440; Processor: i.MX8M Quad Core max. 1.5GHz; Memory: 3GB; Storage: 32GB eMMC internal storage—see the post for the rest). If you pre-order before July 31st, you'll get the early-bird discount price of $649.
The first kernel security update for Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" is now available. According to Softpedia News, the update addresses security flaw CVE-2019-13272. Jann Horn of Google Project Zero "discovered that the ptrace subsystem in the Linux kernel mishandles the management of the credentials of a process that wants to create a ptrace relationship, allowing a local user to obtain root privileges under certain scenarios". The issue affects older versions of Debian as well, so all users should update now.
Twitter is switching from Mesos to Kubernetes. Zhang Lei, Senior Technical Expert on Alibaba Cloud Container Platform and Co-maintainer of Kubernetes Project, writes "with the popularity of cloud computing and the rise of cloud-based containerized infrastructure projects like Kubernetes, this traditional Internet infrastructure starts to show its age—being a much less efficient solution compared with that of Kubernetes". See Zhang's post for some background history and more details on the move.
Jill Franklin is an editorial professional with more than 17 years experience in technical and scientific publishing, both print and digital. As Executive Editor of Linux Journal, she wrangles writers, develops content, manages projects, meets deadlines and makes sentences sparkle. She also was Managing Editor for TUX and Embedded Linux Journal, and the book Linux in the Workplace. Before entering the Linux and open-source realm, she was Managing Editor of several scientific and scholarly journals, including Veterinary Pathology, The Journal of Mammalogy, Toxicologic Pathology and The Journal of Scientific Exploration. In a previous life, she taught English literature and composition, managed a bookstore and tended bar. When she’s not bugging writers about deadlines or editing copy, she throws pots, gardens and reads.
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