IPFire 2.23 - Core Update 132 Released with Important Security Fixes, Kernel 5.2-rc4 Is Out, Akraino Edge Stack Release 1.0 Is Now Available, KDE Announces Its Google Summer of Code Students and Google Assistant Now Works with Waze
News briefs for June 10, 2019.
IPFire 2.23 - Core Update 132 was released recently. This update includes security fixes and improvements to help secure systems vulnerable to some recent problems with Intel processors, specifically RIDL, Fallout and ZombieLoad. From the release announcement: "Two new types of vulnerabilities have been found in Intel processors. They cannot be fixed unless the hardware is changed, but can be somewhat mitigated through some changes in the Linux kernel (4.14.120) and an update microcode (version 20190514). Both is shipped in this release. Additionally, to mitigate this bug which cannot be fixed at all, SMT is disabled by default on all affected processors which has significant performance impacts." In addition, this release includes a new GUI that shows you which attacks your hardware may be vulnerable to and whether mitigations are in place. Go here to download.
Linux kernel 5.2-rc4 was released on Saturday. Linus Torvalds writes, "We've had a fairly calm release so far, and on the whole that seems to hold. rc4 isn't smaller than rc3 was (it's a bit bigger), but rc3 was fairly small, so the size increase isn't all that worrisome. I do hope that we'll start actually shrinking now, though. The SPDX conversions do continue to stand out, and make the diffstat a bit noisy. They don't affect actual code, so it's not like we should have any issues with them, but it makes the patch statistics look a bit odd." See the LKML post for more information.
Akraino Edge Stack Release 1.0 is now available. Light Reading reports that "Akraino's premiere release unlocks the power of intelligent edge with deployable, self-certified blueprints for a diverse set of edge use cases." In addition, "Akraino R1 delivers the first iteration towards new levels of flexibility to scale edge cloud services quickly, maximize efficiency, and deliver high availability for deployed services. It delivers a deployable and fully functional edge stack for edge use cases ranging from Industrial IoT, Telco 5G Core & vRAN, uCPE, SDWAN, edge media processing, and carrier edge media processing. As the premiere release, it opens doors to further enhancements and development to support edge infrastructure." For more information, go to https://www.lfedge.org.
KDE announces its Google Summer of Code students for 2019. There are too many to list here, so see the announcement for the list of students and projects they are working on.
Google Assistant now can offer navigation suggestions in Waze for Android users, so you can report on traffic without needing to touch your screen. According to Engadget, this feature is available only in the US for English at the moment.
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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