The latest IPFire release introduces several key updates, including a refreshed kernel, enhanced Quality of Service (QoS) performance using fq_codel for reduced CPU usage, improved DHCP lease handling for DNS, and a more robust build system to prevent unintended modifications. Additionally, OpenSSL has been upgraded to version 3.3.0, addressing Intel CPU vulnerabilities, and multiple packages have been updated. The web UI and add-ons received significant refinements, improving functionality and performance across the system. The team also encourages donations to support continued development.
The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 13.4-RELEASE. This is the fifth release of the stable/13 branch. Since this release is occurring late in a legacy stable branch, there are few new features; rather, the focus is primarily on maintenance. As such, changes since 13.3-RELEASE consist mostly of bug fixes, driver updates, and new versions of externally-maintained software. For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list.... FreeBSD 13.4-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures.
SDesk includes a massive amount of new drivers for touchscreens, fingerprint readers, and more. It now supports fractional scaling, too. The latest version of the Swirl browser is now shipped with a gorgeous new UI and a bunch of new features, and Plymouth, the Calamares installer, and both Octopi and the GNOME Shell extensions we ship by default have all been updated to their latest versions. It's also worth noting that Calamares no longer handles user creation, locales, or keyboard layout configuration, and all of this is now done by the GNOME Initial Setup application.
bslx-6.10.10-1-2024.09.14-x86_64 has been released and is available for download. I've rebuilt as many packages that depend on libalpm.14 as I could identify - yay, yaourt, octopi, alpm_octopi_utils, package-query - since the pacman update also updated libalpm to version 15, throwing all AUR access programs out-of-date. I'm continuing to keep a watch for others.
From now on Starbuntu belongs to the Ubuntu family 24.04(.1) named "noble numbat" and presents a bundle of software upgrades in addition to the new kernel 6.8.0-44. This dist upgrade required a lot of adjustments, which have now been successfully completed.
Some highlights since our 23.3 release include: Update Xfce 4.18 core packages (Xfce ISOs and Oi respin). MX PackageInstaller now shows all installed packages in Enabled, test, and backports tabs, not just those available in a configured repo. Installed and repo version numbers are shown in table, not just tooltips. The Flatpak tab has an optional filter to show only Flathub verified Flatpaks. (MX-)live-usb-maker defaults to luks2 encryption for those making encrypted live usb devices. MX-USB-unmounter has UI improvements, plus an option to only show on tray if a removable device is inserted. pipewire-setup-mx updated to make pipewire/wireplumber startup under SysV init more reliable, especially for KDE users. MX Tweak has a KDE option to disable/enable plasma-discover's autostart systray updater notifier. AHS users have updated firmware packages (backported from Debian Sid). Fluxbox ISO now includes job-scheduler, a front end for cron (already included on other ISOs). Conky and panel should be exempt from hiding with Alt+D (show desktop). New mxfb-quickshot_delay script that does a screenshot with a pre-configured delay.
bslx-6.10.9-2-2024.09.11-x86_64 has been released and is available for download.
GhostBSD 24.07.3 has been released, addressing issues from previous versions (24.07.1 and 24.07.2) and introducing several key improvements. These include designating certain system and software packages as vital, adding support for package marking, and incorporating hgame in the kld_list . Bug fixes resolve the legacy boot issue caused by a missing gzip in the BIOS /boot/loader and ensure proper creation of /etc/X11 during setup. Additionally, security updates address vulnerabilities in urllib3 and tornado . The release is available for download, with instructions for creating bootable USBs across various platforms.
The summary of the changelog since the 2024.2 release from June is: Qualcomm NetHunter Pro Devices - Qualcomm Snapdragon SDM845 SoC now supported; new Tools - 11x new tools in your arsenal. Our focus has been on a lot of behind the scenes updates and optimizations since the last release. There have been some messy migrations, with multiple stacks, all interrelating (transition have been like buses, all coming at once!). After the t64 transition finished up, it was straight into multiple other transitions: GCC 14, the glibc 2.40, and Python 3.12. This last one is the most significant! This new Python release removed some long-deprecated APIs, breaking a fair number of packages. We have been busy fixing it all (weeks of work!), we are almost there, Python 3.12 will be the default in the next version of Kali - 2024.4. With Python 3.12, there will be a major change for users: it won't be possible to install Python packages with pip anymore. We wrote about that a year ago already, we invite you to read that again if you are an avid user of pip.
Tails 6.7, released on September 10, 2024, brings several updates and fixes. Notably, it updates Tor Browser to version 13.5.3, Thunderbird to 115.15.0, and OnionShare to 2.6, introducing anonymous chat rooms. A key fix ensures the firewall remains active during shutdown, and older Tails USB sticks with a 2.5 GB system partition no longer trigger errors. Users encountering Shim SBAT verification errors on Linux are advised to disable Secure Boot temporarily. The release supports automatic upgrades from Tails 6.0 or later, with manual upgrade options if needed.