Debian 9: Stretch released

The most used Linux Distribution, indirectly or directly, Debian is like a father to many big and small distros.Today Debian team announced the release of Debian Stretch, the new Debian release.This release really excites us.Wondering, Why? Find yourself by reading the full post.

Before we start, We want to thank Ian Murdock, the man without whom we must not be having the Linux as interesting as it is now to use and of course the availability of a variety of other distros based on Debian can't be ignored.

What is new in here?

• Well starting from the very first thing that may decide whether you'll try or use new Debian or not and it is, of course, the system requirement.The new Debian Stretch has more new adds to the system support.With one new added architecture and one removal may make some difference.64-bit little endian MIPS has been added and sadly PowerPC is no more supported in Debian 9.Other than that 32-bit PC(i386) is not kicked out of the supported list, as per many other distributions dropping the support of it.ARM EABI, ARMv7, 64-bit Pc are some other supported architectures. 

• With the release of Debian 9, Firefox and Thunderbird are making a return.Replacing the long time occupied at their places Iceweasel and Icedove are removed.

• MariaDB is now the default MySQL variant.MariaDB 10.1 has been added to the same.Apache 2.4.25,Chromium 59.0.0371.86, GIMP 2.8.18, LibreOffice 5.2, systemd 232, Thunderbird 45.8 are some of the update packages.With the inclusion of 15346 new packages, a total of 61687 packages is in here in the Debian 9.Out of which most of the packages, about 29859 packages have been updated.

• In Debian 9 Linux 4.9 is the base Kernel.

• UEFI boot is now better than before, so Windows Laptops must not get any issue in installing Debian 9 on their system.
• Debian Stretch has wide range of almost all major DEs, GNOME 3.2KDE Plasma 5.8, LXDE, MATE 1.16, Xfce 4.12
• Xorg server doesn't require root anymore.
• New deb.debian.org mirror has been introduced.All major to minor main archive, port archive, security archive are available in there.

We will be back with full detailed post on Debian 9 Stretch.Till then You may give it a try.

Chakra 2017.03 Goedel is released

The Germany originated, Independent but a fork of Arch, Chakra GNU/LINUX is no new name in the Linux distro world.With an user-friendly environment and features, beautiful looks, graphical installer and Half-Rolling release model, Chakra GNU/Linux are a successful and popular Linux Distribution.

So, Chakra team has announced the latest release Chakra 2017.03 codenamed as Goedel.So this Codename is a tribute to the mathematician and philosopher Kurt Goedel.

Linux Kernel 4.10.2 released

Linux Kernel stable release, Linux Kernel 4.10.y received second point maintenance update.Linux Kernel 4.10.2 got an announcement of release by Linux Kernel maintainer for stable branch Greg Kroah-Hartman.
Seeing the changes, we have 174 changes made and 1929 files have been added along with deletion of 1010 files from the last kernel point.Seeing the changes we can say that inclusion and works on some drivers with sound and security segments have been worked and troubleshoot.

All the users who are already on Linux Kernel 4.10.y are advised to upgrade to the latest one.

WhatsApp's Text Status is back with new name 'About' and A New Look in a beta update on Android

  

Recently WhatsApp came with a new Status feature which allows users to post Pictures, Videos, and GIFs as their WhatsApp Status with a caption(if needed).But Many of us felt at the very first sight, Text Status is a real missing feature in the new update.Though some appreciated it or were okay with it.

Parrot Security OS 3.5 is released

Parrot Security, the Debian-based distribution just got new release Parrot 3.5 available to download.The Parrot team proudly announced the release of this new release after a call for Beta-testers and final fixes(must be made) based on it. Just a few days back the team has come up with an announcement of a release date as 8th march and here they are.
This new release has dropped all those old packages which didn't comply with Debian's standard.The removal of gtkdialog lead to dropping some of the based built software as well.Linux kernel 4.9.3 is the new updated kernel and the team is looking forward to adding the latest Linux Kernel update 4.10 as soon as Debian team will complete their side work and add it in their latest release.
Most of the packages are updated as for most pointable update is not bringing the firefox 45 but the latest firefox 51 and not only that the security plug-ins have been updated and improved.
VirtualBox and VMware guest support is added by default, an onboard virtual keyboard has also been added.
 Download Latest release from your preferred location and architecture.

The emerging Linux distribution, Manjaro 17.0 is released

Not long ago Manjaro released the previous version named 'Fringilla' which was a great success. With growing number of users day by day, developer team released latest version named Manjaro 17.0 'Gellivara' few hours ago. Manjaro 17.0 is released in both official flavors i.e. KDE and Xfce.

The KDE flavor of Manjaro ships with plasma desktop 5.9, KDE apps 16.12.3 and framework 5.31. While the flagship flavor of Manjaro which is Xfce also received lot of love from the team. Manjaro 17.0 ships with Xfce 4.12 with an undoubtedly polished and well maintained user interface. The team spent quite a time of enhancing user interface and window manager. Some of the themes are updated as well as new themes are designed for the release.

Manjaro ARM to shut down

Manjaro ARM was built for ARM embedded devices and was doing a great job from over a year ago. Manjaro ARM supported devices like Raspberry Pi, Ocdroid, etc. Today a bad news came from Manjaro-arm team that it is going to shut down all the services. The team has to make this tough decision because of low number of contributors. There were very less people to maintain and work on development of this amazing distribution. The team worked hard and tirelessly for this project to become successful, but there were very few users. According to official announcement, the forums and website will stay alive for sometime while other services will be shut down as per below time frame,

Services shut down timeframe:
All development and Bug fixes -- Already shut down.
Package Building -- Already shut down
Package Adding -- April 1st
Releases -- Already Shut down
Wiki -- April 1st
Bug Tracker -- April 1st
Manjaro-Arm Website -- June 1st
Manjaro-Arm Forums -- June 1st
IRC Channel -- TBD
Software Repo -- May 1st (this is only for the main repo at repo.manjaro-arm.org)

While the project is dying, the team has offered help to anyone who is willing to continue this project. The team will guide through all the process and even teach if needed. If anyone is interested in continuing this project, now is the time. Otherwise we all have to say goodbye to Manjaro-ARM.

Source

Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS released -Find Out More

Ubuntu 16.04.X segment line has gotten its' next maintenance and bug-fix update, Ubuntu 16.04.2, so basically it is the second point update after the release of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS final for Desktop, Server, Cloud-based ones as well as the different flavored versions of Ubuntu like Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Mythbuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu GNOME have also been availed with their updated images of 16.04.2 version.

Facebook Announced Video App for watching videos on Smart TVs-Find Out More

We all watch hundreds of videos on our Facebook Feed, videos by our friends & family, Pages and People we follow, Groups and some others.Whatever might be the source of the videos we simply love watching videos and facebook is now having a large amount of videos. We can not say it rivals YouTube but in near future, it might and one more step has been taken towards that.Facebook on 14th Feb, announced a new way to watch Facebook videos, now Facebook is rolling out the ability to watch Facebook Feed videos direct on your TV using a mobile app.So now you can watch your favorite videos on bigger screens with just one click on your mobile phone.The app will allow users to watch all kind of facebook videos direct on their Apple TV, Samsung Smart TV and we guess on other smart TVs should also work.

Even if this feature is something we have already seen by other video serving sites and apps, Facebook videos stand differently from all of them, being short in length and of course videos by family and friends on events, birthdays or any sudden live on Facebook can not be compared to others.

Linux Kernel 4.9.10 released

Linux Kernel 4.9.X is the latest Stable Kernel series.On 15th Feb, Greg Kroah-Hartman,Linux Kernel maintainer for the stable branch has made an announcement about the release of Linux Kernel 4.9.10 and this release is here going to be first focus for the latest Linux Distributions update releases for sure.
Linux Kernel 4.9.10 has 72 files changed, 463 insertion and 290 deletions.

Parsix 8.15r1 is out for public

Parsix is a Debian based Linux distribution. It is originated in Iran and focuses on being easy to use operating system. Few hours ago Parsix 8.15r1 is released which based on Debian Jesse stable branch. Parsix uses gnome 3.22 as desktop environment in the latest release. In this release Parsix team used lots of updated packages in the core part, as well as lots of bug fixes to make this version more better than previous.

Parsix 8.15r1 uses Linux kernel 4.4.48. It now fixed the regression between Intel HD graphics, skylake and newer chips. Parsix repositories are in sync with latest and updated Debian Jesse's repository. Xserver-X.Org is been updated to 1.16.4. New artwork is used in this release.

Updated Packages

Main changes are:

• Linux 4.4.48
• GNOME Shell 3.22.2
• Xserver-X.Org 1.16.4
• Firefox 51.0.1
• Chromium Browser 56.0
• LibreOffice 4.3.3
• Glibc 2.19
• GParted 0.19.0
• Empathy 3.12.12
• GIMP 2.8.14
• Grisbi 1.0.1
• VirtualBox 4.3.36
• VLC 2.2.1 

• Updated Adobe flash player to 24.0.0.194 (32 and 64 bit).

Precompiled display drivers for nVidia and AMD/ATI users are available in APT repository. nVidia-legacy 173xx and 96xx series cards are not supported anymore . If you are a user of one of those cards you have an alternative way to use Nouveau open source driver. UEFI boot is now supported in 64 bit version of this release. If you are an existing Parsix user then you can simply upgrade your system from 8.10 by using 'sudo apt-get dist-upgrade'. If not a Parsix user the you can simply download the latest version and install it using DVD or USB.

To download - Parsix 8.15r1

Source

Manjaro Linux 17.0 beta 3 released in KDE flavor

Not long ago Developer team behind Manjaro Linux released second beta of version 17.0 code named 'Gellivara'. Few hours ago Manjaro team released third beta of 17.0. This release comes with many fixes and changes as well as new features.This release is in KDE flavor while Xfce flavor is been also released in beta 3.

According to official sources, Linux kernel is been updated to 4.9 LTS. Xorg-stack is also updated to 1.19. All the themes are updated to work with latest version on Manjaro. EFI installation process is been improved and fixed. KDE Plasma is updated to 5.9.1, KDE Apps are updated to 16.12.2. Manjaro Hello is updated to 0.4.10. Fixed Xorg-server crashes. Meta is still on 13.0.4 as it was on beta 2. Various changes are made in partitions and netinstall process.

So what will be the features of the new release series:

• We updated the stock kernel to linux49 4.9 LTS - Done with Alpha1
• We will update the Xorg-Stack to v1.19 series - Done with Beta1
• We will enhance and improve Luks and LVM support in CAL - Partly done with CAL v3.0
• We will enhance and improve our Manjaro Tools & Profiles - Ongoing within v0.14 branch
• We will enhance and improve our MHWD and MSM - Almost completed for Xorg 1.19
• We will update our themes - Done with Beta3

Changes since Beta2 release:

• Plasma 5.9.1
• KDE Apps 16.12.2
• VLC Nightly added
• Manjaro Hello 0.4.10
• Fixed some crashing issues with Xorg-Server
• [CAL] partition: use always double click to activate a partition tree view item
• [CAL] netinstall: moved module to a tree based UI
• [CAL] welcome: Add fallback check for internet connection
• [CAL] partition: Don't hardcode /dev/sd* as device path.
• [CAL] packages: Make try_{install,remove} more robust.

With the release of third beta, final version of Manjaro 17.0 is coming closer and closer. While many of us would stick to stable releases, there are also some people who want to try out it as early as possible. Try out the latest beta if you want to help developers or experience new features beforehand of final release.

To download click here.

Source

AntiX 17 alpha2 is out for testing

AntiX is Debian based Linux distribution. It is originated in Greece and lightweight distribution. AntiX is especially designed for old systems to provide lightweight but fully functional environment to work on. Few hours ago developer team released AntiX 17 alpha2 for testing purpose. there are many changes made in this release.

According to official announcement, there is a custom AntiX kernel based on 4.9.6. The installation media is available for both 32 bit and 64 bit systems. Live kernel updater and live usb maker included. The installation will now be done by cli-installer. Currently only MBR scheme is supported for installation of grub.

What's on the iso?

• New! 4.9.6 custom antiX kernel and headers (not libre)
• cli-installer
• antiX live system and persistence
• cli remastering
• live-kernel-updater
• live-usb-maker
• nano for editing
• rsync
• eudev - let me know how well this works
• sysvinit as init default. No systemd or libsystemd0
• gettext-base, lockfile-progs, xz-utils, (bugfix)
• console-date and lsb-release will get installed during the installation stage (bugfix)
• libudev1 and libudev-dev to avoid dependency issues after installation since we ship with eudev

Well, AntiX is not only a lightweight distro but it is also lightweight in size. It is only 150mb in size. So guys if you want to help the developers then try and test the latest alpha of AntiX.

To download click here.

Source

NuTyX 8.2.94 is available for public

Few hours ago, NuTyX team announced release of new version named NuTyX 8.2.94. This Linux distribution is based on LFS project and it has a custom package management called Cards. New version on NuTyX comes with lots of updates and fixes.
According to official announcement, Cards are now updated to 2.1.106.  Cards configuration files are now corrected resulting in adaptation of new lists of collections. Linux kernel is updated to 4.9.8. glibc 2.22, gcc 6.3.0, binutils 2.27, python 3.6.0, xorg-server 1.19.1, qt 5.8.0are also updated. In case of looks, KDE plasma 5.9.0, kf5 5.30.0, gnome 3.22.2, mate 1.16.1, xfce4 4.12.3 are also updated to keep your desktop beautiful.All the available packages are recompiled for this new version due to split in qt5 and rename pf python3 in python. NuTyX is available for both 32 bit and 64 bit systems.

According to official source,

• The base-extra collection is now integrated in the base collection.
• The /usr/lib64 -> /usr/lib and /lib64 -> /lib links are removed.

The /usr/lib64 directory should not exist anymore. 

Main Updated Package List

• cards 2.1.94 -> 2.1.106
• kernel lts 4.4.21 -> 4.9.8
• gcc 6.2.0 -> 6.3.0
• python 3.5.1 -> python 3.6.0
• alsa 1.1.2 -> 1.1.3
• cups 2.1.4 -> 2.2.1
• xorg-server 1.18.4 -> 1.19.1
• qt5 5.7.0 -> qt 5.8.0
• gtk3 3.20.9 -> 3.22.7
• firefox 49.0.2 -> 51.0.1
• thunderbird 45.3.0 -> 45.7.0
• chromium 53.0.2785.116 -> 56.0.2924.76
• libreoffice 5.2.1.1 -> 5.2.5.1
• kf5 5.26.0 -> 5.30.0
• plasma 5.7.95 -> 5.9.0

 To Download latest version CLICK HERE

 Source

KDE Plasma 5.9.1 BugFix update released

KDE Plasma Desktop, a very feature rich Linux Desktop Environment(DE), I would say one of its kind. Recently, around 8 days before KDE team has announced the release of their new build KDE Plasma 5.9 and as said earlier features are always the main attractions, KDE Plasma 5.9 was focused on leveling up the productivity and they did so by allowing users to give interaction facility with the Notification flashes and more, they are called Interactive Notification Previews.

Well, Many new things came in and the comeback of Global Menus, but many users and developers came to see some minor and some markable fix-needy places, and here is the KDE team with the very first point release of KDE Plasma 5.9, i.e KDE Plasma Desktop 5.9.1.
What's Fixed in here?
Breeze, Plasma Addons, KScreen, Kwin, Plasma Desktop Audio Volume Control, KDE workspaces have found a line in fixed listing. You may check the full Changelog to get more information.
If you have upgraded to KDE Plasma 5.9 then you must update it to the latest version to get bug-fixes.

Calculate Linux 17 Cinnamon released

Calculate Linux Calculate Linux 17 was launched back at the very end of last year in KDE and MATE editions, You can check Calculate Linux 17 Released.Now it is time to taste the new flavour, Cinnamon.
Calculate Linux Team has announced the release of Calculate Linux 17 Cinnamon.
Well, Calculate Linux Desktop Cinnamon(CLDC) must be having key and basic features and packages just like other DE flavoured Calculate Linux variants.Apart from that CLDC is released with Cinnamon 3.2.7.Other than that Firefox, RythomBox, Gimp, Pidgin, Totem and many more packages are updated and pre-installed in CLDC.
This release is available for both i686 and x86_64 architectures.
In the terms of looks, Calculate Linux Team has tried to make users feel right at home, by rebranding Cinnamon and making the Graphics of real cinnamon desktop not to spoil the Calculate Linux feel.
Have a look at the screenshots that the team has posted in the announcement

KDE Plasma 5.9 released

Today KDE team has announced the release of KDE plasma 5.9.And it's not like those conventional release, having few bug fixes and improvement here and there,KDE has some nice list of changes and features for their users.
Without wasting more time let's get the list of changes and what's new in here?So,
What's new in KDE Plasma 5.9?
Interactive Notification Previews:
To bring more productivity out of this Plasma version,Here is something real useful feature which allows us to do things with the notifications.Yup! Alike other Desktop Environments, which are now working on notifications of the actions but they are just few lines of information about the task/action taken, KDE Plasma's this feature gives a lift by giving real time interactions with notifications and one can do various actions with their notifications.

For instance, A notification of screenshot allows to drag and drop the taken screeshot directly in any mail(Even Webmail), chat window etc.

GhostBSD 11.0 PREALPHA4 is out for testing

Hi guys, if you ever used FreeBSD, then you probably know about GhostBSD. Few ours ago the developer team released 4th preaplha of GhostBSD 11.0. It is based on FreeBSD and offers more user-friendly nature than the later. Earlier versions of this distribution used TGZ as package management, but now it uses PKG as package management. By default GhostBSD uses MATE and Xfce as desktop environment.

According to official announcement, prealpha4 will be available for both 32 bit and 64 bit architectures. It will now support VMWare X. You can manage network settings using Doas. New UFS full disk installation option including disk mirroring is also added in feature list. Live disk X configuration will done straight before getting to desktop. Lots of software updates are done and some older issues are solved. 

While there is not much announced yet, you can try out the new alpha and help developers to fix the bugs quickly. You can simply head to official website to download latest alpha or use below direct links to downloads.

 

GhostBSD 11.0 PREALPHA4 32 bit

GhostBSD 11.0 PREALPHA4 64 bit

 Source

BlackArch 2017.01.28 released with new tools

If you are our daily reader then you must have seen, we are now covering BlackArch, a Arch Linux based distribution targeting a large number of professional Pen-Testers and Security Researchers.

In the end of last year, BlackArch team is tremendously working to bring new tool set and updates to their distro.Like recently the release of BlackArch Linux 2016.12.29 and 2016.12.20 brought hundreds of new tools, new installer and updated list of packages and features.
Now BlackArch Linux version as 2017.01.28 is here.Let's see what's new in here.
What's New in BlackArch Linux 2017.01.28?

• The first and very common thing with all new distro releases, it also got all the system packages updated and the tools underneath have been updated.
• 20 new tools added.
• In the last release of BlackArch Linux 2016.12.29, the installer was updated to 0.3.1, now in this release, the installer got a bug-fix update and got updated to 0.3.2 version.
• Now on VMware support is provided, a big relief for many.
• Now, this release is based on Linux 4.9.6.
•  "fix f*cking ruby tools (wpscan, Metasploit, etc.)" as said in the announcement.I don't think necessity of any explanation.

Well, You can get this latest release and as it has Linux kernel-base on Linux 4.9.6, so benefits are a welcome addition to this release. 

Linux Mint 18.1 KDE and xfce released

In the end of the last year, Linux Mint team released the first point release Linux Mint 18.1 in their Linux Mint 18.xx series.If you are already on that point release or if have read our coverage, then you must be knowing it was only available in Cinnamon and MATE editions.Now Today just a few hours ago, the Linux Mint team has proudly announced the KDE and Xfce editions of Linux Mint Serena(18.1).

Let me cover the new features in both releases briefly.

What's new in Linux Mint 18.1 KDE?

First and the most importantly(even if we don't mention) The version of KDE might be the first thing jumping on your mind when you hear a new KDE release of Linux Mint.So here we are getting KDE Plasma 5.8(LTS).Well, without going deeper in the features section of this DE version, I would say it's a Charm.It has Linux 4.4 and Ubuntu 16.04 as the base.