Canonical is not first to the live patching game, but they could have the best take on it. VeraCrypt, the successor to TrueCrypt, audit results are out & KDE shares their long term plans for the Plasma Desktop.

Then we bust some brewing Linux FUD and misconceptions & ponder the role of Free Software in a world that doesn’t care.

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Show Notes:

Follow Up / Catch Up

Ubuntu 17.04 to Be Dubbed “Zesty Zapus,” Will Launch on April 2017

That’s right, we’re talking about Ubuntu 17.04, whose codename will be “Zesty Zapus.” While some of you are enjoying their brand new Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) installations, the Ubuntu development team has started working on Ubuntu 17.04, which will be yet another normal release of the Linux-based operating system that will receive 9 months of support.

Has Ubuntu fallen behind, or setting a new bar of refinement? We load up our hardware with Ubuntu 16.10, walk away with some big surprises & two totally different experiences.

The VeraCrypt Audit Results – OSTIF.org

VeraCrypt 1.18 and its bootloaders were evaluated. This release included a number of new features including non-western developed encryption options, a boot loader that supports UEFI (modern BIOSes), and more.

QuarksLab found:

  • 8 Critical Vulnerabilities
  • 3 Medium Vulnerabilities
  • 15 Low or Informational Vulnerabilities / Concerns

This public disclosure of these vulnerabilities coincides with the release of VeraCrypt 1.19 which fixes the vast majority of these high priority concerns. Some of these issues have not been fixed due to high complexity for the proposed fixes, but workarounds have been presented in the documentation for VeraCrypt.

DigitalOcean

Plasma’s road ahead

Our general direction points towards professional use-cases. We want Plasma to be a solid tool, a reliable work-horse that gets out of the way, allowing to get the job done quickly and elegantly. We want it to be faster and of better quality than the competition.

Hotfix Your Ubuntu Kernels with the Canonical Livepatch Service!

_Today, Canonical has _publicly launched_the Canonical Livepatch Service— an authenticated, encrypted, signed stream of Linux livepatches that apply to the 64-bit Intel/AMD architecture of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial) Linux 4.4 kernel, addressing the highest and most critical security vulnerabilities, without requiring a reboot in order to take effect.

_ This is particularly amazing for Container hosts — Docker, LXD, etc. — as all of the containers share the same kernel, and thus all instances benefit.

New Tool Lets You Easily Install the Ubuntu Touch OS on Your Mobile Devices

TING

BUG_ON oh Come on!

Devs have ‘NO F*CKING EXCUSE to knowingly kill the kernel’, says Linux lord

This BUG_ON() is triggered when CONFIG_DEBUG_VM is enabled. Some distributions such as the standard Fedora Kernel config enable it by default. Linus Torvalds has discovered that once this BUG_ON() triggers, the machine will have problems handling kernel paging requests and report that a reboot is required to fix a recursive fault from which the machine will never recover!

Fixing this bug is number one priority for Linus and he asked Johannes Weiner to work on it. Measures are being taken to avoid having it end up in a stable release, but please check your kernel config to make sure CONFIG_DEBUG_VM is disabled until the bug is fixed.

Linus re-emphasized and warned to not use BUG_ON() for debugging, but rather use WARN_ON() which is a safer alternative to BUG_ON().

Return of the Cantrill | BSD Now 163

Linux Academy

The role of Free Software in a world that doesn’t care

The Free Software movement is about personal and social
liberties. Giving the owner and user of a computer control
over it. But most people don’t see the problem with a small
number of multinational mega-corporations having control over
everyone’s computers. They think: “Apple and Microsoft know
what they’re doing, and they do a good job, so why would I
need Free Software?”

Accepting that most people reject the Free Software message,
what can the Free Software movement contribute to the world?

Question? Comments? Contact us here!