Canonical has temporarily pulled the download links for Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" from the Ubuntu website due to ongoing reports of some laptops finding their BIOS corrupted after installing this latest Ubuntu release. The issue is appearing most frequently with Lenovo laptops but there are also reports of issues with other laptop vendors as well.
We are only a couple of months away from the next major release of the world's most popular free operating system, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), and some of its neat new features are yet to be revealed.
Canonical's Dustin Kirkland writes today about one of the awesome things that will be implemented by default in the upcoming Linux-based distribution, ZFS, the robust file system that everyone talks about these days, which Canonical will bake directly into Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
A very interesting discussion started earlier today, October 6, on the Ubuntu Snappy Core mailing list about a method of adding kernel modules to a Snappy-based operating system.
Geoffrey J. Teale started the discussion asking Ubuntu Snappy developers if he could add Linux kernel modules to a system based on Snappy Core via a framework. The current method of adding kernel modules to an Ubuntu Snappy system would be by packaging them in a standard snap, which can be manually injected into the kernel packages using the "sudo insmod" command.
Microsoft recently announced that upcoming Windows Phone devices would be able to operate like desktop computers when you connect an external display, mouse and keyboard. That doesn’t just mean that you can run smartphone apps blown up for a big screen: you’ll be able to use Universal Windows apps which will change their look and feel for large screens and the operating system will look different on TVs too.
Dual-booting Canonical's Ubuntu Linux and Android on tablets and smartphones has moved a small step closer to reality with the release of a new version of the Ubuntu Dual Boot Installer. Codenamed M9, the release offers support for Ubuntu OS upgrades, along with a slew of other enhancements.
Alas, Canonical is keen to emphasize that the Ubuntu Dual Boot Installer is for developers only, and always will be. The company is not building it with the goal of encouraging us plain folk to use it to install Ubuntu on our Android mobile devices.
With Ubuntu 14.04 closing in to the release date, which is set for April 17th, I took Lubuntu for a spin from the daily live ISO image. Lubuntu is the most lightweight distribution in the Ubuntu family (the other one being Xubuntu which uses Xfce), using LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment), as well as a set of applications intended to be low on resources.
The Ubuntu Touch smartphone OS has come a long way, but it still has further to plod before it's ready for market - all Canonical will tell us that it hopes to see an Ubuntu phone before the end of this year.
Nevertheless, now that some phone manufacturers are on board with the project, we've been able to play with a couple of prototypes: One was just a non-functioning handset from a Spanish company called BQ, showing off plain but solid build quality reflective of a mid-tier device.
I've been preaching the gospel of Linux security for decades now, but it's always nice to see proof-positive from an independent organization that Linux is indeed the most secure operating system around.
The Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG), the group within the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that assesses operating systems and software for security issues, has found that while no end-user operating system is as secure as they'd like it to be, Ubuntu 12.04 is the best of the lot.
History is written years after the events it describes. But when the history of free software finally is written, I am increasingly convinced that this last year will be noted as the start of the decline of Ubuntu.
At first, the idea might seem ridiculous or spiteful. You can still find Ubuntu enthusiasts who exclaim over every move the distribution makes, and journalists still report founder Mark Shuttleworth's every word uncritically.
Of all the possible future of computing devices, one that seems so appealing—superficially, at least—is a single converged gadget that does it all. A pocketable thing that gives you computing and Internet connectivity when you're out and about, but it's equally capable of driving a big-screen monitor, mouse, and keyboard when you're sitting at a desk doing some work, watching streaming media, or playing a game on your TV.
