News briefs for July 31, 2018. The Linux Mint team announces the LMDE 3 "Cindy" Cinnamon Beta release. LMDE stands for Linux Mint Debian Edition, and its goal is "to see how viable the distribution would be and how much work would be necessary if Ubuntu was ever to disappear". It's as similar as possible to Linux Mint, but doesn't use Ubuntu. See the release notes for more information, and note that this is a beta release, not intended for production environments.

News briefs for July 30, 2018.

News briefs for July 27, 2018. Kata Containers, the lightweight, fast booting, open-source VM, is now available as a Snap from the Snap Store. According to the Ubuntu blog post, "Kata Containers are compatible with the OCI specification for Docker and CRI for Kubernetes which means they can be managed like a traditional container. Its agnostic design allows Kata Containers to run on multiple architectures like amd64, ppc64 and aarch64 with different hypervisors including QEMU."

News briefs for July 26, 2018. A new version of KStars—the free, open-source, cross-platform astronomy software—was released today. Version 2.9.7 includes new features, such as improvements to the polar alignment assistant and support for Ekos Live, as well as stability fixes. See the release notes for all the changes.

News briefs for July 25, 2018.

News briefs for July 24, 2018. Google requires all of its 85,000 employees to use security keys, and it hasn't had one case of account takeover by phishing since, Engadget reports. The security key method is considered to be safer than two-factor authentication that requires codes sent via SMS.

News briefs for July 23, 2018. Neptune OS released V5.4, which is a complete update with many enhancements and fixes to the Debian-based distro. New features include a GUI makeover with dark themes in mind, increased hardware support, and several software and app updates. See the post on Appuals for all the details and the changelog.

News briefs for July 20, 2018. Vivaldi Technologies has added a new privacy-focused search engine called Qwant to its Vivaldi web browser. Qwant doesn't store cookies or search history. Softpedia News quotes CEO and co-founder of Vivaldi Jon von Tetzchner: "We believe that the Internet can do better. We do not believe in tracking our users or in data profiling." You need version 1.15 of Vivaldi in order to enable Qwant.

News briefs for July 19, 2018. System76 has moved into its new manufacturing facility in Denver, Colorado. The company will begin making computers in the US, rather than just assembling them. See the System76 blog post for photos of the new digs.

News briefs for July 18, 2018.

News briefs for July 17, 2018.

News briefs for July 16, 2018. Debian "stretch" has a new update, 9.5, the fifth update of the Debian 9 stable release. This version addresses several security issues and other problems. You can upgrade your current installation from one of Debian's HTTP mirrors.

News briefs for July 13, 2018.

Python's Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL) Guido van Rossum today announced he's stepping down from the role.

News briefs for July 12, 2018. freenode has a new job board. jobs.freenode.net "aims to connect those looking to hire with the immense talent that can be found within the wider freenode communities". The job board is free to use, but companies that use it successfully are encouraged to make a donation to help support the freenode network, jobs.freenode.net and the annual freenode #live conference.

News briefs for July 11, 2018.

News briefs for July 10, 2018.

News briefs for July 9, 2018.

News briefs for July 6, 2018.

News briefs for July 5, 2018.