Linux Action News 193

The premier Linux desktops get some futuristic new features, and we break down the seven-year-old vulnerability in your Linux box revealed this week.

Plus the critical kernel feature that lacks funding, and our take of helloSystem, a FreeBSD-based macOS alternative.

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• Plasma 5.22 — Plasma 5.22 improves its stability and usability across the board.
• KDE Plasma 5.22 Arrives with Miscellany of Usability Improvements
• Plasma 5.22 arrives but I bet you’ll want 5.23 once I show you this – Adventures in Linux and KDE
• GNOME 40.2 Released with Better Flatpak Support, Improved Screencasting, and More — The GNOME Project released today GNOME 40.2 as the second minor point release to the latest and greatest GNOME 40 desktop environment series.
• GNOME 40.2 Release News
• Privilege escalation with polkit — The vulnerability enables an unprivileged local user to get a root shell on the system. It’s easy to exploit with a few standard command line tools
• Real-Time Support "PREEMPT_RT" For Linux Held Up Due To Lack Of Funding — These "RT" patches have long been maintained out-of-tree but it turns out that while in the past it was seemingly close for merging, that effort has stalled for lack of funding.
• helloSystem Release r0.5.0 — This release is based on FreeBSD 12.2
• helloSystem 0.5 Released For macOS-Inspired FreeBSD Desktop
• FOSDEM 2021 - hello... again? — helloSystem is FreeBSD preconfigured as a desktop operating system. Its design follows the “Less, but better” philosophy. It is intended as a system for “mere mortals”, welcoming to switchers from a world in which a global menu bar exists, the Command key is used rather than Control, and applications are contained in .app bundles.
• Bearded Tux Unisex Joggers - Jupiter Garage — Get ready for that 10K run or take it slow in your backyard—these joggers are sure to make you feel comfortable either way while making a low key statement that Linux is awesome.