Makulu for Work and Play, Wget Vulnerability, and Systemd Updates

Today in the Linux newsfeeds is Sean Michael Kerner's coverage of a newly reported Wget Symlink Vulnerability. MakuluLinux 1.0 Cinnamon was released today and two community reviews give users a nice introduction. The Systemd debate continues and The Canonical Distribution of Ubuntu OpenStack was announced. And finally today, Bryan Lunduke shares "what it's like living on a Chromebook."

Another day, another flaw is reported, this time in GNU Wget downloading tool. CVE-2014-4877 was published October 27, 2014 but the Wget project was informed in September. The flaw is fixed and upstream packages updated, distributions will be sending out their fixes in the coming days. Kerner quotes the researcher who discovered the flaw saying, "Random bug found by accident, but the implication is that the FTP server can overwrite your entire filesystem."

MakuluLinux 1.0 "Cinnamon" was released earlier today and already two outlets have taken it for a spin. Jamie Watson says you can use Makulu for "serious work" while Craciun Dan says it's a "great choice for gamers." Watson says the installer is improving with more choices and both spoke of the advanced Refracta installer having a "corresponding increase in complexity" and being "not fit for beginners." Watson comments a bit more on the install, boot, and default desktop and Craciun Dan looks at the applications, repositories, and control center.

The Systemd debate hasn't gone away and, in fact, Paul Venezia stoked the embers a bit yesterday when addressing "the two factions tugging at modern-day Linux." He says the uselessd Website has it a bit wrong when they identify the two sides as those modern desktop users and those using "niche" distributions like Slackware or Gentoo. I have to agree with Venezia there, but he says the two sides are actually "desktop users with desktop mindsets and desktop experiences" and server admins. He thinks forking Debian would make sense, but most around the community don't according to Katherine Noyes in today's Linux Blog Safari. In related news, Phoronix today covered the release of Systemd 217.

In other news:

* Ubuntu at 10: All that way for this?

* Synaptic Vs. Update Manager in Linux Mint

* What it's like living on a Chromebook

* Introducing the Canonical Distribution of Ubuntu OpenStack