More Fun with Windows 10, Yabba Dabba Do Bedrock Linux
Windows 10 is back in the news and back up to their old tricks. The latest Windows 10 updates has been reported to delete Linux partitions without confirmation or even warning. Even pure Windows users have reported unbootable systems and Linux is the bad guy in a security question with Linux on Windows. Elsewhere, Lumina Desktop Environment hit milestone version 1.0.0 today and Linux Mint had an oopsy with their Firefox 48 update. New Bedrock Linux introduced a different approach to universal packaging and Christine Hall shared her top five favorite Linux distributions.
Windows 10 still can't get updates right. Their latest one has rendered many users' systems unbootable and Microsoft tech support is telling them to re-install Windows 10 from scratch. Well, most of their personal files are on Microsoft servers anyway. But more tragically, this same update has been reported as deleting dual-booters' Linux partitions. Ubuntu's Alan Pope reported hearing such complaints on twitter last week. OMG!Ubuntu! reported on this and found other tweets of similar nature. This comes right about the same time last week that a hacker at Black Hat USA said that the permissions in the Linux kernel in Windows that allows Ubuntu and Linux applications to run are set in such a manner as to allow compatibility but also be vulnerable to intrusion. To hear the wider press tell it, it's that insecure Linux that's causing the vulnerability.
Serdar Yegulalp covered an interesting new entry into the Linux arena today. Dubbed Bedrock Linux, it uses a virtual filesystem to allow several distributions to run at once or bits and pieces of several distributions to run at once. The method doesn't use virtual machines or containers. Yegulalp quoted Bedrock's example, "One could have an RSS feed reader from Arch Linux's AUR open a webpage in a web browser from Ubuntu's repos while both of them are running in an X11 server from Fedora."
Bedrock Linux uses virtual file systems to map the contents of various distributions into each other. The setup process involves installing one of any number of common distributions, then "hijacking" it to turn it into a Bedrock Linux installation.
Rcently the Mint project rolled out the Firefox 48 update for version 18 users. These updaters then reported that the search function no longer worked and some had issues with the right-click menu having extraneous and inoperative functions listed. Some users resorted to using the Ubuntu version of the browser, but a fix was found for users until a fixed version of Firefox 48 is pushed to repositories.
In other news:
* 5 Ways to Repurpose an Old PC with Open Source Software
* Lumina Desktop Environment Version 1.0.0 Released
* Is that a Debian all-in-one PC in your pocket?