Linux Kernel 4.20 Released By Linus Torvalds Just In Time For Christmas

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New features in Linux Kernel 4.20

Here are the major new features added by the 350,000 new lines of code in the Linux kernel 4.20. As you can see the changes are mainly around improving support for Graphics, CPUs and other hardware.

linux-kernel-4-9

The release also removes the controversial Speck algorithm.

  • AMD Picasso & Raven 2 APU support.
  • The AMD Vega 20 7nm workstation GPU support is ready for the graphics card release.
  • VCN JPEG acceleration for Raven Ridge APUs in conjunction with Mesa 18.3 user-space code.
  • GPUVM performance improvements for the AMDGPU kernel driver.
  • Continued work on the Intel Icelake “Gen 11” graphics support.
  • Full PPGTT support for Haswell/Ivy/Valley View hardware.
  • Initial HDMI 2.0 support for the open source NVIDIA Nouveau driver and initial display support for NVIDIA Xavier “Tegra194” SoC.
  • Virtual KMS (VKMS) has the initial cursor and GEM support.
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC support.
  • Linux x86/x86_64 optimizations.
  • Early work on AMD Zen 2 CPU enablement
  • Many other DRM changes.
  • Removes NSA’s Speck crypto algorithm from the Kernel.
  • Continued fixings for the Year 2038 problem
  • USB drivers updates

You can see the detailed list of Linux Kernel 4.20 features at Phoronix.

What’s New with VMware Horizon 7 Version 7.7

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VMware Horizon 7 version 7.7 and VMware Horizon Client 4.10 are now available! Because there are so many new features and enhancements, we’ve grouped them according to the benefits that enterprises find most valuable. Even so, we couldn’t fit them all in. (Several sets of release notes are required for the complete list.)

Compatibility Updates and New OS Support

  • Windows Server 2019 is supported for desktop and RDSH server VMs.
  • VMware vSphere 6.7 U1 and VMware vSAN 6.7 Update 1 are supported.
  • Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS (SDDC Version 1.5) is supported and includes new features.
  • Upgrades can now be performed on the Horizon 7 Cloud Connector virtual appliance. This appliance is used for integrating the Horizon Cloud Service with Horizon 7 on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS deployments.
  • VMware Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business can now be used in an IPv6 environment.
  • Horizon Clients include support for recent OS releases, including macOS 10.14 (Mojave) and Android 9.1.

Management Console Improvements

  • Horizon Console (the new HTML5 console) additions:
    • You can now use the new Horizon Console to add manual desktop pools and View Composer linked-clone desktop pools, as well as attach, detach, edit, and delete persistent disks used for linked-clone desktops. Previously, performing these tasks required using the classic, Flash-based management console, Horizon Administrator.
    • On the Machines page, you can quickly identify when someone other than the assigned user is connected to a VM. Rather than having just one column called User, there are now two columns: a Connected User column and an Assigned User column. This feature is also available in Horizon Administrator.
       
  • Horizon Administrator (the classic console, which requires Flash) enhancements:
    • The System Health dashboard now displays details about registered VMware Unified Access Gateway appliances, for version 3.4 and later.
       
    • The name of the Connection Server pod is now displayed in the title bar and on the browser tab.
       
  • Help Desk Tool enhancement: Administrators can end an application process for an end user. The event database logs the action, including details such as the date and time, desktop or application name, pool name, and administrator’s name.

Scalability Enhancements

  • You can use a single vCenter Server instance with multiple pods in a Cloud Pod Architecture environment.
  • The number of servers an RDSH server farm can contain has increased from 200 to 500.
  • vMotion support has been added for linked-clone desktop pools and automated desktop pools that contain full virtual machines.
  • vMotion support has also been added for vGPU-enabled full-clone, instant-clone, and linked-clone VMs.

Security and Reliability Features and Improvements

  • With the new clipboard audit feature, Horizon Agent records information about copy and paste activity between the client and agent in an event log on the agent machine.
  • You can add a Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) device to instant-clone desktop pools and add or remove a vTPM during a push-image operation.
  • TLS 1.0 is now disabled by default in all clients.

User Experience Enhancements

  • Blast Extreme enhancements:
    • You can now use the Blast Extreme display protocol to access physical PCs and workstations. Some limitations apply.
    • Available for Windows clients, Blast Extreme HEVC (H.265) video coding support doubles the data compression ratio at the same quality, or improves quality at the same bit rate, as H.264, and adds 8K support.Requires an NVIDIA GRID environment with NVIDIA hardware encoders and client devices whose hardware supports HEVC for decoding.
  • For Windows client devices:
    • When client-drive redirection is enabled, users can drag and drop files and folders between the client system and remote desktops and published applications.For example, users can drag multiple files and folders at the same time, or drag a single file into an open app to insert the text into the app, or drag a single file to Outlook to add it as an attachment.
    • The new VMware Virtual Print feature enables users to print to any printer available on their Windows client computers, similar to the ThinPrint virtual printing feature. But VMware Virtual Print supports client printer redirection, as well as location-based printing, and it persists printer settings that end users configure.
  • For RDSH published apps and desktops:
    • Administrators can specify whether users can open multiple, separate instances of the same application on different client devices, or initiate separate sessions to a desktop from different client devices. This feature is called multi-session mode. Requires Horizon Client 4.10.
    • On Windows clients, users can assign an RDSH-published application to a single monitor or a combination of monitors.
    • A new hybrid logon feature can now be used in conjunction with the unauthenticated user access feature. Unauthenticated access lets users access apps without logging in. Hybrid logon provides users with domain access to network resources such as file shares and printers without prompting for domain user credentials. Requires Horizon Client 4.10.

VMware Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS Enhancements

VMware Cloud on AWS allows you to create vSphere data centers on Amazon Web Services. These vSphere data centers include vCenter Server for managing your data center, vSAN for storage, and VMware NSX for networking. With Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS, you can scale Horizon 7 desktops and applications on an elastic cloud platform.

This release of Horizon 7 is compatible with VMware Cloud on AWS (SDDC Version 1.5) and includes the following enhancements:

  • vSphere clusters: The minimum vSphere cluster size has been reduced to 3 nodes, and vSphere stretched clusters are now supported.
  • Additional VMware components: VMware NSX-T network virtualization, as well as VMware vSAN datastore encryption, are supported.
  • Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition components: VMware User Environment Manager, VMware App Volumes, and VMware Instant Clone Technology are all now supported.

VMware Horizon 7 for Linux Enhancements and Features

  • Linux desktops are now supported on Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS.
  • Single sign-on (SSO) is now supported on SLED/SLES 12.x desktops.
  • Audio-in is now supported on SLED/SLES desktops.
  • Instant-clone floating desktop pool support is now available on SLED/SLES desktops.
  • When the session collaboration feature is enabled for a remote Linux desktop, you can invite other users to join an existing remote desktop session, or you can join a collaborative session when you receive an invitation from another user.
  • Instant-clone Linux desktops are allowed to perform an offline domain join with Active Directory using Samba.

For a complete list of new features, grouped by installable component, see the VMware Horizon 7 Version 7.7 Release Notes.

Also see the following release notes:

KDE Neon Now Based on Ubuntu 18.04 ‘Bionic Beaver’

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The wait is over: the KDE Ubuntu 18.04 release is finally here.

Developers behind the KDE-centric Linux distro¹ have announced that they’ve successfully rebased KDE Neon on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS ‘Bionic Beaver’, which was released earlier this year.

With the bump to Bionic KDE Neon users unlock access to newer packages, third-party tools, and hardware drivers. They also benefit from a more recent Linux kernel.

upgrade kde neon to 18.04

KDE Neon 18.04 Upgrade Prompt

Naturally the latest stable KDE Plasma desktop and associated apps are installed by default, with future stable releases pushed out to users as and when they’re available.

This LTS to LTS migration has been in the works since the Ubuntu 18.04 release back in April, and has been undergoing wider testing for several months.

Swapping out the foundation of a distro isn’t an overnight task, and is made harder by the mix of LTS and non-LTS software stacks involved.

But with some hardwork and elbow grease neon devs have pulled it off.

They now plan to put “more developer effort” into using Snap packages, which offer the potential for more frequent third-party app updates than otherwise provided to an LTS release. Lees verder →

VMware Horizon 7 version 7.6

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What’s New in This Release

 

 

VMware Horizon 7 version 7.6 provides the following new features and enhancements. This information is grouped by installable component.

For information about the issues that are resolved in this release, see Resolved Issues.

Horizon Connection Server

  • Horizon Console
    • A user can login to Horizon Console with any predefined role or a combination of predefined roles.
  • Horizon 7 Subscription Licenses
    • You can use VMware Horizon 7 Cloud Connector to manage subscription licenses to a Horizon Cloud node hosted on the VMware Horizon Cloud Service. A subscription license removes the need to keep, retrieve, or manually enter a license key for product activation.
  • Cloud Pod Architecture
    • With Horizon Client 4.9, if a Windows client device has an RDS per-device CAL, it always presents that license. Windows clients that have earlier Horizon Client versions present a license only if they have a license for the specific pod. For the best handling of RDS licensing in a Cloud Pod Architecture environment, VMware recommends upgrading to the latest client and server software.
  • Horizon Administrator
    • You can no longer configure RDS Per-Device CAL storage options in Horizon Administrator. RDS Per-Device CALs are now stored only on the client device by default.
    • Horizon Clients using IPv4 and Horizon Clients using IPv6 can be handled concurrently on TCP port 8443 and on UDP port 8443
      (for BEAT) when connecting to a Unified Access Gateway appliance version 3.3 or later.
  • vSphere Support

VMware User Environment Manager Release Notes 9.5.0

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What’s New

User Environment Manager 9.5.0 provides bug fixes described in the Resolved Issues section of the release notes, and the following enhancements:

  • Configuration templates. These templates are pre-configured Flex configuration files that are available for many popular applications. A Configuration template simplifies the initial setup of an application and helps persist the most common user settings for that application.
  • Improved support for Windows 10. Updates to the Windows Common Settings DPI settings and Windows Explorer and view settings provide improved Windows 10 support.