News briefs for November 5, 2018.
Linux kernel 4.20-rc1 is out. Linus writes, "This was a fairly big merge window, but it didn't break any records, just solid. And things look pretty regular, with about 70% of the patch is driver updates (gpu drivers are looming large as usual, but there's changes all over). The rest is arch updates (x86, arm64, arm, powerpc and the new C-SKY architecture), header files, networking, core mm and kernel, and tooling." See the LKML post[1] for more information.
The KDE Connect Android app version 1.10 was released[2] yesterday. Main changes include "mouse input now works with the same speed independent from the phones pixel density"; "the media controller now allows stopping playback"; the "run command supports triggering commands using kdeconnect:// URLs" and more. There are several desktop improvements as well, and the Linux Mobile App has also gained many new features.
The Linux Mint blog[3] recently posted its upcoming release schedule. They are working on getting Linux Mint 19.1 out in time for Christmas, "with all three editions released at the same time and the upgrade paths open before the holiday season". In addition, Linux Mint is now on Patreon[4]. See the post[5] for all the changes and improvements in the works.
Microsoft ported the ProcDump applications to Linux and is planning to port ProcMon to Linux as well. According to ZDNet[6], "these ports are part of the company's larger plan to make the Sysinternals package available for Linux users in the coming future".
Neptune version 5.6 was released[7] yesterday. This update of the desktop distro based fully on Debian 9.0 ("Stretch") provides kernel 4.18.6 with improved drivers and bugfixes. Other updates include systemd to version 239, KDE Applications to version 18.08.2, Network-Manager updated to 1.14, Plasma desktop has been updated