The H Roundup - UEFI vs Linux, Microsoft vs Munich and Oracle vs Java

Welcome to The H Roundup, your rapid review of the week with the most read news on The H, the security alerts and open source releases, and the essential feature articles – all in one quick-to-scan news item. This week, UEFI vs Linux on Samsung laptops, Microsoft's Munich tale, merging Plasmas, Coreboot wins, VLC holes, and Java defence collapses.

Top News

This week saw problems with Samsung laptops and UEFI crop up, which led to the bricking of those laptops – problems that were completely unrelated to the controversial Secure Boot functions. The issue has been addressed, but the fixes will take some time to arrive in distributions.

• Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
• Protection against Samsung UEFI bug merged into Linux kernel

Microsoft continued to defend its "case study" of Munich's Linux migration, offering numbers and details of the assumptions it had made. Meanwhile, the open source Coreboot BIOS popped up on a new device: the AMD Gizmo board.

• Microsoft partly releases study on Munich's Linux migration
• AMD Gizmo: Coreboot BIOS on budget hobbyist motherboard

The H's regular compilation of news from around the free and open source software worlds has been attracting an audience; in the two most recent editions of the small news snippets collection there's everything from debunking systemd myths to browsing with the original Mosaic browser, along with distribution news and more...

• Open Recall: systemd myths, Linux Mint 15 naming, Alan Cox
• Open Recall: Retro browsing, fresh distributions and Linux gaming

The latest version of VLC is vulnerable to specially crafted ASF files and it only took days for Oracle's latest defence against bad Java applets to be overrun (Update - Late on Friday, Oracle released a major update for Java). Coming soon, LibreOffice 4.0 is near and the second release candidate has just arrived.

• Latest VLC version has dangerous hole
• LibreOffice 4 RC2 fixes bugs as rebased version heads for release
• Oracle's new Java defences already bypassed

Desktop plans are afoot with the KDE developers looking to merge their various Plasma desktops. And could Cinnamon be Fedora 19's default desktop? One ambitious proposal for Fedora 19 has suggested just that.

• KDE plans to merge Plasma desktops
• Cinnamon proposed as Fedora 19's default desktop interface

Featured Articles

The H dug into the recent concerns over the provenance of MariaDB's new LGPL drivers in a chat with Monty Widenius and SkySQL's Kai Arno, and Glyn Moody pondered where Linux could be big next and came up with a four-wheeled solution. And what are you doing in February? See if The H Community Calendar can give you some ideas.

• Connectors, controversy and the LGPL
• What's the next big platform for Linux?
• The H Community Calendar - February 2013

Open Source Releases

This weeks new releases include an update for OTRS ticketing, Live TV for XBMC, a fix up for LibreOffice 3.6, a hole closed on Etherpad, boiler plate code for Firefox OS apps, a new web app framework from Twitter, security fixes for MariaDB and the build manager Gradle gets a boost.

• OTRS 3.2.1 released with improved process management
• XBMC 12 open source media centre adds Live TV and Android support
• LibreOffice 3.6.5 arrives ahead of FOSDEM
• Etherpad 1.2.7 fixes vulnerability that crashes the server
• Boilerplate App kickstarts Firefox OS development
• Twitter frees Flight, a web application framework
• Security updates for MariaDB
• Gradle 1.4 speeds up and improves reporting

Coming soon, Netbeans 7.3 and Erlang R16 are both expected to arrive this month and release candidates and betas are about. Chrome for Android's beta offers new experimental features and a second Mageia 3 beta offers LibreOffice 3. Finally, it won't be out in February but Enlightenment 18 has begun development.

• NetBeans 7.3 nears with first release candidate
• Erlang developers release beta ready for next major version
• Chrome for Android beta adds experimental SPDY/3 and WebGL
• Second Mageia 3 beta ships LibreOffice 4 release candidate
• Enlightenment 18 development begins

Security Alerts

iOS updates closed a range of Webkit flaws in the iPhone and iPad operating system, Rails developers found another version of the YAML attack needed fixing and a report showed millions of uPnP devices were responding to uPnP pings on the internet.

• iOS update fixes browser vulnerabilities
• Rails developers close another "extremely critical" flaw
• Millions of devices vulnerable via UPnP - Update

For everything The H has published in the last week, check out the last seven days of news. To keep up with The H, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow honlinenews on Twitter. You can follow The H's own tweeting on Twitter as honline.

(djwm)