The H Roundup for the week ending 28 January

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.

Top News

A recent update to the Linux kernel fixed a flaw in the access control to memory that could have been exploited to gain root privileges, the Linux Mint project's Cinnamon fork of the GNOME Shell saw its first stable release and the jSlate JavaScript dashboard framework was open sourced. Meanwhile, the Ubuntu developers detailed a new HUD for Ubuntu 12.04 that could replace conventional application menus, and the 6502 microprocessor, used in early Apple and Commodore computers, was relaunched as a proper 40-pin chip.

• Linux root exploit due to memory access
• Cinnamon fork of GNOME Shell gets stable release
• JavaScript dashboard framework jSlate open sourced
• HUD to replace menus in Ubuntu 12.04
• Relaunched: the 6502 microprocessor
• Botnet operator used to work for anti-virus company
• KDE SC 4.8 arrives with enhanced power management
• linux.conf.au releases videos on XFS, Btrfs, the kernel and Samba 4
• Video conferencing systems as spying tools
• Anonymous calls on Polish hactivists to stop DDoS

Featured Articles

This week, Thorsten Leemhuis detailed some of the networking changes for the upcoming Linux 3.3 kernel, which is now in testing, and The H published the Community Calendar for February.

• Kernel Log: Linux 3.3 goes into testing
• Kernel Log: Coming in 3.3 (Part 1) - Networking
• The H Community Calendar - February 2012

Open Source Releases

• Rails 3.2 arrives
• LibreOffice 3.5 approaches with first release candidate
• Critical hole in Apache Struts 2 closed
• Google's Sky Map for Android now open source
• Desura games client open sourced as Desurium
• Cinnamon fork of GNOME Shell gets stable release
• NTFS-3G update improves compression
• Chrome 16 update closes security holes
• Joomla! 2.5 adds new features, closes holes
• JavaFX makes it across platform to Linux
• GhostBSD 2.5 available with GNOME or LXDE
• JavaScript dashboard framework jSlate open sourced
• KDE SC 4.8 arrives with enhanced power management
• HP gives timetable for Open webOS
• Graph database Neo4J heads to the cloud
• GNU Debugger update brings Python scripting improvements
• Apache Shiro 1.2.0 enhances its password hashing
• Airtime radio software hits version 2.0
• FFmpeg 0.10 "Freedom" released
• ODF Toolkit gets first Apache release
  

Security Alerts

• Critical hole in Apache Struts 2 closed
• Linux root exploit due to memory access
• Chrome 16 update closes security holes
• Critical flaw discovered in Symantec's pcAnywhere
• Cisco Security Appliances at risk from Telnet bug

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.

(crve)