This Week in TUXEDO OS #50-2024 - TUXEDO Computers

Hello TUXEDO Fans and Open Source Enthusiasts!

While snowflakes will hopefully soon be dancing outside, festive vibes are already in full swing here in our Augsburg penguin colony. The third candle on the Advent wreath will soon be lit, and we Linux fans are looking forward to hot updates fresh from the compiler oven. In this newsletter, you can expect exciting news about TUXEDO OS, handy KDE tips, and a reading app for cozy winter evenings.

Enjoy reading, and have a wonderful Advent season!
Your TUXEDO OS Team

Important News

• Support for TUXEDO OS 2 and 3 will end soon

TUXEDO OS Updates

tuxedo-drivers 4.11.6

• Changed: Fan speeds from 1–24% are blocked and rounded to 0% or 25% to avoid irregular fan movements.

TUXEDO Control Center 2.1.15

• Added: Temperature display via an alternative Sirius interface (preparation for fan control).
• Changed: Adjustments to password changes for encrypted systems, now supporting up to 512 characters.

KDE App of the Week: Reading and Managing E-Books with Arianna

Arianna, the KDE Community’s e-book management app, continues to evolve and has established itself as a solid option for reading and organizing e-books. The application is built on Qt and Kirigami and leverages Baloo integration to index files and simplify searching within your e-book collection. It combines the features of an ePub reader with library management and integrates seamlessly into the KDE software ecosystem.

Library and Reader: Everything at a Glance

Arianna tracks your reading progress, automatically indexes new books, and offers practical filters to help you navigate large libraries—for example, by genre, publisher, or author. It also includes full-text search within ePubs.

The built-in reader is deliberately simple. It displays book content, features a progress bar, and supports keyboard navigation. Fancy extras? None. But it does exactly what it’s meant to do.

New Developments Under the Hood

A noteworthy development: Arianna now uses foliate-js instead of epub.js for rendering ePub files. This change brings several advantages—for instance, no longer loading the entire book into memory. Additionally, the new layout engine enhances the reading experience.

Between Minimalism and Heavyweights

Arianna offers more features than minimalist readers like Easy Ebook Viewer but remains more streamlined than powerhouses like Calibre. Its modern interface fits well within the KDE ecosystem—an app that has found its place somewhere in the middle.

You can find more KDE apps updated in the past week in the This Week in KDE Apps column.

KDE Tips and Tricks: Dynamic Desktops Like in GNOME

A new KWin script introduces a functionality to KDE Plasma that will feel familiar to GNOME users: dynamic management of virtual desktops, inspired by the behavior of the GNOME Shell. The script allows desktops to be automatically created or removed based on how windows are moved between workspaces.

Key features of the script include:

• Automatic Desktop Creation: When a window is moved to the last desktop, a new desktop is automatically created to its right.
• Automatic Desktop Removal: If the last window of a desktop is moved or closed, the script removes the unused desktop.
• Horizontal Navigation: Switching is strictly left-to-right.

This script is aimed at users who prefer more flexible desktop management and provides an easy way to make KDE Plasma feel more dynamic. For those intrigued, it’s worth exploring the world of KWin scripts—it might even inspire you to create your own customizations!

Installation

git clone https://github.com/d86leader/dynamic_workspaces.git

cd dynamic_workspaces

kpackagetool6 --type KWin/Script --install .

Upgrade

kpackagetool6 --type KWin/Script --upgrade .

Usage

After installation, you need to log out and back in. Then, activate the Dynamic Workspaces script in the System Settings under Window Management » KWin Scripts by ticking the checkbox.

The important keyboard shortcuts are Ctrl+Super plus → or ← and Ctrl+Shift+Super plus → or ←. The first set lets you navigate between active desktops, while the second moves the currently active window along with you. The behavior mimics the GNOME Shell. Empty desktops are automatically removed.

Ubuntu Security Updates

The following Ubuntu security updates are directly integrated into TUXEDO OS:

• USN-7158–1: Smarty vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in Smarty.
  Identifiers: CVE-2023–28447, CVE-2018–25047, CVE-2024–35226
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 ESM

• USN-7159–1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.
  Identifiers: CVE-2023–52488, CVE-2024–46724, CVE-2024–44942, and 20 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 ESM

• USN-7156–1: Linux kernel (GKE) vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.
  Identifiers: CVE-2024–42089, CVE-2024–43895, CVE-2024–44979, and 605 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

• USN-7155–1: Linux kernel (NVIDIA) vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.
  Identifiers: CVE-2024–43846, CVE-2024–45018, CVE-2024–46766, and 398 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• USN-7154–1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.
  Identifiers: CVE-2024–43895, CVE-2024–44979, CVE-2024–42322, and 399 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• USN-7153–1: PHP vulnerability: PHP could be made to overwrite files.
  Identifier: CVE-2024–11236
  Affects: Ubuntu 18.04 ESM, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM

• USN-7108–2: AsyncSSH vulnerabilities: Several issues were fixed in AsyncSSH.
  Identifiers: CVE-2023–46445, CVE-2023–46446
  Affects: Ubuntu 18.04 ESM

• USN-7151–1: oFono vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in oFono.
  Identifiers: CVE-2023–4235, CVE-2023–4232
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 ESM, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM

• USN-7150–1: Tornado vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in Tornado.
  Identifiers: CVE-2024–52804, CVE-2023–28370
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 ESM

• USN-7149–1: Intel Microcode vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in Intel Microcode.
  Identifiers: CVE-2024–24968, CVE-2024–21820, CVE-2024–23984, and 2 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 ESM, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM

• USN-7148–1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.
  Identifiers: CVE-2024–41095, CVE-2022–48943, CVE-2024–46757, and 37 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 16.04 ESM, Ubuntu 14.04 ESM

• USN-7147–1: Apache Shiro vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in Apache Shiro.
  Identifiers: CVE-2023–34478, CVE-2023–46749, CVE-2023–46750, and 1 other
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM

• USN-7146–1: Dogtag PKI vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in dogtag-pki.
  Identifiers: CVE-2020–25715, CVE-2017–7537, CVE-2022–2414
  Affects: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM

• USN-7145–1: Expat vulnerability: Expat could be made to crash if an unstarted parser was resumed.
  Identifier: CVE-2024–50602
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 ESM, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM, Ubuntu 14.04 ESM

• USN-7141–1: oFono vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in oFono.
  Identifiers: CVE-2023–4233, CVE-2023–2794, CVE-2023–4234
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 ESM, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM

• USN-7144–1: Linux kernel (Intel IoTG) vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.
  Identifiers: CVE-2024–43846, CVE-2024–38577, CVE-2024–45011, and 219 others
  Affects: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• USN-7143–1: RabbitMQ Server vulnerabilities: RabbitMQ Server could be made to expose sensitive information over the network.
  Identifiers: CVE-2021–32719, CVE-2021–32718
  Affects: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• USN-7142–1: WebKitGTK vulnerabilities: Several security issues were fixed in WebKitGTK.
  Identifiers: CVE-2024–44309, CVE-2024–44308
  Affects: Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• USN-7140–1: Tinyproxy vulnerability: tinyproxy could be made to expose sensitive information.
  Identifier: CVE-2022–40468
  Affects: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 ESM, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM