Summary of the week of January 27, 2020

[cobito]

Security flaw in AMD drivers

Cisco has found a security flaw in AMD graphics drivers that affects VMware Workstation virtual machines on Windows.

CacheOut, the new Intel vulnerability

It seems that finding security flaws has become a sport. This time it's TSX's turn, with a flaw that allows data to be extracted from the processor's cache.

Windows 7 comes back to life for a moment

Microsoft has decided to fix the flaw that was introduced by the last Windows 7 update that was published on the day of its end of support. This update will be outside of its ESU program, with which you have to pay to continue receiving security updates, that is, it will be available to everyone. Recall that on January 14, the KB4534310 update caused the wallpaper to stop displaying.

Linux 5.5 available

A new version of the kernel was published yesterday that comes with support for RAID 1, 3, and 4 in Btrfs, improvements in Wifi connections, support for mounting shares via CIFS, and a long list of performance improvements, new hardware support, and bug fixes.

The first prototype of the European processor is ready

The processor intended for high-performance computing financed with community funds already has a prototype. It is the EPI (European Processor Initiative), a CPU that will incorporate general-purpose ARM cores and specialized RISC-V cores.

Thunderbird keeps moving

Mozilla's email client is one of those programs that can't find a new market and its use only continues to decline. A few years ago, its developers said that they would only release security updates from now on and that they would stop incorporating new features. What they have done now is create a company outside the foundation called MZLA Technologies Corporation from which there will be no legal impediments to offering services that allow for the financing of development.

Zhaoxin could arrive in March

The Chinese manufacturer that develops with VIA's IP will release a motherboard with an integrated processor in March that, they say, has a performance equivalent to a seventh-generation i5. The integrated graphics will be from the old manufacturer of budget GPUs S3.

Ryzen 5 3500U

HayO brings us this Zen+ laptop processor with 4 cores and SMT. With a TDP of 15W, they are probably the counterpart to Intel's U series. Unlike what happens with most models of its rival, AMD's U series does take advantage of the 4 cores despite the tight consumption, reaching almost quadruple the performance in multi-threaded tasks compared to single-threaded. From a comparative point of view, it looks quite similar to the i5-8250U and it's not surprising since both U's are constructively very similar. Both have 4 cores with HT/SMT, a TDP of 15W, and similar frequencies.

Wireguard VPN will arrive in Linux 5.6

The next version of the kernel will come with what will presumably be the replacement for OpenVPN.

LibreOffice 6.4 available

The new revision of one of the most used office suites comes with speed improvements when saving spreadsheets and presentations. In addition, compatibility with DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX formats has been improved. As a curiosity, this year marks LibreOffice's 10th anniversary. Let's not forget that the suite of programs is a fork of OpenOffice and this in turn was based on Sun Microsystems' StarOffice.

Core i5-9500T

Krampak has just brought us a Core i5-9500T from a NUC. It is a Coffe-Lake with 6 cores and no HT, similar to the 9600KF that Namiga brought a few days ago, although at a reduced frequency. In principle, it seems that the most similar CPU is the i7-7700, although depending on the mode and the single and multi-threaded tests, the similarities occur with CPUs that are quite varied. Despite its TDP of 35W, its multi-threaded performance is 4.5 times that of single-threaded, a behavior very similar to that of the i5-9600KF (remember that this has a consumption of almost triple and while the frequency and performance barely double). In the end, it is a more efficient micro than its older brother, although as has been commented other times, one would have to compare its behavior under moderate load for an extended period.

The best of SLC and QLC in one memory

One is faster and the other is larger. A manufacturer called Enmotus has put this concept into practice with a driver for Windows, it is possible to either let the system use SLC as a cache leaving QLC as the storage unit, or let the user decide which files to cache in the SLC memory.

The cost of free antivirus

Although the topic is nothing new, in recent days there has been a lot of talk about the true cost that Avast has for the user. When one thinks of search engines, social networks, and other services, the concept of "when the product is free, you are the product" is already internalized. But for some reason, it seems that software was outside of that equation, even the one that watches where you surf "to protect you".

GTK4 improves data transfer

In an era of stability and immobility in terms of desktop environments, the new version of the cross-platform graphics library continues to bring novelties. In this entry of the development blog, they explain how they are improving data transfer between applications, something that will increase the performance of programs written with GTK.