In the 1990s, Xen was a part of a research project to build a public computing infrastructure on the Internet led by Ian Pratt and Keir Fraser at The University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. The Xen Project is now one of the most popular open source hypervisors and amasses more than 10 million users, and this October marks our 15th anniversary.

From its beginnings, Xen technology focused on building a modular and flexible architecture, a high degree of customizability, and security. This security mindset from the outset led to inclusion of non-core security technologies, which eventually allowed the Xen Project to excel outside of the data center and be a trusted source for security and embedded vendors (ex. Qubes, Bromium, Bitdefender, Star Labs, Zentific, Dornerworks, Bosch, BAE systems), and also a leading hypervisor contender for the automotive space.

As the Xen Project looks to a future of virtualization everywhere, we reflect back on some of our major achievements over the last 15 years. To celebrate, we’ve created an infographic that captures some of our key milestones — share it on social.

Read more at The Linux Foundation

This was a rather special release due to the fact that, at about half way through the process, Linus Torvalds left the helm of Linux kernel development to take a rare break. However, Greg Kroah-Hartman took over until the release was ready and is now handing the reins back to Torvalds.

Another interesting fact about this iteration is that 4.19 will be a Long Term Support (LTS) kernel. That is, it will receive updates and patches to keep it safe and maintained for at least a couple of years. The last LTS kernel (which is still supported) was 4.14, released in November 2017.

On the purely technical side, among many other things, 4.19 is getting a new USB Type C display mode driver. This means exactly what it says on the box: soon you will be able to use the USB Type C on your machine to stream video to a display.

Also, the kernel at last gets a built-in GPS subsystem. Obviously, Linux has supported GPS devices for years, but this support was pretty non-standard and dependent on external and ad hoc modules that varied from device to device. The GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) subsystem puts an end to that. According to the Phoronix article on the matter, GNSS abstracts the underlying hardware interfaces and will have a front end in user space that will allow programs to read the data in standardized way and format. And, once more, developers have had to deal with the Spectre bug. This time, it was to add mitigations for affected IBM POWER CPUs.

Other things to look forward to in Linux kernel 4.19:

• A new queuing discipline for the network packet scheduler. Dubbed CAKE (for Common Applications Kept Enhanced), it aims to speed up home network routers and links. By shaping data transmissions over the network, it helps reduce the problem of buffering and latency that will slow down your downloads, make your video-stream stutter or get you kicked off CS:GO.
• A brand new (and, for now, experimental) read only file system called EROFS (for Enhanced Read-Only File System). It is designed to be lightweight and modern in its design and is created by Huawei for situations where a high-performance read-only file system is needed. This is useful in firmwares for mobile devices or for Live CDs.
• Preliminary support for the upcoming WiFi 6 (aka 802.11 ax) protocol. WiFi 6 widens the band for network transmissions and will be substantially faster than current WiFi networks, as a wider band means less congestion. Less congestion will also mean data can be transmitted more reliably. That said, there are still only a few 802.11ax-enabled devices out there, but when they come, Linux will be ready!

As usual, there’s much more to learn about kernel 4.19 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. You can also visit the articles on Phoronix or check out the Kernel Newbies report. 

Learn more about Linux in the Introduction to Open Source Development, Git, and Linux (LFD201) training course from The Linux Foundation and get started on your open source journey.

Mobile games are often given a lot of slack because of their medium. We judge them in a vacuum. Maybe not intentionally, but we really don’t expect certain types of games to translate well on little screens, if they make it there at all. The dream of getting “console-quality” experiences on your phone died in darkness under the heel of free-to-play a while ago.

So when one of these gaming anomalies show up flaunting some features you don’t see much on phones and tablets, we learn to make some concessions when justifying it. Enter Grimvalor, a metroidvania that is great in the absence of the sort of ecosystems that produce great metroidvanias.

A huge reason that you never see these games developed for mobile is the limited capacity for complex and responsive control schemes. Grimvalor attempts to make up for that by replicating some of the more complicated tropes of action platformers with simpler inputs. Your main attack combo can be completed and looped by just holding down the attack button. Tapping gives you slightly more control over there cadence of the four hits, allowing you to jump at the end of a combo to get height before it begins again, for example.

The major majority of the enemies you face will wilt under this barrage with ease. A dash, that doubles as a dodge roll in the presence of attacks, will make you basically invincible to non-boss types. You eventually gain a heavy attack, which added things like guard-breaking lunges and ground pounds, but very few of the enemies you face during your travels through the labyrinthine map require anything more than the basics. Ironically, in some cases your heavy attacks can trap enemies in loops, making sure they never stand to swing on you again.

This sort of makes the Hunter sub-bosses – encounters that crib the Bloodborne/Dark Souls gimmick of a sudden outside entity coming to get you – a more congenial experience than they were designed as. Not to mention that they are rarely more than just bigger versions of normal enemies.

Simplifying the hacking and slashing is a fine gesture, though. It’s better than trying to fumble over flat tap points with no tactile response without the alternative. But to make up for the lack of challenge in any of the individual monsters, Grimvalor often resorts to overloading your screen with the beasts. Getting hit by a thrown axe from someone you didn’t even see spawn off screen is a bitter experience you’ll always keep in the back of your head. Enemies will spawn seemingly endlessly during some sections, which is a prompt to just leave as fast as possible. But it also feels like a choice to make something difficult in a way that doesn’t feel very rewarding. Occasionally, the sort of breathless transition from dodge rolling, into furious combat and out into the clear can be fun. Maybe just as often, it feels like a claustrophobic mess.

Boss fights throw a wrench in your previously established “mash until they die” strategy. Sometimes, especially at first, they feel completely over-tuned, like they are compensating for how generally harmless the standard mobs can be. As you gain new abilities, level up your character, and find new trinkets and items, boss fights start to really make sense. They become a test, where the answers involved finding ways to string all of this swipes and taps together to get the most out of the openings they give you. If Grimvalor ever comes close to providing that gritty, AAA action-RPG vibe, it’s during some of these fights.

Another mechanical concession is the platforming. Platformer staples dashing and double jumping are here. Wall running is an option, but like combos, it is semi-automated. If you jump into a wall, you can just run up it for a short period of time. Many levels are designed around this fact, so spaces tend to be wide and tall so there’s plenty of ground to cover. But some jumping puzzles, like one in the second act that involved interacting with elements in mid-air, can feel janky and broken because of all the wall running. You can ignore paths and make your own in some instances, and you can still make it through fine. In a way, it’s offering you a sort of mutable space for creativity. In another, Grimvalor doesn’t take its own design seriously enough.

The world of Grimvalor leaves some to be desired. Even when travelling to different regions, through giant doors or magical mirrors or massive elevators, they all look and feel the same. Cracked up stone from abandoned and blown out buildings are the back drop for every zone in some form or fashion. The color scheme doesn’t seem to vary much from grey and brown, though the occasion greens of Earth’s possessive overgrowth can be seen.

It takes a too long of a time to see something different in the environments. When you do run into something unique, like a world overgrown with massive roots and thorns, it can be fascinating. But I wonder how many players are willing to stick around till act three or so to get something truly special.

Characters themselves are sparse, and they’re designs also range from generic soldier guy to striking magical beings. Again, Grimvalor’s more inspired stuff doesn’t show its face until later than it should. It’s a shame because the concept art and stills are great. Up close, even many of the textures of some of the mightier foes are well detailed. Some of the camera cues when you’re traversing long halls or staircases really convey that sense of you-versus-the-elements scale and isolation. Short of some awkward times with some of the stranger creatures in the game, the game looks great in motion.

When they were Touch Foo, the team that is now Direlight was the only people out there still trying to make the mobile platform’s first Symphony of the Night. Grimvalor is absolutely leaps and bounds better than Swordigo, their previous attempt at this genre. If we narrow the discussion of Grimvalor simply to a in comparison to other action platforms you can play from your pocket, then you’ll be hard pressed to find a better, more intuitive option. Move that conversation out of the shallow pond of the App Store, and into the general gaming arena at large, then it would be very easy to find a game that does everything Grimvalor does, but better.

Activision Blizzard announced a new in-game pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 today to support the Call of Duty Endowment, an international effort aimed to help unemployed and underemployed veterans in the U.S. and U.K. find high-quality careers.

This event falls in line with other charity events publishers have campaigned in the past, with Blizzard most recently providing a limited-edition Pink Mercy skin where all proceeds went to the Breast Cancer Research Fund. 

The Call of Duty Endowment is a non-profit foundation started in 2009 by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, aiming to identify and fund the most effective employment-focused veteran-serving organizations.

Titled the salute pack, it retails for $4.99 USD and is available now in the in-game store and the Sony, Microsoft, and Battle.net online stores. It includes a special Call of Duty Endowment in-game tag, sticker, gesture, calling card, and emblem.

One hundred percent of proceeds will go directly to the Call of Duty Endowment’s mission statement to help veterans in the U.S. and U.K. secure meaningful, long-term careers when they leave military service.

For Honor Marching Fire is coming to Xbox One, bringing the four new heroes of the Wu Lin faction into the fray, the new PvE Arcade mode to test your mettle, and the new 4v4 Breach mode to challenge your team strategy as you siege or defend a castle. The October 16 launch also coincides with a massive free update that all For Honor players will benefit from: a graphical remaster that implements a revamped lighting system, improved textures, new sky gradients, and more to make the game look better than ever.

A “remaster” in the world of video games usually involves a game from a previous console generation, but according to Art Director Christian Diaz, live games like For Honor present a unique opportunity. “We wanted this game to be alive and to ensure players keep enjoying the game,” says Diaz, “so for me it was natural that we would do anything we can to improve the game on each level. So on my side, on the 3D programming team, this is what we came up with: ‘What can we do to improve the visual experience of the player?’”

Together with his team, Diaz began to investigate data- and tech-related improvements they could make. What started as a side project soon blossomed into a complex effort involving multiple branches of the development team, and once they were able to test the results, the team saw notable improvements.

“What we achieved with this remaster is that we can convey a better feeling of what you are seeing and experiencing,” says Diaz. He cites the example of the Valkenheim PvP map, the frosty northern home of the Viking faction. With the improved lighting and snow effects, you feel more strongly that you are doing battle in a frozen, forbidding place where the cold is severe.

And the graphical remaster doesn’t just affect the PvP maps like Valkenheim. The entire campaign is enhanced as well, including the real-time cinematic scenes that tell the story of the warring factions fighting for survival.

Diaz is excited to get the improvements into the players’ hands and see what they think. “The graphic updates we did help to create a more harmonious image,” says Diaz, “and a more convincing natural look and feel while improving overall image quality. They will bring better readability of what you see on screen, which can help gameplay as well, and overall immersion will be increased.”

You can see the details for yourself when the graphical remaster of For Honor goes live at the launch of the Marching Fire on October 16. The remaster will be free for all players, and Xbox Live Gold members will have free access to Marching Fire’s 4v4 Breach mode. You can be among the first to try out the new PvE Arcade mode and put the new Wu Lin heroes to the test by purchasing the Marching Fire expansion from the Microsoft Store.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

Scream Fortress X has arrived!

• Featuring 5 new community maps: Cauldron, Gravestone, Monster Bash, Slasher, and Cursed Cove
• Added the Violet Vermin Case
  
  • Contains 20 new community-created cosmetic items that make-up the Violet Vermin Collection
  • Has a chance to give one of 4 community-created Halloween-restricted items as a bonus item
  • Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item
• Added the Scream Fortress X War Paint Case
  
  • Contains 10 new community-created War Paints that make-up the Scream Fortress X War Paint Collection
  • Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item
• Added two new official taunts to the Mann Co. Store
  
  • Taunt: Panzer Pants
  • Taunt: The Scooty Scoot
• Added 17 new community-created Unusual effects
  
  • 11 new effects for Unusual hats
  • 6 new effects for Unusual taunts
• Added 5 new Contracts for the featured maps
  
  • Completing a Halloween Contract will give players a classic Halloween item and the chance for a Violet Vermin Case or a Scream Fortress X War Paint Case
• All players who launch the game will receive a Soul Gargoyle if they don’t already have one
  
  • Grants access to Merasmissions and Halloween item transmutations
  • Tracks Merasmissions completed and souls collected
• All Halloween Contracts have been reset, allowing them to be completed again
• Continue last year’s event by collecting the souls of dead players for your Soul Gargoyle by killing enemies, doing map objectives, or collecting the Soul Gargoyles that spawn in the maps
• All cases will grant Halloween 2018 Unusual effects instead of their normal Unusual effects during the event
• Join Halloween matches by using the Special Events category in Casual
• Scream Fortress X runs through November 14th, 2018

General

• Fixed stickybombs doing damage through walls and doors in some situations
• Fixed a problem with client-side prediction on Halloween maps that use the bumper car mini-game
• Added Tip of the Hats 2018 community medals
• Added ozfortress Season 23 tournament medals
• Added TFNew 6v6 Newbie Cup tournament medals
• Added RGB 3 LAN tournament medals
• Added United Dodgeball League Season 1 tournament medals
• Updated the localization files