New features for Raspberry Pi, Wireguard in the Linux kernel, NSA Python course and more open source news

Catch up on the biggest open source headlines from the past two weeks.

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In this edition of our open source news roundup, we take a look at new features for Raspbian, Wireguard and Linux kernel, free Python course from the NSA and more!

Raspbian has some new features

A new version of Raspbian software for the Raspberry Pi has been released. It’s available for download and has some improvements including an improved file manager, addition of Orca for Linux for increased accessibility. Other additions include:Version 3.2 of Thonny added, Version 74 of Chromium, Scratch 3 (full image only). Other updates include new versions of VLC, RealVNC server and viewer, Mathematica, Node Red and Sonic Pi.

Wireguard makes it into the Linux Kernel

Wireguard the free and opens source communication protocol that implements virtual private networks has made its way into version 5.16 of the Linux kernel. According to Stephen Vaughan-Nichols, “This has the potential to change everything about VPNs -- not just in Linux, but in the entire VPN world. That's because essentially all VPN services run off Linux servers.” Linus Torvalds recently merged the source code into the kernel, and it may be as early as April 2020.

NSA releases free Python course for beginners

The National Security Agency has released its own Python tutorial for beginners. It is a 118-megabyte PDF download that provides a complete course of study from a first Python project to advanced programming examples. While it’s not clearly licensed, it is declassified and available as a great resource to learn the language. Many thanks to Chris Swenson who submitted the FOIA request to the NSA for their Python training materials, which resulted in this treasure trove of Pythonics.

Free Python course materials!

I put in a FOIA request to the NSA for their Python training materials and got back a 400-page printout of their COMP 3321 training course.

So, I scanned and OCR'd it. Here is a PDF (warning: 118 MB)https://t.co/i1Fxe6G4MJ pic.twitter.com/jty7Q4PaBK

— Cupcake ✨ ? (@chris_swenson) February 7, 2020