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It's a new month, and FreeBSD 14.3 Release Candidate 1 is now available for testing, bringing some useful updates you might find handy, especially if you're into containers. A very welcome development with this RC1 is that The FreeBSD Project has begun publishing official Open Container Initiative (OCI) images to both Docker Hub and GitHub repositories. This is a significant improvement because it massively simplifies spinning up FreeBSD instances within containerized environments, making FreeBSD much more accessible for these kinds of modern deployment scenarios. Aside from that, the default pkg.conf file has been updated to include the FreeBSD-kmods repository that helps manage the various kernel modules (or kmods). This might seem like a small tweak, but it simplifies the process of getting extra kernel modules installed directly via pkg. The sound subsystem also received a neat update that terminates audio streams when virtual channels are closed; this particular change is geared towards providing significant power savings. As a release candidate, 14.3 RC1 also bundles a collection of important bug fixes, continuing the stabilization work we saw several weeks ago when we reported on 14.3 Beta 3. While that beta brought a significant convenience for desktop users looking to easily set up a modern graphical environment, this RC1 shifts focus with several under-the-hood improvements, including a fix for a tricky Wi-Fi driver issue causing problems on arm64 systems and a kernel panic related to mac_do when INVARIANTS are enabled. Just as a reminder, FreeBSD 14.3 is mainly focused on polish and stability (it's a point release, after all), with the bigger changes expected in FreeBSD 15.0 later in 2025. As with most release candidates, users are encouraged to download the RC1 images, give them a good test, and share any bugs they find to help make the final version better. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of May): 2,377 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Last year, we reported that Winamp would be making a comeback soon. And it's here, Winamp 5.9 RC1 has been released. This is the first update for the popular music player since Winamp 5.8 beta, that was released in 2018. What's new in Winamp 5.9 RC1 The music player has improved Windows 11 compatibility, support for vp8, https://streams, playback of .itz, .mdz, .s3z & .xmz compressed modules. The program now has a Podcast Directory. The browser tab has been removed from the Bento skin. Aside from these changes, the update fixes some memory leaks. The help link in the application directs users to a new online Help section. According to the release notes, Winamp has been migrated from VS2008 to VS2019. Winamp now requires Windows 7 SP1 as the minimum required operating system, i.e., it drops support for Windows XP and Vista. Though it wasn't mentioned in the change log, I noticed that the update also removes many of the old skins. Issues in Winamp 5.9 RC1 The migration process from VS2008 to VS2019 has resulted in some known issues. The Milkdrop plugin's visualization works, but it has issues with some presets. Eleven of the worst affected presets have been removed, but are expected to be fixed in the Winamp 5.9.1 update that is slated for a future release. View File Info doesn't work, and ReplayGain calculation is broken for Vorbis files, .OGG. These bugs are also expected to be fixed in the next update. Winamp 5.9 RC1 breaks compatibility with old plugins, including those made by former developer DrO (creator of WACUP), such as the Jump to File Extra (JTFE). Some required DLLs may not load on Windows 7 - 8.1. Upcoming changes to Winamp Winamp's developers have also published a list of upcoming changes that they plan to add to the software. This includes native support for more audio formats (opus, ogv/ogm, TS, H.265, HLS, VP9, etc.). MusicBrainz or MusicStory will replace Gracenote features such as Autotag, CDDB. There are plans to add more default services including Lyrics, and Jamendo. Refer to the release notes for more information. Warning: Winamp's forums do not have an HTTPS website. Download Winamp 5.9 RC1 Build 9999 from the Winamp website. The installer for the new version has been flagged by a few antivirus services on VirusTotal, the developers have indicated these are false positives. You can download Winamp 5.666 Build 3516 from the official website. Malwarebytes seems to detect the installer of the old Winamp 5.666 as malicious too. The music player is quite usable for the most part. This is more of a maintenance release than a feature update. So far, it doesn't contain any of the bloatware that were expected to be bundled into the program, or any NFT stuff that was shared by the company's Twitter account earlier this year. A comment from the lead developer suggests that optional online services could be added to Winamp in the future, but for now they have no details to share about it. If plugins are important to you, I'd recommend readers to either stick to the old version, or switch to WACUP (WinAmp Community Update Project), I prefer the latter as it is still maintained. Have you tried Winamp 5.9 ? Share your thoughts about it. Winamp 5.9 RC1 has been released Software Updates: Winamp 5.9.0 Build 9999 RC1

Microsoft is getting closer to the official release of the .NET 9 developer platform. Today, the company revealed the first release candidate version of .NET 9 is now available for download. In a blog post, Microsoft listed some of the new features and improvements in the .NET 9 RC 1 release. That includes some enhanced WebSocket APIs. In a separate post on the .NET 9 RCI release notes, Microsoft stated: The SDK in this new release includes a feature called Workload History. In more support notes, Microsoft says: You can check out the details and more support links to what's new and improved in .NET 9 RC 1 in the blog post and you can get the new version by downloading the .NET 9 SDK now. Microsoft also recommends installing the latest version of the Visual Studio 2022 preview release, as .NET 9 can now be installed via the Visual Studio installer. Microsoft says there will be a second Release Candidate version of .NET 9 launched before it finally leaves its preview status and becomes generally available. The company also announced today that it launched a public preview of UWP (Universal Windows Platform) support for .NET 9. Source RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of August): 3,792 news posts