It's time for another major announcement, and that is the release of Dapper Linux 27! Dapper Linux 27 is the next generation of flagship secure operating systems by Dapper Linux Limited. Dapper Linux is designed from the ground up to keep you safe and secure.

Making Dapper Linux is my passion, and I am dedicated to building you a secure operating system that fits into your lifestyle and needs. - Matthew Ruffell, Founder.

New in Dapper Linux 27:

Flatpak is the new preferred sandboxing framework and application distribution system for Dapper Linux 27. Oz has been removed, and is no longer supported, so if you use custom applications with Oz, you should start migrating to Flatpak. Flatpak brings many exciting new features and an expanded application base. If you are interested in how Flatpak works, check out their website and applications you can install from flathub.
Flatpak uses bwrap as a sandboxing mechanism, and is setuid instead of enabling user namespaces in the kernel. User namespaces are far too much of a concern to enable since the threat surface is rapidly increased by any user being able to do traditionally privileged actions like creating network namespaces, so instead setuid bwrap is more secure in the eyes of Dapper Linux.

Dapper Hardened Browser got an overhaul, and now supports Firefox Quantum, or version 57 features. Dapper Hardened Browser itself is now built as a developer edition to unlock the developer features, and more importantly has sane profile separation. Before Dapper Linux used in "interesting" way to ensure your browser started with different profiles, and this has been fully resolved. Note that some addons had to be dropped, such as Request Policy, NoScript and User Agent Switcher, and have been replaced with uMatrix.

The kernel has been updated to 4.9.70+ and currently sits in 4.9.74 in the first build of 2018. It should be mentioned that the fix for meltdown and spectre has been pushed to Linux 4.9.75, and some complications have arisen forward porting Dapper Secure Kernel Patchset Stable to accommodate with the new patches. A separate blog post will follow with what is happening in that area.

Stability has greatly improved in Dapper Linux 27. If you are a user, please do install Dapper Linux 27, as it fixes a large amount of problems with the introduction of Flatpak. Fedora 27 is the base, so upgraded Gnome 3.26 and other features are at their latest versions.

So, if you like the sound of Dapper Linux, go ahead and download it, and don't forget to contact us if you have any suggestions or improvements.