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Links 26/1/2021: 4MLinux 35.1, GParted 1.2, Gnuastro 0.14



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Best Way to Split Your Linux Terminal

        If you’re a programmer or developer, you probably feel that one terminal window is not enough. You need to open a new tab or new terminal window and constantly switch between them while working on something. It eventually makes the work quite hectic.

        The same problem is also faced by system administrators as well as database administrators because they need at least five terminal windows to carry out respective work.

        Terminal does have tabs, but they don’t make work any more comfortable, so some terminal multiplexers are introduced. These multiplexers help split the terminal window horizontally as well as vertically. So, in this article, we’re going to have a look at some multiplexers that will help you split your Linux terminal.

    • Server

      • The 10 Best Linux Server Distributions [2021 Edition]

        One of the best things about Linux is the various types of distributions it has to offer. No matter how you plan to use your Linux PC, there’s a Linux distro optimized with all the necessary tools and functionalities to meet your needs. And this brings us to Linux server distributions – Linux distros optimized to be used on servers. These are lightweight Linux distros, sometimes even stripped of a desktop environment, and packed with tools to improve speed, stability, and security – the traits of a good server OS.

        But with that being said, there are literally hundreds of Linux server distros circulating the internet. So which one should you choose for your home server or even for professional use? Well, to answer your question, we have put together a comprehensive list of the 10 best Linux Server Distributions for 2021.

        [...]

        So this brings us to the end of our list of the 10 best Linux server distributions of 2021. We hope this was useful and helped you find the right Linux server distro for your specific needs and requirements.

        All the server distros come with their own unique advantages and disadvantages, as you can see. If you are completely new, we recommend starting with a Ubuntu server. With time, you’ll understand what features you need and then migrate to a distro that delivers those functionalities.

        But that being said, this is by no means a comprehensive list of all the best Linux server distros out there. So if your favorite distro didn’t make it up on this list, then feel free to mention it down in the comments along with why you prefer it over the options discussed here. We would surely like to know.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Destination Linux 210: The Fediverse – Become An Adult Again

        You’ve heard us talk about Matrix and Mastodon along with many other decentralized services but what does that actually mean and why does it matter? Well this week, we’re going to deep dive into the various Fediverses to answer those questions. We’re also going to cover some recent exciting news from Red Hat which is guaranteed to make many in the community very happy. We will also discuss why Chromium may soon be missing from your distro repository. Plus we’ve also got our famous tips, tricks and software picks. All of this and so much more this week on Destination Linux.

      • Late Night Linux – Episode 109

        Will’s hybrid cloud approach to Pi-hole, and huge batch of feedback about all sorts including Firefox, convergence, home monitoring, email servers, and more.

      • Activitypub: The Open Future Of Social Media

        Twitter has been doing the usual Twitter things but there already exists an amazing open alternative in the form of the Fediverse powered by Activitypub, and not just a replacement for Twitter but a wide array of other platforms and the best thing is they can all communicate with eachother.

    • Kernel Space

      • Kernel prepatch 5.11-rc5

        The 5.11-rc5 kernel prepatch is out for testing. "Nothing particularly stands out. We had a couple of splice() regressions that came in during the previous release as part of the 'get rid of set_fs()' development, but they were for odd cases that most people would never notice. I think it's just that 5.10 is now getting more widely deployed so people see the fallout from that rather fundamental change in the last release."

      • It Took 25 Years for Linux to Boot on a Nintendo

        Everyone’s go to gaming console Nintendo is finally booted by mainline Linux Kernal. I know Geeks you are cheering up! Nintendo 64 game console support will be merged with the upcoming Linux 5.12 kernel. Lauri Kasanen Created & submitted this port & you can use this ready made ROM from Github.

        So Now we can use Linux (command Line) in Nintendo 64. but remember it has only 4 MB of RAM & it is running on a MIPS64 NEC VR4300 Processor (93.75MHz ) with SGI Reality Coprocessor graphics clocked at 62.5MHz.

      • Patched Linux 5.11 Continues Looking Great For AMD Ryzen/EPYC Performance

        While the initial AMD Linux 5.11 performance regression written about at the end of last year was of much concern given the performance hits to AMD Zen 2 / Zen 3 processors with the out-of-the-box "Schedutil" governor, with a pending patch the regression is not only addressed but in various workloads we continue seeing better performance than even compared to Linux 5.10. Here is the latest from several more days of extensive performance testing.

      • Two Powerful SSD Benchmark Utilities for Linux

        The 21st century has seen unprecedented growth in the technological sector, and many upgrades have been made in the past several years. The evolution of phones from landlines to smartphones is a clear indicator of this technological phenomenon. The latter has become a key part of our lives, providing us a means to connect with the world around us. The desktops and laptops that we use today have also seen major progression, and this can be observed in the improvement in the quality of tools and games in the world of computers.

        One such sector in the computer world is that of memory storage, which has quickly moved on from traditional hard disks to a newer, faster type of storage called a solid-state drive, or SSD for short. SSDs are extremely fast, require less power, and are more shock-resistant than HDDs. You can see this for yourself by benchmarking your SSDs. Benchmarking is the process of measuring the performance of any tool, which can be done using a benchmarking utility.

        This article looks at two of the best utilities available for SSD benchmarking in the Linux operating system, Disks and hdparm.

      • Graphics Stack

        • Radeon ROCm 4.0.1 Released For AMD Open-Source GPU Compute

          Last month marked the release of the big Radeon Open eCosystem 4.0 update (ROCm 4.0) while today that has been replaced by a v4.0.1 point release.

          ROCm 4.0 brought CDNA / MI100 (Arcturus) compute support and other "Exascale Era" preparations in making this open-source GPU compute stack competitor more competitive with NVIDIA's CUDA. For now though it's still been leaving out the Navi GPU support.

        • AMD Celebrates Five Years Of GPUOpen

          Today marks five years since AMD began the GPUOpen initiative for providing more open-source Radeon GPU code projects, code samples, and more for better engaging GPU/game developers in the open.

          As any longtime Phoronix reader will know, AMD's open-source Linux driver initiative is going on for more than a decade while the celebration today is just over their GPUOpen initiative turning five years old. The three principles that continue to guide GPUOpen are providing code and documentation to PC developers to exert more control on the GPU, a commitment to open-source software, and a collaborative engagement with the developer community.

        • Vulkan 1.2.168 Released With Two New Extensions

          Today's Vulkan 1.2.168 specification update brings the usual specification corrections/clarifications while also introducing two new KHR extensions.

        • VKD3D-Proton Begins Working On DirectX 12 Ray-Tracing Atop Vulkan

          Those working on VKD3D-Proton as the Direct3D 12 implementation atop the Vulkan API are beginning to work on DirectX Ray-Tracing support but it isn't yet ready for gamers.

          Hans-Kristian Arntzen has opened the initial pull request for enabling ray-tracing extensions with VKD3D-Proton.

        • NVIDIA release the Vulkan Beta Driver 455.50.03, new extensions supported

          Need to be on the bleeding edge of what NVIDIA have to offer? They just released driver version 455.50.03, as part of their Vulkan Beta Driver series. This is actually the second driver released this month, with 455.50.02 appearing on January 19. Here's a look over all that's new in them together.

    • Intel

    • Applications

      • Best Dictionary Apps for Linux

        GNOME Dictionary is a minimal and straightforward dictionary app for Linux. GNOME dictionary is one of the official GNOME-3 applications and it is available in almost all major Linux distributions. It can query definitions of words and phrases from a number of online sources. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have any mechanism to download offline dictionary databases.

      • PDF Arranger 1.7.0 Released With New Features And Enhancements

        PDF Arranger 1.7.0 has been released with new features, like the ability to crop white borders, allow export to individual files, allow selection of odd or even pages, support for editing more PDF metadata tags, and more.

        Initially forked from the popular PDF Shuffler, PDF Arranger has gain many new features since then. The application can merge, split, rotate, crop, and rearrange PDF document pages using a simple GTK3 user interface. It's available for Linux and Windows.

        There are also various other smaller features in this PDF editor, including the ability to edit PDF metadata, merge double-sided scanned documents, cut / copy / paste PDF pages even between multiple PDF Arranger instances (and thus, between documents or to a new empty instance), duplicate PDF pages, and much more.

      • Movim: An Open-Source Decentralized Social Platform Based on XMPP Network

        Just like some other XMPP desktop clients, Movim is a web-based XMPP front-end to let you utilize it as a federated social media.

        Since it relies on XMPP network, you can interact with other users utilizing XMPP clients such as Conversations (for Android) and Dino (for Desktop).

        In case you didn’t know, XMPP is an open-standard for messaging.

        So, Movim can act as your decentralized messaging app or a full-fledged social media platform giving you an all-in-one experience without relying on a centralized network.

        It offers many features that can appeal to a wide variety of users. Let me briefly highlight most of the important ones.

      • Open Source Google Docs Alternative CryptPad 4.0 Releases With New Look and New Features

        CryptPad is an impressive encrypted Google Docs alternatives that we’ve covered previously. Even though it does not offer all the features and goodies that you get with Google Docs, it is a usable privacy-friendly option for many.

        Recently, they deployed a major upgrade (CryptPad 4.0) to their platform that involves a new logo, refreshed icons, and more new features.

        In this article, I shall highlight some of the key changes with the latest major release.

      • Explore binaries using this full-featured Linux tool

        It's natural to ask why you need yet another tool if existing Linux-native tools do similar things. Well, it's for the same reasons you use your cellphone as your alarm clock, to take notes, as a camera, to listen to music, to surf the internet, and occasionally to make and receive calls. Previously, separate devices and tools handled these functions — like a physical camera for taking pictures, a small notepad for taking notes, a bedside alarm clock to wake up, and so on. Having one device to do multiple (but related) things is convenient for the user. Also, the killer feature is interoperability between the separate functions.

        Similarly, even though many Linux tools have a specific purpose, having similar (and better) functionality bundled into a single tool is very helpful. This is why I think Radare2 should be your go-to tool whenever you need to work with binaries.

      • Use Joplin to find your notes faster

        To store my digital notes, I needed to pull them all into one place. The tool needed to be accessible from multiple devices, have a useful search function, and be able to export or share my notes. I chose Joplin after trying many, many different options. Joplin lets me write notes in markdown, has a pretty good search function, has applications for all the OSs (including mobile), and supports several different ways to sync between devices. As a bonus, it has folders and tags, so I can group my notes together in ways that make sense to me.

      • Renowned Disk usage visualization terminal tool Vizex released a new version

        Want to view disk usage in terminal then you will think about Vizex only. Basically Vizex is a terminal program which enables users to visualize the disk space usage for every partition & media. This tool is highly customizable and you can customize it as per your needs.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to Install and Use Fail2ban on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8

        Top on the list of every IT operation team is ensuring that servers are secure from unauthorized users or malicious scripts. There are a number of solutions that you can apply to ward off attacks and breaches. Among them is the implementation of the Fail2ban software tool.

        Fail2ban is an open-source intrusion detection measure that mitigates brute-force attacks that target various services such as SSH, and VSFTPD to mention a few. It comes with an array of filters – including SSH – that you can customize to update the firewall rules and block unauthorized SSH login attempts.

        The fail2ban utility monitors the server’s log files for any intrusion attempts and blocks the IP address of the user after a predefined number of failed attempts for a specified duration. The user’s IP is placed in a ‘jail’ which can be set, enabled, or disabled in the /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf configuration file. This way, it helps to secure your Linux server from unauthorized access, and more specifically from botnets and malicious scripts.

      • How to install WPS Office 2019 on Linux Mint 20.1 - YouTube

        In this video, we are looking at how to install WPS Office 2019 on Linux Mint 20.1.

      • Installing Google Chrome on Fedora Linux – Linux Hint

        Google Chrome is one of the top browsers for all platforms. It’s a product released by Google. The browser comes with numerous features, including synchronization with Google services, fast performance, fast performance, etc.

        In this guide, check out how to install Google Chrome on Fedora Linux.

      • How to install TupiTube Desk on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install TupiTube Desk on a Chromebook Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • How to install Spreed WebRTC Server on Ubuntu | FOSS Linux

        preed isn’t like any other video chat platform – it is much better and powerful in every way. It is a free and open-source audio/video call server designed with privacy in mind. Spreed uses WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication), which enables web browsers and mobile apps to communicate in real-time via APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). WebRTC enables peer-to-peer communication making it possible for audio and video to work inside web pages.

        Additionally, Spreed WebRTC uses end-to-end encryption, thus ensuring ultimate privacy and security to users’ data.

      • How to Use Btrfs Scrub? – Linux Hint

        The Btrfs filesystem is a multi-device filesystem that has built-in support for RAID. In a multi-device Btrfs filesystem or RAID, the data/metadata blocks may be stored in one or more storage devices. The Btrfs scrub tool will read all the data/metadata blocks from all the storage devices added to a Btrfs filesystem or RAID and find all the corrupted data/metadata blocks. Once the corrupted data/metadata blocks are found, the Btrfs scrub tool will automatically repair those corrupted data/metadata blocks if possible.

        In a multi-device Btrfs filesystem or Btrfs RAID, depending on the filesystem configuration, there may be multiple copies of the data/metadata blocks stored in different locations of the storage devices added to the Btrfs filesystem. When the Btrfs scrub tool finds a corrupted data/metadata block, it searches all the storage devices added to the Btrfs filesystem for duplicate copies of that data/metadata block. Once a duplicate copy of that data/metadata block is found, the corrupted data/metadata block is overwritten with the correct data/metadata block. This is how the Btrfs scrub tool repairs corrupted data/metadata blocks in a multi-device Btrfs filesystem or Btrfs RAID.

      • How to Use Btrfs Balance? – Linux Hint

        The Btrfs filesystem has built-in multi-device support, so you can create different levels of RAID using it. Once you’ve created a Btrfs RAID, you can add more storage devices to the RAID to expand the RAID. But, once you have added more storage devices to the RAID, Btrfs won’t spread the existing data/metadata/system-data to the new storage devices automatically. So, you may not get the desired throughput (read/write speed) out of the RAID, and it may not be able to populate the new storage devices with the required redundant data. So, the RAID array may fail to survive the desired number of drive failures.

        To solve these problems, the Btrfs filesystem provides a built-in balancing tool. The Btrfs balance utility will spread the data/metadata/system-data of the existing storage devices of the RAID to the newly added storage devices.

        In this article, I am going to show you how to use the Btrfs balance utility to spread the data/metadata/system-data of the existing storage devices of the RAID to the newly added storage devices. So, let’s get started!

      • How to Install and Configure NIS Server on Debian 10? – Linux Hint

        NIS stands for Network Information Service, and it is used extensively for sharing configuration data about different systems across the whole network. In today’s article, we will be talking about the methods of installing and configuring this server on a Debian 10 system.

      • How to Install Swift in Debian 10 – Linux Hint

        Swift is a famous language that was developed by Apple to create software applications. Swift is an open-source language that is used as a fast and interactive programming language to develop various software for all platforms and servers. Writing a Swift code is interactive since the syntax is quite concise. Swift also contains multiple features that are useful for developers. The code written in Swift is safe for designing and extremely fast, as well. This article shows you how to install Swift on a Debian 10 server.

        This tutorial will be of great help to all Debian users who wish to install Swift on their computers. We will be using Debian 10, but even if you do not have the latest version of Debian installed on your system, feel free to follow the same procedure on your computer.

      • How to Enable Automatic Updates on Ubuntu 20.04

        One of the crucial administration roles that any sysadmin is tasked to do is to ensure that the security patches and feature updates are regularly applied. Security updates address pre-existing vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users to breach the system. Delayed patching of system packages may result in system breaches where confidential information is access and exfiltrated. Manually updating packages on Ubuntu - and any Linux system for that matter - is a tedious task and wastes a lot of your precious time. This is time that could have been spent elsewhere performing more productive tasks. As a workaround, configuring automatic updates on a Linux server comes highly recommended. In this guide, we walk you through how to enable automatic updates on Ubuntu 20.04.

      • How to Configure LDAP Client in Debian 10 – Linux Hint

        LDAP is an acronym for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. LDAP allows users to store the usernames and passwords of users in a single place. This place is then used by multiple services for validating the users claiming these services. To use a service, you always need to have a client-end program that can help you to access that service. This article shows you how to install and configure the LDAP client on your Debian 10 system.

      • GPT vs. MBR Booting

        Most of the time, we let our computers’ boot just happen, but sometimes we need to control it. One of those times is when you want to dual boot. The way your disk is organized affects what you need to do and think about. The way computers boot and have been booting is by using the Master Boot Record. That was the old way, but you will still see partitioning software give you the option to use this system. GPT means GUID Partition Table; it was introduced to address BIOS limitations, one being the size of disk it can address. To use GPT, you must have a UEFI based computer. In 2021, you do! Just watch out for decades-old hardware if you are a tinkerer. Note that you can still keep using MBR if you wish to do so.

      • 4 Ways to Install Firefox Browser 85 in Ubuntu / LinuxMint / CentOS

        This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to download and install Mozilla Firefox 85 in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Linux Mint 20.1, and CentOS 8.1 / 7.x.

        Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla foundation and generally utilized by thousands and thousands of individuals in their daily actions.

        Firefox 85 Started its development in November Mid 2020 and released its stable version 85 on Jan 25, 2021 and it is ahead of its official release date for all supported OS Platforms.

      • An Introduction to Bash Brace Expansion - Putorius

        The Borne Again Shell (BASH) has a lot of great features that it borrows from other shells and even from some programming languages. It was created in the late 1980s in a response to a lacking in the current available shells on Berkley Distributions (BSD), and the predecessor to Linux, GNU. BASH features numerous in-built features such as in-line scripting capabilities like brace expansion, which we are going to examine today.

      • How to Convert PDF to Image in Linux

        For many reasons, you often need to convert PDF documents to different image formats. You can find many online sites that easily convert PDF to images, but there is no guarantee your file will be secure always. You can easily do it in your own Linux system.

        This article is going to show you to convert pdf to other image formats (jpg, png, gif, tif) using the following two popular methods.

      • How to Install Gitea on Ubuntu 20.04 | RoseHosting

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Gitea with Nginx as a reverse proxy on an Ubuntu 20.04 VPS.

      • How to Search, Install, Remove Snap Apps in Command Line | UbuntuHandbook



        This simple tutorial shows how to search for, install, remove, and list installed Snap applications in Ubuntu from command line.

        Snap is an universal Linux package format developed by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. Though many users hate the Snap apps, it’s hard to keep away from it since many popular applications (e.g., VLC, Spotify, VS Code, Android Studio) offer official Ubuntu binaries through Snap rather than classic deb package.

        As Ubuntu Software still sucks and does not load application pages quite often, you can run followings command instead to search for & install snap applications.

      • How to install Jellyfin Media Server on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - Linux Shout

        When it comes to creating your own Medis server, the first name would be Kodi or Plex, however, these are not only out there. Jellyfin is another popular open-source project that lets us create quickly a modern media server with an interactive web user interface to manage videos, images, and music from any device.

        We can browser media content using Jellyfin on various devices such as computers, apps on your Roku, Android, iOS (including AirPlay), Android TV, or Fire TV device, or via your Chromecast or existing Kodi. Whereas when it comes to installing the Jellyfin server platform it doesn’t limit to Linux only, we can set it up on machines running Microsoft Windows, macOS, or in a Docker container.

      • Why you need to drop ifconfig for ip | Opensource.com

        For a long time, the ifconfig command was the default method for configuring a network interface. It served Linux users well, but networking is complex, and the commands to configure it must be robust. The ip command is the new default networking command for modern systems, and in this article, I'll show you how to use it.

        The ip command is functionally organized on two layers of the OSI networking stack: Layer 2 (data link layer) and Layer 3 (network or IP layer). It does all the work in the old net-tools package.

    • Games

      • Revive Classic Nintendo DS Games on Linux With Emulation

        Want to play Nintendo DS games on your Linux system but can't figure out how? Back in the day, Nintendo DS was a very popular handheld console with a huge collection of games. But over time, advanced consoles were launched in the market that rendered DS obsolete.

        Luckily, several emulators are available that allow you to play classic Nintendo DS games on your system. DeSmuMe is a great example of a stable Nintendo DS emulator for a Linux machine.

      • Best Game Console Emulators for Linux

        This article will list popular game console emulation software available for Linux. Emulation is a software compatibility layer that emulates hardware components of game consoles, instruction sets and related APIs. Emulation software can emulate CPUs, GPUs, audio hardware and many other such physical components available in real game consoles. Emulation allows you to play console exclusive games that are otherwise unplayable on PCs. Games running on these emulators see emulated components as if they were parts of a real game console and they cannot see the underlying platform (PC) on which the game is running on.

        Developing an accurate game emulator for PC is an extremely difficult task, involves reverse engineering and many times developers have to sacrifice accuracy to improve compatibility. Emulators require original file system dump from game consoles. Some emulators emulate these components as well making it easier to play games. To play games on emulators, you must have game files, typically called ROMs.

      • Best Linux Distros for Gaming in 2021
    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Plasma 5.21 Beta Review Day

          I am happy to announce that we are going to hold the second Plasma Beta Review Day on the 28th January from 9.00 CET to at least 20.00 CET. We will meet in a Big Blue Button room and you can join via audio, video or text.

          Everybody is encouraged to join, regardless of whether you are a user testing the new release, a bug triager, or a developer. We want to hear your impressions about the beta release and want to focus on any regressions or bugs compared to the last release.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • GNOME 40 Alpha Released for Public Testing with New Activities Overview Design

          After about four months since it entered development, the upcoming GNOME 40 desktop environment series, due for release at the end of March 2021, now has an initial development release that anyone can test it to get an early taste of the new features and improvements.

          The biggest new feature in GNOME 40 looks to be a reimagined Activities Overview that promises better overview spatial organization, improved touchpad navigation, more engaging app browsing and launching, as well as better boot performance.

        • GNOME 40 Alpha Released

          GNOME 40 is now available as the first step towards releasing this updated Linux desktop environment in March.

          GNOME 40 Alpha comes with a ton of changes -- many of which we have been outlining in various Phoronix articles over the past few months. Among the main highlights of GNOME 40 Alpha are:

          - GTK4 through GTK 4.0.2 is now pulled into the GNOME collection.

        • Phaedrus Leeds: Cleaning Up Unused Flatpak Runtimes

          Despite having been a contributor to the GNOME project for almost 5 years now (first at Red Hat and now at Endless), I’ve never found the time to blog about my work. Fortunately in many cases collaborators have made posts or the work was otherwise announced. Now that Endless is a non-profit foundation and we are working hard at advocating for our solutions to technology access barriers in upstream projects, I think it’s an especially good time to make my first blog post announcing a recent feature in Flatpak, which I worked on with a lot of help from Alex Larsson.

          On many low-end computers, persistent storage space is quite limited. Some Endless hardware for example has only 32 GB. And we want to fill much of it with useful content in the form of Flatpak apps so that the computers are useful even offline. So often in the past we have shipped computers that are already quite full before the user stores any files. Ideally we want that limited space to be used as efficiently as possible, and Flatpak and OSTree already have some neat mechanisms to that end, such as de-duplicating any identical files across all apps and their runtimes (and, in the case of Endless OS, including the OS files as well).

        • Outreachy Progress Report

          I’m halfway gone into my Outreachy internship at the GNOME Foundation. Time flies so fast right? I’m a little emotional cuz I don’t want this fun adventure to end soo soon. Just roughly five weeks to go!! Oh well, let’s find out what I’ve been able to achieve over the past eight weeks and what my next steps are…

          My internship project is to complete the integration between the GNOME Translation Editor (previously known as Gtranslator) and Damned Lies(DL). This integration involves enabling users to reserve a file for translation directly from the Translation Editor and permitting them to upload po files to DL.

    • Distributions

      • New Releases

        • 4MLinux 35.1 released.

          This is a minor (point) release in the 4MLinux STABLE channel, which comes with the Linux kernel 5.4.85. The 4MLinux Server now includes Apache 2.4.46, MariaDB 10.5.8, and PHP 7.4.13 (see this post for more details).

          You can update your 4MLinux by executing the "zk update" command in your terminal (fully automatic process).

        • GParted 1.2.0 Released
          GParted is the GNOME Partition Editor for creating, reorganizing, and
          deleting disk partitions.
          
          

          The GParted 1.2.0 release includes some new features in addition to bug fixes, and language translation updates.

          Key changes include: - Add exFAT support using exfatprogs - Wait for udev change on /dev/DISK when erasing signatures - Don't try to mask non-existent Systemd \xe2\x97\x8f.service

          Visit https://gparted.org for more details.
        • GParted 1.2 Released With Support For exFAT File-Systems

          GParted as the widely used, GUI solution for managing Linux partitions/file-systems on the Linux desktop now finally supports dealing with exFAT file-systems.

          Since Linux 5.7 has been the modern exFAT file-system driver from Samsung to replace the earlier exFAT driver code following Microsoft's blessing in late 2019. That exFAT file-system driver is in increasingly good shape and continues seeing fixes/improvements with succeeding kernel releases and continues to be widely used on Android devices and elsewhere.

        • GParted 1.2 Open-Source Partition Editor Released with exFAT Support

          GParted 1.2 open-source partition editor software has been released today with initial support for the exFAT file system, as well as various other improvements.

          Coming a year after the previous release, GParted 1.2 is here as the first release of the popular and very handy partition editor utility to implement support for partitioning disks formatted with the exFAT file system developed by Microsoft. exFAT support is handled by using the exfatprogs command-line utility, which needs to be installed in your GNU/Linux system.

      • BSD

        • FreeBSD Desktop – Part 22 – Configuration – Aero Snap Extended

          I like to post new articles and solutions when I think they are ready. Production tested and stable. Well thought and tested … or at least trying to make things as good as possible in the available time window. Perfectionism definitely does not help making often articles on the blog.

          Today’s solution is not perfect but I will ‘ship it’ anyway because good and done is better then perfect. I wanted to rework it so many times that I stopped counting … and I really would like to continue the series – thus I have made a conscious decision to finally release it and hope that maybe someone else will have better ideas to make it better. I really wanted to provide pixel perfect solution with as much screen space used as possible but to deliver it as it is I tested it only on the resolution I use the most – the FullHD one with 1920×1080 pixels.

          You may want to check other articles in the FreeBSD Desktop series on the FreeBSD Desktop – Global Page where you will find links to all episodes of the series along with table of contents for each episode’s contents.

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • GeckoLinux Does OpenSuse Better

          GeckoLinux is a US-based Linux distribution. Its focus on polish and out-of-the-box usability on the desktop is a time-honored draw for using this Linux choice.

          OpenSuse is among the easiest Linux distributions for new users. However, openSuse does not focus on the absolute ease of use.

          Instead, the open-Suse community prefers to offer users flexibility and choice. That openSuse style can add some complexities along with providing some easy-to-use graphical tools to configure system settings like YaST.

          Swapping GeckoLinux in place of openSuse mitigates the suitability of use question for newcomers. As I noted previously, my usual go-to Linux platform is Debian/Ubuntu based. But GeckoLinux puts the best features of the openSuse Linux family front and center.

        • openSUSE "Leap" 15.2 - Any Good?

          This is a review I've been wanting to write since forever. Having tried many iterations of SUSE Linux over its long life before, during and after the Novell era, it always left me feeling ambivalent. And I really wanted to like it. The last time I set out to write a review but then canned the idea was for 12.3, when images would work in VMware Player but did not boot on my real hardware. Now THAT is a long time ago and it also means a lot may have changed, hopefully for the better.

          SUSE is known and often praised for their offering of a highly polished KDE desktop. This is what I will go for in this little experiment. On the download page we can choose between a netinstall image for openSUSE "Leap" approx. 125 MB in size for x86_64 and the full DVD image of 4.3 GB. This is the equivalent of the box set of olden days. Live images are available with the KDE Plasma and Gnome desktops as well as a Rescue Live CD which are all staying under 1 GB in size, but only the rescue image is small enough to burn to CD. All images can be written to USB and DVD. Community maintained ports are also available for ARM, the Raspberry Pi and PPC architectures.

          Instructions to install or change to "Leap" as well as minimum system requirements are further down the page. Quite a traditional selection really. The web page layout is simple and clear and conveys the most pertinent information right away.

          Years ago installing from live image was not recommended so the choice here is basically between downloading the entire library or the netinstall image. I decided to go for the netinstall. Not having an installable live image obviously robs us of the test run people have become accustomed to unless we down yet another image just for testing. I decided against that as we can see from the netinstall image whether openSUSE will boot up or not. The rest is just desktop showcasing.

          I downloaded images for the x86_64 architecture.

        • Digest of YaST Development Sprint 116

          Let’s start with an installer improvement quite some people was waiting for. Both openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise can use either wicked or NetworkManager to handle the system’s network configuration. Only the former can be fully configured with YaST (which is generally not a problem because there are plenty of tools to configure NetworkManager). Moreover, during the standard installation process, wicked is always used to setup the network of the installer itself. If the user decides to rely on wicked also in the final system, then the configuration of the installer is carried over to it. But, so far, if the user opted to use NetworkManager then the installer configuration was lost and the network of the final system had to be be configured again using NetworkManager this time. Not anymore!

          That’s not the only installer behavior we have refined based on feedback from our users. In some scenarios, the logic used to decide whether an existing EFI System Partition (ESP) could be reused was getting in the way of those aiming for a fine-grained control of their partitions. That should now be fixed by the changes described in this pull request, that have been already submitted to Tumbleweed and will be part of the upcoming releases (15.3) of both openSUSE Leap and SLE.

        • Session One Meetup Generates Enhancements, Actions

          The first session of the openSUSE Project’s meetup regarding the End of the Year Survey Results on Jan. 23 is already starting produce some actionable items from contributors.

          The session on openSUSE’s Jitsi instance had engagement from about 20 people from around the globe.

          Topics discussed in the two-hour session focused on addressing pain points, transferring knowledge and promoting openSUSE projects.

          Members of the “let’s improve the openSUSE learning experience” shared statics and analysis from the survey and attendees engaged in generating ideas and actions to enhance and improve the above mentioned items.

      • Arch Family

        • Kubernetes on Hetzner in 2021

          Hello and welcome to my little Kubernetes on Hetzner tutorial for the first half of 2021. This tutorial will help you bootstrapping a Kubernetes Cluster on Hetzner with KubeOne. I am writing this small tutorial, because I had some trouble to bootstrap a cluster on Hetzner with KubeOne. But first of all let us dive into the question why we even need KubeOne and how does KubeOne helps. KubeOne is a small wrapper around kubeadm. Kubeadm is the official tool for installing Kubernetes on VMs or bare-metal nodes, but it has one major disadvantage: It is very toilsome. KubeOne tries to solve this with providing you a wrapper around Kubeadm and various other provisioning tools like Terraform. Terraform lets you manage your infrastructure as code. The advantage is that you can easily destroy, deploy or enhance your infrastructure via a few config file changes. You may ask yourself why you even need this tutorial. There is already at least one tutorial that guides you through the process of setting up a Kubernetes cluster on Hetzner. This is correct, but I felt it is unnecessary complicated, takes too much manual steps and is not really automatable (although there are solutions like kubespray that intend to solve this).

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Fedora preemptively turns off Chromium usage of private Google Sync APIs

          Fedora has jumped seven weeks before Google ends the Linux distribution's use of the Google Chrome Sync service within the Chromium browser.

          The Sync service allows users to keep data such as browser history, login details, and bookmarks synced between different devices.

          Earlier this month, Google said it completed an audit, and was restricting the open source version of Chrome from accessing those APIs "that are only intended for Google's use".

          Notifying Fedora users over the weekend, Chromium maintainer for the distribution Tom Callaway said the change will make the program "significantly less functional".

          [...]

          To that end though, by closing off the service, Fedora is able to fix 26 security vulnerabilities. Version 88.0.4324.96-1 of Fedora Chromium will be the first to have Sync disabled, and landed as an update in repositories over the weekend.

          Google said it would be locking down access to the Sync service on March 15. Some Chromium-based browsers do offer a non-Google sync solution.

        • IBM Cloud Now: GitLab Ultimate for IBM Cloud Paks, Security Insights, and WebSphere Hybrid Edition
        • Technically Speaking: Season 1 Trailer

          Join Red Hat CTO Chris Wright and a rotating cast of experts and industry leaders for the first season of the all-new Technically Speaking. In each episode, Chris will explore what's on the horizon for open source and topics like cloud, AI/ML, edge, 5G, blockchain, and more. The first episode drops on January 27, 2021. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to tune in.

        • To plug gap left by CentOS, Red Hat amends RHEL dev subscription to allow up to 16 systems in production

          Red Hat, which is killing CentOS Linux in favour of CentOS Stream, will extend its developer subscription to allow free production use of RHEL for up to 16 systems.

          CentOS Linux is a community build of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and therefore suitable for production use. CentOS Stream, which will remain available, is a preview build of what is likely to be in RHEL – great for testing but not ideal for production use.

          The popularity of CentOS, which drives 17.7 per cent of Linux-based web sites, according to W3Techs, has meant a strong response to Red Hat's decision, including alternative free builds such as Rocky Linux and Project Lenix, which is now known as Alma Linux.

          Red Hat said in December that it would work to plug the gap left by CentOS with new ways to license RHEL and today's statement is said to be "the first of many new programs."

        • Cloud Native Patterns: a free ebook for developers

          Building cloud native applications is a challenging undertaking, especially considering the rapid evolution of cloud native computing. But it’s also very liberating and rewarding. You can develop new patterns and practices where the limitations of hardware dependent models, geography, and size no longer exist. This approach to technology can make cloud application developers more agile and efficient, even as it reduces deployment costs and increases independence from cloud service providers.

          Oracle is one of the few cloud vendors to also have a long history of providing enterprise software. Wearing both software developer and cloud service provider hats, we understand the complexity of transforming on-premises applications into cloud native applications. Removing that complexity for customers is a guiding tenet at Oracle.

        • Red Hat extends certification expiration dates and expands remote offerings

          In 2020, remote exams became the standard experience for certificate-hopefuls across many fields. Red Hat worked quickly to release four of our most in-demand exams in this format. We have seen remote exams grow rapidly in popularity with our candidates. As we roll into 2021, our list has expanded with even more offerings. Now, you can take advantage of more remote exams to validate your skills in Red Hat’s most in-demand technologies, including OpenShift, Ansible, Containers and Kubernetes, and more.

        • CloudLinux Expands Its Extended Lifecycle Support Services to Cover More End-of-Life Linux Distributions
        • CloudLinux to Offer Lifecycle Support Services for Expired Linux Distributions

          CloudLinux on Monday announced the expansion of its affordable Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) services for Linux distributions, by providing its own updates and security patches for several years after expiration of the products’ end-of-life date.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Ubuntu Touch Q&A 92 | Ubports
        • UBports Aiming For An Exciting 2021 With Ubuntu Touch - Phoronix

          Last week marked the last Q/A session for the UBports' Ubuntu Touch team working to advance the Linux smartphone platform where they laid out some of their upcoming objectives.

          From the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 92 session various interesting bits of information were shared as far as their plans over the coming months for this community that continues to advance the Ubuntu Touch effort primarily for smartphones -- various Android devices and also the likes of the PinePhone.

        • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 667

          Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 667 for the week of January 17 – 23, 2021.

        • Ubuntu 21.04 Release Date & Planned Features

          While development on Ubuntu 21.04 is still (somewhat) early, rumours are already circling about what to expect from the release that Ubuntu developers have dubbed the “Hirsute Hippo”.

          In this post we rundown everything we know so far, including when Ubuntu 21.04 will be released, how long it’ll be supported for, and what kind of new features and key changes its likely to include.

          Plus, we also give you the link to download Ubuntu 21.04 daily builds if you want to try the release out ahead of its Stable release in the spring.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Raspberry Pi: Boot to BASIC

        40 years ago this Christmas, I got my first “personal computer”. It was a Sinclair ZX81 with 1KiB of RAM and a tape deck for storage. Every time I powered it on, like all ‘81 owners, I was greeted with this.

        A couple of taps later, and I had written some code!

        Ok, not a super auspicious creation, but it’s a start. It’s likely the same first program you wrote if you had one. Perhaps with rude words, who knows, they were fun times back in the ’80s. Through the following years I had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 16K (later upgraded to 48K), a Spectrum +2 128K and an Amstrad CPC 464. All of which also booted directly to a programming language - BASIC.

      • DIN-rail gateway offers dual LAN and dual RS485

        The Unipi Gate G110 and G100 are PLC-ready DIN-rail gateways that run Linux on a quad -A53 SoC with 16GB eMMC, GbE and 10/100 LAN ports, and up to 2x RS485 ports with modular extensions.

        Czech based Unipi, which started out in 2014 with a Raspberry Pi based UniPi automation controller board and followed up with products including an Allwinner H5-based Axon automation controller, has now launched the $243 Unipi Gate G100 and $272 Unipi Gate G110 DIN-rail gateways.

      • Telematics gateway connects with Iridium, GPS, 4G, WiFi/BT, and 433MHz RFID

        Appareo’s IP67-rated, -40 to 75€°C tolerant “Gateway 370” telematics gateway runs Linux on a Cortex-A9 SoC and supplies Iridium SBD, 433MHz (RFID), 4G LTE, WiFi/BT, and GPS plus LAN, BroadR-Reach, DIO, and CAN links.

        Fargo, ND based Appareo has launched a wireless telematics control unit (TCU) for heavy machinery in applications such as construction and agriculture. The Gateway 370 is based on a Gateway 270 that Appareo announced last May. That earlier model similarly provides Yocto-derived Linux with Docker container support on an unnamed dual-core, Cortex-A9 SoC — probably the i.MX6 Dual or DualLite.

      • Rugged mini-PC dips into Elkhart Lake

        Neousys unveiled a fanless, 112 x 87 x 50mm “POC-40” computer with an up to 3.0GHz, dual-core Atom x6211E plus up to 32GB DDR4, 2x GbE, 4x USB, 3x M.2, and DP, 2x serial, and isolated DIO.

        Last month, Neousys announced one of the first Intel Elkhart Lake based embedded PCs with its ultra-compact (153 x 108 x 56mm) POC-400. The company has followed up with an even smaller (112 x 87 x 50mm) and similarly rugged POC-40 using the same 10nm processor family. The industrial, DIN-rail mountable mini-PC supports applications such as space-constrained factory data collection systems, rugged edge computers, and mobile gateways.

      • Pipo W12 Arm Windows 10 Laptop finally launched for $422 and up

        The project provides a Debian image for the aforementioned Yoga C630, so with some efforts a port to Pipo W12 may be possible.

      • Firefly dual-lens AI camera module comes with Rockchip RV1109 or RV1126 processor

        The camera module runs Linux, and it supported by Rockchip RKNN toolkit working in Windows, Linux (64-bit x86 and Arm), and Mac OS. The AI camera module connects to a host platform such as an Android tablet. Considering the cameras are all fixed focus with a 80 cm focus distance, the main application is face recognition and detection. There’s no documentation in English for now, but the Chinese version of the Wiki has plenty of information and resources to get started.

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • Arduino Blog €» Access control unit designed with a Raspberry Pi CM4 and an Arduino Micro

          Whether granting access to public transit or restricting unauthorized personnel in buildings, NFC card readers can be extremely useful. Although most might not consider how they work – and simply happy getting through a turnstile – there’s a lot going on behind the scenes.

          In his video, Daniel Raines shows off a pair of prototype access control units (ACUs) that he’s constructed. The two networked devices are each based on a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 along with an Arduino Micro that controls six relays to allow or deny entry, provide feedback, fire, and lock up.

        • Arduino Blog €» 2002 Audio TT dashboard gets a digital speedometer upgrade with a custom CAN bus shield

          While it’s hard to beat analog instruments for instantaneous automotive feedback, Finnish electrical engineering student Jussi Ristiniemi also wanted a digital speed readout on his 2002 Audi TT.

          His particular model normally uses the car’s controller area network (CAN) to transmit the radio station or CD track to the uppermost section of the digital display. For this speedometer mod, audio data was replaced with “KM/H” readings, supplied by the vehicle’s CAN bus system via an Arduino Nano and custom interface shield.

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • ISA2 Launches New Open Source Bug Bounties

        Awards of up to EUR 5000 are available for finding security vulnerabilities in Element, Moodle and Zimbra, open source solutions used by public services across the European Union. There is a 20% bonus for providing a code fix for the bugs they discover.

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • Welcoming Open Web Docs to the MDN family [Ed: Mozilla outsourcing to Microsoft is a colossal mistake]

            Collaborating with the community has always been at the heart of MDN Web Docs content work — individual community members constantly make small (and not so small) fixes to help incrementally improve the content, and our partner orgs regularly come on board to help with strategy and documenting web platform features that they have an interest in.

            At the end of the 2020, we launched our new Yari platform, which exposes our content in a GitHub repo and therefore opens up many more valuable contribution opportunities than before.

            And today, we wanted to spread the word about another fantastic event for enabling more collaboration on MDN — the launch of the Open Web Docs organization.

          • Mozilla Announces "Open Web Docs" Following Last Year's Layoffs

            Last year during the big round of layoffs at Mozilla the entire Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) writers team was laid off. That was a particularly sad blow considering how valuable the MDN documentation has been to web developers as a very useful resource. Today the Mozilla folks are announced Open Web Docs in seemingly looking to have the community take over.

            Following those unfortunate layoffs last summer, they exposed all of the Mozilla Developer Network documentation to GitHub. Now they are announcing the Open Web Docs organization.

          • A New Year, A New Hubs

            An updated look & feel for Hubs, with an all-new user interface, is now live.

            Just over two years ago, we introduced a preview release of Hubs. Our hope was to bring people together to create, socialize and collaborate around the world in a new and fun way. Since then, we’ve watched our community grow and use Hubs in ways we could only imagine. We’ve seen students use Hubs to celebrate their graduations last May, educational organizations use Hubs to help educators adapt to this new world we’re in, and heck, even NASA has used Hubs to feature new ways of working. In today’s world where we’re spending more time online, Hubs has been the go-to online place to have fun and try new experiences.

            Today’s update brings new features including a chat sidebar, a new streamlined design for desktop and mobile devices, and a support forum to help our community get the most out of their Hubs experience.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • LibreOffice Community Member Monday: Felipe Viggiano and Zhenghua Fong

          In the future, I would like to start contributing more with others teams, and with TDF in order to help increase LibreOffice’s success. In my opinion, LibreOffice needs to be better known – we have a great free office solution that attends the majority of the requirements of the general public, but, at least in Brazil, many people are not aware of this!

      • FSF

        • GNU Projects

          • 10 fabulous free apps for working with audio, video, and images

            You want Photoshop-like features without the Photoshop-like price tag, and, for that, there’s Gimp. Free, open-source, and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, this powerful tool can be used by graphic designers, photographers, and illustrators alike.

          • Gnuastro 0.14 released
            Dear all,
            
            

            I am happy to announce the availability of Gnuastro 0.14. For the full list of added and changed/improved features, see the excerpt of the NEWS file for this release in [1] below.

            Gnuastro is an official GNU package, consisting of various command-line programs and library functions for the manipulation and analysis of (astronomical) data. All the programs share the same basic command-line user interface (modeled on GNU Coreutils). For the full list of Gnuastro's library, programs, and a comprehensive general tutorial (recommended place to start using Gnuastro), please see the links below respectively:

            https://www.gnu.org/s/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Gnuastro-library.html https://www.gnu.org/s/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Gnuastro-programs-list.html https://www.gnu.org/s/gnuastro/manual/html_node/General-program-usage-tutorial.html

            The most prominent new feature may be the new Query program (called with 'astquery'). It allows you to directly query many large astronomical data centers (currently VizieR, NED, ESA and ASTRON) and only download your selected columns/rows. For example with the command below you can download the RA, Dec and Parallax of all stars in the Gaia eDR3 dataset (from VizieR) that overlap with your 'image.fits'. You just have to change '--dataset' to access any of the +20,000 datasets within VizieR for example! You can also search in the dataset metadata from the command-line, and much more.

            astquery vizier --dataset=gaiaedr3 --overlapwith=image.fits \ --column=RAJ2000,DEJ2000,Plx

            See the new "Query" section in the Gnuastro book for more:

            https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Query.html

            Here is the compressed source and the GPG detached signature for this release. To uncompress Lzip tarballs, see [2]. To check the validity of the tarballs using the GPG detached signature (*.sig) see [3]:

            https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/gnuastro-0.14.tar.lz (3.6MB) https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/gnuastro-0.14.tar.gz (5.6MB) https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/gnuastro-0.14.tar.gz.sig (833B) https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuastro/gnuastro-0.14.tar.lz.sig (833B)

            Here are the MD5 and SHA1 checksums:

            30d77e2ad1c03d4946d06e4062252969 gnuastro-0.14.tar.gz f3ddbc4b5763ec2742f9080d42b69ed3 gnuastro-0.14.tar.lz cfbcd4b9ae1c5c648c5dc266d638659f0117c816 gnuastro-0.14.tar.gz 4e4c6b678095d2838f77b2faae584ea51df2d33c gnuastro-0.14.tar.lz

            I am very grateful to (in alphabetic order) Pedram Ashofteh Ardakani, Thérèse Godefroy, Raúl Infante-Sainz, Sachin Kumar Singh, Samane Raji and Zahra Sharbaf for directly contributing to the source of Gnuastro since the last alpha-release. It is great that in this release we have an equal gender balance in the contributors. I sincerely hope this can continue in the next release :-).

            I am also very grateful to (in alphabetic order) Antonio Diaz Diaz, Paul Eggert, Andrés García-Serra Romero, Thérèse Godefroy, Bruno Haible, Martin Kuemmel, Javier Licandro, Alireza Molaeinezhad, Javier Moldon, Sebastian Luna Valero, Samane Raji, Alberto Madrigal, Carlos Morales Socorro, Francois Ochsenbein, Joanna Sakowska, Zahra Sharbaf, Sachin Kumar Singh, Ignacio Trujillo and Xiuqin Wu for their very useful comments, suggestions and bug fixes that have now been implemented in Gnuastro since the last alpha-release.

            If any of Gnuastro's programs or libraries are useful in your work, please cite _and_ acknowledge them. For citation and acknowledgment guidelines, run the relevant programs with a `--cite' option (it can be different for different programs, so run it for all the programs you use). Citations _and_ acknowledgments are vital for the continued work on Gnuastro, so please don't forget to support us by doing so.

            This tarball was bootstrapped (created) with the tools below. Note that you don't need these to build Gnuastro from the tarball, these are the tools that were used to make the tarball itself. They are only mentioned here to be able to reproduce/recreate this tarball later. Texinfo 6.7 Autoconf 2.70 Automake 1.16.2 Help2man 1.47.17 ImageMagick 7.0.10-59 Gnulib v0.1-4396-g3b732e789 Autoconf archives v2019.01.06-98-gefa6f20

            The dependencies to build Gnuastro from this tarball on your system are described here: https://www.gnu.org/s/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Dependencies.html

            Best wishes, Mohammad
        • Licensing/Legal

          • Amazon Creates ALv2-Licensed Fork of Elasticsearch

            Amazon states that their forks of Elasticsearch and Kibana will be based on the latest ALv2-licensed codebases, version 7.10. “We will publish new GitHub repositories in the next few weeks. In time, both will be included in the existing Open Distro distributions, replacing the ALv2 builds provided by Elastic. We’re in this for the long haul, and will work in a way that fosters healthy and sustainable open source practices—including implementing shared project governance with a community of contributors,” the announcement says.

          • Elasticsearch and Kibana are now business risks

            In a play to convert users of their open source projects into paying customers, today Elastic announced that they are changing the license of both Elasticsearch and Kibana from the open source Apache v2 license to Server Side Public License (SSPL). If your organisation uses the open source versions of either Elasticsearch or Kibana in its products or projects, it is now at risk of being forced to release its intellectual property under terms dictated by another.

      • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

        • Open Access/Content

          • Wikipedia Turns Twenty

            If there is a modern equivalent to Encyclopédie for cultural impact, scale of content, and controversy, it’s surely Wikipedia, the free open-source online encyclopedia run by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Started by entrepreneurs Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15th, 2001, it has since grown to become one of the world’s top 15 websites with a vast database of 55 million articles in 317 languages, as well as a family of related projects covering everything from travel guides to recipes. Beloved of geeks, friend to lazy students and journalists alike, and bane to procrastinators, it celebrates its 20th birthday this month.

            It’s hard to overstate just how much information is on Wikipedia. You can instantly find the average July temperature in Lisbon, the difference between an ale and a lager, the historical background to the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, or the full list of 10 ways a batsman can be out in cricket. The illustrated article on aguaxima includes far more information than Diderot’s effort, and readers can find a far more accurate article on religion in Sweden. These articles all link to their sources, so a reader can do their own fact-checking.

            There is one more crucial difference between Encyclopédie and Wikipedia, though. Encyclopédie’s subscribers needed to pay 280 livres for it, far beyond the wages of an ordinary person. But anyone who can afford a device with an Internet connection can access Wikipedia wherever they go. This accessibility was game-changing.

      • Programming/Development

        • Dustin J. Mitchell: The Horrors of Partial-Identity Encodings -- or -- URL Encoding Is Hard

          URL encoding is a pretty simple thing, and has been around forever. Yet, it is associated with a significant fraction of bugs in web frameworks, libraries, and applications. Why is that? Is there a larger lesson here?

        • Enrico Zini: nspawn-runner: support for image selection

          .gitlab-ci.yml supports 'image' to allow selecting in which environment the script gets run. The documentation says "Used to specify a Docker image to use for the job", but it's clearly a bug in the documentation, because we can do it with nspawn-runner, too.

          It turns out that most of the environment variables available to CI runs are also available to custom runner scripts. In this case, the value passed as image can be found as $CUSTOM_ENV_CI_JOB_IMAGE in the custom runner scripts environment.

        • Introduction to Making GraphQL APIs and Apps in Node.js – Linux Hint

          The communication and data transfer between the front end and backend of any application occurs through APIs (Application Programming Interface). There are many different types of APIs used to communicate between the front and back-end applications like RESTful API, SOAP API, GraphQL API, etc. The GraphQL API is a relatively new technology, and it is much faster than other types of APIs available. Fetching data from the database using GraphQL api is much faster than the REST API. While using GraphQL API, the client has control to fetch only the required data instead of getting all the details; that is why GraphQL API works faster than REST API.

        • Issue with phpMyAdmin and PHP: Warning in ./libraries/sql.lib.php#613 count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable”

          Today, I had installed PHP 7.3 and phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system. I am using MariaDB as database server running on the same instance. When I tried to access data in tables using phpMyAdmin got the following error message on screen.

        • C++ Access Specifiers – Linux Hint

          In C++, a class is a set of variables and functions that have been configured to work together. When the variables of the class are given values, an object is obtained. An object has the same variables and functions as a class, but this time, the variables have values. Many objects can be created from one class. One object differs from another object according to the different set of values assigned to the variables of the other object. Creating an object from a class is said to be instantiating the object. Even if two different objects have the same values for their variables, these objects are different entities, identified by different names in the program. The variables for an object and its corresponding class are called data members. The functions of an object and its corresponding class are called member functions. Data members and member functions are called members.

          The word access means to read or change the value of a variable, and it also means to use a function. C++ access specifiers are the words, “private,” “protected,” and “public.” They decide whether a member can access other members of its class, or if a function or operator outside the class and not belonging to the class can access any member of the class. They also decide whether a member of a derived (child) class can access a member of a parent class.

          Basic knowledge of C++ is required to understand this article and to test the code provided.

        • Compiling Code in Parallel using Make – Linux Hint

          Whoever you ask how to build software properly will come up with Make as one of the answers. On GNU/Linux systems, GNU Make [1] is the Open-Source version of the original Make that was released more than 40 years ago — in 1976. Make works with a Makefile — a structured plain text file with that name that can be best described as the construction manual for the software building process. The Makefile contains a number of labels (called targets) and the specific instructions needed to be executed to build each target.

          Simply speaking, Make is a build tool. It follows the recipe of tasks from the Makefile. It allows you to repeat the steps in an automated fashion rather than typing them in a terminal (and probably making mistakes while typing).

          Listing 1 shows an example Makefile with the two targets “e1” and “e2” as well as the two special targets “all” and “clean.” Running “make e1” executes the instructions for target “e1” and creates the empty file one. Running “make e2” does the same for target “e2” and creates the empty file two. The call of “make all” executes the instructions for target e1 first and e2 next. To remove the previously created files one and two, simply execute the call “make clean.”

        • Zeal – simple offline documentation browser

          Zeal is billed as a simple offline documentation browser. It offers easy access to a huge database of documentation, API manuals, and code snippets.

          The main purpose of the software is to enable you to have reference documentation at your fingertips. Let’s see how it fares.

        • Perl/Raku

          • Rakudo Weekly News: 2021.04 Grant Reporting
          • The Trouble with Reference Counting

            Perl uses a simple form of garbage collection (GC) called reference counting. Every variable created by a Perl program has a refcnt associated with it. If the program creates a reference to the variable, Perl increments its refcnt. Whenever Perl exits a block it reclaims any variables that belong to the block scope. If any are references, their referenced values’ refcnt are either decremented or they’re reclaimed as well if no other references to them remain.

        • Python

          • How to Use Python NumPy Array – Linux Hint

            Many libraries exist in Python to perform different types of tasks. NumPy is one of them. The full form of NumPy is Numerical Python, and it is mainly used for scientific computing. Multi-dimensional array objects can be defined by using this library that is called the Python NumPy array. Different types of functions exist in the NumPy library to create the array. NumPy array can be generated from the python list of numeric data, range of data, and random data. How NumPy array can be created and used to do different operations types have shown in this tutorial.

          • How to Use Python NumPy arange() Function – Linux Hint

            Many functions exist in the Python NumPy library to perform different types of numerical and scientific operations. Creating different types of arrays for various purposes is one of the practical uses of the NumPy library. Python has a built-in function named arange() to create a list of sequential numbers. arange() is one of the array creation functions of the NumPy library to create an array of numeric ranges. The uses of the NumPy arange() function have explained in this tutorial.

          • How to Use Python NumPy reshape() Function – Linux Hint

            NumPy library has many functions to work with the multi-dimensional array. reshape () function is one of them that is used to change the shape of any existing array without changing the data. The shape defines the total number of elements in each dimension. The array’s dimension can be added or removed, and the number of elements in each dimension can be modified by using the reshape() function. The one-dimensional array can be converted into a multi-dimensional array, but the multi-dimensional array can’t be converted into a one-dimensional array by this function. How to reshape() function works and its uses are explained in this tutorial.

          • How to Use Python NumPy zeros() and ones() Functions – Linux Hint

            NumPy library is one of the useful libraries of python that can be used to create arrays. zeros() and ones() are the NumPy library functions to create two different arrays. zeros() function is used to create an array based on the particular shape and type. All array elements are initialized to 0, which is created by the zeros() function. ones() function works like the zeros() function. But the elements of the array created by the ones() function are initialized to 1. The uses of both functions have shown in this tutorial by using multiple examples.

          • How to convert Python NumPy array to python list – Linux Hint

            Array object is used to store multiple values, and the list object is used in Python to do a similar task to an array object. NumPy array object is used to do different types of numerical operations in Python. The multi-dimensional array can be created by using this library. NumPy library has a built-in tolist() function to convert the NumPy array to the python list. This function does not take any argument and returns the python list. If the array is one-dimensional, then the function will return a simple python list. If the array is multi-dimensional, then the array will return the nested python list. If the array’s dimension is 0, then the function will return a python scalar variable instead of a list. How tolist() function can convert different types of NumPy array to python list is shown in this tutorial.

          • How to install NumPy python development environment on Ubuntu – Linux Hint

            Python is a modern programming language now for supporting a large number of libraries. Various types of tasks can be done by using these libraries. NumPy is one of the useful libraries of Python to perform scientific operations. This library can be used to create a multi-dimensional array of objects. Different types of mathematical tasks can be done quickly using this library, such as sorting the array, reshaping array, statistical operation, arithmetical operations, etc. It works faster because it is developed by using the C programming language.

          • Python Unittest Tutorial

            Unit testing is a testing method used in software engineering for individual units of any code. Users can put the individual tests to determine the status of the source and how much the code is suitable to be used. This way users can test the code quality.

            Testing is done once the process of development is complete. Users can also begin testing when the test script is to be verified based on the criteria of the testing. Developers are expected to write the manual types of the source code. Generally, manually writing unit testing codes is a hectic task but in Python, it is done using an in-built function called unittest.

          • pip 21.0 has now been released

            The Python Packaging Authority (PyPA) has announced the release of pip 21.0. This version removes Python 2.7 and 3.5 support, and drops support for legacy cache entries from pip < 20.0.

          • pip 21.0 has now been released
            # Announcement: pip 21.0 has now been released
            
            

            On behalf of the PyPA, I am pleased to announce that we have just released pip 21.0, a new version of pip. You can install it by running `python -m pip install --upgrade pip`.

            This is the first scheduled release of pip in 2021, following our regular [quarterly release schedule](https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/development/release-process...).

            ## Highlights

            - Removal of Python 2.7 and 3.5 support.

            - Dropped support for legacy cache entries from pip < 20.0.

            You can find more details (including deprecations and removals) in the [changelog](https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/news/).

            ## Regarding Python 2 support

            We've also released pip 20.3.4, which contains certain bugfixes for Python 2 users. It is our final Python 2 compatible release, and there are no future Python 2 compatible releases planned.

            Python 2 users will need to continue using a version of pip older than 21.0. Upgrading via pip will select a suitable version, because this release is marked as not supporting Python 2. However, if you are upgrading from a version of pip older than 9.0.0, that does not support the `Requires-Python` metadata, you may need to explicitly request `pip < 21.0`.

            A Python 2.7 compatible version of `get-pip.py` is available at <https://bootstrap.pypa.io/2.7/>.

            ## Thanks

            As with all pip releases, a significant amount of the work was contributed by pip’s user community. Huge thanks to all who have contributed, whether through code, documentation, issue reports and/or discussion. Your help keeps pip improving, and is hugely appreciated.
        • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

          • An Introduction to Bash Brace Expansion

            The Borne Again Shell (BASH) has a lot of great features that it borrows from other shells and even from some programming languages. It was created in the late 1980s in a response to a lacking in the current available shells on Berkley Distributions (BSD), and the predecessor to Linux, GNU. BASH features numerous in-built features such as in-line scripting capabilities like brace expansion, which we are going to examine today.

  • Leftovers

    • NBCUniversal, Twitter Strike Global Content and Ad Sales Partnership

      NBCUniversal and Twitter have signed a multi-year, global partnership covering advertising sales and content across the international footprint of the media and entertainment giant.

      While Twitter and NBCUniversal have been partners going back to 2013, the new deal's global nature marks a significant expansion.

    • Hardware

      • Television-makers are pitting rival technologies against each other

        Despite their similar acronyms, LED sets and OLED sets work in substantially different ways. Indeed, the term LED is a bit of a misnomer for the former. The crucial parts of the screen are actually the liquid crystals. These are tiny, electronically manipulated shutters that permit or prevent the passage of light. Individual picture elements, known as pixels, consist of a trio of these shutters, each masking a filter that passes light of one of the primary colours, red, green or blue. Behind all this paraphernalia is a strong white backlight which is, indeed, generated these days by light-emitting diodes, but which was once the product of fluorescent bulbs. A pixel’s hue in an LED set is determined by how open or closed each of its shutters is, and thus what mixture of primaries gets through them.

        An OLED TV, by contrast, has no backlighting. Its pixels are layers of organic materials that emit light of their own when stimulated by an electric current. Different organic materials emit light of different frequencies, so different colours can be mixed in this way.

        There is also one other difference. When an OLED pixel is switched off, it relaxes to a deep, dark black. Even when closed, however, the shutters of an LED system permit some of the backlight to sneak through. The result is not so much black as grey, which reduces the contrast between illuminated and unilluminated pixels.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Apple’s Hardware Chief Leaves Post for Unnamed New Project

          Apple Inc. said top hardware executive Dan Riccio is stepping down from his role to lead a new project at the company and John Ternus, one of his top lieutenants, will replace him.

          Riccio has been senior vice president of hardware engineering since 2012, overseeing development of the hardware in the iPhone, iPad, Mac and audio products like the AirPods and HomePod. Ternus, who Bloomberg reported last year was poised to replace Riccio, has been vice president of hardware engineering since 2013, and was most recently leading the iPhone, Mac and iPad engineering groups.

        • Apple has a new head of hardware engineering in latest executive shuffle

          Apple’s hardware team is getting its biggest shakeup in nearly a decade, as Dan Riccio — who served as the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering since 2012 — transitions to “a new role” at the company. He’ll be replaced as Apple’s head hardware engineer by John Ternus, who led the hardware team designing the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, in addition to working on Apple’s M1 chips. Ternus has been vice president of hardware engineering at Apple since 2013.

          The role of senior vice president of hardware engineering at Apple is a key one: the position reports directly to CEO Tim Cook and is responsible for leading the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod engineering teams. Ternus’ new role will put him in charge of the company’s hardware efforts, much in the same way that Craig Federighi — Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering — runs the development of iOS and macOS.

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Privatisation/Privateering

        • Security

          • Security updates for Monday

            Security updates have been issued by Debian (crmsh, debian-security-support, flatpak, gst-plugins-bad1.0, openvswitch, python-bottle, salt, tomcat9, and vlc), Fedora (chromium, python-pillow, sddm, and xen), Gentoo (chromium, dnsmasq, flatpak, glibc, kdeconnect, openjdk, python, thunderbird, virtualbox, and wireshark), Mageia (blosc, crmsh, glibc, perl-DBI, php-oojs-oojs-ui, python-pip, python-urllib3, and undertow), openSUSE (gdk-pixbuf, hawk2, ImageMagick, opera, python-autobahn, viewvc, wavpack, and xstream), Red Hat (dnsmasq), Slackware (seamonkey), SUSE (hawk2, ImageMagick, mutt, permissions, and stunnel), and Ubuntu (pound).

          • Apache Software Foundation Security Report: 2020

            Synopsis: This report explores the state of security across all Apache Software Foundation projects for the calendar year 2020. We review key metrics, specific vulnerabilities, and the most common ways users of ASF projects were affected by security issues.

          • Apache Software Foundation Saw Assigned CVEs Up 24%, Security Issues Up 53% For 2020

            The Apache Software Foundation that oversees 340+ Apache projects saw a measurable rise in security related issues during the course of 2020.

          • Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

            • QNAP urges users to secure against Dovecat crypto-mining malware [Ed: The part about "infect NAS devices when they’re connected to the internet with weak passwords" suggests it's a user error]

              QNAP has warned its customers that their network-attached storage (NAS) drives might be susceptible to infection by a malware strain known as Dovecat, which infects devices and silently mines cryptocurrency.

              [...]

              The firm has issued a security advisory warning its users about Dovecat, which might infect NAS devices when they’re connected to the internet with weak passwords, according to QNAP’s analysis.

            • This new botnet is targeting Linux servers running enterprise apps [Ed: TechRadar foolishly perpetuating ZDNet garbage]
          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Tor 2020 Fundraising Results: Thank You!

              We believe Tor is strongest when it is used by and supported by as many people as possible. A diverse user base strengthens the anonymity of Tor users, and diverse funding sources ensure we are beholden to our mission—no single financial source. You showed us the reality of this idea over the past year.

              It’s no surprise that the Tor Project faced many uncertainties in our funding sources at the beginning of 2020 when the pandemic changed the world. In the spring, we saw a sharp decrease in individual donations. We watched as all of our planned in-person events, during which we previously raised a significant percentage of our funds, were canceled. Foundations also quickly changed their funding plans to respond to the new challenges of the pandemic. The impact of the pandemic and its economic ripple effects were severe enough that we had to make the difficult choice to lay off one third of the Tor Project staff in order to keep Tor steady through uncertainty.€ 

            • Why your browser's password manager isn't good enough

              Password managers offer other benefits, too. Browsers revolve around your account alone, but password managers include features that help you easily and securely share passwords with other people—helpful if someone needs to use your Wi-Fi, or a coworker needs access to a joint account, or if you want to share your Netflix password with your parents. Sharing login details is a pain if the information is stored deep in your browser.

            • 'It's ugly': Verizon 5G data boxes appear without notice on Houston front lawns

              In the jargon of telecommunications, the box is known as “ground furniture.” The beige metal cabinets, with an electrical meter affixed, supply power and a high-speed fiber connection to a transmitter on Verizon’s wireless data network. They are popping up on lawns all over Houston, and in other cities around the United States, often without notice to homeowners.

              It is part of the rush to build out the next-generation wireless network called 5G — even if it means ticking off residents. Norman Ewart, a retired lawyer who lives in the Rice Memorial area, said one of the boxes was placed outside his front gate. He complained to Verizon- but the box remains in place.

            • Facebook users’ phone numbers are for sale through a Telegram bot

              Someone has gotten their hands on a database full of Facebook users’ phone numbers, and is now selling that data using a Telegram bot, according to a report by Motherboard. The security researcher who found this vulnerability, Alon Gal, says that the person who runs the bot claims to have the information of 533 million users, which came from a Facebook vulnerability that was patched in 2019.

              With many databases, some amount of technical skill is required to find any useful data. And there often has to be an interaction between the person with the database and the person trying to get information out of it, as the database’s “owner” isn’t going to just give someone else all that valuable data. Making a Telegram bot, however, solves both of these issues.

            • The battle inside Signal

              On January 6th, WhatsApp users around the world began seeing a pop-up message notifying them of upcoming changes to the service’s privacy policy. The changes were designed to enable businesses to send and store messages to WhatsApp’s 2 billion-plus users, but they came with an ultimatum: agree by February 8th, or you can no longer use the app.

              The resulting furor sparked a backlash that led Facebook-owned WhatsApp to delay the policy from taking effect until May. In the meantime, though, tens of millions of users began seeking alternatives to Facebook’s suite of products. Among the biggest beneficiaries has been Signal, the encrypted messaging app whose development is funded by a nonprofit organization. Last month, according to one research firm, the six-year-old app had about 20 million users worldwide. But in a 12-hour period the Sunday after WhatsApp’s privacy policy update began, Signal added another 2 million users, an employee familiar with the matter told me. Days of temporary outages followed.

            • India to permanently ban 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok

              India has permanently blocked 59 Chinese apps including TikTok almost seven months after issuing show-cause notices to ban them following a prolonged border standoff with China.

              The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in new notices to the apps last week, has said their answers and clarifications following the ban were found to be inadequate. As a result, the temporary block has now been made permanent.

            • Twitter launches Birdwatch, a fact-checking program intended to fight misinformation

              Twitter has launched its Birdwatch program, meant to address misinformation on the platform by allowing users to fact-check tweets, the company announced Monday. Users in the pilot program, which will only include about 1,000 users in the US to start, will eventually be able to add notes to tweets to provide context.

            • Twitter launches user forum to combat misinformation

              Twitter on Monday launched a new feature aimed at combating misinformation on the platform through a community of users.

              The standalone section, titled “Birdwatch,” will allow users to discuss and provide context to tweets.

              The feature will first be launched as a pilot for a small set of users on a first-come, first-served basis. The selection will not give priority to fact-checkers or high-profile accounts.

            • Facebook to grant access to targeting information about political ads

              Facebook will launch a new tool next week that will grant access for researchers regarding the targeting information used for social issues, electoral and political ads, the company said Monday.

              The Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) platform will enable researchers who are granted access the ability to review data about ads including those that ran during the three-month period leading up to Election Day.

            • Grindr fined $11.7 million for illegally sharing private user information with advertisers

              Grindr will be fined 100 million Norwegian kroner, or about $11.7 million, by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority for illegally sharing private information about Grindr users to advertisers, according to The New York Times.

            • Grindr is fined $11.7 million under European privacy law.

              The Norwegian Data Protection Authority said on Monday that it would fine Grindr, the world’s most popular gay dating app, 100 million Norwegian kroner, or about $11.7 million, for illegally disclosing private details about its users to advertising companies.

              The agency said the app had transmitted users’ precise locations, user-tracking codes and the app’s name to at least five advertising companies, essentially tagging individuals as L.G.B.T.Q. without obtaining their explicit consent, in violation of European data protection law. Grindr shared users’ private details with, among other companies, MoPub, Twitter’s mobile advertising platform, which may in turn share data with more than 100 partners, according to the agency’s ruling.

            • One more little, BIG reason why Facebook REALLY sucks

              Facebook sucks. If you still disagree, go here. What is less discussed is that Facebook also sucks in a particulary obnoxious way that I first noticed years ago, but had forgotten until last week.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Biden administration’s coercive Iran policy threatens a serious new regional crisis
      • QAnon Believers Are Pushing New Trump Conspiracy Theories on TikTok

        In the week since the inauguration, QAnon believers have struggled to reconcile their worldview with the reality that Biden is president, in many cases coming up with new, increasingly bizarre theories to support their belief that Trump will soon take office once again. TikTok, which has a younger-skewing user base and has historically struggled to curb the proliferation of conspiracy theories, is one social platform currently playing host to the baseless belief that President Trump will be sworn into office on March 4th, 2021.

      • The Justice System Is Going Too Easy on the White Insurrectionists

        But the vast majority of those 800 criminals were white, which means the vast majority are walking around free, at least for now. Reports indicate that only around 125 people have been arrested so far. Most of them have been charged with relatively minor offenses. A maddening report from The Washington Post suggests that there is internal division among some in the Justice Department about whether authorities should even bring cases against all 800 insurrectionists. For some reason, people at Justice are leaking to the press that they’re worried that bringing cases against these people would “overwhelm” the courts.

        That’s an absurd claim. Every criminal court in a major metropolitan area in this country is “overwhelmed” with cases, and that was true even before Covid-19, when judges could go to work safely. Every family court in this country is overwhelmed. Every immigration court in this country is overwhelmed. Black and brown people sit in jails all across the country waiting for their cases to be heard. But we’re supposed to believe “the system” is too busy to hold accountable 800 or so white insurrectionists? What, are we worried the FBI is going to run out of organic meals to feed these people too?

      • How Parler Reveals the Alarming Trajectory of Political Violence

        Data sleuths have combed through a 70 terabyte cache of data from Parler, the now-defunct social media platform popular among the far right. Researchers have archived and mapped millions of these ethically hacked posts, wrangled by an anonymous, purportedly Austria-based hacker. The haul — potentially bigger than the WikiLeaks data dump of the Afghan War logs and the Democratic National Committee leak, combined — includes valuable evidence and planning of further attacks, mixed in with the private data of individuals who committed no crimes (along with quite a bit of pornography). The early takeaways are terrifying: According to at least one preliminary analysis, the frequency of hashtags on Parler referencing hanging or killing duly elected members of Congress more than doubled after the November elections.

        Until the nation reckons with the self-inflicted wounds stemming from an under-regulated, unreformed social media information architecture, President Biden’s calls for healing and national unity won’t produce substantial, lasting results. The new administration needs a long-term plan to confront the escalating threat, as far-right insurgents migrate from one platform to the next.

      • US House Delivers Impeachment Articles to Senate

        The U.S. House of Representatives has officially sent its articles of impeachment to the Senate, charging former President Donald Trump with inciting insurrection in connection with the storming of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters earlier this month.

        House lawmakers who will serve as prosecutors in the impeachment trial made the ceremonial walk to the Senate chamber Monday evening to deliver the articles.

      • Indian, Chinese troops in new border brawl: reports

        The incident happened last week at the Naku La pass in Sikkim state, the sources told AFP. Media reports quoted Indian military officials as saying there were casualties on both sides.

        A Chinese patrol tried to cross into Indian territory and was forced back, the officials said.

        Naku La connects Sikkim to the Tibet region in China.

      • Terror watchdog to probe fears of growing radicalisation in prisons

        Jonathan Hall QC said there had been a "steady drumbeat" of terror attacks on prison officers while other inmates were coming under the influence of "high status" terrorist prisoners.

        Mr Hall, the Government's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that if terrorist activity was taking place in jails then it had to be dealt with.

      • [Old] Deradicalisation doesn’t work, says terror watchdog

        Mr Hall told The Times that although there was no harm in offering schemes such as theological mentoring, the public should be under “no illusion” that they would be effective. He said that it was essential to run them alongside heavy supervision regimes and offered backing for government plans to make.

    • Environment

      • Enough 'Blah Blah Blah' From Global Elites, Greta Thunberg Declares at Digital Davos

        "I'm only here to once again remind you of the emergency we are in. The crisis that you and your predecessors have created and inflicted upon us."

      • Extreme drought and fire risk may double by 2060

        Climate change may soon double the impact of extreme drought and fire. And it’s a two-way traffic.

      • Energy

        • Biden wants to replace government fleet with electric vehicles

          President Joe Biden will start the process of phasing out the federal government’s use of gas-powered vehicles and replacing them with ones that run on electricity. The announcement is the fulfillment of a promise Biden made on the campaign trail to swap government fleet vehicles with American-made EVs.

        • Harvard and Yale Endowments Among Those Reportedly Buying Crypto

          Harvard University, Yale University, Brown University and the University of Michigan are among schools whose multibillion-dollar endowments have begun buying cryptocurrency directly on exchanges, according to a report.

          Numerous large U.S. university endowments have been buying cryptocurrency on exchanges, CoinDesk reported, citing two people familiar with the situation. A lot of endowments are allocating a small portion to crypto, and most have been in for at least a year, CoinDesk cited one of the people as saying.

        • Oil prices edge lower as Covid-19 lockdown concerns overshadow demand prospects

          Some support for prices has come in recent weeks from additional production cuts from the world’s top exporter, Saudi Arabia.

          But investors are watching for a resumption of talks between the United States and Iran on a nuclear accord — which could see Washington lifting sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports, boosting supply.

          Iran’s oil minister said on Friday the country’s oil exports have climbed in recent months and its sales of petroleum products to foreign buyers reached record highs despite US sanctions.

        • [Old] Stranded Assets Are Now Everywhere

          Stranded assets used to be a niche idea. The concept that fossil fuel infrastructure wouldn’t be used is one that’s been championed over the last decade by the U.K.’s Carbon Tracker think tank. These days, financial regulators have joined in. That prophecy has certainly been on display in the oil and gas sector over the past few weeks. And everywhere else.

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Exclusive: Google workers across the globe announce international union alliance to hold Alphabet accountable

        Google workers across the world are coming together to form a global union alliance. The newly formed coalition, called Alpha Global, is comprised of 13 different unions representing workers in 10 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

        The announcement comes weeks after workers in the US and Canada launched the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), a minority union affiliated with the Communications Workers of America. AWU grew from 230 members to more than 700 within a week after it launched.

        Alpha Global is affiliated with the UNI Global Union, a federation of labor unions representing 20 million people worldwide, including workers at Amazon.

      • Time to speak up on Tibet

        The TPSA is critical of China’s efforts to control and command the soul of Tibetan Buddhism. China’s 2007 enactment of a law to manage the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama was criticised by the US as violation of religious rights and practices and it has, through the TPSA, provided for sanctions on Chinese officials and others involved in such efforts.

        The TPSA also notes the water diversion projects undertaken by China and its drastic impact on 1.8 billion people downstream. The TPSA commended the delegation of political responsibilities by the Dalai Lama to the elected representatives in 2011 and authorised over $26 million in support of various Tibetan activities.

      • Kidnapped Christian Professor in Nigeria Released, Sources Say

        A professor at a Christian university has reportedly been released after being kidnapped in Nigeria, which leads the world in abductions of Christians, sources said.

        John Fatokun, professor of computational mathematics and numerical analysis and deputy vice chancellor of Anchor University in Lagos, was released on Wednesday (Jan. 20) after suspected Fulani herdsmen captured him on Monday (Jan. 18) as he travelled from Jos to Nasarawa state.

      • The TSA Stooges

        A dude lived at O'Hare Airport for three months. The TSA -- observant, ever-watchful repurposed mall food court workers dressed in cop suits -- never spotted him. It was United Airlines employees who finally were all, "Hey, bro...can we see some ID?"

      • How Covid-19 Threatens Native Languages

        Over four centuries, nine out of 10 Native Americans perished from war or disease. Now our people are dying from Covid-19 at extraordinarily high rates across the country. North and South Dakota, home to the Lakota reservations, lead the United States for coronavirus rates per capita. We are losing more than friends and family members; we are losing the language spoken by our elders, the lifeblood of our people and the very essence of who we are.

        Last year I lost my uncle Jesse (Jay) Taken Alive and his wife, Cheryl, to the virus. My uncle, a former chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, was a leading proponent of efforts to revitalize the Lakota and Dakota language. Lakota and Dakota are dialects of the same language; if you speak one, it is easy to understand the other, though some words and accents are different. After he retired from politics, he taught our language to public-school children.

        The task is urgent. In 2020, there were only 230 native Dakota and Lakota speakers on the Standing Rock Reservation. Two hundred and thirty speakers — down from 350 in 2006, according to the tribe’s surveys. There are only a couple of thousand speakers, in total, in the United States and Canada.

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • To all the streaming services you’ve never heard of before

        The competition for streaming services is playing out in the same way the tech industry has over the past decade: a small handful of big names, backed by a lot of money.

        But for every Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and Hulu, there are a dozen smaller, more obscure streaming services — many of which you’ve likely never heard of. In fact, let’s see if you can tell the difference between the names of real streaming platforms and ones we’ve made up.

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • FOSS Patents: Leapfrogging to Luxembourg: Munich I Regional Court refers to the CJEU the question of access to preliminary injunctions over untested patents

          I sharply disagree in policy terms (too many junk patents out there to justify preliminary injunctions unless a patent has been battle-tested). If the CJEU lowered the hurdle for patent PIs, that would have terrible repercussions all over Europe.

          Therefore, I call on large companies and industry associations interested in balanced patent policy to get in touch with defendant Harting Technology Group (found the name in a Juve Patent article) and push back really hard. In my view, one cannot prevent the referral from happening; just like Nokia, one could try to delay it. But when it happens, it will be key to ensure that the governments of as many EU member states as possible understand the huge patent quality problem that justifies the stance of the Dusseldorf, Karlsruhe (for Mannheim) and Munich appeals courts on patent PIs.

          Despite my disagreement, I want to be fair. It's no secret that the patentee-friendly leanings of both patent-specialized divisions of the Munich court are too extreme for my taste. And I criticized this particular division's covidiocies last year. But that doesn't mean they're not good at what they do, even if what they do is bad for the economy.

          They phrased their question clearly and concisely, while the Dusseldorf court's component-level licensing questions are at least twice as long as they'd have to be.

          Lower courts have the right to make those referrals to the CJEU, and in this particular case, the Munich court accurately notes that the higher regional courts' (regional appeals courts') decisions on PIs aren't reviewable. So if the Munich judges are concerned about a misapplication of EU law, this referral is the only option they have to fix what they, in their pro-patentee radicalism, consider to be a problem. I view the status quo as a pragmatic solution because otherwise you'd see PIs over patents in Germany all the time, and they'd give the prevailing patentees so much leverage that hardly any of those patents-in-suit would ever come to a validity judgment by the Federal Patent Court (or be reexamined by the European Patent Office in an opposition proceeding).

        • Is this an improved system, or mere automation?

          On appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed on validity — rejecting the defendant’s eligibility and obviousness argument — as well as infringement. The appellate court did find problems with the ongoing royalty (as well as the award of supplemental damages for ongoing infringement during the course of the lawsuit). However, the appellate found problem’s with the ongoing royalty because one of the two-infringed patents has now expired. “Here, the record does not support that a later jury would have calculated a royalty of $400 per wash as a royalty award for infringement of the ’262 patent alone.” The majority opinion was penned by Judge Schall and joined by Judge O’Malley. Judge Dyk wrote in dissent — arguing that the claims should be deemed invalid as directed toward an unpatentable abstract idea.

        • Proper Venue in ANDA cases. [Ed: The patent zealots amplifying PhRMA, a truly malicious lobby [1, 2]]

          PhRMA has filed an interesting brief arguing that proper-venue in ANDA patent-infringement cases under ۤ271(e)(2) should be determined under the general venue statute (28 U.S.C. ۤ1391) rather than the patent-specific venue statute (28 U.S.C. ۤ1400(b)).



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GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day