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Links 15/5/2021: GCC 8.5, Fedora Community Revamp



  • GNU/Linux

    • System76’s Configurable Mechanical Keyboard is a Dream Come True for Open Source Enthusiasts

      System76 is popularly known for its Pop!_OS Linux distribution and its laptops/desktop offerings tailored for Linux.

      While we already had some of the details when System76 teased its open-source ‘Launch’ keyboard, it has been finally unveiled to the world.

      This is System76’s first accessory offering, along with the laptops/desktops available. I’m sure that the new open source mechanical keyboard is just the start. And it is going to be a treat for open-source enthusiasts!

      Here, let me briefly share the key highlights of this open-source configurable keyboard and what I think about it.

    • Linux Release Roundup #21.20: Bodhi Linux 6.0, KDE Plasma 5.22, DragonFly BSD 6, and More New Releases

      In the Linux Release Roundup series, we summarize the new application and distribution versions release in the last few days. This keeps you informed with the latest developments in the Linux world.

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Huawei Launches Linux Laptop—But Things Aren't As They Seem

        As above, before you get your hopes up regarding a Huawei developed and manufactured Linux laptop, the Huawei Qingyun L410 is only available to the Chinese market.

        Whether that situation will change in the future is anyone's guess, but collaboration and sales from US companies to Huawei remained banned since former-President Trump's May 2019 order.

        As first reported by IT Home, the Qingyun L410 is likely only for government and enterprise customers, and it comes with a fairly substantial price tag of around $1,400 (around 9,000 yuan).

        Regarding specs, the Qingyun L410 launches with one of Huawei's Kirin 990 processors, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, and a tidy 14-inch screen. One of the coolest features is the integrated push camera, which remains flush to the screen bevel until you want to use it, protecting your privacy while not in use.

        The IT Home report indicates that the Qingyun L410 is launching with Unity OS, a Linux distro initially developed as part of a Chinese government initiative aiming to reduce Chinese tech companies' reliance on US-based software developers and platforms such as Windows.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • The AUR Removed My Packages, So I Created My Own Repo

        Yesterday, I woke up to find that several of my packages in the Arch User Repository (AUR) had been removed. The person deleting them claimed my packages were being deleted because they were "for one person", which clearly isn't the case. I know many of you guys use my packages, so it would have been unfair to you guys to not find a solution. So I created my own Arch repository on GitLab.

    • Applications

      • Digitize Your Music Collection including Tagging

        Spring cleaning is the practice of thoroughly cleaning a house in the springtime. It’s somewhat a ritual in my house. But it’s never previously extended to my CD collection.

        Your collection of CDs may be just gathering dust like mine if you’ve converted to music streaming services. While I listen to my CDs, I decided to remove them from my shelves. But many of the CDs still hold special memories. The practical solution is to rip the CDs, tag them, store them on my network drive, and pack them all away in the attic.

        While ripping the CDs is legal in my country, that’s not true everywhere. For example, UK copyright law was amended in 2014 to make it legal to make personal backups. But the change in law never happened as the decision was overturned in 2015. It’s important to verify the legal position in your country before you start ripping.

      • Best Night Light Apps for Linux

        This article will cover a list of useful applications that allow you to use a software based, customizable color filter on your monitor’s screen. You can use these applications to set color temperature for your display and choose warmer colors to reduce eye strain by filtering out blue light. These applications are also popularly known as “night light” apps.

        GNOME Shell Night Light

        GNOME Shell features a dedicated night light option which can be enabled and customized from system settings. If you are using any GNOME Shell based Linux distribution that got a new release of GNOME Shell in the last couple of years, your Linux distribution should have a night light feature built-in. GNOME Shell Night Light has all the features you would expect from a screen filter app. You can use it to set your desired color temperature and then either manually activate the overlay or schedule it. Its scheduling feature allows you to pick up a custom time frame or you can schedule it to automatically activate at sunrise and sunset timings based on your current location.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to Clean Up Disk Space on Linux Mint Distro – Linux Hint

        It is no secret that junk files from installing new programs and updates can cause an operating system to slow down. These junk files can affect the performance and slow down the speed. Besides that, it can also seriously affect the performance of a system if there are unnecessary system files.

      • How to use git reset – Linux Hint

        The changes of the git repository are done on the current working directory, and the changes can be stage into an index from which the git user can select the next commit. Sometimes the git users need to undo the changes done in the repository for the project purpose. `git reset` command is used to do this task. This command resets the current state of the HEAD to a specific state, and it can work on all commit tasks or an individual file level. Different types of reset mode options can be used with this command. The purpose of each reset option and how some of the reset options can be applied with the `git reset` command for the local git repository have been explained in this tutorial.

      • How to switch branch in Git – Linux Hint

        Git users use branches in the git repository to keep the project work separate, and the users can test any task without affecting the main project by doing the task in a new branch. The users need to switch between the branches based on the project work. `git checkout` command is used to switch between the branches before. This command is used to switch between the branches and perform different types of tasks such as restore files, undo changes, etc. Another command, `git switch,` is added to switch between the branches in the new version of git. It is simpler than the `git checkout` command, and it is used for creating and switching branches only. How these two commands can be used to switch between the branches have shown in this example.

      • How do I make Ubuntu pretty? – Linux Hint

        The default appearance of Ubuntu can admittedly be quite vanilla and boring for a lot of users. It features a plain desktop, vapid icon design, and the theme is far from exciting. Many Linux beginners have wondered how they can make their Ubuntu pretty and dashing, which brings us to this guide. We will be showing you how you can customize Ubuntu to make it look shinier, prettier, and, frankly, better.

      • How To Use Linux KVM To Optimize Your Windows 10 Virtual Machine - Front Page Linux

        This tutorial will demonstrate that KVM and virt-manager are great tools not only to virtualize servers on headless hosts, but also for everyday desktop use. My job duties often require me to have a Windows 10 computer, in order to manage Microsoft specific tasks or software that runs only on Windows. However, I did not want install Windows on any of my hardware so the solution I came up with was to have a Windows 10 Virtual Machine that I can run on my main operating system. This Windows VM allows me to easily move it around differenct computers since I can just a copy-paste the VM files. With a virtual machine, I can also easily create snapshots or backups before testing any new software making it possible to very quickly recover if anything goes wrong.

      • How to use Git Force Pull – Linux Hint

        Git files and folders of any git project can be shared by multiple git users who are work on a team. When multiple users try to work on the same file or folder, then conflict arises. Suppose, when the two users are working on the same file of a repository, and if one user modifies the file after the modification done by another user, then the modification done by the first user will be lost by the last update. This problem can be solved manually. The user has to git force pull for overwriting the changes in the local repository without affecting the changes done in the local repository that are not pushed. `git pull` command is not able to solve this problem. The way to use git force pull by `git fetch` and `git reset` commands have shown in this tutorial.

      • Bash Test Command

        In bash shell, the test command compares one element against another and returns true or false. In bash scripting, the test command is an integral part of the conditional statements that control logic and program flow.

        This guide demonstrates how to use the bash test command.

      • How to Pull Content from a Remote Repository – Linux Hint

        When any content of the remote repository is updated, and the git user requires to pull the updated content from the remote repository to the local repository, then the `git pull` command is used. This command is used to fetch and download the required content from the remote repository and update the local repository to keep the repository up-to-date with the remote repository. `git pull` command performs the functions of the other two commands of git. These are `git fetch` and `git merge`. At first, the `git pull` command downloads the required content from the remote repository like `git fetch,` and next merges the downloaded content with the local repository like `git merge`.

      • Manjaro Live Usage and Password – Linux Hint

        Manjaro is the most user-specific, independently developed cutting-edge Arch-based distribution. Its distinguishing features make it stand out among all other Linux distributions. Manjaro provides an intuitive user interface for beginners to experience the essence of Arch Linux. Hence, it offers beginning Linux users Arch experience with a lot of stability, control, and excellent performance.

        To begin the Manjaro learning experience, it is unnecessary to install it directly on the hard drive. Majaro, like all other Linux distributions, can work like a typical OS system without making any permanent changes to the system hardware. The concept is known as live booting.

        In this article, we will learn to run a live Manjaro session from a USB flash drive. Moreover, we will also learn how persistent storage works and how to make a USB with persistent storage.

      • How to Pull Changes From One Branch to Another in Git

        A git repository contains one or more branches to manage the code efficiently. Sometimes, the git users need to work with the multiple branches simultaneously and require to switch from one branch to another branch with the changes made in the previous branch to the current branch before commit.

      • Setting Proper .ssh/config Permissions – Linux Hint

        The SSH protocol is a secure protocol that is usually used to connect to remote devices such as servers and network devices, including routers and switches. It works in a client-server setup and, by default, listens on port 22 ( although this can be changed when needed ). SSH employs different encryption and hashing techniques to ensure the communication between the client and the remote host is encrypted and safe from eavesdropping.

        SSH files are stored in the .ssh folder. This is a hidden folder that resides in the home directory. The .ssh directory is not created by default; it is created when you initiate a connection with a remote host or use the ssh-keygen command to generate the private and public authentication keys as when you want to set up passwordless ssh authentication.

      • How to Install Kubernetes on Ubuntu Single Node – Linux Hint

        Containers, Kubernetes, and IoT/edge applications are playing an extremely important role in enterprise digital transformation. They are especially important for DevOps teams working to accelerate software releases and improve IT operations through integration and optimization. The majority of cloud-native software is user-friendly, allowing many developers to contribute and customize the relevant software. This has resulted in simplified Kubernetes versions with small footprints that are ideal for IoT/edge tasks.

        MicroK8s creates a certified Kubernetes cluster from a single node in minutes. Canonical’s Microk8s Kubernetes distribution is small, versatile, and lightweight It’s an uncluttered distribution with an emphasis on improving performance and usability. Microk8s can usually be configured in IoT and edge devices due to their small size.

        MicroK8s is designed to run on any Linux distribution. It’s thin and compact, deploying all Kubernetes services on Ubuntu while also including all of the necessary libraries. Because of its tiny footprint, it’s ideal for tablets, desktops, CI pipelines, IoT cameras, and small edge clouds.

      • How to remove untracked files – Linux Hint

        Git user works with three types of files in the git repository. These are tracked files, untracked files, and ignore files. The files which have been added and committed in the repository are called tracked files. The other files of the repository that are not ignored files are called untracked files. Suppose the untracked files are not necessary for the repository. In that case, it is better to remove the unnecessary untracked file and make the working directory clean. `git clean` command is used to remove the untracked file from the current working directory. After executing this command, the removed file can’t be recovered. So, it is better to keep the backup of the repository before executing `git clean` to prevent the accidental deletion of the necessary files. The ways to remove the untracked files from the repository using the `git clean` command as shown in this tutorial.

      • How to add tag specific commit in git – Linux Hint

        Tag is a useful feature of the git. The specific point of the repository can be identified by defining the tag for that point. It is mainly used to keep the release version of the repository, and the user will be able to move in the earlier version of the repository by using the tag. The tag can be created for a specific commit of the git history. To create this type of tag, the commit SHA will be required at the time of creating the tag. It is better to know how to create the tag for the repository before adding a tag for a specific commit. The ways to create the simple tag and a tag for the specific commit have explained in this tutorial.

      • How to check for merge conflict in Git – Linux Hint

        Multiple users may work with multiple branches in any git repository to keep track of their project tasks. Sometimes it requires merging the content of one branch to another branch. This task can be done very easily by using the `git merge` command. But the merge conflict arises when two or more git users of the same project are working on the same file and doing the different tasks on that file, such as one user is adding content to the file and another user is deleting content from the file then it is not possible for the Git to select the correct file for the update. The merge conflict may also appear where the user modifies a local repository file in multiple branches. Git will mark the file as merge conflict, and the git users have to solve this issue before continuing the work. The ways to check the merge conflict for a local repository and solve this issue have been explained in this tutorial.

      • How to Install and Play Tetris on Ubuntu?

        Tetris – a strategic tile-matching video game, has caught enormous traction in the gaming industry over the years. The game found its way on various platforms ranging from DOS and Gameboy to modern gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox.

        The game was released during the turbulent times nearing the end of the Cold War era by Alexey Pajitnov, an enthusiastic Russian software engineer. The game is so addictive that psychologists studying its addictive nature couldn’t get enough of it as it started interfering with their work hours.

        People from every age group find themselves beguiled by the genius of the game and the entertainment associated with it, so it’s no big surprise that the game is well sought-after even after more than thirty-five years since its inception. This is evident from the fact that the game has sold more than 170 million units to date.

        But what really is Tetris, and how has it garnered an audience of such a colossal magnitude? Let’s find out!

      • How to Setup Synology NAS as VMware Datastore – Linux Hint

        You can mount your Synology NAS shared folders on your VMware ESXi servers. Once you’ve mounted a Synology NAS shared folder on your VMware ESXi server, you can use it as a VMware datastore. You can also store virtual machine data on that datastore as usual. In this article, I will show you how to create a Synology NAS shared folder and mount it as a datastore on a VMware ESXi server. So, let’s get started.

      • How to use Emoji’s on Ubuntu?

        Emoji are icons that find their application in signifying everything from casual emotions during an online chat to symbolic filenames. The online emoji fad is certainly not a passing one, as they have been around for decades, and it is established that they are here to stay.

        However, Linux users are often confused about using emoji on their native operating system since there is no clear way to do so. It may not be apparent right off the bat, but there is a way for sure. This guide will demonstrate how you can brighten up your conversations with emoji on Ubuntu.

      • How To Get The Numpad Embedded Into The Touchpad Of Some ASUS Laptops To Work On Linux

        Some ASUS laptops come with a numpad (numeric keypad) embedded in the touchpad. You can toggle between the touchpad and numpad using a button placed in the top right-hand side corner of the touchpad.

        That is, after you follow the instructions below, because this feature is not available by default on Linux.

        You can get this numpad embedded into the touchpad to work on some ASUS Zenbook models by using this Python service / driver. This driver has been tested and should work with models like UX433, M433IA, UX525EA, UX525JA, UX431F, UX363EA, UX333FA, X412DA, and more. See the complete list of supported ASUS models here.

      • How To Install Apache CouchDB on Linux Mint 20 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Apache CouchDB on Linux Mint 20. For those of you who didn’t know, Apache CouchDB (CouchDB) is a NoSQL document database that collects and stores data in JSON-formatted documents. CouchDB is a perfect choice for operation teams and businesses looking for a high-performance NoSQL database solution. Apache CouchDB integrates seamlessly with almost all modern web applications, including those built for mobile devices, making it an excellent tool for reading, producing, editing, and changing database documents.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Apache CouchDB on a Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana).

      • How to Install CTparental Parental Control Software on Debian 10

        CTparental is a free and open-source parental control tool used to control computer usage or internet browsing. It comes with a simple and easy-to-use web interface powered by a Lighttpd web server. The idea of CTparental tool comes from other tools such as, iptables, dnsmasq, and inguardian privoxy.

      • How to Install Chrony NTP Server on CentOS 8

        Chrony is the default Network Time Protocol (NTP) server in CentOS 8 operating system. It is a replacement for the old Ntpd used in the older version of the Linux operating system. It is used to synchronize the system clock with remote internet time servers. Setting up accurate time is very important for any application to work correctly.

        It is made from two components chronyc and chronyd. chronyd is a daemon started at system boot time. chronyc is a command-line interface used to monitor chronyd performance.

        In this tutorial, I will show you how to install and use Chrony on CentOS 8 server.

      • How to Install Drupal 9 on Fedora 34

        Drupal is an open-source content management system (cms) that is very flexible for building websites and applications. About 2.5 percent of the websites in the world are using Drupal. It is in use by many industries like Retail, Ecommerce, Healthcare etc.

      • How to install Ubuntu MATE 21.04

        In this video, I am going to show how to install MATE 21.04

      • How to set up a hex editor on Kali Linux

        If you use Kali Linux, you may need to edit hexadecimal files at times. Thankfully, there are a few options for hex editing on Kali Linux. In this guide, we’ll go over these options and how to set them up.

      • [Older] Invoking commands when they require permissions

        Running as root is dangerous, although sometimes convenient—especially when you are new to Linux and password prompts seem to be a hassle. So far, as a Linux user, you may have seen the sudo command or the su command. These commands can allow a user to change users on the system at the console or execute commands momentarily with higher permissions (if the user has sudo permissions). Sudo, or substitute user do, enables a regular user to escalate (raise) their user permissions to a more privileged level for a SINGLE command.

        Alternatively, the substitute user command, or su, allows you to also run commands that are privileged and to even change shells (for example, to become a root user). Sudo doesn’t activate a root shell or allow you access to other user accounts, which is unlike the su command.

      • Fix VirtualBox Shared Folder Is Locked / Unable to Open in Ubuntu 21.04 | UbuntuHandbook

        Running Ubuntu as virtual machine via VirtualBox? You may encounter permission issue to access the shared folder between host and guest.

        Shared Folders is an useful feature for file sync between Virtualbox host and guest OSes. However, after you created one, the shared folder is marked with cross and lock icons.

      • Manage AWS SNS Topics using aws-cli

        It is very easy to create SNS topics, subscriptions and perform other operations on SNS topics from the terminal using the aw-cli utility. In this article, I will show you the commands to create an SNS Topic, Subscription, confirm, and delete the Subscription using aws-cli. It is assumed that you are already familiar with AWS SNS Service.

        To know about the operations that can be performed on SNS topics using command line utility aws-cli, visit the official documentation here.

      • What is Ingress Controller and how to deploy Nginx Ingress Controller in Kubernetes Cluster on AWS using Helm

        Before we proceed with the installation of the Nginx Ingress Controller, let's see in short what Ingress and Ingress Controller is. The focus of this article is on the setup, it is assumed that you are familiar with all the prerequisites for setting up Nginx Ingress Controller in the Kubernetes Cluster.

      • Disable Auto Lock Screen In Ubuntu [ Quick Trick ]

        Are you tired of typing your password every five minutes when you are gone from the computer? Do you need a desktop with not that modern automatic lock? The good news is that in Ubuntu there is a way to lock the screen when you decide and stop that automatic five minute lock.

        Now we know and advice you to always keep you computer locked when you are not around, but like in home in a more calm environment there is no need for a five minute lock, so lets dive right in to how to disable the five minute lock screen on Ubuntu Linux.

        A lock screen is a computer user interface element used by various operating systems. They regulate immediate access to a device by requiring that the user perform a certain action in order to receive access, such as entering a password, using a certain button combination, or performing a certain gesture using a device’s touchscreen. There are various authentication methods to get past the lock screen, with the most popular and common ones being personal identification numbers (PINs), the Android pattern lock, and biometrics

      • Manage Users and Groups in Ubuntu via The Classic Graphical Tool

        Looking a graphical tool to manage users and groups in Ubuntu Desktop? Try the classic Gnome user settings tool.

        A user is anyone who uses a computer, and users may be grouped together into a “group”. Users and groups are used to control access to the system’s files, directories, and peripherals.

        For those hate Linux commands, the classic GUI tool, which was default in Ubuntu when it was Gnome 2, allows to add, remove, edit users and groups.

      • Manage AWS VPC using aws-cli

        Managing a VPC and other resources like Subnet, Route Table, Internet Gateway from the terminal using aws-cli can be a bit confusing if you are not good at VPC. In this article, we will create a VPC with 2 Subnets, Route Table, and Internet Gateway, these subnets will be public subnets. After the VPC is created, we will try to connect to the EC2 instance created in this VPC. The aim of this article is to introduce you to the commands used to manage VPC from the terminal.

        It is advised to first understand the VPC very well, the focus of this article is not on explaining the VPC. To know operations that can be performed on VPC, visit the official documentation here.

      • ls* Commands Are Even More Useful Than You May Have Thought

        Everything is a file under Linux and ls* and friends can help you to dig out more information from the system than you originally thought. These Linux tips may come in handy when you need to find out information quickly without going through /proc or sysfs.

      • Creating a single control-plane Kubernetes cluster with kubeadm - Unixcop

        Kubernetes is a cluster and orchestration engine for Docker containers. In other words Kubernetes is an open source software or tool which is used to orchestrate and manage Docker containers in cluster environment. Kubernetes is also known as k8s and it was developed by Google and donated to “Cloud Native Computing foundation”

      • Error handling in Bash scripts | Enable Sysadmin

        Scripting is one of the key tools for a sysadmin to manage a set of day-to-day activities such as running backups, adding users/groups, installing/updating packages, etc. While writing a script, error handling is one of the crucial things to manage.

        This article shows some basic/intermediate techniques of dealing with error handling in Bash scripting. I discuss how to obtain the error codes, get verbose output while executing the script, deal with the debug function, and standard error redirection. Using these techniques, sysadmins can make their daily work easy.

    • Games

      • Free first-person strategy shooter 'Unvanquished' releases version 0.52 Beta

        After a long time of waiting with the last proper release in 2018, the Unvanquished team have managed to do it! The next version 0.52 Beta is officially out now and waiting to be played.

        What is it? A free and open source first-person shooter with strategy elements, that puts humans vs aliens. It's a fork of the classic Tremulous, think of it like the well-known Natural Selection series with both sides providing very different gameplay overall.

      • An Interview with the Developer of GamerOS

        We got a chance to sit down with alkazar79, the main developer behind the beloved console-like distribution GamerOS. Just a tad less than a year ago, we had reviewed this distro, and we liked it so much we wanted to get in touch with the developer and get a behind-the-scenes look as to why GamerOS was made, what sets it apart from other distributions, what the dev’s plans are for the future, among many other questions that we had asked him. Without further ado, let’s get right into it!

    • Distributions

      • BSD

        • DragonFlyBSD 6.0 Performance Is Looking Great - Initial Benchmarks

          I am currently testing DragonFlyBSD 6.0 on multiple systems and will in turn compare DragonFlyBSD 6.0 against the recent FreeBSD 13.0 (the recent FreeBSD 13.0 also brings its own performance improvements) and various Linux distributions. Upon early testing though of DragonFlyBSD 5.8.3 as the prior stable release against the new DragonFlyBSD 6.0, there is nice uplift in many benchmarks.

          Today's tests are on an Intel Core i9 10980XE workstation and the uplift found from DragonFlyBSD 6.0 even with still using the same GCC 8.3 compiler release and HAMMER2 on both releases is looking quite good.

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • Mesa, KDE Frameworks, GlusterFS Update in Tumbleweed

          There were three openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots released so far this week.

          The snapshots updated Mozilla Thunderbird, Mozilla Firefox, Mesa, KDE Frameworks, glusterfs, php and several other packages.

          The most recently released snapshot, 20210511, updated a little more than a handful of packages. There was one package update from KDE Frameworks 5.82.0 with plotting framework kplotting. The 5.12.2 Linux Kernel updated in the snapshot and brought a thermal sensor correction to the x86 thinkpad_acpi module and some fixes for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture USB audio. Another package update in the snapshot was hivex 1.3.20, which is a system for extracting the contents of the Windows Registry; the hivex version fixed a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures that would allow an attacker to read memory beyond normal bounds or cause the program to crash.

        • openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2021/19

          Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

          First, I want to apologize to our Steam users for making their life harder this week than needed. I misjudged an openQA-reported issue as being a Steam packaging bug instead of realizing that it was in fact a Mesa packaging bug. This in turn made some of you receive scary messages from zypper. A bug for this had been filed in Bugzilla of course: https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1185933. A fixed Mesa package will be part of Snapshot 0514.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Proposed Objective: Fedora Websites & Apps Community Revamp

          The effort to revamp the Fedora Websites Team to Fedora Websites & Apps Team was initiated in March 2021. Co-leads Akashdeep Dhar and Ramya Parimi, collectively started working on preparing the ground work for this effort, with guidance from Mathew Miller, Marie Nordin, and Justin W. Flory. Currently, Jon Trossbach from Red Hat’s Open Source Program Office (OSPO) and Vipul Siddharth from Community Platform Engineering (CPE) are supporting the team’s progress as well. The team has been meeting weekly to develop outcomes. It quickly became evident that the revamp would take massive effort involving a lot of contributors, coordination and hours to implement successfully.

        • Friday’s Fedora Facts: 2021-19

          Here’s your weekly Fedora report. Read what happened this week and what’s coming up. Your contributions are welcome (see the end of the post)! Fedora Linux 32 will reach end of life on Tuesday 25 May.

          I have weekly office hours on Wednesdays in the morning and afternoon (US/Eastern time) in #fedora-meeting-1. Drop by if you have any questions or comments about the schedule, Changes, elections, or anything else. See the upcoming meetings for more information.

        • Red Hat Breaks Down Barriers to Building Applications for Kubernetes Environments with Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift

          Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today unveiled its Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift, an OpenShift-based development environment designed to enable organizations to accelerate the path from code to production for Kubernetes-based applications. The OpenShift sandbox gives developers a simpler, no-cost way to start building their applications using the same infrastructure and tools they will run in their production environments—without having to worry about setup or configuration.

        • A tip of the hat to IBM's Red Hat strategy - building a worthy competitor to VMware and Microsoft

          The network edge is the new battleground for IT product vendors and service providers as the nexus of ubiquitous connectivity, particularly low-latency 5G wireless and smart, connected devices and sensors are moving IT’s center of gravity away from consolidated data centers. The resulting explosion of locally-generated data promises to redistribute enterprise infrastructure after years of centralization in private data centers and hyperscale cloud environments.

          The availability of computing hardware and analytical software capable of processing data in situ on compact, power-efficient systems at edge locations like retail stores, manufacturing facilities, distribution centers and wireless base stations promises to extract previously untapped value from the myriad smart sensors, connected machines and mobile devices spewing data at unprecedented rates. The changing architectural zeitgeist has also created a new competitive front in the war among IT product vendors and cloud service providers to capture enterprise spending for modern application infrastructure and development platforms.

        • Red Hat, IBM Launch Konveyor to Aggregate Kubernetes Tools

          At the online KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2021 event today Red Hat and IBM Research announced they are teaming up to create a Konveyor to advance adoption of a collection of tools for optimizing Kubernetes environments.

          At the same time, Red Hat announced it is forming a StackRox.io community to invite contributors to participate in the ongoing development of the container security software it gained via its acquisition of StackRox earlier this year. Red Hat offers that platform now as Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes.

          James Labocki, senior director of product management for Red Hat, says the goal of the Konveyor project is to make it easier for contributors outside of Red Hat and IBM to participate in initiatives that might ultimately be donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) that oversees the development of Kubernetes.

        • Boehringer Ingelheim Achieves Up to Five Times Faster Delivery to Market with Red Hat OpenShift

          Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Boehringer Ingelheim has used Red Hat OpenShift to accelerate the development of its digital healthcare portfolio and enable the continuous delivery of new applications and services. With Red Hat OpenShift, Boehringer Ingelheim has increased productivity, streamlined compliance and achieved up to five times faster delivery to market of new services through automated scaling and management processes.

        • Ben Williams: F34-20210514 updated LIVE isos released

          The Fedora Respins SIG is pleased to announce the latest release of Updated F34-20210514-Live ISOs, carrying the 5.11.19-300 kernel.

          This set of updated isos will save considerable amounts of updates after install. ((for new installs.)(New installs of Workstation have about 695MB+ of updates savings )). In cooperation with the Fedora i3 Sig, we are including a i3 spin in this release.

        • The Red Hat Ceph Storage life cycle: upgrade scenarios and long-lived deployments

          Different industries have varying requirements for the software systems on which their respective businesses rely. Some operators choose to quickly embrace the latest and greatest release when facing change and integration updates. Others defer upgrades for as long as possible, trying to continue on a tried-and-true combination of software components until end-of-support (or security patching) forces a change.

          The distinction is somewhat artificial, as most operators really adopt a combination of the two strategies for different parts of their infrastructure. The Red Hat Ceph Storage life cycle aims to address both faster and slower movers. In this post, we’ll share how we’re helping customers stay current while also providing longer life cycle options where needed.

        • Why is Business Intelligence (BI) important?

          BI also fits with digital transformation efforts across many industries, as E.G. Nadhan, Red Hat Chief Architect and Strategist, North America, recently told us. “Business Intelligence is poised to yield more value going forward with more data sharing between enterprises,” Nadhan says. “The digital ecosystem is one that can grow in an open, collaborative environment, yielding more meaningful insights for the end consumer. This can be the patient in the healthcare ecosystem, the consumer walking into the retail store, the human with their device of choice, or the passenger in their transport of choice, etc. Culture is more often the barrier to the advancement of such collaboration than technology. The prevailing mindset of the data stewards across the extended enterprise will determine the value that Business Intelligence can provide going forward.”

        • What Is Rocky Linux and Should You Consider It?

          For a long time, CentOS was a reliable choice for a Linux distro, especially for servers, because it was effectively a free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. But shakeups have rocked the CentOS community, which led to one of its original developers creating a fork called Rocky Linux.

          After several months of development, a pre-release version of Rocky Linux has emerged. Should you consider switching to Rocky Linux? We'll find out in this post.

      • Debian Family

        • Deepin 20.2.1 Integrates Debian 10.9 by Default, Brings Minor Updates

          Based on Deepin 20.2, Deepin 20.2.1 upgrades the underlying repository to Debian 10.9 and mainly fix security issues and some serious problems.

          Deepin (developed in China by Wuhan Deepin Technology) is a rising star among Linux distributions, thanks to its combination of an elegant desktop environment with the stability and reliability of Debian. It is popular among users who want a gorgeous Linux desktop while being stable.

          Deepin ships with a unified design style and a redesigned desktop environment. As a result its brand look more consistent across its updated preinstalled applications.

        • TagSpaces

          There is a new application available for Sparkers: TagSpaces

          [...]

          TagSpaces is a free, non-locking, open source application for organizing and managing your local files with the help of tags. It features note taking and some to-do app capabilities. The application is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Android. We provide a web clipper extension for Firefox and Chrome for easy collecting of online content as local files.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Every Ubuntu Default Wallpaper So Far

          Each Ubuntu release is different from the other releases in various ways. Each release has a different code name and a different version number. I have explained the logic behind Ubuntu version and codenames so I am not going to bore you with those details again.

          Each Ubuntu release also comes with a different set of wallpapers. There is one default background that you’ll see while installing Ubuntu or when you first log in to it.

          And then it also has a set of 10-15 wallpapers in each release that you can select from or make them change automatically.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Kafka users detail real-time data benefits

        Kafka event streaming technology is helping automakers produce fast cars and motorcycles.

        At the Kafka Summit Europe virtual conference on May 12, several major corporations outlined how they are using Kafka, as new options emerge to make it easier to operate and deploy the technology.

        Open source Apache Kafka provides data streaming capabilities that help organizations use real-time data.

        [...]

        BMW Group isn't the only automobile manufacturer that has embraced Kafka. In a user session, Sridhar Mamella, platform manager, data streaming platforms at Porsche AG, explained how the high-end car maker is using real-time data with Kafka.

        "At Porsche, it's all about speed -- and fast cars equals fast data," Mamella said. "Porsche is on route to becoming a real-time company."

        Mamella said Porsche has deployed Kafka on applications such as those delivering notifications to different areas of the manufacturing process.

      • Zstd 1.5 Released With Big Performance Improvements

        Zstd has already been enjoying phenomenal growth throughout the open-source software ecosystem thanks to its feature set and impressive performance, but can it get even better? Yes, with Zstd 1.5 that is out today there are some more mighty impressive performance improvements.

      • Apache

      • Web Browsers

        • Chromium

          • Chrome Devs Bring ‘Back Forward Cache’ to Desktop for Instantaneous Page Loads

            Google Chrome for desktop is about to get a major speed boost, and hurrah — this one will benefit desktop Linux users too.

            As spotted by the eagle-eyed hawks at Windows Latest, the browser’s dev plan to add something called “back-forward cache” to desktop builds of the browser. You may have already heard of the feature as it was enabled on Android last year.

            Back-forward caches provides instantaneous page loading when navigating backward or forward. Devs want to experimentally introduce the feature on all of Chrome’s desktop platforms, i.e. Windows, macOS and Linux, in the upcoming Google Chrome 92 release.

        • Mozilla

      • Programming/Development

        • GCC 8.5 Released As The Last GCC 8 Compiler

          For those of you still relying on a GCC 8 compiler, it's time to upgrade beyond that considering GCC 11 debuted just several weeks back, but if you are on the 2018 era compiler for enterprise/legacy reasons, GCC 8.5 is out as one last hurrah.

        • GCC 8.5

          The GNU project and the GCC developers are pleased to announce the release of GCC 8.5.

          This release is a bug-fix release, containing fixes for regressions in GCC 8.4 relative to previous releases of GCC.

        • Ognibuild

          The Debian Janitor is an automated system that commits fixes for (minor) issues in Debian packages that can be fixed by software. It gradually started proposing merges in early December. The first set of changes sent out ran lintian-brush on sid packages maintained in Git. This post is part of a series about the progress of the Janitor.

          The FOSS world uses a wide variety of different build tools; given a git repository or tarball, it can be hard to figure out how to build and install a piece of software.

          Humans will generally know what build tool a project is using when they check out a project from git, or they can read the README. And even then, the answer may not always be straightforward to everybody. For automation, there is no obvious place to figure out how to build or install a project.

        • Ubuntu 21.10 Begins Transition To PHP 8.0 By Default - Phoronix

          While PHP 8.0 was released at the end of last year, it wasn't added to Ubuntu 21.04 given all the changes at play over PHP 7.4. But now for Ubuntu 21.10, that transition to PHP 8 is now happening to ensure it's in good enough shape for the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS cycle.

          With several months having passed since PHP 8.0's release to allow for more testing and a few point releases with bug fixes, Ubuntu developers are working to transition now from PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.0 by default for Ubuntu 21.10. This extra time has also allowed PHP developers to address any PHP code incompatibilities with PHP 8.

        • Difference Between Flutter 1 and Flutter 2

          A couple of days ago, it was the Flutter Engage, the reference online conference for the Flutter community, something like the WWDC or the Google IO for iOS and Android.

          This was a long-awaited moment, as there were several technologies that could reach “stable” status, after a long time purging under the “beta” label. Among them, Flutter 2.0, the new version of Dart, which we expected to be called Dart 3.0, but it was in 2.12 as well as Flutter for other platforms (not mobile), such as web and desktop.

        • Python

    • Standards/Consortia

      • Bryan Quigley: Let's keep time like it is in the summer

        If you are in the USA - Please use my new site KeepSummerTime.com to write to your congresspeople asking for summer time all year long.

        The USA has an active bill in congress to keep us from changing the clocks and stay on time like it is in the summer year round (also called permanent DST). Changing the clocks has not been shown to have substantial benefits and the harms have been well documented.

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Remote Access Provider RemotePC Adds New Features For Linux Remote Access

          Linux Remote Sound – enables users to listen to audio files from the remote machine on their local device

          Linux Headless Server Remote Access Support – users can access a Linux server without any monitor connected to it

          Raspberry Pi as host – users can access Raspberry Pi devices with the RemotePC application

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Privatisation/Privateering

            • Linux Foundation

              • KrakenD joins the Linux Foundation as the Lura Project

                According to the foundation, Lura is a framework for building API gateways. It acts as an aggregator for microservices and is a declarative tool for creating endpoints.

                “By being hosted at the Linux Foundation, the Lura Project will extend the legacy of the KrakenD open source framework and be better poised to support its massive adoption among more than one million servers every month,” said Albert Lombarte, CEO of KrakenD. “The Foundation’s open governance model will accelerate development and community support for this amazing success.”

        • Security

          • Linux and open-source communities rise to Biden's cybersecurity challenge

            Anyone who thought computer security problems were some abstract trouble that had little to do with their daily life was rudely awakened recently. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack saw gas and oil deliveries shut down throughout the southeast. Cybersecurity failures had already become a major problem with the SolarWinds software supply chain attack and the FBI having to step in to fix broken Microsoft Exchange servers. So, on May 12th President Joe Biden signed an executive order to boost the federal government cyber defense and to warn all of America that technology security must be job one now. The Linux Foundation and its related organizations are stepping up to better Linux and open-source security.

          • How LF communities enable security measures required by the US Executive Order on Cybersecurity

            The US White House recently released its Executive Order (EO) on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (along with a press call) to counter “persistent and increasingly sophisticated malicious cyber campaigns that threaten the public sector, the private sector, and ultimately the American people’s security and privacy.”

            In this post, we’ll show what the Linux Foundation’s communities have already built that support this EO and note some other ways to assist in the future. But first, let’s put things in context.

          • Using Dynamic Admission Control to Secure Your Kubernetes’ Supply Chain

            Kubernetes adoption is up, but many organizations are suffering security incidents in their container and Kubernetes environments. In the fall edition of the “State of Container and Kubernetes Security” report, for instance, 91% of respondents told StackRox that they had adopted the container orchestration platform. That’s about the same proportion (90%) of survey participants that admitted to having suffered a security incident in their Kubernetes and container environments over the preceding 12 months. Two-thirds of those security incidents consisted of a misconfiguration issue. Those events were followed by a vulnerability incident (22%), a runtime incident (17%) and a failed audit (16%). Nearly half (44%) of respondents said that they ultimately delayed moving an application into production as a result of their security concerns.

          • Reproducible Builds (diffoscope): diffoscope 175 released

            The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 175. This version includes the following changes:

            * Use the actual filesystem path name (instead of diffoscope's concept of the
              source name) to correct APK filename filtering when an APK file is in
              another container -- we need to filter the auto-generated "1.apk" instead
              of "original-filename.apk". (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#255)
            * Don't call os.path.basename twice.
            * Correct grammar in a fsimage.py debug message.
            * Add a comment about stripping filenames.
            
          • Your clipboard is only as secure as your device

            The system clipboard is part of every modern operating system. It lets us copy and paste text, images, files, and data between different applications. Like everything else these days, it’s increasingly getting tied up with other people’s servers (“the cloud.”) So, what does that mean for your clipboard privacy?

            The clipboard was invented in 1973, and it was never designed to be secure. It’s a shared area of computer memory used to quickly duplicate information from one app — one data silo — to another. Traditionally, every running process on our computers has had full access to everything that lands on the clipboard. Yet, we copy and move about personal information, passwords, company secrets, and a whole lot more using the same old clipboard without blinking an eye.

            New features like cross-device synchronization and clipboard history can be very useful. However, they also make the interactions more complicated and the behavior more unpredictable. It can even expose our passwords and personal data to new avenues of attack from malicious software running on your other devices.

          • DarkSide Ransomware Gang Quits After Servers, Bitcoin Stash Seized [Ed: Blame shifting. Or how to blame those who exploit Microsoft holes, instead of Microsoft itself.]

            The DarkSide ransomware affiliate program responsible for the six-day outage at Colonial Pipeline this week that led to fuel shortages and price spikes across the country is running for the hills. The crime gang announced it was closing up shop after its servers were seized and someone drained the cryptocurrency from an account the group uses to pay affiliates.

            “Servers were seized (country not named), money of advertisers and founders was transferred to an unknown account,” reads a message from a cybercrime forum reposted to the Russian OSINT Telegram channel.

          • What is DARKSIDE, the cybercriminal ransomware group that has the world on alert? [Ed: Shifting away attention from Microsoft, which enables these attacks]

            On May 7, 2021, a ransomware attack violated Colonial Pipeline, one of the most important oil pipeline companies in the United States, causing the interruption of the supply of naphtha, diesel and other refined products for a section of approximately 8,850 kilometers. According to the FBI, the person responsible for this attack is theDARKSIDE ransomware .

          • The ransomware economy and disruption of commerce. Third-party risk. Robocalls and a widespread vishing campaign. [Ed: Why is Microsoft on this thing as "Expert" when Microsoft was the cause of the Colonial Pipeline meltdown?]
          • Intel Seeks More Comments From Developers On Key Locker Implementation For Linux [Ed: Posing from Intel, pretending to value security while making defective chips with back doors in them]

            Last December was the Key Locker kernel patch series initially sent out as a request for comments. Intel Key Locker allows encrypting/decrypting data without the raw AES key but instead making use of a key handle that is in place until revoked by the system. The key when loaded is effectively sealed and then accessed by new Intel Key Locker instructions (AESENC128KL, AESENCWIDE128KL, AESDEC128KL, AESDECWIDE128KL, AESENC256KL, AESENCWIDE256KL, AESDEC256KL, and AESDECWIDE256KL) to reference the handle to a particular AES key. Intel Key Locker aims to protect AES keys by keeping the raw keys exposed for a minimal amount of time to reduce the chances they are compromised by rogue attackers. The Linux support for Key Locker is being implemented as a new "aeskl-intel" driver for the kernel's crypto subsystem.



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