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Links 22/5/2021: antiX 19.4, Perl 5.34.0, and Wine 6.9 Released



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Working At Home Sucks. Moving Into An Office.

        In this boomer vlog, I go a lengthy rant about why working at home sucks and why I've recently rented an office for creating video content. I first started looking for some office space last summer, but a series of natural disasters derailed those plans until now.

      • Linux in the Ham Shack (LHS) Episode #413: The Weekender LXXII

        It's time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you.

    • Kernel Space

      • CSIRO's seL4 project shut down

        In 2018, LWN covered a talk by Gernot Heiser about the seL4 project, which has developed an open-source operating system for safety-critical applications and gone to the trouble of proving its correctness. Much of that work has been done at CSIRO in Australia. Heiser has announced via Twitter that CSIRO's support for this project is being shut down, with the staff being redirected to artificial-intelligence projects.

      • Linux Plumbers Conference: Scheduler Microconference Accepted into 2021 Linux Plumbers Conference

        We are pleased to announce that the Scheduler Microconference has been accepted into the 2021 Linux Plumbers Conference! The scheduler is an important functionality of the Linux kernel, deciding what process gets to run when, where and for how long. With different topologies and workloads, it is no easy task to give the user the best experience possible. Schedulers are one of the most discussed topics on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, but many of these topics need further discussion in a conference format. Indeed, the scheduler microconference is responsible for many topics to make progress.

      • Graphics Stack

        • NVIDIA 470 Series To Be The Last Supporting GTX 600/700 Series Kepler - Phoronix

          NVIDIA Linux users have been looking forward to the upcoming 470 driver series for better Wayland support but for those running GeForce GTX 600/700 series graphics cards, it will mean the end of the line for new feature driver releases with their proprietary driver stack.

          Updated CUDA documentation has revealed that the R470 driver series will be the last supporting NVIDIA Kepler GPUs, which for consumer cards is the once impressive GeForce GTX 600 and GTX 700 series.

        • XDC2021 Goes Virtual Again As Annual Wayland / Mesa / X.Org Summit - Phoronix

          To no surprise at all, the X.Org Developers' Conference 2021 will be carried out virtually similar to last year given the COVID-19 pandemic. The free XDC2021 registration and call for presentations has now been issued.

          This year's X.Org Developers' Conference will run from 15 to 17 September. Registration is free and this year is being hosted using the Indico software.

    • Applications

      • Best File Encryption Apps for Linux

        This article will cover a list of useful command line applications that can be used to encrypt and decrypt files on your Linux system. These apps use a variety of methods and algorithms to secure your files. Once you encrypt files using these methods, you should be able to decrypt them on any platform as long as it includes necessary apps and libraries required for encryption and decryption.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to Add an Application to the Dock in elementary OS

        Recently, I installed elementary OS. It is one of the most beautiful Linux distributions. The user interface is different from Ubuntu’s GNOME and so is the user experience.

        elementary OS comes with a dock with a default set of programs. This dock allows you to quickly access applications that have been added to the dock.

      • How to Setup Three Node MySQL 8 Cluster on Debian 10

        MySQL is a free, open-source, and relational database management system. It is used to store data in various purposes including, data warehousing, e-commerce, and logging applications. MySQL Cluster is a technology that provides scalability and availability at a low cost.

      • What is Kubernetes Ingress Controller?

        There are many ways to show your Kubernetes cluster’s app to the outside network. You just have to choose the best one for your needs. NodePort, Ingress, LoadBalancer, and ClusterIP are the four key choices.

        However, we will walk through about ingress controller in this guide. The Kubernetes Ingress API allows you to reveal your Kubernetes cluster’s apps to the internet by combining routing guidelines into a single source. To use Ingress, you must set up an Ingress controller in your cluster, which is in-charge of processing ingress resource information and enabling traffic based on ingress rules. Let’s quickly examine what a Kubernetes Ingress is and what an Ingress controller offers before digging into the numerous Ingress controllers.

      • Installation of Jenkins on Ubuntu

        Jenkins is a Java-built open-source Steady Integration (CI) and CD platform. Principally, Jenkins builds software program initiatives, checks and deploys them. This is likely one of the most sensible programming instruments you possibly can grasp, and immediately we will present you the way Jenkins is put in on Ubuntu 18.04. Use this highly effective tool to activate your VPS server!

      • RHEL 8.4 released and here is how to upgrade 8.3 to 8.4 - nixCraft

        Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.4 released. This version includes updates and various improvements for developers, hybrid cloud, edge deployments and more.

        Let us see what’s new in RHEL 8.4 and how to update 8.3 to 8.4 using the dnf command-line option.

      • How to Install Lumina Desktop on Ubuntu – Linux Hint

        Lumina is a plugin-based desktop environment developed for Unix and Unix-based operating systems. Launched back in 2012, Lumina was specifically used as the interface for the TrueOS and other systems based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Later, Lumina started to be used for Linux and other Linux-based operating systems as well.

        The features of Lumina are quite similar to the widely-used typical desktop environments. The default interactive screen includes the start menu, task manager, and a system tray usually known as the taskbar. The desktop has icons for the different applications installed. You can access other menus through the start menu or by right-clicking the desktop. There are certain customizations also available so you can set the color theme according to your choice and choose an icon theme from the available presets. More OS-specific features of Lumina can only be used if you have the TrueOS.

      • How to Install and Customize Rhythmbox on Ubuntu – Linux Hint

        Being the default media player for most distributions, Rhythmbox is integral to a Linux user’s audio experience. It’s free, open-source, and designed to ideally work under GNOME. That, however, does not take away from its accessibility as it is also available on other environments. Tag editing, organizing music, playing digital audio files, you name it – Rhythmbox covers all your needs when it comes to playing media. It is a very convenient software; hence we have dedicated this guide to explain to our readers how they can install Rhythmbox on Ubuntu and customize it according to their wishes.

      • 3 Ways to Connect to WiFi from the Command Line on Debian – Linux Hint

        This tutorial briefly explains how to connect to Wifi from the command line on Linux Debian and Debian based distributions in 3 different ways: using nmcli, nmtui and wpa_supplicant. Additionally to nmcli, nmtui and wpa_supplicant, the commands iwconfig, iwlist and dhclient are used and briefly explained in this tutorial.

      • How to Speed Up Package Downloads and Updates with apt-fast on Ubuntu 20.04

        Have you ever experienced slow download speed when downloading or updating packages in Ubuntu, even if your network connection is working fine? This problem mainly occurs when you update and install packages for the first time after installing a new Ubuntu operating system. However, there is a way to work around this problem by speeding up the download speed with the apt-fast command in Linux.

        Apt-fast is a shell script wrapper for “apt-get” and “aptitude” that harnesses the power of both axel and aria 2 download managers to speed up the download process. It improves download performance by downloading multiple packages per connection simultaneously and in parallel.

        In this article, I will show you how to install and configure apt-fast to speed up the package update and download process in Ubuntu. We use Ubuntu 20.04 LTS for the description of the procedure mentioned in this article.

      • How and When to Create an Index in MySQL – Linux Hint

        When it comes to performance optimization for MySQL databases, creating indexes is one of the best ways. SQL indexes help improve database performance by providing fast access to the data stored in the database.

        An SQL index is not that different from a normal book index with a curated list of information and where you can find them.

        In this tutorial, we will discuss when to create an SQL index because, although indexes can help optimize performance, they can also cause slow performance and other negative impacts. We shall also discuss how to create an index using a real database.

      • How to Copy a Table in MySQL – Linux Hint

        There are some instances where we may need to copy a specific table from the same or a different database. For example, when performing backups or migrations, we might need to restore a table without restoring the entire database.

        This tutorial will go over how to copy a table from a database into another table using MySQL CREATE and SELECT clauses.

      • How to Copy or Clone an Entire MySQL Database – Linux Hint

        Backing up databases is a common task for many database users. For example, we might need to migrate the database from development to migration or even restore a copy of a corrupted database.

        This tutorial will show you how to copy or clone an entire database, including all the data, indexes, and keys.

      • How to Use MySQLDump Utility to Backup MySQL or MariaDB Database – Linux Hint

        MySQL databases come with a backup utility called MySQLdump. MySQLdump allows you to quickly backup a MySQL database from the command line. However, the MySQLdump tool is only useful if the database you wish to backup is up and running and accessible.

        This tutorial will show you how to use the mysqldump tool to backup your databases from the terminal.

      • How to Apply MacOS Theme on Ubuntu 20.04? – Linux Hint

        Linux systems already have many impressive built-in themes but you may get bored using them again and again. The interesting thing about Linux distributions is you can change the whole machine environment by altering the themes anytime. It does not only give a new look to the operating system but also provides a distinct experience.

        The macOS theme is undeniably the cleanest looking theme that any operating system has. How about getting the same theme on your Ubuntu? A collection of macOS themes is available on different online sources, pick any popular site and download your favorite theme from there.

      • How to Install and Configure a Restic Backup Utility – Linux Hint

        It is vital to have the latest backup copies of your files, tools, and configurations in case of error, system failure, or a cyber attack. Having a backup allows you to restore your system to your most recent state with minimal downtime.

        This tutorial will show you how to install and use the Restic Backup Utility on your machine.

      • How to LOOP in MySQL Stored Procedure – Linux Hint

        A loop construct in SQL and major programming languages refers to a construct that repeatedly executes instructions provided that the specified condition is true. The set of instructions executed inside a loop can be a single query or a collection of commands leading to a larger query set.

        In this tutorial, we will discuss how we can implement a MySQL loop within a procedure.

        For this tutorial, we assume you are aware of how to work with the MySQL procedures.

      • What Is Nohup and How Do You Use It? - Make Tech Easier

        There are a lot of commands available on Linux systems. There are some you’ll use multiple times a day and others generally reserved for special use cases. nohup is one such command. You won’t be using it every day, but you’ll be grateful it’s around when you need it. Here we show you what nohup is and how to use it.

      • LVM: How to Snapshot a Volume or Directory

        Snapshots are the copy of a filesystem, partition or a volume at a specific time. When a snapshot is captured, it copies all the data from a filesystem. In case of data loss, this snapshot can also be used to recover data. In this tutorial, we will use the lvm tool to snapshot a volume or a directory.

        How to Snapshot a Volume

        In the previous tutorial (How to Create Logical Volumes and Filesystems), we have created two logical volumes (lv01, lv02) on top of a volume group (vg01). We also created filesystems on top of these logical volumes. Now in this tutorial, we will write some data in lv01 logical volume and then we will take a snapshot of this logical volume. After this, we will verify whether the snapshot contains the same data as lv01’s logical volume.

      • Linux “hostname” Command Examples

        The “hostname” command in Linux is used to check the system name that is assigned to a Linux machine. However, this command can also be paired up with other different flags for getting different outputs. We will try to throw light on some examples of the “hostname” command in Linux in this article.

      • How to Use Btrfs on Synology NAS?

        Synology officially supports the Btrfs filesystem on all of their NAS devices. The Btrfs filesystem has a lot of advantages over the traditional EXT4 filesystem.

      • How to Use MySQL Temporary Tables – Linux Hint

        Except for a few who have exhaustively studied the MySQL documentation, not many database nuts know that MySQL has temporary tables. A temporary MySQL table is a type of table that allows us to store data temporarily in a single session.

        This tutorial will take you on a deep dive into how MySQL temporary tables work, and how we can use them in our daily database tasks.

      • How to Truncate a Table in MySQL – Linux Hint

        At this point, you may need to clean a table and all the data stored in it while preserving the table structure. In such a scenario, MySQL truncate clause is a very effective query.

        This tutorial highlights how to use MySQL TRUNCATE statements to remove all the data in a database table.

        MySQL TRUNCATE statement is part of the Data Definition Language statements. However, its functions are similar to the DELETE statement, making it seem a part of Data Manipulation Language.

        To use the TRUNCATE statement, you must have the DROP privileges on the database.

      • How to Make a Kubernetes Helm Chart – Linux Hint

        Helm is commonly referred to as Kubernetes’ package manager. Although it appears to be a basic package manager, it has more capabilities. Helm is a fully accessible project that was originally developed by DeisLabs and is now maintained by CNCF. Helm was created to give users the best way to handle all of the Kubernetes YAML files they build on Kubernetes projects.

        Helm Charts are a set of Kubernetes YAML artifacts that can be distributed to your Kubernetes clusters as a single package. It also maintains a version history with all released maps allowing you to revert to an old iteration if anything unexpected happens. This chart comes with native Kubernetes assistance so you won’t have to write any complicated syntax files or something to get started with Helm. Simply drag your design files into a new chart and you are done.

      • Does MySQL Support Materialized Views? – Linux Hint

        In the modern world, speed is key. When building applications and software with a database, we need fast access to data in the most minimal time possible. For that, we implement various database measures, including materialized views.

        However, unlike PostgreSQL or Oracle Database, MySQL does not natively support materialized views, which can be a huge disadvantage. That, however, is no reason to stop using MySQL because it is a great database for major applications.

        In this tutorial, we will quickly discuss what materialized views are, how they work, instances where they are applicable, and how to implement materialized views in MySQL.

      • How to convert a PNG file to JPG on Ubuntu

        JPEG is a lossy compression file format for digital images. It can greatly reduce the amount of storage space used by a graphics file compared to the PNG format. This tutorial describes how to convert a PNG file to JPG on the shell. I use the GraphicsMagick command-line tool on my Ubuntu 20.04 system to do this; the same steps work on Debian and probably on other Linux distributions. GraphicsMagick is an improved version of the well-known tool ImageMagick.

      • Check and Repair All MySQL Databases on Ubuntu

        The following command can be used to check and repair all MySQL databases on a Ubuntu or Debian Linux System. I've tested the commands on Ubuntu 20.04 and Debian 10.

      • 3 Ways to install 1Password manager on Ubuntu 20.04/21.04 - Linux Shout

        1Password for Linux is available to install and manage your password on your Ubuntu or Kali Linux. You will get the same feature as the Windows version including integration with system lock, inactivity, and suspension or integration with GNOME, KDE, and other window managers, as well as added, in addition to stability.

      • How to set up RStudio IDE on Linux

        Rstudio IDE is a tool that allows users to be more productive with R as well as Python. It includes loads of useful features, from syntax-highlighting, direct code execution, and more. Here’s how to install Rstudio IDE on Linux.

      • Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa Install Guide – If Not True Then False

        This is Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa full install guide. I install Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa using real PC.

        1. Download, verify and create USB install media.

        2. Boot and install Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa.

        3. Upgrade new Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa installation.

      • How to Self-Host Using Bitwarden – Linux Hint

        Bitwarden is a powerful open-source password manager app that allows you to customize and configure security for password management in a centralized location you control. Bitwarden is highly customizable, lightweight, and provides users with an API and browser extension to help users manage their passwords efficiently. Bitwarden also provides a mobile application, allowing you to synchronize all your personal information across all your devices.

        A self-hosted password manager is powerful and a better option since you are responsible for all the security and the features you deem fit. In case of compromise, you are in control of what happens to your data.

        This tutorial will walk you through how to set up a personal password manager using Bitwarden and Docker.

      • WebSockets Tutorial – Linux Hint

        WebSocket is standard protocol that is able to provide persistent connection between a server and a client. WebSockets are bidirectional, which means a server and client and send and receive data in the same channel, full-duplex communication protocol that is implemented on TCP/IP socket.

        WebSockets were built to counter the limits of HTTP protocol.

        First, in HTTP protocol, is not bidirectional. The client requests a specific resource on the server, once the server finds and sends the resource to the client, the connection is closed. This means that for a very active data flow, such as streaming service, there will be too much requests on the server.

      • WebSockets vs. HTTP/2 vs. SSE Compared – Linux Hint

        There are three primary technologies or features when it comes to the world of data and server-client communication protocols: HTTP/2, SSE, and WebSockets. Depending on your point of view and requirements, either of these technologies can be competitors or allies. This tutorial will break down what these technologies entail and what each one of them offers. This will help you understand and make a choice depending on the features you are looking for.

    • Wine or Emulation

      • Wine 6.9
        The Wine development release 6.9 is now available.
        
        

        What's new in this release (see below for details): - WPCAP library converted to PE. - Support for paper forms in the print spooler. - More math functions from Musl in the C runtime. - Various bug fixes.

        The source is available from the following locations:

        https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/6.x/wine-6.9.tar.xz http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/wine/source/6.x/wine-6.9.tar.xz

        Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:

        https://www.winehq.org/download

        You will find documentation on https://www.winehq.org/documentation

        You can also get the current source directly from the git repository. Check https://www.winehq.org/git for details.

        Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list.
      • Wine 6.9 Released With More Improvements For Running Windows Apps/Games On Linux - Phoronix

        Wine 6.9 continues the work on converting their libraries to portable executable (PE) format with the WPCAP library now being PE. Wine 6.9 also has support for paper forms in the print spooler and more math functions from Musl libc implemented in the C runtime.

    • Games

      • Inmates will be petting dogs in the upcoming Prison Architect: Second Chances expansion

        Releasing on June 16, Paradox and Double Eleven confirmed today that Prison Architect: Second Chances is the next expansion for the prison building sim allowing you more ways to rehabilitate inmates.

        Offering up multiple new ways to ensure inmates get a chance at redemption, each program in Prison Architect: Second Chances offers a different means of rehabilitating a prisoner and changing their behaviour. These will include chatting to civilians, take on classes to prevent conflicts, pet a dog and more. After all, prison isn't just about being locked up right? Not everything deserves the key being thrown away. However, some inmates will reoffend so be prepared for the costs.

      • Crusader Kings III gets a first major expansion with the Royal Court | GamingOnLinux

        Due out sometime later this year, Crusader Kings III: Royal Court has been announced today as the first major expansion to the epic role-playing strategy game from Paradox.

        Finally, an expansion fit for a king or queen or whatever. We get our very own throne, we can finally show off our might with shiny things. It's not all glory though, as always running a country (or many) has lots of demands placed upon you that you will need to deal with. Royal Court is the first major expansion for Crusader Kings III, Paradox Development Studio’s critically-acclaimed strategy role-playing game about the medieval world. Powerful rulers can establish the kind of court that inspires troubadours, decorating it with relics from family history and favouring subjects with the answers to their many problems.

      • Paradox Interactive finally announces the hotly anticipated Victoria 3 | GamingOnLinux

        Paradox fans have been screaming for it for a long time and they've finally gone and done it, Victoria 3 is official and it's coming but no release date yet.

        Speculation has been ripe for years, Paradox have joked about it but it's really happening. In this ultimate society simulator, players step back in time to the great Victorian Era of the 19th and early 20th centuries to master economics, diplomacy, and politics all for the sake of a better tomorrow in one of the most anticipated games in Paradox's history.

        [...]

        Just like previous titles developed in-house by the teams at PDS, it looks like it will once again be supporting Linux with it setup on Steam ready to have Linux system requirements once again (once they're finalised, it's all "TBC" right now).

      • Them's Fightin' Herds looks better than ever with the HD upgrade out now | GamingOnLinux

        Them's Fightin' Herds is a wonderful fighting game that came to Linux officially recently, and with the 2.1.0 update that's out now it looks graphically better than ever.

      • Multiple Paradox titles free to play this weekend along with a big sale for PDXCON | GamingOnLinux

        Paradox are running another PDXCON from today for the weekend, where we expect a new strategy game to be announced. To get things going Stellaris, Surviving Mars and Cities: Skylines are free to play for the weekend on Steam and a big sale is on. Each title also has a huge discount if you decide you wish to keep them.

        For the new announcement, we don't have a clue what it will be - but since it's an internal Paradox title (they're not just publishing it), hopefully it will continue the tradition of Linux support. When we know, you will know!

    • Distributions

      • New Releases

        • antiX-19.4 available

          The usual uploads of full, base, core and net for 32 and 64 bit architecture. There are sysvinit versions and runit versions.

          Note: the runit versions follow Debian’s implementation of it so it is not like how Void linux or Artix set up runit.

          antiX-21 runit series will be closer to the Void/Artix way.

      • BSD

        • Linux Release Roundup #21.21: NetBSD 9.2, Kdenlive 21.04.1, Ubuntu Touch OTA 17, and More New Releases

          NetBSD 9.2 is a mostly a bug fix release that addresses a number of networking fixes along with ZFS stability improvements.

          There are some kernel-level changes and updates to certain programs. You can read all about it in the official announcement.

        • Announcing NetBSD 9.2 (May 12, 2021)

          The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 9.2 "Nakatomi Socrates", the second update of the NetBSD 9 release branch.

          It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons since the release of NetBSD 9.1 in October 2020, as well some enhancements backported from the development branch. It is fully compatible with NetBSD 9.0.

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2021/20

          This week felt quite unspectacular, but maybe that’s just for me and because I already know what will expect us next week. And so will you, soon! Anyway, first we look back one week. Tumbleweed has seen 5 published snapshots (0513, 0514, 0515, 0517, and 0519).

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Stability plus innovation: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 is now GA

          Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.4 is generally available to customers as of May 19, 2021. Delivered as part of the predictable, six-month cadence of RHEL releases 8.4 brings important features for hybrid cloud, edge deployments and enhancements for operators, developers and organizations standardized on RHEL.

        • RHEL 8.4 Released With Tiger Lake Graphics, Expanded eBPF Support

          Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 features Intel Tiger Lake graphics support, expanded eBPF kernel capabilities, proactive memory compaction is now available with the RHEL8 kernel, the time namespace and other kernel features back-ported, various package updates, Python 3.9 availability, and other routine updates for this enterprise Linux operating system. Other AppStreams updates include the availability of Redis 6, PostgreSQL 13, MariaDB 10.4, GCC 10, LLVM 11, and Rust 1.49.

        • Red Hat announced Developer Sandbox and new solutions to help get started with Kubernetes

          Red Hat unveiled its Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift to make it easier for developers to get started with building Kubernetes-based applications using the same infrastructure and tools that they run in their application environments.

          The new solution provides a private OpenShift environment in a shared, multi-tenant cluster that is pre-configured with a set of developer tools. The tight integrations between the infrastructure and tools provide a safe environment for prototyping or building new applications, creating containers from source files or Docker files and more, according to the company.

          Red Hat also announced updates to many of its tools which can be coupled with the Developer Sandbox.

          Red Hat OpenShift 4.7 web console developer perspective makes it easier for developers to get started with new integrations and fully-customizable quick starts.

        • Agile: How to make your strategy succeed | The Enterprisers Project

          Agile transformation is a complex organizational change, and successful implementation requires strong leadership and buy-in from everyone in the organization. If your organization is struggling to adopt Agile, it may not be clear what is hindering the transition.

          Let’s look at some common pitfalls, along with some tips to overcome them.

          Lack of team buy-in. Adopting Agile at the team level is critical. Remember, your teams are the ones responsible for making it all happen and delivering tangible results to customers.

          Decisions involve only C-level. Top leadership may be responsible for managing most of your organization’s operations, but if you want your team to respond, be proactive and support change, you must empower them to share their ideas and concerns. Agile transformation is possible only if you get everyone on the same page and excited for change.

        • Deploying Prometheus/Grafana, learning metrics

          In the Cockpit team we recently started to generate and export metrics about our CI, and collect/graph them by a Red Hat internal Prometheus and Grafana instance. But I am not happy with this yet, as it does not yet answer all the questions that we have for it. Also, it is not accessible outside of Red Hat.

        • Adam Young: Upgrading QGo to QT5



          My Day job has me messing around with QT5. We’re building various RPMs for different RHEL and CentOS versions, and I wanted to get a little more experience on this. Specifically, I wanted to be able to do trial and error on a package that would not pollute our work stream. I wanted it to be something QT based. And I wanted it to be fun.

          So I am working on repackaging QGo for Fedora 34 using QT5. Here’s what I am learning.

        • Friday’s Fedora Facts: 2021-20

          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. Elections voting is open through 3 June.

          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.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • $99 SBC runs Linux on RISC-V based Allwinner D1

        RVBoards has launched a $99 “Nezha” SBC that runs Linux on the 1GHz Allwinner D1 SoC with a 64-bit, RISC-V XuanTie C906 core. The SBC provides 1GB RAM, GbE, HDMI, 2x USB, 40-pin, and LCD, cam, and audio add-ons.

        RVBoards, a community project from PerXLab, has gone to Indiegogo to launch the first SBC built around the recently revealed, RISC-V architecture Allwinner D1 SoC. The open-spec, Linux supported Nezha SBC starts at $99. Prices move up to $170 for a fully configured model with touch-panel, mic array, and USB camera add-ons, which are also available separately.

      • Low Cost Raspberry Pi Alternative RISC-V Board Starts Crowdfunding

        The 64bit RISC-V Raspberry Pi alternative we wrote about last month has turned up again, this time on Indiegogo, with a new name. The Nezha board, named after a protective deity in Chinese mythology, was also briefly listed for purchase directly from AliExpress but it seems that it has since been taken down. Nezha offers a low cost, point of entry into the RISC-V world for developers eager to try a new IoT platform.

      • Asus Tinker Board 2S Review

        When an old laptop or smartphone is overkill for your DIY electronics project, a single-board computer is the perfect affordable alternative. It's been almost a decade since the first Raspberry Pi started a phenomenon and four years since Asus joined the party with its original Tinker Board. Now, a next-generation Tinker Board 2S has appeared to compete with today's more powerful options. It's pricey at $125, but it packs a lot of potential for sophisticated inventions and dedicated makers.

        A Small But Mighty Foundation

        If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're already familiar with single-board computers, and the Tinker Board 2S doesn't reinvent the wheel. About the size of a deck of cards—in fact, extremely similar in size and shape to the Raspberry Pi—the 2S (and the Tinker Board 2, which has just a microSD card slot for storage while the 2S has both a slot and 16GB of eMMC flash) fit a lot of functionality onto a small PCB.

        The brain of the Tinker Board 2S is a 64-bit Rockchip RK3399 system-on-a-chip, consisting of a dual-core ARM Cortex-A72 running at 2.0GHz and a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 running at 1.5GHz. This big.LITTLE design, as ARM calls it, allows the two CPUs to dynamically allocate tasks to the appropriate core for reduced energy usage. You also get a Mali-T860 MP4 GPU running at 800MHz and 2GB or 4GB of dual-channel LPDDR4 memory, depending on the model you choose. Our $125 test model comes with 2GB.

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • SiFive HiFive Unmatched RISC-V Developer Boards Begin Shipping - Phoronix

          Announced last year was the HiFive Unmatched as the most compelling RISC-V development board to date. Following supply chain issues and everything else brought on by the pandemic, this very interesting RISC-V developer board is now shipping to customers.

          The HiFive Unmatched is a mini-ITX board built around the SiFive FU740 SoC with four U74-MC cores and one S7 core while having 16GB of DDR4 RAM. The board has a PCI Express x16 slot (albeit at PCIe Gen3 x8 speeds), NVMe M.2 slot, micro-SD slot, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and other modern connectivity. It has a decent amount of power to it, can be conveniently mounted inside a mini-ITX case, and feature set makes it quite a nice developer board for those wanting to dive into the RISC-V ecosystem.

        • Foamin is a novel sensing method for detecting deformable gestures with conductive foam | Arduino Blog

          The field of soft tactile sensors is fascinating, as they grant robots the ability to move more freely or have greater granularity. Soft sensors also allow for human-computer interfaces to feel more interactive. However, previous sensors like these required multiple devices or complex wiring, making them difficult to use. To address these challenges, researchers from the University of Tokyo and Mercari R4D were able to come up with a way to integrate touch-sensitive pads onto a piece of foam, which they call “foamin.”

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • The Apache News Round-up: week ending 21 May 2021
      • Public Services/Government

        • Dutch Digital Autonomy must be based on Free Software and Open Standards

          "The Netherlands is losing grip on internet security, and is therefore in danger of losing control over democracy, the rule of law and the economic innovation system." This warning comes from the Cyber Security Council, a national and independent advisory body of the Dutch government and business community with members from the government, industry and academia.

          This warning comes from the Cyber Security Council, a national and independent advisory body of the Dutch government and business community with members from the government, industry and academia. In their recent advice, they do an urgent call on the Dutch Cabinet to take quick action to prevent that Dutch society and economy becomes too dependent on proprietary technology they can not control.

      • Programming/Development

        • Improving Application Security with UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (UBSan) and GCC

          The UBSan ("UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer") tool is a very useful, yet relatively unknown member of the GNU/Linux Toolchain family. This tool can improve the security of an application by efficiently detecting several types of errors in the source code. It is a run time tool that reports errors as the program executes.

          In this article we introduce and discuss the features of UBSan; we explain how to use it; and we provide some tips and tricks showing how to get the maximum benefit from this tool.

          What is Undefined Behavior and How Does it Impact Application Security? What is undefined behavior? Language specifications often fail to say what the compiler should do when code does not conform to expected values. For example, the C specification does not say what the result should be if an array is indexed with an out-of-bounds value, or what should happen if the shift amount is greater than the size of the expression in a bitwise shift. Since the result for these cases is unspecified, the compiler is free to generate any code that produces the correct result when the values are within the correct range, and ignore the possibility of incorrect values. This means that different compilers may handle these situations differently and in general the result of undefined behavior is unpredictable. The code may "work" with one compiler on certain hardware and not with another combination, it may "work" without optimization and fail with optimization or vice-versa. These situations generally point to an undefined behavior bug in the code.

        • QJSValue vs QJSManagedValue/QJSPrimitiveValue

          When Qt 6.1 got released you might have read about QJSManagedValue and how it “give[s] more fine grained control over JavaScript execution”. But what does that actually mean? To understand this, let’s first recap what QJSValue is all about, and then compare it with the new classes.

        • The C Command Line Arguments Processing – Linux Hint

          C programming language provides us with a way to pass command line arguments in Linux. This article will enlighten you more on this concept by discussing how the command line arguments are processed in C. Moreover, we will look at a suitable example that will possibly remove all your ambiguities regarding the said concept.

        • Calloc in C – Linux Hint

          “calloc” is yet another commonly used function of the “stdlib.h” library. It stands for contiguous allocation. As the name says, this function is also used to allocate memory while using the heap instead of the stack. Again, this kind of memory allocation is known as dynamic memory allocation. The main aim of today’s discussion is to throw light on how the “calloc” function works in C. Then, we will draw a comparison between the “calloc” and “malloc” functions. Finally, we will elaborate on the usage of the “calloc” function in C by sharing an example with you.

        • Perl/Raku

          • Perl 5.34.0 released

            Version 5.34.0 of the Perl language has been released. "Perl 5.34.0 represents approximately 11 months of development since Perl 5.32.0 and contains approximately 280,000 lines of changes across 2,100 files from 78 authors." See this page for a list of changes; they include a new try/catch syntax, a new octal syntax, and many improvements to various modules.

        • Python

          • How Do I See Directory Changes in Python? – Linux Hint

            In some instances, especially in critical and restricted locations of the filesystem, it can be helpful to know when things change and what has changed. Using Linux Inotify tools and Python, we can view and log the changes that happen within the system.

            This tutorial will go over how to implement a simple script that uses Python and Linux Inotify API to monitor changes in a specific directory and log the console changes.

            Before we get to the script, let us briefly discuss how Inotify works.

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Privatisation/Privateering

            • Linux Foundation

              • Linux 5.13 Release Candidate 3 Fixes 37 Patches From Banned University

                It might be time to put away the popcorn. Phoronix today reported that Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman reverted 37 patches associated with the University of Minnesota (UMN), which he banned from contributing to the kernel in April. This came via a pull request to Linux 5.13 Release Candidate 3 (5.13-rc3) submitted on Thursday.

                "The majority here is the fallout of the umn.edu re-review of all prior submissions," Kroah-Hartman said in the pull request for these changes. "That resulted in a bunch of reverts along with the 'correct' changes made, such that there is no regression of any of the potential fixes that were made by those individuals. I would like to thank the over 80 different developers who helped with the review and fixes for this mess."

                UMN was banned from contributing to the Linux kernel in April following two research projects — one into "hypocrite commits" and one the researchers said was meant to "automatically identify bugs introduced by other patches (not from us)"—that drew ire from the Linux developer community. The Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board (TAB) ended up reviewing 435 contributions associated with UMN.

        • Security

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Monopolies

      • Apple App Store profits look 'disproportionate,' U.S. judge tells CEO Cook

        A federal judge on Friday grilled Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook over whether the iPhone maker's App Store profits from developers such as "Fortnite" maker Epic Games are justified and whether Apple faces any real competitive pressure to change its ways.

        Cook testified for more than two hours in Oakland, California, as the closing witness in Apple's defense against Epic's charges that the iPhone maker's App Store controls and commissions have created a monopoly that Apple illegally abuses.

        App makers including music service Spotify Technology, European regulators and U.S. politicians who question whether the company that once urged the world to 'think different' has now become too big and too powerful.

        At the end of testimony, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers questioned Cook, pressing him to concede that game developers generate most App Store revenue and help subsidize other apps on the store that pay no commission.



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