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Links 14/7/2021: Ubuntu Touch OTA 18 and Mesa 21.2 RC1



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • More Than Five Years In The Making: Creating A New Linux Random Number Generator - Phoronix

        The "Linux Random Number Generator" (LRNG) effort as a new drop-in replacement for /dev/random is now up to its 41st revision and in development for more than five years.

        Stephan Müller today posted his latest patch series for LRNG as his proposed new approach for handling /dev/random while being a drop-in replacement with API/ABI compatibility to the existing generator.

      • Intel Still Hasn't Gotten To Landing Per-Client Engine Busyness Reporting For Linux - Phoronix

        One of the patch series I have been looking forward to see land going back to 2018 has been the per-process GPU load statistics or as it's known officially the "per client engine busyness" series. The work didn't land for Linux 5.14 but at least this week the latest revision was posted.

        The newest "per-client engine busyness" patches are pretty much the same as what has been volleyed out now for about three years. This functionality is not only about reporting how busy the render/3D, blitter, video engines, and other blocks are but for being able to report such information on a per-process basis. Thus quite interesting to performance-oriented folks like myself for having this per-process and per-hardware-block reporting.

      • Graphics Stack

        • Intel Posts Revised Linux Driver Patches For DG2 Graphics, Xe_HP SDV Accelerator

          Now that the DG1 graphics support is beginning to get squared away and with Linux 5.15 will likely be able to boot to an accelerated desktop, bring-up on the DG2 graphics card has begun along with the Xe_HP software development vehicle.

          At the start of July were the inaugural patches for DG2 and Xe_HP SDV on Linux. DG2 makes use of newer Xe_HPG 12.55 graphics IP and with aa Xe_LPD v13 display IP block similar to Alder Lake P. Xe_HP SDV meanwhile is for Intel's next-gen accelerator with Xe_HP 12.50 IP but no display block.

        • Adreno 660 + 635 Now Supported By The Open-Source OpenGL/Vulkan Drivers - Phoronix

          For going along with the newly added support in the MSM DRM kernel driver, Mesa's Freedreno Gallium3D OpenGL and Turnip Vulkan drivers have landed support for the Adreno 660 and Adreno 635 graphics processors.

          With some basic additions that were merged today just ahead of the Mesa 21.2 branching, the Adreno 600 series Gen4 (635, 660) support is now present for both Freedreno OpenGL and Turnip Vulkan.

        • RADV Radeon Driver Lands NGG Culling Support As Another Performance Win

          Mesa's open-source Radeon Vulkan driver "RADV" has landed support for Next-Gen Geometry (NGG) culling support as ultimately what should provide another performance win for some workloads.

          Building off prior Next-Gen Geometry (NGG) work within RADV, NGG-based culling support was merged on Tuesday night. NGG culling should help with performance for Navi 1x/2x GPUs that sport NGG.

    • Mesa

      • mesa 21.2.0-rc1
        Hi list,
        
        

        It's that time again, Mesa 21.2.0-rc1 is now available for consumption. This release is is packed with all of the good stuff that's been going on for the last 3 months. As always, please report any issues you run into and please test throughly.

        Cheers, Dylan
      • Mesa 21.2-rc1 Released With Early Apple M1 Code, Crocus Gallium3D

        Mesa 21.2 feature development is now over and the first release candidate issued for this next quarterly feature release to these open-source OpenGL/Vulkan Linux drivers.

    • Applications

      • Top 7 PDF Editors for Ubuntu Linux

        PDF is an acronym for Portable Document Format. It’s the defacto format that is used for sharing documents electronically and is usually the preferred format when attaching documents on a website for download.

        Once in a while, you might need to make changes to your PDF documents. This is not as straightforward as it sounds and one needs a PDF editor to make changes to the text and even images without having to convert them to another format. Join us as we explore some of the best PDF editors for Ubuntu Linux.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to Customize Pop!_OS 21.04 With GNOME Tweaks

        A couple of months after the release of Ubuntu 21.04 earlier this year, System72 has finally unveiled the much-awaited Pop!_OS 21.04. One of the key changes in this release is the new COSMIC desktop or Computer Operating System Main Interface Components that Pop!_OS ships with.

        While you may like the default look and feel of the new COSMIC desktop, why not take it a step further by installing your favorite themes for a more personal look? Find out how you can do just that with this guide.

      • Pay What You Want for this Linux eBook Bundle by Packt

        Today's highlighted offer comes via our Online Courses section of the Neowin Deals store, where for a limited time you can Pay What You Want for the Complete Linux eBook Bundle. The 4-book guide to programming more powerfully and efficiently with Linux.

      • How to Sort Text Files in Linux Using the sort Command

        Linux provides you with several utilities that you can use to process text files. Whether you want to remove duplicate data or sort the content inside a file, Linux command-line tools have everything you need.

        This article will demonstrate the sort command and how you can use it to sort the content inside a text file and arrange it accordingly.

      • [Old] How to install Telegram on Kali Linux

        Telegram messenger, a popular cloud-based alternative to WhatsApp is a cross-platform application that we can install on Kali Linux as well as other operating systems to Chat and access groups & Channels.

        Kali Linux which is mainly used by security experts and other users who are learning hacking and penetration testing can also have the benefit from the Telegram Linux Desktop app; which also claims to be one of the safest ways to chat because of strong message encryption.

      • How to Install minio S3 Compatible Object Storage on Ubuntu 20.04 – VITUX

        Minio is an Amazon s3 compatible high-performance object storage service. It is an open-source application released under Apache License v2.0 that supports unstructured data such as images, videos, backup, etc. It is written in GO that uses buckets to organize the object.A bucket is similar to a folder or directory in a filesystem, where each bucket can hold an arbitrary number of objects

        In this article, we will install and configure self-hosted Minio object storage in Linux. For a demonstration of the example in the article, I have used Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

      • How to install dependencies with apt? – Linux Hint

        As Linux users, we all have faced an error about missing “dependencies” while installing some piece of software at one point or another. In general, such errors or, more appropriately, messages are caused by a part of the program being unavailable, outdated, or missing. In this guide, we will be discussing how to address these problems correctly.

      • How to Install Dukto File Transfer Tool in Ubuntu 21.04, 20.04 via PPA | UbuntuHandbook

        Missing the old Dukto file transfer tool? The tool now is ported to Qt5 and easy to install via an Ubuntu PPA.

        For those never heard about Dukto, it’s a free open-source file transfer tool for LAN (Local Network) use. With the clean elegant user interface, you can drag and drop to transfer files from one PC to anther, without worrying about users, permissions, operating systems, protocols, clients, servers and so on…

      • How to reload /etc/hosts after editing in Linux? – Linux Hint

        A hosts file is responsible for mapping every website’s domain name with its IP address in every operating system. In simple words, it means that whenever we access any domain on our system, the operating system tries to search the hosts’ file for its corresponding IP address.

        This article will look at how one can edit the hosts’ file and mitigate any issues associated with it.

      • How to Create a Bootable CentOS USB – Linux Hint

        People using CDs/DVDs to install operating systems on their computers already feel like an old idea. But, on the other hand, USBs have emerged as a great alternative. With their fast speed and portability, they are the perfect fit for the modern world.

        This article gives an extensive guide on how to make a bootable CentOS USB drive. Bootable USB drives are effortless to create and are super convenient. Whether you’re using Windows or Linux, there are many different ways one can create a bootable USB, but in this article, we will only focus on three of the most convenient and most accessible methods.

      • How to send and receive messages with NC in Linux? – Linux Hint

        Computer networking allows users to send and receive messages, data, and instructions. There are many tools and utilities that are designed especially for this purpose, one of which is Netcat, or more commonly known as NC.

      • How to set the default gateway on Ubuntu – Linux Hint

        To access the internet, a gateway plays a vital role. For accessing other devices on a network or devices like computers, they need to be configured either automatically or manually by a network or system administrator. Communication between different devices is necessary to route data packets when they travel across a network. A system’s routing table decides which network interface should send these packets to remote systems or devices. Network devices are used for this purpose, although routing can be performed by any device configured as a router.

        A default gateway is used for traffic not destined for the local network and for which no particular route is preferred inside the routing table. Similarly, traffic of static routes must not or need not pass via a default gateway. Traditionally, a default gateway serves as the dedicated network router.

      • How I create fancy PDF-documents in Markdown | Hund

        I haven’t had the need to create any ‘fancy’ document in ages, but the other day I had to create a PDF-document with fancy formatting for a work related thing.

        After some testing of various solutions and tools, I ended up with a setup using Pandoc, WeasyPrint and Markdown. I consider Markdown to be the best markup language and I use it for everything!

      • Garuda Linux Installation Guide – Linux Hint

        Global Access to Resource Using Distributed Architecture (GARUDA) is an Arch-based Linux system initiated by Indian’s Grid Computer. In contrast to other Arch-Linux systems, Garuda introduced a graphical installer to manage modern graphical tools.

        Garuda OS is new in the world of Linux Distributions contains advanced and enhanced features with outstanding performance. The C-DAC (Center for Development of Advanced Computing), IITs (Indians Institutes of Technology), and 45 other institutes are the project participants.

        Garuda is an open-source operating system with a terminal-based text editor that makes the system easy and understandable. Also, it provides several GUI tools to manage the system out of the box. As we mentioned above, it is an Arch-based Linux distro, ensuring that users will always get the latest version.

      • How to touch all files in subtree recursively Linux?

        Touch is a command in Linux that is used to create and modify the timestamps of a file. Additionally, it can create files with no content and a timestamp specified by the user. Often, we have a directory in Linux with multiple subdirectories and files, and we wish to change the timestamps of each subdirectory and file.

        In this article, we will look at how to touch all such files and subdirectories recursively, along with a comprehensive breakdown of the commands that are used for this purpose.

      • Merge Sort in Java Explained – Linux Hint

        A list or array whose indexing (counting) begins from zero can be halved. The question is, when the total number of elements in the list is odd, what is the left half and what is the right half. When the total number of elements is even, there is no problem. If the length of the list is 8, say, then the left half has the first 4 elements, and the right half has the next 4 elements. If the length of the list is 5, say, which is odd, then by convention, the left half has the first 3 elements, and the right half has the next 2 elements.

        If the length of the list is 8, then the index for the mid (middle) element is considered to be 3, which is, the 4th element – index counting begins from 0. So, when the length of the list is even, the index for the mid element is length / 2 – 1.

        If the length of the list is 5, then the index for the mid element is considered to be 2, which is the 3rd element. So, when the length of the list is odd, the index for the mid element is length / 2 – 1/2.

      • Linux ip Command and Examples – TecAdmin

        The ip command is a Linux command-line utility is used to show/update routing, network devices, interfaces, and tunnels. This command is a part of iproute2 package. With the help of ip command, the system administrators assign an address to a network interface and/or configure network parameters on an interface.

        IP (Internet Protocol) address is a numerical label assigned to a network interface of a computer that allows the communication of the system over the internet. On a computer network, a system communicates with another system by its IP address.

        The older operating systems were uses the ifconfig. Which was also a powerful command, is deprecated on newer Linux systems, and replaced by the ip command. But, You can still use the ifconfig command with modern OS/Distros.

        In this tutorial, you will learn about the uses of the Linux ip command with useful examples.

      • Linux Top Command with Examples – Linux Hint

        The very basic commands and easily implementable ones are known to be the Linux Top commands. These are used to show the processes and their details. It shows the summary of information of all the running processes in the system. This interface of the top command is divided into two parts. One shows the stats value, whereas the lower one shows the list of running processes.

      • Linux Essentials - Managing Users

        As a Linux Server Administrator, it's your job to keep an eye on your users - and in this video, I'll show you how to add and remove users. Also, I'll show you how to change the password of your users. In addition, we'll go over a quick summary of the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files.

      • Linux Curl Command with Examples – Linux Hint

        A curl is a command-line tool that helps transfer the data from the server to the client and vice-versa. It uses the following protocols, i.e., HTTP, SMTP, FTP, and POP3. etc. Curl is known to transfer multiple files at a time.

      • Install And Configure Ansible In Linux - OSTechNix

        Ansible is an IT automation tool through which you can automate "N" number of tasks in your software environment. To know what is Ansible and its features, check out our "Introduction to Ansible" guide.

        Ansible is obviously designed for configuration management at scale. If your goal is learning and being able to recreate your environment quickly, then you are on the right track!

        Ansible is an agentless architecture. Meaning - no ansible agents/processes are running on managed nodes.

    • Games

      • Steam Client on Linux Has Been Updated, Here’s What’s new

        Valve continue to polish the Steam client and a new version has been released. On the Linux side, there are several changes and fixes. Here’s what’s new.

        Steam is a video game digital distribution service by Valve. It has become one of the dominant ways to play games in the modern gaming era. The Steam client on Linux is a desktop application which lets you interact with your Steam account and enjoy gaming. It is the manager of games, downloads, and updates from Valve. Steam client allows you to buy and download any game from a huge library of games, as well as free demos and videos.

        Time has passed since Steam joined the Linux family. Nowadays it’s available in many Linux distros. If you’re a PC gamer, chances are you’ll come across Steam at some point.

      • Indoor theme park builder Indoorlands is out in Early Access | GamingOnLinux

        You've built theme parks before but not like this. Indoorlands changes the way you design parks, with everything inside huge customizable halls and it's now in Early Access.

        A management and building sim with huge indoor environments, there's a lot you can do with it. You build these big halls you get to go inside, and then place down whatever you want from huge rides to lots of smaller cosmetic objects to give each hall a particular theme - although you can mix and match them all together.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • Proud to Be Top Contributor to GTK4

          With the immense support from our customers, backers, and users, Purism was able to commit tremendous development effort upstream. According to gtk.org, out of all Employers who have committed to advance GTK 4.0, Purism is ranked #5 by commits, and #5 by changes. Behind only RedHat, GNOME Foundation, GNOME, and all unattributed commits; while being ahead of Canonical, Centricular, Endless, Collabora, Intel, and Novell.

    • Distributions

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • 3 tips for Linux process performance improvement with priority and affinity

          CPUs run all applications and it's best if you understand how it works and how you can tune CPU usage to increase the performance of your applications.

          Modern systems typically have multiple CPUs and cores, which are shared among all running software by the kernel scheduler. So normally, you're not bothered about which CPU/core your application or process runs, as long as it runs.

          There are multiple ways to get more CPU and make your application work better and run more efficiently. One way is to use priority tuning using the nice/renice command.

        • Rethinking Work with a Hybrid Approach

          As a way to achieve such balance and ease the transition to in-person work, many employers are considering a hybrid approach. “Employers seem to be embracing a hybrid work model for the post-COVID world, with many planning for local employees to come into the office only a few days per week and allowing some individuals to stay entirely remote,” says Jordan Peace.

          This interest in hybrid work models is an indication that past notions of normal are getting a reboot, says Kevin Casey.

        • Red Hat Extends Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 as a Foundation for More Secure Computing with Second FIPS 140-2 Validation
        • 6 IT talent retention strategies: Chicago CIO of the Year winners share | The Enterprisers Project

          As companies consider what’s next after the pandemic, experts have warned of a developing turnover tsunami on the horizon. With expanding “work from anywhere” policies, location may no longer play a role in talent retention. Wise business and IT leaders are taking a proactive approach to ensure their best talent has plenty of reasons to stick around.

          We caught up with CIOs who recently won the 2021 Chicago CIO of the Year ORBIE Awards to learn how they are retaining top IT talent today. The awards were presented by the Chicago CIO Leadership Association, a professional community that annually recognizes CIOs for their excellence in technology leadership.

          From creating an inclusive culture, to getting to know people on an individual level, to focusing on fairness in a hybrid work environment, these award-winning CIOs share how they ensure their best talent feels compelled to stay.

        • Expanding automation to Windows environments with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Chocolatey [Ed: Red Hat working for Windows, even in areas where Windows is almost extinct anyway]

          Every morning Randy Lu, a Senior System Administrator at Davie Street Enterprises, walks by the large conference room on the 14th floor and sees his boss, Ranbir Ahuja, along with other senior members of the technology teams in their daily digital transformation stand-up meeting.

          Over the last few months Lu has heard about the major leaps many teams have taken during the company’s digital transformation, yet he hasn’t seen any changes in his area. At first, he was content with no one messing with how he runs his Windows nodes.

      • Debian Family

        • Proxmox Backup Server 2.0 Released, Based on Debian 11

          Proxmox Backup Server 2.0 comes with Single Sign-On support, the newer Linux kernel 5.11, and including OpenZFS 2.0.

          Proxmox Backup Server is free and open source enterprise backup solution for backing up and restoring virtual machines, containers, and physical hosts. It is specially optimized for the virtualization platform Proxmox Virtual Environment and allows you to backup your data securely, even between remote sites.

          Proxmox Backup Server is a bare-metal solution based on Debian, with some extended features, such as out-of-the-box ZFS file system support. It supports incremental backups, data deduplication, Zstandard compression and authenticated encryption. Proxmox Backup Server is the missing piece of the puzzle for creating a complete open source enterprise-level virtualization environment.

        • Happy 4.20: Latest version of Tails bakes connection wizard into top-secret Linux distro

          Privacy and security-focused Linux distribution Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, has announced a major new release completely overhauling how it connects users to the Tor network.

          "After connecting to a local network, a Tor Connection assistant helps you connect to the Tor network," the project maintainers explained in the release notes for the latest version, Tails 4.20.

          "This new assistant is most useful for users who are at high risk of physical surveillance, under heavy network censorship, or on a poor Internet connection."

          The team claimed its freshly developed wizard, which launches with the option of "easier" automatic connection or "safer" hidden connectivity, offers better protection to users who may need to hide their activity from network operations, makes it easier to connect to Tor bridges, assists with troubleshooting network connectivity issues, and walks first-time users through getting Wi-Fi up and running.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Linux Mint to now ensure you update your distro on time
        • Ubuntu Touch OTA 18 brings improved performance for older devices, among other updates

          The developers of Ubuntu Touch have released their 18th stable update to the GNU/Linux distribution for smartphones and tablets.

          One of the key changes in Ubuntu Touch OTA-18? The folks at UBPorts say it “almost always feels feaster” than the previous release on the same device. That’s especially important for older hardware with aging specs.

          Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 will be available in the next week for nearly 30 supported devices, including newer phones like the Volla Phone and F(x)tec Pro1. But it also supports older hardware like the 6-year-old BQ Aquaris E4.5 (which has a 1.3 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, 1GB of RAM, and just 8GB of storage).

          So refining the operating system to use less RAM can bring noticeable performance improvements. For example, it takes anywhere from 30MB to 60MB less RAM to render wallpapers in the Lomiri user interface.

        • Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 Officially Released with Performance Improvements, Bug Fixes

          Still based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system series, Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 is here as a maintenance update that plugs various annoyances and bugs to make the entire Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system more stable and reliable.

          First of all, Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 introduces a new way for Ubuntu Touch to scale down and display wallpapers without affecting the performance of the system, which mostly benefits BQ Aquaris E4.5 users that use the default wallpaper, but it will also benefit devices with 1GB of RAM, yet the savings will vary depending screen and wallpaper resolutions.

        • Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 Release

          Ubuntu Touch is the privacy and freedom-respecting mobile operating system by UBports. Today we are happy to announce the release of Ubuntu Touch OTA-18, our eighteenth stable update to the system! OTA-18 will become available for the following supported Ubuntu Touch devices over the next week:

        • Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 Released - Still Using Ubuntu 16.04, 20.04 Migration Ongoing

          The UBports folks have released Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 as their latest over-the-air update for this mobile Linux platform. Notable with this release is what isn't there - the Ubuntu 20.04 base. Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 continues using now the five year old Ubuntu 16.04 LTS base while the migration to 20.04 is still in progress.

          UBports community developers remain very busy working to bring up their Unity-derived Lomiri environment on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS along with other changes around systemd and many other tasks at hand. But still the switch isn't ready yet so OTA-18 is on the dated 16.04.

        • What the Linux Mint developers have pulled off is nothing short of astounding

          I'm going to confess here, I've not once used Linux Mint as my go-to operating system. It's not the distribution itself, because that has always impressed me. My problem has always been the default desktop environment, Cinnamon. Why? My penchant tends to lean toward the more modern interfaces (which is why I'm loving Pop!_OS COSMIC so much).

          [...]

          Of all the years I've been using Linux (since '97), I've been fairly vocal about the operating system being a great platform. And in the past 10 years, I've been adamant that Linux is the perfect operating system for the average user. And to this day, I still hold fast to that claim, as Linux is more stable, more reliable, and more secure than any operating system on the market. So, believing the operating system is capable of meeting and exceeding the needs of the average user hasn't been the problem. The primary issue centers around which distribution was best suited for the average user. And, to be perfectly honest, that question focused more on what desktop environment was ideal for newcomers to Linux.

          When the developers of Linux Mint released 20.02, I did my usual of downloading the ISO and spinning up a virtual machine in VirtualBox. I kicked off the installation and stepped out of the room for no more than five minutes. When I returned, the installation was complete and asking for a reboot.

          Upon rebooting I logged in and then, to my surprise, sat and stared at the desktop—or, more to the point, the Welcome app. I'd seen Welcome apps on Linux for years, so why did I find myself staring at this one? It wasn't like the Mint developers had added a feature that knocked my socks right off my feet and through my shoes. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but there was something going on. This was the Cinnamon desktop, so it was all immediately familiar. In fact, there was not one thing to the interface that sidetracked me.

        • Release Date, New Features, and Review of Ubuntu 21.04

          Ubuntu, the most popular and user-friendly Linux distribution, is implemented for PCs, network servers, and smartphones. Although Ubuntu is a free Linux distro, Ubuntu’s fundamental use lies under open-source software development principles. This guide will briefly discuss the new release of the Ubuntu system i-e, Ubuntu 21.04. You will get more information about the advanced features and modifications that have been made in this latest version.

          Many native applications got new updates with this release, and some of them are installed by default.

          Before starting with the discussion of releasing date, let’s discuss the history of the Ubuntu operating system first.

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • A Run-down on Top 10 Open-Source Tools for Machine Learning

        The demand for machine learning techniques has drastically surged because of technology’s influence. Today, machine learning engineers and data scientists are using open-source tools for machine learning to address the growing technological need.

      • 3 Reasons to Upgrade your ownCloud Instance to Nextcloud

        On April 27, 2016, Frank Karlitschek, who was one of the founders of ownCloud, left his position. A few days later, he founded Nextcloud, a competing company. Karlitschek did not say much about the situation, but his actions

        spoke very loudly. Leaving the company he had co-founded to create a competitor was a bold move.

        ownCloud vs Nextcloud is one of the biggest points of debate in the file sharing world. ownCloud was started to provide a free alternative for cloud storage service providers. Nextcloud came from a fork in ownCloud’s development map and was created by one of ownCloud’s core developers.

        Nextcloud, although not a completely new software, is much more ambitious than ownCloud when it comes to collaboration, security, and user experience. Over the years, Nextcloud has grown from a simple file syncing and sharing solution to a premium alternative to Microsoft 365 or Google Drive. Additionally, it includes almost all the features in its free edition, and its subscription cost is minimal.

        Nextcloud has made a lot of progress since the division, and there are many differences between Nextcloud and ownCloud now. The licensing, features, and philosophy are different, as well as the community behind product. There is also a difference between ownCloud and Nextcloud in terms of their approach to distribution.

      • SaaS/Back End/Databases

        • Top 10 reasons to migrate to MariaDB

          MariaDB is a commercially supported fork for MySQL and a community-developed RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) whose sole intention is to offer free service and offer open-source software following the GNU General Public License. MariaDB derived its name from ‘Widenius’ young daughter ‘Maria’ whereas MySQL derived its name from his other daughter ‘My.’

          MySQL was created by a Swedish/Finnish company known as MySQL AB. This company was founded by David Axmark, Widenius Michael, and Larsson Allan. Its first version was released in 1995 with the sole purpose of being used for personal usage. However, as years passed, the edition slowly grew into an enterprise-grade DB. As a result, it quickly took over the space being the most popular open-source relational database management system (RDBMS).

          In 2008 the Sun Microsystems purchased MySQL for $1Billion. However, after gathering and acquiring all of Sun Microsystems, the Oracle company, with approval from the EC (European Commission) in 2009, stopped the transaction. Its major fears were that the merger would harm the database community and markets since MySQL was the main competitor of Oracle’s database products. Oracle, therefore, was not allowed to purchase MySQL who was their major competitor.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • Coming up on July 19: Bug Hunting Session for LibreOffice 7.2 RC1

          LibreOffice 7.2 is being developed by our worldwide community, and is due to be released in mid-August 2021 – see the release notes describing the new features here.

          In order to find, report and triage bugs, the LibreOffice QA team is organizing a Bug Hunting Session for LibreOffice 7.2 Release Candidate 1 on Monday July 19, 2021. Builds will be available for Linux (DEB and RPM), macOS and Windows.

          Mentors will be available from 07:00 UTC to 19:00 UTC for questions or help in the IRC channel #libreoffice-qa and the Telegram QA Channel. Of course, hunting bugs will be possible also on other days, as the builds of this particular version (LibreOffice 7.2.0 RC1) will be available until the beginning of August when LibreOffice 7.2 RC2 will be released. Check the Release Plan.

      • Programming/Development

        • The 7 Best Ways to Learn How to Code for Free

          You've probably come across the term ‘coding’ plenty of times, and if you haven’t, then this is the best place to start. As we progress into the 21st century, the need for code continues to increase. Coding used to be limited to computers and video games, but now it encompasses every part of our lives.

          Coding is now an essential part of most major industries such as healthcare, finance, engineering, etc. The increasing impact of coding worldwide, in turn, exponentially increases the demand for proficient coders. Read on as we walk you through the basics of coding and how you, too, can learn to code.

        • What is GitOps? This is the technical introduction you've been looking for

          It’s not hard to form the impression that building and deploying cloud native systems is rapidly becoming a solved problem, with GitOps providing the roadmap.

          The approach revolves around the idea of configuration-as-code: making all configuration state declarative (e.g., specified in Helm Charts and Terraform Templates); storing these files in a code repo (e.g., GitHub); and then treating this repo as the single source of truth for building and deploying a cloud native system. It doesn’t matter if you patch a Python file or update a config file, the repo triggers a fully automated CI/CD pipeline.

        • Qt Creator 4.15.2 released
        • Bash Loop Through Directories Recursively – Linux Hint

          The Bash shell is an incredible tool that offers a lot of terminal ease and functionality. This quick tutorial shall discuss various ways to loop through directories and perform certain functions recursively.

        • Bubble sort – Linux Hint

          Bubble sort is a popular but inefficient sorting algorithm, and it is easily outperformed by other sorting algorithms like insertion sort, quicksort. The algorithm takes in an unordered sequence of numbers as input and produces a sorted sequence of numbers as output.

          The idea behind the algorithm is simple: repeatedly compare adjacent elements in an array and swap them if they are not in sorted order. The algorithm repeats the above process until all the elements in the array are sorted. In each iteration of the algorithm, the algorithm compares all pairs of adjacent elements. The adjacent elements are swapped if they are not in sorted order.

        • How different programming languages read and write data

          In his article How different programming languages do the same thing, Jim Hall demonstrates how 13 different languages accomplish the same exact task with different syntax. The lesson is that programming languages tend to have many similarities, and once you know one programming language, you can learn another by figuring its syntax and structure.

          In the same spirit, Jim's article compares how different programming languages read and write data. Whether that data comes from a configuration file or from a file a user creates, processing data on a storage device is a common task for coders. It's not practical to cover all programming languages in this way, but a recent Opensource.com series provides insight into different approaches taken by these coding languages:

        • Python

          • Transpose a Matrix – Linux Hint

            In Python, a matrix has rows and columns. We can create the matrix in different ways, but the easy method is using the list as shown: matrix = [ [1, 2, 4], [31, 17, 15] ]

            The list inside the list above is a row, and every element inside the list is called a column. So, in the above example, we have two rows and three columns [2 X 3].

            And also, indexing of the Python starts from zero.

            The transpose of a matrix means where we change the rows to columns or columns to rows.

            Let’s discuss different kinds of methods to do matrix transpose.

          • How to sort with lambda in Python – Linux Hint

            The sort operation is applied to a list of data in any programming language. Tuple, list, and dictionary are used in Python to store multiple data. The values of the tuple and list are accessed by numeric index, and the keys access the values of the dictionary. Many built-in functions exist in Python to sort the list of data in ascending or descending order. The lambda function is one of them. The coder can define the sorting order based on the requirement by using this function. The uses of the lambda function for sorting the list and dictionary objects in different ways have been explained in this tutorial.

          • How to sort dictionary in Python – Linux Hint

            Multiple data are stored in Python by using a tuple, list, and dictionary. When the data are stored in Python by key-value pair that works like an associative array of other programming language is called the dictionary. The value of the dictionary is mutable. The dictionary can be stored based on the value of the key or value or both key and value. The dictionary can be sorted by using a simple for loop, built-in functions, and module. Different ways to sort dictionary data have been explained in this tutorial.

          • How to sort JSON objects in Python – Linux Hint

            The JSON file is a very popular medium to exchange data between different types of programming languages. It is a language-independent text-based file format that stores data by using an array and object. It can store numbers, strings, Boolean, and another array or object as the content. The JSON object can be sorted by using built-in python functions, modules, and user-defined functions. Different ways to sort the JSON object in Python have been explained in this tutorial.

          • How to read excel (xlsx) file in python – Linux Hint

            The .xlsx is the extension of the excel document that can store a large amount of data in tabular form, and many types of arithmetic and logical calculation can be done easily in an excel spreadsheet. Sometimes it is required to read the data from the excel document using Python script for programming purposes. Many modules exist in Python to read the excel document. Some of the useful modules are xlrd, openpyxl, and pandas. The ways to use these modules to read the excel file in Python have been shown in this tutorial.

          • How to get and set environment variables in Python – Linux Hint

            Environment variables are used to change the system configuration. The output of the many Python applications depends on the values of the particular environment variables. When those environment variables change, the python script requires changing to get the appropriate output, which is not desirable. This problem can be solved by reading and setting the value of the environment variable in the Python script based on the requirement. It eliminates the task of changing the environment variable manually and makes the code more secure by hiding the sensitive data required to assign the environment variable, such as API token. The ways to set and get the environment variable in Python have shown in this tutorial.

          • How to check a file is opened or closed in Python – Linux Hint

            The file is used to store data permanently. Working with a file is a very common task of any programming language. Many built-in functions exist in Python to create, open, read, write and close the file. Two types of files can be created to store data. These are text files and binary files. Any file is required to open before reading or write. The open() function is used in Python to open a file. Using the open() function is one way to check a particular file is opened or closed. If the open() function opens a previously opened file, then an IOError will be generated. Another way to check a file is opened or closed is to check the values of the closed property of the file handler object. Using rename() function is another way to check the file is opened or closed. Different ways to check any file is opened or closed in Python have been shown in this tutorial.

        • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

          • What exactly does 2>/dev/null do? – Linux Hint

            Whether you are a new Linux user or an experienced bash programmer, it is highly probable that you encountered the cryptic command 2>/dev/null. Although this command looks technically complex, its purpose is very simple. It refers to a null device that is used to suppress outputs of various commands. This article will break down each part of the 2>/dev/null command, explain its purpose, and see examples of how it is used.

        • Java

          • Binary Tree Preorder Traversal in Java

            A tree in computing is like a tree in the forest, but it has no stem. It is upside-down. It has branches and nodes. There is only one root, which is a node. Nodes are linked by single branches from top to bottom. There is no linking horizontally. The following diagram is an example of a tree.

  • Leftovers

    • Hardware

      • Hubble, Hubble, toil and trouble: NASA pores over moth-eaten manuals ahead of switch to backup hardware

        NASA has completed a formal review of what engineers will have to do to switch the Hubble Space Telescope to its backup hardware.

        The formal review comes more than a month after a problem with a payload computer aboard the veteran observatory sent the telescope into safe mode and engineers scurrying for contingency plans.

        Attempts to restart the computer failed, and a switch to a backup of the 1980s-era hardware resulted in the same memory error. Engineers cast their net wider as time wore on, considering potential issues with a power regulator as a possible culprit as well as the Command Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF), which sends and formats commands and data.

      • XUAN-Bike self-balancing, self-riding bicycle relies on flywheel, 22 TOPS Huawei Ascend A310 AI processor

        After Huawei engineer Peng Zhihui Jun fell off this bicycle, he decided he should create a self-balancing, self-riding bicycle, and ultimately this gave birth to the XUAN-Bike, with XUAN standing for eXtremely, Unnatural Auto-Navigation, and also happening to be an old Chinese name for cars.

        The bicycle relies on a flywheel and a control board with ESP32 and MPU6050 IMU for stabilization connected over a CAN bus to the motors, as well as Atlas 200 DK AI Developer Kit equipped with the 22 TOPS Huawei Ascend A310 AI processor consuming under 8W connected to a 3D depth camera and motor for self-riding.

    • Integrity/Availability

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Hong Kong working to share its digital IDs with mainland China

        Hong Kong’s Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) has revealed that the territory is investigating the use of its digital ID in mainland China.

        In a Q&A, Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Mr Alfred Sit, said “the OGCIO is exploring with relevant authorities in the Mainland and Macao the collaboration opportunities between their identity authentication systems and iAM Smart.”

        iAM Smart is a marketing abbreviation for “internet Access by Mobile in a Smart way”. It was launched in December 2020 as a “single digital identity” and authentication tool for government transactions. Adopters were promised a one-stop-shop for complete e-forms and documents, renewing car licences, paying taxes and bills, registering to vote, booking vaccines, checking vaccine status and more.



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