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Links 18/8/2021: Krita 5.0 Beta, IPFire 2.27 Core Update 159



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • The evolution of Linux on the desktop: Distributions are so much better today

        It's been 30 years since Linus Torvalds created Linux. It's been almost 25 years since I first experienced Linux on the desktop.

        I remember like it was yesterday. The very first time I booted into the Linux desktop. The distribution in question was Caldera Open Linux 1.0, which installed with kernel 2.0 and the desktop was Fvwm95. I cannot confirm what I had assumed the desktop would have looked like, but I can assure you I had no idea it would have taken on a rather Windows 95 clone-ish look about it.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • Asahi Linux August progress report

        Asahi Linux, the effort to port Linux to Apple’s new M1 SoC, has posted its second progress report.

      • Asahi Linux progress: Apple Silicon OS works – though it's 'rough around the edges' and has no GUI acceleration ● The Register

        Developer Hector Martin has reported on progress with Asahi Linux, a port for Apple Silicon Macs, and said that the OS now works but with some limitations, notably a lack of accelerated graphics.

        In his August progress report, Martin talks further about the challenges of porting Linux to a platform that was created by Apple for the sole purpose of running its own operating systems.

        He calls the M1, the Arm-based SoC (System on a Chip) used in the Mac Mini and iPad Pro, "a massive reverse engineering challenge." Rather than attempting to dissemble the macOS drivers, Martin created a hypervisor to sit between macOS and the M1 hardware, for the purpose of "transparently intercepting and logging hardware access."

        Python code running on a separate machine can control the hypervisor.

      • PREEMPT-RT Locking Infrastructure Possibly Ready For Linux 5.15 - Phoronix

        Six dozen patches working on the PREEMPT-RT locking infrastructure for real-time kernels is now queued up in TIP's "locking/core" branch and will presumably be sent in for the Linux 5.15 merge window coming up quickly.

        These 72 patches are part of the Linux real-time (RT) work by Thomas Gleixner and others. This locking infrastructure work for real-time kernel builds is replacing mutex, ww_mutex, rw_semaphore, spinlock, and rwlock with RT-Mutex-based primitives. For non-real-time kernel builds there should be no functional changes with these locking changes.

      • Proposed: Allow Building The Linux Kernel With x86-64 Microarchitecture Feature Levels - Phoronix

        A set of two patches posted this week would allow the Linux kernel to be easily built with the different x86-64 micro-architecture feature levels supported by the latest LLVM Clang and GCC compilers.

        Rather than just having per-CPU/core family targeting by the code compilers, over the past year the "x86-64 micro-architecture feature levels" have gained adoption as some common levels for both AMD and Intel processors to group CPU capabilities into a few tiers.

      • Graphics Stack

        • Mike Blumenkrantz: Submerged

          Just a quick update today while I dip my toes back into the blogosphere to remind myself that it’s not so scary.

          Remember when I blogged about how nice it would be to have a suballocator all those months ago?

          Now it’s landed, and it’s nice indeed to have a suballocator.

    • Applications

      • 10 of the best email clients for Linux

        Email is an indispensable medium of communication. Services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook provide a web-based client to let users use Email services with the help of the internet and a browser. However, while accessing emails from web browsers may be the de-facto way of accessing emails, it might not be the quickest or efficient.

        Email clients for Linux provide an efficient way to manage both online and offline emails and lets you easily sync email accounts with the system and notify users of any new email. In addition, email clients can add multiple email accounts and supports plugin-ins that add additional features to increase productivity and functionality.

      • below: a time traveling resource monitor

        One of the kernel’s primary responsibilities is mediating access to resources. Sometimes this might mean parceling out physical memory such that multiple processes can share the same host. Other times it might mean ensuring equitable distribution of CPU time. In all these contexts, the kernel provides the mechanism and leaves the policy to “someone else”. In more recent times, this “someone else” is usually a runtime like systemd or dockerd. The runtime takes input from a scheduler or end user — something along the lines of what to run and how to run it — and turns the right knobs and pulls the right levers on the kernel such that the workload can —well — get to work.

        In a perfect world this would be the end of the story. However, the reality is that resource management is a complex and rather opaque amalgam of technologies that has evolved over decades of computing. Despite some of this technology having various warts and dead ends, the end result — a container — works relatively well. While the user does not usually need to concern themselves with the details, it is crucial for infrastructure operators to have visibility into their stack. Visibility and debuggability are essential for detecting and investigating misconfigurations, bugs, and systemic issues.

        To make matters more complicated, resource outages are often difficult to reproduce. It is not unusual to spend weeks waiting for an issue to reoccur so that the root cause can be investigated. Scale further compounds this issue: one cannot run a custom script on every host in the hopes of logging bits of crucial state if the bug happens again. Therefore, more sophisticated tooling is required. Enter below.

      • Foliate eBook Reader for Linux is a Must Have

        Have you heard of Foliate ebook reader? It’s one of the best Ubuntu apps available. In this post we show you its features, and detail how to install Foliate on Ubuntu so you can try it yourself.

        Foliate is a GTK app for Linux desktops (though it may work on Linux phones like the PinePhone). The back-of-the-book blurb described it as a “simple and modern ebook viewer”.

        But it’s so much more than that.

        Most of probably prefer to read ebooks on an e-reader device like an Amazon Kindle or a Nook. But there are features that an eBook viewer for your PC can offer that a dedicated ebook reader can’t.

        And it’s precisely those features you’ll find within the ‘pages’ of Foliate.

      • Budgeting tools

        On the advice of many friends, I tried to use You Need A Budget. I gave it a seriously long, proper evaluation: over a year. But I just couldn't get it to work for me. I don't want to try and explain why. To be honest, those same friends who advocated for it fairly strongly, also gave me a pretty hard time for giving up on it!

        [...]

        Jimmy Kaplowitz suggested back in 2012 that I should take a look at GNUCash. It took me a few more years before I did. The eventual trigger point for me was organising an event where I paid for a load of things on behalf of others and needed to track who had paid me back. It excelled for that.

        I've continued to use GNUCash to manage my personal money &emdash that is, my "play money" and anything I've accumulated &emdash but I haven't committed to it for my family finances. Practically speaking that would lock my wife out of them, which wouldn't be fair. But also because GNUCash's shortcomings (and despite its strengths, it certainly has some) mean that I don't expect I will be using it into the indefinite future, even for my personal stuff.

        The most significant drawback, in my opinion, is GNUCash's support for scripting. Sometimes, there's a laborious but easily-mechanisable (in theory) task I need to perform that would be ideal to script. GNUCash has built-in scripting support using Guile &emdash the GNU lisp/scheme dialect &emdash but this is limited to Reports only, I don't think it can be used for a task such as "match a series of transactions using one or more filters or regular expressions, and apply a transformation to them, such as change the account to which they are posted", etc.

        It also has a C library and auto-generated bindings for other languages. This has a horrible API, which is carried over into the language bindings. Documentation for the whole lot is basically non-existent too.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to run Apache Spark on MicroK8s and Ubuntu Core, in the cloud: Part 1
      • How to run Apache Spark on MicroK8s and Ubuntu Core, in the cloud: Part 2
      • How to run Apache Spark on MicroK8s and Ubuntu Core, in the cloud: Part 3
      • How to run Apache Spark on MicroK8s and Ubuntu Core, in the cloud: Part 4
      • Set up KVM && Cockpit WEB Console on Ubuntu DDE 21.04
      • How to Check Battery Status Using Linux Command Line | Linux Journal

        Checking the battery status through GUI is easy. Hovering the mouse cursor over the battery indicator given in the Laptop task bar simply shows the battery level. But, did you know you can find the battery status through the Linux command line as well?

        Yes, there are some utilities in Linux that can be of help in this regard.

        This article explains 4 different methods of checking laptop battery status using the Linux command line. So,

      • How to Download and Install Zoom on Linux

        Zoom is one of the popular video conferencing solutions out there. It's essentially a cloud-based app that lets you organize meetings and team up in real-time to conduct webinars and group calls.

        Although you can access Zoom on the web via its web client or progressive web app (PWA), it is advisable you download its desktop client for quick and easy access.

      • How to Install and Use Neofetch on Linux

        Neofetch displays an ASCII logo of your Linux distribution along with information related to your system in the terminal. Many Linux users will use it in screenshots of their desktops just because they think it's cool. And they're right. You can use it to show off your setup in screenshots too.

        Since the utility doesn't come preinstalled on Linux, users have to install it manually on their system. By the end of this, you'll have a decent understanding of how to install and use Neofetch on a Linux machine.

      • How to install Webmin on Debian 11 Bullseye Server Linux - Linux Shout

        Webmin is an open-source application platform that gives a web-based graphical user interface to manage Linux servers. Here we learn how to install Webmin on Debian 11 Linux server to manage web hosting using its repository.

        Managing command line servers can be tricky especially for beginners, hence a Webmin-like admin control panel can make all this easy. Because of the web-based system administration interface for Unix. Any modern web browser can be used to set up user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing, and much more.

        Webmin eliminates the need to manually edit Unix configuration files such as /etc/passwd and allows a system to be managed from the console or remotely. Further extension of Webmin features is possible with the help of built-in or external modules.

      • How to install Debian 11 "Bullseye" - Invidious

        In this video, I am going to show how to install Debian 11 "Bullseye".

      • How to Install Debian 11 (Bullseye) Step by Step

        Hello Geeks, Debian has finally released its stable OS version 11 and It’s code name is ‘bullseye’. Debian 11 is a LTS version which means we will get updates and support till 2025. It has come up with brand new theme ‘Homeworld’ and new Linux kernel 5.10. Apart from this, it also supports 32-bit systems and exFat file system. Other noticeable feature of Debian 11 is that it has updated version of desktop environments like GNOME 3.38, KDE plasma 5.20, Xfce 4.16 and other OS package updates.

      • How to Install Bagisto eCommerce Platform on Ubuntu 20.04

        Bagisto is the popular open-source eCommerce platform built on the hottest technologies Bagisto is the popular open-source eCommerce platform built on the hottest technologies Laravel & Vue.js. A complete eCommerce solution built for merchants to cater to their online shop needs and very easy for developers to contribute and build. Bagisto has a built-in easy navigable admin panel and is bundled with functionalities like Multi-Currency, Multi-Localization, Access Control Level, Multi-Channel, Payment integration, and much more.

      • How To Install Pritunl VPN Server on AlmaLinux 8 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Pritunl VPN Server on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Pritunl VPN is currently one of the most secure open-source VPN tools that can be used for multi-cloud VPN peering. Pritunl VPN server uses MongoDB and can be deployed on any cloud infrastructure.

        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 Pritunl VPN on AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for Rocky Linux.

      • How to pair the Nintendo Switch Pro controller on Linux

        Do you want to play games on your Linux PC using your Nintendo Switch Pro controller but don’t know how to get it to pair to your computer? We can help! Follow along as we go over how to pair the Nintendo Switch Pro controller on Linux!

      • Access Your Database Remotely Through an SSH Tunnel | RoseHosting

        Secure Shell or SSH is a client-server-based communication protocol that is used to connect securely from one machine to another. It uses a network port to create a connection session between the server that listens on the chosen port and the client which sends the SSH connection request on that port.

      • How To Install UrBackup on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install UrBackup on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, UrBackup is a free and powerful network backup solution for personal and enterprise. It has almost all the features you need from backup software. It provides a web-based interface to manage all backups. It is cross-platform and can be installed on Windows, Linux, and many Linux-based NAS operating systems.

        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 UrBackup open source network backup on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

      • How to Install Grafana Monitoring System on CentOS 8 – VITUX

        Grafana is a widely used open-source system monitoring solution for Linux servers. It is e.g. used by PayPal, eBay, and Red Hat. Grafana is a good choice for all engineers who want to use a scalable and robust dashboard monitoring tool. This monitoring tool monitors various data sources. Using Grafana, you can bind time-series databases like Prometheus or Influx DB and relational databases like PostgreSQL or MySQL.

      • How to Install UrBackup Server and Client on Ubuntu 20.04

        Regularly backup the live server is a very important task of any system administrator. It will help you to recover your data in the event of data loss or system failure. There are a lot of free and commercial backup tools available in the market.

        UrBackup is an open-source and client/server backup system for Linux operating systems. It supports both file and image backups in a live system without interrupting current processes. It provides a web-based interface to manage all backups. It is cross-platform and can be installed on Windows, FreeBSD, Linux, and many Linux-based NAS operating systems.

      • wget – CentOS: How to Install and Use Wget

        Wget is used to download files via the CLI. In this beginner-friendly tutorial, we’ll show you how to install and use the wget command on CentOS.

      • How to set up and use Python virtual environments for Ansible | Enable Sysadmin

        It's vital to test new technology before rolling it out into your production environment. I like to use Python virtual environments provided by the venv module for developing and testing Ansible playbooks and features. Instead of using the default Python and Ansible commands installed on your system, you can easily set up multiple Python environments and test different versions of Ansible and its component libraries.

      • Install and Use Curl on Debian 11 Bullseye Linux - Linux Shout

        cURL is an open-source command-line program integrated into Linux systems for a long time. It enables files to be transferred from or to a server without user interaction. In addition to HTTP, the program supports a variety of other network protocols such as FTP, FTPS, HTTPS, GOPHER, TELNET, DICT, FILE, and LDAP. It is controlled via command-line parameters that are specified when the program is called.

        Furthermore, since 2018 cURL is also the part of the Microsoft operating system. It is also used in cars, televisions, routers, printers, smartphones, tablets, and many other devices. cURL uses the libcurl library for all functions relating to data transfer. It is often used for working with REST used -ful services, such as for the development or debugging of such services.

      • Easy guide to monitoring your systems with Checkmk

        This tutorial will show you how to take your first steps with Checkmk, a comprehensive IT monitoring system that identifies issues across your entire IT infrastructure. Checkmk monitors servers, applications, networks, cloud environments and many other systems. I will show you how to install Checkmk on Ubuntu 20.04 and add hosts (systems to be monitored) to the monitoring. Checkmk also runs on other Linux distributions such as Debian, RHEL, CentOS or SLES, in a Docker container, or also as a virtual appliance. You can download the latest version for all platforms from the official Checkmk website. For this tutorial I will use the Checkmk Raw Edition, which is completely open source.

        The goal of this article is to give you a quick start into Checkmk and the world of IT monitoring. Checkmk comes with numerous powerful features, and I recommend checking the documentation online for further reference. You will see that it is fairly easy to set up a first monitoring, as many configuration tasks are performed automatically, and thanks to the around 2,000 official monitoring plug-ins, Checkmk supports many systems right out of the box.

      • Connect to an external PostgreSQL database with SSL and Red Hat's single sign-on technology | Red Hat Developer

        This article shows you how to connect securely to applications and data sources using Red Hat's single sign-on technology. The example connects to an external PostgreSQL database in secure Single Sockets Layer (SSL) mode, first locally and then on Red Hat OpenShift. As you will see, it is usually much easier to carry out the integration first on a standalone instance of Red Hat's SSO, and then deploy it on OpenShift.

    • Games

      • Save your school in Kraken Academy!! with the help of a time-loop on September 10 | GamingOnLinux

        Kraken Academy!! sounds like a wonderfully weird game where you attending the most unusual high-school that's full of ghosts, cultists, crocodiles and a magical Kraken. Described in their email as "groundhog-day adventure inspired by 90s comedy anime" and that pretty much sold me right away.

        In the game you need to find a traitor who is trying to apparently destroy everything and they could be anyone at your school. Thankfully some friendly magical Kraken decides to bestow upon you the ability to time travel so you loop over and over, each time getting that little bit closer to find out who this traitor is. Sounds wild.

      • Play through a sci-fi cooking competition show in Galactic Chef | GamingOnLinux

        Thoughtquake Studios are currently developing Galactic Chef, a fun spin on cooking games with a sci-fi theme where you take part in a competitive cooking show.

        Featuring procedural generation to make it meals fresh each time, along with plenty of voxels you will make up some fancy looking delights while being scored by alien judges on flavour, texture, ambition, technical execution, and the unique requirements of each challenge. It honestly sounds great with it being simulated quite a bit behind the scenes on how the different ingredients and their voxels react to heat, moisture, damage, and more.

      • ScummVM continues keeping games alive with early Macromedia Director support | GamingOnLinux

        Remember any classic games made with Macromedia Director? Well you're in luck, as the ScummVM project is adding in some early support for it.

        For those unaware ScummVM is a free and open source application that allow you to run tons of classic graphical adventure and role-playing games, as long as you have the data files needed. This allows you to easily play them on modern systems, often with enhancements to make the experience a bit smoother.

      • Icculus has released MultiZork, making the 1980 classic Zork multiplayer | GamingOnLinux

        Some games live on forever and that's very much the case with Zork, a true classic interactive fiction adventure from 1980 and thanks to Ryan "Icculus" Gordon there's also now MultiZork.

        In a post on Patreon, Icculus gives a brief history of their love for Zork, a game that "not only uses its own programming language, it uses its own CPU" and so it's been made to run practically everywhere. As long as a system had a working Z-Machine emulator it would work, and that was needed as this was back in the days where there wasn't much of a standard for PC systems. All it needs is a working text interface and so you can play it across so many places.

        For fun Icculus wrote MojoZork, a "single C file that is just enough of the Z-Machine to complete Zork 1 (and probably several other early Infocom games)" and it seems due to the way it was made there's just enough room to squeeze in a couple of extra players and so that's what Icculus did.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Krita 5.0 Enters Public Beta Testing with All-New Resource System, Many New Features

          Development on Krita 5.0 kicked off a few months ago, and, as a major release, it promises numerous new features and improvements. The biggest change being an all-new resource system that has been in development for a few years now.

          With the new resource system in place, Krita 5.0 will no longer load all brushes, gradients, patterns, etc. during start-up. Instead, it will cache all these information during the first run, which means that the app will be a bit faster when starting up, yet the first run will be slower as all the info needs to be cached.

        • First Beta for Krita 5.0 released
          Today, the Krita team releases the first beta for Krita 5.0. Krita 5.0 is a major release, with a lot of new features and a lot of changes.

          We intend to release the final version in September, but that is not a hard promise! We will continue fixing issues that come in from testing the beta and the nightly builds so we can release a solid Krita 5. Please consider supporting Krita’s development through the development fund...

        • Krita 5.0 Beta Released With Better Performance, UI Polishing - Phoronix

          Krita 5.0 is on the way as the next major feature release to this popular, open-source digital painting program.

          Krita 5.0 beta debuted today to help in vetting this major update. Krita 5.0 is introducing a new resource system, adds support for HEIF / AVIF / WebP image formats, improves its TIFF support, brings the all new MyPaint brush engine, support for gradient dithering and wide-gamut gradients, various performance improvements, a redesigned animation timeline docker, an in-stack transform tool preview, and UI improvements.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • MATE 1.26 released

          This release might have taken a little longer than usual but now after 18 month of development we are very pleased to release MATE 1.26. A big thank you to all contributors who helped to make this happen.

        • Dhanuka Warusadura: GSoC 21: Final report

          This is my last GSoC blog post. And the purpose of writing this blog post is to share the work I have completed during the past 10 weeks of Google Summer of Code 2021.

        • How to Gradient When You Can’t

          While this topic isn’t anything new (the asset in question is probably a decade old) I never shared a dirty little secret about some of our symbolic assets.

          UI icons in GNOME are to a major extent monochrome. They behave like text and can be rendered with various foreground colors depending on context. In a small subset of icons we use partially shaded elements. Those are done as a solid fill as well, but lowered opacity. Then can still remain recolorable at runtime.

          What we don’t have is the ability to draw a gradient that remains recolorable, because we’d need more somphisticated machinery to rewrite the stops of the gradient definition. Or can we? Unless you’re reading this on Planet or in your fancy RSS reader, you can see the spinner we’ve been using for well over 7 years now:

          It actually isn’t filtered particularly well in Firefox, but is nice and clean in gtk. Firefox amplifies one of the big downsides of this method, it’s quite prone to moiré. If you hover over the spinner, it reveals the nasty hack how the fade to transparency has been achieved.

    • Distributions

      • Reviews

        • Not-a-Linux distro review: SerenityOS is a Unix-y love letter to the ‘90s
          Today, I test-drove an in-development operating system project that seems almost disturbingly tailored to me specifically: SerenityOS. I cannot possibly introduce SerenityOS more accurately than its own website does...

          Every word of this introduction is almost surgically accurate. To someone in SerenityOS's target demographic—someone like myself (and likely many Arsians), who grew up with NT4 systems but matured on modern Linux and BSD—SerenityOS hits like a love letter from the ex you never quite forgot.

        • Manjaro 21.1 Pahvo Released With GNOME 40, Plasma 5.22 and Xfce 4.16 - It's FOSS News

          Manjaro 21.1 “Pahvo” is now available. This release brings many major improvements, especially in terms of desktop environments and the installation process.

          Although the version number suggests a small upgrade, that can’t be anything further from the truth, especially if you use GNOME or KDE.

          [...]

          As you may remember, many community members disliked the looks of GNOME 40, causing them to stick with older versions such as GNOME 3.38. Fortunately, it appears that the Manjaro team has come up with a solution for those disgruntled by the changes.

          This comes in the form of Manjaro Legacy Layout, which aims to modify GNOME to look similar to the GNOME 3.x series. In my experience with Manjaro 21.1, it does this quite convincingly, although the new theme does give it away slightly.

      • New Releases

        • Zorin OS 16 Released! New Modern Beginner Friendly Linux based on Ubuntu 20.04
          Zorin OS 16 was officially released! Features Ubuntu 20.04 LTS package base, Kernel 5.11, and modified Gnome Desktop 3.36.

          Zorin OS is an open-source Linux distribution for personal computers. It provides an user friendly desktop appearance based on Gnome. With built-in utility, it allows to single click changing UI layout to original Gnome, classic or modern Windows style.

          A lightweight version is also available for old computers based on XFCE desktop environment. And it features “Zorin Connect”, GSConnect / KDE Connect similar implementation to link your Android phone and computer together.

        • Manjaro 21.1.0 Pahvo Released, Brings GNOME 40 to the Scene

          Manjaro just dropped the latest version of its beginner-friendly Arch-based distro – Manjaro 21.1.0 Pahvo. Let’s see what’s new.

          Over the years, Manjaro has attracted many users by delivering an easy-to-use, intuitive user experience that’s backed by the power of Arch Linux. It features a rolling release model that means you can apply updates and upgrades without reinstalling the operating system.

          Now, with their latest Pahvo update, the distro just got even more user-friendly and perfect for everyday use.

        • IPFire Linux Firewall Distro Is Now Powered by the Long-Term Supported Linux 5.10 Kernel

          The biggest change in the IPFire 2.27 Core Update 159 release is a new major kernel update as the firewall/router distribution is now powered by the long-term supported Linux 5.10 LTS series, which will receive updates for five years, until December 2026.

          As expected, the new kernel version brings better hardware support with its many new and updated drivers, especially network drivers, increased networking throughput through zero-copy TCP receive and UDP and Bottleneck Bandwidth and RTT congestion control (BBR) for decreased latency of the firewall in the network when forwarding packets.

        • IPFire 2.27 - Core Update 159 released [New Kernel Inside]

          This is the official release announcement for the next major release of IPFire: IPFire 2.27 - Core Update 159. It comes with a brand new kernel based on Linux 5.10 and an updated toolchain as well as general bug fixes and a large number of improvements.

          Before we talk about what is new, I would like to ask you for your support for our project. IPFire is a small team of people from a range of backgrounds sharing one goal: make the Internet a safer place for everyone. Like many of our open source friends, we’ve taken a hit this year and would like to ask for your continued support.

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

        • Zorin OS 16 - The BEST DISTRO to move to LINUX? - Invidious

          Zorin OS 16 was just released a few days ago. This distro gets a ton of praise from beginners and windows switchers, and this new release, in my opinion, cements its place as the go-to recommendation for new Linux users. Let's see what's new and if Zorin can earn a nice "Linux beginner" seal of approval.

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • S.u.S.E., Opensuse and me

          Recently connect.opensuse.org, the openSUSE member directory and social site was shut down. You can read more about the reasons on openSUSE News. I also had my profile on the site, listing many of the things I worked on during the past two and a half decades. Reading it was quite a trip down the memory lane. It also reminded me, how the name changed over the years. Did you know that SUSE was originally an acronym for Software- und System-Entwicklung? This is why the original name is S.u.S.E.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Looking back on 30 years of Linux history with Red Hat's Richard Jones [Ed: A look back at 38 (thirty eight) years of GNU/Linux; one has to appreciate how IBM has managed to delete GNU from history while still mentioning MINIX and it refers to "Open Source", which did not even exist as a term in 1991, simply because it hates the F word, freedom]

          The Linux kernel and the second version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2) turned 30 this year. As part of that major milestone we asked Red Hatters who have been using or contributing to Linux since the early days about their experiences. What was it like contributing to Linux, what was it like using it? Could you imagine that Linux would have the impact it's had on the world up until now?

          Today we’re talking to Richard Jones who has been using Linux since the early 1990s, joining Red Hat in 2007. Richard is now a Senior Principal Software Engineer in Red Hat’s R&D Platform team.

        • How to accelerate Artificial Intelligence (AI): 9 tips | The Enterprisers Project

          Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved from “when will we do it?” to “how will we speed it up?” in many organizations.

          AI passed some important tests during the pandemic, says David Tareen, director of AI and analytics at SAS. “The pandemic put AI and chatbots in place to answer a flood of pandemic-related questions. Computer vision supported social distancing efforts. Machine learning models have become indispensable for modeling the effects of the reopening process.”

          "If there's one reason IT leaders should accelerate the broader adoption of AI, it's the ability to uncover opportunities." But the future upside of AI is still considerable. “Artificial intelligence is designed to reveal what you can’t see due to the sheer volume of data that is available,” says Josh Perkins, field CTO at digital platform company AHEAD. “If there’s one reason IT leaders should accelerate the broader adoption of AI, it’s the ability to uncover opportunities that generate real business value through insights and efficiencies where perhaps there were none.”

          That puts pressure on IT teams to deliver and work harder to overcome the challenges that exist in scaling the implementation and adoption of AI in the enterprise.

        • IT careers: 3 habits of continuous learners | The Enterprisers Project

          Increasingly, knowledge is the new currency in the IT industry. Given the rapid pace of change, knowledge management has become crucial for professionals to stay competitive and succeed. IT professionals who invest time in continuous learning (and leaders who facilitate this) will not only keep their skillset relevant, but also gain confidence in their own capabilities to embrace change.

          Continuous learners can leverage their knowledge of new trends, tools, coding languages, etc. to boost their professional growth. Both IT professionals and leaders must cultivate continuous learning habits for their teams to stay on top of the latest information.

        • Two keys to adopting AI/ML: Data excellence and collaboration

          Machine learning has many applications and benefits for a variety of businesses. However, it’s complicated and requires collaboration to bring you value. In this post, we'll talk about how Red Hat can assist you in being successful with artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), no matter what phase of your journey you’re in.

        • New features in JBoss Tools 4.19.1 and Red Hat CodeReady Studio 12.19.1 for Eclipse (2021-03) | Red Hat Developer

          JBoss Tools 4.19.1 and Red Hat CodeReady Studio 12.19.1 for Eclipse (2021-03) are now available. In this release, we focused on improving tooling for the Quarkus framework, adding improvements for container-based development, and bug fixing. This article highlights just a few of these enhancements.

      • Debian Family

        • Debian 11 Performance Uplift Is Looking Great For Intel Xeon, AMD EPYC

          This past weekend marked the release of Debian 11 "Bullseye" as the newest version of this major Linux distribution that is also the basis for many others. Given the popularity of Debian stable on servers, our first round of Debian 11.0 benchmarking is looking at the performance relative to Debian 10.10 on latest-generation Intel Xeon "Ice Lake" and AMD EPYC "Milan" hardware.

          As Debian 11 incorporates the latest upstream software releases over the past two years, it should be little surprise but it makes for often sizable performance uplift when migrating to new releases, especially if you are running newer hardware.

        • Debian 11 Bullseye Released – Download DVD ISO Images

          The Debian Linux operating system distribution is in the limelight for another significant stride. As of August 14th, 2021, it has successfully transitioned from Debian 10 Buster to the new and improved Debian 11 Bullseye. It is a stable version that accommodates various desktop applications and environments.

        • Debian vs Ubuntu: What’s the Difference? Which One Should You Use?

          You can use apt-get commands for managing applications in both Debian and Ubuntu. You can install DEB packages in both distributions as well. Many times, you’ll find common package installation instructions for both distributions.

          So, what’s the difference between the two, if they are so similar?

          Debian and Ubuntu belong to the same side of the distribution spectrum. Debian is the original distribution created by Ian Murdock in 1993. Ubuntu was created in 2004 by Mark Shuttleworth and it is based on Debian.

          Ubuntu is based on Debian: What does it mean?

          While there are hundreds of Linux distributions, only a handful of them are independent ones, created from scratch. Debian, Arch, Red Hat are some of the biggest distributions that do not derive from any other distribution.

          Ubuntu is derived from Debian. It means that Ubuntu uses the same APT packaging system as Debian and shares a huge number of packages and libraries from Debian repositories. It utilizes the Debian infrastructure as base.

        • Debian-noroot works great on new Alldocube 7-inch tablet

          Having a native Android X server is more efficient than going through a VNC connection, so I explored this some more...

          Sergii, the guy who developed Xserver XSDL, has also created a complete Debian Buster XFCE desktop, bundled with Xserver XSDL, as an Android APK package. It is simply a matter of install, tap the "debian" icon, and the Debian desktop is up and running.

          I thought that as Sergii has modified this Debian specifically to run on his Xserver XSDL, that it should be stable, and yes, it is. Used it for about an hour yesterday, no freeze, no crash. Again today, still stable.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • New Ubuntu Linux Kernel Security Patches Fix Up to Seven Vulnerabilities, Update Now

          The new Ubuntu Linux kernel security update is available for the Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo), Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa), and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system series, and addresses three security issues related to the Bluetooth subsystem and NFC implementation and affecting all three releases.

          These are CVE-2021-3564 and CVE-2021-3573, two flaws discovered in Linux kernel’s Bluetooth subsystem that could lead to a double-free vulnerability or a use-after-free vulnerability, respectively, allowing an attacker to cause a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code.

        • Travel Technology: Desktop-As-A-Service with Shells.com [Ed: Why would anyone want this? Controlled by the family of the man who killed Freenode]
        • Design and Web team summary – 13 August 2021

          Hey! My name is João and I’m a Senior Web Engineer on the Web Team.

          Since I’ve joined Canonical about 3 years ago I’ve had the opportunity of contributing to a lot of different projects. Those include, maintaining our websites, working with other teams across the company to build dashboards that ship as part of our products, improving continuous integration pipelines and creating tools to improve development and QA experience on the team’s projects.

          When I’m not doing any of the above, I would ideally be found traveling, trying out food, playing some tennis/padel or binge watching sports.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • Hacks.Mozilla.Org: Spring cleaning MDN: Part 2 [Ed: Mozilla has become somewhat of a laughing stock by outsourcing to Microsoft's proprietary software monopoly with surveillance; "It actually started before we moved MDN content to GitHub." What an awful shot in one's own foot. Mozilla is killing itself, bleeding itself to death.]

            Last month we removed a bunch of content from MDN. MDN is 16 years old (and yes it can drink in some countries), all that time ago it was a great place for all of Mozilla to document all of their things. As MDN evolved and the web reference became our core content, other areas became less relevant to the overall site. We have ~11k active pages on MDN, so keeping them up to date is a big task and we feel our focus should be there.

      • Programming/Development

        • Git 2.33 released with new optional merge process likely to become the default: It's 'over 9,000' times faster

          Git 2.33 has been released, including a new optional merge process called merge-ort, which the team hopes will become the default in the next version.

          Git releases are relatively frequent. Git 2.31 was released in March and Git 2.32 in June. According to the release announcement, version 2.33 "does not have many end-user facing changes and new features" aside from fixes and internal improvements – but there is one major change, described as a "new merge strategy backend."

          The strategy in question is merge-ort, where ort stands for "Ostensibly Recursive's Twin," according to its creator Elijah Newren.

          A merge strategy is the mechanism used to combine code from multiple versions of the same codebase. Merging is a critical feature of distributed version control systems since it avoids the need for locking a main version when a checked-out copy is being edited. Merge mechanisms work by comparing the contents of a file with the contents of its ancestor, to identify changed sections, and then comparing the changed sections of one file with those of another.

        • John Goerzen: Distributed, Asynchronous Git Syncing with NNCP

          I have a directory that I use with org-mode and org-roam. I want it to be synced across multiple machines. I also want to keep the history with git. And, I want to use end-to-end encryption (no storing a plain git repo on a remote server), have a serverless setup, not require any two machines to be up simultaneously, and be resilient in the face of races and conflicts.

        • Top 10 Best Programming Languages to Learn in 2021 (Most In-Demand)

          Unlock your career opportunities to learn most in-demand Programming languages. In this article we have discuss top 10 best Programming languages to learn in 2021. Traditional programming languages become outdated over time, whereas the latest programming languages are introduced but never acquire momentum.

        • Perl/Raku

          • Making Taint support optional in Perl

            One of the changes to Perl that we're considering on p5p (the perl5-porters mailing list) is the removal of taint support. The first step towards that is to add a Configure option that lets you build a Perl without taint support.

            In this post I'll explain what we're considering, and why. The purpose of this post is to let everyone beyond p5p know about this, and give you a chance to comment.

          • A dream realized

            Have you heard that they are finally putting together a proposal to add a clean modern OO system into the core of Perl?

            If you haven’t, I strongly encourage you to look over the RFC for Corrina, or at least watch Ovid’s excellent presentation on the project.

            It’s reassuring that the list of contributors to the proposed design includes some of the most highly respected names in the Perl community, many of whom have previously taken one (or more!) tilts at this particular object-oriented windmill.

            Indeed, over the past two decades I too have repeatedly attempted to design and prototype richer and more robust OO systems for Perl, starting way back in the previous millennium with a brief stint as the maintainer of Class::Struct, and continuing on though the release of modules such as Class::Std, Class::Delegation, and most recently: Dios.

        • Python

          • Python Iterators And Generators

            In this notebook, we would explore the difference between iterators and generators, how to use them and also the best use cases for each of them.

          • How to Graph in Python

            This article was contributed by Juni Learning, a learning platform for students ages 7-18 that offers 1:1 classes in computer science, math, and English. The article originally appeared on the Juni Learning website and is reposted here with permission.

            Hi, my name is Ritika and I’m a senior instructor at Juni Learning! Welcome to this basic Python data science tutorial.

            Today we’ll talk about how we can gather data and graph it in Python. Specifically, today we'll be working with survey data that we get beforehand from friends or family by asking what their favorite food is.

            We’ll learn how to create bar graphs specifically using dataframes and the Seaborn package.

        • Java

          • Build a JAR file with fastjar and gjar | Opensource.com

            One of the many advantages of Java, in my experience, is its ability to deliver applications in a neat and tidy package (called a JAR, or Java archive.) JAR files make it easy for users to download and launch an application they want to try, easy to transfer that application from one computer to another (and Java is cross-platform, so sharing liberally can be encouraged), and easy to understand for new programmers to look inside a JAR to find out what makes a Java app run.

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

    • Monopolies

      • China seeks greater control over its own 'Big Tech'
      • American Federation of Teachers Sells Out to Rockefellers, Trilateralists, and Big Tech

        On May 1st, 2021, Americans for Public Trust leaked email correspondences between the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, these emails revealed how the bureaucracy of this teachers’ union was lobbying the CDC to roll back its school reopening guidelines.

        Pumping the brakes on the return to in-person learning, the AFT emails successfully petitioned the CDC to add “language” recommending that schools continue to provide “telework” and “virtual teaching opportunities” as alternatives to face-to-face education. The AFT also requested that the Center for Disease Control add a coronavirus “variant closing metric” that would renege on the CDC’s greenlight for in-person instruction “at any level of community [COVID] transmission.” By prioritizing “telework” and “virtual teaching,” while seeking to reinstate COVID lockdown measures in the event of new coronavirus variants, the lobbying efforts of the AFT basically pressured the CDC into relegating schools to prolonged virtual “distance learning” that is outsourced to private ed-tech corporations.

      • Patents

        • Anixa Biosciences Announces Issuance of U.S. Patent for Ovarian Cancer Vaccine Technology

          Anixa Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANIX), a biotechnology company focused on the treatment and prevention of cancer and infectious diseases, announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued the first U.S. patent for its novel ovarian cancer vaccine technology. This technology was invented and developed at Cleveland Clinic and Anixa is the worldwide licensee. A European patent covering this technology was issued earlier this year.

          The patent is titled, "Ovarian Cancer Vaccines," and the inventors are Drs. Vincent K. Tuohy, Suparna Mazumder, and Justin M. Johnson, all of Cleveland Clinic.

          [...]

          Dr. Amit Kumar, President and CEO of Anixa Biosciences, said, "We are pleased that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued this patent. This technology is now patented in Europe and the U.S., and we continue to prosecute the intellectual property in other jurisdictions."

        • Assessing the licensing environment of SEPs in Japan [Ed: Notice how Managing 'IP' is nowadays receiving money to just 'plant' a bunch of 'plugs' from litigation firms; it's not journalism but marketing and the concessional 'propaganda mill' mode, including the deliberate lies for EPO, Team UPC etc.]
        • Romania: Patents Comparative Guide [Ed: "Decisions of the Examination Board can be challenged," sure, but they're then referred to a rigged and utterly corrupted tribunal controlled by criminals]

          The patent application can be submitted to the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (SOIT) for national patents or to the European Patent Office (EPO) for European patents designating Romania as one of the member states for which protection is sought.

          [...]

          Decisions of the Examination Board can be challenged before the Patent Office Board of Appeals within three months of communication. Decisions of the Board of Appeals can be challenged at the Bucharest Tribunal within 30 days of communication. Decisions of the Bucharest Tribunal can be appealed to the Bucharest Court of Appeals within 30 days of communication.

        • EPO’s highest legal authority to decide if post-published data can support inventive step [Ed: This totally neglects to say that the Enlarged Board of Appeal is provably rigged, corrupted by EPO management. The litigation cartel hopes to cover this whole thing up. Now that the media is being bribed and intimidated by EPO lawyers there are parallels to be drawn between serial high-profile sexual predators and how they kept the media from reporting their crimes for years or decades, enabling further abuse of new victims.]

          The European Patent Office’s (EPO) highest legal authority, the Enlarged Board of Appeal, is about to be referred questions from the Board of Appeal (BoA) on whether data produced after the filing date of a patent application (post-published data) can be used as the sole basis to support the inventive step of a claim.

          Essentially, can the patentee utilise post-published data to support the plausibility that the technical problem has been solved over the full scope of the claim.

          The patent in question, EP2484209, has been granted and concerns insecticide compositions with the opposition raised by agrochemical giant Syngenta.

          [...]

          According to established jurisprudence from the BoA, assessment of inventive step is made on the effective date of the patent using the information in the patent and common general knowledge available to a skilled person (see e.g. decisions T 609/02, T 1329/04, T 1545/08). Moreover, there can only be an invention if the application makes it at least plausible that its teaching solves the problem it purports to solve.

          The instant Board of Appeal arrived at the preliminary view that previous BoA decisions diverge on the criteria that should be applied in determining whether or not post-published data can be taken into consideration when assessing inventive step before the EPO, and in particular whether such data are admissible in opposition proceedings.

          A previous ruling from 2005 stated that the technical effect underlying the inventive step must be plausible from the patent application as filed if the effect was not considered plausible; post-published data could not be relied upon as the sole basis for the inventive step (T1329/04). In other words, the BoA considered it a precondition for taking into account post-published data that it was already plausible at the filing date that the claimed technical effect was obtained (the ab-initio plausibility criterion).

        • Unified Patent Court will start operating within a year [Ed: Kluwer Patent Blog has just published a lie as a headline. Team UPC has gone truly insane. COVID has entered the heads of Team UPC. Lies are fine. Lie to everyone. Don't worry. They think it's their last chance to pull something off. It is bad enough that many people perceive lawyers as opportunistic liars. In the case of UPC, patent lawyers present themselves as people who publish "fake news" and violate constitutions. It's probably best to refrain from linking to "fake news" from Team UPC, including totally false reports (by law firms) that UPC was ratified. This is far from the first time they intentionally say falsehoods for personal gain.]

          The Unified Patent Court will open its doors for cases around mid-2022.

          That is the expectation of the UPC Preparatory Committee, which has published a time plan for the Provisional Application Period (PAP) and start of the UPC today. According to the plan, the PAP will have to be approximately eight months “to conclude all the work that needs to be done”.

        • Asia divergence on consent letters requires adaptive strategies [Ed: These so-called 'co-existence arrangements' are just another worthless job for lawyers; they create conflicts and feuds, then try to work out settlements and "co-existence arrangements"]

          Counsel discuss the impact of disparities in IP office practice on written consent and other considerations for co-existence arrangements

        • “An Australian patent is a start. But Dabus needs the EPO to succeed” [Ed: The patent system never before looked so ludicrous and self-discrediting; stenographer and liar Amy Sandys (puff piece composer of the patent litigation cartel) looks for ways to still defend the lunacy]

          When Stephen Thaler filed the first applications designating an AI system, known as Dabus, as the inventor of two patents, it set off a chain of activity in global patent offices. The invention simulates independent thinking and creativity, which according to the inventor it can apply to the creation of inventions.

          Last month, the UK Court of Appeal examined whether the AI system owner Stephen Thaler is entitled to the grant of the patents based on Dabus not being a ‘natural person’. Now, after years of struggle, a breakthrough has emerged elsewhere in the world.

          South Africa’s patent office determined that an AI system can be named as an inventor on a patent application. This was the first time a patent office has handed down such a decision. In some corners, the AI-oriented patent attorney community reacted with excitement. Then the Federal Court of Australia delivered a similar verdict.

          The decisions, and especially Australia’s recognition of Dabus, lend credence to the development of a globally-patentable AI system. But Dabus requires the capitulation of other, stronger, patent courts to have a fighting chance of lasting global recognition.

      • Trademarks

        • Gazprom Neft: meet the team with lofty trademark ambitions [Ed: What on Earth is this? Obligatory paid-for puff pieces, which Ed Conlon and Max Walters are forced to write for income? Ads as 'articles'? No wonder writers have been leaving this propaganda mill in droves.]

          The counsel at one of Russia’s leading oil producers have already notched up some trademark successes – and have plans to do much more



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