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Links 9/9/2021: LibreOffice 7.2 Manuals and Rust 1.55.0



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Massimo Pascale and his Lemur Pro Explore Dark Matter Substructure with the Sunburst Arc

        Unleash Your Potential Program winner Massimo Pascale is a graduate student studying astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. Using his Lemur Pro, he’s studying early galaxies and dark matter in the sunburst arc, a distant galaxy magnified through a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Read the whole interview for more details on the project and his experience with the Lemur Pro!

        [...]

        Yeah exactly. I see a lot of parallels between System76 and the open source community as a whole, and how we operate here in astronomy and the rest of the sciences as well.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • YouTube temporarily DELETED my channel, here's what happened! - Invidious
      • Ubuntu Podcast to End After 14 Years

        Since 2008 (back when it was known as the Ubuntu UK Podcast), the show has provided Ubuntu fans with topical discussions on news and events relating to both Ubuntu and the wider Linux community.

        ”We have decided after 14 triumphant years to hang up our microphones and call it a day,” Ubuntu Podcast host Mark Johnson says in the latest episode.

        Why is the Ubuntu podcast ending?

        Johnson explains: “Between us we’ve been doing this for […] longer than some marriages. We’ve all changed jobs in that time. We all had big personal changes in our circumstances in that time – especially over the past 2 years. All of that has made continuing the podcast […] a bit of a challenge.”

      • Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S14E27 – Drip With Nods

        This week we’ve been buying technology from Russia and playing OpenSpades. We announce that the Ubuntu Podcast is ending and round up our favourite stories from the tech news.

        It’s Season 14 Episode 27 of the Ubuntu Podcast! Alan Pope, Mark Johnson and Martin Wimpress are connected and speaking to your brain.

    • Kernel Space

      • AMD shows off their new CPU frequency control mechanism for Linux

        Currently limited to Zen 3, AMD has revealed their work on a brand new CPU frequency control mechanism "amd-pstate".

        What's this for then? Well, it was previously announced that AMD along with Valve were working on it with a talk that was presented during the X.Org Developers Conference 2021. Seems this is it and they're ready to properly introduce it.

      • AMD Finally Releases Overdue Linux CPPC Drive

        This is much better than the current generic CPUFreq driver built into Linux, which, as the name states, is generic and isn't fully optimized for AMD processors.

        Phoronix notes that it's taken AMD two full years to finally release this new CPPC driver for Linux. Originally AMD worked on this driver for Zen 2 processors back in 2019, but the company said it didn't have enough resources to finish the driver during that time.

        AMD completed the driver right after Steam announced the Steam Deck with its custom Zen 2 APU and Linux-based Steam OS. AMD made custom adjustments to accommodate thread-targeting specifically for that device, but now it appears that the optimizations have been spread out to all Zen 3 processors in Linux environments.

      • Linux 5.15 Adds VDUSE For vDPA Devices In User-Space - Phoronix

        Akin to FUSE for file-systems in user-space, VDUSE is set to be merged for Linux 5.15 in adding support for vDPA devices in user-space.

        The vDPA framework is the VirtIO Data Path Acceleration code within the kernel for devices complying with the VirtIO specification but relying on a vendor-specific control path. The vDPA framework is increasingly used for abstracting hardware and concealing some elements of the hardware complexities to software while having a unified user-space API as a VirtIO device.

      • If we have a HDD in Linux, is it necessary to defragment? - itsfoss.net

        Users who are used to using Windows as an operating system are probably familiar with the terms fragment and defragment, as it is a utility widely used in the Microsoft operating system to improve its performance when using mechanical hard drives. That is why if we decide to switch to a Linux-based operating system, we may wonder whether we should also defragment our HDD to improve its performance over time.

        This is something that can attract our attention because when we install Linux distros we will surely not find tools to defragment, although they do exist. This may indicate that we will not need much. We always speak from the perspective of a mechanical hard drive since SSD disks do not require defragmentation regardless of the operating system we use.

      • SLUB Adapted To Be Real-Time Linux Compatible (PREEMPT_RT) - Phoronix

        One of the nice low-level improvements we've seen with Linux 5.15 is a number of pieces falling into place in the quest of upstreaming the real-time (RT) patches for Linux. The latest merge makes SLUB RT-compatible.

        The big RT addition for Linux 5.15 was the PREEMPT_RT locking code being merged and that representing a bulk of the previously outstanding real-time patches needing to be upstreamed. That is a big milestone albeit not across the finish line yet and more of the kernel code continues to be adapted to make it compatible with RT configurations.

      • Compromise reached as Linux kernel community protests about treating compiler warnings as errors [Ed: Microsoft Tim]

        Pushback from the Linux kernel community over defaulting to -Werror (make all warnings into errors) for compiling has resulted in a compromise where this default only applies to test builds.

        Linux creator and maintainer Linus Torvalds amended the Makefile used to compile the kernel so that -Werror was the default, saying: "We really should always have a clean build." The code was merged into what will be version 5.15 of the kernel.

      • Graphics Stack

        • X.Org Server Adds "AsyncFlipSecondaries" To Deal With Crappy Multi-Monitor Experience

          At the moment when running the X.Org Server in a multi-monitor configuration with displays of different refresh rates, it can lead to a poor experience with a variety of visual deficiencies when running an unredirected full-screen window with page-flipping for DRI3/Present. There is now a change that was merged into the X.Org Server with a new "AsyncFlipSecondaries" to improve that experience when running multiple displays of varying refresh rates.

    • Applications

      • What is Calamares graphical installer?

        Calamares is an installation tool for GNU / Linux distributions. It strives to be lightweight, user-friendly, beautiful, pragmatic, dissimilar, and distro-independent. Flexible in settings, simple and user-friendly OS installer that does not relate to any one command. This is a vivid example of the philosophy of the GNU project, when developers from different teams jointly created one product. It is now used in dozens of distributions and a few others who are close to it.

        Calamares is maintained by the Calamares team. Most are also KDE developers, with contributions from BBQLinux, Fedora, KaOS, Kubuntu, Manjaro, Maui, Netrunner, and OpenMandriva.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How To Install Icinga on AlmaLinux 8 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Icinga on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Icinga 2 is an open-source tool used for the monitoring of network resources, manage alerts and provide you assistance in order to monitor your network.

        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 Icinga monitoring on AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

      • How To Install Snap Package Manager in Linux Distributions

        If you’re a newbie on Linux, there is a chance that you have faced dependency and repository issues while installing a package on your system. Finding one convenient method to install a package on every major Linux distribution was hard without facing any issues. In the beginning, Canonical started building Snap for only Ubuntu. Later, Snap Package Manager was used widely on other Linux distributions too. You can get compiled versions of applications through Snaps. This provides both CLI and pre-compiled packages for Linux.

      • Live-patching QEMU with QEMUCare - Invidious

        Rebooting is a pain, and in some organizations, downright tedious. Shuffling virtual machines between hosts in a cluster is even more tedious, and when it's time to install patches, that's what many administrators are forced to do. In this video, I check out QEMUCare, which aims to live-patch QEMU to avoid VM shuffling. In particular, we'll look at installing ePortal (which deploys the patches) and also an example scenario.

      • How To Install Webmin on AlmaLinux 8 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Webmin on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Webmin is a free and open-source control panel for administering Unix/Linux servers that is very similar to cPanel and provides an easy way to manage Linux systems through a web browser. Webmin web interface is used to set up user and disk management, Apache, DNS, PHP, MySQL, check CPU usage, system info, network config, and more.

        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 Webmin control panel for system administration on AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for Rocky Linux.

      • Ping Command Tutorial on Ubuntu

        If you are a frequent Linux terminal user then you must be well informed about the Ping command. Ping is one of the most used network diagnostic tools for determining whether or not a network is accessible or reachable and ping can be used to check the status of a server.

        We may also get the time duration for transmitting and receiving answers from a network using the Linux ping program. Ping sends a sequence of Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets to the host and then waits for an ICMP response message from the host. This gives us information about the network’s operation.

      • How to install Memcached on Ubuntu

        Memcached is an object caching system that helps to get a good response rate while getting data from web applications. It can be used with a long range of programming languages and protocols such as Python, Java, PHP, JS, Ruby, TCP, and UDP protocols. With the help of Memcached, database load can be reduced and increase the response of dynamic web applications, and it stores key-value pairs in memory. We quote here an example in simpler words to let you understand the usage of Memcached: let’s say we have a PHP-based application and a SQL Database, here we will fetch the data from DB and store it in Memcached to speed up the webpages. It stores key-value pairs in memory. Databases store data on your physical storage drive while Memcached stores data on the servers, thus nullifying the use of physical storage devices that resultantly increase the speed.

      • How to deploy FileRun, an on-premise alternative to Google Drive - TechRepublic

        Google Drive is the de-facto standard for so many people and even small businesses. But if you have either an on-premise data center (or just a spare Linux server on your LAN) or even a cloud-hosted service, and you'd like to have an alternative for certain documents and files, why not make use of FileRun?

        FileRun is a Nextcloud compatible platform you can deploy as a localized Google Drive/Photos/Music. It's extendable, safe, brandable and secure. With FileRun, you can share and sync files, access via WebDAV and even connect to it with the Nextcloud mobile app.

      • introducing witchery: tools for building distroless images with alpine – Ariadne's Space

        As I noted in my last blog, I have been working on a set of tools which enable the building of so-called “distroless” images based on Alpine. These tools have now evolved to a point where they are usable for testing in lab environments, thus I am happy to announce the witchery project.

        For the uninitiated, a “distroless” image is one which contains only the application and its dependencies. This has some desirable qualities: since the image is only the application and its immediate dependencies, there is less attack surface to worry about. For example, a simple hello-world application built with witchery clocks in at 619kB, while that same hello-world application deployed on alpine:3.14 clocks in at 5.6MB. There are also drawbacks: a distroless image typically does not include a package manager, so there is generally no ability to add new packages to a distroless image.

        As for why it’s called witchery: we are using Alpine’s package manager in new ways to perform truly deep magic. The basic idea behind witchery is that you use it to stuff your application into an .apk file, and then use apk to install only that .apk and its dependencies into a rootfs: no alpine-base, no apk-tools, no busybox (though witchery allows you to install those things if you want them).

      • Install MongoDB on Ubuntu

        MongoDB is a freely accessible database. A database contains the gathered information at one place so it is easy to access, utilize and manage the stored data. Now if we go ahead, there are different types of databases for example a centralized database, cloud database, NoSQL database etc. all the databases are classified on the basis of properties. Instead of discussing all types we will have a short introduction of NoSQL databases because MongoDB belongs to it. NoSQL database means it can manage the data differently from the other conventional databases such as MySQL. MongoDB is a non-relational database, which can be used more conveniently. There are not a set of rules unlike other databases that you have to follow. You can manage data on a tabular form and can alter it at any time on the rules set by the user itself.

      • How To Use Shell Environment Variables - Invidious

        In this video, I am going to give a cursory introduction to shell environment variables, which come in two forms: global variables and local variables. I also discuss some of the global variables that I often use, including the PATH variable and how to add to the PATH.

      • A background painting tip that saved me tons of time. - David Revoy

        Managing the amount of details was always a difficult topic for me; especially when it comes to manage them in my backgrounds. I naturally tends to spend too much time on them, polishing corner after corner of my artworks. But over the time I found a way out of necessity and guessing; a couple of rules that allows me to details only 30% while painting almost flat the other part.

      • GNU Linux how to update BIOS Firmware of Lenovo t440 without Windows :) how to fix stuck permanent function (Fn) key
      • LibreOffice Getting Started Guide 7.2 published

        The latest user guide from the LibreOffice documentation team is Getting Started with LibreOffice 7.2, available in free PDF, ODT, or to read in a browser. Visit the Documentation page on the LibreOffice website for links.

      • Add repository to Install MySQL 5.7 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Linux

        Using the default system repository you will have MySQL 8.0 Server to install, however, if you want to install MySQL 5.7 Database server on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) Linux. Then we need to install this Database’s official repository manually.

        Oracle MySQL is a popular database server used by thousands of server programs around the globe. It is free and open-source, hence anyone can deploy it without paying anything.

    • Games

      • Explore a strange and ancient world in the survival-platformer Residual out now | GamingOnLinux

        Residual from developer OrangePixel and publisher Apogee Entertainment is a "new breed" of survival platformer. It's out today with full Linux support.

        "In a forgotten galaxy full of strange planets, a lone explorer crash-lands on one with an ancient alien secret. Venture forth from the shipwreck across a harsh, unpredictable, procedurally generated world. Harvest food and make campfires to stay alive. Craft science-fiction survival tools like teleporters and mining devices. Unearth alien technology capable of repairing the ship. Hunger, cosmic storms, hostile plant life and the mysterious ooze are among the many obstacles you'll face."

      • Low-Spec 1080p Gaming ROCKS with AMD FSR! #Battlefield - Invidious

        AMD FSR + Proton-GE is a winning combination for Linux gamers without a dedicated GPU. Here's DICE's Battlefield 5 running on just a Ryzen 7 4800H with AMD FSR Off/On.

      • Epic Games Store to Linux Grow Faster - itsfoss.net

        We are going to talk about some news that will surely arouse interest, at least in the form of curiosities. In fact, we are going to talk about platforms and systems as important as Epic Games Store , for game lovers, or Ubuntu, for open source operating systems. In addition, we are going to tell you how you can get a free game right now.

        Surely all those who make regular use of the PC platform to play, when talking about the Epic Games Store, no presentation is needed. It is one of the most important stores in this sense, and it also offers us an application full of functions and features .

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • Tobias Bernard: Software 41: Context Tiles

          GNOME 41 is going to be released in a few weeks, and as you may have heard it will come with a major refresh to Software’s interface.

          Our goals for this initiative included making it a more appealing place to discover and install new apps, exposing app information more clearly, and making it more reliable overall. We’ve made big strides in all these areas, and I think you’ll be impressed how much nicer the app feels in 41.

    • Distributions

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • Accessing SUSE Updates in AWS. When do you need a private repository?

          Patching is an important part of managing any OS infrastructure with updates providing security related enhancements along with stability improvements. SUSE recommend patching your systems as soon as updates are available. So where, and how can SUSE instances on the AWS Cloud consume patches?

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • CentOS clone Rocky Linux gets technical support

          When Red Hat, CentOS's Linux parent company, announced it was "shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release," many CentOS users were miserable. In response, developers started two major CentOS forks: AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux. AlmaLinux already has support from its sponsoring company CloudLinux and now Rocky Linux does too from its parent business CIQ.

        • CIQ Supports Rocky Linux Users with Enterprise-Grade Services

          CIQ, principal founding partner for Rocky Linux and the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, is now officially offering support services and value adds for Rocky Linux users. Started by legendary CentOS and Rocky Linux founder, Gregory Kurtzer, CIQ is intended as a one-stop resource, delivering enterprise support and services for businesses and organizations at every level. From creation, integration, complex network questions, and onboarding issues, CIQ features the core experts of Rocky Linux to help a wide variety of clients from SMBs, universities, tech giants, laboratories, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, supercomputing, and government

        • I’m looking for YOUR stories from Fedora history

          Hey everyone! In a couple of weeks, I’m going to be giving a talk at Open Source Summit called “35 Fedora Releases in 30 minutes“.

          This is basically going to be a whirlwind tour of our history. I was there for a lot of it, but not all, and certainly not from all perspectives. In preparation, I’d like to get more of your input. If you’re interested in sharing what you remember about Fedora Core 3 (Heidelberg), or Fedora Linux 8 (Werewolf!), or even F23 or F27 or whatever, or anywhere in between, I’d love to hear from you.

        • Applying DevSecOps practices to Kubernetes: software supply chain

          We’ve discussed ways for you to build a DevSecOps culture and start introducing DevSecOps practices to your development workflows. This post expands on this topic and explores how you could apply the core practices of DevSecOps for your Kubernetes environments.

        • Now Available: Multi Target Replication on SAP HANA for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      • Debian Family

        • Bits from Debian: DebConf21 online closes

          On Saturday 28 August 2021, the annual Debian Developers and Contributors Conference came to a close.

          DebConf21 has been held online for the second time, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease pandemic.

          All of the sessions have been streamed, with a variety of ways of participating: via IRC messaging, online collaborative text documents, and video conferencing meeting rooms.

          With 740 registered attendees from more than 15 different countries and a total of over 70 event talks, discussion sessions, Birds of a Feather (BoF) gatherings and other activities, DebConf21 was a large success.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Evolution of Open-source EPC — A Revolution in the Telecom Industry

          Open-source projects gravitate to some common problems in the industry. The use of open-source projects accelerates product/solution development and cuts down the costs. Open-source projects for embedded systems to the cloud are commonplace.

          Until a few years ago, telecom technologies had not leveraged the power of the open-source. This blog aims to cover the open-source movement in telecom, focused on the telecom core. We will cover the capabilities, strengths, and limitations of several open-source telecom cores. The comparisons are made based on the needs of telecom operators (MNOs and MVNOs) and enterprises who need to deploy private LTE networks.

        • Ubuntu 21.10: Release the party

          There ain’t no party like an Ubuntu release party. You might think that you are a party animal, but have you seen an Impish Indri? Some time ago, it was common for the Ubuntu LoCos (local communities) to host and run ‘release parties’, meet-ups, and get-togethers where members of the wider community come together to talk about all things Ubuntu. This idea has somewhat disappeared. But what’s stopping it from coming back?

          For Ubuntu 21.10 we’d like to encourage you to get involved in a release party again. Let’s call it a warm-up for 21.10. Because of the re-rising number of cases of COVID-19 we recommend you run a virtual meet-up, reach out to people in the community you know or have worked with before, tell them to join and invite their friends, and share the Ubuntu love.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Intel's Cloud-Hypervisor 18.0 Brings AArch64 Improvements, VHDX Disk Image Support

        The Intel-led open-source Cloud-Hypervisor project building off Linux's KVM (and also supporting Microsoft MSHV) and being cloud-focused and leveraging the Rust programming language for greater security is out with its newest major release.

        Cloud-Hypervisor 18.0 was christened today as the newest version of this open-source Rust-based VMM. While originally x86_64 focused given Intel leading the project, in recent times there has been a lot of 64-bit ARM (AArch64) work contributed by Arm and other stakeholders. With Cloud-Hypervisor 18.0 there is now AArch64 support for VirtIO-MEM, CPU topology support, and power button support. Live migration support for AArch64 should also now be working.

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • These Weeks in Firefox: Issue 99
          • Attempted compile Firefox in EasyOS

            Some applications, over the years, have become more bloated and more difficult to compile. Firefox included.

          • Did Internet Friends Fill The Gaps Left By Social Distance?

            March 2020 brought to the world a scenario we only imagined possible in dystopian novels. Once bustling cities and towns were desolate. In contrast, the highways and byways of the internet were completely congested with people grasping for human connection, and internet friends became more important than ever.

            Since then, there have been countless discussions about how people have fared with keeping in touch with others during the COVID-19 pandemic — like how families have endured while being separated by continents without the option to travel, and how once solid friendships have waxed and waned without brunches and cocktail hours.

            However, the internet has served more like a proverbial town square than ever before, with many having found themselves using online spaces to create and cultivate internet friends more over the last year and a half than ever before. As the country starts hesitantly opening, the looming question overall is, what will these online relationships look like when COVID-19 is no more?

            For Will F. Coakley, a deputy constable from Austin, Texas, the highs of her online friend groups she made on Zoom and Marco Polo have already dissipated.

      • SaaS/Back End/Databases

        • pg_dumpbinary v2.5 released

          pg_dumpbinary is a program used to dump a PostgreSQL database with data dumped in binary format. The resulting dump must be restored using pg_restorebinary that is provided with this tool.

          pg_dumpbinary 2.5 was released today, this new release adds support to data restoration in tables with altered structure.

          pg_dumpbinary will now create a file meta-schema.<tablename>.txt per table that stores the tables columns list at export time. At restore time pg_restore binary will read this file if present, or get the target columns list from the pre-data section dumped. The target list will be appended to the COPY FROM command to avoid error messages like "ERROR: row field count is 28, expected 29". This is necessary for tables from upgraded extensions with more columns or if you try to import data only into an existent table with more columns.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • LibreOffice Getting Started Guide 7.2

          The LibreOffice Documentation Team is happy to announce the LibreOffice Getting Started Guide 7.2, covering the latest innovations of the best open source office suite. The new guide is an effort of many volunteers and among them, Jean Hollis Weber, Kees Kriek, Peter Schofield, Vasudev Narayanan, Rafael Lima and Mitchell Camfield.

      • Programming/Development

        • Cro: Maintain it With Zig

          This blog post by Loris Cro makes the claim that the Zig language is the solution to a lot of low-level programming problems...

        • Maintain it With Zig

          C and C++ are kings when it comes to writing efficient software and the C ABI is the lingua franca of software interoperability, allowing C libraries to be used by almost any other language. This ubiquity, coupled with the rise of free and open source software development, has created over the course of the last 40 years a humongous collection of libraries and tools that make up what can be rightfully described as the critical infrastructure of modern software.

        • Python

          • RPi Python Library Has Retro Chiptunes And Speech Covered | Hackaday

            The classic SP0256-AL2 speech chip has featured a few times on these pages, and if you’ve not seen the actual part before, you almost certainly have heard the resulting audio output. The latest Python library from prolific retrocomputing enthusiast [Nick Bild] brings the joy of the old chip to the Raspberry Pi platform, with an added extra trick; support for the venerable AY-3-8910 sound generator as well.

            The SP0256-AL2 chip generates vaguely recognisable speech using the allophone system. Allophones are kind of like small chunks of speech audio which when reproduced sequentially, result in intelligible phonemes that form the basis of speech. The chip requires an external device to feed it the allophones at a regular rate, which is the job of his Gi-Pi library.

        • Rust

          • The Rust Programming Language Blog: Announcing Rust 1.55.0

            The Rust team is happy to announce a new version of Rust, 1.55.0. Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.

            If you have a previous version of Rust installed via rustup, getting Rust 1.55.0 is as easy as...

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Manjaro Cinnamon Edition Decided to Switch from Firefox to Vivaldi

          The decision was received with mixed feelings by the Linux community, as Vivaldi is not open source software.

          Starting from today, Vivaldi is the default browser on the Arch-based Linux distribution Manjaro on its Cinnamon edition. This is not the first time Manjaro has given us such a surprise. Most of you probably remember the Free Office case. However, the change goes official today for anyone doing a fresh installation of Manjaro’s Cinnamon Edition.

          For starters, Vivaldi is intended for power users and provides an impressive level of control over the interface. Vivaldi is one of the lesser-known browsers, but it is actually a really good choice if you value customization and privacy above all else.

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Openwashing

            • The Open Source Initiative's new executive director

              The Open Source Initiative has announced the appointment of Stefano Maffulli as its executive director.

            • Michael Cheng Joins the Linux Foundation Board of Directors [Ed: Linux Foundation: Openwashing malicious things, including surveillance, using the Linux(TM) brand]

              We’re pleased to announce that Michael Cheng joined the Linux Foundation Board of Directors earlier this year. Michael is a product manager at Facebook, currently supporting open source and standards work across the company. Michael is a former network engineer and M&A attorney. He previously led the product, commercial, and intellectual property functions on Facebook’s M&A legal team.

          • Privatisation/Privateering

            • Linux Foundation

              • SPDX Becomes Internationally Recognized Standard for Software Bill of Materials - Linux Foundation

                The Linux Foundation, Joint Development Foundation, and the SPDX community, today announced the Software Package Data Exchange€® (SPDX€®) specification has been published as ISO/IEC 5962:2021 and recognized as the international open standard for security, license compliance, and other software supply chain artifacts. ISO/IEC JTC 1 is an independent, non-governmental standards body.

              • Linux Foundation's SPDX becomes ISO/IEC JTC 1 standard to address supply chain security - Neowin

                For secure and compliant development throughout global software supply chains, VMware, Synopsys, Texas Instruments, Sony, Philips, Microsoft, and Intel are among the companies employing SPDX to relay Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) information in tools or policies. SBOMs are employed as a segment of a fundamental system to track and trace components across software supply chains. They are also used to aid in identifying software component problems and risks, and determining a starting point for remediation.

              • SPDX Becomes New Standard for Open-Source Software, Security

                Backed by many of the world’s largest companies for more than a decade, the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) specification is now an internationally recognized ISO/IEC JTC 1 standard.

                The Linux Foundation announced Thursday that the SPDX specification has been published as ISO/IEC 5962:2021. It is now the open standard for security, license compliance, and other software supply chain artifacts.

                This comes during a transformational time for software and supply chain security.

              • SPDX Becomes Official Data Standard For Software Bill Of Materials

                The Linux Foundation, Joint Development Foundation, and the SPDX community, today announced the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) specification has been published as ISO/IEC 5962:2021 and recognized as the international open standard for security, license compliance, and other software supply chain artifacts.

        • Security

          • Security updates for Thursday

            Security updates have been issued by Fedora (lynx, matrix-synapse, and proftpd), openSUSE (ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs), Oracle (kernel), Red Hat (RHV-H), Scientific Linux (kernel), and Ubuntu (libapache2-mod-auth-mellon, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.11, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.11, linux-gcp, linux-hwe-5.11, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.11, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gke, linux-gke-5.4, linux-gkeop, linux-gkeop-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, and linux-azure-5.8, linux-oem-5.10).

          • Thousands of Credentials Stolen in Global Windows and Linux Hack

            The campaign, Chimaera, which was made public yesterday by AT&T Alien Labs, has been in operation since July.

            Windows users have been attacked, alongside various Linux distributions including Alpine, AWS, Docker and Kubernetes.

            [..]

            To infect Windows systems, the attackers implemented a malicious script into the device that automatically downloads all the tools needed to mine data.

            Researchers have urged organisations to keep software updated and maintain minimal exposure to the internet on Linux servers.

          • 3 years, 17 alphas, 2 betas, and over 7,500 commits later, OpenSSL version 3 is here

            The OpenSSL team has released version 3.0 of its eponymous secure communications library after a lengthy gestation period.

            Coming nearly three years after its predecessor, version 1.1.1, the update lays claim to 17 alpha releases, two beta releases, and more than 7,500 commits. Equally significant is a near-doubling of the amount of documentation since upgrading an application to use it might not be an entirely simple process.

            "OpenSSL 3.0 is a major release and not fully backwards compatible with the previous release," explained Matt Caswell of the OpenSSL Management Committee.

            While most applications that used the previous incarnation will work OK and just need a recompilation (although Caswell cautioned that deprecated APIs would likely result in warnings), some apps will need changing.

            And if an app is using a deprecated API, it would probably be a good idea to update it anyway as those APIs will more than likely be for the chop in a future version.

            There are some substantial changes in version 3. From a technical standpoint, the most significant is the new Federal Information Processing Standards module, the paperwork for the validation of which is due to be submitted later this month. The team is going for FIPS 140-2 and expects to get its final certificate in 2022.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Good news about women and ID cards in Afghanistan

              Paradoxically, in the tragic situation they are in now, this is a problem that many afghan women do not have, for the wrong reason: They never had any identity cards, or biometrics in general, to hide.

    • Environment

      • Overpopulation

        • Plans for $400-billion new city in the American desert unveiled

          The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the social services of Stockholm: Billionaire Marc Lore has outlined his vision for a 5-million-person "new city in America" and appointed a world-famous architect to design it. Now, he just needs somewhere to build it -- and $400 billion in funding. The former Walmart executive last week unveiled plans for Telosa, a sustainable metropolis that he hopes to create, from scratch, in the American desert. The ambitious 150,000-acre proposal promises eco-friendly architecture, sustainable energy production and a purportedly drought-resistant water system. A so-called "15-minute city design" will allow residents to access their workplaces, schools and amenities within a quarter-hour commute of their homes. Although planners are still scouting for locations, possible targets include Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and the Appalachian region, according to the project's official website.

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Figure/Ground: Alphonse Allais’ April Fools Album (1897)

          A man of many talents, Allais’ series of paintings, collected in the monograph Album primo-avrilesque (roughly translated as An April Fools Album) arose, perversely, from his lack of aptitude in the realm of visual art. Each of the seven monochrome plates, bordered by lace-like decorations, features a title which implies the dissolution of figure into ground. A Campbell’s-soup-red rectangle comes with the title Apoplectic cardinals harvesting tomatoes on the shore of the Red Sea (an effect of Aurora Borealis). A frame filled with nothing but blue, anticipating Yves Klein’s later experimentation, gets explained by an effusive caption: Astonishment of young naval recruits seeing, for the first time, your blue, O Mediterranean Sea! Allais’ white painting, which antecedes Rauschenberg’s modular series by more than fifty years, claims to show anemic girls commuting to their first communion during snowfall. The Album ends with a funeral march. It consists of a blank musical staff, beating John Cage to the punch, perhaps meant to be “played” alongside another Allais invention: a hearse whose coffin compartment contains a cremator. In the Album, we witness Allais’ humor assume a register that is more than merely off-color. The funeral march appears below a dedication — for “a great deaf man” — insisting that ableist prejudice follows one beyond the grave. His black plate comes with the title Combat de nègres dans une cave, pendant la nuit (Negroes fighting in a cellar, at night). As the art historian Rebecca Zorach notes, the joke sabotages the series’ conceit of representation. If there is no light in the supposed cave, why would skin color even matter?



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