Linux Weekly Roundup #160

Welcome to this week’s Linux Weekly Roundup. We had a full week in the world of Linux releases with Linux Mint 20.3 Beta, Freespire 8.0, Zorin OS 16 Lite, Calculate Linux 22, and Kali Linux 2021.4.

Audiocasts/Shows

• I Just Threw Away Half Of KDE Panels Code! – Kockatoo Tube

• Going Linux #415 · Linux Distro Key Differences

  In today’s episode we answer the question, ‘What are some of the key differences between Linux distributions?’ Bill begins his evaluation of Elementary OS and we comment on Windows 11.

• Late Night Linux – Episode 155 – Late Night Linux

  Achieving the dream of mobile and desktop convergence turns out to be pretty easy. Plus a serious contender for the best Arch-based distro, and your feedback about hacking and Lineage OS.

• Be Anonymous Online With The Tails Operating System – Invidious

  Tails is a portable Linux operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship. It is designed to be run as a live USB stick that you can take with you and use on any computer, when you need anonymity.

• Is Protecting Your IP Address Actually Important? – Invidious

  Online privacy is more crucial than ever but how important is it protect you ip address, typically it’s seen as very important but is there more to it than many people would like to let on.

• Enterprise Linux Security Episode 11 – CrowdSec – Invidious

  CrowdSec is a free application you can run on your Linux server, which provides an additional layer of security. CrowdSec aims to prevent intrusions and other forms of malicious activity, but it does it in a different way – it utilizes intelligence gathered from other users in order to enhance its protection.

• LHS Episode #444: Knock It Off

  Hello and welcome to the 444th installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss several short topics including some year-end news about the show, tiny SSB transceivers, the Wayland X server, the EU adopting and promoting open source, WSJT-X and much, much more. Thank you for listening and have a great week.

Kernel Space

• Linux 5.16 will supposedly offer improved support for Surface devices [Ed: Microsoft sites turn news about Linux into Microsoft news]

  Just in case you weren’t already aware, Linus Torvalds announced the availability of Linux kernel 5.16-rc5, which is nothing more but a release candidate before 5.16.

  This delay has been blamed on the holidays by Linus, saying that they caused development to slow down. Thus, the release window is expected to be pushed back at least one week.

  Judging by the announcement, we can expect the usual filesystem updates, general kernel additions, and improvements to networking.

• Purism and Linux 5.16

  The Purism team is continuously working on improving the hardware and software support for the Librem 5. These innovations contribute directly to the mainline, upstream kernel so that the hardware can be supported as part of the development community in the future.

  Following up on our report for Linux 5.14 and 5.15 this summarizes the progress on mainline support for the Librem 5 phone and its development kit during the 5.16 development cycle. This summary is only about code flowing upstream.

  [...]

  During this round we contributed only 2 Reviewed-by: or Tested-by: tag to patches by other authors. This definitely leaves some room for improvement! Again we would like to thank everybody who reviewed our patches and helped us supporting the hardware in mainline Linux – especially Sakari and again Laurent for reviewing the camera driver and even adding the initial data for it to libcamera.

• Radeon ROCm 4.5.2 Adds Kernel Driver Installer Support, Various Fixes – Phoronix

  A minor update to AMD’s Radeon Open eCosystem “ROCm” software is out today for open-source GPU computing.

  Radeon ROCm 4.5 was introduced at the start of November and while we are awaiting the next major release perhaps where the RDNA/RDNA2 support will be ironed out, ROCm 4.5.2 was released as a pre-Christmas end-of-year update.

• Intel’s mystery Linux muckabout is a dangerous ploy at a dangerous time

  This is a critical time for the Good Chip Intel. After the vessel driftied through the Straits of Lateness towards the Rocks of Irrelevance, Captain Pat parachuted into the bridge to grab the helm and bark “Full steam ahead!”

  Its first berth at Alder Lake is generally seen as a return to competitive form, but that design started well before Gelsinger’s return and there’s still zero room for navigational errors in the expeditions ahead.

  At least one of the course corrections looks a bit rum. Intel has long realised the importance of supporting open source to keep its chips dancing with Linux. Unlike the halcyon days of Wintel dominance, though, this means being somewhat more open about the down-and-dirty details of exactly how its chips do their thing. You can’t sign an NDA with the Linux kernel.

• EXT4 Prepared To Switch To Linux’s New Mount API – Phoronix

  It looks like EXT4 come Linux 5.17 could be making use of the kernel’s new mount API. Queued up into EXT4′s “dev” branch is transitioning the EXT4 file-system driver to using the kernel’s modern mount API.

  Linux’s new mount API is what came about in recent times as a set of system calls offering more flexibility than the long-standing mount syscall that is a one-shot effort while this new multi-step mounting procedure allows for more options. Below is a presentation by Canonical’s Christian Brauner from last year’s Open-Source Summit around the new mount API.

• Graphics Stack

  • RadeonSI Gallium3D Driver Wires Up Wave32 Improvements For RDNA GPUs – Phoronix

    AMD’s “RDNA” class GPUs support wavefront sizes of 32 and 64 compared to older GCN GPUs at 64 threads. Going back to 2019 RadeonSI began making use of Wave32 for some shaders but now for Mesa 22.0 next quarter there are greater Wave32 improvements that have landed.

    Well known open-source AMD OpenGL driver expert Marek Olšák has now landed the merge request, radeonsi: add Wave32 and primitive binning heuristics and shader profiles, stronger loop unrolling. In there is support for unrolling loops of up to roughly 128 iterations that helps the performance in some scenarios (like SPECViewPerf13), various NIR improvements, and then the Wave32 heuristics and shader profiles.

  • Linux Finally Retires 23-Year-Old AMD 3DNow! Instructions

    After 23 years, AMD’s ancient 3DNow! instructions are finally being retired from the Linux kernel (via Phoronix). Starting with Linux version 5.17, older AMD processors with 3DNow! support will no longer run those instructions within Linux operating systems featuring the updated kernel.

    AMD released the 3DNow! instructions in 1998 to improve CPU functionality by adding SMID instructions to the base x86 instruction set, thus enabling vector processing of floating-point operations using vector registers. The first implementation had over 21 new instructions that supported SIMD floating-point operations.

    In the late 90s and early 2000s, these instructions were popular for improving gaming, video playback, and even Photoshop workflows. AMD supported the instructions with CPUs spanning from the K6-2 to Bulldozer chips.

    However, Intel introduced its competing SSE instructions shortly after AMD released its 3DNow! instructions for the K6 CPU. The SSE instructions became dominant with the arrival of Pentium 3, so AMD also adopted SSE by the time SSE2 arrived on the scene.

  • Linux Kernel Set To Finally Retire AMD 3DNow!

    Queued up as part of the x86/core changes intended for the Linux 5.17 cycle is dropping of the AMD 3DNow! code within the kernel. While 3DNow! brings back fond memories from the days of AMD’s K6 and early Athlon processors, AMD deprecated the instructions a decade ago and no longer found in newer processors. Removing of the 3DNow! kernel code is being done as part of some code improvements.

    Hitting tip’s x86/core branch is this commit dropping the 3DNow! code from the kernel. 3DNow! built upon MMX instruction set to offer faster performance for vector processing of floating point data. But 3DNow! ultimately didn’t see too much adoption amid Intel’s successful SSE introduction.

  • Twenty years later, the ATI Radeon R300 GPU receives update to driver from supportive Linux community

    Website Phoronix, a site heavily devoted on everything Linux, discovered that the ATI Radeon R300, R400, and R500 series GPUs are receiving a new driver under Linux after twenty years of life. This new driver is an open-source graphics driver created by developer Emma Anholt. The driver is intended to allow the GPUs to access the ability to request NIR shaders from the Mesa 3D library (via the state tracker in Mesa 3D) and send the NIR to the TGSI pathway. NIR minimizes the pressure of the GPU when running 3D level applications—essentially an optimization layer that is located at the core of the driver’s shader compilers received from Mesa.

  • The Linux community is attempting to revive these 20-year-old GPUs

    A bunch of almost 20-year-old graphics cards have received an open-source driver update, courtesy of developer Emma Anholt.

    As reported by Tom’s Hardware, the ATI Radeon R300, R400 and R500 are getting new drivers under Linux, allowing the GPUs to request NIR shaders from the Mesa 3D graphics library’s state tracker, and to use the NIR to TGSI path.

    Due to hardware limitations, the NIR could be available only for the R500, but this is yet to be confirmed.

Benchmarks

• GCC 12 Compiler Performance Is Looking Good For Intel Alder Lake

  GCC 12 is nearing release in a few months time as the annual feature update to the GNU Compiler Collection for this Free Software Foundation backed code compiler. On top of new C/C++ language features and various optimization improvements, there is updated tuning for Intel’s new Alder Lake processors. Here are some early GCC 11.2 vs. GCC 12 development benchmarks looking at the performance on a Core i5 12600K.

  GCC 11 as the stable compiler introduced earlier this year there was the initial Intel “alderlake” target. However, that initial implementation was carrying the exisiting Ice Lake cost table that was not tuned for Alder Lake processors that launched last month. Merged for GCC 12 is that tuned Alder Lake support in place for those compiling binaries specifically using the “-march=alderlake” option.

Applications

• Fwupd 1.7.3 Released With Support For Nordic Semi nRF Secure Hardware

  Fwupd 1.7.3 is out today as the newest version of this open-source software that integrates with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) for offering streamlined system and device firmware updates under Linux.

  The early Christmas gift of Fwupd 1.7.3 offers various fixes as well as initial support for Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF Secure devices. Fwupd landed the nordic-hid plug-in last week for performing device updates when connected via USB or Bluetooth Low Energy. The current plug-in works with Nordic firmware images compatible with the nRF Secure immutable bootloader.

• Fly-Pie: An Interesting Menu Launcher for Users Who Rely on Mouse

  An application launcher makes things convenient to quickly navigate to an active window, launch a new app, and so on.

  Ulauncher is one such application launcher to use if your Linux distribution does not offer any out-of-the-box.

  If that spikes your interest already, you will find Fly-Pie interesting! An application launcher tailored for users who primarily use a mouse and always place one hand to navigate using the mouse instead of the keyboard.

• Blender 3.0 Released

  Blender Foundation recently released Blender 3.0 “to mark the beginning of a new era for open source 2D/3D content creation.”

  Blender is a popular free and open source 3D creation suite, which supports modeling, animation, simulation, rendering, video editing, game creation, and more.

• How to Install Chrome Browser in Linux – TREND OCEANS

  Chrome Browser is one of the most popular and user-friendly browsers made by google. It is available to install on all popular platforms like Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, and IOS.

  Users can easily manage their profiles and sync their Settings, Bookmarks, and Extensions across all platforms. Just make sure to use a common Gmail account on those platforms.

• Migrate Chrome Data/Settings/Profiles from Windows to Linux

  Just installed Linux distributions like (Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Arch/Manjaro/RedHat/CentOS/Etc) and thinking about how I can migrate or import all of the data, settings, and profiles; from my windows 10/11 to Linux.

  The chrome browser file structure for user data is identical to Windows, Linux, or macOS. Users can easily export and import their data and settings like History, Bookmarks, Passwords, Cookies, Cache from one platform to another.

• PipeWire 0.3.41 Offers Improved Flatpak & JACK Compatibility, Apple AirPlay Streaming

  PipeWire 0.3.41 delivers on improved compatibility with Flatpak sandboxed applications, continued work on enhancing JACK compatibility, OBS can now capture from monitor devices again when using the WirePlumber manager, memory leak fixes, and improved buffer memory allocation.

Instructionals/Technical

• How to play Arma 3 on Linux

  Arma 3 is an open-world, realistic tactical military FPS. It was developed and published by Bohemia Interactive. If you’re a fan of real shooters, Arma 3 is a must-play. Here’s how you can play Arma 3 on your Linux PC.

• How to Fix the No Sound Issue in Ubuntu – Make Tech Easier

  An issue often faced by Ubuntu users after installing Ubuntu or upgrading to a new version is the sound problem, or more specifically, the “no-sound” problem. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is related to a misconfiguration in the speaker settings, or maybe your hardware is not well-supported.

  For most people, it’s usually a pretty easy problem to resolve. This is because most problems stem from an issue with services running on the system. In this article we go through a few simple fixes you can try. You don’t necessarily have to try them all. Just start at the top of the list and work your way down.

• How to Check Disk Usage on Linux With duf

  Linux has a bunch of useful commands to simplify certain operations on the system. df, for instance, helps you determine how much free disk space you have on a drive, whereas du shows the estimated file space usage on your system.

  While both these commands work well and do their job as intended, there’s another useful command called duf, an alternative to df that provides better disk monitoring functionality.

  In this guide, we’ll look at duf in detail and go over the steps to install and use it on Linux.

• How to Fix Git Using the Wrong SSH Key & Account – CloudSavvy IT

  Want to analyze disk usage on Linux? Here’s how to install and use duf, a free and open-source disk usage checker for Linux.

• How to Install Mantis Bug Tracking System with Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04 – VITUX

  Mantis is an open-source PHP-based bug tracking tool developed to provide efficiency and simplicity to track the software defect as well as project management. It supports various database backends which include Mysql, MS-SQL, and Postgresql.

  I am using Nginx Web Server instead of Apache. The installation steps in this tutorial were performed on the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system.

• How to Install Linux Kernel 5.15 on CentOS 8 Stream – LinuxCapable

  Linux kernel 5.15 has many new features, support, and security. The Linux 5.15 kernel release further improves the support for AMD CPUs and GPUs, Intel’s 12th Gen CPUs, and brings new features like NTFS3, KSMBD (CIFS/SMB3), and further Apple M1 support, amongst many other changes and additions.

  In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest 5.15 Linux Kernel on CentOS Stream 8.

• How to Add a Volume to an Existing Docker Container – CloudSavvy IT

  While Docker is a useful tool for packaging and managing applications, it also presents many unique challenges, such as dealing with stored data. Usually, you add volumes to containers in the creation script, but what if you need to make new ones?

• How to run multiple Linux containers in Chrome OS for extra build environments – TechRepublic

  If you’d like to employ a Chromebook as a developer machine, you might be interested in a new multi-Linux container feature in Chrome OS 98. Jack Wallen shows you how to enable and use it.

• How to install Flask on Ubuntu 21.10 – NextGenTips

  In this tutorial guide, we are going to explore how to install the Flask framework on Ubuntu 21.10.

  Flask is a microweb framework written in Python. It is classified as a microframework because it doesn’t require particular libraries or tools. It has no database abstraction layer, form validation, or any other components where pre-existing third-party libraries provide common functions.

  Flask depends on jinja template engine and the Werkzeug WSGI toolkit.

• How to create a DynamoDB Table in AWS

  Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value and document database. It’s a fully managed, multi-region, multi-master, durable database and can handle more than 10 trillion requests per day. It has built-in security, backup and restore, and in-memory caching for internet-scale applications. We can build applications with virtually unlimited throughput and storage.

  For use cases that require even faster access with microsecond latency, DynamoDB Accelerator provides a fully managed in-memory cache. It is serverless with no servers to provision, patch, or manage and no software to install, maintain, or operate. It provides both provisioned and on-demand capacity modes. It encrypts all data by default.

• How to Install and Configure WildFly (JBoss) on Debian 11

  Wildfly is an application server written in Java and developed by RedHat. It is a simple, lightweight, and powerful server with a CLI and an admin console. It is open-source, cross-platform, and based on pluggable subsystems that can be added or removed as needed. It provides all the necessary features to run a Java web application.

  In this tutorial, I will show you how to install Wildfly with Nginx as a reverse proxy on Debian 11.

• How to manage virtual machines in Cockpit | Enable Sysadmin

  Cockpit is an easy application to love. It puts your entire fleet of servers and workstations in a centralized control panel and gives you a fair amount of control over them. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that this includes virtual servers and workstations, but many sysadmins don’t realize they can manage virtual machine creation from Cockpit.

  Suppose you’ve been using virt-manager, GNOME Boxes, or some other tool to spin up virtual machines, but you use Cockpit for diagnostics and maintenance. In that case, you can now consolidate your tasks by managing virtual machines in the same interface.

• How to Install Flutter in Ubuntu 20.04

  Flutter is a free, open-source SDK for creating cross-platform applications using a single code base. Designed, developed, and optimized by Google to be the ideal UI software development kit used for the development of Android, Linux, Mac, Windows, iOS, and Google Fuschia applications, Flutter is written in C, C++, and Dart, which makes it easy for seasoned developers to use it comfortably.

  Flutter has been getting traction in the development community since its release because it is attractive to professional developers for rapidly building apps as well as to new programmers who are excited about learning cross-platform app development. One issue, though, is that Flutter can be quite a headache to install.

• How to Install VLC Media Player on Debian 11 Bullseye – LinuxCapable

  The VLC media player is an open-source, free portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC can play nearly all known multimedia files and DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols and can be extended and customized with multiple plugins.

  In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install VLC Media Player on your Debian 11 Bullseye distribution.

• How to Set Custom $PATH Environment Variable in Linux

  Sometimes, you might want to define your own custom $PATH variable which, in most cases, is not provided by your operating system. Doing this will enable you to invoke your variable from any location in the Linux shell without specifying the full path to the variable or command. In this tutorial, we will walk you through how you can set your custom $PATH variable in Linux. This works across all Linux distributions, so don’t worry about the distribution you are using. It will work just fine.

• How to install Bitwarden server on Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 LTS via docker

  f you don’t want to rely on some other service to save your password, secret codes and financial info then install your Password Manager client and server using Bitwarden. It is an open-source project. Here we learn the command to install Bitwarden Server on Ubuntu 20.04 Focal or 22.04 Jammy.

  Bitwarden Server is the project that serves as a backend to its front-end client applications used to manage Passwords. The Server project contains the APIs, database, and other core infrastructure items required to it worked properly.

  It has been written in C# using .NET Core with ASP.NET Core whereas the database is in T-SQL/SQL Server. It is cross-platform supported, hence can run on Windows, macOS, and Linux distributions.

  Well, whether it is social media, e-mail, or online shopping, we have to log in to all of them to start enjoying their services. However, increment in such platforms has increased the problem of remembering multiple usernames and passwords. To solve that, people tend to use common passwords and that makes their valuable data vulnerable and pushes them to become prey to hackers.

• My favorite Linux commands for optimizing web images | Opensource.com

  I used to stay away from images when working online. Handling and optimizing images can be both imprecise and time-consuming.

  Then I found some commands that changed my mind. To create web pages, I use Jekyll, so I’ve included that in the directions. However, these commands will also work with other static site generators.

• How to Install Discord on Rocky Linux 8 – LinuxCapable

  Discord is a free voice, video, and text chat app used by tens of millions of people ages 13+ to talk and hang out with their communities and friends. Users communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media, and files in private chats or as part of communities called “servers.” Discord is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux Distros.

  In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Discord client on Rocky Linux 8 using three different methods.

• How To Install Rundeck on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Rundeck on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Rundeck is a free open-source software for automation services. With Rundeck, you can create simple to complex tasks on either the local machine or on a remote server. In other words, set Rundeck up on one machine and control all your data center Linux servers from a single point of entry. Rundeck is available in Enterprise (Commercial) and Community (Free) editions. Rundeck Enterprise offers more features than the Rundeck Community edition but with the license cost.

  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 through the step-by-step installation of the Rundeck 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.

Wine or Emulation

• The RC1 Release of Next Major Wine 7.0 is Out [How to Install in Ubuntu]

  The first release candidate for the upcoming Wine 7.0 was released a few days ago. Here’s what’s new and how to install it in Ubuntu.

  Wine is a free open-source software allows to run Windows apps in Linux, macOS and BSD. The latest development release now is Wine 7.0 RC1 that features…

Games

• PUBG going free could be bad news for Steam Deck and Linux

  PUBG is getting new anti-cheat measures along with its move to become free-to-play, and there are fears that this could pretty much scupper the chances of the shooter working with the Steam Deck handheld (or any Linux OS trying to run it via Proton, of course).

  PUBG announced its move to become free at the close of last week (albeit with Ranked mode still needing you to stump up some cash), and it makes the transition on January 12 (for both PC and consoles).

  The devs observed that with this switch to free-to-play, the specter of cheaters looms ever larger, as the “need for an effective anti-cheat system is more important than ever as banned accounts can easily and infinitely be replaced”, which is of course a fair point.

• PUBG’s newer anti-cheat sounds problematic for the Steam Deck and Linux

  PUBG is currently a game that doesn’t work at all on Linux due to anti-cheat, even with the Steam Deck coming it’s sounding like a game that won’t play nicely. Oh, it’s also going free to play.

  In their development letter posted on December 10, they outlined what they’ve been doing and their future plans for anti-cheat with PUBG. While previously PUBG relied on BattlEye, which does have Linux support and recently made it easy for developers to turn on support for Proton and the Steam Deck, their newer proprietary solution with Zakynthos is going to get more invasive and cause more problems.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • digiKam 7.4 Professional Photo Management App Brings New Features and Better Camera Support

    Coming five months after digiKam 7.3, the digiKam 7.4 release is here with a new tool that lets users share items on the network with a Motion JPEG stream server, as well as an improved Showfoto component that received a new left sidebar which can host a folder-view to help users quickly explore images from their local file system or a stack-view to host your favorite contents.

    An interesting change in digiKam 7.4 is the improved Image Quality Sorter tool, which helps users label images by accepted, pending, or rejected. Also improved is the database component, which now features the ability to use a local SQLite thumbnail database with an external MySQL configuration.

  • Ksnip – Make my screenshots pretty please

    Photo editing comes in many shapes and forms. Shapes and forms, geddit? Now, sometimes, you need a full-blown suite to get things done, and sometimes, you just need a few tiny annotations and markings on an image. Believe or not, doing the latter isn’t as trivial as one would expect.

    For heavy tasks, one can rely on the likes of GIMP or Krita (if we’re talking about freeware), perhaps IrfanView. If you struggle with these, you could load LibreOffice Impress and use text boxes and arrows and shapes to get the desired effect. Dedicated programs intended for lightweight image styling are far and few in between. But I’ve found a nice little tool, and it’s called Ksnip. Follow me.

    [...]

    I am quite pleased with this almost accidental discovery. KSnip is a solid program, managing to balance simplicity and power quite well. You have lots of options available, without going overboard or making the usage slow and difficult. It makes for an excellent educational tool, allowing you to create visual guides and presentations with ease.

    And so, if you need to mark your images with text and some arrows, and perhaps add a small effect here or there, KSnip is the perfect software for the task. You can always do more with the big programs, if you need to, but for ordinary needs and quick editing, it delivers. The usage is intuitive, there were no quirks or bugs, and I was able to make my modifications without having to read hours of tutorials on how to generate a speech balloon or create an arrow. Fast ‘n’ furious, JPEG style. Mission accomplished.

  • Kdenlive 21.12 is out | Kdenlive

    The last and most exciting release of Kdenlive this year is out and brings long awaited features like Multicam Editing and Slip trimming mode, all of which drastically improve your editing workflow.
    This version also comes with a new deep-learning based tracking algorithm, an auto-magical noise reduction filter and support for multiple Project Bins. Speaking of Bins, now you can import your video footage or audio recording folders while automatically ignoring any sub-folder structures created by some devices, such as the Sony XDCam, Panasonic P2, Canon camcorders or Zoom audio recorders.
    Apart from all these nifty, features the new Kdenlive adds a vast array of enhancements and fixes across many aspects, most notably to same-track transitions and the motion tracker. We also added an option to loop the selected clip in the timeline, and, by pressing ESC, you can now default back to selection mode when using the editing tools.
    In other news, we have switched our user manual to a new architecture called Sphinx. Sphinx provides a better and more user-friendly experience while making it easier to maintain. During this move we’ve started updating old sections, while adding new ones. It is a great opportunity for the community to contribute, check it out here! The macOS (Intel version) is now considered stable and ready for prime time. We’ve also updated the license of our code base to GPLv3.

  • Kdenlive Video Editor Just Got a Blockbuster Update

    Video editing on Linux is in a great place thanks to open source software like Kdenlive.

    And today it just got even better.

    Kdenlive is already the go-to video editor for Linux desktops, and today’s monster new release front-loaded with pro features is only going to cement that fact further.

    The non-linear editor now boasts native multi-cam editing, gains an enhanced noise reduction filter, and intros Slip trimming mode (an editing technique favoured by many professional editors who say it speeds up their workflow).

    Slip trim is an exciting addition on its own, but it isn’t the only advanced editing mode Kdenlive devs have planned. Ripple, Slide, and Roll trim modes will be coming to Kdenlive in future updates.

Distributions

• Zorin OS 16 Lite is an ideal desktop OS for lesser-powered systems

  Zorin OS is an outstanding operating system. It’s equal parts performance, simplicity and elegance. But the developers understood the full version of their platform wasn’t quite as usable on older or lesser-powered hardware. To fix that they created Zorin OS 16 Lite.

• Screenshots/Screencasts

  • Kali Linux 2021.4 overview | By Offensive Security – Invidious

    In this video, I am going to show an overview of Kali Linux 2021.4 and some of the applications pre-installed.

  • Linux Mint 20.3 Beta XFCE Run Through – Invidious

  • Linux Mint 20.3 Beta XFCE

    Today we are looking at Linux Mint 20.3 Beta, XFCE edition. It is based on Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Kernel 5.4 (but you can easily upgrade it to 5.13), XFCE 4.16, and uses about 1GB of ram when idling. Enjoy!

• IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

  • Introducing the hosted beta experience Red Hat Enterprise Linux Image Builder

    The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Red Hat Insights teams invite you to try the public beta of the Image Builder hosted service, a part of the Insights application suite which is included with the RHEL subscription.

    The Image Builder service, which can be found in the left navigation of the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console beta, simplifies and streamlines the process of assembling your own customized RHEL operating system images with the latest content and security updates for all of your hybrid cloud environments.

    Today, building or installing operating systems for deployment across your hybrid cloud environments can be slow, tedious, and error prone. Building and updating a server image for traditional virtualization platforms require different tools and risky modifications to make it work in public cloud environments.

  • How can we make Linux functionally safe for automotive?

    The automotive computing world, like many other industries, is going through a transformation. Traditionally discrete computing systems are becoming more integrated, with workloads consolidated into systems that look remarkably more like edge systems than embedded devices. The ideas driving this shift come from open source, but will Linux be part of this future, given that the existing standards for functional safety do not currently accommodate Linux-based operating systems?

  • Take Tidelift’s 4th annual open source survey [Ed: IBM/Red Hat shilling a self-serving survey of a firm partly controlled by Red Hat's founder]

    Participate in Tidelift’s fourth annual open source survey and help shed light on how organizations manage their use of open source components for application development.

  • Digital transformation: 4 CIO tips for 2022

    In the panicked move to remote work in 2020, most organizations cobbled together quick-and-dirty accommodations just to keep the business running. Plans for digital transformation accelerated at warp speed as employees shifted to working from home overnight with virtually no time for planning, research, or preparation. Instead of the thoughtful and careful rollout CIOs envisioned, they were instead forced to make urgent decisions and hope for the best, assuming this would all be short-lived.

    Instead, those crisis plans became status quo, making 2021 the year of hybrid work. As organizations have settled into this new reality, it’s clear there’s no turning back. Despite best-laid plans, many CIOs believe the pace of digital transformation will continue to accelerate, primarily catalyzed by outside forces beyond their control.

  • 10 books to build your people skills | The Enterprisers Project

    If you’re feeling a little rusty in the social skills department these days, you are not alone. In fact, there’s a name for it: post-pandemic reentry anxiety.

    It may take you some time to wrap your head around returning to face-to-face working conditions – or even a mix of office and remote work – after more than a year of remote work. Indeed, in February of this year, as promising light appeared at the end of this pandemic tunnel, U.S. adults reported their highest stress levels since the earliest days of the Covid-19 crisis, according to a survey by the American Psychological Association.

    Of course, the softer skills of management, relationship building, communication, and collaboration are more critical than ever.

    If you find you need a little remedial people skills training, take heart: We’ve gathered 10 great books to consider, several of which address the additional challenges of ongoing remote or hybrid interactions.

  • The 7 Best Red Hat-Based Linux Distributions

    Red Hat became the largest open source company in the world before being acquired by IBM, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the company’s primary offering. This Linux-based OS has shown how much money a company can make by developing free software and supporting it through paid contracts.

    As the name suggests, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is intended for businesses and organizations. If you want to run your own personal server, registering a copy of RHEL can feel excessive. Fortunately, there are a number of alternatives that use the exact same code and can run the same apps, as RHEL.

  • NVIDIA drivers on RHEL – Darryl Dias

    This article will cover how to install and setup official Nvidia drivers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, this method has been tried and tested on RHEL 8.

    This works best on the default kernel that ships with RHEL 8, if you have custom Kernel or modified setup, there might be need for extra steps. The extra steps are out of the scope of this article.

• Debian Family

  • High security Linux on USB stick: Surf and work safely with Tails [Ed: Automated translation]

    Anyone who temporarily needs a particularly secure work environment that protects sensitive documents and enables largely anonymous surfing does not have to spend hours manually installing the software. In fact, it only takes half an hour and an empty USB stick to set up such an environment. Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), which focuses on data protection and privacy, can be started from here – as required and regardless of the existing operating system.

    The preconfigured Linux distribution routes all data traffic over the Tor network, which anonymizes connection data. If you use the USB stick while traveling, you don’t have to worry about traces of data on external hard drives: As a live system, Tails basically saves data in RAM – and therefore only until the next reboot. Optionally, selected settings and documents survive the restart in a special memory area of ​​the stick. It is encrypted and password-protected, so that the loss of the stick is not a catastrophe. Pre-installed, proven programs for encrypted mail, chat and data exchange as well as some office applications make Tails a fully-fledged operating system not only for the suitcase.

    In this article we explain how to create a universal USB stick with Tails and how to put the live system into operation. Then we show the first configuration steps and give a brief overview of the pre-installed software.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Attackers can get root by crashing Ubuntu’s AccountsService [Ed: Assuming they can crash it at all; seems like hype]

  • MAAS 3.1: Bare metal provisioning of hot metal

    Back a few months ago, we did a feature poll on our MAAS forum, and the most-requested new feature turned out to be “Recommission/rescan a machine after it has been deployed“. With the release of MAAS 3.1, we’ve added that feature. Here’s a sample of how it works.

  • Internet of Things and Ubuntu: 2021 highlights

    With rising unit shipments and hardware spending, 2021 will go into the record books as a critical year in the ever-increasing adoption of connected devices. Ubuntu – the modern, open-source Linux operating system for the enterprise server, desktop, and cloud – is rapidly becoming the de-facto standard for Internet of Things ( IoT) devices. The following is not an exhaustive list of all the 2021 initiatives surrounding intelligent ‘things’ and Ubuntu, but an overview of some of the progress made at the intersection of those two landscapes.

    Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, once again claimed its leadership in innovation by releasing Ubuntu Core images specially optimised for Intel’s purpose-built line of processors for IoT devices. Continuing the mission of supporting inventors, educators, and makers everywhere, Canonical also announced Ubuntu support for the newest Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W.

    But enough with anticipating what is to come. With 2022 just around the corner, and IoT endpoints reaching an installed base of 25.1B units after growing at a 32% CAGR in the past four years, it is time to assess the pivotal role Ubuntu, the most widely deployed server operating system on the Internet, played in spurring such unprecedented growth [1].

    [...]

    To say 2021 was the year Ubuntu, the most secure and trusted enterprise-grade OS, affirmed its de-facto presence in the embedded and IoT spheres is a generous but fair assessment.

Devices/Embedded

• Cincoze DI-1100 is a fanless embedded computer with an optional external fan – CNX Software

  Cincoze DI-1100 is a rugged, modular embedded computer powered by an Intel Whiskey Lake processor that comes in a fanless metal enclosure with heat dissipation fins, but the company also offers an external fan that clips on top of the metal case for additional cooling when using high-power peripherals such as PoE cameras.

  Designed for autonomous robots, in-vehicle use, environmental monitoring, and other industrial applications, the computer supports -40 to 70°C wide temperature range, 9 to 48 VDC input voltage range, and comes with plenty of I/Os including two Gigabit Ethernet ports, six USB ports, two RS232/422/485 interfaces, as well as mini PCIe sockets, and CFM and CFI expansion modules.

  [...]

  The company offers Windows 10 and Linux operating systems and tested the operating temperature with PassMark Burn-In Test (100% CPU, 2D/3D Graphics) without experiencing thermal throttling.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Arduino IDE 2.0 release candidate exits beta, adds new features

    We’re looking for you to help with the Arduino IDE 2.0 Release Candidate (RC), which is available right now. Whether you’re an Arduino power user or new to microcontroller coding, there are a variety of ways that you can contribute to this exciting new release.

  • Blink an LED on ESP32 board with Tuya Link SDK – CNX Software

    Tuya is an All-in-one IoT Platform that enables the user to build smart IoT solutions by connecting devices efficiently, securely, and reliably. This is a getting started article to set up the Tuya platform with the Espressif’s ESP32 boards via tuya link SDK. Further, we use it to control an LED through an Android device. When the switch in the Tuya Smart App is turned ON, the LED connected to the ESP32 board glows and vice versa.

  • Active Pickguard Makes For A Great Guitar Mod | Hackaday

    The project reimagines the electronics of an electric guitar from the ground up. Instead of typical electromagnetic pickups, six individual piezo pickups are built into the bridge – one for each individual string. The outputs of these pickups is conditioned and then read by the analog-to-digital converter of a Freescale Kinetis K40. The DSP-capable chip can then be used to apply all manner of effects. [Eli] demonstrates the guitar providing an uncanny imitation of an acoustic guitar, before demonstrating jazz and overdrive tones as well.

  • New Pi Zero Gains Unapproved Antennas Yet Again | Hackaday

    We’ve only started to tap into the potential of the brand new Pi Zero 2. Having finally received his board, [Brian Dorey] shows us how to boost your Pi’s WiFi, the hacker way. Inline with the onboard WiFi antenna can be found a u.FL footprint, and you just know that someone had to add an external antenna. This is where [Brian] comes in, with a photo-rich writeup and video tutorial, embedded below, that will have you modify your own Zero in no time. His measurements show seeing fourteen networks available in a spot where he’d only see four before, and the RSSI levels reported have improved by 5 dB -10 dB, big when it comes to getting a further or more stable connection.

    [...]

    This trick should be pretty helpful if you’re ever to put your new Pi Zero in a full-metal enclosure. Curious about the Raspberry Pi antenna’s inner workings? We’ve covered them before! If you’d like to see some previous Raspberry Pi mods, here’s one for the Pi 3, and here’s one for the original Zero W – from [Brian], too!

  • Atari 130XE Keyboard Now Goes Clack | Hackaday

    Performing a resto-mod on a beloved piece of childhood technology can be quite a ride. In [Bertrand]’s case, it was the keyboard to their Atari 130XE. Although it has those cool double-shot keycaps, they’re hiding a crappy membrane underneath that could really benefit from a mechanical upgrade. Relax — the membrane part was broken.

    [Bertrand] designed and printed some new stems for Kailh box pinks that can accept both of the two known variants instead of the standard Cherry MX receptacle. He also made a new PCB (natch) and a keyboard adapter to replace the membrane interface, and had a steel keyswitch plate custom cut. The so-called Atari 130MX mod can be used with an Atari 130XE computer, or as a regular keyboard for a PC if you solder in a Pico.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • PSA: You Can Make Your Android Screen Extra Dim

  • You can change the Android 12 square clock on Google Pixel lock screen

  • OnePlus limits which sensors Google Camera mods can access in OxygenOS 12

  • Nokia T20 review: Buy it for stock Android experience – Technology News

  • Google TV app gets a new remote design on Android – 9to5Google

  • How to prevent apps from ‘sleeping’ in the background on Android

  • Chrome OS 96 seems to be causing issues w/ Android apps – 9to5Google

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Top 5 PDF Readers for Linux – TREND OCEANS

  Finding the best PDF readers suitable and fulfilling all your needs in Linux? Then you are in the right place.

  Portable Document Format, aka PDF, is one of the most popular file formats. Due to the flexibility and tools, users get while reading ebooks or documents in PDF.

  Some Linux distributions provide PDF reader/viewer out of the box for you. Depending upon your usability, this PDF reader/viewer is often not fulfilling your all needs.

  Today, we will cover 5 top-rated best PDF readers/viewers in Linux, which come with all the necessary tools to have in your PDF reader/viewer.

• Web Browsers

  • The Best Private Browsers for Linux

    Does the phrase private browser ring a bell? Considering the questionable digital privacy conditions, such programs are becoming increasingly popular.

    A private browser is a web browser that helps you keep your browsing history and other data confidential. It does this by enabling specific security mechanisms and reducing the opportunities for entities to track you. Thus, such tools are great for keeping your data safe from prying eyes, whether it be someone who might be snooping on your computer or trackers that log your interactions with the web. Let’s see which private browsers are the best for your Linux operating system.

• FSFE

  • Ubuntu underage girlfriend: source of the photographs

    Many accusations have been distributed about the source of the photographs of an Ubuntu employee’s underage girlfriend

    Here are facts.

    People have been discussing the photographs as they are in the public interest. Free software communities are full of false accusations of abuse. Jeffrey Epstein and many similar offenders continued to get away with things for years by hiding in a smokescreen of false accusations. The photos help bring the Ubuntu employee out of the smokescreen.

    Debian gulag wanted to protect Ubuntu so they set up a Kangaroo Court to blame an Australian. The photos here prove the extent of Debian deception.

    The photos were published on Wikimedia Commons under the categories related to OSCAL. You can use this search to find hundreds of photos of Albanian women.

  • Digital Markets Act – Device Neutrality must be consolidated in the legislation

    On December 15, the Digital Markets Act, the EU’s comprehensive regulatory package for internet platforms, will go through plenary voting at the European Parliament. The FSFE calls for consolidating Device Neutrality to enable fair and non-discriminatory use of Free Software in digital devices.

    The European Union is about to introduce a major overhaul of Internet legislation with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). After successful committee voting on 22 November, the European Parliament will conduct plenary voting on 15 December. The FSFE advocates Device Neutrality as a fundamental step to achieve a contestable, open, and competitive digital market in the EU and urges the European Parliament to secure this principle in the final voting.

• Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

  • Open Access/Content

    • Open Access: What Is It & Why It’s Important For Science

      Open Access is a publication model that allows anyone to use and access scientific papers produced by an academic journal or publication.

      Historically, interested readers (Researchers, students… etc) need to pay for a subscription if they want to access the scientific papers produced by an academic publication, or they may need to pay the access price only for the articles they want to get.

      Alternatively, they may also access them with the help of their universities or sponsoring institutes, which usually provide a free full/partial subscription for their researchers.

      Those access fees could range anywhere from $20 to $500 per paper, and the monthly subscription fees are in a similar price range as well.

      However, those access fees are a huge barrier for independent researchers which are not affiliated with a university or a funding source. Anyone who has tried to publish a scientific paper must have needed to read tens of related papers in the literature, and if he or she are going to pay for every single article they need to access, then they won’t be able to do science.

      These fees are heavy even for universities themselves; they have to pay millions of dollars each year in order to keep providing their researchers with the scientific literature access they need. Sometimes, they may not have the enough funding to sign contracts with all the needed publishers, and hence, researchers have to deal with this situation for their own.

• Programming/Development

  • How to Install and Run Node Js in Linux – TREND OCEANS

    In this guide, we will install the latest version of Node Js and NPM in Ubuntu, RedHat, CentOS, Manjaro and run the first application in Linux.

    Node Js is not a programming language but a javascript runtime for backend development, developed in chrome v8 javascript engine. To make development easier for the web developer who wants to have one skillset for frontend and backend.

    NPM is a package manager for Node Js that helps to install modules within the terminal. Mostly used to discover, install, publish modules, just like a PIP for Python.

  • How to Write and Compile a C Program in Linux – TREND OCEANS

    C is one of the fastest running programming language, a lot of developers start their development journey with C. You can write and compile C in Linux, Windows, and macOS.

    Linux is one of the favorite operating systems among developers for its open-source and in-hand tools for development. Node JS, PHP, Python name any programming language, and you can write and run it in Linux.

  • Perl/Raku

    • Day 13 – Coloring your tools holidays – Raku Advent Calendar

      And if you’re in doubt yet whether Santa was really overloaded last year, just check out the advent calendar of 2020. That’s why back then I fetched out an old, dusty reddish-white cap, pulled it over my ears and started a small home-brew project to help my wife in her job.

      To be fully honest here, it was a gift to myself too since for some time I planned to learn more about front-end programming. A good chance to look at Vue and TypeScript, why not to take it? There is Cro, Cro::RPC::JSON for APIs, Red for databases. Of course, there is Raku to bind them all… Oh, pardon me, it’s a different epic story to be told when time comes!

      This article (is it really a post? ah, whatever…) started with something, any one doing backend development knows well about: the need to monitor the server script, restart it upon failures, or when sources changes, etc., etc. Aside of that, I also wanted to keep my eye on rebuilds of the frontend code. And since I didn’t like keeping both tasks in two different shell sessions, I came up with a script runner.raku which was controlling them and juggling processes the way I needed.

  • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

    • Create a progress bar over entire window until we count to 1000

Science

• Differential Probe Clocks At 100MHz And $200 | Hackaday

  [Voltlog] often looks at interesting test equipment and in the video below he reviews something that isn’t very common in hobby labs: a differential oscilloscope probe. These are usually pretty expensive, but the Micsig probe in the video costs under $200. The question, of course, is what do you need with a differential probe?

  A typical scope probe has a ground lead that connects directly to the actual grounding point. This can cause a problem if you try to measure across some component that has more voltage than you want to short to ground. It might hurt your device under test, your scope, or both.

• A Nested Gear Clock | Hackaday

  One of the most common projects we see here at Hackaday is a clock. It could just be that we as humans are fascinated by the concept of time or that making a piece of functional art appeals to our utilitarian sense. In that spirit, [Alexandre Chappel] set out to make a large mechanical clock with complex gears.

  The initial design was made in Fusion360 over a week and then in a somewhat bold move, [Alexandre] started up the CNC and cut all the parts out of valchromat. The basic idea of the clock is that the numbers move on the clock, not the hands. So the clock should show 10:25 instead of moving hands to the 10 and the 5. Most of the clock is made of up stacked gear assemblies, geneva drives, and many bearings. A single stepper motor drives the whole clock, which [Alexandre] admits is a bit of a cheat since trying to add springs and an escapement would add complexity to an already complex clock. He did have to adjust and recut a few gears but most of the assembly came together nicely. Some 3d printed numbers dropped into the CNCed slots offers much-improved readability.

• Mining And Refining: From Red Dirt To Aluminum | Hackaday

  No matter how many syllables you use to say it, aluminum is one of the most useful industrial metals we have. Lightweight, strong, easily alloyed, highly conductive, and easy to machine, cast, and extrude, aluminum has found its way into virtually every industrial process and commercial product imaginable.

  Modern life would be impossible without aluminum, and yet the silver metal has been in widespread use only for about the last 100 years. There was a time not all that long ago that aluminum dinnerware was a status symbol, and it was once literally worth more than its weight in gold. The reason behind its one-time rarity lies in the effort needed to extract the abundant element from the rocks that carry it, as well as the energy to do so. The forces that locked aluminum away from human use until recently have been overcome, and the chemistry and engineering needed to do that are worth looking into in our next installment of “Mining and Refining.”

Hardware

• Customize These 3D Printed Cases | Hackaday

  Building something, of course, requires your electronics skills. But packaging it is often an exercise in mechanics. You can buy off the shelf, of course, but sometimes it is hard to find just the right enclosure. You probably have a 3D printer, too, but sometimes 3D printing an entire case can be time consuming and isn’t always completely attractive. Enter [Johannes-Bosch] and Fusion 360. These 3D printed frames assemble into boxes and are easy to customize. The panels are aluminum, although we imagine you could substitute wood, acrylic, or even a 3D printed sheet of plastic, if you wanted to.

• [Kerry Wong] Is Really Into Scope Meters | Hackaday

  If a combination multimeter and oscilloscope is on your holiday shopping list this year, you might want to have a look at some of [Kerry Wong’s] recent videos on the subject. Over several videos he looks at — inside and out — an OWON HDS272S and a Hantek 2D72, both reasonably inexpensive entries in the field. Both instruments are similar and have a few variants depending on the frequency capability and the addition of a waveform generator.

• Resin Stacking Proves Messy And Difficult | Hackaday

  3D printers are typically the tool you use when you want a one-off quick prototype. However, more and more, they’re being used to produce things in quantity. [Uncle Jessy] decided to try out the resin stacking technique in order to quickly produce many figurines on his resin printer. However, not everything went exactly to plan.

  The technique is simple. The idea is to produce many copies of an object in a single continuous print on a resin 3D printer. To achieve this, the object is cloned many times, and scaffolding is created to allow the stacking of multiple objects on top of each other. This must be done carefully to avoid ruining the geometry of the object, and similarly to support material, uses more resin in the process.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Pseudo-Open Source

    • Privatisation/Privateering

      • Linux Foundation

        • Linux Foundation spends 20% more in 2021, highlights new LFX platform [Ed: Microsoft Tim doing puff pieces for the Linux Foundation]

          The Linux Foundation (LF) will spend over $180m in 2021, 20 per cent up on last year, and highlights the role of its new LFX platform in its just-published annual report.

          A non-profit formed in 2000 to support the development of the Linux kernel as well as the wider Linux and open source ecosystem, the LF is the parent foundation of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), stewards of Kubernetes and other projects.

        • Enabling Linux in Safety Applications (ELISA) Will Expand Into New Areas | Shuah Khan [Ed: Some more LF fluff from Spamnil's site today]

        • Linux Foundation To Host Cloud Hypervisor Project

          Initial focus for the Cloud Hypervisor project will be security and modern operation for Cloud.

  • Security

    • Security updates for Monday [LWN.net]

      Security updates have been issued by Arch Linux (chromium, firefox, gitlab, grafana, grafana-agent, thunderbird, and vivaldi), Debian (apache-log4j2, privoxy, and wireshark), Fedora (firefox, grub2, mariadb, mod_auth_openidc, rust-drg, rust-tiny_http, and rust-tiny_http0.6), Mageia (chromium-browser-stable, curaengine, fetchmail, firefox, libvirt, log4j, opencontainers-runc, python-django, speex, and thunderbird), openSUSE (clamav, firefox, glib-networking, glibc, gmp, ImageMagick, log4j, nodejs12, nodejs14, php7, python-Babel, python-pip, webkit2gtk3, and wireshark), Red Hat (mailman:2.1 and samba), and SUSE (bcm43xx-firmware, firefox, glib-networking, ImageMagick, kernel-rt, and python-pip).

    • Keeping curl safe

      I’ve talked on this topic before but I realized I never did a proper blog post on the topic. So here it is: how we develop curl to keep it safe. The topic of supply chain security is one that is discussed frequently these days and every so often there’s a very well used (open source) component that gets a terrible weakness revealed.

      Don’t get me wrong. Proprietary packages have their share of issues as well, and probably even more so, but for obvious reasons we never get the same transparency, details and insight into those problems and solutions.

    • NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware Used Against US State Department Officials

      NSO Group’s descent into Internet pariah status continues. Its Pegasus spyware was used against nine US State Department employees. We don’t know which NSO Group customer trained the spyware on the US.

    • Blacklisted: Israeli spyware firm NSO faces sanctions, lawsuits

      After it hacked dissidents and journalists for years, news that NSO’s technology targeted US diplomats has brought on sanctions and lawsuits. Plus, big oil’s big PR push.

    • No Java, No Cry – IPFire is NOT vulnerable to CVE-2021-44228

      As you might have already heard in the media, a quite severe security problem in Apache log4j is ripping its way through the world – filed as CVE-2021-44228.

      IPFire itself, nor our infrastructure, is or was at any time vulnerable to this problem since we are not using any Java software in either of them.

    • CyberInSecurity – Ah Oh it’s Java time

    • Log4Shell Exploitation Grows as Cybersecurity Firms Scramble to Contain Threat

      Cybercriminals are quickly ramping up efforts to exploit the critical flaw found in the widely used Log4j open-source logging tool, targeting everything from cryptomining to data theft to botnets that target Linux systems.

      The cybersecurity community is responding with tools for detecting exploitation of the vulnerability, a remote code execution (RCE) flaw dubbed Log4Shell and tracked as CVE-2021-44228. Efforts include a Log4j emergency patch from the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and a “vaccine” released by Cybereason as a fix for the issue.

    • Detect and block Log4j exploitation attempts with CrowdSec – The open-source & collaborative IPS

      If you work in Infosec, you had a very lousy weekend. And that’s because of the Log4j zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) that was discovered. We had no choice but to roll up our sleeves to help our community before things got messier than they already were.

    • Hernan Vivani: log4j vulnerability – quick notes

    • PostgreSQL: PostgreSQL JDBC and the log4j CVE

      A CVE has been reported on the popular logging implementation log4j.

      As the PostgreSQL JDBC driver does not include this as a dependency we have determined that there is no need for concern. The driver is not vulnerable to this CVE.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • EFF: Chrome Users Beware: Manifest V3 is Deceitful and Threatening

        The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns against Manifest V3, a set of changes coming to a Chrome browser near you.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• The “New Normal” & the Civil Society Deception

  Representative democracy is quietly being phased out to be replaced with a “new normal.” This “new normal” is a nascent form of governance being referred to as “civil society.” It is founded upon the principles of communitarianism and it is being offered to us as an illusory replacement for representative democracy.

  The Global Public-Private Partnership (G3P), who set the worldwide policy agenda, have long-seen the manipulation of the concept of civil society as a means to achieve their ambitions. This is at odds with how many emergent “civil society” groups understand their allocated roll.

  Set against the background of a corporate, global state, in this article, we will explore the exploitation of communitarian civil society and consider the evidence that, despite possibly good intentions, civil society is very far from the system of increased democratic accountability that communitarians had hoped for. In the hands of the G3P, what they refer to as “civil society” is a tyranny.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Over 9,000 social media accounts blocked in 2020, Parliament told | Latest News India – Hindustan Times

  As many as 9,849 accounts across social media platforms were blocked in 2020, almost a three-fold increase than those blocked in 2019, the Centre told Parliament on Wednesday.

  The information was shared by the ministry of electronics and information technology in Lok Sabha after Congress MP, Mohammad Faizal P.P sought to know year-wise details of the number of blocked accounts on social media platforms under Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act since 2014.

  “…Government has directed for blocking of 471, 500, 633, 1,385, 2,799, 3,635 and 9,849 number of Accounts/URLs during the years 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively,” the minisry said.

• Chinese paper runs interview with Alibaba staffer who claims she was fired after exec rape claim • The Register

  Chinese state-owned media has run an interview with a woman – identified only by her last name Zhou – who alleged she was fired after claiming one of the firm’s execs raped her while on a business trip, according to an interview between Zhou and Dahe Daily.

  Zhou was allegedly sexually assaulted on a business trip by a superior back in August, after being pressured to drink excessively with clients. When she reported the incident, Zhou said Alibaba executives demanded she produce video evidence before they would take action. Desperate to be heard, Zhou took to the company intranet, where she posted an 8000-word account of her accusations. She also distributed pamphlets in the corporate canteen.

  Dahe Daily published an interview from December 9 with Zhou, where she states that the e-commerce giant terminated her contract without severance pay at the end of November, on the grounds that she spread false information – specifically “being raped by executives and not handling the company’s knowledge” and violated corporate policies that forbid “publishing or disseminating inappropriate remarks to the outside world, or deliberately fabricating or disseminating fictitious facts, or disseminating unverified information, causing a bad impact.”

Monopolies

• Patents

  • Communication from the Enlarged Board of Appeal concerning case G 2/21 [Ed: Communication from the Kangaroo court of the EPO]

    In accordance with Article 112(1)(a) EPC, Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.02 has referred the following points of law to the Enlarged Board of Appeal by interlocutory decision of 11 October 2021 in case T 116/18:

    If for acknowledgement of inventive step the patent proprietor relies on a technical effect and has submitted evidence, such as experimental data, to prove such an effect, this evidence not having been public before the filing date of the patent in suit and having been filed after that date (post-published evidence):

    1. Should an exception to the principle of free evaluation of evidence (see e.g. G 3/97, Reasons 5, and G 1/12, Reasons 31) be accepted in that post-published evidence must be disregarded on the ground that the proof of the effect rests exclusively on the post-published evidence?

  • Aufzeichnung CFWebinar: EPO Case Law Update 2021 – Chemistry, Pharma and Life Sciences [Ed: What “EPO Case Law”? These tribunals are rigged; PR fluff]

  • USPTO Director nominee Vidal set for Senate hearing tomorrow [Ed: Shoehonring Microsofters again]

    Kathi Vidal is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her USPTO Director nomination hearing tomorrow. She is likely to face tough questioning from lawmakers with very different views of the US patent system

  • EPO top for quality; Vidal’s SEP hostage to fortune; Calls for China pool reform; Biogen patent disaster; Uber’s Moneyball strategy for portfolio ROI; plus much more

    Kathi Vidal is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her USPTO Director nomination hearing tomorrow.

9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: December 12th, 2021

This week has been really great with lots of cool stuff for everyone, starting with the launch of the Firefox 95 web browser and the Tails 4.25 anonymous OS, and continuing with a new release of the Gentoo-based Calculate Linux distro, a new Kali Linux release for ethical hackers, and the long-anticipated Zorin OS 16 Lite edition.

On top of that, I take a look at the Armbian Linux distro on the Raspberry Pi 4 computer and show Linux newcomers how easy is to search for text within many files and directories. Also, Linux Mint 20.3 is now ready for public beta testing.

Audiocasts/Shows

• Linux Mint 20.3 Beta Cinnamon Run Through – Invidious

  In this video, we are looking at Linux Mint 20.3 Beta, Cinnamon edition.

• Linux Mint 20.3 Beta Cinnamon

  Today we are looking at Linux Mint 20.3 Beta, Cinnamon edition. It is based on Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Kernel 5.4 (but you can easily upgrade it to 5.13), Cinnamon 5.2, and uses about 1GB of ram when idling. Enjoy!

• Linux Action News 219

  The Log4Shell vulnerability is making waves this week; we’ll explain why and break down how it works.

  Plus, some good news for the Desktop and systemd-homed gets one step closer.

• Josh Bressers: Episode 301 – You’re holdingit wrong: the importance of unlearning

  Josh and Kurt talk about the epic failure that was episode 300. But this ties nicely into the topic of the day which is new ways to do things. The example is a new way to hold a controller when playing Tetris. There are always new tools and new ideas in security. Sometimes we have to abandon the old way because the new way to too good to ignore.

Kernel Space

• Linux 5.16-rc5

  So everything looks fairly normal. This rc5 is perhaps a bit bigger
  than usual, but it's not like it's breaking any records. I blame
  people trying to get stuff done before the holidays, and/or just
  random timing effects.
  
  Anyway, I do expect things to calm down over the next couple of weeks,
  but we'll see.
  
  As to rc5, the patch is dominated by drivers (network, sound, hid,
  rdma, usb... and a lot of other random things) and selftest updates
  (bpf, kvm and networking).
  
  The rest is fairly random - filesystems (cifs, btrfs, tracefs), core
  kernel and networking. Some fixups to the new damon virtual address
  space monitoring code.
  
  Shortlog appended.
  
  Do give it a good testing - with the holidays coming up, things are
  probably going to slow down both on the development and testing front,
  and as a result I expect that I will also extend the rc series by
  another week not because it's necessarily needed (too early to tell,
  but doesn't feel that way), but simply because nobody will want to
  open the next merge window immediately in the new year.
  
  Anyway, that's the plan right now (based on previous years where we've
  done the same), but let's see how this all goes.
  
                   Linus
  

• Linux 5.16 is coming after a slight delay, offers improved support for Surface devices

  Linus Torvalds today announced the availability of Linux kernel 5.16-rc5, a release candidate on the road to 5.16. The only roadblock between this release candidate and an official release is Santa Claus. Not literally, of course. Linus blames the delay on the holidays, causing development to slow down. The release window is expected to be pushed back one week, with Torvalds saying that…

• Linux 5.16-rc5 Released – Cycle To Be Extended Due To The Holidays – Phoronix

  Linus Torvalds just released Linux 5.16-rc5 and while things are looking normal at this stage, he announced that this 5.16 cycle will drag on longer due to the Christmas / New Year’s holidays.

  Torvalds noted in this evening’s release announcement, “So everything looks fairly normal. This rc5 is perhaps a bit bigger than usual, but it’s not like it’s breaking any records. I blame people trying to get stuff done before the holidays, and/or just random timing effects. Anyway, I do expect things to calm down over the next couple of weeks, but we’ll see. As to rc5, the patch is dominated by drivers (network, sound, hid, rdma, usb… and a lot of other random things) and selftest updates (bpf, kvm and networking). The rest is fairly random – filesystems (cifs, btrfs, tracefs), core kernel and networking. Some fixups to the new damon virtual address space monitoring code.”

• Kernel prepatch 5.16-rc5 [LWN.net]

  The 5.16-rc5 kernel prepatch is out for testing.

• Rust in the Linux Kernel: ‘Good Enough’

  The effort to bring Rust to the Linux kernel marches on this week, with an update from Rust for Linux project maintainer Miguel Ojeda put out this week serving as cause for renewed excitement. While the update cautions that Rust support is “still to be considered experimental,” it notes that the project has moved on from using the beta Rust compiler to use stable releases, starting with Rust 1.57.0, which was just released last Thursday.

  In addition, the project has migrated to the 2021 edition of Rust, and plans to migrate to new stable compilers each time one is released.

Applications

• Fwupd 1.7.3 Released with Support for Most Nordic Semiconductor nRF Secure Devices

  Fwupd 1.7.3 introduces support for Nordic Semiconductor nRF secure devices, adds a sync-bkc sub-command to ensure a known set of firmware versions, adds FuArchiveFirmware support for plugins that use archives as firmware files, adds sector size properties and a quirkable page to FuCfiDevice, and makes Upower and powerd support optional.

  On top of these enhancements, the fwupd 1.7.3 release fixes various bugs to improve support for existing hardware. For example, it fixes firmware flashing of the Lenovo TBT3 dock, and improves support for System76’s Launch configurable keyboard by adding a new mechanism to wait for it to come back from DFU mode.

Instructionals/Technical

• How to install OBS Studio on Fedora – Darryl Dias

  In order to install OBS Studio we need to add RPM Fusion Free repository.

  Let’s do that by entering the command below and adding the RPM Fusion Free repository.

• How To Install PostgreSQL on Fedora 35 – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PostgreSQL on Fedora 35. For those of you who didn’t know, PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source object-relational database system with over 30 years of active development that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. Postgres is a free and open-source relational database management system emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance.

  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 through the step-by-step installation of the PostgreSQL 14 on a Fedora 35.

• DNS: What Is It, What Is It Used for and How It Works

  As you may know, computers use IP addresses to connect with each other and communicate.

  However, humans use and prefer names (such as bytexd.com) to access computers. This is because domain names in spoken language are easier to use and remember than a scary sequence of numbers (e.g., 192.168.1.165).

  What would happen if we have to access the computers only using their IP addresses? In that case, you have to memorize tens or even hundreds of these numbers (can a human do that?).

  This would not only be error-prone but also very hard or even impossible to use in this fast-growing digital world, where thousands of new domains are added to the Internet each day.

  Luckily, we have computer scientist and internet pioneer, Paul Mockapetris for inventing a naming system called Domain Name System (DNS).

  The main task of a Domain Name System (DNS) is to translate the domain names of computers into their IP addresses.

• How to play Bayonetta on Linux

  As you may know, computers use IP addresses to connect with each other and communicate.

• What is Kubectl Patch Command

  Kubernetes offers various methods to update resources: edit, apply, patch, and replace. So, today our discussion topic is Kubectl patch or patch command. If you communicate with Kubernetes clusters via kubectl CLI, then you might be familiar with the edit or apply subcommands. Just like these two commands, we are less familiar with the patch command of kubectl. The patch command enables you to change part of a resource specification, specifying the changed part on CLI. While updating a resource, it’s good to patch it. There are three types of patching, i.e., Strategic, JSON merge patch, and JSON patch.
  The strategic-merge type tries to “do the accurate thing” when merging the given spec with the current spec. More explicitly, it tries to merge both arrays and objects. For instance, specifying a patch that holds a single or new variable in a pod container specification results in that variable being included in the current variables, not overwriting them. Erasing an array element via a strategic merge patch is more difficult, which needs the usage of merge orders.

  Like the strategic approach, the JSON merge patch method takes a partial Kubernetes specification as input and holds the merging objects. This way is quite dissimilar from the above-cited approach as it only supports replacing arrays. While using this approach, you need to stream full specifications for all of the containers; if you need to modify any container propertyOn on the CLI, you can choose JSON merge patch via kubectl patch.

  On the other hand, the JSON patch method uses a JSON illustration of the variations you wish to make to a resource. JSON Patch is a more robust and efficient way to state the modifications that you want to make.

• What is MySQL RANGE Partitioning

  Partitioning is a process in which large tables of the database are divided into separate tables but treated as a single table. We can make partitions in the database using MySQL and place the data according to these partitions. In the MySQL database, the only horizontal partition is supported and it is of six types. In this post, RANGE partitioning will be discussed in detail and explained with the help of examples so the readers can understand it.

• What is MySQL List Partitioning

  Partitioning of a MySQL database is a process in which data placed in the tables is further divided into small tables; which makes it easy to handle the large size of data. MySQL is a database that is very much popular among SQL databases to manage the data.

  MySQL supports only horizontal partitioning. In MySQL, there are six types of partitioning, one of them is List partitioning, which is going to be explained in this article with the help of an example.

• How do I check my Redis Memory Usage

  Redis is an in-memory data store. This means that it stores the data in the system’s memory. The ability to store the data in the RAM is very crucial to improve performance as it does not require a complete round trip to the disk to fetch the data.

  However, storing the data in memory comes with a significant drawback. When the data size grows exponentially, more RAM size is required to handle the data. Adding more RAM as the data grows can be expensive and prone to hardware compatibility and failures.

  Although storage and size affect all database systems, it is more announced in in-memory databases such as Redis or Memcached. It is good to keep in mind that Redis is not developed as the central database for massive applications.

• How to count total keys in Redis

  Redis is a free and open-source in-memory key-value database that is built for performance and flexibility. It is cross-platform and can run on Unix/Unix-like systems and Windows.

  This tutorial describes how you can view and count all the keys in a Redis database using various commands and techniques.

  The example commands and illustrations have been tested on a Debian 11 server and a Redis server version 6.0. We recommend using the official Redis CLI utility to get a similar output, as shown in this guide.

• How can I see All Redis Keys

  If you have ever used a Key-value database, you probably have no problem with the Redis database’s workings. However, if you are new to the concept of key-value databases, they can be a little confusing compared to relational databases.

  This tutorial will try to demystify how to work with Redis by showing how to work with keys.

• Access Redis Via Ruby

  Redis is a free and open-source in-memory key-value data store famous for high performance, low latency, and flexibility.
  This tutorial will help you to interact with a Redis database using the Ruby programming language.

• How to use Redis Keys

  Redis is a key-value data store. Hence, understanding how to work with keys is a fundamental concept when using Redis.

  This guide will look at how to work with Redis keys and various commands to manage them.

• How to use the RDB (Redis Backup File)

  Backups are essential features in sensitive data environments such as databases. They allow us to perform restorations in case of failures and errors.

  One example of such an environment is a database such as Redis. Since its an in-memory database, a simple error such as power failure can lead to data loss. It is therefore essential to have persistence for your data.

  This tutorial will learn how to work with the Redis Database Backup to save the data stored in the memory to the system’s disk and perform restorations from the RDB.

• How to FlushDB in Redis

  Redis is a free, open-source key-value data store. It stores data in the system’s memory instead of the disk. This feature allows Redis to be super fast compared to databases such as relational databases. It is mainly used in high-performance and low latency environments.

  Using this tutorial, you will learn to delete all the keys in a Redis database and clear the Redis cache.

• How to use Ansible Dry Run

  Ansible is a free and open-source configuration management tool. It allows you to manage remote servers from a single machine.

  In this tutorial, you will learn how the Ansible dry_run works and how to use it in your playbooks.

• How to use Snapshots with Redis

  In Redis, a snapshot refers to the process and method of ensuring the persistence of data from the system memory to a permanent location such as the system’s disk.

  Although Redis is an in-memory data store, it does provide various methods to store and recover data to and from the system’s disk.

  This article will discuss how to use persistence in the Redis database. It is good to note that we will not dive deep into how the methods of backup provided by Redis are implemented. Consider the documentation to learn more and discover which is best for your use case.

• How to use Redis Sorted Set

  Sorted sets are one of the most valuable and advanced data types in Redis. Sorted sets are very similar to sets because they both contain non-repeating string sequences. However, unlike standard sets, sorted sets include a score value associated with each member.

  The score value allows them to be sorted in a specific order. Each member of a sorted set must be unique but can share a score value with multiple members.

  In this tutorial, you will learn all about the sorted sets in Redis and how you can use them in your databases.

  Ensure you have an existing Redis server installed and running to follow this tutorial.

• How to copy or clone a MySQL database

  In MySQL the data can be backed up by making its clone or making a copy, so in case of any mishap, it can be retrieved from its clone. For the new users of MySQL, it is the popular database management tool for relational databases(SQL); it manages the data by arranging them in tables which not only help the developers to manage them easily in a well-structured way but also improved the processing of the computer by which it is being operated.

  To create the backup of the database in MySQL, we will make a clone or copy in a very easy procedure which will be discussed in detail in this article.

• How to Configure Linux Mint Updates Automatically

  The Linux operating system is made of many libraries and packages linked together in a complicated network. These packages contain all the data that is required to run the operating system and to run your operating system smoothly, you should update your system frequently. It repairs security gaps that have been identified to protect your system from outside intruders, virus attacks, correct or delete computer bugs that can slow down your system, and improve the speed and system efficiency. Moreover, updates also bring new features to your devices while removing old ones that can enhance your productivity. So, updating your OS is critical, but manually doing that is a very hectic and tedious task. This is where automatic updates kick in, so you no longer have to bother about the manual updates.

• How to connect to WiFi on Pop!_OS

  Automatic updates repair security gaps that have been identified to protect your system from hackers, virus attacks, correct or delete computer bugs that can slow down your system and improve the speed and system efficiency. This article is an all-inclusive guide on how to configure Linux Mint updates automatically. Two different methods are mentioned in this tutorial: configuring updates automatically using GUI and modifying the auto-upgrades file in terminal.

• Parse Lighttpd Access.log

  System administrators require detailed information to diagnose and fix problems that may be encountered in a system. One source of such information is logs. Logs are a series of records that describe how a system or resources in the system are utilized.

  A web server such as Lighttpd allows you to configure the level of details of the output information by the use of logs. It uses the Common Log Format by default. However, the logging method is highly configurable for various needs and scenarios.

  In this tutorial, you will learn how to enable logging in Lighttpd server and understand the formatting of the logs from the access.log file.

• Kubectl Get Pods Wide Format

  Kubectl is a Kubernetes command-line configuration tool that interacts with a Kubernetes API server. Kubernetes objects can easily be created, updated, and as well as destroyed using Kubectl. This cheatsheet was built as a quick reference for running commands on a variety of Kubernetes components and resources.

• How to use Terraform depends_on

  With the rise of cloud computing over the years, the need for automated and fast tools to manage them has become necessary. Terraform is one of these tools.

  Terraform, developed by Hashicorp, is an infrastructure as a code utility. It allows you to provision cloud infrastructure in a fast and efficient way. Using Terraform, you can build, modify and destroy cloud resources in a few lines of code. It supports cloud providers such as Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and more, including custom cloud infrastructure.

• Query Redis from Python

  Remote Dictionary Server, or Redis for short, is a free, open-source in-memory database. Redis is a single-threaded NoSQL database that is built for high-performance and low-latency between data reads and writes. It uses key-value pairs to store the data.
  Although the data is stored in the system’s memory, you can add persistence by dumping the stored data to disk and loading it when needed.

  In this guide, we will introduce you to key concepts in Redis and show you how to use Redis with the Python programming language.

• How to Enable IPv6 in Nginx? – Unixcop the Unix / Linux the admins deams

  Hello, friends. In this short post, we will show you how to enable IPv6 on Nginx. This step is important to make our website or web application available in more ways.

Wine or Emulation

• Windows compatibility layer Wine version 7.0 gets a first Release Candidate | GamingOnLinux

  Another year of work has nearly come and gone with the biweekly development releases of Wine, so a new main release is on the way with Wine 7.0 seeing a first Release Candidate. This is the compatibility layer that allows you to run games and applications developed for Windows – on Linux. Part of what makes up Steam Play Proton.

Games

• OpenRazer 3.2.0 brings more device support for Razer fans on Linux | GamingOnLinux

  Have some fancy Razer devices? Need help managing them on Linux? OpenRazer 3.2.0 is out now and it’s looking good.

  Much like many other bigger vendors, Razer don’t officially support Linux with their proprietary applications so it’s up to the community to work around that and get all features working. This is what OpenRazer does and it manages to do it very well too. When paired up with a GUI app like Polychromatic, it’s easy!

• The Linux Gamer: These six remixed commands help us catch new, chiller vibes in the terminal. – Invidious

• Ubisoft Is Hiring A Linux Developer For An “Unannounced Project” But Don’t Get Too Excited – Phoronix

  Ubisoft issued a new job posting for a Linux developer, which has many Linux gamers excited especially as it’s mentioned for an “unannounced project.” Unfortunately, contrary to all the emailed tips in overnight about the job posting, it ultimately will likely prove to be of little interest to the gaming community.

  A new Ubisoft job posting is looking for a senior programmer that is experienced with Linux and in particular Debian. While one might think that this is in relation to the upcoming Valve Steam Deck, Steam OS 3.0 is Arch Linux based where it’s the now defunct former SteamOS builds that were based on Debian. If the Debian focus is accurate, it’s possible this job role has something to do with Google’s Stadia. The job role also makes mention of experience in Google Cloud SDK. Debian is the default operating system currently in Google Cloud. Meanwhile another popular Linux target with increasing gaming ambitions is Tesla’s in-vehicle infotainment system though that is running on Ubuntu.

• Wounds of Eventide brings the final chapter for Blasphemous out now | GamingOnLinux

  Blasphemous has a fresh update out with Wounds of Eventide, which brings overall the story to a close.

  Coming as part of a series of updates that began with Stir of Dawn in 2020, this free upgrade provides us with the usual assortment of new levels, bosses, items and allows you to unearth “secrets that will unlock another fate for Cvstodia – leading into the events of the Blasphemous sequel (launching in 2023)”. The developer did say that late-game saves may not be able to access all of the content “but you will get clues on what to do when you replay the game”.

• Last Epoch gets improved controller support and a first dungeon | GamingOnLinux

  Combining together time travel with an action RPG full of dungeon crawling and lots of replay value, Last Epoch continues showing off its promise with the Eternal Legends update.

  Firstly, as we will no doubt see plenty more games do over the next couple of months for the Steam Deck, Eleventh Hour Games have improved controller support with this update to make more of the UI easily accessible with it. There’s also been a number of parts optimized for better performance like the minimap, enemy / minion movement and attack animations and so on.

• Valve broke Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Linux, Vulkan may come soon | GamingOnLinux

  Despite Valve pushing many areas of Linux gaming, including the upcoming Steam Deck handheld which will use the Arch-based SteamOS 3, they still totally break their own games.

  It’s pretty concerning that their absolute #1 most popular game on Steam, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, has been thoroughly broken on Linux (and macOS) with the update that landed on Friday, December 10. First, the game wouldn’t even launch at all which was thankfully fixed – but there’s a pretty huge game-breaking problem still left in.

• Valve show off exclusive Steam Deck case for 512GB model | GamingOnLinux

  While all variants of the Steam Deck will come with their own case, the top-end 512GB model will include a slightly different design and Valve has now shown it off. It’s not overly exciting and the tweaks to it are pretty minimal but still looks pretty stylish.

  Valve say that the casing is functionally identical it’s just a cosmetic difference with the Steam Deck logo being a different colour, the zipper pulls are different, the fabric inside is different and the addition of a microfiber cleaning cloth plus a a separate drawstring pouch for the power cord.

• Cities: Skylines Airports DLC announced for release in January | GamingOnLinux

  Seems Paradox and Colossal Order aren’t done with their city builder just yet, as the Cities: Skylines Airports DLC was just announced for release on January 25.

  “Cities: Skylines Airports expansion DLC invites you onboard to experience the wonders and logistics of modern-day air travel. Please have your boarding pass ready as you start to place and design your airport. Fasten your seatbelts and connect your airport to the city through bus, metro, and train stations. Please place your items in the overhead compartments so that you can create cargo terminals connected to your airport complex while hauling in new goods and materials. We are now at the perfect altitude to begin enhancing your city’s travel industry! Thank you for flying with us today!”

Distributions

• New Releases

  • Review: JuNest

    I found the JuNest software to be one of those rare gems that does exactly what it sets out to do, no more or less. The JuNest project gives us the ability to set up a semi-isolated Arch Linux environment in a jail. The software allows us to install and run software from the Arch repositories without contaminating our host operating system. This essentially gives us access to an Arch Linux environment without the overhead of a virtual machine. It also means we can use Arch applications on our desktop and share files between our host system and the JuNest jail seamlessly.

    I did run into some errors with more complex applications, but those were easy enough to work around by simply running the junest command to access the jail’s namespace.

    All in all, I like JuNest. It may not be a full Linux distribution, like those we usual cover here, but it does provide a helpful way to run cutting edge Arch software from within an existing Linux distribution with minimal overhead or maintenance. The fact we can manage the JuNest environment and install additional software from Arch’s repositories without administrative access also makes this a very handy tool for situations where we are working in a restrictive environment.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Linux Mint 20.3 Beta is Available to Download

    Mint hasn’t formally announced this milestone at the time you read this, but the omg! tip box has been hammered with links to the Linux Mint 20.3 beta .iso from readers — it’s appreciated! — so I felt I better pass the news on ASAP!

    The final stable release of Linux Mint 20.3 is due before Christmas (possibly on the 18th or the 25th, according to internet chatter). This beta is intended for devs and bug hunters but gives interested users a sneak peek at what’s planned too.

  • Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo) Will Reach End of Life on January 20th, 2022

    Powered by Linux kernel 5.11 and built around the GNOME 3.38 desktop environment series (with support for GNOME 40 apps), Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo) also introduced PipeWire support, nftables as the default firewall backend, support for smart card authentication, and a redesigned Yaru dark theme.

    But, not being a long-term support (LTS) release, Ubuntu 21.04 only receives software and security updates for nine months, which means that it will reach end of life on January 20th, 2022. At that time, Canonical will stop offering updates for the Hirsute Hippo release. All users are urged to upgrade to Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri) as soon as possible!

Devices/Embedded

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • The Best Stealth Games for Android – Party Hard Go, Among Us, Space Marshals and More – Droid Gamers

  • The Best Features In Top Android Casinos

  • Android gaming consoles: Will Snapdragon G3x handhelds be a success?

  • IQU delivers their first Android tablets to market – Ausdroid

  • Here’s when and where OnePlus could launch its first Android tablet | Android Central

  • android: Government wants you to update your Android device, here’s why – Times of India

  • Android Auto bugs, issues & problems tracker: Here’s the current status

  • How to find what you’re looking for in the Android settings menu | Android Central

  • iQOO Z3 gets stable Funtouch OS 12 update based on Android 12

  • Vivo Android 12 (Funtouch OS 12/OriginOS/iQOO UI 3.0) update tracker

  • Vivo Android 12 (Funtouch OS 12/OriginOS/iQOO UI 3.0) update tracker

  • Infinix Note 11 & Note 11S With 50MP Triple Cameras, Android 11 OS Launched In India; Price & Sale Dates – Gizbot News

  • Oculus Browser Adds Free-Form Window Resize Option

  • Google Maps links on phone won’t open on Android Auto screen

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Giving back to the community

  There are various reasons I chose to do an event involving Tryton. One reason is that I’m using it myself: investing in the community will help the product grow in the future.

  Many free software organizations have recently tried to hire remote workers in Albania. These decisions have attracted a lot of attention. The woman I hired to help me prepare for the Courgent visit and organize the event in Tirana is Kristina Millona.

  In each of the communities I’ve visited in the region, I’ve shared a lot of information to help young people seek scholarships abroad, for example, Irish scholarships and Australian scholarships. Kristina applied for the prestigious Chevening scholarship and in the middle of the project we were working on, she received the news that she had been selected. The scholarship has a rigorous selection process where each applicant is evaluated on merit. Congratulations Kristina.

  Compared to the tech industry in other countries, there are a lot of women participating in these events. One of the top requests that I’ve heard from these women is to introduce any successful women in business or technology who might come and speak to them.

• How I use open source to design my own card games

  I love a good game, and I particularly enjoy tabletop games because they have many of the same traits that open source has. When you’re playing a card game in real life with friends sitting around a table, you can as a group decide that Jokers are wild. Alternately, you could arbitrarily decide that should a Joker come into play, anyone holding an Ace must discard that Ace. Or when a Queen of Diamonds comes into play, everyone must pass their hand to the player on their right. In other words, you can reprogram the rules on a whim because a game is nothing but a mutually agreed-upon set of conditions. To me, what’s even better is that you can invent your own games instead of hacking the rules of somebody else’s game. From time to time, I do this as a hobbyist, and because I like to combine my hobbies, I tend to design games with only open source and open culture resources.

• Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Apple Motion

  In 2020, Apple began the Apple silicon transition, using self-designed, 64-bit ARM-based Apple M1 processors on new Mac computers. Maybe it’s the perfect time to move away from the proprietary world of Apple, and embrace the open source Linux scene.

  Motion is used to create and edit motion graphics, titling for video production and film production, and 2D and 3D compositing for visual effects. The software lets users create and play back visual effects and motion graphics.

  Motion is commercial proprietary software and not available for Linux. What are the best free and open source alternatives?

• Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

  • Best Open Source Word Processors for Linux

    So, I’m here with a list of the best open-source word processors for Linux to make your life easier without that.

    Please note that I am talking about word processors here, not a full-fledged office suite. The focus is on suggesting that tools that let you write documents. Some software may come with spreadsheets and presentation software but that’s not our goal here.

    The first line of this article is partly true, especially for the Linux people.

• FSF

  • Licensing/Legal

    • [Old] Free Software Needs Free Tools

      These nonfree development tools present a dilemma for many free software developers. The goal of many of these tools is, through more efficient free software development, more free software and more freedom. CollabNet, Google and GitHub each claim to want free software to succeed and claim they want to help it. For a series of reasons though these companies choose to support software freedom through means that are less in line with free software ethics than the ones they seek to create. The result is developers who are disempowered. The software freedom of the code these hackers produce is contingent on unacceptable exclusivity.

      First, the use of nonfree tools sends an unacceptable message to users of the free software produced. “Software freedom is important for you as users,” developers seem to say, “but not for us.” Such behavior undermines the basic effectiveness of the strong ethical commitment at the heart of the free software movement. As those that are already committed to free software, we should demonstrate that we can succeed—and thrive—using free software. We should support free alternatives to proprietary systems such as Savane which can replace SourceForge or Google Code and runs GNU Savannah, or Gitorious which can replace GitHub—by using them and by improving them in the areas where they fall short.

      Secondly, we should realize that, going forward, the software we produce is only as free as the software it depends on for its continued use, distribution, and evolution.

• Programming/Development

  • Print HTML in PHP

    A fundamental use of the PHP programming language is to build dynamic web applications. Hence, we often need to print information in HTML inside a PHP web application.

    This guide will learn about two main ways to print HTML content on a PHP web application.

  • Error: Access Violation Writing Location C++

    Whenever you are dealing with codes written in any programming language, there is a high chance that you encounter different types of errors. Similarly, while working with C++, you come across certain types of errors that seem quite challenging to resolve. However, when you look closely at your coding practices, you realize that these errors are nothing but a consequence of your careless mistakes.

    One such error is the access violation writing location error in C++ and this article is dedicated to the discussion of this error. More precisely, we will discuss why this error occurs in the first place and then we will throw light on the different methods using which we can easily get rid of this error in C++ in Ubuntu 20.04.

  • How to Predict Stock Price Using SVM

    The Pandas library method not only allows us to remove the header of the CSV file data but can also be used to remove other rows if we specify their number or index position to the skiprows. So the skiprows will be able to remove all those rows whose numbers will be assigned to them. How to skip the csv header row in Python is explained in this article.

  • Python

    • Python csv skip header row

      In this article, we will learn how we can remove the header of the CSV file data while reading the CSV itself because sometimes we don’t need the header of the CSV file data.

  • Java

    • Logging library flaw opens software from different vendors to RCE

      The flaw, an unauthenticated remote code exploit, allows the complete takeover of systems using versions 2.0-beta9 up to 2.14.1 of the library.

      Developed by the Apache Software Foundation, Log4j is used in software that does not use Java as well and products from Apple, Amazon, Cloudflare, Twitter and Steam are all susceptible.

    • Global race to patch critical computer bug

      Security experts around the world raced on December 10 to patch one of the worst computer vulnerabilities discovered in years, a critical flaw in open-source code widely used across industry and government in cloud services and enterprise software.

    • Log4Shell explained – how it works, why you need to know, and how to fix it – Naked Security

      In this article, we explain the Apache Log4Shell vulnerability in plain English, and give you some simple educational code that you can use safely and easily at home (or even directly on your own servers) in order to learn more.

      Just to be clear up front: we’re not going to show you how to build a working exploit, or how set up the services you need in the cloud to deliver active payloads.

Science

• List of winners for the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in the fields of science and technology

  The award is named after the founder Director of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) India – the late Dr Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar. He is credited with establishing twelve national laboratories and held many positions in the government in independent India. It is only given to Indian scientists working in India. The Director-General announces the winners on 26 September on the CSIR Foundation Day.

  The SSB prizes are awarded to scientists below 45 years of age for conduction research in one of seven disciplines. The prize includes a citation, a plaque, and a cash award of ₹5,00,000 lakh.

• Artificial Intelligence: 7 Achievements From 2021 Driven Entirely By AI

  Over the last year, we’ve seen some breathtaking developments in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning – from robots that can reproduce, to human-like robots straight out of a sci-fi show, to AI programmes that can predict the onset of diseases like dementia.

  Here’s a list of biggest feats in artificial intelligence this year.

Education

• Research suggests virtual conferences better for environment

  A research team led by engineers from The University of Texas at Austin analyzed several science conferences that first went virtual during the early months of the pandemic. The researchers examined the environmental, social and economic costs of virtual conferences compared with in-person events and analyzed how the shift online altered participation by women, early-career researchers and scientists from underrepresented institutions and countries.

  The study found that virtual events lowered costs and reduced time and travel commitments that had previously held some conferences back from attracting diverse groups of attendees. Also, the environmental costs of hundreds or thousands of people flying from around the world to attend a conference were eliminated.

• Guy Challenged MIT Students To Solve IIT-JEE Exam: See What Happened

  “Singh in USA” wreaked havoc on the MIT campus by challenging students who agreed to follow two rules – firstly, to choose among Mathematics, Chemistry, or Physics. Secondly, to solve one question from the entire JEE Advanced paper in 5 minutes.

  Those who got the answer right stood a chance to get $100 and $20 for participating. Out of six participants, three people got the answers correctly, winning $100 while three couldn’t get the answers right. As participation prize, the YouTuber gave them $20.

Hardware

• U.S. considers banning key exports to Chinese chipmaker SMIC

  Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) was added to a U.S. blacklist last year that denies it access to advanced manufacturing equipment from U.S. suppliers due to its alleged ties to China’s military, claims that the company rejects.

  SMIC, China’s largest contract chipmaker, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

  In the coming months, U.S. officials are also considering adding more Chinese technology companies to the Commerce Department’s entity list and to the Treasury list banning U.S. investment, the Journal added.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Native People in California Are Fighting Water Policies That Imperil Salmon

• Opinion | The Omicron Shame: Why Is the World Punishing Instead of Helping Africa?

  The decision by several governments across the globe to institute travel bans on seven African countries, starting on November 27, due to the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, was perceived to be hasty in the eyes of some and fully justifiable on medical grounds, in the view of others. However, the matter is hardly that of a difference of opinion.

• Air Pollution In India: The Time To Act Was Yesterday

  Air pollution has for long been viewed as an environmental or chemical iss­ue. In reality, it is a major human health issue, causing disease, disab­ility and premature death of 7 million people glo­bally every year. We breathe 25,000 or more times every day, inhaling 10,000 or more litres of air. It is a basic body function meant to sust­ain life. But today, breathing kills. The very air meant to sustain life is killing us, because of the presence of pollutants in it, which are poison for our body and damage our health badly. In India, 93 per cent of children breathe air which is below WHO standards. Over 25 per cent dea­ths in children under 5 are directly or indirectly related to air pollution. WHO director Dr Mar­ia Neira has termed it “a global public health emergency” while the WHO director-general has termed it “the second tobacco epidemic”.

• The dangers of overtaxing your prefrontal cortex

  There’s already plenty of literature about our contemporary mental health crisis. But Rego, who has practiced psychiatry for three decades, takes the unique approach of examining with specificity the impact of 21st century life on our magnificent, misunderstood prefrontal cortexes. He offers no sweeping generalizations, or finger pointing. Instead he takes the reader deep into the science of how the region of our brains that controls executive function evolved, how it operates — and what the unbelievable demands we put on it every day are doing to it. It’s a fascinating window into what makes us human, and an urgent call to “build our lives as best we can.”

  Salon spoke to Rego recently via Zoom about why we’re all feeling the effects of frontal fatigue, and what we can do to shake it off.

• I’ve been sick in bed all week with a bacterial lung infection. I didn’t seek treatment even though I’m insured. (United States healthcare system)

  The thing is, they don’t prescribe antibiotics anymore. So there’s hardly a reason to go.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Security

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Confidentiality

        • [Crackers] steal [sic] research data from Sweden’s Volvo Cars

          Swedish manufacturer Volvo Cars said Friday that hackers had stolen research and development data from its systems in a cyberattack.

          The company, owned by China’s Geely, “has become aware that one of its file repositories has been illegally accessed by a third party,” it said.

Defence/Aggression

• Saudi Arabia Arms Sale Is One of Biden’s Many Militaristic Actions in First Year

• The Problems with the Pro-Nuclear Left

  Central to Sunkara’s argument was that we can easily separate the science of nuclear power from the technology of atomic weapons. “Some of the paranoia is no doubt rooted in cold war-era associations of peaceful nuclear power with dangerous nuclear weaponry. We can and should separate these two, just like we are able to separate nuclear bombs from nuclear medicine.”

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• Strasbourg commemorates victims of Christmas market terror attack

  Although Chekatt managed to escape the scene even after being injured by one of the soldiers, he was identified and shot dead 48 hours later in one of the southern Strasbourg districts. Authorities later found a video in which the attacker pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State.

  A total of five people have since been investigated under the suspicion of providing Chekatt with weapons. However, a trial is not expected to take place before 2023.

Environment

• Extreme Storms Will Be ‘New Normal,’ FEMA Head Warns After Deadly Tornadoes

  The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that extreme weather events like the tornados that recently devastated portions of the South and Midwest will become increasingly common as climate change wreaks havoc on the planet.

  “This is going to be our new normal,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said on CNN’s State of the Union.

• Kentucky Officials Fear Over 100 Dead, ‘Years’ of Recovery Following Tornado Devastation

  The death toll from the series of tornadoes that erupted late Friday will likely top 100 in Kentucky alone, the state’s Gov. Andy Beshear said Sunday, as fears grew there would be no further rescues from a collapsed candle factory in the devastated city of Mayfield.

  “This is the deadliest tornado event we’ve ever had.”

• Energy

  • ALEC Is Pushing a Bill That Punishes Banks for Divesting From Fossil Fuels

  • Nation’s Largest Electricity Retailer Has Allegedly Financed Straw Candidates

  • Ford to set up three EV battery plants in the US with a total capacity of 129 gigawatt hours a year

    Ford and a partner company say they plan to build three major electric-vehicle battery factories and an auto assembly plant by 2025 — a dramatic investment in the future of EV technology that will create an estimated 10,800 jobs and shift the automaker’s future manufacturing footprint toward the South.

    The factories, to be built on sites in Kentucky and Tennessee, will make batteries for the next generation of Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles that will be produced in North America. Combined, they mark the single largest manufacturing investment the 118-year-old company has ever made and are among the largest factory outlays in the world.

  • Explained: How Cryptocurrencies Are Regulated Around The World

    At a time Cryptocurrency ecosystem stakeholders in India are keeping their fingers crossed, with a hope that India will come up with rules to regulate them instead of announcing a blanket ban, a statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has contributed to more suspense on the issue. In a virtual summit hosted by US president Joe Biden, Modi said that emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies should be used to empower democracy, not undermine it. The statement comes at a time when the entire world is coming up with its own set of regulations to deal with the emerging asset class. While some countries have banned cryptocurrency entirely, others have tried to partially control their flow in the economy. Outlook Business looks at the way different countries in the world have tried to regulate cryptocurrencies.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Opinion | Institute Index: Why the DOJ Sued Texas Over Its New Voting Maps

  Date on which the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Texas under the Voting Rights Act, challenging new redistricting plans for congressional and state House districts: 12/6/2021

• Indian PM Modi’s personal Twitter handle ‘briefly compromised’

  It was not immediately known how long the personal Twitter handle of Modi, which has over 73 million followers, was compromised.

  Twitter took the necessary steps to secure the compromised account as soon as it became aware of the activity, a Twitter spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Reuters, adding an investigation revealed no signs of any other impacted accounts at present.

• Indian prime minister’s Twitter account ‘very briefly compromised’

  It was unclear how the Twitter account was [cracked] or for how long. Modi has over 73 million followers on the social media platform.

Misinformation/Disinformation

• China uses Twitter for its propaganda; gets busted: Over 2K accounts removed

  Twitter recently underwent a major change in leadership as Jack Dorsey stepped down from his CEO post and appointed Parag Agrawal for the post. But the micro-blogging platform has shared an important update on the crackdown of state-linked information operations it has managed to remove from its platform in a bid to bring non-manipulated, bias-free news to users.

  Twitter on Thursday announced that it has removed 3,465 accounts for its foreign state-linked information operations. The Twitter accounts that were removed were linked to operations attributed to six countries, but the biggest contributor remained China.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Is academic freedom compatible with political influence over governance?

  An October decision by the University of Florida to block expert testimony from three professors in a voting rights lawsuit against the Florida government raised concerns across the US academic community. Although the decision was later reversed, concern remains about what the case says about academic freedom, freedom of speech, and an increasing trend of political control over institutions of higher education.

  That concern is only heightened by other controversial new Florida laws. One requires state universities and colleges to conduct annual surveys on the personal and political views of faculty, students, and staff. This is still being challenged in a Florida court as an infringement on freedom and free speech and may yet be overturned, but it is noteworthy that it was passed on 1 July, the same day that Florida’s Foreign Influence House Bill, known as HB 7017, was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis, amid unanimous political support.

• Facebook misjudges thousands of political ads: study

  The team conducted surveys in 58 countries and found that Facebook achieved the least success in filtering ads accurately in Malaysia, where 45% of ads remain under the radar. On the hand, the social network scored the best in the U.S. and New Zealand, where only 1% of ads slipped through the net.

  Facebook began labelling political posts and ads on the platform on several occasions, most recently during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections. This came after several critics called out the world’s largest social network for allowing biased and erroneous information to run rampant on the platform.

• Facebook removes 94 obscene contents of Dr Murad Hassan

  In response to a High Court order issued on Tuesday, the telecom regulator of the country identified the audio and video contents of the former statements containing indecent and vulgar remarks, and asked Facebook and YouTube authorities to remove them immediately.

  The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) identified 387 links on social media and other platforms where the Jamalpur 4 MP’s obscene remarks have been shared.

• The flawed Islamic democracy of Pakistan

  A serious consequence of this ontological incertitude has been the maddening perversity of thought that marks the justification of mob violence against those charged under blasphemy laws in Pakistan. The most notorious example of this was the ordeal a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, went through before being acquitted of blasphemy in 2018. Many who defended her had to pay with their lives including the Punjab Governor, Salman Taseer.

  The latest manifestation of the chronic malaise was the lynching in Sialkot earlier this month of a Sri Lankan man for allegedly taking down posters on which Quranic verses were inscribed. Less than a week before the Sialkot savagery, an extremist mob had burned a police station in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when officers rejected its demand to hand over a mentally unstable man arrested for allegedly desecrating the Quran. These ghastly incidents were preceded by the shocking arrest in July this year of an eight-year-old Hindu boy for “intentionally” urinating on the carpet of a madrasa library where religious books were kept. The boy’s family and several members of the Hindu community in the district of Rahim Yar Khan had to flee their homes when a Muslim crowd attacked a Hindu temple after the boy’s release on bail in August.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

• Assange Had Stroke, Says Fiancee Stella Moris, Warning of ‘Dangerous Impact’ of Imprisonment

  Stella Moris, the fiancee of Julian Assange, reiterated demands for his freedom as she revealed Saturday that the WikiLeaks founder suffered a mini-stroke in October.

  “Julian Assange suffered a stroke on the first day of the High Court appeal hearing on October 27th,” Moris said in a tweet.

• Assange to approach Supreme Court after US wins extradition appeal

  WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange will seek permission from Britain’s Supreme Court to contest the verdict of a two-bench High Court panel which, on Friday, reversed a lower court’s decision to deny a US request for his extradition.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Diversity-Driven Hiring Practices Must Include People With Criminal Convictions

• Opinion | People(s)-Centered Human Rights—A Necessary Framework to Counter Neoliberalism’s Dangerous Contradictions

  International Human Rights Day is December 10. On that day in 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was promulgated as the first in a series of covenants, treaties, and legal interpretations that would make up the post-war human rights framework.

• Why So Many US-American Whites So Messed Up on Race

  Insofar as they can acknowledge Black poverty and misery, millions and millions of white USAers understand Black pain and suffering as essentially self-inflicted and deserved. Never mind the plethora of research and investigation showing US-American social, political, and economic institutions function in such a way as to produce stark white-Black disparities in every relevant statistical measurement: wealth, poverty, income, employment, infant mortality, maternal mortality, exposure to pollution, life span, health coverage, criminal branding, incarceration, home ownership, police brutality, access to full service grocery stores, access to green space, access to doctors and dentists, access to banks and loans, exposure to COVID-19, and on and on.

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• DNA Explainer: Now you will have right to ignore employers’ calls after office hours, read how

  Among some of the stalled bills tabled in Parliament today, an interesting Right to Disconnect Bill is also scheduled in this list. The first time Right to Disconnect Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha by NCP MP Supriya Sule in 2019 to give employees the right to not respond to employers’ calls, texts or emails after office hours. Attempting to tackle the never-ending demands of professional life is the Right to Disconnect Bill.

  This Bill gives employees the right not to respond to communication from employers outside of office hours. The Bill is largely aimed at reducing stress and easing work-related tensions and striving for a better work-life balance. The Bill mandates companies to detail out-of-work demands.

• Fulani Herdsmen Attack Christians near City of Kaduna, Nigeria

  Prompt action by the Nigerian army prevented further harm by heavily armed herdsmen who attacked Sabo GRA at about 1 a.m., said area resident Agwam Adams.

• Indian CEO who fired over 900 employees on zoom call asked to go on a long leave

  According to an international business tech magazine, Paula Tuffin, the fintech company’s general counsel, described the events of the past week as “very regrettable” and said the board has commissioned a third party to conduct an assessment of leadership and culture at the company. Tuffin also wrote that Garg will be replaced by the company’s CFO, Kevin Ryan, as interim CEO.

  The email rolled out by the Board of Directors of Better, a copy of which was first reported by Vice media, stated that the company has also engaged a third-party firm to do leadership and cultural assessment.

• Dharma Files | Can evil be fought with goodness or by being noble?

  A statement made by Confucius may help us find our way to an answer. He was once asked: “Should we return evil with good? “Confucius replied: “If you return evil with good, what will you return good with? Therefore, return good with good and evil with justice.”

  Similarly, once a pupil told him: “A gentleman (Chun-Tzu/Junzi) is one whom all the people of the village love.” He replied: “No, a gentleman is one whom all the good people of the village love and all bad people of the village hate.”

• Why Americans are rethinking where they want to live

  Mr Whitaker estimates that from March 2020 to March 2021, around 600,000 people moved from large, high-cost metro areas to mid-sized cities (meaning those with between 500,000 and 2m people), and more than 740,000 moved to rural areas, small towns and cities with populations below 500,000—an increase in both instances of 13.5% from pre-pandemic levels. New York and San Francisco saw the largest increases in the share of people leaving. In recent months, young renters have started returning to some cities while middle-aged people are continuing to flock to the suburbs to purchase homes.

Monopolies

• ‘Inexcusable’: Amazon Under Fire After Warehouse Collapse Kills at Least Six

  Amazon was accused Saturday of putting corporate profits above worker safety following the tornado-caused partial collapse of a St. Louis-area warehouse that left at least six people dead.

  “How many workers must die for Amazon to have a policy for extreme weather events?”

• Amazon Slammed for Putting Profits Over Safety After 6 Die in Warehouse Collapse

• As many sellers go bankrupt, Amazon is set to pocket $121 billion this year: Report by US non-profit

  According to the report, over the last few years, seller fees grew much faster than every other major revenue stream at Amazon.

  “They grew faster than Amazon’s own retail sales and faster than its Prime membership programme. They even outpaced Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s massive cloud-computing division,” the report claimed.

  AWS is on track to post about $61 billion in sales this year — a vast sum, but still only half the revenue Amazon will generate from seller fees.

• Copyrights

  • ‘Copyright Troll’ Must Pay $60k Extra to Compensate Wrongfully Accused ‘Pirate’

    Adult entertainment company Malibu Media continues to dig itself into a deeper hole. After it failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars to a man who was wrongfully accused of movie piracy, the company’s assets were restrained. And after a dramatic hearing last week, the total amount owed has more than doubled to $108,271.