Kernel Space

• LWN ☛ Linux 5.17.1

  I'm announcing the release of the 5.17.1 kernel.
  
  All users of the 5.17 kernel series must upgrade.
  
  The updated 5.17.y git tree can be found at:
  	git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-5.17.y
  and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:
  
  https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s...
  
  thanks,
  
  greg k-h
  

• LWN ☛ Linux 5.16.18

• LWN ☛ Linux 5.15.32

• LWN ☛ Linux 5.10.109

• LWN ☛ Linux 5.4.188

• LWN ☛ Linux 4.19.237

• LWN ☛ Linux 4.14.274

• LWN ☛ Linux 4.9.309

Instructionals/Technical

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Install KDE Plasma Desktop on Fedora 36 Linux

• HowTo Forge ☛ How to use Apache Guacamole to create a VNC Connection

• Debugging container networking: first steps

  So… containers, we know them for years now but they still tend to cause us problems thanks to the extra layers of abstraction, storage and… Networking.

• TechRepublic ☛ How to install TeamViewer-like AnyDesk on Linux | TechRepublic

  If you’ve ever had to do any remote administration, you’ve probably used or (at least) heard of TeamViewer, which, for many, is the de facto standard for remotely administering desktops and servers with a GUI.

• AboutChromebooks ☛ How to upgrade Linux on a Chromebook to Debian Bullseye 11.3 – About Chromebooks

  If you’re using Linux on a Chromebook, you might be interested to know that a new version of Debian just launched. It’s a minor update to version 11, also known as Bullseye, but there are 83 security updates and 92 bug fixes in it.

  Here’s how to upgrade Linux on a Chromebook to Debian 11.3, which is quite easy.

• Ubuntu Handbook ☛ How to Install Stellarium Astronomy Software 0.22.0 in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | UbuntuHandbook

  Stellarium 0.22.0 released! Here’s how to install and keep it up to date in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04 via PPA.

  Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye.

• How to Use the Du Command in Linux – RoseHosting

  In this tutorial, we are going to explain the “du” command used on every Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, Debian, or CentOS.

  “Du” stands for Disk Usage and every Linux user should use it very often to check the amount of disk space used by directory or file. Using the “du” command is very simple by typing it on the console and adding additional phrases called options. In other words, the “du” command is different every time, according to the needs of the user and what the user wants to be displayed as output.

  In this blog post, the “du” command will be explained with real examples. Let’s get started!

• FOSSBytes ☛ Here’s How To Install Ubuntu Rolling Rhino On Your PC

  If you’re following the Linux space, you might know that Ubuntu doesn’t follow a rolling release structure but two releases every year. However, we’re pretty sure that a lot of people dream about Ubuntu following a rolling-release structure like Arch Linux, though the chances are pretty slim.

  If you’re one of those people who wish Ubuntu was a rolling release, a former Canonical employee has created Rolling Rhino, an unofficial Ubuntu flavor that converts your Ubuntu install into a rolling release distribution.

• OpenSource.com ☛ Scheduling tasks with the Linux cron command | Opensource.com

  Early in my Linux journey, I came to appreciate the numerous command-line utilities of the operating system and the way they streamlined regular tasks. For example, backing up applications on my Windows server frequently required expensive add-on software packages. By contrast, the tar command makes backing up Linux relatively easy, and it’s powerful and reliable too.

  When backing up our school district email system, however, I faced a different challenge. Backups couldn’t occur during the workday or early evening because people were using the system. The backup had to occur after midnight, and it needed to be reliable. I was used to Windows Task Manager, but what was I going to use on Linux? That’s when I learned about cron.

• OSNote ☛ Traceroute command in Linux with practical examples – OSNote

  Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool that is used to display the route that network packages take from sender t receiver as well as the time it takes for the network packages to travel from one network node to the other. This command is used to test the IP route of the destination server or host in order to resolve network issues. It mainly provides the connectivity status but also points the issue precisely as well as its occurrence which makes the system administrators trace out the issue more quickly and fix it.

• Dedoimedo ☛ Plasma secrets: How to customize Dolphin to perfection

  At the risk of repeating myself, I must say that Plasma is the best desktop. Period. It is also extremely customizable, but in a fun way. You can use the defaults, never worrying about any tweaking, or if you so desire, you can make visual changes to pretty much anything and everything, with a great level of detail. A good example is Dolphin, Plasma’s default file manager, our topic for today.

  In this article, I want to show you how you can go about changing the look & feel of Dolphin. And to satisfy the bombastic title I used above, I intend to go beyond the pure basics. As in, I won’t talk about changing the size of icons in the sidebar, or removing certain categories and alike. That’s too easy. We’ll actually tweak the look and feel. Follow me.

• Linux Handbook ☛ Kill vs Killall: Difference Between the Two Linux Commands

  From Linux forums to Linux memes, you’ll come across two commands for force ending programs in Linux; kill and killall.

  While many Linux users are aware of the kill command, not many people know and use the killall command.

  And it could be confusing for people anyway. Both commands have similar sounding name and similar purpose (to end processes).

  So, what’s the difference between kill and killall? Which command should you use and in which case should you use them?

• Create Proxmox Containers From Proxmox Web Dashboard – OSTechNix

  In this tutorial, we will discuss a brief overview about Linux containers and its use cases. Then we will move on to see how to list available container templates from Proxmox web dashboard, download a container template and finally create Proxmox containers using the downloaded container template from Proxmox dashboard.

• Convert Audio File Formats on Ubuntu with SoundConverter – Technastic

  In this tutorial, we discuss how you can convert audio files into different formats on Ubuntu with a neat tool called SoundConverter. Before the rise of music streaming services, people bought their music DRM-free. Meaning they bought the music and it was theirs to do whatever they wished to do with, transfer the file to any number of devices, and even share it with others for free. You can see how this wasn’t so good for the music companies but it definitely was convenient for the users. Most of our music is online these days, via various streaming services.

• Barry Kauler ☛ Broken options.pptp file fixed

Games

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Steam Next Fest returns in June to overload you with demos | GamingOnLinux

  Steam Next Fest: June Edition 2022 is confirmed to be launching on June 13, so time to make sure you have some space free to install all those demos.

  I’ve managed to find a few new favourites from previous events, so here’s to hoping there’s plenty. Hopefully developers will be getting more of their games with Steam Input support too, since many more people will be playing on a Steam Deck. This time there might even be a special section just for those.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Deck-building RPG ‘Tainted Grail: Conquest’ releases for Linux | GamingOnLinux

  Awaken Realms Digital has given Linux fans a little gift, with a native Linux build of their popular game Tainted Grail: Conquest now available.

  Tainted Grail: Conquest is set in the dark-fantasy universe of Awaken Realms’ hit board game Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. The game combines narrative-driven RPG elements with roguelike deck-building gameplay, offering a unique twist on the genres. Players set out on the cursed island of Avalon, where an ever-changing map filled with deadly enemies awaits. With a deep character customization suite across nine distinctive classes of heroes plus dozens of skills, runestones, and items available, each play-through brings a unique set of challenges.

• Boiling Steam ☛ SteamTinkerLaunch on Steam Deck: Signs of Support – Boiling Steam

  SteamTinkerLaunch is an excellent solution (and probably not as well known as it should be!) if you want to manage different version and different options of Proton within Steam (and much more than that, such as FSR settings, Reshade…). Turns out that FrostWork (the main developer) has now access to a Deck and you may see SteamTinkerLaunch on Steam Deck…

• Boiling Steam ☛ You can now Run Steam Games with Proton on an ARM PC Thanks to Progress Made on Box86! – Boiling Steam

  I am big fan of Box86 and Box64 (as well as pretty much everything PtitSeb does) and a few months ago he made it possible to run some Linux Games on Steam (using the mini-mode, the full client is not yet supported). And the latest development, and that’s a major one, is that Box86 can now run some Windows games on Steam by using Proton! Here’s a video of two of such games: Geometry Dash and Among Us on a ARM mini PC (Pythium D2000 + AMD Rx550):

• Forbes ☛ Running Emulators On Steam Deck Just Got MUCH Easier With This New App

  Valve’s Steam Deck is adept at running everything from indie PC games like Tunic to power-hungry AAA titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring. But it’s rapidly becoming known for another strength: its ability to emulate a vast range of retro and current consoles, from the Atari 2600 all the way up to the Nintendo Switch. Getting everything set up to do that, however, can be a lengthy and arduous process, something a brand new app called EmuDeck aims to make much easier.

Distributions

• 9to5Linux ☛ GParted 1.4 Released with Labeling Support for Mounted Btrfs, EXT4, and XFS Filesystems

  Coming about 11 months after GParted 1.3, the GParted 1.4 release is here to add labeling support for mounted btrfs, EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, and XFS file systems, implements detection of JBD external EXT3 and EXT4 journal, adds the ability to check copy destination instead of source, and as well as bcache detection.

  It also adds accessibility relations for screen readers like Orca, updates additional getter methods to use return-by-constant-reference, and adds initial translation for Indonesian users of the help manual.

• New Releases

  • Its FOSS ☛ Linux Release Roundup #22.13: Feren OS 2022.3, GNOME 42, Parrot 5.0, and More Releases

    Feren OS is an interesting Ubuntu-based distro. The latest update is it’s first for this year due to a minor delay.

    The new update introduces some new features, replaces the text editor, and more. You can learn more about it in our coverage.

• Gentoo Family

  • 9to5Linux ☛ Gentoo-Based Porteus Kiosk 5.4 Released with Linux Kernel 5.15 LTS, Various Improvements

    Porteus Kiosk 5.4 is here more than five months after Porteus Kiosk 5.3 to bump the kernel version from Linux 5.10 LTS to the latest long-term supported branch, namely Linux 5.15 LTS, which will receive maintenance updates until October 2023. As you can imagine, this means better hardware support and the ability for Porteus Kiosk to run on more devices.

    Besides Linux kernel 5.15 LTS, the Porteus Kiosk 5.4 release is here to add implement the import_certificates= parameter for importing DER certificates, add support for dynamically generated remote configurations to allow you to pass Kiosk identification and settings through specific URLs.

  • PORTEUS KIOSK 5.4.0 IS LIVE

    I’m pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 5.4.0 is now available for download.

• SUSE/OpenSUSE

  • Entering Leap Bugs Gains New Clarity – openSUSE News

    Submitting bug reports related to openSUSE’s traditional release over the years had some abnormalities as reporting bugs for Leap’s distribution had SUSE Linux Enterprise considerations.

    A the distribution evolved from the Leap 42.1 hybrid to the binary compatible Leap 15.3 release and exorbitant reporting was necessary. The abnormalities of the process before caused contributors to be unable to see bugs referenced as fixes for SLE, which made it into Leap, but were not able to view them in bugzilla.opensuse.org.

    That has now been streamlined, according to an email from Leap release manager Lubos Kocman.

    “I’m excited to inform you that the days when developers were struggling to find Public SUSE Linux Enterprise * Bugzilla products (where all bugs are by default visible to the community) are finally over,” Kocman posted to the developer’s mailing list. “Public SLE products can be now seen in the default “Enter new bug” dialog at bugzilla.opensuse.org.”

  • SUSE’s Corporate Blog ☛ SUSE One Continues to Improve, Gain Recognition | SUSE Communities

    It has been almost two years since the team at SUSE reimagined the framework of our partner program. In response to the changing demands of the market and the channel, we set out to build a structure around six areas of specialization. Each was created with unique partner types in mind, and provides the ability for organizations to adapt, accelerate, and grow their business practice as technology trends and customer requirements continue their evolution.

• IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

  • Rajeesh K Nambiar: RIT Malayalam fonts are available & default in Fedora 36+, ELN

    The upcoming Fedora release 36 (due end of April 2022) and beyond, and ELN (Enterprise Linux Next, what would become RHEL) will have default Malayalam script fonts as RIT Rachana and Meera New fonts. In addition, Sundar, TNJoy, Panmana and Ezhuthu fonts are now available in the official repositories. This brings Malayalam fonts that are modern (Unicode 13 compatible), well-maintained, having perfect complex-script shaping and good metadata to the users of Fedora, RHEL, CentOS & downstream OSen. I have made all the necessary updates in the upstream projects (which I maintain) and packaged them for Fedora (which also I maintain).

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ Digital transformation: 3 focus areas to prioritize in 2022 | The Enterprisers Project

    Digital transformation: The term has been around for years but its meaning often remains vague and largely undefined, even for IT decision-makers.

    As a result, in 2021, an estimated $700 billion in digital transformation spending fell short of delivering the desired results. Common reasons include an overwhelming number of applications in an organization’s tech stack, a lack of technical knowledge to deploy new solutions, and resistance from employees to adopt new digital technologies.

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ 3 reasons user experience matters to your digital transformation strategy | The Enterprisers Project

    Customer experience (CX) gets a lot of hype, and for good reason. The marketplace is saturated with gadgets, applications, services, and products to make people’s lives easier. Need to get from your office to the airport? A ridesharing app is just one tap away from getting you from point A to point B. But whether you use Uber, Lyft, or another service all comes down to a few simple factors: price, ease of use, and experience. In a competitive landscape, let’s assume price is comparable. So by the process of elimination, a seamless customer experience is everything.

    In our digital culture, it’s easier than ever for businesses to understand where their shortcomings lie. Customers vote with their wallets every day and they’re not shy about sharing their opinions. But what if the customers we’re talking about are your employees, and perhaps they’re not so vocal about the products and services they’re using? Or worse – what if they are and nothing is done about it?

  • Red Hat ☛ Build your first Java serverless function using a Quarkus quick start | Red Hat Developer

    Are you looking for the shortest path or cheatsheet to bring your Java application into a serverless platform based on Kubernetes? Perhaps you don’t have enough time to stand up relevant infrastructure and configure settings for both the application and the platform. This article is a guide to developing Java serverless functions using a Quarkus quick start in the Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift. As you’ll see, using quick starts in the Developer Sandbox lets you focus on the application development without needing to configure Knative.

    The Developer Sandbox provides a shared, multi-tenant Red Hat OpenShift 4 cluster with a cloud IDE tool called Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces. All you need is a free account on Red Hat to get access for a limited time to a sandbox. Following the four steps in this article, you can stand up your own cluster in 10 minutes.

  • Red Hat ☛ Simplify secure connections to PostgreSQL databases with Node.js

    PostgreSQL is an advanced open source relational database that is commonly used by applications to store structured data. Before accessing a database, the application must connect and provide security credentials. As a Node.js developer, how can you safely share and provide those credentials in JavaScript code without a lot of work? This article introduces service bindings and the kube-service-bindings package, along with a convenient graphical interface in Red Hat OpenShift.

    When using a database, the four basic operations are create, read, update, and delete (CRUD, for short). Our team maintains an example CRUD application on GitHub that shows how to connect to a PostgreSQL database and execute the four basic operations. We use that example to illustrate the security model in this article.

• Debian Family

  • LWN ☛ Debian decides to allow secret votes [LWN.net]

    The Debian project has been voting on a general resolution that would allow secret voting on future issues. The results have been posted in unofficial form, and the winner was “proposal B”: “Hide identities of Developers casting a particular vote and allow verification”. One might think that closes the discussion, but Debian project leader candidate Felix Lechner is questioning the election and calling for it to be redone — something that the Debian constitution lacks provisions for.

Devices/Embedded

• Liliputing ☛ Lilbits: MangoPi’s SD-card sized Linux PC, supersizing the iPhone 13 Pro Max, and Intel’s most powerful desktop chip – Liliputing

  Chinese company MangoPi made a bit of splash earlier this year by introducing a pair of tiny computer boards powered by RISC-V processors. Now the company is showing off a new computer-on-a-module that’s smaller than an SD card, but which packs four ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores, supports Linux-based software, and can handle 1080p video playback at 60 Hz through an HDMI output (although you’ll need to connect a carrier board to get that HDMI port, since there are no ports on the module itself).

  Details about the new module are light at the moment, but it appears to be called the “Linux-Box” and there’s a little more information at the MangoPi forum and on Twitter, which is how we know it’ll probably ship with an Allwinner H616 processor.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Purism ☛ Crossing the Chasm Toward the Tipping Point

    The Librem line, PureOS, and Librem One is the foundation for expansion. The Librem line: Librem 14 laptop, Librem 5 phone, Librem 5 USA (with Made in USA Electronics) phone, Librem Key, Librem Mini, Librem Servers. With the Librem line we have a well rounded hardware offering that runs PureOS.

    PureOS: A GNU-based 100% free software truly convergent operating system developed and maintained by Purism pushes the boundaries across our hardware innovations to have a single easy-to-use OS that is on pace to rival the giants. Purism’s PureOS was also where all the development occurs for what we later pushed into GNOME; phosh, phoc, libhandy (now libadwaita), squeekboard, calls, chats, and the long list of adaptive applications. Other companies are adopting PureOS as their base OS for other industries, automotive, drones, IOT, and services; including our very own Librem One.

    Librem One initially a reference platform, will see tighter integration into PureOS and the Librem line since it directly impacts the long-term goal of Purism: to make beautiful convenient products that respect the rights of humans. The ‘convenient’ part of that continues to be a major investment we make.

  • Arduino ☛ Electromechanical four-digit seven-segment clock displays the time silently | Arduino Blog

    While digital display technologies exist for just about every possible use case, sometimes you want the aesthetics that only electromechanical displays provide. Many makers have built electromechanical seven-segment displays for this purpose, but they are usually driven by noisy servo motors. David McDaid wanted something quieter and created this silent electromechanical four-digit seven-segment display for use as a wall clock.

    Like most similar displays, this uses an individual motor for each segment of each digit. For four digits, that is a total of 28 motors. 28 servo motors get quite noisy, which is why McDaid employed stepper motors paired with silent drivers. Those are typically used for 3D printers in order to make those printers less annoying, but they work well for this project, too. Those stepper motors only need to tilt their respective segments by 90 degrees to “turn off” that segment, so little torque was required.

  • CNX Software ☛ ESP32 Composite Video Library outputs PAL, SECAM and NTSC, supports LVGL – CNX Software

    It’s been possible to use the I2S for video output on ESP8266 and ESP32 chips for years, but aquaticus’ ESP32 Composite Video Library is may simplify the task of outputting PAL, NTSC, or SECAM video signals from any Tensilica-based ESP32 platforms.

    The library does not require any external hardware, and you can just connect an RCA connector to GPIO25 (I2S data) and GND, plus integration with the LVGL library makes it easy to create graphical user interfaces as showcased with the captures below.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Giz China ☛ Top 9 Android 12 smartphones with the highest performance level

  • XDA ☛ Major Pixel Launcher Mods update adds “At a Glance” widget replacing, Android 12 support, and more

  • Phone Arena ☛ Samsung is finally bringing Android 12 to one of its most successful phones ever – PhoneArena

  • The Android 12/One UI 4.1 update has begun rolling out to Samsung’s Galaxy A51 – TalkAndroid.com

  • Liliputing ☛ Hisense Hi Reader is an Android 10 eReader with a 6.7 inch E Ink display – Liliputing

  • Android Central ☛ Vivo will unveil its first foldable Android phone next month | Android Central

  • HowTo Geek ☛ How to Get Reminders for Android Notifications

  • TechRepublic ☛ How to delete the last 15 minutes of your Google search history on Android | TechRepublic

  • Android Headlines ☛ How To Factory Reset Your Android Phone

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Medevel ☛ 11 Open-source, free solutions to create your own XMPP server to create your own chat network

  XMPP stands for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol which is a set of technologies for instant messaging, audio/ and video communication, team collaboration, online presence information, and multi-party chat.

  XMPP works by passing small, structured chunks of XML data between endpoints (clients) via intermediary servers

  Many companies in different sectors require XMPP servers to setup collaboration messaging platforms either for their internal teams or for instant client-support.

  XAMPP requires a server and a client. The client can be a desktop, mobile, or a web app.

  In this article, we offer you a list of open-source XMPP servers which anyone can use to setup his own messaging platform.

• FSFE ☛ Anchor Free Software in the 2022 German Federal Budget!

  The traffic light coalition must anchor its goals for the digitisation of Germany, based on Free Software, as set out in the coalition agreement in the 2022 federal budget. Otherwise, there is a risk of cementing dependencies on individual vendors and losing sovereignty and innovative power.

  Together with other associations and organisations such as the Open Source Business Alliance and the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) demands to include digital sovereignty in the 2022 federal budget and implement already announced initiatives for software freedom. In an open letter, the signatories address the government groups in the Bundestag and demand that the goals for the digitalisation of Germany, based on Free Software, as set out in the coalition agreement, also be anchored in the 2022 federal budget.

• Apache Blog ☛ The Apache Weekly News Round-up: week ending 25 March 2022

  We’re wrapping up another great week with the following activities from the Apache community…

• Programming/Development

  • Dirk Eddelbuettel ☛ Dirk Eddelbuettel: Rcpp 1.0.8.3: Hotfixing Hotfix

    An even newer hot-fix release 1.0.8.3 of Rcpp follows the 1.0.8.2 release of a few days ago and got to CRAN this morning. A Debian upload will follow shortly, and Windows and macOS binaries will appear at CRAN in the next few days. This release again breaks with the six-months cycle started with release 1.0.5 in July 2020. When we addressed the CRAN request in 1.0.8.2 we forgot to dial testing down to their desired level (as ‘three-part’ release numbers do automagically for us, whereas ‘four-part’ do not). This is now taken care of, along with the hot-fix that was in 1.0.8.2 already.

  • Dirk Eddelbuettel ☛ Dirk Eddelbuettel, R, C++, Rcpp

    A minor maintenance release of the RcppCNPy package arrived on CRAN three days ago, but we skipped announcing it right then.

    RcppCNPy provides R with read and write access to NumPy files thanks to the cnpy library by Carl Rogers along with Rcpp for the glue to R.

  • Daniel Stenberg ☛ What curl expects from dependencies

    curl supports a large number of third party libraries. In a build, those libraries become “dependencies”. These components offer functionality and features that we don’t implement ourselves but still have been deemed interesting or even crucial to support to do Internet transfers the way we want.

    A curl build done today can use one or more out of 35 different libraries. No build can actually use all of them at once as many are mutually exclusive and most of them only work on one or a subset of platforms.

  • Perl/Raku

    • Rakulang ☛ Rakudo Weekly News: 2022.13 Roadmapping

      Jonathan Worthington announced an updated Comma Roadmap. With native support for the Mac M1 processor, more module creation / maintenance support and lots of interesting new debugging facilities. All made possible by those of you buying a Comma Complete edition!

  • Java

    • OpenSource.com ☛ Simplify Java persistence implementation with Kotlin on Quarkus | Opensource.com

      For decades, developers have struggled with optimizing persistence layer implementation in terms of storing business data, retrieving relevant data quickly, and—most importantly— simplifying data transaction logic regardless of programming languages.

      Fortunately, this challenge triggered the invention of Java ecosystems in which developers can implement the Java Persistence API (JPA). For instance, Hibernate Object Relational Mapper (ORM) with Panache is the standard framework for JPA implementation in the Java ecosystem.

Russell Coker ☛ Hangouts Replacement « etbe – Russell Coker

Google is currently in the process of killing Hangouts. Last year Hangouts was quite a nice IM system with integrated video chat and voice calling. Now they have decided to kill it and replace it with “Google Chat” and “Google Meet” both of which are integrated with the Gmail app on Android. To start getting people off the old platform they have disabled video and audio chats with more than 2 people in Hangouts. To do a video call you have to use Meet which has a worse user interface and isn’t integrated with text chat, so if in a text discussion someone says “let’s have a video call” you have to open a new app. Meet also doesn’t appear to have a facility to notify group members that someone has joined a group call so it’s required that Chat (or something else) is used to tell people they can join Meet.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Security

    • Hacker News ☛ Muhstik Botnet Targeting Redis Servers Using Recently Disclosed Vulnerability [Ed: Microsoft-friendly media likes to paint as Linux things that have nothing to do with Linux]

      Muhstik, a botnet infamous for propagating via web application exploits, has been observed targeting Redis servers using a recently disclosed vulnerability in the database system.

    • USCERT ☛ Google Releases Security Updates for Chrome

      Google has released Chrome version 99.0.4844.84 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This version addresses a vulnerability that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system.

    • LWN ☛ Security updates for Monday [LWN.net]

      Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium and faad2), Fedora (dotnet3.1, libass, linux-firmware, python-paramiko, seamonkey, and xen), openSUSE (perl-DBD-SQLite and wavpack), Slackware (seamonkey), SUSE (perl-DBD-SQLite and wavpack), and Ubuntu (binutils, python2.7, python3.4, python3.5, python3.6, python3.8, and smarty3).

    • USCERT ☛ CISA Adds 32 Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

      Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities established the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog as a living list of known CVEs that carry significant risk to the federal enterprise. BOD 22-01 requires FCEB agencies to remediate identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect FCEB networks against active threats. See the BOD 22-01 Fact Sheet for more information.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Jerm Warfare: Deep Diving Into EPSTEIN, 9/11, COVID, and more

  Whitney joined Jerm Warfare for a conversation covering her journey into journalism and Chile; fact-checkers; Bill Gates; central intelligence; Facebook versus mass surveillance; Jeffrey Epstein; 9/11; why people fear conspiracy theories; and parallel structures.

9to5Linux ☛ 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: March 27th, 2022

This has been a great week for Linux news and releases following last week’s slowest pace of the year. We saw the release of the amazing GNOME 42 desktop environment with all of its goodies, which already landed in Clear Linux and openSUSE Tumbleweed, and we got a new Debian Bullseye release, version 11.3, packed with all the latest security updates.

On top of that, I show you how to install the latest Linux 5.17 kernel on Ubuntu. You can enjoy this and much more in 9to5Linux’s Linux weekly roundup for March 27th, 2022, below!

Audiocasts/Shows

• Jupiter Broadcasting ☛ The NixOS Challenge | LINUX Unplugged 451

  We explore what makes NixOS so powerful, and why it might be the future of all Linux distributions.

  Plus we announce a community-wide NixOS challenge for the month of April.

• Video ☛ Hands-on with Steam Deck accessories that will TRANSFORM your experience. – Invidious

• Episode 316 – You have to use open source – Open Source Security

  Josh and Kurt talk about the latest [Microsoft] NPM backdoored package. It feels like this keeps happening. We talk about why this is and why it’s probably OK. Kurt fixes Linus’ Law, in open source the superpower isn’t bugs are shallow (they’re not), the superpower is security bugs in open source can’t be ignored.

• GNU World Order 453

Kernel Space

• FUDZilla ☛ Open saucers get Linux running on M1 Ultra

  Arch Linux seems to run on Apple Silicon Macs

  A small group of volunteers has worked to get Asahi Linux up and running on Apple Silicon Macs, by adapting existing drivers and (in the case of the GPU) painstakingly writing their own, and rescue the hardware from the Walled Garden.

  Last week, the team released its first alpha installer to the general public and the software supports the new M1 Ultra in the Mac Studio.

  In the current alpha most of the hardware works including Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 over the Thunderbolt ports (USB 3.0 only works on Macs with USB-A ports, but USB 3.0 over Thunderbolt is “coming soon”), and the built-in display.

Applications

• Linux Links ☛ Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Atlassian Opsgenie

  Atlassian Corporation Plc is a software company founded in 2002 that develops products for software developers, project managers and other software development teams. It employs over 7,000 people and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

  Atlassian produces a range of proprietary software including software for collaboration, development, and issue tracking software for teams. Atlassian dominates several markets where it still has intense competition.

  Broadly speaking, they offer software in three large buckets: These are software development tools; help desk software, or IT service management; and workflow management software. When you think of Atlassian, think project management and collaboration tools.

• Its FOSS ☛ Metadata Cleaner: Remove Your Traces Within a File

  Metadata exists everywhere, whether it is a document, a message, pictures, or other file types.

  You can easily access the metadata when you inspect the properties of a file.

  However, users do not often focus on eliminating or getting rid of the metadata before sharing files. Mainly because they may not be aware of simple tools that make the task easier.

  Metadata Cleaner is one such tool available for Linux users.

• Best Open Source Internet Radio Player for Linux

  Internet radio has become the norm in the age of the world wide web. We no longer need to finick around with a traditional radio player that is rather cumbersome to use.

  [...]

  Advanced Radio Player is a KDE native application that has the benefit of being the default player for systems that use the KDE Plasma desktop environment.

  Today, almost all mobile devices allow you to stream a radio station on the go. Most of these applications have an interface to choose your preferred music and stream it as you’re on and about.

Instructionals/Technical

• Linuxiac ☛ How to Install Spotify on Ubuntu & Debian

  Install the official Spotify desktop client on your Ubuntu/Debian system to enhance your musical experience.

  Spotify is a digital music streaming service that gives you access to millions of songs. It is currently the most popular streaming music service. Hundreds of millions of people use it to listen to music and consume podcasts every day.

  This article will guide you to install the Spotify desktop client on Ubuntu, Debian, or other Debian-based distros such as Linux Mint, elementary OS, etc., in three easy-to-follow steps through the official Spotify package repository.

  You would have to be familiar with the command line because this is the simplest way to install the app.

• Create Proxmox Containers From Proxmox Web Dashboard – OSTechNix

  In this tutorial, we will discuss a brief overview about Linux containers and its use cases. Then we will move on to see how to list available container templates from Proxmox web dashboard, download a container template and finally create Proxmox containers using the downloaded container template from Proxmox dashboard.

• How to install Wiki.js 2 on Ubuntu 20.04 server – NextGenTips

  Wiki.js is open-source wiki software, it’s powerful and easily extensible, it’s an engine running on node.js and is written in javascript. It’s available as a self-hosted solution or as a single-click install from Digital Ocean and AWS marketplace.

• FAQForge ☛ How to Install gEdit Text Editor on Ubuntu

  There are several text editors available for Linux and one of them is gEdit. It is developed by Gnome and can be installed from standard Ubuntu repositories. You will see how to install it. I am using Ubuntu 20.04 Mate edition, and it does not come preinstalled. The text editor has an enormous number of functions and can be used for programming purposes as well.

• HowTo Forge ☛ How to integrate ONLYOFFICE Docs with draw.io/diagrams.net

• Red Hat Official ☛ How to get started with MySQL and MariaDB

  Learn how to install, view, and query data in MySQL and its open source implementation, MariaDB.

• HOME USE ONLY: Get rid of annoying Polkit password prompts

• ID Root ☛ How To Install Gwenview on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Gwenview on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Gwenview is a fast and easy-to-use basic image viewer for the KDE desktop environment. It is capable of showing images in a full-screen slideshow view and making simple adjustments, such as rotating or cropping images and much more.

  This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Gwenview image viewer on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

• How to Install Icinga2 Monitoring Tool on Ubuntu 20.04/22.04

  Icinga2 is a powerful free and open-source monitoring tool that keeps an eye on your network resources and sends alerts or notifications in case of failure or outages. It also collects metrics from network resources that can help you generate performance data and create reports.

  Icinga2 is scalable and it can monitor small to large and complex networks across various locations. In this guide, you will learn how to install the Icinga2 monitoring tool on Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04.

• Vitux ☛ How to Switch to Another User Account without providing its Password using the “su” command on Ubuntu – VITUX

  If you want to do a task with a particular user account that you are not currently logged in to, you usually change your user account for some time to complete that task. However, if you want to save yourself the whole process of changing users, you can also do it through the Linux terminal. In both cases, however, you’ll need to enter the login password for that user account before you can access it.

  Fortunately, you can even bypass this password on Linux if you don’t know it or don’t want to enter it for some reason. You can do this by using the “su” command to switch from your current user account to your desired user account without entering its password. The whole process will become clearer to you if you go through the method of switching to another user account without specifying the password using the “su” command in Ubuntu 20.04.

• Dedoimedo ☛ How to edit themes in Gnome 40+ – Tutorial

  You can’t edit Gnome themes, no more, someone wrote me in an email. And I replied, what what. The person pointed out that the instructions I laid out in my Gnome theme edit guide no longer worked. Specifically, the gtk.css file, which is supposed to contain the necessary clauses to make theme changes, like font color for instance, simply weren’t there anymore.

  I decided to explore this further. I powered on CentOS 9 Stream, which comes with a modern version of the Gnome desktop environment, and I looked what gives under the Adwaita theme folder. Indeed, the old method of customization seems no longer applicable. Which is why we need this tutorial. Begin, we must.

• Ubuntu Pit ☛ Hard Links and Soft Links in Linux: Everything You Need to Know

  In the entire post, we have seen a detailed explanation of how soft and hard links work on Linux. In case you intend to create a hard link to a directory, please be note that on modern computers, it’s almost impossible to create a hard link of directories. But you can create soft links to directories.

  I hope this post has been helpful for you; if yes, please share this post with your friends and the Linux community. You can also let us know which linking you find most useful, or you’ve been using most on your system.

• How to install multimedia codecs on Linux Mint | FOSS Linux

  Multimedia codecs are comprised of the necessary libraries and dependencies for the operation of various forms of media files. Numerous Linux distributions (for example, Manjaro) include pre-defined set codecs.

  Linux Mint adds the ability to install multimedia codecs during the system’s installation. However, you may uncheck that option for various reasons, including accelerating the installation process.

  Apart from installing additional media players, such as VLC or MPV, multimedia codecs allow audio and video playback using integrated players. Additionally, after installation, encrypted DVD playback is permitted.

• How to open a firewall on Linux Mint | FOSS Linux

  A firewall protects a network by permitting or stopping data packets depending on security criteria. An effective firewall examines incoming traffic according to predefined criteria and prevents attacks by filtering questionable or unprotected data. Firewalls safeguard computer traffic at ports, where peripheral devices exchange data with a computer.

  By deploying firewalls, you may prevent unwanted traffic from accessing your internal network perimeter from malicious sources, such as viruses and hackers. Therefore, this post will define a UFW firewall and demonstrate how to open a firewall port on Linux Mint.

• UNIX Cop ☛ Install Apache couchDB on Ubuntu 21.04

  A firewall protects a network by permitting or stopping data packets depending on security criteria. An effective firewall examines incoming traffic according to predefined criteria and prevents attacks by filtering questionable or unprotected data.

• UNIX Cop ☛ Install Apache Cassandra in CentOS 8

  In this article we will learn how to Install Apache Cassandra in CentOS 8. Apache Cassandra was initially released in 2008 by the Apache Software Foundation. It is a free, open-source, NoSQL database management system that is designed to address large Data that can be shared across multiple servers. It provides high availability and it has excellent fault tolerances on basic hardware as well as in a larger cloud infrastructure.

• How to configure Samba in Debian | FOSS Linux

  Samba is a powerful open-source tool that permits Windows-like sharing of files and printers in a network on Linux systems. It enabled the coexistence and interrelation of Linux and Windows machines on the same network. Samba is installed on the Linux server that hosts the files to be shared. These shared files can be accessed by an accredited Linux or Windows client on the same network.

• UNIX Cop ☛ How to install Bagisto on Ubuntu/Debian Servers

  Bagisto is a free, open-source eCommerce Platform. It is developed on Laravel and Vue.JS. It is a complete e-Commerce solutions for users who are looking to start their business and wants to sell their product online. So, it comes with many features like Responsive Front-End, Modern Admin Panel, Multiple Payment Gateways, Payment Gateway Integration, Access Control Levels, Multi-Currency etc. It provides users with small,medium to any size of businesses with a complete e-Commerce Package.

• UNIX Cop ☛ How to increase the size of the boot partition in Rocky Linux 8 / CentOS

  . Let’s go with a more technical tutorial. Many times, we need to increase the size of the boot partition in Rocky Linux 8 / CentOS. The reasons can be very varied, but it’s always good to know. Let’s get started.

• UNIX Cop ☛ How to install Prometheus on Ubuntu/Debian servers

  Prometheus is a open-source, reliable and strong monitoring and alerting system, Which is developed in Go. It can generate different data metrics from Operating Systems, Softwares, Services in real time and alert users depending upon the metrics. Prometheus metrics are collected through HTTP Pulls Requests which allows higher performance and scalability. It also offers multi-dimensional data model, Flexible query language and visualizations possibilities through tools like Grafana.

• How to Set and Change Hostname in Rocky Linux 8 | Atlantic.Net

  When working in the local environment, each system is assigned an IP address to distinguish them from one another on the LAN. However, it is very difficult to remember each host by their IP address, especially in a large environment. In this case, we can assign a unique hostname to each machine to remember them easily. Hostname also allows each machine to communicate using the device name rather than the IP address.

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Linux Kernel 5.17 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• H2S Media ☛ How to Install Siege Benchmarking Tool on Ubuntu – Linux Shout

  Commands to install Seige Benchmarking tool on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS focal fossa for testing HTTP or HTTPS web server terminal.

  Siege is a free web server stressing tool to install on Linux operating systems such as Ubuntu 20.04 using a command terminal for HTTP load testing and benchmarking. We can use it for stress testing by defining single or multiple URLs for simulated users. The result of the load test gives complete details of the number of hits recorded, bytes transferred, response time, concurrency, and return status. Siege supports HTTP/1.0 and 1.1 protocols, the GET and POST directives, cookies, transaction logging, and basic authentication.

• How to Customize Ubuntu Touchpad Gestures – Technastic

  If you’ve ever used any modern Windows 10 laptop with a decent touchpad, or a MacBook, you know how touchpad gestures make using the laptop so much easier. In many ways, they make the touchpad even better than using a Bluetooth mouse. Unfortunately, Linux-based operating systems such as Ubuntu haven’t really caught up in that department. But Ubuntu is still Linux so, if you want something, you can have it with a little effort. Today we’ll see how you can customize Ubuntu touchpad gestures.

  We’re going to use a nifty little app, simply called Gesture. The interface is designed with the GNOME desktop environment in mind, but the functionality is the same on any desktop. Ubuntu and other Linux distros do come with some basic touchpad gestures for scrolling and right-click. For anything more, we can use the Gesture app. Basically, it deals with gestures that require three or four fingers.

• Linux Shell Tips ☛ How to Install Joomla CMS in RHEL 8 Linux

  Joomla is an open-source CMS (Content Management System) primarily written in PHP programming language due to its scripting prowess.

  It is characterized as free and open source to imply that any user who wishes to benefit from its usage has full control. Therefore, if you are interested in creating a blog/news/content site for a business or as a personal project, Joomla is an ideal candidate.

• UNIX Cop ☛ Network Boot install Centos OS

  A network boot installation allows you to install CentOS to a system with access to an installation server. At a minimum, two approaches are required for a network installation:

  PXE Server: A system running a DHCP server, a TFTP server, and an HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, or NFS server. While each server can run on a different physical system, the procedures in this section assume a single system is running all servers.

  Client: The system to which you are installing CentOS. Once installation starts, the client queries the DHCP server, receives the boot files from the TFTP server, and downloads the installation image from the HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, or NFS server. Unlike other installation methods, the client does not require any physical boot media for the installation to start.

Games

• GamingOnLinux ☛ 100% Orange Juice gets Steam Deck Verified thanks to supporting Steam Input | GamingOnLinux

  Here’s another developer who upgraded their game ready for the Steam Deck, with the popular 100% Orange Juice. ICYMI: we’re close to 2,000 titles rated either Verified or Playable.

  What is it? 100% Orange Juice is a digital multiplayer board game populated by developer Orange Juice’s all-star cast. Characters from Flying Red Barrel, QP Shooting, Suguri and Sora come together with all-new characters to duke it out… with dice.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Portal 2: Desolation is looking great in the graphics overhaul | GamingOnLinux

  Portal 2: Desolation is an upcoming community-made Portal game, created by fans in tribute to Valve’s iconic series and it’s going to look pretty fancy.

  The team has been toiling away to push what they can do with the Source engine, and they’ve now “completely replaced” the rendering and lighting pipeline. They did this due to some issues with the way Source originally did it, and the new physically-based renderer gives them completely real-time lighting. They also get a lot more flexibility, enabling “lights to move and change color/intensity in the level, making it possible for us to choreograph more sophisticated, dynamic scenes with lighting”. With this they also upgraded reflections, shadows, rebuilt some core Portal 2 assets to increase fidelity and much more. It’s safe to say it’s incredibly ambitious and hopefully players will enjoy it.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Slay the Spire fan expansion Downfall flips the game and lets you be the monsters | GamingOnLinux

  Downfall – A Slay the Spire Fan Expansion (the full name), is a bit of a mouthful but it’s also spilling over the side with features. So much so, that it got a Steam release outside the workshop — you still need to own Slay the Spire though of course as it’s a big mod.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ Steam Deck closing in on 2,000 games rated Verified or Playable | GamingOnLinux

  Steam Deck is getting close to hitting a pretty big milestone, with nearly 2,000 games rated Verified or Playable. Considering it only released just over a month ago, it’s a pretty sweet place to be for Valve’s handheld.

  Not without issues though, with some games not really having the correct rating which Valve now wants feedback on with their new system. Still, it seems like the vast majority are being given a rating that fits in well.

• GamingOnLinux ☛ The Dota 2 ‘Spring Cleaning’ update for 2022 makes muting and reporting easier | GamingOnLinux

  Dota 2 has a very lively community, and sadly often you will come across some attitudes that just aren’t friendly and now Valve has made it simpler to deal with them in-game.

  There’s now a single button that gives you access to mute voice, text and report a player all from the same little screen. A very useful change. There’s also a quick way to mute an entire team if they’re a problem. It’s a shame such things are needed but welcome changes from Valve there.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • 8 Best KDE Based Linux Distributions That You’ll Love

    The KDE Plasma desktop is an attractive and feature-rich environment to use. It provides a fluid interface with a touch of elegance that leaves many other Linux desktop environments in the dust. The desktop’s laser focus is on simplicity, as well as making your life easier.

    As a system of tightly integrated user interfaces, the KDE Plasma desktop provides the necessary software and hardware configuration to create an environment that the majority of users will find appealing.

    The KDE desktop is one of the most popular desktop environments out there. However, many users complain that the interface is not friendly to newbies but it really does come down to a matter of opinion and familiarity with other desktops outside Linux.

Distributions

• Reviews

  • Distro Watch ☛ Review: Zenwalk GNU Linux 15.0 – The power of Zen

    Admittedly this experiment didn’t really get off the ground and I questioned whether to write about Zenwalk at all. Were it a stand-alone review I probably wouldn’t have shared my thoughts on this distribution with the world. However, I felt it worthwhile because my main motivation for trying Zenwalk was to see how it would compare to Slackware Linux 15.0. Slackware felt overly large, overly generic, and overly complicated to use compared to mainstream distributions and I was curious to see how Zenwalk would work given its more specific mission of being a desktop operating system.

    What I found interesting was that while Slackware set up a desktop environment and worked in multiple test environments as a desktop system without problems, Zenwalk could not. On the flip side, Slackware’s package management failed completely for me while Zenwalk offered two package managers (slackpkg and Flatpak) which worked passably well.

    In other words, while I had problems with both, they were entirely different issues. And, to make matters stranger, the two distributions mostly run the same software, use the same repositories, and are binary compatible.

    Ultimately, while I think Zenwalk does some good work to narrow the focus of its parent and streamlines things, it also runs into similar setbacks. It’s still using a verbose, text-based installer, it still forgoes using HTTPS on its website, it doesn’t have a live desktop edition, and still relies on third-party efforts to fill in the package management gaps. I’m sure Zenwalk’s simple engineering under the hood still appeals to some people, but I think it involves more manual work and more legacy technology than most computer users will want to deal with at this point in time.

• New Releases

  • Ubuntu-Based Feren OS 2022.03, Independent Distro 4MLinux 39.0, Debian GNU/Linux 11.3 “Bullseye” Released
    

    Ubuntu-Based Feren OS 2022.03, Independent Distro 4MLinux 39.0, Debian GNU/Linux 11.3 “Bullseye” Released

    In this week, multiple Linux based operating system has been released

    Ubuntu-based Feren OS 2022.03 has been released. Feren OS 2022.03 is powered by Linux 5.13.

  • Its FOSS ☛ Feren OS 2022.03 is Finally Here as its First Update for This Year

    Feren OS, the Ubuntu-based distro for users migrating from Windows and Chrome OS, has just released version 2022.03!

    Not to forget, it also happens to be one of the most beautiful Linux distributions available.

    With the latest Feren OS 2022.03 update, the release brings a few new features and improvements.

• IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

  • Unicorn Media ☛ Why AlmaLinux Is the Distro to Beat in the CentOS Linux Replacement Arena

    The few who were expecting cries of anguish to start when CentOS 8 became unsupported at the strike of midnight on New Year’s Eve, were likely surprised when January came and went with nary a whisper about the loss of a Linux distribution that months earlier had powered millions of servers running mission critical workloads in data centers around the world.

    A year earlier Red Hat, which had sponsored the 18-year-old project for the better part of a decade and owned the CentOS trademark, announced it was closing the project down, while keeping the CentOS name for a different, if similar, distro.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Ubuntu ☛ The journey from mir-kiosk to Ubuntu Frame | Ubuntu

    Mir-kiosk was released in 2018. It provided a black screen with a mouse pointer, letting you run any application you want, instantly turning it into a kiosk application. It was designed to help people unlock a full kiosk mode for Linux embedded devices. And as such, it supported several projects on its way.

    It was used in many devices around the world, including smart mirrors, point of sales in countrywide food chains, healthcare kiosks, and more. Since it was open source, our community also used mir-kiosk to develop exciting embedding applications, such as arcade consoles and smart hubs screens. And it is thanks to this production-grade experience, that we now deliver Ubuntu Frame.

Devices/Embedded

• Linux Gizmos ☛ Zynq UltraScale+ gets the SiP treatment with tiny OSDZU3 module

  Octavo Systems’ 40 x 20.5mm “OSDZU3” SiP module runs Linux on the FPGA-equipped, quad -A53 Zynq UltraScale ZU3 MPSoC with 2GB LPDDR4. An “OSDZU3-REF” carrier adds GbE, DP, SATA, USB, and PMODs.

  Octavo Systems has brought its System-in-Package expertise to its most challenging SoC yet, the AMD-Xilinx Zynq UltraScale MPSoC. The 40 x 20.5mm OSDZU3 is about 60 percent smaller than “an equivalent system design with discrete components,” says Octavo. Previous Octavo SiPs have included the TI AM3358 based, 27 x 27mm OSD3358 used on the BeagleBone Black Wireless and the STM32MP1 powered, 18 x 18mm OSD32MP15x.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Android Police ☛ Android TV 13 will allow the most outlandish PiP aspect ratios

  • PR Newswire ☛ GTPL Hathway launches GTPL Genie – A Hybrid Android TV Set Top Box with attractive subscription bundles

  • 9 to 5 Toys ☛ Hisense H8 4K ULED Android TVs return to all-time lows from $450 (Save up to $200) – 9to5Toys

  • Financial Express ☛ Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: New superstar in the Android world | The Financial Express

  • How To Set Up Android Notifications On Your PC

  • How To Connect A VPN To An Android Device

  • Google Maps search throwing “No results found” error on Android for some

  • Android Headlines ☛ Best 8 Android Casinos To Play In 2022

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Oppo Find X5 Pro review: slick Android let down by weak camera zoom | Smartphones | The Guardian

  • Android Headlines ☛ OnePlus Nord 2T To Include 80W Charging, Android 12 & 90Hz Display

  • Xiaomi Android 12 update tracker: Eligible devices, release date, & more

  • Samsung One UI 4.0 & 4.1 (Android 12) update bug & issues tracker

  • SamMobile ☛ The Galaxy A51 Android 12 update is here! – SamMobile

  • India ☛ Nokia C01 Plus 32GB Variant With Android 11 Go And 3000mAh Battery Launched In India: Price, Specifications

  • GPD Announces the XP Plus, a Modular Android Games Console – Phandroid

Hardware

• Paring Down Computer Power

  I’m handing my Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon (8th gen) to the employer I’m currently leaving. I already have an old Asus x205TA that’s been lying around unloved for a couple of years. As I expect my next employer, whichever that may be, to give me a new laptop I don’t want to have two laptops lying around unused. Besides I really love that old thing. It’s slow, of course, and I’ve had some very frustrating experiences with it for things that should be common use cases. Immense lag when scrolling through an .odt document that contains pictures, for example.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • IT News AU ☛ Microsoft bribery in Africa and Middle East exposed by Whistleblower [Ed: Microsoft is crime]

    Microsoft has found itself in hot water after a whistleblower report has alleged that some of its employees were bribing companies in Africa and the Middle East.

    In a post on Lioness, former employee Yasser Elabd said the tech giant had a number of employees involved in corrupt practices. These practices included using local partners to sell Microsoft products.

    In response to the post, Microsoft said it has fired several employees after an investigation into the issues.

    Elabd worked at Microsoft for 20 years between 1998 and 2018, but was eventually fired after, he says, trying to stop bribes from happening. In the Lioness post, he said he saw a $40,000 payment that didn’t seem right.

  • Security

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Bloomberg ☛ Spyware Vendor FinFisher Claims Insolvency Amid Investigation

        A German company long criticized for helping governments spy on communications has shut down operations and filed for insolvency, according to authorities.

        FinFisher GmbH sold spyware to law enforcement and intelligence agencies that could be used to hack into computers and mobile phones and then steal data and secretly record conversations. Human rights groups accused the company of providing the technology to authoritarian governments who used it to target activists and journalists.

Civil Rights/Policing

• Walked around sf for 4 hours while listening to obama’s audiobook

  I don’t understand the obsession with “qualified” supreme court justices. I don’t care about qualifications, I care about a judge’s ideological leanings. You don’t even need to be a lawyer to be a Supreme Court Justice.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• TechRadar ☛ A VPN for #KeepItOn: How tech can mitigate internet shutdowns | TechRadar

  Eleven years ago saw the first time ever that a country’s entire internet went dark. It was 2011 – in the midst of the Arab Spring unrest – when Egyptian citizens couldn’t access the web for five long days.

  Now, internet shutdowns are becoming common practice among authoritative governments worldwide. And VPNs have emerged as one of the best weapons for fighting back against this worrying trend.

  “Since we began tracking government-initiated internet shutdowns, their use has proliferated at a truly alarming pace,” said #KeepItOn Lead Felicia Anthonio to Jigsaw – the Google unit exploring digital threats to societies.

  A project run by digital rights NGO Access Now, the #KeepItOn coalition started its battle against internet shutdowns in 2016. The group documented at least 564 blackouts around the world between 2018 and 2020.

Linux Made Simple ☛ Linux Weekly Roundup #175

Welcome to this week’s Linux Weekly Roundup.

We had a peaceful week in the world of Linux Releases, with only the release of Parrot 5.0.

I hope you will have a wonderful week.

Audiocasts/Shows

• Video ☛ GNOME is VERY customizable – Invidious

• Video ☛ Matrix Finally Has Proper Group Calls… Sort Of – Invidious

  For a long time Matrix has used Jitsi for it’s call infrastructure but this poses an issue, it adds a single point of failure for group calls which for something like Matrix doesn’t make sense so now Matrix finally supports calls over the Matrix network.

Applications

• Linuxiac ☛ Drawing 1.0 Simple Image Editor for Linux Released

  Drawing is an alternative to MS Paint for Linux, and it’s part of the GNOME Circle initiative.

  Drawing, like Microsoft Paint, is a simple image editor. You may draw arrows, lines, geometrical forms, add colors, and do other things in this open-source application that you would expect to do in a conventional drawing application.

  This simple image editor for Linux desktops is modeled after Microsoft Paint, so it’s not trying to compete with GIMP or position itself as a Photoshop competitor. Instead, it’s simple software for simple use-cases. Drawing supports various image formats, including JPG, PNG, and BMP.

• Ubuntu Handbook ☛ ‘Drawing’ – A MS Paint Similar Tool to Edit Images in Linux

  There are quite a few image editing tools for Linux desktop. ‘Drawing’ is the one that promoted itself a Microsoft Paint alternative for Linux.

  The app provides basic editing features, including crop, resize, skew and rotate images, apply simple filters, insert or censor text. As well, it supports for drawing with pencil, straight line, curve tool, many shapes, several brushes, with colors and other common used options.

• LateWeb ☛ The Best compression utilities for Ubuntu

  Ubuntu is considered a good distribution for beginners who usually want to learn Linux from scratch. In comparison between OS software, it is far better than windows. The integral part of system administration is File compression. It might be quite a tough task to find a reliable file compression tool. Till now many robust compression tools with better compression rates and the period has been developed which make backing up system data easier. So here we have listed the 10 top compression tools which will help out to choose the best compression tool.

Instructionals/Technical

• uni Toronto ☛ Unsurprisingly, the clock in your server’s IPMI drifts over time

  Most servers these days have an IPMI, including more or less all of ours. One of the standard IPMI functions is a ‘system event log’, which stores ‘events’ with timestamps, which means that the IPMI needs to have a clock. Some of our IPMIs are both connected to a network and support maintaining their time through NTP, but most of our IPMIs are either disconnected or at least don’t support NTP (as far as I know). This means that their clocks are what’s called ‘free running’. In completely unsurprising news, these clocks drift.

• ID Root ☛ How To Install MySQL Workbench on Debian 11 – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MySQL Workbench on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, MySQL Workbench is a unified visual tool for database architects, developers, and DBAs. In short, it provides a graphical user interface to design and edit databases, display them clearly, and manage them easily. Workbench can be used on computers with the Linux, macOS, or Microsoft Windows operating systems.

  This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the MySQL Workbench on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

• ID Root ☛ How To Install OpenRGB on Linux Mint 20 – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install OpenRGB on Linux Mint 20. For those of you who didn’t know, OpenRGB earlier known as OpenAuraSDK is a free and open source application to control RGB lighting for a multitude of devices, independent of the manufacturer. OpenRGB also comes with a plugin interface that can extend the software’s functionality even further. It’s available for Linux and Microsoft Windows.

  This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of an OpenRGB on a Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana).

• Linux Made Simple ☛ How to install Viber on Zorin OS 16

  Today we are going to look at how to install Viber on Zorin OS 16.

  Firstly, we update the repositories of our system, and with the second command, we will install the application.

• H2S Media ☛ How to Skype on Almalinux 8 using terminal [Ed: Skype of Microsoft malware, so this is a terrible idea]

• Linux Made Simple ☛ How to install Fonts on a Chromebook for Linux applications

  Today we are looking at how to install fonts on a Chromebook for Linux applications. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

Games

• Boiling Steam ☛ 1900 Games On The Steam Deck, with Wolfenstein: The New Order and Mortal Kombat X as Verified – Boiling Steam

  In the past two days the number of games validated for the Steam Deck has jumped pretty fast once more. There are now more than 1900 games working on the Steam Deck – (1914 at the time of writing) in two categories as usual…

Distributions

• Top 10 Linux Distributions for Programmers in 2022 [Featured]

  We review the top 10 best Linux distributions for programmers and developers (in 2022) to help with their work and personal projects.

• Make Use Of ☛ Why Does Linux Have So Many Distributions? Linux Distros Explained

  The main reason why developers keep creating and distributing new Linux-based OSes is that they simply can. The Linux kernel is free. The apps are free. The resources to create a whole operating system on top of the kernel are free.

  Nowadays, people rarely create a distro from scratch. Instead, they take another popular distro and either build a new OS using the former one as a base or reskin it with a new graphical user interface and added applications.

• New Releases

  • Releasing Slax 11.3 – Slax Linux

    I am happy to announce that an incremental update of Slax, labeled as version 11.3.0, is now available for download.
    Current release updates packages to the newest versions available in latest Debian 11.3, and fixes a minor issue in application launcher.

    This Slax version was made possible by generous supporters at Patreon. If you like to see more releases in the future
    and you like to become a part of the growing community of people who are interested in supporting Slax regularly,

• SUSE/OpenSUSE

  • SUSE’s Corporate Blog ☛ DIMOCO: Driving agility and scale with SUSE Rancher | SUSE Communities

    “As we grow, containers are the most sensible and coherent direction for us to take. Working with SUSE Rancher, we get the most out of Kubernetes while reducing our management burden.” Philipp-Michael Radl, Senior Systems Engineer, DIMOCO.

• IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

  • Red Hat Official ☛ Getting to know Tammy Tan, country manager for Red Hat Malaysia

    We’re delighted to welcome Tammy Tan to Red Hat as the country manager for Malaysia, where she will be responsible for Red Hat’s business operations in one of Red Hat’s key Southeast Asia emerging markets. Tan brings over 21 years of experience in the IT industry and comes from a STEM background. Prior to her current role at Red Hat, Tan served as director of enterprise and commercial at Cisco Malaysia. She began her career as an engineer at Siemens and NTT Communications.

• Debian Family

  • Trend Oceans ☛ Parrot OS 5.0 Adds New Architect, IoT, and Cloud With Long Term Support

    Parrot OS 5.0 has been released with the version name Electro Ara, with major upliftments such as added support for IoT devices, which means you can now run ParrotOS on IoT hardware along with a Raspberry Pi without any desktop environments and install what you like. Currently, they recommend you use a Raspberry Pi 4 to install Parrot OS 5.0 for the best use.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • 9to5Linux ☛ Ubuntu-Based Feren OS 2022.03 Released with KDE Plasma 5.24 LTS, Various Improvements

    Feren OS 2022.03 comes almost six months after the previous ISO snapshot, Feren OS 2021.10, and it’s the first ISO release of the Ubuntu-based distribution to ship with the latest and greatest KDE Plasma 5.24 LTS desktop environment series.

    KDE Plasma 5.24.3 is included by default in this updated media, alongside the KDE Frameworks 5.92 and KDE Applications 21.12.3 software suites, all of them compiled against the Qt 5.15.3 open-source application framework. With this, the Applications Menu and Feren OS Clock have been rebased on the Plasma 5.24 code.

Devices/Embedded

• Private Social Network with Raspberry Pi and OpenSource Social Network

  Social networks spread everywhere, covering everyone’s life. But they are owned by companies, so you can be concerned about your privacy. With OpenSource Social Network (OSSN) you can create your own private one with a Raspberry PI and keep your data ownership.

  In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to install OpenSource Social Network in a Raspberry PI.

  Social Networks revolutionized people’s lives in the last few years. Everyone uses its social channels every day to stay connected with friends and family. But a common question regards the privacy and data security, which are shared with all world. Even if Social Networks created complex privacy policies to protect users, maintaining your data in your server is always the best option if you don’t want to make them available to the public.

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Hackaday ☛ Tiny Pinball Is As Cute As Pi

    Pinball machines are large, complex, and heavy boxes of joy and delight. However, when you don’t have the money or space for one, you have to make your own mini Raspberry Pi-powered one.

  • Hackaday ☛ Generating Composite Video On ESP32 With LVGL GUI

    Just because a microcontroller doesn’t have a dedicated video peripheral doesn’t mean it cannot output a video signal. This is demonstrated once again, this time on the ESP32 by [aquaticus] with a library that generates PAL/SECAM and NTSC composite signals. As a finishing touch on the hardware side, [aqaticus] added an RCA jack is an optional extra. The composite signal itself is generated on GPIO 25, with the selection from a wide number of PAL and NTSC resolutions.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Realme UI 3.0 (Android 12) update tracker: Eligible devices, release date …

  • 9to5Google ☛ Android 12L: Best way to open Calendar from At a Glance – 9to5Google

  • 5 Great Side-scrolling Action Games on Android – Phandroid

  • Express ☛ New Android phone is coming soon that’s like Nothing we’ve seen before | Express.co.uk

  • Lagrange Android Beta 1

    Another step forward for the mobile Lagrange: the first Android integrations have been done in the form of native text input, device status/navigation bar theming, and scroll behavior. According to my Alpha/Beta nomenclature, this ends the Alpha phase.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Linux Links ☛ 7 Best Free and Open Source Animation Tools

  Linux has matured into an excellent platform for artists, photographers, animators, and designers. With inexpensive hardware, free software, and a modicum of talent and inspiration, anyone can create professional-looking computer graphics.

  There is a huge range of open source software available to create, modify and convert 2D and 3D computer graphics. In the field of 2D animation, Linux is endowed with a good range of open source software.

• Programming/Development

  • Perl/Raku

    • Trust issues

      This is nice and simple and allows B to call private methods on A. Sadly, that only works if A and B reside in the same file because a forward declaration will cause a compile time error, unless we define the declared type in the same compilation unit.

      Method resolution is a runtime creature in Raku. By carefully looking at the code, we can learn where Rakudo stores what we need to cheat with.

Hardware

• Hackaday ☛ Solving Grounding Issues On Switch Audio

  Grounding of electrical systems is an often forgotten yet important design consideration. Issues with proper grounding can be complicated, confusing, and downright frustrating to solve. So much so that engineers can spend their entire careers specializing in grounding and bonding. [Bsilvereagle] was running into just this sort of frustrating problem while attempting to send audio from a Nintendo Switch into a PC, and documented some of the ways he attempted to fix a common problem known as a ground loop.

• Hackaday ☛ Tube Tumbler Provides The Perfect Culture

  We’ve all had to shake jars of nail polish, model paint, or cell cultures. Mixing paint is easy – but bacteria and cells need to be agitated for hours.  Happily, laboratory tube tumblers automate this for us. The swishing action is handled with rotation. The vials are mounted at angles around a wheel. The angular offset means the tubes are inclined as they rise, and declined as they fall. This causes the liquid in the tube to slosh from one side to the other as the wheel rotates.  [Sebastian S. Cocioba] aka [ATinyGreenCell] released his plans through Tinkercad and GitHub, and with a name like Sir Tumbalot, we know he must be cultured indeed.

• Hackaday ☛ 3D Printed Portal Turret Moves And Talks Like The Real Thing

  Thanks to its innovative gameplay and quirky humor, Portal became an instant hit when it was released in 2007. Characters became cultural icons, quotes became memes and the game became a classic along with its 2011 sequel. Even today, more than a decade later, we regularly see hackers applying their skills in recreating some of the game’s elements. One beautiful example is [Joran de Raaff]’s physical rendition of a Portal Turret.

• Hackaday ☛ 3D Printed Forge For Recycling

  If you own a CNC and have kept tabs on metal prices these past few years (honestly months), you might shed a small tear as you watch chips fly off your work and into the trash. With a sigh, these flecks and pieces are consigned to be the cost of machining a part. Thankfully, the fine folks at [ActionBox] have been working on a 3d printed plaster forge for recycling their metal scraps.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • IT Wire ☛ Microsoft says employees sacked, partnerships ended over bribery allegations

    Despite meeting for almost an entire day, the SEC put off a decision on whether it would act against the software behemoth. And at the beginning of March 2022, Yasser’s lawyer was told that the case was being closed as the SEC had no funds to conduct the interviews needed and to find documentation outside the US due to the COVID=-19 pandemic.

    In his post, Yasser said he had joined Microsoft in 1998 and helped sell the company’s products over the next two decades and was successful in his endeavours, being promoted a number of times.

  • Security

    • Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

      • Bleeping Computer ☛ Hive ransomware ports its Linux VMware ESXi encryptor to Rust [Ed: New variant of Linux FUD in Microsoft sites]

        The Hive ransomware operation has converted their VMware ESXi Linux encryptor to the Rust programming language and added new features to make it harder for security researchers to snoop on victim’s ransom negotiations.

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • MakeTech Easier ☛ 12 of the Best Dark Websites Google Won’t Let You Find – Make Tech Easier

        Beneath the surface web which you’re reading right now, there are many .onion websites that remain invisible to Google and other search engines. Whether you categorize them as “deep” or “dark” web, these sites significantly enhance your browsing capabilities.

Defence/Aggression

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | I’m an Iraqi and I Remember Madeleine Albright for Who She Truly Was

  Often, after the demise of political figures, their troubling histories are whitewashed in the name of respecting their memories and the feelings of their families. The passing of former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Wednesday has been no exception.

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | We Must End the War in Ukraine by Challenging Evil—Not Becoming It

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine turns ever more dire and atrocious by the day.

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | $770 Billion For the Military—Poisoned Water for Military Families

  Concerns from hundreds of military families living on the Joint Naval Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawai’i about foul-smelling drinking water were dismissed on November 29th, 2021, by Naval Commander Captain Erik Spitzer, who assured residents the water was safe to drink. Spitzer declared that he and his staff were drinking the water, so surely reports of a gasoline-like odor, cramps, and vomiting were nothing to worry about. Then, less than a week later, on December 5th, Spitzer took to Facebook to issue an apology.

• Jacobin Magazine ☛ We Have New Evidence of Saudi Involvement in 9/11, and Barely Anyone Cares

  So let’s recap what these new documents tell us. They tell us that one of the men who helped two of the September 11 hijackers settle in the United States as they prepared to carry out their attack was in fact a spy for the Saudi government — a government long accused of supporting and financing fundamentalist extremists and the country where the vast majority of the hijackers came from. That spy was paid by and reported directly to the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States, a close and long-standing family friend of the US president.

  This should, realistically, prompt many questions, like: If al-Bayoumi had advance knowledge of the attack, did Bandar bin Sultan know, too? Did the latter raise the alarm with anyone in the United States, like his close friend the president? Was Bin Sultan aware of al-Bayoumi’s assistance to the hijackers? Did Bush’s relationship with Bin Sultan cloud his judgement and explain his indifferent response to the intelligence warnings that came to his desk? What did the two talk about on September 13, and why has the Saudi government faced absolutely no accountability over the years?

• PBS ☛ Ukraine says Moscow is forcibly moving civilians to Russia

  Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, have been taken against their will.

• [Old] IBM and the Holocaust

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Twenty years ago last week, IBM and the Holocaust, exposed—backed up by a tower of documentation— that IBM knowingly organized all six phases of the Holocaust: identification, exclusion, confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and even extermination. All of this occurred under the micromanagement of IBM’s celebrated CEO, Thomas Watson, Sr., operating from his New York office on Madison Avenue, and later through European subsidiaries. In view of what IBM was able to accomplish on behalf of the Nazis prior to the era of the computer, the thought of what big tech can now do to surveil, censor, and control human lives is sobering indeed.

• Medforth ☛ Spain: An Algerian Daech supporter determined to commit “immediate acts of violence” at the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame was sentenced to two and a half years in prison

  What’s more, Bentouati’s possible targets were, according to the verdict of February 23 convicting him of jihadist activities, the Eiffel Tower or the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Also Barajas airport (Madrid) or Salamanca Cathedral. “There is a video of his desire to reclaim ‘the great castle of Salamanca’,” explains the Audiencia Nacional ruling, stressing that photographs of these “places” were seized, in which he can be seen “marking them with the mark of Daech [acronym for Islamic State in Arabic]”. A ring with this stamp later found in his house: “Which replicates the seal of the Prophet used by Daech both individually and for the insignia of his flag”. On the inside it says: “Muhammad, Messenger, Allah”.

Environment

• ABC ☛ Ice shelf collapses in previously stable East Antarctica

  The collapse, captured by satellite images, marked the first time in human history that the frigid region had an ice shelf collapse. It happened at the beginning of a freakish warm spell last week when temperatures soared more than 70 degrees (40 Celsius) warmer than normal in some spots of East Antarctica. Satellite photos show the area had been shrinking rapidly the last couple of years, and now scientists wonder if they have been overestimating East Antarctica’s stability and resistance to global warming that has been melting ice rapidly on the smaller western side and the vulnerable peninsula.

• BIA Net ☛ Nickel mine waste flows into stream after pipe burst in western Turkey

  A burst occurred for an unknown reason in a pipe leading to a tailings dam of a nickel mine in Manisa, western Turkey. The liquid in the pipe caused the soil in nearby areas to turn white and began to flow into a nearby stream.

  Ahmet Vehbi Bakırlıoğlu, a Manisa MP of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), visited the site and talked to locals and officials from the Meta Nikel Kobalt company, which operates the mine.

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Want to Defeat Putin? Deliver the Green New Deal

  President Joe Biden, at the end of his impassioned address in Warsaw, said…

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | The Grim Consequences of Sidelining Science: Nearly One Million US Covid Deaths and the Climate Crisis

  One million US deaths from COVID-19. Catatonic politics on climate change. Communities suffocating from environmental injustice. All these issues are tragically linked by the hardening divisions in the United States over our acceptance or rejection of expertise in science, public health, and environmental protection.

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | As We Battle the Ongoing Climate Crisis, We Must Address the Mental Health Crisis It’s Causing Too

  Climate change is sad. It’s frightening. It’s demoralizing. Even knowing that countless solutions are available, with more emerging daily, can cause despair because of the petty pace at which we’re embracing them.

• Energy

  • Futurism ☛ Best Solar Panels for 2022

    In 2022, it’s possible to get solar panels designed to power your home, take camping, or replace the power adapter you use to charge your phone or other small electronics. Investing in solar panels is not only a way to reduce your carbon footprint, but using them can actually save you money. By taking part of your energy use “off the grid,” solar panels can lower your monthly utility bill. Here’s how you can integrate eco-friendly technology into your life.

Finance

• TruthOut ☛ Billionaires Would Pay Nearly 100 Times More in Taxes Under New Biden Proposal

• Common Dreams ☛ Opinion | Amid Disgraceful Questions for Judge Jackson Not One About Corporate Power

  In over twenty hours of grueling confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican Senators (Cruz, Cotton, Hawley, Blackburn, and Graham) found much time to disgrace themselves, using the Judge as a prop for their despicable political ambitions. Meanwhile the Democratic (and Republican) Senators found no time to tap into Judge Jackson’s knowledge and analysis of the grave issues regarding the nexus of the power of giant corporations and the Constitution.

• Common Dreams ☛ Biden Tax Plan Would Force Top 10 Billionaires Alone to Pay $215 Billion Over Next Decade

  Economic experts and progressives opposed to the outrageous levels of inequality in the United States celebrated Saturday evening and into Sunday after reporting revealed that President Joe Biden plans to unveil “a 20 percent minimum tax rate on all American households worth more than $100 million”—a so-called “Billionaire’s Tax” that will specifically target approximately 700 of the nation’s wealthiest people.

  “This minimum tax would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters.”

• TruthOut ☛ Student Debt Harms the Economy. Everyone Would Benefit From Its Cancellation.

• Forbes ☛ A Wave Of Billion-Dollar Language AI Startups Is Coming

  Language is at the heart of human intelligence. It therefore is and must be at the heart of our efforts to build artificial intelligence. No sophisticated AI can exist without mastery of language.

  The field of language AI—also referred to as natural language processing, or NLP—has undergone breathtaking, unprecedented advances over the past few years. Two related technology breakthroughs have driven this remarkable recent progress: self-supervised learning and a powerful new deep learning architecture known as the transformer.

  We now stand at an exhilarating inflection point. Next-generation language AI is poised to make the leap from academic research to widespread real-world adoption, generating many billions of dollars of value and transforming entire industries in the years ahead.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• TruthOut ☛ 1 in 6 Election Officials Say They’ve Faced Threats on the Job, Survey Shows

• TruthOut ☛ The United States Is Exceptional — Just Not in the Ways Any of Us Should Want

• TruthOut ☛ ICE Continues to Abuse and Traumatize Under Biden. Immigrants Are Fighting Back.

• TruthOut ☛ The Pandemic Isn’t Over Yet, But Congress Is Willing to Gamble That It Is

• Hungary ☛ Curia rules against government in LGBTQ case, new facility for refugees, a credit-line yet too far, and OSCE not happy

  Last year, a bookshop chain has been fined 250,000 forints for selling an LGBTQ book, a children’s story depicting a day in the life of a child with same-sex parents.

  Following the penalty, the company went to court, and the Budapest District Court has ruled that the punishment was unlawful.

• Craig Murray ☛ Alex Salmond and the European Court

  I went to jail in order to expose the fact that Alex Salmond was being framed on false charges, orchestrated within the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s office and testified to by perjury committed by individuals very close to Sturgeon, who made fake claims of molestation. They were seen right through by a largely female jury. But the details of the defence case were reported by nobody but me, (I was jailed for it). The mainstream media, led by the BBC, conducted in unison a campaign to portray Salmond as guilty and the verdict as perverse, by presenting to the public only the prosecution case.

• LRT ☛ Tech talent fleeing Russia for Lithuania – opportunity or security risk?

  The State Security Department says that to prevent foreign intelligence infiltration, Russian and Belarusian nationals are issued visas only in exceptional cases and in consultations with Lithuania’s intelligence.

  However, the department’s former head Gediminas Grina cautions that checking people’s backgrounds is difficult, especially when they come in large numbers.

• Medforth ☛ EU Parliament: Migrant crime shall be systematically concealed

  In other words, media that speak facts are to be censored. If you look at current statistics on crime, welfare and underachievement, you immediately notice: Africans and Muslims are disproportionately involved. In Austria, more than 40 percent of crimes are committed by migrants. Almost 50 percent of the prison inmates in Austria are foreigners. This means that the proportion of foreigners is significantly higher than that in the population as a whole. The citizen is confronted with an increasingly brutal and frequent crime committed by foreigners. When reporting, the established media often conceal the origin of the criminals and lull the population into a deceptive sense of security.

• India Times ☛ New EU rules regulating U.S. tech giants likely to set global standard

  Landmark EU rules targeting Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft are likely to set a global benchmark and may even force changes in the tech giants’ business models, lawyers and experts said.

  Europe’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager won backing on Thursday from European Union members and EU lawmakers for her proposal, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), to rein in the powers of the tech giants via legislation for the first time, rather than lengthy antitrust investigations.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Schools have become the latest culture war battleground. Are public libraries next?

  Although exceedingly rare, some public libraries in Utah have also noticed an increase in book challenges — requests to have books pulled or moved to different sections in the library. Librarian Wanda Mae Huffaker is in charge of the Salt Lake County Library’s committee that oversees reconsideration requests and was previously the chairwoman for Intellectual Freedom Roundtable.

• BBC turns to dark [sic] web and shortwave radio to bring outside news to Russian people amid wartime crackdown

  Alec Muffet, an ex-Facebook developer who is responsible for writing code that has enabled major websites such as Facebook, BBC and most recently Twitter to build a presence on the dark web, told i: “I am observing more organisations, over time, seeing value in offering alternative websites which have more integrity, privacy and censorship-resistance, so that they can reach their audiences.

• Suff NZ ☛ Chief censor reclassifies The Kashmir Files after concern from Muslim community

  The film was originally classified as R16, but now only those aged 18 and over will be allowed to see it.

  The Kashmir Files is a 2022 Indian-Hindi language drama film, and is a fictional account of the exodus of Hindu people during the Kashmir Insurgency in 1990.

• The Economist ☛ A new film on Kashmir has found a fan in Narendra Modi

  Pandits were targeted by Islamists backed by Pakistan during a cataclysmic surge in violence in the 1990s. Police protection was scant. All but a few fled, never to return. Official reports and scholarly research suggest that more than 200 were murdered, among the 14,000 civilians, 5,000 Indian soldiers and 22,000 militants killed during the past three decades of strife in the valley.

• Taipei Times ☛ Afghan capital’s historic musicians’ quarter turns silent

  Since the Taliban’s blitz takeover of Afghanistan six months ago, the songs have gone silent in the historic musicians’ quarter of Kabul. Gone are the instruments that once filled shop windows in the alleys of Kucha-e-Kharabat. Their owners packed them and left, putting a centuries-old Afghan musical heritage at risk of vanishing.

  Many are being driven out, as work has dried up both because of the country’s economic collapse and out of fear of the Taliban. The Taliban government has not formally banned music, but musicians say individual Taliban fighters take matters into their own hands and target them, halting performances and breaking their instruments because they say music is “haram,” or proscribed by Islamic law.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

• BIA Net ☛ Prominent journalist Aydın Engin passes away at 81

  During his career spanning over half a century, Engin worked for and managed several newspapers and magazines. He was sent behind bars seven times. He lived in exile for 12 years after the 1980 coup.

• RSF ☛ Russians use abduction, hostage-taking to threaten Ukrainian journalists in occupied zones

  Ever since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian armed forces have been bullying and threatening journalists and local media in the conquered territories to prevent them reporting the facts and get them to spread Kremlin propaganda. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns these acts of intimidation, which include abduction, and calls on the Russian authorities to stop harassing Ukrainian journalists.

Civil Rights/Policing

• ICC ☛ Suspected Fulani Herdsmen Abduct 46 Christians in Central Nigeria

  The Fulani herders are predominantly Muslim, and extremist herdsmen frequently launch violent attacks against Christian farmers in Nigeria.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Tim Bray ☛ 5G Skeptic

  When I was working at AWS, around 2017 we started getting excited pitches from companies who wanted to be part of the 5G build-out, saying that obviously there’d be lots of opportunities for public-cloud providers. But I never walked away convinced. Either I didn’t believe the supposed customers really needed what 5G offered, or I didn’t believe the opportunity was anywhere near big enough to justify the trillion-dollar build-out investment. Six years later, I still don’t. This is a report on a little online survey I ran, looking for actual real-world 5G impact to see if I was wrong.

Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ YouTube Needs a Copyright Specialist To Handle ‘High-Risk’ Takedowns

    In the first six months of 2021, YouTube processed four million automated Content ID claims every day but sometimes the involvement of a human being is the only way to tackle copyright disputes. To this end, YouTube is now seeking a Copyright Operations Specialist who will be required to deal with ‘escalated’ takedown requests, including those from ‘sensitive entities’.