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Links 11/08/2023: OpenSSH 9.4 Released, PostgreSQL 15.4 and PostgreSQL 16 Beta 3



  • GNU/Linux

    • Mine is Better: Why Linux is better than macOS or Windows

      In my world, I have to be open to a multitude of technologies and be willing to explore them and use them. I use macOS, Windows, and Linux. I prefer using macOS daily, but I see the benefits and enjoy the other two ecosystems as well. In our Mine is Better series, we are exploring the reasons why some users insist that their preferred choice is the best choice.

    • XDABest laptops for Linux in 2023

      Linux may not be the most widely used operating system, but it's certainly catching up to Windows 11. While a laptop supporting Linux out of the box was a rare sight a few decades ago, many laptop manufacturers have started embracing this open-source operating system.

      These days, you can even find laptops that run Linux straight out of the box. Factor in the staggering number of laptops that can easily double boot Linux and Windows 11, and you might have a hard time picking a new laptop for your favorite Linux distro. So, I've handpicked some of the best laptops that can flawlessly run Linux to help you narrow down your options.

    • Kernel Space

      • LWNLinux 6.4.10
        I'm announcing the release of the 6.4.10 kernel.
        
        

        All users of the 6.4 kernel series must upgrade.

        The updated 6.4.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-6.4.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
      • LWNLinux 6.1.45
      • LWNLinux 5.10.190
      • LWNLinux 5.4.253
      • LWNLinux 4.19.291
      • LWNLinux 4.14.322
      • LWNLinux 5.15.126
      • WCCF TechLinux 6.6 Receives Patches For AMD’s Next-Gen Zen 5 CPUs

        As AMD's next-gen Zen 5 CPUs come close to launch, it seems like Linux 6.6 has started to receive new patches based on the upcoming "Family 1Ah" architecture.

        The newly emerged patches reveal that AMD has provided support for Error Detection and Correction (EDAC) along with "k10temp", which is utilized for monitoring CPU temperatures, for its upcoming Zen 5 CPUs. These are the initial set of patches that cover the basic needs of a processor, and we anticipate several patches to get uploaded in the future as well.

    • Applications

      • DebugPointSpeech Note: Text to Speech, Speech to Text App for Linux

        Introducing "Speech Note", an open-source software seamlessly combines the power of Speech to Text (STT), Text to Speech (TTS), and Machine Translation (MT), enabling users to effortlessly transcribe, read, and translate notes in multiple languages.

        If you were looking for a decent speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS) app for Linux desktops which is free to use, then this is it.

      • Linux Links7 Best Free and Open Source Linux Guitar Tools

        The firm foundation of the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, offering an excellent application programming interface for device drivers for sound cards, and the JACK Audio Connection Kit, a professional sound server daemon, provide Linux with the infrastructure to be a serious contender in music production. Further, Linux is endowed with an impressive range of open source audio software which is both mature and feature-laden.

        To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 7 of the finest guitar applications. Whether you are a causal strummer, or can give a virtuoso performance with beautiful chord embellishments in the style of Bobby Jo or Jimi Hendrix, there should be something of interest here for anyone interested in guitar music.

        Our recommendations are captured in the chart below. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Network WorldPipes and more pipes on Linux

        Most people who spend time on the Linux command line move quickly into using pipes. In fact, pipes were one of the things that really got me excited when I first used the command line on a Unix system. My appreciation of their power and convenience continues even after decades of using Linux. Using pipes, I discovered how much I could get done by sending the output of one command to another command, and sometimes a command after that, to further tailor the output that I was looking for. Commands incorporating pipes – like the one shown below – allowed me to extract just the information that I needed without having to compile a program or prepare a script.

      • Pi My Life UpGetting the Size of a Folder on Ubuntu

        Finding the size of directories can be helpful for quickly working out how much something is consuming on your drives.

      • HackadayInstall ChimeraOS And Never Leave The Sofa

        There are some projects that initially don’t seem to make sense, but actually turn out to have valid use cases. ChimeraOS appears to be one of those. The idea is that if you own a gaming PC, but it is not necessarily located where you want to be all the time (like in a gaming den or office for example) then ChimeraOS allows you to play games on it remotely via a local machine. That machine may be a media PC attached to your main TV, or perhaps a mobile device like a steam deck.

    • Games

      • GamingOnLinuxOverwatch 2 out on Steam - works fine on Steam Deck and desktop Linux

        Overwatch 2 from Blizzard has now launched on Steam and thanks to that, it's super simple to get it working on Steam Deck and desktop Linux. Although Steam Deck players will want to change the Proton version.

      • GamingOnLinuxQuake II Remastered shadow dropped, Playable on Steam Deck

        Two years ago, at Quake Con 2021, id Software and Nightdive Studios shadow dropped a remaster of the original€ Quake€ which was critically acclaimed for its features and meticulous polish. Two years later, id Software and Nightdive are at it again with an enhanced version of€ Quake II, available now for all platforms and the best part is that, if you already own Quake II on Steam, it's a free update.

      • GamingOnLinuxAuto-battling deck-building roguelike 'Hadean Tactics' adds gamepad support

        Allowing you to kick-back and relax a bit more, Hadean Tactics the roguelike deckbuilding game fused with an autobattler now has gamepad support. Hopefully this is another step towards bumping it up from Unsupported to Verified on Steam Deck. It does already have Native Linux support too and they said they are working on improving it for Steam Deck too!

      • GamingOnLinuxPapers, Please turns 10 and hits 5 million sales

        Papers, Please is a game about being an immigration officer in a fictional dystopian country named Arstotzka. It's quite a unique experience and clearly did well for the developer Lucas Pope.

      • GamingOnLinuxBroforce Forever has launched with new characters, enemies and more

        Broforce Forever is now available as a big free upgrade for all owners, here's a little look over what's new for my favourite action-platformer.

      • GamingOnLinuxVIDEOVERSE is a love letter to early internet fan communities - out now

        Inspired by Miiverse, MSN messenger, early internet forums and 00's technology VIDEOVERSE this visual novel adventure lets you relive the past internet with the fictional Kinmoku Shark gaming system and its online social network.

      • GamingOnLinuxProton Experimental improves Baldur's Gate 3 launcher, Unreal Engine 4 bugs on Intel GPUs

        A fresh Proton Experimental release is now live from August 9th, there's some nice looking fixes included so here's what to expect from it for Linux desktop and Steam Deck.

      • Ars TechnicaGetting AAA games working in Linux sometimes requires concealing your GPU | Ars Technica

        Linux gaming's march toward being a real, actual thing has taken serious strides lately, due in large part to Valve's Proton-powered Steam Play efforts. Being Linux, there are still some quirks to figure out. One of them involves games trying to make use of Intel's upscaling tools.

        Intel's ARC series GPUs are interesting, in many senses of the word. They offer the best implementation of Intel's image reconstruction system, XeSS, similar to Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR. XeSS, like its counterparts, utilizes machine learning to fill in the pixel gaps on anti-aliased objects and scenes. The results are sometimes clear, sometimes a bit fuzzy if you pay close attention. In our review of Intel's A770 and A750 GPUs in late 2022, we noted that cross-compatibility between all three systems could be in the works.

        That kind of easy-swap function is not the case when a game is running on a customized version of the WINE Windows-on-Linux, translating Direct3D graphics calls to Vulkan and prodding to see whether it, too, can make use of Intel's graphics boost. As noted by Phoronix, Intel developers contributing to the open source Mesa graphics project added the ability to hide an Intel GPU from the Vulkan Linux driver.

        The "force_vk_vendor" system was needed to prevent games like Cyberpunk 2077 from detecting an Intel GPU and seeking to utilize its specific version of XeSS, which led to crashes. A commit earlier this week adds Hogwart's Legacy to the list of games that need to act like they don't know about an ARC GPU, joining Cyberpunk 2077 and Spider-Man Remastered.

      • YLERovio shareholders agree to Sega buyout offer

        The Japanese gaming giant's deal is reportedly worth 706 million euros.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDABKDGpu v.0.1.0 is released

          We’re pleased to announce we’ve added a new library, KDGpu, to the arsenal of tools we invent to make our lives easier – and then share with you on KDAB’s GitHub. Who is this for?

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • BSD

      • LWNOpenSSH 9.4 released
        OpenSSH 9.4 has just been released. It will be available from the
        mirrors listed at https://www.openssh.com/ shortly.
        
        

        OpenSSH is a 100% complete SSH protocol 2.0 implementation and includes sftp client and server support.

        Once again, we would like to thank the OpenSSH community for their continued support of the project, especially those who contributed code or patches, reported bugs, tested snapshots or donated to the project. More information on donations may be found at: https://www.openssh.com/donations.html

        Changes since OpenSSH 9.3p2 ===========================

        This release fixes a number of bugs and adds some small features.

        Potentially incompatible changes --------------------------------

        * This release removes support for older versions of libcrypto. OpenSSH now requires LibreSSL >= 3.1.0 or OpenSSL >= 1.1.1. Note that these versions are already deprecated by their upstream vendors.

        * ssh-agent(1): PKCS#11 modules must now be specified by their full paths. Previously dlopen(3) could search for them in system library directories.

        New features ------------

        * ssh(1): allow forwarding Unix Domain sockets via ssh -W.

        * ssh(1): add support for configuration tags to ssh(1). This adds a ssh_config(5) "Tag" directive and corresponding "Match tag" predicate that may be used to select blocks of configuration similar to the pf.conf(5) keywords of the same name.

        * ssh(1): add a "match localnetwork" predicate. This allows matching on the addresses of available network interfaces and may be used to vary the effective client configuration based on network location.

        * ssh(1), sshd(8), ssh-keygen(1): infrastructure support for KRL extensions. This defines wire formats for optional KRL extensions and implements parsing of the new submessages. No actual extensions are supported at this point.

        * sshd(8): AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand and AuthorizedKeysCommand now accept two additional %-expansion sequences: %D which expands to the routing domain of the connected session and %C which expands to the addresses and port numbers for the source and destination of the connection.

        * ssh-keygen(1): increase the default work factor (rounds) for the bcrypt KDF used to derive symmetric encryption keys for passphrase protected key files by 50%.

        Bugfixes --------

        * ssh-agent(1): improve isolation between loaded PKCS#11 modules by running separate ssh-pkcs11-helpers for each loaded provider.

        * ssh(1): make -f (fork after authentication) work correctly with multiplexed connections, including ControlPersist. bz3589 bz3589

        * ssh(1): make ConnectTimeout apply to multiplexing sockets and not just to network connections.

        * ssh-agent(1), ssh(1): improve defences against invalid PKCS#11 modules being loaded by checking that the requested module contains the required symbol before loading it.

        * sshd(8): fix AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand when AuthorizedKeysCommand appears before it in sshd_config. Since OpenSSH 8.7 the AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand directive was incorrectly ignored in this situation. bz3574

        * sshd(8), ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): remove vestigal support for KRL signatures When the KRL format was originally defined, it included support for signing of KRL objects. However, the code to sign KRLs and verify KRL signatues was never completed in OpenSSH. This release removes the partially-implemented code to verify KRLs. All OpenSSH tools now ignore KRL_SECTION_SIGNATURE sections in KRL files.

        * All: fix a number of memory leaks and unreachable/harmless integer overflows.

        * ssh-agent(1), ssh(1): don't truncate strings logged from PKCS#11 modules; GHPR406

        * sshd(8), ssh(1): better validate CASignatureAlgorithms in ssh_config and sshd_config. Previously this directive would accept certificate algorithm names, but these were unusable in practice as OpenSSH does not support CA chains. bz3577

        * ssh(1): make `ssh -Q CASignatureAlgorithms` only list signature algorithms that are valid for CA signing. Previous behaviour was to list all signing algorithms, including certificate algorithms.

        * ssh-keyscan(1): gracefully handle systems where rlimits or the maximum number of open files is larger than INT_MAX; bz3581

        * ssh-keygen(1): fix "no comment" not showing on when running `ssh-keygen -l` on multiple keys where one has a comment and other following keys do not. bz3580

        * scp(1), sftp(1): adjust ftruncate() logic to handle servers that reorder requests. Previously, if the server reordered requests then the resultant file would be erroneously truncated.

        * ssh(1): don't incorrectly disable hostname canonicalization when CanonicalizeHostname=yes and ProxyJump was expicitly set to "none". bz3567

        * scp(1): when copying local->remote, check that the source file exists before opening an SFTP connection to the server. Based on GHPR#370

        Portability -----------

        * All: a number of build fixes for various platforms and configuration combinations.

        * sshd(8): provide a replacement for the SELinux matchpathcon() function, which is deprecated.

        * All: relax libcrypto version checks for OpenSSL >=3. Beyond OpenSSL 3.0, the ABI compatibility guarantees are wider (only the library major must match instead of major and minor in earlier versions). bz#3548.

        * Tests: fix build problems for the sk-dummy.so FIDO provider module used in some tests.

        Checksums: ==========

        - SHA1 (openssh-9.4.tar.gz) = d88126d8d7b8e5bf4656587ac4a16055560641cc - SHA256 (openssh-9.4.tar.gz) = 7eqFjx2hAunw+1Jy7f1JQXq//3AMr9B3dKtASDtq8go=

        - SHA1 (openssh-9.4p1.tar.gz) = 5dea1f3c88f9cfe53a711a3c893ee8b7d3ffecff - SHA256 (openssh-9.4p1.tar.gz) = Ngj9kIjbIWPOs+YAyFq3nQ3j0iHlkZLqGSPiMmOGaoU=

        Please note that the SHA256 signatures are base64 encoded and not hexadecimal (which is the default for most checksum tools). The PGP key used to sign the releases is available from the mirror sites: https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/RELEASE_KEY.asc

        Reporting Bugs: ===============

        - Please read https://www.openssh.com/report.html Security bugs should be reported directly to openssh@openssh.com
      • UndeadlyOpenSSH 9.4 released!

        As alluded to with the recent "Call for testing" message on the openssh-unix-dev mailing list, OpenSSH 9.4 has been released!

      • LinuxiacOpenSSH 9.4 Is a Bugfix Release That Adds Some New Features

        OpenSSH is a free, open-source software suite of security-related network-level utilities based on the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, which provides encrypted terminal connections between networked computers.

        It is widely used for secure remote login, file transfers (using the SCP protocol), and creating secure tunnels for other network connections.

        The latest release of OpenSSH 9.4 fixes 15 bugs across all its tools, including SSH, SSHD, SCP, SFTP, SSH Agent, SSH Keygen, and SSH Keyscan. More importantly, however, in this release are the few new capabilities it adds to your arsenal.

      • VermadenFreeBSD on FreeIPA/IDM with Poudriere Repo

        In both earlier attempts I compiled and configured everything by hand – at it was a very interactive time consuming process. This time – after having some poudriere(8) experience – Simple FreeBSD Poudriere Harvester Guide – as shared here – I will now automate customized FreeIPA/IDM packages creation in a FreeBSD Poudriere tool.

    • SUSE/OpenSUSE

      • LWNThe Open Enterprise Linux Association [LWN.net]

        The Open Enterprise Linux Association has announced its existence. It is a collaboration between CIQ (Rocky Linux), Oracle, and SUSE to provide an RHEL-compatible distribution.

      • IT Wire RHEL source: SUSE, Oracle, CIQ join to provide compatible code
        Red Hat, which was bought by IBM in 2019, said in its June announcement that RHEL source code would be available only to paying customers.

        In a statement on Thursday, SUSE chief technology and product officer Dr Thomas Di Giacomo said his company had formed the Open Enterprise Linux Association along with Oracle and CIQ, the last-named being the company that is behind Rocky Linux, an RHEL clone.

        The statement said OpenELA would encourage development of distributions compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux by providing open and free Enterprise Linux source code.

      • OpenSUSEPerl, Pipewire, LibreOffice Update in Tumbleweed

        Tumbleweed snapshots didn’t lack excitement this week as multiple packages received updates and a couple major versions arrived for openSUSE rolling release users this week.

        The 20230809 snapshot provided an update of GNU Compiler Collection. GNU Compiler Collection. The new 13.2.1+git7683 version for developers that rely on the compiler includes the 13.2 release and various fixes. Notably, the update addresses a patch for a broken testcase in libbacktrace, which resolves build issues on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12. GNOME users received an update of gtk4 4.10.5. The release addresses various issues, including fixing ordering problems with filter model signals, avoiding lingering resize cursors, and resolving alignment issues on the Scalable Processor Architecture. The fuse3 3.16.1 package, which is an interface for userspace programs to export a filesystem to the Linux kernel, had some enhancements with an ability to enable readdir kernel cache from the high-level Application Programming Interface. Office suite libreoffice received a minor version update to 7.6.0.2 a day after updating from the 7.5.4.2 version. This release incorporates bug fixes and updates to bundled dependencies, which ensures a more stable and feature-rich office experience. A third update this week of libstorage-ng 4.5.136 had translation updates for Indonesian. The upower package for power management and device information updated to version 1.90.2. Notably, the release marks the end of lid handling in UPower since the functionality will now be provided by logind. A few other packages updated in the snapshot like python-importlib-resources, which updated to major version 6.0.1 and removed legacy functions deprecated in 5.3; it require Python 3.8 or later.

    • Fedora Family / IBM

    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • The Register UKLinux project's first full version has all the subtlety of a Rhino in a China shop
        The first release of Rhino Linux brings the rolling release model of Arch Linux to an Ubuntu base, along with the do-it-yourself ethos.

        Rhino Linux 2023.1 is the first full release of a new distro we mentioned last October – as we did its progenitor, Rolling Rhino half a year before then. Rhino Linux is a rolling-release distro which draws on the basis of the current development branch of Ubuntu, combining some novel package-management tools inspired by Arch Linux, wrapped up with a custom Xfce-based desktop.

      • Ubuntu Fridge Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS released
        The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support.

        As usual, this point release includes many updates and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-severity bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

        Kubuntu 22.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Budgie 22.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu MATE 22.04.3 LTS, Lubuntu 22.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Kylin 22.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Studio 22.04.3 LTS, and Xubuntu 22.04.3 LTS are also now available. More details can be found in their individual release notes (see ‘Official flavours’)

      • Pi My Life UpInstalling Home Assistant on Ubuntu

        While the Home Assistant software doesn’t officially support Ubuntu, it is still possible to run the server since it is based on Debian. There may be a few things that don’t work exactly right but still should function. If you prefer to stick with a supported operating system, you should try moving to Debian 11.

        You can get Home Assistant on Ubuntu in a couple of ways. The first is to use a virtual image and run it within a virtual container. The other is to install and run the “Supervised” version of Home Assistant.

        For this guide, we will focus on installing the Supervised variant of the software directly to the Ubuntu operating system. We will have a separate guide that covers installing Home Assistant through a virtual machine.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Linux LinksResponsible Gambling Tools Available on Linux Devices

        Playing in casinos is attractive and seems innocent unless you think of possible consequences. Responsible gambling is what every player should focus on, since avoiding potential problems in online and offline casinos is a must. This rule concerns Linux gamers: around 3 million users worldwide prefer playing using this OS. Safe gambling is the key to success, so knowing all the tools and measures to be implemented is essential for everyone.

        Not all self-exclusion tools are available for Linux, but some options still remain. For instance, BetBlocker and GamStop are the apps players often choose. Both have multiple advantages for Linux players...

      • CNX SoftwareTerraMaster F2-212 is a 2-Bay NAS powered by Realtek RTD1619B Arm Cortex-A55 SoC

        The F2-212 NAS runs TOS 5.1 Linux operating system and ships with a power adapter and power cord, an Ethernet cable, a few screws, a Quick Installation Guide, and a limited warranty note. We previously wrote about RTD1619 media players, notably the Zidoo Z9X with a RealTek RTD1619DR quad-core Cortex-A55 processor, and it’s unclear how the RTD1619B processor differs, albeit we might assume it has no video output since the TerraMaster does not feature any. The NAS still offers some multimedia capabilities with support for 4K video hardware decoding, and compatibility with uPnP/DLNA, TerraMaster’s “Multimedia Server” app, as well as third-party multimedia servers such as Emby and Plex.

      • CNX SoftwareRadxa ROCK 5B SBC goes fanless with metal case

        The Radxa ROCK 5B was one of the first Rockchip RK3588 SBCs, and when we reviewed the developer edition of the board in July 2022 it came with an heatsink and 5V fan that was always on. That’s probably fine for testing, but many people will prefer a fanless solution. It turns out a metal case turning the ROCK 5B SBC into a fanless device has been available since the end of last year, but I’ve only come across it today. The black part is made of metal and the front and back plates are made of green plastic. As with all cases, there are always questions about .

      • CNX SoftwareRaspberry Pi CM4-powered outdoor gateway supports GbE, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE, LoRaWAN, and GPS connectivity

        EDATEC ED-GWL2110 is an IP24-rated outdoor gateway based on Raspberry Pi CM4 and supporting Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE cellular, LoRaWAN, and GPS connectivity, as well as Power over Ethernet (PoE).

      • CNX SoftwareRaspberry Pi Pico to Arduino Uno adapter relies on “FlexyPins” for castellated holes

        Solder Party’s “Raspberry Pi Pico to Uno FlexyPin Adapter” transforms the Raspberry Pi Pico into an Arduino UNO without soldering the board directly or using headers, but instead relying on FlexyPins flexible pins to attach the Pico board to the adapter using its castellated holes. The end result is basically the same as for the WisdPi ArduPico board, except the Raspberry Pi Pico is soldered to the main PCB on the latter, but it can be easily removed from the Solder Party’s Uno adapter board to be replaced with another compatible model, e.g. Raspberry Pi Pico vs Pico W. The FlexyPins can be used with any board or module with castellated holes, but it’s obviously especially useful for castellated modules without through holes, for example, to easily program a bunch of ESP32 modules.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • ArduinoTurning a Barbie dreamhouse into a screamhouse with the Arduino UNO R4

        The duo started by disassembling the interior and repainting the structural components, outside walls, and several other movable objects such as the door and various props. Once this had been completed, the next step involved finding LED filament, many small, discrete LEDs, and a miniature fog machine for creating an additional spookiness factor. The individual LEDs were placed into SLA printed skull lighting fixtures, custom-made clay candles, and inside of the previously pink chandelier where they could then be controlled by an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi.

      • SparkFun ElectronicsOver a Decade at SparkFun with Jennifer Mullins

        My first day at SparkFun was joining our Customer Service team eleven years ago, who also happened to share space in our old building with our Tech Support team. I was so nervous to be moving from my prior jobs in property management to stepping into a world of electronics I knew next to nothing about. I was lucky enough to have a few very good friends that already worked with the team though! The immediate acceptance and inclusion into an incredibly tight knit team was absolutely incredible. From day one I always felt like I belonged and had an important role with the team and the company.

      • Andrew HutchingsAmiga 4000 Restoration x2: Part 5

        In part 4, I had the motherboard for the Amiga 4000 #2 mostly working. But it required a new buffer chip for the Fast RAM. That chip arrived, so let’s continue…

      • OMG! LinuxPine64’s RISC-V Tablet Gets KDE-Powered Desktop Image

        When Pine64 launched its RISC-V tablet earlier this year they were clear from the start: software support, particularly usable desktop Linux distros, would be lacking at first.

        But not for long, it seems.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • LibreBootHP EliteBook 2170p support added to Libreboot

      HP EliteBook 2170p support was added to coreboot, in the coreboot 4.20.1 release and Libreboot recently updated to a revision past that release.

    • Ted Unangsthonk 1.0

      It’s been four years since honk 0.1. Before that, the preview, and shortly after the followup. But finally, after a long journey, we’ve reached honk 1.0. (Narrator: honk is a microblog server that federates with other servers via ActivityPub.)

      Once I needed to release 0.9.91 to fix a bug I realized we were getting very low on reserve version space. There’s no particular milestone that makes 1.0 a real release, although it does include some good stuff. But some stuff is still kinda in its 0.7 state. So this post is not really an analysis of the recent changelog entries.

      Instead it’s about the many ways honk has won, and the many ways others have lost. It may also help to explain why some fediverse things work or don’t work the way they do. Totally unbiased, as you should expect from an objective critic.

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

      • Terence EdenShould your phone be a webserver?

        I loved hosting a small site on my Nokia N95 back in the day, and I'd be overjoyed if modern phones allowed this. But there are a few pitfalls.

      • Rohan DEvery Phone Should Be Able to Run Personal Website

        I believe today’s phone can definitely handle a small personal website that has similar functionality like that of original Nokia web server. The reason I think this is needed is because a large percent of Internet users cannot afford hosting personal websites. The privilege of self hosting that early Internet users enjoyed was never given to the new Internet users. They joined Internet when their devices were already behind CG-NAT. The next billion websites can come from average phone users if only corporations and government agencies came together. All we need is IPv6 connectivity everywhere and phone operating systems optimized to run web servers.

      • Mozilla

        • MozillaPrepare your Firefox desktop extension for the upcoming Android release

          In the coming months Mozilla will launch support for an open ecosystem of extensions on Firefox for Android on addons.mozilla.org (AMO). We’ll announce a definite launch date in early September, but it’s safe to expect a roll-out before the year’s end. Here’s everything developers need to know to get their Firefox desktop extensions ready for Android usage and discoverability on AMO…

    • SaaS/Back End/Databases

      • PostgreSQLPostgreSQL 15.4, 14.9, 13.12, 12.16, 11.21, and PostgreSQL 16 Beta 3 Released!

        The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released an update to all supported versions of PostgreSQL, including 15.4, 14.9, 13.12, 12.16, and 11.21, as well as the third beta release of PostgreSQL 16. This release fixes two security vulnerabilities and over 40 bugs reported over the last several months.

    • Programming/Development

      • RlangMastering Grouped Counting in R: A Comprehensive Guide

        As data-driven decision-making becomes more critical in various fields, the ability to extract valuable insights from datasets has never been more important. One common task is to calculate counts by group, which can shed light on trends and patterns within your data. In this guide, we’ll explore three different approaches to achieve this using the powerful R programming language. So, let’s dive into the world of grouped counting with the help of the classic mtcars dataset!

      • ButtondownSymmetric Properties

        If you take a square and rotate it 90 degrees, you get back an identical square. We say the square is rotationally symmetric. Similarly, if you reflect it across an axis, you also get the same square. Since "reflectionally" isn't a word, we can more generally say it's "symmetric under reflection".



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We are hoping to bring more original stories
 
Not Just Slow News But Also Late News (Julian Assange Landing in Thailand)
Why did AP take so long (nearly a week) to release these?
Eko K. A. Owen, New Outreach and Communications Coordinator for the FSF
Nice to see many new additions to the FSF's team
Microsoft Has Slaves and Enablers, Not Partners
Obligatory meme too
Windows in Åland Islands: From 100% to Less Than Half
Åland Islands lost the sense of urgency to move to GNU/Linux
Tobias Platen Covered Freedom-To-Play Games in LibrePlanet 2024
Freedom-To-Play games using Taler
[Meme] Opening a 'Webapp' With 'Only' 4 GB of RAM
Until 2020 none of my PCs ever had more than 2 GB of RAM
Destination 'Five Percent'
We reckon GNU/Linux can break the 5% barrier some time by the end of this year, even without counting Chromebooks
A Crisis of Online Journalism
Almost a week ago a journalist was forced to plead guilty for an act of journalism
Germany One of Many Countries Where Microsoft's Bing Lost Market Share After All That LLM Nonsense (Bing Chat and Further Rebrands/Renames)
openai.com traffic plunged 60% last month
Microsoft’s Latest Antitrust Scrutiny
4 new stories
Microsoft Layoffs, Mass Plagiarism, and More
outrage included
GNU/Linux Climbed 0.25% This Month (in statCounter)
Around midday on Tuesday we'll start seeing preliminary data for July
Ilya Gulko Introduces Pollyanna
"Pollyanna is a web framework that makes it easy to create your own libre social space, such as a social network or blog."
'FSFE': Underage Labour, GAFAM Fronting, and Identity Theft to Undermine the FSF's Current Fundraiser
looking to raise funds at the same time as the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 29, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, June 29, 2024
Links 29/06/2024: Astronauts at Risk, Ukraine Updates
Links for the day
Fedora and Red Hat Leftovers
mostly redhat.com
Microsoft is Now Googlebombing or Spamming 'Open Source' and 'Linux' to Promote Proprietary Surveillance, Azure
Notice the title and the image, what's being promoted etc.
Seychelles: GNU/Linux Doing OK
Seychelles cannot be considered poor
Gemini Protocol Isn't Even Remotely "Dead"
"Lupa knows of 505,000 (half a million!) working Gemini URLs at present, up from about 425,000 this time last year"
About 10 New Free Software Foundation (FSF) Members Per Day
The total changed from 46 to 47 while typing the article
Vista 11 Adoption Unusually Low in Germany and It's Going Down, Not Up
This is not happening only in Germany
Kevin Korte on Computers Being Allowed to Make Decisions Based on Cryptic Algorithms and Proprietary/Secret Data
It uses buzzwords where none are needed
[Meme] Garbage In, Garbage Out (linuxsecurity.com)
It is neither Linux nor security, just chatbot-generated slop
Microsoft-Invaded CISA Spreads Anti-Free Software FUD (as If Proprietary Software Has No Memory Safety Issues), Brittany Day Uses Chatbots to Amplify and Permutate the Microsoft FUD
linuxsecurity.com became an anti-Linux spam site
Microsoft Laying Off Staff in an Act of Retaliation and Union-Busting
retaliatory layoffs at Microsoft
Gemini Links 29/06/2024: Content Drowning in 'Goo' and LLM Slop
Links for the day
Windows Lost Almost 92% Market Share in Egypt
From over 99% to just over 7%
In Ecuador, GNU/Linux Adoption Surged From Under 1% to Over 4% in About 3 Years
Not even counting Chromebooks
LibrePlanet: Cultivating Backups (of Recordings)
an appeal to recover some of these talks
Microsoft/Windows Machines Are Turned Off (or Windows Deleted/Decommissioned) in Web Servers, as the "Market Share" Collapse Continues
Taking full history into account, this is a decrease of over 90% in some cases
Corwin Brust Hosting Freedom: A Behind-the-scenes Tour With the GNU Savannah Hackers
"the "smiling faces" behind it."
Android at 90% or More in Chad
Windows below 2%
David Wilson: Cultivating a Welcoming Free Software Community That Lasts
"a feeling of shared ownership for all users."
Julian Assange Might Continue Wikileaks, But Certainly Not Yet (Recovery Time Needed)
And probably at a symbolic capacity only
Bringing in 12 Santas and Taking 13 Out (Old Interview With Julian Assange)
Julian Assange's life inside the Ecuadorian embassy
Neil Plotnick on GNU/Linux in the High School Classroom
uploaded to the LibrePlanet instance of MediaGoblin
Asia Appears to be Fastest to Adopt GNU/Linux
the home of a considerable majority of the world's population
Alexandre Oliva's LibrePlanet 2024 Talk About "Software Enshittification"
in spite of technical difficulties encountered while recording
What They Used to Do With Mono They Now Do With Systemd (Lower and Deeper Down Than Userspace)
Now we have a project started primarily by Red Hat (and managed by Microsoft GitHub, which is proprietary) being managed by Microsoft and primarily serving Microsoft and IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 28, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, June 28, 2024
Links 28/06/2024: Kangaroo Courts and Patents Spam, EFF Still Fighting for CPC's TikTok (a Digital Weapon)
Links for the day
Links 28/06/2024: Overton window and Polarization
Links for the day
[Meme] In 50 Years...
Microsoft's Vista 11 will take 50 years to be fully adopted
Only About 1 in 8 Russian Windows Users is Using Vista 11
it looks like over the past 12 months Vista 11 hardly grew and it remains very low at around 12% of Windows usage in Russia
Links 28/06/2024: More Attacks on the Press, More Censorship in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/06/2024: Christmas Prematurely, Self-hosting
Links for the day
IBM: So Long, Suckers. Your Free OS is Now Proprietary. Pay IBM or Else.
almost exactly a year after turning RHEL into proprietary software
Vista 11 is Doomed and Despite Lack of Adoption Microsoft Already Speaks of Vapourware ("12")
"Microsoft has pulled a Windows 11 update after users reported boot loops and startup failures."
ChromeOS Reaches Highest Share in Years at the World's Most Populous Nation, Windows Now at All-Time Low of 13%
We're talking about India today
[Video] "It Is Incredible That Julian Assange Survives"
There was a positive and mutual relationship between Wikileaks and Dr Jill Stein
Never Assume That Because the Law Exists the Powerful Will Follow the Law
Who's going to hold them accountable now?
Nearly a Month Has Passed and Nobody at the Debian Project Even Attempted to Explain What Seems Like Back-dooring of Debian (and Hundreds of Distros That Are Debian-Derived)
I can cynically guess that only matters when a user with a Chinese name does it
[Video] Julian Assange Explains Wikileaks' Logistics
predating indefinite detention
IBM Was Never the "Good Guy", Just a Self-Serving and Opportunistic Money- and Power-Hungry Monopolist, Living Off of Taxpayers' Money (Government Contracts)
The Nazi Party of Germany was its second-biggest client at one point and now it's looking to profit from the work of slaves
"I Hated Working at IBM. They Were the Most Unfriendly People."
Don't forget what Watson the son did to a poor woman on a plane
State of the News (and Depletion of Journalism Online, Not Just Offline)
Newspapers are not coming back and the Web is not coming back either
GNU/Linux Consolidates in North America
Android rising a lot this year, too
[Meme] More Monopolies Granted While Patent Examiners Die (Overworking for Less Compensation)
Work more; Get less
Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) is Taking the New Pension Scheme (NPS) to an International Tribunal (ILOAT)
SUEPO wants more EPO staff to participate in collective action
Stella Assange and the Legal Team Speak to the Media a Day After WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrives in Australia
Published yesterday by a number of mainstream publishers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 27, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, June 27, 2024
RIP Daniel Bristot de Oliveira, Red Hat death
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock