Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 14/09/2023: Sparky 7.1 and Curl 8.3.0



  • GNU/Linux

    • Applications

      • TecMint11 Best Screen Recorders For Linux in 2023

        Recording your desktop session is a common and good practice for a variety of purposes, such as playing a hard level of a game, creating a video tutorial, or writing a how-to article. Screen recording software can help you accomplish all of these tasks.

        In this review guide, we shall cover some of the best screen recording and live video streaming software that you can find for your Linux desktop.

      • TecMint6 Best Email Clients for Linux Systems

        Email, an enduring method of communication, remains a fundamental way to share information; however, the preference has shifted from web applications to email clients over the years

        An email client is software that allows users to manage their inbox, send, receive, and organize messages directly from a desktop or mobile phone.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • University of TorontoA user program doing intense IO can manifest as high system CPU time

        Recently, our IMAP server had unusually high CPU usage and was increasingly close to saturating its CPU. When I investigated with 'top' it was easy to see the culprit processes, but when I checked what they were doing with the strace command, they were all busy madly doing IO, in fact processing recursive IMAP LIST commands by walking around in the filesystem. Processes that intensely do IO like this normally wind up in "iowait", not in active CPU usage (whether user or system CPU usage). Except here these processes were, using huge amounts of system CPU time.

      • David Buchanans32 Unix Clock

        It's pretty simple. The clock face has 256 "ticks" (annotated in hexadecimal), and four dials, each moving exactly 256 times slower than the previous. The longest and fastest moving dial moves at one tick per second, which means it takes very approximately 4 minutes to do a full revolution (4:16, actually). The next hand takes roughly 18 hours, the next roughly 6 months, and the smallest hand takes ~136 years - or exactly 2^32 seconds.

      • Jan Piet MensOn the importance of logging

        In spite of configuring debug logging and log forwarding from AWX, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. My assumption was the body of the post was missing something. I looked at the source code of the api view controller and still didn’t figure it out and basically gave up after an hour. Actual webhooks posted from Gitea worked (when configured in AWX as Github), but my simple curl invocation wouldn’t. (Remind me to rave about how I like Gitea and Forgejo.)

      • idroot

        • ID RootHow To Install Apache Maven on Debian 12

          In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Apache Maven on Debian 12. Apache Maven is an essential tool for Java developers, providing a robust and efficient way to manage project dependencies, build, and deploy applications.

        • ID RootHow To Install PlayOnLinux on Debian 12

          In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PlayOnLinux on Debian 12. PlayOnLinux is a remarkable graphical front-end for Wine, a compatibility layer that allows you to run Windows applications on Linux systems.

        • ID RootHow To Install WezTerm on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

          In this tutorial, we will show you how to install WezTerm on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. In the world of Linux, having a powerful and versatile terminal emulator can greatly enhance your workflow and productivity. One such standout terminal emulator is WezTerm. It offers a modern and feature-rich environment for your command-line tasks.

        • ID RootWhat is a Maven Repository?

          In the dynamic realm of software development, effective project management and streamlined dependency management are crucial for successful outcomes. This comprehensive guide aims to unravel the intricate world of Maven Repositories, a fundamental component in modern software development.

      • HowTo ForgeHow to Install BookWyrm on a Debian 12 server

        BookWyrm is an open-source federated social network for book readers. It acts as an ad-free Goodreads alternative. In this tutorial, you will learn how to install BookWyrm on a Debian 12 server.

    • Games

      • GamingOnLinuxHeroic Games Launcher 2.9.2 Hotfix #2 is live

        It's time again to upgrade your install of the Heroic Games Launcher which helps you install games from Epic, GOG, Amazon and more on Steam Deck and desktop Linux.

      • GamingOnLinuxHere's some alternatives to the Unity game engine

        In the wake of Unity setting everything on fire with their new revenue model for developers, here's a reminder on what other game engines and tech is out there for developers to look into.

      • GamingOnLinuxSteam Deck not picking up your SD Card? Check for the latest update

        After Valve recently launched a stable Steam Client update for desktop and Steam Deck, along with the recent SteamOS 3.4.10 release - SD Cards became a bit problematic.

      • GamingOnLinuxFanatical's Killer Bundle 27 has 20 great games included

        Another chance for you to fill up your Steam library ensuring there's never a dull moment - Fanatical launched the Killer Bundle 27 with 20 games included. This is not a build it yourself bundle either, all games are included in it for one purchase.

      • GamingOnLinuxVKDoom is a ZDoom-based source port with a focus on Vulkan

        Well this is pretty fun to see! The ZDoom / GZDoom family is expanding with VKDoom, a new source-port that has a focus on expanded Vulkan support and modern rendering. Now it's worth noting that GZDoom already supports Vulkan, but VKDoom has a focus on making the Vulkan support much more modern with advanced rendering features for modern GPUs.

      • GamingOnLinuxHumble Bundle has a big Cities: Skylines bundle

        Fancy city-building but don't want to pay a big sum for all the extra content? Humble Bundle have a new Cities: Skylines Bundle live now with the base game and major expansions. This game has Native Linux support and is rated Steam Deck Playable.

      • GamingOnLinuxGOG has a big Indie Festival Sale on

        Stock up on some fantastic indie games, as GOG have launched their Indie Festival which is live now until September 25th, 10 PM UTC. While there's been numerous big releases over the last year, don't forget about all the really great indie games that often do things the bigger lot won't.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • [Repeat] HaikuOSHaiku Activity & Contract Report, August 2023

      This report covers hrev57184 through hrev57256.

      It’s worth noting: the main Haiku CI is currently offline as the developer who was hosting the build machine moved to a location with much slower internet. A new build machine and home for the CI has already been selected, but isn’t fully online yet, so the nightly builds are a bit behind at the moment.

    • Daniel XuAppImage explosions

      To the user, an appimage is a binary that looks and feels like a statically linked binary. In fact, you’d have a hard time discovering a binary is an appimage at all.

      At its core, an appimage is a squashfs image that contains an application and all of its dependencies. Prepended to the binary is a statically linked runtime that: [...]

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

      • University of TorontoMy (new) simple system to open URLs on my desktop from remote Linux machines

        I have a long standing setup where I read my email on one of our Linux login servers, instead of on my desktop. Email can include URLs that I want to open, so I need some way of opening these URLs in my desktop browser. For a long time this has been through one of two options; either I forwarded X over SSH and used Firefox's X-based remote control, or I was operating purely with text and selected the URLs in the terminal to use with my tools to open URLs in various browsers.

      • Daniel Stenbergcurl 8.3.0

        The number of security fixes is adjusted due to the recently rejected CVE-2023-32001

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

      • Linux Links4 Best Free and Open Source Office Suites

        Microsoft Office still dominates market share of office suites. Businesses have often rejected free Office alternatives. However, things are changing. With the cost of a price subscription plan for Microsoft Office, the average home user or small business will welcome a free alternative. Fortunately, there are some truly excellent open source alternatives available for Linux (and other operating systems).

        Our recommendations are captured in our legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

    • Education

      • Cendyne NagaSoftware Security Fur All

        The security industry is not too accessible. It focuses on common details, rather than fundamental problems and solutions. We can do better by building communities with free knowledge and compassion, rather than exclude newcomers with paywalled content and competitive hazing. Fundamentals like separating code and data must be top of mind as new technologies like large language models get deployed. Bad cryptography is everywhere and we hope to make cryptographic knowledge more accessible.

        This talk summary is part of my DEF CON 31 series. The talks this year have sufficient depth to be shared independently and are separated for easier consumption.

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

      • Open Data

        • RlangUtilizing R for Reproducible Open Science Research in Tucson, Arizona

          In this meetup, we will replicate open science research. This meetup is the second event of the Reproducing Open Research Series. We chose the paper “Learning, Inside and Out: Prior Linguistic Knowledge and Learning Environment Impact Word Learning in Bilingual Individuals” within the linguistics domain and features experimental data.

    • Programming/Development

      • Raspberry PiColour-based object tracking with Raspberry Pi

        She worked with Shafat Insha and Midhat Munira to develop a smart colour-based object tracking system, using OpenCV and Raspberry Pi 3. The autonomous Smart Object Tracking Robot can detect and track objects of a specific colour in real time.

      • Daniel LemireTranscoding Unicode strings at crazy speeds with AVX-512

        In software, we store strings of text as arrays of bytes in memory using one of the Unicode Transformation Formats (UTF), the most popular being UTF-8 and UTF-16. Windows, Java, C# and other systems common languages and systems default on UTF-16, whereas other systems and most of the web relies on UTF-8. There are benefits to both formats and we are not going to adopt one over the other any time soon. It means that we must constantly convert our strings from UTF-8 to UTF-16 and back.

      • ButtondownIf you work on a big language, I'd like to talk

        Directed graphs are ubiquitous, so it's incredibly weird to me that not a single mainstream programming language has a built-in directed graph type. And it's even weirder that not a single mainstream programming language has them in the standard library.

      • Juha-Matti SantalaPull requests are great

        I have recently been seeing an increasing amount of chatter about and against pull requests. These especially often come from the crowd that advocates for pair or mob/ensemble programming. I saw a great one in Mastodon the other week but failed to save it so I can’t reference it. In essence, that toot asked: What legit benefit is there for pull requests for teams that trust each other?

        And I’ve seen this sentiment quite often: some people consider that pull requests’ main or even only function is to prevent malicious or bad code from entering a codebase from untrusted sources. And in many distributed open source projects that is one of its functions. However, I’d argue that focusing solely on the trust issue and then dismissing pull requests for teams that trust each other, is short-sighted.

      • Matt RickardThe New Economics of Generating Code

        "The next is replace -- replace feature after feature after feature of the older Cerner system with a new Cerner system, new Millennium, which we are not coding in Java like we usually do. The new Cerner system is being generated -- as you know, generative AI generates code. We have an application generator called APEX. And we are not writing code for the new Cerner; we are generating that code in APEX, and it's going extremely well."

        This is a quote from Larry Ellison in Oracle’s latest earnings call. It should be taken with a grain of salt — Ellison is a master of narrative, and he’s addressing an audience of investors. Whether APEX works as well as he claims or if developers are simply using GitHub Copilot, the fact remains: this is the future of a good chunk of software development.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • New York TimesHow to Navigate Apple’s Shift From Lightning to USB-C

        Allow me to unpack that. To comply with recent European regulations, the iPhone 15, unveiled Tuesday, will abandon the Lightning connector that has been the method for charging iPhones for 11 years. In its place will be a different oval-shaped connector: USB-C.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Gnome Foundation Inc is in Trouble
the agenda is set GAFAM and IBM rather than donors
SLAPP Censorship - Part 22 Out of 200: When You Complain People Impersonate You in IRC (But You Yourself Impersonate People in IRC and Lock Them Out of Their IRC Handles)
We'll cover this with direct evidence some time soon
 
Links 25/03/2026: Nations Return to Russian Oil and Burning Wood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Resisting Authoritarianism and Why Slop Needs to Go Away
Links for the day
Fedora Maintainer-ship Using Slop (Mistakes) Would Make Fedora Less Reliable
It won't produce reliable code or stable systems one can rely upon
IBM's "Legacy Employees" (Experienced Workers, IBM Management Dubs Them 'Dinobabies')
This notion of "legacy employees" seems like something overlapping with "expensive" (well paid) staff, even if not entirely equivalent
EPO's "Current Industrial Actions Are Likely to Intensify Further."
There is another strike in 5 days
This Morning The Register MS Published Slop Promotion With the Term "AI" 15 Times In It. The Register MS Was (As Usual) Paid to Do This
This is not a serious publisher
SLAPP Censorship - Part 23 Out of 200: We Were Right All Along (for 2 Years) About Third Party Funding and Willingness to 'Break the Bank' in Pursuit of "Revenge"
How much damage can a person do to oneself in pursuit of cover-up of legitimate technical concerns?
Links 25/03/2026: Airports Further Militarised, "Slopification and Its Discontents", Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' Shutting Things Down
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Blogging Fright and Absolutely Useless 'Apps' Made by Slop Machines
Links for the day
Rise in Energy Prices Will Significantly Accelerate the Death of So-called "AI Companies"
It should be noted that fake news about Microsoft OpenAI doubling workforce (mere words, not actions) can serve as a nice distraction from the death of Sora due to divestment
It's Always a Question of Trust
There's a widespread stigma of lawyers being manipulative and chronically dishonest
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Must More Carefully Investigate or Assess the Financial State of Law Firms in the UK
We'll cover this in depth in the future
GAFAM Mozilla Removes Theora Support, Now GNU Needs to Re-encode Videos
Mozilla used to mean something to Free software advocates
An Open Admission Profits Depend on Addiction
Proprietary software tends to be like this
IBM Americas President Ayman Antoun Comes to OpenText, Weeks Ahead the Mass Layoffs Begin
Is that what IBM will be good at?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 24, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Junk Drawer Time Capsule and Building Outside Alire
Links for the day
Not Much LLM Slop About "Linux" Lately, It Only Ever Comes From the Same Few Sites
As long as only few such sites use LLM slop we can skip and avoid them
Links 24/03/2026: "Epic Lays Off Over 1000 Employees" and US in Financial Trouble According to the Fed
Links for the day
The "Media" Does Not Only 'Miss' Mass Layoffs
"The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed it"
The Empty Suits of IBM Managers (NIH or "Nothing Invented Here")
IBM's management adopted the business model of parasites
2012: 'Secure' (Microsoft-Controlled) Boot Has Not (Yet) Been Made Obligatory. 2026: systemd Has Not Implemented Age Verification
should we stop calling "nazi" everyone we don't agree with?
More Threats (Including Physical Threats) Against Us Are a Dumb Move
It's like a "hit list" (targets list) and I shall keep the police duly informed
New Example of Pentagon in "Feminist" Clothing Inside Fake News of Publishers Paid to Promote Outsourcing to US ("Clown Computing") and American Slop
Google now pays money to promote Google as a friend of women
Hating Techrights is a Career
but is it good for civil society?
Dr. Stallman’s Work Will Never be Considered 'Mainstream' Because He Rejects and Works Against the So-called 'Mainstream'
Try to be more like Stallman
The New Layoffs: 'Silent Layoffs', 'Secret Layoffs', 'Quiet Layoffs', 'Passive Layoffs' 'Stealth Layoffs', and Unannounced Layoffs Disguised as Return-to-Office (RTO Mandates)
The US needs to revisit and fix the WARN Act
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part IX - Cocaine Addicts in Charge of the EPO Attacking Families of EPO Staff
Things like being high-profile and being a serious drug addict aren't opposites
What Feminism in Science Means (Codes of Conduct Don't Tackle the Real Issues)
Universality matters, more so in a project or community that's said to build the "universal operating system" (Debian)
SLAPP Censorship - Part 21 Out of 200: It's About Behaviour Online, Not How Much Money From Shadowy Third Parties Gets Spent on Lawyers and Two Barristers
75+ KG of legal papers, 2 cases, 2 barristers (one hiding in the metadata) and maybe two law firms (also hiding in the metadata) against two modest people in Manchester seems disproportionate and vindicative
Links 24/03/2026: "Airports on ICE" and "Have You Paid Your “Intuit Tax”?"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Slop Interview and Why Slop Makes Lousy Code
Links for the day
Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk This Thursday at the University of Bologna (Italy)
Hardly the first time he speaks in Bologna
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 23, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 23, 2026
Gemini Links 23/03/2026: "Mandatory" Bad Things and Dangers of Perfection Aspirations
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 20 Out of 200: All Roads Lead to Rome and to GAFAM Funding
Now about 10% into this series
Last Week's EPO Strike Was the Biggest (Highest Participation Rate), Hours Ago General Assembly Discussed Next (Growing) Intensity of Strikes
Well done and well attended
Mass Layoffs at HashiCorp, IBM Hid Them
The media did not mention those layoffs
Microsoft Downgraded on Concerns (Lack of Growth) Amid Silent Layoffs in 2026
The press isn't functioning anymore
Links 23/03/2026: Gulf Water at Risk, Heatwave in Malaysia
Links for the day
Slop Means False, New Article by Cybershow
"We are living in a world that is rapidly divesting from reality."
Debianism election 2026 community poll created, everybody can vote
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/03/2026: "Shocking Peter Thiel Antichrist Lectures", Robert Mueller Remembered
Links for the day
The Scandal Bigger Than IBM/Red Hat Layoffs is the de Facto "Media Blackout" About Those Layoffs
So we have a media crisis, aside from the economic crises
Gemini Links 23/03/2026: Geminispace/Elpher Enhancement and the Cerberus Cinco
Links for the day
Fear is Not a Legitimate Factor
Smart people know that trying to prevent moral people from doing the "Right Thing" will backfire
Fuel Autonomy and What It Teaches Us About Software Autonomy (or Software Freedom)
Need we wait until a "software Pearl Harbor" or protect ourselves proactively by weaning ourselves off of GAFAMware?
Scheduled Maintenance This Coming Wednesday
Other than that, all is the same and we carry on as usual
Most Press Articles About IBM Are LLM Slop, Sometimes With Slop Images
IBM basically laid off almost 1,000 people last week [...] At the moment about 75% of the 'articles' we see about IBM (in recent days) are some kind of slop
Links 23/03/2026: Security Breaches, Energy Shortages, Another SRA Scandal, and Patents on Nature
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 22, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 22, 2026