Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 22/2/2021: Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU30 and Lubuntu in Focus



  • GNU/Linux

    • Linux lands on Mars – A victory for open-source
      In one of humankind’s historical moments, Linux-powered Perseverance Mars Rover has made a successful landing on Mars. Its landing software is powered by Linux – and open-source software that has been touted for its safety.

      Tim Canham mentioned the importance of Linux in the Perseverance Mars Rover success to Mars. In discussion with IEEE Spectrum, the Mars Helicopter Operations Lead at NASA’s Propulsion Laboratory said that “This is the first time we’ll be flying Linux on Mars.” He also touted how it was important for the team to use a proven and safe.

      The NASA expert was also not shy away from saying that, “It’s kind of an open-source victory.”

      The live telecast of the Perseverance Mars Rover making it to the land was watched by 2 million people on YouTube. The whole scene was mesmerizing and beautiful.

    • Linux Weekly Roundup #118

      Welcome to this Linux Weekly Roundup.

      KDE Plasma 5.21 has been released and it is really good!

      Netrunner 21.01, Void Linux 20210218, and Endless OS 3.9.3 have been released this week!

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Episode 259 – What even is open source anymore?

        Josh and Kurt talk about the question “what is open source?” Why do we think it’s broken today, and what sort of ideas about what should come next.

      • Going Linux #404 €· Making Linux Installation Media

        Creating bootable USB media to enable you to install Linux has changed since we last talked about it on the show. We discus burning a CD/DVD and today’s methods of creating a bootable USB media from Windows, macOS, and Linux.

      • Linux Action News 177

        We share some exclusive details about the Linux-powered gear that just landed on Mars, and the open-source frameworks that make it possible.

        Plus a major new feature coming to a Linux distro near you.

      • GNU World Order 394

        GNU autoconf from the Slackware software series **d**.

      • 139: Linux 5.11, Linux On Mars!, KDE Plasma 5.21, Linux Mint, Fedora, Kodi | This Week in Linux - TuxDigital

        On this episode of This Week in Linux, we’ve got a HUGE week of news with the latest release of the Linux kernel with Linux 5.11. KDE has announced the release of Plasma 5.21. We’ve got a lot of Distro news from Fedora, Linux Mint & Devuan. Later in the show, we’ll talk about news from Pine64 about the PinePhone, Kodi entertainment center has a new release and we’ve got some exciting news for GNOME Software. Wait wasn’t there something else? Oh right. Linux Is Now On MARS! All that and much more on Your Weekly Source for Linux GNews!

    • Kernel Space

      • Intel eASIC N5X, Snapdragon 888 Support Land In Linux 5.12 - Phoronix

        There is a lot of new hardware enablement with the ARM platforms and DeviceTree additions for the Linux 5.12 kernel merge window.

        The various kernel pull requests from Arnd Bergmann were merged on Saturday night following the nearly week long delay due to the PNW winter weather thwarting the start of the merge window. Some of the ARM/DT highlights for Linux 5.12 include:

        - Lightening up the kernel by some 21.4k lines is the dropping of many old/obsolete ARM platforms. Nuked this time around are EFM32, PicoXcell, PRIMA2, Tango, U300, ZX, and ARCH/C6X.

      • Linux 5.12 Git Seeing New Code Land Following Winter Storm - Phoronix

        While the first week of a new merge window is often one of the busiest times for Linus Torvalds in overseeing the Linux kernel, until last night there was no actual Linux 5.12 code being pushed into the Linux Git repository. Linus was offline most of the week due to winter storms preventing him from pushing to the Git repository and interacting much with the mailing list.

        Texas had all the attention this past week for their massive outages, but Portland also experienced a brutal winter storm last weekend. The Oregon winter storm knocked out power to thousands and ended up interfering with the start of the Linux 5.12 merge window.

      • Linux 5.11 Supports Syscall User Dispatch Which Could Allow More Windows Games With DRM To Run Under Wine In The Future - LinuxReviews

        Many Windows games use direct system calls in their implementation of DRM and anti-cheat features. This is a problem because Windows API re-implementations like Wine do not get to see these syscalls and the Linux kernel has no idea what to do with them. The newly released Linux 5.11 kernel has a solution.

      • Faster IO_uring, BFQ + BLK-MQ Improvements Among The I/O Fun For Linux 5.12

        The block subsystem and related storage changes were merged today for the in-development Linux 5.12 kernel.

        The IO_uring changes for Linux 5.12 continue to be quite prominent for this very compelling feature of the Linux kernel. In particular, continued work on making IO_uring even faster. With request recycling and task_work optimizations, IO_uring with Linux 5.12 is now in the range of 10% to 20% faster for workloads that are mostly inline. IO_uring is also now fully under memcg protection, SQPOLL fixes, LOOKUP_CACHED support, and other clean-ups and optimizations.

      • Graphics Stack

        • NVidia Cripples Proprietary Graphics Driver In Order To Sell Specialized Crypto-Mining Cards

          The American technology giant Nvidia has announced that their closed-source graphics driver now features a intentional digital restrictions management (DRM) bug that cripples performance on certain specific workloads such as mining digital Ethereum (ETH) currency. Nvidia story, which does not hold water, is that they are doing this to ensure retail-availability of their RTX 3060 graphics card.

        • The State Of ROCm For HPC In Early 2021 With CUDA Porting Via HIP, Rewriting With OpenMP - Phoronix

          Earlier this month at the virtual FOSDEM 2021 conference was an interesting presentation on how European developers are preparing for AMD-powered supercomputers and beginning to figure out the best approaches for converting existing NVIDIA CUDA GPU code to run on Radeon GPUs as well as whether writing new GPU-focused code with OpenMP device offload is worthwhile.

        • Mesa Lands New Single File Cache To Help Steam's Pre-Compiled Shaders, Space Savings

          Mesa's on-disk shader cache, which is used for speeding up game load times by avoiding the redundant recompiling of shaders on successive loads and also helping performance for software that compiles shaders on-the-fly, is seeing a big improvement with Mesa 21.1. Mesa 21.1-devel merged this weekend the new single file cache implementation.

          Mesa's new single file shader cache has been in the works by Valve contractor Timothy Arceri the past few months. The single file cache doesn't help with load times any further beyond the existing multi-file cache layout but can help in space savings. By tucking all the cached shaders into a single file is the possibility of better on-disk space savings. Arceri estimates the multi-file cache behavior as is used right now inflates disk usage by more than 3x of the single file cache.

    • Applications

      • Cine-encoder 3.1 Is Released

        cine-encoder is a handy tool for quickly converting between video formats. It support for preserving HDR meta-data and hardware encoding on Nvidia, and only Nvidia, graphics cards. The latest version has a "improved" design, bug-fixes and support for drag and drop.

        Cine-encoder is a simple program designed with one purpose in mind: Converting files between video formats. It is not a linear video editor like kdenlive and it's not useful for splitting or editing audio like you can with avidemux. Cine-encoder is much more similar to Video Trimmer in terms of features: It lets you re-encode video files and that's all it does.

      • Why Rhythmbox’s Much-Needed Makeover Might Not Be Happening

        Ahh, Rhythmbox: a solid, dependable music player for the Linux desktop which, like a classic Madonna album, is both great and of its era at the same time.

        But could it find favour with a whole new generation of fans? As Madonna can attest, a well-received reinvention is but a solid vision and a few productions tweaks away.

        “Joey,” you say. “Express yourself, dude; what is this all about?”

        Cue a bedtime story…

      • Dmitry Shachnev: ReText turns 10 years

        Exactly ten years ago, in February 2011, the first commit in ReText git repository was made. It was just a single 364 lines Python file back then (now the project has more than 6000 lines of Python code).

        Since 2011, the editor migrated from SourceForge to GitHub, gained a lot of new features, and — most importantly — now there is an active community around it, which includes both long-time contributors and newcomers who create their first issues or pull requests. I don’t always have enough time to reply to issues or implement new features myself, but the community members help me with this.

      • SGTK Menu: Who Wants A Graphical Launcher

        While why favourite app launcher is dmenu, I get that some people prefer a more graphical solution so today we're looking at something to address that, this is SGTK Menu, a desktop agnostic GTK app launcher.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to install Android Studio in Ubuntu

        If you’ve switched to Ubuntu from Mac OS or Windows to do Android development, you’ll need to know how to install Android Studio. In this guide, we’ll show you how to do just that. Follow along as we go over how to install Android Studio on Ubuntu.

      • How to use the Epic Store on Linux

        The Epic Games Store is quickly becoming a competitor to Steam by adding exclusive PC games to it. Sadly, unlike Steam, it does not have a native Linux release, and there are no plans for Epic to release on Linux in the future.

        Not to worry! With a little elbow grease, you can get the Epic Store working on your Linux PC. Here’s how to do it.

      • How to install Shotcut Video Editor on Linux Mint 20.1

        In this video, we are looking at how to install Shotcut Video Editor on Linux Mint 20.1.

      • Install Adobe Reader on Fedora Linux – Linux Hint

        Adobe Acrobat Reader DC or simply Adobe Reader is a popular software for document viewing, printing, and adding comments. It can also add signs and annotate portable document format or PDFs. It is primarily built for handling PDF documents. The premium version, Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, has more features than Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. For example, you can create PDFs, convert to other formats, edit and protect them.

        Adobe now also provides online document cloud services for Adobe Acrobat Reader for managing your work from anywhere and from any device.

        Adobe Inc develops the Adobe Acrobat family. The Adobe reader is available for direct download on Windows and Mac OS. It can be installed on Android and IOS as well. There are multiple languages available for installing Adobe Reader. Adobe does not provide a direct download option on the Linux systems as it used to do earlier. In this guide, we will see some workaround for installing Adobe Reader on the Fedora operating system.

      • How to install Pencil2D on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install Pencil2D on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • How to Update Ubuntu in the Command Line

        Knowing how to update Linux in the command line is an absolute must for skilled users. Staying updated keeps your system safe, secure, and stocked with the latest features. Today we'll learn how to update an Ubuntu desktop or server from the terminal, or through an SSH connection.

      • Use btrfs compression in Fedora 33 - Lukáš Zapletal

        Btrfs have been available in Fedora for quite some time and starting from Fedora 33, new installations of Workstation edition use it by default. Btrfs is pretty capable file system with lots of options, let’s take a look on one aspect: transparent per-file compression.

        There’s little bit of misunderstanding how this works and some people recommend to mount with compress option. This is actually not necessary and I would actually strongly suggest NOT to use this option. See, this option makes btrfs to attempt to compress all files that are being written. If the beginning of a file cannot be effectively compressed, it’s marked as “not for compression” and this is never attempted again. This can be even forced via a different option. This looks nice on paper.

        The problem is, not all files are good candidates for compression. Compression takes time and it can dramatically worsen performance, things like database files or virtual machine images should never be compressed. Performance of libvirt/KVM goes terribly down by order of magnitude if an inefficient backing store is used (qcow2).

      • Read Manpages With Less, Bat, Vim or Neovim - YouTube

        Did you know that you can change the MANPAGER that your shell uses? The MANPAGER is the program that is used to read man pages. By default, this is usually the 'less' program, but you can change it to be whatever you like. Some common choices include bat, vim and neovim.

      • Oil Paint image transformation with Raspberry PI and OpenCV - peppe8o

        Beside being a fantastic tool for Artificial Intelligence computing, OpenCV also makes available a number of options to create cool effects applied to pictures. One of these is Oilpainting, which creates an oil paint from your image, able to run in a Raspberry PI

      • Install HPLIP 3.21.2 In Ubuntu 20.04 / LinuxMint / Fedora 33 | Tips On UNIX

        This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to install HPLIP 3.21.2 in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Fedora 33, RHEL, LinuxMint 19.x, and Debian 10.7.

        HPLIP – HP Linux Image and Printing, developed by HP for Printing, scanning, and faxing with HP inkjet and laser-based printers in Linux platforms.

        The latest version of HPLIP 3.21.2 contains new printer support and added support to the new Distro’s and the hplip installer is available for download from SourceForge.

      • How To Install Kodi on Manjaro 20 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Kodi on Manjaro 20. For those of you who didn’t know, Kodi (formerly XBMC Media Center) is an open-source and very powerful project that provides all the necessary tools for transforming your regular PC into a bona fide HTPC, which, if used in conjunction with a big-screen TV and a Hi-Fi audio system, will transform your living room into a veritable home theater. Currently, Kodi can be used to play almost all popular audio and video formats around. It was designed for network playback, so you can stream your multimedia from anywhere in the house or directly from the internet using practically any protocol available.

        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 Kodi on a Manjaro 20 (Nibia).

      • Setting up a local repository on Ubuntu 16.04 - The Linux Juggernaut

        Having packages available locally is helpful in a number of situations. Your organization might be using certain packages which are not available on public repositories. You might also be building your own debian packages and would prefer to have them available locally on the system.

        In this article, we will show you how to set up a simple local package repository on an Ubuntu 16.04 system.

      • apt command examples for package management in Ubuntu - The Linux Juggernaut

        In our earlier articles on package management for Debian bases distributions, we’ve covered dpkg, apt-get, and apt-cache tools. In this article, we will cover the apt tool for managing packages on our Ubuntu 16.04 system. The command line options for apt are very similar to those available with apt-get and apt-cache because apt encompasses features of both these tools into one package management tool. Apt is a front-end tool which works with dpkg in the background to maintain software on the system.

        To interact with the apt package manager, we use the apt command along with the appropriate options. We’ll now take you through some examples to help understand how we use the apt package manager.

      • How to add Capacity Providers in the existing ECS Cluster? - Kernel Talks

        In our last article, we walked you through the basics of Capacity Providers. In this article, let’s create them to test their functionalities. You can create Capacity Providers and add them to the running ECS cluster without touching anything in the cluster.

      • Lukas "lzap" Zapletal: Installing Unifi Controller on Fedora 33

        Installing Unifi Controller in Fedora 33 is easy. Step one: install MongoDB from the official site since it is no longer available in Fedora due to licensing reasons.

      • Lukas "lzap" Zapletal: Remove rsyslog and use journald in Fedora

        I am reinstalling my home server from scratch, I want to start using BTRFS which seems like a great fit for what I am doing (NAS, backups). Installation was smooth, no problems, however I noticed that Fedora Server 33 installed both journald and rsyslogd and journal was configured to do persistent logging.

        You know, this is weird. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and 8, journald is configured in volatile mode and it’s set to forward all logs to syslog. On Fedora 33, it looks like both rsyslog and journald are logging (/var/log/messages and /var/log/journal respectively). No forwarding is going on. This is weird, I am going to file a BZ for folks to investigate.

      • Jon Chiappetta: Configuring an OpenWRT Switch to work with SSID VLANS on a UAP-AC-PRO

        On the OpenWRT Swtich page, I have set the LAN ports 1 & 2 as VLAN trunk ports (tagged) to allow both to carry the traffic through to the VLAN access ports (untagged) (home = VLAN 3 && guest = VLAN 4). This will create the sub-interfaces eth0.3 and eth0.4 that will contain the separated Layer 2 ethernet traffic to/from those different WiFi clients (ARP, DHCP via dnsmasq, mDNS, etc).

      • Please do not put IP addresses into DNS MX records

        I want to highlight a common misconfiguration in the DNS records for e-mail servers.

        When a domain is configured to receive mails usually a DNS record of the type MX is configured pointing to the host name of the mail server.

        Notably, according to the respective RFC 1035 the MX record must contain a domain name and may not directly point to an IP address. However some mail servers do configure an IP address. Many mail servers are lenient when it comes to this misconfiguration and will deliver mails nevertheless, so this may stay undetected.

        I happen to use a mail server that is less forgiving (Courier), and every now and then I cannot send a mail due to this. It’s rare, but it does happen. If your mail server has such a configuration you may not receive some legitimate e-mails.

      • Completely uninstall MySQL-server in Ubuntu 20.04

        Many times we face issues while starting the MYSQL server or on installation on Linux System. There may be a couple of reasons for this issue. Sometimes configuration file already exists in the system and is not removed properly. In that case, we have to discard the MYSQL package and configuration file and reinstall it again.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • [PCLinuxOS] KDE installation ISOs have been updated 2021.0215

          KDE installation ISOs have been updated with Kernel 5.10.17 LTS. KDE Plasma desktop 5.21.0 and the latest Nvidia 460.39 driver along with the normal package updates from the software repository. Please note if you are fully updated from the software repository then there is no need to do a fresh install from these ISOs.

    • Distributions

      • Announcing Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU30

        We've just released SRU30 for Oracle Solaris 11.4. It is available via 'pkg update' from the support repository or by downloading the SRU from My Oracle Support Doc ID 2433412.1.

      • Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU30 Is The Biggest Update We've Seen In A While

        Oracle continues maintaining Solaris 11.4 with monthly stable release updates but there still is no public sign of anything past 11.4 for this operating system that was once exciting during the Sun Microsystems days. But with this week's 11.4 SRU30 release, at least there are many package updates.

        Oracle this past week released Solaris 11.4 Stable Release Update 30 in it being nearly three years already since Solaris 11.4 was introduced. There are a number of prominent package updates with Solaris 11.4 SRU30 including Python 3.9, Perl 5.32, GNU Debugger 10.1, LLVM Clang 11.0, OpenSSH 8.2, and many other package updates. Solaris 11.4 SRU30 also includes updating many of the GNOME desktop components against their 3.36/3.38 state. There are many other package updates that were also carried out in the name of security.

      • Reviews

        • Review: Septor 2021

          Septor is a Linux distribution which provides users with a pre-configured computing environment for surfing the Internet anonymously. It is based on Debian's Testing branch and it uses Privoxy, a privacy-enhancing proxy, together with the Tor anonymity network to modify web page data and HTTP headers before the page is rendered by the browser. The distribution uses KDE Plasma as the preferred desktop environment and it also includes the Tor Browser for anonymous web browsing and OnionShare for file sharing.

          Septor is in the same family of distributions as Tails, which we talked about last year. Tails is also Debian-based and is intended to be used for anonymous web browsing and file sharing. One of the big differences between the two projects is Tails uses the GNOME desktop while Septor uses KDE Plasma. Another difference is Tails is typically run as a live distribution from a USB thumb drive, often with persistent storage. Septor, on the other hand, can either be used as a standard live disc or installed to a hard drive via Debian's system installer.

          Septor is available in one edition for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. The ISO file we download is 1.8GB in size. Booting from this media brings up a menu asking if we would like to run the live desktop or launch the installer. When running in UEFI mode just one install option was visible, but in Legacy BIOS mode I could select either a graphical installer or a text installer.

          Taking the live option brings up a graphical login screen. We are shown a mostly empty screen that tells us we can sign in to the live desktop using the password "live". There are drop-down menus for choosing our session type (only KDE Plasma is available) and our keyboard layout (only US is available). Signing into the default user account brings up the Plasma desktop with a blue background. A panel sits at the bottom of the display. The desktop is fairly quiet and empty, though browsing through the application menu presents us with several useful tools I will talk about later. We are automatically connected to the Tor network when we open a web browser or other tool, allowing us to browse the web with a degree of anonymity.

      • New Releases

        • CoreELEC 9.2.6 Released with ZRAM Support, Bluetooth Improvements

          CoreELEC 9.2.6 is a maintenance update that comes almost four months after version 9.2.5 to introduce ZRAM support into the Linux kernel, which should dramatically improve the performance. ZRAM creates a compressed block device in RAM with on-the-fly disk compression, but it’s currently only supported on the Amlogic variant, not Amlogic-NG.

          This new point release to the 9.2 series also introduces some Bluetooth improvements, such as automatic connection after boot and automatic switching to Bluetooth audio devices. On top of that, it improves media handling and playback.

      • Debian Family

        • Debian-based Netrunner 21.01 'XOXO' is the perfect Linux alternative to Windows 10
          Here at BetaNews, we report on many Linux distribution releases, because, well, there are a lot of them. Not all of these operating systems are great, and only a handful are legitimate replacements for Windows 10. With that said, Microsoft's operating system is very good, so if you are happy with Windows, you should probably just stick with it. Don't switch for the sake of change, folks.

          Unfortunately, some people strongly dislike Windows 10, and they are eager to move onto a Linux-based alternative. If that is you, I have some great news. One of the best Windows alternatives, Netrunner, has a new version. The Debian-based operating system, which uses the excellent KDE Plasma desktop environment, now sits at version 21.01 and carries the moniker "XOXO."

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Best Wallpapers for Lubuntu Desktop

          Desktop wallpapers always show a user’s feelings and nature but emphasize a system’s look. Sometimes, wallpapers also help you stay motivated and focused on your goals, so it is essential to have an amazing wallpaper for your desktop/laptop. If you are a lightweight Linux distro user, then there is little chance to choose wallpapers. Before the latest update of Lubuntu, there were lesser options to customize the system according to the users. We have shortlisted for you some of the best wallpapers for the Lubuntu desktop so that you can choose one of them for your Lubuntu system.

        • Customize Lubuntu Themes

          Lubuntu is a lightweight OS based on a Linux kernel developed by Ubuntu distribution; this Linux distro has evolved in the GNU license like an open-source tool. Hence, Lubuntu is open source, a completely free, fast, and lightweight operating system that provides an easy-to-use and simple interface.

          [...]

          In this method, we will provide brief details on changing your Lubuntu system’s appearance completely.

          First, change the desktop background to select the appropriate dimension image because it will help you maintain the performance.

          In case you want to check the monitor resolution, go to the Menu -> Preference, then Monitor Settings.

          In the Monitor Settings, check the monitor configuration, so make sure to download the wallpaper as per the monitor configuration.

          Once you download the image from the internet, go to the Menu -> Preference and select desktop preferences.

        • Lubuntu vs. Linux lite

          Suppose you don’t have a high-end device to run Linux distros like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, etc. You can go for Lubuntu and Linux lite as they offer excellent compatibility for low-end devices. These are lightweight Linux distros that provide appropriate features and options for low-end devices having 512 MB of RAM and lower. However, it is confusing to choose between Lubuntu and Linux Lite as both of these Linux distros have adequate resources. We have briefly overviewed the Linux distros, given information, and a comparison between Lubuntu and Linux lite. Our information can help you to choose the best one according to the requirements without compromising.

        • Lubuntu Review

          Mario Behling designed Lubuntu, Julien Lavergne developed it for many years. It is a lightweight operating system based on the Linux kernel created from the Ubuntu distribution. This Linux distro was developed under the GNU license as an open-source tool, which is entirely free. Lubuntu is a fast and lightweight operating system that provides an easy-to-use and simple interface. Lubuntu aims to work on low-end systems without compromising on performance because it uses LXDE/LXQT.

          Many people complain that Lubuntu does not have any animations or effects because this Linux distro aims to improve the performance, eliminating the higher customization scope. You can use Lubuntu in your low-end system because it only requires 256 RAM to work correctly. If you want a brief Lubuntu review, this article will work best because we will cover complete details about Lubuntu.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Programming/Development

        • GNU Parallel 20210222 ('Ang Sang Su Kyi') released

          GNU Parallel 20210222 ('Ang Sang Su Kyi') has been released. It is available for download at: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/parallel/ Please help spreading GNU Parallel by making a testimonial video like Juan Sierra Pons: http://www.elsotanillo.net/wp-content/uploads/GnuParallel_JuanSierraPons.mp4 It does not have to be as detailed as Juan's. It is perfectly fine if you just say your name, and what field you are using GNU Parallel for.

        • Reading stdin with Emacs Client ― mina86.com

          One feature Emacs doesn’t have out of the box is reading data from standard input. Trying to open - (e.g. echo stdin | emacs -) results in Emacs complaining about unknown option (if it ends up starting in graphical mode) or that ‘standard input is not a tty’ (when starting in terminal).

          With sufficiently advanced shell one potential solution is the --insert flag paired with command substitution: echo stdin | emacs --insert <(cat). Sadly, it’s not a panacea. It messes up initial buffer (and thus may break setups with custom initial-buffer-choice) and doesn’t address the issue of standard input not being a tty when running Emacs in terminal.

        • Perl/Raku

          • rt.cpan.org to remain online

            Despite rt.cpan.org still displaying the sunset message, it is in fact not going away forever on the 1st of March, but will have an 'extended downtime' while it is moved elsewhere. In future it'd be nice if communications of such things, and even allowing others to have a say on the matter, could be handled better.

          • Perl Weekly Challenge 100: Fun Time and Triangle Sum
        • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

          • How do I Create an Alias in Bash? – Linux Hint

            Bash alias is a command-based shortcut title. Every alias comprises a single word (or maybe even a single letter), which can be used rather than a relatively long command. In the Linux system, there have been several instructions that we’ll need to utilize daily. If we can run some popular instructions by typing quick instructions, it would be very beneficial for all of us. Via bash aliases, Linux users can conveniently build commonly used shortcut commands for big commands. Bash aliases are not just used to ease the job and thus save users’ time.

          • How to Simulate an Array of Arrays in Bash – Linux Hint

            Bash is indeed an interpreted, interactive language, and how much space to reserve in advance does not have to be known. It is also possible to make ready a new array dynamically without declaring it or extending a previously defined array to include further entries. Still, multidimensional arrays aren’t supported by bash, and we can’t get array components that are also arrays. Fortunately, multidimensional arrays can be simulated. This article will provide some illustrations of the simulation of an array of arrays in a bash script.

          • Remove a Specific Element from an Array in Bash – Linux Hint

            Although the entire process is not very simple and might seem like a hack, you could perhaps remove an element from the existing array. We could be using more than one method to remove an element. One of the methods is “unset,” which is used to delete an element from a specific index and afterward replace it with some other array. Several other sets of elements can be deleted using: also. You can remove the list element from the end but only the solitary one using the pop() method. Let’s have some examples for this.

        • Rust

          • Erich Schubert: My first Rust crate: faster kmedoids clustering



            I have written my first Rust crate: kmedoids.

            Python users can use the wrapper package kmedoids.

            It implements k-medoids clustering, and includes our new FasterPAM algorithm that drastically reduces the computational overhead. As long as you can afford to compute the distance matrix of your data set, clustering it with k-medoids is now feasible even for large k. (If your data is continuous and you are interested in minimizing squared errors, k-means surely remains the better choice!)

  • Leftovers

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Appealing Denial of Summary Judgment (without a subsequent JMOL motion)

          A jury sided with Ericsson with a $75 million verdict for the patentee. (See the verdict image above). On appeal, the Federal Circuit flipped the verdict — holding that the asserted patent was ineligible under Section 101. In a new SCT petition, Ericsson challenges the decision on procedural grounds — arguing that TCL did not properly preserve the eligibility issue for appeal. In particular, Ericsson argues for waiver because the defendant did not raise the issue in a post-verdict R.50(b) motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law.

          During the litigation, TCL had argued that Ericsson’s claims were ineligible under Section 101. Before trial the district court denied TCL’s motion for summary judgment. TCL did not raise the issue again at trial or in a motion for JMOL under either R.50(a) or R.50(b).

          Normally, denial of summary judgment does not preserve an issue for appeal. Rather, the moving party must follow up with a pre-verdict motion for JMOL and then a post-verdict renewed-JMOL motion. Unitherm Food Sys., Inc. v. Swift-Eckrich, Inc., 546 U.S. 394 (2006); Ortiz v. Jordan, 562 U.S. 180 (2011).

          [...]

          A key element of the majority decision is that – for a question of law – denial of summary judgment of ineligibility fully decides the issue and acts sub silento to effectively grant summary judgment of eligibility. “[T]he district court here did not merely deny summary judgment. Rather … it effectively granted summary judgment in favor of the non-moving party by deciding the issue and leaving nothing left for the jury to decide.” The Federal Circuit majority opinion was written by Chief Judge PROST and joined by Judge CHEN.

          Judge NEWMAN wrote in dissent and argued that the majority erred in its approach to summary judgment motions — “The majority announces new law and disrupts precedent.”

        • Software Patents



Recent Techrights' Posts

Slop Nihilism is Funded by Big Oil
Eventually human civilisation will destroy itself
Professor Eben Moglen Recovering From Open Heart Surgery
From his public pages (this is not secret)
There Are Red Hat (IBM) Layoffs, But Google News is Infested With Slopfarms
It contributes a lot to misinformation and it encourages plagiarism
USA Not a Place for Free Speech
In America, as in the US, the attacks seem more enhanced or advanced these days
 
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Flashing LineageOS and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2025: Long COVID Study, "Exposing Pegasus", and Chatbots Exposing Sensitive Data
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2025: Secret Settlement for Internet Archive and Google’s LLM Slop Summaries Attracting Lawsuits
Links for the day
The True Cost of 'Generative Models'
Funded and promoted by the companies that profit from the waste
'Big Slop' Attacks Contemporary Information/Knowledge and Creative Works, 'Big Copyright' (Cartel) Attacks the Old
Someone at IA will hopefully "blow the whistle" on what they actually agreed
Why We Find It Difficult to Trust Rust
A comparison between C/C++ and Rust
Watching the OSI: Our Series Will Carry on Irrespective of the Chief's 'Resignation'
the OSI isn't even the real guardian of the term "Open Source"
Just What LibreOffice Needs? Another Language? (Rust)
what's all this concern about memory safety?
Many Microsoft Managers Are Leaving
"Hey hi" chaff or chaff about "hey hi" cannot eternally distract from the difficulties inside the company
Tomorrow, Microsoft's Tim Anderson's 'The Register MS' Offshoot Will Have Been Inactive for 2 Months (There's Also a Slop Problem)
We've already caught The Register MS using LLM slop for articles
Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Leaves Microsoft After Nearly 30 Years
And not retiring
Even Windows Users Are Having Problems With "Secure Boot"
When it comes to security - Microsoft strives for the very opposite
Another Competition Crime of Microsoft, Long Facilitated and Advocated by a Bad Actor, Who is Funded by a Third Party to Commit Extortion Against People Who Have Correctly and Repeatedly Warned About It for Over 13 Year
We must always go back to the core issues
3 More Reasons to Replace Mozilla Firefox With LibreWolf
Thankfully there are de-enshittified versions of Firefox
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Links 17/09/2025: Google Layoffs in "Hey Hi" (AI), Perplexity Hit With More "Hey Hi" (Plagiarism) Lawsuits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Reclaiming Things in a Digital Age and Moon Phases in CGI
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News is Slop, Google News is Plagiarism, Google News is Dying
Google is off the rails
Links 16/09/2025: "The Censorship Alarm Is Ringing in the Wrong Direction" and ASRock Does Microsoft E.E.E. on GNU/Linux
Links for the day
Serious "Breach of Confidentiality of Personal Data" in Europe's Second-Largest Institution, the EPO
Yes, the same EPO that routinely uses "data protection" and "GDPR" as a pretext for hiding or covering up its corruption and white-collar crimes (it even uses that as an excuse for refusing to obey courts' orders)
Adrienne Rockenhaus Says Her Husband Was Arrested for Running Tor and Denied Basic Rights in the United States
the US seems to be getting "russified" in its approach towards Tor
This is What Happens When Microsoft Canonical Lets Decisions on Ubuntu be Made by a Youngster From the British Army (Where He Did Mass Surveillance)
"Is Ubuntu Compromised?"
Back Doored Windows Giving GNU/Linux a Hard Time (Under the Guise of 'Security')
Is this complication intentional? Most likely, yes
Links 16/09/2025: Science, Security, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/09/2025: Command-line Options in POSIX Shell and Introducing Acre 0.9
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Secure' Boot Versus Dual Boot With GNU/Linux
they're meant to assume everything is OK
Links 16/09/2025: While Oracle Pretends to be Rich It's Firing About 70 MySQL Workers, "Oracle's Revenge" (Faking Demand With "AI")
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Just Published a New Web Page About "Secure Boot Update Process" (Microsoft Also Admits Issues; PCs Can Stop Booting)
Why was this page issued and published only hours ago?
Microsoft Lunduke: I Spread Hate and Then I Receive Hate
Cry us a river, Microsoft Lunduke
"Use Wayland" Isn't a Bugfix for X (X11 is Still Necessary)
They tell us X is "dead" and we must all be herded into Wayland ASAP
"Disable Secure Boot and Fast Boot. Wipe and Start Over."
At least they didn't say, buy a new computer...
The Oracle Ponzi Scheme
Oracle isn't doing well, but it's nowadays fashionable to say "clown" and "hey hi" to prop up one's stock, even based on nothing at all
The New Head of OSI is an "Hey Hi" (AI) Obsessed Person
when Bryant says "AI" that doesn't mean AI
Taking Out the Battery, Opening Up Your Computer, Just Like a "Normie" Would
At this stage, any person who still says "enable Secure Boot" is misguided or persuaded by companies that sell rootkits
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers and Slopfarms Still Infesting Google News (Fake 'Articles' About "Linux" Spreading FUD)
searching for "Linux" today yields a lot of FUD
"Governments, local authorities, schools and hospitals can lead by example by procuring only Free Software"
Crossposted from Tux Machines
Cindy Cohn Leaving the Electronic Frontier Foundation While Its Co-founder John Gilmore, Whom She Apparently Helped Oust, Will Celebrate 40 Years of the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
EFF has been busy hoarding GAFAM money, whereas the latter is where all the real activism is done
The Reach of Techrights Has Broadened
We nowadays cover a broader range of issues
"Google is Googlebombing KDE's Project Banana"
So is Google googlebombing KDE's Project Banana? You decide.
Complicating Things for No Actual Benefit, Just Added Risk and More Difficulties Adding GNU/Linux and BSDs
Watch what it's like for people who wish to use BSDs
Some Very Large IRC Networks Are Growing
IRC will turn 38 next year
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 15, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 15, 2025
Links 16/09/2025: Autumn Party, RPG Planet, and Optical ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Geminispace Growing at Pace of Over 10% Per Year
Contrary to what some pessimists try to claim
Linux Mint Forums Today: Disable 'Secure Boot', It Doesn't Improve Security, It's Just a Microsoft Obstacle to GNU/Linux Users
They also mention MOK
What Ruben Amorim and Stefano Maffulli Have in Common
Censors Wikipedia and Social Control Media
Microsoft Won't Cooperate in Trying to Tackle EPO Corruption (Microsoft Profits From This Corruption)
Use something like BigBlueButton, Jami, Ring, and Jitsi instead
Solved Less Than an Hour Ago: Trying to Escape Windows, 'Secure Boot' Gets in the Way
'Secure Boot' wasn't meant to even exist in the first place
Stefano Maffulli, Executive Director of the Open Source Initiative, Resigns or Gets Removed (We'll Continue Covering OSI Scandals)
A dozen mentions of "AI", not much about "Open Source"
Andy Has Just Nailed It (Regarding Complexity and Failure, a la UEFI)
The users no longer own or control what they buy
Compatibility Support Module (CSM) Versus GNU/Linux Simplicity
what Andy recently called "solutionism"
Links 15/09/2025: "Postal Traffic to US Down by Over 80%" and 'Smart' Spinozacampus Laundry Room Goes AWOL
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/09/2025: Dungeon Hustle and Deleting Oneself From the Net
Links for the day
Breach of EPO's Duty of Care or Cigna Reimbursement Issues
This is the sort of thing that motivated Luigi Mangione to assassinate a CEO
Ask Ubuntu About "Secure Boot" Violation and Laptops That Don't Boot GNU/Linux
Does anyone still believe that "Secure Boot" has anything at all to do with security?
We Are Sad to Hear the Story of Jonathan Riddell, Champion of KDE and GNU/Linux on Desktops/Laptops
I have enormous respect for Jonathan and everything he has done
Talking About the Problem vs Talking to the Problem
Wanting an audience is never a good excuse for compromising one's values and principles
Focusing on Patents
The reason we cover the EPO so much is that it's close to home
"Secure Boot Violation": The 'Joys' of Fake Security Gone Wrong
Not everyone reboots every day
Links 15/09/2025: Russia Invades Romanian Airspace, Penske Media Sues Google Over LLM Slop
Links for the day
Links 15/09/2025: Bitcoin ATMs Scam and "Conservative Cryptography" (Backdoors Fantasies)
Links for the day
EPO Imitates Microsoft: "Three Days or More Per Week" Inside the Office to Get a Desk to Work on; "the Office Breaches Its Promise Towards Staff and Acts in Breach of Its Duty of Care"
The EPO serves no actual function in Europe
Links 15/09/2025: Political Affairs, Censorship, and Copyrights
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/09/2025: Music Genres, Invisible Networks, and Akademy 2025
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 14, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 14, 2025