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Links 5/5/2021: StarLabs, GNU Zile 2.6.2, Fedora i3 Spin



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • StarLabs’ Latest Linux Laptop Has Landed, Priced from €£777
        Their latest 3.1 pound notebook boasts a 14 inch full HD display, 11th-gen Intel Tiger Lake-U processor, and a range of other options.

        Plus like all of their devices it’s available to buy with choice of Linux distribution, including Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Zorin OS. While the StarBook Mk V isn’t the cheapest Linux laptop out there it’s price isn’t astronomical, either.

      • StarBook Mk V Linux Laptop Is Now Available for Pre-Order

        Last month, UK-based Linux hardware vendor StarLabs teased us with a new addition to their light and powerful Linux-powered laptops, the StarBook Mk V, which promised great battery life, a bigger and more beautiful display, as well as newer and more powerful components.

        Now, those in the market for a new Linux laptop can pre-order the StarBook Mk V from StarLabs’ website and fully configure it to their needs. The laptop features a larger chassis that allows for a bigger battery and a true matte 14-inch IPS Full HD display that prevents glare with an anti-reflective coating and damage with a 3H hard coat.

      • Star Labs have now revealed the slick 14" StarBook Mk V Linux laptop

        Ready to drool over new Linux hardware? Star Labs are ready for you to open your wallets to the 14" StarBook Mk V. Now this is the type of laptop model I can get into. A screen that's not too big, a sleek chasis and a reasonable price backed up by some powerful internals along with it being designed for Linux.

      • StarBook Mk V is a Linux laptop with Intel Tiger Lake for $929 and up

        The latest Linux laptop from UK-based Star Labs is a 3.1 pound notebook with a 14 inch full HD display, support for super-speedy storage, and an 11th-gen Intel Tiger Lake-U processor.

        Available with a choice of GNU/Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro, MX Linux, Elementary OS, and Zorin OS, the StarBook Mk V is now available for pre-order for $929 and up.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • 5 Easy Tweaks to increase your Linux Server's Security

        In the second episode of my Enterprise Linux Security series, I'll show you 5 easy tweaks you can make to enhance the security of your Linux server. Ubuntu Server will be shown as the example distribution, but most of these tweaks can be done on any distro with some modifications to the syntax as necessary.

      • Why I Said NO To A Job With Dell's Linux Team

        A new Linux hardware partnership with @TUXEDO Computers, a story about turning down a job with Dell's Project Sputnik, a new interview with System76, a new Matrix room... There's a LOT going on as Linux For Everyone gets ready to kick out a bunch of new content. Pull up a chair for this quick channel update!

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux 5.13 Adds An Intel Cooling Driver To Downclock Your CPU At A Lower Threshold - Phoronix

        Linux 5.13 is introducing the "intel_tcc_cooling" driver for helping to cool newer Intel mobile/desktop CPUs by down-clocking the processor cores when crossing a lower threshold than is set by default.

        This new driver for Linux 5.13 allows setting a lower threshold / offset for the Thermal Control Circuit (TCC) activation temperature. Rather than waiting until the default TCC activation temperature is reached, Intel CPUs support applying an offset (the "TCC Offset") via an MSR if wanting to set the down-clocking to occur at a lower temperature over the default system critical temperature.

      • Intel Explores Write Protecting Page Tables Using Upcoming PKS Feature - Phoronix

        As an additional security measure for the Linux kernel, Intel engineers are exploring making kernel page tables read-only and to then only allow writing on a per-CPU basis when they need to be modified. This would be handled using the PKS functionality found with future Intel processors.

        For many months now Intel has been working on the infrastructure for Protection Keys for Supervisor support in the Linux kernel. Protection Keys for Supervisor (PKS) is coming with future Intel processors. PKS as the supervisor/kernel equivalent to the existing PKU functionality was initially prototyped as a way to prevent stray writes to persistent memory and safeguarding trusted keys within the Linux kernel. A new proof-of-concept posted on Tuesday would be using PKS for safeguarding page tables.

      • LinuxBoot Pulls In netboot.xyz For Easily Booting Different OS Installers

        The LinuxBoot project that works to replace some portions of modern Linux server firmware with the Linux kernel and other open-source components has now integrated support for the convenient netboot.xyz project.

        The 9elements consulting firm that specializes in cyber security and open-source firmware consulting added support for Netboot.xyz into LinuxBoot.

      • Graphics Stack

        • VMware Prepares Linux Driver For Next-Gen Virtual GPU - Phoronix

          While physical GPUs may be in short supply right now, VMware is preparing for "SVGA v3" as their next-gen virtual PCI graphics adapter for use within VMware virtual machines for graphics acceleration backed by the host.

          VMware has long provided reliably Linux graphics acceleration to their virtual machines under Linux with their "SVGA" graphics adapter backed by a mainline, open-source driver stack. That's worked out well and is now being extended for VMware's forthcoming third iteration of SVGA.

    • Applications

      • 10 Free Open Source Video Editors for Linux [ in 2021 ]

        In this article we are going to check out which are the ten best video editing software’s that can be run in Linux. If you are in video editing then this article is for you.

      • Cawbird Twitter Client Gets Major Release with Many New Features and Improvements

        Four months in development, Cawbird 1.4 is here to adds lots of features, such as support for various text sizes like Normal, Large, X-Large, XX-Large, better counting of ZWJ (Zero Width Joiner) Unicode character emoji, as well as support for deleting draft tweets when pressing the Cancel button via a new confirmation dialog.

        Moreover, Cawbird 1.4 makes threaded tweets more obvious by introducing a new “Reply to” line for self-reply threads in the timeline, displays tweets on your timeline when you follow someone and hides them when you unfollow them, and adds the ability to temporarily show a blocked or muted Twitter account.

      • Top 8 Terminal Emulators for Linux [ in 2021 ]

        Have you ever wanted to change your terminal? Each Linux distribution comes with an already installed one, although the operation of the terminal is the same for every distribution, this does not mean that they are all the same. Each one of them has a different look and feel.

        Of course that is the good thing about Linux you have a huge choice in everything. And with terminals, the choice is really huge, so here in this article we will try to show you eight of the best that exist.

        We must mention that although they are some of the best, people have different tastes and if your favorite terminal is not among those mentioned, we will be happy to add it by writing us a comment bellow with which it is.

      • Audacity 'scared and excited' to be bought and brought under Muse Group's roof, promises to stay free and open source

        Veteran audio editor Audacity has been purchased by Muse Group, although its new management has pledged to keep the platform free and open source.

        An explanatory video was posted by Martin Keary (aka Tantacrul) at MuseScore, the content of which was confirmed by the Audacity team over the weekend.

        "We're scared and excited," the team behind the decades-old platform squeaked. "We hope you are too."

        Muse Group itself launched last week and the likes of Ultimate Guitar and Tonebridge are among its brands. It also includes MuseClass, still in closed beta, and MuseScore. Keary is head of product for the latter, which was founded back in 2008 and acquired by Ultimate Guitar in 2018.

      • Inkscape 1.1 RC1 Released For This Leading Open-Source Vector Graphics Editor

        The Inkscape 1.1-rc1 release is the last step before officially releasing this first major post-1.0 Inkscape version. Inkscape 1.1 introduces a welcome dialog, a command palette to help with keyboard shortcuts, a new outline overlay mode, a rewritten dialog docking system, support for exporting as JPEG / TIFF / optimized PNG / WebP directly from the editor, and a wide variety of other improvements.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Steps to install Spotify in Rocky Linux or CentOS 8 - Linux Shout

        The time has gone when people have to store their favorite music on SD card or CD/DVD discs, in today’s era when everything moving to the cloud then why not our music. There are a bunch of well-known services that allow users to legally stream the latest and old music directly on their smartphone, TV, or PC with help of a dedicated app or browser and internet. And Spotify is one of them. It is already a well-known music streaming service. And if you are looking for a way to install Spotify Linux app on your RedHat RHEL or its derivative Linux OS such as CentOS, AlmaLinux, and Rocky Linux 8.3. Then here are the steps to follow.

      • Pipewire low latency

        Just wanted to leave myself a note here. On QJackCtrl It shows the latency in the bottom right of the Parameters page. If I drop the Frames/Period to 16 (Lowest) the latency drops to 1 msec. For a Jamulus server with a ping time of 22ms I get an overall delay of 44 ms.

      • How To Install Node.js on AlmaLinux 8 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Node.js on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Node.js is a Javascript platform for programming that enables users to build network applications very quickly. It offers users the ability to write websites in JavaScript whose code executes on the server instead of a client’s browser.

        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 Node.js on an AlmaLinux 8.

      • How To Install LibreNMS on Debian 10 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install LibreNMS on Debian 10. For those of you who didn’t know, LibreNMS is an auto discovering PHP/MySQL/SNMP-based network monitoring which includes support for a wide range of network hardware and operating systems including Cisco, Linux, FreeBSD, Juniper, HP, and many more. LibreNMS is a community-supported fork of Observium.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the LibreNMS on a Debian 10 (Buster).

      • How to Rewrite URLs with mod_rewrite for Apache on Ubuntu 20.04

        The mod_rewrite is an Apache module that uses a rule-based rewriting engine. It is used for translating and redirecting the requested URL to a new URL. It allows a URL to be changed dynamically. So the visitor never sees the URL change in the address bar. With mod_rewrite, you can rewrite an unlimited number of rules. This will allow you to rewrite the URL based on environment variables, HTTP headers, and server variables.

        In this post, we will show how to use mod_rewrite to rewrite the URL for Apache on Ubuntu 20.04.

      • How to send commands and states to Linux minions from the Salt controller - TechRepublic

        In a previous how-to, I demonstrated how to get SaltStack installed on a controller and connect it to a minion (see: How to deploy the open-source SaltStack for automated server configuration and management). With SaltStack up and running, it is then possible to send commands to your minions. This can be used within your on-premise or cloud-hosted data center.

        For example, say you have several minions that will host websites and you need to get NGINX installed on them. With SaltStack you can install that web server on every connected minion with a single command.

        For any administrator, having such power can seriously turn a ridiculously busy day into one that's far more manageable. Instead of having to go around to every one of those servers and install NGINX manually, you can do it from a single terminal interface. That's the power of SaltStack.

      • How to Install Latest LibreOffice in Linux Desktop

        LibreOffice is an open-source and much powerful personal productivity office suite for Linux, Windows & Mac, that provides feature-rich functions for word documents, data processing, spreadsheets, presentation, drawing, Calc, Math, and much more.

        LibreOffice has a large number of satisfied users across the globe with almost 200 million downloads as of now. It supports more than 115 languages and runs on all major operating systems.

      • How To Install Apache Nifi on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Apache Nifi on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Apache NIFI is an open-source scalable tool to manage transformation, data routing, and system mediation logic. To put it in layman’s terms nifi simply automates the flow of data between two or more systems. Apache NiFi supports powerful and scalable directed graphs of data routing, transformation, and system mediation logic.

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

      • How to best set up command aliases on Linux

        Used frequently, bash aliases can make working on the Linux command line a lot smoother and easier, but they can also be complicated and hard to remember. This post examines how you might make your aliases work for you rather than vice versa.

        [...]

        One of the nice things about aliases is that they remain available as you move around in your file system. They don't depend on your location or what's in your PATH variable. If you end up with 65 aliases, you might need to check them from time to time just to remember what they do. However, if you have to check very often, they might not be serving you as well as they should.

      • Static and dynamic IP address configurations for DHCP | Enable Sysadmin

        IP address configuration is one of the most critical, if simple, settings on your network devices. Workstations, servers, routers, and other components must have properly assigned IP address settings to participate on the network.

        This two-part article series covers static and dynamic IP address settings and the configuration of a DHCP server. This article (part one) defines network identities, contrasts static and dynamic configurations, and covers the commands needed to manage the settings. Part two covers the deployment of a DHCP server, DHCP scope configuration, and client-side management of dynamic IP addresses.

      • How to install Kubuntu 21.04

        In this video, I am going to show how to install Kubuntu 21.04.

      • How to create Rocky Linux 8 bootable usb drive - Linux Shout

        To try out Rocky Linux 8 on our physical system we either need a bootable USB drive or DVD/CD. However, DVD is not common now, thus USB is the preferred option. And here in this tutorial, we let you know the steps for creating a bootable USB drive for Rocky Linux 8 using Rufus or BalenaEtcher.

      • How to configure Noscript for ordinary users

        The Noscript Security Suite (NSS) is a fantastic, fantastic tool. It comes as an extension for Firefox and various Chromium-based browsers, and what it does is transform the useless, noisy so-called "modern" Internet into a pool of tranquility. And it does so by blocking scripts and other elements on Web pages. Beautiful, elegant. You end up with a fast, quiet experience. No nagging, no overhead. When you do need scripting, you selectively enable it. Works great, but only if you're a techie.

        Unfortunately, for common folks AKA not nerds, this is not a solution. They can't be bothered with per-site permissions, figuring out if something is broken when scripts don't run, or similar. But then, what if you do want to have all the flexibility of non-restricted browsing but still use some of the great powers of Noscript? Well, I think I may have the formula. Follow me.

      • How to accurately match OVAL security data to installed RPMs

        Red Hat publishes security data using the Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL). Depending on what you have installed, according to the Red Hat and OVAL compatibility FAQ, you'll need to scan streams for all products installed on your system. This post aims to answer the question of how to determine which stream to use when scanning a system. We’ll use an operating system and container image as target systems to explore the topic.

        On April 27, 2020 Red Hat started publishing repository-to-CPE mapping data (JSON file) to make this task easier. Then in December 2020 we added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux update streams such as Extended Update Support (EUS).

    • Games

      • Awesome fast-paced FPS DUSK gets a helpful update with more to come like Steam Workshop

        David Szymanski and New Blood have updated DUSK to include some helpful UI updates, along with 40% off and there's plenty more to come for this brutal retro FPS.

        For the main menu UI you can now delete saved games (hooray!), and there's a Continue button now to jump right back in a little easier for your current run. There's also a Max Loadout button for when you just want to bring on all the toys a little easier without lots of clicking.

      • LightBreak is a very unique looking upcoming story-driven musical game

        With gameplay that looks equal measures confusing and intriguing, LightBreak is a musical game where you get the story by following this music and creating it as you go along.

        [...]

        It's currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, with full Linux support planned. Deev Interactive are hoping to raise a minimum of $10,000 USD by June 3, 2021.

      • Free Game Wednesday - check out MannaRites, a retro beat'em'up with modern touches

        Something I've been meaning to post about for a while is the beat'em'up MannaRites, a completely free game you can grab on Steam that's surprisingly great. The developer mentioned in an email to us that it's free because they're "just a big fan of beat-em-ups from before and wanted to share my vision of the genre with other fans".

      • Big screen gaming distribution GamerOS continues picking up the SteamOS slack | GamingOnLinux

        While Valve continue ignoring SteamOS for now, GamerOS continues to mature the big-screen Linux experience with another big release available to download now.

        It's a genuinely good Linux distribution if you want a console-like experience. Giving you the Steam Big Picture mode, along with their Steam Buddy tool that allows you to install from other sources. GamerOS 24 upgrades some of the main components of Linux including Kernel 5.11.16, Mesa drivers 21.0.3, NVIDIA 465.27 along with upgrades to their compositor, their Steam Tweaks tool and their Steam Buddy tool.

      • Valve's anti-competitive nature?

        Wolfire Games has taken Valve to court in a class action lawsuit over the allegation of unfair business practices

      • Check out Eudora, a lo-fi real-time strategy game inspired by classics like Dune 2 and C&C

        I'm such a sucker when it comes to traditional styled RTS games so I couldn't pass up on checking out Eudora. Originally made for the DOS Games Jam back in early 2020, it's continued to be polished up and is a surprisingly great little free RTS.

        "As was common with games of this era, gameplay focuses on resource collection, power management, and basebuilding (including walls and other base defenses). A clickable minimap is enabled after building the Radar structure.

        Ten buildable units (plus a superweapon ability) can be used to destroy the enemy forces across seven maps, including special stealth and survival scenarios, with some featuring bonus units not normally accessible without cheat codes.

      • After many years, Switchcars is done and has left Early Access

        Switchcars is a very strange game. One where you run along, throw a hook into cars to speed up, pinch all sorts of vehicles and try to outrun strange alien creatures. After being in development for eight years, with at least five of those in Early Access on Steam the 1.1 update is out now and so it's finally left Early Access.

        This is the biggest update to the game in its history adding in loads of new content including almost 200 new vehicles, a full editor to make your own vehicles and props, a "rally" game mode, a mod manager, new engine sounds plus tons of other improvements and fixes.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • System76 is about to re-define the Linux desktop experience with COSMIC

          It should come as no surprise that System76, the company always finding new ground in the intersection of open source software and OEM hardware, has embarked upon refining and retooling the Pop!_OS Linux desktop experience.

          COSMIC is System76's way of taking the GNOME desktop environment and tweaking it to better suit the user experience, as defined by their user base. The company polled Pop!_OS users to find out how they work with the desktop. The results of that survey helped guide the company in developing COSMIC.

          What is COSMIC? Simply put, it's a honed user experience for the GNOME desktop. From what I've seen, it looks to be superior in just about every way.

    • Distributions

      • Ampere Hardware & Kali Linux

        When Ampere partnered with Debian, this caught our eye. We were aware that our current ARM cloud provider was soon ending support for arm64 servers (which we use for our build daemons).

        At Kali Linux, one of the things which is important to us, is that we prefer not having to cross-compile our ARM binaries that we ship in our Kali packages.

        [...]

        We reached out to Ampere to see if they would be able to help us out. We soon realised they have the same mindset as we do, ARM is the way forward. When developing Kali Linux, we treat ARM devices as “first class citizens”, just like we do with our “desktop” images (amd64/i386). There are many advantages to ARM, such as using less power (which means they don’t need cooling), lighter (handy when traveling to be on site or mailing devices to be a drop box) and cheaper devices (client doesn’t have to return the device!). These make really small form factor devices - which for doing penetration testing or red team exercises on site, expands the possibilities of where to hide various devices (imagination is the only limitation). This is why we try and give the same user experience regardless of the platform you are using Kali on. This is why we have pre-generated images and build scripts for as many different devices as possible

      • Reviews

        • Zorin OS Review – An alternative to macOS and Windows

          Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distro. Its ultimate goal is to provide Windows and macOS users with a Linux alternative. The Zorin OS is powerful, fast, and secure; it is pretty hard for trackers to track activities in your OS. Most users love Zorin due to its privacy prowess.

          Why Zorin OS? This question has been asked by most users, thus, the essence of this tutorial. We are here to give you the ideal review of why you should opt for the Zorin OS.

          This Linux distribution is user-friendly, and hence it does not matter if you are a Linux guru or not. Anyone can use this OS since it is very manageable. The handy preset layouts that are offered with this OS are a good touch. Newcomers can easily try out the macOS layout, Touch Layout, and Windows Layout now by installing Zorin OS and feel homely.

      • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

        • thunderbird email updated to 78.10.1

          Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source cross-platform email client, personal information manager, news client, RSS and chat client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy was originally modeled after that of the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

        • firefox browser updated to 88.0.1

          Firefox Browser, also known as Mozilla Firefox or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • SAP Data Intelligence supported on Rancher Kubernetes Engine [Ed: This is what SUSE has done… it has even turned Andreas Jaeger into a booster of proprietary software]

          The SAP and SUSE teams successfully validated SAP Data Intelligence (DI) 3.1 with both Rancher RKE and RKE2 . SAP DI is SAP’s product to provide data integration and machine learning services that allow customer to integrate systems and analyze data to create new insights. The components of SAP Data intelligence run containerized, orchestrated by Kubernetes.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Introducing the Fedora i3 Spin

          Fedora 34 features the brand new i3 Spin created by the Fedora i3 S.I.G. This new spin features the popular i3wm tiling window manager. This will appeal to both novices and advanced users who prefer not to use a mouse, touchpad, or other pointing device to interact with their environment. The Fedora i3 spin offers a complete experience with a minimalistic user interface and a lightweight environment. It is intended for the power user, as well as others.

        • Detecting memory management bugs with GCC 11, Part 2: Deallocation functions

          The first half of this article described dynamic memory allocation in C and C++, along with some of the new GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 11 features that help you detect errors in dynamic allocation. This second half completes the tour of GCC 11 features in this area and explains where the detection mechanism might report false positives or false negatives.

          Throughout this article, I include links to the code examples on Compiler Explorer for those who would like to experiment. You will find the links above the source code of each example.

        • Memory error checking in C and C++: Comparing Sanitizers and Valgrind

          This article compares two tools, Sanitizers and Valgrind, that find memory bugs in programs written in memory-unsafe languages. These two tools work in very different ways. Therefore, while Sanitizers (developed by Google engineers) presents several advantages over Valgrind, each has strengths and weaknesses. Note that the Sanitizers project has a plural name because the suite consists of several tools, which we will explore in this article.

          Memory-checking tools are for memory-unsafe languages such as C and C++, not for Java, Python, and similar memory-safe languages. In memory-unsafe languages, it is easy to mistakenly write past the end of a memory buffer or read memory after it has been freed. Programs containing such bugs might run flawlessly most of the time and crash only very rarely. Catching these bugs is difficult, which is why we need tools for that purpose.

          Valgrind imposes a much higher slowdown on programs than Sanitizers. A program running under Valgrind could run 20 to 50 times slower than in regular production. This can be a showstopper for CPU-intensive programs. The slowdown for Sanitizers is generally 2 to 4 times worse than regular production. Instead of Valgrind, you can specify the use of Sanitizers during compilation.

        • Building resilient event-driven architectures with Apache Kafka

          Even though cloud-native computing has been around for some time—the Cloud Native Computing Foundation was started in 2015; an eon in computer time—not every developer has experienced the, uh, “joy” of dealing with distributed systems. The old patterns of thinking and architecting systems have given way to new ideas and new problems. For example, it’s not always possible (or advisable) to connect to a database and run transactions. Databases themselves are giving way to events and Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) and eventual consistency. Two-phase commits are being replaced with queues and database sagas, while monoliths are replaced with microservices, containers, and Kubernetes. “Small and local” thinking rules the day.

          Now combine this with the fallacies of distributed processing, and suddenly event-driven architecture becomes very attractive. Thankfully, there are tools to make this possible. Apache Kafka is one of those tools.

          Kafka makes event processing possible; Red Hat OpenShift Streams for Apache Kafka makes event processing easy.

        • Kubernetes configuration patterns, Part 2: Patterns for Kubernetes controllers - Red Hat Developer

          This article is the second in a two-part article series on Kubernetes configuration patterns, which you can use to configure your Kubernetes applications and controllers. The first article introduced patterns and antipatterns that use only Kubernetes primitives. Those simple patterns are applicable to any application. This second article describes more advanced patterns that require coding against the Kubernetes API, which is what a Kubernetes controller should use.

          The patterns you will learn in this article are suitable for scenarios where the basic Kubernetes features are not enough. These patterns will help you when you can’t mount a ConfigMap from another namespace into a Pod, can’t reload the configuration without killing the Pod, and so on.

          As in the first article, for simplicity, I’ve used only Deployments in the example YAML files. However, the examples should work with other PodSpecables (anything that describes a PodSpec) such as DaemonSets and ReplicaSets. I have also omitted fields like image, imagePullPolicy, and others in the example Deployment YAML.

        • Join the Build Smart on Kubernetes Challenge

          As the growth of container deployment and microservices accelerates, Kubernetes continues to dominate the enterprise development space. Do you feel like you’re getting left behind and you need to build your skills to catch up? Or are you a leader of the pack, forging new paths for your team? In either case, we have the coding challenge for you. The Build Smart on Kubernetes Challenge helps you build and test applications, and deploy containers with simplicity and security that is built in. Compete against fellow developers and experts in this progressive workshop that consists of three, quick-coding, 15-minute exercises, each exploring a different aspect of the skills or technology needed for cloud-native development. You have the opportunity to earn the Build Smart on Kubernetes Badge to demonstrate your knowledge. Oh, and you can win some great prizes.

        • Community Platform Engineering is hiring [Ed: IBM shows you a picture of an Apple Mac and says it's hiring for Fedora! No wonder they lost volunteers and testers.]

          The Community Platform Engineering (CPE) group is the Red Hat team combining IT and release engineering from Fedora and CentOS. Our goal is to keep core servers and services running and maintained, build releases, and other strategic tasks that need more dedicated time than volunteers can give. See our docs for more information.

        • Hybrid work model: Qualcomm IT, HR execs share 6 priorities for leaders

          Traditionally, the workplace has been where employees have developed a sense of belonging. In addition to getting lots of work done, it’s where we’d connect with others while walking to a meeting, share hopes and hardships over a cup of coffee, and set and achieve career goals and aspirations. As we all know, COVID-19 has forever changed that.

          We’re now in a unique position to reimagine work through new technologies and by reframing the employee experience to imagine something even better than before. At Qualcomm, human resources and IT have partnered to spearhead the future of work. This partnership has provided us with a unique, well-rounded perspective on how we work with our employees, what we need to support them, and has helped us envision what the dynamics of hybrid work will look like in the years ahead.

        • 2nd Annual Open Mainframe Summit: Call For Proposals Now Open
        • Developer Sandbox For Red Hat OpenShift Launched
        • RHEL, RHEL, RHEL, fancy that: Rocky Linux would-be CentOS replacement hits RC1 milestone ● The Register

          The Rocky Linux project, kicked off by original CentOS founder Gregory Kurtzer, has released RC1 of its distribution, which aims to be 100 per cent compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

          Rocky Linux was founded almost at the same moment when Red Hat, along with the CentOS board, stated last December that it was shifting its investment from CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream.

      • Debian Family

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • How I recognize and prevent burnout in open source

        I've attended many open source conferences over the years, and I usually find at least one session that discusses burnout, stress, or work-life balance. I've found many of these sessions helpful—not just personally, but I've also learned some important lessons for managing open source communities.

        Some of these sessions included heartbreaking stories about individuals who had experienced trauma and severe health issues—both mental and physical—due to stress and burnout. These stories not only made me sad, but they also made me angry that people have had to suffer on their own. Are people in open source doing a poor job of taking care of themselves?

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • 3D Objects: Making a Globe with LibreOffice

          In the dialog box that appears, click on “Bitmap” and then on “Add/Import”. Select the downloaded map, and enter a name for it, that you will use in your collection of bitmaps. The image should be applied to the sphere. If not, select the map from the collection.

          Then, in the “Options” part of the dialog box, select the item “Stretched” from the drop-down list “Style”. Click OK. Your globe is finished!

        • Bibliography improvements in LibreOffice Writer: refer to a specific page

          The bibliography feature in Writer allows authors of e.g. scientific papers to track sources: first you can insert bibliography entry fields, then at the end you can generate a bibliography table automatically.

          Writer recently gained two improvements in this area, and now there is one more: the ability to refer to a specific page of a (potentially long) source.

          First, thanks TUBITAK ULAKBIM who made this work by Collabora possible.

      • FSFE

        • Router Freedom: Greece one step forward - Germany one backward

          EU member states are updating their legislation and implementing rules on Router Freedom. Greece and Germany have taken the first steps. But while Greece has focused on interests of end-users, Germany has moved in the opposite direction. The next months are crucial for Router Freedom in Europe and local participation is paramount.

          Telecommunications law in the EU is passing through complex legislative reforms, involving, among others, supra-national institutions like BEREC, member states' parliaments and national regulatory agencies (NRAs). Since December 2020, EU member states have started legislative processes to implement the European Electronic Communications Code, or EECC (Directive (EU) 2018/1972), a key component of the reform, which sets new standards for Router Freedom.

          Greece and Germany were the first EU countries to incorporate the EECC into national legislation. Now, the national regulatory bodies of both countries will have to decide on rules that will impact the status of Router Freedom in their jurisdictions. The FSFE has been following closely the new developments and took part in consultative processes. In addition, we have prepared an activity package to help local communities engaging with their national regulatory bodies.

      • FSF

        • FSF Reveals How Stallman Was Re-elected and What Lies Ahead

          No matter what you believe and whether you support RMS (or against the decision of his re-election), it has been a rollercoaster ride in the open-source community.

          An official statement by the FSF on the election of Richard Stallman did not seem to make a difference for folks who were against the decision in the first place. The statement instead focused on affirming that RMS is not going anywhere, and that they needed him, which probably made things worse.

          However, now with an updated FAQ page, it looks like the FSF is finally clearing up the air behind their decision to re-elect Richard Stallman and how recent internal changes will affect the future of the FSF.

        • GNU Projects

          • GNU Zile 2.6.2 Is Released

            Zile is a very minimal Emacs clone that is described in the brief manual page as "Zile Is Lossy Emacs". Zile developer Reuben Thomas is "happy to announce a shiny new 2.6.2 release of GNU Zile" is exactly one bug-fix. And that's it.

            [...]

            Zile is, of course, not a complete Emacs clone, it is a minimal one. There are no web browser, calculator, calendar or games included. We leave it up to you to pounder why Emacs has those features and how essential they really are to a text editor.

            The lack of games and other text editor features makes Zile a small ./configure && make compile that produces a decently small 372K binary. You will need the libgee GObject collection library and, for some reason, help2man. You can strip --strip-unneeded zile the binary down to 308K if you want to.

            A really brief test of Zile 2.6.2 reveals that it has some minor issues with modern luxuries like Unicode.

      • Programming/Development

        • Qt Contributors' Summit 2021

          The Qt Contributor's Summit 2021 is an online event open to anyone who has contributed to the Qt project. Contributions include code, helping users on the forum or mailing lists, maintaining the wiki, and any other activity that helps move the Qt project forward. The event happens shortly after the Qt 6.2 feature freeze, and we are looking forward to discuss and collaborate on our common vision for the project.

          [...]

          Participation will as always be free of charge, but you do need to register yourself through the KDE and Akademy 2021 registration process.

        • Qt Creator 4.15 released

          We added a locator filter for opening files from anywhere on your disk. This locator filter was already available on macOS using Spotlight. Now it also is available on Linux and Windows, and can be configured to use any external command line tool that returns a list of files. The default setting is using "locate" on Linux and "everything" on Windows.

          Sometimes it is difficult to configure the environment variables that are set when Qt Creator is run, which in turn affects external tools run from Qt Creator. We added a global option for this in Tools > Options > Environment > System > Environment. This adapts the system environment which is then further modified by the kit environment, the build environment, and the run environment.

        • Qt Creator 4.15 Released For This Qt/C++ IDE

          Qt Creator 4.15 isn't the most exciting feature release but does have some minor improvements in tow. Qt Creator 4.15 adds a locator filter, a user interface for setting environment variables that should be set automatically when running this IDE, a wide variety of C++ support improvements, continued improvements to its Language Server Protocol (LSP), debugging enhancements, and also a option for running applications as root from Qt Creator.

        • GCC, GNU Toolchain Finally Working To Establish CI/CD For Better Reliability - Phoronix

          For a project as large and complex as the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) one would reasonably have assumed that it would have setup continuous integration / continuous delivery support years ago for helping to ensure the reliability of this widely-used open-source compiler and the GNU Toolchain at large. But that's actually only happening now in 2021.

          Thanks to Red Hat engineers working on it, the GNU toolchain is working towards CI/CD support for helping to ensure the quality of the toolchain and hopefully catching any regressions immediately compared to the status quo.

        • Jussi Pakkanen: Is the space increase caused by static linking a problem?

          Most recent programming languages want to link all of their dependencies statically rather than using shared libraries. This has many implications, but for now we'll only focus on one: executable size. It is generally accepted that executables created in this way are bigger than when static linking. The question is how much and whether it even mattesr. Proponents of static linking say the increase is irrelevant given current computers and gigabit networks. Opponents are of the, well, opposite opinion. Unfortunately there is very little real world measurements around for this.

          Instead of arguing about hypotheticals, let's try to find some actual facts. Can we find a case where, within the last year or so, a major proponent of static linking has voluntarily switched to shared linking due to issues such as bandwidth savings. If such a case can be found, then it would indicate that, yes, the binary size increase caused by static linking is a real issue.

        • 7 Reasons to Use Git for Your Solo Projects

          Recently I had a conversation with someone who was shocked to learn I use Gitit for everything. "What? Even projects where you're working alone? Why on earth would you do something like that?!" As alarmed as they were that I use Git for solo projects, I was just as surprised to hear that they didn't and suddenly found myself feeling very self-conscious and questioning my choices. Is it weird to use version control for solo projects? And why do it at all? Some introspection and asking around on Twitter revealed the answers I was looking for: Not only is it not weird, there are lots of great reasons to use version control for your solo projects.

        • Rust

          • Running Rust on Android

            For one of my current clients, we decided to use Rust as our main programming language. There were several reasons behind this decision; apart from the technical merits, there's also the undisputable fact that Rust is still a relatively new language, fancy and hip – and when you're a startup, using any technology that came out in the previous decade is just setting yourself up to fail. I mean, it's logical – how can you innovate without using innovative tech? The fastest way to success is aboard the hype train.

            As one of the product's selling point was supposed to be "you own your data", it couldn't be a purely browser-accessible service, but rather something we'd distribute to the users to run on their own devices. We already had some headless instances running internally, and with a trivial amount of work, were able to make redistributable packages for Windows and Linux. But we knew that being desktop-only would be a serious blocker against adoption – if we wanted this to take off, we'd need mobile versions of the app. This meant we had to figure out how to get our stuff running on Android and, later, on iOS. Seeing how I already had some experience with cross-compiling and build automation, I volunteered to delve into the topic.

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Privatisation/Privateering

            • Linux Foundation

              • New Relic Joins CNCF Governing Board
              • Linux Foundation launches open source agriculture infrastructure project

                The Linux Foundation has lifted the lid on a new open source digital infrastructure project aimed at the agriculture industry. The AgStack Foundation, as the new project will be known, is designed to foster collaboration among all key stakeholders in the global agriculture space, spanning private business, governments, and academia.

              • Linux Foundation Launches Open Source Digital Infrastructure Project for Agriculture, Enables Global Collaboration Among Industry, Government and Academia [Ed: Will Monsanto et al. (Bayer) be next to buy a seat in the 'Linux' Foundation Board (where almost nobody even uses Linux)? Linux Foundation's role is killing the Linux brand in exchange for money.]
              • Linux Foundation Launches Open Source Digital Infrastructure Project for Agriculture, Enables Global Collaboration Among Industry, Government and Academia [Ed: Linux Foundation milking and turning the "Linux" brand into a generic laughing stock that's beyond meaningless]

                The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the launch of the AgStack Foundation, the open source digital infrastructure project for the world’s agriculture ecosystem. AgStack Foundation will improve global agriculture efficiency through the creation, maintenance and enhancement of free, reusable, open and specialized digital infrastructure for data and applications.

                Founding members and contributors include leaders from both the technology and agriculture industries, as well as across sectors and geographies. Members and partners include Agralogics, Call for Code, Centricity Global, Digital Green, Farm Foundation, farmOS, HPE, IBM, Mixing Bowl & Better Food Ventures, NIAB, OpenTeam, Our Sci, Produce Marketing Association, Purdue University / OATS & Agricultural Informatics Lab, the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC-ANR) and University of California Santa Barbara SmartFarm Project.

              • Linux Foundation Launches AgStack For Agriculture
              • Open Mainframe Project Launches Call for Proposals for the 2nd Annual Open Mainframe Summit on September 22-23

                The Open Mainframe Project (OMP), an open source initiative that enables collaboration across the mainframe community to develop shared tool sets and resources, today announced plans for its 2nd annual Open Mainframe Summit, the premier mainframe event of 2021. The event, set for September 22-23, is open to students, developers, users and contributors of Open Mainframe projects from around the globe looking to learn, network and collaborate. As a virtual event again this year, Open Mainframe Summit will feature content tracks that tackle both business and technical strategies for enterprise development and deployment.

                In Open Mainframe Project’s inaugural event last year, more than 380 registrants from 175 companies joined the two-day conference that featured 36 sessions. Some of the most popular sessions were the Women in Tech panel, COBOL sessions, new mainframer journey and project overview sessions for Ambitus, Feilong, Polycephaly, and Zowe. The event report can be found here and all of the videos can be watched here.

        • Security

          • Security updates for Wednesday

            Security updates have been issued by Debian (cgal, exim4, and mediawiki), Fedora (axel, libmicrohttpd, libtpms, perl-Image-ExifTool, pngcheck, python-yara, and yara), Gentoo (exim), Mageia (kernel-linus), openSUSE (bind and postsrsd), SUSE (avahi, openexr, p7zip, python-Pygments, python36, samba, sca-patterns-sle11, and webkit2gtk3), and Ubuntu (nvidia-graphics-drivers-390, nvidia-graphics-drivers-418-server, nvidia-graphics-drivers-450, nvidia-graphics-drivers-450-server, nvidia-graphics-drivers-460, nvidia-graphics-drivers-460-server).

          • Drop telnet for OpenSSL | Opensource.com

            Due to telnet's lack of encryption, it has largely been replaced by OpenSSL for this job. Yet telnet's relevance persisted (and persists in some cases even today) as a sort of intelligent ping. While the ping command is a great way to probe a host for responsiveness, that's all it can do. Telnet, on the other hand, not only confirms an active port, but it can also interact with a service on that port. Even so, because most modern network services are encrypted, telnet can be far less useful depending on what you're trying to achieve.

          • 2FA and Recycled Phone Numbers Are a Security Risk [Ed: 2FA is oftentimes just overhyped junk, as many security experts have long warned]

            Two-factor authorization is supposed to lead to increased security. That extra step is supposed to prevent spammers from breaking into your account. By just learning one access point, they are still required to take an extra step that they most likely do not know.

          • 21Nails: Multiple Critical Vulnerabilities Discovered in Exim Mail Server - Patch Now!

            Qualys submitted this information to our team yesterday to share with the LinuxSecurity community and offer advice on how to secure Linux systems against this dangerous set of bugs. Patches are now available for the 21Nails vulnerabilities, and security teams should apply these updates as soon as possible prevent dangerous remote code exectuion (RCE) and privilege escalation exploits. Bharat Jogi, Senior manager of Vulnerability and Threat Research at Qualys, explained to LinuxSecurity researchers, "Exim Mail Servers are used so widely and handle such a large volume of the internet's traffic that they are often a key target for hackers. The 21 vulnerabilities we found are critical as attackers can remotely exploit them to gain complete root privileges on an Exim system - allowing compromises such as a remote attacker gaining full root privileges on the target server and executing commands to install programs, modify data, create new accounts, and change sensitive settings on the mail servers. It's imperative that users apply patches immediately."

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • What Google v. Oracle means for open source

          Google v. Oracle has finally concluded in a sweeping 6-2 decision by the US Supreme Court favoring Google and adding further clarity on the freedom to use application programming interfaces (APIs). Software developers can benefit from this decision.

          The open source community has closely followed the litigation between Google and Oracle due to its potential impact on the reuse of APIs. It has been assumed for many decades that APIs are not protected by copyright and are free to use by anyone to both create new and improved software modules and to integrate with existing modules that use such interfaces.



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