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Links 17/5/2021: NetBSD 9.2 and Early Look at Bodhi Linux 6.0.0



  • GNU/Linux

    • Run Linux on Refurbished Mini PCs – RAM – Part 5

      If you need a fast computer but don’t have much to spend, consider picking up an off-lease refurbished system. These PCs are a few years old and have seen some use, but they are often heavily discounted and offer a lot of bang for your buck.

      In this article we offer our recommendations about the type of RAM, the amount of RAM, and other factors to consider when buying a refurbished mini PC for running Linux as a desktop computer.

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Dear Google, When is the Linux Support for Google Drive Arriving?

        Google Drive is a popular cloud storage solution that offers convenient features and often a reliable choice for many consumers out there.

        It is also the default choice for many Android smartphone users to store their photos or phone backups. Not to forget, WhatsApp (the most popular instant messenger) also lets you back up your chats and media to Google Drive.

        Google Drive also offers competitive regional pricing, which makes it easy for users in developing countries to use cloud storage.

        I think it is safe to say that it is the best choice for many users across multiple platforms. It is available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.

      • System76 Launches New Mechanical Keyboard

        Designed to “place control back into your hands,” the Launch keyboard lets you remap keys, swap out keycaps, and configure multiple layers to suit your needs. You can select from “jade” switches for a definitive key click or “royal” switches for a muted clack and cycle through a range of LED patterns and colors.

    • Server

      • The First Release Candidate of Rocky Linux is Here — And We’re Excited [Ed: "SPONSORED CONTENT BY SILICON MECHANICS" or paid-for ads disguised as articles]

        Back in December of 2020 Red Hat announced it will no longer be supporting CentOS 8 as of January 1st, 2022 . This was a big deal for HPC practitioners and the larger computing community. But Red Hat had a plan.

        Red Hat announced CentOS Stream, which they are calling “the upstream brand of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.” This version of CentOS does not operate on a traditional release schedule but in a rolling-release style, which limits its practical applications. Further, it has shifted from a downstream, bug-for-bug compatible version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to an upstream, experimental distro. This means it is less a free version of RHEL and more of a beta version of future RHEL releases.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Whats Going On With Lenovo and Linux?

        Last year Lenovo thrilled Linux fans with a TON of hardware announcements, and a promise to treat Linux as a first-class citizen. Well, I have a gripe. But I also have an update DIRECTLY from Lenovo's Mark Pearson.

      • LHS Episode #412: WFView Deep Dive

        Hello and welcome to the 412th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, we have a fantastic interview with Elliott, Phil and Roeland, developers of the WFView project. WFView is an open source rig management application which implements rig control, network access, audio transport, full display view and more. It's open source and cross platform and available for download today. We hope you check out the project and enjoy the podcast.

    • Kernel Space

      • Kernel prepatch 5.13-rc2

        The 5.13-rc2 kernel prepatch is out for testing. "The fixes here are all over the place - drivers, arch updates, documentation, tooling.. Nothing particularly stands out".

      • The Growing Number Of AI Accelerator Drivers Reignites Linux Kernel Driver Debate

        While we are sure to see only more AI accelerator drivers introduced to the Linux kernel over the coming years, the open-source driver situation for the Linux kernel is increasingly becoming a fragmented mess already and disagreements among kernel developers continue to be reignited over the mainlining process and the handling of these drivers.

        The latest example is over the ongoing effort for Intel working on their Gaussian and Neural Accelerator "GNA" Linux driver for the mainline kernel for this feature already found in current mobile SoCs. Intel's GNA Linux driver is one of several AI-related accelerator drivers currently being worked on by the company for Linux -- Intel is still working on their Nervana NNPI Linux driver and there is also all of the Habana Labs AI training/inference accelerator code in the kernel with Intel having acquired that firm. Even among all of Intel's different AI kernel drivers for Linux, there isn't a uniform API or any concerted effort around supporting all of them at a low-level but have their different kernel driver components. Granted, up the stack they are pushing oneAPI and software efforts like oneDNN for application programmers, but at the kernel level there is fragmentation among their multiple kernel drivers in this area, not to mention vastly different interfaces for drivers from other hardware vendors.

    • Applications

      • Cockpit: A Beginner Friendly Web Based Linux Server Manager

        Cockpit lets you manage a remote Linux system through a browser window. An administrator can take a look at the systemd journal, check the load, and start and stop services.

        Cockpit is a Red Hat sponsored free and open source web-based system management application. It uses a secure shell (SSH) client to access remote servers. Thanks to responsive design, the user interface automatically adapts to different screen sizes which, in turn, facilitates easy access via smartphones.

        While many Linux sysadmins spend most of their time on the command line, access to a remote system using a tool like a secure shel (SSH) doesn’t always provide the most useful command output. Linux Cockpit provides graphs and easy-to-use forms for viewing performance measures and making changes to your systems.

      • Most: The Linux Pager You Never Knew You Needed

        The best part about Linux is that you don't have to take your environment the way it comes. Because it's modular, you can swap out components as you like them.

        One utility that you might not think about is the pager. This is the program that comes up when you run the man command on Linux. On most systems, it's called less by default. However, there are other pagers you can use, and one of them is most.

      • The Best Note Taking Apps for Students to Install on Linux

        Everyone is taking notes. Students take notes when they attend classes, when they study, research, and so on. Taking notes is important because it helps you note down the most important and relevant information that will be of huge help later. This is valid especially in the case of students who need to attend many classes and have lots of assignments to write.

        [...]

        Joplin is one of the best apps out there that allows students to take notes. Taking notes is essential, so you need an app that has no bugs and has the features you need. Joplin seems to be the best alternative to Evernote, one of the best note-taking apps out there. This app can easily be installed on Linux, so it seems to meet the requirements. Joplin has many features you can use and adapt to your tasks. You can have to-do lists, you can take notes on plain paper, or use the markdown editor. All your notes can be synced with Google Drive or Dropbox so that you always have access to them.

      • Passbolt: Free open-source password manager for teams and DevOps

        Developer teams often require sharing passwords, login keys and credentials among team members. As the project progresses, it is difficult to keep track of these important data.

        A collaborative solution is required, to save a huge deal of time and effort managing these keys and passwords.

        So, here comes a Passbolt.

        Passbolt is a free open-source and self-hosted solution for developers to manage their shared login data, passwords, keys and more.

        It is based on OpenPGP and design specifically for teams (Developers and DevOps).

        Passbolt has an extensive JSON API and follows open security standards as it uses GnuPG for server-side verification and user authentication.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Integrate AppImages To Application Menu Using AppImageLauncher - OSTechNix

        This guide explains what is AppImageLauncher and how to integrate AppImages to application menu using AppImageLauncher utility in Linux.

      • How To Install WebERP on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install WebERP on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, WebERP is a free, open-source, and complete web-based accounting and business management system. With webERP, you can manage many things including, purchase orders, web store, manufacturing, sales, general ledger, and shipping. It is written in PHP and uses MariaDB as a database backend.

        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 WebERP 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.

      • [Older] Gathering and aggregating system information in Linux - Linux Concept

        In this article, we are going to discuss the dmidecode Linux tool, which will gather information about the system such as CPU information, server, memory, and networking.

      • How To Install KVM on Manjaro 21 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install KVM on Manjaro 21. For those of you who didn’t know, KVM stands for Kernel-based Virtual Machine which allows us to run multiple guests operating systems on a single host. KVM is an Open-source technology that lets us turn our Linux machine into a Hypervisor. This allows us to run multiple Virtual Machines (VMs). The KVM converts Linux into a (bare-metal) hypervisor. Implementations of KVM are supported on the x86 platforms (32-bit and 64-bit) that support virtualization CPU extensions (such as those provided in Intel VT and AMD-V lines). The only exceptions are the Atom processor from Intel.

        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 KVM on a Manjaro 21 (Ornara).

      • Get Terminal Integrated into File Manager in Ubuntu 20.04 / Ubuntu 21.04 | UbuntuHandbook

        Want to embed a terminal in the Files, Nautilus file manager, in Ubuntu? Nautilus Terminal is the project to do the job.

        Nautilus Terminal is an open-source project started in 2010. It’s now at version 4.x that supports up to Nautilus 40.

        With it, you have an integrated terminal in each file window and tab. The terminal follows the navigation, without running cd command, the terminal automatically go to the directory when you navigate to a folder in file manager.

      • [Older] Compressing and archiving files in Linux Operating System - Linux Concept

        There is a difference between a compressed and an archive file. So, what is an archive file? It is a collection of files and directories that are stored in a single file. An archive file is not a compressed file.

        What is a compressed file? This is a collection of files and directories stored in one file. It uses less disk space for storage.

      • How and why I compile the QMK keyboard firmware in Alpine Linux | Hund

        I haven’t touched the firmware on my keyboard for a couple of years now, but the other day I decided it was time to make a few minor tweaks to it.

        Compiling the QMK firmware in Gentoo means that I have to setup a development toolchain for the Atmel AVR microprocessor, which is what my keyboard uses. While it’s not rocket science to cross compile things in Gentoo, we can’t ignore the fact that I’m lazy.. So. I found it a lot easier and quicker to just set it up on my secondary computer with Alpine Linux instead.

        All I had to do was to install the packages avr-gcc and avr-libc, I could then simply compile the source code. Flashing the firmware is still done on Gentoo with the tool dfu-programmer, simply because that’s the machine my keyboard is connected to.

      • How to Create a File in Linux Using Terminal

        As we all know, Linux is an operating system mainly used by geeks and developers, who are mostly keyboard people and like to write commands instead of using a graphical user interface (GUI). Unlike the Windows operating system, where most of the work is done with a few clicks, Linux has commands for everything, such as basic file manipulation, compression or extraction of files, etc. These commands run on the Linux command line known as the terminal or shell. The terminal or shell is a utility in Linux that is responsible for running the commands. Today, I will introduce various methods that you can use to create a file in Linux using the terminal.

      • How to setup FTP/SFTP server and client on AlmaLinux

        FTP and SFTP are great protocols for downloading files from a remote or local server, or uploading files onto the server. FTP will suffice for some situations, but for connections over the internet, SFTP is recommended. In other words, FTP is not secure to use over an internet connection, since your credentials and data are transmitted without encryption. The 'S' in SFTP stands for 'Secure' and tunnels the FTP protocol through SSH, providing the encryption needed to establish a secure connection.

      • How to upgrade to Fedora 34

        Fedora 34 is here! With it comes a brand new desktop environment: Gnome 40! If you’ve been patiently waiting to try out this new release, this article is for you! Follow along as we go over how to upgrade to Fedora 34!

        If you do not have Fedora 33 installed and can’t upgrade straight to 34, or if you use a different distribution and want to check it out, you’ll want to download Fedora 34.

        To get your hands on Fedora 34 to try it fresh, start by heading over to the Fedora official website. Once on the website, locate “Fedora Workstation” and click on the “Download Now” button.

        By clicking on “Download Now” with the mouse, you’ll be taken to the download page. From here, locate the “On Linux or just want an ISO file?” option. Then, select the “Download” button next to “Fedora 34: x86_64 DVD ISO” to grab the latest Fedora. Or, download Fedora Media Writer if you’re on Windows or Mac OS.

      • Install WPScan WordPress Security Scanner on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

        Commands to install WPscan WordPress security scanner on Ubuntu 20.04 or 18.04 Linux distos to find plugin or themes vulnerabilities issues.

      • Setup syslog server on Ubuntu or CentOS for Centralized Logs management - LinuxTechLab

        Checking logs is an important activity to see what’s happening on your Linux servers, especially when you are trying to locate an issue. It easy when you are just managing 2, 3 servers but what to do when you are handling 50 or 100 servers?

        That’s when Centralized log management comes into the picture. We can sync all the Linux server logs (auth logs, cron logs, syslogs, etc) to a single Linux server so that we have access to logs of all the servers, whether 1 or 100, on a single server & when we are required to check logs, we will just login to a single server & will have access to logs from all servers.

        This is also useful when you don’t plan to give access to servers to all the individuals but we can just give access to a centralized logs server & they can see logs from that single machine only.

      • Show current network interface in use
      • [Older] Write a bash script accessing SQL databases remotely or locally - Linux Concept

        In this article, we are going to learn how to automate SQL queries by connecting to a server using a shell script. Bash scripting is used for automating things.

      • [Older] Write a bash script to monitoring directories and files

        inotify is a tool in Linux which is used to report when a file system event occurs. Using inotify, you can monitor individual files or directories.

      • Complete Beginner's Guide to LVM in Linux [With Hands-on]

        This is a complete beginner's guide to LVM (Logical Volume Management) in Linux.

        In this tutorial, you'll learn the concept of LVM, its components and why you should be using it.

        I won't be limited to just the theoretical explanation. I'll also show hands-on examples for creating and managing LVMs in Linux.

        In short, I'm going to give you all the necessary information that you'd need to start working with LVM in the real world.

      • Install Nginx with PHP and MySQL (LEMP) plus SSL on Debian 10

        LEMP is an acronym that stands for the following software stack: Linux kernel, Nginx web server, MariaDB database (or MySQL), and the PHP server-side programming language. This software is widely used on servers on the Internet today to provide dynamic websites or interactive web applications.

        Nginx is a modern and resource-efficient web server that is actively developed and is the second most used web server on the Internet after the Apache HTTP server. It is particularly fast because it uses an asynchronous, event-driven approach to processing requests. This tutorial shows you how to install and configure the LEMP stack (Nginx with MariaDB and PHP 7) on the latest version of Debian 10.

      • Network address translation part 4 – Conntrack troubleshooting

        This is the fourth post in a series about network address translation (NAT). The first article introduced how to use the iptables/nftables packet tracing feature to find the source of NAT-related connectivity problems. The second article introduced the “conntrack” command. The third article gave an introduction to the “conntrack” event framework.

        This article shows how to expose more information about what is happening inside conntrack.

      • How To Install Rootkit Hunter on Linux - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Rootkit Hunter on Linux. For those of you who didn’t know, Rootkit Hunter (rkhunter) is a Unix-based tool that scans for rootkits, backdoors, and possible local exploits. Rootkits are self-hiding toolkits secretly installed by a malicious intruder to allow that user to gain access to the server.

        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 Rootkit Hunter on a Linux operating system.

      • How to Install Ventoy on Ubuntu

        Learn how to download and install Ventoy on Ubuntu from GUI. Ventoy is an open-source tool to create a bootable USB drive.

      • How to Use Handlers in Ansible Playbook

        In Ansible, a handler is just like any other task but only runs when called or notified. It takes action when a change has been made on the managed host. Handlers are used in initiating a secondary change such as starting or restarting a service after installation or even reloading a service after some modifications have been made in the configuration files. In this guide, we will shed more light on Ansible handlers. We will learn how to use handlers in ansible playbook.

      • How to find Intel NUC BIOS version and model on Linux - nixCraft

        I installed Linux on Intel NUC. I need to find Intel NUC BIOS version. How do I find out BIOS version, date, and model name of my Intel NUC using Linux command-line options?

        Introduction – Intel NUC is an acronym for Next Unit of Computing. It is a small factor computer that runs on Linux, *BSD, MS-Windows and any other X86 operating systems. The latest NUC uses eight generations Intel CPUs. One can find out Intel NUC BIOS version using the dmidecode command. You must log in as the root user to run dmidecode command.

      • How to install and use FFmpeg on Ubuntu 21.04 Linux Operating System - Linux Concept

        The FFmpeg is the most potent and useful command-line tool on Linux system for multimedia files transcoding. You can use FFmpeg to convert multimedia files between various video and audio formats and resize videos. It has multiple audio and video libraries such as libavcode, libavformat, and libavutil.

        In this tutorial, you will learn how to install FFmpeg into Ubuntu 21.04 Linux operating system. Here we will also show you how to install FFmpeg stable and latest version into various Ubuntu distro.

        The same instruction you can use any other Ubuntu-based Linux distribution Operating Systems.

      • How to recursively find and list the files by date in Linux | FOSS Linux

        We shall discuss methods of recursively printing files and directories on your current working directory with the additional knowledge of knowing when they were last modified based on their associated timestamps.

      • [Older] Ubuntu basic security practices

        In this article, we will look at some best practices to secure Ubuntu systems. Linux is considered to be a well secured operating system. It is quite easy to maintain the security and protect our systems from unauthorized access by following a few simple norms or rules.

      • [Older] Securing a network with uncomplicated firewall in Ubuntu System - Linux Concept

        It is said that the best way to improve server security is to reduce the attack surface. Network communication in any system happens with the help of logical network ports, be it TCP ports or UDP ports. One part of the attack surface is the number of open ports that are waiting for connection to be established. It is always a good idea to block all unrequired ports. Any traffic coming to these ports can be filtered, that is, allowed or blocked with the help of a filtering system.

        The Linux kernel provides a built-in packet filtering mechanism called netfilter, which is used to filter the traffic coming in or going out of the system. All modern Linux firewall systems use netfilter under the hood. Iptables is a well-known and popular user interface to set up and manage filtering rules for netfilter. It is a complete firewall solution that is highly configurable and highly flexible. However, iptables need effort on the user’s part to master the firewall setup. Various frontend tools have been developed to simplify the configuration of iptables. UFW is among the most popular frontend solutions to manage iptables.

      • [Older] Securing Ubuntu System against brute force attacks

        So you have installed minimal setup of Ubuntu, you have setup SSH with public key authentication and disabled password authentication, and you have also allowed only single non-root user to access the server. You also configured a firewall, spending an entire night understanding the rules, and blocked everything except a few required ports. Now does this mean that your server is secured and you are free to take a nice sound sleep? Nope. Servers are exposed to the public network, and the SSH daemon itself, which is probably the only service open, and can be vulnerable to attacks. If you monitor the application logs and access logs, you can find repeated systematic login attempts that represent brute force attacks.

      • [Older] Configure Ubuntu system to connect network with static IP - Linux Concept

        When you install Ubuntu server, its network setting defaults to dynamic IP addressing, that is, the network management daemon in Ubuntu searches for a DHCP server on the connected network and configures the network with the IP address assigned by DHCP. Even when you start an instance in the cloud, the network is configured with dynamic addressing using the DHCP server setup by the cloud service provider. In this chapter, you will learn how to configure the network interface with static IP assignment.

    • Games

      • The Paws and Claws DLC for Children of Morta raises over $130,000 for charity

        Paws and Claws, a pretty wholesome DLC for the fantastic and stylish Children of Morta has managed to raise a rather nice lump sum for charity.

        "We have a piece of truly wonderful and heartwarming news for you today! The Paws and Claws charity DLC has proven to be a huge success and ever since its launch, we've been able to raise MORE than $130K for animals worldwide!" - Dead Mage & 11 bit studios

      • Top-down tactical shooter RUNNING WITH RIFLES had a massive surge in players recently | GamingOnLinux

        After being available in some form since 2012, RUNNING WITH RIFLES (RWR) seems to be finally hitting it big with a sudden surge of thousands flocking to the top-down tactical shooter.

        For Osumia Games, this has been a long-deserved moment in the spotlight. They've supported Linux with RWR since 2012 during the early Beta builds and it's a huge amount of fun to run around in. It's currently 80% off on Steam, which has probably helped the surge of players, however it's done the same discount multiple times in the past which did not cause much of a surge until now.

      • Stadia confirms Super Animal Royale and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse plus more coming | GamingOnLinux

        Stadia has confirmed another few new announcements for their Linux-powered game streaming service that will be coming soon. Some out now, some have no release date yet.has confirmed another few new announcements for their Linux-powered game streaming service that will be coming soon, although neither has an actual release date.

        Two recently we missed were Street Power Football and Hundred Days, both of which are out now and available on the Stadia store.

        As for other titles coming up? Just this week they announced Super Animal Royale and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse will be coming over to Stadia. Super Animal Royale will be "Coming Soon" with no clearer date. It's going to be free to play too, so it gives people yet another chance to try out something on Stadia with no commitment to anything.

      • Terraria has officially turned 10 years old with a small celebration update | GamingOnLinux

        Terraria, the 2D pixel-art sandbox survival adventure has now officially turned 10 years old and it's going as strong as ever. Seriously impressive from developer Re-Logic!

        I remember seeing it on PC for the first time almost 10 years ago while a friend was playing it, thinking it looked interesting and never thought it would go on to be as popular as it is. Frankly, I sort-of dismissed it entirely back then and went back to Minecraft. I was seriously wrong about it because it's an incredible game that deserves to be played.

      • Dream Harvest announce the gorgeous looking NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy | GamingOnLinux

        NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy is the upcoming title from Dream Harvest, an upcoming choose your own adventure styled cyberpunk visual novel and it looks brilliant.

        While Dream Harvest are also working on the strategy game NeuroSlicers (which will also come to Linux), NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy will be coming out first but they're not giving a date just yet. NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy is also confirmed to be launching with support for Linux.

        "You are an artificial intelligence charged with managing a city-wide augmented reality network known as the "NeuroNet". Embark on a journey of self-discovery as you learn what it means to be human in a world losing itself to technology."

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • psifidotos: Latte bug fix release v0.9.12

          Hello everyone, as it appears the Latte Dock issue with Plasma 5.22 was solved by openSUSE. Everyone should thank Fabian Vogt for providing the relevant patch and give a few more months life for v0.9.x branch.

        • Moving on

          I joined Bluesystems GmbH in August 2015, over the course of ~6 years I had opportunity to work in some of most exciting projects (in no particular order).

          [...]

          However, I have decided to leave Bluesystems at end of this month. I am thankful to Bluesystems for sponsoring work on KDE and in general open-source development. If you are interested in working with them, they are looking for new personnel in various areas, their about page gives more information about this.

    • Distributions

      • BSD

        • NetBSD 9.2 released

          The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 9.2 "Nakatomi Socrates", the second update of the NetBSD 9 release branch.

          As well as the usual bug, stability, and security fixes, this release includes: support for exporting ZFS filesystems over NFS, various updates to the bozotic HTTP daemon, improvements to ARM 32-bit and Linux compatibility, fread() performance improvements, support for the TP-Link TL-WN821N V6 wireless adapter, support for the Allwinner H5 cryptographic accelerator, Pinebook Pro display brightness fixes, new defaults for kern.maxfiles, and accessibility improvements for the default window manager configuration.

        • Announcing NetBSD 9.2 (May 12, 2021)
        • NetBSD 9.2 Released With Many Fixes, Much Faster FREAD

          Going along with the recent releases of FreeBSD 13.0, DragonFlyBSD 6.0, and OpenBSD 6.9, NetBSD 9.2 is now available as the latest feature release of this BSD operating system.

          NetBSD 9.2 is now available as the latest update to NetBSD 9. It's not a particularly exciting update but does have a large number of fixes throughout the operating system stack. Much faster fread() is one of the interesting changes to mention with NetBSD 9.2.

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • Office Depot modernizes, saving over 40 percent in IT management costs with SUSE

          It was agreed that adopting a cloud-first strategy would support rapid innovation and response to market changes, generate better customer experiences, help manage security and minimize costs.

          When planning how to better manage their mixed IT environment and securely migrate operations to private cloud, Office Depot evaluated several vendors. SUSE was selected based on its long history in the retail industry, commitment to open source and proven reliability. It was determined that SUSE solutions would help Office Depot reach their goals swiftly and cost-effectively.

          Office Depot selected SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) as its primary operating system on private cloud and in their on-premise central data centers. SUSE Manager was deployed to schedule and push releases out to Office Depot’s 1,200+ store environments. SUSE Manager for Retail was adopted to automate updates for the in-store servers, running over 5,000 point-of-sales registers.

        • Shells, openSUSE Announce Collaboration
      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Review: Fedora 34

          Those of us who run Linux because we're fed up with Ctrl-Alt-Del or aren't hip enough to be Apple-ites also probably aren't the ideal candidates to use Fedora. After all, that's what Linus Torvalds uses, and it's one of the most common distros among coders, system administrators, and the like.

          So what happens when someone who thinks Vim and Emacs Reddit posts are funny gives the recently released Fedora 34 workstation a try? He is more than pleasantly surprised. This version of Fedora, put together by the Fedora Project and its sponsor Red Hat, was much more nimble than I expected, and especially given my older hardware. In fact, I was able to do what I normally do - write freelance articles, spend too much time e-mailing editors, and work with WordPress and Substack - without banging my mouse in frustration more than a couple of times.

          Does this mean I want to use Fedora 34 as my daily driver? Probably not. I don't have many uses for Boxes, Fedora's VM app. But it does offer a variety of features that other distros should consider adding, including my beloved Xubuntu. The documentation is first-rate, much more complete and easier to use (with pictures, even!) than I've seen almost anywhere else. The ability to configure Nextcloud from a simple prompt as part of the post-installation process is genius. And that I was able to reboot after installation without trying to decide when to remove the install USB - still a sticky proposition with Ubuntu and its flavors - was almost as nice.

        • Getting started with OpenShift Platform Administrator Learning Path

          The Red Hat Training and Certification team has curated several learning paths to help guide you in your journey to learn more about Red Hat OpenShift. In a previous post, we shared how to get started with the Red Hat OpenShift Platform Developer Learning Path. Today, we will focus on the OpenShift Platform Administrator learning path.

          This path isn’t just limited to sysadmins who want to validate their Red Hat OpenShift skills. If you’re an architect looking to incorporate container technologies or a consultant (like myself) who might be new to containers, you may find this guide helpful as well.

        • Red Hat customers gain efficiencies with automation and agile approaches

          We are proud to hear of the innovative ways our customers use Red Hat solutions to improve business processes and present better products to their customers and communities. In addition to the Red Hat Innovation Awards winners we announced as part of the Red Hat Summit 2021, see how four customers have found more efficient ways to work using Red Hat products and services in this month’s customer success stories highlights.

        • Documenting system uptime in Linux | Enable Sysadmin

          The uptime command is straightforward and simple, but it can still be nice to see how some sysadmins use these common tools. Documenting the system's uptime may be important for service level agreements, performance monitoring, and general troubleshooting.

        • Kubernetes: 6 open source tools to put your cluster to the test | The Enterprisers Project

          Kubernetes has earned an overall reputation as an extensible and pluggable platform for orchestrating containers. That roughly means that you can use it in concert with many other tools and services if you so choose.

          This includes a flourishing category of tools built to help you boost the reliability, security, and the overall health of your Kubernetes cluster, and the applications that run on it. Many of them are open source and free to use. That makes experimentation and learning more accessible for individuals and teams alike, among other benefits.

        • Adress [sic] your site’s accessiblity — from MVP to a complete solution — with a few simple clicks

          Most developers know they need to make their websites and applications accessible, but enabling accessibility across an entire site or application can feel like a daunting task. To recognize Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on May 20, the IBM Accessibility team is releasing a new multi-scan report capability in the open source IBM Accessibility Checker that makes it easier than ever to discover — and fix — multiple accessibility issues across your entire website.

          [...]

          The Accessibility Checker offers the ability to label each scan and provides handy thumbnails of the scanned content to help the user in choosing which scans they want to include in their report. Having all of the issues rolled-up into a single report helps the team prioritize work that may be affecting many pages across the user experience.

        • 5 ways to help teams step outside their comfort zone: Colorado CIO of the Year winners
        • Are you micromanaging your remote or hybrid team? 10 questions | The Enterprisers Project

          Micromanaging never works. The best employees are likely to bristle at being coddled and the over-involvement of a manager can actually have a negative impact on performance and output, leadership coaches say. “Top performers rarely stay with a boss who micromanages them,” says Doug Meyer-Cuno, leadership coach and author of The Recipe For Empowered Leadership: 25 Ingredients For Creating Value & Empowering Others. Those workers that do remain may trade eagerness and enthusiasm for a minimal effort approach.

          A whole host of problems can ensue, warns Larry Bonfante, former CIO and founder and CEO of CIO Bench Coach: Employees fail to learn and grow, they become afraid of innovation and risk-taking, they are reluctant to take on bigger roles, and they grow resentful of not being trusted or respected. “I personally have watched entrepreneurs and CEOs suck the life out of their most talented employees because they were constantly micromanaged,” Meyer-Cuno says.

      • Debian Family

        • deepin Linux 20.2.1 gets Debian 10.9 base -- switch from Microsoft Windows 10 today!

          deepin Linux is developed in China, true, but that doesn't mean it can't be trusted. Look, many products are manufactured in that country, including electronics and computer components we use every day. It is almost impossible for a consumer to avoid Chinese-made products entirely. Plus, let's not forget, people in China are humans just like everyone else. Please stop the xenophobia, y'all.

          With all of that said, there is a new version of that Linux-based operating system available -- deepin 20.2.1. Even though it is just a "point" release, it is chock full of changes and fixes. Most notably, it is now based on Debian 10.9. And yes, like previous versions of this distribution, deepin 20.2.1 will make an excellent replacement for Windows 10, which seems to be riddled with bugs lately.

          "Based on deepin 20.2, deepin 20.2.1 upgrades the underlying repository to Debian 10.9, introduces minor updates of dual cores (LTS+Stable), and adapts to the 11th Gen CPU, improving system stability and compatibility comprehensively. In this version, patches for 54 CVE vulnerabilities are integrated by default to enhance system security; Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE) and deepin applications are greatly optimized to ensure efficient user experiences in different scenarios," explains the deepin developers.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Ubuntu Blog: The State of Robotics – April 2021

          Together we have reached the end. Two partners, two allies, two distributions that supported millions of innovators have reached their end-of-life (EOL). April will be remembered as the month where ROS Kinetic and Ubuntu Xenial reached EOL. ROS Kinetic is one of the most used, widely deployed and extensively contributed ROS distributions (1st with 1233 repos in ros/rosdistro). Released in 2016, it supported newer related components, notably Gazebo 7 and OpenCV 3, and this month has reached its end.

          But the end has also brought opportunities, and today we will chat about them.

        • Ubuntu Blog: Introduction to open source private LTE and 5G networks

          It’s so easy these days to set-up your own WiFi network. You order a router online, plug it into the electrical socket, define a password and you’re good to go. WiFi is fast, reliable and easy to use. But if you want to cover a wider area or connect hundreds of small devices it quickly becomes inefficient and expensive. Is the only way to go to your local mobile network operator and sign a contract? No! Thanks to open source technology, you can build your own LTE or 5G network.

        • Alan Pope: New Pastures

          I tweeted back at the start of April that I’m moving on from Canonical/Ubuntu.

          Well, I left on April 30th, have had two weeks of ‘funemployment’, and today I start my new gig.

          [...]

          In a bit of excellent timing, this week we’re running Influx Days - a virtual event focused on the impact of time series data. I’ll be learning along with everyone else who’s attending!

        • Oxford University partners with Oracle to speed identification of deadly COVID-19 variants [Ed: This is a privacy violation with a very aggressive company. How was this approved?]

          Oracle and Oxford University are partnering to bring Oxford's Scalable Pathogen Pipeline Platform (SP3) to the global community to more quickly identify COVID-19 variants in what it calls the Global Pathogen Analysis System. COVID-19 variants have emerged as a serious threat to inoculation and public health initiatives in many regions of the world. Mutations don't generally weaken a virus, but do have the potential to make it stronger or easy to spread.

          [...]

          SP3 fetches data from public repositories of genome data and uses container technology like Docker to build workflows capable of examining new genome sequences against known pathogens to identify variants. While available as a cloud-hosted platform, it was (and is) traditionally designed to be deployed in private environments; its head node only needs to be an Ubuntu machine running 18.04 or higher, and can be installed with a simple bash command.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Vimix is an Open Source Tool That Helps With Graphical Mixing and Blending Live

        There are several Linux tools available for digital artists. However, those are mostly for image manipulation or drawing.

        So, how can you blend and mix video clips or computer-generated graphics in real-time on Linux?

        This is mostly a use-case if you are presenting something live for a VJ session or concerts and conferences.

      • Use open source tools to set up a private VPN

        Getting from one place to another over a computer network can be a tricky thing. Aside from knowing the right address and opening the right ports, there's the question of security. For Linux, SSH is a popular default, and while there's a lot you can do with SSH it's still "just" a secure shell (that's what SSH stands for, in fact.) A broader protocol for encrypted traffic is VPN, which creates a unique, virtual private network between two points. With it, you can log in to a computer on another network and use all of its services (file shares, printers, and so on) just as if you were physically sitting in the same room, and every bit of data is encrypted from point to point.

        Normally, in order to make a VPN connection possible, the gateways into each network must accept VPN traffic, and some computer on your target network must be listening for VPN traffic. However, it's possible to run your own router firmware that runs a VPN server, enabling you to connect to your target network without having to worry about forwarding ports or thinking at all about internal topography. My favorite firmware is OpenWrt, and in this article I demonstrate how to set it up, and how to enable VPN on it.

      • Audacity reverses course on plans to add opt-in telemetry after outcry

        What a busy few weeks it has been for the venerable audio editor Audacity.

        At the end of April, it was announced that Muse Group had acquired the editor, with Muse pledging Audacity would remain "forever free and open source".

        "I'm proud of how Audacity has achieved so much success over the years, but there are many features and user interface improvements that I've always wanted Audacity to have, but were difficult to achieve as a small, community-supported project," Audacity co-founder Dominic Mazzoni said at the time.

        Muse Group head of creative software Martin Keary said the contributor community were the "heart and soul of Audacity and our job is to make their lives easier by providing design and development support".

      • Why you should request open-source software for your IoT devices

        I usually think of open-source hardware and/or software are enabling skilled people to more easily fix bugs, improve on the design, get feedback from the community, etc…

        But in a world where IoT devices become more prevalent, there’s another reason why you should request open-source software: Long term support. What made me think about are two things. The first one if that I own WeLoop Hey 3S smartwatch, which I love and wear since March 2018. That’s quite a feat since most cheap devices I own often only last a few months or a year or so. I’m also used to the watch face and Weloop app interface.

      • AVX2 Tuning Paying Off Big Time For Dav1d 10b/12b Video Decode

        With the new dav1d 0.9 AV1 decoder release bringing AVX2 Assembly for higher bit depth videos, the performance improvements are very pronounced with modern Intel and AMD systems.

        Following this weekend's release of dav1d 0.9, I immediately set off to do some benchmarking of this updated AV1 CPU-based video decoder used by Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and other software for processor-based AV1 decoding with all but the very latest hardware not offering GPU-accelerated AV1 handling yet.

      • Daniel Stenberg: 200 OK

        One day in March 1998 I released a little file transfer tool I called curl. The first ever curl release. That was good.

      • Programming/Development

        • How to look at the stack with gdb

          I was chatting with someone yesterday and they mentioned that they don’t really understand exactly how the stack works or how to look at it.

          So here’s a quick walkthrough of how you can use gdb to look at the stack of a C program. I think this would be similar for a Rust program, but I’m going to use C because I find it a little simpler for a toy example and also you can do Terrible Things in C more easily.

        • Introduction to the Node.js reference architecture, Part 3: Code consistency

          Welcome back to our ongoing series about the Node.js reference architecture. Part 1 introduced what the Node.js reference architecture is all about, and Part 2 took a look at logging. In this article, we will dive into code consistency and how to enforce it with a linter tool like ESLint.

        • Error handling in Go HTTP applications – joe shaw

          Nate Finch had a nice blog post on error flags recently, and it caused me to think about error handling in my own greenfield Go project at work.

          Much of the Go software I write follows a common pattern: an HTTP JSON API fronting some business logic, backed by a data store of some sort. When an error occurs, I typically want to present a context-aware HTTP status code and an a JSON payload containing an error message. I want to avoid 400 Bad Request and 500 Internal Server Errors whenever possible, and I also don’t want to expose internal implementation details or inadvertently leak information to API consumers.

          I’d like to share the pattern I’ve settled on for this type of application.

        • Python

        • Rust

          • Announcing Rustup 1.24.2

            The rustup working group is happy to announce the release of rustup version 1.24.2. Rustup is the recommended tool to install Rust, a programming language that is empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.

            If you have a previous version of rustup installed, getting rustup 1.24.2 is as easy as closing your IDE and running:

            rustup self update Rustup will also automatically update itself at the end of a normal toolchain update:

            rustup update If you don't have it already, you can get rustup from the appropriate page on our website.

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Lima: Another Way Of Spinning Up Simple, Integrated Linux VMs on macOS - Phoronix

          Making some rounds this weekend is the "Lima" project. No, not to be confused with the open-source Arm Mali reverse-engineered project of the same name, but rather an effort to be like an unofficial "macOS subsystem for Linux."

        • Cloudflare’s new authentication system aims to eliminate CAPTCHA from Internet

          The system is called Cryptographic Attestation of Personhood and it will be able to authenticate logins to websites by using physical USB keys

        • Viber – An extraordinary instant messaging application for Linux [Ed: This is proprietary software and it does not respect your privacy (except, perhaps, compared to GAFAM). Viber is so dumb that, like many other applications of its kind, it refuses to work unless you carry around a tracking devices known as a mobile 'phone'. These restrictions may not matter to Viber users regardless. They're spied on.]

          In this article, I review Viber application and its features and show you how to install and set it up on Linux.

          Viber is a free, secure and cross-platform instant messaging application. It comes with a plethora of features that I for sure in love with and hope you will like them too. It is fairly easier to use, in fact, 97% of smartphones in Ukraine usages Viber so you can see it is insanely popular there. Just like Whatsapp in here.

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Privatisation/Privateering

            • Linux Foundation

              • KrakenD API Gateway Joins the Linux Foundation as the Lura Project

                The Lura Project, the open source framework formerly known as KrakenD, has joined the Linux Foundation where, according to a press statement, “it will be the only enterprise-grade API Gateway hosted in a neutral, open forum.”

                The project is now active on more than one million servers per month, said Albert Lombarte, co-founder and CEO of KrakenD API Gateway. The move to the Linux Foundation put the technology first, rather than the needs of the enterprise company built on top of it.

    • Environment

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • 5 lions get a new sanctuary in the Western Cape

          Five lion cubs that were neglected in Ukraine in 2019 are heading to a new home in the Western Cape. According to Good Things Guy, in November 2019 Jacaranda FM’s breakfast team, “Good Morning Angels” helped to relocate the five lion cubs, from the harsh conditions in Ukraine to the Ubuntu Wildlife Sanctuary in the NorthWest.

          Sanctuary Founder Jurg Olsen has been taking in captive wildlife for some time now and under the care of the Ubuntu team, the Ukrainian five as they are known have regained their strength and have grown in their new environment. However, their sanctuary has been leasing its land and had to relocate due to the owners intent to relaunch their private hunting business. They were then able to find a haven in Oudtshoorn, Western Cape, after an investor bought a 1650 hectare parcel of land, donating it to the sanctuary.

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • The Fight for the Right to Repair (and diagnose) Your own Tech Hardware – from PC hardware to cars to tractors – reason vs profit-monopoly-madness

        it sounds crazy but… as machines as cars and tractors become more complicated and computerized

        not only are their parts DELIBERATELY designed to break after a certain time (planned obsolescence) (in order to sell more spare parts, make more profit)

        no, the manufacturers DELIBERATELY try to limit the ability of users to diagnose & self-repair their systems (in order to make more profit).

        This translates into Linus complaining, that NVIDIA won’t release any details about their hardware or cooperate with the Open Source community in order to get their hardware up and running under GNU Linux, which lead to Linus “FUCK YOU NVIDIA” statement.



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