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Links 9/8/2021: Rav1e 0.5 Beta and a Look at Widgets in WordPress 5.8



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • My First Impression When Using Archcraft Linux!

        For now the main distro that I use on my main laptop to work is Xubuntu. But that doesn't mean I am Fanboy Xubuntu, this is because of needs.

        And I also don't want to waste time studying Arch Linux with various problems. But Archcraft makes me feel easier when using Arch Linux. So I decided to install 2 different Linux distributions in my 2 laptops. And maybe posting various cases when using Linux Archcraft.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • Synopsys Looks To Remove Oldest ARC CPU Support From The Linux Kernel - Phoronix

        Synopsys is looking to phase out support for the oldest ARC processors found within the mainline Linux kernel.

        Synopsys engineers feel it is time to retire support for the ARC750 as the oldest "Argonaut RISC Core" support found within the mainline Linux kernel. The Linux kernel has supported original ARCv1 CPUs of the ARC750 and ARC770 but is now looking to remove the former in order to clean-up some of the ARC architecture's MMU code.

      • Graphics Stack

        • RadeonSI Lands Regression Fix For ~10x Higher CPU Usage For Some Games

          Merged one month ago was RadeonSI enabling by default its optimization to replace uniforms with literals inside shaders. This uniform inlining helped with SPECViewPerf and other workloads but it turns out in the process sharply drove up CPU usage when running some games.

          This RadeonSI change led to some games seeing their CPU usage around ten times higher than with this AMD Radeon Gallium3D OpenGL driver prior to the change. The Godot Engine and Honeycomb Crunch were among the software found to now see much higher CPU usage.

        • Mesa 21.0, Linux 5.11 Prepared For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Updates - Phoronix

          Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS is expected later this month as the next point release to the "Focal Fossa" long-term support cycle. With this update comes the hardware enablement stack from Ubuntu 21.04 which in turn means Linux 5.11 and Mesa 21.0 graphics support is available as package updates now.

          Working their way out as Ubuntu 20.04 LTS updates are many Focal package changes in preparing for this month's Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS point release. Most notable is the Linux 5.11 kernel and Mesa 21.0 for the open-source GPU drivers support.

        • Wayland gets DRM lease protocol support to help VR on Linux | GamingOnLinux

          Another tick in the box for Wayland to eventually properly replace X11 for all workloads, as the work on DRM lease protocol support aimed at VR has been merged in.

        • AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) comes to the PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 | GamingOnLinux

          Thanks to the power of open source, AMD's answer to NVIDIA's DLSS is spreading with FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) now available in the PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3. Not only is it open source but it works across both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, so the majority of people running RPCS3 will benefit from this addition.

          Don't expect DLSS to come to RPCS3 either, as the team noted on Twitter how "We won't be adding DLSS. DLSS is a temporal solution that requires per-object motion vectors, which we do not have. FSR is a spatial solution, which is ideal for us.".

    • Benchmarks

      • Arch Linux, Clear Linux & Ubuntu Against Windows 10/11 On Intel Rocket Lake

        Last month after Microsoft began publishing their Windows Insider Preview builds of Windows 11, I ran some early Windows 11 benchmarks against Linux using an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. Linux led in those benchmarks on the AMD Zen 3 desktop while for those wondering if that still holds true for Intel hardware, here are benchmarks of a Core i9 11900K "Rocket Lake" desktop with Windows 10 21H1, Windows 11 in its latest preview build as of testing, and then compared to Arch Linux / Clear Linux / Ubuntu.

    • Applications

      • Planner: A Beautiful Open-Source Task Management App

        There are several tools and services that let us organize and manage tasks. But, if it is primarily tailored for Linux and offers a fantastic user experience? That’s a bonus!

        Planner is such a tool at your disposal.

        Unfortunately, it is not available for any other platform but Linux.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How To Install SmartGit on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install SmartGit on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, SmartGit is an efficient Git Client user interface with support for GitHub, BitBucket, and SVN as well as Mercurial. SmartGit Git Client focuses on simplicity while targeting non-experts and people who prefer a graphical application over command line usage.

        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 the step-by-step installation of the SmartGit 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 Install Jellyfin Media Server on Debian 10

        Jellyfin is an open-source media streaming system that allows you to manage and stream your media. It is a cross-platform and alternate to other applications such as Emby and Plex. With Jellyfin, you can organize and share your Media files, TV Shows, Music and Photos from the web-based interface. You can access those streamed media on your PC, Tablet, Phone, Roku and TV over the internet. Jellyfin automatically fetch metadata from TheMovieDB, OpenMovie, Rotten Tomatoes and TheTVDB database.

        In this post, we will show you how to install Jellyfin media streaming server with Nginx as a reverse proxy on Debian 10.

      • How to scan a Debian server for rootkits with Rkhunter – VITUX

        Rkhunter stands for “Rootkit Hunter” is a free and open-source vulnerability scanner for Linux operating systems. It scans for rootkits, and other possible vulnerabilities including, hidden files, wrong permissions set on binaries, suspicious strings in kernel etc. It compares the SHA-1 hashes of all files in your local system with the known good hashes in an online database. It also checks the local system commands, startup files, and network interfaces for listening services and applications.

        In this tutorial, we will explain, how to install and use Rkhunter on Debian 10 server.

      • How to Install Steam on a Chromebook

        Chromebooks are lightweight in hardware, allowing you to easily carry them around. However, this also means that they’re not the best gaming devices, due to the weaker graphics options on board. That being said, nothing is stopping you from installing Steam on your Chromebook.

      • Linux 101: How do you search for files from the Linux command line? - TechRepublic

        Open source expert Jack Wallen walks you through how to locate files on the Linux directory hierarchy using the find command.

      • Ripgrep – The Fastest Command Line Search Tool for Linux

        As the Linux operating system grows on you, you start being labeled the nerd you always wanted to be. Your behavior in this operating system environment changes completely. You develop a superiority complex that transforms you from a GUI-oriented user to a terminal-based user. You want to achieve a lot of things without switching between interfaces.

        ripgrep is one such tool that adaptively keeps a Linux user objectified and bound to the command line interface. It effortlessly achieves line-oriented recursive searches for a Linux user by adhering to regex pattern rules.

      • Seq Command in Linux [Explained With Examples]

        The seq command, short for sequence, is used for printing a sequence of numbers. The numbers could be integers or real (with decimal points).

        Let's see how you can use this command with some examples.

      • ROS2 On-Site Training: ROS2 Basics + ROS2 Nav2 + Manipulation with Movelt2 [Ed: ROS2 is Ubuntu GNU/Linux based]
      • Linux for Starters: Your Guide to Linux – Manipulating Files - Part 13 - LinuxLinks

        This is a series that offers a gentle introduction to Linux for newcomers.

        In Part 9 of this series we introduced the terminal, the shell and examined the four commands available in the shell: Builtins, aliases, external commands, and functions.

        In this article we take you through the basics of manipulating files from the shell. Some of these file manipulations are more conveniently done using a graphical file manager. But manipulating files from the shell offers both flexibility and power.

        The GNU Core Utilities or coreutils is a package of software containing implementations for many basic tools. This package provides the basic file, shell and text manipulation utilities. Specifically the package provides 96 separate external commands. We only need to cover 4 of them to explain the fundamentals of manipulating files. These commands are cp, mv, rm, and mkdir. Let’s look at each in turn.

      • 10 Practical Examples of Rsync Command in Linux [Ed: Just updated]

        Rsync (Remote Sync) is the most commonly used command for copying and synchronizing files and directories remotely as well as locally in Linux/Unix systems.

        With the help of the rsync command, you can copy and synchronize your data remotely and locally across directories, disks, and networks, perform data backups, and mirror between two Linux machines.

      • How to Install Ansible (Automation Tool) on Rocky Linux 8

        Ansible is free and open-source automation tool sponsored by Red Hat. Using ansible we can manage and configure Linux and Windows system without any agent installation on them. It basically works on ssh protocol and can configure hundred plus servers at a time. In ansible terminology, system on which Ansible is installed is called control host /node and the systems which are managed by ansible are called managed hosts.

      • How to Install Latest Nginx Mainline on Rocky Linux 8 - LinuxCapable

        For those using Rocky Linux 8, you might have noticed that installing Nginx directly from its Appresteam does not install the latest stable or mainline version. In fact, it is quite far behind where Nginx is stable, and Mainline is at the current time of its development.

        For most, using the default Nginx that comes bundled with Rocky Linux will be preferred, but for those wanting to use newer versions for the newest features, the following tutorial will cover the steps needed to do this.

      • How to Install Latest phpMyAdmin with LEMP on Ubuntu 20.04 - LinuxCapable

        phpMyAdmin is a free and open-source administration tool written in PHP used to administer MySQL and MariaDB database servers from a Web interface. Most developers prefer to use phpMyAdmin to interact with a database server because of its ease of use and advanced SQL editor, making it easy to build and test complex SQL queries.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install LEMP and phpMyAdmin from source on Ubuntu 20.04.

      • How to Install Nginx on Rocky Linux 8

        Nginx (short for Engine X) is a free and open-source webserver. It is a high-performance HTTP server and reverse proxy. Nginx is also used as a load balancer, HTTP cache, and mail proxy.

        Nginx gives the best performance for high traffic websites - get the benefit of low memory usage and high concurrency.

        In this tutorial, we learn how to install Nginx on Rocky Linux 8.

      • How to Install and Setup Sendmail on Debian 10 - Cloudbooklet

        How to install and configure Sendmail on Debian 10 for sending emails using a email server which routes or relays the mail delivery.

        Sendmail is a opensource Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) which is used to route email using server or by using shell commands. You can also configure SMTP using Sendmail.

        In this guide you are going to learn how to install and setup Sendmail on Debian 10. Also you will setup SMTP and configure it with PHP. This setup is tested on Google Cloud

    • Games

      • Dungeon crawling action adventure UnderMine gets a big update for the end-game | GamingOnLinux

        Have you completed UnderMine? Might be time to jump back into this dungeon crawling action adventure as the 1.2 update is out now to celebrate a year since release. See also: our original thoughts.

        A big focus for this update was on the end game, with a new character named Camilla appearing who replaces Arkanos (the old mage you meet first). Camilla gives you access to a daily-run mode that pits peasants in head-to-head competition on the leaderboard. Each of these runs has a fresh set of hexes, items, and a familiar to play with. Your best score for each day is recorded and if you score 100K or more on a run you get a special alternate skin for your familiar, with alternate familiar skins also being a new feature.

      • Bittersweet Birthday brings a mix of a boss-rush adventure with exploration | GamingOnLinux

        Now crowdfunding on IndieGoGo with a demo available, Bittersweet Birthday is a very promising atmospheric adventure that mixed in plenty of boss battles and an intriguing story about being hunted.

        "You wake up, dazed… with no memories. While asking yourself where and how you got there, a strange voice breaks through the silence: “Hey there, bud”. Under the threat of unstable individuals hunting you down, the only chance of escape is to listen to the voice…

      • Splitgate continues expanding server capacity and smashing records | GamingOnLinux

        Splitgate, the really fun FPS with portals is currently in an Open Beta on Steam (with full cross-platform play with consoles) and it continues to see high player numbers.

        They've seen a lot of issues due to the demand, with the servers being repeatedly taken fully offline to upgrade their system to allow more people online at a time. Currently, it seems they're close to hitting the sweet spot with matchmaking queue times down nicely.

        Even with all the issues, the game has proven to be a success with Splitgate repeatedly smashing through its own player records. Most recently they hit 67,724 players online and that's only counting Steam. This places Splitgate pretty firmly into the top games on Steam and at times even inside the top 10. Due to the popularity, the full free to play launch was delayed until later this month instead of the planned July 27.

      • Best Games for Linux That Work Natively - Linux Stans

        Linux can be used for gaming too! In this article, you’ll find out about the best video games you can play on your Linux distro, along with all other info you need to know.

        You can play these games on any distro, however, there are some specialized distros for gaming, like SteamOS, Ubuntu GamePack, Fedora Games Spin, and more. We’ll feature the best gaming Linux distros in a future article.

        In this article, we’ll only feature games that can directly be played on Linux, without the need for an emulator or additional software like Wine or PlayOnLinux.

      • Historical Strategy Game 0 A.D. Alpha 25 Released

        0 A.D. Alpha 25 "Yaunā" has been released over the weekend with improvements to pathfinding, performance and GUI, an initial implementation of single player campaigns, and more.

        0 A.D. is a free and open source historical real time strategy (RTS) game that runs on Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. It features the real-time strategy gameplay components of building a base, economic development, training an army, combat, and technology research. The game has both single and multiplayer functionality.

        The game was originally started as a total conversion mod concept for Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. The developers then decided that making a mod was too limiting, so an in-house engine was created. For more about the game, check out this page.

      • Steam Play tool Luxtorpeda gets some needed upgrades and better KDE Plasma support

        Luxtorpeda is a Steam Play tool (like Proton, Boxtron) that allows you to run games from Steam with compatible game engines that have Linux native builds.

        Useful for a few situations including games that have a free and open source game engine reimplentation, that would give a better experience than the current Windows/Linux build available on Steam directly. There's quite a lot of supported titles including Arx Fatalis, Caesar 3, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion, Cortex Command, Doom 3, Doki Doki Literature Club!, Freespace 2, Grand Theft Auto III & Vice City, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and plenty more.

        Since it needs to do some downloading for each title, to grab the game engine required, it now supports an actual progress dialog along with error messages if there's issues. Support has been added properly for KDE Plasma now too with the KDialog and a fallback with Zenity is if it doesn't find KDialog.

      • Feeling Bored? You Can Play Tetris on the Linux Terminal

        When it comes to Linux, the terminal might be one of the most used tools of the operating system. From simple tasks like copying files to running network forensics, there's a command-line tool for almost everything.

        But what may come as a surprise is that you can even play simple games like Tetris on the Linux terminal. Yes, games aren't just restricted to the graphical user interface. Curious to find out how? Let's get started.

      • Razer Peripherals Config App For Linux Polychromatic Sees First Major Stable Release In Three Years - Linux Uprising Blog

        Polychromatic, an open source GUI tool to configure RGB (Razer only for now) peripherals on Linux, has seen its first new stable release in 3 years. The latest 0.7.0 version comes with an overhauled user interface which includes an effects editor, and improved support for newer OpenRazer hardware.

        Polychromatic can be used to tweak Razer (*) peripherals on Linux, from setting the DPI and poll rate, to controlling lighting effects, and more. This is done using OpenRazer as its backend, which supports peripherals like the Razer BlackWidow (Chroma, Elite, Chroma v2, Essential, Lite, Stealth, etc.) keyboards, Razer DeathAdder (3500, Chroma, Elite, Essential), Mamba or Naga mice, headphones, laptop keyboards, and more. See here a list of compatible devices.

      • Isometric city-builder Nebuchadnezzar gets Fire, Crime & Diseases on September 15 | GamingOnLinux

        Nepos Games have announced that their city-builder Nebuchadnezzar, which was inspired by the likes of Pharaoh, will be getting another big free update on September 15.

        They've already expanded the game quite a bit since the initial release with the likes of a freeplay mode, new difficulty modes, UI scaling, a whole new Taxes and Wages mechanic and more. With the upcoming 1.2 free update they're also going to be adding in fire, crime and diseases. That's not all though, they're also promising many other smaller improvements and quality of life updates to the whole game.

      • Steam Next Fest appears to be a success with a 421% wishlist jump for half the titles | GamingOnLinux

        It appears that Valve's regular event with Steam Next Fest has done a whole lot of good for developers, with plenty more wishlists and sales happening.

        What is Steam Next Fest? Originally starting in the summer of 2020, it's pretty much free marketing for developers. Teams can put up a limited time demo and run livestreams and talks about their games. Nowadays we see Valve talk a lot more about behind the scenes info, and recently they published an update going over some details of the 2020 Steam Next Fest event.

      • The Steam Deck is already having a BIG impact.

        ...and I have no reason to doubt it will be even bigger once it's officially available.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • Dhanuka Warusadura: GSoC 21: GNOME/libsecret project update

          As of now I'm two weeks away from GSoC final project evaluation deadline (August 23rd). So, I'm a bit late for the project update blog post. A quick reminder, my project is to integrate Trusted platform module (TPM) support into GNOME/libsecret. I'm happy to report that 95% of the work are completed and integration is the only part that remains.

          Recently, I gave my very first talk regarding the very same topic; libsecret project update. You can find it from here. As well as the slides from here if you're interested.

          My work is focused on libsecret's local storage (file-backend). Which is a new feature that allows a user to store secrets in a file. Current libsecret file-backend design support two options to encrypt the secrets/passwords inside the file database (a file). Option one is only for test purposes. And option two is using the user's login password to encrypt the file database. This design has a single point of failure. If the user's login password get compromised, then the contents of the file database get compromised too. This situation could be improved if the password is protected by hardware. So, that's when a TPM comes into play. A TPM is a physical hardware security module that performs everyday cryptographic needs. To simply put, my work is to add a third option to libsecret's file-backend design that adds TPM support. With this in place, if an attacker needs to get hold of your secrets, then they must have physical access to your computer system. In most cases this an impossible situation.

    • Distributions

      • Linux Release Roundup #21.32: Nitrux 1.5.1, GNOME Web Canary, and More New Releases

        Nitrux 1.5.1 release focuses on performance improvements, bug fixes, and software updates.

        Upgrades for KDE Plasma, Firefox web browser, and Linux Kernel are some of the key highlights. You can explore more about it in its release announcement.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Parsing command options in Lua | Opensource.com

          When you enter a command into your terminal, there are usually options, also called switches or flags, that you can use to modify how the command runs. This is a useful convention defined by the POSIX specification, so as a programmer, it's helpful to know how to detect and parse options.

          As with most languages, there are several ways to solve the problem of parsing options in Lua. My favorite is alt-getopt.

        • 8 DevSecOps pitfalls to avoid | The Enterprisers Project

          Building security into DevOps is more important than ever. The 2021 Upskilling Enterprise DevOps Skills Report reported that 56 percent of survey respondents said DevSecOps is a must-have in the automation tool category. However, a DevSecOps approach is not about simply adding security tools and practices. Like any DevOps approach, it needs to be built into the culture, processes, and technology.

          When DevSecOps isn’t strategically implemented across the organization, it’s easy to hit security roadblocks or issues. The best bet for success is to avoid these potential issues from the get-go. We asked experts including SKILup Day: DevSecOps participants and DevOps Institute Ambassadors to share common DevSecOps pitfalls. Here's what they say you should avoid:

        • Forcing Linux system password changes with the chage command | Enable Sysadmin

          Some of you may work in highly regulated industries, such as medical, government, government contracting, and food and beverage. You probably have strict guidelines for password aging, regular password changes, minimum length, complexity, and minimum time limits between password changes. Others of you might use equally strict guidelines simply because it's a good practice to do so. This article describes how to audit user accounts and set some guidelines around password expiration and change frequency. For the examples, I use the chage command.

        • NMState: A declarative networking config tool - Fedora Magazine

          This article describes and demonstrates NMState, a network manager that uses a declarative approach to configure hosts. This means you define the desired configuration state through an API and the tool applies the configuration through a provider.

        • Debugging function parameters with Dyninst | Red Hat Developer

          As a part of my work at Red Hat, I verify the accuracy of the debugging information that maps between the executable binary generated by compilers and the original source written by the developer. Additionally, I look for complications in the debugging information that stem from compiler optimizations. It is possible to manually inspect the binary and review the debugging information for discrepancies. However, for significant applications, it would take too much time to manually review the megabytes of data. It's also too easy to overlook one drop of erroneous information hidden in the vast sea of correctly generated debugging information.

          To automate this type of analysis, you need a tool that analyzes both the debugging information and the binary executable. Dyninst, available in Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, provides a suite of dynamic and static analysis and instrumentation tools that you can use for this purpose. A previous Red Hat Developer article, Using the SystemTap Dyninst runtime environment, discussed Dyninst's dynamic instrumentation. This article demonstrates how to write a simplified static analyzer in Dyninst.

        • Red Hat OpenShift helps customers meet demands faster

          As organizations think about IT modernization, they also have to consider the impact of new processes and technology on their partners, vendors, and customers. This month, we’ll highlight success stories from organizations in banking and telecommunications—dynamic industries that are facing rapidly changing customer demands. Let’s see how Banco Original and HKT built efficient, flexible IT foundations with Red Hat to better meet customer and market needs.

          [...]

          In 2020, another Brazilian bank, the Central Bank of Brazil, introduced Pix, an instant payment network that lets individuals or companies make and receive payments in seconds using a mobile application or with an email address, cell phone number, QR code, or tax identification number.

          Support for this new payment solution is mandatory for all Brazilian banks, like Banco Original, which was launched in 2016. Successful adoption of Pix requires transfers completed in 10 seconds or less, 24x7 availability, and compliance with national and industry security protocols. To meet these performance requirements, Banco Original sought to migrate its microservices from VMware virtual machines (VMs) running on industry-standard infrastructure to a more efficient, scalable solution.

          After testing several VM solutions and completing several workshops with Red Hat, Banco Original decided to use the same solution chosen by the Central Bank of Brazil and expand its Red Hat OpenShift environment to support Pix. The bank has used Red Hat OpenShift since 2018 to host and manage its microservices with supported enterprise open source technology.

      • Debian Family

        • DebDroid-ng works great

          This post is to give a thumbs-up for DebDroid-ng, created by "marcusz", a method for running Debian in Android phones and tablets, without having to root the phone. I have played with various alternatives, but found DebDroid-ng to be the simplest.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Compact H.265 4K video encoder is made for embedded, medical, and military applications - CNX Software

        US-based Z3 Technology has announced the Z3-Q603-RPS, a compact H.265 video encoder system capable of supporting 4K and HD resolutions for embedded, medical, and even military camera applications through NDAA (National Defense Authorisation Act) compliance.

        The board runs Linux on Qualcomm QCS603 IoT processor for AI and computer vision applications, which we previously found in Microsoft’s Vision AI Developer Kit, supports Ethernet and WiFI 5 connectivity, as well as features such as PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom).

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • Play SNES SPC audio files from your browser using original hardware and Arduino | Arduino Blog

          Listening to those classic 16-bit sounds from the ’90s video game era brings back a wave of nostalgia for those who grew up with a console. On the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, outputting sound was accomplished by an integrated circuit called the SNES Audio Processing Unit (APU for short), which was responsible for taking SNES SPC files and transforming them into waveforms. Mauri Mustonen — who goes by Kazooie on YouTube — wanted to isolate this chip to play authentic music from his favorite tracks on his browser without needing to boot up the entire SNES console.

          The system he came up with has an Arduino Micro at its heart that is connected to the SNES APU via series of wires. Some of these links are for putting the APU into read or write mode, while others set the desired port and address for where the song data should be written. Data is sent or received over a set of eight parallel data lines.

        • PICO DSP is an Arduino compatible ESP32 development board for audio and DSP applications (Crowdfunding)

          ESP32 audio development boards have been around ever since ESP32 boards were introduced starting with Espressif Systems’ own “ESP32-LyraTD-MSC Audio Mic HDK“, and now ESP32 hardware and software have been certified for Amazon Alexa Voice Services.

          PICO DSP is another ESP32 development board for audio and digital signage processing (DSP) applications. Equipped with a Wolfson WM9878 stereo audio codec, the breadboard-friendly, Arduino compatible board includes two MEMS microphones, audio in and out jacks, a speaker header, plus other audio signals routed to a GPIO header.

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Rav1e 0.5 Beta Released For This Rust-Written AV1 Encoder

        Audio/video encoders and decoders are one of the areas where usage of the Rust programming language has increasing interest for speed and safety. One of the most promising Rust-written encoders at the moment is Rav1e for AV1 video encoding and it's now working towards its v0.5 release.

        Rav1e 0.4 shipped at the start of the year while Rav1e 0.5 should be out soon with the beta being issued today. Rav1e 0.5 has a variety of code improvements, performance optimizations, and other enhancements to this Rust AV1 encoder.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • Community Member Monday: Jessé Moreira

          Love LibreOffice too? Want to help us spread the word about it, and other free and open source software (FOSS) projects? Then we appreciate your help! Everyone can raise awareness about the importance of FOSS and open standards, like the OpenDocument Format, LibreOffice’s native format.

      • CMS

        • Widgets in WordPress 5.8 and Beyond

          WordPress 5.8 brings the power of Gutenberg blocks to widget areas — which means the highly customizable layout and styling options bring you closer to a WYSIWYG editing experience. I made a test site based on the oldie-but-goodie Twenty Sixteen theme, with three separate widget areas. In this post, I’ll highlight a few cool things that are now possible to do with your widgets and where things may be heading next.

        • Name.com strengthens hosting options with DigitalOcean Droplets
        • Name.com strengthens hosting options with DigitalOcean Droplets | Markets Insider

          Name.com's DigitalOcean product includes one-click installs for WordPress, Ubuntu, and other popular frameworks, as well as pre-configured DNS templates for fast, easy setup. By adding DigitalOcean, Name.com provides additional flexibility for building, testing, and growing web applications from startup to scale.

      • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

        • Open Data

          • Contribute to OpenStreetMap from your phone

            Since this month is the 17th anniversary of OpenStreetMap (OSM), I figured I would cover one of the more entertaining open source apps used to contribute to the OSM geographic database. If you don't know what OSM is, go ahead and check out my previous article to learn more about OSM and how it is used. This article will cover a cool open street map editor used for mapping in the field while on an Android phone. The best part about this way of contributing to OSM is that it is an entertaining quest-based way to add and update the OSM database.

  • Leftovers

    • Hardware

      • HPC Efficiency Gurus Grapple with AMD’s RAPL

        Exascale-class energy efficiency cannot be defined by a simple number. Although Green500 energy efficiency HPC rankings provide a one-shot view into performance/efficiency, the complex interplay between large system operating systems, real-world applications, and the various tuning capabilities is worth digging into. The problem is, there is not necessarily a transparent view.

        With so many knobs and bobs in the AMD Zen 2 architecture, which is the CPU basis for a number of pre-exascale and future machines, it’s useful to know what efficiency elements are handled in hardware and what is up to the user to tweak. An HPC team from the TU Dresden took a deep dive into the Zen 2 microarchitecture to pick all of this apart and shared some rules of thumb about how to eke maximum energy efficiency out of AMD Epyc processors.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Security

          • Security updates for Monday

            Security updates have been issued by Debian (ansible and bluez), Fedora (curl, kernel, mod_auth_openidc, rust-rav1e, and webkit2gtk3), Mageia (kernel and kernel-linus), openSUSE (php7 and python-reportlab), Oracle (ruby:2.7), Red Hat (microcode_ctl), SUSE (fastjar, kvm, mariadb, php7, php72, php74, and python-Pillow), and Ubuntu (docker.io).

          • Ben Hutchings: Debian LTS work, July 2021

            In July I was assigned 16 hours of work by Freexian's Debian LTS initiative and carried over 2.75 hours from earlier months. I worked 12.75 hours and will carry over the remainder.

            I applied some urgent (and some not-so-urgent) security fixes to the linux (Linux 4.9), uploaded it, and issued DLA-2713-2.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • [Guest post] China’s path to regulating facial recognition technology

              Facial recognition is a relatively new and very controversial technology. There are significant differences globally regarding its adoption, legal treatment and public acceptance. Vivid discus-sions are still going on, and complex issues are waiting to be solved. On the one hand, there are privacy and data protection concerns, as this is a particularly intrusive form of data processing. Facial information is directly identifying, unique and unchangeable for the data subjects.

              On the other hand, there are interests in crime prevention, commercial use and user convenience. Unlike in the EU, facial recognition is already widespread in China. There, it is a very lucrative and growing technology used in schools, railway stations, residential complexes and other pub-lic venues or to support “face-scanning payment” (刷脸支付) and pandemic control measures. These real-life implications clarify the legal framework all the more urgent and important.

              In the EU, the GDPR already provides numerous requirements since facial information falls under biometric and, therefore, sensitive data. In contrast to the technology-neutral GDPR, the Draft AI Act goes even further by explicitly classifying facial recognition as a high-risk use and making it one of the focus areas of the law. The comparatively uniform and strict legislation already in place in the EU could be one of the reasons why facial recognition technology is not as common as in China. The future AI Act will most likely bring further restrictions.

            • WhatsApp and privacy experts sound alarm about privacy implications of new Apple photo scanning feature | The Independent

              Tech experts are continuing to sound alarm about Apple’s controversial new iPhone-scanning feature.

              The tool is intended to detect child sexual abuse material, by looking through users’ messages and photos. If it does find such images, it will alert authorities.

              Apple has said that all of that is done in a way that protects privacy, by doing the analysis on a users’ phone and not allowing Apple to see those photos unless the iOS software determines it to be sufficiently similar to an image on a database of child abuse imagery.

            • U.S. prisons mull AI to analyze inmate phone calls

              For people like Heather Bollin, a 43-year-old woman in Texas engaged to a man who is currently incarcerated, constant surveillance is a fact of life: the three daily phone calls they have together are subject to monitoring by prison officials.

              “We are never able to communicate without being under surveillance,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview, asking that the prison her fiance is in remain anonymous because she fears retaliation.

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • USPTO patent eligibility study looks like groundwork for legislation [Ed: USPTO knows that patent quality has done far too low]

          At the request of a bipartisan group of senators, the USPTO is undertaking a study on patent eligibility jurisprudence. The way it is being framed indicates that reform legislation may follow

        • Diamyd Medical secures precision medicine patent for prevention and treatment of autoimmune diabetes [Ed: Diamyd fails to take into account the fact that today's EPO grants lots of fake patents that don't have even the slimmest chance of withstanding challenge in court (enforcement), they're just some piece of paper]

          - The European Patent Office has informed Diamyd Medical that the Company's patent application regarding prevention and treatment of autoimmune diabetes in individuals carrying the HLA DR3-DQ2 gene will be granted. The patent is valid until 2035 and provides central protection in Europe for the treatment or prevention of genetically defined autoimumune diabetes using GAD, which is the active component in the therapeutic diabetes vaccine Diamyd€®. The patent claims cover the patient population in which Diamyd€® has shown efficacy and is targeted in the upcoming Phase III trial DIAGNODE-3.

        • One small step for man, one giant leap for AI: Australian Court finds DABUS can be an inventor [Ed: Australian courts got rick-rolled and gave a go-ahead to something that makes them look like the world's joke, incapable of understanding they give patents to bots because of stupid buzzwords]
        • DABUS: South Africa approved the world’s first AI-invented patent [Ed: Does South African media even realise that this is a badge of shame? They got tricked or trolled into doing something phenomenally stupid.]

          At first glance, a recently granted South African patent to DABUS, relating to a “food container based on fractal geometry” seems fairly mundane.

          On closer inspection, the patent is anything but mundane. However, the innovation in question involves interlocking food containers that are easy for robots to grasp and stack.

        • In a world first, South Africa grants a patent to an artificial intelligence system [Ed: South Africa eager to show that it has the very dumbest patent office in the world]

          At first glance, a recently granted South African patent relating to a “food container based on fractal geometry” seems fairly mundane. The innovation in question involves interlocking food containers that are easy for robots to grasp and stack.

          On closer inspection, the patent is anything but mundane. That’s because the inventor is not a human being – it is an artificial intelligence (AI) system called DABUS.

        • Software Patents

          • How to patent autonomous vehicle simulations [Ed: Litigation firm UDL pushing illegal software patents; but it is supported by the bunch of gangsters that runs the EPO and threatens/besieged judges when the question comes up]

            We are all being led to believe that a world in which we’re driven around by fully autonomous vehicles is just around the corner. In reality, this is still some way off, as more proof is needed to show that autonomous vehicles are safe enough for mass adoption. With an estimated 8.8 billion miles of road testing required to achieve this level of confidence, advanced simulations are our chief hope to make this a realistic vision any time soon. This means that we are set to see a huge amount of innovation in simulation systems — and if you’re innovating in this space, you may be wondering: can I patent my simulation technology?



Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights is Officially an Adult
this site's eighteenth anniversary
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part IX
By Dr. Andy Farnell
Many Geeks' Achilles Heel: They Don't Take Computer Breaks
Life can get longer if you stay healthy
In Asia, Microsoft's Bing Became Smaller Than Yandex and It Shrinks Every Month
How long before Microsoft pulls the plug on Bing?
 
Links 04/12/2024: Social Control Media Thoughts, Enrons of 2024, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/12/2024: Soviet Esotericism, Mikrotik is Awesome, and More
Links for the day
[Meme] Silicon Valley's "Successful Businessmen"
Debt is not a currency
Visualising About 0.7 Trillion Dollars of Debt in Supposedly "Successful" Tech Companies
If they're doing so well, how come they borrow so much money (which some would struggle to pay back or never manage to pay back)?
Single-Digit Microsoft: Windows Finally Falls Below 10% in Angola
it's only a matter of time before Windows is down to 5%
Coming Up With Topics to Cover and Issues to Comment on
Socialising is a big part of it
[Meme] Far From What Was Originally Intended
Makes site about RMS; Deletes his own 'site'
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 03, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 03, 2024
Illuminating Microsoft's Dirty Tactics
Criticising illegal things that Microsoft does can be classified as "Microsoft bashing" or "hatred"
Proof That Drew DeVault Vanished From Mastodon After the RMS Attack Site Was Linked to Him (and People Pointed Out DeVault's Fascination With Animated CP, Drawings of Naked Kids)
We assume he just wanted to vanish from Mastodon
Maybe Bill Gates is Getting Demented Like His Late Father (He Says Things That Are True But He's Not Supposed to Say in Public)
It happened in a podcast with Reid Hoffman
We've Clearly Struck a Nerve
Microsofters and Microsoft proxies have meanwhile lost their temper
The Userbase of GNU/Linux is Growing, Investments in the FSF Grow Too (in Spite of Microsofters Inciting and Slandering It)
The FSF's expenses are close to 2 million dollars a year
Links 03/12/2024: Pat Gelsinger's Firing Spun as 'Retirement', US Exports Land Mines
Links for the day
Links 03/12/2024: GrapheneOS, Raspberry Pi 4, and More
Links for the day
Links 03/12/2024: Googlebombing "Windows 12", Games Preservation, and Public Domain Game Jam
Links for the day
It's FOSS? No, It's SPAM.
Another sellout
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (SJVN) 'Works' for Linux Foundation (LF) on SPAM Campaigns, Just Like Spamnil's TFiR (Swapnil Bhartiya)
How can he publish something like this under his name?
Microsoft's Debt Ratio is Awful
It owes almost 150% of what it can give
Microsoft Has Already Laid Off Tens of Thousands of Workers, "Headcount" is Misleading Spin From Microsoft-Funded Sites
Expect Microsoft to suck up to Trump, looking for more bailouts (those typically manifest themselves in the form of "defence" contracts)
South America: GNU/Linux Grew to 8.15% Venezuela, Steadily Over 3% Overall
holding steady above 3%
Clownflare (Cloudflare) Debt Grows, Losses Continue
debt of nearly $400,000 per employee
Gemini Links 03/12/2024: December Adventure and Social Justice Gone Wild
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Falls to 12.5% in Cuba, Android Soaring
Windows isn't even doing too well on desktops/laptops
[Meme] GAGAM: Google, Apple, Gulag, Amazon, Microsoft, and the Rest
The Web has never been more dangerous and hostile
ChromeOS Isn't Freedom, But It's Killing Microsoft's Ability to Profit From Windows
ChromeOS has shot up to 22% in Sweden
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 02, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, December 02, 2024
The L Word (Not Linux)
Championing Software Freedom is "dangerous"
Did IBM Layoffs Stop? Ask Dr. Krishna, The 'Genius' of IBM...
Trust AK to solve all the problems of IBM by creating bigger problems
It's Easy to Snyk in Marketing SPAM (and FUD) Into BetaNews
The latest marketing piece (disguised as information, not shameless self-promotion)
[Meme] Sportwashing vs Code of Censorship (CoC)
Expectation of censorship (censor for me... or else!)
GNU/Linux at 4% in Algeria
So it more than doubled since last year
With 4 Weeks to Go (Before the End of 2024) the FSF Has Already Raised Close to 100,000 Dollars
The FSF must be doing something right
"Linux on the Desktop" (Less Than a Third of Web-connected Computers Still a Desktop or Laptop)
It's like we're chasing a goal that's 2 or 3 decades in the past
[Meme] The Failure of Microsoft Rebranding Campaigns
market share down, costs soared, back to basics
2 Years Have Passed Since ChatGPT Vapourware and Bing Gained Nothing, Yandex is About to Overtake Microsoft in Search
A cause for concern at Microsoft?
GNU/Linux Rises to 4% in Ireland, ChromeOS Grows and Android Takes Windows' Lunch
Windows down to 22%
[Meme] Meanwhile at Intel (Where the CEO Got the Boot)
Well, if taxpayers pay to save Intel, then Intel should be publicly owned (by those taxpayers)
A Cult of Fake Security
It's almost as if there's a coordinated effort to weed out and drive away people who are passionate about security for the users, as opposed to the financial security of companies like Google and Microsoft
Why Your Web Site Should Also Support HTTP (Without 'Secure')
sites which force everybody to use HTTPS have an inherent accessibility problem
Gemini Links 02/12/2024: Long Hair and Spirituality, Technology and Nature
Links for the day
Windows Not Even a 'Thing' Anymore... in North America (Where It Originally Came From)?
StatCounter shows Windows isn't even listed as a leading platform in any country in North America
Links 02/12/2024: Obesity Crisis to Worsen, Syrian Coups Rebound
Links for the day
Months After Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Nigeria Windows "Market Share" Collapses (Now Measured at 5%)
Of course the winner is Android (new all-time high of 77.3%)
Microsoft Windows is Technically at 0% in Some Countries
It's not an important platform to target anymore
Windows Measured at 5.7% 'Market Share' in Philippines, GNU/Linux Rose to 5%
It was 3.62% last month
South America Has Made It (Android Majority Everywhere) and in North America New Records for GNU/Linux Usage
Windows monopoly rents cannot be salvaged
Windows Down to Only One in Six Internet- or Web-Connected Devices in Asia
it's not looking good for Microsoft
Microsoft Windows Market Share in the United Kingdom Has Fallen to About 20%
Microsoft knows the true numbers, but it would rather not tell
statCounter: GNU/Linux Up to 4.6%, Windows Down Sharply This Month (Almost 22% Worldwide)
Let's see it the figures stay stable throughout the month
Figures of Note: Tesla's Debt Has More Than Doubled in Two Years and It's a Symptom of a Fake Economic Order
Cash infusions by taxpayers can create "billionaires" who aren't "job creators" (see what happened to Twitter) and bring no benefits to these taxpayers, only poverty
Linux Foundation Let Linux.com Rot for Two Months and Now It Posts Ridiculous Spam
Mindless shopping site
Links 02/12/2024: Journalists Arrested, Tesla Factories Destroying the Planet and Public Health
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/12/2024: Adventures With Bevy, Google Very Evil, Jumping Into Gemini
Links for the day
BetaNews is Still a Shrine of Microsoft, and Casually Also an LLM Slop Factory
Fake articles, anti-Linux FUD, and Microsoft propaganda make a sound "business model"?
[Meme] Cyber Monday is Not a Thing; There's No Such Thing (It's a Corporate SPAM Campaign Plaguing the Web)
Enough with these fake 'holidays' that billionaires (business oligarchs) keep inventing to make more money at other people's expense (debt)
Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and Linux Foundation: Same Mentality of Revisionism and Plunder
Lie about history and then 'cash in'
[Meme] Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Begs You for Donations
How does one even spend 20,000 dollars per month???
Why Software Freedom Conservancy Does Not Deserve Money (Karen Sandler is Already a Millionaire and Her Organisation Attacks Free Software Leaders)
These people speak for "Big Money" interests, not for freedom
On the internet [sic] (Lowercase), They Spread Misinformation About the Internet
Hugh Grant remembers what happened before he was born
Richard Stallman Was Getting Honorary Doctorates Almost Every Year Until 'Cancel Culture' Stepped in, Distracting From Jeffrey Epstein's Ties to Bill Gates
This finally ended... earlier this year (October)
Self-Deprecating Attacks on RMS
Drew DeVault seems to have deleted all of his social control media accounts
When Bills Are Rising, Whereas the Demand Isn't (OpenAI is Insolvent)
Latest month on record shows traffic fell about 3 times lower than earlier this year
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 01, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, December 01, 2024
Links 02/12/2024: Climate, Sportwashing, and Software Patents
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/12/2024: Words and Apologies, Being Rude, and Geminauts 0.1.0 Release
Links for the day