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Links 9/10/2021: Wine 6.19 and Istio 1.9.9



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • TUXEDO’s Linux Gaming Ultrabook “InfinityBook Pro 14” Now Sports an RTX 3050 Ti and 3K Display

        Tuxedo has recently unveiled its latest and exciting revision to its InfinityBook Pro 14. Despite weighing just around one kg, this sleek-looking ultrabook packs in impressive specs and can pretty much run various AAA games. Let’s take a look at what this laptop has to offer.

        [...]

        As for the graphics side, you’ll find NVIDIA’s mid-range GeForce RTX 3050 Ti along with the integrated Iris Xe graphics. This is a power-efficient MaxQ variant that promises a TGP of 35 watts.

        Considering this as a mid-tier GPU, it should be enough for gaming with 1080p settings.

    • Server

      • Announcing Istio 1.9.9

        This is the final release of Istio 1.9. We urge you to upgrade to the latest Istio supported version, Istio (1.11.3).

        This release contains bug fixes to improve robustness. This release note describes what’s different between Istio 1.9.8 and Istio 1.9.9.

      • Support for Istio 1.9 has ended

        As previously announced, support for Istio 1.9 has now officially ended.

        At this point we will no longer back-port fixes for security issues and critical bugs to 1.9, so we heartily encourage you to upgrade to the latest version of Istio (1.11.3) if you haven’t already.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • Asahi Linux cites progress, says that Linux is now “usable as a basic desktop” on M1-based Macs

        After almost a year of a project to port Linux to Apple’s M1-based Macs, the creators of the effort have stated that Linux is now “usable as a basic desktop.”

        According to the progress report of September, Asahi Linux is running better than ever, although it still lacks GPU acceleration on M1 Macs as the team approached version 5.16 of the software.

        The team was able to merge some of the drivers such as PCIe bindings, PCIe drive, and USB-C PD drive. Efforts such as Princtrl drive, I2C driver, ASC mailbox driver, IOMMU 4K patches, and Device Power management are still in review.

      • Linux for Apple Silicon is getting closer to being usable for basic computing

        Apple’s Macs with M1 processors deliver some of the best performance-per-watt of any personal computers to date, but there’s a down side for some users – the only operating system that’s officially supported is MacOS.

        Unofficially though? Developers have been working to port Linux to play well with Apple Silicon since shortly after the first Macs with M1 chips arrived, and they’ve made a lot of progress in recent months. The developers behind the Asahi Linux project say the operating system is now “usable as a basic Linux desktop” on Macs with Apple Silicon.

      • Developers finally get Linux running on an Apple M1-powered Mac

        This massive feat was achieved by having a bunch of drivers merged (or in review) for Linux 5.16, which includes drivers for the PCIe, USB-C PD, ASC mailbox, etc. If you're wondering if any of this is legal, don't worry. So long as no code is taken from macOS to build Linux support, it's legal to distribute.

        "With these drivers, M1 Macs are usable as desktop Linux machines! While there is no GPU acceleration yet, the M1's CPUs are so powerful that a software-rendered desktop is actually faster on them than on e.g., Rockchip ARM64 machines with hardware acceleration." wrote Hector "marcan" Martin, who's leading the development of Ashai Linux.

        Now that Linux is running, expect to see an official installer made available for download soon for anyone adventurous enough to try it themselves. Since there are still some missing features, however, tinker at your own risk.

        "Remember, there are still many missing bits (USB3, TB, camera, GPU, audio, etc.) as well as patchsets a bit too problematic to bundle as-is at this time (WiFi, which needs significant rewrites), so don't expect this to be anywhere near the polished experience that is the goal of our project. That said, we hope this will allow those willing to be on the absolute bleeding edge to get a taste for what running Linux on these machines is like—and, for some, this might be enough for production usage."

      • Intel Continues Optimizing Linux For Optane DC Persistent Memory Servers - Phoronix

        With the Linux 5.15 kernel there is a patch to benefit tiered memory systems with a focus on servers having persistent memory. That patch is demoting pages during page reclamation to slower tiers of memory such as Optane DC persistent memory. Intel continues building on that and other persistent memory kernel work for plumbing the kernel with optimized memory placement for these modern servers.

        Intel engineer Huang Ying sent out the latest patch series this week that tunes the Linux kernel's NUMA balancing behavior to optimize memory placement for memory tiering systems. These patches are further optimizing the kernel's dealing of pages in the presence of persistent memory while keeping the most important pages in DRAM.

      • Linux 5.16 To Add Intel Encrypted PXP, Alder Lake S Declared Stable & Ready - Phoronix

        A new batch of Intel kernel graphics driver code was mailed out today to DRM-Next for staging ahead of next month's Linux 5.16 kernel merge window. Lots of notable changes in this pull!

        This batch of code updates for the Intel DRM kernel driver in Linux 5.16 is bringing the following changes:

        - Intel's encrypted Protected Xe Path (PXP) is landing in mainline finally. Intel PXP works with Gen12 and newer as a hardware-protected session for clients on Xe Graphics with encrypted video memory and leveraging a trusted execution environment to protect these sessions from other clients. PXP on Linux has been in the works for a while but now is finally ready for mainline in Linux 5.16. The Mesa changes for PXP are pending and should be merged once the kernel bits are in mainline.

      • Graphics Stack

        • A Big Batch Of AMD Graphics Driver Updates Just Sent Out For Linux 5.16 - Phoronix

          Building off the earlier DRM-Next staged code from last month that brought initial DisplayPort 2.0 support and other feature work, another feature pull request was submitted today of additional AMD Radeon "AMDGPU" kernel driver changes slated for Linux 5.16.

          Alex Deucher has sent out another big batch of AMDGPU/AMDKFD driver updates destined for Linux 5.16. Feature work is beginning to wind down as the DRM-Next cutoff approaches ahead of next month's Linux 5.15 merge window while we'll see if any additional feature code tries to make it in ahead of time.

        • Radeon Gallium3D Picks Up A Nice Performance Optimization For iGPU/dGPU PRIME Setups - Phoronix

          The AMD Radeon Gallium3D driver code today landed a nice optimization for benefiting PRIME setups with integrated and discrete Radeon GPUs.

          With this latest code for Mesa 21.3-devel to the RadeonSI driver, copies from the discrete GPU to the integrated GPU for presentation on the screen are now done asynchronously. These async copies are done using the SDMA engine and in turn allows the discrete GPU to handle more work. An Async compute context is also used as a fallback to async SDMA copies. The patch summed it up quite simply, "Doing this copy using SDMA frees up the dGPU to do more interesting things while the copy is happening; for instance the rendering of the next frame."

        • X.Org Modesetting Driver Will Now Better Handle Multi-Montior Mixed-VRR Setups - Phoronix

          The xf86-video-modesetting DDX driver that is commonly in use for systems running an X.Org Server will soon find better support if you have a multi-monitor configuration where only some displays can support variable rate refresh (VRR / Adaptive-Sync / FreeSync).

          When the X.Org modesetting driver currently encounters a multi-monitor system where some displays are VRR capable and others not, the VRR-capable property was being set simply on whatever the last added DRM output could support. So depending upon whether the VRR-capable monitor was plugged in last or not would impact whether you could make use of it with this generic driver.

        • Mesa 21.3 Enables NGG Culling By Default For RDNA2 GPUs - Phoronix

          The Radeon Vulkan driver "RADV" within Mesa 21.3 is enabling NGG culling by default for Radeon RX 6000 series (RDNA2) GPUs and newer as another performance win.

          NGG culling was added to RADV this summer but initially only exposed as an opt-in feature via environment variable. This NGG-powered removal of unneeded triangles during rendering is also supported on RDNA1 / Navi 1x GPUs but is not being enabled by default -- our own tests with Navi 1x have confirmed the results to be a wash while the support is in good standing for the latest-gen GPUs.

        • AMD publishes GPUFORT as Open Source to address CUDA’s dominance

          NVIDIA dominates the parallel computing industry largely thanks to its own solution, CUDA. In response to this domain, AMD has published the source code of GPUFORT , a project that will be under Radeon Open eCosystem (ROCm) and that aims to offer a translation tool so that large code bases in CUDA can work outside of the closed ecosystem. of the green giant.

          The domain of CUDA and the fact that it is proprietary and owned by NVIDIA greatly limits the ability of developers to migrate to an alternative, so AMD has been working for a long time on mechanisms that help migrate specific CUDA code to interfaces compatible with its parallel computing stack supported by Radeon technology.

          Most of AMD’s efforts so far have focused on code written in C and C ++. GPUFORT, for its part, is to provide support for the translation from source to source ( source to source ) of CUDA Fortran and Fortran code based on OpenACC to OpenMP 4.5+ for execution on GPU or Fortran + HIP C ++ code .

    • Applications

      • KeenWrite – Java-based desktop text editor

        A text editor is software used for editing plain text files. It has many different uses such as modifying system configuration files, writing programming language source code, jotting down thoughts, or even making a grocery list.

        Whatever the level of sophistication of the editor, they typically have a common set of functionality, such as searching/replacing text, formatting text, undo/redo, importing files, as well as moving text within the file. However, some editors have interesting features. KeenWrite is an example of a text editor that stands out from the crowd.

      • TICKR Feed Reader: An Elegant RSS Feed Reader for Linux

        An RSS feed reader is a nifty tool that aggregates content from your favorite websites on the internet into a digestible format to help you keep up with their latest updates in one place.

        While there are several RSS feed readers to choose from on Linux, the one we're discussing today is rather unique. It's called TICKR, and it puts your feed updates in an easy-to-view manner on the desktop so you can see them on the fly.

        Here's a guide discussing TICKR and detailing the steps involved in installing and using it on Linux.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Four essential downloads for Linux administrators, and those who want to be one

        Linux is a crucial part of the modern digital world we live in, and with good reason: It's powerful, it can run on practically anything, and it's open source — meaning free. For those who know how to use it, Linux is a wonderful tool. For those who don't know how to use it, it's as obscure as ancient Aramaic.

        Luckily, it's not hard to master the basics of Linux, which are often enough to propel you toward mastery in no time at all. These four downloads represent some of the most essential things you need to know about Linux, like where to find support for various Linux distributions and related software, the 10 most important things to know if you want to become a Linux administrator, best practices for administering Linux and how to manage user accounts from the command line interface (CLI).

        That's not to say these downloads are only valuable for Linux admins-to-be. Linux experts can still need a refresher every once in a while, and these could be valuable additions to a pack of personal resources.

      • How to Install x11vnc Server on Fedora – TecAdmin

        Remote desktops can be used in a variety of ways to gain access to a computer for example VNC, RDP, ssh, XDMCP, ICA, and many others. The x11vnc is an example of a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) server that allows a remote client to connect to a computer running the x11vnc software and an X Window session by polling the X server’s frame buffer for updates.

        Remote desktops can come in very handy in many different ways. For example, you can access your office computer from home and even manage the entire IT infrastructure. There are many different situations where you will need the x11vnc tool to assist you.

        The x11vnc is one of the most widely used tools for remote desktops hence in this post, we will teach you how to install x11vnc on Fedora. The commands used are generic and can be used in any Linux distribution such as Ubuntu and Debian.

      • How to Compile & Install Python 3.10.0 from Source in Ubuntu 21.04, 21.10 | UbuntuHandbook

        This simple tutorial shows how to compile and install Python 3.10.0 or other certain Python version in Ubuntu.

        For Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, there’s well trusted “deadsnakes” team PPA that maintains all the Python packages. For non-LTS releases, e.g., Ubuntu 21.04 and Ubuntu 21.10, you may build the programming language package manually from the source tarball.

        NOTE: Ubuntu 21.04 has Python 3.10 beta1 in universe repository, remove it if installed before doing the steps below. For Ubuntu 21.10, Python 3.10 will be soon made into the universe repository, so you may skip or install a certain version (e.g., 3.8 or 3.7) via this tutorial.

      • €» GNU Linux Ubuntu – setup networking with netplan on bash terminal (dhcp+multiple fixed ips (virtual interfaces) on same physical interface) | dwaves.de

        remember that discussion about ever changing non-standard ways of defining network interfaces and ip addresses under /etc/network…

        well guess what, canonical just came up with a completely new config file format X-D (guess, everything is a yaml.yml now)

      • How to make snaps faster | Ubuntu

        A great user experience is (or at least, should be) an integral part of any software that involves user interaction. On the desktop, this starts with the application launch, and continues through the session. The overall time to completion of tasks as well as interactive responsiveness are a core element in this journey.

        If you’re a snap developer or publisher, the topic of speed may arise for various reasons. The differences in the overall architecture and principles of operation of snaps, in comparison to software deployed as Deb or RPM packages, can sometimes lead to a slower experience. This goes against the prime directive of desktop usage. In this article, we want to show you a number of methods and tools you can use to make your snaps snappy.

      • Ian's TechBlog: Installing Ubuntu Core onto 64-bit Bare Metal



        I have a re-purposed AMD64 laptop motherboard, ready to become an experimental Ubuntu Core server.

        It's in fine condition. You can see that it boots an Ubuntu LiveUSB's "Try Ubuntu" environment just fine. Attached to the motherboard is a new 60GB SSD for testing. The real server will use a 1TB HDD.

        But Ubuntu Core doesn't install on bare metal from a Live USB. It's still easy, though.

      • Using Salsa with contrib and non-free - linux.codehelp.co.uk

        OK, I know contrib and non-free aren't popular topics to many but I've had to sort out some simple CI for such contributions and I thought it best to document how to get it working. You will need access to the GitLab Settings for the project in Salsa - or ask someone to add some CI/CD variables on your behalf. (If CI isn't running at all, the settings will need to be modified to enable debian/salsa-ci.yml first, in the same way as packages in main).

      • List, Upload and Download files from an SFTP Server using golang

        In this guide we are going to explore how to use Golang script to do operations on an SFTP server.

        SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) is a file transfer protocol that leverages a set of utilities that provide secure access to a remote computer to deliver secure communications. It relies on SSH.

      • How to use this unique method of securing SSH - TechRepublic

        The other day I was thinking of ways to secure SSH that were a bit outside the norm. Let's face it, we've all configured SSH in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and /etc/ssh/ssh_config. We've blocked root login, we've set SSH to a non-standard port, we've installed fail2ban, and we've enabled SSH key authentication. What more can we do?

      • A Quick Guide to Printing on FreeBSD

        Drew Gurkowski shows how to quickly set up your printer with FreeBSD.

      • MySQL date format – what you need to know | FOSS Linux

        MySQL is derived from ‘My’- the cofounder’s daughter and SQL- Structured Query Language. It is an open-source type of relational database management system. This relational database system helps organize data into relatable tables, thereby enabling structural relations of different data sets.

        MySQL date is one of the temporal data types that can manage data values alongside other data types such as numeric data types, String data types, Boolean data types, date and time, and spatial data types.

        The DATE_FORMAT() function is used in MySQL to format date using the specified format value. For instance, if a date is provided, the function will format it concerning the specified parameters.

      • snap Vs .deb Package

        As the number of Linux applications grows, so does the concern about security. Even though there are few recorded Linux attack incidents, it is conceivable to be attacked by viruses, hackers, or malware.

        Because Linux is open-source, those problems are fixed faster, and the community may contribute to maintaining the Linux World ready for any bug or virus that appears. When installing a vulnerable application (or app), it may require libraries that are no longer accessible on that distro’s version. In this article, we’ll go through the key distinctions between.deb and.snap packages.

      • [Fixed] error: snap “package” not found

        Snap has grown in popularity among Linux users. Instead of using system packages, snap containerizes their dependencies. Each snap app is unaffected by whether or not a certain package is present on the system.

        Snap applications are simple to design and distribute for a variety of Linux distributions. Because snap programs package their dependencies in a bundle, they may be installed on any Linux distribution that supports snaps. Snap applications are an excellent way for novice Linux users to get past the learning curve.

        Snaps, like any other package manager, has simple commands for installing, removing, and updating snap packages. Make sure your distribution has snap installed and configured before installing a snap application. If not, use your distribution’s package manager to install snapd.

      • Lsyncd – Synchronize Local Directories with Remote Linux

        Lsyncd (Live Syncing Mirror Daemon) is a lightweight Linux solution for synchronizing remote and local directories. The use of this Linux solution does not affect the performance of your local filesystem in any way.

      • How To Install Ntopng on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Ntopng on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Ntopng is a free and open-source software for monitoring network traffic that provides a web interface for real-time network monitoring. While professional and enterprise editions of Ntopng have licensing requirements, the community edition has none. Ntopng supports various operating systems, such as Windows, BSD, Mac OS, Linux, and UNIX

        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 Ntopng Network Monitoring 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 Redis on Debian 11 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Redis on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Redis is an open-source (BSD licensed) in-memory database for storing data structure, caching, and as a message broker. Redis provides data structures such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets with range queries, bitmaps, geospatial indexes, and streams. Redis has built-in replication, Lua scripting, LRU eviction, transactions, and different levels of on-disk persistence, and provides high availability via Redis Sentinel and automatic partitioning with Redis Cluster

        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 Redis on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

      • How To Setup Apache, PHP & MongoDB in Ubuntu & Debian – TecAdmin

        MongoDB is a free open-source, schema-free, NoSQL database which is getting more popular day by day among web developers. It is a document-oriented database and is known for its processing speed.

        In order to use MongoDB for our projects, we will first need to install it on our system along with its dependencies and some other tools. In this post, we will learn to install and set up Apache, PHP, and MongoDB on Ubuntu and Debian operating systems.

      • How to Change Comment Color in Vim - Fix Unreadable Blue Color

        Are you annoyed about the comment color in vim? The dark blue color of the comment is often hard to read.

        In this tutorial, we learn how to change the comment color in Vim. There are few methods we can use to look vim comment very readable.

      • How to Install & Configure GitLab on Debian 11 Bullseye - LinuxCapable

        GitLab is a free and open-source web-based code repository for collaborative software development for DevOps, written in Ruby and Go programming languages. GitLab’s main motto is “Bring velocity with confidence, security without sacrifice, and visibility into DevOps success.” It is quite a popular alternative to GitHub providing wiki, issue-tracking, and continuous integration and deployment pipeline features, using an open-source license, developed by GitLab Inc.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install GitLab on your Debian 11 Bullseye system, along with how to get started by logging in with root so you can begin setting up GitLab to your liking or for your team’s requirements.

      • How to Install Brave Browser Stable, Beta, or Nightly on Fedora 34 / 35 - LinuxCapable

        Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. Brave is a privacy-focused Internet web browser, which distinguishes itself from other browsers by automatically blocking online advertisements and website trackers in its default settings. Brave has claimed its browser puts less strain on your computer’s performance than Google Chrome, regardless of how much you ask of it. Even with multiple tabs open at once, Brave uses less memory than Google Chrome-like, up to 66% less.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Brave on Fedora.

      • How to Install Google Chrome Stable, Beta, or Unstable on Fedora 34 / 35 - LinuxCapable

        Google Chrome is the most used Internet Explorer software on the earth, with a recent update in 2021 that Chrome is currently the primary browser of more than 2.65 billion internet users. However, as you would know, after installing Fedora, only Mozilla Firefox is packaged with the distribution but luckily, installing Google Chrome is a straightforward task.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Google Chrome on Fedora.

      • How to Install PostgreSQL and pgAdmin4 on Ubuntu 20.04 – VITUX

        If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to install PostgreSQL and pgAdmin4 in Ubuntu 20.04, this post is for you! We’ll walk you through the whole process step-by-step, so it’s easy for anyone to do.

        Postgres is an open-source, powerful relational database system that lets users create, edit, share, and store data quickly and flexibly. It supports all of SQL:2003 standards, which makes it great for storing any type of data. pgAdmin4 is a graphical user interface tool that allows users to manage their PostgreSQL databases from one place without having to use complicated command-line instructions or terminal commands like many other similar tools on the market offer.

      • How to Install Redis Server on Debian 11

        Redis is a free, open-source, cross-platform NoSQL, and in-memory Key-value data structure store, used as a database server, cache, and message broker. It is written in C and developed by Salvatore Sanfilippo. It provides replication features that help you to set up highly available clusters in your production environments.

        In this tutorial, I will explain how to install the Redis server on Debian 11.

      • How to Install Visual Studio Code (VS Code) on Fedora 34 / 35 [Ed: Can we stop promoting Microsoft proprietary software with surveillance and pro-GPL violations tools? Microsoft sites already do the promotion, 'Linux' sites ought not help them.]
      • How to Install Webmin in Ubuntu 21 - Unixcop

        Webmin is an open-source web control panel that allows you to administrate your Linux system through a web browser. With a few clicks, you can manage your users, configure the DNS, or tweak your web server. For those who are not big fans of the command line, this tool will make your server administration smooth and easily manageable.

        In this article you’ll install and configure Webmin on your server and secure access to the interface with a valid certificate from Let’s Encrypt. You’ll then use Webmin to add new user accounts, and update all packages on your server from the dashboard.

      • How to Install and Configure Postgres 14 on Centos 8

        In this guide we are going to install Postgresql 14 in Centos 8/Rocky Linux 8. This will also work in RHEL 8 and its derivatives.

        Postgresql is an open source object-relational database system with over 30 years of active development that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the Ingres database developed at the University of California, Berkeley. PostgreSQL is used as the primary data store or data warehouse for many web, mobile, geospatial, and analytics applications. PostgreSQL can store structured and unstructured data in a single product.

      • How to manage users with useradd in linux – Citizix

        In this guide we are going to explore how to use useradd to manage users in Linux. useradd allows you to add users in linux with specific properties, limitations, or comments.

        useradd command is a low-level utility that is used for adding/creating user accounts in Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

        Linux is a multi-user system, which means that more than one person can interact with the same system at the same time. These users needs to be created before they use the system.

      • Using golang to create jenkins credentials

        How do I create jenkins credentials using a golang script? In this blog article, we are going use GoJenkins library to create jenkins Username, String and SSH credentials.

      • How to run Jenkins using docker and docker-compose

        do I run Jenkins as a docker container? In this guide we are going to explore how to achieve that using docker and simplifying the process using docker compose.

        Docker is a set of platform as a service products that use OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers. Containers are isolated from one another and bundle their own software, libraries and configuration files; they can communicate with each other through well-defined channels.

      • How to Check Which Version of Postgres is Running/Installed

        What version of postgres client or server am I running?

        In this brief guide, we are going to explore how to check which version of Postgres is running either on your machine or in a postgres instance for both the client and the server versions.

      • Running Postgresql 14 with Docker and Docker-Compose

        In this guide we are going to explore how to run Postresql 14 Locally with docker and docker compose. This can be helpful if you want to run Postgresql locally without installing it in your server or if you want to run multiple versions of Postgresql seamlessly.

      • Using terraform to launch Digitaocean kubernetes cluster – Part 1

        In this guide we are going to explore how to launch Kubernetes instance in Digital Ocean.

        Digital Ocean provides a cost-effective, ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster in minutes so you can focus on building your application.

      • How to Set Up SSH Keys on Debian - Cloudbooklet

        There are 2 methods to access the SSH, one is by password based and other is key based. The SSH key based authentication is meant provide a secure way to access a server with private and public key.

        In this guide you are going to learn the following ways to secure your Debian machine.

      • How to add users to sudoers in Debian 11

        In Linux, sudo (super user do) is the command prefixed with any command to have the administrative rights temporarily (as an alternative to root). Whenever you want to access any system related settings or to update a system, edit the system files, you must log in as a “root” user in Linux to do so. Root users have the rights to perform any task in the system; however, sudo privileges can also be assigned to other users to act as a root.

        It is recommended to use sudo command carefully, as it has all admin rights so any misuse of this command may lead to several system’s problems. Debian is a well-known Linux distro and the latest release of this distro is Debian 11. The sudo user’s information resides in sudoers file, this file is in directory “/etc/sudoers”; the users included in sudoers file can perform all the tasks that a root can do.

        In this article, we will demonstrate the possible ways to add any user to sudoers file to assign sudo privileges to that user.

      • How to decommission a system: 3 keys to success | Enable Sysadmin

        It is always an exciting day for systems administrators when we get to decommission a system. It means one less resource to maintain and potentially a successful upgrade somewhere else in the environment.

        In our rational exuberance, however, we can't jump in and send the resource to the great data center in the sky. Too often, an "unused" system actually serves a heretofore undocumented business function, holds critical information that folks will need down the line, or provides cross-network connectivity that nobody on staff remembers configuring.

        Therefore, having a documented resource decommissioning plan is vital to making sure this process goes off without a hitch. I'll go through some of the steps to ensure a smooth decommissioning process.

      • How to install SSF2 1.3.1.1 Beta on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install SSF2 1.3.1.1 Beta on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • Data centre networking: what is SDN? | Ubuntu

        The recent contexts have shown that enterprises needed to take a different approach regarding their digital transformation and its prioritisation. They’ve experienced the need to run new configurations and operations remotely on their infrastructure. This quickly showed the benefits of automation solutions to run those changes from few central locations, which highly facilitated the task of systems and network admins. During the last decade enterprises have also been migrating to the cloud looking for quickly scalable infrastructures that the cloud service providers did take care to build and manage. Those network infrastructure capabilities in addition to a strong virtualisation approach, were key drivers to consider Software-Defined Networking (SDN) as a principal building-block of a wholly software-defined data center infrastructure.

        This blog is one of a series covering SDN and the journey to model-driven cloud infrastructures. Here, we are going to talk about software-defined networking, its evolution and the key benefits it brings to the data center and cloud industry leveraging the concept of intent-based networking. Let’s begin with what SDN is.

      • Install and Set-up ELK Code Physics Software on Ubuntu Linux

        Science becomes extra difficult when you have to work with large numbers, complex equations, or when you need fast calculations. But in the recent years, these problems have been considerably reduced thanks to the computers and more specifically, thanks to the open-source projects focused on bringing a better understanding and experience at the time of making computations.

        As a student of Physics, I use several specialized tools and most of them are open source. I am going to share one of them today which is called Elk code, an open source project focused on Solid State Physics.

        Though it is available in the Ubuntu repositories, there are several dependencies you need to explicitly install and configure.

      • Install XFCE Desktop on Debian 11

        Linux provides extensive support for several desktop environments like: GNOME, KDE 5, Unity, LXQt, . Moreover, desktop environments are majorly divided into two types: heavyweight and lightweight. Few desktop environments may look very interactive, but they might be ignored because they use more memory and processing power to run on Linux. For instance, GNOME and unity desktop environments fall in the heavyweight category whereas Xfce comes in the lightweight category, therefore it is better for older machines. In this article, the demonstration provides the installation of Xfce desktop environment on Debian 11:

      • This is how you can add five more years of life to your Ubuntu LTS install - Neowin

        In September, Canonical announced that it would be extending the Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) of both Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS by a further two years so that their total life reaches 10 years instead of eight. Canonical touts ESM as a paid product which it relies on for revenues, however, it’s actually possible to use ESM on three personal computers for free. Additionally, if you enable it, you get Livepatch on your system so you don’t have to restart for kernel updates.

      • What Version of Linux Am I Running? - Linux Nightly

        Asking “What version of Linux am I running?” could generate a few different answers. Do you want to know the version of the Linux kernel, or just the name of the Linux distribution that’s installed? We’ll show you how to find all the answers in this guide.

      • Mount Remote Filesystem Over SSH using SSHFS - kifarunix.com

        Follow through this tutorial to learn how to mount remote filesystem over SSH using SSHFS. sshfs is a filesystem client based on the SSH File Transfer Protocol.

    • Wine or Emulation

      • Wine 6.19
        The Wine development release 6.19 is now available.
        
        

        What's new in this release (see below for details): - IPHlpApi, NsiProxy, WineDbg and a few other modules converted to PE. - More HID joystick work. - Kernel parts of GDI moved to Win32u. - More work towards Dwarf 3/4 debug support. - Various bug fixes.

        The source is available from the following locations:

        https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/6.x/wine-6.19.tar.xz http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/wine/source/6.x/wine-6.19.tar.xz

        Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:

        https://www.winehq.org/download

        You will find documentation on https://www.winehq.org/documentation

        You can also get the current source directly from the git repository. Check https://www.winehq.org/git for details.

        Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list.
      • Wine 6.19 Continues Work On HID Joystick, PE Conversion

        Wine 6.19 is out as the latest bi-weekly development release of Wine as the developers work towards Wine 7.0 stable in early 2022.

        Wine allows for Windows applications and games to run on Linux and other platforms. Wine 6.18 in September enabled the HID joystick code by default while Wine 6.19 has continued improving that HID joystick support. Wine 6.19 has also continued the recent trend around converting more utilities to the PE (Portable Executable) format.

    • Games

      • Try out the new demo for the RTS game TFC: The Fertile Crescent on Steam | GamingOnLinux

        Available now until at least the end of EGX on October 10, you can try out the new demo for the Bronze Age RTS game TFC: The Fertile Crescent on Steam. This is the Steam version of the popular free game available on itch.io, with the Steam version planned to have many enhancements over the original.

        TFC is a classic base-building RTS inspired by the struggles of growth, advancement, and conquest in the cradle of civilization. Establish your village near fertile lands, and balance your food surplus against the size of your civilian and military might, as you build your village. Think of it kind-of like a pixel-art Age of Empires but with some unique mechanics.

      • Fly Dangerous is an open source love-letter to the Elite Dangerous racing community | GamingOnLinux

        Racing is apparently a thing people do in Elite Dangerous and so one developer has decided to make a game as a love-letter to the community called Fly Dangerous.

        The developer mentions that racing in Elite is not particularly accessible, so the idea with Fly Dangerous is to provide a "ground-up reimplementation of a similar-enough flight model to provide a training ground and common set of tools to track leaderboards, ghosts and general tom-foolery". Sounds like it could be fun and just recently Alpha 6 was released adding in a new ship, customization for ships, a new biome map and the start of upgrades for the Time Trial mode to have some actual maps and progression.

      • Children of Morta: Ancient Spirits gives you a new character with two different forms | GamingOnLinux

        Children of Morta: Ancient Spirits is the brand new expansion that's out now from Dead Mage and 11 bit studios, sounds like it's pretty great too. I still can't get over how good the art is.

        Introducing Yajouj’Majouj, a new playable character only available in the Family Trials mode. This character has two different forms allowing you to quickly switch between, allowing you to combine different attack types together.

      • More Fallout New Vegas bugs on Wine with Lutris. The New Vegas Anti Crash mod fixes things, and is also compatible with Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. – BaronHK's Rants

        So, my character on Fallout New Vegas got further into the wasteland and the game started freezing and stuttering every 10-20 minutes of gameplay.

        [...]

        However, as with most Bethesda titles, Fallout New Vegas was infamous over the years for crashing to the desktop on Windows, and not even in a way where you could pin it down entirely and say “Oh well, that’s where it started!”, because Windows itself changes internally.

        It’s really funny, because anti-GNU/Linux trolls say that GNU/Linux changes underneath and maybe some compiled code doesn’t behave as you might expect years down the road, and that Windows is so great.

        The truth is that unless an OS was to stop being developed entirely, including security patches, there would be no way to ever fully guarantee 100% compatibility forever.

      • GT210 Nvidia card for old workhorse PC

        When I say "HP", it is really a mixed-breed. Bought it second hand from a guy who had put it together as a gaming machine. HP motherboard with i5 CPU, 16GB RAM, UEFI-BIOS. Pre-USB3, so back then added a USB3 adapter card.

      • Valve REALLY doesn't want you opening your Steam Deck! - Invidious

        Valve released a video warning off their potentially deadly Steam Deck. It's dangerous to go alone, so use their video as your guide.

      • Metroid Dread: Experience the Fear … With Emulation!

        Ah, the beautiful month of October, probably my favorite month of the year. The temperature outside is just right; not too hot, not too cold. The tourist season is over. The month when most of my family members were married.

        What’s even better with this particular October of 2021, however, is that it’s been quite the month as far as game releases. Just this week we had Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (review on that coming real soon), Far Cry 6 for FPS fans, and today marks the release of Metroid Dread. The curious part of me, of course, wanted to test to see how well Metroid Dread would run with Ryujinx, my preferred Switch emulator for Linux.

      • RC model flying simulator Wings is now available for Linux | GamingOnLinux

        While celebrating the first anniversary of their game, Kitchen Sink Games have released a Linux version of their RC model flying simulator Wings.

        Not one we've been able to try yet so here's what the developers say: "Wings let you experience the thrill of RC model flying from the comfort of your own home. The perfect training tool for learning to fly, or to enhance your racing skills. With online multiplayer and offline modes. We think this is the best online flight simulator experience.".

      • Closed Hands is a deep work of interactive fiction following a terror attack | GamingOnLinux

        Closed Hands is an experimental work of interactive fiction from PASSENGER, it's recently jumped over from itch.io to Steam. For the Steam release it comes with some exclusive extras like a developer commentary, a full soundtrack, an ebook of the story and access to a library of original artwork, sketches, and example Ink scripting files.

        The story follows the lead-up and aftermath of a terror attack in a fictional UK city, as you follow five main characters. With the gameplay progressing through a free-form fragmented narrative, it allows you to make your own path through the story with it going backwards and forwards in time. Part of the aim is to "challenge wider preconceptions users have about video game storytelling" and help players "understand the complex effect extremism has on people’s perceptions of cultures and communities".

      • Kröwns and Daggers is another big free upgrade for Northgard out now | GamingOnLinux

        Kröwns and Daggers expands the ties between clans while also adding in a whole new neutral faction to Northgard.

        Featuring a new Diplomacy screen that blends together all new interactions with both clans and neutral factions. If you want to improve relations with neutral factions you can now build an offering well, Dwarves have entered the lands as the new additional neutral faction and even new spying mechanics.

      • Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Review - Boiling Steam

        Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (NASB) is a Super Smash Bros.-style platform fighter for Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. It’s developed in collaboration with Ludosity — the folks behind Slap City — and Fair Play Labs, published by GameMill Entertainment. Duke it out as one of your favorite Nickelodeon characters, ranging from shows you may have watched in the 90s to some of the modern day shows — Spongebob and Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants, Ren & Stimpy from the somewhat controversial show bearing the same name, Helga from Hey Arnold!, Reptar from Rugrats, Zim from Invader Zim, Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, CatDog from said show, among many others.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDE Gear 21.12 releases schedule finalized

          It is available at the usual place https://community.kde.org/Schedules/KDE_Gear_21.12_Schedule

          Dependency freeze is in four weeks (November 4) and Feature Freeze a week after that, make sure you start finishing your stuff!

        • KDE neon 5.22.5 - When you come undone

          This is a short review, yes, yes, it is. But, we learned something. KDE neon is really fast. KDE neon is pretty. KDE neon 5.22.5 also brings in regressions, which I find super-annoying. We're talking the titlebar theming, we're talking network manager, we're talking scaling issues, yet again. Steam? Yup, that's another, entirely unnecessary hurdle for the common user.

          On their own, these problems wouldn't be an issue. Except, toss a D&D 20-sided cube, and you get your random damage points, and that's about as arbitrary as issues that keep coming back into an otherwise solid and fun distro. I know that KDE neon is a test bed, but the User Edition is meant to be stable and robust enough. Overall, I am happy, but this wasn't the best Plasma experience. In fact, I'm on a jinx ride. Two out of two for a less than satisfactory outcome. Now, I need to cry. The end.

        • KDE Connect vs. Warpinator: Which Is Best for File Transfers?

          Cloud storage has made the task of transferring files wirelessly simple enough to happen automatically in the background. But is it really worth giving some company access to your files just to move them from one machine to another, often in the same building? Sometimes even the same room!

          On Linux, a few apps help you transfer files between PCs in a wireless way that’s still private and secure. Two of the most popular are KDE Connect and Warpinator. Which one might you want to use, and when might you use it? Let's find out.

    • Distributions

      • Reviews

        • elementary OS 6 Odin Review - Beautiful and Empowering

          It's a review of elementary OS 6, codenamed Odin, a computer operating system that proudly released with the slogan Thoughtful, capable, and ethical replacement to Windows and MacOS that's now empowering modern laptops that ship worldwide. Let's see OS 6 through this review.

      • New Releases

        • MX Linux 21 RC Candidate Available For Testing

          The MX Linux development team has released the RC images for MX Linux 21 for testing purposes.

          MX Linux is a midweight Linux distribution that aims to be simple and stable. The distribution is available in three different flavors: Xfce, KDE Plasma, and Fluxbox. This new iteration of the distribution is based on Debian 11 (Bullseye), which includes all of the latest components and security patches.

          All three editions include a new mx-comfort theme and the developers have worked diligently to clear away as many bugs as possible for the release candidate.

        • Feren OS 2021.10 Comes with Some Visual Improvements

          Feren OS 2021.10 is a Linux distribution with focus on visual aesthetics, user interface and user experience.

          Feren OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distro running KDE Plasma. And not only does it run KDE Plasma but it has a bunch of thing added to it to make the experience better for a new user, including layouts, wonderful pre-made theming and much more.

          For a long time Feren OS was based on top of Linux Mint, but since last year, it has gone back to its original upstream distro, Ubuntu. Feren OS comes with a bunch of preinstalled layouts, but there is one which turns KDE Plasma into a Windows 11 look like and it is called “Doors”.

        • Feren OS 2021.10 Release Introduces a New Firefox Configuration and UI Improvements - It's FOSS News

          Feren OS is a Linux/GNU distribution based on Ubuntu.

          The latest 2021.10 release, codenamed ‘Gallium’, presents new features and changes. Let’s take a look at them.

        • Zorin OS 16: Better GNOME With Much More Simplicity

          Zorin OS is one of the more endearing Linux operating systems available for both Linux veterans and computer users transitioning from Windows. But despite some stellar improvements delivered in version 16, released Aug. 17, Zorin OS falls short of offering wider user appeal to those looking beyond Windows-like computing.

          However, this latest upgrade brings several improvements and a few new features to give a satisfying Linux experience that tries to be something else. That is, of course, if you are enamored with a Windows-like desktop interface or crave another rendition of simplifying the GNOME desktop.

          Since its inception in July 2009, Zorin has seen its mission as providing a Windows clone experience as far as the look and feel of the desktop’s design is concerned. That started to change with its version 15 release in March 2020.

          Zorin OS co-founder Artyom Zorin spearheaded efforts to lean more heavily on GNOME underpinnings in this independent Ubuntu-based Linux distribution. I found Zorin 15 to be a worthy operating system filled with refinements that made using the GNOME interface much better than typical GNOME retread distros.

      • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • openSUSE Tumbleweed Now Offering GNOME 41

          The rolling release edition of openSUSE, Tumbleweed, now offers the latest GNOME 41 desktop environment in the Tumbleweed repositories.

          While openSUSE is known for their friendliness towards the KDE desktop, this week’s openSUSE Tumbleweed updates have made GNOME 41 available on this rolling-release distribution.

          GNOME 41 is the latest iteration of the popular desktop but has yet to reach the majority of Linux distributions. Fortunately, those anxious to give the desktop a try need to look no further than openSUSE Tumbleweed, that includes the latest and greatest software updates.

          The GNOME 41 provides significant improvements for developers, a new developer documentation website, new features in the Builder IDE and GTK4 enhancements. The software center also has a new look and makes it easier to browse and discover apps.

        • GNOME, Salt Update in Tumbleweed

          Mesa’s 21.2.3 update focused on bug fixing, which arrived in snapshot 20211005. The 3D graphics package fixed a significant performance drop on the Radeon HD 8400 graphics card. Mozilla Thunderbird 91.1.2 now warns if an S/MIME encrypted message includes BCC recipients. The email client update also fixed delivery status notifications, which were only showing for the first recipient. Another email package, mailutils, updated to version 3.13 and fixed semantics of mail sending and saving commands. PipeWire 0.3.38 made various bluetooth compatibility improvements and the audio/video package for Linux now has better description service files for systemd. The only major-version update in the snapshot was sysvinit 3.00. The sysvinit package, which is for controlling the startup, running, and shutdown of a system, now provides better device detection of bootlogd. The btrfs file system updated to 5.14.1; the updated version fixes parsing of compression (option -c) and added a workaround for old kernels when reading zone sizes. Other packages to update in the snapshot were exim 4.95, Kernel-firmware 20210928 and more.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Flatpak 1.12 Released with Better Support for the Steam Linux Runtime Mechanism, More

          Flatpak 1.12 comes eight months after Flatpak 1.10 as the new stable series that introduces numerous new features and improvements. Highlights include better support for the Steam Linux Runtime mechanism, allowing Steam to launch games with its own container runtime as /usr.

          In fact, this new feature allows any subsandbox to have a different /usr and/or /app. Also new is support for TUI (text-based user interface) programs like GNU Debugger, support for Flatpak instances of the same app-ID to share their /tmp or /dev/shm directories, as well as their $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.

        • Flatpak 1.12 Released - Better Sub-Sandbox Handling To Benefit Steam - Phoronix

          Flatpak 1.10.4 arrived to fix a security vulnerability in the portal code that as a result of some new Linux kernel system calls not being blocked by SECCOMP rules, applications could create sub-sandboxes to confuse the sandboxing verification mechanisms of the portal. The vulnerability disclosure explained, "An anonymous reporter discovered that Flatpak apps with direct access to AF_UNIX sockets such as those used by Wayland, Pipewire or pipewire-pulse can trick portals and other host-OS services into treating the Flatpak app as though it was an ordinary, non-sandboxed host-OS process, by manipulating the VFS using recent mount-related syscalls that are not blocked by Flatpak's denylist seccomp filter, in order to substitute a crafted /.flatpak-info or make that file disappear entirely."

        • Looking back on 30 years of Linux history with Red Hat's Sebastian Hetze

          The Linux kernel and the second version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2) turned 30 this year. As part of that major milestone, we asked Red Hatters who have been using or contributing to Linux since the early days about their experiences. What was it like contributing to Linux, what was it like using it? Could you imagine that Linux would have the impact it's had on the world up until now?

          Today we’re talking to Sebastian Hetze who has been using Linux since the early 1990s. Hetze joined Red Hat in 2012 and is now a Principal Solution Architect on the German Enterprise Sales team.

        • IBM CEO discusses Red Hat growth and its role in the company's hybrid cloud strategy - Invidious
        • 3 more phases of DevSecOps transformation | Opensource.com

          Making a major operations transition must be a long-term and well-planned process. Because DevSecOps is an important step in the DevOps journey for your organization, you are more likely to find success if you introduce and implement your transformation in phases.

          In my previous article, I explained the first three phases of making this change. This article presents three additional phases of DevSecOps transformation you must work through to achieve your goals. Finishing these phases requires that you foster team collaboration to carry your organization through security changes, going live with DevSecOps, and putting the tools in place for continuous learning and iteration of your DevSecOps toolchain and processes.

        • IT leadership: 5 traits of truly digital leaders | The Enterprisers Project

          Every organization can make standalone digital investments, launch many digital transformation efforts, or even hire a team of digital executives to help them achieve digital nirvana. But actions made in isolation without fully adopting what it takes to become a digital business are destined to fail. The fact is, there’s no silver bullet for building a digital organization, nor is there a clear deadline or desired end state.

          To truly be digital – instead of just doing digital things – a business becomes a different version of itself by adopting a complete mindset and operational shift, preparing to adapt to change continuously. Becoming a digital business means accepting that change is the rule, not the exception – and that this constant state of change is the opportunity for them to stand out, not fall behind. And it takes an exceptional team. No single individual or IT leader can do it alone.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • 10 Best Icon Themes for Ubuntu (2021 Edition)

          Icon theme packs and theme sets are the easiest way to adapt the look and feel of your operating system to your taste. By extension, it is also the quickest. What is convenient about employing icon themes is the fact that you need not make any significant changes to your machine. Just install the icon pack you want (preferably along with a fitting theme), set your wallpaper, and that’s it.

          Today’s focus is on the 10 best exceptional icon themes you can apply to your Ubuntu or similar distro irrespective of your desktop environment.

        • Provisioning bare metal Kubernetes clusters with Spectro Cloud and MAAS | Ubuntu

          Bare metal Kubernetes (K8s) is now easier than ever. Spectro Cloud has recently posted an article about integrating Kubernetes with MAAS (Metal-as-a-Service.

          In the article, they describe how they have created a provider for the Kubernetes Cluster API for Canonical MAAS (Metal-as-a-Service). This blog describes briefly the benefits of bare metal K8s, the challenges it presents, and how the work by Saad Malik and the team from Spectro Cloud solves those challenges.

          The K8s Cluster API provides an abstraction layer for provisioning to underlying infrastructure such as servers and VMs. Examples of providers include public cloud providers. Now thanks to Spectro Cloud, there is also a provider for MAAS.

        • Why your snap’s name, description, summary may have been changed, and what we’re doing about it | Ubuntu

          As you may be aware, last month, a few users reported seeing some of their snaps’ metadata (description, name, summary) being overwritten by what seemed to be old information. On closer inspection, this affected snaps for which the authors had modified the metadata via the Web publisher interface, and the metadata had reverted to the version included within the snap, which may be shorter or out-of-date.

          Upon investigation, we found that a feature that was announced in June and actually enabled on August 25th is to blame for this behavior. This feature allows publishers to use the metadata included in the snap, when a build of the snap is released to the stable channel. However, it does not (or should not) upload any new metadata information if said metadata has been manually updated by the publisher through the Web interface of the Snap Store.

        • Hate Snaps? LOL! How About Now? - Invidious

          One of the main complaints from the Snap haters is that there is only one Snap Store and it is run by Canonical. Well...not anymore. In this video I will introduce 'lol', an open-source alternative to snap that uses its own snap server 'lol-server' which is separate from the official Snap Store. And you could fork 'lol-server' to create your own Snap server if you so choose. ERRATA: BTW, the command "./lol refresh lol" did place 'lol' in the PATH (/snap/bin/lol) so simply typing 'lol' without the './' should work after that.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Raspberry Pi Launches New Website For Its Hardware

        In a surprise move, Raspberry Pi today announced that a new website has been created to support Raspberry Pi devices, sales and documentation. This marks a change from a single website from 2011 which served both educational outreach and sales. Another change is Raspberry Pi’s social media presence, with the original Raspberry Pi twitter account focusing on the hardware, and another representing the charity and educational outreach of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

        Raspberry Pi Trading and the Raspberry Pi Foundation have long been separate entities. Raspberry Pi Trading is responsible for the hardware engineering and sales of Raspberry Pi while Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity that provides educational outreach such as learning resources and teacher outreach program “Picademy”.

        In two blog posts, one written by Liz Upton, executive director of communications for Raspberry Pi Trading, and another from Philip Colligan chief executive of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, we learn that the division is a necessary step as the user base grows and their requirements change. The new raspberrypi.com website aims to serve those interested in the Raspberry Pi hardware and software and provides documentation and links to resellers offering official Raspberry Pi boards and accessories.

      • GPD XP is a modular handheld Android gaming device (coming soon)

        Chinese device maker GPD has made a name for itself in recent years with a series of handheld gaming PCs that run Windows. But GPD actually got its start making Android devices, and the company is sort of going back to its roots with the new GPD XP handheld game system… but it’s also looking to the future.

      • Retro Dreamer G4A CM4 by My Retro Game Case

        Build Yourself!!! Customize it!!! Play with it!!! Retro handheld Raspberry Pi cm4 game console.

      • Compact Whiskey Lake system offers optional dual-CAN module

        Kontron’s Linux-friendly “KBox A-150-WKL” embedded PC has an 8th Gen Whisky Lake CPU, up to 64GB DDR4, 2x GbE, 2x DP, 2x COM, 4x USB 3.1 Gen2, 3x M.2, and optional CAN and DIN-rail.

        Kontron has announced a fanless embedded computer with optional DIN-rail support that runs Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or Win 10 IoT on Intel’s 8th Gen Whiskey Lake processors. The KBox A-150-WKL is said to be based on a 3.5-inch SBC, which is likely Kontron’s 3.5″-SBC-WLU. The 180 x 134 x 50mm system is designed for fieldbus environments and process control, as well as for industrial firewalls and other embedded applications.

      • Groovy TV Gets A Very Brady Makeover
      • LEONARDO: The Hopping, Flying Bipedal Robot | Hackaday

        LEONARDO, a somewhat tortured name derived from “LEgs ONboARD drOne,” is actually just what it appears to be: a quadcopter with a set of legs. It comes to us from Caltech’s Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies, and the video below makes it easy to see what kind of advantages a kinematic mash-up like this would offer. LEO combines walking and flying to achieve a kind of locomotion that looks completely alien, kind of a bouncy, tip-toeing step that really looks like someone just learning how to walk in high heels. The upper drone aspect of LEO provides a lot of the stabilization needed for walking; the thrust from the rotors is where that bouncy compliance comes from. But the rotors can also instantly ramp up the thrust so LEO can fly over obstacles, like stairs. It’s also pretty good at slacklining and skateboarding, too.

      • LEONARDO, the Bipedal Robot, Can Ride a Skateboard and Walk a Slackline

        Researchers at Caltech have built a bipedal robot that combines walking with flying to create a new type of locomotion, making it exceptionally nimble and capable of complex movements.

        Part walking robot, part flying drone, the newly developed LEONARDO (short for LEgs ONboARD drOne, or LEO for short) can walk a slackline, hop, and even ride a skateboard. Developed by a team at Caltech's Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST), LEO is the first robot that uses multi-joint legs and propeller-based thrusters to achieve a fine degree of control over its balance.

      • PICMG spec standardizes links between IoT controllers and sensors

        PICMG has ratified an “IoT.1” firmware spec for standardizing plug-and-play communications between IoT controllers and sensors and effecters. The spec works with PICMG’s recent microSAM MCU module form factor.

        PICMG, which is known primarily for its COM Express standards, has released its first draft of a firmware spec for Internet of Things connectivity at the sensor level. The IoT.1 spec is primarily concerned with microcontroller connections with sensors. However, starting with IoT.2, the spec will extend upward to industrial controllers and IoT gateways that runs Linux or Windows on COM Express modules and other PICMG form factors.

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • LED Matrix Hourglass Knows Which Way Is Up | Hackaday

          The unit uses an Arduino (with ATMEGA328P) and an MPU-6050 accelerometer breakout board to sense orientation and movement, and the rest is just a matter of software. Both the Arduino and the MPU-6050 board are readily available and not particularly expensive, and the LED matrix displays are just 8×8 arrays of red/green LEDs, each driven by a HT16K33 LED controller IC.

        • Instantly test your cables by plugging them into this device | Arduino Blog

          Cables come in a wide variety of styles and attempting to diagnose a potential fault in one of their tiny wires can be tricky, especially without access to fancy test equipment. To combat this problem, TechKiwiGadgets created a small device called the Touch Screen Cable Tracer, which has several varieties of connectors on both ends that allow for a USB and RJ45 cable to be plugged in and subsequently tested.

          The board selected for this project was an Arduino Mega due to its large amount of RAM and GPIO pins. Placed on top of this was an ILI9325 2.8” TFT screen, which shows the menu for the cable tracing device and the current state of the attached cable. TechKiwiGadgets also designed, fabricated, and assembled a custom cable tracer shield that snaps onto the Arduino and exposes a mirrored set of connectors on either end.

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Open Source Tax Software For Filling US Taxes

        Open source software can be useful for all types of tasks, even filling tax forms if you are a US resident.

        Taxes in the United States are a little bit complicated compared to other countries, and there are federal taxes and state taxes, and one will need to fill many different forms – depending on their current financial status – and submit them routinely so that they don’t get accused with tax evasion or tax fraud.

        Typically, people may hire some 3rd-party expert to help them in the process, or do it by their own. If they are doing it by their own, then they might depend on the help of typical proprietary tax software such TurboTax.

        However, open source alternatives to TurboTax exist, and in today’s article we’ll be seeing two of them.

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • Old Thunderbird installations will be upgraded to Thunderbird 91 via automatic updates now

            The Thunderbird team released two new versions of the open source desktop email client in the past two weeks. Thunderbird 91.1.2 was a smaller bug fix update for all client versions, Thunderbird 91.2.0, a security update that also included bug fixes.

            Particularly of note for Thunderbird users who are still using Thunderbird 78.x is that the team has lifted the upgrade block. Previous releases of Thunderbird 91 were not offered to devices running Thunderbird 78.x via the email client's automatic update feature.

          • Reducing the Overhead of Profiling Firefox Sleeping Threads – Mozilla Performance

            Firefox includes its own profiler: Visit profiler.firefox.com to enable it, and the user documentation is available from there.

            The main advantages compared with using a third-party profiler, are that it’s supplied with Firefox, it can capture screenshots, it understands JavaScript stacks, and Firefox is adding “markers” to indicate important events that may be useful to developers.

            Its most visible function is to capture periodic “samples” of function call stacks from a number of threads in each process. Threads are selected during configuration in about:profiling, and can range from a handful of the most important threads, to all known threads.

            This sampling is performed at regular intervals, by going through all selected threads and suspending each one temporarily while a sample of its current stack is captured (this is known as “stack walking”). This costly sampling operation can have a non-negligible impact on how the rest of the Firefox code runs, this is the “overhead” of the Profiler. In order to be able to sample as many threads as possible with the smallest impact, there is ongoing work to reduce this overhead.

          • Lots to see in Firefox 93! - Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog

            Firefox 93 comes with lots of lovely updates including AVIF image format support, filling of XFA-based forms in its PDF viewer and protection against insecure downloads by blocking downloads relying on insecure connections.

            Web developers are now able to use static initialization blocks within JavaScript classes, and there are some Shadow DOM and Custom Elements updates. The SHA-256 algorithm is now supported for HTTP Authentication using digests. This allows much more secure authentication than previously available using the MD5 algorithm.

      • Programming/Development

        • 3 new features of the latest OpenPGP.js version

          OpenPGP.js is a cryptography library that implements the OpenPGP standard, most commonly used for email encryption. ProtonMail, Mailvelope, and FlowCrypt all use OpenPGP.js, to name a few. That means the OpenPGP.js library encrypts millions of users' messages.

          The OpenPGP standard, first published in the 1990s, like almost anything, requires maintenance and updating for both security and usability. A "crypto refresh" of the standard is in the works, which adds modern encryption algorithms and deprecates outdated ones. To improve usability, various email applications now allow users to seamlessly encrypt their communication—without managing their keys or those of their contacts.

          First released in 2014, OpenPGP.js began based on an early prototype called GPG4Browsers, which is based on several scripts by Herbert Hanewinkel (among other contributors). The second version of OpenPGP.js, released in 2016, was completely reworked to use Uint8Arrays instead of strings (which significantly increased its performance) and modern ES6 modules rather than CommonJS modules internally. Versions 3 and 4, both released in 2018, added support for Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) and streaming, respectively.

        • GCC, Clang[d], LSP client, Kate and variadic macro warnings, a short story

          Kate has had an LSP plugin for sometime now, which uses Clangd. It's a great plugin that brings many code navigation/validation features, akin to those available in Qt Creator and KDevelop.

          So naturally since I got it to work, I've been using it. At some point I found out about the Diagnostics tab in the LSP Client tool view in Kate, which displays useful information; however I also saw that it was plagued by a spam of the following warnings...

        • GCC 12 Enables Auto-Vectorization For -O2 Optimization Level - Phoronix

          The change merged today is enabling the auto-vectorizer at the -O2 optimization level rather than only at -O3 and above. The auto-vectorizer is enabled by default with -O2 and using its "very cheap" cost model. The very cheap model enables vectorization if the scalar iteration count is a multiple of four, it is the "cheapest" of these cost models. Meanwhile the default cost model for vectorization at -O3 is "dynamic" for having more checks to try to determine if a vectorized code path will be faster.

        • Jon Chiappetta: Reddit Refresher Javascript Bookmark
        • Dirk Eddelbuettel: RcppGSL 0.3.10: Small Updatex



          A new release 0.3.10 of RcppGSL is now on CRAN. upload](https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2020/06/21#rcppgsl_0.3.8). The RcppGSL package provides an interface from R to the GNU GSL by relying on the Rcpp package.

          This release brings a requested configure.ac update (just like RQuantLib yesterday and littler two days ago, along with the at-work tiledb update today). It also adds a small testing improvement. No user-visible changes, no new features. Details follow from the NEWS file.

        • Rust

  • Leftovers

    • Education

      • School World Order with John Klyczek

        Whitney is joined by professor, author and Unlimited Hangout contributor John Klyczek to discuss how teachers unions and the US education system are selling out to Big Tech as well as the oligarch class and their long-standing plans to exploit students to advance the 4th Industrial Revolution. Originally published on 10/05/21.

    • Integrity/Availability

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • DDNS with Hetzner DNS

        Some of the services I host are hosted behind dynamic DNS. There are lots of services to automatically update the dns records if the IP changes, but most of them are not free or require regular confirmation of the domain.

        I wanted to have a solution that is as standard as possible, so ideally without any CNAME aliases pointing to a subdomain of a DDNS provider.

        Luckily, Hetzner has a free DNS server hosting with a nice API. So what I ended up doing was regularly sending requests to the Hetzner DNS API to update the IP-address To reduce the amount of requests going to hetzner, the request is only sent when the IP really changed. The IP can be fetched from an external service like Ipify or a very simple selfhosted service if you have another server that is reachable on the internet.



Recent Techrights' Posts

It's FOSS? No, It's SPAM.
Another sellout
Techrights is Officially an Adult
this site's eighteenth anniversary
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part IX
By Dr. Andy Farnell
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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 05/12/2024: Formaldehyde and Cancer, US and China Boycotting One Another
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/12/2024: Hermeticism, Living in the Shell, and More
Links for the day
At the OSI, Microsoft Operative (Funded by Microsoft) Promotes Proprietary Software of Microsoft
The OSI is deeply corrupt. The good news is, it's barely hiding it anymore.
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
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)