The first prediction made in January was that the world would emerge from the depths of the pandemic, and that in-person events would return. Needless to say, things didn't quite work out that way. The pandemic is still very much with us (and possibly about to take another turn for the worse) and, while a few in-person gatherings did take place toward the end of the year, most Linux events are still being held online. The free-software community does still appear to be holding up well, though; it may be true that staying home and interacting with our screens is all we ever wanted to do in the first place.
The prediction that support for CentOS 8 would end was, obviously, obvious; that is still scheduled to happen at the end of this year. Tied to that prediction was a suggestion that, in fact, CentOS 8 Stream might turn out to be good enough for many users, and perhaps even better for some. The lack of "CentOS 8 Stream broke my production system" stories suggests that may have come true, at least to an extent, though it is hard to know for sure.
We also included the prediction that there would be attempts to recreate old-style CentOS 8; given that those attempts were already underway at the time, we cannot claim credit for a lot of foresight. We highlighted Rocky Linux as the highest-profile effort, but lamented its lack of public discussions. Rocky Linux is still out there, and some public mailing lists have been added, but anybody looking for insights in the rocky-devel archives will be disappointed. Meanwhile, AlmaLinux appears to have stolen the spotlight and seems to be doing well, though its communication channels are not particularly friendly to casual browsers. In any case, the prediction that "most or all" of the CentOS 8 recreation efforts were likely to fail does not appear to have been borne out, so far at least.
Back at the beginning of 2020, it was predicted that retirements would increase during this decade. In 2021, the prediction was that retirements would increase over the next couple of years. It is happening and LWN is no exception. I am retiring at the end of this year after more than 20 years with LWN. So who am I and how did I get here? To some, I'm a name at the bottom of some LWN page. To a few, I'm the one that reminds them when their LWN group subscription is about to expire. You might have even met me at a conference. Not that I have been to very many. Mostly I tend to be quietly in the background watching the LWN mailbox, looking for brief items and quotes of the week (sorry I haven't found much lately), proofreading articles, managing subscriptions, and more. But I'm older than most of you and this is my last LWN weekly edition. Getting here is a bit of story.
I got my first paying job in 1968 when I was in my late teens. It had nothing to do with computers. It was 10 years later when I decided to study computers and programming. After graduating from high school I had various, low-paying odd jobs, until finally I was ready for more education. I started going to Colorado Mountain College, located near Glenwood Springs, in the mid-1970s. I took a lot of math and physics classes, skied in the winter, and rafted the Colorado River in the summer. Just before I graduated in 1978, I had a class where one assignment was to write a program in BASIC. I forget what kind of computer it was; an early type of PC that belonged to one of the professors. It was my first encounter with programming a computer and I wanted to learn more; something that could lead to a real career.
I decided to take a year off and then go to the University of Colorado (CU) and study computers. If I had any doubts about that decision, they were quenched after spending the winter shoveling snow in the little ski resort town of Snowmass Village. One week the high temperature was -20 F. Another week it snowed so much that all I did was shovel the same staircase over and over and couldn't keep up. Cold and snow was replaced by spring cleanup, when the snow melts away and reveals lots of trash and lost items; the $100 bill was a nice find, but mostly it's picking up trash. Then the boss offered me a job as a manager and in the conversation that followed he told me "no woman in the world is worth $5/hour, ever". While the two summers spent working for the Snowmass Village golf course were more pleasant and I did get a raise to $5/hour before I left, I wanted a better paying office job for the future.
System76’s Kudu laptop features a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920Ãâ1080) matte finish display with 144Hz refresh rate and it’ss powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, running at 3.3 GHz and up to 4.6 GHz, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, up to 64 GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM, and up to 4TB M.2 SSD storage.
Looking for a new high-end laptop for your Linux needs? System76, makers of Pop!_OS have teased their latest with the Kudu that blends together the worlds of AMD and NVIDIA.
"The Kudu laptop is for expert multitaskers. The rub-belly-pat-head types. The Mach 12 errand runners. The kind of thinker who can open 10 doors with 1 makeshift key.
Whatever your missions, get them done faster with the Kudu laptop. Between the H-class CPU and 3000-Series NVIDIA graphics, you’ll be the ultimate conductor in a multitasking concerto." — System76.
2021 was a pretty awful year but what it was great for was criticism of the Linux desktop status quo, so let's take that criticism into 2022 and improve the Linux desktop.
We remember former co-host, Tom. We have several submissions about file permissions, Linux recommendations for different types of computer users, help for when sound levels drop, and advice on distro hopping. Bhikhu's suggestion: /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 ntfs defaults,noauto,fmask=133,dmask=022,comment=x-gvfs-show 0 0 /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2 ntfs defaults,noauto,fmask=111,dmask=000,comment=x-gvfs-show 0 0
GnuPG has some great news, Libadwaita 1.0 has arrived and we share our thoughts, plus a big batch of updates from the Matrix project.
There are some parts of the kernel where even the most experienced and capable developers fear to tread; one of those is surely the code that implements signals. The nature of the signal API almost guarantees that any implementation will be full of subtle interactions and complexities, and the version in Linux doesn't disappoint. So the inclusion of a signal-handling change late in the 5.16 merge window might have been expected to have the potential for difficulties; it didn't disappoint either.
For those assigning VFIO devices to guest virtual machines, the initialization/start-up process may soon be much faster with a set of patches volleyed by Oracle.
Oracle engineers have been working on multi-threaded VFIO page pinning to speed-up the initialization process and can be quite noticeable impact for large guest VMs.
After a quiet holiday period the Linux 5.16 kernel is set to be introduced as stable this Sunday. Here is a look at the sixteen most exciting features to find with Linux 5.16.
At the end of the merge window I posted my usual look at the changes I found most interesting with the Linux 5.16 feature overview. See that for the lengthy list of new features while here is a recap of what's to be found in this new kernel version. Linux 5.16 is what will hopefully be powering the likes of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with v5.17 not arriving as stable until around the end of March and that in turn cutting things too close.
As part of the various end-of-year Linux comparisons that I've made a habit of over the past 17 years, with the EOY 2021 benchmarking I was rather curious to see how Intel's Clear Linux distribution has evolved Xeon Scalable "Ice Lake" performance since that platform launched in Q2'2021. It turns out there have been some terrific optimizations squeezed out of that latest-generation Xeon Scalable platform on Intel's Clear Linux. In this article is a look at the Ubuntu and Clear Linux performance on the flagship Xeon Platinum 8380 2P reference server back around the time Ice Lake launched and then again using the latest software packages that closed out 2021.
With starting a new year, it's an interesting time to take a fresh look at how the latest Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers are competing on the Linux desktop.
The recently released Chrome 97 was put up against Firefox 95 for seeing how these two major Linux browsers currently compete.
It took a few months, but there’s a new release of QCoro with some new cool features. This change contains a breaking change in CMake, wich requires QCoro users to adjust their CMakeLists.txt. I sincerely hope this is the last breaking change for a very long time.
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This change mostly affects packagers of QCoro. It is now possible to install both Qt5 and Qt6 versions of QCoro alongside each other without conflicting files. The shared libraries now contain the Qt version number in their name (e.g. libQCoro6Core.so) and header files are also located in dedicated subdirectories (e.g. /usr/include/qcoro6/{qcoro,QCoro}). User of QCoro should not need to do any changes to their codebase.
The port of Inferno that got me interested in trying to create my own ports is the inferno-rpi port for the Raspberry Pi. The series of labs that yshurik wrote made it seem possible that I could do something similar. I tried to start my own port to the Gumstix Overo back in 2016, but quickly realised I didn't know enough about the porting process.
In 2018, in an article that covered Limbo, Go and Inferno, I mentioned working on a port of Inferno to the Efika MX Smartbook. This was put on hold for most of the time I was working as a contractor because the work didn't really leave me with enough free time to do anything. However, in mid-2020, when the gig I was doing couldn't pay for full-time work, I got the chance to revisit the port. It continued for a couple of months until the hardware wouldn't boot any more. Until I can find a debug board for it, that port isn't going anywhere.
What inspired me and made me more confident about even continuing the Smartbook port was a brief diversion into retrocomputing and software archaeology. I had seen Rob Pike's ancient e-mail about Inferno On The ARM Processor and had read that there was once a port to Acorn's A7000 computer. The code was no longer present in the Inferno repository, so I thought I could redo it. (Actually, it turned out that the code was present in one of the historical archives, now available in a git repository.) Since the ARM code compilers still had support for ARMv4 targets, it was possible to get something up and running using bits and pieces of other ARM ports, and the A7000+ port was created as a proof of concept, using RPCEmu to test it.
Helping make PipeWire suitable for the Linux desktop so quickly has been WirePlumber as a more featureful alternative to PipeWire's default session manager. Out today is WirePlumber 0.4.6 as the latest step forward on that front.
2022 will hopefully be the year that we find PipeWire to be common among desktop Linux distributions for managing audio/video streams and further build off its successes that really got going in 2021. With the rise of PipeWire is also WirePlumber for session/policy management that wraps the PipeWire APIs and offers a modular design.
What is the difference for example Ubuntu’s Repository and the one built? Almost 1/2 a Million less errors. I used 2 computers to build the repository. Took them weeks. Now I hope you can understand why I am building a ThreadRipper Pro. Right now it has been loaded to a local server & is being tested to build an Operating System w/o error(s). Scary stuff huh?
Sometimes it's useful to get visual feedback from a script. For example, when a script or cron job completes, a long-running build fails, or there is an urgent problem during script execution. Desktop applications can do this with popup notifications, but it can be done from a script too! You can use script commands to send yourself desktop notifications and reminders.
You can't remember every command or shortcut you need to use. We are all human. Usually, I keep notes on separate bits of paper and in notebooks. This has led to some serious dysfunction on my desk. There is some five years' worth of clutter in scribbled bits everywhere. 2021's cheat sheets will bring that clutter down a notch. From JavaScript to Linux, there's something in this list for you.
This is a classic article written by Jack Wallen from the Linux.com archives. For more great SysAdmin tips and techniques check out our free intro to Linux course.
Although there are already a lot of good security features built into Linux-based systems, one very important potential vulnerability can exist when local access is granted – – that is file permission-based issues resulting from a user not assigning the correct permissions to files and directories. So based upon the need for proper permissions, I will go over the ways to assign permissions and show you some examples where modification may be necessary.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Observium on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Observium is a network monitoring software written in PHP. It supports Linux and Windows operating systems and network hardware like Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, Foundry, HP, and other important network devices vendors.
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 Observium network monitoring on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).
In this video, we are looking at how to install FreeCAD on Elementary OS 6.0.
Today we are looking at how to install Gimp 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.
Java is a general-purpose, class-based, object-oriented multipurpose programming language that is popular due to the design of having lesser implementation dependencies, meaning that the compiled Java code can be run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation. Java is also fast, secure, and reliable, therefore. It is widely used for developing Java applications in laptops, data centers, game consoles, scientific supercomputers, cell phones, etc.
The tutorial will install the OpenJDK version instead of the default Oracle JDK. The difference between these two is licensing. OpenJDK is an entirely free open-source Java with a GNU General Public License, and Oracle JDK requires a commercial license under the Oracle Binary Code License Agreement. Other differences are release schedules and other factors that come into play; however, performance is pretty much the same.
In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest OpenJDK 17 LTS on Fedora 35 Workstation or Server.
MongoDB is a free and open-source cross-platform document database. The software is characterized as a NoSQL database, a tool for storing JSON, or even a Document Database with optional schemas.
This is the first article of a series focused in Gnu Bash scripting. It’s not a complete course on bash programing, but at the end you should learn one or two things. I mean, useful things that’ll help make your life easier.
Cinnamon Desktop Environment is a free, open-source desktop environment based on X Window System created from GNOME 3 by the Linux Community that was frustrated and disappointed with GNOME 3. Cinnamon offers a smart, clean look that is less bloated than alternative desktop environments and focuses on speed and flexibility.
Cinnamon is the default desktop environment choice for Linux Mint, as many veteran Linux distro hoppers would know and are actively maintained by them. A bonus feature of installing the Cinnamon desktop environment on Fedora is that it uses the GDM display manager, making it easy to switch between GNOME and Cinnamon environments.
In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install this alternative desktop environment on your Fedora 35 Workstation as an option choice to switch from GNOME.
LXQt is a free desktop environment known for being lightweight, fast, and energy-efficient, which can replace the standard default GNOME Desktop on your Debian system, which can be desired for users with low-powered computers and laptops, and netbooks.
LXQt has had a colorful history of merging and then splitting with the LXDE project in 2013 and 2018. However, both projects are of a high standard in sharing similar approaches regarding being more efficient than the major players such as GNOME and KDE.
In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install LXQt Desktop Environment on Fedora 35 Workstation.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to shutdown or reboot Linux using the Command-Line. For those of you who didn’t know, Most of the popular Operating systems out there allow you to shut down your PC, laptop, or server with different methods. Linux operating systems also have ways for a user to safely shut down, reboot, hibernate or suspend your Linux system.
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 learned shutdown and reboot commands on Linux machines.
Geometrical shapes such as curves and lines are used to represent vector graphics. These geometrical shapes are based on easily alterable mathematical expressions. However, if you have a JPG image that has low resolution, then you can trace it to the vector image with the help of the Inkscape Trace bitmap tool. After that, you can scale the traced vector image and then export it as a bitmap again. It will improve the image quality. This write-up will guide you on how to use Trace Bitmap in Inkscape. Moreover, we will also explain the Trace Bitmap Single scans and Multiple scans settings options. So, let’s start!
As we know, this is the era of the Internet. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we are somehow connected to the internet sector. Every device we use for social media, software, and operating systems may need the internet. Every Operating system needs the internet to download files, install and configure updates, etc. Similar to many operating systems, Ubuntu needs a Wi-Fi network, as well. Inside this article, you’ll discover how to use the GUI and console in Ubuntu to join a Wi-Fi network. This seems helpful if you’re running Ubuntu on a server and do not have any connection to a conventional computer. Now, let’s start.
First, we need to check and do some configuration settings for the Ubuntu 20.04 system. We will start from the Oracle Virtual Box interface. So, we have opened the Oracle Virtual Box in our system. Within the Virtual Box, you have to open the Ubuntu Server settings by clicking on the “Settings” icon on the right side. The following window will pop up. Tap on the “Network” option at the left panel of this screen. Tap on the “Adapter1” option on the right pane. Tick the “Enable Network Adapter” option, as shown. Select the “NAT” option from the drop-down list revealed on the screen. Select the Adapter type from the drop-down list and check to mark the Cable Connected option.
If you do not assign a static IP address to your Synology NAS, your router may assign different IP addresses to your Synology NAS via DHCP at different times. It will make your NAS inaccessible to the Synology desktop and mobile apps that you have installed, and you will have to go through the process of reconfiguring these apps when that happens. So, it is imperative to assign static IP addresses to the network interfaces of your Synology NAS.
This article will show you how to assign a static IP address to your Synology NAS. Now, let’s get started.
The software ecosystem is not new to the notion of distributed systems. You do not need to be physically present in order to interact with your remotely hosted software.
Therefore your MySQL does not need to reside on a local machine for you to fully benefit from its functional features. You can now have the MySQL running on a remote dedicated server and still be guaranteed the same database security and performance as the case with a MySQL running on a local/desktop machine.
This article guide will walk us through setting up and enabling remote access to a MySQL server in Linux. On the remote server/machine hosting your MySQL database software, we need to perform a few configuration steps for it to allow authenticated remote users access.
Have you ever unknowingly executed a command with a typo in it? Well, you can simply hit the UP/DOWN arrow to bring up the command history, find the misspelled command, and edit the typo, and finally re-run it. This is what most of us will usually do! However, there are also other ways to fix typos in previously entered commands. In this tutorial, we will see all possible ways to correct errors in previous console commands in Linux and Unix.
Sails.js is a full-stack Node.js framework built on top of Express socket.io. It's a powerful MVC framework inspired by Ruby on Rails, but with supports of data-driven APIs and scalable, also service-oriented architecture. Sails.js is a suitable framework for building modern and enterprise-grade applications, especially data-driven applications. Sails.js provides auto-generate REST APIs and a powerful ORM called Waterline that allows developers to use any databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, etc.
Statistically, over 10% of users forget or lose their passwords or private keys for encrypted data.
This is not a big problem if there is a password or private key recovery option, but it becomes a disaster when there is no way to recover the lost or forgotten password or private key.
According to cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis, over three million bitcoins are considered lost due to forgotten passwords.
RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Drives (or Disks), is a phrase for information storage techniques that partition and copy data over several hard drives. RAID could be built to improve the validity and reliability of data or I/O efficiency, albeit one purpose may damage the other. RAID systems are software-based and hardware-based, and supported by Linux. You may utilize a variety of RAID levels, each with its own set of benefits, shortcomings, and overarching goals. This comparative article will compare RAID 5 (which employs a parity crisscross method for fault-tolerant) and RAID 10 (which also utilizes mirroring for redundant information). Certain RAID levels offer resilience, allowing them to withstand certain device failures. This article demonstrates well how to test software-based RAID systems composed of two or maybe more physical devices. So, let’s get started. Here comes the command we can use in our command-line shell to check the supported RAID configuration in our Ubuntu 20.04 system.
Giving a firm nod to classic 90s RPGs, you can try out a brand new demo for the upcoming Call of Saregnar. Blending together low-res visuals, with shots of real-life actors for the conversations, it's certainly a weird looking mix but it absolutely works.
There are certain Windows games that work better on Linux with the community-built unofficial Proton GE, plus using Luxtorpeda for Native Linux game engines can give a lot of benefits too - here's how to easily download or upgrade them using the fab ProtonUp-Qt.
It's an application based on the command-line tool ProtonUp, however ProtonUp-Qt actually gives you a full UI and it really just makes everything nice and simple.
Love space sci-fi and roguelikes? Relic Space blends them together and it's really beginning to look like a game that's going to steal endless hours away from me.
Relic Space is a turn-based, roguelike RPG in which you help rebuild civilisation following a galactic catastrophe. Through varied missions as a single starship pilot you will engage in deeply simulated, hex-based combat with an innovative, fluid feel - all set within an epic sci-fi narrative that you help construct through your choices. A bit like Jupiter Hell, the movement is so fluid you often don't remember it's taking a turn each time.
Another major update has landed for the sweet top-down wilderness survival roguelike Wayward, bringing with it a whole new Volcanic island type and much more.
The game will also now load up several islands at a time, which helps with quicker travel and means players in multiplayer can actually be on different islands now - so it opens the game up a whole lot more.
Over 120 individual programs plus dozens of programmer libraries and feature plugins are released simultaneously as part of KDE Gear.
Today they all get new bugfix source releases with updated translations. Distro and app store packagers should update their application packages.
KDE Gear 21.12.1 is here almost a month after the release of KDE Gear 21.12 to fix a few bugs in your favorite apps. For example, it improves the Dolphin file manager to no longer crash when the Ark archive manager creates .7z archives, as well as to no longer cause a new Dolphin window or tab to be opened when extracting or compressing something using the relevant context menu items.
This first point release for KDE Gear 21.12 also improves the Ark archive manager to no longer keep its welcome screen visible after you have started using the app, makes Yakuake’s window faster to appear, and improves the Spectacle screenshot utility to disable the “Annotate” button when there’s no screenshot in the window, preventing it from crashing.
KDE Plasma 5.24 is due for release on February 8, 2022.
While we already discussed some significant upgrades arriving with it, Nate Graham (KDE Developer) shared a roadmap for KDE in 2022.
When looking at it, I can surely tell that the upgrades planned for KDE Plasma should take the desktop experience up a notch. But, what exactly should we expect?
Except for a few distros that assist their users to build everything they install from source (kiss and forks, LFS and forks, gentoo and forks, crux, exherbo, T2-sde, etc), most linux-distributions, offer binaries to be installed, usually backed up by the source code (script) building the package from either their own source code, or what we call upstream (other FOSS sources). How do you know though, that what the source repository shows and what the binary package contains is the same? One way is to build it with the same recipe (packaging source script) and compare the sums. Very few people do this and in very rare and controlled environments is the product the same, meaning checksums are identical (Arch is reporting 15-20% failure to reproduce their own packages). So what most distros do is they sign their packages and by having their public signature key, you know what they built is what you got. But are you sure they built it right, or did they take adequate measures to make sure what they pulled from upstream to build the package is what the author really published? How can you check?
There are two general methods packagers make sure what they use is what the author released. One is using git to draw the source which contains various tools in making sure the author’s repository of source and what you cloned is the same. The other way is a tarball of the source repository, signed by the author with a GnuPG key, known as a gpg key, and you check the tarball (a compressed archive xxxx.tar.xzz yyyy.tar.bz2 zzz.tar.gz .. etc accompanied with a same name .asc or .sig file containing the signature). It is virtually impossible as far as we know that a “man in the middle” will be able to switch the tarball on you “live”, and be able to counterfeit the signature so your altered code is signed by the correct author as well. But “man-in-the-middle” MIM attacks are not as rare as you think, even though it takes tremendous infrastructure to make one and get away with it. For people though who may be targeted by such infrastructure it is not unlikely, it is expected (highly likely). How do you know you may be targeted? I think you know, we know, that you know, why you are targeted by you know whom.
The following Kernels are available for PCLinuxOS. Kernel 5.15.13, Kernel LTS 5.10.90 and Kernel LTS 5.4.170.
openSUSE is somewhat underrated when it comes to the best Linux distros. But it has got some nifty little features that will fascinate you in no time.
openSUSE may be overlooked compared to other major Linux distributions, but it has a unique feature set and a codebase with a rich legacy.
So what makes this Linux distro different from others, and why should you try it? Let's find out.
The GeckoLinux project is pleased to announce major updates to all three branches: Rolling (built from openSUSE Tumbleweed), Static (built from openSUSE Leap 15.3), and NEXT (built from openSUSE Leap 15.3 with additional OBS repositories).
I have been enjoying running openSUSE Tumbleweed on the Raspberry Pi 400 (and 4, I kind of mean the same thing, I just happen to appreciate the fun of the keyboard with containing the computer of the 400). The point of this blathering is to use the Raspberry Pi 400 in the same way as you would with Raspberry Pi OS but using openSUSE Tumbleweed with the Plasma desktop environment. This is not meant to disparage Raspberry Pi OS or any of the work they have continued to pour into the LXDE project but rather to give an alternative with all the fun tooling that openSUSE has to offer.
I have been putting together, bit-by-bit, a collection of things to make my Raspberry Pi life on openSUSE (and other things) more convenient. The link below is to a link into the openSUSE Wiki to download and image the SD Card with your choice of Leap or Tumbleweed with your preferred desktop. There are also links to the various applications to give your Pi 4/400 software feature parity with the bundled Raspberry Pi OS but on an openSUSE base.
Way back when in 2015 I wrote about differences between BYOS and on-demand images in “On Demand, BYOS, say what? Why do I need it?” mentioning that on-demand images contain “special sauce” that register an on-demand instance automatically to the SUSE operated update infrastructure in AWS EC2, Azure, and GCE. Much has changed since then, and with a project that we completed at the end of 2021 the “special sauce” is no longer just for on-demand images.
Rancher Desktop has been in development for just over a year with the open question, when do we have a 1.0.0 stable release? Along the way the scope has expanded, it was ported to run in more places, and the development team has grown. All of this happened as we worked out if Rancher Desktop would be useful for people, what features people want to use, and what are good ways to build it. We are finally ready to answer that 1.0.0 question.
Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that APIS IT, a provider of IT solutions for public administration bodies in Croatia on both government and local levels, modernized its business by migrating legacy systems to a single, standardized environment built on Red Hat OpenShift. With this modernization and the adoption of a collaborative DevOps approach, APIS IT can work more efficiently and consistently to develop and deploy new services in compliance with European Union regulations.
To improve patient experiences with universal healthcare, the Argentine Ministry of Health decided to build a national digital health network that would allow care centers to more securely access patient data through standardized integration among providers.
To establish a flexible yet stable IT infrastructure based on microservices technology, the Argentine Ministry of Health adopted Red Hat container, integration and automation solutions. Combined with modern development approaches like DevOps that support collaborative, efficient work, the new infrastructure offers the scale and agility to support sharing of medical data for millions of patients across 24 provinces.
Kubevirt is an open source project that enables Kubernetes to orchestrate virtual machines like containers. By running VMs and containers side-by-side, customers can easily integrate legacy workloads with modern microservices-based applications. They also benefit from the simplified DevOps workflows for managing both workloads.
Kubevirt is already an integral part of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Rancher’s Harvester, Platform9 Managed Kubernetes, and Google Anthos.
In 2022, we will see a dramatic rise in the adoption and integration of Kubevirt with Kubernetes, where VMs are treated as first-class citizens.
Fedora is among the group of Linux distributions that, by default, lock out the root account such that it does not have a password and cannot be logged into. But, traditionally, "rescue mode" boots the system into single-user mode, which requires a root password—difficult to provide if it does not exist. A Fedora proposal to remove the need for the password in that case, and just drop into a root shell, does not seem likely to go far in that form, but it would seem to have pointed toward some better solutions for the underlying problem.
The proposal for Fedora 36, "Make Rescue Mode Work With Locked Root", was posted on December 6 by Fedora program manager Ben Cotton on behalf of the feature owners: Michel Alexandre Salim, Neal Gompa, and David Duncan. The problem is that the "out-of-the-box user experience" is poor for systems with a locked root if users have a need to fix their systems via single-user mode; they will be prompted for a password that they cannot provide and have to resort to other means of booting their ailing system (e.g. rescue boot media). Another option is to boot with a kernel command-line option such as "init=/sysroot/bin/bash", but that is not particularly user-friendly either.
The guts of the change would use the --force option to sulogin to skip the password requirement when entering single-user mode if the root password is not accessible or the root login is disabled. But, as that man page warns, the option should only be used "if you are sure the console is physically protected against unauthorized access". The proposal says that the change "does not pose an increased security risk", because attackers already have other means of bypassing the password (e.g. init=) or compromising the system if they have physical access. Those who want to enforce a password for single-user mode can simply set the root password.
Earlier Cockpit/sssd versions did not check trust or revocation status of a presented client certificate, and thus certificate/smart card login was secure and supported only when matching the entire binary certificate against the Identity Management’s database. With sssd 2.6.1 and Cockpit 260, the certificate signature and revocation status is now validated against the CA configured in sssd, and any non-trusted certificate is rejected. This includes the case when the local sssd has no configured CA, which may break certificate logins after updating cockpit and sssd.
Thus if you use certificate login, you need to set up the trusted CA in sssd. Please see the certificate authentication documentation for details.
When you ask a new sysadmin, "What is IT security? And what tasks come with it?" you may get the following answer: "It's about keeping your applications, containers, and systems current by installing the latest available updates all the time." While this answer isn't wrong, there is so much more to explore, learn, and do in IT security.
Enable Sysadmin is a community where sysadmins meet. The experienced ones share their knowledge with those who are eager to learn and evolve in their field of expertise. If that sounds like you, consider sharing your knowledge by writing about it! Consult our contributors page for more information about becoming part of our community.
You can find many articles covering a variety of topics in IT security on Enable Sysadmin, including the top 10 security articles of 2021 listed below. Take a look, stay safe, and I wish you all the best in 2022.
Longtime Linux users will likely recall when it was commonplace to modify /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files for managing your network connections. Fortunately, that's largely a thing of the past and Fedora 36 is looking to remove support for those legacy network configuration files from new Fedora installs.
Those "ifcfg" network configuration scripts are largely a thing of the past with NetworkManager and the like working well for most users these days. NetworkManager has retained support for ifcfg files, but handling them is a mess and maintaining this support is a burden.
In Red Hat’s 2022 Global Tech Outlook report, more organizations indicated they are considering or planning to use most types of emerging technology. Here, "emerging technologies" include leading innovations such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), internet of things (IoT), blockchain and edge.
From June through August 2021, we surveyed 1,341 information technology (IT) leaders and decision makers to learn about their digital transformation journeys, their IT and non-IT funding priorities for the coming year, and the types of infrastructure they’re using to run their applications.
I have compiled the Linux kernel, version 5.10.90. Source, patches and build scripts are here:
https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/kernel/5.10.x/5.10.90/
Note, I discovered a bug in the compiling of 5.10.83. If anyone tried to use those build scripts, apologies. You should be OK for 5.10.90.
The current version of EasyOS has SeaMonkey 2.53.10.1. The latest release has minor bug fixes, as announced:
https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.10.2/
Due to ongoing compatibility issues with SM, I think that I might include a simple Firefox installer in EasyOS 3.2. Well, there is already an SFS available, maybe I will just bump that to the latest version.
The Linux Mint team started to push the final stable ISO images of Linux Mint 20.3 to its distribution network. The final release comes weeks after the release of Linux Mint 20.3 Beta releases. Read on to find out what is new and changed in the new versions of the popular Linux distribution.
Linux Mint 20.3 is a long-term support release, which means that the distribution is supported until 2025. The new version of Linux Mint is available in all three flavors -- MATE, Xfce and Cinnamon -- as usual.
Ubuntu Touch is the privacy and freedom-respecting mobile operating system by UBports. Today we are happy to announce the release of Ubuntu Touch OTA-21, the very latest update to the system! OTA-21 will become available for the following supported Ubuntu Touch devices over the next week...
The UBports Foundation has released Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 for supported devices with a host of improvements including improved storage statistics, a new greeter design, and better language support. The project has also fixed some issues that should help Ubuntu Touch come to Halium 10 devices in the future. While the PinePhone and PineTab are supported by Ubuntu Touch, they will not be getting an update labelled ‘OTA-21’.
In terms of new features, OTA-21 brings an overhauled storage statistics section in system settings that shows more categories and calculates used space more precisely. The greeter, which is shown before the device has been unlocked, has been improved significantly with a more modern design and looks different depending on whether you use a PIN or password to unlock the device. Language support has also been improved with support for the Tamil language font.
According to the release notes, on Pixel 3a devices, there’s an issue with video recording due to the incomplete clean-up of gstreamer cache on start-up. This can be fixed by restarting the phone once or twice or opening up the terminal and using the following command rm -rf $HOME/.cache/gstreamer-1.0.
Still based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system series, the Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 update is here one and a half months after Ubuntu Touch OTA-20 with more improvements and various bug fixes.
Highlights include a redesigned greeter (PIN/password entry screen), a new Tamil font, a new magnetometer and compass plugin for all Halium 9 or later based devices, and the ability to clear the lists of recent or missed calls.
Linux Mint 20.3 beta arrived a few weeks ago. And now, the final stable release for Linux Mint 20.3 “Una” is available to download.
Linux Mint has for years been one of the most popular Ubuntu-based distros out there with plenty of tweaks and refinements for both beginners and pros alike. Yesterday, the Mint team released Linux Mint 20.3 “Una”, the last Focal-based release and we’re going to take a look at it today.
What’s New in Linux Mint 20.3 “Una”
Linux Mint 20.3 is a long-term support release based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and it is supported until 2025. It is available in Cinnamon, Xfce, and MATE flavors. This release ships with linux-firmware 1.187 and the Linux kernel 5.4.
We start with the fact that Linux Mint 20.3 features an updated look and feel with larger titlebar buttons, rounded corners, a cleaner theme, and support for dark mode. In other words, Mint’s appearance has received a small but very welcomed facelift.
Linux Mint 20.3, codenamed “Una” has finally arrived. The official announcement should follow up soon, but it’s now available for download!
While Linux Mint 20.2 included some impressive improvements, Linux Mint 20.3 looks like an exciting release as well.
Here, I highlight the key changes in Linux Mint 20.3.
Transferred into the world of software containers, the Charmed Operator Framework defines how to configure the application, how to integrate the application when it’s used in a composed application context, how to handle relevant events, and much more.
All of these elements are packaged into a Charmed Operator, which is an additional artifact for the application. A Charmed Operator is created for each application. (Read more in this article explaining framework constructs, and get an overview of how Charmed Operators cover relations.) An example of the composition of applications is Charmed Kubeflow, which provides application elements with Charmed Operators so that scientists can stand up and integrate the Kubeflow applications they need for a variety of environments – for example, a personal laptop, a workstation, or a cluster.
It is never too late to adjust and optimise your strategy for success.
MicroStack is a pure upstream OpenStack platform, designed for the edge and small-scale private cloud deployments, that can be installed and maintained with minimal effort.
Get started with MicroStack by following a series of tutorials for beginners
The company says the system is compatible with many FreeBSD-based router systems, Linux distros, and Windows operating systems., and it has already been tested with pfSense, Untangle, OPNsense, and other open-source solutions for firewalls, VPN, network security, and so on.
Axzez’s $99 “Interceptor Carrier Board” for the RPi CM4 is designed for NAS and NVR and loaded with 5x SATA slots, 4x switched GbE, 2x HDMI, and 2x USB ports. Wiretrustee canceled its similar “SATA Board” project but has posted open hardware files.
Carmel, Indiana based startup Axzez has opened $99 preorders for its Interceptor Carrier Board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. Shipments of the 5x SATA enabled carrier are due in February.
The only other SATA-heavy RPi Compute Module carrier we have seen is the 4-slot SATA Board for Raspberry Pi CM4, which was announced last February. Wiretrustee has now cancelled the delayed project but has posted open source files for others to take up the baton (see farther below).
With a 555 on the BOM, you never know what you’re going to get. With 40 of the versatile timer chips in a build, you might just get something completely unexpected, like this 555-based eight-bit digital counter.
This one comes to us by way of [Astronomermike], who chose to make a digital circuit with nothing but 555s and a largish handful of passives as his entry in the current 555 Timer Contest. The ubiquitous timer chip is not exactly the first chip that comes to mind for digital applications, but it does contain an SR latch, which only requires a little persuasion to become a JK flip flop. His initial design for the flip flop that would form the core of the circuit had a pair of 555s surrounded with a bunch of OR gates and inverters — within the rules of the contest but hardly in its spirit. Luckily, the 555 makes a fine inverter too, and along with some diode-resistor OR gates, the basic counter module was born.
Sipeed have been busy leveraging developments in the RISC-V arena, with an interesting, low-cost module they call the Lichee RV. It is based around the Aliwinner D1 SoC (which contains a Pingtou Xuantie C906 for those following Chinese RISC-V processor development) with support for an optional NAND filesystem. This little board uses a pair of edge connectors, similar to the Raspberry Pi CM3 form factor, except it’s based around a pair M.2 connectors instead. The module has USB-C, an SPI LCD interface, as well as a TF card socket on-board, with the remaining interfaces provided on the big edge connector.
Last spring, I wrote about start learning embedded with STM32. However, soon after I wrote that, I realize that the price of STM32 series has gone up to an incredible level. Which makes me wonder if that’s still a good choice.
In the aftermath of the Big Bang, a cloud of charged particles, referred to as the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), was left over. This can not only be detected by advanced scientific equipment, but also by a Geiger counter. iSax aimed to use this idea for a novel virtual die that measures the truly random amount of time it takes for particles to pass through a counter.
The project starts with an old Soviet-style Geiger tube that outputs a signal whenever a charged particle crosses its path. Upon pressing a button, the die begins to shuffle until a number is determined by checking if the elapsed time in microseconds is even or odd. After four of these measurements have been taken, the resulting four-bit binary representation is converted from a series of bits to a digit and sent to an American Nixie tube with the help of an Arduino Nano. Current for the Nixie tube is provided by a high-voltage power supply while the remaining components use 5V.
Ubuntu’s default LibreOffice office suite 7.2.5 was released today. User may install it from the official PPA in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 21.10 and Linux Mint 20.x
LibreOffice 7.2.5 comes with 90 bug-fixes, including many crashes when recent files are not accessible, inserting hidden field over input field, one click and three TAB presses, saving a calc file after delete some columns, and more. See the release note for details.
The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 7.2.5 Community, the fifth minor release of the LibreOffice 7.2 family, which is available on the download page.
This version includes 90 bug fixes and improvements to document compatibility. The changelogs provide details of the fixes: changes in RC1 and changes in RC2.
For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners, with long-term support options, professional assistance, custom features and Service Level Agreements: LibreOffice in Business.
Coming exactly one month after LibreOffice 7.2.4, which was an emergency update to address a critical security vulnerability, the LibreOffice 7.2.5 update is here to fix a total of 90 bugs (according to the RC1 and RC2 changelogs) across all core components of the open-source and cross-platform office suite, as well as to further improve document compatibility.
This is the fifth of seven planned maintenance updates for the LibreOffice 7.2 office suite series, which was released in mid-August 2021 with many new features and improvements, including improved interoperability with the MS Office document formats, native support for Apple M1 machines, as well as various UI enhancements.
Impress now has the start of document theme support: it is possible to define a document theme on master pages and you can refer to the theme colors from shape text (including effects).
First, thanks to our partner SUSE for working with Collabora to make this possible.
We're happy to announce Kiwi TCMS Enterprise version 10.5.1!
We're amazed and humbled to announce that, thanks to an unprecedented outpouring of support, Software Freedom Conservancy has already surpassed this year's match challenge. Despite the goal being the most ambitious one yet, this is the fastest we've ever reached this milestone. Donations are continuing to come in. As the number creeps higher as we near our fundraiser end date of January 15, we believe that each dollar above our goal sends this message loud and clear: pursuing software freedom is an important goal for our society.
The JavaScript runtime environment provides your scripts with utility libraries which can be used during execution. It’s your script that references these libraries. The engine itself doesn’t depend on them.
Unlike C and other compiled languages, JavaScript runs in a container. A program reads the JavaScript code and executes it. This program needs to parse the code and convert it into runnable commands. It must also provide objects to JavaScript so that it can interact with other things. The first part is known as the engine, the second is the runtime.
In 1992, the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) was introduced in Unix circles as a new, improved network packet filter. Nice, but not that big a deal. Then, in 2014, it was changed and brought into the Linux kernel as extended BPF (eBPF). Again, that was okay. Just okay. Soon thereafter though, developers started using it to run user-space code inside a virtual machine (VM) on the Linux kernel. And, then it was a huge deal. As Netflix computer performance expert Brendan Gregg said, with eBPF, "superpowers have finally come to Linux."
In the C programming language, several functions help the user acquire relevant information, such as the process name and id. Similarly, in this article, we will discuss information about the environment list that contains the variable name of the environment and then returns the value in the form of a pointer. If the function getenv() cannot find the environment, it returns NULL, and errno displays the error message.
It's time to test what we have written so far. If you look at the asar project, there are already some test files and they come with their own test syntax. It's actually pretty neat since it's embedded in the ASM files comments, so you don't need to write specific tests files.
If 2020 was the year that we became acutely aware of the consumer goods supply chain (toilet paper, anyone? Anyone?), then 2021 was the year that the software supply chain rose in our collective consciousness. In perhaps the most infamous attack of the year, thousands of customers, including several US government agencies, downloaded compromised SolarWinds updates.
Alas, SolarWinds was not alone. Indeed, the weaknesses in our software supply chain were all too evident with the recent Log4j vulnerability. Log4j is a widely used open source Java logging framework, so the vulnerability has put tens of thousands of applications (ranging from data storage services to online video games) at risk.
By now, most readers will likely have seen something about the Log4j vulnerability that has been making life miserable for system administrators since its disclosure on December 9. This bug is relatively easy to exploit, results in remote code execution, and lurks on servers all across the net; it is not hyperbolic to call it one of the worst vulnerabilities that has been disclosed in some years. In a sense, the lessons from Log4j have little new to teach us, but this bug does highlight some problems in the free-software ecosystem in an unambiguous way.
In Java, strings are used to hold a series of characters and are considered as objects, and to join strings together we need to use a concatenate operator represented by the “+” sign with String.Join function. So in this article, we will discuss some examples to make you understand its functionality.
If you have a number and if you want to calculate its square root then you can do that by multiplying its factor with itself. In this article, we will teach you how you can calculate the square root of any number in the Java programming language. A Math.sqrt() that is used for this purpose, so detailed syntax and coding for square root calculation will be discussed along with examples.
Absolute value is a non-negative value indicating how distant a number is from 0. Absolute value is always positive because it does not signify the direction. The purpose of the Math.abs() function in Java is to make any negative number positive and has no impact on the number if it is already positive. In this article, we will calculate the absolute value using the Java programming language.
The operational amplifier, or op amp, is one of the most basic building blocks used in analog circuits. Ever since single-chip op amps were introduced in the 1960s, thousands of different types have been developed, some more successful than others. Ask an experienced analog designer to name a few op amps, and they’ll likely mention the LM324, the TL072, the NE5534, the LM358, and of course the granddaddy of all, the uA741.
If those part numbers don’t mean anything to you, all you need to know is that these are generic components that you can buy anywhere and that will do just fine in the most common applications. You can buy fancier op amps that improve on some spec or another, sometimes by orders of magnitude. But how far can you really push the concept of an operational amplifier? Today we’ll show you some op amps that go way beyond these typical “jellybean” components.
Before we start, let’s define what exactly we mean when we say “operational amplifier”. We’re looking for integrated op amps, meaning a single physical component, that have a differential high-impedance voltage input, a single-ended voltage output, DC coupling, and high gain meant to be used in a feedback configuration. We’re excluding anything made from discrete components, as well as less-general circuits like fixed-gain amplifiers and operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs).
[G3OJV] knows the pain of trying to operate a ham radio transmitter on a small lot. His recent video shows how to put up a workable basic HF antenna in a small backyard. The center of the system is a 49:1 unun. An unun is like a balun, but while a balun goes from balanced line to an unbalanced antenna, the unun has both sides unbalanced. You can see his explanation in the video below.
The tiny hand-size box costs well under $40 or $50 and covers the whole HF band at up to 200 W. The video shows the inside of the box which, as you’d expect, is a toroid with a few turns of wire.
The proposed antenna is an end-fed dipole fed with the unun. These are somewhat controversial with some people swearing they can’t work and others saying they are amazing. We are guessing they may not outperform a perfect antenna system, but we also know that you can have a lot of fun with almost any kind of radiator.
In an interesting post on Inverse, [Sarah Wells] does a deep dive into something you probably don’t think about very often: the blinking cursor. You’d assume there wasn’t much to the story. Maybe a terminal manufacturer put a toggle flip flop on the cursor output and it caught on. But the true story is much deeper than that.
We were surprised that the father of the blinking cursor was one guy, [Charles Kiesling]. In a 1967 patent, he described the blinking cursor. An ex-Navy man, [Kiesling’s] patent names his employer at the time, Sperry Rand, where he’d worked since 1955.
According to the post, little is known of [Kiesling], one of the many unsung engineers who create everyday life. The article purports that the Apple II was the first place the general public would encounter the invention. We guess it depends on how you define the general public. The VT50 had a blinking cursor, we seem to remember, and we didn’t think it was the first, anyway. The VT05 in the video below seems to have a blinking cursor, too. And we think we remember blinking cursors on other terminals from that era for Lear-Siegler, Hazletine, and Televideo.
FOR CONVENTIONAL COMPUTERS, benchmarks can represent a rite of passage of sorts into a new era of computing. As artificial intelligence and machine learning become more and more ubiquitous, for instance, AI and ML benchmarks help everyone understand and measure precisely how well one neural net performs compared to other systems and to reference architectures. Not surprising, then, that the emerging field of quantum-computer benchmarking will be helping test and improve next-generation quantum processors, researchers say. A quantum computer with great enough complexity—for instance, enough components known as quantum bits or "qubits"—could theoretically achieve a quantum advantage where it can find the answers to problems no classical computer could ever solve. In principle, a quantum computer with 300 qubits fully devoted to computing (not error correction) could perform more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the visible universe.
However, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories note that it is currently difficult to accurately predict a quantum processor's capability—that is, the set of quantum programs it can run successfully. This is because the current benchmarking programs used to analyze these devices scale poorly to quantum computers with many qubits. Existing quantum benchmarks are also not flexible enough to supply detailed looks on processor capabilities on many different potential applications, they say.
Although the widespread use of 3D printers has made things like linear bearings and leadscrews more common, you still can’t run down to your local big-box hardware store and get them. However, you can get drawer slides and any hobby shop can sell you some RC servos. That and an Arduino can make a simple and easy plotter. Just ask [JimRD]. You can also watch it do its thing in the video below.
This security release features four security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 3.7 have also been updated.
WordPress 5.8.3 is a short-cycle security release. The next major release will be version 5.9, which is already in the Release Candidate stage.
You can update to WordPress 5.8.3 by downloading from WordPress.org or visiting your Dashboard ââ â Updates and clicking Update Now.
Security updates have been issued by Fedora (log4j and quaternion), Mageia (gnome-shell and singularity), SUSE (libsndfile, libvirt, net-snmp, and python-Babel), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.11, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.11, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.11, linux-hwe-5.11, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.11, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gke, linux-gke-5.4, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-raspi, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-hwe, linux-azure-4.15, linux-dell300x, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-raspi2, linux-snapdragon, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux-oem-5.10, and linux-oem-5.14).
A couple of days ago Google released the sources for Chromium 97.0.4692.71. I am still waiting for an update to the chromium-ungoogled sources but I have already uploaded Slackware packages for chromium (targeting 14.2 and -current) to my repository.
A clarion call from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warning about upcoming changes to the Chrome browser's extension API was not the first such—from the EFF or from others. The time of the switch to Manifest V3, as the new API is known, is growing closer; privacy advocates are concerned that it will preclude a number of techniques that browser extensions use for features like ad and tracker blocking. Part of the concern stems from the fact that Google is both the developer of a popular web browser and the operator of an enormous advertising network so its incentives seem, at least, plausibly misaligned.
Manifest V3 was first proposed in late 2018 as an eventual replacement for Manifest V2, which is the current extension API that is supported by both Chrome and Firefox. These APIs provide the tools that extensions use to manipulate the browser state to customize the web-browsing experience in some fashion. Extensions can change the user interface in various ways, observe and modify the browser behavior for things like bookmarks and tabs, manipulate the requests (and their content) that the browser makes, and more.
IFF has provided our comments on the Consultation Paper on Proposed Health Data Retention Policy (‘the Policy’). The policy was put up for public comments on November 23, 2021. In our comments, we have tried to highlight the harms of mandatory data retention, issues around a fragmented healthcare regime and data portability issues.
The Kazakhstan government has blocked internet access for citizens as violent protests over fuel prices continue to sweep the country.
According to NetBlocks and Cloudflare, which monitor network disruptions and shutdowns around the world, a significant disruption to internet service in the country started on Tuesday (January 4), progressing to a nation-wide communications blackout the following day.
For many of us, the image of a frog evokes feelings which fall anywhere between utter ambivalence and mild fondness. The common frog is neither fearsomely feral, nor an affectionate family pet. Children chase them, princesses kiss them, and backyard swimmers rescue them from drowning in pools. For Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801), however, frogs are “the swollen representative of a disgusting bestiality”, and a manifestation of true “satanical hideousness and malignity”. In light of these epithets, one might wonder, what did the frog do to deserve such scathing description? In Lavater’s understanding, the frog’s fault resides in the angle of its forehead.
The etchings above, commissioned by Lavater from the Swiss printmaker Christian von Mechel (1737–1817), put the physiognomist’s ideas into color and motion. Across twenty-four frames, the profile of an unassuming amphibian slowly metamorphs into that of Apollo (considered the epitome of masculine beauty). At its core, Lavater’s physiognomy relies on the belief that a creature’s true character and morality can be discerned from their “lines of countenance”, often revealed by analyzing silhouettes. In many ways, he spent his career trying to offer scientific proof of the ancient Greek concept known as kalokagathia — that goodness manifests as beauty, evil as ugliness — the focus of his greatest-known work, the four-volume Physiognomische Fragmente (1775–1778).
