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Links 27/1/2022: Preinstalled GNU/Linux (Ubuntu) and Arch Linux-Powered Steam Deck 30 Days Away



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Juno Computers Launch Ubuntu-Powered Mars 15 Laptop with Up to AMD Ryzen 9, NVIDIA RTX 3070

         Featuring a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920x1080p) matte display with a whooping 240Hz refresh rate, the Mars 15 notebook is powered by AMD Ryzen 5000X family of desktop processors, namely the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X with 8 cores and 16 threads or the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with 12 cores and 24 threads.

        Mars 15 is clearly designed for hardcore gamers as it also comes with powerful NVIDIA graphics cards, namely the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 with 6GB GDDR6 VRAM or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM. According to Juno Computers, all the video ports in the laptop are controlled by the NVIDIA GPU.

      • 5 Reasons Why Linux Distros Create Their Own Desktop Environments

        Many Linux distros have now started developing their own desktop environments. Why is this so? Let's find out.

        Most of us don't think of the desktop as something separate from the operating system. What you see on the screen—that is Windows or that is macOS. But on Linux, there is no one desktop. Instead, there are many.

        Most people stick with what comes by default, and a number of Linux distributors are opting to create their own desktop from scratch. elementary OS has Pantheon. Solus has Budgie. System76 has COSMIC. Nitrux Linux has Maui Shell. In the past, Ubuntu had Unity.

      • Unboxing Dell XPS 13 - openSUSE Tumbleweed alongside preinstalled Ubuntu

        I received a new laptop for work - a Dell XPS 13. Dell has been long famous for offering certain models with pre-installed Linux as a supported option, and opting for those is nice for moving some euros/dollars from certain PC desktop OS monopoly towards Linux desktop engineering costs. Notably Lenovo also offers Ubuntu and Fedora options on many models these days (like Carbon X1 and P15 Gen 2).

        [...]

        Obviously a smooth, ready-to-rock Ubuntu installation is nice for most people already, but I need openSUSE, so after checking everything is fine with Ubuntu, I continued to install openSUSE Tumbleweed as a dual boot option. As I’m a funny little tinkerer, I obviously went with some special things

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Today Valve confirmed the Steam Deck's official LAUNCH DATE (plus OTHER Deck news) - Invidious

        Yes, that's right. Valve confirmed the Steam Deck's release date. It's February 25th, 2022. That's just under a month away from the release of this video.

      • FLOSS Weekly 665: The Open Source Initiative - Stefano Maffulli, OSI

        Stefano Maffulli joins Jonathan Bennett and Simon Phipps on this episode of FLOSS Weekly. Phipps does double duty as guest as well as co-host. It's all about the Open Source Initiative, the custodians of what exactly counts as Open Source. That may seem like a solved problem, but cloud computing, machine learning, and Standard Essential Patents present new challenges to face. We talk about these topics and more, so check it out!

      • Does The FSF Really Respect Your Freedom? - Invidious

        There see to be some legitimate concerns with how the FSF approaches microcode and firmware running on a secondary processor which does not respect your freedom and in many ways puts users in danger.

      • NO CLEVO? Starlabs Starbook Mk. V review - Invidious

        We've got a very special laptop running Linux out of the box: the StarLabs Starbook Mark 5. This one is pretty different from virtually every other manufacturer: it's NOT using a clevo or tongfang chassis, it's custom designed, aluminium, and it's a pretty amazing ultrabook that really deserves an in depth look.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Adding a Host to Monitor to LibreNMS

        LibreNMS is a monitoring tool that supports auto-discovery with multiple protocols, including SNMP, ARP, OSPF, and BGP. To monitor operating systems, you can use the SNMP protocol, which is available on most OS, including Linux, Windows, and BSDs.

        There are three versions of SNMP Protocol, v1 and v2 which are secured with only a community password, and the protocol v3 which supports passwords for authentication and encryption. For the production environment, it's recommended to use the SNMP protocol v3, which is more secure than v2 and v1.

        In this article, you will learn how to add hosts to the LibreNMS monitoring system using the SNMP protocol.

      • AWK Command Examples for Beginners / AWK Linux Tutorial

        Learning to use the AWK utility in Linux is a skill that most Linux users yearn to have. It can save you time and energy, as well as help you better understand the inner workings of your computer.

        While it may seem hard at first, you will become well-versed with this command-line utility with the right guide and frequent practice.

        Once you understand the AWK utility well, you will find it a necessary tool when working on your Linux Terminal.

      • How to Install Midori Browser on Ubuntu Linux – VITUX

        There are tons of browsers are out in the market catering different needs of diverse computing communities. One of them is the Midori browser that helps a unique range of users who thrive on the speed. Users who need a greater navigational speed and built-in browser shortcuts rely on Midori all the time.

      • How to Install InvoicePlane with Apache and Free Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate on Debian 11

        InvoicePlane is a free, open-source, and self-hosted application for managing your quotes, invoices, clients, and payments. It is used by many organizations and freelancers to manage their payments and invoices. It offers custom templates, themes, and other tools that help you to increase the functionality of InvoicePlane. It also supports multiple languages and multiple payment providers such as Paypal, Stripe or even Bitcoin via Coinbase.

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install InvoicePlane with Apache on Debian 11.

      • How to Install Apache Cassandra NoSQL Database on Debian 11 – VITUX

        Apache Cassandra is an open-source distributed database developed for cloud computing. It provides a highly available and scalable database service with no single point of failure and no manual tuning.

        Apache Cassandra is one of the most popular databases used in artificial intelligence to help create robots. With the ability to scale up quickly using commodity hardware, Cassandra could become one of the primary data storage systems that will power future robotic data management devices.

        Apache Cassandra is a NoSQL database. With the addition of the Apache Thrift interface, Cassandra can be used to store and manage data without the use of SQL, while allowing developers to use familiar application development protocols like REST and Thrift.

        Cassandra was primarily developed by Facebook engineer Prashant Malik. The database was named after the wife of a co-founder of Facebook, who died in a car accident in 2008. It is built on Google’s BigTable architecture, with support for distribution, replication, failure detection and load balancing using Apache ZooKeeper.

      • GNU Linux Debian – to swap or not to swap – that is the question – how to fix annoying startup boot dealying boot – message begin running scripts local-block mdadm no arrays found in config file or automatically
      • How to install MultiMC on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install MultiMC 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.

      • How to install Synfig Studio on Zorin OS 16 - Invidious

        In this video, we are looking at how to install Synfig Studio on Zorin OS 16.

      • How to install deepin 20.4 - Invidious

        In this video, I am going to show how to install deepin 20.4.

      • Linux Fu: Bash Strings | Hackaday

        If you are a traditional programmer, using bash for scripting may seem limiting sometimes, but for certain tasks, bash can be very productive. It turns out, some of the limits of bash are really limits of older shells and people code to that to be compatible. Still other perceived issues are because some of the advanced functions in bash are arcane or confusing.

        Strings are a good example. You don’t think of bash as a string manipulation language, but it has many powerful ways to handle strings. In fact, it may have too many ways, since the functionality winds up in more than one place. Of course, you can also call out to programs, and sometimes it is just easier to make a call to an awk or Python script to do the heavy lifting.

      • Top Linux commands that every DevOps professional & student must know
      • How To Install WordPress on DigitalOcean with Sail - Konstantin Kovshenin

        Sail is a great and much more affordable alternative to traditional and managed WordPress hosting. It’s a free and open source CLI tool to provision and manage WordPress applications in the DigitalOcean cloud.

      • How to install Cluster Autoscaler on AWS EKS - Kernel Talks
      • Creating Identity provider for AWS EKS - Kernel Talks
      • How to configure kubectl for AWS EKS - Kernel Talks
      • How not to execve() | [bobulate]

        There is a local privilege escalation in Polkit (formerly PolicyKit, and used in plenty of places where privilege escalation is needed). It was found by Qualys, and carefully documented on the oss-sec mailing list. It has hit the mainstream media fairly hard, too – probably because it follows closely on unrelated log4j and faker.js issues in Open-Source-land. I’m not a security specialist by a long shot (not by at least 3 light-seconds, even), but let’s take a brief look at execve() in FreeBSD.

      • How to update existing documents in MongoDB | FOSS Linux

        MongoDB was first developed in 2007 by Dwight Merriman and Eliot Horowitz when they experienced scalability issues with relational databases while developing enterprise web applications at their company, known as DoubleClick. According to one of the developers, its name was derived from the word humongous to support the idea of processing a large amount of data.

      • Install Monitorix 3.14.0 On Ubuntu / Rocky Linux & Fedora | Tips On UNIX

        Monitorix is a free and Open-source, lightweight system monitoring tool designed to monitor services, system resources, and servers. It is similar to Zabbix, Nagios, and Cacti.

        This tutorial will be helpful for the users to install Monitorix 3.14.0 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, LinuxMint 20.3, Fedora 35, and Rocky Linux 8.

        Monitorix team released a new version 3.14.0 on January 18, 2022.

      • 8 ways to speed up your Ansible playbooks | Enable Sysadmin

        Ansible is a simple and powerful open source automation tool that can streamline many of your IT infrastructure operations. You can automate simple tasks like installing packages, or complex workflows such as deploying a clustered solution with multiple nodes or patching your operating system with many steps. Whether the workflows are simple or complex, you need to integrate appropriate optimization techniques into the Ansible playbook content.

        This article covers some of the major optimization methods available in Ansible for speeding up playbook execution.

      • Linux Foundation Certified 50% More IT Professionals in 2021, Helping to Address Industry-Wide Talent Shortage
      • Install Linux Kernel 5.16/5.17 on Fedora 35 - LinuxCapable

        Linux kernel 5.16 has many new features, support, and security. The Linux 5.16 kernel release has a great new feature, FUTEX2, or futex_watv(), which aims to improve the Linux gaming experience, growing considerably with better native Linux porting for Windows games utilizing Wine.

        Other improvements have seen improved write congestion management task scheduler for CPU clusters sharing L2/L3 cache, among others. More information can be found on the Linux 5.16 Kernel release changelog.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest 5.16/5.17 Linux Kernel on Fedora 34/35 Server or Workstation using the Linux Vanilla third-party repository that is well known.

      • How to Install Nagios in Ubuntu 22.04/20.04 – Part 1

        Essential networking devices, network services, and applications need constant monitoring to lessen the troubleshooting complexities that many server administrators have to endure or overcome.

        One reputable tool for managing such networking footprints is Nagios. Its active monitoring functionality can detect network devices, services, and application faults on a server it is tasked to monitor. Once such faults are detected, the administrative user is notified of the underlying suspicious activity on the network.

        The machine that hosts Nagios should embrace a Server/Agent architecture for it to comfortably communicate with remote hosts that need constant monitoring.

        This Nagios network monitoring tool makes use of agents like Nagios Remote Plugin Executor for swift communication with remote hosts. Moreover, Nagios generates final reports from visually represented user interface logs.

      • How to install Portainer CE with Docker-Compose – NextGenTips

        In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to install Portainer CE with Docker-compose.

        Portainer is a free and open-source lightweight service delivery platform for containerized applications that can be used to manage Docker, Kubernetes, Docker swarm, etc. The application is simple to deploy and use. The application allows you to manage all your container services via smart GUIs or an extensive API, this makes the developers’ work easier.

        Portainer gives developers a chance to deploy, manage, and troubleshoot containerized applications without needing to deeply have experience with Kubernetes. This is awesome in my view.

        In this tutorial we are going to learn how to install Portainer inside a docker container, also we will learn the uses of Portainer, what are Portainer agents. Also, we need to understand about Portainer ports i.e which ports do Portainer uses to communicate with the world. So let’s dive in

        We have two editions of Portainer, the Portainer community edition which is free to use, and the Portainer Business Edition which requires one to purchase the license fee to use and has more features compared to the community edition.

    • Games

      • Gamebuntu 1.0 Released

        Are you a gamer or want to play the game and use Ubuntu then Gamebuntu is for you. Gamebuntu is an all-in-one app that makes it possible to play games with just a single click of installation.

        Meanwhile, Gamebuntu 1.0 has been released with a serious commitment to the gaming experience.

      • ‘Gamebuntu’ Make it Super Easy to Setup Your Ubuntu for Gaming | UbuntuHandbook

        Want to play some games in Ubuntu desktop? Gamebuntu is a new project to make life easier for beginners!

        Without searching for how to tutorials and struggling with Linux commands, Gamebuntu is an all-in-one app makes it possible to single click to install Steam, Heroic / Epic Game launcher, Minigalaxy GOG client, and/or Lutris game clients.

      • Steam Deck to Launch Officially on February 25th, 2022

         Announced in July 2021, Steam Deck promises to be a revolutionary gaming handheld powered by Valve’s SteamOS 3.0 operating system based on Arch Linux and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop environment.

        Initially planned for the end of 2021, Valve delayed their upcoming Steam Deck device for February 2022, but now the company has finally revealed the official release date as February 25th.

      • Windjammers 2 is out and it works perfectly on Linux | GamingOnLinux

        A little flying-disc on the go when you get your shiny Steam Deck? Windjammers 2 is out from Dotemu and it's absolutely brilliant, although I am completely horrible at it.

      • Half-Life 2 getting a new UI in prep for Steam Deck | GamingOnLinux

        Valve continue burning the midnight oil as it's getting close to the Steam Deck launch now. Their classics continue getting updated, with Half-Life 2 getting a new UI.

        While they've already added Vulkan support to multiple older titles using DXVK-Native, it appears they're now moving on to make more changes to help players on gamepads work with their games. It makes sense of course, since having their own games work great on the Steam Deck is a must.

      • Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is out, run it on Linux with one small change | GamingOnLinux

        Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is out now as a partnership between Timelock Studio and Croteam. It can run rather well on Linux, although you do need a quick adjustment for Steam Play Proton.

        This is a much shorter and simpler game than previous entries, as it's a sort-of standalone expansion that sits together with Serious Sam 4. Although, going in cold is not a big deal, since it's mostly the usual mindless fast-paced shooting you would expect from a Serious Sam game. The game actually started off life from a modding team, who under guidance from Croteam, turned it into an official game in the series.

      • TOP 10 MOST WANTED GAMES STILL BORKED ON LINUX - Boiling Steam

        It’s time again to use the fabulous ProtonDB to find out some cool stuff. Today, we can look at what are the most wanted games (by using the number of people submitting reports) for which the ratings are abysmal, as in 100% borked. And you end up with the Top 10 that follows. Let’s go from the least popular ones to the most popular ones – for each game we will also give you a quick comment about why it fails currently.

    • Distributions

      • New Releases

        • antiX Linux 19.5 Release Brings Latest IceWM Desktop Environment

          antix 19.5 is based on Debian 10 “Buster” stable branch, with Linux kernel 4.9 LTS, Firefox ESR 91, and LibreOffice 7.0.4.

          antiX Linux is a lightweight desktop Linux distribution based on Debian for 32 and 64 bit Intel-AMD x86 compatible architectures and is fully systemd-free. Put simply, it is Debian without systemd.

          antiX Linux targeted to the very old hardware and systems. You need at least 256 MB RAM, and the installer needs a minimum 4.0 GB hard disk size. As you can see, if you are looking to revive your super-old hardware with Linux, then this might be the perfect distro.

          Coming after 8 months since antiX 19.4 release, this fifth point antiX 19.5 release brings usual Kernel updates, the latest Debian 10 “Buster” packages, and the respective application’s stable version. Let’s take a look in brief at what’s new in antiX 19.5.

      • Arch Family

        • EndeavourOS: Arch Linux Made Easy for Everyone

          If you don't want to go through the complex installation process of Arch Linux, consider installing EndeavourOS, a user-friendly derivative of Arch.

          EndeavourOS is quickly becoming one of the most popular Arch-based Linux distributions available. It gives users the speed, power, and high level of choice that makes Arch Linux stand out without the somewhat difficult and often frustrating manual setup process.

          The sleek presentation and intuitive graphical interface make it easy for anyone to install EndeavourOS, one of the most advanced bleeding-edge Linux operating systems.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • The state of Customer Experience at Red Hat: Product and documentation enhancements

          Have you ever wondered what happens when you submit feedback to Red Hat? The Red Hat Customer and Partner Experience team collects feedback through our net promoter score (NPS) survey, focus groups and events between customers and Red Hat engineers, and through several additional surveys that we use to better understand your experience as you engage with our products and services.

          Throughout 2021, the team collected and analyzed more than 15,000 survey responses, conducted a total of 15 virtual focus groups, events, and feedback sessions between our engineering teams and customers, and collected feedback from over 1,000 active users in our Red Hat Customer Portal Community.

        • Risk management: 4 key strategies | The Enterprisers Project

          Effectively mitigating risk is a growing challenge for business and IT leaders. Consider these tips on how to offset risk in 4 essential areas

        • Red Hat Developer roundup: Best of January 2022 | Red Hat Developer

          Don't miss a thing! Here's a roundup of new articles, tutorials, and more published this month on Red Hat Developer.

        • Fedora Magazine - Quarkus and Mutiny

          Quarkus is a foundation for building Java based applications; whether for the desktop, server or cloud. An excellent write up on usage can be found at https://fedoramagazine.org/using-the-quarkus-framework-on-fedora-silverblue-just-a-quick-look/. This article is primer for coding asynchronous processes using Quarkus and Mutiny.

          So what is Mutiny? Mutiny allows streaming of objects in an event driven flow. The stream might originate from a local process or something remote like a database. Mutiny streaming is accomplished by either a Uni or a Multi object. We are using the Uni to stream one object — a List containing many integers. A subscribe pattern initiates the stream.

          A traditional program is executed and results are returned before continuing. Mutiny can easily support non-blocking code to run processes concurrently. RxJava, ReactiveX and even native Java are alternatives. Mutiny is easy to use (the exposed API is minimal) and it is the default in many of the Quarkus extensions. The two extensions used are quarkus-mutiny and quarkus-vertx. Vert.x is the underlying framework wrapped by Quarkus. The Promise classes are supplied by quarkus-vertx. A promise returns a Uni stream when the process is complete. To get started, install a Java JDK and Maven.

        • Build a bootable JAR for cloud-ready microservices | Red Hat Developer

          Modernize an enterprise Java application for cloud deployment with Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, Jakarta EE, and MicroProfile.

        • Why today's cloud is built on containers | The Enterprisers Project

          Containers are the default way of packaging software in the cloud. Amazon Web Services (AWS) executive Deepak Singh shares insights for IT leaders on smoothly running containers with its service and ecosystem partners

        • Automating network and Microsoft SQL Server configuration using RHEL System Roles [Ed: IBM priorities?]
    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • FSF

        • Licensing/Legal

          • Attempt to shake down Linux users for Netfilter code use resolved | ZDNet

            Once upon a time in the 2000s and 2010s, Patrick McHardy was the chair of Linux's Netfilter core development team. Netfilter is a Linux kernel utility that handles various network functions, such as facilitating Network Address Translation (NAT) and Linux's IPTables firewall. All was fine. But, then it was discovered that McHardy had made millions of Euros from threatening over 50 companies with legal action for using "his" code. That will never happen again.

            McHardy was suspended from the Netfilter team in 2016. The Netfilter team released a document on how to deal with his attempts to extract money from vendors. This move by McHardy, who had been a leading Linux developer in the 2000s, came as a complete surprise at the time. Now, years later, the issue has finally been resolved.

      • Programming/Development

        • Job Description

          Fedora is a Linux operating system. The computers we have at home are similar it has an operating system called windows, Fedora is just another one like windows just with differnt features. the operating system tells the computer what to do when you move the mouse or press a key on the keyboard. e.t.c .

          So just like we have operating systems for phone like iphone and android, we also have different ones for computers like MacOS, Windows, Fedora Linux e.t.c.

          Now to do anything more with your computer you need to have aplications just like whatsapp and twitter on our phones, on the compter you can have web browser that lets you access youtube, whatsapp e.t.c. the process of adding new applications to your phone or computer is called installing.

          For this internship program i make lots of applications easy to install on the Fedora Linux operating system.

          I got this internship through Outreachy.

          [...]

          Outreachy has vast list of projects to work on but i chose Fedora and i am loving the experience so far, and i am hoping even after the internship i will still be an active contributor to Fedora.

        • three courses on edX to develop open source - itsfoss.net

          The Linux Foundation has published three new courses on the platform edX with which their corresponding certificates can be obtained.

          For those who are lost, edX is a MOOC platform created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University. It runs on its own platform technology, edX, which is published as open source on GitHub. It has a close relationship with The Linux Foundation and stands out for making courses related to Open Source technologies available.

        • Qt Developer Conference 2022, June 13th-15th, Berlin - KDAB

          We are very happy to announce that the Qt Developer Conference is back on track after having been postponed last September. Mark your calendars and save the date on 13th-15th June 2022. This will be our first in-person event since the pandemic started. Do not miss out on this wonderful experience!

  • Leftovers

    • Barnes & Barnes, Weird Al, Lego, TMNT: The State of Weird Nostalgia

      Last spring, we brought you Tedium′s version of a clip show for our 500-ish issue. In that issue, we did a few updates, curated a “best-of” celebration for that landmark issue of the newsletter (although in my head, Tedium is more of what I’ve always wanted a magazine to be). Recently, I found myself thinking about all the stories I wanted to do but just couldn’t manage to put together enough for a full-fledged Tedium piece. I originally planned to bring you a story about pressure washers—and I assure you it is coming—but time and fate just weren’t on my side to get that together in time. So, I turned my attention to some unfinished thoughts and ideas to flesh them out a little more. Today we’re bringing you a series of mini-pieces about topics that are interesting, but not quite enough to fill out an entire issue. Expect some music, thoughts about nostalgia, and perhaps an idea of what the future might hold.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Security

          • 12-Year-Old PolicyKit Local Privilege Escalation Flaw Now Patched in Major Linux Distros

            According to the researchers, the vulnerability (CVE-2021-4034) was discovered in PolicyKit’s pkexec tool, which incorrectly handled command-line arguments. This could lead to local privilege escalation, allowing any regular user in a GNU/Linux distribution to gain administrative privileges and run programs as an administrator (root).

            The good news is that most major GNU/Linux distributions already received patched versions of the Polkit package. At the moment of writing, Debian published patches for Debian GNU/Linux 10 “Buster” and Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” systems, and Canonical published patches for all of its supported Ubuntu releases.

          • A Polkit Vulnerability Gives Root on All Major Linux Distros

            A 12-year-old security vulnerability has been disclosed in the Linux’s system utility Polkit that grants attackers root privileges.

            Previously called PolicyKit, Polkit manages system-wide privileges in Linux. It provides a mechanism for nonprivileged processes to safely interact with privileged processes and it’s installed by default in every major Linux distribution.

            Yesterday, researchers from Qualys published an advisory about a local privilege escalation vulnerability in the pkexec tool, that is installed as part of the Polkit. The pkexec tool, which is a command line tool, is used to define which authorized user can execute a program as another user.

          • A bug lurking for 12 years gives attackers root on every major Linux distro

            Linux users on Tuesday got a major dose of bad news—a 12-year-old vulnerability in a system tool called Polkit gives attackers unfettered root privileges on machines running any major distribution of the open source operating system.

          • Major Bug Grants Root For All Major Linux Distributions | Hackaday

            One of the major reasons behind choosing Linux as an operating system is that it’s much more secure than Windows. There are plenty of reasons for this including appropriate user permissions, installing software from trusted sources and, of course, the fact that most software for Linux including the Linux kernel itself is open source which allows anyone to review the code for vulnerabilities. This doesn’t mean that Linux is perfectly secure though, as researchers recently found a major bug found in most major Linux distributions that allows anyone to run code as the root user.

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • EFF Asks Appeals Court to Find DMCA Provisions Unconstitutional - FOSS Force

          The Electronic Frontier Foundation is taking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to court. This is nothing new. EFF has been fighting selected aspects of the DMCA since before the act was passed in 1998.

          In this case, EFF is taking aim at provisions of the law that have in recent years become specifically problematic for the right-to-repair movement. These revolve around the DMCA’s Section 1201, which makes it illegal for users to find ways to bypass Digital Rights Management software to access copyrighted material, even when they legally own it.

          On January 12, EFF and co-counsel Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse a district court decision in Green versus DOJ, which was a suit filed in 2016 by EFF challenging the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA on behalf of security researcher Matt Green and technologist Andrew “bunnie” Huang.

          According to EFF, both are pursuing projects that are not only beneficial to the public, but would be completely lawful if not for the DMCA’s anti-speech provisions, which EFF says violate the First Amendment.

          [...]

          In some cases, even telling someone how to fix a problem is a criminal act, according to EFF.

          “Section 1201 makes it a federal crime for our clients, and others like them, to exercise their right to free expression by engaging in research, creating software, and publish their work,” EFF senior staff attorney Kit Walsh said in a statement. “This creates a censorship regime under the guise of copyright law that cannot be squared with the First Amendment.”



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Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: psychological abuse, stalking, Galia Mancheva, Susanne Eiswirt ignored by FSFE judgment for Matthias Kirschner
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Helping FSFE scam victims and conference organisers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Nigerian fraud in FSFE constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Worrying and Amusing Stories of "Clown Computing" Gone Awry
Many of these disasters could be avoided
Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
Links for the day
They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
"Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
"Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
Progress on Techrights Site Search
Fun times
IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
Links for the day
Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
all about what Google does
Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
This recording is over 2 hours old
Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
Links for the day
The African Lion and the American Cowards
Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
Links for the day
Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
What a disgrace
A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
"The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
"No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning
Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week