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Links 29/1/2022: Curse of NixOS and Rust (GitHub/Microsoft) Versus GNU



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Why this website is called RealLinuxUser

        After a lot of research, I bought both a refurbished desktop and a refurbished laptop and started my journey of discovery with Linux Mint. With help from forums and websites and Youtube, I managed to install Linux Mint successfully. And then my enthusiasm got bigger and bigger and I dared to ask my questions in some forums. Since I am drawn to graphical applications and a graphical way of using my computers, One of the things I asked was how I could do certain things with graphical applications only, as I am a visual person and prefer graphical user interfaces. And what shocked me then was the reactions I got. It was like I was swearing in church or something…how ridiculous it was that I didn’t want to just use the terminal because everything was so much nicer and better and faster using terminal commands. And maybe that is true in some cases, but what struck me the most was that I was not considered a real Linux user because of that And some folks told me that in a really harsh way. When I started thinking about those comments, I came to my own conclusion that this way of thinking and communicating from the Linux community (for a while it felt like the whole community was against me, which of course wasn’t, but harsh words have sometimes major impact on me), may be one of the major reasons why so many people don’t even want to try Linux. The technical level, the language, the attitude, and the unfriendly tone of voice that I often encountered, I don’t think fit with all the beautiful things Linux has to offer.

    • Server

      • Pop quiz: The network team didn't make your change. The server is in a locked room. What do you do?

        Welcome to another entry in The Register's Who, Me? archives. Today, a reader goes full Hollywood to save the day (and fix some IP addressing).

        Our story comes from Dave and takes us back to the Australia of the 1990s. It was the era of Paul Keating and John Howard and, significantly, a time of advancement in telecommunications technology.

        Riding that wave was our reader, "Dave" (no, not his real name) who was working in software and infrastructure for a government agency. His team had developed an imaging system ("back when that was hard," he said modestly) that could display trademark registrations on the new-fangled Windows desktops that were popping up all over the place.

        "The application worked a treat," explained Dave, "and saved everybody heaps of time in their day job, and successfully displaced some dedicated SUN workstations that were used to display the coveted trademarks database images."

        "Instead of queuing, examiners could simply use their desktop PCs to do their day job. Unfortunately, it was a victim of its own popularity."

      • IPv6 is built to be better, but that's not the route to success

        In the World of Tomorrow that's always 10 years away, Linux dominates the desktop, quantum computers control the fusion reactors, and all Android phones receive regular system updates. And the internet runs on IPv6.

        This sort of talk irks IPv6 stans, mostly because it's true. They are serious-minded, far-seeing, sober engineering types who are both baffled and angry that IPv4 still rules the world in 2022. This is not how it was supposed to be.

        IPv4 was designed by expert prophetic dreamers more than 40 years ago to be future-proof, but the future it actually created outstripped their dreams. IPv6 was the engineers' answer, born from a decade and a half of experience, and solving IPv4's undeniable routing, addressing, security and performance problems at the unprecedented scale it was being asked to support.

      • Reasons for servers to support IPv6

        I’ve been having a hard time understanding IPv6. On one hand, the basics initially seem pretty straightforward (there aren’t enough IPv4 addresses for all the devices on the internet, so people invented IPv6! There are enough IPv6 addresses for everyone!)

        But when I try to actually understand it, I run into a lot of questions. One question is: twitter.com does not support IPv6. Presumably it can’t be causing them THAT many issues to not support it. So why do websites support IPv6?

        I asked people on Twitter why their servers support IPv6 and I got a lot of great answers, which I’ll summarize here.

        First though, I want to explain why it’s possible for twitter.com to not support IPv6 because I didn’t understand that initially.

      • New tools to simplify wrapping your head around Kubernetes

        Engineer Nelson Elhage offers several reasons Kubernetes is so complex but this does at least mean that multiple companies offer tools to try to help you master it.

        The Google-backed container-management system is famously difficult, even to spell or pronounce. (It's often called "k8s" for short: since "kubernetes" is 10 letters long, "k8s" signifies "k" + eight letters + "s", and is pronounced "kates".) The Mountain View mammoth even commissioned a comic to explain what it is. (It's long, but quite good.)

        K8s is a set of tools for managing clusters – but not everyone has a spare cluster lying around that they can play with.

        [...]

        Perhaps you're already running multiple K8s clusters and have the infrastructure ready, but you don't have admin-level access. Loft Labs has you covered: the newly announced vcluster lets you run clusters inside your cluster, so you can have root on your own private virtual K8s setup.

        Whether local on Arm, x86, Linux, Mac or Windows, on Docker, or in local VMs, or remote VMs, or a remote K8s cluster, someone somewhere has an allegedly easy-to-use offering to help you dip your toe in the water. After all, it's a brave company that says it doesn't need Kubernetes.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • Kernel 5.10.94 crashes

        Preparing to release the next version of EasyOS, I compiled the 5.10.94 kernel. The current release of Easy has the 5.10.90 kernel.

        Same config as for 5.10.90, but it crashes at bootup. Oh dear. So, staying with 5.10.90.

      • Zstd-Compressed Linux Firmware Back To Being Eyed - Phoronix

        Back in summer 2020 was a proposal for Zstd-compressed Linux firmware so that the growing number of firmware binaries shipped by the linux-firmware tree could be Zstd-compressed to save disk space while being able to more quickly decompressed the data compared to other firmware compression options.

        Following that original 2020 patch proposal, one year ago Zstd firmware compression was again talked about with patches in hand but never acted upon for mainlining. This would save disk space compared to the uncompressed hundreds of megabytes of firmware files and be quicker to decompress than using XZ compression and thus a faster boot time.

      • No, Linus Torvalds Is Not Satoshi Nakamoto [Ed: Clickbait garbage responding to other clickbait garbage]
    • Applications

      • The 8 Best Microsoft Office Alternatives for Linux Users

        You can easily find an open-source alternative for any Windows-exclusive app on Linux. And Microsoft Office is no exception.

        Document creation and management suites play a vital role in personal and professional spheres of life. A sizable variety of premium office suites is available to tackle your Linux computing needs, posing a solid competition to the old-faithful Microsoft Office.

        There are at least eight documentation suites with differential features, which aren't as costly as their Microsoft counterpart. If you're looking for some usable, worthy alternatives to MS Office, you must check out the options listed below.

      • Calibre is a Swiss Army ebook tool ● The Register

        In this week's edition of our column on free and open-source software, El Reg takes a look at Calibre, which converts almost any file type into almost any other file type, so you can read whatever you want, wherever you want, no matter what format it's in.

        It's free and runs on Windows, Linux and Mac.

        There's more to ebooks than the Kindle, of course, with devices such as the Kobo, Nook, and Onyx Boox. The author's own Sony Reader still worked fine when I gave it to a friend a year ago.

        Buying consumable content online for immediate consumption is wonderfully convenient, but the trouble is that you can lose it again just as easily, or the company can shut down its store. It's worth learning how to download your digital content – and once you have it on a computer, what you can do with it suddenly expands.

        This doesn't apply just to print books, either: although Comixology is being subsumed into the Bezos behemoth, don't despair. There are other ways to get stuff out of the cloud and onto e-paper.

      • QOwnNotes 22.1.11 - Neowin

        QOwnNotes is a open source (GPL) plain-text file notepad with markdown support and todo list manager for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, that (optionally) works together with the notes application of ownCloud (or Nextcloud). So you are able to write down your thoughts with QOwnNotes and edit or search for them later from your mobile device (like with CloudNotes) or the ownCloud web-service. The notes are stored as plain text files and you can sync them with your ownCloud sync client. Of course other software, like Dropbox, Syncthing, Seafile or BitTorrent Sync can be used too.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to use Nmap to scan for open ports

        The Nmap network reconnaissance and security auditing tool, released in 1997, is one of the most basic and most used cybersecurity tools today. From its beginnings as an advanced port scanner, it evolved into a multifunctional tool with a family of useful projects that can discover weak passwords, scan IPv6 addresses, perform IP address geolocation, detect vulnerabilities and more.

        The open source tool helps security pros, networking teams, sys admins and other IT personnel scan hosts, networks, applications, mainframes, Unix and Windows environments, supervisory control and data acquisition systems, and industrial control systems.

      • Nmap use cases, tools and product comparisons

        Nmap is one of the most well-known tools among the infosec community. "Some call it the Swiss Army knife for hacking," said Paulino Calderon, author and co-founder of Websec Mexico.

        At almost 25 years old, the network discovery and security auditing tool has come a long way since its inception. What was designed for network reconnaissance and port scanning has evolved to include a slew of subprojects, including Ndiff, Ncat and Zenmap.

        In his latest book, Nmap Network Exploration and Security Auditing Cookbook, Third Edition, Calderon offers insights into the tool and its use cases -- real-world tips he learned by not only using the tool in his everyday work, but also as a developer with the project since 2011.

      • An Essential Guide to Kubernetes Observability Challenges with Pixie

        Decentralized systems observability has always been challenging. Dealing with latency, distributed transactions, failures etc. became increasingly complex. The more abstraction a decentralized system has, the more difficult it is to reason about it, debug and troubleshoot.

      • How to play Xvid files or convert them

        Xvid is a codec that is designed to highly compress video files using the MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP format. Xvid is a free file format distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), so it's not uncommon to encounter this kind of file when downloading video online.

        [...]

        If you want to convert an Xvid file to another format, there are a number of options to choose from. If you are looking for a fast and free option, try one of the numerous online converters. These converters are hosted in a website; just upload the Xvid file, click the button to start the conversion process, and download the converted file. It generally takes a few minutes to convert, depending on the size of the original Xvid file. Two common converters include Convertio and Office-Converter.

      • How chmod numbers work explained

        If you work in a Unix based environment, a firm understanding of how chmod numbers work is required.

        For example, you need to know that 777 is a very dangerous permission to provide, that a 664 is a good mode change for the html directory on an Apache web server, and that a chmode number of 898 makes no sense whatsoever.

      • Transparently Patching PWNKIT with Ksplice
      • Install Neofetch on CentOS 8

        In this article we will learn how to Install Neofetch on CentOS 8. Neofetch is a free and opensource command-line tool that displays system and hardware information in a visually appealing manner. Neofetch shows the very basic information you might need to know such as the type of operating system you are running, screen resolution, the kernel, installed packages, memory, and uptime to mention a few. This information is displayed along with your OS logo.

      • How To Install Firefox on Debian 11 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Firefox on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, Mozilla Corporation. Firefox is featured on nearly all Linux distributions as the primary browser or secondary.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Mozilla Firefox browser on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

      • How to Install and Test a Web Server in Chromebook Linux

        The Chromebook Linux environment (Crostini) is a great tool for development, and it's especially good for web development. It's easy to install a web server to test your web page right from your Chromebook before deploying it to a production server. Here's how to do it.

      • How to Use the Synology Audio Station

        Audio Station is the audio player app of Synology. You can use it from the DSM 7 web interface. The Audio Station is used to manage audio playlists of your Synology NAS audio playlists and stream them. You can also use Audio Station to share audio with other people.

      • How To Setup CodeBlocks with C++/wxWidgets and GUI Designer

        This tutorial explains how you can install CodeBlocks with C++/wxWidgets library and GUI designer for visual software development. Fortunately, all tools are available already on Ubuntu. CodeBlocks is the IDE, cpp is the language, wxWidgets is the user interface toolkit, and wxSmith plugin is the designer. This tutorial is wished to help you in making cross platform programs rapidly with drag and drop approach aside from coding also known as a Visual Basic or Delphi alternative. Now let's go.

      • How to Install Cockpit With Ubuntu 21.04

        Hey! Welcome Back!! Today we will see how to install and configure Cockpit with Ubuntu 21.04. Linux is known for its complex CLI-based environment. Even for seasoned Linux Admins, things are not easy to memorize all the time. You require reference documents. Any such things which can help to reduce command line dependency will help. The cockpit is the same utility. To see how to install the service refer to this article.

      • How To Install Composer on CentOS Stream 9 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Composer on CentOS Stream 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Composer is a dependency manager for the programming language, PHP. It functions as some sort of project manager that helps the programmer manage dependencies that will be used on a project-to-project basis. Composer supports all the latest PHP platforms and frameworks like Magento, Laravel, etc.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Composer on a CentOS Stream 9.

      • How to install and configure MariaDB 10.7 on Ubuntu 20.04 – NextGenTips

        In this guide we are going to install MariaDB 10.7 development version, but first what is MariaDB?

        MariaDB Server is one of the most popular open-source relational databases. It’s made by the original developers of MySQL and guaranteed to stay open source. It is part of most cloud offerings and the default in most Linux distributions.

        It is built upon the values of performance, stability, and openness, and MariaDB Foundation ensures contributions will be accepted on technical merit. Recent new functionality includes advanced clustering with Galera Cluster 4, compatibility features with Oracle Database and Temporal Data Tables, allowing one to query the data as it stood at any point in the past.

        You need to have Ubuntu 20.04 server with non-root administrative privileges and a firewall configured with UFW. Check out this for initial server setup guide for Ubuntu 20.04.

      • How to install Onefetch in CentOS 8

        In this article we will learn How to install Onefetch in CentOS 8. Onefetch is a command line tool to get a Git repository’s information from the terminal. It displays various details of a given Git repository. Onefetch displays details along with the dominant programming language’s ASCII logo. You can change the ASCII logo with your own text input or nothing at all. Onefetch is fully customizable. You can configure it using command line flags to display exactly what you want and the way you want it to. For instance, you can decide which language’s ASCII logo to print, disable a specific detail from the output, change the ASCII art color, and change the text color etc.

        Onefetch supports more than 50 programming languages. If you think a specific language is missing, just open an issue in GitHub and the support might be added. It is an open source project written in RUST programming language. The source code of Onefetch is freely available in GitHub under MIT license.

      • How to Install and Configure CSF Firewall on Debian 11 - Cloudbooklet

        Install and configure CSF (Config Server Firewall) and secure your Debian 11.

        CSF is a popular security tool for Linux to secure the server with stateful packet inspection firewall (SPI), intrusion detection, a login failure daemon, DDOS protection, and control panel integration.

        In this guide you are going to learn how to install and setup CSF and also the essential commands to use the firewall on Debian 11

      • How to Install Void Linux: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide

        In this guide, I will be going to show you step-by-step how to easily install Void Linux and set up a fully workable desktop environment.

      • Getting Started with CodeBlocks, C++/wxWidgets and GUI Programming

        This tutorial will explain how you can start software development with CodeBlocks with wxWidgets Framework and GUI designer wxSmith. Aimed for beginners, this is an expansion of our alternatives to Visual Basic, Studio or Delphi. We hope this could help, support and enable everyone to Free Libre Open Source Software development. Now let's start.

      • Install Wine 7.1 On Ubuntu 20.04 / 21.10 & Linux Mint | Tips On UNIX

        This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to install wine 7.1 on Ubuntu 21.10, Ubuntu 20.04, and Linux Mint 20.3.

      • Install Bpytop as an alternative to Top & Htop- System Monitor

        Bpytop is an appealing alternative to “htop” and “Top” kind of command-line system monitor tool. Here we will learn the command to install Bpytop on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04 LTS Linux.

        Although we can monitor our system resources by using the default in-built system monitor tools on Ubuntu, however, we have to leave the terminal for that. Yes, I know classic Linux command-line tools such as ps, free and df are there along with somewhat clearer tools such as the “top” and the graphical, a little more appealing structure “htop”. However, having a little bit more interactive, easy to handle and structured tool is not a bad idea.

        Hence, it is worth installing and experiencing “top” alternative Bpytop, which is written in Python, which, like the traditional candidates and does not require a graphical environment.

      • Essential DNF Commands for Linux Users [With Examples]

        We give you a quick reference of essential DNF commands with examples in this guide.

    • Wine or Emulation

      • Wine 7.1 Released with Vulkan 1.3 Support & Various Bug-fixes

        The first development release after Wine stable 7.0 was out. Here’s what’s new and how to install in Ubuntu Linux.

        Wine 7.1 comes with the latest Vulkan 3D graphics v1.3 support for running high-performance real-time 3D graphics applications. The new driver features dynamic rendering, additional dynamic state, improved synchronization API, and device profiles.

      • Wine-Staging 7.1 Adds Bindless Textures Patch To Fix Some Game Rendering Issues - Phoronix

        Along with Wine 7.1 releasing on Friday, Wine-Staging 7.1 is also available as the more bleeding-edge version of Wine that carries more than five huundred extra patches atop the code-base.

        Wine-Staging 7.1 ships wiht 561 patches over and beyond what is included in mainline Wine 7.1. Aside from the patches it's been carrying for a long time, three new patches were picked up while also updating the existing patches around NVIDIA CUDA support.

        Arguably the most notable patch merged to Wine-Staging 7.1 is for WineD3D to support using bindless textures (ARB_bindless_texture) for GLSL shaders. Using bindless textures for shaders in the WineD3D code fixes this bug since 2018 around Elder Scrolls Online needing more than 32 samplers in pixel shaders. There has also been other bugs such as this rendering issue since 2017 also attributed as the same. WineD3D using bindless textures will help address some issues out there, but of course isn't relevant if you are instead using DXVK for your Direct3D 9/10/11 to Vulkan conversion rather than going through WineD3D with Direct3D to OpenGL.

    • Games

      • Steam Deck Verified and Playable Titles Pass the 100 Titles Mark - Boiling Steam

        Valve has started since mostly a week ago to make the Steam Deck Verified and Playable titles public. Since the Steam Deck launches on the 25th of February, there’s actually not so much time left to verify hundreds if not thousands of games, but the good news is that the Steam Deck Verification process seems to be picking up. There are now more than 100 titles (60 Verified + 41 Playable).

        [...]

        We will keep you up to date as the situation evolves!

      • Valve’s Steam Deck portable gaming console finally coming on this date

        In July 2021, Valve Corp unveiled Steam Deck, the company’s first ever hand-held gaming console. It was slated to hit stores in the US, UK and other select global markets in December. But, due to the chipset shortage, the scheduled release was deferred indefinitely.

        Now, the company has announced that the portable Steam Deck will be finally available for purchase online from February 25 onwards and the delivery process will commence on February 28.

        For the uninitiated, the new Steam Deck sports a wide 7.0-inch HD+ (1,280x800p) LCD panel with a 16:10 aspect ratio. It supports up to 60Hz display refresh rate and offers close to 400 nits of peak brightness.

      • Valve confirms Steam Deck starts shipping late February

        Valve's much-anticipated handheld console Steam Deck is finally hitting the market. The company promised it would arrive at the end of February and it looks like it's going to deliver. Those who reserved the device will get an invitation on February 25 and have three days to place their order as shipments start on February 28.

      • New Linux Drivers Could Extend Battery Life of Steam Deck

        It seems that there are some final preparations being done in the run-up to the hotly-anticipated Steam Deck, which is being released towards the latter parts of next month. With the likes of Half-Life 2 receiving a UI update that makes it more suitable for the handheld PC, these remaining few weeks are an opportunity for Valve to utilize the time left and make sure its upcoming device is as good as it can be. On top of everything else, it looks as though the portable system may be getting some new drivers, which could improve the overall battery life.

      • Quake II RTX Patch Adds AMD FSR, HDR Support; DLSS Can't Be Added

        As you might recall, NVIDIA released the remastered Quake II RTX for free back in June 2019. In-house developer Lightspeed Studios took the work of Christoph Schied with Q2VKPT and brought it to the next level with new path-traced visual effects, improved texturing, and more.

        Last Friday, Quake II RTX received a big new patch, version 1.6. The developers added a bunch of new features, though the most interesting ones came directly from the community, as GitHub user @res2k introduced support for AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and for High Dynamic Range (HDR) displays.

        [...]

        NVIDIA's prized Deep Learning Super Sampling cannot be added because of the GPL license used by Quake, as confirmed by developer AlexP on the Quake II RTX Steam forum.

      • This Wikipedia trivia game is the best thing since 'Wordle'

        What came first, John Travolta’s birth or The Norman Conquest of Southwest Italy? Where would the end date of America’s Next Top Model fit into the timeline? The origin of Goodyear Tire Company? The Shakespeare play Troilus and Cassida? If you like trivia and timelines, I urge you to check out WikiTrivia, a free quiz game that has been called an “online clone of the card game Timeline” and a “totally a sneaky trick to get people to fix stuff up on Wikidata.”

      • Welcome To Elk Will Launch On Switch & Linux On February 10th

        Danish-based indie game developer and publisher Triple Topping revealed this week that Welcome To Elk will be released next month. This is one of those oddball titles that hits all the right buttons when it comes to design and storytelling that, while completely weird, kinda draws you in over time. It feels like a slice of '90s Nickelodeon was turned into a game. You can check out the latest trailer below as it will be getting launched on February 10th for both PC on Linux and the Nintendo Switch.

      • Chromebooks with RGB keyboard lighting & gaming-related features to arrive soon: Report

        Chromebooks are hybrid devices that possess the capabilities of an Android tablet and appear in the form-factor of a laptop. In recent years, particularly after the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the demand for Chromebooks has grown. Subsequently, a lot of companies have started manufacturing Chromebooks that are highly affordable yet rich in features. However, up until now, Chromebooks have lacked in one aspect, gaming.

        Multiple Chromebooks that run on Chrome OS are available in the market from manufacturers like Lenovo, HP and Asus. However, for keeping such devices affordable, manufacturers are only able to pack the device with entry-level specifications. For instance, the Lenovo Chromebook 14e is currently available on Amazon for Rs. 20,990 and comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage along with an AMD 3015Ce processor. Another example is the Asus Chromebook Celeron Dual Core Chromebook, which is currently available on Flipkart for Rs. 17,990 and comes with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

        [...]

        Most recently, HP announced two new Chromebooks which are made for students. The Chromebooks come as a part of the HP Fortis series and there are two models. While one runs on Intel chipsets, the other runs on a Qualcomm chipset. The Chromebooks are called HP Fortis 14" G10 and HP Fortis 11" G9. While the former is available to purchase in the US, the latter will be available in June 2022. Keep reading to know about the new HP Fortis Chromebooks.

      • Gaming Chromebooks could launch soon to offer an alternative to Windows and Linux Gaming | Digit

        According to a recent report, changes in the Chrome OS suggests that Gaming Chromebooks are coming soon. For the uninitiated, Chrome OS is a free and open-source operating system from Google. Most people primarily use it for basic tasks like document editing, surfing the web etc. However, Chrome OS is more than likely to get native Steam support in the near future. Not only that but you can also expect Gaming Chromebooks with dedicated GPUs to launch as well.

      • Of course, Google gaming Chromebooks are planned: Look at the last 3 years

        RGB keyboards for Chrome OS are just another incremental step in what's now been a multi-year effort for Google gaming Chromebooks.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDE Plasma 5.24 Getting Ready For Release, More Wayland Fixes Merged - Phoronix

          KDE developers have been very busy this month working up to the Plasma 5.24 LTS release in February. Plus with the 15 minute bug initiative underway and working to address remaining issues with the Plasma Wayland session, it's been a busy start of 2022.

          KDE developer Nate Graham published his usual weekly development summary this morning. Some of the KDE highlights for ending out January include:

          - Various KDE Plasma 5.24 regressions fixed ahead of its release.

          - A handful of bugs from the 15 minute bugs initiative were resolved.

        • 10 Ways KDE Is a Better Linux Desktop Than GNOME

          Many Linux operating systems rely on GNOME, but it's worth giving KDE a try because it might just become your favorite Linux desktop.

          With so many popular Linux operating systems invested in the GNOME ecosystem (such as Ubuntu and Fedora), it's easy to overlook KDE.

          But there are many reasons why many consider KDE to be better than GNOME. If you do give KDE's Plasma desktop a try, you might walk away with a new favorite way to use Linux.

        • 7 Best Linux Distros Based on KDE GUI to use in 2022 - Linux Shout

          Although, we can install KDE on any popular Linux, however, here we have listed some best and most popular Linux distro that comes with the KDE desktop environment out of the box.

          The “KDE Community” is an international team that develops free and open-source software for both desktop PCs and mobile devices. The core product of KDE is currently the Plasma desktop environment for Linux and UNIX platforms. Also, offers Plasma for mobile devices.

          Apart from the beautiful desktop full of widgets, KDE offers hundreds of programs in many categories such as the Internet, multimedia, entertainment, education, graphics, and software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60 languages ​​and runs natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows, and Mac OS X. Nevertheless, many of the applications that can also be used under GNOME without any problems are released as “KDE Applications” every four months.

        • December/January in KDE Itinerary

          Getting train or bus trips into KDE Itinerary so far was only possible by importing the corresponding ticket, manual editing wasn’t available. This makes sense as in order to function properly we need trip data that actually matches the schedule and contains coordinates or identifiers for efficiently querying for realtime updates.

          However that’s a problem for users with some form of flat rate ticket, they might not have a corresponding ticket for each trip. Therefore it will become possible to add train or bus trips from a online journey search, basically as if we’d have an embedded KTrip for this.

          To make this work conveniently we needed a location picker, which involves a name-based online search for stations. KPublicTransport provides that since the very beginning, but is does have a problem: which online backend do we query? Without further instructions that will be all 70+ of them, which is very inefficient and will produce poor results.

          KTrip addresses this by asking the user to explicitly select an online backend. That works, but given the amount of backends we have this isn’t really ideal. For Itinerary we took a slightly different approach. For the location search you just have to select the corresponding country, and with that information KPublicTransport is now able to automatically pick as few as possible backends to perform the location search.

        • Kate & KTextEditor Bug Fixing - Kate

          The Kate & KTextEditor projects have at the moment 189 open bugs.

          That is a lot given only a few people work on this projects regularly.

          Therefore it would be really appreciated if people could help out with fixing.

          If you have spare time and you are interested in help to improve our projects, head over to our long list of bugs.

          Some might even be already fixed and just need to be tried out with a recent version. Other might lack ways to reproduce, providing such ways or even just asking the reporter and setting the bug to the NEEDSINFO/WAITINGFORINFO state will help us to keep some better overview.

          Contributing to Kate & KTextEditor is easier then ever nowadays.

          Head over to our build documentation, with kdesrc-build it is very easy to setup some development environment on any recent Linux/BSD distribution.

          We have already a really large number of merge requests that can be used as hints how to actually submit you patches and how the process works. Normally, if you are responsive to our feedback, I would say the patch contribution works really well since we are on our GitLab instance.

    • Distributions

      • [Old] Manjaro 21.2 ‘Qonos’ Released! Here’s What’s New

        Manjaro 21.2 is finally out, and it brings lots of improvements and updated desktop environments GNOME, Plasma, and Xfce. In this article, let’s look at the new Manjaro 21.2 features and improvements.

      • The best Linux distributions | c't uplink 41.4 - Market Research Telecast [Ed: Automated translation from German]

        These include Debian, Arch Linux, Fedora, Manjaro and Ubuntu. Which is the right distribution for you depends heavily on the intended use.

        For example, if you want to get an ancient notebook running again, you would probably be better off with a Debian, for a high-performance gaming computer you need the latest possible drivers and kernels – and that’s why you’re more likely to use Manjaro or openSUSE Tumbleweed.

      • Reviews

        • Wesley Aptekar-Cassels | The Curse of NixOS

          I've used NixOS as the only OS on my laptop for around three years at this point. Installing it has felt sort of like a curse: on the one hand, it's so clearly the only operating system that actually gets how package management should be done. After using it, I can't go back to anything else. One the other hand, it's extremely complicated constantly changing software that requires configuration with the second-worst homegrown config programming language I've ever used1.

          I don't think that NixOS is the future, but I do absolutely think that the ideas in it are, so I want to write about what I think it gets right and what it gets wrong, in the hopes that other projects can take note. As such, this post will not assume knowledge of NixOS — if you've used NixOS significantly, there probably isn't anything new in here for you.

        • The curse of NixOS – OSnews

          NixOS is talked about a lot – but it seems impenetrable for a newcomer or outsider to get into it.

      • BSD

      • Fedora

      • Debian

        • Abiola Ajadi: Debci- An introduction for beginners!

          Been a minute! for this blog i will continue from my previous article where i explained Debci you can read more about it here.

          In my previous article I mentioned Debci stands for Debian Continous Integration and it exist to make sure packages work currently after an update by testing all of the packages that have tests written in them to make sure it works and nothing is broken. For my internship, I am working on improving the user experience through the UI of the debci site making it easier to use.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • AiryxOS

        • AiryxOS wants to be an open-source macOS, complete with support for Mac apps

          There are dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of excellent desktop Linux distributions that can be capable alternatives to Windows or macOS, but there are also a few systems that are outright clones of proprietary software products. One of them is AiryxOS, which aims to combine the interface and software design of macOS with the versatility of FreeBSD, which is currently in the early stages of development.

          There are a number of open-source operating systems that aim to clone proprietary systems, usually with some level of binary support — ReactOS is a clone of Windows (specifically, Windows Server 2003 right now), Haiku is a continuation of BeOS, FreeDOS is an MS-DOS clone, and so on. The AiryxOS project is still in early stages, but it has some lofty goals. Zoë Knox is the main developer, who currently works as the Vice President of Engineering at the OpenNMS Group.

      • Web Browsers

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • Nibble Stew: Porting the LO Windows build to macOS

          In the last blog post we looked at compiling a subsection of LibreOffice on Windows using nothing but Meson and WrapDB. Now that it is working (somewhat) the obvious followup question is how much work would it be to make that build on macOS as well.

          Not all that much, it turns out. The work consisted mostly of adding some defines, adding platform-specific source files and the like. It took me less than a day. A sizable fraction of that was spent waiting for my old 4-core laptop to finish compiling the code.

      • Content Management Systems (CMS)

        • How Do You Use Tags in WordPress?

          This article explains how to use tags in WordPress to identify content within your site. Tags are helpful to identify your article’s subject. Each content you produce may include certain tags, which can be a word or a set. Through tags, you can define the subject of your article, and they are helpful for users find specific content based on specific words. In other words, tags are basically keywords to identify your content.

          This tutorial includes images describing each step, making it easy for all users to apply them.

        • Block Protocol Project Aims to Create Universal Block System, May Collaborate with Gutenberg

          Block Protocol is a new project that aims to build a block system for embedding interactive blocks in any web application. The goal is to create a more interoperable and open web where these blocks can be shared through a standardized protocol. The initial draft of the Block Protocol spec is being incubated by the team at HASH, an open source data, modeling, and simulation platform.

          When HASH founder Joel Spolsky shared the idea with the world yesterday, through a post on his WordPress-powered blog, it caught Matt Mullenweg’s attention.

      • FSF

        • GNU Projects

          • GIMP: A free substitute for Photoshop

            Gimp or GNU Image Manipulation Program is open-source image manipulation and photo editing software that offers professional-grade features for free.

            Since its release in 1996, GIMP has come a long way from being an experimental project by some university graduates to the most robust and free-for-all Adobe Photoshop alternative on the internet.

            GIMP’s strengths lie in its accessibility, community support and feature-rich interface.

      • Programming/Development

        • NIR Continues Successfully Serving The Needs Of Mesa, Better Suited Than LLVM

          Prominent Mesa developer Jason Ekstrand who formerly led Intel's "ANV" Vulkan driver effort and being one of their open-source driver developers originally involved with the NIR intermediate representation work wrote a detailed and excellent blog post outlining its successes eight years running. While it still gets brought up into discussions from time to time (including quite recently stemming from a RISC-V graphics thread) why Mesa doesn't use LLVM IR or SPIR-V directly as its intermediate representation, NIR continues as a striking success and used by all major Mesa drivers.

        • Ruby 3.1 arrives with new JIT compiler

          The Ruby community has released Ruby 3.1, an upgrade to the open source dynamic programming language that introduces a new in-process JIT (just-in-time) compiler to improve the performance of Ruby applications.

          Introduced on Christmas Day, Ruby 3.1, or Ruby 3.1.0, adds the YJIT (Yet Another Ruby JIT), a lightweight, minimalistic Ruby JIT built inside CRuby. YJIT uses a Basic Block Versioning architecture, with a JIT compiler inside of it. YJIT achieves fast warmup and performance improvements on most real-world software, Ruby’s developers said. But YJIT still is in an experimental stage and is disabled by default. To use it, developers must specify the –yjit command-line option. YJIT currently is limited to Unix-like x86-64 platforms.

        • Top tools for enabling CI/CD in ML pipelines

          Jenkins is a popular continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) Java application that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and other Unix-like operating systems.

        • Code Wrong: Expand Your Mind | Hackaday

          Case in point: esoteric programming languages. The variety is stunning. There are languages intended to be unreadable, or to sound like Shakespearean sonnets, or cooking recipes, or hair-rock ballads. Some of the earliest esoteric languages were just jokes: compilations of all of the hassles of “real” programming languages of the time, but yet made to function. Some represent instructions as a grid of colored pixels. Some represent the code in a fashion that’s tantamount to encryption, and the only way to program them is by brute forcing the code space. Others, including the notorious Brainf*ck are actually not half as bad as their rap — it’s a very direct implementation of a Turing machine.

        • Basis Universal 1.16 Released With OpenCL Support, Other Improvements - Phoronix

          Version 1.16 of the Basis universal GPU texture codec developed by well known developer Rich Geldreich's Binomial LLC.

          Basis has been extremely promising as a "super compressed" GPU texture data interchange system that offers two intermediate data formats either as Basis itself or the Khronos KTX2 standard and can then be transcoded to various other formats. Basis has enjoyed a stellar past few years and enjoying industry success and Binomial continues to push their releases as open-source. Thanks to Google and other partners they have been able to continue developing it while keeping it open-source.

        • Undocumented feature = bug

          undocument feature = surprise

          surprise = unexpected functionality

          unexpected functionality = bug

          QED ;)

          hook out → packing …

        • Python

          • Pandas Dataframe Indexing

            In pandas, indexing involves picking specific columns and rows of data out of a DataFrame. Choosing all of the rows and even some of the columns, part of the rows and all of the columns, or some of each of the rows and columns is what indexing entails. Subset selection is another name for indexing. When we build a Pandas DataFrame object in Python using the pd.DataFrame() function from the Pandas module, an address in the row or column indices is automatically produced to symbolize each data element/point inside the DataFrame. However, row indices are the DataFrame’s index, while column indices are simply referred to as columns. A Pandas DataFrame object’s index essentially identifies certain rows. Let’s have a look at how to alter the Panda’s index DataFrame object.

        • C++

          • Else if C++

            While using the C++ programming language, there come such situations where you need some contradictory options, for instance. If you are applying any condition according to the scenario, you will proceed with two or more options. If the condition is satisfied, it will lead to one task; otherwise, some other function will be performed in the second condition. This article is based on the else-if statement in the C++ programming language. In C++ programs, the Else-if statement is executed in the form of blocks. We utilize an else-if statement to execute one block of source code satisfying certain conditions and other code satisfying other conditions. An else-if statement is said to be a conditional statement as it is used to check the given condition, and according to this condition, the loops are executed.

        • Rust

          • Bitflags in Rust

            While working on Rust bindings for KConfig as a part of Season of KDE 2022, I came across a few problems while trying to represent QFlags in Rust...

          • Sylvestre Ledru: An update on rust/coreutils

            TLDR: we are making progress on the Rust implementation of the GNU coreutils.

            Well, it is an understatement to say my previous blog post interested many people. Many articles, blog posts and some podcasts talked about it! As we pushed coreutils 0.0.12 a few days ago and getting closer to the 10 000 stars on github, it is now time to give an update!

            This has brought a lot of new contributors to this project. Instead of 30 to 60 patches per month, we jumped to 400 to 472 patches every month. Similarly, we saw an increase in the number of contributors (20 to 50 per month from 3 to 8). Two new maintainers (Michael Debertol & Terts Diepraam) stepped in and have been doing a much better job than myself as reviewers now! As a silly metric, according to github, we had 5 561 clones of the repository over the last 2 weeks!

          • Rust-Written Replacement To GNU Coreutils Progressing, Some Binaries Now Faster

            Along with the broader industry trend of transitioning security-sensitive code to memory-safe languages like Rust, there has been an effort to write a Rust-based replacement to GNU Coreutils. For nearly a year that Rust Coreutils has been able to run a basic Debian system while more recently they have been increasing their level of GNU Coreutils compatibility and in some cases now even outperforming the upstream project.

        • Java

  • Leftovers

    • Radio Control Joby Aircraft Uses Six Tiltrotors To Fly | Hackaday

      eVTOL (Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing) craft are some of the more exciting air vehicles being developed lately. They aim to combine the maneuverability and landing benefits of helicopters with the environmental benefits of electric drive, and are often touted as the only way air taxis could ever be practical. The aircraft from Joby Aviation are some of the most advanced in this space, and [Peter Ryseck] set about building a radio-controlled model that flies in the same way.

    • Hewlett-Packard wins fraud case against UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch

      A British judge found on Friday that tech tycoon Mike Lynch had masterminded an elaborate fraud to inflate the value of his company Autonomy before it was bought by Hewlett-Packard (HPE.N) for $11 billion in 2011 in one of the UK's biggest tech deals.

      Lynch received a further blow later on Friday when Britain's interior ministry ordered his extradition to the United States to face criminal charges over the deal that carry a maximum prison term of 20 years.

    • Ten expats honored for contributions to Shanghai - SHINE News

      Ten expats, two females and eight males, from Germany, the UK, the US, Japan and Italy were presented Magnolia Gold Awards on Monday for their great contributions to the city's social and economic development.

    • Hardware

      • 3D Printer Showdown: $350 Consumer Vs $73,000 Pro Machine | Hackaday

        The quality of consumer-grade 3D printing has gone way up in recent years. Resin printers, in particular, can produce amazing results and they get less expensive every day. [Squidmar] took a miniature design and printed it (or had it printed) on some cheap resin printers and a 65,000 Euro DWS029. How much difference could there be? You can see for yourself in the video below.

        We were surprised at the specs for the more expensive machine. It does use a solid-state laser, but for that cost, the build volume is relatively small — around 15 x 15 x 10 cm. There were actually five prints created on four printers. Three were on what we think of as normal printers, one was on the 65,000 Euro machine, and the fifth print was on a 10,000 Euro printer that didn’t look much different from the less expensive ones.

        Of course, there is more to the process than just the printer. The resin you use also impacts the final object. The printers tested included a Phrozen 4K Mini, a Phrozen 8K Mini, a Solos Pro, and the DWS 029D. The exact resins or materials used was hard to tell in each case, so that may have something to do with the comparisons, too.

      • Another US president, time for another big Intel factory promise by another CEO

        Intel puts on a show for its biggest manufacturing announcements, with episodes every few years using a rotating cast of CEOs and US presidents.

        Intel boss Pat Gelsinger and President Joe Biden were the latest to join the series, on Friday jointly announcing the chip maker's investment of $20bn in plants near Columbus, Ohio. The fabs could be operational by 2025 and make chips down to 2nm and beyond.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Security

          • Linux Vulnerability Discovered Impacting All Major Distros [Ed: Conflating systemd with Linux, as usual]

            A major Linux vulnerability, impacting virtual all major distributions (distros), has been discovered, allowing a bad actor to obtain root privileges.

            On Linux, Unix, macOS, and other Unix-style operating systems, the root account has ultimate access to the system. As a result, when a user account is set up, it doesn’t have root access as a way of protecting the system from accidental damage.

          • PwnKit: Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability Discovered in polkit's pkexec (CVE-2021-4034) | MarketScreener

            The Qualys Research Team has discovered a memory corruption vulnerability in polkit's pkexec, a SUID-root program that is installed by default on every major Linux distribution. This easily exploited vulnerability allows any unprivileged user to gain full root privileges on a vulnerable host by exploiting this vulnerability in its default configuration.

          • Linux distros haunted by Polkit-geist for 12+ years: Bug grants root access to any user

            Linux vendors on Tuesday issued patches for a memory corruption vulnerability in a component called polkit that allows an unprivileged logged-in user to gain full root access on a system in its default configuration.

            Security vendor Qualys found the flaw and published details in a coordinated disclosure.

            Polkit, previously known as PolicyKit, is a tool for setting up policies governing how unprivileged processes interact with privileged ones. The vulnerability resides within polkit's pkexec, a SUID-root program that's installed by default on all major Linux distributions. Designated CVE-2021-4034, the vulnerability has been given a CVSS score of 7.8.

            Bharat Jogi, director of vulnerability and threat research at Qualys, explained in a blog post that the pkexec flaw opens the door to root privileges for an attacker. Qualys researchers, he said, have demonstrated exploitation on default installations of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and CentOS, and other Linux distributions are presumed to be vulnerable as well.

          • 12-year-old Linux root privilege flaw has been "hiding in plain sight"

            An 'easily exploitable' root privilege security vulnerability has been discovered in popular default Linux distributions and "has been hiding in plain sight" for more than 12 years, according to security researchers.

          • Pwnkit is an easy-to-exploit vulnerability affecting all Linux distros

            Linux has been known for being way more secure than Windows PCs. However, this may be changing soon as the platform is growing in popularity. According to a new report from Cybersecurity researchers from Qualys (via TechRadar), there is an “extremely severe” vulnerability in Linux. It’s very easy to exploit bugs and is affecting every major distro for the open-source Operating System.

            According to the researchers, this vulnerability has been “hiding in plain sight” for more than 12 years, and it’s memory corruption in polkit’s pkexec. According to the researchers, it’s a SUID-root program, installed by default. The malicious actors can exploit the bug to gain full root privileges on the target machine, and then do as they please. They can use the exploit to install malware or even ransomware.

          • QNAP NAS systems vulnerable to new ransomware

            A new ransomware variant is spreading and the second one in a short timeframe for QNAP. It encrypts QNAP NAS servers in return for a payment in bitcoin to decrypt them. The ransomware makes use of a zero-day vulnerability that allows it to bypass two-factor authentication.

            The attacks began January 26th reports bleeping computer, when QNAP devices discovered their data had been encrypted and their file names had been prefixed with a.deadbolt file suffix. Rather than placing ransom notes in each folder on the device, the QNAP device's login page is hijacked to display a message that reads, "WARNING: Your data have been encrypted by DeadBolt," as illustrated in the image below. This screen instructs the victim to send 0.03 bitcoins (about $1,100) to an enclosed Bitcoin address that is unique to each victim.

          • Twitter's top security staff out after incoming CEO shakes things up

            Twitter's head of security and CISO both ejected from the social media biz this month.

            Infosec guru Mudge, aka Peiter Zatko, joined Twitter in 2020 in the aftermath of 130 high-profile accounts, including those of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, being hijacked by miscreants. You may remember Mudge as an original member of The Cult of the Dead Cow and L0pht.

          • Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

            • Log4j Exploitations Have Slowed, But Attack Vectors Remain [Ed: Flogging a dead (patched) horse to maintain FUD factor]

              Attackers made more than 30,000 attempts to scan and leverage exploits found in the critical Log4Shell vulnerability in January, according to security firm Kaspersky. Log4Shell, a flaw found in the Apache Software Foundation Log4j library logging tool, was first disclosed to the public in December and continues to be a challenge.

            • Log4j, Open-Source Issues, and My Dead Hard-Disk Drives [Ed: Trying to associate a long-fixed bug with something unrelated for scare]

              Why Log4j is an issue for embedded developers.

            • Open Source and Third Party Code in commercial software projects - Copyright Traps for the unwary [Ed: Convicted corrupt firm M&C is spreading FUD against the GPL when in fact proprietary software poses vastly greater legal risks; M&C says "The Open Source movement began in 1983"; that's like saying Trump was born in 1750.]]

              Software development inherently lends itself to the reuse and adaptation of existing materials. While in the early days of this young technology this may have primarily implied the reuse by an individual of their own code, the evolution of platforms such Bulletin Boards, then USENET, and finally the World Wide Web, have vastly extended the range of sources of third party content, and opportunities for sharing such code. Meanwhile, the field of software development itself has evolved so that it is virtually unknown to truly write a program from scratch, but rather to agglomerate modules at varying levels of abstraction from the underlying machine code.

              [...]

              The Open Source movement began in 1983 with the founding of the GNU Project, and the resulting Free Software Foundation. This movement drove in particular the development of Copyright licenses whose purpose was not to prevent dissemination, but rather to support and encourage it, on specified terms considered to be consistent with these broader aims. The GNU project produced the GPL (General Public License), and as the Open Source Movement became more popular, other developers started their projects with a similar ethos, and made their code available on the same terms. While providing users with the right to access source code, to modify it and distribute it, the GPL license also imposes a number of obligations. These are complex and outside the scope of this article, however many felt that they were dissuasive in particular with respect to use in commercial projects. This lead to a proliferation of licenses which may be seen as varying on a scale of restrictiveness with The GPL series of licenses being amongst the most restrictive, and licenses such as the MIT or BSD licenses as being most permissive.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • American AGs sue Google over location data gathering ● The Register

              The Attorneys General of Indiana, Texas, Washington state, and Washington DC on Monday each filed lawsuits against Google alleging that the search giant uses deceptive user interface designs known as "dark patterns" to obtain customer location data without adequate consent.

              "We're leading a bipartisan group of AGs from Texas, Indiana, [and] Washington, each suing in state court to hold Google accountable," said Karl Racine, Attorney General of Washington DC, in a statement via Twitter. "We're seeking to stop Google’s illegal use of 'dark patterns' [and] claw back profits made from location data."

            • Rights group says Lebanese staffer targeted with NSO spyware | AP | gazette.com

              Human Rights Watch said Fakih, a dual U.S. and Lebanese citizen, was targeted on five occasions between April and August. Apple informed her of the breach on Nov. 24, and forensic analysis by Human Rights Watch confirmed the presence of the software, the group said.

            • Invisible machine-readable labels that identify and track objects

              The idea, at first, was a bit abstract for Dogan, a 4th-year PhD student in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. But his thinking solidified in the latter part of 2020 when he heard about a new smartphone model with a camera that utilizes the infrared (IR) range of the electromagnetic spectrum that the naked eye can’t perceive. IR light, moreover, has a unique ability to see through certain materials that are opaque to visible light. It occurred to Dogan that this feature, in particular, could be useful.

    • Environment

      • Energy

        • Rolls-Royce consortium shopping for factory sites to build mini-nuclear reactors

          UK aerospace and engineering giant Rolls-Royce is on the hunt for sites for its much-touted small nuclear reactors, which received a €£210m grant from the UK government last year.

          A consortium of BNF Resources UK Ltd, Exelon Generation Ltd, and Roll-Royce Group is set to invest €£195m roughly over three years, qualifying it for a €£210m grant from government, specifically UK Research and Innovation Funding.

          The group has now written to sites across the country to find a prospective home for a factory to build the new reactors. Writing to Local Enterprise Partnerships – non-profit bodies which aim to bring councils and commerce together – the group is seeking bids for the location of its "factory" set to make the new approach to nuclear-powered electricity generation, according to the Financial Times.

    • Finance

      • IMF urges El Salvador's President to drop Bitcoin as legal tender in US$1.3 billion loan negotiations

        The International Monetary Fund has advised that El Salvador's government renege on its decision to make Bitcoin a legal tender in the country, citing "large risks associated with the use of Bitcoin on financial stability..." The success of a US$1.3 billion loan negotiation with El Salvador may hinge on following the IMF's advice.

      • Myanmar's military junta seeks ban on VPNs and digital currency

        Myanmar's military junta has floated a cyber security law that would ban the use of virtual private networks, under penalty of imprisonment and/or fines, leaving digital rights organisations concerned about the effects of further closing the country off digitally to the outside world.

        The draft bill, dated January 13 is signed by Soe Thein, permanent secretary of the military's transport and communications ministry and is undergoing request for comments until January 28. Upon adoption, it will subject VPN users to between one and three years inside, and fines of up to five million Myanmar Kyats ($2,800).

      • India Tests Internet-Free Digital UPI Payments | PYMNTS.com

        The National Payments Corp. of India is testing a solution to allow Unified Payments Interface (UPI) based digital pay without an internet connection, Mint reported Sunday (Jan. 23).

        The solution, called UPI Lite, will likely be used initially in rural areas to allow for small digital payments under 200 rupees.

        It will also allow phone users to make digital payments from their bank accounts. A bank official told the media outlet that two solutions are being tested, including a SIM overlay and a software-provisioned solution that leverages over-the-air (OTA) updates.

      • Tech skill gaps are decimating the global workforce and could put workers—and—companies in crisis | Fortune

        These skill gaps are creating a Catch 22 where workers can't get jobs, and companies can't find talent.

      • Why Shares of Coinbase, Riot Blockchain, and Silvergate Capital Are All Falling Today

        Shares of many crypto-related stocks were struggling today, along with the broader market. As of 12:45 p.m. ET today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded more than 900 points down, while the Nasdaq Composite had fallen nearly 4%.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • UAE schoolbooks earn high marks for cultural tolerance, even if that means praising China - Modern Diplomacy

        An Israeli NGO gives the United Arab Emirates high marks for mandating schoolbooks that teach tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and engagement with non-Muslims.

        “The Emirati curriculum generally meets international standards for peace and tolerance. Textbooks are free of hate and incitement against others. The curriculum teaches students to value the principle of respect for other cultures and encourages curiosity and dialogue. It praises love, affection, and family ties with non-Muslims,” the 128-page study by The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) concluded.

        However, at the same time, the report appeared in its evaluation of Emirati textbooks to hue closely to Israeli policy towards the UAE and, more generally, most states that populate the Middle East.

        As a result, the report, like Israel that seemingly sees autocracy rather than greater freedoms as a stabilizing factor in the Middle East, skirts the issue of the weaving of the principle of uncritical obedience to authority into the fabric of Emirati education.

        That principle is embedded in the teaching of “patriotism” and “commitment to defending the homeland,” two concepts highlighted in the report. The principle is also central to the notion of leadership, defined in the report as a pillar of national identity.

      • Why did Portuguese colonialists marry Indian women? Book sheds light into the real reason

        'Doolally Sahib and the Black Zamindar', the new book by Indian parliamentarian, author and eminent journalist MJ Akbar, is a chronicle of racial relations between Indians and their last foreign invaders, sometimes infuriating but always compelling.

        The book draws upon the letters, memoirs and journals of traders, travellers, bureaucrats, officials, officers and the occasional bishop.

        A multitude of vignettes, combined with insight and analysis, reveal the deeply ingrained conviction of ‘white superiority’ that shaped this history.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • Netflix and Peloton Shares Tumble as Demand Slows
      • Farm machinery giant John Deere plows into two right-to-repair lawsuits

        Two lawsuits have been filed in the past two weeks against farm equipment maker Deere & Company for allegedly violating antitrust laws by unlawfully monopolizing the tractor repair market.

        The first [PDF] was filed on January 12 in Illinois on behalf of Forest River Farms, a farming business based in North Dakota; the second, was filed in Alabama last week on behalf of farmer Trinity Dale Wells [PDF].

        The lawsuits each claim what right-to-repair advocates have been saying for years: that Deere & Co., maker of John Deere brand farming equipment, denies customers the ability to repair and maintain their own agricultural machinery.

    • Monopolies



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