Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 05/06/2022: Unifont 14.0.04, More Software Patents Perish



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • LinuxiacHow to Setup and Manage VirtualBox VMs on a Headless Server

        This guide explains how to install and configure VirtualBox on a remote headless server and remotely control its virtual machines with the RemoteBox app.

        VirtualBox is free cross-platform virtualization software that may be installed as application software on any operating system. It allows you to run virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical machine and use them alongside the actual machine.

        Each virtual machine can run its operating systems, such as Linux, Windows, Unix, and Solaris.

      • PC LinuxInkscape Tutorial: Create A Sketch Effect

        I've been looking at some of the Inkscape tutorials on the YouTube channel "Logos by Nick". He has a lot of good stuff. One tutorial I enjoyed was one called the Sketch Effect. I'll review it here.

        Sketch Effect uses the path effect, Hatches, and it's kinda fun. You can apply the path effect to nearly anything, and most of what I'll explain here is the settings included to make things look the way you want.

        To start, create a square in Inkscape. Click on Paths > Path effects. The window you get has nothing because this is a new project and you haven't chosen any path effects for it yet. At the bottom, it says Click button to add an effect, and there's a plus sign in the bottom left corner of the window.

      • UNIX CopNginx – Virtual Hosts (Part 2)

        This is a continuation of my previous article. So you might want to check that out first. In this article, we’re going to expand upon our existing configuration and explore some of the features that nginx provides.

      • Linux HandbookBuffers in Vim [Complete Beginner's Guide]
      • TechtownHow to Install Teleport on Ubuntu 20.04 - Atechtown

        Linux is the ideal system for the deployment and administration of network infrastructures. This is due to the security, stability, and efficiency of the system. So, today you will learn how to install Teleport on Ubuntu 20.04

      • Linux Handbookls sort by size: List Files by Size in Linux Command Line

        Learn to sort files by their size using the ls command in the Linux terminal. Also learn about finding the biggest files.

      • UNIX CopHow to install the EGroupware community server

        Groupware is a free, open-source groupware software intended for businesses from small to enterprises. Its primary functions allow users to manage contacts, appointments, projects, and to-do lists.

    • Games

      • PC LinuxGame Zone: Psychonauts 2 On Linux!!!

        Although not as well known as the LEGO, "The Incredibles" and Sonic adventure game franchises, Psychonauts 2 is the creation of famed designer Tim Schafer from Double Fine Studios. Humorous, charismatic and touching, the game has amazing graphics and great gameplay.

        Continuing the story of the acrobat Rex, the main character from previous titles Psychonauts and Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, the game brings more amazing acrobatic moves, several references and a world full of content to be explored.

      • Boiling Steam3200 Games On The Steam Deck with Ender Lilies and Divinity Original Sin 2 as Verified

        The past week has been fairly slow in additions of verified/playable games for the Steam Deck, following the previous 3100 games milestone. There are now more than 3200 games validated (3222 games to be precise at the time of publication) on the Steam Deck – in two categories...

      • FEX 2206 Tagged!

        Steam started enabling the chromium sandbox. Seccomp isn’t supported in FEX-Emu so it was crashing early on. Forcibly disable it trying to use the sandbox using an application profile. This lets the game library be visible again, although it can take a while to appear.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Screenshots/Screencasts

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

      • PC LinuxOf Mice, Men & Magazine

        Last month, we ran an article from Agent Smith that caused a shiitake mushroom storm. Quite literally.

        Agent Smith, a.k.a. Alessandro Ebersol, is a frequent contributor to The PCLinuxOS Magazine. He has stepped up to help produce exclusive content for The PCLinuxOS Magazine when virtually no one else would. He is passionate about battling the continuing and continued overreach of Big Tech. He is passionate about PCLinuxOS. He is passionate about gaming on PCLinuxOS. Living in Brazil, he sometimes has a different take on events than many of the other people who volunteer for The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

        Out of the storm that developed from "that" article, it has become apparent that there are some significant misunderstandings or misconceptions about the magazine that need to be cleared up.

        That is the reason for this article.

      • PC LinuxRepo Review: Video Editors

        Whether you're creating YouTube videos, producing a cinematic film, or simply assembling a collection of your old home movies, having a decent video editor is essential. Thankfully, there are many free options available. In this article, I'll give a quick overview of what I believe are the best video editors available in the PCLinuxOS repository.

      • PC LinuxFrom The Chief Editor's Desk...

        PCLinuxOS is a great operating system for everyone.

        I think I might have just found one of our youngest users.

    • Debian Family

      • 9to5LinuxTails 5.1 Anonymous OS Improves the Tor Connection Assistant, Updates to Tor 0.4.7.7

        After a delay of five days due to the later Tor Browser release not being out, Tails 5.1 includes fixes for the recently disclosed security vulnerability in the JavaScript engine of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, on which Tor Browser is based.

        Tor Browser 11.0.14 is included by default in this release for all your anonymous browsing, along with the latest Tor 0.4.7.7 release of the free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication inside Tails.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • GNU Projects

  • Leftovers

    • Summertime

      I'm getting sick of my work. I don't think admin. work is right for me, so I guess I'll start looking for other things.

    • My Name is Dima

      Quite ironically, my family immigrated to Israel when I was a baby, and Israel is a pretty racist country (even among Jews). The situation is worse in the periphery, where poverty, crime and lack of education meet educated "fresh meat" with a foreign accent.

    • Security

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • PC LinuxShort Topix: Amazon Kindle Now Supports EPUB Files ... Sorta

          To make help for mental illness more accessible, various mental health apps have sprung up on mobile platforms. And, with the COVID lockdowns, the mental health crisis is greater than it ever has been. One such app that pretty much "leads the way" among the mental health apps is called "BetterHelp." BUT THE BETTERHELP APP RATED AS ONE OF THE LOWEST IN PROTECTING USER PRIVACY among the 32 apps tested and rated by Mozilla's "Privacy Not Included" buyer's guide. In fact, 28 of the 32 apps tested failed to meet the "grade." Only Wysa, PTSD Coach, Headspace, and Glorify were not issued a warning label in the guide. All of the others, including BetterHelp and TalkSpace, fell short in protecting privileged and private user data.

          To quote the late and great Gomer Pyle ... Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! The great internet Hoover vacuum of personal and private data, GOOGLE, HAS NOW MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR USERS TO REMOVE SELECT PRIVATE/PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM SEARCH RESULTS, according to an article on NPR. You can choose to have your address, email address, phone number, bank account, credit card numbers, medical documents and some other personal/private information to be stripped from search results. Interested? Click here to access the Google tool to remove your selected information from Google search results. Careful though that so many people don't overload the server and crash it!

          If ever you needed another reason to avoid systemd like the plague, here's another. MICROSOFT (of all people) HAS DISCOVERED A FLAW IN THE LINUX DESKTOP THAT GIVES ROOT PRIVILEGES TO UNTRUSTED USERS, according to an article on Ars Technica. Fortunately for PCLinuxOS users, the flaw/exploit only appears to affect Linux users who are plagued by use systemd. The flaw, named NimbuSpwn (actually two vulnerabilities, CVE-2022-29799 and CVE-2022-29800), according to the article, "combine threats including directory traversal, symlink race, and time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition. After reviewing the Networkd -dispatcher source code,

    • Defence/Aggression

      • John GoerzenJohn Goerzen: Visiting Germany: Reflections on Schloss Charlottenburg

        200 years ago, my ancestors migrated from Prussia to Ukraine. They left for many reasons, many of which boiled down to their strong pacifism in the midst of a highly militarized country.

        Last week, my wife, the boys, and I walked through the favorite palace of Friedrich Wilhelm III, the king of Prussia who was responsible for forcing my ancestors out – Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin.

        Photos can’t possibly convey the enormity and the riches of this place, even after being attacked during multiple wars (and used by Napoleon for a time).

        My ancestors would never have been able to get into to this place. We, on the other hand, walked right through the king’s bedroom, audience room, and chapel. The chapel, incidentally, mixing church and state; a fine pipe organ along with a statue of an eagle holding the Prussian crown.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Better Gemini Search Results with Kennedy and Gemipedia



        I found that integrating Gemipedia results into Kennedy's search results created a great user experience. Specifically, when you do a search on Kennedy, I query not only the full text index for all of Gemini space, I also search Wikipedia for articles. If I get a hit, I return the top match as a Gemipedia link at the top of the first page of search results. I also include a link to Gemipedia's search results, containing more Wikipedia content which mentions your query.

        I feel this is a good compromise that balances showing content on gemini with content from Wikipedia, without one overwhelming the other. I also made some tweaks to Kennedy's ranking algorithm which surfaces more valuable content.

      • Covid tests are impossible for older folks

        I felt pretty well yesterday, and thought I'd take a test today to see if further isolation is necessary, as I am approaching day 5.

        I went through two BinaxNow tests. One was defective, with the control strip dead in the middle, making it impossible to see the second line. Or more likely the control line was too high, masked by the top of the window, and what I thought was the control line was my very, very prominent Covid marker.

        The second test was outrageously positive, but felt a bit weird because the control line appeared way after the positive line. Usually the control line comes up after a minute or so, and the positive result shows up during the last few minutes. Not this time: a very, very positive line was there almost immediately, and the control showed up later.

      • Markdown and Gemtext



        I’ll try to summarize her thesis: Markdown is great for authoring documents because it’s easy for people to write, but it’s a bad “exchange format” because it’s too ambiguous (i.e., it’s hard for computers to parse).

        I wish I had read this a couple months ago; maybe I wouldn’t have wasted a weekend trying to convert Markdown to Gemtext “the way I want it to look” before realizing that converting Markdown → HTML → Gemtext was much simpler (if you leverage existing Markdown → HTML conversions), precisely for this reason. That experience got me thinking about the pros and cons of different document formats.

    • Monopolies

      • Software Patents

        • Unified PatentsSpeir Technologies patent challenged

          On May 27, 2022, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,321,777, owned and asserted by Speir Technologies Ltd., an NPE and Atlantic IP Services Limited entity. The ’777 patent relates to using a wireless device to locate a remote wireless device and has been asserted against Samsung and Apple.

        • Unified PatentsIP Edge entity, Savannah Licensing, patent challenged

          The '777 patent relates to using feedback based on a user's indication of frustration with a device and has been asserted against Nuu Mobile, Atlassian, Snapchat, Instagram, and Sony.

        • Unified PatentsAcacia entity, Monarch Networking Solutions, patent held invalid [Ed: Microsoft-connected patent troll]

          On May 27, 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Monarch Networking Solutions LLC holding all of the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 7,756,507 unpatentable. Owned by Monarch Networking Solutions LLC, an NPE and an Acacia Research entity, the ‘507 patent is related to two-step authentication. The ‘507 patent was asserted against Cisco, Meraki, and Duo Security.



Recent Techrights' Posts

GNU/Linux Still up (statCounter Says to 6%) in Bosnia And Herzegovina
Let's see where it is at year's end
Making Layout Changes
Feedback can be sent to us
Behind an Economy of Fake 'Worths' and Fictional 'Valuations' or 'Market Caps'
They normalise white-collar crime and say "everyone is doing it!"
Links 18/01/2026: "South Africa is Running Out of Software Developers", Companies Spooked to Find Slop is a Major Liability
Links for the day
Place Your Bets: Who Will Die First? Microsoft or IBM?
Not even joking; make a guess
Restoring Professional Pride in the Tech Sector
Rejecting slop isn't being a Luddite
Slop Bubble "Is Worse Than The Dot Com Bubble"
Edward Zitron Says It like it is
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 17, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, January 17, 2026
 
Pump-and-Dump With IBM Shares, Courtesy of People Who Stand to Gain From the 'Pump'
"3 Reasons to Buy IBM Stock Right Now"
IBM: Spying on Staff Like Never Before and Implementing Silent Layoffs This Month, Say Insiders
what we heard from whistleblowers seems to corroborate
'Cancel Culture' Doesn't Work (in the Long Run)
Despite all the attacks, I'm enjoying life, I'm keeping productive, and our audience continues to grow
IBM is Not a Free Software Company (It Never Was)
Red Hat's main product, RHEL, is full of secret sauce and has 'secret recipes' (it is basically proprietary)
IBM Turning Up the 'RTO' (Stress) and 'PIP' (Fear) Heat on Workers, Rebellion May be Brewing
Sometimes it feels like today's executives at IBM view IBM workers as a liability
Links 18/01/2026: Indonesia Against Comedy, Media-Hostile (Censors Comedians) Convicted Felon in White House Defecting to Opponents of NATO
Links for the day
Eventually the Joke (and Financial Fraud) is on Microsoft, Stigmatised for Slop
Is Microsoft trying to commit suicide?
GNU/Linux Leaps to All-time Highs in Virgin Islands
it seems to have started around the "end of 10"
Making and Keeping the Sites Accessible
Sometimes less does mean "more" (or "MOAR")
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part IV - How Europe's Largest Patent Office Recruited Drug Addicts, Antisemites, and People Who Absolutely Cannot Do the Job (But Know the 'Right' People)
To better overlap industrial actions we might delay/postpone/pause this series for a bit
Benefiting by Adding Presence in Geminispace
As the Web gets worse, not limited to bloat as a factor, people seek alternatives
Google News Recently Started Syndicating Another Slopfarm, Linuxiac
Even if Google is aware that there is slop there, it's hard to believe that Google will mind
Software Patents and USMCA (or NAFTA)
We recently pondered going back to issuing 2-3 articles per day about patents and common issues with them
IBM Sued Over PIPs
PIPs are "performance improvement plans"
Sites With "Linux" in Their Name That Are in Effect Slopfarms and Issue Fake Articles
We try to name some of the prolific culprits
Gemini Links 18/01/2026: Raising Notifications From Terminal and Environmental Sanity
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Links 17/01/2026: Internet Blackout Normalised, Russian Attacks Civilians by Causing Massive Blackouts
Links for the day
Microsoft Lunduke Keeps Distracting From the Real Problems With Rust
Microsoft Lunduke is stigmatising critics
Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm, Calling Them Out Isn't Fixing That
What a shame. A once-decent site about "Linux" bites the dust.
Luzern Lion Monument, Albanian Female Whistleblowers: Swiss jurists were cowards
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Splinternet is Already Here, Owing to the Militarisation of Technology (Slop, Social Control Media, Back Doors, and More)
you know what's gonna happen next...
Stack Ranking Against IBM/Red Hat Staff and a Signal of Mass Layoffs (RAs) Justified by Red Hat and IBM as Poor Performance/Misconduct/Other
Working in an atmosphere like this sounds like a nightmare
Gemini Links 17/01/2026: Slow computing and Environment Leak
Links for the day
Links 17/01/2026: US Censorship and Violence Crisis, Growing Anger Levels Against Slop Sold as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Microsoft's "valuation depends on infrastructure that does not exist."
Indeed
The Typical Trajectory: Datamation Began Experimenting With LLM Slop for Fake Articles. Then Datamation Died. (Last Month)
It's always ending up this way
Accounts or Devices (e.g. Phones) That Get 'Burnt' Have Many Pitfalls
Embassies and consulates habitually fail at this
Avoiding the Spooks (Nobody Watches the Watchers, They're Practically Unaccountable)
If more people adopt encryption, it'll be easier for us to deal with whistleblowers
Protecting Whistleblowers Requires Technical Knowledge/Skills
even the highest media judges aren't aware of how to protect sources
At Least 5 Women Quit Brett Wilson LLP in Recent Months. It's the Firm That Attacked My Wife and I on Behalf of Americans (One of Them Strangled Women).
It seems like good news that the women escape this workplace
Slop About Slop and Slop About "Linux"
In short, avoid slopfarms
Report/Benchmark Says 'Vibe Coding' Results in Security Holes
There are risks they don't like talking about
EPO Abuses Covered in Spanish
Knowing what we know (and heard/saw), the sinister silence of the media is perceived by some to be complicity of the lower order.
Richard Stallman Encourages "ICE Out For Good" Protests, His Opponents Do Not (Passive and Uncaring About Human Rights)
He has done a lot philosophically, politically, and so on
Record Traffic in Geminispace or Over Gemini Protocol
it's never too late to join
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part III - Europe's Second-Largest Organisation on Strike, Protests, Other Industrial Actions to Come Impacting Over 95% of the Workforce
The EPO's management is highly evasive, weak, and vulnerable
Claim That IBM Marked 15% of its Workforce for Potential Layoffs
No wonder we keep hearing from Red Hat people who say they hate IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 16, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, January 16, 2026
Great Reset at IBM, the Company That Pulps Red Hat
In 2026 many workers are RTO'ed, PIP'ed, and at Red Hat many have effectively 'left the company' and now start afresh as "IBM" staff
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part II - Breakout of Discontent This Winter in Europe's Second-Largest Organisation
So far we've caused a lot of panic and stress inside Team Campinos
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part I - An Introduction to the Mafia Governing the EPO
Are some people 'evacuating' themselves to save face?
J.H.M. Ray Dassen & Debian, Red Hat, GNOME unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
At Microsoft, "Firing People is a "Cheat Code" to Pump the Stock Short-term But They Are Literally Destroying the Company's Soul Long-term."
They frame layoffs as a "success story"
Gemini Links 16/01/2026: "Porting My Main Website Over to Gemini" and Seeed Studio DevBoard
Links for the day
IBM Stacked and Ranked Badly, Maladministration Dooms the Company
Now they stack people up for PIPs and layoffs ("RAs")
Google News Poisons Its Own Index With More Slopfarms (Including "filmogaz")
Naming and shaming lazy slobs who rip off other people using LLMs can work, eventually
Links 16/01/2026: UK Royal Family's "Legal Team Accused of Dishonesty, Fraud and Misconduct", OSI Still Controlled by Microsoft (the OSI's Spokesperson is on Microsoft's Payroll, Not Interim Executive Director, Deborah Bryant)
Links for the day
Writing About Corruption
Fraud is everywhere
The B in IBM is Brown-nosing and Buzzwords (or Both)
International Buzzwords Machines
Naming Culprits in Switzerland
Switzerland is highly secretive about white-collar crime
IBM's 'Scientific-Sounding' Tech-Porn Won't Help IBM Survive (or Be Bailed Out)
Who's next in the pipeline?
IBM Was Never the Good Guy
its original products were used for large-scale surveillance, not scientific endeavours
The Bluewashing is Making Red Hat Extinct (They All Become "IBM", Little by Little)
IBM does not care what's legal
Slopfarms Push Fake News About Microsoft Shutdown, 30,000+ Microsoft Layoffs Last Year Spun as Only "15,000"
The Web is seriously ill
Countries Take Action Against Social Control Media and 'Smart' 'Phones', Not Slop (Plagiarised Information Synthesis Systems or P.I.S.S.)
None of this is unprecedented except the scale and speed of sharing
Sanitised Plagiarism as "AI" (How Oligarchy Plots to Use Slop to Hide or Distract From Its Abuses, or Cause People Not to Trust Anything They See/Read Online)
This isn't innovation but repression
Sites That Expose Corruption Under Attack, Journalism Not Tolerated Anymore (the Super-Rich Abuse Their Wealth and Political Power)
Sometimes, albeit not always, the harder people try to hide something, the more effective and important it is for the general public
Recent Layoffs at Red Hat (2026 the Year of Ultimate Bluewashing)
I found it amusing that Red Hat's CEO has just chosen to wear all blue, as if to make a point
Links 16/01/2026: Social Control Media Curbs in Australia Underway, MElon Still Profiting by Sexualising Kids 'as a Service'
Links for the day
More People Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux"
We still see many distros and even journalists that say "GNU/Linux"
LLM Slop on the Web is Waning, But Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm
I gave Linuxiac a chance to deny this or explain this; Linuxiac did not
More Signs of Financial Troubles at Microsoft, Europe Puts Microsoft Under Investigation
The end of the library is part of the cuts
Team Campinos Talks About SAP Days Before EPO Industrial Actions and a Day Before the "Alicante Mafia" Series (About Team Campinos Doing Cocaine)
EPO staff that isn't morally feeble will insist on objecting to illegal instructions
Pedophilia-Enabling Microsoft Co-founder Cuts Staff
Compensating by sleeping with young girls does not make one younger
Microsoft Shuts Down Campus Library, Resorts to Storytelling About "AI" to Spin the Seriousness of It
Microsoft is in pain
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Back to Advertising the Talks of Richard Stallman
A pleasant surprise
Stack(ed) Rankings and Ongoing Layoffs at Red Hat and IBM (Failure to Keep Staff Acquired by IBM)
IBM is mismanaged and its sole aim is to game the stock market (by faking a lot of things)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 15, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, January 15, 2026
Gemini Links 16/01/2026: House Flood and Pragmatic Retrocomputing Dogfooding
Links for the day