Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 07/01/2023: Linux 4.9 Reaches End of Life



  • GNU/Linux

    • Kernel Space

      • 9to5LinuxLinux Kernel 4.9 Reaches End of Life After 6 Years of Support

        After being supported for a little more than six years, the Linux 4.9 kernel series has finally reached end of life with the 4.9.337 update released earlier this morning. The kernel is now marked appropriately as EOL on the kernel.org website, which means that it will no longer receive maintenance and security updates.

        Linux kernel 4.9 was released on December 11th, 2016, and it brought support for shared extents and copy-on-write support on the XFS file system, a hardware latency tracer to detect firmware-induced latencies, support for the Greybus bus from Project Ara, a more efficient BPF profiler, a new optional BBR TCP congestion control algorithm, virtually mapped kernel stacks, and more.

    • Games

      • HackadayIs It A Game? Or A Calculator?

        If you are a certain age, you probably remember the Mattel Football game. No LCD screen or fancy cartridges. Just some LEDs and a way to play football when you should be in class. While these might seem primitive to today’s kids, they were marvels of technology in the 1970s when they came out. [Sean Riddle] looks, well, not exactly at the games, but more like in them. As it turns out, they used chips derived from those made for calculators.

      • GamingOnLinuxASUS stick an OLED display into a controller, Dell want to reinvent it

        A new real controller from ASUS is on the way with the ROG Raikiri Pro that features an OLED display, plus Dell get weird with the Concept Nyx from CES 2023.

      • GamingOnLinuxGoogle open sourced CDC File Transfer from the ashes of Stadia

        As Google hover over the nuke from orbit button on Stadia, they're at least releasing some of it as open source like CDC File Transfer.

      • GamingOnLinuxVampire Survivors dev poncle outlines 2023 plans

        Vampire Survivors, probably the most popular game on Steam Deck that keeps being top of the most played list, is set for a busy 2023.

      • GamingOnLinuxSystem Shock remake due to release in March

        Nightdive Studios have now set a launch window for System Shock, with it planned to release in March. That's if it doesn't see yet another delay.

      • GamingOnLinuxBatman Rogue City is a fun looking GZDoom fan game

        Here's a fun retro fan game for you! Batman Rogue City released in December for GZDoom and looks like a criminal-kicking good time. As a fan game, it of course has nothing to do with DC Comics but you know what these big companies can be like, they might get itchy fingers over someone using their names and designs.

      • GamingOnLinuxSteam Deck Beta update, plus easy Flatpak updates and more HDR teasing

        Three fun bits for you today including Steam desktop and Steam Deck Beta updates, an easy way to update third-party Flatpaks on Steam Deck in Gaming Mode and another HDR teaser from Valve.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

      • DebugPointOpenMandriva Introduces "ROME" 23.01: A New Rolling Release Edition

        OpenMandriva is a free, open-source, independent GNU/Linux distribution that was forked from the Mandriva project. It's simple, easy to use for your day-to-day use cases and fully contributed by the community. It also features popular desktop environments and comes with a simple Calamares installer.

        A new rolling release-based edition OpenMandriva "ROME" 23.01 debuts with KDE Plasma, GNOME desktop flavours and some cool apps.

        Here's what's new.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • HackadayArduino Synthesizer Uses Modified Slide Pots

        There comes a point in every Arduino’s life where, if it’s lucky, it becomes a permanent fixture in a project. We can’t think of too many better forever homes for an Arduino than inside of a 3D-printed synthesizer such as this 17-key number by [ignargomez] et al.

      • Linux GizmosArduino Nicla Voice supports speech recognition, BL5.0 and integrates 9-Axis IMU

        Arduino recently presented a compact low-power embedded module with machine learning capabilities. The Arduino Nicla Voice is based on the Syntiant NDP120 processor optimized for Deep Learning applications and the ANNA-B112 u-Blox module for wireless connectivity.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • HackadayChataigne: An Open-Source Swiss Army Knife

      [Ben Kuper] is a developer with a history of working on art installations, and had hit upon a common problem often cited by artists. When creating installations involving light, sound, and motion, they often spend too much time on the nuts and bolts of electronics, programming, and so on. Such matters are a huge time sink with a steep learning curve and oftentimes just a plain distraction from the actual artistic intent they’re trying to focus upon. [Ben] has been working for a few years on a software tool,€ Chataigne€ which is designed as the glue between various software tools and hardware interfaces, enabling complex control of the application using simple building blocks.

  • Leftovers

    • Education

      • The NationHigher Ed Labor Organizing Is Just Getting Started

        About three weeks into the University of California strike—around the time thousands of workers across the state had shared Thanksgiving meals on picket lines—UC Berkeley’s campus health center became inundated with a barrage of strange ailments among student workers. Graduate students were turning up with unspecified leg pain, foot sores, achy hips, repetitive motion problems, and generalized fatigue.

      • The NationHow Students Fought for Democracy in 2022

        For more than a decade, The Nation has highlighted the work of aspiring journalists in StudentNation, an online section of the magazine written by young people. With generous support from the Puffin Foundation, StudentNation has published hundreds of talented young writers covering a wide range of issues through local reporting, firsthand accounts, interviews, and personal essays. The following material is adapted from three recent StudentNation articles. To see the original stories, go to TheNation.com/students.

    • Hardware

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • ScheerpostThe NFL: America’s Billion Dollar Blood Sport

        American football has always been a blood sport. It needs to change or die. Tackle must end.€ € Flags must come. And they will. Why?€ € Because human lives are at stake…and with them, a trillion-dollar industry. A century ago, football players were maimed and died in droves.€ € The college game was a cross between […]

      • Why did antivaxxers seize on the Damar Hamlin case?

        The tragic collapse of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin on Monday night due to a cardiac arrest after a tackle led to a tsunami of conspiracy mongering from antivaxxers falsely insinuating (and outright claiming) that it had to be the COVID-19 vaccines that caused it. A lot of people were surprised by the ghoulishness of it all. They should not have been. False claims that vaccines kill have been a staple of antivax conspiracy narratives going back as long as I can remember, starting with false claims that vaccines are responsible for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and, more recently, that HPV vaccines were causing the deaths of adolescent girls and young women. As I mention every time I discuss the antivax “death after vaccination” narrative, there was even an antivax movie about Gardasil called€ Sacrificial Virgins…in 2018! The Damar Hamlin tragedy is a “teachable moment” because it has featured so prominently in the news over the last three day, which is why I want to discuss it further, particularly how it feeds into a false narrative that COVID-19 vaccines are killing young people, but not just young people, young healthy athletes as well. First, let’s discuss some background again.

      • The NationRepublicans Are Consigning the Poor to Disease and Death

        Covid-19 cases, predictably, have climbed as the weather turned cold in much of the country. As of mid-December, cases had jumped more than 50 percent, while deaths were up 40 percent.

    • Security

      • HackadayThis Week In Security: Lastpass Takeaway, Bitcoin Loss, And PyTorch

        We mentioned the LastPass story in closing a couple weeks ago, but details were still a bit scarce. The hope was that LastPass would release more transparent information about what happened, and how many accounts were accessed. Unfortunately it looks like the December 22nd news release is all we’re going to get. For LastPass users, it’s time to make some decisions.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Environment

      • HackadaySalty Refrigeration Is Friendly To The Environment

        Widespread use of refrigerators is a hallmark of modern society, allowing people to store food and enjoy ice and cold beverages. However, a typical refrigerator uses gasses that are not always good for the environment. Now the Berkeley National Lab says they can change that using ioncaloric cooling, a new technique that uses salt as a refrigerant.

      • Common DreamsAmazon Breathes Sigh of Relief as Lula Returns to Power in Brazil

        The Amazon rainforest is often called the lungs of the planet, covering more than 3 million square miles across nine South American countries. It is an immense carbon sink, drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, storing it as biomass and releasing oxygen. Other tropical rainforests do the same, from the Congo Basin to New Guinea and Indonesian-occupied West Papua and Malaysia. But the Amazon is on a scale of its own, and, with human activity driving catastrophic global heating, protecting the climate-healing power of the Amazon is vital.

      • Common DreamsEPA Rule to Curb Deadly Air Pollution Fails Communities at Risk, Groups Warn

        While welcoming efforts to update U.S. air quality standards for soot, environmental and public health advocates on Friday warned that the Biden administration's new proposal falls woefully short of what's needed to protect vulnerable communities from deadly pollution.

      • Energy/Transportation

        • HackadayMycelioTronics: Biodegradable Electronics Substrates From Fungi

          E-waste is one of the main unfortunate consequences of the widespread adoption of electronic devices, and there are various efforts to stem the flow of this pernicious trash. One new approach from researchers at the Johannes Kepler University in Austria is to replace the substrate in electronics with a material made from mycelium skins.

      • Overpopulation

    • Finance

      • TruthOutWage Growth Slows as Unemployment Falls Back to Half-Century Low
      • Common Dreams'Bad News for Workers' as Wage Growth Slows Amid Fed Rate Hike Barrage

        The U.S. Labor Department released data Friday showing that wage and job growth slowed in December as the Fed explicitly targets the labor market and worker pay in its push to tamp down inflation, which has been cooling in recent months.

      • The NationCalifornia Hangs Its Homeless Population Out to Dry
      • Common DreamsA Progressive Political Economy Guide to Inflation

        Since 2021, prices have surged dramatically across countries and inflation has become a global challenge. Global central banks delivered historic rate hikes in 2022 in order to tame inflation and continued doing so even when inflation was falling, thereby risking a global recession.

      • The NationThe Congressional Progressive Caucus Expands

        Even while giving Republicans a narrow margin in the House of Representatives, voters elected a historic cohort of insurgent progressive newcomers, adding at least 11 new members to the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The CPC, which just reelected Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal as its leader, had numbered 101 members, making it the largest ideological caucus in the last Congress. It will grow in the new one, even after losing members to retirement (like Eddie Bernice Jackson of Texas), election to other offices (Karen Bass as Los Angeles mayor, Peter Welch as senator to Vermont), or election reversals (including, regrettably, one of the true champions of working people in Congress, Michigan’s Andy Levin, brought down by reapportionment and a multimillion-dollar dark money assault in the Democratic primary waged largely by AIPAC and Emily’s List).1

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

    • Monopolies

      • Copyrights

        • Torrent FreakYouTube Wins Partial Summary Judgment in Maria Schneider Copyright Lawsuit

          YouTube's motion for summary judgment in a class action lawsuit filed by musician Maria Schneider has been granted in part and denied in part. A California district court dismissed all claims related to 27 works, direct infringement claims against 15 works, and 121 other alleged infringements. Other infringement claims stand, and the case will continue.

        • Torrent FreakAnti-Piracy Group Warns of a Problematic Textbook Piracy Culture Among Students

          This week, a Danish court convicted a 26-year-old man for selling pirated digital copies of textbooks. The seller received a suspended jail sentence and was ordered to pay damages. While this incident has been dealt with, anti-piracy group Rights Alliance signals a broader piracy habit among students that has rightsholders worried.

        • TechdirtCopyright Has Kept De La Soul’s Classic 1st Album Off Streaming… Until Now

          For years, we’ve written about the copyright nonsense around sampling in hip hop music, and how it was treated with very, very different rules than things like cover songs and paying homage to previous artists in other forms of music. As we’ve mentioned for over a decade, filmmaker Kembrew McCleod did a full (fascinating) exploration of this in the documentary “Copyright Criminals” which is worth watching if you can find it. The trailer is here:


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
 
Techrights Has Dealt With More Potent SLAPPs Than Violent Microsofters Begging to Hide What They Did to Women
I became accustomed to SLAPPs
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web