Welcome to this week's Linux Weekly Roundup. We had a peaceful week in the world of Linux releases with MX Linux 21.3 as the only major release. Maybe the peace before the storm :)
You probably have at least 1 electron app installed on your system and you may not even like it but does Electron deserve all the hate it gets, or is it unjustified.
This week in Business News, Chuk-e-Cheese still uses floppy drives, Apple is working on touch screens, and Twitter is considering selling inactive usernames. Also, Automattic creates an ad network for WordPress sites to advertise themselves.
This is the first video in a 12-video series I will be doing on OnlyOffice. This will be a comprehensive series covering everything from Docs all the way to PDF creation and editing.
In this video, we are looking at how to install Godot game engine on KDE Neon.
It's Sunday afternoon in some parts of the world, and since I'm going to spend the rest of the day on airports and flights, that's good enough for me.
So here's another -rc release, this time with pretty much everybody back from winter holidays, and so things should be back to normal. And you can see that in the size, this is pretty much bang in the middle of a regular rc size for this time in the merge window.
The stats look fairly normal too, perhaps with a slight emphasis on networking that was playing catch-up after the holidays. But there's various changes all over - scan the appended shortlog for a taste of what has been going on.
Linus
Accountancy is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations.
Accounting software is a computer program that assists bookkeepers and accountants in recording and reporting a firm’s financial transactions. The functionality of accounting software differs from product to product.
There’s a fair degree of overlap between personal finance software and accounting software. Both often provide double-entry bookkeeping functionality. The ratings featured here consider only the accountancy aspects of software. For example, you’ll notice GnuCash that scores much higher as a personal finance tool.
To provide an insight into the quality of software available for Linux, we have compiled a list of 17 best free compression tools. Hopefully, there will be something of interest here for anyone who wishes to maximize their computer and network resources.
Here’s our recommendations. They are all open source goodness.
Android devices don’t always allow you to open every file type you download or receive in your email. The same applies to compressing a file or group of files. Depending on what the file is, this may be a big inconvenience. Some file managers let you compress or decompress zip files, but what happens if there is a rar or 7z file you need to open? ZArchiver lets you compress and extract files on Android, even if your file manager won’t.
Today we are looking at how to install VLC media player on a Chromebook.
If you have any questions, please contact us via a Rumble comment and we would be happy to assist you!
Please use the video as a visual guide, and the commands and links below to install it on your Chromebook.
Today we are looking at how to install Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.
This tutorial will only work on Chromebooks with an Intel or AMD CPU (with Linux Apps Support) and not those with an ARM64 architecture CPU.
Video wallpapers are a fantastic way to accentuate the beauty of your Linux desktop. They surpass traditional wallpapers in terms of appeal and help your desktop stand out of the crowd with animated elements.
On most Linux desktops, there's no default option to set live wallpapers. But this doesn't mean you can't add one. Here's how you can create and set a video wallpaper on your Linux desktop.
We can access the security controls that the Security Enhanced Linux (SE), a Linux kernel security module, can support in the Linux operating system. It could be used by SELinux functions to give the security contexts to the processes that are running in the system objects and the files that are existing in directories.
SSL certificates are used to secure the application that is made on Kubernetes for future safety. Let us take another secure certificate, TLS, that contains a very secure private key. Certificates are created with certificates: K8r.io API. We will teach about SSL certificate configuration with the help of detailed examples. Let us start with the SSL certificate in Kubernetes. SSL certificates are very important for browsers. The browser, with the help of SSL and TLS certificates, creates a secure connection with Kubernetes services.
Docker containers are the main component of the Docker platform that enables developers to build and deploy the program in virtualized run time environment. They are managed and instructed by Docker images. The Docker container encapsulates the project and all its dependencies. Docker containers can be executable in privileged mode, a powerful function of the Docker platform that enables programmers to run containers with root access which means containers can access full host privileges
In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Apache OpenOffice on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Apache OpenOffice is a free and open-source office productivity software suite similar to LibreOffice and Microsoft Office suite. Apache OpenOffice, a powerful and feature-rich office suite, boasts of its compatibility with Microsoft Office formats as a key feature. It allows users to open and save documents in popular Microsoft Office formats such as .doc, .xls, and .ppt, making it convenient to share documents with others who may be using Microsoft Office. Additionally, the suite has an in-built PDF export feature, enabling users to easily save their documents in the widely used PDF format.
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 the Apache OpenOffice office suite on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.
Linux enables multiple users to access the same system at a time, or we can say it is a multi-user OS. Along with that, there are multiple responsibilities that the admin must manage like giving permissions to users, allotting unique id names, etc. When we talk about changing the credentials of users like changing their ids or name, Linux also enables us to change the name of the user using commands.
To change the username in the Linux operating system, we use a command called “usermod”. The “usermod” command is a command line utility or library which is provided by Linux that is used to change the properties that are related to the user information. Like other command line utilities, this utility also takes options as input to analyze what action to perform. In our case, what this command does is that it changes or modifies the root system files which are called system account files to make the changes that are specified in the command line prompt. One thing to keep in mind before performing such an activity is that we should not edit or modify the /etc/passwd file manually or by any text editor.
In this tutorial, we are going to explain in step-by-step detail how to install phpBB on AlmaLinux.
phpBB is an open-source forum written in PHP, used for creating topics, forums and etc. The name “phpBB” is an abbreviation of the PHP Bulletin Board. A wide community of people uses it to stay in touch with each other. phpBB offers hundreds of style and image packages for customizing the board that users can create in a couple of minutes. In this installation, we will use the LAMP stack.
Installing phpBB on AlmaLinux with the LAMP stack is a straightforward process and may take up to 20 minutes. Let’s get things done!
Bagisto is an open-source eCommerce platform built using Laravel framework and VueJS. The framework is very flexible and easy to use, even for non-tech users. Bagisto offers Multi-Warehouse Inventory; almost everything you need when building an eCommerce website is available in Bagisto. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Bagisto Ecommerce on Almalinux.
Laptop overheating is one of the most heard complaints. As we know, the components in laptops are congested because of their thin body. Sometimes, it heats up and may cause damage to the internal parts of the laptop. For this reason, a regular checkup for the CPU temperature is necessary. Since the CPU is the central component of every desktop computer, monitoring the temperature of the CPU is extremely important. The device automatically shuts off if the CPU temperature rises to 90€°C or above for a variety of causes that could impair the performance of the Linux kernel or even the apps. Even though the temperature does not reach that level, a temperature change can nonetheless damage any central processing unit. Monitoring the CPU temperature is a wise habit if you routinely work for extended periods on CPU-intensive tasks.
There might be a situation where it is necessary to maintain the records on the number of lines in a given file. To count the number of lines manually is time-consuming as the file may contain large and complex contents. The Bash shell has several commands that display the number of lines in the provided file. We will share all the commands that are executable in the Bash shell and will help you to accomplish the task of counting the number of lines from the files. Each of these commands returns a status based on how they are executed.
The “grep” command can be used in the Linux operating system as a means to deal with case sensitivity in any string. The “grep” command’s default behavior is case-sensitive. Users are given the option to browse a design among files using this technique. To make “grep” case-insensitive, users must have either the “—ignore-case flag” or the “-i” argument. The “grep” command must be used with the “-i flag” when looking for a gradient. When users are unclear about the situation, they choose to ignore it.
When handling files and directories on Linux, you must know how to work with paths for quick navigation and access to files. A path defines the route to access a given folder or file. Linux’s directory structure resembles the roots of a tree, where everything starts from the root down to the branches until you reach the target file or folder.
Today’s guide focuses on understanding paths on Linux. We will dig in on absolute and relative paths in Linux to understand their differences and how to use each when locating the path to a file or folder.
It's more crucial than ever to use strong passwords for your online accounts. Without a secure password, it's easy for others to crack it. It's great if you can come up with a good password on your own, but if you are out of ideas or feel like your own aren't secure enough, you can get your computer to spit one out for you.
Here are 10 ways you can generate brand-new, secure passwords you can trust on Linux.
The Bash variables are quite different from other programming language variables. The variables in bash do not require declaration, simply use the variable name to specify the data of the variable. The user-defined variables in the bash shell are considered the local variables. It implies that the variables of the shell are not passed down to the shell’s child processes. The variables must be exported by the user before they can be utilized by child processes. The “Export” command of bash is used to export the given variables to an environment where all child processes are running inside the shell. The export command is also referred to as the environment variable.
Environmental variables can be exported to child shells by being labeled with the export command. The export command enables us to notify the active session of any modifications made to the exported variable. The export command takes two arguments where the first argument is the different flags of the export command and the second argument is the variable name which is to be set for exporting in the subshell.
The users of the Linux operating system can use grep to investigate the various patterns or strings in a file. The grep method of multiple strings or patterns can be used if the operating system contains files with multiple strings and the user wants to target or reach the specified two or more strings from the file. The strings and real path of the relevant file are typically included in the grep command. The pipe symbol can be used to divide them. Before the pipe “|”, we can add a backslash to create the regular expressions. To ignore the cases while doing search operations, the users can use the “-i” option when launching the grep program.
A new version of Black Box, a flashy-looking terminal emulator for Linux desktops, popped out this weekend.
A few long-standing requests are fulfilled by the new release, including support for customisable keyboard shortcuts. Users can edit keyboard shortcuts within the app for common actions like copy and paste or switching tab, through to showing/hiding the header bar.
Plus, editing is done through a “press the new key combo” type way instead of “enter the names of the new buttons”, making it quick and easy to switch (and avoid conflicts with other system keyboard shortcuts).
Those of you who like to keep an eye fixed on the fancier side of Linux desktop will be interested to know that the Burn My Windows extension and Desktop Clock GNOME extension both received updates this weekend.
Rather than write separate posts about them I figured I’d lump ’em together. After all, both are aimed at the same sort of audience (i.e. those who like a bit of desktop bling).
So let’s have a gander!
Unlike Windows and Mac, Linux still provides lifelong support for older machines with its various distributions. This is what I like most about Linux and its distributions. Even if you cannot carry out the larger tasks, you can still carry out the normal day to day tasks such as web browsing, writing/editing word document, watching movies, or listening to music.
If you have any old laptop or computer with minimal hardware, maybe you’re struggling with running any modern operating system on it. We all know that all the modern-day operating systems are not compatible with older machine; they demand more powerful hardware and more disk space.
But there are some Linux distributions that are especially developed for older computers and laptops. Why spend your hard earned money on expensive machines?
Today, we introduce you to such Linux distributions that work effortlessly on older as well as new machines.
Based on Debian 11.6 “Bullseye,” MX Linux 21.3 comes with Xfce 4.18, kernel 5.10, and some newly added helpful tools.
MX Linux, one of the best desktop-oriented distros, including Xfce as its flagship desktop environment, is an (almost) systemd-free Linux distro based on Debian’s stable branch. As a result, it is lightning-fast and is a perfect mixture of simplicity, ease of use, and appeal to more seasoned users.
Today, less than five months after the previous 21.2 release, MX Linux’s devs released the third update of the 21 “Wildflower” series, so let’s see what’s new.
Today, the Linux community is treated to yet another new distribution version. An ISO of MX Linux 21.3, the third point release in the "Wildflower" series, can be downloaded here immediately with your choice of Xfce, KDE Plasma, or Fluxbox.
Most notably, the operating system (which is based on Debian 11.6 "Bullseye") has Linux kernel 6.0 available (in addition to 5.10). The Xfce variant of MX 21.3 now uses version 4.18 of the desktop environment, which is the latest and greatest. Obviously, many packages and applications have been updated too.
We are pleased to offer MX-21.3 for your use.
MX-21.3 is the third refresh of our MX-21 release, consisting of bugfixes, kernels, and application updates since our original release of MX-21. If you are already running MX-21, there is no need to reinstall. Packages are all available thru the regular update channel.
MX Linux team pushed the Xfce 4.18 packages in MX Linux 21.3, and downloads are now available.
The wait is over. MX Linux users have been waiting for the stable Xfce 4.18 experience for the last couple of weeks since the Xfce 4.18 release on December 15, 2022.
Xfce 4.18 is a significantly large release which brings massive updates to core components such as Xfce window manager, Xfce panel and Thunar file manager. In addition, upgrades for GTK4 and initial Wayland work also land in this version.
Get the best of Kodi with the new LibreELEC 10.0.4 release, now featuring Kodi v19.5 for an improved streaming experience.
LibreELEC is a lightweight, open-source operating system designed to run Kodi, a famous media center software. It is based on Linux and aimed to be easy to install and use, making it a popular choice for users who want to set up a media center on their Raspberry Pi devices or home PCs.
The OS provides a simple and stable platform for running Kodi, regularly updated to ensure users have access to the latest features. In addition, with LibreELEC, users can easily stream and organize their media content from a single, easy-to-use interface, including movies, TV shows, music, and more.
Today, the LibreELEC team has just released a new version of their popular media center operating system – LibreELEC 10.0.4. So let’s see what’s new.
It has been a design goal to make Yum Extender NextGen very keyboard friendly, not just having keyboard shortcuts, but also have a effective workflow.
I’ve just repurposed an empty XYLITOL gum bottle into a DIY camera mount for the Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 with privacy mode to boot… In order to avoid confusion, while Xylitol is a chemical compound, it’s also a Japanese brand of chewing gums (Lotte XYLITOL) that is sold in Thailand and other countries. I’m specifically talking about the latter in this post.
Raspberry Pi Trading has just sent me a bunch of Raspberry Pi Camera Modules 3 for review, and since I don’t have any camera mount I initially thought maybe I’ll laser cut some mount or use some LEGOs as I did with the e-CAM20_CURB camera for Raspberry Pi 4. But then I saw some empty XYLITOL gum bottles, noticed the cap would open vertically, and it seemed like the modules might fit in there as well.
Sailfish OS on PinePhone gets a camera app, a new release of biktorgj's PinePhone Modem Firmware, Phoc 0.23.0, and Nheko 0.11.0.
When I started interviewing FOSS developers some 18 years ago, 7 out the 18 projects covered in this recap did not even exist, 1 was still distributed as proprietary software only, and most of the other projects were so far from their proprietary counterparts that it took a really boneheaded person to stick around in the hope to watch them flourish.
It is 2023 now. The struggle to keep feature and UX parity with proprietary counterparts is far from over for free/libre software projects. But the boneheaded people among us also have something to celebrate. We are witnessing that moment in time when, despite its many shortcomings, free software is good enough to help us do our job. Not in every use case, but increasingly often and pretty darn efficiently.
This is the moment where you can do an architectural design for a client with BlenderBIM, use OBS to screencast the process, then use Kdenlive to cut raw footage of that house being actually built, compose the background music with MuseScore, record a voiceover with Audacity, mix and master the entire soundtrack with Ardour, then publish the video to YouTube. And, for the most part, this will be business as usual.
Without further ado, I’m giving you the annual recap/preview of FOSS projects across the ecosystem: image editing, painting, photography, 3D, special effects, CAD, animation, video, and audio.
What’s a web browser? It’s the tool we use to navigate the Web, so it’s a pretty big deal! But what about the best web browser? That’s something we can help you uncover! Actually, there is nothing called the best web browser for any Linux distribution. It totally depends on user preferences and the type of browsing experience you are looking for. But with Linux, you don’t have to worry much because there is a great variety of web browsers available for different types of users.
I’ve maintained a dozen or so WordPress sites for various people and orgs since 2006. Not for lack of trying, but the feedback from people of all technical abilities, experience, and writing style is that the block editor is frustrating for anything more than page layout work.
Some of us have learned the hard way to write elsewhere and paste, but some people do use the editor as an… editor. And for that, it’s primary conceit is treating paragraphs as discrete objects, rather than connected thoughts. Writers don’t think, draft, or edit like this.
When a user goes to something like /she/her, the service will loop over the entire hashmap for pronoun sets that start with she/her. If it finds a match, it returns that data.
A new artwork I made to celebrate 20K followers on my Mastodon profile (a parody of the famous animation "My Neighbor Totoro").
I switch this artwork under 'fan-art/fair-use' because even if I painted it from scratch, the artwork contains many element of derivation that belong to Ghibli studio. I read recently a blog-post about fair-use and transformative derivation of copyrighted material, and I prefer protect myself about it.
Twitter's now under new ownership that appears to think all the worst bits of Twitter were actually the good bits, so I've mostly bailed to the Fediverse instead. There's no intrinsic length limit on posts there - Mastodon defaults to 500 characters per post, but that's configurable per instance. But even at 500 characters, it means there's more room to provide thoughtful context than there is on Twitter, and what I've seen so far is more detailed conversation and higher levels of meaningful engagement. Which is great! Except it also seems to discourage some of the posting style that I found so valuable on Twitter - if your timeline is full of nuanced discourse, it feels kind of rude to just scream "THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT IGNORES THE HIGH ADDRESS BIT ON EVERY OTHER WRITE" even though that's exactly the sort of content I'm there for.
ENGINEERS OFTEN FIND themselves in the role of turning ideas that used to be science fiction into reality. So it's natural that some of them turn the flow of ideas in the other direction, and become authors of science fiction. One such engineer-turned-writer is Divya Srinivasan Breed, who writes her science fiction as S.B. Divya, and whose stories have been nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards.
Shipments of PCs in 2022 hit a low note in the final quarter, with total shipments of desktops and notebooks falling by 29% for a total of 65.4 million units.
Technology analyst firm Canalys said this was the fourth straight quarter when shipments fell, and brought the total for the year to 285.1 million units, a 16.1% drop from 2021.
Another analyst firm, IDC, had a slightly higher figure for the final quarter, saying 67.2 million units were shipped for a drop of 28.1%, with the annual figure being 292.3 million units.
Passwords suck. Passwords made by humans suck. It does not matter what kind of length or complexity requirements you impose, what comes out is not random.
Twitter Inc. is offering advertisers a new incentive in an attempt to woo brands back to the social-media platform, which has seen its ad business deteriorate following Elon Musk‘s $44 billion takeover.
The tech company is dangling free ad space by offering to match advertisers’ ad spending up to $250,000, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The full $500,000 in advertising must run by Feb. 28, the emails said.
The mysterious outage of Tweetbot and other third-party Twitter clients that began Thursday night was an intentional suspension, according to internal messages viewed by The Information.
Twitter can of course do what it wants, and Musk owns Twitter so he can do what he wants. But pulling the plug on these clients and ghosting everyone on communications about it is so absurdly disrespectful. Zero respect for the users for those apps, zero respect for the developers behind themââ¬â°—ââ¬â°many of whom had been building on the Twitter platform for 10-15 years. Just a clown show.
Meanwhile, using Twitter’s own apps or website, my @gruber account shows a total of 7 mentions since January 5. Using Twitterrific for Macââ¬â°—ââ¬â°the plug for which has somehow not yet been pulledââ¬â°—ââ¬â°I count 239 mentions since January 5.
Twitter’s own first-party service is falling apart.
Cardinal Pell himself would go on to become finance minister of the vatican, the third most important Catholic in Rome.
In 1996, Lynne Kosky was elected to the seat of Altona in the Victorian parliament. I previously wrote about Lynne and another friend, Sally, who died from cancer. Lynne was one of my first web hosting customers in 1998. As it turns out, Lynne, like Cardinal Pell, would go on to become Minister for Finance in the State of Victoria. Lynne is better known for her subsequent role as Minister for Education. Ironically, the server had been used in the Catholic Education Office, the main rival of state education.
In 1993, Lindsay Tanner was elected as the representative for inner Melbourne in the federal parliament. Lindsay's party was in opposition for many years. Lindsay's office was close to the university of Melbourne and in the same building as the National Union of Students. Coincidentally, like Lynne, Lindsay also chose to use my early web hosting service. When the Kevin Rudd government was swept to power in 2007, Lindsay was one of the key leaders, being the candidate for Finance Minister.
After one term in the highest level of Government, Lindsay would quit the parliament and publish a book highly critical of the system. Ironically, after Cardinal Pell passed away he was also revealed to be the source of anonymous blogs criticizing his leader the Pope.
I’m starting this writing project out with my 145th Album of the Day, and accidentally chose a tough one. Tough because I enjoy trying each album with as little preconception as possible. But you can’t do that with Automatic for the People. It’s an album they mined so thoroughly for singles that what’s left between those are hard to remember.
It might be unfair to some songs like “Monty Got a Raw Deal” to dismiss them like so quickly. But when the singles stand out so much and have their own life outside the album, I can’t imagine going back to give them a fair shake.
Sometimes this project throws you an easy one. It’s A Shame About Ray is in my regular rotation, but it had been a few weeks.
It’s horribly unhip to admit it now, but I first bought this album after hearing the cover of Mrs Robinson, probably in Waynes World 2. Almost certainly in Wayne’s World 2. I remember vaguely liking the album, but I was there for the tacked on cover version.
Hey Brandon,
I got this tattoo on my arm now. It mostly makes me think of when I had your phone at my house just after you died, and I was looking through it to see what we needed to get off of it before we tossed it.
In your contacts, I was listed as Rooster. Of course, you barely ever called me anything else since I was ten and you were eight.
Hardly anyone calls me that now. So I got a big old rooster tattoo on my forearm. I think you would think it is silly. That makes me smile and laugh. I love you little brother, and miss you.
Rule changes tend to upset the competitiveness order, hence Mercedes losing dominance last year and Red Bull gaining it. This year, no big changes, so probably no big upsets. Expect to see either Verstappen get another championship without much bother, or Verstappen having to work for it but still getting another championship.
There are three new drivers. I would have chosen Oscar Piastri as the one most likely to make an impression, but as his team mate is Lando Norris, who's hard to beat.
Martin talks about how reverse lookups work. I think he's right that we shouldn't trust them. But my issue is that a non-reverse lookup is doing something weird. The name iForgetWhat.br resolves to 127.0.0.1
I tried this via my ISP's name server, and via 1.1.1.1, and via some web based lookups just in case there was something odd about the request coming from my IP (which sounds paranoid, but that's where my mind went). They all showed that the name resolved to 127.0.0.1
Discord, Mastodon, and a bunch of other modern messaging platforms have some sort of "spoiler" feature or content warning. Something where you can hide your message and the reader has to click to reveal it.
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.