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Links 22/05/2023: Qt 6 in KDE Neon Unstable, GNU Parallel 20230522, and More Microsoft Layoffs



  • GNU/Linux

    • SlashGearYou Can Turn Your Old PS2 Into A Linux Computer: Here's How

      If you still own a classic PlayStation 2 game console, it doesn't have to just lay in your closet gathering dust, and there is quite a good chance that you'll be able to turn it into a functioning desktop computer.

      After its official release by Sony in the spring of 2000, the PlayStation 2 was such a hit that it became the highest-selling video game console of all time, with sales exceeding 155 million units. Sony's beloved console owes its success to its excellent game library, the revolutionary built-in DVD player feature, the ability to run almost all the PS1 games, and some stellar advertising.

      Sony also added a feature that can make a PS2 turn into a PC that runs on the Linux Operating System. They made this official in 2002 by launching a comprehensive package called the "Linux for PlayStation 2" kit. This kit included the Linux Software Installation disks, a 40GB IDE hard drive, an official Sony mouse and keyboard, a Sony PS2 network adaptor, and a special VGA cable to connect to a monitor.

    • Linux LinksLinux Around The World: USA – Alabama

      We cover user groups that are running in the US state of Alabama. This article forms part of our Linux Around The World series.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Jupiter BroadcastingAccepting the Future | LINUX Unplugged 511

        How we found peace with the Linux community’s perpetual debates; and our tricks for finding the signal from the noise.

      • Bryan LundukeUsing an Android phone as a desktop replacement (2023 edition)

        Because... Why not?

      • KDE VideosKDE workshop at UOM: Making a Difference - 5/22/2023, 7:30:04 PM

        How to contribute and jump start your career in Free Software with the KDE Community

        Join us for a hybrid event, either online or in-person at the University of Macedonia in Greece.

        A workshop on how you can make a difference in the world of free software by getting involved with the KDE Community. Learn about our vision and community structure, and discover our impact on today's world. You will also hear from our community members on skill development, career growth, volunteering, and personal growth.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Dave AirlieDave Airlie: lavapipe and sparse memory bindings: part two

        € Thanks for all the suggestions, on here, and on twitter and on mastodon, anyway who noted I could use a single fd and avoid all the pain was correct!

        I hacked up an ever growing ftruncate/madvise memfd and it seemed to work fine. In order to use it for sparse I have to use it for all device memory allocations in lavapipe which means if I push forward I probably have to prove it works and scales a bit better to myself. I suspect layering some of the pb bufmgr code on top of an ever growing fd might work, or maybe just having multiple 2GB buffers might be enough.

    • Applications

      • 9to5LinuxTux Paint 0.9.30 Digital Painting App for Kids Adds Support for Sizes to Magic Tools

        Highlights of the Tux Paint 0.9.30 release include new re-sizing options for many of the Magic effect tools. The new sizing options give Tux Paint‘s Magic tools a boost and are enabled by default. However, the devs note the fact that this new feature can be deactivated if parents consider that it adds complexity to the program, which will revert all Magic effect tools to their previous behavior.

        Also new in Tux Paint 0.9.30 is the ability for Brushstroke tools and filters like Desaturate, Kaleidoscope, Metal Paint, and Tint to give users the choice of selecting the tool’s radius. This feature allows for a more finer and coarser application of effects rather than a single, hard-coded size.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • LWNA guide to io_uring

        Nick Black has put together an extensive guide to the io_uring API and the lib_uring user-space library.

      • Io uring

        Introduced in 2019 (kernel 5.1) by Jens Axboe, io_uring (henceforth uring) is a system for providing the kernel with a schedule of system calls, and receiving the results as they're generated. Whereas epoll and kqueue support multiplexing, where you're told when you can usefully perform a system call using some set of filters, uring allows you to specify the system calls themselves (and dependencies between them), and execute the schedule at the kernel dataflow limit. It combines asynchronous I/O, system call polybatching, and flexible buffer management, and is IMHO the most substantial development in the Linux I/O model since Berkeley sockets (yes, I'm aware Berkeley sockets preceded Linux. Let's then say that it's the most substantial development in the UNIX I/O model to originate in Linux):

      • TecAdminUnderstanding the Zombie Processes in Linux

        In the realm of operating systems, the term "zombie" usually evokes images of the undead, creatures trapped between life and death. Surprisingly, a similar phenomenon exists in the Linux operating system, where zombie processes lurk, haunting system administrators and developers alike.

      • TecAdminThe Essential Guide to Understanding Linux Process Status

        Linux, being one of the most popular operating systems in the world, is well-regarded for its efficiency and reliability. It is the heart of many servers, supercomputers, and embedded systems.

      • OMG! LinuxYou Can Now Make Bootable ChromeOS Flex USB on Linux

        It's now possible to make a ChromeOS Flex USB on Linux. You thought you could already? So did — but turns out we couldn't.

      • UNIX CopHow to install ApacheTop on Ubuntu 22.04?

        Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to install ApacheTop on Ubuntu 22.04. It's pretty simple to do, so let's go. According to the GitHub profile of the tool: ApacheTop watches a logfile generated by Apache (in standard common orCombined logformat, and generates human-parsable output in realtime.

      • KifarunixStep-by-Step Guide on Deploying an Application on Kubernetes Cluster

        In this tutorial, we will provide you with a step-by-step guide on deploying an application on Kubernetes cluster. Kubernetes is the de facto container orchestration tool that helps to deploy and manage applications in an efficient and scalable way.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Neon Unstable now using Qt 6 Builds of Frameworks and Plasma

          KDE neon unstable edition is built from git master. For the last few weeks we have frozen the published repo because we knew the move to Qt 6 based builds of KDE Frameworks and Plasma would break install. They will still break install but now is the time to give it a try. It is vitally important to update your neon-settings-2 package first because the Qt 5 and 6 builds have overlapping files and this will allow that.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • OMG UbuntuDashBar is a Compact All-in-One Taskbar GNOME Extension

          Admittedly GNOME Shell is not short of taskbar, panel, and dock extensions. A wide range of alternatives are available, from household names1 like Dash to Panel and Dash to Dock through to niche, nuanced offerings like BaBar Lite, and now DashBar.

          DashBar has no preferences at all. That’s its USP; it works how the way it works, and if that way isn’t for you, use something else!

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Arca NoaeArca Noae Package Manager version 1.1.0.2 has been released

      Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of an updated Arca Noae Package Manager for ArcaOS, OS/2, and eComStation. (1.1.0.2) This is a minor update to the 1.1.0 release with the following bug fixes: Update SMBIOS to 1.1. Fix bug initializing conflict detection popup.. Increase text limit of quick install entryfield.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • SaaS/Back End/Databases

      • Linux HintPostgreSQL Group By Examples

        Guide on different examples of working with the GROUP BY clause to form groups of rows from single or multiple columns when working with the SELEC statement.

      • Linux HintPostgreSQL Escape the Single Quote in String

        How to escape the single quotes to use it within a string by doubling the single quotes or using the E backslash method or the dollar-quoted string method.

      • Linux HintPostgreSQL Group by Hour (Time)

        Guide on how to group the timestamp columns using the EXTRACT and DATE_TRUNC functions and how to use the aggregate functions with group by hour in PostgreSQL.

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

      • Hispanic LibreOffice community at esLibre Conference 2023

        Xisco Fauli from The Document Foundation (the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice) writes: On May 12 and 13, the esLibre Conference took place in Zaragoza, Spain and the LibreOffice spanish community took the oportunity to meet in person and talk about the project.

    • GNU Projects

      • GNUparallel @ Savannah: GNU Parallel 20230522 ('Charles') released [stable]

        Subject: GNU Parallel 20230522 ('Charles') released [stable]

        GNU Parallel 20230522 ('Charles') has been released. It is available for download at: lbry://@GnuParallel:4

        Quote of the month:

        Recently learned how to use GNU parallel (from ChatGPT, no less!) and I've gone mad with power -- Mark, Anthropomorphic Anuran @reject_resubmit@twitter

        New in this release:

        • No new features. This is a candidate for a stable release.
        • Bug fixes and man page updates.


        News about GNU Parallel:



        GNU Parallel - For people who live life in the parallel lane. If you like GNU Parallel record a video testimonial: Say who you are, what you use GNU Parallel for, how it helps you, and what you like most about it. Include a command that uses GNU Parallel if you feel like it.

        About GNU Parallel


        GNU Parallel is a shell tool for executing jobs in parallel using one or more computers. A job can be a single command or a small script that has to be run for each of the lines in the input. The typical input is a list of files, a list of hosts, a list of users, a list of URLs, or a list of tables. A job can also be a command that reads from a pipe. GNU Parallel can then split the input and pipe it into commands in parallel.

        If you use xargs and tee today you will find GNU Parallel very easy to use as GNU Parallel is written to have the same options as xargs. If you write loops in shell, you will find GNU Parallel may be able to replace most of the loops and make them run faster by running several jobs in parallel. GNU Parallel can even replace nested loops.

        GNU Parallel makes sure output from the commands is the same output as you would get had you run the commands sequentially. This makes it possible to use output from GNU Parallel as input for other programs.

        For example you can run this to convert all jpeg files into png and gif files and have a progress bar: parallel --bar convert {1} {1.}.{2} ::: *.jpg ::: png gif

        Or you can generate big, medium, and small thumbnails of all jpeg files in sub dirs: find . -name '*.jpg' |

        parallel convert -geometry {2} {1} {1//}/thumb{2}_{1/} :::: - ::: 50 100 200 You can find more about GNU Parallel at: http://www.gnu.org/s/parallel/ You can install GNU Parallel in just 10 seconds with:

            $ (wget -O - pi.dk/3 || lynx -source pi.dk/3 || curl pi.dk/3/ || \
               fetch -o - http://pi.dk/3 ) > install.sh
            $ sha1sum install.sh | grep 883c667e01eed62f975ad28b6d50e22a
            12345678 883c667e 01eed62f 975ad28b 6d50e22a
            $ md5sum install.sh | grep cc21b4c943fd03e93ae1ae49e28573c0
            cc21b4c9 43fd03e9 3ae1ae49 e28573c0
            $ sha512sum install.sh | grep ec113b49a54e705f86d51e784ebced224fdff3f52
            79945d9d 250b42a4 2067bb00 99da012e c113b49a 54e705f8 6d51e784 ebced224
            fdff3f52 ca588d64 e75f6033 61bd543f d631f592 2f87ceb2 ab034149 6df84a35
            $ bash install.sh
            
        Watch the intro video on http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL284C9FF2488BC6D1 Walk through the tutorial (man parallel_tutorial). Your command line will love you for it.

        When using programs that use GNU Parallel to process data for publication please cite:

        O. Tange (2018): GNU Parallel 2018, March 2018, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1146014. If you like GNU Parallel:

        • Give a demo at your local user group/team/colleagues
        • Post the intro videos on Reddit/Diaspora*/forums/blogs/ Identi.ca/Google+/Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin/mailing lists
        • Get the merchandise https://gnuparallel.threadless.com/designs/gnu-parallel
        • Request or write a review for your favourite blog or magazine
        • Request or build a package for your favourite distribution (if it is not already there)
        • Invite me for your next conference
        • If you use programs that use GNU Parallel for research:

        • Please cite GNU Parallel in you publications (use --citation)


        If GNU Parallel saves you money:

        About GNU SQL
        GNU sql aims to give a simple, unified interface for accessing databases through all the different databases' command line clients. So far the focus has been on giving a common way to specify login information (protocol, username, password, hostname, and port number), size (database and table size), and running queries.

        The database is addressed using a DBURL. If commands are left out you will get that database's interactive shell. When using GNU SQL for a publication please cite:

        O. Tange (2011): GNU SQL - A Command Line Tool for Accessing Different Databases Using DBURLs, ;login: The USENIX Magazine, April 2011:29-32.

        About GNU Niceload
        GNU niceload slows down a program when the computer load average (or other system activity) is above a certain limit. When the limit is reached the program will be suspended for some time. If the limit is a soft limit the program will be allowed to run for short amounts of time before being suspended again. If the limit is a hard limit the program will only be allowed to run when the system is below the limit.
    • Programming/Development

      • Python

        • Linux HintCumulative Percentage Pandas

          The “cumsum()” and “sum()” functions of the “pandas” library are implemented in Python to find the cumulative percentages.

        • Linux HintNumPy Gradient Method

          To calculate the gradient of the function or Numpy “N-Dimensional” array the “numpy.gradient()” method is utilized in Python.

        • Linux HintPostgreSQL Group by Day (Date)

          Tutorial on how to group the dates per day when working with PostgreSQL using the DATE_TRUNC and the DATE_PART functions along with practical examples.

      • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

        • Linux HintUsing the =~ Operator in Bash

          Comprehensive tutorial on the various methods of using the =~ operator in Bash to search the string values with different types of regular expressions.

        • Linux HintEscape a Single Quote in Bash

          The purposes of using the single quotes in the Bash script using single quotes with both echo and printf commands to define a string data or execute a command.

        • Linux HintBash Logical AND (&&) Operator

          The simple uses of the logical AND operator in Bash script to define the logical expressions in any programming language and check two or more conditions.

        • Linux HintBash Substring after a Specified Character

          Practical guide on the various uses of Bash substring extraction to extract the substring from a string data after a specified character using the Bash script.

  • Leftovers



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