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Links 22/06/2023: GTK Evolving Accessibility



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Tux Digital ☛ Linux Out Loud 67: The Compromise of Easy

        This week, Linux Out Loud chats about rolling your own solutions for privacy. Welcome to episode 67 of Linux Out Loud. We fired up our mics, connected those headphones as we searched the community for themes to expound upon. We kept the banter friendly, the conversation somewhat on topic, and had fun doing it.

    • Applications

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Manuel Matuzovic ☛ Cascade Layers are useless*

        *if you don‘t understand the problems they solve and use them in combination with other solutions that tackle the same challenges albeit less elegantly and with the downside of limiting you in taking full advantage of selectors, one of the coolest features in CSS, and if you ignore the fact that they can help you organise and manage your own and third-party code.

        I've heard several people say they've tried Cascade Layers but didn't see any changes, so they dropped them again. That can also easily happen to you when you structure your CSS in layers for the first time. I can explain why.

      • Tim Bray ☛ CSS Boost

        The blog you are now looking at is looking a little different (better I think), especially on mobile devices, because the CSS has been improved. I have a report on the details, and unexpected lessons.

        What launched me into action was the acquisition of a Pixel 7, on which this blog’s text was unreadably tiny. I’m not sure what changed, but I got complaints from a couple of other people at the same time that I noticed it myself, so maybe it’s Android’s fault? Anyhow, couldn’t ignore that problem. On top of which, I had a list of minor gripes that had been on the to-do list for way too long.

      • OMG! Linux ☛ Creating Bootable USBs on Linux? Easy with Impression

        Impression has a simple, straight-forward UI that couldn’t be easier to use: you open the app, select an image, insert a drive, and flash a-haaaa – you’re away.

        You can see the steps in flow in these screenshots: [...]

      • Bryan Lunduke ☛ How To: Install 9front

        (a Plan 9 fork)

      • Own HowTo ☛ How to Install Gnome on Debian 12 "Bookworm"

        In this tutorial, you will learn how to install gnome desktop environment on Debian 12 "Bookworm".There are multiple ways to install gnome on Debian 12. In this tutorial, we are going to install gnome via tasksel and via apt package manager.

        tasksel is a tool that

      • FOSSLinux ☛ How to view hidden files and folders on Linux

        In the Linux file system, some files and directories are hidden for various reasons, often to prevent accidental modification or deletion. These items usually start with a period ('.'). However, there are times when you might need to view or access these hidden files and folders. In this guide, we will explain how to do this, using both command line and graphical methods.

      • FOSSLinux ☛ How to move files and directories in Linux

        Managing files effectively is a crucial part of any Linux user's skill set. The ability to move files and directories around the system not only helps in organizing your data but is also a key part of tasks like system configuration and scripting. In this guide, we will look at the various commands and techniques you can use to move files and directories in a Linux environment.

      • How to Search For a File in Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04 Terminal

        Find the various ways with command examples to search and find files directly from the Ubuntu command terminal.

    • Games

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • GTK: Evolving accessibility

          Our last post on accessiblity in GTK4 was a while ago, time for an update.

          Thankfully, we have Lukáš Tyrychtr at Red Hat working on accessibility now.

          One of the bigger changes in accessibility from GTK3 to GTK4 was that we have a new application API that is modeled on the ARIA specs from the web.

          The high-level picture to keep in mind is...

          AT stands for accessibility technology here. In practice, that mainly means orca, the well-known screen reader (although there is a new contender, with the odilia project).

          The new layer provides APIs such as...

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • BSD

      • Undeadly ☛ [CFT] Major pfsync(4) Rewrite on the Horizon

        A major rewrite of pfsync(4), the state table synchronization tool for redundant pf(4) setups is in the works.

      • FreeBSD ☛ Celebrating 30 Years of FreeBSD: FreeBSD For Students

        Learning how to use and develop an entire operating system allows students to interact with more than just a kernel. Many courses teach separate elements that do not function as a full working system. Working with FreeBSD allows students to interact with some of the features that developers are most likely to engage with, and see how the system works in practice, not just in theory. This allows developers to see how their work functions in real-time on a contemporary system.

        The strong mentorship culture that already exists within the community is a strength of the FreeBSD operating system. Documentation is expansive and well maintained, encouraging self-growth and research through easily accessible system and tooling references. When submitting patches, feedback is quick and constructive, and maintainers are often willing to work with new contributors to ensure the any changes are made correctly. The flat contributor model encourages development work from newer users, from various backgrounds and expertise.

    • SUSE/OpenSUSE

      • SUSE's Corporate Blog ☛ SLE Base Container Images 15 SP5

        The SLE BCI team is delighted to share that in conjunction with the launch of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5, the Language and Application containers of SUSE Linux Enterprise Base Container Images (SLE BCI) have been upgraded to take advantage of the enhanced features offered the new product version.

    • Fedora Family / IBM

    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • OMG Ubuntu ☛ Linux Mint 21.2 Beta is Available to Download
        The beta of Linux Mint 21.2 “Victoria” lands a couple of weeks ahead of the expected stable release, tentatively scheduled for mind July.

        Linux Mint 21.2 is still based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (as are all entries in the Linux Mint 21 series) but a sizeable set of enhancements, new features, and UI changes feature.

      • Linux Mint ☛ Linux Mint 21.2 “Victoria” Cinnamon – BETA Release

        This is the BETA release for Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria" Cinnamon Edition. Linux Mint 21.2 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2027. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.

      • Linux Mint ☛ Linux Mint 21.2 “Victoria” MATE – BETA Release

        This is the BETA release for Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria" MATE Edition. Linux Mint 21.2 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2027. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.

      • Linux Mint ☛ Linux Mint 21.2 “Victoria” Xfce – BETA Release

        This is the BETA release for Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria" Xfce Edition. Linux Mint 21.2 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2027. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use. New features: This new version of Linux […]

      • Neowin ☛ Linux Mint 21.2 Beta ISOs out now [Ed: Post updated]

        You can now download the Linux Mint 21.2 Beta from official third-party mirrors. The Mint project is still to officially announce the release, but we believe it will do so very soon.

      • Beta News ☛ Ubuntu-based Linux Mint 21.2 'Victoria' BETA now available for download

        Linux Mint, one of the most popular Linux distributions, is back with an exciting release. Linux Mint 21.2 BETA, which is codenamed "Victoria," is a long-term support release that promises extended support until 2027. This ensures stability and reliability for its users. This upcoming version brings a host of updated software, refinements, and new features, making it a compelling choice for desktop users. Linux Mint 12.2 BETA is based on Ubuntu 22.04 and uses kernel 5.15.

      • Ubuntu ☛ Why you should attend the Ubuntu Summit

        We are very excited about the upcoming Ubuntu Summit 2023! This year, we’ll be gathering in the beautiful city of Riga, Latvia, from November 3rd-5th.

        There are many reasons to attend the Ubuntu Summit, including electrifying talks from industry leaders, invigorating hands-on workshops, and a unique opportunity to network with like-minded people from across the open-source world.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Linux Gizmos ☛ The IBASE EC3500 is a computing system for AI Applications

        Today, IBASE revealed an embedded platform powered by the NVIDIA Jetson AGX ORIN modules, designed for AI applications in smart retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries. The EC3500 is also equipped with 1x 10 GbE LAN, 1x HDMI 2.1 port and many other expansion ports.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • Hackaday ☛ Punched Cards Are In The Cloud, With This Arduino

        Grizzled veterans of the computing industry will relate stories of submitting projects on stacks of punched cards, something those of us who stored their 8-bit works on audio cassettes could only imagine. But for those who fancy experimenting with the format it’s still possible to make a basic card reader using LEDs and light sensors, as [Nino Ivanov] has done using an Arduino Uno as the brains. And these aren’t just for show, each of his cards holds a LISP program that runs in a cloud service.

      • Arduino ☛ Meet Arduino Pro at tinyML EMEA Innovation Forum 2023

        On June 26th-28th, the Arduino Pro team will be in Amsterdam for the tinyML EMEA Innovation Forum – one of the year’s major events for the world where AI models meet agile, low-power devices.

      • Jeff Geerling ☛ How I installed TrueNAS on my new ASUSTOR NAS

        Once you've made a backup of ADM from the eMMC, you could erase the eMMC drive and install Linux on top of it. But that's a bad idea, because (a) that eMMC drive is only 8 GB, which means you could run out of space on it pretty easily, and (b) it's easier to leave that volume in place and just boot from an external USB drive.

      • Ruben Schade ☛ My Pentium 1’s phantom hard disk

        My childhood PC has started exhibiting strange behaviour with its internal hard drives. Any OS I boot reports seeing two internal drives, even when only one physical CompactFlash card is present. It didn’t do this before, and I’m stumped as to why.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • The Fosstodon Hub ☛ Facebook, Fosstodon & The Fediverse

      Mike and I have been asked, multiple times, about what Fosstodon’s position is on Facebook potentially joining the Fediverse.

      If you’re not aware, the TL;DR is that Facebook, or their parent company, Meta, is planning to create a Twitter clone that will support ActivityPub (more here). That means that Facebook, or some semblance of it, could be coming to a Mastodon instance near you.

      Needless to say, this has a lot of folk on Mastodon a little worried - hence the constant stream of messages to myself and Mike asking what we, as admins of Fosstodon, plan to do about it.

    • It's FOSS ☛ FOSS Weekly #23.25: ONLYOFFICE, Clipboard App, Bash Variables and More Linux Stuff

      The bash basic series continues and so does the Linux learning.

    • Venture Beat ☛ Aerospike invades the graph database space with a little help from Apache TinkerPop

      Aerospike is expanding its database capabilities with its Aerospike Graph database, which brings graph data model capabilities.

    • Programming/Development

      • Earthly ☛ Cross-Compiling for Raspberry Pi: Getting Started and Troubleshooting

        We’re Earthly. We make building software simpler and therefore faster using containerization. This article covers cross compiling. If you’re someone who builds software often, you might want to check us out and see if Earthly can help you build faster and easier.

      • Steve Kemp ☛ Simple toy languages

        I'm kinda tempted to port one of them to Z80 assembly, and see if I can get it running under CP/M. I guess I could add a REPL for interactive use, though without actual hardware connected to my single-board computer it might all feel a little pointless. Then again I have Turbo Pascal, and even a tiny C-compiler, so I guess with those in mind any toy-language is pointless in a completely different regard.

      • TecAdmin ☛ C Programs to Print Fibonacci Sequence

        The Fibonacci Sequence is a series of numbers in which each number (Fibonacci number) is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence often starts with 0 and 1.

      • TecAdmin ☛ Python Program to Print Fibonacci Sequence

        The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where the next number is found by adding up the two numbers before it.

      • Rlang ☛ Mastering Data Aggregation with xtabs() in R

        As a programmer, you’re constantly faced with the task of organizing and analyzing data. One powerful tool in your R arsenal is the xtabs() function.

      • Rlang ☛ TidyTuesday Week 25: UFO Sightings Redux

        I haven’t been TidyTuesdaying because I’ve been learning Tableau. I’ll write more about that later; but it has been an interesting experience and provides different perspectives on data compared to what you might get from R.

      • Linux Magazine ☛ English Translation of Children’s Book Ada & Zangemann Available Now

        If you have a child curious about software development, this book might be just the right thing to pique their interest.

      • Perl / Raku

        • Chris ☛ Word Embeddings in Perl: Baby Steps

          Continuing from our adventures into latent semantic analysis in Perl, I have been toying with neural networks, the ultimate goal being word2vec-style word embeddings.11 Again, not because I think the outcome will be practically useful – there are pre-trained word2vec models for that – but because I need an excuse to do something I’ve never done before: write a neural network.

      • Python

        • Linux Hint ☛ NumPy Indexing

          The “NumPy Indexing” in Python allows you to access and manipulate elements of a NumPy array based on their positions or index values.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Countplot Seaborn

          The "countplot()" method of the "seaborn" library is used to count the number of observations per category and visualize the results.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Matplotlib violin plot

          The “matplotlib.pyplot.violinplot()” function in Python is a versatile tool for visualizing data distributions using violin plots.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Python Clear List

          The “clear()” method, “del” keyword, “pop()” method with Loop, and “remove()” method are used to clear the list in Python.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Python Binary Search

          The “Python Binary Search” is a technique that is utilized in a program to find/get an element in a given sorted list or array.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Numpy Dot Product

          To determine the dot product of “Scalar Values”, “Complex Numbers”, “1-D”, “and 2-D” arrays the “numpy.dot()” function is used in Python.

        • Linux Hint ☛ SciPy Simpson

          The “simps()” method of the “scipy.integrate” model of the “SciPy” library is used to determine numerical integration by utilizing Simpson's rule.

        • Linux Hint ☛ NumPy hstack()

          In Python, the “numpy.hstack()” function of the “numpy” module is used to stack two or more arrays horizontally along their second axis.

      • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

      • Rust

        • Rust Blog ☛ The Rust Programming Language Blog: Introducing the Rust Leadership Council [Ed: Outsourced to Microsoft proprietary prison, GitHub]

          As of today, RFC 3392 has been merged, forming the new top level governance body of the Rust Project: the Leadership Council. The creation of this Council marks the end of both the Core Team and the interim Leadership Chat.

          The Council will assume responsibility for top-level governance concerns while most of the responsibilities of the Rust Project (such as maintenance of the compiler and core tooling, evolution of the language and standard libraries, administration of infrastructure, etc.) remain with the nine top level teams.

          Each of these top level teams, as defined in the RFC, has chosen a representative who collectively form the Council: [...]

  • Leftovers

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Ethical Problems in Computer Security

      Tadayoshi Kohno, Yasemin Acar, and Wulf Loh wrote excellent paper on ethical thinking within the computer security community: “Ethical Frameworks and Computer Security Trolley Problems: Foundations for Conversation“: [...]

    • Terence Eden ☛ 12,000 comments

      Most comments - but by no means all - are delightful. People wanting to share their own stories, add something to the discussion, or politely disagree.

      I moderate heavily. If someone is rude or abusive, their comment isn't published. Unless it's really funny.

    • [Old] USDOJ ☛ Massachusetts Man Sentenced for Computer Intrusion

      United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Jonathan Manzi, 31, currently of Beverly, Massachusetts, was sentenced on April 20, 2023, in Lincoln, Nebraska, by Senior United States District Judge John M. Gerrard for obtaining information from a protected computer. Manzi was sentenced to 18 months in prison and will also serve a year on supervised release. Manzi was also ordered to pay $655,000 in restitution.

    • Tedium ☛ Freeloader Culture

      Today in Tedium: In many ways, the [Internet] is a network driven by literally millions of examples of the same problem happening over and over—people freeloading on access to resources someone else made available for free. We all do it—some of us want to read paywalled articles, so we try to find ways around the paywall. We hate distractions, so some of us turn on ad blockers. We don’t want to pay for every cable channel or streaming service, so we load up torrent programs (unless you’re Gen Z, then you may not know what they are). In many ways, the recent debate around Reddit has been a discussion of infrastructure and freeloading. Who’s getting the free ride? And who’s stealing resources from whom? In many ways, Reddit represents a microcosm of how the [Internet] works when it comes to people taking advantage of free resources. So with that in mind, today’s Tedium ponders freeloaders and free-riders in the digital era. — Ernie @ Tedium



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