Josh and Kurt talk about some of the efforts to measure and understand open source. There are projects like the OpenSSF Scorecard. We want to measure open source for some idea of quality. Is AI generated code better than a random open source project found on GitHub? Can we track the countries contributors are from? These are all interesting problems that everyone will have to deal with soon.
No surprises here: this thing looks very normal. The patch stats are about 60% drivers, with networking and gpu drivers being the bulk of it, but there's a little bit of everything in there: nvme, pin control, x86 platform drivers, HID, etc etc.
Ignoring drivers, it's a mixed set of fixes all over: architectures (x86, powerpc, RISC-V, xtensa), some core networking (mainly netfilter), core kernel (tracing, scheduler), filesystems (erofs, smb client), and documentation and selftests.
And some minor noise elsewhere.
Full shortlog appended, but nothing in there looks particularly thrilling. Unless, of course, it happened to fix a bug that affected you.
Or maybe you're the kind of person who finds CFI annotations and getting all the endbr64 annotations right to be endlessly fascinating. In which case you're having a really good Sunday.
But please - don't think of this as "not very interesting", but more as a "this looks safe to test, and it's not like I have anything better to do".
Right?
Linus
The second 6.5 prepatch is out for testing.
As a Linux user, you may find yourself often needing to search for specific pieces of information within a file or a set of files. This can be a time-consuming task if you’re manually scanning through each file, but luckily the “grep” command exists to make it easier for you. Grep is a powerful tool that allows you to search for text within files, and with a few modifications, it can be used to search for multiple strings at once.
Over the years, I believe that both Twitter and the Fediverse have added quiet convenience features to their storage of post data. Some of this is pure metadata; for example, both know if a post is a reply to a previous post, and if so which post (and by who, and so on). Other features affect the contents of posts themselves. For example, I believe that Twitter has for some time tracked @mentions in tweets using the internal Twitter identifier for the user, so that if the account is renamed things still work (and an account name takeover can't suddenly mis-identify who the tweet was to or mentioning). I believe this is in addition to the raw '@<name>' text, which you want to retain in case the account vanishes entirely.
FreshPorts make use of a simple python daemon (fp_listen). It has been in use since at least 2006. It was (I think) vermaden who mentioned it (I can’t find the reference) and it triggered an idea.
The role of fp_listen is to listen for backend notifications and respond accordingly. One of its primary goals is to clear the front end cache as required. Part of that strategy involves a persistent connection to the PostgreSQL database running on AWS and uses PostgreSQL running on RDS.
The developers of BattleBit Remastered have now given a much more clear answer to what their plans are for their anti-cheat and it seems it's great news for gamers on Steam Deck and desktop Linux.
A few conversations I’ve had recently at Akademy 2023 have inspired me to write about a topic I’ve been wanting to share for a long time. So today I’d like to shine a bit of light on how the process of getting bugs fixed and features implemented works in KDE. This article’s target audience is general users more so than experienced technical contributors who will already have an understanding of this. But feel free to read anyway if you consider yourself a member of that group!
To begin with, I sometimes encounter the impression that there’s this pool of developers who either roam around looking for bugs to fix and features to implement, or are told or motivated to do so by some higher authority. This isn’t necessarily a misconception, but it needs to be qualified a bit. Well, a lot!
KDE Connect is an application which can run on a wide variety of platforms, including Linux desktop distributions, Android mobile devices, Sailfish, Windows, macOS, and iOS. Typically KDE Connect is used to link a mobile device and a desktop machine, allowing them to share information, services, and files. For example, we might install the software on an Android phone and a Linux desktop, providing a bridge between the two devices. However, KDE Connect can also be used to join two or more of virtually any type of device, including linking one laptop to another, linking two phones, or a workstation with a phone.
I was recently asked about the capabilities of KDE Connect. Specifically the person wanted to know if it would be possible to set up a job (crunching numbers or compiling software) running on a workstation and then use KDE Connect to send a notification to a mobile device when the task was completed. This is possible - I'll share an example in a moment - and I also want to share some of the other ways in which KDE Connect can be a helpful tool when used to link two (or more) devices.
China's openKylin Linux distribution has reached a significant milestone with the release of version 1.0, affectionately codenamed "Yangtze." As an Ubuntu remix, openKylin offers a user-friendly and functional desktop experience while incorporating a range of distinctive features. In this tutorial, we'll dive into the world of openKylin 1.0, exploring its key aspects, notable applications, and the overall impact of China's desktop Linux innovation.
By necessity I have a fairly lean OS installation on it. Debian Bookworm with the MATE desktop to be precise. I use it for everything, which is to say that I use it for web browsing, programming (in vim), and playing OpenTTD. That’s pretty much 90% of what I do with it. Sometimes I do image editing in GIMP or writing in LibreOffice.
It's a trade-off to have a computer like this. The model is rare enough that there aren't drivers for all of the hardware. WiFi has never worked on it. When I first installed Linux on it I chose Raspbian, which I later switched to Debian proper. Strangely enough Raspbian had more drivers I needed than Debian. I had to copy some over. Sound started working when I switched to Debian, though.
While some Linux distributions strive to introduce revolutionary advancements or cutting-edge technologies, Linux Mint takes a different approach.
Instead of chasing the latest trends, the team behind Linux Mint focuses on perfecting the essentials that desktop users value most: stability, simplicity, and familiarity. This is exactly the case with the just-released Linux Mint 21.2 “Veronica.”
Building on the shoulders of the previous 21.1 “Vera” release, Mint’s developers continue their mission to provide a stable and user-friendly Linux experience without overwhelming users with unnecessary complexity or flashy features.
This release is the stable series successor to last year’s Linux Mint 21.1 release. It remains based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and runs atop Linux kernel 5.15.
Most of you (I imagine) already know about Linux Mint 21.2’s new features as they’ve been covered here and on other Linux blogs pretty heavily over the past few months.
But if you’re you’re somehow not aware then you’re in for a modest treat.
Linux Mint 21.1 was packed with visual overhauls to the theme, folder icons, and the overall look and feel of the system.
Now, Linux Mint 21.2 has enhancements on top of the same Ubuntu 22.04 base and Linux Kernel 5.15.
I fell in love in 2020. The timing couldn't have been more awkward.
The WHO had declared that the first pandemic of our lifetimes was upon us. I had just taken a sabbatical from work, intending to spend the time finishing a Master's, and the follow-up to my debut novel First Utterance.
But writers are a moody bunch. Sometimes our focus is razor sharp and sustained over weeks. Sometimes, we have the attention span of goldfish.
I was in goldfish mode.
I needed something to escape my daily grind: wake up, write for a few hours, get to study, finish assignments for classes, repeat.
Windows 11, the latest offering from Microsoft, fails to impress when compared to the exciting release of Linux Mint. Codenamed "Victoria," Linux Mint 21.2 is a long-term support release that guarantees extended support until 2027, ensuring its users stability and reliability. This version boasts a range of updated software, refinements, and new features that make it a far superior choice for desktop users.
Based on Ubuntu 22.04 and utilizing kernel 5.15, Linux Mint 21.2 offers three desktop environments to choose from: Cinnamon (5.8), MATE (1.26), and Xfce (4.18). The improvements in Linux Mint 21.2 are plentiful, addressing issues such as touchpad drivers, Wine installation enhancements, sound and microphone problems, and more.
On 16 July the world celebrates International Artificial Appreciation Day. In the previous century, science fiction often covered topics and inventions that are now closer to science fact, such as humanoid robots. In the 50s, artificial intelligence met both great successes, including algorithm development, and big failures, caused by compute power constraints. Fast forward to today:€ AI is likely the topic of the year, with products such as ChatGPT hitting a billion users in less than a week and enterprises shifting their budgets to invest more. What is the future of AI going to look like? These trends offer a glimpse of what’s to come.€
The 8086 has a number of undocumented instructions. Most of them are simply duplicates of regular instructions, but a few have unexpected behavior, such as revealing the values of internal, hidden registers. In the 8086, most instructions are implemented in microcode, so examining the 8086's microcode can explain why these instructions behave the way they do.
When it comes to Raspberry Pi projects, makers sure know how to go the distance. However, it’s Element 14’s Lorraine who was given an inch and took a mile with her latest creation. In a video recently released to Element 14’s YouTube channel, she’s unveiled plans to work together with her family to run to the International Space Station (ISS).
Gqrx is an open source software defined radio receiver (SDR) powered by the GNU Radio and the Qt graphical toolkit.
C/C++ projects can benefit from using precompiled headers to improve compile time. GCC added support for precompiled headers in 2003 (version 3.4), and the current documentation can be found at https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Precompiled-Headers.html.
This article focuses on Clang precompiled headers (PCH). Let's begin with an example.
There are multiple tutorials available online on writing modular Shiny apps. So why one more? Well, when I just started with building modular apps myself, these didn’t do much for me. So I really only learned how to write modules when I had an opportunity to team up with an experienced R Shiny developer. The reason I guess is that Shiny modules is an advanced topic, and you typically get to writing modules only when you finally need to scale your apps – and keep opportunities for further scaling open. This typically means when your app goes into production. By then you probably have already developed multiple apps, and switching over to a way of thinking required to write modules may be challenging. If you don’t know what modules are, I recommend starting here and then coming back to this post. Otherwise, read on.
In diary entry "Brute-Force ZIP Password Cracking with zipdump.py" I wrote the following: [...]
It was so unrestrained, so fast: no libraries, no database, no browser, no UI, barely any IO. Just throw a bunch of strings into one end and run the tests to make sure the right result comes out the other end. The rest is up to you: tokenize it, parse it, evaluate it, do whatever the hell you want. It’s you, your editor, the host language, and the ideas you can come up with.
After nearly 28 years, radio and music industry trade publication All Access is shutting down on August 15 due to ‘severe financial headwinds.’
At the beginning of July, editor-in-chief Peter Lloyd, professor of integrated design methodology at Delft University of Technology, told Elsevier he would walk out and take the editorial board with him, citing its push for more publications per year and the way it revealed he was to be replaced.
“IT professionals rarely start projects from zero; they build on the existing components and tools shared by the broader development community,” says Govier. “This mindset drives innovation in the industry, and we are excited to leverage this same partnership mentality with UW–Madison to offer expanded learning and internship opportunities for Madison College's IT students. Working on open source together, now and in the future, will benefit our student community much in the way that open-source development benefits the entire programming industry.”
Schopenhauer's "36 Stratagems" is a series of rhetorical techniques for winning an argument that isn’t based on logic, many of which are derived from manipulative or deceptive tactics. A brief summary of each of them.
It takes only five minutes to detect as few as seven to 35 viral particles per liter of air, researchers report July 10 in Nature Communications. That is about as sensitive as PCR nasal swab tests, says Rajan Chakrabarty, an aerosol scientist at Washington University in St. Louis. His team worked “nonstop” for three years to create the detector, he says.
Now a recently published study in the medical journal JAMA has revealed that the U.S. maternal mortality rate — already the highest among peer nations — has increased for all racial and ethnic groups. Maternal outcomes in the United States are a public health crisis, and they are only getting worse. We know the data. We need to focus on the solutions.
Discord is perfect for ephemeral communications.
But it is not a fucking substitute for documentation!
I'm currently getting started, and increasingly frustrated, with the Watchy development platform. They've effectively said "here's a barebones guide to setting it up - anything else, ask on Discord" - and it fucking sucks.
Among the info the FTC is asking from OpenAI is a “description of any refining the Company actually undertook in order to correct or remediate any Large Language Model’s propensity to ‘hallucinate’ or to reveal any Personal Information,” per the letter.
According to reports that surfaced Thursday, the FTC has filed an official request with OpenAI for a wide range of data, covering how the company markets its products, how it goes about identifying and correcting failures in the system, how it handles customer data, and more. The Washington Post published a 20-page document purporting to be the FTC’s request for information, which is referred to as a civil investigative demand, or CID. The CID contains 49 questions for OpenAI to answer about its operations, as well as 14 requests for documentation related to those questions.
"We're still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load," the billionaire said in a post, responding to a user who was giving suggestions on financing for the platform.
In June, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres backed a proposal by some artificial intelligence executives for the creation of an international AI watchdog body like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In a surprising and significant development, Larry Hryb, fondly known in the gaming world as "Major Nelson", announced his departure from Microsoft after serving more than 20 years with the tech giant.
Despite repeated piracy crackdowns in Denmark, local pirates don't appear ready to budge. The percentage of young Danes who have downloaded or streamed content illegally has surpassed 50%. The number of pirates active over the past year is growing too, with legitimate social media platforms acting as a convenient gateway.
And here I am, a week later, not having engaged much with Korean. But I have been engaging with Toki Pona, and I am still hoping to work some more with Korean.
Toki Pona is used by people because they want to use the language. It is an end in itself, which is how language learning has been for me.
Trying to use French and Korean with native speakers organically has felt like punching bullet-proof glass. They have their own native world where they go about their lives, and an anglophone trying to break in for the sake of using the language is off putting. Maybe ve is novel, like an orangutan in clothing, but not worth engaging deeply with.
I switched from using packages on my FreeBSD system to using ports a few weeks back in order to get some features which were missing in libraries that I have been using in a few development projects. Other than the long compile times for certain projects (most notably Firefox) that has been mostly painless. There is one pain point that is annoying me to no end though.
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.