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Links 13/08/2023: KDE Development Report, Debian's Abuse Culture



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • TechTargetDocker vs. VMs: Is the VM all that bad?

        Docker containers and VMs are needed to build and maintain software. Docker is used to deploy and scale apps, while VMs are more resource-intensive and can support separate environments.

    • Applications

      • Oracle Cloud Native Environment: Modules and Components Releases

        This blog entry provides updated releases information related to modules/components included in each Oracle Cloud Native Environment (OCNE) release.

      • Linux Links10 Best Free and Open Source Linux Typing Tutors

        Typing tutor software teaches fast and accurate typing through a system of informative lessons and progress tracking. We think it is important that learning should be fun, so we have included some typing games in this feature.

        To provide an insight into the quality of software available, we have compiled a list of 10 useful typing tutors. Hopefully there will be something of interest for anyone looking to improve their typing skills. Here’s our verdict on the software.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • HowTo GeekHow to Work with Variables in Bash

        Want to take your Linux command-line skills to the next level? Here's everything you need to know to start working with variables.

      • Make Use OfHow to Install and Use GNU nano to Edit Files on Linux

        If you're starting your Linux journey, creating and editing files is one of the critical things you'll be doing, especially if you're planning to get your hands dirty with shell scripting. One of the most common command-line text editors on Linux is GNU nano, which comes pre-installed on most modern Linux distros.

      • Make Use OfHow to Install WordPress on Ubuntu

        WordPress is a comprehensive content management system (CMS) powering a lot of the websites that you visit daily.

        If you'd like to get started developing WordPress websites but are not ready to pay for a server on the cloud, you can run and host your WordPress site locally on your PC. Here's everything you need to know about installing WordPress on Linux.

      • How to Disable IPv6 on RHEL using grubby

        In computing, there are two types of IP addresses, IPv4 and IPv6. IPv6 offers a much larger addressing scheme than IPv4.

      • APNICDistributing configuration and control of WiFiMon hardware probes

        Guest Post: Improving WiFiMon’s configuration and control of WHPs.

        [...]

        Communication between the WAS and the underlying WHPs is possible via the Salt infrastructure management tool. Salt establishes application layer communication among devices, therefore enabling WiFiMon administrators to control and reconfigure WHPs, such as modifying measurement intervals, without physically connecting to them. Moreover, WiFiMon takes advantage of important features provided by Salt. Specifically, by relying on the ZeroMQ message broker, Salt is scalable and allows for reconfiguring the available WHPs in parallel regardless of their total number.

      • University of TorontoGetting my backup Internet connection through BlueTooth on Linux

        Suppose, not entirely hypothetically, that your normal DSL Internet connection is down (for example, because the local phone company did something to your line and hasn't fixed it yet), and you need to get Internet by tethering your Linux desktop machine to your smartphone. The easiest way to do this is to be using a modern Linux desktop along with NetworkManager and so on; at that point you can basically click through the various GUIs to connect to your phone's hotspot through wifi, a direct USB connection, or BlueTooth, depending on what you have available. This will handle joining the phone's ad-hoc wifi network, pairing over USB and/or BlueTooth, and all of the other setup you need. However, I don't use a modern Linux desktop.

      • Jeff SandbergTailwind, and the death of web craftsmanship

        Tailwind started out as a particularly good set of Utility CSS classes. It was notable for being heavily configurable from day one. Its class names were reasonable, and it established certain useful conventions regarding sizing, color systems (very similar to that of Material Design), and lots of other common base settings. Some of these were "borrowed" from old libraries like Bootstrap, others were just created out of the need to buy-into utility CSS wholesale. Early versions of tailwind were horrifically heavy and slow. You'd have to ship megabytes of CSS, for a page that might have a half dozen styled "things" on it. And it was rightly lambasted for this. Utility classes were supposed to make things easier, faster, more convenient, and shipping a JPG worth of unused CSS was not in line with that. Tailwind eventually fixed this, with a generator approach, which would scan your codebase, pull out tailwind classes, and only put them in the generated CSS output. This also let tailwind grow the ability to have arbitrary values, without having to update a configuration file. Now you could do bg-[#ffccff] for a pinkish background, without having to add it to your color scheme. Useful, but dangerous too. Tailwind even sprouted component libraries, built atop tailwind. The tailwind devs have one, called TailwindUI, and there's an open-source one called Daisy.

      • Alin PanaitiuThe complex simplicity of my static websites

        So many people obsess over the size of their JS or CSS, but fail to realize that the bulk of their page is unnecessarily large and not well compressed images.

        Of course, I was one of those people.

      • Matt RickardDark Mode and Marginal Benefit

        Dark mode is now everywhere (this blog has it). It’s both accessibility-driven and aesthetically pleasing. But it often isn’t the highest benefit feature (and rarely, if ever, a feature that leads to product-market-fit).

      • ID RootHow To Install Visual Studio Code on Debian 12 [Ed: This is proprietary software or spyware of Microsoft. Consider using Free alternatives such as Kate.]

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Visual Studio Code on Debian 12. Visual Studio Code (VS Code) has emerged as the code editor of choice for developers around the world. Its versatility, rich feature set, and active community make it an invaluable tool for streamlining coding workflows.

      • ID RootHow to Use Dig Command on Linux

        In the dynamic realm of network troubleshooting, the dig command emerges as a stalwart ally, wielding the power to unravel the intricacies of the domain name system (DNS). For Linux aficionados and seasoned system administrators alike, wielding the dig command with finesse can unlock a world of insights and resolutions.

      • ID RootHow To Install KDE Plasma Desktop on Fedora 38

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install KDE Plasma Desktop on Fedora 38. For those of you who didn’t know, KDE Plasma is a powerful, customizable, and user-friendly desktop environment that offers a seamless computing experience.

      • ID RootHow To Install Webmin on Debian 12

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Webmin on Debian 12. For those of you who didn’t know, Webmin, a versatile web-based system administration tool, redefines the way Linux servers are managed. With its graphical interface, even those without a profound command-line understanding can comfortably navigate complex administrative tasks.

      • ID RootHow To Install Matomo on Debian 12

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Matomo on Debian 12. Matomo, a powerful web analytics platform, stands out for its privacy-focused approach. By self-hosting Matomo on your Debian 12 server, you retain complete control over your data, ensuring compliance with data protection regulations.

      • Linux CapableSudo Privileges in Arch Linux: Add, Delete, and Manage Users

        Managing user permissions is a cornerstone of system administration. In Arch Linux, this is no different. Ensuring the right users have the appropriate permissions is crucial for the security and functionality of your system.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Nate GrahamHow all this icon stuff is going to work in Plasma 6

          Today I want to discuss in detail our plans for icon theming in Plasma 6. It will be rather technical, but may be of interest if you’re a user, developer, or theme author who wants to know what (if anything) you’ll have to do differently for Plasma 6.

          Let’s start by briefly reviewing the way FreeDesktop-compatible icon themes work. Icons in icon themes are named with standardized names, like edit-copy. A list of standard names can be found here. When an app wants the icon for a “Copy” action, it uses the API of its toolkit to ask for a themed icon named edit-copy. In Qt, this you use QIcon::fromTheme(). If an icon isn’t found by its name, the implementation is required to chop off the last word and try again. So if an app asks for edit-copy-path and an icon with that name isn’t found in the icon theme, it will look for edit-copy and return that instead. Icons can also come in multiple sizes, so that each icon can be optimized for being displayed at different sizes. There’s more to it than that, but it’s enough for now.

          Over time, icon themes started doing something interesting: they changed the visual styling between sizes! For example in many icon themes, the symbolic monochrome style is used for icons’ 16px and 22/24px versions, and a full-color style is used for the 32px and larger versions. Breeze is one such icon theme.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Julia EvansNotes on using a single-person Mastodon server

      I started using Mastodon back in November, and it’s the Twitter alternative where I’ve been spending most of my time recently, mostly because the Fediverse is where a lot of the Linux nerds seem to be right now.

      I’ve found Mastodon quite a bit more confusing than Twitter because it’s a distributed system, so here are a few technical things I’ve learned about it over the last 10 months. I’ll mostly talk about what using a single-person server has been like for me, as well as a couple of notes about the API, DMs and ActivityPub.

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

      • Mozilla

        • TorNew Alpha Release: Tor Browser 13.0a2 (Android, Windows, macOS, Linux)

          Tor Browser 13.0a2 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

          This release updates Firefox to 115.1.0esr, including bug fixes, stability improvements and important security updates. We also backported the Android-specific security updates from Firefox 116.

    • SaaS/Back End/Databases

      • Dan SlimmonSqueeze the hell out of the system you have

        Either way, everyone had to agree: we’d outgrown our old, naïve implementation. Onward and upward! We can do hard things!

        In situations like this, presented with a dazzling array of next-generation architecture options that can be built to last us through the decade, it’s easy to forget what our goal was: to get database performance under control.

    • Education

      • The Register UKInside the Black Hat network operations center, volunteers work in geek heaven

        With more than 20,000 conference attendees spending the best part of a week attending classes to hone security skills, and talks about the latest exploits, you'd expect the network to be under constant assault. Attacks do happen, but as one of the NOC crew explained to The Register, not as often as you might think.

        "It's very different than most environments, because when you look at the environments that you have, there's something to protect," said Dave Glover, who works by day on the RSA Netwitness Platform. "You need to protect your cloud assets, maybe text databases, files, blah, blah, blah.

        "Here, there's nothing. There's nothing to really protect outside of the registration network."

      • Security WeekBlack Hat USA 2023 – Announcements Summary

        Hundreds of companies and organizations showcased their cybersecurity products and services this week at the 2023 edition of the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.

        To help cut through the clutter, the SecurityWeek team is publishing a digest summarizing some of the announcements made by vendors at Black Hat USA 2023, including new products and services, updates to existing offerings, reports, and other initiatives.

      • Silicon AngleReport from Black Hat: Many questions, few answers as cybersecurity world confronts AI threats

        Experienced whitewater rafting practitioners know that when they reach a bend in the river and hear the sound of crashing water but can’t see what’s ahead, it’s a good time to pull to the nearest bank and scout the course. Amid the current explosion of generative artificial intelligence use cases, the cybersecurity industry is having its whitewater moment.

        That moment was on full display during the Black Hat 2023 gathering of cybersecurity researchers in Las Vegas this week. Multiple presenters spoke about the rapidly changing AI landscape in terms characterized more by questions than answers.

    • Programming/Development

      • Thorsten BallProgramming in a Well-Tested System

        If a system is easy to test, it’s usually easy to work with — easy to extend, easy to debug, easy to refactor. Maybe because adding tests is a form of extending, debugging, and refactoring a system.

      • Chris CoyierNeed to chuck a quick SVG drawing into some content?

        Here are some options.

      • Harald Sitterresvg for SVGs in Qt

        People keep lamenting how lackluster Qt’s SVG renderer is. It leads to poorly rendered icons and wallpapers and it mostly only implements the SVG Tiny specification. As a weekend project I put together a resvg based image handler replacement. It was super easy because resvg is amazing!

      • Dirk EddelbuettelDirk Eddelbuettel: RcppArmadillo 0.12.6.1.0 on CRAN: New Upstream
        ...widely used by (currently) 1092 other packages on CRAN, downloaded 30.1 million times (per the partial logs from the cloud mirrors of CRAN), and the CSDA paper (preprint / vignette) by Conrad and myself has been cited 545 times according

        This release brings bugfix upstream release 12.6.1. Conrad release 12.6.0 when CRAN went on summer break. I rolled it up ran the full reverse-depenency check against the now more than 1000 packages. And usage from one those revealed a corner-case bug (of not always ‘flattening’ memory for sparse matrices to zero values) so 12.6.1 followed. This is what was uploaded today. And as I prepared it earlier in the week as CRAN reopened, Conrad released a new 12.6.2. However, its changes are only concerned with settings for Armadillo-internal use of its random number generators (RNGs). And as RcppArmadillo connects Armadillo to the RNGs provided by R, the upgrade does not affect R users at all. However it is available in the github repo, in the Rcpp drap repo and at r-universe.



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