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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.



Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM - Like Microsoft - is a Dying Company and Perishing Brand ("AI" is a Lie and Decoy)
"Arvind is cutting costs (layoffs, PIPs, forced RTO, etc...) like crazy. IBM offices are closing all over the place in the US."
"Code of Conduct" Invoked When Fedora and Red Hat Users (Since the 1990s) Don't Want to Use Wayland
That is IBM "DEI"
Microsoft Layoffs Next Week: About 10% to be Laid Off in Microsoft Gaming (2 Days Before Independence Day), About 20%+ of XBox Staff
Microsoft is rapidly collapsing
Why Techrights Cannot be Vilified (and Instead It Gets SLAPPed Repeatedly by Microsoft People)
Attack dogs are all "bark"; because they have no actual "bite"
Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
 
No, I Don't Want Your Latest XYZ, ThankYouVeryMuch...
Wayland is finally ready?
LWN is a Voice of GAFAM (Through Linux Foundation, Their Front Group or Occupying Force Inside Linux)
remember who the chief editor works for and who sponsors many of the articles
China Keeps Breaking Into Microsoft Systems, So for True Sovereignty, Nations Wary of China Need to Dump Microsoft
Looking at data from Taiwan (not China) and Maharlika (not Philippines, the king is dead and Spain is out), there are encouraging signs
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it's basically another BetaNews
How to Kill a Monopoly
in 10 simple steps
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what (or how) statCounter is measuring
Next Month Marks 11 Years Since Our In-Depth EPO Coverage
The same is happening to Microsoft right now
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Campaigns Against Vista 11, Adds 4 New Associate Members Per Day
If more people understood the underlying principles, more of them would flock to Free software overnight
Canonical Seems to Have Culled Some Sources of LLM Slop From Planet Ubuntu
It's like "junk food", it's not information
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 25, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 25, 2025
On "Weak Claims"
For the record, they sent me unjustified threats, repeatedly tried injunctions (censorship)
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more exceptional circumstances
This Month's Mail (MX) Server Survey Shows Microsoft at 0.20% "Market Share"
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Links 26/06/2025: Filespooler Guide and Learning to Code
Links for the day
The 'Case' of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft is a Lot of Copypasta (Maybe Also LLM Slop) From the Matthew Garrett 'Case'
5RB deserves to know and the matter shall be properly reported in due course (when the time is right)
Austrian GNU/Linux Usage Up to About 5% as More of Europe Abandons Microsoft
Since inauguration day the Austrian people have adopted more and more of GNU/Linux
Why the "Wayland People" and "Rust People" Will Lose Hearts and Minds (Same Reasons)
Wayland pushers are fast becoming like "Rust People"
5,600 Pages/Articles Per Year
So far this year we've kept all the promises
BetaNews Beginning to Show What Its True Goals Are
The 'new' BetaNews won't be about journalism. It's trying to sell things.
Microsoft Has Lost "The War"
We'll soon see the 9th or 10th wave of Microsoft layoffs in 2025 alone
Slopwatch: A Wreck and a Dreck, "Flooding the Zone With Dreck" or Flooding the Web With Junk
"Slopwatch" continues today because we have many new examples
Links 25/06/2025: Thwarting More Software Patents, Overlap Grows Between EPO Corruption and Illegal Kangaroo Patent Courts in EU
Links for the day
Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
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Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
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Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
Links for the day
Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
Links for the day
When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
Links for the day
Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
we can expect Android to widen its lead
The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
X (not the site) is Free software
X Server Still Works for Many People
A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
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Links for the day