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Links 10/09/2023: FreeBSD 14.0 Beta and Calamares Qt6



  • GNU/Linux

    • Applications

      • Jussi PakkanenNibble Stew: A logo for CapyPDF

        As you can probably tell I'm not a professional artist, but you gotta start somewhere. The original idea was to have a capybara head which is wearing the PDF logo much like a bow tie around its ear. The gist of it should come across, though it did look much better inside my brain. The PDF squiggle logo is hard to mold to the desired shape.

        The font is Nimbus Sans, which is one of the original PostScript Core Fonts. More precisely it is a freely licensed metrically compatible version of Helvetica. This combines open source with the history of PDF quite nicely.

      • Linux LinksBest Free and Open Source IaaS Software

        Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a service model where an organization outsources the equipment used to support storage, hardware, servers and networking components.

    • Instructionals/Technical

    • Games

      • Tom's HardwareRaspberry Pi Pico Flexible Keyboard Fits Inside Steam Deck Case

        Karlis is using a Raspberry Pi Pico to power a custom flexible keyboard that’s small enough to fit inside of a Steam Deck case.

      • HackadayRare Arcade Game Teardown And Mods

        [Video Game Esoterica] loves a 1990s video game called Operation Tiger. Apparently, there are only a few of these known to exist in 2023, and he managed to find one of them. Well, it is really just a module so he has to figure out how to give it enough input and output to be actually playable. You can see several videos of his work with the Taito game below.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDEKDE Ships Frameworks 5.110.0

          Saturday, 9 September 2023

          KDE today announces the release of KDE Frameworks 5.110.0.

        • Adriaan de GrootCalamares Qt6

          A week ago I wrote about Calamares 3.3.0 getting closer. One of the items on the TODO list for that release is Qt6 compatibility. That is a bit tricky because Calamares uses a bunch of KDE Frameworks and also KPMCore, all of which also need to be Qt6-compatible.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • OMG UbuntuControl Nanoleaf Lights on Linux Using a GNOME Extension

          If so, you’re in luck as there’s a plucky little GNOME extension that lets you do exactly that.

          The creator of the Nano Lights GNOME extension says their add-on “…controls Nanoleaf shapes and possibly others Nanoleaf devices on your local (wifi) network (sic)”. This includes turning devices on/off, adjusting the brightness, changing/setting the colour, and setting Scenes.

        • GNOME 45.rc released!

          Also remember you can use the 45beta branch of the flatpak runtime, which is now available on Flathub beta.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • FreeBSDFreeBSD 14.0-BETA1 Now Available
      The first BETA build of the 14.0-RELEASE release cycle is now available.
      
      

      Installation images are available for:

      o 14.0-BETA1 amd64 GENERIC o 14.0-BETA1 i386 GENERIC o 14.0-BETA1 powerpc GENERIC o 14.0-BETA1 powerpc64 GENERIC64 o 14.0-BETA1 powerpc64le GENERIC64LE o 14.0-BETA1 powerpcspe MPC85XXSPE o 14.0-BETA1 armv7 GENERICSD o 14.0-BETA1 aarch64 GENERIC o 14.0-BETA1 aarch64 RPI o 14.0-BETA1 aarch64 PINE64 o 14.0-BETA1 aarch64 PINE64-LTS o 14.0-BETA1 aarch64 PINEBOOK o 14.0-BETA1 aarch64 ROCK64 o 14.0-BETA1 aarch64 ROCKPRO64 o 14.0-BETA1 riscv64 GENERIC o 14.0-BETA1 riscv64 GENERICSD

      Note regarding arm SD card images: For convenience for those without console access to the system, a freebsd user with a password of freebsd is available by default for ssh(1) access. Additionally, the root user password is set to root. It is strongly recommended to change the password for both users after gaining access to the system.

      Installer images and memory stick images are available here:

      https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/

      The image checksums follow at the end of this e-mail.

      If you notice problems you can report them through the Bugzilla PR system or on the -stable mailing list.

      If you would like to use Git to do a source based update of an existing system, use the "releng/14.0" branch.

      === Virtual Machine Disk Images ===

      VM disk images are available for the amd64, i386, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures. Disk images may be downloaded from the following URL (or any of the FreeBSD download mirrors):

      https://download.freebsd.org/releases/VM-IMAGES/14.0-BETA1/

      BASIC-CI images can be found at:

      https://download.freebsd.org/releases/CI-IMAGES/14.0-BETA1/

      The partition layout is:

      ~ 16 kB - freebsd-boot GPT partition type (bootfs GPT label) ~ 1 GB - freebsd-swap GPT partition type (swapfs GPT label) ~ 20 GB - freebsd-ufs GPT partition type (rootfs GPT label)

      The disk images are available in QCOW2, VHD, VMDK, and raw disk image formats. The image download size is approximately 135 MB and 165 MB respectively (amd64/i386), decompressing to a 21 GB sparse image.

      Note regarding arm64/aarch64 virtual machine images: a modified QEMU EFI loader file is needed for qemu-system-aarch64 to be able to boot the virtual machine images. See this page for more information:

      https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm64/QEMU

      To boot the VM image, run:

      % qemu-system-aarch64 -m 4096M -cpu cortex-a57 -M virt \ -bios QEMU_EFI.fd -serial telnet::4444,server -nographic \ -drive if=none,file=VMDISK,id=hd0 \ -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \ -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \ -netdev user,id=net0

      Be sure to replace "VMDISK" with the path to the virtual machine image.

      === Amazon EC2 AMI Images ===

      FreeBSD/amd64 EC2 AMI IDs can be retrieved from the Systems Manager Parameter Store in each region using the keys:

      /aws/service/freebsd/amd64/base/ufs/14.0/BETA1

      FreeBSD/arm64 EC2 AMIs are not available for BETA1, and the cause is being investigated.

      === Vagrant Images ===

      FreeBSD/amd64 images are not available for BETA1. The cause is being investigated.

      === Upgrading ===

      The freebsd-update(8) utility supports binary upgrades of amd64 and i386 systems running earlier FreeBSD releases. Note, aarch64 binary updates are expected to be available starting with BETA2, due to a configuration error. Systems running earlier FreeBSD releases can upgrade as follows:

      # freebsd-update upgrade -r 14.0-BETA1

      During this process, freebsd-update(8) may ask the user to help by merging some configuration files or by confirming that the automatically performed merging was done correctly.

      # freebsd-update install

      The system must be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before continuing.

      # shutdown -r now

      After rebooting, freebsd-update needs to be run again to install the new userland components:

      # freebsd-update install

      It is recommended to rebuild and install all applications if possible, especially if upgrading from an earlier FreeBSD release, for example, FreeBSD 12.x. Alternatively, the user can install misc/compat12x and other compatibility libraries, afterwards the system must be rebooted into the new userland:

      # shutdown -r now

      Finally, after rebooting, freebsd-update needs to be run again to remove stale files:

      # freebsd-update install
    • Barry KaulerAborted release of EasyOS Kirkstone-series version 5.5

      In the early hours of this morning, everything seemed OK and uploaded version 5.5. My current host system is 5.4.9, so tested an update; clicked the "update" icon and that went OK, but after rebooting: [...]

    • Barry KaulerCannot execute usrmerged binaries on non-usrmerged OS

      Building what is intended to be EasyOS 5.5 in woofQ, host OS is Easy 5.4.10. Building with packages compiled in OE with the "usrmerge" flag set in DISTRO_FEATURES, reported earlier: [...]

    • Debian Family

      • DebianBits from Debian: DebConf23 starts today in Kochi On Sun 10 September 2023

        DebConf23, the 24th annual Debian Developer Conference, is taking place in Kochi, India from September 10th to 17th, 2023.

        Debian contributors from all over the world have come together at Infopark, Kochi to participate and work in a conference exclusively run by volunteers.

        Today the main conference starts with over 373 expected attendants and 92 scheduled activities, including 45-minute and 20-minute talks, Bird of a Feather ("BoF") team meetings, workshops, a job fair, as well as a variety of other events.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • CNX SoftwareAndes launches AX45MPV RISC-V CPU core with Vector Extension 1.0

        Andes Technology has recently announced the general availability of the AndesCore AX45MPV RISC-V CPU which builds upon the AX45MP multicore processor and adds RISC-V Vector Extension 1.0. Equipped with RISC-V vector processing and parallel execution capability, the new RISC-V CPU core targets SoCs processing large amounts of data for applications such as ADAS, AI inference and training, AR/VR, multimedia, robotics, and signal processing.

      • HackadayPi Pico Becomes SRAM For 1981 Educational Computer

        Ever since the Raspberry Pi Pico was introduced in early 2021 we’ve seen the tiny Pi being used for an astonishing variety of applications. It has powered countless clocks, gadgets, games, and accessories for all kinds of computers old and new. [Michael Wessel] has recently added an interesting new application in the “old computer” category, by turning a Pico into a 2114 SRAM emulator for his Busch 2090, an educational computer system from 1981.

      • HackadayThe WebStick Is A Small, Cheap NAS

        The ESP8266 was one of the first chips that provided wireless functionality at a cost low enough to be widely popular for small microcontroller projects. This project uses one to provide rapid, small, and inexpensive network-attached storage (NAS) capabilities wherever you happen to go.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

  • Leftovers

    • HackadayAgreeing By Disagreeing

      While we were working on the podcast this week, Al Williams and I got into a debate about the utility of logic analyzers. (It’s Hackaday, after all.) He said they’re almost useless these days, and I maintained that they’re more useful than ever. When we got down to it, however, we were actually completely in agreement – it turns out that when we said “logic analyzer” we each had different machines, and use cases, in mind.

    • HackadayTape Is Very, Very Quiet

      If someone stops by and asks you to help them make some noisy thing less noisy, you probably wouldn’t reach for a roll of tape. But [The Action Lab] shows some 3M tape made for exactly that purpose. For the right kind of noise, it can dampen noise caused by a surface vibrating. You can see how (and why) it works in the video below.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Technology and Free Software

      • Another Crazy CDDA Moment

        In theory a searchlight is grounded, but in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead with suitable resources one can move a searchlight into a vehicle and drive off with it. Granted, the searchlight remains hostile, so friendly NPCs and other random monsters could attack it. Or you could mindlessly hit tab while next to it.

        Benefits of this, are, uh, maybe you can use it to provide free lighting at your base if you haven't found an atomic lamp yet? Or maybe you like being lit up whilst driving through hostile realms by night? Or you've looted so much that a broken or inactive searchlight does not fit in your vehicle, but it does when intact? Game physics…

      • Internet/Gemini

        • The Busy Phase

          Life has been busy recently, as you may have noticed from my lack of posts in the past month or so. I've been following BBS daily, of course, chiming in when I get a chance. However, when it comes to programming projects, it has been challenging to find time for any substantial progress.

          [...]

          Lagrange v1.17 is shaping up nicely. However, there are a few features I've been wanting to implement for a long time, and I'd like to add them before making a release. There is no guarantee I'll have much time later for the planned v1.18, so postponing features could mean several months of additional delay.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



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