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Links 14/09/2023: Sparky 7.1 and Curl 8.3.0



  • GNU/Linux

    • Applications

      • TecMint11 Best Screen Recorders For Linux in 2023

        Recording your desktop session is a common and good practice for a variety of purposes, such as playing a hard level of a game, creating a video tutorial, or writing a how-to article. Screen recording software can help you accomplish all of these tasks.

        In this review guide, we shall cover some of the best screen recording and live video streaming software that you can find for your Linux desktop.

      • TecMint6 Best Email Clients for Linux Systems

        Email, an enduring method of communication, remains a fundamental way to share information; however, the preference has shifted from web applications to email clients over the years

        An email client is software that allows users to manage their inbox, send, receive, and organize messages directly from a desktop or mobile phone.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • University of TorontoA user program doing intense IO can manifest as high system CPU time

        Recently, our IMAP server had unusually high CPU usage and was increasingly close to saturating its CPU. When I investigated with 'top' it was easy to see the culprit processes, but when I checked what they were doing with the strace command, they were all busy madly doing IO, in fact processing recursive IMAP LIST commands by walking around in the filesystem. Processes that intensely do IO like this normally wind up in "iowait", not in active CPU usage (whether user or system CPU usage). Except here these processes were, using huge amounts of system CPU time.

      • David Buchanans32 Unix Clock

        It's pretty simple. The clock face has 256 "ticks" (annotated in hexadecimal), and four dials, each moving exactly 256 times slower than the previous. The longest and fastest moving dial moves at one tick per second, which means it takes very approximately 4 minutes to do a full revolution (4:16, actually). The next hand takes roughly 18 hours, the next roughly 6 months, and the smallest hand takes ~136 years - or exactly 2^32 seconds.

      • Jan Piet MensOn the importance of logging

        In spite of configuring debug logging and log forwarding from AWX, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. My assumption was the body of the post was missing something. I looked at the source code of the api view controller and still didn’t figure it out and basically gave up after an hour. Actual webhooks posted from Gitea worked (when configured in AWX as Github), but my simple curl invocation wouldn’t. (Remind me to rave about how I like Gitea and Forgejo.)

      • idroot

        • ID RootHow To Install Apache Maven on Debian 12

          In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Apache Maven on Debian 12. Apache Maven is an essential tool for Java developers, providing a robust and efficient way to manage project dependencies, build, and deploy applications.

        • ID RootHow To Install PlayOnLinux on Debian 12

          In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PlayOnLinux on Debian 12. PlayOnLinux is a remarkable graphical front-end for Wine, a compatibility layer that allows you to run Windows applications on Linux systems.

        • ID RootHow To Install WezTerm on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

          In this tutorial, we will show you how to install WezTerm on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. In the world of Linux, having a powerful and versatile terminal emulator can greatly enhance your workflow and productivity. One such standout terminal emulator is WezTerm. It offers a modern and feature-rich environment for your command-line tasks.

        • ID RootWhat is a Maven Repository?

          In the dynamic realm of software development, effective project management and streamlined dependency management are crucial for successful outcomes. This comprehensive guide aims to unravel the intricate world of Maven Repositories, a fundamental component in modern software development.

      • HowTo ForgeHow to Install BookWyrm on a Debian 12 server

        BookWyrm is an open-source federated social network for book readers. It acts as an ad-free Goodreads alternative. In this tutorial, you will learn how to install BookWyrm on a Debian 12 server.

    • Games

      • GamingOnLinuxHeroic Games Launcher 2.9.2 Hotfix #2 is live

        It's time again to upgrade your install of the Heroic Games Launcher which helps you install games from Epic, GOG, Amazon and more on Steam Deck and desktop Linux.

      • GamingOnLinuxHere's some alternatives to the Unity game engine

        In the wake of Unity setting everything on fire with their new revenue model for developers, here's a reminder on what other game engines and tech is out there for developers to look into.

      • GamingOnLinuxSteam Deck not picking up your SD Card? Check for the latest update

        After Valve recently launched a stable Steam Client update for desktop and Steam Deck, along with the recent SteamOS 3.4.10 release - SD Cards became a bit problematic.

      • GamingOnLinuxFanatical's Killer Bundle 27 has 20 great games included

        Another chance for you to fill up your Steam library ensuring there's never a dull moment - Fanatical launched the Killer Bundle 27 with 20 games included. This is not a build it yourself bundle either, all games are included in it for one purchase.

      • GamingOnLinuxVKDoom is a ZDoom-based source port with a focus on Vulkan

        Well this is pretty fun to see! The ZDoom / GZDoom family is expanding with VKDoom, a new source-port that has a focus on expanded Vulkan support and modern rendering. Now it's worth noting that GZDoom already supports Vulkan, but VKDoom has a focus on making the Vulkan support much more modern with advanced rendering features for modern GPUs.

      • GamingOnLinuxHumble Bundle has a big Cities: Skylines bundle

        Fancy city-building but don't want to pay a big sum for all the extra content? Humble Bundle have a new Cities: Skylines Bundle live now with the base game and major expansions. This game has Native Linux support and is rated Steam Deck Playable.

      • GamingOnLinuxGOG has a big Indie Festival Sale on

        Stock up on some fantastic indie games, as GOG have launched their Indie Festival which is live now until September 25th, 10 PM UTC. While there's been numerous big releases over the last year, don't forget about all the really great indie games that often do things the bigger lot won't.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • [Repeat] HaikuOSHaiku Activity & Contract Report, August 2023

      This report covers hrev57184 through hrev57256.

      It’s worth noting: the main Haiku CI is currently offline as the developer who was hosting the build machine moved to a location with much slower internet. A new build machine and home for the CI has already been selected, but isn’t fully online yet, so the nightly builds are a bit behind at the moment.

    • Daniel XuAppImage explosions

      To the user, an appimage is a binary that looks and feels like a statically linked binary. In fact, you’d have a hard time discovering a binary is an appimage at all.

      At its core, an appimage is a squashfs image that contains an application and all of its dependencies. Prepended to the binary is a statically linked runtime that: [...]

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

      • University of TorontoMy (new) simple system to open URLs on my desktop from remote Linux machines

        I have a long standing setup where I read my email on one of our Linux login servers, instead of on my desktop. Email can include URLs that I want to open, so I need some way of opening these URLs in my desktop browser. For a long time this has been through one of two options; either I forwarded X over SSH and used Firefox's X-based remote control, or I was operating purely with text and selected the URLs in the terminal to use with my tools to open URLs in various browsers.

      • Daniel Stenbergcurl 8.3.0

        The number of security fixes is adjusted due to the recently rejected CVE-2023-32001

    • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

      • Linux Links4 Best Free and Open Source Office Suites

        Microsoft Office still dominates market share of office suites. Businesses have often rejected free Office alternatives. However, things are changing. With the cost of a price subscription plan for Microsoft Office, the average home user or small business will welcome a free alternative. Fortunately, there are some truly excellent open source alternatives available for Linux (and other operating systems).

        Our recommendations are captured in our legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

    • Education

      • Cendyne NagaSoftware Security Fur All

        The security industry is not too accessible. It focuses on common details, rather than fundamental problems and solutions. We can do better by building communities with free knowledge and compassion, rather than exclude newcomers with paywalled content and competitive hazing. Fundamentals like separating code and data must be top of mind as new technologies like large language models get deployed. Bad cryptography is everywhere and we hope to make cryptographic knowledge more accessible.

        This talk summary is part of my DEF CON 31 series. The talks this year have sufficient depth to be shared independently and are separated for easier consumption.

    • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

      • Open Data

        • RlangUtilizing R for Reproducible Open Science Research in Tucson, Arizona

          In this meetup, we will replicate open science research. This meetup is the second event of the Reproducing Open Research Series. We chose the paper “Learning, Inside and Out: Prior Linguistic Knowledge and Learning Environment Impact Word Learning in Bilingual Individuals” within the linguistics domain and features experimental data.

    • Programming/Development

      • Raspberry PiColour-based object tracking with Raspberry Pi

        She worked with Shafat Insha and Midhat Munira to develop a smart colour-based object tracking system, using OpenCV and Raspberry Pi 3. The autonomous Smart Object Tracking Robot can detect and track objects of a specific colour in real time.

      • Daniel LemireTranscoding Unicode strings at crazy speeds with AVX-512

        In software, we store strings of text as arrays of bytes in memory using one of the Unicode Transformation Formats (UTF), the most popular being UTF-8 and UTF-16. Windows, Java, C# and other systems common languages and systems default on UTF-16, whereas other systems and most of the web relies on UTF-8. There are benefits to both formats and we are not going to adopt one over the other any time soon. It means that we must constantly convert our strings from UTF-8 to UTF-16 and back.

      • ButtondownIf you work on a big language, I'd like to talk

        Directed graphs are ubiquitous, so it's incredibly weird to me that not a single mainstream programming language has a built-in directed graph type. And it's even weirder that not a single mainstream programming language has them in the standard library.

      • Juha-Matti SantalaPull requests are great

        I have recently been seeing an increasing amount of chatter about and against pull requests. These especially often come from the crowd that advocates for pair or mob/ensemble programming. I saw a great one in Mastodon the other week but failed to save it so I can’t reference it. In essence, that toot asked: What legit benefit is there for pull requests for teams that trust each other?

        And I’ve seen this sentiment quite often: some people consider that pull requests’ main or even only function is to prevent malicious or bad code from entering a codebase from untrusted sources. And in many distributed open source projects that is one of its functions. However, I’d argue that focusing solely on the trust issue and then dismissing pull requests for teams that trust each other, is short-sighted.

      • Matt RickardThe New Economics of Generating Code

        "The next is replace -- replace feature after feature after feature of the older Cerner system with a new Cerner system, new Millennium, which we are not coding in Java like we usually do. The new Cerner system is being generated -- as you know, generative AI generates code. We have an application generator called APEX. And we are not writing code for the new Cerner; we are generating that code in APEX, and it's going extremely well."

        This is a quote from Larry Ellison in Oracle’s latest earnings call. It should be taken with a grain of salt — Ellison is a master of narrative, and he’s addressing an audience of investors. Whether APEX works as well as he claims or if developers are simply using GitHub Copilot, the fact remains: this is the future of a good chunk of software development.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • New York TimesHow to Navigate Apple’s Shift From Lightning to USB-C

        Allow me to unpack that. To comply with recent European regulations, the iPhone 15, unveiled Tuesday, will abandon the Lightning connector that has been the method for charging iPhones for 11 years. In its place will be a different oval-shaped connector: USB-C.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 14/08/2026: Slower Internet, Logging Off Made Easy, and Human Code
Links for the day
Links 14/08/2026: "Mystery of Dark Oxygen", People Despise Slop, and Backlash Grows Against Fake Currencies (Energy-Wasting Scam Like Slop)
Links for the day
Free Publicity
They say there's no such thing as "bad press" or that every publicity is good publicity, sometimes free publicity
Farage's fears, media hijacked by-election, what really happened in Clacton
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
It's Friday. A Ton of People Departing From IBM and Red Hat.
A mere subset of people who announce this in public at Microsoft's LinkedIn
GNU/Linux and ChromeOS Beyond 11%
Combined with ChromeOS, it's already past and beyond 11%
Chatbots/LLMs Are the Next "Clown Computing", Pure Hype, a Serious Mistake
Programs that scan text and emit something similar (but full of errors)
Links 14/08/2026: Slop 'Music' Causing Problems, Slop Data Centre Contractor Unpaid (Massive Debt), and The Cyber Show Says We're "Colonised By Wankers"
Links for the day
Fake Growth of Social Control Media is Misleading
nowadays people look for alternatives - ones not controlled by MElon, CPC, and Kapo-Berg
statCounter: Windows Down to All-Time Low of 25%, Android Leads the Pack, GNU/Linux About to Leapfrog Apple, Overtaking MacOS
The situation was very different in past years
Microsoft's Mass Layoffs (Including 'Voluntary' Secret Layoffs) Take Their Toll on Seattle
How much longer can they hide their crises?
Planet Fedora ("Fedora People") is Just IBM Staff, Former IBM Staff, and LLM Slop
this is what Fedora boils down to now
Explanation of What Will Happen to Red Hat (and Other Acquired Companies) After August
In short, a lot will be scuttled; history shows it happens over and over again
SLAPP Censorship - Part 149 Out of 200: It Took a Long Time to Show What Jason Arday (at Cambridge) and Harvey Weinstein (in Hollywood) Really Were
Really bad when society endures abuse because the abusers silence their exposers
Gemini Links 14/08/2026: 32-bit RISC-V and BlackBerry
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 13, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, August 13, 2026
'Voluntary' Layoffs (a Form of Silent Layoffs): Microsoft Global Voluntary Separation Agreement (GVSA) in August 2026 and September 2026
Today and yesterday
Microsoft Sees Windows on Fire, Pours Gasoline Over It
The latest move from Microsoft defies logic
Racing Towards "Woman Zero"
They don't seem to value women
The Legacy of Gerstner (Rapid Destruction) Continues at IBM
They say IBM never recovered from Gerstner, who instead of saving the companies (IBM and others he claims credit for) set up a collision course of rapid shrinkage
Counters in Clacton Commence in 3 Hours at Clacton Leisure Centre
Even a few hundreds of votes for Pocock would be considered a great success
Swiss army to attack 2,900 domain name owners? Cult of ETH Zurich & Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
IBM's Bluewashing of Confluent Carries on, More Layoffs Coming, Same Likely Applicable to Red Hat
September 30 is a day before this next phase of bluewashing at Red Hat
Headlines About Microsoft and Ransomware, But They're "SPONSORED FEATURES" at The Register MS
The Register MS habitually publishes LLM slop too
Links 13/08/2026: K-pop Suicide Due to Social Control Media, Legal Problems for Facebook Over Safety
Links for the day
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Empathy, It's About Making Good People Homeless
Seeing what they did to RMS, remember that those "concern trolls" are about everything other than ethics and morals
Daniel Pocock in The Nerve
Lots of publicity owning to the enrollment
Why Support Daniel Pocock
Our readers who come from IBM and the EPO are certainly familiar with the tactics of censorship and what that sort of censorship leads to
SLAPP Censorship - Part 148 Out of 200: The Manosphere
Those people don't just threaten our national sovereignty, press, democracy etc. They also endanger women everywhere.
Gemini Links 13/08/2026: Health, Partial Eclipse Sketches, and Guilelessness
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Reaches 10% "Market Share" in statCounter
As of this morning
15% of IBM Marked for Potential Termination, PIPs are the "New Layoffs" (or RAs) at IBM
IBM is a dying company, but it does not want the press to say this or for people to understand that
Links 13/08/2026: "The Rise of the Measles-Industrial Complex" and Spotify Curbs Slop
Links for the day
Daniel Pocock on Australia's 9News (Nine Entertainment)
This gives visibility to software and technology issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 12, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 12, 2026
Gemini Links 12/08/2026: Losing a Child, "The OpenWeb Needs Diversity", and Gmail Woes
Links for the day
Voluntary' Layoffs and 'Proper' Layoffs at IBM This Year
When will IBM management confess that 15% of staff is already marked for potential removal?
Links 12/08/2026: Trouble in Proprietary Chaffbot Company 'Open' 'AI' and Slop "Investors Are Suddenly Quaking in Their Boots"
Links for the day
Daniel Pocock in National News in Australia the Day of the Election
"Posted 20m ago" (Thursday in Australia), it's timed nicely to help illuminate Pocock and give him last-minute exposure
The Register MS Has Just Published Slop Spam for NVIDIA and HP, It Says "AI" 43 Times
As usual, The Register MS ought to be ashamed of itself for participating in it
The Slop Debt (Trillions of Dollars, Money That Does Not Exist) is Causing the Collapse of GAFAM et al
This slop hype will end up like "metaverse", except "metaverse" never ended up justifying trillions of dollars in "investment"
Simpler Means More Reliable
The simple old way of local storage and local backups is still the best
Clownflare and statCounter See GNU/Linux at ~8% in Norway
Norway has long championed GNU/Linux compared to the rest of Europe
Social Control Media is the Opposite of Information
That says a lot about social control media
Clacton manifesto: Reform UK hacking, leaks, raw sewage & 8GB Swiss Archive
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
statCounter Today: ChromeOS + GNU/Linux Measured at 10.98% Globally (Desktops and Laptops)
Clownflare does not quite refute this
The Register MS Has Just Published Fake Article About Replacing Linux With Proprietary Google System, "Sponsored by ASUS."
All of those things are proprietary GAFAMware
Links 12/08/2026: "X’s Advertising Business Continues to Tank", "Stop Feeding the Billionaires"
Links for the day
Lack of Empathy Rampant in the Sector
Sociopaths are sociopaths. They cannot help themselves
Before the "Big Tech" (That Almost Everybody is Forced to Use) Was Controlled by Men Who Hate Women
Such rejection and even hatred of women qualifies/enshrines oneself as an "incel"- a dangerous and violent online cult
In Defence of Hoarding CDs, More So When Digital Restrictions (DRM) Come to More 'Content' and Even Offline/Physical Media Won't Work When Some Remote Server Says "No" (or Goes Offline)
made to serve and entertain owners, not to allow companies like Sony and Microsoft subjugate owners
Clownflare: In Finland, Birthplace of Linux Kernel, GNU/Linux Now Bigger Than Apple's MacOS
It's not just in Finland where we see such trends
More Mass Layoffs Due to Monumental Debt Excused as "Investment" (in Slop)
They're maxing up the private debt and their country is already insolvent
METRO Interviews Daniel Pocock a Day Before Election
The article is behind a wall that blocks people who block ads
Enshittification More Than a Century Ago
Is enshittification more than a century old?
GNU in 1991 (35 Years Ago): Compiler and Lots More Ready, Linux Now Becoming 'Vibe Heap' (Slop Replaces Real Code)
Without curbs in place, many Linux developers will flee
Company-Wide 'Reorg' ('Redundancies') at IBM, Mark October 1st 2026 in the Calendar
Is Oct 1 the new Apr 1?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 147 Out of 200: The SLAPP Series is 'Slow' Because Timing Matters
It is important to stress that after this series is finished there will be many more series, with some of them showing raw evidence of what we've been illuminating and telling
Even ZDNet Accepts That "Market Share" of GNU/Linux May Have Doubled on Desktops and Laptops
GNU/Linux is definitely growing, and quite quickly in fact
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 11, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Microsoft Layoffs and Shutdowns Continue This August, Morale Low, Employees Set Up Giant Inflatable Rat to Protest Against CEO
nothing demonstrates their anger better than what they did to the CEO
Gemini Links 12/08/2026: Sophomore Slump, Mandatory Phone Addiction, and Vintage Web Game Gallery
Links for the day