Linux VS open source UNIX

The writing of this piece comes from the annoyance I get from reading about the prominence of Linux (the kernel) in almost all the computing spaces. And since electronic devices are gaining relevance in our daily lives and society in general this question of prominence of not just Linux but ‘X’ gains importance too.

More specifically this writing comes after reading someone who has participated in relevant software which is in a gazillion people’s pocket. In a very unfortunate reply to the question: ‘What are the advantages Linux has over BSD now?’ the individual in question (which I’d like to preserve his identity) replied something close to (I do paraphrase): Linux receives much more investment from companies and therefore more paid developers are in it, plus BSD’s feature parity with that of Linux doesn’t hold.

Does Linux Have a Marketing Problem?

On Hackaday’s hosting site Hackaday.io, an electrical engineer with a background in semiconductor physics argues that Linux’s small market share is due to a lack of marketing…

Dell’s New XPS 13 Developer Edition is Powered by the 10th Generation

In August 2019, Dell announced the first configurations of Dell’s XPS 13 Developer Edition.

It is based on Intel’s 10th Generation Core U series processors.

The laptop model is the “Model 7390” powered by the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system.

Last week they announced a new configuration for XPS 13 in honor of Halloween

All together (In total), they are offering 18 different configurations of the 9th generation developer edition, 16 of which are available both online and offline.

Server

• Microsoft cloud services may be hitting their limit in some regions [Ed: So what we heard was correct]

• IBM

  • AnsibleFest, PowerShell, monitoring, and more Ansible news

    “What happened to the September Ansible news roundup?” we hear you asking. That is a fine question! In short, vacations and AnsibleFest. Bonus for you though, dear reader, is more fantastic content. Read on…

Audiocasts/Shows

• Open Source Security Podcast: Episode 168 – The draconian draconians of DRM

  Josh and Kurt talk about the social norms of security. We also discuss security coprocessors and the reasons behind adding them to hardware. Is DRM a draconian security measure or do we need it to secure the future? We also touch on the story of NordVPN getting hacked. The real story isn’t they got hacked, the story is they responded like clowns. The actual problem was one of leadership, there are certain leadership skills you can’t be taught, you can only learn.

• GNU World Order 13×45

  An exciting Linux origin story (thanks to Grant), and the **reset** (also called **tset**) and **rev** commands from **util-linux**.

• Linux Action News 130

  Fedora arrives from the future, the big players line up behind KernelCI, and researchers claim significant vulnerabilities in Horde.

  Plus, Google’s new dashboard for WordPress and ProtonMail’s apps go open source.

Kernel Space

• Linux 5.4-rc6

  Back from travels, and (knock wood) with not a lot of jetlag. So doing
  the rc release the usual Sunday afternoon in the normal timezone for a
  change.
  
  I wish I could say things were calming down, but they aren't. This
  week, the main culprit is networking - just about exactly half the
  patch (and almost half the commits) is networking-related, either
  drivers, core networking, or documentation.
  
  That's not because of some sudden influx of networking issues, it's
  just the usual timing thing - rc5 didn't get any networking pull at
  all, so rc6 has two weeks worth of networking fixes in it.
  
  But it does mean that we're not seeing the slowdown that I tend to
  expect by this time (well, maybe "wish for" is closer than "expect" -
  I guess it's more the norm than the exception that rc6 is larger than
  I would wish for in a perfect world.. ;^)
  
  There's no particular area or outstanding issue that is worrisome, but
  if things don't calm down this week, I suspect we'll be looking at one
  of those releases when we have an rc8. We'll see how things evolve
  here over the next couple of weeks.
  
  Anyway, outside of the networking changes, it's all the usual stuff:
  almost two thirds drivers (all over: gpu, hid, usb, rdma, sound,
  dmaengine, acpi..). With the rest being misc arch updates (risc-v,
  arm64, x86) and filesystem and core kernel fixlets.
  
  Shortlog appended, easy to scroll through.
  
  Go test, there's nothing scary in here,
  
  Linus
  

• Linux 5.4-rc6 Released With Network Changes Ticking High

  Linus Torvalds has released Linux 5.4-rc6 back on schedule after his travels this past week around the Linux Foundation events in Lyon, France.

  While we are getting late into the Linux 5.4 cycle, the bug/regression fixing is unfortunately not settling down. There still is a lot of churn with Torvalds calling particular attention to the networking subsystem where about half the changes this past week reside. Though with there not having been any networking fixes for last week’s 5.4-rc5, networking being the outlier this week isn’t too surprising.

  Torvalds commented in the RC6 announcement, “There’s no particular area or outstanding issue that is worrisome, but if things don’t calm down this week, I suspect we’ll be looking at one of those releases when we have an rc8. We’ll see how things evolve here over the next couple of weeks.”

• Kernel prepatch 5.4-rc6

  The 5.4-rc6 kernel prepatch is out for testing.

• Outreachy Developers Have Been Making Some Useful Contributions To The Linux Kernel

  This past week at the Open Source Summit Europe in France there were several past Outreachy interns that shared their work on contributing to the Linux kernel and related open-source projects. Several of these projects have resulted in useful additions to the Linux kernel.

  Outreachy is the program offering those from under-represented groups in tech a $5,500 paid internship to work on different open-source projects for a number of months. Those wanting to learn more can on the initiative can do so at Outreachy.org.

• Linux 5.5 Kernel Livepatching To Allow Tracking System State

  It’s been a while since last having any new features to report on in regards to the Linux kernel’s livepatching infrastructure for applying kernel updates without system reboots. With the Linux 5.5 there is a big addition to livepatching and that is support for tracking the system state changes.

  Linux 5.5 will bring a new system state API to the livepatching infrastructure. Currently Linux livepatching with the atomic replace / cumulative patches functionality can remove previously applied fixes and other quite versatile support, but when the system state is altered is when future live-patches can go awry.

• Bootlin’s Best Techniques For A Smaller Kernel + Faster Boot Times

  In addition to a talk at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe on trimming the Linux boot time with systemd changes, Michael Opdenacker of embedded Linux engineering firm Bootlin presented on their techniques for not only speeding up the Linux boot time but also reductions in the kernel image size.

  The techniques laid out by Opdenacker included using the U-Boot “Falcon mode” for its boot loader, an uncompressed initramfs, disable tracing, disabling sysfs, silencing the kernel output, disabling SMP during boot, simplifying the rootfs setup, and other steps.

• Graphics Stack

  • Linux Driver Update Hints At Upcoming AMD Graphics Cards

    With Linux releasing its latest operating system drivers, some users can’t help but delve into them to see if there’s anything interesting lurking within. It might sound a bit weird, but these driver updates have proven (very consistently) to be solid indicators of upcoming tech releases.

    So, with the latest version out, what has been discovered this time? Well, in a report via TechSpot, the new Linux drivers confirm at least 4 new upcoming AMD graphics cards as well as hints towards their reported high-end release/s.

Applications

• NetworkManager 1.21.3 Is Another Step Towards NM 1.22

  NetworkManager 1.21.3 is the network management project’s latest development release in the path towards the upcoming NetworkManager 1.22.

  The 1.21.3 release does have a fix for the newly released Intel IWD 1.0 wireless daemon. Aside from that it’s mostly been ongoing core code improvements and other related work for this widely-used network management component on the Linux desktop.

• Cloning a MAC address to bypass a captive portal

  Captive portals are web pages offered when a new device is connected to a network. When the user first accesses the Internet, the portal captures all web page requests and redirects them to a single portal page.

  The page then asks the user to take some action, typically agreeing to a usage policy. Once the user agrees, they may authenticate to a RADIUS or other type of authentication system. In simple terms, the captive portal registers and authorizes a device based on the device’s MAC address and end user acceptance of terms. (The MAC address is a hardware-based value attached to any network interface, like a WiFi chip or card.)

  Sometimes a device doesn’t load the captive portal to authenticate and authorize the device to use the location’s WiFi access. Examples of this situation include mobile devices and gaming consoles (Switch, Playstation, etc.). They usually won’t launch a captive portal page when connecting to the Internet. You may see this situation when connecting to hotel or public WiFi access points.

  You can use NetworkManager on Fedora to resolve these issues, though. Fedora will let you temporarily clone the connecting device’s MAC address and authenticate to the captive portal on the device’s behalf. You’ll need the MAC address of the device you want to connect. Typically this is printed somewhere on the device and labeled. It’s a six-byte hexadecimal value, so it might look like 4A:1A:4C:B0:38:1F. You can also usually find it through the device’s built-in menus.

• Darktable 3.0 Approaching With Many New Features

  The popular Darktable open-source RAW photography workflow software is closing in on its v3.0 release with the first release candidate having been issued on Sunday.

  While Darktable 2.x is already great and very popular among photographers for this free cross-platform photography workflow software, Darktable 3.0 is another big step-up. Some of the items being worked on for Darktable 3.0 include:

• RedNotebook 2.12

  RedNotebook is a modern desktop journal. It lets you format, tag and search your entries. You can also add pictures, links and customizable templates, spell check your notes, and export to plain text, HTML, Latex or PDF. RedNotebook is Free Software under the GPL.

• Proprietary

  • An Unnamed Source Who Shouldn’t Be Anonymous

    “When you find a problem in the source code, it’s very difficult to explain the consequences of that problem to a judge or jury,” he told me. “It’s written in a foreign language, and the effects are hard to trace. We’re rarely able to say, ‘Aha, here’s this person’s breath test and here’s the problem that caused it to be wrong.’”

    Mr. Workman’s mind worked a lot like the computer systems into which he delved: He had a mental index of more than 15 years of legal battles and civic investigations into problems with breath-testing programs, and he knew exactly where to find the incendiary bits. When I dug into flawed test results in Washington, D.C., for example, he sent me a video recording of a police officer turned whistle-blower testifying at an oversight hearing.

Instructionals/Technical

• Installing PostgreSQL on CentOS 8

• How to Setup a DNS/DHCP Server Using dnsmasq on CentOS/RHEL 8/7

• Monitor CentOS 8 Disk Usage, IO, Network Traffic

• How To Change Root Password on CentOS 8

• How To Zip Multiple Files on Linux

• How to Use Static and Dynamic Inventories in Ansible – Part 4

• How To Install Git on Ubuntu 19.10

• Emulating Raspbian on your Linux x86/amd64 System

• Setting up a virtual machine with virgil support

• Mount and Use Google Drive on Linux Mint

• How to Add Windows and Linux host to Nagios Server for Monitoring

• Training and certification for Linux system administrators

• Linux Candy: lolcat – rainbows and unicorns

  If you think being at the command-line is rather mundane and lacking a touch of sparkle, you couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve looked at some really fun candy in our Linux Candy series. And there’s lots more to come.

  Continuing in the theme of showing the lighter side of Linux, here’s a curious program. It’s called lolcat, an oddity that applies rainbow colors to text output in the terminal. It works in a similar way to the venerable cat command but jazzes things up with configurable rainbow colors.

  There’s cross-platform support, with the software running on Linux, BSD, and OS X.

Games

• The upcoming action RPG Bound By Blades now has a Linux demo

  Developer Zeth recently put up a Linux demo of their in-development action RPG, Bound By Blades, which is in need of some testing and feedback.

  Using a pretty fun sounding four-corner combat system, where you run from corner to corner around the outside of enemies and attack/defend at each point. It’s pretty unusual and good to see something a little different. Sadly, their recent Kickstarter failed to get funding. However, they’ve confirmed development will continue but it’s going to be smaller in scope.

• Proton GE has a another new release out with patches for GTA V and lots of updates

  Proton GE, the unofficial and updated build of Proton for Steam Play has another big new release out. To help those who can’t wait for Valve/CodeWeavers to update the official Proton or you need some extra fixes.

  With Proton-4.19-GE-1 now available it includes updated builds of DXVK, D9VK, FAudio and Vkd3d. On top of that, it’s also pulled in patches to help with GTA V and the Rockstar Launcher, a patch to help with Origin client downloads, patches to fix Skyrim SkyUI status effect icons, patches to help Mortal Kombat 11 run (although online matches won’t work) and more.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Qt Creator 4.11 Beta2 released

    We are happy to announce the release of Qt Creator 4.11 Beta2 !

    We switched to Qt 5.14 and fixed many issues. As always you find more details in our change log.

    The opensource version is available on the Qt download page under “Pre-releases”, and you find commercially licensed packages on the Qt Account Portal. Qt Creator 4.11 Beta2 is also available under Preview > Qt Creator 4.11.0-beta2 in the online installer. Please post issues in our bug tracker. You can also find us on IRC on #qt-creator on chat.freenode.net, and on the Qt Creator mailing list.

  • Disclaimer, Addendum and Celebration

    I am now a “KDE developer”, yay! I’ll be translating much more now that I can push those translations, and hopefully I’ll be able to maintain the KDE announcements in Brazilian Portuguese. Localization for something as big as KDE is a huge task, any help would be appreciated. It’s also fairly easy to work with us, if you’d like.

  • Introducing krita-artists.org

    Freshly returned from the 2019 Blender Conference, Krita project maintainer Boudewijn Rempt was heard to wistfully wish for something like Blender Artists, only for Krita. A central place for artists who use Krita to discuss their work, ask for help, share experiences and reach out to developers. And in the interest of growing the community, not something that needs to be maintained and developed by the current development team, the Krita Foundation or the KDE community.

    Raghavendra Kamath, a professional illustrator who has used Krita for years and years accepted the challenge and has setup over the past week a new website: krita-artists.org. It’s brand new and still slightly experimental, but we’re announcing it today!

  • Windows Store Submission Guide

    To increase the visibility of KDE applications on Windows, the KDE e.V. has a Windows Store account to publish our applications there.

    This is not the only way to get KDE application for the Windows operating system, you can e.g. directly grab installers or portable ZIP files from our Binary Factory.

    There is at the moment no nice documentation how to submit some application to the store.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Pro-Linux IP consortium Open Invention Network will ‘pivot’ to take on patent trolls

    Keith Bergelt, CEO of the Open Invention Network (OIN), says the organisation is “pivoting to focus on” risks from “non-practising entit[ies]” also known as patent trolls.

    The OIN was founded in 2005 by IBM, Suse, Philips, Red Hat and Sony, its purpose being to cross-license patents, royalty-free, subject to a non-aggression agreement, where the licensee agrees not to assert the patents against the Linux community.

Distributions

• Customize Best Zorin OS Themes

• Best Zorin OS Wallpapers

  Wallpaper is the very first thing that welcomes you when you log in to your computer. We may not feel like it but the sensory response is a strong source of invoking emotion. That’s why you’ll notice advertisements on the subway. They’re silently doing their job of communicating an idea, a concept into our subconscious self. Similar rule applies to the wallpaper of your system.
  It’s truer in the case of Linux distros. When you’re diving into the world of Linux, it’s important to stay in the right mood. Trust me; having the right wallpaper can really change your mood. If you’re using Zorin OS, then you’ve probably shifted to Linux from Windows/macOS. Well, why not cheer up your Linux experience?

  In this article, let’s have a look at some great Zorin OS wallpapers out there. There’s actually no best wallpaper in the world; it’s all subjective. Here are the ones that I love the most. Feel free to explore your way around!

• Reviews

  • Review: MX Linux 19

    Something interesting about software in general, and Linux distributions in particular, is that projects tend to evolve over time. Some of them break away from their parent projects, some merge with other distributions, and some change their direction. The MX Linux distribution is an unusual mixture of ideas and technologies that has grown out of a collection of projects. MX Linux can trace its digital genealogy back through antiX, MEPIS, and Debian. This gives the current generation of MX a combination of Debian’s large, stable repository of software, the tendency toward low resource usage of antiX, and the convenient tools of MEPIS. MX is also rare in that it allows us to select which init software (SysV init or systemd) we want to use when the computer starts. But how well do all of these pieces fit together in reality?

    MX Linux 19 is based on Debian 10 “Buster” and antiX. The latest release ships with version 4.14 of the Xfce desktop and includes AppArmor support with several profiles enabled by default. The distribution is available in 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x86_64) builds, with the ISO files being about 1.4GB in size. Booting from the distribution’s media brings up the Xfce desktop. The desktop panel is displayed vertically down the left side of the screen with the application menu in the bottom-left corner The system tray and task switcher sit above the menu and the logout button is displayed in the upper-left corner. In the upper-right quadrant of the desktop we find the Conky status panel displaying the current time and some resource statistics.

• Screenshots/Screencasts

  • ArcoLinux 19.11 Run Through

    In this video, we are looking at ArcoLinux 19.11

• Fedora Family

  • Fedora 30 : Introduction to Qt Designer.

    Qt Designer is the Qt tool for designing and building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) with Qt Widgets… see the Qt Designer manual webpage.

• Debian Family

  • SparkyLinux’s November ISO Brings Latest Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” Updates

    The SparkyLinux 2019 “Po Tolo” operating system series is a rolling release version of SparkyLinux, based on the Debian Testing software repositories, where the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system is currently being developed.

    SparkyLinux 2019.11 is now the most up-to-date snapshot, adding all the latest software updates and security patches from the Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” repositories as of November 2nd, 2019. Additionally, it upgrades the Linux kernel to version 5.2.17 and the Calamares installer to version 3.2.16.

  • Jonathan Carter: Free Software Activities (2019-10)

    AIMS Desktop talk: On the 1st of October I gave a talk at AIMS titled “Why AIMS Desktop?” where I talked about the Debian-based system we use at AIMS, and went into some detail about what Linux is, what Debian is, and why it’s used within the AIMS network. I really enjoyed the reaction from the students and a bunch of them are interested in getting involved directly with Debian. I intend to figure out a way to guide them into being productive community members without letting it interfere with their academic program.

    Catching up with Martin: On the 12th of October I had lunch with Martin Michelmayr. Earlier this year we were both running for DPL, which was an interesting experience and the last time we met neither of us had any intentions to do so. This was the first time we talked in person since then and it was good reflecting over the last year and we also talked about a bunch of non-Debian stuff.

  • Thorsten Alteholz: My Debian Activities in October 2019

    This month I accepted 257 packages and rejected 17. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 314.

  • Ben Hutchings: Debian LTS work, October 2019

    I was assigned 22.75 hours of work by Freexian’s Debian LTS initiative. I worked almost all those hours this month, but will carry over 0.5 hours to November.

    I prepared and, after review, released Linux 3.16.75, including various important fixes. I then rebased the Debian package onto that, and sent out a request for testing. I prepared and sent out Linux 3.16.76-rc1 for review.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • This Ubuntu 19.10 Bug Shares Your Media Folders With Others, Without Warning

    The problem is caused by Ubuntu’s new media sharing feature (powered the Rygel media server) which is supposed to disabled by default.

    But scores of users running Ubuntu 19.10 in a non-GNOME Shell/Ubuntu session report that rygel autostarts on log in, with no warning or indication provided that it is running in the background.

    As a result, the full contents of ~/Photos, ~/Videos and ~/Music folders are accessible on local area network, (LAN), i.e, available to anyone and anything else connected to the same Wi-Fi point.

  • elementary OS Adds First-Class Support for Flatpak Apps

    As shared in their latest monthly mail shot, the bods behind the pay-what-you-want distro have enabled Flatpak out of the box on elementary OS.

    This means elementary OS users can now search for, browse, and install Flatpak apps direct from the distro’s software store ‘AppCenter’.

  • Ubuntu Touch Installer Now Supports OnePlus 3 and Sony Xperia X Ubuntu Phones

    As many of you may already be aware, the UBports project continues to develop Canonical’s deprecated Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system for Ubuntu Phones, which gets regular OTA (Over-the-Air) updates that bring new features and improvements, and there’s also an official Ubuntu Touch installer.

    There are graphical and command-line Ubuntu Touch installers, but the graphical one makes it a lot easier to install the latest Ubuntu Touch mobile OS on an Android smartphone that’s supported by UBports, and the latest version brings support for two more phones, namely OnePlus 3 and Sony Xperia X.

  • Roadmap for official support for the Raspberry Pi 4

    With 19.10 release of Ubuntu Server, Canonical announced official support for the Raspberry Pi 4. The latest board from the Raspberry Pi Foundation sports a faster system-on-a-chip with a processor that uses the Cortex-A72 architecture (quad-core 64-bit ARMv8 at 1.5GHz). Additionally, it offers up to 4GB of RAM. We are supporting the Raspberry Pi 4 to give developers access to a low-cost board, powerful enough to consolidate compute workloads at the edge.

    The Raspberry Pi has established itself as a most accessible platform for innovators in embedded space. Canonical is dedicated to empowering innovators with open-source software. Consequently, Canonical endeavors to offer full official support for all the boards in the Raspberry Pi family. Canonical will enable both Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Core for all the Pi boards.

    The Raspberry Pi 4 model B comes with different choices of RAM: 1GB, 2GB and 4GB. However, our official support for this board is currently limited to the 1GB and 2GB versions. Due to a kernel bug, USB ports are not supported out of the box in the official arm64 image on the 4GB RAM version. Kernel fixes have been identified by Canonical engineers. We are currently testing these fixes extensively. We will push updates within weeks, following successful test completion.

  • Canonical Pledges to Fully Support Ubuntu Linux on All Raspberry Pi Boards

    When they released the Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) operating system series last month, Canonical said that Raspberry Pi’s Foundation’s latest Raspberry Pi 4 boards will be official supported. However, Ubuntu 19.10 ships with a Linux kernel bug that blocks the use of USB ports out of the box in the official arm64 image on the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC with 4GB RAM.

    There’s a temporary workaround to enable USB on Raspberry Pi 4 boards with 4GB RAM, which involves editing the /boot/firmware/usercfg.txt file to limit the RAM to 3GB instead of 4GB by adding the “total_mem=3072″ line (without quotes). Canonical is currently working hard to test kernel patches for this bug, which should soon be released for everyone.

  • Fix for Raspberry Pi 4 4GB model’s USB Ports not Working on Ubuntu 19.10

    Ubuntu 19.10 server was recently released with official support for Raspberry Pi 4 SBC. Shortly after I read stories about the USB ports not working on the board, but it took another interesting turn as Canonical now explains the bug only affects RPI 4 with 4GB RAM, and USB works just fine on boards with just 1/2GB RAM.

    The issue has been identified and it’s been found to be a kernel bug with a solution in the works that being tested. In the meantime, you can access to your Raspberry Pi 4 4GB USB ports by limiting the memory to 3GB in /boot/firmware/usercfg.txt as follows…

  • Canonical Working To Ramp Up Ubuntu Support For The Raspberry Pi 4

    Ubuntu 19.10 should work well on the Raspberry Pi 1GB and 2GB models while the 4GB version doesn’t have USB ports working with the current Ubuntu Eoan packages. They have discovered a workaround of using total_mem=3072 for limiting the kernel to just 3GB of RAM in order to get USB functionality. But Canonical is working on proper updates to push out for enabling full USB support on the 4GB Raspberry Pi 4.

Devices/Embedded

• Digilent Offers 2 Zynq-Based Linux Development Boards Supporting SYZYGY Expansion

  Digilent has announced two new SBCs that are ultra-high-speed and built to be more modular than its other boards. The company, which has a great deal of experience in Pmod lower speed FPGA standards has now entered the open-source, SYZYGY high-speed standards with its Eclypse Z7 and the Genesys ZU development SBCs.

  We reported on the Zybo development board FPGA SoC from Digilent and that seems to have lead to the latest format for the Eclypse Z7.

• Top 20 Best Linux NAS Solutions and Linux SAN Software

  In this age of rapid economic growth, data is arguably among the driving factor behind success. Storing data is of greater importance for a number of reasons, including backups and security. One of the best ways of storing data is using NAS (Network Attached Storage) or Linux SAN (Storage Area Network) solutions. These are platforms that allow the saving and retrieval of data in a structured way using network-based architectures. Linux is one of the top players when it comes to offering robust and open source NAS software. In this guide, we’ll outline 20 modern and innovative Linux/Ubuntu NAS and SAN solutions that will make data management easier for both individuals and businesses.

• stress-ng Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2019 presentation

• Giveaway Week – Balena Fin Developer Kit

  We’ve been organizing “giveaway weeks” every year since 2014 on CNX Software to send some of the review samples to our readers.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Bummer! Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro receiving October security patch without Android 10 or MIUI 11 update (Download links inside)

  • Video: A closer look at Samsung’s Android 10-based One UI 2

  • Magisk v20.1 and Magisk Manager v7.4.0 introduces new hiding mode for Android 9+ devices

  • Android bug let hackers spread malware by tapping your phone

  • Google Photos getting new this feature for Android users

  • Google Maps on Android beats Apple’s iPhone to this must-have feature

  • Some Google Pixel 3 Owners Receive Confidential November Android Update by Mistake

  • Weekend poll: Do you use a smartwatch, fitness tracker, or other wearables?

  • Pinterest Rolls Out A New Look On iOS And Android

  • OnePlus rolls out Android 10 to OnePlus 6 and 6T

  • OnePlus 6, OnePus 6T Android 10 update rollout paused after fingerprint bug discovered

  • Video: demo of Android 10 on Nokia 6.1 (by Hikari Calyx)

  • Hulu users can now download on Android devices

  • Google Maps ‘Incognito Mode’ starts rolling out to Android users

  • Finally, a way to protect your WhatsApp messages on Android

  • New Android bug allowed hackers to plant malware through NFC beaming

  • This is how hackers can use NFC to install malware in your Android smartphones

  • Android Settings Update Create NFC Vulnerability

  • Android users warned to delete popular app that ‘secretly’ makes unauthorised purchases

  • Here’s How You Can Enable Google Maps ‘Incognito Mode’ On Android

  • 17 Best Android tweaks for non-rooted devices you must try

  • Does your Android phone support NFC? Your data may be at risk

  • OnePlus 6 and 6T start getting OxygenOS 10 based on Android 10

  • Realme Reveals Android 10 Roadmap But Temporarily Postpones Latest ColorOS Update

  • Samsung Galaxy 10 Users With Android 10 Beta Can Now Sync To OneDrive

  • MIUI 11: Top features of Xiaomi’s latest Android skin

  • How to Sync DND Status Across Your Android Smartphones

  • This week in Android: Google buys Fitbit, dark mode dangers, and more!

  • Koodo to add official support for visual voicemail on Android devices

  • [Update: OnePlus 6 OTA paused] Stable Android 10 update now rolling out for OnePlus 6/6T

  • ASUS rolls out the Android 10 update for the ZenFone 6/6Z

  • The OnePlus 6 and 6T are now receiving the stable Android 10 update

  • Teaser hints that Samsung’s new Android clamshell flipper will support 5G

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• My first contribution to open source: Impostor Syndrome

  The story of my first mistake goes back to the beginning of my learn-to-code journey. I taught myself the basics through online resources. I was working through tutorials and projects, making progress but also looking for the next way to level up. Pretty quickly, I came across a blog post that told me the best way for beginners just like me to take their coding skills to the next level was to contribute to open source.

  My internal impostor (who, for the purpose of this post, is the personification of my imposter syndrome) latched onto this idea. “Look, Galen,” she said. “The only way to be a real developer is to contribute to open source.” “Alrighty,” I replied, and started following the instructions in the blog post to make a GitHub account. It took me under ten minutes to get so thoroughly confused that I gave up on the idea entirely. It wasn’t that I was unwilling to learn, but the resources that I was depending on expected me to have quite a bit of preexisting knowledge about Git, GitHub, and how these tools allowed multiple developers to collaborate on a single project.

• Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Source Code of ProtonMail iOS App Made Public

    By making the ProtonMail iOS app open source, the company hopes to encourage researchers to attempt to find vulnerabilities and increase users’ trust in the security of the platform.

    In addition to the source code, Proton Technologies has made available some documentation, including its iOS security and trust models, that should make it easier for interested parties to review the code.

• Programming/Development

  • PyDev of the Week: Joannah Nanjekye

    This week we welcome Joannah Nanjekye (@Captain_Joannah) as our PyDev of the Week! Joannah is a core developer of the Python programming language. She is also the author of Python 2 and 3 Compatibility. You can find out more about Joannah on here website. Let’s take a few moments to get to know her better!

  • Three Easy Methods to Upgrade Pip to the Latest Version

    In this tutorial, we will learn how to upgrade pip. This may be handy, if we, for instance, are working with old Python environments, This, in turn, may leed to that we need to upgrade pip to the latest version.

  • 25 Python Logging examples

    Log information is very important for debugging and developing any application. When the application runs then each event can be tracked by using logging features. The programmer can get a clear understanding of the flow of the program by using log data. When any program crashes then the cause of the crash can be detected easily by log records that save development times. The performance of the application can also be measured by logging.

    Python has a built-in module named logging to get the log information for any python application. It is a very useful module for the novice or experienced python programmer to print the status message to the output stream or into a file. Most of the third-party python libraries use this module to generate log information for the python application. How you can use this module is shown in this article by using 25 simple python logging examples.

  • Sending emails with Python

    Sending, checking and replying to emails is a time consuming task, especially when you are doing it for a large number of people or customers where you just have to change the recipient’s name, address, age and other small things. It would be a very difficult task for you to write a program that could handle all types of your personal/business emails but still you can automate a lot of stuff in this regard which will eventually save you a lot of time.

    For example, you want to send a reminder to your customers for their remaining bills and you have all customer related data like their phone numbers, address, age etc in an excel sheet or a database then instead of doing it manually, you can write a simple program in Python to automatically do that for you. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how email protocol works and how you can automate the process to save your precious time.

  • Get hands-on experience with Kubernetes and Quarkus at DevNation Live in Austin

    The cloud is dramatically changing established development practices, and developers need expert training and hands-on experience to stay up to date.

    Join Red Hat’s developer advocates (including Burr Sutter, Edson Yanaga, and Kamesth Sampath) in Austin, Texas for a day of technical sessions, conversation, and hands-on workshops focused on Kubernetes development and Java microservices.

  • Finding definitions from a source file and a line number in Python

    My job at Datadog keeps me busy with new and questioning challenges. I recently stumbled upon a problem that sounded easy but was more difficult than I imagined.

    Here’s the thing: considering a filename and a line number, can you tell which function, method or class this line of code belongs to?

    I started to dig into the standard library, but I did not find anything solving this problem. It sounded like I write to do this myself.

    The first steps sound easy. Open a file, read it, find the line number. Right.

  • Django bugfix releases issued: 2.2.7, 2.1.14, and 1.11.26

    Today we’ve issued 2.2.7, 2.1.14, and 1.11.26 bugfix releases.

  • Frank Wierzbicki: Jython 2.7.2b2 released!

    On behalf of the Jython development team, I’m pleased to announce that the second beta release of Jython 2.7.2 is available! This is a bugfix release.

    Please see the NEWS file for detailed release notes. This release of Jython requires JDK 8 or above.

  • Quick Python tip: “int” strips strings of whitespace

  • Fields, records, and variables in awk

    Awk comes in several varieties: There is the original awk, written in 1977 at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and several reimplementations, such as mawk, nawk, and the one that ships with most Linux distributions, GNU awk, or gawk. On most Linux distributions, awk and gawk are synonyms referring to GNU awk, and typing either invokes the same awk command. See the GNU awk user’s guide for the full history of awk and gawk.

Rustam Aliev

Nadira’s father, the Uzbek playwright and theatre director Rustam Aliev, suffered a massive stroke yesterday and passed away in the early hours of this morning, age 60. Nadira is very sad at not having had the chance to see him before he died, and while awake all last night she set down her thoughts in this piece, which I find extremely powerful.

Defence/Aggression

• Proposed Withdrawal of US Troops in Syria

  President Trump has stated his intent to withdraw US troops from Syria on several occasions since March 2018. Each time politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, supported by the corporate-controlled media, have, based on US imperial interests, vehemently challenged the withdrawal proposal.

• Ilhan Omar Attacks Prominent Female Journalist and Defends Kashmiri Jihadists

  Singh states that: According to former Pakistani Ambassador Mr. Husain Haqqani, the Pakistan-sponsored insurgency sought to cleanse Kashmir of non-Muslims to make the state entirely free of minorities. Many terror groups active in Kashmir today, such as Lashkar-eTaiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and Hizbu-ul-Mujahideen (HM) have rightfully been labelled Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the European Union, United States, and other countries. Yet these terrorists continue to receive safe harbor, medical care, and financial support in Pakistan–exactly like Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin-Laden who was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by US Special Forces in 2011. These groups have launched terror attacks throughout India, including the November 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed over 165 people, and the September 2016 attack on an Indian army base, which lead to an escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan.

  Yet, instead of Ilhan Omar addressing the subject of the hearing or expressing disgust at the crimes of these terrorist organizations, she decided to justify the agenda of Kashmir’s Islamist rebels by attacking the credentials of Aarti Singh.

Environment

• Controversial Pesticides Are Suspected Of Starving Fish

  “So we concluded [that] something killed the food of the eels and the smelt,” Yamamuro says.

  She and her colleagues now believe that they’ve identified the culprit: pesticides called neonicotinoids.

  The evidence is circumstantial. Right around the time the fish started having problems, early in the 1990s, farmers near the lake started using these pesticides on their rice paddies to control insect pests. Yamamuro also found traces of these chemicals in some parts of the lake. Those levels, she thinks, are high enough to cause problems for tiny aquatic animals. Also, neonicotinoids kill insects, but not the algae that the thriving fish were eating.

  She and her colleagues just published their findings in the journal Science.

• ‘My husband squeezed my hand to say he wanted to live, then I found a way to save him’

  [...] The doctors came back and said, ‘This is the worst infection on the planet. This is an infection that’s closed down hospitals in Germany. It’s called Acinetobacter baumannii.’”

  Tom was put into isolation, and his children flew over because of concern that he wouldn’t make it. When doctors visited him, they wore special gowns.

• Energy

  • UK Government Implements Fracking Ban – For Now

    After seven years of promoting fracking, Conservative ministers have withdrawn their support and blocked the prospects of a shale gas industry.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Lawyer: Trump Whistleblower Willing to Take Written GOP Questions

  A lawyer for the whistleblower who raised alarms about President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine said Sunday his client is willing to answer written questions submitted by House Republicans.

• Everybody Hates You

  For solace to start the weekly madness, this happened: Several judges blocked Trump’s new rule change barring immigrants who can’t afford health care, an 8-year-old girl easily climbed over his “impenetrable” wall, drug smugglers easily cut through it with a $100 saw, and the Mob-Boss-In-Chief was again thunderously booed in public, this time at a UFC fight…

• Politics as a Food Fight: The Media Is Feeding the Political Divide

  The other day, while listening to that liberal bastion, NPR, the newscaster mentioned that another witness had given testimony that would be damaging to Trump in the House’s impeachment inquiry.  In a transition so seamless it was an integral part of the story, the anchor immediately went on to say that Republicans claim the process is flawed, illegitimate, and partisan.

• The Enemy Within

  Our democracy is not in peril—we do not live in a democracy. The image of our democracy is in peril. The deep state—the generals, bankers, corporatists, lobbyists, intelligence chiefs, government bureaucrats and technocrats—is intent on salvaging the brand. It is hard to trumpet yourself as the world’s guardian of freedom and liberty with Donald Trump blathering on incoherently about himself, inciting racist violence, insulting our traditional allies along with the courts, the press and Congress, tweeting misspelled inanities and impulsively denouncing or sabotaging bipartisan domestic and foreign policy. But Trump’s most unforgivable sin in the eyes of the deep state is his criticism of the empire’s endless wars, even though he lacks the intellectual and organizational skills to oversee a disengagement.

• WATCH LIVE: Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar Set to Rally Forces in Minneapolis

  Sanders’s surging campaign was forced to move today’s rally from the Northrup Arena, which only seats 2,700 to Williams Arena, which can hold more than 14,000

• ‘It’s like nothing we have come across before’: UK intelligence officials shaken by Trump administration’s requests for help with counter-impeachment inquiry

  Trump and Barr have also been asking other foreign governments for help in investigating the FBI, CIA and Mueller investigators. The US president has called on the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison for assistance, while the attorney general has been on similar missions to the UK and Italy.

  And the information being requested has left allies astonished. One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services”.

• Trump to Arab Protesters: I Stand With Your Rulers, Not You

  “It is better if they don’t say anything,” Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister, told Foreign Policy.

  Yet Trump has gone even further in the opposite direction than mere silence, unambiguously siding with the region’s autocratic rulers and leaving lower-level bureaucrats in his administration to deliver mild encouragement to the protesters. Asked this fall to comment on Egypt’s most violent crackdown on protesters since the Arab Spring, Trump offered unconditional support for the country’s leader, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whom he once described as “my favorite dictator.”

Censorship/Free Speech

• “Facebook News” – The Project Censored Show

  Facebook recently announced, “Facebook News,” a partnership between the social-media giant and established corporate-media outlets, including the New York Times. Does this arrangement suggest an enhanced effort to keep independent journalism and nonconforming opinions out of social media?

Civil Rights/Policing

• Saudi Arabia: Change Comes with Punishing Cost

  Important social reforms enacted under Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have been accompanied by deepening repression and abusive practices meant to silence dissidents and critics.

• Bride Trafficking to China Spreads Across Asia

  What do Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, and Vietnam have in common? The answer is tragic.

• Mother Teresa Memorial Award: Sold as sex slave by IS, Yazidi woman to receive award for Kurdistan govt

  Currently learning English, the 18-year-old plans to pursue law to provide legal aid to the rescued Yazidis. “When I was 13, I just wanted to become a translator. Now, I want to bring justice,” she says.

  According to Hussein Al-Qaidi, director of the Office of Kidnapped and Rescue, the IS also used an online portal to buy and sell girls. “It is shame that in the 21st century the international community allowed this to happen. There is no support for rehabilitation of those rescued,” he says. Al-Qaidi adds that a greater worry is the rescued young boys who have been trained in militancy. “They remain like a bomb ready to explode.”

• Japan festival to show ‘comfort women’ film after backlash

  The decision not to screen the film was reversed after “lots of voices offering cooperation to address our safety concerns”, a member of the organising committee told AFP news agency.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Site.js: now with auto updates in production

Monopolies

• Patents and Software Patents

  • Pending Patent Applications

    The chart below shows patent application status for published utility patent applications as of Oct 27, 2019 grouped by patent application filing date.

  • Launch of New Diagnostics and Cancer Advocacy Group Announced [Ed: New Cures for Cancers is a scam; it’s a poorly-named lobby group for patent maximalists, pretending that it cares for cancer patients. Shame on anyone who promotes this. It kills cancer patients.]

    One goal of the organization is to change the law currently applied by the U.S. Supreme Court that has caused the invalidation of every patent on personalized diagnostics since 2012. Without patent protection for their investments, companies will not be interested in the personalized diagnostics field.

• Copyrights

  • Have Pirate IPTV Sellers on YouTube Lost Their Minds?

    For those involved in the online piracy supply chain, keeping your head down has almost always been part of the strategy. So why are there suddenly dozens of IPTV suppliers promoting their businesses on YouTube, holding personal question and answer sessions, bragging about the money they’re making, while turning the camera on themselves?

  • RIAA Targets Music Hosting Service Wi.to, But Leaves Pirated Files Untouched