06.15.21

Links 16/6/2021: Alpine 3.14.0 and DXVK 1.9

Posted in News Roundup at 8:15 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Accessing and recovering data with a live Linux distribution [Ed: Self-promotional piece disguised thinly as 'article']

        But it’s also useful when trying to access and recover data from a failing drive. In many cases, hard drive failure and data corruption only affects a specific portion of the drive. While this renders data in that section inaccessible and, in many cases, unrecoverable, any data that is stored outside of the affected might remain intact. If your system files have become corrupted, for example, there’s a good chance that your personal files, which are hosted in a different sector on the drive, are still recoverable.

        To begin the process and find out, simply install Ubuntu onto a USB flash drive, boot your system and, when prompted, click on “Try Ubuntu.” By clicking this option instead of installing it, you’ll effectively launch a live instance of Ubuntu. Many other Linux distros support this feature in some form or another, but the method for accessing the live instance will likely vary depending on the exact distro you’re using.

        If you’re an advanced user, you’ll be able to locate the failed or corrupted hard drive in question once you’ve launched Ubuntu into your system’s RAM. From here, it’s just a matter of mounting the device within Linux and copying that data to another USB drive. For best results, try to avoid using the same drive that contains your Linux distro.

        From here, it’s just a matter of copying your data back onto a fully functional machine. While you might be missing some of your data, including whatever was stored in the failed or corrupted sectors, the majority of your information should still be available.

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux gods at last turn their gaze to Pi 400: Computer-in-a-keyboard receives mainline kernel support with v5.14 • The Register

        Raspberry Pi fans have reasons for cheer this week as support for the Pi 400 showed up in the queue for version 5.14 of the Linux kernel, and hosting outfit Mythic Beasts added overclocked Pi 4s to its Raspberry Pi cloud.

        [...]

        Software options look set to increase with the arrival of mainline kernel support in Linux 5.14 with the addition of the Pi 400 into DeviceTree (as reported by Phoronix) in the “for-next” branch.

        It’s not clear why this has taken quite so long, since the device is very close to the Raspberry Pi 4. No kernel driver tweaks seem to be on the cards, just DTS changes for the higher clock speed, updated Wi-Fi chip, power-off via GPIO, and the dropping of the activity LED.

        The latter we noted in our review, where the power LED originally did double-duty for activity and looked downright odd. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Pi supremo Eben Upton told us, but the notification was dispensed with in launch models.

      • Beatriz Martins de Carvalho: Outreachy – Introduction

        I am Beatriz Carvalho, brazilian, living in Fundão, Portugal. I am graduated in computer engineering at Unipampa in Brazil. I work mostly with C, Python and I am learning JavaScript, CSS, among other things to create this site… I like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, One Piece, The Witcher… I also like to drink wine and some cocktails and last but not least: I love cats, I have two: Ophélia and Cisco.

        I’ve just been selected as an Outreachy intern for Linux Kernel working with my mentors Melissa Wen and Daniel Vetter on the project “Improvements to DRI-devel (aka kernel GPU subsystem)”.

        As an Outreachy intern, my first step is to say out loud for everyone to see my core values, Outreachy organizers make available a list with some values, and going through the list made me realize some things I value the most in life as an individual and once I started to work in the Linux Kernel these values caught my attention…

      • Brendan Gregg: USENIX LISA2021 BPF Internals (eBPF)

        For USENIX LISA2021 I gave a 40 minute deep dive talk on BPF internals for Linux, focusing on observability tracing tools. Since there are already BPF internals references online (listed in this post) I used the opportunity to create some new content, showing how bpftrace instrumentation works from user space down to machine code. I break it down to all the small components involved, where you’ll find it’s actually quite easy.

      • FWUPD 1.6.1 Adds FreeBSD UEFI Capsule Handling, More Hardware Now Supported – Phoronix

        A new feature point release is available for FWUPD for handling of system/component firmware and BIOS updating on Linux and other platforms.

        FWUPD 1.6.1 while just a point release does bring with it a few noteworthy additions. First up, FWUPD 1.6.1 now supports FreeBSD UEFI Capsule updates. This comes thanks to work by 3mdeb on porting FWUPD to the BSDs and that work starting to hit the mainline tree.

      • The “Memory Folios” Work Continues – Improving Linux Performance, 7% Faster Kernel Builds – Phoronix

        Matthew Wilcox of Oracle today sent out his latest patch series implementing the new “memory folios” type for the Linux kernel in an effort to improve Linux memory management and allow for better efficiency that ultimately translates into measurable performance gains.

      • Graphics Stack

        • GravityMark Launches As Cross-API Graphics Benchmark From Former Unigine Dev – Phoronix

          There’s a new, cross-platform, cross-API graphics benchmark out there that is free to download and focused on delivering maximum GPU acceleration support when rendering hundreds of thousands of objects.

          GravityMark is this new GPU benchmark out of Tellusim. Tellusim Technologies develops the Tellusim engine that is focused on professional simulations, visualizations, urban planning, and VR/AR use-cases.

        • Mesa’s New “Crocus” OpenGL Driver Is Performing Well For Old Intel Hardware – Phoronix

          Landing this week in Mesa 21.2′s development code is Crocus Gallium3D providing a new Intel OpenGL driver for i964 “Gem4″ through Haswell “Gen7″ graphics. While even Haswell graphics are showing their age these days, I couldn’t help but to fire up a few benchmarks seeing how this new Crocus open-source OpenGL driver performs against the existing “i965″ classic open-source driver for Linux systems.

        • Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial adds ruggedization and FuSa cores

          Nvidia has launched a “Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial” module that adds to the original design with dual Cortex-R5 functional safety (FuSa) cores, 32GB ECC RAM, 64GB eMMC, -40 to 85°C support, and shock and vibration resistance.

          Nvidia has opened $1,449 pre-orders for a more rugged version of its Jetson AGX Xavier module, the most powerful of its AI-enabled Jetson modules. Due to ship in July, the Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial offers additional ruggedization protections, ECC RAM, and a functional safety (FuSa) block based on a pair of Cortex-R5 cores. The Linux-driven module supports rugged intelligent video analytics, optical inspection, robotics, computer vision, autonomy and AI applications.

          The Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial is pin-, software- and form-factor compatible with the existing Jetson AGX Xavier module, which launched at $1,099 but now sells for $999. Like the original, the Industrial model features 8x ARMv8.2 cores and a 512-core Nvidia Volta GPU with 64 tensor cores with 2x Nvidia Deep Learning Accelerator (NVDLA) engines. There is also a 7-way VLIW vision chip.

        • NVIDIA Launches The Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial Module – Phoronix

          Given the success and popularity of their Jetson AGX developer board, NVIDIA has now launched the Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial Module that is a rugged, module-based version of the AGX Xavier intended for various industrial / manufacturing / construction use-cases.

          For those wanting AI and deep learning at the edge, NVIDIA is announcing today the Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial rugged system-on-module that is pin compatible with the existing Jetson AGX Xavier board. This module is intended for “AI at the edge in harsh environments where safety and reliability is a critical priority…The Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial is targeted for applications in industrial, aerospace, defense, construction, agriculture, logistics, inventory management, delivery, inspection and healthcare. Applications enabled across these sectors include worker and site safety, site access and monitoring, and inspection in hazardous and harsh environments, among others.”

        • Intel Xe Graphics Squeeze Out More Linux Performance By Flushing Less

          Intel’s “Gen12″ Xe Graphics should be performing marginally better with next quarter’s Mesa 21.2 feature release for its open-source ANV Vulkan driver.

          Merged today into Mesa 21.2-devel is an ANV driver improvement to reduce the tile and data cache flushing for Gen12. This in turn translates into small but measurable performance improvements across a variety of workloads.

    • Syetemd

      • Systemd 249-rc1 Released With Many New Features

        The first release candidate of systemd 249 is now available for testing with yet more new and improved features.

        Systemd 249 is going to be another big summertime update to this Linux init system. There are a ton of changes to find with systemd 249 and when going through the lengthy list this evening, some of the items that jumped out include:

        - Systemd-sysusers and systemd-firstboot now supports querying information from the credential subsystems.

    • Applications

      • Best 10 Open-source Survey collection self-hosted tools

        Are you looking for open-source survey management solutions? Here we have collected the best free open-source survey tools that you can download, install and setup on your own server.

        Let’s start talking about surveys, and then we will show you 10 open sources that will help you to manage your survey, collect data without having to worry about vendor lock-in or data lose.

        Because of the emergence of surveys that contain a lot of information, we have many solutions to manage surveys, analyze and deal with them to take the whole benefit from it.

        These open sources improve the referendum process and make full use of the questionnaire by assisting in the managing, making the right decision, making the researcher away from bias due to accurate statistics and reports, saves the time and effort required for the analysis process, and it helps predict what customers will do based on the survey.

      • ActivityWatch is a Free Personal Activity Tracker with Focus on Privacy

        ActivityWatch is a cross-platform automated time tracker that helps you track and understand how you spend your time on your devices.

        You probably spend many hours a week behind your computer. But which programs or web pages do you open the most, and when and for how long? How much time do you typically spend on your computer?

        You can find out the answers to these questions with ActivityWatch. In short, ActivityWatch is an app that automatically tracks how you spend time on your devices. It can be used to keep track of your productivity, time spent on different projects, bad screen habits, or just to understand how you spend your time. For example, if you spend too much time on Facebook or Twitter or some other website or application, you can use your ActivityWatch logs to determine how much time you actually spend on these sites.

      • Upgrading Homelab Kubernetes Cluster from 1.20 to 1.21

        Calico 3.19 has been released with support for Kubernetes 1.21.

        Also, the CKA exam environment is running Kubernetes 1.21 which I’m currently studying for, therefore it’s time to upgrade.

      • Send Messages From Your Scripts To Multiple Messaging Platforms Using PingMe

        PingMe is a command line tool for sending messages or alerts from Linux, Windows or macOS to various messaging platforms like Discord, Slack, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, Twillio, Mastodon, and more.

      • Try this new open source tool for data analytics | Opensource.com

        Data analytics is a trendy field with many solutions available. One of them is Cube.js, an open source analytical platform. You can think of Cube.js as a layer between your data sources and applications.

        As the diagram below shows, Cube.js supports serverless data warehouses and most modern relational database management systems (RDBMS). You can work with any JavaScript front-end library for data visualization, and Cube.js will take care of the rest, including access control, performance, concurrency, and more.

      • Keep track of your IRC chats with ZNC | Opensource.com

        For a bit more than a year, I’ve been wondering if it is possible to bolt the open source Matrix communications network to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in such a way that I can still use my ZNC IRC bouncer without an extra proliferation of nicknames. The answer, is amusingly, yes. But first, some background.

        What’s IRC?

        IRC has been around since August 1988, and it’s been a staple of real-time communications ever since. It’s also one of the early open source projects, as the code for the original IRC server was eventually shared. Over the years, it’s been quite useful for meeting many developers’ real-time communication needs, although not without its own share of drama. However, it has been resilient and is still widely used despite newer options.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to install Godot 3 on Deepin 20.2

        In this video, we are looking at how to install Godot 3 on Deepin 20.2.

      • How to install Emby Theater Electron on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install Emby Theater Electron on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • How to edit PPAs in Linux Mint

        Are you a Linux Mint user? Do you need to figure out how to edit your PPAs on your system but don’t know what to do? We can help! Follow along in this guide as we go over how to edit PPAs in Linux Mint!

      • How To Install OrientDB on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install OrientDB on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, OrientDB is an open-source NoSQL database management system written in Java. One of its main features is that it is not only NoSQL-based but also very fast. It is the most versatile DBMS which supports Graph, Document, Reactive, Full-Text, Geospatial, and Key-Value models in one Multi-Model product.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the OrientDB open source NoSQL database on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

      • [Older] How to install and use Amazonlinux on Docker Container – Linux Shout

        Amazon Linux AMI (Amazon Machine Image) which is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux Image available on Amazon Cloud to provide a stable, secure, and high-performance server platform. Just like CentOS, it is a derivative of RHEL, however, supported and maintained by Amazon Web Services to use on Amazon EC2 (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud). This ensures the AWS users wouldn’t face any problems such as abandoning the project, remove long-term support, or delayed updates.

      • How to Upgrade Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 21.04

        Ubuntu 21.04 Hirsute Hippo was released on April 22, 2021. It is a non-LTS short-term release with nine months’ support. It comes with some extra features for developers and innovators including, Flutter application development SDK, Active Directory integration, and Microsoft SQL Server for Ubuntu.

        Ubuntu 20.04 is a long-term support release and supported for five years. If you want a stable version then stick with Ubuntu 20.04. But you want to experience the latest Ubuntu flavor, you can follow the guide to upgrade to Ubuntu 21.04.

      • How to Edit a File Using Nano

        Nano is a simple and reliable command-line text editor included in Unix and Linux operating systems. It packs with all the essential features in a command-line text editor such as UTF-8 encoding, syntax highlighting, search and replace, support for regular expressions, and more.

        Nano is best for simple edits and a great editor for beginners.

        In this tutorial, we learn the basic usage of Nano editor such as opening and creating a file, copy/cut/paste, search/replace, saving, and exiting.

      • How To Restore Broken Arch Linux To Previous Working State

        This brief tutorial describes how to restore broken Arch Linux and its variants like EndeavourOS, Manjaro Linux to previous working state.
        The other day, I did a full system upgrade using command “sudo pacman -Syu”, and ended up with a broken Arch Linux system.

        My Arch Linux refused to boot into graphical mode, and kept displaying the error messages: “dependency failed multi-user system” and “dependency failed for graphical interface”.

        The only option I had is to login to single user mode and try to rollback the updated packages to their previous versions.

        From the single user mode, I tried the following:
        I tried to install packages from official repositories, but I couldn’t. Because my Network card is not recognized in single user mode, so Internet didn’t work.

      • Managing filenames with path expansion – Linux Concept

        In this tutorial, we will see the meta-characters and expansion technique that can improve file management efficiency.

      • Managing files using command-line tools – Linux Concept

        Commands are names of programs installed on the system.

      • Using man pages and the help command – Linux Concept

        We could spend a good amount of time learning CentOS; it is equivalent to serving you cooked food, but in place of this, we could actually learn how to cook, so that you’ll be able to make your own different recipes. Linux has one of the best and largest bodies of documentation in the operating system for most of the commands and their options. Whether you are an experienced user or a beginner, you will never remember the exact use of all the Linux commands and utilities, each with its own multiple options. It is in this case that Linux documentation comes to our rescue.

      • Document Typeset with LaTeX and TeXstudio on Fedora – Part 1 | FOSS Linux

        LaTeX is a free and open-source software for typesetting documents. LaTeX is a preparation system for high-quality typesetting and the defacto for large technical documents, computer science, mathematics, and physics documents. TeXstudio makes it easy to edit and format LaTeX documents. You can use LaTeX to create reports, a resume, cover letters, students can present assignments or thesis, and instructors can edit presentations, syllabi, or exams.

        Technically, LaTeX is a set of macros and commands for the programming language TeX. Leslie Lamport originally wrote LaTeX to extend the functionality of the TeX typesetting engine by Donald Knuth.

        Part 1 of this article is an introduction document typesetting with LaTeX on the TeXstudio app. It will cover formatting, page layout, lists, tables, and graphics. Part 2, document typesetting with LaTeX and TeXstudio on Fedora – Part 2 will cover Math formulas, listing content and references, cross-referencing.

      • Linux apps on Chrome OS in 2021: A complete guide

        Chrome OS is incredibly powerful and versatile, running on a variety of hardware and can also run a variety of apps. In addition to running Android apps from the Play Store, it’s also possible to run full Linux apps. For many users, the basic Chromebook functionality is just fine. However, if you find yourself wanting an app or service your Chromebook doesn’t offer out of the box, Linux apps may be for you.

        What exactly can you accomplish running Linux apps? Chrome OS by default is a cloud computing platform, which leaves out some desktop-class apps you might see on a Mac or PC. For instance, if you need to run Photoshop natively, that’s not possible on your Chromebook. Video editing is also quite difficult by default on Chrome OS. Both of these problems are addressed by Linux apps.

        In addition, if you’re a developer, you undoubtedly need Linux for coding tools. While not all Chromebooks support Linux apps (there are some baseline system requirements), most modern Chromebooks will have the option available. In this guide we walk through precisely how to enable and install Linux apps on your Chromebook, and run down the best Linux apps available on Chrome OS.

      • Squid proxy configuration tutorial on Linux

        Squid is a robust proxy server that supports caching for protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP. It has the ability to speed up web requests by caching frequently accessed websites, and serving that cache to requesting clients. This is a great way for networks to reduce bandwidth consumption and provide snappier response times for web browsing.

        In this guide, we’ll go over the step by step instructions to download, install, and configure Squid proxy on a Linux system. Follow along with us to get it setup on your own system, which can either provide caching just for yourself or all the way up to an entire organization of computers.

      • Build a static website with Eleventy | Opensource.com

        A static site generator is a tool that generates a full, static HTML website based on raw data and a set of templates. It automates the task of coding individual HTML pages and gets those pages ready to serve to users. Because the HTML pages are prebuilt, they load very quickly in users’ browsers.

        Static sites work particularly well for documentation, too, because static sites are easy to scale, and they’re an easy way to generate, maintain, and deploy your project’s documentation. For these reasons, organizations often use them to document application programming interfaces (APIs), database schemas, and other information. Documentation is an important part of software development, design, and other aspects of tech. All codebases require some form of documentation, with options ranging from a simple README to full documentation.

      • Listen to music on FreeDOS

        Music is a great way to relax. On Linux, I listen to music using Rhythmbox. But did you know you can listen to music on FreeDOS, as well? Let’s take a look at two popular programs to listen to music:

        Listen to music with Mplayer

        Mplayer is an open source media player that’s usually found on Linux, Windows, and Mac—but there’s a DOS version available, too. And that’s the version we include in FreeDOS. While the DOS port is based on an older version (version 1.0rc2-3-3-2 from 2007) it is perfectly serviceable for playing media on DOS.

      • Learn how to configure Oracle Linux for backup and disaster recovery

        The Oracle Linux documentation team recently published Oracle® Linux: Backing Up Files and Storage Volumes for Disaster Recovery, which describes how to configure your Oracle Linux system to automatically back up and restore files, folders, and storage volumes. This document provides reference material for both Oracle Linux 7 and Oracle Linux 8 and also provides pointers to additional disaster recovery solutions provided through hosting systems on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

        Relax and Recover (ReaR) software, available in the yum channels on the Oracle Linux Yum Server, is a disaster recovery tool that you can use in your local data center on Oracle Linux systems. ReaR automatically generates a bootable recovery environment in the form of an ISO image file and also generates external file backups. ReaR can be scheduled to run incremental file backups using the crontab utility and backup data can be stored on networked or attached storage.

      • Learn Kubernetes by Example

        If you’ve worked in enterprise IT at any point in the past six years – either in development or operations – chances are high that you’ve crossed paths with Kubernetes, which has become the de facto standard for deploying, managing and scaling containerized applications—and for good reason. Software architecture is arguably one of the most important assets for the future of your business, and Kubernetes is the foundation for today’s hybrid cloud architectures.

        Safe to say, Kubernetes plays a critical role in delivering value to your customers today and enabling you to adapt tomorrow. Keeping your skills sharp and staying up-to-date on developments around this fast-moving technology are paramount.

        Kubernetes by Example is here to help. Brought to you by Red Hat, Kubernetes By Example is a free online resource that provides a broad range of Kubernetes-focused tutorials, news and community interaction—all designed around a hands-on, “learn by doing” approach that allows learners to practice skills as they are taught.

      • How to Install Terraform v1.0.0 in CentOS 8 / Ubuntu 21.04 – Unixcop

        Terraform is a popular cloud orchestration tool in the world of automation, which is used to deploy your infrastructure through the IAC (Infrastructure as code) approach. Terraform is built by Hashicorp and released under Mozilla Public License.

      • How to create a Virtual Hard disk in ubuntu

        Virtual Hard Disk is a type of disk image file which act as a hard drive capable of storing data similar to a physical drive. Likewise it act as a container similar to a physical drive. Basically it replicates a Hard drive with all the the data and structural features. It works similar to a physical hard disk drive. It contains its own file system. We can use it to store and run operating system. Apart from that , VHD can also be used to store data as well. Here we will learn to create VHD in ubuntu.

        The major use of the VHD is in virtual machines, like virtualbox . In virtual box these virtual hard drives can be used to store operating systems . It also holds the data related to the particular Virtual machines.In this tutorial I will guide you through all the steps required to create VHD in ubuntu. We are creating a virtual hard disk on ubuntu of size 1 GB and EXT4 format file system.

      • How to Create Hard Disk partitions in ubuntu

        Storage devices play a critical role in the working of any system. Different operating systems use various types of file structures to store data. So generally we use GPT or MBL file storage styles for that. With the help of these two we can create partitions in a storage device. Also , We can split large memory sized devices into smaller sub-segments called partitions. Partitioning enables us to split our storage drive into multiple parts. Where each part acts as a seperate single storage drive. Apart from that we can use these partitions to install multiple operating systems in the same machine. Here we will learn to create partition in linux.

        In general, this tutorial I will guide you through all the detailed wise steps. Here I am using the ubuntu server to create partitions. Furthermore ,with the help of this tutorial you will be able to create partitions on many similar linux distributions.

      • How to Install Helm on Linux – Unixcop

        Deploying applications to Kubernetes is a complicated process. Many tools simplify this process, and one of them is Helm.

        Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that configures and deploys applications and services on a Kubernetes cluster. It uses Helm charts to simplify the development and deployment process.

        In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to install Helm on Linux

      • [ Easy ] Ubuntu Install Inkscape – LateWeb.Info

        Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Other formats can be imported and exported.

        Inkscape can render primitive vector shapes (e.g. rectangles, ellipses, polygons, arcs, spirals, stars and 3D boxes) and text. These objects may be filled with solid colors, patterns, radial or linear color gradients and their borders may be stroked, both with adjustable transparency. Embedding and optional tracing of raster graphics is also supported, enabling the editor to create vector graphics from photos and other raster sources. Created shapes can be further manipulated with transformations, such as moving, rotating, scaling and skewing.

      • How to Wipe Files / Free Space to Protect Against Recovering in Ubuntu | UbuntuHandbook

        This simple tutorial shows beginners how to easily wipe files, folder, and/or free disk space to protect your files from recovering in Ubuntu.

        As you may know, any deleted files can be easily restored from the trash can. Even after you emptied the trash, files can still be recovered. So to prevent information leakage and protect privacy, you have to ‘wipe’ or ‘shred’ files.

      • How to setup Traefik load balancer with Docker in Ubuntu 20.04

        Traefik is a modern reverse proxy and load balancing server that supports layer 4 (TCP) and layer 7 (HTTP) load balancing. Its configuration can be defined in JSON, YML, or in TOML format. It consists of entry point (frontend), service (backend), router (rules), middlewares (optional features).

        This article will demonstrate how to use Traefik load balancer in layer 7 (HTTP) mode.

      • Installing Apache Spark on Ubuntu 20.04 or 18.04 – Linux Shout

        Apache Spark is a general-purpose data processing tool called a data processing engine. Used by data engineers and data scientists to perform extremely fast data queries on large amounts of data in the terabyte range. It is a framework for cluster-based calculations that competes with the classic Hadoop Map / Reduce by using the RAM available in the cluster for faster execution of jobs.

        In addition, Spark also offers the option of controlling the data via SQL, processing it by streaming in (near) real-time, and provides its own graph database and a machine learning library. The framework offers in-memory technologies for this purpose, i.e. it can store queries and data directly in the main memory of the cluster nodes.

      • WP-CLI – Managing WordPress from the Linux Terminal

        If you are a system administrator and responsible for managing hundreds or thousands of WordPress websites then it is a very time-consuming process. You will need to log in to each WordPress control panel, install or update plugins and themes. This is the place where the WP-CLI comes into the picture. The
        WP-CLI is a powerful command-line tool specifically designed to manage WordPress from the command line. You can manage multiple WordPress sites without log into the WordPress admin panel. With WP-CLI, you can perform several operations including, installing and updating plugins, themes, creating content, working with databases, and more.

        In this post, I will show how to install and use WP-CLI to manage WordPress sites.

    • Wine or Emulation

      • DXVK 1.9 Adds Support for Nvidia ShadowLibs Option in Final Fantasy XV, More

        Coming about four months after DXVK 1.8, the DXVK 1.9 release is here to implement Conservative Rasterization for supported graphics cards, allowing the enablement of the Nvidia ShadowLibs option in the Final Fantasy XV game, which provides improved PCSS (Percentage Closer Soft Shadows) for better performance and higher quality. This change is also beneficial for enabling similar options in other games.

        DXVK 1.9 also implements basic support for various sub-sampled YUV texture formats like NV12 used for video playback in games, basic support for the ID3D11VideoProcessor APIs used for video playback in NieR Replicant and Contra: Rogue Corps, as well as a frame rate limiter as a workaround for games that don’t work correctly at high frame rates.

      • Direct3D 9 / 10 / 11 to Vulkan translation layer DXVK 1.9 is out now | GamingOnLinux

        After a while between major releases, the DXVK project has splashed onto the scene again with a juicy new release ripe for picking with DXVK 1.9 out now.

        For those not aware: DXVK is a Vulkan-based implementation of D3D9, D3D10 and D3D11 for Linux / Wine. It’s a major part of what powers Steam Play Proton. In short, it makes Windows games with DirectX run with Vulkan instead so they work on Linux through compatibility layers.

      • DXVK 1.9 Brings Conservative Rasterization For Running Direct3D Games On Linux

        A new release of DXVK is available for running Direct3D 9/10/11 games over the Vulkan API that is most notably used by Steam Play (Proton) for allowing many Windows games to run gracefully on Linux.

        With DXVK 1.9 there is basic support for various sub-sampled YUV texture formats for supporting video playback in some games like Nier Replicant and Contra: Rogue Corps. There is also now conservative rasterization support for DXVK 1.9 when paired with supported GPUs in order to allow NVIDIA ShadowLabs for Final Fantasy XV and other possible games.

      • Left 4 Dead 2 updated with Vulkan support thanks to DXVK

        We’ve only just seen a new release of the Direct3D to Vulkan translation layer DXVK, and now it’s powering Left 4 Dead 2 with a fresh free upgrade out now.

        Much like we saw with DXVK being added to Portal 2, this new rendering mode is optional. It can be enabled by adding “-vulkan” as a command line option. To do so: right click the game and go to Properties, ensure you’re on the General tab on the left, then enter “-vulkan” (without quotes) in the Launch Options box.

      • Left 4 Dead 2 Updated With Vulkan Rendering Via DXVK, Many Other Improvements

        Similar to Portal 2 getting Vulkan rendering support earlier this year by leveraging DXVK to convert Direct3D calls to Vulkan, Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 has now received similar treatment alongside a big update out today.

        Left 4 Dead 2 debuted more than one decade ago and powered by the Source Engine while now is receiving Vulkan API support thanks to DXVK for allowing the non-intrusive Direct3D over Vulkan routing. Today’s Left 4 Dead 2 update can be enabled with the Vulkan renderer back-end via the -vulkan CLI launch option. When making use of Vulkan is also now better support for ultra-wide monitors with this game on Linux.

    • Games

      • Master of Orion inspired strategy Remnants of the Precursors had a new release

        The original Master of Orion was certainly something special, and I personally put endless hours into the sequel. Remnants of the Precursors aims to play into your nostalgia and try to modernize the original mechanics.

        It’s a free and open source full game, only inspired be the original Master of Orion. You will play as one of 10 unique races and lead them to galactic domination or, if you fail, humiliation and defeat. Micromanagement is minimal and the gameplay smooth and streamlined. Earlier in June 2021 it gained a new release which focused a lot on fixing up bugs to get it into a properly releasable state. There’s also a few feature updates.

      • Boppio is a promising new Early Access factory and automation building sim

        Like a more peaceful Factorio in 3D, factory and automation building sim Boppio recently entered Early Access.

        You know the drill (get it?) with such a game if you’ve played any building sim. You run around and mine for resources, construct buildings, set up some automation and continually expand until the whole world around you is a well-oiled machine. It’s nowhere near the greatness of Factorio and it’s early days for Boppio but it’s still quite promising.

      • Kalypso Media to reduce pricing on their games as a result of doing well | GamingOnLinux

        Kalypso Media have announced something quite lovely. Since they’re doing so well, they’ve decided that going forward they will be charging less for new and existing games.

        As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with a shift to digital games instead of boxes copies and sales of their developed and published games doing so well they’ve now set a price-point for all future new PC releases at €39.99 / $39.99 / £34.99.

        “We have been able to increase our digital sales and, above all, margins in recent months, while physical sales in traditional retail have slumped due to the COVID-19 situation. Currently, we do not expect this trend to reverse even after the pandemic. Most of our fans buy or stream games, primarily, digitally, so it is very likely that sales of physical products will continue to decline, saving us costs in manufacturing, logistics and distribution,” said Simon Hellwig, CEO of Kalypso.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDE Plasma 5.22.1, Bugfix Release for June

          Today KDE releases a bugfix update to KDE Plasma 5, versioned 5.22.1.

          Plasma 5.22 was released in June 2021 with many feature refinements and new modules to complete the desktop experience.

          This release adds a week’s worth of new translations and fixes from KDE’s contributors. The bugfixes are typically small but important and include..

        • Akademy 2021 at Home

          Once again I plan to be at Akademy. I almost silently attended last year edition. OK… I had a talk there but didn’t blog. I even didn’t post my traditional sketchnotes post. I plan to do better this year.

          I’ll try to sketchnote again, we’ll see how that works out. Oddly enough, I might do the 2020 post after the 2021 one.

        • KDE’s Nate Graham: Bug triaging is the foundation of quality and we need more of it

          Bug triaging is a largely invisible and often thankless task. But it’s the foundation of quality in our software offerings. Every day, our users file between 30 and 50 bug reports on https://bugs.kde.org, and often up to 100 right after a big release! Many will be duplicates of pre-existing issues and need to be marked as such. Quite a few will be caused by issues outside of KDE’s control and this also needs to be marked as such. Many will be crash reports with missing or useless backtraces, and their reporters need to be asked to add the missing information to make the bug report actionable. And the rest need to be prioritized, moved to the right component, tagged appropriately, and eventually fixed.

        • Debian’s Cinnamon desktop maintainer quits because he thinks KDE is better now

          Norbert Preining, the maintainer of the Cinnamon desktop packages for Debian is quitting as he no longer uses it – though others have volunteered to take his place.

          The origins of the Cinnamon desktop go back to 2011 and the release of the controversial GNOME 3 desktop, which introduced radical changes. Some Linux users preferred the desktop metaphor offered by GNOME 2.x, including the Linux Mint team. The MATE desktop was a fork of GNOME 2, while the Linux Mint folk made Cinnamon, a fork of GNOME 3 designed to retain the design of GNOME 2, using the Mint Gnome Shell Extensions (MGSE). Cinnamon later became a full fork of GNOME 3.

          Cinnamon remains the default desktop for Linux Mint (which also offers MATE and Xfce editions), but is also available for other distributions including Debian. Mint itself is based on Ubuntu, though there is also a Linux Mint Debian edition (LMDE).

        • Simplifying Grammar Checks for Manuals.

          Like most online manuals, the Krita manual has a contributor’s guide. It’s filled with things like “who is our assumed audience?”, “what is the dialect of English we should use?”, etc. It’s not a perfect guide, outdated in places, definitely, but I think it does it’s job.

          So, sometimes I, who officially maintains the Krita manual, look at other project’s contributor’s guides. And usually what I find there is…

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • Sovereignty on a Federated System: problems we faced on GNOME’s Matrix instance

          This post follows an introduction to Matrix with e-mails, where I explain that Matrix is a federated system.

          Federation can be either public or private. A public server can communicate with any other server, except the ones which are explicitely avoided. Meanwhile, a private server can only communicate with a selected list of other servers.

          Private federation is often deployed between entities that can trust each other, for example between universites. There often are processes to take back control of things when they derail on a server you don’t manage, because people on the remote server are contractually bound with you.

          But many organisations, and especially open source projets, deploy their instance in public federation. This means strangers from the Internet can interact with your server. Public federation comes with its own set of non-technical risks.

          In this post I’m going to guide you through the problems we faced on our GNOME Matrix instance. For each problem I’ll bring a solution. They will be consolidated at the end of the post in the form of a target we want to reach eventually, along with the acknowledgement of the limits of what we can do. Please note that these problems have more to do with careful planning and deployment than with the Matrix protocol itself.

    • Distributions

      • MakuluLinux Core Now Built on Forked Gnome

        Overall, the new Core distro with the heavily modified Gnome base is a solid computing platform. On first use, you are greeted with a brief animated presentation of how the desktop works and the basic features to get you started.

        If you are serious about considering MakuluLinux Core, make sure you watch the 44-minute video shown above. Raymer narrates the presentation and literally walks you through all the features and setting how-to tips. Also required reading is the Wiki user guide referenced in the menus.

        The only difficulty new users will have is deciding which MakuluLinux edition best suits their computing needs.

      • Security-Oriented Alpine Linux 3.14 Released with KDE Plasma 5.22, QEMU 6.0, and More

        Five months in the works, Alpine Linux 3.14 is here as another big update for this security-oriented distribution, featuring the latest and greatest KDE Plasma 5.22 desktop environment series, along with the KDE Gear 21.04.2 software suite, for those who want to install the KDE Plasma desktop.

        But, Alpine Linux is a Linux distribution designed for servers, firewalls, routers, VPNs, etc., so it comes with major updates for packages needed for these type of setups. These include Lua 5.4.3, HAProxy 2.4.0, nginx 1.20.0, njs 0.5.3, Node.js 14.17.0, PostgreSQL 13.3, Python 3.9.5, QEMU 6.0.0, R 4.1.0, and Zabbix 5.4.1.

      • Alpine 3.14.0 released

        We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.14.0, the first in the v3.14 stable series.

      • Alpine Linux 3.14 Released With Many Package Updates For This Lightweight Distro

        A new version of Alpine Linux is now available for this distribution that’s popular for container use and other environments requiring a small footprint or those simply preferring its Busybox + Musl libc usage.

        Alpine Linux 3.14 is the new release out today which is primarily driven by having a number of updated packages. Among the updated packages with Alpine Linux 3.14 are QEMU 6.0, R 4.1, Lua 5.4.3, Python 3.9.5, PostgreSQL 13.3, Nginx 1.20, and many others. If wanting to use Alpine Linux 3.14 on the desktop, KDE Plasma 5.22 is also available.

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

      • Arch Family

        • Hash Linux: Arch Linux Preconfigured With Xmonad, Awesome, i3, and Bspwm Window Manager

          With some effort, you can install Arch Linux. You may also install a desktop environment or windows manager of your choice on your Arch system.

          That takes some time and effort but it is surely achievable. However, there exists projects that try to ease the pain by providing you a system preconfigured with a desktop environment or window manager of your choice. ArcoLinux is one such example.

          Recently, I came across another project that has its sole focus on providing choice of window managers on top of the wonderful Arch distribution.

          Hash Project offers four preconfigured Arch variants with tiling window managers: Awesome, Xmonad, i3, and Bspwm.

          If you’re a beginner window manager hopper, the Hash project is what you should definitely try at once. Without investing time to configure it first, you can explore the potential of window managers and get used to keyboard-driven systems.

          In this article, I’ll discuss my part of the experience with the Hash Linux Xmonad edition featuring Linux kernel 5.12.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Javier Martinez Canillas: The curious case of the ghostly modalias

          I was finishing my morning coffee at the Fedora ARM mystery department when a user report came into my attention: the tpm_tis_spi driver was not working on a board that had a TPM device connected through SPI.

          There was no /dev/tpm0 character device present in the system, even when the driver was built as a module and the Device Tree (DT) passed to the kernel had a node with a “infineon,slb9670″ compatible string.

        • What you need to know about WebSphere Hybrid Edition – IBM Developer

          IBM WebSphere Hybrid Edition is a bundle of IBM runtimes for enterprise and cloud-native Java workloads. WebSphere Hybrid Edition enables developers to flexibly deploy both WebSphere traditional runtimes and Liberty runtimes (including the open-source Open Liberty framework), depending on their needs while optimizing the use of WebSphere Network Deployment, WebSphere Application Server, and Liberty Core license entitlements.

          WebSphere Application Server traditional is a trusted application server for Java EE applications. Liberty is a fast, lightweight, and modular framework for cloud-native Java applications and microservices that are optimized for cloud and Kubernetes and supporting a wide spectrum of Java APIs, including the latest Eclipse MicroProfile and Jakarta EE API.

          With WebSphere Hybrid Edition, you can continue to run workloads on WebSphere Application Server traditional reliably, build new services on Liberty and deploy them to cloud, and modernize and refactor your legacy applications whenever you’re ready at your own pace. The choices are yours.

        • Understanding the CentOS 7 filesystem hierarchy – Linux Concept

          We can compare a filesystem to a refrigerator, or any other storage with multiple shelves that is used for storing different items. These shelves or compartments help us to organize grocery items in our refrigerator by certain characteristics, such as shape, size, type, and so on. The same analogy is applicable to a filesystem, which is the epitome of storing and organizing collections of data and files in human-usable form.

        • File encryption and decryption made easy with GPG | Enable Sysadmin

          GPG is a popular Linux encrypting tool. Find out how to use its power to keep private files private.

        • Molly de Blanc: Welcome Red Hat as a GUADEC Sponsor [Ed: IBM ('Red Hat') rewarding, financially, those who attacked Richard Stallman and the FSF with hate and defamation]

          “As one of the many active contributors within the vibrant GNOME community, Red Hat is very pleased to also be among the sponsors of this year’s GUADAC event,” said a representative from Red Hat. “Community is about connections, and as we move into a world that is waking up from decreased social contact, those connections are more important than ever. GNOME remains an incredible part of the open source ecosystem, and the conversations made at GUADEC amongst users and contributors are a big reason why GNOME continues to be successful! We are thrilled to be a part of these conversations and look forward to participating in the GUADEC 2021 online event.”

          Kristi Progri, lead organizer of GUADEC, says “On behalf of everyone at GUADEC organizing team, I would like to express our sincere gratitude for the generous sponsorship to GUADEC, We’re happy they’re joining us again at GUADEC to help build GNOME and show the community what they are working on.”

        • Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Virtualization Now Available

          Red Hat has announced the general availability of Red Hat’s migration toolkit for virtualization to help organizations accelerate open hybrid cloud strategies by making it easier to migrate existing workloads to modern infrastructure in a streamlined, wholesale manner.

          By bringing applications based on virtual machines (VMs) to Red Hat OpenShift, IT organizations can experience a smoother, more scalable modernization experience while mitigating potential risks and downtime.

        • Move virtual machines to OpenShift at-scale with Red Hat’s migration toolkit for virtualization

          Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, is used by enterprises across the globe that are looking to bring applications to market faster. The benefits of OpenShift can be extended to virtualized workloads through OpenShift Virtualization, OpenShift’s capability for Kubernetes-native virtualization, but first comes the hard part: How do you actually move your workloads to Kubernetes in the first place?

        • How open source is lowering barriers to higher education

          Stepping into the college experience is a whirlwind. For many people, it’s your first time away from home and one of the first times that you are tasked with managing your life on your own. There are a lot of details you need to figure out. Are you going to live on campus or off? What meal plan do you want to use? What do you want to choose as your major? What classes do you want to take? And likely most pressing, how are you going to afford everything you need?

          When talking about the cost of education, there is one thing that is an issue for every student: the cost of textbooks. Textbooks for a college course can cost upwards of $100 apiece and, depending on how many courses you are taking in a semester, that can add up very quickly. In fact, the College Board found that the average university student spends more than $1,200 on books each year. For students it can be hard to justify the steep costs of books, especially when it comes to courses outside your field of study.

        • Fedora Community Blog: Heroes of Fedora (HoF) – F34 Final

          Hello fellow testers, welcome to the Fedora Linux 34 Final installation of Heroes of Fedora! In this post, we’ll look at the stats concerning the testing of Fedora Linux 34 Final. The purpose of Heroes of Fedora is to provide a summation of testing activity on each milestone release of Fedora. Without community support, Fedora would not exist, so thank you to all who contributed to this release! Without further ado, let’s get started!

      • Debian Family

        • Raphaël Hertzog: Freexian’s report about Debian Long Term Support, May 2021

          In May, we again put aside 2100 EUR to fund Debian projects. There was no proposals for new projects received, thus we’re looking forward to receive more projects from various Debian teams! Please do not hesitate to submit a proposal, if there is a project that could benefit from the funding!

          We’re looking forward to receive more projects from various Debian teams! Learn more about the rationale behind this initiative in this article.

        • Jonathan Dowland: Opinionated IkiWiki v1

          It’s been more than a year since I wrote about Opinionated IkiWiki, a pre-configured, containerized deployment of Ikiwiki with opinions. My intention was to make something that is easy to get up and running if you are more experienced with containers than IkiWiki.

        • Ben Hutchings: Debian LTS work, May 2021

          In May I was assigned 13.5 hours of work by Freexian’s Debian LTS initiative and carried over 4.5 hours from earlier months. I worked 16 hours and will carry over the remainder.

          I finished reviewing the futex code in the PREEMPT_RT patchset for Linux 4.9, and identified several places where it had been mis-merged with the recent futex security fixes. I sent a patch for these upstream, which was accepted and applied in v4.9.268-rt180.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Canonical announces Ubuntu Pro for Google Cloud

          Canonical has announced that Ubuntu Pro is now available on Google Cloud. According to the firm, Ubuntu Pro is a premium version of Ubuntu aimed at enterprise and production use that comes with several additional features including live kernel patching, a 10-year maintenance commitment, and patches for software in Ubuntu’s universe repository.

          Commenting on the news, June Yang, VP and GM, Compute, Google Cloud, said…

        • Ubuntu Pro launches on Google Cloud

          Canonical has launched the premium version of the open source Ubuntu Linux kernel on Google Cloud, offering enterprise users a suite and new features and security capabilities for their deployments.

          Ubuntu Pro on Google Cloud is available to all Google Cloud users, with the deployment allowing for instant access to all security patches covering thousands of open source apps, as well as critical compliance features.

        • Ubuntu Pro debuts on Google Cloud: Here’s what it offers

          Canonical and Google Cloud have announced the launch of Ubuntu Pro for Google Cloud, a premium version of Ubuntu focusing on enterprise and production use. Available to all Google Cloud users, the new offering provides customers with an improved experience, expanded security coverage, and integration with critical Google Cloud features.
          “The availability of Ubuntu Pro on Google Cloud will offer our enterprise customers the additional security and compliance services needed for their mission-critical workloads,” noted June Yang, VP and GM, Compute, Google Cloud.

        • Linux Mint 20.2 Beta Is Now Available for Download with Cinnamon 5.0, Xfce 4.16, and MATE 1.24

          talked about the upcoming Linux Mint 20.2 “Uma” release here on 9to5Linux, so if you’re reading the blog regularly you should know that it’s based on the Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (Focal Fossa) operating system, powered by Linux kernel 5.4 LTS, and featuring the latest Cinnamon 5.0 desktop environment on the flagship edition. The Xfce and MATE editions ship with Xfce 4.16 and MATE 1.24 desktops.

          Another major change is the inclusion of a brand-new app as part of Linux Mint’s XApps initiative, called Bulky (a.k.a. File Renamer), which can be used to bulk rename files. The Bulky app is available in the Cinnamon and MATE editions since the Xfce edition comes with a built-in file renamer in the Thunar file manger.

        • How to manage a 24×7 private cloud with one engineer

          In the last several years, we have witnessed the creation of many technologies, starting with the cloud and going further to machine learning, artificial intelligence, IoT, big data, robotics, automation and much more. The more the tech evolves, the more organizations thrive to adopt these technologies seeking digital transformation and disrupting industries along their journey, all for the benefit of better serving their consumers.

          With every technology having its own requirements, costs and benefits, the only common aspect between any technology you decide to invest in is one thing: it is all based on achieving a business goal that will help your organization better position itself in the market. You might be luckily taking advantage of leading your field, or looking to better serve your customers, or even keeping up with tough competition. Whatever your motive is, the aim will always be to realise a business goal out of your investment.

        • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 687

          Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 687 for the week of June 6 – 12, 2021. The full version of this issue is available here.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • Mozilla joins call for fifth FCC Commissioner appointment

            In a letter sent to the White House on Friday, June 11, 2021, Mozilla joined over 50 advocacy groups and unions asking President Biden and Vice President Harris to appoint the fifth FCC Commissioner. Without a full team of appointed Commissioners, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is limited in its ability to move forward on crucial tech agenda items such as net neutrality and on addressing the country’s digital divide.

          • Don’t Like Firefox’s New Look? Try These Tweaks

            if Firefox’s fancy new look has left you feeling frustrated and out of sorts check out this trifecta of tweaks, all of which help tame the browser’s new UI.

          • Niko Matsakis: CTCFT 2021-06-21 Agenda

            The second “Cross Team Collaboration Fun Times” (CTCFT) meeting will take place one week from today, on 2021-06-21 (in your time zone)! This post describes the main agenda items for the meeting; you’ll find the full details (along with a calendar event, zoom details, etc) on the CTCFT website.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • 100 Paper Cuts as a new student mentoring activity

          Just before the pandemic, the Board of Directors of The Document Foundation approved a budget to launch an educational program targeted to universities, where students at selected tech schools would receive an economic incentive to promote LibreOffice amongst their peers, with the objective of increasing the number of young contributors both in source code development and in other areas. Unfortunately, the pandemics has forced all universities to stop all collateral activities, and this has resulted in the program being frozen for over one year.

        • Multiple columns in LibreOffice text boxes

          Thanks to SUSE, our valuable partner who supported this development, we at Collabora Productivity have implemented support for multi-column layout in LibreOffice’s text boxes.

          Up to now, it was only possible to use columns in Writer’s page styles, sections and frames. One could not make text boxes, including those used in Impress, with text distributed to several columns. Well, there are workarounds like using tables, but indeed that was not the same, and was breaking the text flow.

      • CMS

        • WordPress 5.8 Beta 2

          WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 is now available for testing!

          This software is still in development, so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.

        • Kiwi TCMS: Thank you for downloading Kiwi TCMS 500000 times

          We are happy to announce that Kiwi TCMS has been downloaded more than 500000 times via Docker Hub! You can check the real-time stats here.

      • FSFE

      • FSF

        • A possible copyright-policy change for glibc

          The GNU C Library developers are asking for comments on a proposal to stop requiring developers to assign their copyrights to the Free Software Foundation. This mirrors the recent change by GCC, except that the community is being consulted first. “The changes to accept patches with or without FSF copyright assignment would be effective on August 2nd, and would apply to all open branches. The glibc stewards, like the GCC SC, continue to affirm the principles of Free Software, and that will never change.”

        • Seeking input from developers: glibc copyright assignment policy.
          Community,

glibc was created as part of the GNU Project but has grown to operate as
an autonomous project. As part of the GNU Toolchain the glibc stewards
support the gcc project policy changes presented here:

https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-June/236182.html

The glibc stewards are seeking input from developers to decide if the project
should relax the requirement to assign copyright for all changes to the
Free Software Foundation as follows:

Contributors who have an FSF Copyright Assignment wouldn't need to
change anything.  Contributors who wish to utilize the Developer Certificate
of Origin[1] would add a Signed-off-by message to their commit messages.

The changes to accept patches with or without FSF copyright assignment
would be effective on August 2nd, and would apply to all open branches.

The glibc stewards, like the GCC SC, continue to affirm the principles of
Free Software, and that will never change.

glibc will continue to be developed, distributed, and licensed under the
GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 or any later version as
published by the Free Software Foundation.

Input on this issue is accepted until July 1st 2021.
        • GNU C Library Looking To Drop FSF Copyright Assignment Policy

          At the start of June, the GNU Compiler Collection decided to abandon the FSF copyright assignment requirement while now Glibc is looking to make a similar move that would go into effect at the start of August. The Glibc stewards are still seeking feedback on the matter but so far it seems the developers are overwhelmingly in favor of dropping this requirement especially as more developers try to distance themselves from the Free Software Foundation.

        • Listen to LibrePlanet 2021 audio in your podcast app

          LibrePlanet 2021 had a fantastic range of talented speakers, and we want to showcase their terrific talks in every way we can. So if you prefer listening to viewing, it’s time to plan a long afternoon walk, fire up your favorite free podcasting app, and listen to LibrePlanet!

          The audio from this year’s entertaining and educational talks is now available. We have uploaded the sessions in conjunction with an RSS feed you can import into your favorite podcasting app or RSS reader, enabling you to listen using a free podcast app like AntennaPod via Android, or gPodder, if you are on your desktop computer.

        • Update to the FSF and GNU’s plan to move IRC channels to Libera.Chat

          Following our announcement of a planned gradual switch from the Freenode IRC network to Libera.Chat, Freenode staff, with no notice, seized control of the #fsf and #gnu channels away from FSF staff and GNU volunteers during the early hours of Sunday morning (EDT). This happened despite members of Freenode staff participating in the community meeting, as well as reassuring us publicly and privately that they would respect and support the resulting review and our decision. These channels were seized without informing the FSF or GNU representatives of any disagreements Freenode staff had with our plan, whether by means of the group contact system or otherwise. Adding to the situation’s instability was their switch to a new IRC daemon late last night, also without notice, which dropped all existing nicks and channels from the database.

          This has forced us to adjust our plans for the transition, a move that was already necessary due to an abrupt change in Freenode policy that occurred shortly after our announcement, which eliminated the distinction between # and ## channels that we planned to use to pass ownership of the #fsf and #gnu channels over to the wider free software community.

      • Programming/Development

        • Daniel Stenberg: What goes into curl?

          curl is a command line tool and library for doing Internet data transfers. It has been around for a loooong time (over 23 years) but there is still a flood of new things being added to it and development being made, to take it further and to keep it relevant today and in the future.

          I’m the lead developer and head maintainer of the curl project.

          How do we decide what goes into curl? And perhaps more importantly, what does not get accepted into curl?

          Let’s look how this works in the curl factory.

        • Announcing Aya

          Aya was built with a focus on developer experience and operability. It does not require a C toolchain to build and doesn’t even require kernel headers. Compiling the crate in release mode takes only a few seconds.

        • Aya: writing BPF in Rust

          The first release of the Aya BPF library has been announced; this project allows the writing of BPF programs in the Rust language. “Over the last year I’ve talked with many folks interested in using eBPF in the Rust community. My goal is to get as many of you involved in the project as possible! Now that the rustc target has been merged, it’s time to build a solid foundation so that we can enable developers to write great eBPF enabled apps”.

        • Testing cameras with lc-compliance on KernelCI

          Earlier this month, the very first KernelCI sprint or “hackfest” was held virtually, with more than a dozen engineers & developers from different communities in attendance. Initiated as a joint effort by the Google Chrome OS team and Collabora, the sprint’s main objective was to extend KernelCI’s coverage, including adding new tests such as the ability to detect regressions on the Linux kernel that can directly affect cameras.

          With Linux powering so many things and in so many different settings, there’s great interest in making sure that it runs well in as many of them. KernelCI fills this purpose with an ever-increasing amount of tests and environments. The media subsystem is of course no exception, and it’s just been joined by a new test suite.

        • C++ Coroutines, or “why are the templates failing aaaaaAAAAAAA”

          Qt’s networking code has always been one of its more obtuse parts, requiring using signals for something that didn’t quite seem right for them. A linear flow of code would become a jumbled mess of member functions and signal connections.

          When developing Challah’s netcode, I quickly realised this wasn’t going to suffice for the large amount of it I was going to be writing. Thus begins my journey through signal hell, arriving at many bumps before I discovered that integrating Qt’s networking stuff with coroutines is possible.

        • Perl/Raku

          • Tau Station considered Dangerous: Game Review

            I thought I’d try out Tau Station for a couple of days and get a quick blog post out of it. That was three months and 11 levels ago. It took 2 months to wind down my obsessive nature and if not for Tau, I could have pushed a couple of new module versions to CPAN by now. That’s rather the reason that I don’t play games in the first place, so I can’t give great comparisons.

          • Live streaming the release of Perl 5.35.1

            In my talk at The Perl and Raku Conference in the Cloud 2021, I already announced it. I’m doing the release of the Perl developer version 5.35.1, and you can watch it live Sunday, 20th June on Twitch.

        • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

          • The curious world of check digits

            In many standardised numerical codes, one or more digits are special. They’re called check digits and they can be used to check that the code hasn’t changed due to human or computer error.

            For example, my Australian Business Number, or ABN, is 42 021 773 747. The last nine digits are my unique identifier and the first two digits are for checking.

        • Rust

          • Please welcome Boxy, Léo Lanteri Thauvin and the8472 to compiler-contributors

            Please welcome Boxy, Léo Lanteri Thauvin and the8472 to the compiler-contributors group!

            Boxy has been working on pushing const generics forward by implementing parts of the const_evaluatable_checked feature, fixing bugs and making rustdoc work with const generics. Boxy is also a frequent contributor to #project-const-generics discussions and meetings.

            Léo Lanteri Thauvin has been a consistent contributor of refactorings and improvements to rustc. Recently, Léo has been implementing a Major Change Proposal to migrate the unsafe checker to operate on THIR instead of MIR.

          • 1.53.0 pre-release testing | Inside Rust Blog

            The 1.53.0 pre-release is ready for testing. The release is scheduled for this Thursday, June 17th. Release notes can be found here.

  • Leftovers

    • When will my instance be ready? — understanding cloud launch time performance metrics

      Instance launch time, also called startup time, is an important performance metric for the Cloud. But what is meant by launch time? There are several related metrics that comprise launch time. In this blog post, we will describe three launch time performance metrics and explain the key components of each. Once these pieces are understood, we will describe how to build an infrastructure that measures and monitors launch time performance of cloud instances on a regular basis.

      Why is launch time important? A key reason is that clouds are elastic by nature, which means that compute instances are created and destroyed in response to changes in workload demand. Hence, the time to launch instances is a critical factor in overall workload performance. Launch time metrics also help determine lead time for making instance provisioning requests, thereby playing an important role in how effective cloud elasticity is.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Privatisation/Privateering

            • Linux Foundation and Kernel

              • linux.dev mailboxes for kernel work

                Linux development depends on the ability to send and receive emails. Unfortunately, it is common for corporate gateways to post-process both outgoing and incoming messages with the purposes of adding lengthy legal disclaimers or performing anti-phishing link quarantines, both of which interferes with regular patch flow.

                While it is possible to configure free options like GMail to work well with sending and receiving patches, Google services may not be available in all geographical locales — or there may be other reasons why someone may prefer not to have a gmail.com address.

              • linux.dev mailboxes for kernel developers

                Konstantin Ryabitsev has announced a new service providing @linux.dev mailboxes for people to use with kernel development. The documentation page has more information. “This is a BETA offering. Currently, it is only available to people listed in the MAINTAINERS file. We hope to be able to offer it to everyone else who can demonstrate an ongoing history of contributions to the Linux kernel (patches, git commits, mailing list discussions, etc).”

              • What is an SBOM?

                The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently asked for wide-ranging feedback to define a minimum Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). It was framed with a single, simple question (“What is an SBOM?”), and constituted an incredibly important step towards software security and a significant moment for open standards.

                From NTIA’s SBOM FAQ “A Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) is a complete, formally structured list of components, libraries, and modules that are required to build (i.e. compile and link) a given piece of software and the supply chain relationships between them. These components can be open source or proprietary, free or paid, and widely available or restricted access.” SBOMs that can be shared without friction between teams and companies are a core part of software management for critical industries and digital infrastructure in the coming decades.

              • Adoption of a “COVID-19 Vaccine Required” Approach for our Fall 2021 Event Line-up

                After careful consideration, we have decided that the safest course of action for returning to in-person events this fall is to take a “COVID-19 vaccine required” approach to participating in-person.

        • Security

          • Security updates for Tuesday

            Security updates have been issued by CentOS (389-ds-base, dhcp, firefox, glib2, hivex, kernel, postgresql, qemu-kvm, qt5-qtimageformats, samba, and xorg-x11-server), Fedora (kernel and kernel-tools), Oracle (kernel and postgresql), Red Hat (dhcp and gupnp), Scientific Linux (gupnp and postgresql), SUSE (postgresql10 and xterm), and Ubuntu (imagemagick).

          • CloudLinux releases UChecker security tool for Linux servers | ZDNet

            Linux is more secure than Windows. We all know that. But that doesn’t mean it has perfect security. Nothing does. CloudLinux is helping to improve Linux’s operational security with the release of UChecker. The company is best-known for its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)/CentOS server clone, CloudLinux, and its CentOS fork.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Privacy Redirect To A More Friendly Alternative

              Services like Nitter, Bibliogram, Open Street Maps and the countless private search engines are great but if you interact with normal people you will always end up on the original site as someone will send you a link, how about we fix that by just redirecting to where we want to go.

            • Apple’s Subpoenas Show They Own You

              Most journalists seem to miss the larger civil liberties point when Big Tech companies get subpoenas for people’s digital archives. With the most recent example being where the Justice Department subpoenaed Apple while being gagged from disclosing such a subpoena, it is time to remind nearly everybody: You don’t own your digital life, Big Tech does.

              If you did own your digital files You would get the warrant not a tech giant.

              “Who gets the warrant?” is as defining of the evidence of ownership as “Follow the money” is to evidence of corruption.

              [...]

              Obviously at Purism we are investing heavily and working tirelessly daily to create products that are ever more convenient, with the end-goal of having a just alternative for society to avoid the freedom crushing status quo of products from Big Tech.

              We are a Social Purpose Corporation, whose reason for being—enshrined in our articles of incorporation— is to build products that respect the users right to freedom and civil liberties fully.

              This is why Purism will not get a warrant for your phone nor phone data—we don’t have it—because everything you buy from us you own fully. And every dollar of purchasing with Purism advances a future where your civil liberties will be respected in the digital world as well as the physical world. Think about Funding an App, or buying Purism products, to put your money toward a future you want to live in.

            • Western Australia rushes out legislation after cops access contact-tracing data to investigate serious crimes

              Police accessed COVID tracking QR check-in data to investigate a murder, causing the state of Western Australia (WA) to introduce urgent legislation in Parliament today.

              The app collecting the data, SafeWA, is free, mandatory, and has been used over 245 million times for people to register their presence at relevant venues in WA. The description for the app says the data is encrypted and stored for 28 days.

    • Finance

      • The Bitcoin Revolution is Here | Tech Source

        Since 2014, I’ve been talking about bitcoin here (read: Is Bitcoin The Next Open-source Software Revolution?, Best Bitcoin Applications for Linux). Back then, bitcoin was still very much in its infancy and our articles about it were some of the least popular posts we’ve ever had. However, I have already seen its potential and proclaimed that it could become a revolutionary open-source software project and that it has the potential to be bigger than Linux.

        [...]

        After promoting Linux and other free and open-source software in the past, I have decided from now on to focus most of my time here in writing about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other interesting blockchain projects. I think it is about time to enlighten people that bitcoin is not purely a speculative asset, but something that is more valuable because of its capability to empower people from around the world. Like most of you, I find joy in freedom and for me bitcoin is freedom. Now, I can safely say that the cryptocurrency revolution is underway, and we are just getting started.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • GStreamer: IRC Channel has moved from Freenode to OFTC

        Due to the widely reported issues at the Freenode IRC network, the official GStreamer discussion IRC channel has moved to #gstreamer on the OFTC IRC network alongside other Freedesktop projects.

      • Developer chat moving

        For years, most development discussion for Krita has happened on the #krita channel on the Freenode IRC network. IRC is a venerable chat system (that’s to say, it’s old and quirky) but it works very well for us because it’s free and open source software and because it treats chat as chat: it doesn’t keep logs for you if you’re not in the channel, there are many clients and interaction is simple and limited to just text.

        However, the freenode IRC network is no longer a good host for our development work. The people currently managing the network are doing very strange things, and the people who used to manage the network have created a new network, libera.chat.

      • Freenode Is IRC; As In “Dumbest Takeover In History”

        Just today morning, freenode pulled the trigger on their servers and removed all channels, all users, all settings… Everything. And they say that they have restarted the network and will move to a new “fork”:

        [Global Notice 1/3] We are moving past legacy freenode to a new fork. The new freenode is launched. You will slowly be disconnected and when you reconnect, you will be on the new freenode. We patiently await to welcome you in freedom’s holdout – the freenode.

        [Global Notice 2/3] If you’re looking to connect now, you can already /server chat.freenode.net 6697 (ssl) or 6667 (plaintext). It’s a new genesis for a new era. Thank you for using freenode, and Hello World, from the future. freenode is IRC. freenode is FOSS. freenode is freedom.

        [Global Notice 3/3] When you connect, register your nickname and your channel and get started. It’s a new world. We’re so happy to welcome you and the millions of others. We will be posting more information in the coming days on our website and twitter. Otherwise, see you on the other side!

        freenode, which was the largest active IRC network, was taken over by Andrew Lee; The Korean crown prince. Former staff and volunteers say that there was absolutely no way this selling process could be legal, but due to his wealth and powerful relations, the Korean prince could not be stopped.

        Until today, by his own stupidity.

        The madman paid a large sum of money to buy the network – which is not yet disclosed – and then, started taking channels from their owners whenever they mentioned LiberaChat; an alternative to the freenode IRC network.

        One channel after another… Almost all FOSS community migrated away in a matter of few days when the controversy started. netsplit.de showed that 30-40K users migrated to the new network in less than a week.

Links 15/6/2021: Debian Installer Bullseye RC 2 and Zink Updates

Posted in News Roundup at 8:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • New business seeks to “free users’ computers” [Ed: This site blocks EU]
      • Help me understand these unannounced, new Asus Chromebook CX1 laptops

        I’m always on the lookout for new Chromebooks and this morning I found one. Technically, I found two, but they’re basically the same hardware in different sizes. I’m talking about the new 11.6-inch Asus Chromebook CX1 and similar 14-inch models, which haven’t been announced but appear on the Asus US site. And they’re already available overseas.

        Looking at the two Asus Chromebook CX1 models, they appear to be basic, entry-level devices.

        That, I can understand as there’s a big, or bigger, market for affordable Chromebooks. No, I don’t yet know the prices but I figure around $200 to $300 is your basic entry-level price range. Of course, the hardware used can also help determine the price point, so I looked at the Asus Chromebook CX1 specifications.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • The Beginner’s Guide To SSH

        SSH (the Secure Shell) is a program for logging into a remote machine and for executing commands on a remote machine. Often, SSH is the only way to access remote web servers. In this video, I’ll show you how to install and use SSH, and how to create SSH key pairs which allows you remote access without the need of a password.

      • Late Night Linux – Episode 129

        A replacement for CentOS that seems identical so far, and your feedback about IRC, laptop marketing, Arch, alternatives to Windows terminal servers, loud dogs, and more.

        First Impressions

        We had a look at Rocky Linux, “a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with America’s top enterprise Linux distribution now that its downstream partner has shifted direction”.

      • LookAtMe: Dead Simple Markdown Slideshows

        Not all slideshows need to be fancy, sometimes it’s enough for them to just show the information and one format great for showing information is Markdown so about we combine the two. Doing so gives us an app known as Lookatme.

      • Destination Linux 230: Our Favorite Distros of 2021, So Far

        This week’s episode of Destination Linux, we’re going to talk about our favorite distros so far in 2021, so for all the distro-hoppers out there, you dont want to miss this one. Then we take a look at Google’s FLoC tracking concept, which is claimed to bring targeted ads into a privacy-preserving future. We’ll discuss why a lot of people don’t seem to be FLoCing towards this idea. Plus we’ve also got our famous tips, tricks and software picks. All of this and so much more this week on Destination Linux. So whether you’re brand new to Linux and open source or a guru of sudo. This is the podcast for you.

    • Kernel Space

      • Graphics Stack

        • Zink: Summer 2021 updatep

          Gosh, when I last blogged about Zink, it hadn’t even landed upstream in Mesa yet! Well, by now it’s been upstream for quite a while, and most development has moved there.

          At the time of writing, we have merged 606 merge-requests labeled “zink”. The current tip of mesa’s main branch is totaling 1717 commits touching the src/gallium/drivers/zink/ sub-folder, written by 42 different contributors. That’s pretty awesome in my eyes, Zink has truly become a community project!

          Another noteworthy change is that Mike Blumenkrantz has come aboard the project, and has churned out an incredible amount of improvements to Zink! He got hired by Valve to work on Zink (among other things), and is now the most prolific contributor, with more than twice the amount of commits than I have written.

        • Collabora give an overview on the status of Zink, the OpenGL over Vulkan driver

          It seems the OpenGL over Vulkan driver, Zink, has been coming along at a ridiculously impressive pace. Open source consulting firm Collabora has given an overview on how it’s doing.

          As a brief reminder on Zink: “Zink is an OpenGL implementation on top of Vulkan. Or to be a bit more specific, Zink is a Mesa Gallium driver that leverages the existing OpenGL implementation in Mesa to provide hardware accelerated OpenGL when only a Vulkan driver is available.” – Collabora.

          Work on it has progressed so far that Zink can now expose the OpenGL 4.6 (Core Profile) feature set. However, it’s not yet classed as a properly conforming driver for that, as they still need to go through the official Khronos Group conformance testing and pass it.

    • Intel

      • Intel Announces The IPU – Infrastructure Processing Unit – Phoronix

        Intel today went public with their vision and early work around a “Infrastructure Processing Unit” (IPU) as their newest ware for data centers and cloud providers.

      • Intel M.2 Modem Driver “IOSM” Queued Ahead Of Linux 5.14 – Phoronix

        As part of Intel’s new M.2 modem push for EVO laptops and Chromebooks, open-source Intel engineers have been working on “IOSM” as their new M.2 modem driver and this code which has been in the works for months is set to see its debut with the Linux 5.14 cycle.

        This new Intel M.2 Modem driver is called IOSM which in this case stands for IPC over Shared Memory. The driver is summed up as, “The IOSM (IPC over Shared Memory) driver is a PCIe host driver implemented for linux or chrome platform for data exchange over PCIe interface between Host platform & Intel M.2 Modem. The driver exposes interface conforming to the MBIM protocol. Any front end application ( eg: Modem Manager) could easily manage the MBIM interface to enable data communication towards WWAN.”

      • Intel Working On Updating Its GuC, Still Aiming To Transition To This Firmware-Based Scheduling – Phoronix

        In addition to a lot of movement right now within the Intel kernel graphics driver around memory management handling for local memory / discrete GPUs, another big and ongoing area is improving the job submission and workload scheduling by making proper use of its GuC firmware capabilities and also integrating the DRM scheduler.

        Last month was a nearly 100 patch series for GuC submission for their Intel Linux kernel graphics driver for this firmware that allows offloading some of the scheduling of contexts from the kernel driver and sort of an abstraction layer over the GPU. That GuC submission work is ongoing and the fruits of that is not ready for the upcoming 5.14 cycle so it won’t be until at least 5.15 later in the year before that is all merged.

    • Applications

      • XDM – A better IDM alternative for Linux

        In this article, you will learn about XDM, a worthy and better IDM alternative for Linux distributions.

        IDM or Internet Download Manager is a well-known name among people. The download manager is famous for its speed, features, and usability. This is why millions of users use it around the world.

        Unfortunately, IDM is only available for Windows operating system, we as Linux users don’t get the luxury of this amazing tool. Luckily, Linux has a better alternative and it is free and open-source.

        XDM or Xtreme Download Manager is a powerful tool to increase download speed up to 500%. It can save streaming videos from websites, resume broken/failed downloads, schedule and convert downloads. XDM seamlessly integrates with popular browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, and the rest of Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. As a result, when you download anything using your browser XDM detects it and shows a download pop-up.

        As you can see, XDM is a feature-loaded download manager and a better alternative to IDM. Moreover, it is a cross-platform application so you can use it anywhere you want, Linux, macOS, or Windows.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How we’re dealing with our expiring OpenVPN TLS root certificate

        Recently I wrote about my failure to arrange a graceful TLS root certificate rollover for our OpenVPN servers. This might leave you wondering what we’re doing about this instead, and the answer is that we’ve opted to use a brute force solution, because we know it works.

        Our brute force solution is to set up a new set of OpenVPN servers (we have two of them for redundancy), using a new official name and with it a new TLS root certificate that is good for quite a while (I opted to be cautious and not cross into 2038) and with it a new host certificate. With the new servers set up and in production, we’ve updated our support site so use the new official name and the new TLS root certificate, so people who set up OpenVPN from now onward will be using the new environment.

      • How to use SCP command in Linux to Copy files securely via SSH Protocol

        How to transfer file and directory? how to copy files and directory? If you think it is very easy and simple and you can use cp commands to copy and transfer files and directory in the local computer.

        Then you are not wrong, you are absolutely right.

        But it will be hard for an answer if asked about the transfer file between the two systems that have different locations.

        Oh Yeah, you are not thinking wrong. You can use ftp to perform the same task.

        Do you know one more thing? You can use ssh to transfer files between two systems remotely. And it is possible by SCP command in Linux. To know more about ssh server read my article How to Enable ssh on Ubuntu 19.04
        I am going to cover in this article, What is scp in Linux? How to use SCP commands in Linux. and how to transfer files and directory from local to the remote system and remote to local or remote to the remote system and many more.

      • How to unzip file in Linux by using commands and GUI Guide for Beginners

        There is no doubt, using Linux by the command-line interface is more simple and easy than GUI. But Most of the users are familiar and habitual with a graphical interface.

        They can’t change their habits easily, Why so they can’t switch themselves for using command-line interface in Linux.

        Similar to other tasks, It is so easy to unzip a zip file in Linux. In this article, you will learn how to unzip a file in Linux by using commands with single unzip utility. You can also use graphical Interface to extract zip files.

      • How to install Olive Video Editor on Deepin 20.2

        In this video, we are looking at how to install Olive Video Editor on Deepin 20.2.

      • How to install Deltarune on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install Deltarune on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • How to create a systemd service unit file in Linux

        systemd is a system and service manager for Linux operating systems. When you install any application from a repository, it will drop a service unit file into the systemd directory and you should not modify these files directly.

      • How to Disable SELinux on Fedora – TecAdmin

        SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux) is a Linux kernel security module that provides enhanced security for Linux systems. SELinux provides a mechanism for supporting access control security policies. This specifies how the processes communicate with each other and interact with the files.

        We never recommend disabling SELinux on your system, especially on production servers. For developer systems, you can disable it only if hampering your work due to its policies.

      • How to Create 100% CPU Load on Linux System

        To ensure that your Linux machine is stable and reliable, you need to stress test and benchmark certain key aspects of it including CPU performance. This helps you foresee how it will respond in real-world situations in which it is subjected to computing demands.

        In this article, we will show different ways to create 100% CPU load on a Linux system to stress test it. By the end of this article, you will learn how to stress test your CPU on a Linux computer that you have just built or bought, or an older computer.

      • How To Install VMware Tools On Ubuntu 21.04

        When you install a virtual machine or a guest OS in your machine, it does not exactly perform like the host OS because it has some limitations regarding performance. But VMware presented a solution for this by introducing VMware guest tools that enhance and improve the performance of the guest OS.

        VMware tools enable the integration between the host and the guest operating systems. It includes the set of utilities that improves the graphical performance of VM and enables sharing folders, clock synchronization, mouse tracking, and much more. Therefore, whenever you install a virtual machine on VMware, your first priority should be to install VMware tools before doing anything else.

      • How To Document Daily Life Activity With Pepys Journal App On Linux

        Pepys is a markdown-based simple, and distraction-free journaling application written in Python using the Qt UI library. It is rightly made for those who love to document their daily life events.

        Pepys uses markdown for writing, and it contains neat and clean highlighting for key markdown syntaxes such as bold text, code, tags, and URLs.

        Interestingly, when you create a new entry in the Pepys journal app, it automatically creates a new YYYY/MM directory storing the file in YYYY-MM-DD.md name format.

      • Subwoofer Not Working in Linux? Try These Tricks! – Make Tech Easier

        You’ve just finished installing Linux on your PC. You boot it up and notice that all your audio sounds like it’s coming out of a phone. You put your hand against your subwoofer and it isn’t working at all – even when you put on a song that would normally have very heavy bass.

        Most major Linux distributions use both the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) and PulseAudio for sound management. While they’re both excellent pieces of software, the default setup can be quite barebones. If you’re using a more complex speaker setup that has more than two channels (for example, a 5.1 surround sound system), you may end up losing subwoofer input due to how PulseAudio mixes input/output by default or various other reasons.

      • How to create a KVM virtual machine in Ubuntu

        Are you in need of a KVM virtual machine in Ubuntu but don’t know where to start? As it turns out, the Gnome Boxes app makes setting up a KVM virtual machine in Ubuntu a breeze. In this guide, we’ll show you how to do it!

      • How To Install Terraform on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Terraform on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as a code software tool that enables you to safely and predictably create, change, and improve infrastructure.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Terraform automation tool on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

      • Install M / Monit monitoring system on Ubuntu 20.04 – Linux Shout

        Monit is a quick setup, easy to use but effective program for monitoring server services. It can also include important basics like CPU usage, disk usage, and more. If a server service fails, it can be restarted automatically. In the event of problems, one or more recipients will be informed by email.

        Originally intended for a single server, M / Monit also offers a commercial version that can monitor several servers at the same time (under one interface).

      • How to Keep Your Laptop On When Closed

        Have you ever noticed that when you close your laptop, it shuts down or goes into sleep mode? While this can be a great energy-saving feature, it can also be a big problem, particularly if you connect your laptop to an external monitor to work on something important.

      • How to Run Nginx in a Docker Container: A Step by Step Guide

        In this tutorial, you will learn how to run Nginx as a Docker container, and expose it to your local network. In addition to, you will learn how to create a Docker data volume to share information between a container and the host file system.

        Nginx is a popular open-source software used for web serving, reverse proxying, caching, load balancing, and more. It is quite popular and used on many high traffic websites today. One of the most common workloads of Docker is using it to containerize web servers. We’ll show you how to set it up with Nginx. So, let us walk you through the process.

        Docker is a containerization platform, used to package up your application into one easily manageable container image.

    • Games

      • The new trailer for One Lonely Outpost has me hyped for this sci-fi farming game | GamingOnLinux

        Like Stardew Valley in space, the crowdfunded One Lonely Outpost has a brand new trailer out which appeared during E3 and it’s a pretty good one.

        Farming life sims are all the rage, clearly. We’ve seen so many of them appear and somehow they all seem to add a slightly unique spin on it. Still, it’s hard to beat Stardew Valley but with the sci-fi edge to it One Lonely Outpost definitely has piqued my personal interest. Especially with the genetics side of things, with you able to mix things up with robo-cows and gene-splicing to create some weird sounding stuff.

      • Free and open source Settlers II inspired strategy game Widelands 1.0 is out now | GamingOnLinux

        The day is finally here after nearly 20 years, Widelands is a strategy game heavily inspired by the classic Settlers II and the big 1.0 release is out now. Widelands is a game for players who like to take things slow like the classics. You start off with nothing, gradually building up resource production and a system of roads to ferry all the resources around. Eventually expanding your borders to meet new tribes and make peace – or war.

      • Blight looks like a challenging top-down survival game worth keeping an eye on | GamingOnLinux

        Appearing on Steam sometime recently was Blight, a new upcoming top-down survival game that looks quite pretty graphically and the developer says it will be “brutally challenging”.

        We all know graphics don’t make a game, so while pretty looking it remains to be seen if the gameplay is any good. We’ve seen a lot of survival games of all kinds from peaceful to savagely difficult and Blight leans heavily into the difficulty. The idea is that you’re trying to say away from a mysterious new disease called the Blight. It consumed your village, left it in ruins and so you fled into the wilderness to survive.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • First KDE Plasma 5.22 Point Release Improves the Wayland Session for NVIDIA/AMD Systems

          KDE Plasma 5.22.1 is here just one week after the release of the KDE Plasma 5.22 desktop environment series, and it includes improvements for the Plasma Wayland session to detect additional screens on NVIDIA/AMD multi-GPU setups, as well as to blur the transparent background behind task switchers.

          This first point release to KDE Plasma 5.22 also improves the new Plasma System Monitor app to open the “Get New Pages” view in an overlay instead of a narrow column, and makes the Network Speed widget, Weather widget’s BBC weather data source, and custom shortcuts for “Walk through applications” work correctly.

    • Distributions

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • RHEL and CentOS 7 Users Get New Kernel Security Update to Fix Intel Graphics Flaws

          The new Linux kernel security update comes exactly two months after the previous one and it’s here to fix three security vulnerabilities discovered by various security researchers in the Intel graphics drivers (i915), as well as three other security flaws.

          The three security vulnerabilities affecting the Intel graphics drivers are CVE-2020-12362, an integer overflow that could allow a privileged user to escalate his/her privileges via local access, CVE-2020-12363, an input validation flaw, and CVE-2020-12364, a null pointer reference, both of which allowing a privileged user to initiate a denial-of-service (DoS) attack via local access.

        • Best CentOS Alternative Distributions (Desktop and Server)

          On 31st December 2021, the CentOS project makes the shift to CentOS Stream – a rolling release that will serve as the upstream version for future releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Sadly, CentOS 8, which was to enjoy support until 2029, will come to an abrupt and premature end. The imminent demise of CentOS has caused disquiet and consternation among CentOS lovers and the community at large.

          As you know, CentOS is a fork and RHEL and packs with all the goodies that are provided with RHEL at absolutely no cost. For this reason, it has been used for quite a while in server environments especially by small businesses. If you have been using CentOS, especially in server environments, you may feel betrayed and not know the next course of action.

        • CentOS Replacement AlmaLinux 8.4 Released – Download DVD ISO

          Similar to Rocky Linux by CentOS creator Greg Kurtzer, AlmaLinux is also a Linux distribution that came to existence as a CentOS alternative after the demise of stable CentOS 8 by Red Hat.

          However, where Rocky Linux is a brand new project, AlmaLinux is a new name for the already existing Project Lenix by CloudLinux.

          AlmaLinux OS is a community-driven forever free and open-source enterprise-grade Linux distribution. It is a 1:1 binary compatible fork of the popular enterprise OS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with committed free support for 8.x release through 2029, including stable and thoroughly tested updates and security patches.

          Last month, a stable version of AlmaLinux OS 8.4 “Electric Cheetah” arrived with Linux 4.18, GNOME 3.32.2, and various exciting new features including the most requested one, Secure Boot.

        • Rocky Linux 8.3 RC1 Available Now – Download DVD ISO Images

          As Rocky Linux is getting closer to its stable version, a new and first development release of Rocky Linux 8.3 came at the start of last month.

          If you don’t know, last year, Red Hat decided to drop maintenance of CentOS Linux 8 after 2021 to solely focus on CentOS Stream.

          Obviously, the decision made various people unhappy including CentOS project founder Greg Kurtzer. Hence, within a few days, Greg announced a new alternative OS called Rocky Linux, which is still under intensive development.

        • 6 TED Talks for job hunters | The Enterprisers Project

          The last year has prompted many IT professionals to rethink their current roles and career goals, landing some in the role of job hunter.

          It’s a challenging time to find a new job. At the same time, talented IT leaders have never been in greater demand. And much of the advice on positioning and marketing yourself to employers and acing the screening processes remains relevant even in these seemingly in-between times.

        • Fedora Community Blog: Pride Month Celebration

          The Fedora Diversity & Inclusion team is hosting this week’s Fedora Social Hour to celebrate Pride month. Come join us to chat, catch up, and have some fun playing Pictionary. Everyone is welcome to join the event!

      • Debian Family

        • Debian 11 “Bullseye” Installer RC2 Released

          The second release candidate of the Debian Installer for the upcoming 11.0 “Bullseye” release is now available for testing.

          The Debian Installer Bullseye RC2 release shifts to the latest Linux 5.10 LTS kernel release point release, brings an updated mirror list, a fix for properly re-installing GRUB on BIOS systems, and a variety of other installer updates. This release candidate also works around an infinite loop within the GTK toolkit by making sure the requested width for the UI doesn’t fall below 300px.

        • Debian Installer Bullseye RC 2 release

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Linux Mint 20.2 beta ISOs undergo testing and are due soon

          At the end of May, it was reported that Linux Mint 20.2 would see a beta release in mid-June. We’ve reached mid-June and it looks as though the team is running last-minute tests on the beta ISOs before making them available to the public. Following the ISOs’ release, the beta period should run for about two weeks before the stable release is made with upgrade paths opened up.

          The Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce images were tested about 7 hours ago and all failed, the Xfce image was tried again several hours later and failed again, now the Xfce image is being tested a third time along with the MATE edition. Users don’t have to worry about these tests, only, the longer they take to pass, the longer you’ll all be waiting to try out the beta.

        • Ubuntu Pro arrives in premium form on Google’s Cloud

          Ubuntu Pro is coming to Google Cloud, replete with an all-important 10-year maintenance commitment for corporate punters who like things stable.

          While Canonical’s Ubuntu is hardly new to Google’s Cloud, the Pro edition joins other enterprise favourites in the premium category, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

          The lengthy support window is based at least in part on Canonical’s Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) programme. ESM means eight years for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (to 2024), 10 years for 18.04 LTS (to 2028), and support until 2030 for 20.04 LTS.

          During the support period, customers paying for Ubuntu Pro on Google Cloud will get live kernel patching as well as patching of high and critical CVEs for Ubuntu’s repository (which includes the likes of Node.js, MongoDB, and Apache Kafka).

        • Ubuntu Pro goes live on Google Cloud

          Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu distro, has launched its Ubuntu Pro platform on Google Cloud.

          Ubuntu is no stranger to Google’s cloud computing platform, having been available to users since 2014. However Ubuntu Pro is the self-styled premium version of the environment that comes with a feature set that’ll appeal to developers and administrators at enterprises.

          “The availability of Ubuntu Pro on Google Cloud will offer our enterprise customers the additional security and compliance services needed for their mission-critical workloads,” said June Yang, VP and GM, Compute, Google Cloud.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Try this new open source tool for data analytics

        Data analytics is a trendy field with many solutions available. One of them is Cube.js, an open source analytical platform. You can think of Cube.js as a layer between your data sources and applications.

        As the diagram below shows, Cube.js supports serverless data warehouses and most modern relational database management systems (RDBMS). You can work with any JavaScript front-end library for data visualization, and Cube.js will take care of the rest, including access control, performance, concurrency, and more.

      • Open-source tools for the IoT ecosystem – Urgent Comms

        The open source landscape is chock-full of talented developers creating powerful tools. These tools are often more than just barebones applications; they can be fully featured business technology solutions.

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • New stable security releases: 0.3.5.15, 0.4.4.9, 0.4.5.9, 0.4.6.5

            After months of work, we have a new stable release series! If you build Tor from source, you can download the source code for 0.4.6.5 on the download page. Packages should be available within the next several weeks, with a new Tor Browser around the end of the week.

            Because this release includes security fixes, we are also releasing updates for our other supported releases. You can find their source at https://dist.torproject.org:

      • Programming/Development

        • State of Native Big File Handling in Git

          After many struggles with using git LFS on repositories that need to store big files, I decided to spend some time on checking the status of the built-in partial clone functionality that could possibly let you achieve the same (as of git 2.30).

        • Excellent Free Tutorials to Learn V

          V is a statically typed compiled programming language designed for building maintainable software. It’s similar to Go and its design has also been influenced by Oberon, Rust, Swift, Kotlin, and Python.

          It compiles itself in less than one second with zero library dependencies.

        • Debugging on Valgrind: Adding fused-multiply-add support for the AArch64 processor

          Valgrind is a great tool not only for finding errors related to memory management in a program, but also for memory consumption analysis, performance profiling, issues related to multithreading, and more. In this article, I introduce Valgrind’s undocumented –trace-flags option and explain how we improved Valgrind’s accuracy in one area related to the AArch64 processor from Arm.

        • A strong commitment to backwards compatibility means keeping your mistakes

          Plenty of people like backwards compatibility, especially strong backwards compatibility. But it has what is a sometimes unpleasant consequence, which is that a strong commitment to backwards compatibility requires keeping your mistakes. Or at least many of them. To put it one way, you need to keep mistakes that work, and of course you have to keep them giving the same result as they currently do. For example if you provide an API that people can use to express potentially conflicting things and you don’t reject the attempt but instead give some deterministic result, you’re stuck with it.

        • Perl/Raku

        • Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

          • Shell Script to Add Two Integers – TecAdmin

            Calculating the sum of two integers (Numbers) in a shell script is pretty simple as other programming languages. Bash shell provides a command-line utility called expr to evaluate expressions. The latest version of Bash shell also includes the functionality to evaluate expressions directly with the shell.

            In this tutorial, we will discuss few methods to calculate the sum of the two numbers in a bash script.

  • Leftovers

    • Six Love, Naomi Osaka: Defying Capitalist Decadence in Sport

      Traceable to the late 1870s when the tobacco industry began to invest in baseball, through to the 1930s when television broadcasting produced the first millionaire sportspersons, sports marketing has all but corrupted what began millennia ago as forms of relaxation especially for the underclasses – sport.

      While earning the respect of many, the insistence by Sócrates to be treated as a human being were bound to fall on deaf ears. The confluence of media corporations, especially television, sponsors and advertisers, and greedy administrators, all marshalled by sports marketing companies and agents, has led to the replacement of relaxation and social cohesion, which is what sport was all about, with the dominance of financial interests.

    • Expurgated History, Or What Happens When You Have a Teachable Moment but They Cut Your Mic

      Case in point: Ohio’s Hudson American Legion Memorial Day parade organizers cut the volume on Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter’s mic when he began to discuss the role freed African American slaves played in organizing the first Memorial Day ceremony in 1865. Reportedly, this was because that portion of the speech, in the words of Cindy Suchan, chair of the committee and president of the Hudson American Legion Auxiliary, “was not relevant to our program for the day” and its “theme of honoring Hudson veterans.” Days before, organizers had asked Kemter to remove sections of his speech that dealt with the black origins of the celebration. He refused.

      Kemter is to be commended. But media reports that describe his speech as an attempt to introduce his audience to “black[1] history” miss the mark. Or, more precisely, they are part of the problem. The origin of Memorial Day is more than black history; it is American history, a history that includes both the tragedies of slavery, Jim Crow, and race massacres as well as the triumphs of Elijah McCoy, Florence Price, Claudette Colvin, William Grant Still, Bass Reevesand other black cowboys, Alice Ball, and Marsha P. Johnson, whose collective histories have been given short shrift, overlooked, or distorted outright by school textbooks and popular media. Until Americans realize that the contributions black and other people of color have made to America are inextricable from the nation’s history, they will continue to live in a comforting state of denial that erases anything that does not square with the fraudulent, monochromatic mythology white America manufactures to celebrate itself.

    • How Unite Here Turned the West’s Biggest Red State Blue

      Early on the morning of July 20, Unite Here Local 11 Copresident Susan Minato crammed her suitcases, computer, and other necessities into her gray SUV rental and set off on a 371-mile drive from her home in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles to Sun City West, on the northwestern edge of Phoenix. She was on a mission: to knock on as many doors as possible and help flip Arizona blue for Joe Biden.1

    • The Past Has a Future

      Over the past 20 years, Raoul Peck has emerged as one of his generation’s leading filmmakers and intellectuals. Beginning with Lumumba and Sometimes in April, his unflinching examinations of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 and the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Peck has shown us the horrors of late-stage decolonization and postcolonialism. With his last two feature films, I Am Not Your Negro, about James Baldwin, and The Young Karl Marx, he produced startlingly original and moving portraits of two of his main muses, setting the stage for his latest work, an epic four-part docuseries for HBO, Exterminate All the Brutes.1

      For Peck, each of his films is as much a vehicle for political argument and posing philosophical questions as it is a way to offer alternative historical narratives. Even as he attempts to reinvent the documentary genre through innovative storytelling, employing a kind of dreamlike melancholy akin to jazz improvisation, as he did in Negro, he is a formalist committed to inventing new cinematographic modes. Although he built his career by assuming the role of journalistic or directorial objectivity and prefers to show rather than tell, he’s unafraid to step out from behind the camera and challenge the underpinnings of those Western myths that shaped his education and continue to define so much of contemporary political life.2

    • Bake Sales and Tesla Raffles: The Unequal World of PTA Wealth

      In 2013, families at a Seattle high school raked in more than $100,000 through a raffle to win a Tesla Model S. This story about PTAs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    • Brad Lander Knows How to Achieve the Big, Bold Structural Changes That Will Transform New York

      There is a lot of talk about which contender in the crowded field of New York City mayoral candidates offers the boldest vision for bringing justice and equity to the nation’s largest municipality.

    • Health/Nutrition

      • The US Is Failing to Protect Care Workers

        Between daycare closures, school closures, and nursing homes becoming hotbeds for the deadly virus, the Covid-19 pandemic turned millions of people into caregivers overnight.

      • ‘A Race Against the Clock’: Battle to Extend CDC Eviction Ban Heats Up as Crisis Looms

        In response to a legal challenge from a group of landlords and real estate companies, attorneys generals in nearly two dozen states are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s life-saving moratorium on residential evictions for nonpayment of rent during the Covid-19 pandemic.

        “An unprecedented wave of mass evictions—amid the embryonic stages of the post-pandemic recovery—would be catastrophic.”—Attorneys Generals’ brief

      • Rich Nations’ Vaccine Pledge Includes Just 613 Million New Doses—Well Short of Promised 1 Billion

        A group of the world’s richest nations vowed Sunday to collectively donate at least 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses to developing nations over the next year, but a closer look reveals that the pledge includes just 613 million new doses—a paltry sum compared to the 11 billion doses that experts say will be needed to inoculate 70% of the global population.

        “The G7 response to the scale of the challenge is just embarrassing.”—Heidi Chow, Global Justice Now

      • A Rare Victory for Abortion Access

        It’s been a while since supporters of abortion rights have had anything to celebrate. States have enacted a staggering 69 anti-abortion bills this year alone, including nine bans. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on Mississippi’s 15-week ban that is likely to upend Roe v. Wade entirely. But on the eve of Memorial Day weekend came a victory that was decades in the making: President Biden struck from his budget the 45-year-old ban on federal funding of abortion known as the Hyde Amendment.1

      • Maggot burgers can help to solve world hunger

        Fancy maggot burgers for dinner? Eating animals and plants which revolt many of us could cut hunger caused by climate change.

      • COVID-19 vaccines and female infertility: A lie that never dies

        Before there were safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use, such as the vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson here in the US, as well as AstraZeneca in Europe and elsewhere, those of us who have been countering the antivaccine movement for many years now were warning about the sorts of disinformation that antivaxxers would spread about them. We were largely correct, too, but I can’t really say that it took any particular brilliance or foresight to have been so correct. We simply knew that there is no truly new trope, pseudoscience, or disinformation in the antivaccine narratives and conspiracy theories; so all we did was to predict the repurposing of tried-and-not-true antivax lies, be they about death, infertility, autism, or whatever.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Indian government reverts to manual tax filings as new e-tax portal remains badly borked a week after launch
        • Welcoming the Finnish Government to Have I Been Pwned [iophk: Windows TCO]

          Today I’m very happy to welcome the Finnish government to Have I Been Pwned by granting their National Cyber Security Centre full and free access to query their government domains. API access to query their domains will give them greater visibility into the impact of data breaches on the Finnish government.

        • Don’t use commands, use code: the tale of Netsh & PortProxy

          Dear Fellowlship, today’s homily is a call to an (un)holy crusade: we have to banish the usage of commands in compromised machines and start to embrace coding. Please, take a seat and listen to the story of netsh and PortProxy.

        • Teamsters refused to pay a ransomware attack in 2019 [iophk: Windows TCO]

          The Teamsters spokesperson who spoke to The Hill declined to comment beyond what was included in NBC’s article.

        • Ransomware attack hit Teamsters in 2019 — but they refused to pay [iophk: Windows TCO]

          Until now, the major labor union had managed to keep the hack out of the public eye for nearly two years. That points to a truth that cybersecurity experts say is lurking beneath the surface of recent high-profile attacks: An unknown number of companies and organizations have been extorted without ever saying a word about it publicly.

        • Pseudo-Open Source

          • Openwashing

            • Our latest updates on Fully Homomorphic Encryption

              As developers, it’s our responsibility to help keep our users safe online and protect their data. This starts with building products that are secure by default, private by design, and put users in control. Everything we make at Google is underpinned by these principles, and we’re proud to be an industry leader in developing, deploying, and scaling new privacy-preserving technologies that make it possible to learn valuable insights and create helpful experiences while protecting our users’ privacy.

            • Google’s fully homomorphic encryption package

              The Google Developers Blog has this announcement describing the release of a fully homomorphic encryption project under the Apache license. “With FHE, encrypted data can travel across the Internet to a server, where it can be processed without being decrypted. Google’s transpiler will enable developers to write code for any type of basic computation such as simple string processing or math, and run it on encrypted data. The transpiler will transform that code into a version that can run on encrypted data. This then allows developers to create new programming applications that don’t need unencrypted data.” See this white paper for more details on how it all works.

          • Privatisation/Privateering

            • Linux Foundation

              • IdRamp joins Linux’ Cardea as digital health passes evolve and roll out [Ed: The Linux Foundation is a mass surveillance front group]

                The Cardea system, along with the Global COVID Certificate Network (GCCN), was launched recently to provide an ecosystem and global trust registry, respectively, for interoperable digital health passes.

                Cardea also meets the technical recommendations included in the Good Health Pass Collaborative’s Interoperability Blueprint, according to the announcement.

                “The Cardea and GCCN projects are both excellent examples of breakthrough innovations that can take shape when companies and projects come together to solve real-world problems, using open source tools available to everyone,” comments Mike Vesey, CEO of IdRamp. “We’re excited to offer our experience in the creation of passwordless zero trust ecosystems that will bring diverse ideas and skills into the Cardea community.”

              • Zephyr Project Turns 5, Welcomes New Members To Its Global RTOS Ecosystem

                Zephyr Project, an open source project at the Linux Foundation, continues to gain momentum with its 5th anniversary this year. To celebrate the milestone, the Project recently hosted its inaugural Zephyr Developer Summit (June 8-10).

        • Security

          • Geigner’s Effect: CDPR Breach Worse Than Originally Reported, Because Of Course

            There has been a theorem proposed on these pages, originally by Mike himself, for a long time that goes something like this: when a data breach is first reported in the news, the severity of the breach is always, always, always underreported and there will eventually be an admission that the breach was much worse. Despite this not having been my original idea, I nonetheless slapped my name on it and called it The Geigner Effect. If that sort of name-slapping is good enough for former US Presidents, it’s damned well good enough for me.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Less Freedom, More Money: Tony Blair’s Vaccine Passport

              In February this year, he told BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster that a digital health certificate or passport of some sort covering vaccination and testing status was bound to happen.  It was a matter of “national security”.  Never mind the deaths and the illness, it was “the damage to our economy and the global economy” that proved “massive.”

              This month, Blair went one step further.  In Less Risk, More Freedom, a report authored by his firm the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the authors remark that “vaccine status matters.”  They write of a “robust Covid pass” that could be used to facilitate virtually unhindered mobility. In terms of international movement, “we propose that anyone who is fully vaccinated should be free to travel to and from any country currently designated green without any quarantine or testing required.”  In terms of domestic settings, the authors proposed “that any venue or setting that wants to admit only those who have been vaccinated be permitted to do so”.

            • Buried Apple Privacy Scandal Undermines Its Attacks On Right To Repair Legislation

              Apple has never looked kindly upon users actually repairing their own devices. The company’s ham-fisted efforts to shut down, sue, or otherwise imperil third-party repair shops are legendary. As are the company’s efforts to force recycling shops to shred Apple products (so they can’t be refurbished and re-used). As is Apple’s often comical attacks on essential right to repair legislation, which usually involves the company insisting that allowing broader independent and consumer repair of their devices would be a security and privacy nightmare.

            • Markpainting: how to fight deceptive AI-manipulated images with a sprinkle of digital cleverness

              Creating false personal information may have existed in the past in the form of rumors, slander and libel, but it is becoming a more serious problem today because computers make it hard to tell false personal data from the real thing. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is the new class of deepfake videos, which use artificial intelligence to place someone else’s face on pre-existing videos. These are still relatively crude, and can often be spotted by direct inspection.

            • Yet another biometric surveillance system: using a person’s “micro-movements” to detect emotions

              Although hardly a household name in the West, VibraImage technology has been around since 2001, and is used in “thousands of systems around the world” according to the company. Elsys Corp says that since 2007, VibraImage has successfully detected “criminals, terrorists and suspicious behavior” at two Russian airports. An article on The Conversation about VibraImage by James Wright, who is a Research Associate at the UK’s Alan Turing Institute, adds that VibraImage has been deployed in several high-profile contexts, including two Olympic games, a Fifa World Cup and a G7 Summit.

            • Facebook Should Be Broken Up, Silicon Valley Democrat Says

              California Democrat Ro Khanna wants Facebook Inc. to unwind its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp — two of its biggest deals in the past decade — as he called for more aggressive antitrust enforcement and privacy regulations.

            • #CHATCONTROL Vote Scheduled: Last Chance To Act

              The date for the vote on the chat control regulation has been set: On 8 July, all Members of the European Parliament will cast their vote on the legislation that will allow e-mail and messaging providers to indiscriminately scan and search your private messages for suspicious content in real-time. This will be the final vote on the regulation. Once it has passed, your private communications can be searched by error-prone artificial intelligence technologies. Although these algorithms are meant to search for potential child pornography and grooming, up to 86% of the correspondence reported to the police is not criminally relevant and users are falsely being reported – including many minors.

              The EU’s chat control regulation has been found to violate fundamental rights by a former judge of the European Court of Justice. According to a representative poll, 72% of EU citizens clearly reject indiscriminate screening of private correspondence. Despite all that, the Parliament’s Committee for Civil Liberties (LIBE) recommends the plenary to vote in favor of chat control.

              The plenary vote is the last chance to stop this law! Contact your Members of Parliament now if you are concerned about #Chatcontrol. A list with all contact details of the MEPs is available for download here.

            • TikTok Can Now Collect Biometric Data

              “A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its users’ content. This includes things like “faceprints and voiceprints,” the policy explained. Reached for comment, TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric data to its list of disclosures about the information it automatically collects from users, but said it would ask for consent in the case such data collection practices began.”

            • McDonald’s drive-thru AI bot may have broken privacy law

              McDonald’s announced earlier this month that it was deploying an AI chatbot to handle its drive-thru orders, but it turns out it might break privacy law.

              The chatbot is the product of a voice recognition company McDonald’s snapped up in 2019 called Apprente which is now known as McD Tech Labs.

              McDonald’s deployed the chatbots to ten of its restaurants in Chicago, Illinois. And there lies the issue.

            • Hunting Leaks, Trump Officials Focused on Democrats in Congress

              As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides and family members. One was a minor.

              All told, the records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 2018, including those of Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, then the panel’s top Democrat and now its chairman, according to committee officials and two other people briefed on the inquiry. Representative Eric Swalwell of California said in an interview Thursday night that he had also been notified that his data had been subpoenaed.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Reveals US Weighed 1958 Nuclear Strike on China
      • How Democrats and Progressives Undermined the Potential of the Biden-Putin Summit

        No matter what happens at Wednesday’s summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in Geneva, a grim reality is that Democratic Party leaders have already hobbled its potential to move the world away from the worsening dangers of nuclear war. After nearly five years of straining to depict Donald Trump as some kind of Russian agent—a depiction that squandered vast quantities of messaging without electoral benefits—most Democrats in Congress are now locked into a modern Cold War mentality that endangers human survival.

      • 50 Years After Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg Reveals U.S. Weighed 1958 Nuclear Strike on China over Taiwan

        As President Biden meets with leaders of NATO countries, where he is expected to continue stepping up rhetoric against China and Russia ahead of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this Wednesday in Geneva, we speak with famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about why he recently released another classified document showing that U.S. military planners in 1958 pushed for nuclear strikes on China to protect Taiwan from an invasion by communist forces. The top-secret study revealed the U.S. military pressed then-President Dwight Eisenhower to prepare a nuclear first strike against mainland China during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958. Taiwan “could really only be defended, if at all, by the U.S. initiating nuclear war against China,” says Ellsberg. The document also shows that U.S. military planners were ready to accept the risk that the Soviet Union would launch its own nuclear retaliation, including against Japan. Although Ellsberg’s online release of the document was publicized in May, he reveals that he shared the same information with Japan decades earlier. “I had given the entire study to the Japanese Diet,” Ellsberg says.

      • Pentagon Papers at 50: Daniel Ellsberg on Risking Life in Jail to Expose U.S. Lies About Vietnam War

        Fifty years ago this week, The New York Times began publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 pages of top-secret documents outlining the Pentagon’s secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam since the 1940s. The leak exposed years of government lies about the war, revealed that even top officials believed it was unwinnable, and would end up helping to end the Vietnam War and lead to a major victory for press freedom. The Times exposé was based on documents secretly photocopied by Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo, who both worked as Pentagon consultants at the RAND Corporation. Ellsberg, who had been deeply involved in the Vietnam War as a defense analyst, decided to risk life imprisonment to reveal the truth about Vietnam. “I’d been lied to. The whole country had been lied to. The Congress had been lied to as to what the situation was,” Ellsberg says. He says top officials knew for years that the war had “very little likelihood of helping anyone, but leading just to an escalating stalemate.”

      • On ‘Conflict’ ‘Peace’ and ‘Genocide’: Time for New Language on Palestine and Israel

        On May 25, famous American actor, Mark Ruffalo, tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

      • Germany Gave My Family Reparations. Palestinians Deserve the Same From Israel.
      • New Israeli Government, Same Israeli Apartheid

        After 12 years, Israel finally inaugurated a new prime minister. While being hailed by many as the opportunity for a fresh start, Naftali Bennett is at best a continuation of Netanyahu’s policies and at worst an ideologue whose positions are to the right of Netanyahu’s.

      • Remembering the Pulse Massacre
      • Former Rep. Rohrabacher says he took part in Jan. 6 march to Capitol but did not storm building

        Former GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said in an interview on Monday that he took part in a march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 in support of what he called a “fraudulent” presidential election that should have been investigated but that he did not enter the building that was later overrun by rioters.

        Rohrabacher, a former California Republican who now lives in Maine, confirmed to the Portland Press Herald that he took part in a march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 after online observers identified him in footage over the weekend.

      • Dana Rohrabacher breached Capitol police barricades on Jan. 6

        Newly released footage from the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol shows former Orange County Congressman Dana Rohrabacher joined a crowd that crossed police barricades, making him the highest profile politician known to be on the ground that day.

      • UN official accuses Eritrean forces of deliberately starving Tigray

        The northern highlands of Ethiopia became a global byword for famine in the mid-1980s, when drought and conflict combined to create a disaster that killed as many as one million people. Now hunger is stalking the Tigray region again, and a senior UN official alleges that starvation is being used as a weapon of war.

        More than 350,000 of Tigray’s nearly 6 million people are living in famine conditions, according to an analysis by United Nations agencies and global aid groups first reported by Reuters on Thursday. Nearly 2 million others are one step away from such dire deprivation, they said. Ethiopia has disputed these estimates.

      • Congress Can’t Ignore the Trump DOJ’s Apparent Abuse of Power

        Now, we are learning that Trump’s Justice Department gathered communications-data records of reporters, Congress members, and congressional staff (along with family members, including at least one juvenile), allegedly to investigate intelligence leaks. On Sunday, The New York Times reported that just last month Apple told Trump’s own White House counsel Don McGahn that his boss’s top legal guns sought the records of not only McGahn but also his wife back in early 2018. On Monday, a Trump holdover in the DOJ’s national security division, John Demers, announced that he will leave his job at the end of the week. The move was long planned and is not necessarily connected to these subpoena controversies. But it could be.

        What the hell was going on here?

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • Hearing Tuesday: EFF Testifies Against SFPD for Violating Transparency Policies

        In September of last year, SFPD arrested a man suspected of illegally discharging a gun, and a report in the San Francisco Chronicle raised concerns that the arrest came after running the man’s photo through a facial-recognition database. If the SFPD was involved in using facial recognition, that could potentially be a violation of San Francisco’s Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinance.

        EFF filed a public records’ request with the SFPD about the investigation and the arrest, but the department released only previously available public statements. EFF appealed to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, after which point SFPD produced many more relevant documents. EFF filed a complaint with the task force about SFPD’s original, misleading record release.

        At Tuesday’s hearing, EFF Investigative Researcher Beryl Lipton will ask the task force to uphold EFF’s complaint about the SFPD, arguing that San Francisco’s transparency policies won’t work well unless public agencies are held to account when trying to skirt their responsibilities.

      • Reality Winner’s Release From Federal Prison Met With Calls for Full Pardon for the NSA Whistleblower

        Press freedom advocates were among those celebrating the release of former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner on Monday after her attorney announced Winner had been transferred from federal prison to a halfway house.

      • Ex-NSA leaker Reality Winner released from prison early for ‘exemplary’ behavior

        Reality Winner, the former NSA intelligence contractor who leaked evidence of Russian interference in a US Presidential election to the press, has been released from prison.

        Her attorney Alison Allen announced Winner, 29, had been let out on Monday early due to “exemplary” behavior while inside.

        In 2018, Winner pleaded guilty to one count of espionage for printing out a classified document describing the Kremlin’s attempts to infiltrate and meddle with voting systems amid the 2016 White house race. She sent the five-page report to The Intercept, which published a news article about the file’s contents.

        Winner was sentenced to 63 months behind bars. The near five-year sentence is the harshest punishment handed out by the courts in the United States for leaking classified information to the media.

      • Mother Of NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Describes Her Daughter’s Release From Prison

        *The following report was originally published as part of The Dissenter Newsletter, a project of Shadowproof. NSA whistleblower Reality Winner was released from federal prison to a halfway house in San Antonio on June 2. She was released one week later to home confinement with her family.Prior to her release from Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, the facility confined Reality with five other women in a hospital-sized room for 23 days. Reality was informed it was a COVID-19 quarantine protocol. Billie Winner-Davis, who is Reality’s mother, told The Dissenter that her daughter received both doses of the vaccine. She was past the two-week period necessary for the vaccine to become effective.

      • Reality Winner: US ex-NSA contractor and leaker released from prison

        The 29-year-old was jailed in 2018 for providing classified documents related to alleged Russian election [cracking] to the Intercept website.

      • Reality Winner has been released from prison

        Reality Winner, a former intelligence contractor jailed for leaking classified information, has been released from prison to serve her remaining sentence in a halfway house program. Winner’s attorney Alison Grinter tweeted the news this morning, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ website lists Winner in custody of San Antonio’s Residential Reentry Management field office, which oversees community-based programs for incarcerated people.

    • Environment

      • Mr. Trash Wheel is gobbling up millions of pounds of trash

        The Trash Wheels employ a straightforward technology: A large water mill is turned by the flowing river which powers a system of pulleys that turn a large conveyor belt and an array of rakes which help scoop floating debris onto the conveyor belt as trash floats down stream. The trash wheel has 2 long floating buoys which trap garbage that’s floating on the surface and funnels it into the mouth of Mr. Trash Wheel. From there it gets carried up the conveyor belt and emptied into a large dumpster. A small crew easily removes and empties the floating dumpsters as they get full.

        Power for the belt comes from river currents that turn the water mill, but the Trash Wheels are also outfitted with solar panels and batteries for times when the river isn’t flowing fast enough to turn the wheel.

      • We Don’t Need Science Fiction to Avert Climate Catastrophe

        Europeans gawked at the bizarre comments of US climate envoy John Kerry, who claimed last month that the transition to a climate-neutral world hinges upon “technologies we don’t yet have” and that developing them could take decades. Kerry’s statements were outlandish—and undermine efforts to curb global warming.

      • Could Biden’s Civilian Climate Corps Save America?

        The President’s bold Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) announcement could be just what we need to get America back on its feet. This program would bring jobs to people who have been underserved by the past economy. Teens, especially urban teens, adults over 50 and disabled Americans would all be trained for productive employment. Of course, green energy will be a large part of the program. That means thousands of jobs upgrading our electrical grid to move energy to where it is needed. Utilities have been neglecting grid upgrades for decades and we are now paying for it.

      • Energy

        • Intent on Appeasing Manchin, US Blocks G7 Progress on Phasing Out Coal

          Monday brought fresh outrage among climate campaigners after the G7 Summit ended without a commitment to ending coal extraction in some of the world’s richest countries.

          Five of the seven delegations—all but the U.S. and Japan—supported phasing out coal by 2040, but as Politico reported, the Biden administration forced the group to steer clear of language in its final statement that would point to the end of coal. 

        • Analysis Highlights Biden Proposal to End $84 Billion Gift to Big Oil Buried in Trump Tax Scam

          An analysis released Monday by advocacy group Friends of the Earth says that eliminating an overlooked loophole included in the Republicans’ 2017 tax legislation amounting to fossil fuel industry “welfare” could help fund renewable infrastructure while advancing smart climate policy.

          “One of the biggest presents [former President Donald] Trump ever sent to the oil industry was hidden on page 157 of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” Lukas Ross, author of the new analysis and program manager at Friends of the Earth, said in a statement.

        • Climate Campaigners Welcome SCOTUS Refusal to Hear Big Oil’s Appeal of California Lawsuits

          Climate campaigners on Monday welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear an appeal by oil and gas companies including BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil seeking to shift a lawsuit from state to federal court, a move that means litigation filed by states and cities against fossil fuel corporations will continue to play out in lower courts.

          “Appeals courts have overwhelmingly agreed that climate liability lawsuits filed in state courts belong in state courts.” —Richard Wiles, Center for Climate Integrity

        • ‘Sorely Disappointed’ by Court Ruling, Pipeline Foes Demand Biden ‘Act Immediately to Stop Line 3′

          Native American, climate, and environmental activists on Monday renewed calls for the Biden administration to fulfill its stated commitment to climate action and Indigenous rights and stop Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline after a Minnesota appellate court upheld a state agency’s approval of the highly controversial project.

          “Climate leadership means ending the fossil fuel era and stopping Line 3.” —Collin Rees, Oil Change International

        • ‘Unplanned’ outages hit Texas power plants in soaring temperatures

          Officials with Texas’ power grid operator pleaded with residents Monday to limit their electrical usage amid soaring temperatures and a series of mechanical problems at power plants.

          The appeal, from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, comes four months after deadly blackouts during a winter storm left millions of people without power — and weeks after state legislators passed a package of measures aimed at fixing some of the problems exposed by the storm.

        • Power Sources: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

          Even among the same type of source, there can be very big differences in their properties and performance. Let’s look at the most important features we should care about for any power source, how to measure them, and what to expect.

      • Wildlife/Nature

      • Overpopulation

        • A male infertility crisis could be on the horizon

          Either way, as Avidor-Reiss pointed out, modern life is almost built to put male fertility in peril. He cited a laundry list of factors, including the chemicals which surround us and can disrupt our hormones (known as “endocrine disruptors”); obesity; and men choosing to delay fatherhood. In addition, he noted that men have to continue producing sperm throughout their lives to remain fertile, while women are born with all of the eggs they will ever have; that sperm production takes over two months and is complicated, meaning that it is easier to trip us; and that “reproduction is not a task the body is trying to accomplish regularly; therefore, male infertility can go unnoticed until we try to reproduce.”

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Protecting Borders, Not Life

        You know, the sixth branch of the U.S. military, officially created in 2019, “establishing space as a warfighting domain and guaranteeing that the United States will dominate in that environment just like all others.”

        Thus declared President Donald Trump at the time, unleashing a Hollywood script on the global and perhaps the intergalactic future. John Wayne lives, and he’s wearing a space suit!

      • In His Wild Bid to Stop Leaks to the Press, Trump Even Spied on His Own Lawyer
      • AOC Says Senate Democrats Are Blocking Their Own Party’s Agenda
      • Pelosi Doubts Barr’s Claims That He Didn’t Know of Schiff, Swalwell Subpoenas
      • Why Fox News Claims ‘They’ are Destroying ‘White Culture’

        But first, let me back up.

        Democracies don’t turn into fascist oligarchies by being invaded or losing wars. It always happens from within, and is always driven by an alliance between demagogic, populist politicians and some of the very wealthiest people in society.

      • McConnell Says He’ll Block SCOTUS Nominations If GOP Regains the Senate in 2022
      • Calls to ‘Expand the Supreme Court’ Grow as McConnell Warns He’s Prepared to Steal Another Seat

        Progressive calls to add seats to the U.S. Supreme Court gained fresh urgency Monday after Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested he would block President Joe Biden from filling a potential high court vacancy if Republicans wrest back control of the upper chamber in next year’s midterms.

        “We don’t have time to wait for a commission of academics to publish a pro-con list. Expand the court now.”—Demand Justice

      • Opinion | Presidents Biden and Putin, Heed This Appeal

        At this time of a global pandemic, climate change, and teetering international economies, Presidents Biden and Putin will meet for their first official visit on Wednesday under a nuclear cloud that many observers feel is analogous to the Cold War. This meeting is expected to have frank discussions by each leader on many issues including the topic of strategic stability. Yet there is cause for hope. Noting previous occasions of cooperation and collaboration, on June 7, both governments were simultaneously delivered a high level appeal from more than 30 American and Russian organizations including international nuclear policy experts, former senior officials from both governments, international physicians and scientific organizations urging the presidents to, “Commit to a bilateral strategic dialogue that is regular, frequent, comprehensive and result oriented leading to further reduction of the nuclear risk hanging over the world and to the rediscovery of the road to a world free of nuclear weapons.” The appeal recalls the Reagan – Gorbachev Principal and joint statement following their November 1985 summit in Geneva, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” This group also understands that since that historic summit, our nuclear world has changed. It is now generally recognized that:

      • 300+ Progressive Groups Urge Corporations to Ditch ALEC for Pushing Voter Suppression Bills

        A coalition of more than 300 progressive advocacy groups on Monday sent a letter to dozens of corporate executives demanding that companies stop providing financial support to the American Legislative Exchange Council due to its support for the Republican Party’s nationwide assault on voting rights.

        “These companies cannot hide behind the excuse that they only support ALEC because of their pro-business legislation.”—Cliff Albright, Black Voters Matter

      • An Analysis of China’s Borderland History Offers a Left Case for the Uyghurs

        This essay discusses the frontier borderlands of East Asia from the seventeenth through nineteenth century. I analyze Chinese dynastic political practice, its legacy on early twentieth and twenty-first century geopolitics, as well as the need for American progressive positioning regarding the Uyghurs. In my view, commentary on this issue needs to be firmly rooted in leftist opposition to international human rights abuses, (Pukr) while resisting Sinophobia, US militarism, and Cold War exaggeration and intervention. I highlight these borders by looking at multiple frontiers geographically and thematically. Generally speaking, the regions discussed are covered in terms of the following respective evolving institutional zones: (1) the northeast, Manchuria, eastern Mongolia and Chosŏn Korea, (2) the southwest, Yunnan, Tibet and India (3) the northwest, Turkestan and Xinjiang, and (4) the north, and Outer and Inner Mongolia. I will show how each area had its own set of social, political and economic implications of environmental territory and history “across forest, steppe and mountain.”[1] To understand the problematic nature of American imperialism and Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis” is to understand China’s own borderlands and how Uyghurs today, or “people in the middle” get in the way of uncompromising nation-building.

        I argue that significant conflicts, starting in the seventeenth century, influenced Qing territory and the consequences of these are still seen in the case of the Uyghurs: ranging from mounting and forced pressure to reopen markets adjacent to border space, corporatized surveillance, economic suffering and famine, dejected statesmen and Confucian scholars, political impeachments, and forms of illicit trading. Additionally, succession and sectional disputes, mass violence, as well as pivotal demographic changes, all shaped China’s society, and its environmental history for generations.

      • Are Dems Incapable of Defending Democracy? Or Just Unwilling?

        In his first address to Congress on April 28, Joe Biden invoked the January 6 insurrection, saying, “The images of a violent mob assaulting this Capitol, desecrating our democracy, remain vivid in all our minds.” He added, “The insurrection was an existential crisis—a test of whether our democracy could survive. And it did. But the struggle is far from over.”

      • I have now been banned from Freenode

        At 2021-06-13 01:38:57 BST, I was banned (k-lined) from Freenode (server evilcorp): [...]

      • Grenfell Anniversary: Lowkey Takes Aim At Boris Johnson and UK NeoLiberalism

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Unconstitutional Florida Law Barring Platforms from Suspending Politicians Should be Blocked, EFF Tells Court

        EFF has long criticized large online platforms’ content moderation practices as opaque, inconsistent, and unfair because they often remove legitimate speech and disproportionately harm marginalized populations that struggle to be heard. These are serious problems that have real world consequences, but they don’t justify a law that violates the free speech rights of internet users who don’t happen to be Florida politicians and the private online services on which they rely, EFF said in a brief filed today in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

        “The First Amendment prevents the government from forcing private publishers to publish the government’s preferred speech, and from forcing them to favor politicians over other speakers. This is a fundamental principle of our democracy,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director David Greene.

        The Supreme Court in 1974 unanimously rejected a Florida law requiring newspapers to print candidates’ replies to editorials criticizing them. Government interference with decisions by private entities to edit and curate content is anathema to free speech, the court said.

      • Chinese Government Now Using National Security Law To Censor Art Being Displayed In Hong Kong

        Hong Kong’s new “national security” law — thrust on it by the Chinese government that’s supposed to stay out of Hong Kong’s governmental business until 2047 — continues to increase the amount of censorship in the supposedly still-independent region.

      • Hong Kong to Begin Politically Censoring Films

        Hong Kong’s film censors have been instructed to begin censoring films on national security grounds, making the city’s vaunted film industry the latest victim of spreading political censorship under the Hong Kong National Security Law. On Friday, an amendment to the film censorship ordinance means official censors are required to “be vigilant to the portrayal, depiction, or treatment of any act or activity which may amount to an offense endangering national security.” South China Morning Post’s Kanis Leung and Phila Siu reported on the details of the new censorship guidelines: [...]

      • National security law: Carrie Lam admits new censorship rules have caused Hong Kong filmmakers anxiety

    • Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

      • Reporter’s Notebook: Being a Journalist in Myanmar an Invitation for Danger

        Since the Feb. 1 coup in Myanmar, journalists have been persecuted, arrested and forced to flee. The situation is dire, but some reporters have remained despite the risks. This is a personal account of one such journalist about life since the coup. VOA is withholding the journalist’s identity for security reasons.

      • The power of photo journalism

        At the recent Luxembourg Peace Prize Boniface Mwangi became 2021 laureate for ‘Outstanding Youth Peacemaker’.

    • Internet Freedom, Privacy, & LGBTQIA+ Human Rights

      Every June, we recognize Pride month because internet freedom and the human rights of LGBTQIA+ people go hand in hand.

      LGBTQIA+ people have the right to access information, resources, and community relevant to their identities without being tracked, surveilled, censored, or persecuted—but in many parts of the world, governments block LGBTQIA+ content and punish people who engage with it.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • High School Responds To Student’s Prank By Asking Local Law Enforcement To Step In And Investigate

        I see we’re still handling things stupidly when it comes to school disciplinary problems. For years now, many schools have been steadily abdicating their responsibilities, allowing in-school law enforcement (commonly called “School Resource Officers”) to hand out discipline that school administrators used to handle themselves.

      • Two States Pass Laws Limiting Law Enforcement Access To Private DNA Services

        One of the more recent opportunities for law enforcement in the Third Party Doctrine space has been DNA databases. A number of companies offer on-demand DNA testing, allowing users to check themselves for potential markers that could indicate susceptibility to diseases or just to figure out where they fit in in the world by linking them to distant relatives they may not be aware of.

      • To Celebrate Pride, We Must Honor Its Roots as an Anti-Police Protest
      • John Oliver says this summer, we’re cooking prisoners to death in temps as high as 150 degrees

        On Sunday’s episode of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver seemed chipper about our impending summer, but of course that was a bait and switch to address a serious situation that hasn’t been getting enough attention. While those of us who’ve emerged on the other side of COVID relatively unscathed may look forward to watching a movie in a theater, relaxing on a beach or possibly visiting loved ones, the prospects for prisoners during the summer is much more grim and possibly life-threatening.

        In the segment below, Oliver presented the growing issue of overheating prisons across the country this summer – creating potentially fatal conditions – and the absurd lack of compassion officials have demonstrated.

      • Even the best cop shows fall into “copaganda” – helping the real-life police more than survivors

        Over the past year, once widely popular cop shows have fallen under increased scrutiny for their rosy portrayals of policing, at a time of far-too-frequent police killings of Black people in real life. This type of storytelling – dubbed “copaganda” because it amounts to millions of dollars in free PR for the police – has been linked to the negative and inaccurate perception of protesters, among others. Now, sexual assault survivors and their advocates are increasingly calling out the inaccuracies of how police officers treat survivors onscreen, and the dangers of telling victims and the general population that police will protect us.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • 50 groups urge Biden to fill FCC opening to reinstate net neutrality rules

        More than 50 advocacy groups on Monday sent a letter to President Biden urging him to nominate a candidate to fill an open seat on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

        The groups said it is necessary for Biden to appoint a nominee to the FCC in order to start the process to reinstate net neutrality rules rolled back under former President Trump, and underscored their push by noting the additional hurdles posed by the pandemic.

      • Sergio Durigan Junior: I am not on Freenode anymore

        This is a quick public announcement to say that I am not on the Freenode IRC network anymore. My nickname (sergiodj), which was more than a decade old, has just been deleted (along with every other nickname and channel in that network) from their database today, 2021-06-14.

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • Study Shows Disney, Netflix Continue To Dominate Traditional TV In Customer Satisfaction

        There’s just something about terrible customer service, high prices, and sketchy product that consumers oddly don’t like. American consumers’ dislike of traditional cable TV providers was once again made clear this week in a new study by the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, which tracks US consumer approval of companies on a 100 point scale. As has long been the case, the full report shows most traditional cable TV, satellite, or IPTV providers languishing somewhere in the mid 60s — scores that are bested by a long line of industries and government agencies (including the IRS).

    • Monopolies

      • Hypocrisy: Rupert Murdoch Has Always Hated Antitrust; But Now He Wants It Used Against Internet Companies Who Out Innovated Him

        It’s no secret that Rupert Murdoch is an extreme hypocrite. He spent decades railing against any kind of regulatory powers to hold back companies, but as soon as his own attempts to build an internet empire flopped dramatically, he’s come around to being a major booster of regulatory crackdowns. Just only against the companies who out-innovated him. For years now he’s been demanding that governments force the internet companies to pay him money — a move that has been successful in his home country of Australia.

      • New Antitrust Bills, NY’s $15 Broadband Blocked, Trump’s Subpoena to Apple

        The antitrust committee investigation, which scrutinized the business practices of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook, led to a report that accused the tech giants of charging high fees, forcing small customers into low-quality contracts, and buying out smaller companies that posed a competitive threat.

      • US lawmakers introduce bills targeting Big Tech

        The bills will be referred to the House Judiciary Committee before being sent to the House floor.

        To become law, they must pass through the House of Representatives, the Senate and, finally, be signed by President Joe Biden.

      • Patents

        • Lawsuit claims iPhone, other Apple devices infringe on wireless patents

          San Francisco: Apple has been hit with a lawsuit alleging that virtually all of its products that support Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity infringe on a set of wireless communication patents.

          The complaint, lodged in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, claims that Apple products — like iPhones and iPads — infringe on specific claims in 13 different patents owned by non-practicing entity Smart Mobile, LLC.

        • New Zealand Compulsory Licensing

          New Zealand is a signatory to the World Intellectual Property’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement. The legal basis for compulsory licenses under New Zealand Patent Law is the New Zealand Patents Act. The provisions for compulsory licenses are found in Sections 169 through 175.

        • President Of European Patent Office Submits Written Observations On Use Of Videoconferencing For Oral Hearings

          The President of the EPO has submitted written observations to the Enlarged Board of Appeal on case G 1/21, “Oral proceedings by videoconference”.

          The appeal concerns the question whether the conduct of oral proceedings by videoconference is compatible with the right to oral proceedings as enshrined in Article 116(1) of the European Patent Convention if not all of the parties to the proceedings have given their consent.

          The President submits that proceedings by videoconference has become an indispensable measure, ensuring legal certainty of the European patent grant and opposition process. In the President’s view, the question referred is admissible as it is important that it is resolved to ensure legal certainty. It is also in the interest of the users of the European patent system, general public and the EPO.

          The President says that, irrespective of party consent, the compliance of oral proceedings by videoconference is “beyond doubt”. Construing Article 116 EPC in line with general principles of treaty interpretation, the President contends that Article 116 does not prescribe a specific form of oral proceedings and exclude other forms, such as videoconference. Further, all substantive requirements of Article 116 are met when oral proceedings are held by videoconference and conducting oral proceedings this way therefore complies with Article 116(1). Further, case law of the EPO supports the concept of oral proceedings by videoconference being consistent with Article 116.

      • Copyrights

        • The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 92: A Conversation with Senator Paula Simons on Copyright, the Internet and the Future of Media in Canada

          TRCM: Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan appears at committee for Bill S-225, June 2, 2021

        • Investigation Links ‘Pirate’ Scam Ads to Canadian Affiliate Network

          The Internet is full of misleading ads that promise free access to popular blockbuster movies, some of which are still in theaters. People who sign up for these services will soon realize that the offers are too good to be true. And when the trial expires, it can get quite costly too. Meanwhile, the masterminds behind the schemes are earning millions of dollars.

        • Guy Who Bragged On Triller Owner’s Instagram That He Pirated Jake Paul Fight Gets Sued

          Triller has followed up on its threat to sue someone for simply watching a pirated stream of the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren fight. Triller previously gave pirates the opportunity to pay a settlement fee to avoid a lawsuit but one man decided to confess on Instagram instead. It didn’t go well.

        • Which VPN Providers Really Take Privacy Seriously in 2021?

          Choosing the right VPN can be a tricky endeavor. There are hundreds of VPN services out there, all promising to keep you private but some are more private than others. To help you pick the best one for your needs, we asked dozens of VPNs to detail their logging practices, how they handle torrent users, and what else they do to keep you as anonymous as possible.

        • CC Copyright Platform Members Share the Stories of Their Projects

          Preparing Bulgarian GLAMs for the EU Copyright Reform — by Ana Lazarova

        • [Old] Preparing Bulgarian GLAMs for the EU Copyright Reform

          The initiative ‘GLAMs to Fix Copyright: Preparing GLAMs for the Copyright Reform in Bulgaria’ was organized by Creative Commons Bulgaria in collaboration with Digital Republic Association, and supported by Creative Commons Global Network Copyright Platform Activity Fund.

          On December 07 and 14, 2020, we organised a two-days extensive copyright training for public libraries in Bulgaria. Our main purpose was to inform library representatives about the upcoming implementation into national law of the recently adopted Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (the CDSM Directive). However, we also included what it turned out to be much-needed information on copyright basics, CC licenses, Rights statements, the legal status of e-books and digitisation.

IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 14, 2021

Posted in IRC Logs at 2:59 am by Needs Sunlight

HTML5 logs

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#techrights log as HTML5

#boycottnovell log as HTML5

HTML5 logs

HTML5 logs

#boycottnovell-social log as HTML5

#techbytes log as HTML5

text logs

text logs

#techrights log as text

#boycottnovell log as text

text logs

text logs

#boycottnovell-social log as text

#techbytes log as text

Enter the IRC channels now

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 QmPXx7n9mDBy8QB4sVfX7rrrT6sV34oR4HbaTRMMfqNRk2 IRC log for #boycottnovell
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 QmVXPUmUXw6faKNXmDxWGkJM4LmrEFurtqzLXosAQvdAkF IRC log for #boycottnovell
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 QmZQcB1wp1qg96FQ9JNVfw9Abz8NtJvFPQBXigNWvH3zMr IRC log for #boycottnovell-social
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 QmdjLbRzJGkyYJbq2fEPEvsodMjZ41iRfEPairtGUfWngC IRC log for #boycottnovell-social
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 Qmcsfj8QzUNrzx7M7U5xCD9L9HkJRBaPysLUegbFbpXV4h IRC log for #techrights
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Bulletin for Yesterday

Local copy | CID (IPFS): QmWUuHEZ2oaiCQvka8SLGahoMnqWoQAYEYcBWvmbUrf6Us

Virtual Injustice — Part 7: Musical Chairs and Revolving Doors

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Previously in the series:

  1. Virtual Injustice — Part 1: António’s Increasingly Wonky Legal Fudge Factory
  2. Virtual Injustice — Part 2: The ViCo Oral Proceedings of 28 May 2021
  3. Virtual Injustice — Part 3: All the President’s Men…
  4. Virtual Injustice — Part 4: Mihály Ficsor, the EPO’s Hungarian “Fixer”
  5. Virtual Injustice — Part 5: Benoît’s “Friends” in Budapest
  6. Virtual Injustice — Part 6: Best Buddies With António

Ficsor and Niloofar 'Nellie' Simon
In January 2019, Ficsor (right) replaced Niloofar “Nellie” Simon (left) as chef de cabinet in Alicante before joining Team Campinos at the EPO in Munich in March 2020.

Summary: Cross pollination in Alicante and Munich serves to show that people aren’t picked for their skills and experience; it’s like a private club or a clique

Miklós Bendzsel’s term as director of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (HIPO) came to an end when he retired in 2016. In the normal course of events – based on the principle of Buggins’ turn – his deputy Ficsor could have been expected to take over at the helm.

A conflict of interest siloBut for some reason Ficsor didn’t slip into Bendzsel’s shoes. It’s not clear whether this was due to a lack of interest on Ficsor’s part or whether there might have been some hidden political factors at play here.

There has been speculation that Fiscor could have fallen out of favour with Viktor Orbán’s regime which had been in power in Hungary since 2010.

It is an entirely plausible hypothesis that Ficsor’s “globalist” mindset and his close involvement with the EU trademark agency OHIM/EUIPO could have brought him into conflict with his more nationally-minded and EU-sceptical political masters in Hungary.

Whether he jumped or whether he was pushed, the fact is that at the same time as Bendzsel retired in 2016, Ficsor left the HIPO and moved on to fresh pastures in the private sector.

Gedeon Richter plc
Between July 2016 and March 2017, Ficsor was Director of IP Protection at Gedeon Richter plc.

To be more precise, he took up a new position as the Director of Intellectual Property Protection at Gedeon Richter plc in July 2016.

A conflict of interestGedeon Richter Plc. is a Hungarian multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company headquartered in Budapest. It is one of the largest Central and Eastern European companies in this sector and has operations in over 40 countries.

The company was founded in 1901 by Gedeon Richter, a Hungarian-Jewish pharmacist, and its establishment marked the beginning of the development of the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry.

In 1942, Richter was stripped of his position as director due to anti-Semitic laws enacted by the pro-German Hungarian regime, and he was subjected to a “house-ban” from his factory. However, he continued to manage the company from his home with the staff he trusted. Even though he had the opportunity to escape from Budapest and move to Switzerland, he opted to remain in hiding with the assistance of Raoul Wallenberg. In December 1944, Richter was caught and murdered by members of the pro-German Arrow Cross Party and his body was thrown into the Danube.

Today, Gedeon Richter plc – has a primary listing on the Budapest Stock Exchange and a secondary listing on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. Its market capitalisation at the end of 2020 was approximately EUR 3.8 billion.

For some unknown reason, Ficsor’s dalliance with the private sector didn’t last very long – less than a year in fact.

He left Gedeon Richter in March 2017 and soon afterwards he re-entered the public sector by taking up a position at the EU trademark agency EUIPO in Alicante, where – by a curious coincidence – his old buddy Campinos was still in charge.

Ficsor’s new public sector career at the EUIPO started off in the International Cooperation and Legal Affairs Department where his job title was “Deputy Director responsible for the European Cooperation Area”.

When a similar position was advertised in 2016, the staff grade indicated was “AD 12″. The monthly basic salary for EU officials at this staff grade is between EUR 11,671 and EUR 13,205. These are tax-free sums which are typically supplemented by additional allowances and other perks.

CASDAO with ARCHAMBEAUCampinos departed from the EUIPO in Alicante to take over from Battistelli in Munich when the latter’s eight-year reign at the EPO ended in June 2018.

Six months later – in January 2019 – Campinos’ chef-de-cabinet from Alicante, Niloofar “Nellie” Simon, took over as the new Vice-President in charge of the EPO’s “Corporate Services” (warning: epo.org link) Department. “Nellie” Simon was the replacement for Battistelli’s Croatian bulldog Željko Topić who finished his term in Munich in December 2018 and headed back to Zagreb to set up his own private company Topić IP d.o.o. with the help of a bogus claim to have qualified as a European Patent Attorney, apparently obtained with the connivance of Campinos and Christoph Ernst, the new EPO Vice-President in charge of Legal and International affairs.

Meanwhile, at the EUIPO, Ficsor moved in to fill the position left vacant by Simon and became chef-de-cabinet [PDF] to Christian Archambeau, Campinos’ successor in Alicante.

A little over a year later, this game of “musical chairs” between Munich and Alicante was followed by an episode of "revolving doors", of the kind which is all too familiar to EPO observers.

In March 2020, Ficsor left the EUIPO to join Team Campinos in Munich where he was appointed to a position as a Principal Director (PD) in the EPO’s Legal and International Affairs Directorate, known internally as DG5.

Heike Wieland
The former PD 5.3 Heike Wieland jumped ship from the EPO in January 2020.

According to EPO insiders, Ficsor was parachuted in as a replacement for the former PD 5.3, Heike Wieland, who jumped ship from the EPO in January 2020.

Lutz and Christoph Ernst of EPOUnder Battistelli, Wieland played a leading role in the prosecution of many disciplinary procedures, including those conducted against staff representatives and SUEPO officials.

However, she is reported to have fallen into disfavour with Battistelli as a result of the very public debacle in the proceedings G2301/16 (warning: epo.org link) where the Corsican despot was caught threatening the Enlarged Board of Appeal in June 2016.

Wieland somehow managed to survive Battistelli – perhaps due to the protection of her compatriots Raimund Lutz and Christoph Ernst – but her internal standing at the EPO never really recovered from the Enlarged Board debacle in June 2016 and she finally cashed in her chips at the start of 2020 to pursue a career as a private practice lawyer in the field of aviation law.

In the next part we will conclude our review of Ficsor’s career and look at his well-deserved reputation as an IP maximalist and an enthusiastic advocate of “software patents”. █

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