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Links 12/8/2021: V3DV and OpenHMD Progress Updates



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Arch Linux: PGP Signature Is Corrupted??? - Invidious

        If you want a good reason to not suggest a rolling release to a new Linux user this is exactly why, between updates of packages a PGP key expired forcing me to manually update the keys to peform a system update.

      • Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S14E23 – Caked Credit Fame

        This week we’ve been playing Tabletop Simulator and enjoying DOOM Eternal. We’re joined by Rhys Davies to help round up the goings on in the Ubuntu Community and discuss our favourite stories from the tech news.

        It’s Season 14 Episode 23 of the Ubuntu Podcast! Alan Pope, Mark Johnson and Rhys Davies are connected and speaking to your brain.

      • BSD Now 415: Wrong OS Switch

        Wrong Way to Switch Server OS, Net/1 and Net/2 – A Path to Freedom, Permissions Two Mistakes, OpenBSD progress in supporting riscv64 platform, I2P intro, git sync murder is out, GhostBSD init system poll, and more

    • Kernel Space

      • The Linux Kernel Begins Preparing For AV1 Decode Support

        The number of hardware platforms providing accelerated AV1 coding is still quite limited for now but with more hardware coming to market supporting encode/decode of this royalty-free video codec, the Linux kernel's media subsystem is getting ready.

        A "request for comments" patch series was sent out on Tuesday by Collabora's Daniel Almeida for implementing the stateless AV1 user-space API for the Linux kernel within the media subsystem.

      • Intel closes security gaps in laptops, Linux drivers & Co.

        Several vulnerabilities in hardware and drivers from Intel could open the door for attackers to nestle on computers. To prevent this, those affected should install the security patches available for download.

        Most dangerous is a security vulnerability (CVE-2021-0084, “high“) in the Linux RMDA driver for the Ethernet controller X722 and 800. Due to a lack of verification of inputs, attackers could obtain higher user rights in an unspecified way. They could also leak information (CVE-2021-0002, “medium“, CVE2021-0003, “low“). The Driver 1.3.19 and 1.4.11 are secured against it.

      • Linux 5.13.10
        I'm announcing the release of the 5.13.10 kernel.
        All users of the 5.13 kernel series must upgrade.
        
        

        The updated 5.13.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-5.13.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s...

        thanks,

        greg k-h
      • Linux 5.10.58
      • Linux 5.4.140
      • Linux 4.19.203
      • Graphics Stack

        • Danylo Piliaiev: Testing Vulkan drivers with games that cannot run on the target device

          Here I’m playing “Spelunky 2” on my laptop and simultaneously replaying the same Vulkan calls on an ARM board with Adreno GPU running the open source Turnip Vulkan driver. Hint: it’s an x64 Windows game that doesn’t run on ARM.

        • An update on feature progress for V3DV

          I’ve been silent here for quite some time, so here is a quick summary of some of the new functionality we have been exposing in V3DV, the Vulkan driver for Raspberry PI 4, over the last few months...

        • The V3DV Vulkan driver for Raspberry Pi 4 is nearing Vulkan 1.1 support

          Iago Toral of Igalia has written up a blog post going over a bunch of work done for the V3DV Vulkan driver for Raspberry Pi 4 and it's coming along nicely.

          Toral noted in the update how the V3DV driver has over the last few months added support for a good bunch more extensions, which means it's closing in on Vulkan 1.1 support. It's not quite confirmed yet though. Although it has all of the mandatory requirements added for Vulkan 1.1, it still needs to go through conformance testing and fix any failures that come up yet. Toral noted how "the bottom line is that Vulkan 1.1 should be fairly close now".

        • Intel Appears Ready To Advertise Its DG1 Graphics Card Support On Linux - Phoronix

          As I have covered in many Phoronix articles over the past number of months, it's been a lengthy road bringing up the DG1 graphics support on Linux with the Intel open-source engineers having to re-architect their "i915" kernel graphics driver to support device local memory, getting the GuC support into good shape, scheduler changes, beginning to make use of TTM for memory management, user-space API changes, and a ton of other changes in expanding the driver's scope from just catering to integrated graphics. But now it looks like the DG1 Linux support is about to be officially advertised.

        • AMD Van Gogh Firmware Published, Other Radeon GPU Firmware Updated - Phoronix

          AMD has upstreamed the Van Gogh binary-only firmware files necessary for the RDNA2 graphics to be initialized by the open-source driver on this forthcoming APU.'

          Hitting linux-firmware.git this morning was the updating of all the AMDGPU firmware files against the state as shipped by this week's Radeon Software for Linux 21.30 driver package. Those firmware files from that packaged state are now in this de facto upstream repository that Linux distributions pull from for offering the firmware/microcode files needed for kernel driver compatibility.

        • AMD Adds RDNA 2-Based Van Gogh Enabling Firmware to Linux

          AMD has added firmware support for its codenamed Van Gogh accelerated processing unit (APU) to linux-firmware.git, an important Linux repository. The addition of firmware support is one of the final steps of hardware enablement in Linux. In many cases it points to an imminent release of a product.

          AMD (and other hardware vendors) ship new firmware versions for their parts in new Linux drivers, something that AMD did earlier this week with the release of the Radeon Software for Linux 21.30 package. To enable built-in compatibility with new hardware and drivers, developers of Linux distributions have to get firmware separately from linux-firmware.git, a universal repository of firmware files for various hardware. With the new driver package release and firmware upload, AMD has ensured essential support of its latest Van Gogh APU in various Linux builds, reports Phoronix.

          But while the launch of AMD's Van Gogh may be getting closer, we still know nothing certain about this processor.

    • Benchmarks

      • An Early Look At LLVM Clang 13 Performance On AMD Zen 3

        With LLVM/Clang 13 feature development having ended last week and the 13.0 release candidate being tagged, in starting off the benchmarking cycle first up I was looking at how well this new compiler is performing compared to LLVM Clang 12 stable on an AMD EPYC 7543 (Zen 3) Linux server.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Fix Chromium signing out from Google under Linux Mint 20 :: Rafael Cavalcanti

        Recently, I started experiencing this issue on Chromium under Linux Mint 20.

        Every time I opened Chromium and tried to use a Google service, I would not be logged on them. For example, opening Gmail would show me the login page. I, then, proceeded to login, and everything worked fine until I closed the browser. Opening Chromium again would bring me back to the same problem: I was signed out from Google and prompted to login.

        This only happened to Google, other websites worked fine.

        Clearing the cache, trying different password stores and even deleting every Chromium file on my home directory and starting clean didn’t solve it.

      • ow to migrate from CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux

        CentOS 8 Linux will be not supported by the end of the year 2021 and if you want to migrate it to AlmaLinux 8, follow the instructions below.

        There is no standard release of CentOS 8+ Linux going forward and CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as an upstream branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux that seats between Fedora and RHEL.

        AlmaLinux is an free and open source Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) fork developed by CloudLinux that is a great alternative to CentOS 8.

        In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to migrate to AlmaLinux from CentOS 8 using “almalinux-deploy” script.

      • How to install Intellij Idea 2021 Ultimate on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install Intellij Idea 2021 Ultimate 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.

        Please take note that it comes with a 30-day free trial and afterward it is paid.

      • Fix Taskwarrior autocompletion on Termux :: Rafael Cavalcanti

        If you use Taskwarrior on Termux, autocompletion doesn’t work out of the box, be it on Zsh or Bash.

        I found out that the completions are available at $PREFIX/share/doc/task/scripts, but absent on the appropriate shell completion directories.

      • When 2FA on your Linux servers won't let you in, try this fix - TechRepublic

        When your Linux servers are giving you fits, Jack Wallen has the solution for you.

      • 8 Tips to Customize the Cinnamon Desktop in Linux

        Windows users looking to switch to Linux will love the familiar desktop environment provided by Linux Mint. Cinnamon enables a traditional desktop experience that is exceptionally well-suited for beginners and gives several customization options to meet different requirements.

        Are you looking for ways to tweak the look and feel of the Cinnamon desktop? If you nodded a yes in agreement, then read on to check out ways to customize your desktop in the best possible way.

      • GNU Linux How To – kvm qemu shutdown all vms – start all vms with keyword in name – snapshot all vms
      • Fix opening locked app from Termux on MIUI :: Rafael Cavalcanti

        Termux has the handy termux-open command, which is aliased as xdg-open. I use it to open markdown notes from Termux on Markor (a markdown editor application), by simply running xdg-open foobar.md.

        This stopped working when I set Markor to use MIUI’s “app lock” feature, which forces you to authenticate before opening selected apps. Termux would open Markor normally and the “app lock” screen would ask for my credentials. However, after logging in correctly, I would be brought back to Termux. Manually opening Markor wouldn’t show the file I opened.

      • Best Way to Add Custom Inline JavaScript in WordPress Site (Better Way)

        If you are completely new to WordPress, adding inline JavaScript might not be the easiest task to figure out on your own. Sure, there are some popular methods that can help you to some extent. In this article, we are going to see best way to add custom inline JavaScript in WordPress website.

      • What is termux-dialog and how I use it :: Rafael Cavalcanti

        I use Termux for several years, since I came back from iOS to Android. However, only recently I explored termux-dialog, which can really be a game changer.

      • Multi-line annotations on Taskwarrior :: Rafael Cavalcanti

        When I started using Taskwarrior, one of the first things that I missed was having plenty of space for writing my annotations.

        Of course, I could add \n's as I wished to break lines, but I wanted a comfier place to write them.

        I quickly stumbled upon a simple script that could solve that. It worked like this: you run it with the task number and your preferred editor opened with a blank screen, ready for your annotation. Now when you saved and closed it, your task was annotated. Very useful.

      • Issuing valid certificates for LAN-only websites :: Rafael Cavalcanti

        The scenario: you have some websites that only face your network. You want to enable SSL on them, and the certificate to be recognized out of the box on the clients, without the need for installing on each of them. For this, you have your own domain name.

        So a self-signed certificate is not an option, and you’ll probably want to use Let’s Encrypt. However, if you try Let’s Encrypt, the HTTP-01 challenge will fail, as your website doesn’t face the internet.

        A solution may be to use the DNS-01 challenge, but your domain DNS may not support it. In that case, what can you do?

      • Kubernetes with NFS Persistent Volumes - DiddleDani

        Using NFS persistent volumes is a relatively easy, for kubernetes, on-ramp to using the kubernetes storage infrastructure.

        Before following this guide, you should have an installed kubernetes cluster. If you don’t, check out the guide how to Install K3s.

      • Install and access the K8s Web UI Dashboard - DiddleDani

        While I don’t find the dashboard very useful for configuring anything in the cluster, it can be helpful to find a resource you’ve lost track of or discover resources you didn’t know were there.

        Before following this guide, you should have an installed kubernetes cluster. If you don’t, check out the guide how to Install K3s.

      • Openstack RDO && KVM Hypervisor: Setting up KDE Plasma on Rocky Linux 8.4 KVM/VBOX 6.1.26 Guest on Server F34

        Following below is a brief set of instructions setting up KDE Plasma on RockyLinux along with Gnome Desktop Manager which is actually needed to support graphical login, otherwise system might be started via text login followed by "startx"

      • Automatically create multiple applications in Argo CD | Opensource.com

        In a previous article, I demonstrated how Argo CD makes pull-based GitOps deployments simple. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to automatically create multiple applications in Argo CD using Argo CD itself.

      • How to back up MySQL databases from the command line in Linux | FOSS Linux

        The current technological evolution of every aspect of life has made data more precious than gold and silver. If you can acquire, grow, and protect data, you are one step away from being a data god. Yet, big companies that control life aspects like e-commerce, fuel, transport, and food landscapes rely on data protection to shield themselves from an inevitable collapse.

        Right now, losing data is like losing your life insurance. So the database management system you are using should have a backup orientation. If you are a MySQL administrator or a user dealing with growing data, you should consider implementing a more than frequent backup automation plan. Reason? You might end up being a victim of a data hack or even alter your data by accident.

        Such circumstances can lead to unforgiving data breaches, especially when you don’t have a database backup plan. If you are an invested MySQL user or administrator, this article is here to fix your database backup worries. We will meet two objectives. First, you will understand the implementation of exporting databases through “mysqldump”. Then, finally, we will touch on how using “crontab” can make this entire process easier through automation.

      • How To Install Nessus Scanner on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Nessus Scanner on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Nessus gives you malware detection, scanning of embedded devices, configurations auditing, control systems auditing, and compliance checks among other features. It is developed and maintained by Tenable. The vulnerability scanner platform can save the scan results in various formats such as plain text, XML, HTML, and LaTeX.

        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 Nessus Scanner 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.

      • How To Enable Full Disk Encryption on an Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop - JumpCloud

        Device security is one of the primary concerns that security professionals, developers, and other IT professionals have in the face of a growing number of cyber threats. Criminal hackers are increasingly more sophisticated in their attack vectors and constantly inventing new ways of bypassing even the most secure systems. Though some may argue that Linux is the most secure and stable operating system, it can still fall prey to the same misconfigurations and user errors that plague users of Mac and Windows devices.

        No device is foolproof, and like many things in your environment, your Linux system is as secure as its weakest point. The default configurations chosen during the first installation are not enough to harden your device, and unpatched Linux systems and the use of outdated software can significantly increase the chances of a breach. In a worst-case scenario you may find your hard drive completely wiped, with critical files inaccessible and possibly stolen without much evidence left behind. Source code stored on a Linux laptop could fall prey to malicious individuals or perhaps there is PII stored on the laptop in a local file or database; regardless of the individual use case, ensuring that your data is secure is critical.

        There are various steps you can take to safeguard Linux devices from potential breaches. One of them is enabling full disk encryption on their drive.

      • 40+ open source and Linux terms you need to know - TechRepublic

        If you’re new to Linux and open source software, you will quickly find that there are many terms to learn. Or maybe you’ve come across a word or two in your journey and found yourself lost. Fortunately, TechRepublic Premium is here to help you along the way.

        We’ve collected more than 40 terms that are commonly used within the open-source and Linux communities; terms that aren’t always in the regular parlance.

    • Games

      • How to install Flightgear on Linux Lite 5.4 - Invidious

        In this video, we are looking at how to install Flightgear on Linux Lite 5.4.

      • Looks like the fresh Back 4 Blood Beta is working on Linux with Proton GE | GamingOnLinux

        Back 4 Blood is releasing in October from Turtle Rock Studios (original developer on Left 4 Dead) and they now have an Open Beta that anyone can try out and it appears to work with Proton GE.

        It's notable because it uses Easy Anti-Cheat, and you get the EAC loading screen when you load up the game. Usually, games with EAC don't work with Proton on Linux and just block it entirely. We know that Valve has been working with the likes of Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye ready for the Steam Deck release but it's not entirely clear how (or even if?) it's working right now. Back 4 Blood is releasing in October from Turtle Rock Studios (original developer on Left 4 Dead) and they now have an Open Beta that anyone can try out and it appears to work with Proton GE.

        It's notable because it uses Easy Anti-Cheat, and you get the EAC loading screen when you load up the game. Usually, games with EAC don't work with Proton on Linux and just block it entirely. We know that Valve has been working with the likes of Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye ready for the Steam Deck release but it's not entirely clear how (or even if?) it's working right now.

      • Chaos is the name of the game in CreatorCrate as you devour everything | GamingOnLinux

        CreatorCrate from developer Jori Ryan is all about running around and causing chaos. It's fast, totally ridiculous and a lot of fun to blast through. It just released recently with native Linux support, with the Ryan mentioning how it was actually developed on Linux using open source tooling and the Unity game engine.

        What makes CreatorCrate so chaotic is what your character is capable of. You're basically a 3D printer that has legs, arms and an appetite for everything - and you've gone totally nuts. You can eat any person and object, to use as matter for printing objects or to heal up and so there's a whole lot of eating. No only that, you can also swing around objects to throw at enemies, block fire and more - you can even pinch a downed enemy weapon to use against them.

      • Linux hits 1% user share on Steam for first time in years, which is over 1 million players

        The share of Linux users on Steam has historically been pretty low [among DRM gamers]. However, it has now reached 1% for the first time in years soon after the Steam Deck announcement.

      • How to play Crusader Kings II on Linux

        Crusader Kings II is a strategy game that takes place in the Middle Ages. It was developed and published by Paradox Interactive. In 2019, the CK II transitioned to a “free-to-play” model. Here’s how to play the game on Linux.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDE Gear 21.08 Brings Improvements to Dolphin, Konsole, Okular, and Many Other KDE Apps

          KDE Gear (formerly KDE Applications) 21.08 is here to bring you a plethora of improvements and new features to your favorite KDE apps, starting with the most used one, the Dolphin file manager, which received animated previews of the contents of a folder, previews for files inside encrypted locations, as well as automatic and real time update of the file info presented in the Information Panel.

          On top of that, Dolphin now presents you with an easier to rename several files, using the F2 key on a selected file, or using Tab and Shift + Tab to navigate back and forward on your files, as well as to copy a file’s name to the clipboard. Moreover, Dolphin’s new KHamburger menu now makes everything easier to access.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • 7 Great-Looking Gnome Shell Themes

          Do you love Gnome Shell but hate the way it looks? Don’t worry, the Internet is chock-full of better-looking themes to choose from. There are so many, in fact, that we’ve had to filter it down to seven themes. Here are some of the best Gnome Shell themes you can use to customize your Gnome DE.

    • Distributions

      • Top 10 new features in elementary OS 6

        Elementary OS 6 Odin is finally on the red carpet with promising updates and upgrades. This Ubuntu-inspired Linux distribution’s update and upgrade changes focus on...

        This Ubuntu-based Linux distribution release launched on an easy and user-friendly interface to control their operating system environments. The OS release also continues the crusade of user data privacy and protection.

      • elementary OS 6 is Now Available

        elementary this week announced the availability of what it says is the biggest update yet to its Ubuntu-based Linux distribution, which brings ease of use, pleasant aesthetics, and a commitment to privacy. It’s called elementary OS 6 Odin.

        “It’s been a long road to elementary OS 6—what with a whole global pandemic dropped on us in the middle of development—but it’s finally here,” elementary co-founder Cassidy James Blaede writes. “elementary OS 6 Odin is available to download now. And it’s the biggest update to the platform yet! With OS 6, we’ve focused on empowering you to be in control and express yourself, continuing to innovate with new features, and making elementary OS easier to get and more inclusive.”

        New features include more pervasive support for multi-touch throughout the system, including touchpad gestures; a redesigned notification system, a new Tasks app, support for firmware updates from several PC makers (including Dell, HP, and Lenovo), and major updates to built-in apps like Web (the web browser formally known as Epiphany), Mail, Calendar, Camera, AppCenter, Files, Code (a coding editor), and Terminal.

      • TalkingParabola merged in main ISO and installation medium with installer

        Last year Arch integrated the features from the TalkingArch project into archiso and some months ago they added an installer into their installation medium. As a result, and with some delay, TalkingParabola was deprecated and we added these features to our ISOs too. They are available in out download page as well.

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Use automated snapshots to defend against ransomware with NetApp and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

          In this installment of our digital transformation journey with fictional company Davie Street Enterprises, learn how Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and NetApp's ONTAP solution can come together to help you prevent ransomware attacks.

        • Understanding and verifying security of Diffie-Hellman parameters

          When we use machines to communicate over the internet, we often want those exchanges to be secure: protected against modification in transit, scrambled in a way that only we and the intended recipient can read it, and linked with a specific identity (a specific server or person) so that we know who we are communicating with.

          While there are multiple protocols that provide assurances about security, the good ones require that the parties agree on some shared secret before any user data can be encrypted and integrity protected.

          There are two methods commonly used to agree on shared secrets: have one party use some long-term asymmetric key to encrypt the secret and send it to the owner of the key (like in an RSA key exchange), or have both parties exchange messages that contribute to the computed shared secret (what we call Diffie-Hellman key exchange).

          The security of both methods depends on picking numbers that are just right. In one variant of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange one of the parameters needs to be a large prime number. Because the key exchange is vulnerable to attacks if the number is not prime, or not a special kind of prime, the Red Hat Crypto Team has developed a tool to provide mathematical proof that the numbers we distribute are indeed primes of that special type and thus aren’t the weakest link in the security of systems that depend on them. We’ve also published a set of primality certificates to allow for quicker verification of their primality.

          At the end of this article you can find instructions on how to use this tool, called ecpp-verifier, to verify the primality certificates or how to check that all the primes used by OpenSSH have matching certificates.

        • Build and deploy microservices with Kubernetes and Dapr | Red Hat Developer

          Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) provides an event-driven, portable runtime for building distributed microservices. The project is useful for both stateless or stateful applications on the cloud and at the network edge. A new open source project from Microsoft, Dapr embraces a diversity of languages and development frameworks. The project is a natural fit for Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift. This article shows you how to install Dapr and walks you through the process of building a sample application on Kubernetes.

        • A Java developer's guide to Quarkus | Opensource.com

          Serverless architecture has already become an efficient solution to align overprovisioning and underprovisioning resources (e.g., CPU, memory, disk, networking) with actual workloads regardless of physical servers, virtual machines, and cloud environments. Yet, there is a concern for Java developers when choosing new programming languages to develop serverless applications. The Java framework seems too heavyweight and slow for serverless deployment on the cloud, especially Kubernetes.

          What if you, Java developer, could keep using the Java framework to build traditional cloud-native microservices as well as new serverless functions at the same time? This approach should be exciting since you don’t have to worry about a steep learning curve for new serverless application frameworks.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Ubuntu Blog: Orchestration in Telcos: the multi-vendor and multi-cloud environments…

          The use of NFV migration is becoming commonplace, it is made apparent there is a need for a higher degree of software management, smoother upgrades, and deployment process. Due to the complexity of the migration, Telcos have been deterred from adoption. A solution should be out there to aid businesses in managing and deploying network automation, orchestration, and managed services.

          In general, a telco network is complex and needs to be managed using multiple perspectives. For a proper deployment, a pure Open Source approach would require a great deal of work to be put in, however, commercial deployment of MANO stacks provided by vendors again raises the “vendor lock-in” question.

          Another problem faced by telcos is that after investing a lot into creating cloud services, telecom operators are unable to create a solid product to sell. With the right orchestration solution, telcos can market a pre-packaged solution and use APIs to extend the platform to meet their needs.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Events

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • Thunderbird 91.0 Released with Native Apple Silicon Support, Multi-Process By Default

            Mozilla Thunderbird email client released new major 91.0 version with many new features and improvements.

            Thunderbird 91.0 now runs in multi-process (e10s) mode by default, which offers many advantages in responsiveness, stability, performance, and security.

            For macOS users, the release adds native support for computers with Apple silicon CPUs. There are also Latvian language support, new user interface for adding attachments, etc.

            The ‘Account Setup’ has a new look and finally move to new tab instead of a floating dialog. It also adds ability to detect and set up CalDAV calendars and address book during setup.

      • SaaS/Back End/Databases

        • Call for Members for the Community Code of Conduct Committee

          This message is being sent from the Community Code of Conduct Committee, with the approval of the Core Team.

          The PostgreSQL Community Code of Conduct Committee is approaching our third year anniversary. As part of the community CoC policy, the Committee membership is to be refreshed on an annual basis.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

      • Programming/Development

        • Jan Schmidt: OpenHMD update

          I’ve built a branch of OpenHMD that uses GStreamer to record the CV1 camera video, plus IMU and tracking logs into a video file.

          To go with those recordings, I’ve been working on a replay and simulation tool, that uses the Godot game engine to visualise the tracking session. The goal is to show, frame-by-frame, where OpenHMD thought the cameras, headset and controllers were at each point in the session, and to be able to step back and forth through the recording.

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • A Kingpin, the Mob and a Murder: The Deeper Mystery Behind the Arthur Shapiro Homicide

        In the roughly two years since Jeffery Epstein’s “suicide” in a Manhattan jail cell, some of his closest associates, friends, and “clients” continue to scramble to salvage their carefully crafted public images from the fallout of having had links to Epstein and/or the network that enabled his sex-trafficking and blackmail activities. Chief among those who have labored to keep their names out of the press is arguably Epstein’s closest associate alongside Ghislaine Maxwell, the retail billionaire Leslie Wexner.

        Wexner, the richest man in Ohio, has had his well-crafted public persona irrevocably tarnished by the association, but he has used his influence and power to keep his name largely out of the press, despite the clear ties between him and Epstein as well as the many sordid acts that are now synonymous with Epstein’s name.

        One obvious consequence of keeping Wexner’s name mostly out of the headlines has been a lack of journalistic scrutiny applied to his dealings, both past and present. While some Ohio journalists, Bob Fitrakis chief among them, have critically reported on Wexner for decades, there has been little attention given to the dark underbelly of Wexner’s empire by the mainstream press, despite his obvious and extremely close connection with Jeffrey Epstein.

        There are several historical moments when Wexner’s made-to-order persona of the “rag trade revolutionary” unravels, with the most critical being the murder of Arthur Shapiro and its subsequent cover-up. While some mainstream outlets, such as the Daily Beast, have recently attempted to dig slightly deeper into Shapiro’s death and what it reveals about Leslie Wexner, in this article reveals previously unreported implications of Shapiro’s death and how it relates to the billionaire who was Epstein’s most obvious, yet unindicted, accomplice.

        [...]

        While Berry L. Kessler may well have had a role in Arthur Shapiro’s death, it seems unlikely that he had the political pull to get police to cover up several, apparently connected, murders—those of Arthur Shapiro, Frank Yassenoff, Ella Rich, and potentially Marjorie Dyer—or the financial resources to pay for a professional contract killing. Given the evidence, it appears that Kessler was a deeply corrupt operator, but most likely only a middleman for the dirty deed if he was involved in the “hit” on Shapiro.

        Concerns about the deeper forces at work in these cases appear to be what led Columbus police investigators to produce a document like the Shapiro Murder File in the first place, and its suppression and attempted destruction suggest that the scrutiny was aimed squarely at Leslie Wexner, which was too close for comfort for those in Ohio law enforcement who sought to protect the criminal nexus ultimately responsible for Shapiro’s death. Wexner’s involvement with suspect entities and actors came to light well after the Shapiro case, but the blatant murder of The Limited’s lawyer is the first documented instance of this connection and, arguably, one of the most important.

        Wexner and many other wealthy “clients” of Jeffrey Epstein have taken great pains to develop sophisticated PR strategies aimed at keeping their reputations unscathed from the continuing fallout in the Epstein case. Wexner and others, such as Bill Gates, have pursued a narrative where all bad deeds are attributed to the now conveniently dead Jeffrey Epstein, while his enablers, accomplices, and close associate were merely duped by Epstein’s charisma or manipulated by his wiles. Many of these individuals, however, and particularly Leslie Wexner, clearly have something to hide.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • How social media became a deadly trap for a minority group in Pakistan
      • Canada's got the world's worst internet ideas

        Canada's government is poised to pass a "harmful content" regulation. It's a worst-in-class mutation of a dangerous idea that's swept the globe, in which governments demand that hamfisted tech giants remove broad categories of speech – too swiftly for meaningful analysis.

        Many countries have proposed or passed rules on these lines: Australia, France, UK, Germany, India. They are all bad, but Canada's is literally the worst – as if Trudeau's Liberals sought out the most dangerous elements of each rule and combined them.

    • Monopolies



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More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries