06.08.22

GNU/Linux

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • FLOSS Weekly 684: PlanetScale – Sam Lambert, Open Source Serverless Database [Ed: After getting Microsofters and Gates Foundation (the Esptein-enabling Foundation) on the show "FLOSS" Weekly gets some more Microsoft, shilling for proprietary (not FLOSS) GitHub]

• Kernel Space

  • Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) ☛ Microconferences at Linux Plumbers Conference: Compute Express Link – Linux Plumbers Conference 2022

    Linux Plumbers Conference 2022 is pleased to host the Compute Express Link Microconference

    Compute Express Link is a cache coherent fabric that is gaining a lot of momentum in the industry. Hardware vendors have begun to ramp up on CXL 2.0 hardware and software must not lag behind. The current software ecosystem looks promising with enough components ready to begin provisioning of test systems.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Make Use Of ☛ Solved: You Don’t Have Permission to Access on This Server

    Many web server configurations face issues related to file permissions. It often renders the server inaccessible to visitors and manifests in the form of a 403 error. Usually, the error message is something like “Forbidden: you don’t have permission to access / on this server”. It can be anything in the form of Forbidden: you don’t have permission to access this resource.

    Similar issues can also occur due to problems in the Apache configuration file or even because of a corrupt .htaccess file. This guide provides step-by-step solutions to all of these problems. Try them one at a time, starting from the first solution.

  • Peter Czanik: How does the syslog-ng disk-buffer work?

    Last time, we had an overview of the syslog-ng disk-buffer. This time, we dig a bit deeper and take a quick look at how it works, and a recent major change that helped speed up the reliable disk-buffer considerably.

  • OMG Ubuntu ☛ Make Ubuntu’s Calendar Icon Show the Current Date – OMG! Ubuntu!

    Ever noticed that the calendar app icon on macOS and iOS always shows the current (and correct) date?

    It’s one of those subtle, unassuming features that goes unnoticed by most. But when you’re aware of it you can’t help but think: “heh, that’s actually kinda neat”.

    Well, now you can get a similar feature on the Ubuntu desktop too.

  • Moving to a faster but smaller disk, encrypted setup | The bright side

    My work computer runs Debian 11 bullseye (the current stable release) in a mechanical 500GB disk, and I was provided with a new SDD disk but its size was 480 GB. So I had to shrink my partitions before copying the data to the new disk. It turned out to be a bit difficult because my main partition was encrypted.

  • Video ☛ Why “sudo” when you can just “su”? – Invidious

    When I started using Linux, “sudo” wasn’t nearly as common as it is now. Back then, many Linux distributions didn’t even install “sudo” out of the box. Instead, users just used “su” to switch user to root when they needed superuser privileges…

  • How to Fix Filebeat Glibc Related Errors on Ubuntu 22.04 – kifarunix.com

    In this tutorial, you will learn how to fix Filebeat Glibc related errors on Ubuntu 22.04 that is affecting users using glibc >= 2.35.

  • Linux Made Simple ☛
    How to install Friday Night Funkin’ – Yoshi Engine on a Chromebook – Windows Version

    Today we are looking at how to install Friday Night Funkin’ – Yoshi Engine 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.

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • Apps: Attempt of a status report

      This is not an official post from GNOME Foundation nor am I part of the GNOME Foundation’s Board that is responsible for the policies mentioned in this post. However, I wanted to sum up the current situation as I understand it to let you know what is currently happening around app policies.

      [...]

      Since the launch of GNOME Circle, no less than 42 apps have joined the project. With Apps for GNOME, we have an up-to-date representation of all apps in GNOME. And more projects benefitting from this structure are under development. Combined with other efforts like libadwaita, new developer docs, and a new HIG, I think we have seen an incredible boost in app quality and development productivity.

      Naturally, there remain open issues after such a huge change. App criteria and workflows have to be adapted after collecting our first experiences. We need more clarification on what a “Core” app means to the project. And last but not least, I think we can do better with communicating about these changes.

      Hopefully, at the upcoming GUADEC 2022 we will be able to add some cornerstones to get started with addressing the outstanding issues and continue this successful path. If you want to get engaged or have questions, please let me know. Maybe, some questions can already be answered below

Distributions and Operating Systems

• New Releases

  • EasyOS Dunfell-series 4.0

    EasyOS was created in 2017, derived from Quirky Linux, which in turn was derived from Puppy Linux in 2013. Easy is built in woofQ, which takes as input binary packages from any distribution, and uses them on top of the unique EasyOS infrastructure.
    Throughout 2020, the official release for x86_64 PCs was the Buster-series, built with Debian 10.x Buster DEBs.
    EasyOS has also been built with packages compiled from source, using a fork of OpenEmbedded (OE). Currently, the Dunfell release of OE has been used, to compile two sets of binary packages, for x86_64 and aarch64.
    The latter have been used to build EasyOS for the Raspberry Pi4, and first official release, 2.6.1, was in January 2021.
    The page that you are reading now has the release notes for EasyOS Dunfell-series on x86_64 PCs, also debuting in 2021.
    Ongoing development is now focused on the x86_64 Dunfell-series. The last version in the x86_64 Buster-series is 2.6.2, on June 29, 2021, and that is likely to be the end of that series. Releases for the Pi4 Dunfell-series are still planned but very intermittent.
    The version number is for EasyOS itself, independent of the target hardware; that is, the infrastructure, support-glue, system scripts and system management and configuration applications.
    The latest version is becoming mature, though Easy is an experimental distribution and some parts are under development and are still considered as beta-quality. However, you will find this distro to be a very pleasant surprise, or so we hope.

  • Barry Kauler ☛ EasyOS Dunfell-series version 4.0 released

    The previous release was 3.4.7, on April 27, 2022:

    https://bkhome.org/news/202204/easyos-version-347-released.html

    Significant structural changes since then have warranted a major-version number bump, now 4.0.

• Fedora Family / IBM

  • Red Hat Official ☛ 5 Vim features for power users | Enable Sysadmin

    I first discovered the Vi editor back in 1986, when the company I worked for took delivery of a Zilog System 8000 running ZEUS—Zilog’s version of Unix (a port of Unix Version 7). Its clone Vim was originally an acronym for vi imitation but was subsequently changed to Vi iMproved in 1993. Originally only available on Unix systems, Vim has since been ported to many modern operating systems and also ships with Apple macOS.

  • Red Hat Official ☛ Explaining artificial intelligence governance – and why financial institutions need it

    The financial services sector is highly challenging, with participants seeking to gain a competitive advantage through technologies, business practices and the incorporation of more efficient operational methods. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming one of the essential tools that financial institutions possess that can assist in automating processes, improving the accuracy of predictions and forecasts and improving customer service. However, financial institutions must establish a robust AI governance framework to drive AI implementations that encompass operational safety while remaining effective.

  • Red Hat ☛ 9 awesome updates in Cryostat 2.1

    You probably have used Java Flight Recorder, an excellent tool for analyzing and understanding Java workloads. It comes in handy during development or while workloads run in production. Cryostat takes that further by bringing the same functionality to containers and Kubernetes. Now users can record applications for the entire cluster to understand how the applications behave. Users can also utilize various APIs and get the analysis data in different formats.

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ 3 ways to foster team connections in a hybrid workplace

    In the past two and a half years, we’ve seen that remote work is not only possible but that it has become core to any organization’s employee experience. From an IT perspective, teams worked to quickly give employees the tools they needed to collaborate and meet deadlines – all while ensuring that with employees distributed, remote work did not increase security risks.

  • Enterprisers Project ☛ Asynchronous remote work: 5 tips for success

    In 2020, the world went remote. Virtual communication tools exploded overnight as organizations from established corporations to startups to schools adopted them to enable synchronous work (and back-to-back meetings).

• Debian Family

  • Using the Debian trademark

    At the Institute, we are disappointed by the recent events in Debian. Seventeen Debian Developers have resigned in a very short space of time.

    We encourage people to go ahead and use the name Debian in domain names and web sites that are genuinely connected with your Debian activities. The Debian Social Contract, point no. 3, tells us We will not hide problems.

    The Debian Constitution tells us that we are independent and autonomous. Therefore, it is completely normal for Debian Developers to create autonomous web sites including the name Debian in the domain. With over a thousand active Debian Developers, it is unlikely that every Developer will always agree with every other Developer. This makes it even more vital to have multiple, autonomous, censor-resistant Debian web sites.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • Ubuntu ☛ An intro to real-time Linux with Ubuntu

    A real-time system responds to events within a specified deadline. If the timing constraints of the system are unmet, failure has occurred. In the kernel context, real-time denotes a deterministic response to an external event, aiming to minimize the response time guarantee.

  • Ubuntu ☛ Canonical at the Open Source Summit North America 2022 | Ubuntu

    The heart of open source will be beating in Austin and streamed online for the Open Source Summit North America, taking place on 20-25 June 2022.

    Open Source Summit is the premier event for open source developers, technologists, and community leaders. It’s a great venue to collaborate, share information, solve problems, and take open source innovation further.

    In this 2022 edition, Canonical will host multiple sessions, from very hands-on and technical talks to discussions exploring the trends that are shaping our industry.

    We will address many of the familiar challenges: security, sustainability, and at-scale deployments. We will also delve into some exciting developments like building minimal container images with Ubuntu, or setting up your own micro cloud at home.

    Will you be in Austin to attend the Open Source Summit too? Join our community team as well as our speakers on booth B20. We look forward to seeing you there!

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Sound on the PinePhonePro!

    In January 2022, I purchased a PinePhone Pro with the hopes of getting away from Android. I have been playing with it since, trying different distros and observing the changes in functionality with each update.

    Soon after I got the phone, it stopped booting from the emmc storage after an update. Not long after I started playing with different distros installed on several SD cards. A few months ago I install tow-boot which improved the boot up experience.

  • Arduino ☛ This system continuously monitors water levels for seven houses | Arduino Blog

    For the last 50 years, Ovidiu’s Romanian village has relied on small water source located at a spring, but due to increased droughts, they have since been dependent on an additional well. So far, the process of switching on the pump to refill the main reservoir has been done manually and without much precision, which is why he wanted to build an automated system for this task.

  • Arduino ☛ This DIY driving assistant helps with parking and blindspot monitoring | Arduino Blog

    When it comes to driving a car, one must always be on alert for possible obstacles and other drivers in the next lane over for changing lanes. But because older vehicles that lack built-in blind spot detection or parking sensors would require quite pricey upgrades, Redditor cisco_s_spedgang decided to make a DIY distance sensing system for far cheaper.

    The idea was to take a total of six HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors and place them around a vehicle, with two on either side, one at the front, and one at the back. From here, the connected Arduino Uno gets the distance measurements and performs several checks based on the resulting values as well as show a corresponding red LED for when the car gets too close to something else. Upon hitting the turn indicator stock for signaling a lane change, the blind spot assistance system will see if there is another vehicle on the same side as the turn signal and sound a loud alarm if it’s unsafe to cross over.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Apache Blog ☛ The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache® AGE™ as a Top-Level Project : The Apache Software Foundation Blog

  The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 350 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today Apache® AGE™ as a Top-Level Project (TLP).

  Apache AGE (“A Graph Extension”) is a PostgreSQL extension that provides graph database functionality. The project was originally developed in 2019 as an extension to AgensGraph (Bitnine Global’s multi-model database fork of PostgreSQL), and entered the Apache Incubator in April 2020.

• Events

  • David Revoy ☛ Back from Geekfaeries 2022 festival

    Geekfaeries festival was very good! Being a guest in a festival of this size and history was a real honor, and I measure it even more now I’m back home. I really enjoyed this time.

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Mozilla ☛ Manifest V3 Firefox Developer Preview — how to get involved | Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog

      While MV3 is still in development, many major features are already included in the Developer Preview, which provides an opportunity to expose functionality for testing and feedback. With strong developer feedback, we’re better equipped to quickly address critical bug fixes, provide clear developer documentation, and reorient functionality.

      Some features, such as a well defined and documented lifecycle for Event Pages, are still works in progress. As we complete features, they’ll land in future versions of Firefox and you’ll be able to test and progress your extensions into MV3 compatibility. In most ways Firefox is committed to MV3 cross browser compatibility. However in some cases Firefox will offer distinct extension functionality.

      Developer Preview is not available to regular users; it requires you to change preferences in about:config. Thus you will not be able to upload MV3 extensions to addons.mozilla.org (AMO) until we have an official release available to users.

• Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

  • Document Foundation ☛ Winners in the Month of LibreOffice, May 2022!

    At the start of May, we revved up a new Month of LibreOffice, celebrating community contributions all across the project. We do these every six months – so how many people got sticker packs this time? Check it out…

• Programming/Development

  • Video ☛ This Bot Posted 3500 R Packages To The AUR!! – Invidious

    Recently a bunch of R packages appeared on the AUR completely out of nowhere and it turns out all 3500 of them of posted by the same bot from the BioArchLinux project

  • Rust

    • FOSSLife ☛ 5 Easy Ways to Learn Rust [Ed: You will need an account with Microsoft proprietary software to get involved. This isn't what Free software developers should adopt.]

      The Rust programming language has topped Stack Overflow’s most-loved language category for six consecutive years and nearly tripled in size in the past two years.

Leftovers

• Spell checking is great and English sucks

  So I never really was a great speller. I always did poorly on spelling tests in school and if anyone had read anything I wrote on this glog prior to this morning where I have fixed my spelling mistakes on my old posts, they can attest to this being the case. Of course I could and probably should take some time with a dictionary and actually learn how to spell, but who really has time for that? I just worry people think I’m an idiot because I can’t spell well. Something about all the vowels in English all making the same noise at in different words makes it really hard to sound it out for me.

• Security

  • EBPF Linux | Enhance Monitoring & Observability | Cloudanix

    eBPF is an excellent addition to the traditional BPF mechanism. It provides you with added security benefits while enabling the deep observability benefits of traditional BPF programs.

    In this guide, we talked about how you can use eBPF for enhancing observability in your Kubernetes setup. We discussed some of the benefits of using eBPF over traditional BPF and mentioned a handful of use-cases too where you can leverage it for the best results.

  • Bleeping Computer ☛ Kali Linux team to stream free penetration testing course on Twitch

    Offensive Security, the creators of Kali Linux, announced today that they would be offering free access to their live-streamed ‘Penetration Testing with Kali Linux (PEN-200/PWK)’ training course later this month.

  • Red Hat Official ☛ Containers vulnerability risk assessment

    Security considerations are even more important today than they were in the past. Every day we discover new vulnerabilities that impact our computer systems, and every day our computer systems become more complex. With the deluge of vulnerabilities that threaten to swamp our security teams, the question, “How much does it matter?” comes quickly to our minds.