07.04.22
Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 4:35 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 6610190803a8f0d9ec0b3615ac19ccec
Shameless EPO Leadership
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The dictatorship of António Campinos continues to abuse the EPO‘s Web site to incite for or make calls towards illegal actions, just like Team Battistelli
THE video above discusses this shameless exploitation of COVID-19 for PR purposes (warning: epo.org link) and then this promotion of illegal agenda (warning: epo.org link) including — inter alia — European software patents through a kangaroo court, UPC/Unitary Patent.
Campinos expects to engage in his criminal activities for years to come, so thankfully we’ll be around to explain what he does and report him to the relevant authorities, even if he enjoys diplomatic immunity (an absurd notion).
Techrights will exceed 34,000 blog posts later this week and probably exceed 35,000 blog posts later this year (some time in wintertime). Assuming all goes well, maybe 45,000 in 2025… many will concern the EPO. █
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Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 4:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Hijacked, but not defaced
Summary: EPO.org used to be a Web site of Europe’s largest patent office, but the site has been hijacked by patent litigation lobbyists — a disturbing development
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Posted in News Roundup at 3:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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GNU/Linux
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Desktop/Laptop
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This UK-based hardware company is finalising production details on StarFighter, an upcoming 15.6-inch Linux laptop that boasts a 10-bit matte 4K IPS 16:9 display (likely at a comfortable 3840×2160 resolution, which is great for 2x scaling) — the display alone costs more than the company’s StarLite Linux laptop.
Additionally, Star Labs’ StarFighter will offer a choice of 45W AMD or Intel processors, up-to 64GB RAM, and up-to 2TB of storage (though Gen 4 SDDs will only be supported on models with Intel processors).
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Server
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Walmart said on Thursday it has developed the capability to switch seamlessly between cloud providers and its own servers, saving millions of dollars and offering a road map to other organizations that want to reduce their dependence on giant technology companies.
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Audiocasts/Shows
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In this video, I am going to show an overview of ArcoLinux 22.07.03 and some of the applications pre-installed.
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Instructionals/Technical
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This tutorial will be useful for beginners to download and install darktable 4.0.0 on Ubuntu 20.4 LTS, Fedora 35, AlmaLinux 9, RockyLinux 8, and OpenSUSE.
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If you are a Linux user and prefer the Terminal than any other graphical applications, then you will be happy to know that you can also resize, convert and optimize your images directly in the Terminal with ImageMagick. ImageMagick is a suite of tools for Linux which allows you to manipulate images from the command line. It’s also the image processor behind many graphics-related applications. Here we will show you how to resize your images from the Terminal.
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Ubuntu automatically checks and updates all installed Snap packages 4 times every day. Here’s how you can delay or assign a certain time period for the automatic update.
Snap is an Ubuntu developed universal package format that runs in sandbox. Few core apps (such as Ubuntu Software and Firefox in 22.04) and many software in Ubuntu Software are Snap packages. Unlike classic .deb package, snap updates all the packages automatically in the background silently without user intervention.
If you didn’t block the Snap package, you must have some installed on your Ubuntu machine. And, to avoid conflict to daily work (e.g., online meetings, data backup), you may tell Snap when to do the updates.
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In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Plex Media Server on Fedora 36. For those of you who didn’t know, Plex media server is a self-hosted media player system to store your movies, shows, music, and photos. Plex Media Server is a great way to keep your digital media content organized and accessible. It is worth considering if you have a large TV or movie library. It supports a wide range of client applications and allows you to share your content with others.
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 Plex Media Server on a Fedora 36.
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Here we will let you know how to install the latest version of OBS Studio on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish including other similar operating systems.
OBS-Studio is an open-source software you need for recording and Streaming (live broadcast) your audiovisual content be able. You can use OBS-Studio Screencasts including Screen recording (e.g. slides, Software, etc …), camera image, and sound records very comfortably and if necessary it can be used to start streaming the Content to various streaming services such as YouTube, Facebook Live, Mixer, Twitter and more for worldwide audiovisual transfer.
Especially in the field of PC gaming, there are many streamers who inspire an audience of millions with their content. Open Broadcast Software provides all the necessary tools for the direct transmission of video and audio signals to the network free of charge. It is possible to stream the generated signals to your own server. In addition, the developers of OBS work together with well-known streaming and video portals such as twitch.tv, and Dailymotion.
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GlassFish is an open-source Jakarta EE platform application server. It was initially developed by Sun Microsystems, then sponsored by Oracle Corporation, and now it is being maintained by the developers at Eclipse Foundation. GlassFish supports JSP, Servlets, JSF, JAVA API, RMI, etc. With this tool, web developers can easily build scalable and portable applications. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install GlassFish on Ubuntu 22.04.
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If you are an advanced PC user and have been using Firefox browser for a long time, you might already be aware of about:config Settings. For those who don’t know, Firefox gives you a lot of customization by visiting about:config section.
When you first visit it, you will be prompted by a warning screen saying “Changing advanced configuration preferences may affect Firefox performance or security.”
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Games
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Back in 1985, Activision released “The Complete Computer Fireworks Celebration Kit” for the Commodore 64.
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Distributions and Operating Systems
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Debian Family
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The Debian Long Term Support (LTS) team has announced that Debian 9 (“stretch”) has “reached its end-of-life on July 1, 2022, five years after its initial release on June 17, 2017″. There will be further updates for a subset of the packages in the release through the Extended LTS project.
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Canonical/Ubuntu Family
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You probably already know that Linux Mint is based on the long-term support (LTS) release of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS was released a few months ago. This means that a new major version of Linux Mint is to follow sooner or later.
And indeed the next major version, Linux Mint 21, is already in development. While there is no official release date announced, you should expect it to arrive by the end of July’22 or early August.
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In May, robotics felt the waves of the Hawksbill and Jellyfish. Last month brought us the first LTS for ROS 2, Humble Hawksbill. As part of the ROS community, we welcome this new release and congratulate everyone who made it possible.
In this round-up, we will talk about ROS, drones, football and robots that eat scrambled eggs.
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Devices/Embedded
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The JingPad A1 was positioned at launch as a tablet that would ship with a custom, tablet-friendly, Linux-based operating system that helped set it apart from Android tablets (with a user interface that looked distinctly iPad-ish). But its makers ran into some speed bumps resulting in layoffs and a fire sale. That doesn’t mean you can’t still run up-to-date Linux software on it though: as promised, the UBPorts team has now added support for the tablet to Ubuntu Touch.
In other recent tech news from around the web, Xiaomi’s latest phone puts an emphasis on camera quality, the makers of the cheapest handheld gaming PC with an x86 processor to date are throwing in a few perks for folks who pre-order the $199 device in July, and a roundup of the latest mobile Linux news.
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Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
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Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
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Programming/Development
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Perl / Raku
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I had a great time hacking on the Perl Navigator and Raku Navigator as part of the Perl IDE Hackathon 2022. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time in person or remotely. Thanks especially to Brian for having many github issues ready for people to work on, and for helping so many people understand the concepts of Language Servers. I received compliments that the Hackathon was very organized but truthfully if people got that impression then Brian should get all the credit!
As a community I feel we could do better at helping people getting started and involved, so my goal was to emphasize first time and one off contributions. Brian caught the vision on this and as mentioned, did a great job preparing github issues and spent much of his time getting peoples development environment running. Hopefully he will post a report on what got done in the near future.
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Leftovers
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Science
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A team of researchers at Beihang University, working with colleagues at Imperial College London and Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, has developed a quadcopter drone that is capable of flying in the air and maneuvering underwater. It also has a suction cup for hitching a ride on a host. They describe their drone in the journal Science Robotics.
Over the past several years, quadcopters have become a consumer product. And while the technology behind them is quite impressive, one drawback is their inability to survive a water landing. In this new effort, the researchers have not only overcome that problem, but they have also given their robot the ability to maneuver underwater and to hitch itself to undersea creatures.
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Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a method to scan and image the blood flow and oxygen levels inside a mouse brain in real-time with enough resolution to view the activity of both individual vessels and the entire brain at once.
This new imaging approach breaks long-standing speed and resolution barriers in brain imaging technologies and could uncover new insights into neurovascular diseases like stroke, dementia and even acute brain injury.
The research appeared May 17 in the Nature journal Light: Science & Applications.
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Hardware
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Intel has demonstrated an eight-wavelength laser array on a silicon wafer. The research paves the way for the next generation of integrated silicon photonics products in the data center, such as switches with co-packaged optics and chiplets for optical interconnects.
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Pseudo-Open Source
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Openwashing
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Open source software have become more important today than in the past. The benefits brought by using open source software for governments, organizations and commercial businesses can not be emphasized enough. This is why you’ll probably see an open source software running in every corner of the modern IT infrastructure.
This, however, made the term “open source” somehow a buzzword. We started observing many companies which are calling their software “open source”, although in fact, it is not.
Those companies do this because people are more motivated to use an open source software and include it in their infrastructure than a proprietary solution. They like the extra attention and free marketing they get when they simply classify their solution as “open source”.
What is “open source“, anyway? The term was introduced in 1998 by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) as an alternative for the “free software” term to avoid the possible confusion between “free as in cost” and “free as in freedom”. They didn’t want people to think that free software is just software with no cost.
The OSI definition is universally accepted as the one and only definition for open source, simply because they were the ones who crafted the term in the first place.
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Security
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Wapiti is a well-known tool that is widely used amongst security researchers, regular users, and even System Administrators. As Cyber Criminals continue to exploit new found vulnerabilities and even existing ones due to poor security management, Wapiti is the perfect solution to auditing your website and webservers. The commands and arguments are fairly simple to use, it is a powerful tool, and the report provided in HTML format allows for any user to see urgent issues and their possible solutions without having to sit, search, and create a solution. It provides you with a baseline understanding of your vulnerabilities and a baseline path to a solution.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Over the last few weeks, we have seen a significant new showdown over the Indian government’s internet regulatory ambitions. What sparked it off is the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) announcing cybersecurity directions in May without any previous public discussion or consultation. This has led to numerous Virtual Private Network (VPN) firms announcing removal of their servers from India, industry voices and Indian SMEs raising concerns about the challenges of being able to meaningfully implement these diktats, and civil society, cybersecurity experts, and technologists pointing out how they would harm cybersecurity while deepening government intrusion upon privacy and other fundamental rights online.
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While Tor has many features that average browsers can not compete with, its flaws can weigh it down for the average user. Users who will benefit most from Tor are people who are actively being tracked, such as militaries and people who know they are being spied on. For most users, a secure and private browser like Firefox, Brave, or even default Chromium, should be enough to stay safe, especially with safe browsing practices and software like VPNs or adblockers.
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Nitzan Guetta, a Ph.D. candidate at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, was among a group of researchers who spent the past two years exploring “how deep learning-based face recognition systems can be fooled using reasonable and unnoticeable artifacts in a real-world setup.” The researchers conducted an adversarial machine learning attack using natural makeup that prevents a participant from being identified by facial recognition models, she says.
The researchers “chose to focus on a makeup attack since at that time it was not explored, especially in the physical domain, and since we identified it as a potential and unnoticeable means that can be used for achieving this goal” of evading identification, Guetta explains.
When the researchers compared an adversarial/anti-surveillance makeup algorithm with normal makeup that didn’t have the guidance of the attack algorithm, “the results showed that the normal makeup did not succeed in fooling the facial recognition models,” she says.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal
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Politics
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I am preparing my dog for the inevitable evening of terror as my countrymen prepare to celebrate the secession from the civilized world, due to the ‘unfair’ British taxes averaging 1.5%.
[...]
It seems that everyone I know either has or has had covid in the last couple of weeks. Myself included if I expand the range to a month. Most people get over it within a week (actually a couple of days seems to be the anecdotal average for healthy not-so-young friends). I got mine two weeks after a booster, just before Phizer pretty much admitted that it’s not particularly effective for the Omicron strain. As far as I can tell, Omicron is currently close to a mild flu or moderate cold, as corona-viruses go.
[...]
The web is complete shit
Beating a dead horse here, but I now use Tor and LibreWolf (when necessary) with Qwant search engine. I don’t know what kind of bullshit Qwant is (some say it’s total bullshit), but whatever. And Marginalia when that works.
I am pretty upset about the fact that the internet is such shit. We had such high hopes about how it would change the world! As usual, it did, but in ways completely horrible.
[...]
If I ran a software shop today (my area of expertise), I would flat out prohibit any social media during work hours. If I see your post during work hours, out you go.
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Technical
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A Markdown → HTML + CSS → PDF pipeline has the benefit that I get to use CSS to fiddle with the output instead of relying on LaTeX class authors. I don’t know whether that is a benefit. 🤔 Perhaps it’s simply irrational on my part but lately more and more of my projects have been using this Markdown → HTML + CSS → PDF pipeline, I felt like I should migrate my existing projects while I still care.
Well, one immediate drawback is that the things that cannot be handled by the simple Markdown processor needs to be added using HTML, and that in turn doesn’t nest with Markdown, so I’ve added some post-processing using two Perl scripts. 😓
Another drawback is that I spent the entire day doing it, and all I got to show for it are eight pages. That’s super slow and frustrating.
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Science
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Cognitive biases are hardwired behaviors that influence developer actions and can set them on an incorrect course of action, necessitating backtracking. Although researchers have found that cognitive biases occur in development tasks in controlled lab studies, we still do not know how these biases affect developers’ everyday behavior. Without such an understanding, development tools and practices remain inadequate. To close this gap, we conducted a two-part field study to examine the extent to which cognitive biases occur, the consequences of these biases on developer behavior, and the practices and tools that developers use to deal with these biases. We found about 70% of observed actions were associated with at least one cognitive bias. Even though developers recognized that biases frequently occur, they are forced to deal with such issues with ad hoc processes and suboptimal tool support. As one participant (IP12) lamented: There is no salvation!
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.
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Posted in Protocol, Security at 1:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
This talk reminds us what the Web used to be before "social control media" and "GAFAM"
Summary: Gemini is no longer a set of isolated “islands”; there is a growing sense of community with interactions across capsules (like in the days of blogs with trackbacks and pingbacks)
Gemini has graduated to First-Class Citizen here. It’s what the Web should have become, namely pages, not applications. Last month we said that a nice milestone for Geminispace would be better inter-connectivity between capsules, ensuring they’re not mere “islands” but part of a broad network of pages or an extensive information system.
Thankfully, based on these new charts from Botond, more pages are now linked inwards from the outside. The situation is improving over time.
Notice also how TLS 1.2 gets phased out rapidly. Encryption is one of the selling points of Gemini.
Gemini is no longer small or a tiny niche; on a daily basis we have over 100 unique visitors in the capsule, not counting the Web proxies…
It’s hard to imagine Gemini not surviving the next 5 years. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Humour, Microsoft, Windows at 12:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Windows fell from nearly 100% to less than 10%
Summary: Windows market share in Turkey is down to 9.8% this month; it’ll become a rare sight if these trends carry on
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 12:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 6cbffc94bf678080dfc0755d0458219c
The Decline of Windows in Graphs
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: Windows is at 9.8% of “the market” this month in Turkey, based on a Web survey (3 million sites); we might be seeing the gradual end of Windows as a financially viable product line
TODAY is the fourth of July, so many Americans celebrate independence from the British.
Earlier today we saw reports about China propelling itself towards independence from Western software companies. It invests a lot in its own GNU/Linux distributions (the main ones are based on Debian and Ubuntu).
Some nations understandably try to remove back doors that Western intelligence agencies control. It’s a risk they cannot afford. In Turkey, despite NATO membership, there’s a lot of distrust and its military moved to GNU/Linux ages ago. Universities, schools, and municipalities followed or still follow…
Only days ago (in July) one of the Turkish GNU/Linux distros announced a new release.
You know Microsoft is losing the monopoly when a nation like Turkey with a population of 85 million people rejects Windows (in July we see Windows at 9.8% there; Android dominates)…
The graph is shown in the video above and it’s discussed a little further. In the Web server market, Windows fell from “almost majority” to “negligible” (about 2%) in just a decade or so. Will the same happen in desktops and laptops? The trends among gamers are encouraging. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 10:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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GNU/Linux
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This week we had some really great software releases, starting with both the Mozilla Thunderbird 102 email client and Mozilla Firefox 102 web browser, continuing with the Plasma Mobile Gear 22.06 software suite for mobile devices, new NVIDIA graphics and HP printing drivers, the OTA-23 update for Ubuntu Touch, a new major Unity7 desktop update, and ending with Darktable 4.0 RAW image editor.
Below, you can enjoy these and much more in 9to5Linux’s Linux weekly roundup for July 3rd, 2022.
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China is now one step closer to eliminating Windows from its government endpoints, an effort it has been pursuing for more than two decades now.
As reported by The Register, the country has been laser-focused on switching to Linux (opens in new tab) entirely amid conflict with the US, but has thus far lacked the support of developers. But now, all of that might change with the launch of the openKylin project (opens in new tab).
The project’s goal is to speed up the development of the Kylin Linux distro, an OS distribution that’s entirely China-made. The project’s participants will include developers, but also colleges and universities.
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Desktop/Laptop
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Unveiled two years ago, the TUXEDO Pulse 15 Linux laptop is now in its second generation with a newer AMD Ryzen 7 processor, namely the 35W Ryzen 7 5700U with only 15 watts TDP, a single-fan/single-heatpipe cooling system, and integrated AMD Radeon RX Vega graphics, which promises to offer virtually the same performance as the Ryzen 7 4800H processor used in the first generation of the laptop but with much less power draw.
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Now is a wonderful time to be in the market for a laptop that comes pre-loaded with a Linux-based operating system, as there are many great options. Linux laptops used to be a bit of a rarity, but as Linux gains popularity, these computers are becoming more commonplace. Currently, my recommendation is the HP Dev One which runs System76′s Ubuntu-based Pop!_OS, as that notebook is affordable, well-built, and offers an overall excellent experience.
Today, yet another new Linux laptop is announced, this time by TUXEDO Computers. Well, technically it isn’t entirely new, but actually, it is the second generation of its Pulse 15. Yes, after two years, the company has decided to refresh the computer with an AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor (with 35W TDP) and 15.6-inch 165Hz WQHD (2560 x 1440) IPS display.
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Audiocasts/Shows
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Add your favorite DOS games to the Steam Deck with DOSBox! I’m really proud of this tutorial and I hope you find it useful.
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0:00 Cold Open
2:00 We’re Open Source Denizens
12:23 Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
15:58 Mozilla Watch (feat. Brave)
33:02 OMG OOMD
48:51 Community Focus: The Postmarket OS Podcast
52:25 App Focus: Amberol
1:02:30 Next Time: Ubuntu
1:04:16 Thank you
1:05:10 Stinger
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Kernel Space
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If you have been for (or against) Rust in the Linux kernel, get ready for a Linux kernel module written in… Scratch. That’s right. Scratch, the MIT-developed language with blocks popular for teaching kids to code. We didn’t mean “from scratch.” We meant IN Scratch. The bootstrap code and Makefile is out there on GitHub.
Of course, it is a simple module and the reason it is possible is because of the scratchnative system that lets you compile Scratch into C code. If you want to look at the decidedly simple code, you can open it in your browser.
We don’t t think anyone is seriously suggesting you start doing this kind of development in Scratch, but it is sort of amazing that you can do it at all.
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The 5.19-rc5 kernel prepatch is out for testing. “So everything looks ok – we certainly have some issues still being looked at, but on the whole 5.19 looks normal, and nothing particularly bad seems to be going on”.
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Applications
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If a tool makes things faster and efficient, that is a life-saver for many developers.
While there are different services and platforms that try to make the coding experience quicker, you still have several other options to consider.
For instance, a code snippet manager. With a snippet manager, you aim to save a section of code that you want to quickly access. It is more like assigning shortcuts to add the required code in your program.
This is not a new concept, but the tools available for the job may not be entirely open-source.
Fortunately, I stumbled upon a decent project that provides you with a free and open-source snippet manager, i.e., massCode.
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Food-Tracker is a free open-source Android app that helps you track calories in thousands of food items. The app is available to download, use for free from F-Droid and Google Play application store.
Beside the search, the user also can save the items and bookmark them in a simple straightforward interface.
[...]
The Project is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Perf trace is a versatile, flexible powerful option in the perf toolbox, allowing to combine the power of strace with additional capabilities, which give you a multi-dimensional view of your system’s behavior. For instance, by default, strace is a bit more difficult to follow and analyze, whereas perf trace helps more easily bucket results per thread, filter out unnecessary information, and conversely, zero in on the specific data you need.
Hopefully, this tutorial is a good reference point for getting started with perf trace. You do need some background knowledge, you need to know how your software behaves, but then you can use it to figure out possible performance bottlenecks, and improve and optimize its execution. Perf may also need some tweaking to run well in userspace, and you have tons of flags and options to narrow down the troubleshooting to what you need. And that would be all for today.
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Website speed, often called website performance, refers to the amount of time a web browser renders web pages from a specific site.
A site’s loading speed can significantly affect user experience (UX). For example, a slow website response time (SRT) can lead to high bounce rates. Subsequently, having a poorly performing website can harm your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
This article will cover three tips for testing a website’s speed, including how to do it in a Linux Terminal. By identifying the areas for improvement, website owners can optimize website speed more efficiently.
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This detailed Docker tutorial covers the essential Docker commands, such as how to create a new container, run the container, remove a container and so on. In addition, this guide also explains how to build your own Docker image from an existing container and how to remove containers and images. Without further ado, let us get started with Docker basics usage!
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React (also known as React.js or ReactJS) is an open-source JavaScript front-end library for creating web frontend and UI components.
It is developed and maintained by the Facebook and a large community of developers. This is also useful for creating mobile applications.
In this tutorial you will learn to install and create ReactJS Application on a Ubuntu 22.04 OS.
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Plex Media Server is a piece of software that allows you to store all your digital media content in one place. It is extremely popular with people who have large TV and movie libraries, as it allows them to share their content with friends and family. Plex Media Server organizes your files and content into categories, making it easy to find what you are looking for. It also supports a wide range of client applications to access your content on your TV, NVIDIA Shield, Roku, Mobile App, and many more platforms. If you have a good enough connection, you can share your content with friends and family. Plex Media Server is a great way to keep your digital media content organized and accessible. It is worth considering if you have a large TV or movie library. It supports a wide range of client applications and allows you to share your content with others.
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The DISA and SUSE have authored a STIG (Secure Technical Implementation Guide) that describes how to harden a SUSE Linux Enterprise system.
The STIG is a long list of rules, each containing description, detection of problems and how to remediate problems on a per rule basis.
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Learn the commands to install XAMPP on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish Linux using the terminal for setting up Apache web server and MySQL environment quickly.
With the free software collection XAMPP, preconfigured web servers based on Apache can be conveniently set up. For this purpose, the open-source package also includes the database program MariaDB as well as the scripting languages PHP and Perl combined in one installation routine
Also on board are useful tools such as the FTP server FileZilla, the mail server Mercury Mail Transport System, Tomcat for Java applications, phpMyAdmin, the analysis tool Webalizer, the mail tester Fake Sendmail and OpenSSL encryption. The modules are conveniently operated via the XAMPP Control Panel.
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In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Dashlane Password Manager on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Dashlane is one of the popular password managers that is available in both free and premium versions. Dashlane is more than just a password manager. It fills all your passwords, payments, and personal details wherever you need them, across the web, on any device. It’s the app that makes the internet easier. Do note that Dashlane can only be used on one computer or device for free. To enable cross-platform sync you have to stump up $39.99 per year.
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 Dashlane Password Manager on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.
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Fedora 36 is released for desktop, server & cloud environments, and the Internet of Things, and in this tutorial, we shall go through the various steps on how to install the Fedora 36 server with screenshots.
There are some crucial improvements in the server edition, before we proceed to the installation steps, we shall look at some of the new features and improvements.
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This series highlights essential system tools. These are small utilities, useful for system administrators as well as regular users of Linux based systems. The series examines both graphical and text based open source utilities. For details of all tools in this series, please check the table in the summary section.
gWakeOnLAN is a small graphical utility that lets you wake up machines using the Wake on LAN (WOL) feature. WOL lets you wake a computer from a low-power state when a network adapter detects a WOL event. Typically, such an event is a specially constructed Ethernet packet, often known as a “magic packet”. When the packet is received, the target machine’s network device (Network Interface Controller or NIC) wakes up the rest of the machine.
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How to install Visual Studio Code on Fedora 36 [Ed: No, do not install proprietary spyware from the company that attacks GNU/Linux. Use free/libre software which does not spy on the user and is not controlled by Microsoft]
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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Kimpanel is a plasma applet that uses plasma and dbus to display the input method popup window. In X11, people who want to have native plasma theme based input method window may use it to provide a nice integration with plasma.
So you might ask, we already having kimpanel in Plasma desktop, what’s point to have this feature in Fcitx 5?
Well, if you use the wayland.. you will notice that kimpanel does not work properly in terms of window positioning. The input window is a small popup window used by input method. It needs to be shown at the cursor position in order to make user eye focused at the point where they are typing. This popup window is critical for CJK input method users.
And you might ask again, why can’t we just fix kimpanel? Unfortunately, it’s hard to fix.
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KDE PIM is the set of applications that helps you manage your email, contacts, appointments, tasks and more.
In the months since the KDE PIM March-April report there have been two patch releases for Kontact, and over 1300 changes made by more than 30 contributors have been integrated. Here are some of the highlights.
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Distributions and Operating Systems
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Rick reported that the “apps” icon on the desktop, “Graphics -> 3D-CAD” does not work. It is supposed to run SolveSpace, and it does work from the menu.
I found a typo, fixed. The version of the EasyApps PET is now 3.1.2.4.
Rick also reported that none of the pupTelly (see pupRadio/puptelly entry in “Multimedia” menu category) work.
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BSD
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makefs(8) now supports HAMMER2 on DragonFly, so you can create HAMMER2 file system images, same as a CD image or a DOS disk.
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No pun, but lots of links in this week’s BSD Now, including a link to EuroBSDCon 2022, happening in Austria.
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SUSE/OpenSUSE
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Today, we will start a logo competition for openSUSE.Asia Summit 2022. A logo is an essential material for the successful summit. As you have seen, the former openSUSE.Asia summits have their unique logos reflecting the communities where the summit took place. Following tradition, we have logo competition to collect great logo for this year’s summit. Notably, this year summit has two parts. One is Asia Summit Main Track with Virtual Online Conference, the other is Local Part which will be held in each local area. This logo is for Asia Summit Main Track. So this logo will represent Asia.
The competition is open now and ends on 23 July 2022. The organizing team will send “Geeko Mystery Box” as an appreciation for the best logo designed.
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It is a pleasure to announce the call for papers for openSUSE.Asia summit 2022 Main Track starting today, the openSUSE.Asia Committee is looking for speakers from different avenues of life, representing and advocating Free and Open Source Software. openSUSE.Asia Summits are organized every year to promote the use of free and open source software and have been appreciated events for the openSUSE community (i.e. both contributors and users) in Asia. Following the last Asia Virtual Summit hosted by India team, the eighth openSUSE.Asia Summit 2022 will be held by openSUSE online volunteer team on Late September. The past Asia Summits received major participation from Indonesia, China mainland, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and India.
This year’s event will consist of the two parts: the Asia Summit Main Track and local online/offline parts held in several Asian countries/regions. This call is for the Asia Summit Main Track. The event is going to be completly virtual and use online conference tools. Talks will be live, but you can record video in advance if you want it.
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Slackware Family
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Based on Slackware 15.0 and powered by the latest and greatest Linux 5.18 kernel series and BusyBox 1.35, Porteus Linux 5.0 is here more than four years after version 4.0 to offer you more recent GNU/Linux technologies and a choice of no less than eight desktop flavors as standalone and live ISO editions.
These eight flavors include some newer desktop environment releases like Xfce 4.16, LXQt 1.1.0, Cinnamon 5.4.2, and MATE 1.26, but also some older ones like the KDE Plasma 5.23.5 and GNOME 41.5. In addition, you’ll find live editions with the older LXDE desktop environment and the lighter Openbox window manager.
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Fedora Family / IBM
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To automate with Ansible, you must be familiar with YAML, the human-readable language used to define the logic in Ansible playbooks. YAML stands for “Yet Another Markup Language” or “YAML Ain’t Markup Language” (a recursive acronym). YAML is often used for writing configuration files. Although YAML is considered simple and easy to understand, the YAML syntax can be quite confusing. This article digs a little deeper into some YAML basics.
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Open Hardware/Modding
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With more than 40 million units sold and a powerful community of makers and fans behind it, Raspberry Pi is more than a single-board computer; it’s a huge platform with an even bigger ecosystem behind it. Whether you want to build your own robot, create an A.I.-powered security camera, or just set up a simple computer for programming and web surfing, the Pi is for you.
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The Raspberry Pi is an awesome platform for learning and experimentation. We can learn to code, build robots, monitor the location of the International Space Station, and so much more. But to make the most of the Pi, it helps to have the right HAT (hardware attached on top). HATs are expansion boards, introduced along with the Raspberry Pi B+ in 2014, that connect to the Raspberry Pi’s set of 40 GPIO pins and easily add functionality such as lights, motors, sensors and fans without a mess of wires.
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‘Handheld retro games console’ and ‘crowdfunding’ seem to be pretty common words around here these days, but the Creoqode Lyra+ (opens in new tab), about to start crowdfunding for a new model over at Kickstarter and brought to our attention by Liliputing (opens in new tab), is different.
Different in that, instead of being a shrunken PC (opens in new tab) in a Switch-like case (opens in new tab), as is the fashion (except for the PlayDate (opens in new tab)), it’s a Raspberry Pi (opens in new tab) Compute Module 4 in a Switch-like case. This makes it a machine for streaming and emulators rather than for playing games directly, but what’s interesting about the ’+’ is that it’s a second-generation device.
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Developer Maciej Kobus is a huge fan of Nintendo consoles and has developed a Raspberry Pi Pico-powered modchip for the Nintendo GameCube called the PicoBoot (opens in new tab). This modchip is an initial program loader (IPL) replacement that tells your GameCube to boot into whatever system you like. Of course, the most popular platform chosen by most modders is Swiss (opens in new tab), a homebrew system for the GameCube that can run other emulators.
The modchip is run entirely on the Pico, but you will need a secondary chip for storage. According to Kobus, it can replace or run in tandem with the XenoGC modchip—another popular modchip used for running homebrew on the Nintendo GameCube. Once installed, users can boot into Swiss and launch anything from GameCube titles to GameBoy Advance ROMs.
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The Raspberry Pi might be hard to get ahold of right now but it’s not hard to find incredible projects and mind-blowing creations from the maker community. From AI-powered systems to retrogaming gadgets that use original hardware—we’ve got the coolest developments to share with you that we hope can inspire your own projects this summer.
These makers pull out the best Raspberry Pi accessories, and Raspberry Pi HATs to bring their clever designs to fruition. We’ve already featured each of these once individually in the past month and we think it’s time to do it again. These projects are the best of the best and deserve a second wave of love from the maker community at large.
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They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so it seems that Elecfreaks latest board, the Pico:ed, is a homage to the micro:bit range of boards. Pico:ed features the Raspberry Pi RP2040 SoC in a more educational form factor, and the $13 price tag is certainly enticing for those wishing to start their coding journey.
Pico:ed shares the same form factor as the micro:bit, and at a glance it looks like a distant cousin. Instead of a 5×5 LED matrix, Pico:ed has a rather odd 7×17 matrix and two simple button inputs. At the bottom of the board are a series of GPIO “pins”, broken out to an edge connector that looks like a set of gold teeth. Some of the pins can be used with crocodile clips, which are very useful for educational environments where soldering and working with small pins and jumpers isn’t always practical.
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Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
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Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
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FSF
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Microsoft’s new service for automatically writing AI-based code, Copilot, has sparked outrage in the Open Source community.
“Microsoft loves open source.” So much has been put on this slogan recently, only to change the Open Source community’s perspective toward the Redmond company.
And while Microsoft was no longer demonized as the worst thing that could happen to the Open Source, certain of the Redmond tech giant’s tactics remained regardless of the times.
It must be said unequivocally, now and forever, that Microsoft loves open source! However, with one additional qualification: when it can generate a profit from it.
While this may appear to be perfectly acceptable from a business standpoint, it is quite the opposite regarding moral violations. And Microsoft did it again.
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Programming/Development
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Perl / Raku
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Put this in your agenda: the second Raku Conference will be held on 13-14 August 2022, online!
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Leftovers
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Hardware
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ORICO has sent me a sample of a USB 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure for review, which was timely as I did not have a fast USB storage option for testing. In this post, I’ll check out the hardware, show how to install an NVMe SSD, and test performance in UP Xtreme i11 mini PC since it happens to come with a USB 4.0 port.
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Proprietary
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The latest beta of the popular Windows USB creation tool Rufus adds some handy features, such as removing Microsoft account requirements and turning off TPM chip detection – and there are others too.
In olden times, PCs used to come with recovery disks so that if your hard disk died you could fit a new one and reinstall. Then optical drives started to fade away, and PC makers found it saved money if they didn’t include the disks and just put a recovery image on the hard disk. Happily, though, Microsoft made downloads of ISO images of Windows free on its website.
If you try to download on another copy of Windows, it tries to push the Microsoft Media Creation Tool at you, but you can refuse and use your own. If you do, Rufus is a good alternative.
The latest beta version of Rufus, which in future will be version 3.19, has some interesting new additions. While it writes your ISO, you can optionally disable some of Windows’ more annoying features.
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Security
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I had a curiosity driven excursion into the public clouds of AWS and Azure to find what is publicly hosted and who by. As anticipated, the results were extremely broad and interesting as I found PII, various web applications, login portals, source code, and adult material.
Please note that this blog will not include all steps of reconnaissance as that is a topic for another blog.
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Security updates have been issued by Debian (gnupg2 and kernel), Fedora (golang-github-apache-beam-2, golang-github-etcd-io-gofail, golang-github-intel-goresctrl, golang-github-spf13-cobra, golang-k8s-pod-security-admission, and vim), Oracle (.NET 6.0, compat-openssl10, compat-openssl11, cups, curl, expat, firefox, go-toolset:ol8, grub2,, gzip, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-11-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, kernel, libarchive, libgcrypt, libinput, libxml2, pcre2, postgresql, python, rsync, rsyslog, ruby:2.6, subversion, thunderbird, vim, xz, and zlib), Scientific Linux (firefox and thunderbird), SUSE (python-nltk and salt), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-hwe-5.13, and linux-oem-5.14).
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Fear, Uncertainty,
Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Access Now is demanding the immediate end to an information vacuum that is exacerbating social unrest in Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan. In response to the decision by Uzbek President, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, to amend the constitution and curtail the autonomy of the Karakalpak people, protests erupted on July 1, 2022, that were reportedly swiftly met by an internet shutdown.
“Internet access gives people power,” said Felicia Anthonio, #KeepItOn Campaign Manager at Access Now. “And that’s why authorities are likely targeting it in Karakalpakstan. We call on the government of Uzbekistan to ensure an open internet for all, and allow freedom of expression across the region.”
While the President dropped plans to curb Karakalpakstan autonomy from his constitutional reform plans, the situation is far from stabilized. The state of emergency that has been implemented in the region, and set to run until August 2, 2022, means people are denied freedom of movement. This has the potential to provoke further clashes. According to some reports, Karakalpakstan has experienced connectivity issues with mobile internet since June 27, 2022, followed shortly after by the loss of fixed-line internet.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Politics
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When talking, most people expect that the cooperative principle is in play.
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For no particular reason, I’d like on this day to reassert my belief that all systems of minority rule are illegitimate.
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Hello! Happy 4th of july for fellow americans. Hope you are celebrating the ‘murican way! Indulging on yummy food and watching colorful magnesium compounds explode in the night sky. I myself plan to get terribly intoxicated and listen to music on top of those things but thats optional.
[...]
I had a job interview at a winery/renaissance faire for the position of Electrical Helper. The guy who interviewed me was the single electrician the company had. Apparently he had been working there a decade and only now they decided it was time he could use a helper. I really liked the guy and the work doesn’t seem too terrible all things considered, a lot better than my work in the printing press as a maintenance tech.
He walked me around the faire grounds and showed the electical boxes and how they were run. Cleverly disgused in places the average faire goer would never notice walking by. In a place thats supposed to look historical and stuff its important to hide the electrical wires else it kills the vibe lol.
For some reason the prospect excited me. It wouldn’t be making me a lot of money but its different. Outside work around cute castles and checkerboard gardens instead of being trapped in an industrial complex having to wear hearing protection all the time just to not go deaf.
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Technical
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Internet/Gemini
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It is probably safe to say that everyone hanging out on the smol Internet has experience in the precise cycle that I am about to discuss, and it has been causing me to pause and wonder if it is even worth addressing. But as this is my very infrequently trafficked space and probably the only place on the web that is specifically for me to be entirely self-indulgent, I will roll with it.
[...]
It is sad to consider not looking in on people I have encountered who live on the other side of the globe or those in my local community who I have only met through online spaces. I feel like I am losing the only way I know to find what was the beautiful promise of the Internet way back when.
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.
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Posted in News Roundup at 3:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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GNU/Linux
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Audiocasts/Shows
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Applications
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darktable is an open-source photography/raw developer program. It is available for Linux, Windows, and macOS.
Recently, the developers unveiled new stable release as an upgrade over its 3.8.x series.
The latest upgrade is about new features, bug fixes, and significant changes.
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Instructionals/Technical
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The other day I was trying to install massCode application. For installation, it provided a Snap file to download.
[...]
There are no signatures involved here.
What happens is that you have downloaded a Snap installer file from a third party. The snap mechanism in Ubuntu expects you to get the snap packages from the official snap store.
Since it doesn’t come from the snap store, you see the ‘cannot find signatures with metadata for snap’ error message. The error message is not descriptive, like most error messages.
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Written in PHP, WordPress is one of the most popular and widely used CMS (Content Management Systems). It is free and open-source and is used for creating stunning websites by providing prebuilt feature-rich templates that are easily customizable. As such, you can create cool websites without the need to write any code.
In this guide, we will demonstrate how to install WordPress with LAMP on SUSE Enterprise Server 15.
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ow to install Visual Studio Code on Ubuntu 20.04|22.04 [Ed: No, do not install proprietary spyware from the company that attacks GNU/Linux. Use free/libre software which does not spy on the user and is not controlled by Microsoft]
In this article we are going to learn how to install Visual Studio code also know as (VScode) on Ubuntu 22.04…
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The most basic way to look at your files and folders is to use the commands ls and ll. But sometimes, I want to see not just the file metadata but also the contents of a file at a glance. For that, I use ranger.
If you love working out of your console and using Vim or Vi, and you don’t want to leave your terminal for any reason, ranger is your new best friend. Ranger is a minimal file manager that allows you not only to navigate through the files but also to preview them. Ranger comes bundled with rifle, a file executor that can efficiently choose programs that work with a given file type.
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Darktable is a free and open-source photography application program and raw developer. Rather than being a raster graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, it comprises a subset of image editing operations specifically aimed at non-destructive raw image post-production. In addition to basic RAW conversion, Darktable is equipped with various tools for basic and advanced image editing.
These include exposure correction, color management, white balance, image sharpening, noise reduction, perspective correction, and local retouching. As a result, Darktable is an incredibly powerful tool for photographers of all experience levels. Best of all, it is entirely free to download and use.
In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Darktable on Fedora 36 Linux workstation using the command line terminal.
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Pinta is an excellent image editing tool for both novice and experienced users. The user interface is straightforward yet still packed with features.
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GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program, is an open-source program for many different purposes. Its primary function centers around graphic design and editing images and transcoding between various image formats, free-form drawing, and many more specialized tasks. GIMP is released under GPL-3.0-or-later license and is available for Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.
In the following tutorial, you will learn to install GIMP on Debian 11 Bullseye using the apt package manager or the flatpak package manager, along with some tips for maintaining or removing GIMP in the future.
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In this guide, we are going to install LFTP, which is a command-line FTP client. LFTP supports many protocols in addition to FTP, such as HTTP, HTTPS, HFTP, FISH, FTPS, and FXP. It supports mirroring directories and you can have commands entered in two modes.
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Nmap is a free, open-source network scanning tool widely used by network administrators to discover vulnerabilities and perform network discovery. Nmap can scan for live hosts, identify services running on those hosts, and determine the host’s operating system. Nmap can also scan for specific vulnerabilities, such as unpatched software or open ports.
Additionally, Nmap can be used to gather information about a network, such as its layout or the types of devices connected to it. While Nmap is a potent tool, it is essential to note that it can be misused. In the hands of a skilled attacker, Nmap can be used to launch attacks against systems or to gather sensitive information about a network. As a result, it is essential to use Nmap responsibly and only with permission from the system owner.
In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install and use Nmap on Fedora 36 Linux with a desktop workstation or headless server using the command line terminal to install and use commands with the network scanner.
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Hello, friends. We already know that CentOS 9 Stream is a quite new and attractive system for many developers. So, we keep on pushing it. Today, you will learn how to install PHPMyAdmin on CentOS 9 Stream.
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Often, when we want to have a local repository for our RHEL 8 system to install packages without internet access for extra safety and using RHEL 8 ISO is the easiest way to do that.
In this guide, we will be showing you how you can configure and use locally downloaded RHEL 8 ISO images as a repository for installing packages in RHEL 8 Linux.
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R is an open-source programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphical representation created and supported by the R Core Team and the R Foundation. R’s popularity is widely used amongst statisticians and data miners for statistical and data analysis software developers. The R language, otherwise called GNU S, was created in 1992 by Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, with support from the Statistical Society of New Zealand. R has become the de facto standard among statisticians for statistical computing, data analysis, and machine learning.
R is so popular because it’s a versatile tool that can be used for everything from simple data analysis to complex statistical modeling. For example, R can be used to clean and prepare data for analysis, Perform statistical analyses, Create publication-quality plots, and Present results in an interactive web application. As a result, it’s no wonder that R has become one of the most popular programming languages in the world.
In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install R on Fedora 36 Linux using the command line terminal, along with some basic commands and examples of what can be achieved with R Programming.
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Distributions and Operating Systems
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Fedora Family / IBM
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Developed by Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, Rocky Linux is an opensource Linux distribution that was designed to be a downstream and 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Rocky Linux is a community-supported, and production-grade operating system designed to offer rock-solid stability and regular security updates for production workloads. It has increasingly gained traction since its inception and now sits with the big boys such as SUSE Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Let us take a trip down memory lane and see how one of the most celebrated enterprise-grade Linux distributions came to be.
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As many of us dip our toes back in the water of travel and in-person events this year, those hours at the airport could be a great time to brush up on some reading. Or maybe you have an actual vacation planned and need a beach read. If you’re a CIO or IT leader looking to spruce up your leadership skills, we’ve rounded up seven books that should be on your radar this summer.
The following books are impactful, insightful, and full of quality leadership advice for what’s next in our industry. Check out our recommendations.
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Debian Family
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The difference can be major, depending upon the maintainer of the distribution. For example, Ubuntu is a Debian-based distribution maintained by Canonical.
However, Ubuntu is geared more towards user-friendliness and has a more corporate feel. On the other hand, Debian is more concerned with software freedom and options.
Even the installation part of Ubuntu is more user-friendly than the installation of Debian, although they both share the same structure.
Remember, Ubuntu is not the only distribution in the race to provide you with a rich and dynamic user experience with advanced tools and applications.
Today, you will learn about the 15 best Debian-based Linux distributions, which might include your next favourite distribution.
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Devices/Embedded
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STEPFPGA MXO2Core miniature FPGA development board is based on Lattice MXO2-4000 FPGA, and designed for education with an easy-to-use Web IDE, instead of the more traditional tools that can be frustrating to use, and detailed tutorials.
The board also comes with a 2-digit segment display, some LEDs, push buttons, and a 4-way DIP switch, as well as two rows of twenty pins for I/O expansion, and a USB Type-C port used for power, programming, or mass storage.
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Open Hardware/Modding
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Geehy APM32F103 is a clone of STMicro STM32F103 MCU that has been tested by at least one person who claims it was just a drop-in replacement and PCB, code, hex, testing, and production did not have to be changed at all.
Most STM32 microcontrollers are in short supply with 52+ weeks lead times and prices going through the roof, so people may be looking into the long list STM32 clones and fakes including APM32F103.
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Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
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Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra
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Impress now has the next step of document theme support: it is possible to refer to the theme colors from shape fill colors (including effects).
This work is primarily for Collabora Online, but the feature is fully available in desktop Impress as well.
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Programming/Development
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What is the common denominator for over 40% of NHL, Premier League, and Bundesliga teams? What solution is used by over 23 000 athletes in over 1 000 teams worldwide?
The common denominator is that they use science-based sports software to maximize their performance through long seasons. The company behind the solution is Firstbeat. We at Qt teamed up with Firstbeat to keep world-class players up and running.
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Leftovers
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Hardware
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ASRock released iEPF-9010S and iEP-9010E as part of their Edge Artificial IoT Server platforms. These AIoT servers are equipped with Intel’s 12th Gen Core processors along with extensive I/O peripherals and wide RF connectivity, including 4G/LTE, Wi-Fi6E, BT 5.2 and even 5G.
Both models feature Intel’s 12th generation Core processors (R680E Chipset) with support for up to 16 cores and 24 threads. According to ASRock, both series also offer an upgraded memory capacity by combining up to four SO-DIMM DDR4 2933MHz for a total of 128GB.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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For the month of June 2022, IFF has filed 21 Right to Information (“RTI”) applications and 14 first appeals. In a response to the RTI application on the current status of the Aarogya Setu Data Access and Sharing Protocol, 2020, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MeitY’) responded that it had been discontinued since May 10, 2022. It also stated that the Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management – which notified the protocol in May 2020 was dissolved in September 2020.
[...]
One of our key areas of work is ensuring that public authorities respect data privacy and engage in practices which will ensure that the right to privacy is protected. We filed 10 RTI applications with various authorities this month to ask for information pertaining to projects which affect the data privacy of Indian citizens.
Under IFF’s Project Panoptic, we routinely file RTI applications with various public authorities after we come across news reports that they are developing or using facial recognition technology (FRT). This month, we filed an application with the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited over their proposed use of facial recognition on the people using the metro services.
For more information on the use of facial recognition technology and how it increases mass surveillance, visit IFF’s Project Panoptic.
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CalorieScope is an android application which is designed to help the user to maintain healthy lifestyle.
Unlike most of the calorie calculator apps, this app does not contain any third-party script or share your details online to any service.
[...]
The app and the source code is released under the GNU General Public License V2.0.
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Environment
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Wildlife/Nature
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Any time I see a cute bird as Wikipedia’s featured picture, I have to share it. This is a Willie wagtail, taken by JJ Harrison in Lithgow, about a hundred kilometres north-west from where I am in Sydney. It probably flew away by now.
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Finance
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Interest rates are used, theoretically, to encourage or discourage demand. But to use a tech analogy, I feel like we’re operating a black box right now, and with completely different inputs. We’re in uncharted waters.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Note: Access Now co-signed this statement along with 8 other organizations from around the world in calling on Indonesia’s Minister of Communication and Information to repeal MR5 and its amendment, MR10— both regulations contain content moderation provisions which are inconsistent with internationally-recognized human rights, including freedom of expression and opinion.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal
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Went up to SBUX to get out of the house even though nobody is home.
If I stayed there, I probably would not have given myself time to
write. So I set a timer for 60 minutes before I can leave.
Now that I’ve done that, I can’t think of much to write about, so if
this becomes garbage, you have been warned.
Right now, I feel so out of touch with everything that has been
going on in the world, in the communities I frequent, with my
friends, with my family. This has been probably over the past month
or so. There is a built-in safety mechanism that gets tripped when
I become unwell and have exceeded my limitations to cope. I put
myself in the dark, shields up, red alert! I know it is a safe
place, but I do not like to go there. It has been years since I had
to go there and it feels wretched being there, but I know it is safe.
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Technical
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Programming
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That is legit. I’ve learned a lot from books about languages that aren’t necessarily my fave languages, like Smalltalk, Perl, and even COBOL.
Books like Design Patterns, Principles of Program Design, and Deep C Secrets comes to mind,
Sometimes people who are stuck in a bad language need to develop discipline or structure or formalize their thinking since otherwise they’d be lost (since their language doesn’t let them create abstraction) and that can be interesting. It can also help us in langages that do have good metaprogramming facilities; there’s this old adage that most of the patterns in Design Patterns are like one line of Lisp (for example, why do you need Template Method or Visitor when you can just pass a proc🤦🏻♀️) but sometimes it can help you know what that line should be.
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.
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