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Links 24/12/2022: Manjaro 22.0 and Serpent OS Released



  • GNU/Linux

    • Applications

      • HackadayCoreFreq Gives Peek At CPU Performance Info On Linux | Hackaday

        The CPU is the part of the computer that makes everything else tick. While GPUs have increasingly become a key part of overall system performance, we still find ourselves wanting to know how our CPU is doing. CoreFreq is a new tool that aims to tell you everything you want to know about your modern 64-bit CPU.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • DebugPointLibreOffice Workbook Worksheet and Cell Processing using Macro

        In this tutorial, you will learn how to access the workbook, worksheet and Cell contents using LibreOffice Calc basic macros.

        Spreadsheet applications like Calc consist of workbooks, worksheets and individual Cells. It is often required to process those using Macro to automate various tasks.

        This tutorial will demonstrate the basic processing of worksheets and cells, which is the foundation of many complex macros.

        Note: This tutorial assumes you have the initial set up on creating a basic Macro in LibreOffice Calc.

      • The Linux killall Command - buildVirtual

        The killall command is a powerful tool in the Linux command line that allows you to terminate processes by their name. It is a convenient way to stop multiple processes at once, saving you the time and effort of manually killing each process individually.

        The basic syntax of the killall command is killall process_name, where process_name is the name of the process you want to terminate. For example, to kill all instances of the firefox process, you would use the command killall firefox.

        One useful feature of the killall command is the ability to specify a signal to be sent to the processes being terminated. The default signal is SIGTERM, which asks the process to terminate gracefully. However, you can also use other signals such as SIGKILL to force the process to terminate immediately. To specify a signal, you can use the -s option followed by the signal number or name. For example, to force all instances of the firefox process to terminate immediately, you would use the command killall -s SIGKILL firefox.

      • How to Backup and Restore Linux Command History

        The Linux shell (specifically, “Bash“) takes each executed command as an event and saves the command in the “.bash_history” file located in the user’s home directory.

        Now, there are two ways to view the history record of a user’s executed command: one using the history command, and the other by reading the “.bash_history” file using the cat command.

      • ID RootHow To Install Wireguard VPN on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Wireguard VPN on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, WireGuard is a free and open-source virtual private network (VPN) software that uses state-of-the-art cryptography to secure and encrypt internet connections. It is designed to be simple, fast, and easy to use, and it has a small codebase that is easy to review and audit.

        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 Wireguard 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.

      • TecAdminHow to Install OpenCV in Python - TecAdmin

        OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision) is a free and open-source library of computer vision and machine learning algorithms that can be used to process and analyze images and video. It is widely used in a variety of applications, including object detection, image, and video processing, and augmented reality.

        In this article, we will cover two different methods for installing OpenCV in Python: using “PIP” (the Python Package Manager) and using “Anaconda” (a free and open-source distribution of Python and R for data science and machine learning).

      • Linux HintHow to Use the WC Command in Bash

        To count the overall number of lines, syllables, and letters in a text document, use the “wc” Bash function, which means “word count”. It is presented with four columns in the output. The first of which displays the number of lines. The second column lists the words in the file. The third column lists the characters. And the final column lists the file name. This “wc” command gives us access to several flags including “-c”, “-w”, and others which we will cover in this article.

      • Linux HintHow to Check If a Command Succeeded in Bash

        When writing a script or executing a command, it makes sense to know if it succeeded. In Linux, when a command is run, we get an exit code which confirms whether the executed command was successful. When running a command that relies on the output of the other command, you must fetch the exit code of the first command to determine whether the other command will run. This guide focuses on two ways of checking whether a command succeeded in Bash.

      • Linux HintHow to Create Bash Alias with Arguments and Parameters

        In a BASH environment, we construct an alias for a set of files. Alias can be made more programmatic and versatile by using BASH functions, variables, etc. Bash Alias is a method for creating a few shortcut commands for numerous and repetitive operations. Here, we will discuss a way to create the bash alias with the arguments and parameters. Unfortunately, there are some cases when the alias does not accept parameters or arguments. However, we can utilize functions to accept parameters and arguments while executing alias commands. We use the bash aliases and functions to use the command line more efficiently.

      • The New StackKubernetes 101: Deploy Your First Application with MicroK8s - The New Stack

        Kubernetes is challenging. Of that, there is no debate. Not only are there a lot of moving parts that go into deploying a container to a Kubernetes cluster, but so much can go wrong along the way. To complicate matters even further, deploying the Kubernetes cluster can be a hair-pulling affair.

        That’s why tools like Canonical’s MicroK8s have been developed. With such software, the process of deploying a Kubernetes cluster is significantly less challenging, so you can focus more on getting up to speed with deploying applications and services to the cluster.

      • H2S MediaHow to install Google Chrome in RHEL 9 / 8 Linux - Linux Shout

        Want to install the popular Mozilla Firefox alternative Google Chrome browser in Redhat 9 or RHEL 8? Then there here are the steps to follow, given in the tutorial.

        Chromium-based Chrome browser is the most preferred choice for home or regular desktop users. It is available free of cost to install not only on Mac and Windows but also on most of Linux systems. Although Chromium is open source, Google’s Chrome is a proprietary browser.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • FOSS PostGet Jaw-dropping Window Effects on Linux with this Extension

        “Burn My Windows” is a GNOME and KDE extension that allows you to play many different window effects when you close or open any window on your system.

        It’s quite fantastic, and brings back the memories of the good old Compiz and gnome 2.X, allowing you once again to play window effects on Linux.

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Looking Back at 2022 - Kai Uwe’s Blog

          Depending on your calendar system, another year is coming to a close very soon. While this year was a lot more enjoyable for many of us than the last two, we surely didn’t expect things to go downhill even more for others. As I am looking forward to some days off with my family, let me take a step back and reflect on some of the things I did in KDE in the last twelve months.

          [...]

          One of my personal goals is for every file type imaginable to have a thumbnailer, metadata extractor, or at least a lovely Breeze icon and file type registration in shared-mime-info to go with it. This year I spent a lot of time in our KFileMetaData Framework, which is what extracts metadata from files for the file manager sidebar, file properties dialog, and our Baloo desktop search. For starters, today we’re able to index OpenDocument files of the “Flat XML” variant, where all data is in a single XML file, rather than bundled as a ZIP archive. Open Document Graphics vector images are also supported now. Additionally, for Office 2007 files line and word count is recorded.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • New Releases

      • Lift Off - Serpent OS

        Enough of this "2 years" nonsense. We're finally ready for lift off. It is with immense pleasure we can finally announce that Serpent OS has transitioned from a promise to a deliverable. Bye bye, phantomware!

        We exist

        As mentioned, we spent 2 years working on tooling and process. That's .. well. Kinda dull, honestly. You're not here for the tooling, you're here for the OS. To that end I made a decision to accelerate development of the actual Linux distro - and shift development of tooling into a parallel effort.

        Infrastructure .. intelligently deferred

        I deferred final enabling of the infrastructure until January to rectify the chicken/egg scenario whilst allowing us to grow a base of contributors and an actual distro to work with. We're in a good position with minimal blockers so no concern there.

        A real software collection

        This is our term for the classical "package repository". We're using a temporary collection right now to store all of the builds we produce. In keeping with the Avalanche requirements, this is the volatile software collection. Changes a lot, hasn't got a release policy.

        A community.

        It goes without saying, really, that our project isn't remotely possible without a community. I want to take the time to personally thank everyone that stepped up to the plate lately and contributed to Serpent OS. Without the work of the team, in which I include the contributors to our venom recipe repository, an ISO was never possible. Additionally contributions to tooling has helped us make significant strides.

        It should be noted we've practically folded our old "team" concept and ensured we operate across the board as a singular community, with some members having additional responsibilites. Our belief is all in the community have equal share and say. With that said, to the original "team", members both past and present, I thank for their (long) support and contributions to the project.

      • Manjaro 22.0 Sikaris released - Releases - Manjaro Linux Forum

        Since we released Ruah in June all our developer teams worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it Sikaris.

      • LinuxiacManjaro 22.0 Sikaris: A Christmas Present for All Linux Users

        Manjaro 22.0 “Sikaris” is in all its glory, with the most recent versions of KDE Plasma 5.26, GNOME 43, and Xfce 4.18.

        Manjaro is an Arch-based Linux distribution that aims to provide a simple and easy-to-use desktop environment. Thanks to its user-friendly design, great support, and powerful features in the last few years, Manjaro has gained a huge user base among Linux users.

        And just in time for Christmas, the good news has arrived! Today, the brand-new release of Manjaro 22.0, “Sikaris,” has been announced as a beautiful Christmas present not only for Manjaro users but for all Linux lovers. So, let’s see what’s new.

      • Beta NewsCelebrate the birth of Jesus Christ by installing Manjaro Linux 22.0 ’Sikaris'

        Tomorrow is one of the most important days of the year -- Jesus Christ's birthday! Also known as "Christmas," many people celebrate the holiday by giving gifts to friends and family. And of course, Santa Claus will be delivering many great presents to all the non-naughty children of the world too.

        As an early Christmas gift, the Linux community is getting something very special today -- Manjaro 22.0! Code-named "Sikaris," this operating system is based on the excellent Arch Linux. If you love using a modern kernel, you will be happy to know Manjaro 22.0 comes with version 6.1. There are three desktop environments from which to choose -- GNOME (43), KDE Plasma (5.26), and Xfce (4.18).

    • Debian Family

      • Debian uploads, Core22 KDE snap content pack and more! - Scarlett Gately Moore

        I have been quite busy! I have been working on several projects so my cover image is a lovely sunset where I live.

        [...]

        I have reworked the CI to now do Core22 snaps! They will publish to the beta channel until we get them tested. First snap completed is the ever important KDE Frameworks / QT content snap + SDK! Applications will start after I tackle the kde-neon extention in snapcraft.

      • Monthly report about Debian Long Term Support, November 2022 | Freexian

        Like each month, have a look at the work funded by Freexian’s Debian LTS offering.

      • Petter ReinholdtsenPetter Reinholdtsen: ONVIF IP camera management tool finally in Debian

        Merry Christmas to you all. Here is a small gift to all those with IP cameras following the ONVIF specification. There is finally a nice command line and GUI tool in Debian to manage ONVIF IP cameras. After working with upstream for a few months and sponsoring the upload, I am very happy to report that the libonvif package entered Debian Sid last night.

        The package provide a C library to communicate with such cameras, a command line tool to locate and update settings of (like password) the cameras and a GUI tool to configure and control the units as well as preview the video from the camera. Libonvif is available on Both Linux and Windows and the GUI tool uses the Qt library.

    • Devices/Embedded

      • CNX SoftwareM5Stack T-Lite Wi-Fi thermal camera integrates 1.14-inch color display - CNX Software

        M5Stack T-Lite is a Wi-Fi thermal imager with the same MLX90640 IR array thermal camera found in the M5Stack Thermal Camera 2 Unit plus a 1.14-inch color display to visualize the results on the device itself.

        Based on the ESP32-PICO-D4 system-in-package with WiFi and Bluetooth, the solution allows the user to access the 32×24 pixels thermal image either on the built-in display, or streamed to the local network or the cloud.

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • ArduinoThis flip-dot display acts like an Etch A Sketch

        Every year, several of the biggest names in the maker world on YouTube get together for an international Secret Santa exchange. Each participate gets to decide on a gift for the assigned recipient and the only rule is that they must make the gift themselves. Sam Battle, of the LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER YouTube channel, made this awesome flip-dot display Etch A Sketch for Ruth and Shawn of KidsInventStuff.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • F-DroidUnifiedPush: a decentralized, open-source push notification protocol | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

      A modern Android smartphone relies on a lot of services, from app stores and calendars to messaging and push notifications. Most of them have open alternatives, but until now, the only option for push notifications was Google’s proprietary service, Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). UnifiedPush is a new alternative that allows you to get push notifications without being tied to a single company.

      Push notifications are essential to the modern mobile experience because they allow apps to communicate with users in real-time, even when not actively in use. Relying on Google-provided push notifications is a concern for both privacy and independence. The proprietary FCM library cannot be included in F-Droid apps and relies on having Google services. As a result, it is common to see FOSS applications adopt a persistent direct connection between the application and the server as an alternative.

    • The Register UKOpenAI gets to the Point●E with open source text-to-3D model ● The Register

      OpenAI has extended the capabilities of its text-to-image software from two dimensions into three with the release of Point●E, an open source project that produces 3D images from text prompts.

      The AI research firm has attracted considerable attention for its DALL●E software, which like rival projects Stable Diffusion and Midjourney can generate realistic or fantastical images from descriptive text.

      While Point●E shares the bullet point symbol used in OpenAI's DALL●E branding, it relies on a different machine learning model called GLIDE. And presently, it's not nearly as capable. Given a text directive like "a traffic cone," Point●E produces a low-resolution point cloud – a set of points in space – that resembles a traffic cone.

    • Programming/Development

      • InfoQAn Ode to Unit Tests: In Defense of the Testing Pyramid

        It was 2014 when David Heinemeier Hansson set the Software Development world on fire. He was on a RailsConf stage when he proclaimed that "TDD is Death".

        It was a bold move. But he was the leader that many unhappy with testing were looking for. Many followed along, splitting developers into two camps.

      • Taming Names in Software Development - Simple Thread

        What is a name? A name is a label, a handle, a pointer in your brain’s memory. A complex idea neatly encapsulated. A name lets you refer to “the economy” , or “dogfooding” mid-sentence without needing a three-paragraph essay to explain the term.

        If you think of software development as just carving up data into boxes and labeling them, it becomes clear why Naming Things is one of the two hard problems in computer science. Your brain has only so much space in working memory, and a good name makes the most of it. A good name is succinct, evocative, fitting. It reduces cognitive load and stand outs in your mind. Bad names are obscure, misleading, fuzzy or outright lies.

        In software, really good names are meaningful, descriptive, short, consistent, and distinct. You will notice that ‘descriptive’ and ‘short’ are diametrically opposed. As are ‘consistent’ and ‘distinct’. There is no solution, only tradeoffs.

        Descriptive names are safe, legible, clear. They tell you what exactly you’re dealing with, bring you up to speed, don’t require you to be an expert in the codebase or a mind reader. I understand exactly what BasicReviewableFlaggedPostSerializer is on my first time seeing it. But they can also be bulky and unwieldy.

      • The Story of A - by Kent Beck

        A was a new student when they started complaining about their teammates. “Don’t they see that we need this & that & this & that? They need to let me make these changes.”

        The business domain A & their team worked in was incredibly complex. The current system had been built emphasizing the behavior of the system & not the structure. As always, this led to a structure not well suited for further change.

        A had been working in the system long enough to have ideas for how things could be better. There needed to be a hierarchy of these things & a factory for those things & a factory for the factory because eventually we wanted to do this & that. The diagram of the system as A imagined it was full of boxes & arrows.

        The team was having none of it. They had features to ship. A’s pull requests were piling up, unreviewed. Stale PRs led to bigger PRs, further slowing the pace of structure change. A was, reasonably, frustrated.

      • A not so unfortunate sharp edge in Pipenv :: dade

        I’ve been a proponent of pipenv for several years now, particularly for application development (rather than library development). While the features around virtual environment management and the integration with pyenv to automatically install the version of python necessary for an application are nice, the features that I’ve really advocated for are the separation of direct dependencies and transient dependencies, via Pipfile and Pipfile.lock, and the hash validation provided by Pipfile.lock. I find it helpful in improving the deterministic nature of builds (not solving, mind you, but improving), making sure everyone in the engineering organization is using the same versions of packages as everyone else. It’s also a minor reassurance against supply chain attacks, which is sort of what I want to write about today.

      • Linux HintC++ Using std::cin

        In C++, we need a mechanism to interact with users, or to get information from the users. For this purpose, C++ provides a standard library to entertain the input-output statement. The ‘iostream’, here ‘io’ means input and output, this stream deals with the input and output statements. This library contains all the methods that we need to input data from the user or output data on the console. First, we import this library and to input data we use ‘cin>>’.

        The ‘iostream’ library has predefined variables ‘std::cin’ is one of them. The ‘std’ stands for standard and ‘cin’ means character input. The ‘iostream’ supports many built-in functions that we can use in our code by just importing the library.

      • Simon JosefssonOpenPGP key on FST-01SZ - Simon Josefsson’s blog

        I use GnuPG to compute cryptographic signatures for my emails, git commits/tags, and software release artifacts (tarballs). Part of GnuPG is gpg-agent which talks to OpenSSH, which I login to remote servers and to clone git repositories. I dislike storing cryptographic keys on general-purpose machines, and have used hardware-backed OpenPGP keys since around 2006 when I got a FSFE Fellowship Card. GnuPG via gpg-agent handles this well, and the private key never leaves the hardware. These ZeitControl cards were (to my knowledge) proprietary hardware running some non-free operating system and OpenPGP implementation. By late 2012 the YubiKey NEO supported OpenPGP, and while the hardware and operating system on it was not free, at least it ran a free software OpenPGP implementation and eventually I setup my primary RSA key on it. This worked well for a couple of years, and when I in 2019 wished to migrate to a new key, the FST-01G device with open hardware running free software that supported Ed25519 had become available. I created a key and have been using the FST-01G on my main laptop since then. This little device has been working, the signature counter on it is around 14501 which means around 10 signatures/day since then!

      • Perl / Raku

        • On Sigils - Physics::Journey

          This post was inspired by @codesections recent posts on sigils, particularly the notion of coding as a trialog between the writer, the reader and the machine.

          [...]

          We are dealing with coding languages. As with natural languages, syntax is a key marker that triggers cognitive mechanisms learned since childhood. While the base cultural setting for most of this is English, most human languages carry the notions of noun, verb, adjective and so on.

  • Leftovers

    • TecAdminWhat is Localhost? - TecAdmin

      In computer networking, the term “localhost” refers to the current device used to access it. It is used to access the network services that are running on the host via the loopback network interface. Using the loopback interface bypasses any local network interface hardware.

      The term “localhost” is derived from the combination of the words “local” and “host”. The word “local” refers to the device itself, while the word “host” refers to the device hosting a service or application. Therefore, “localhost” literally means “the local host.”

    • TediumWhy Santa Claus Evolves With the Times

      In so many ways, Santa Claus, a cultural touchstone that evolved from folklore into perhaps the most mainstream entity the world has ever seen, has transcended religion and evolved into a pop-culture discussion point with few, if any, equivalents. Like green bean casserole and pecan pie, the modern form of Santa Claus was heavily shaped by commercial entities, yet never came to be completely defined by them. Over at Tedium, we have written a lot related to Santa Claus over the years, but never have we actually written straight-up Santa Claus content. That changes today. Today’s Tedium talks about Santa Claus as a visual and cultural icon who has had more changes in style than Madonna, a figure that seemingly every single celebrity has dressed up as at some point in their careers. Ho, ho, ho.

    • Hardware

    • Proprietary

      • Bleeping ComputerOkta's source code stolen after GitHub repositories hacked [Ed: Microsoft is a terrible code host]

        Okta, a leading provider of authentication services and Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions, says that its private GitHub repositories were hacked this month.

        According to a 'confidential' email notification sent by Okta and seen by BleepingComputer, the security incident involves threat actors stealing Okta's source code

    • Pseudo-Open Source

      • Openwashing

        • InfoQAWS Releases Open-Source Tool for Command-Line Container Management [Ed: Openwashing. AWS is deeply proprietary and monopolised, centralised, spyware. This is openwashing.]

          AWS has released Finch, an open-source, cloud-agnostic, command-line client for building, running, and publishing Linux containers. Finch bundles together a number of open-source components such as Lima, nerdctl, containerd, and BuildKit. At the time of release, Finch is a native macOS client with support for all Mac CPU architectures.

          According to Phil Estes, Principle Engineer at AWS, and Chris Short, Senior Developer Advocate at AWS, "Finch is our response to the complexity of curating and assembling an open source container development tool for macOS initially, followed by Windows and Linux in the future". They note that the core Finch client will always be comprised of curated open-source, vendor-neutral projects.

    • Linux Foundation

      • Linux Foundation's 'AgStack Project' Plans First Dataset of the World's Agricultural Field Boundaries - Slashdot

        The nonprofit Linux Foundation not only pays the salary of Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman. It also runs the AgStack Foundation, which seeks more efficient agriculture through "free, re-usable, open and specialized digital infrastructure for data and applications."

        And this week that Foundation announced a new open source code base for creating and maintaining a global dataset that's a kind of registry for the boundaries of agricultural fields to enable field-level analytics like carbon tracking, food traceability, and crop production.

    • Security

      • The Register UKLinux admins have a CVSS 10 kernel bug to address ● The Register

        Merry Christmas, Linux systems administrators: Here's a kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 10 in your SMB server for the holiday season giving an unauthenticated user remote code execution.

        Yes, this sounds bad, and a score of 10 isn't reassuring at all. Luckily for the sysadmins reaching for more brandy to pour in that eggnog, it doesn't appear to be that widespread.

        Discovered the Thalium Team vulnerability research team at French aerospace firm Thales Group in July, the vulnerability is specific to the ksmbd module that was added to the Linux kernel in version 5.15. Disclosure was responsibly held until a patch was issued.

        [...]

        Lots of ready-made kit for would-be hackers can be found on the dark web; one trend recently noticed by the team at Cybersixgill has been gift card generators not only guess card numbers, but also check their validity by the thousands.

        Like brute force password crackers, the tools being sold online randomly guess the digits of gift cards issued by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Apple and others, with varying degrees of speed and accuracy based on how predictable a card's number sequence is.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • Ars TechnicaMSG defends using facial recognition to kick lawyer out of Rockettes show | Ars Technica

          When Kelly Conlon joined her daughter’s Girl Scout troop for a fun outing to see the Rockettes perform their Christmas Spectacular show at Radio City Music Hall in New York, she had no idea she would end up booted from the show once she entered the building.

          Security stopped Conlon, NBC New York reported, because she is a New Jersey lawyer. It seems that Madison Square Garden Entertainment has begun using facial recognition technology to identify any visitor to any of its venues—including Radio City Music Hall—who is involved with any law firm that is actively involved in litigation against MSG Entertainment.

          Conlon has never practiced law in New York nor personally been involved in litigation against MSG Entertainment. Instead, she is guilty by association, as an associate for Davis, Saperstein and Solomon, which has spent years tangled up in litigation against a restaurant that NBC reported is “now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment.”

          According to Conlon, she became aware of this supposed conflict of interest when security guards approached her in the Radio City Music Hall lobby just as she passed through the metal detector. Over the speakers, Conlon heard a warning about a woman in a gray scarf, then security confirmed the warning was about her, telling her, “Our recognition picked you up.”

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Internet Freedom FoundationWinter Session 2022: Parliament in Review

        The Winter session of Parliament was held from December 07, 2022 to December 23, 2022. Parliament adjourned sine die four working days ahead of schedule, having sat for 13 working days. In the ongoing 17th Lok Sabha, this is the eighth consecutive session that has been cut short. The session was in itself a delayed one to begin with, because of ongoing assembly elections in many states. This Parliamentary session was disrupted frequently from the second week onwards, due to the Opposition’s objections on several issues, including alleged misuse of probe agencies by the government, the Bihar Hooch tragedy, the recent Indo-China conflict, etc. The Rajya Sabha lost a session runtime of 1 hour and 46 minutes owing to such disruptions. With respect to digital rights in particular, no significant developments took place in both Houses. In a belated but welcome move, the second-last day of the session saw the introduction of the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2022 which omits the contentious Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. (More on our work on this here)

      • Internet Freedom FoundationWrapped 2022, Unwrapped 2023

        Anandita, Farkhanda, Krishnesh, Rohin, and Shivani transitioned out of their roles at IFF after completing an average of two years or more. We wish them the best and will continue to support them in their future endeavors. Meanwhile, our tiny team has grown with the addition of Gayatri, Gautam, Prateek, Ramya, Tejasi, and Shilpa. We encourage you to reach out to any of us with any advice or offers to volunteer your time. You can find us on email, the IFF Forum, and “IFF Chats” (click here) - your tech policy telegram group. Continuing our journey to be a truly public centered organization IFF’s board formalized by-laws, increased governance disclosures, and will commence a public process to induct two trustees next year.

        As you may know, last year fundraising results at IFF showed a lag. It is concerning that we have a monthly burn rate of 40-50% (individual donations in 2022 averaged INR 4,00,998, while our costs totaled INR 888,383 per month) that is primarily covered by organizational donations. This is not sustainable in the long run, which is why we're turning to you, our valued members, for help. By setting up a monthly mandate, you can help us continue our important work independently and effectively. Your support is crucial to our success, and every donation counts. So please, consider donating today and help us make a difference. And if you're feeling extra generous, don't hesitate to spread the word about IFF and encourage others to support us as well. We need your help to keep moving forward next year. Donate today (click here), set up a mandate and commit for next year!

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • 🔤SpellBinding: HIKSNOM Wordo: BIDDY
      • music notation puzzle

        December is, for some, a month of puzzles. Over on the web many, many people are working in parallel on puzzling problems, one per day and all just for fun. For those who like mathematics and also make music, I have not a calendar's worth but just one puzzle to add to the pile. The task is to decipher a somewhat arcane system of music notation. You are given sheet music of one work but it is not given which work. You should deduce how the notation works: a correct answer is an explanation of how to interpret a score that uses this system. In the process, you'll likely discover which piece of music is depicted (or quite possibly you will not), but that is not part of the objective. Good luck!

    • Technical

      • Cleaning Up an Old Kernel in Manjaro

        Previously, I installed the Linux 5.15 kernel to troubleshoot an unrelated issue. And I uninstalled 5.15 using the "Kernel" applet within the Manjaro Settings Manager. It seems like one of the uninstallation scripts did work correctly because I've had two issues since then. One, I still had the option to boot 5.15 from GRUB. So the boot menu was not updated. Two, I noticed the error above while updating Manjaro.

      • Trek

        trek is a rather old computer game, 1971, ported to BSD at some point and thus included in OpenBSD by way of /usr/games. A notable design choice for the original was that only a Teletype Model 33 ASR was available, therefore no fancy graphics, nor even the fancy interactive terminal that rogue (1980) eventually used.

      • Internet/Gemini

      • Programming

        • Christmas update: GNUnet++

          Two weeks ago I announced GNUnet++, my C++ wrapper for common GNUnet functions. It's christmas time and I'm happy to share that I've made progress.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



Recent Techrights' Posts

With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
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If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
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On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries
Links 26/03/2024: Inflation Problems, Strikes in Finland
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/03/2024: Losing Children, Carbon Tax Discussed
Links for the day
Mark Shuttleworth resigns from Debian: volunteer suicide and Albania questions unanswered, mass resignations continue
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 26/03/2024: 6,000 Layoffs at Dell, Microsoft “XBox is in Real Trouble as a Hardware Manufacturer”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/03/2024: Microsofters Still Trying to 'Extend' Gemini Protocol
Links for the day
Look What IBM's Red Hat is Turning CentOS Into
For 17 years our site ran on CentOS. Thankfully we're done with that...
The Julian Paul Assange Verdict: The High Court Has Granted Assange Leave to Appeal Extradition to the United States, Decision Adjourned to May 20th Pending Assurances
The decision is out
The Microsoft and Apple Antitrust Issues Have Some But Not Many Commonalities
gist of the comparison to Microsoft
ZDNet, Sponsored by Microsoft for Paid-for Propaganda (in 'Article' Clothing), Has Added Pop-Up or Overlay to All Pages, Saying "813 Partners Will Store and Access Information on Your Device"
Avoiding ZDNet may become imperative given what it has turned into
Julian Assange Verdict 3 Hours Away
Their decision is due to be published at 1030 GMT
People Who Cover Suicide Aren't Suicidal
Assange didn't just "deteriorate". This deterioration was involuntary and very much imposed upon him.
Overworking Kills
The body usually (but not always) knows best
Former Red Hat Chief (CEO), Who Decided to Leave the Company Earlier This Month, Talks About "Cloud Company Red Hat" to CNBC
shows a lack of foresight and dependence on buzzwords
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 25, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 25, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Discord Does Not Make Money, It's Spying on People and Selling Data/Control (38% is Allegedly Controlled by the Communist Party of China)
a considerable share exists
In At Least Two Nations Windows is Now Measured at 2% "Market Share" (Microsoft Really Does Not Want People to Notice That)
Ignore the mindless "AI"-washing
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Still Has Hundreds of Thousands of Simultaneously-Online Unique Users
The scale of IRC