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Links 1/7/2021: Many Linux 5.14 Merges and RISC-V on the Rise



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • Clang PGO Shot Down For Now From The Linux Kernel - Phoronix

        While Clang PGO support was sent in for Linux 5.14 as part of Clang compiler handling updates for this next kernel version, the functionality was subsequently dropped out and a new pull request issued after criticism from Linus Torvalds and others.

        While Google and others have already been using this Clang profile guided optimization support for the Linux kernel to build workload-optimized kernels, there were questions and criticisms raised over it that led to the pull request being re-submitted without the PGO bits in place.

      • Intel Discrete Graphics On Linux Nearing The Point Of A Working, Accelerated Desktop - Phoronix

        Bringing up Intel discrete graphics on Linux especially when it comes to accelerated 3D rendering has been a very lengthy process for the DG1 graphics card enablement, but it may soon actually start working.

        Getting Intel discrete graphics working on Linux has been a many month process even with being derived from the existing Gen12/Xe Graphics architecture. The Intel kernel graphics driver has seen a lot of work to handle the notion of local device memory (dedicated vRAM) since previously the driver was just always dealing with integrated graphics, so there has been a lot of changes on that front including the adopting of TTM for kernel memory management in those cases. Plus a lot of other changes across the open-source Intel Linux graphics stack in preparing DG1 and future discrete offerings from Intel.

      • Linux 5.14 Lands Changes For On-Package HBM Xeons, More Intel CPUs With In-Band ECC - Phoronix

        The Linux 5.14 RAS (Reliability, Availability and Serviceability) and EDAC (Error Detection And Correction) changes have landed with several improvements this time around on the Intel side.

        RAS/EDAC changes this time around include the support for on-package high bandwidth memory (HBM) for Xeon Sapphire Rapids as previously covered on Phoronix and officially confirmed earlier this week by Intel that various Sapphire Rapids SKUs will indeed have HBM. The Xeon HBM bits here are around the EDAC support for memory error checking/reporting.

        This pull request also includes adding Ice Lake Neural Network Processor for Deep Learning Inference (ICL-NNPI) support to the igen6_edac driver. Additionally, Tiger Lake and Alder Lake are added as well for supporting cases where the CPUs support in-band ECC. These SoCs including Alder Lake all have the same in-band ECC (IBECC) capabilities as the Elkhart Lake SoC but with the exception TGL / ADL now has two memory controllers rather than one.

      • Linux 5.14 GPU Driver Updates Come In Heavy With ~300k New Lines Of Code - Phoronix

        The Direct Rendering Manager (kernel graphics/display driver) updates for Linux 5.14 are putting on the pounds with nearly 300k lines of new code added (312,187 insertions, 22,367 deletions). The big increase is driven by new AMD Radeon graphics support added, a new Microsoft driver added, and other changes.

        As we've been accustomed to, the big increase in L.O.C. count is largely due to the new hardware support with the AMDGPU DRM driver and all the associated header files. Those register header files are automatically generated and really drive up the line count for the AMDGPU kernel driver that is already the largest driver within the Linux kernel source tree. The new AMD Radeon hardware support with Linux 5.14 is Yellow Carp and Beige Goby.

      • Linux 5.14 Picks Up Support For A Tiny & Inexpensive MIPS IoT Single Board Computer

        The MIPS code within the Linux kernel remains in a mature but rather stagnate state while the upstream MIPS architecture development has ceased and most vendors these days using Arm or RISC-V instead or even OpenPOWER prospects. But there still are some ongoing MIPS improvements to the Linux kernel.

        Most of the MIPS kernel work we talk about these days is around the MIPS-based Loongson processors out of China that are Linux/open-source friendly and seeing new kernel work from vendor Lemote Tech. But occasionally there are other MIPS hardware work worth mentioning, such as the case here for Linux 5.14.

      • Graphics Stack

        • NVIDIA’s 470 Linux Driver Beta Released With DLSS And Improved PRIME

          A lot of Linux users have a love-hate relationship with NVIDIA when it comes to drivers. It looks like NVIDIA is trying to win over the Linux fans by delivering timely driver releases as the beta version of the 470 Linux Driver is finally out.

          Some of the main highlights of the release are the support for DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), improved Wayland support, and improved PRIME (used for managing hybrid graphics in laptops)

    • Applications

      • Free DJ Software Mixxx 2.3.0 Released as New Major Update [PPA]

        After more than two years of development, free open-source DJ software Mixxx 2.3.0 released as the big stable release with a total of 7477 changes over 1 million lines of code since the last release.

        The new release introduced hotcue colors and custom labels. Hotcues can now have individual colors to make them visually distinguishable. And it’s now possible to see the hotcue labels on the overview waveforms, as well edit them by right-clicking.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Server Monitoring with Munin and Monit on Debian 8 (Jessie)

        In this article, I will describe how you can monitor your Debian 8 (Jessie) server with Munin and Monit. munin produces nifty little graphics about nearly every aspect of your server (load average, memory usage, CPU usage, MySQL throughput, eth0 traffic, etc.) without much configuration, whereas Monit checks the availability of services like Apache, MySQL, Postfix and takes the appropriate action such as a restart if it finds a service is not behaving as expected. The combination of the two gives you full monitoring: graphics that let you recognize current or upcoming problems (like "We need a bigger server soon, our load average is increasing rapidly."), and a watchdog that ensures the availability of the monitored services.

        Although Munin lets you monitor more than one server, we will only discuss the monitoring of the system where it is installed here.

        This tutorial was written for Debian 8 (Jessie), but the configuration should apply to other distributions like Ubuntu with little changes as well.

        I want to say first that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal, but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

      • How to setup a NAS with XigmaNAS - Unixcop

        In this article I will show you how to setup a NAS with XigmaNAS, formerly known as Nas4Free.

        A NAS (Network-attached Storage) is a network server specialized for serving files. With a PC, a couple of disks and XigmaNAS you can build a low-cost ZFS-based NAS with little effort.

      • How to install the Latest Symfony on Ubuntu 21.04 - Unixcop

        Symfony is the leading PHP framework to create websites and web apps

        There are many PHP frameworks but in this post, you will learn how to install Symfony. Maybe this is one of the most advanced ones out there.

        Symfony is an entire web development platform that includes a framework

        On the other hand, it uses the Model – View – Controller pattern that is so widespread among developers. Also, it allows you to create from simple websites to macro projects and complex applications all hand in hand with a huge community of users.

        So, let’s get started.

      • Learn Mount command in Linux and Umount command with examples a Guide

        But In Linux, When you will connect an external device, It will not mount automatically. You can mount external storage device on the desired directory in a Linux distribution.

        You can change mounting point in Linux as per your choice.

      • How to install Hastebin on Ubuntu 21.04
      • Home made snapshots with rsync - Unixcop

        In this article I will show you how to make snapshots of your filesystem that looks likes a full copy but that copy isn’t going to use the same store space as in a real full copy.

      • 20 Things You MUST DO After Installing Fedora 34 (RIGHT NOW!)

        In this video, I’ll be taking you through 20 things that’ll make your Fedora Perform Better (Preload), your Internet Speed Faster (custom DNS) and so many more improvements.

      • How To Install Lighttpd, PHP, and MariaDB on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Lighttpd, PHP, and MariaDB on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Lighttpd is a free, open-source, secure, and standards-compliant web server designed for high-performance environments. Compared to other alternative web servers, Lighttpd consumes very few resources and capable of serving large loads and when installed alongside PHP and MySQL or MariaDB it can serve millions of connections reliably. Lighty also has many modules that extend its capabilities.

        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 through the step-by-step installation of PrestaShop on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

      • How To Install Miniconda on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Miniconda on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Miniconda is a minimal free Conda installer. It’s a thin, bootstrap version that contains just conda, Python, the packages they depend on, and a limited range of other helpful modules like pip, zlib, and a few others. Miniconda is suitable for those who don’t mind installing each package individually. It saves you not only the disk space but also avoids dumping a lot of unnecessary applications that you don’t use often in your hard drive.

        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 Miniconda on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

      • How to Checkout a Specific Commit in Git? – Linux Hint

        Git is probably the most popular and most respected version control system. Large companies and individual developers use it to track and share their code and projects. It allows developers to collaborate from every point of the world and revert changes to codes if need.

        This tutorial will look at reverting to a specific commit in a specific repository using the git checkout command.

      • How to Create a Dockerfile? – Linux Hint

        Docker allows developers to build, test, and deploy applications quickly and efficiently using isolated and portable containers that run anywhere.

        Docker is an open-source tool that packages application(s), all the required packages, and its base operating system into containerized packages. As Docker containers are standalone, they run on any system without any need for reconfiguration.

        Docker builds containers from images. A Docker image is a standalone package that defines all the requirements needed to run an application, such as operating system, runtime, system tools, libraries, configurations, and more. Docker converts the images to containers during runtime.

        Docker builds images from configurations defined in a Dockerfile. A Dockerfile is simply a configuration file that states all the instructions on creating a Docker image. As a result, building Docker images using a Dockerfile is easier and much more efficient.

        This guide will walk you through creating a Dockerfile and using it to build a docker image.

      • How to Run Docker in Verbose Mode? – Linux Hint

        Errors are bound to occur once an application gets to the deployment stage. Hence, knowing how to use debugging tools and application is a critical requirement for a DevOps engineer.

        This guide will show you how to debug the Docker daemon to find and resolve errors. The debugging process works by allowing the docker daemon to show the verbose output of operations happening in the background and other helpful information. In return, the logs help to identify the reason why containers or images are not working correctly.

      • How to Set CORS in NGINX? – Linux Hint

        Cross-Origin Resource Sharing is a protocol that allows controlled access to resources located outside the scope of a given domain. CORS is similar to SOP with additional features and flexibility. A common example of CORS usage is if JavaScript needs to patch a request to an API endpoint located on a different domain. If SOP is used, which is followed by XMLHttpRequest and fetch, the request would be blocked. However, using CORS, the request can be allowed to access the requested endpoint.

        As you can imagine, there are some advantages and disadvantages of using CORS on your server as it does not protect against cross-domain-based attacks, including CSRF.

        The purpose of this tutorial is to give you a quick rundown of how CORS works and how to enable it on an NGINX server.

      • Configuring VNC Server Access on a Redhat Linux

        Most of the time as a Linux system administrator you are managing your servers over the network. It is very rare that you will need to have a physical access to any of your managed servers. In most cases all you need is to SSH remotely to do your administration tasks. In this article we will configure a GUI alternative to a remote access to your RHEL server, which is VNC. VNC allows you to open a remote GUI session to your server and thus providing you with a full graphical interface accessible from any remote location.

      • How to Vim / Vi Save and Quit the Editor

        Vim is an improved adaptation of Vi - the standard Unix visual text editor. Vim is available on literally all Unix-like systems, including Linux and Mac OS.

        Vim is pretty fast and almost all functions has shortcut keys. Vim is a very useful text editor for programming/scripting and editing configuration files and more.

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to save a file in Vim / Vi and quit the editor.

    • Games

      • GodotCon July 2021 - Schedule

        Our next online GodotCon is just around the corner! We can't wait to see you all this Saturday, 3rd of July 2021!

        We cannot express how grateful we are for all the people that took the time to submit a proposal for this conference. We were once again overjoyed to see the awesome stuff that you make!

        While we all can't wait to meet in person, we realised how important it is to make GodotCon more accessible for everyone. As the pandemic restrictions will ease, we will restore in-person conferences, but we also plan to keep doing these online events!

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • MATLAB, SAS, Stata and SPSS files in LabPlot

          The analysis and the visualization of data normally starts with the data itself. Though it is possible to create the data directly in LabPlot, in many cases it will be coming from an external sources. For an application like LabPlot, it is essential to support the relevant data sources of popular and frequently used file formats. To the many already supported file formats (see features for an overview), in the coming release we’re adding the support for MATLAB’s .mat files and for multiple file formats produced by statistical applications SAS, Stata and SPSS.

          MATLAB is a commercial and proprietary numeric programming language and computing environment with a used widely in academia and industry. With the help of the MATIO open source library, we’re adding the support for MATLAB’s mat files (version 4 to 7.4). Similar to other already supported file formats, the import is done via LabPlot’s import file dialog where you can check the structure of the file, preview the data and specify which portion of it to import...

        • Plasma desktop customization guide - How to for newbies

          A few weeks back, one of my readers contacted me and asked me if I could do an article, newbie style, explaining the steps I take in customizing the vanilla Plasma desktop to my liking. And I thought, why not indeed. Although I've done this exercise many times before, in various shapes and forms, I've never explicitly went through it in one go, as a complete, sequential piece.

          Well, today, I shall rectify that. But let us set the expectations ere you continue any further. One, you should go through my Linux section and read a dozen odd guides on various Plasma tools and features. Perhaps start with my Plasma is the best piece, and then continue yonder. Two, this is MY customization, so if you don't like the Dedoimedo Haute Couture, then stop, in the name of love. Three, Plasma doesn't really need any tweaking. But it's a flexible desktop, and it lets you do whatever you like, thus everything I'm going to show you today can be accomplished with zero command line and zero third-party tools. Begin, we must.

    • Distributions

      • SUSE/OpenSUSE

        • VLC, Plasma, PipeWire Update in Tumbleweed

          Three openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots were released so far this week.

          There were two bigger snapshots and one smaller one that brought the ClamAV update.

          Kicking off the week was snapshot 20210625 that provided updates for the 3D graphic Mesa and Mesa-drivers packages; the updated 21.1.3 versions mostly provided AMD changes and the verison no longer needs a GStreamer Video Acceleration API plugin that inspects environment variables. ImageMagick’s update to version 7.1.0.0 fixed a hang with the SVG parser that would get caught in an infinite loop. Mozilla Firefox 89.0.2 had an update to fix performance and stability regressions with WebRender on Linux and also fixed an occasional hang with WebRender. VLC 3.0.16 fixed an MP4 drop, some regressions with broadcast streams and provided settings improvements. A new major version of the Linux Auditing Framework, audit, updated from version 2.8.5 to 3.0.2 and updated some syscall argument interpretations. PipeWire updated to version 0.3.30+55, which included the update of some Advanced Linux Sound Architecture rules. The update of nodejs16 16.4.0 upgraded dependencies and stabilized the class: AsyncLocalStorage. Other packages to update in the snapshot were GNOME’s video player totem 3.38.1, Flatpak 1.11.2, libstorage-ng 4.4.15 and bind 9.16.18.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Fedora Community Blog: Source-git SIG report #1

          Greetings from the Fedora source-git SIG! We are planning to start publishing reports of what we are working on so everyone can easily pay attention and get involved if interested.

        • 4 questions to keep your IT strategy on course | The Enterprisers Project

          Most leaders try to visualize the future by examining the present and asking, “What’s next?” That’s a tough proposition because these leaders are trying to extrapolate. Where you go next depends on your future challenges. It’s an iterative process where you build on each successive year.

          This might seem like an effective planning approach, but it has its limitations. By extrapolating, you tend to react to what’s happening rather than planning for the future. After a few iterations, you can lose track of your goals, requiring a course correction to get back on track.

          Imagine an end goal, and then fill in the gaps between your current location to your destination. I find it’s much easier to interpolate instead: Imagine an end goal, and then fill in the gaps between your current location to your destination. In my experience, this approach helps me to generate better strategic plans.

        • When agile meets hybrid work: 4 must-do's for leaders | The Enterprisers Project

          Agile software development has been a prized practice for maximizing the efficiency and output of teams for nearly two decades. The specific tenets of agile development – close communication, frequent product upgrades, and inherent trust in employees – have since been extended into agile business leadership.

          While agile leadership has been adopted in organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies, the past 18 months have placed more pressure on companies to maintain agility and react to changes than ever before.

          While co-location was a key tenet of agile software development, distributed teams are now the norm. Agile leadership has taken on an entirely new definition in the post-COVID business environment. While co-location was a key tenet of agile software development, distributed teams are now the norm. And with new emerging self-service technologies and workflows that empower business users to own their own automation projects, modern enterprises must be able to go with the flow and make rapid adjustments to stay ahead of the competition.

        • An architect’s guide to Network Programmability

          Network programmability is the use of software to deploy, manage, and troubleshoot network elements. A programmable network is driven by an intelligent software stack that can take action based on business requests or network events. Let’s discuss how network programmability can help communication service providers adapt to new trends including internet of things (IoT), 5G and edge computing.

          Complementary to network programmability is Software Defined Networking (SDN), which not only separates the control plane and forwarding plane of network elements but also provides (application programming interfaces) APIs to control and manage them. You can learn more about SDN in a previously published post.

        • RESTEasy Reactive and more in Quarkus 2.0

          Since its initial release back in 2019, the Quarkus community has been continuously innovating, responding to user issues, and improving support for a wide variety of use cases. More notably, the community has produced regular and predictable releases, which is important for accelerating adoption for production workloads. In this article, I’ll cover a few of the new features in Quarkus 2.0 and share what we at Red Hat are doing to provide commercial support for this new release later this year.

        • Node.js serverless functions on Red Hat OpenShift, Part 1: Logging

          The article Create your first serverless function with Red Hat OpenShift Serverless Functions showed how to get started with a Node.js function application. You saw how to create a simple function application and deploy it to Red Hat OpenShift. It also covered basic usage of the Knative command-line tool kn.

          This series of articles offers a deeper dive into Node.js serverless functions on OpenShift. In Part 1, we'll look at how logging works and how to customize what is logged in a Node.js function application.

        • Top tips for making your Call for Code submission stand out

          You and your team have answered the Call for Code, and you’re almost ready to submit your solution. With the deadline for the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge rapidly approaching (it’s Saturday, July 31 at 11:59 pm PDT), I have a few last-minute tips and a checklist for you to review before you submit your entry.

        • IBM Open Sources Kestrel for Threat Hunting

          IBM contributed Kestrel, an open-source programming language for threat hunting, to the Open Cybersecurity Alliance (OCA) today in a move that Big Blue says marks a major milestone in OCA’s mission to drive greater interoperability across the security industry.

          Kestrel, jointly developed by IBM Research and IBM Security, uses automation to accelerate threat hunting and allows security analysts to express hunts in an open, composable language. The machine-learning based automation and composable hunting flows reduce the time it takes to discover new threats and also to create new hunts, according to Jason Keirstead, CTO of threat management for IBM Security and co-chair of the OCA.

          “Kestrel is designed to take advantage of the collective learned experience of the threat hunting community — and enable that to be combined with the power of machine learning and automation to speed response to threats,” he said in a statement. “By sharing new threat hunting patterns as they emerge via code that can be easily customized, Kestrel lets threat hunters devote more time to figuring out what to hunt, as opposed to how to hunt.”

      • Debian

        • Forget Windows 11 -- deepin Linux 20.2.2 doesn't require your PC to have a TPM

          Thankfully, even if Microsoft thinks your perfectly fine computer is obsolete, the Linux community doesn't think that. In other words, if your computer is incompatible with Windows 11 due to a lack of a TPM chip or other hardware issue, it can still run a modern Linux distro just fine. Case in point, one of the prettiest Linux distributions, deepin, just reached version 12.2.2 and it is the perfect option for those that are unable to upgrade to Microsoft's next desktop OS. It even supports Android apps like Windows 11!

          "In deepin 20.2.2, a brand-new App Store is released, with a fresh visual design, simplified interaction, Android apps support, and better application management. In addition, kernels are upgraded with the upstream, more GPU models and graphics cards are adapted, and deepin applications are updated, optimized, and fixed, offering improved stability and compatibility, and a better user experience. What's more, deepin supports secure boot to ensure that the device boots trusted software and protects system security," explains the development team.

        • Sparky news 2021/06

          The 6th monthly Sparky project and donate report of 2021: – Linux kernel updated up to version 5.13.0 – Added to repos: FreeTube, FrostWire, Lightworks – Sparky 2021.06 of the semi-rolling line released – new app Sparky Welcome replaces Sparky First Run

        • Vincent Bernat: Upgrading my desktop PC

          I built my current desktop PC in 2014. A second SSD was added in 2015. The motherboard and the power supply were replaced after a fault1 in 2016. The memory was upgraded in 2018. A discrete AMD GPU was installed in 2019 to drive two 4K screens. An NVMe disk was added earlier this year to further increase storage performance. This is a testament to the durability of a desktop PC compared to a laptop: it’s evolutive and you can keep it a long time.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Snap Windows to Corners in Ubuntu Using WinTile

          In this post we show you how to enable quarter tiling on the Ubuntu desktop using a free, open source GNOME extensions.

          “Doesn’t Ubuntu have window snapping features built in?”, you ask — and it does, but it only works for edge tiling (i.e. you drag a window to the side of the screen and let go and it fills exactly half of your available desktop) or maximising (drag a window to the top of the screen and let go and it fills the whole of your desktop).

          [...]

          People have tried adding to GNOME Shell before. In fact, there have been a couple of valiant efforts to add quarter tiling to GNOME Shell but none of them have, thus far, ever been merged or accepted into main. There’s also no current indication that the feature is being added any time soon.

          Thankfully for us, GNOME Extensions exist. These little bolt-ons let us to “fill” in gaps with the functionality, behaviour, or styling we’re missing.

          In this instance we want quarter tiling, and the best tool for the job is the terrific WinTile.

        • System76 Announces Pop!_OS COSMIC

          System76 has released the Pop!_OS COSMIC operating system, which offers the ability to navigate via mouse, keyboard, and/or trackpad and lets you customize each option.

          COSMIC stands for Computer Operating System Main Interface Components, which are separate from the tiling and window-management components, according to the GitHub page. “Most components can be configured to fit the user's workflow and preferences, with two main presets for both keyboard-focused and mouse-focused navigation and use.”

        • Pop!_OS 21.04: GNOME for the WARRIOR!

          Time to check out the latest from System76, Pop!_OS 21.04 debuting with their own Cosmic Desktop shell.

        • Linux overview | Pop!_OS 21.04

          In this video, I am going to show an overview of Pop!_OS 21.04 and some of the applications pre-installed.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Best Free and Open Source Software – June 2021 Updates - LinuxLinks

        The table above shows our articles updated in June 2021.

        For our entire collection, check out the categories below. This is the largest compilation of recommended software. The collection includes hundreds of articles, with comprehensive sections on internet, graphics, games, programming, science, office, utilities, and more. Almost all of the software is free and open source.

      • Apache Month in Review: June 2021
      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • 7 Firefox Addons to Protect Your Online Privacy

            Our modern browsers are much better than their ancestors at protecting us from vulnerabilities and online dangers, but the big ones aren’t always so great when it comes to caring for your privacy. Firefox is one of the better browsers in this regard, with some decent anti-tracking features, but you may still need to get some add-ons to shore up those privacy defenses.

            The following add-ons for the Firefox browser can help with that. Here are some of our favorites that will block all the online nonsense you don’t want any part of.

      • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

        • ONLYOFFICE 6.3 is Here with Dark Theme, 150% Scaling, and More

          ONLYOFFICE is a full-featured free alternative to MS Office. In ONLYOFFICE 6.3 document editing become even more convenient.

          We all have used Microsoft Office at some point in our lives. But since the Office suite is not free, it has become hard to edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations without having to spend money. Fortunately, there are various free and open-source alternatives available.

          ONLYOFFICE is a free collaborative cloud-based, on-premise, and desktop office suite. It is a viable alternative to mega corporations like Google and Microsoft. ONLYOFFICE is free and can be self-hosted. It is fully compatible with Office Open XML formats: .docx, .xlsx, .pptx and enabling collaborative editing in real time. Therefore, it is one of the best Office alternative that most accurately reads and writes Word/Excel/Powerpoint files. It runs fast on both desktop and in the browser.

          The software is not only available as an online service, but can also be installed on your own server.

        • Announcing the LibreOffice Getting Started Guide 7.1

          Jean Weber, Kees Kriek, Felipe Viggiano and Peter Schofield from the LibreOffice Documentation Team are happy to announce the immediate availability of the Getting Started Guide 7.1, the introductory guide for all readers that need to start using the LibreOffice suite and quickly get to the proficiency level.

        • The Document Foundation welcomes allotropia to its Advisory Board

          The Document Foundation (TDF) announced today that allotropia – a German company that provides services, consulting and products around LibreOffice and related open source projects – has joined TDF’s Advisory Board.

          Founded in late 2020 with five long-time LibreOffice developers, allotropia’s stated mission is to bring LibreOffice to shine – in as many different shapes and forms as necessary, to serve the modern needs of office productivity software. allotropia was spun off from CIB, another long-time provider of LibreOffice-based products and services (and also a member of the Advisory Board).

        • Collabora Office 21.06 Features Improved Interoperability

          Collabora Office has a great choice in user interfaces: a tabbed NotebookBar (for users familiar with recent Microsoft Office versions), as well as a traditional menus and toolbars. In addition we provide an optional side bar tool palette that makes best use of available horizontal screen space. With easy access to tools users can quickly find what they need.

      • CMS

      • FSF

        • Read and share articles from the Bulletin

          Free software is a concept that can't succeed unless it grows, and that's why advocacy is a crucial part of the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) mission. Our biannual Free Software Foundation Bulletin is one part of that work: it's available both online and in a handy printed pamphlet, the latter of which has just been mailed out to over 11,000 free software supporters around the world. Each issue of the Bulletin provides both updates on what the FSF has been up to for the last six months, and free software news and views to help you explain to the people in your life why they should fight for the right to technology that respects them.

        • FSF takes next step in commitment to improving board governance

          In addition, FSF executive director John Sullivan has begun recruiting candidates to succeed him as the organization’s chief employed officer. Completing his 18th year with the foundation, John is continuing in his role leading FSF’s day-to-day operations, managing all union and non-union staff, and serving as a clerk to the board.

          With an active search for candidates underway, John is committed to assisting until a successful candidate is hired and onboarded.

          The board is also evaluating the first proposed changes to its bylaws since 2002. The goals of these revisions are to ensure that user freedom cannot be compromised by changes in the board, members, or hostile courts, with particular focus on the future of the various GNU General Public Licenses (GPL); to codify the implementation of the staff seat created on March 25, 2021; and, to align the bylaws with the outcomes of the ongoing effort to modernize the foundation’s governance structure and processes.

          As FSF continues to pursue its mission, the board believes these collective efforts will strengthen the organization’s governance, ensuring that it is transparent, accountable, and professional for current and future board members, associate members, staff, and the broader free software movement. These efforts also underscore the board’s recognition of the need to attract a new generation of activists for software freedom and to grow the movement.

        • Licensing/Legal

          • CLAs are not for open source, use a Developer Certificate of Origin

            Startups trying to embrace open source today readily adopt Contributor License Agreements (CLAs) as mandatory requirements for contributing. This is not in the spirit of OSS, and you should use a Developer Certificates of Origin (DCO) instead.

          • It Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights

            Throughout the history of Free and Open Source software (FOSS), copyright assignment has simultaneously been controversial and accepted as the norm in our FOSS communities. This paradox, I believe, stems entirely from some key misunderstandings that perpetuate. This issue requires urgent discussion, as two of the most important FOSS projects in history (GCC and glibc) are right now considering substantial and swift changes to long-standing copyright policies that date back to the 1980s. This event, and other recent events over the last few years in the area of GPL compliance and corporate FOSS adoption, point to long-term problems for projects. This essay works through these nuances, and will hopefully assist FOSS contributors as they make difficult decisions about copyright ownership for their projects. At the end, I provide a summary list of issues to consider when creating copyright ownership policies for FOSS.

          • Kuhn: It Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights

            Bradley Kuhn has posted a lengthy missive on the Software Freedom Conservancy blog about the hazards of distributed copyright ownership.

      • Programming/Development

        • PHP 7.4.21 Released!

          The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.4.21. This is a security release.

          All PHP 7.4 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

        • PHP 8.0.8 Released!

          The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 8.0.8. This is a security release.

        • PHP 7.3.29 Released!

          The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.3.29. This is a security release.

          All PHP 7.3 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

        • PHP 8.1 Alpha Releases Get Underway With Enums, Fsync, Fibers, More Performance - Phoronix

          The PHP 8.1 alpha releases got underway in June in working towards the next annual feature release for the PHP scripting language.

        • Remi Collet: PHP version 7.3.29, 7.4.21 and 8.0.8



          RPMs of PHP version 8.0.8 are available in remi-php80 repository for Fedora 32-34 and Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS).

          RPMs of PHP version 7.4.21 are available in remi repository for Fedora 32-34 and remi-php74 repository Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS).

          RPMs of PHP version 7.3.29 are available in remi-php73 repository for Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS).

        • Intel Posts Big Set of Patches For AVX-512 FP16 Compiler Support For Sapphire Rapids - Phoronix

          Besides Sapphire Rapids introducing Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), new developer documentation has detailed AVX-512 FP16 capabilities coming with the next-generation Xeon processors. Intel has posted initial developer documentation around AVX512FP16 as well as a big set of GCC and LLVM Clang compiler patches for handling the new intrinsics.

          The new documentation confirms the AVX-512 FP16 data type support coming with Sapphire Rapids. Compared to FP32/FP64, the FP16 support for AVX-512 supports full speed handling of denormal (FP16) values. This also isn't to be confused with the AVX-512 BF16 support found with Cooper Lake for BFloat16. This AVX-512 half-precision floating point support should help for training and inference with deep learning models where FP32 isn't needed, among other use-cases.

        • Ravgeet Dhillon: Setup and Customize Bootstrap in Next.js

          A few months back, we wrote a blog on how to add and customize Bootstrap in Nuxt.js. Today, we will learn how to set up Bootstrap in a Next.js project. We will also install react-bootstrap to use Bootstrap based React components.

        • Perl/Raku

        • Python

          • Read Values from YAML File – Linux Hint

            YAML is a popular data serialization language developed for human readability and interaction. YAML is a powerful tool that offers many features and flexibility, making it a good choice when working with configuration files.

            This tutorial shall cover how to work with YAML and a popular scripting language, Python. Python is a great language used in many areas, including automation (such as Ansible), where YAML files find heavy use. Therefore, the ability to work with YAML and Python is a great advantage.

          • bpython – A Fancy Python Interpreter for Linux

            Bpython is an open-source terminal-based fancy Python interpreter which offers important features that are not part of the default interpreter.

        • Rust

          • What the Error Handling Project Group is Working Towards

            This blog post is a follow up of our previous post detailing what we're working on now. We've been iterating for a while now on some of the challenges that we see with error handling today and have reached the point where we want to describe some of the new changes we're working towards. But first we need to describe the main challenges we've identified.

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Pseudo-Open Source

        • Security

          • Bits relating to Alpine security initiatives in June

            Alpine 3.14.0 was released on June 15, with the lowest unpatched vulnerability count of any release in the past several years. While previous Alpine release cycles did well on patching the critical vulnerabilities, the less important ones frequently slipped through the cracks, due to the project being unable to focus on vulnerability remediation until now.

            We have also largely cleaned up Alpine 3.13 (there are a few minor vulnerabilities that have not been remediated there yet, as they require ABI changes or careful backporting), and Alpine 3.12 and 3.11 are starting to catch up in terms of unpatched vulnerabilities.

            While a release branch will realistically never have zero unpatched vulnerabilities, we are much closer than ever before to having the supported repositories in as optimal of a state as we can have them. Depending on how things play out, this may result in extended security support for the community repository for 3.14, since the introduction of tools and processes has reduced the maintenance burden for security updates.

            Finally, with the release of Alpine 3.14, the security support period for Alpine 3.10 draws to a close, so you should upgrade to at least Alpine 3.11 to continue receiving security updates.

          • Nasty security flaw discovered at the heart of Linux RPM [Ed: It's IBM RPM, not "Linux RPM"]

            A Linux developer has submitted a patch to fix a long-standing issue in the open source RPM package management system that can reportedly be exploited to install malicious software.

            In March 2021, Dmitry Antipov, a Linux developer with CloudLinux, pointed out that unsigned packages or packages signed with revoked keys could surreptitiously be patched or updated.

            "The problem is that both RPM and DNF (a package manager that installs, update and removes RPM packages) do a check to see if the key is valid and genuine, but not expired, but not for revocation," Antipov explained.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • New UK internet law raises free speech concerns, say civil liberties campaigners

        Britain's proposed new internet law entails a government power grab with worrying implications for freedom of speech, according to civil liberties groups, academics and the tech industry.

        The groups are concerned the proposed Online Safety Bill would hand to Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden disproportionate powers in the name of protecting users from "harmful" content.

        The Bill allow him to "modify" a code of practice — the blueprint created by the regulator Ofcom for how tech companies should protect users — to ensure it "reflects government policy."

        Critics say such powers, which were set out in a draft of the proposed law published in May and due for imminent scrutiny by MPs and peers, could undermine the regulator's independence and potentially politicize the regulation of the internet.

        "The notion that a political appointee will have the unilateral power to alter the legal boundaries of free speech based on the political whims of the moment frankly makes the blood run cold," said Heather Burns, policy manager at the Open Rights Group.

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • SparkFun's CEO vs. patent troll

          A patent troll is "a company that is specifically set up to purchase the rights to a handful of patents and then sue anyone they feel they can get money from," writes Nate Seidle, founder of the electronics company SparkFun. In a blog post, Nate writes about how his company is regularly harassed by parasitic patent trolls who send him letters demanding back royalties and other assorted damages for infringing on nonsensical patents that never should have been awarded in the first place.

          This week, a patent troll called Altair Logix (headquartered at a PO box and photocopy shop in a Frisco, Texas strip mall) filed a lawsuit against SparkFun for supposedly infringing on a patent for a "Media Processing Unit" written in 1998 and granted in 2001.



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