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Links 21/12/2021: EasyOS 3.1.17 and IPFire 2.27 - Core Update 162



  • GNU/Linux

    • What Is A Linux Distribution?

      Many people are still strangers to the “Linux” topic, although it directly or indirectly powers most of the world’s computers, servers, and many other devices. Linux usage has seen immense growth in the past decade, but one area where it still has to see some improvements is in Desktop computing (Linux Distributions).

      As of writing this article, the Linux desktop market stands at 2.5%, which is no surprise considering the market is dominated by Windows and macOS. One of the reasons Linux desktop isn’t that popular is because of people not knowing what it is or if it exists in the first place. If you’re one of them, let’s look at what’s a Linux Distribution in this article.

    • Kernel Space

      • Intel i9-12900K Alder Lake Linux Performance In Different P/E Core Configurations - Phoronix

        One of the much requested Linux benchmarks since the debut of Intel Alder Lake last month has been for seeing the Core i9 12900K in different core configurations with its mix of P and E cores. Now that the Linux kernel activity has begun settling down around Alder Lake, here are those benchmarks for reference purposes with toggling Hyper Threading and different P and E core counts enabled.

    • Benchmarks

      • AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U - Windows vs. Linux Performance Review

        With the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen2 powered by the Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U prior to blowing the default Microsoft Windows installation on the device I ran some benchmarks for seeing how the performance stacks up against various Linux distributions. Going up against Windows 11 on this AMD Zen 3 laptop were Clear Linux, Fedora Workstation 35, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, and Arch Linux.

        The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen2 (20XF004WUS) being tested shipped with Windows 10 but on initial boot was quickly prompted for moving to Windows 11. So with that this Windows 11 testing on the installation configured by Lenovo was compared to Arch Linux in its latest rolling state as of earlier this month, Clear Linux 35400, Fedora Workstation 35, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, and Ubuntu 21.10 for seeing how the various operating systems compare in their default / out-of-the-box state on this current-generation Lenovo ThinkPad.

    • Applications

      • Open source desktop publishing with Scribus

        One of my favorite shelves at my local comic book store is the zine rack. Filled with self-published booklets that are too niche, too quirky, or just too individual for any company to spend money on producing, zines are produced by one or two people who have something to say and want to express themselves through text and graphics. Zines are usually created by cutting out blocks of text and graphics and literally pasting them to a master page. Once everything has been laid out, each page is scanned and printed on a copy machine, and distributed to comic book stores, used book stores, Infoshops, and libraries. When you're a computer nerd like me, though, you have easier access to a computer than you do scissors and glue, and my first choice for desktop publishing with open source is Scribus.

        There are different tools for different jobs, but there can be a lot of overlap. You can produce books for online distribution as a comic book archive or djvu file, Epub, or even good old HTML. However, if you're producing a book for print, then at least one of your targets must be PDF (or at least Postscript) because that's what printers use. When I'm working on something with more graphics than typed content, or I just need maximum flexibility for layout, I use Scribus because its canvas is freeform, and it can link to external assets rather than import them.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to Install Python 3.11 on Pop!_OS 20.04 - LinuxCapable

        Python is one of the most popular high-level languages, focusing on high-level and object-oriented applications from simple scrips to complex machine learning algorithms. Python is famous for its simple, easy-to-learn syntax, emphasizes readability, and reduces program maintenance costs and more straightforward conversion to newer releases. Python supports modules and packages, and one of the many is the popular PIP package manager.

      • How to Install PostgreSQL 14 in Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux

        Dependability and resilience are some of the key attributes that define PostgreSQL as the go-to Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) for both web-based and desktop-based software application projects.

        Also, since PostgreSQL continues to find shelter under the umbrella of its global developer community, bugs and user issues related to database software’s life cycle are easily fixed thanks to its open-source status.

        Therefore, PostgreSQL is a brand name in numerous enterprises invested in e-commerce platforms, financial transactions, and web traffic statistics. Also, the open-source nature of PostgreSQL embraces the addition of several programming languages’ functions to make its usability dynamic. These programming languages include the likes C/C++, Python, and Java.

      • How to Install Opera Browser on Pop!_OS 20.04 - LinuxCapable

        Opera is a freeware, cross-platform web browser developed by Opera Software and operates as a Chromium-based browser. Opera offers a clean, modern web browser that is an alternative to the other major players in the Browser race. Its famous Opera Turbo mode and its renowned battery saving mode are the best amongst all known web browsers by quite a margin, along with a built-in VPN and much more.

      • Host Multiple Websites on One server using Docker Containers

        Docker is an extremely useful platform that enables developers to easily develop and deploy applications. In this article, we’ll look at how to use Docker containers to host multiple websites on a single server. One of the most significant benefits of using Docker containers is that they are lightweight, faster, and easier to manage.

        This month, I moved two of my custom-built applications from two separate servers to a single server, each in its own Docker container. It’s easier to manage both applications, and it’s also reduced my production costs.

      • Install ISPConfig on CentOS 8 - Unixcop the Unix / Linux the admins deams

        In this tutorial we will install ISPConfig on CentOS 8.

        ISPConfig is an open source control panel for Linux. It has user friendly web interface. Using ISPConfig users can manage their websites, email addresses, FTP accounts, DNS records, databases and shell accounts.

        Administrator, Reseller, Client, and Email-user are the four different levels of user access ISPConfig. Each of the user level have different kind of address.

      • How to Install balenaEtcher on Pop!_OS 20.04 - LinuxCapable

        balenaEtcher is a free and open-source flashing utility tool famous for writing image files such as .iso and .img files and zipped folders onto storage media to create live SD cards and USB flash drives. balenaEtcher has cross-platform support on Linux, BSD, macOS, and Windows and is developed by balena and licensed under Apache License 2.0.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install baelnaEtcher on Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS and create a Linux distribution boot disk.

      • [Updated] 10 Wget (Linux File Downloader) Command Examples in Linux

        In this article, we are going to review the wget utility which retrieves files from World Wide Web (WWW) using widely used protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and FTPS.

      • OpenFaaS: Classic and of-watchdog templates - Anto ./ Online

        OpenFaaS (Function as a Service) is a popular serverless framework. However, unlike other serverless function providers, OpenFaaS has very few restrictions on providing and receiving data. This guide will show you the primary differences between the Classic and of-watchdog templates.

      • smxi: Manage Debian Systems Interactively in Terminal

        smxi is an interactive console script that helps you maintain your Debian installation. You can use it to install upgrades, install graphics drivers, upgrade kernels and much more.

        I know that you can do it all with their respective commands. This smxi script gives you everything at one place and in an interactive manner.

        smxi is limited to only direct derivates of Debian. Only distributions like AntiX, Aptosid, Epidemic, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), Mepis are supported. It also supports the testing and Sid branches of Debian. That means Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions are NOT supported as there are many differences between Ubuntu and Debian.

    • Games

      • This hilarious Doom mod takes aim at NFTs | GamingOnLinux

        NFTs, they're freaking everywhere and NFT bros have become some of the most annoying people on the planet and so of course there's now a Doom mod to mock them. ICYMI: Valve banned NFT games on Steam.

        It's not a particularly fleshed-out mod, with the main aim of it just being pure mockery. You get to run around with your trusty camera, taking snaps of everything. Like running around and right click -> saving on images that would be NFTs. Released by modder "Ultra Boi" last week, it's certainly been turning some heads across the internet, especially because of just how toxic things have become around the NFT community.

      • Proton Experimental sees new fixes for DEATHLOOP, Forza Horizon 5 | GamingOnLinux

        Valve has put out another small upgrade to Proton Experimental, with it focused on improving a couple of popular games. What is Proton? It's a compatibility layer designed to run Windows games from Steam on Linux. See more about it in our full guide.

        The release that went up on December 20 fixed up the Xbox login window behaviour for Forza Horizon 5, worked around a bunch of graphical glitching in DEATHLOOP and also fixed Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord occasionally getting stuck in a loop displaying errors.

        Not only that though, this release should also speed up the "wind-down" of Proton after you exit a game. So that should make the whole experience a fair bit smoother.

        See the Proton Experimental changelog to see all the current differences to the normal Proton releases.

      • My favourite 2021 games played on Linux | GamingOnLinux

        Here we are, the year is ending so here's a few of what I consider to be my favourite games played on Linux that had a release during 2021.

        As always, these are highly personal and are only based on what I actually played. There's masses in my backlog I haven't yet, that I will likely kick myself during 2022 for not getting around to earlier. The trouble is also, that most of my favourites were released back in 2020 and earlier - because newer simply isn't always better! So many games had huge upgrades across 2021 too that sucked me back in. However, these are my personal standouts.

      • Level up your Steam experience with a browser extension - Firefox Add-ons Blog

        With more than 120 million users worldwide and 50,000+ games in its ecosystem, Steam is an extraordinarily eclectic gaming distribution platform. Given its broad reach, it makes sense that different users have different ways they’d like to adjust and optimize their personal Steam experience. That’s where browser extensions come in…

      • Great News! 80% of Steam’s Top 100 Games Now Run on Linux

        All thanks to Proton and Steam Play, gaming on Linux is better than ever.

    • Distributions

      • New Releases

        • Elementary OS 6.1 Jolnir Available to Download and Upgrade - itsfoss.net

          Elementary OS 6.1 Jolnir Available to Download and Upgrade, The elementary team have announced the release of elementary OS 6.1 which carries the codename “Jolnir”. The new release features the same base operating system as 6.0, though with a number of evolutionary improvements.

          Some of these changes affect the distribution’s software centre: “AppCenter continues to fill out with apps from developers—and since the move to Flatpak, all apps that have been released for OS 6 will continue to be available on OS 6.1 and beyond. You can currently find over 90 curated apps in AppCenter, and developers have continued to push out rapid and frequent updates to their apps with new features and bug fixes, as they’re in control of their own update schedule. Our shift from Debian packages to Flatpak for both curated and non-curated apps also means we’re able to lean more on Flatpak features, and we’ve been using this as an opportunity to make AppCenter much more engaging and informative right from the start – directly addressing feedback about the discoverability of the wide variety of apps in AppCenter.” Additional information is available in the project’s release announcement.

        • Linux-Distribution: Detailverbesserungen in Elementary OS 6.1 (Jólnir) - Market Research Telecast [Ed: Automated translation]

          The developers of Elementary OS list numerous smaller improvements that they have incorporated in version 6.1 (Jólnir). The Linux distribution focuses on an attractive appearance and uniform usability and therefore relies on its own desktop called Pantheon.

        • EasyOS 3.1.17 released

          Very important enhancements; now have Qt5 libraries, and three powerful media applications.

        • IPFire 2.27 - Core Update 162 released

          Just before Christmas, it is time for the last release of the year: IPFire 2.27 - Core Update 162. It comes with a brand-new kernel based on Linux 5.15, and it will be the last release supporting the i586 architecture.

          Before we talk about what is new, I would like to ask you for your support. IPFire is a small team of people and like many of our open source friends, we’ve taken a hit this year and would like to ask you to help us out. Please follow the link below where your donation can help fund our continued development: https://www.ipfire.org/donate.

        • IPFire Linux Firewall Distro Is Now Powered by Linux Kernel 5.15 LTS

          IPFire 2.27 Core Update 162 is here less than a month after the Core Update 161 release as the last update of the year and also the first update to be powered by the latest and greatest Linux 5.15 LTS kernel series.

          Until now, IPFire was powered by the Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series, since mid-August 2021, but even if Linux kernel 5.10 LTS is supported until the end of 2026, the devs decided to move to Linux kernel 5.15 LTS, which is supported only until October 2023, since it offers better hardware support and some cool new features.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Red Hat donates $10,000 to OBS Studio, Flatpak to be official for Linux

          Little bit of good news to start Tuesday, as the excellent livestreaming and recording software OBS Studio got another good donation recently, this time from Red Hat.

          Red Hat certainly aren't the first big company to help fund OBS development, software that has become essential for so many different uses. Nice to see a bigger Linux and open source company jump in though with the confirmation of the $10,000 donation on Twitter.

          This actually puts Red Hat in the top 5 of companies who have donated to OBS via their OpenCollective campaign.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Linux Mint 20.3 Una Install Guide [Multi boot, btrfs]
          This is Linux Mint 20.3 Una full install guide from Download to ready updated desktop. Real PC install with real multiboot setup.

        • The beautiful Linux distro elementary OS 6.1 is out now
          elementary OS is easily one of the best looking Linux distributions around, with such an incredible attention to the finer details and a big new release is up now. With elementary OS 6.1 the developers focused on addressing feedback from the previous release, new and more useful office productivity features and expanding compatibility with a larger range of hardware.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Top 7 Open Source eCommerce Platforms

        Open source software have been fantastic in solving a lot of business use cases. For example, we have open source ERP solutions, open source project management tools, open source survey software and much more of other use cases.

        All of these cases share the same benefits open source brought to them, and in today’s article we’ll be seeing some of the top open source eCommerce platforms for establishing an online shop.

        We’ll also see the usage marketshare of each of these solutions. All those statistics are provided by builtWith (Products with no mentioned stats means that they are less than >1% for top 1M sites).

      • Open Source 'Matter' Hopes To Make Sense Of The Fractured, Messy Smart Home Sector

        If you've spent any meaningful time trying to build a "smart home" you've probably run face first into no shortage of problems. Gear is expensive, frequently complicated, and more often than not different devices don't play well together. It's a sector filled with various walled gardens by gatekeepers looking to lock you into one ecosystem, placing the onus on consumers to figure out which devices work with other devices and ecosystems, forcing the end user to spend countless calories trying to fix interoperability issues when they inevitably arrive.

      • Funding

        • Intel has boosted their commitment to Blender as a Corporate Patron

          Intel was already a pretty high backer of the free and open source 3D creation suite Blender but now they're going in for even more as a Corporate Patron. ICYMI: recently Blender 3.0 was release.

          Previously down as a Corporate Gold member, this increase will see Intel give at least €120K a year to the Blender Foundation to better support one of the biggest and most important FOSS projects around. This means Intel joins the ranks of AMD, NVIDIA, AWS, Epic MegaGrants, Unity, Facebook and Decentraland at the same level (with many more in lower funding levels).

      • FSF

        • GNU Projects

          • GIMP 2.10.30 Improves Support for PSD and AVIF Files, Supports Modern Linux Distros

            GIMP 2.10.30 comes three months after GIMP 2.10.28 to further improve support for various file formats, including AVIF, DDS, HEIF, PBM, PSD, and RGBE.

            For the AVIF file format, this release improves the export functionality to favor the AOM (Alliance for Open Media) encoder, which uses the AV1 (AOMedia Video 1) open and royalty-free video coding format.

      • Programming/Development

        • Perl/Raku

          • Rakudo Weekly News: 2021.51 Transiting

            Arne Sommer was inspired by public transport developments in their native Oslo. This resulted in a cool new module Transit::Network, but also a serious blog post: Planning Public Transportation with Raku (/r/rakulang comments), a semi-serious Reindeer Express blog post, and a followup on the original: Bugs R Us – A Transit::Network Update (/r/rakulang comments). And Arne was still being able to find the time to do a blog post for the Weekly Challenge: Stealthy Calculator.

        • Python

          • Prevent Python dependency confusion attacks with Thoth

            Python became popular as a casual scripting language but has since evolved into the corporate space, where it is used for data science and machine learning applications, among others. Because Python is a high-level programming language, developers often use it to quickly prototype applications. Python native extensions make it easy to optimize any computation-intensive parts of the application using a lower-level programming language like C or C++.

            For applications that need to scale, we can use Python Source-to-Image tooling (S2I) to convert a Python application into a container image. That image can then be orchestrated and scaled using cluster orchestrators such as Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift. All of these features together provide a convenient platform for solving problems using Python-based solutions that scale, are maintainable, and are easily extensible.

            As a community-based project, the main source of open-source Python packages is the Python Package Index (PyPI). As of this writing, PyPI hosts more than 3 million releases, and the number of releases available continues to grow exponentially. PyPI's growth is an indicator of Python's popularity worldwide.

            However, Python's community-driven dependency resolvers were not designed for corporate environments, and that has led to dependency management issues and vulnerabilities in the Python ecosystem. This article describes some of the risks involved in resolving Python dependencies and introduces Project Thoth's tools for avoiding them.

  • Leftovers

    • What’s New in the New West Side Story?

      As I sat through a screening of West Side Story at a Lincoln Square movie theater—literally in the same neighborhood portrayed in the film—I couldn’t escape a growing realization. These days, we are trapped in a cycle of repetition, one in which the gnarled conflicts and perhaps small triumphs of the postwar era repeat themselves over and over again, sometimes with profound new expression and sometimes just as shiny objects of entertainment consumption. In Steven Spielberg’s new “reimagining” of West Side Story, we get a film that offers a far more inclusive vision of postwar America, but one that still retains its flawed view of working-class tribalism.

    • NBA and NFL to America: Drop Dead

      In March 2020, one positive Covid-19 case, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert, put the NBA season on hold. The league canceled games, and entered a “bubble” alongside the WNBA at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. The move sent an unmistakable message to the United States that the “normal” world was over, that we would need to reimagine our lives to minimize contagion and death.

    • Education

      • Protect Students
      • Culture Wars: the Assault on Education

        The Trump administration and Senate Republicans stacked the Supreme Court and innumerable federal judgeships with conservatives. They secured the appointment of three judges to the Supreme Court, 54 to federal appeals court and 174 to the district courts. The current legal battle regarding the Texas “Heartbeat” Act (Senate Bill 8) may well reverse the landmark Roe v. Wade (1973) decision acknowledging a woman’s right to determine her pregnancy.

        Most troubling, conservative culture values were once championed by a minority of religious activists but, during Trump’s presidency, they became the anchor for the larger white nationalist and rightwing movement.€  In the wake of the January 6th effort to seize the Capitol, the culture wars strongly influenced Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement but the more troubling rightwing movement that is manifesting itself in an ever-growing number of social or cultural domains.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • The Dirty Secret of America’s Clean Dishes

        Hollie Walker cherished the simplicity of her life in White Stone, South Carolina, a tiny community on the outskirts of Spartanburg. In the quiet of the country, she and her husband raised their two sons in a yellow house on 37 acres of secluded land, where they hiked in the woods and swam in their lake. Today, the area is home to a one-room post office, two churches, and a shooting range open three days a week. For years in the 1990s, Walker worked behind the counter at the post office.

        There used to be a bar called the White Stone Mall on the same stretch of highway, where Walker would sip beers, shoot pool and chat with workers getting off their shifts from a chemical plant across the street. She didn’t know much about the German-owned company, BASF, that operated the plant. After BASF expanded its site in the 2000’s, demolishing the bar in the process, she had little reason to stop along that highway, except when the railroad gates halted traffic.

      • The Nazi Language of German Anti-Vaxxers

        For months, German politicians – from ex-chancellor Merkel (conservative) to newly elected social-democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz – have been trying to convince Germans of the need to get a Corona vaccination. As a consequence of their endless appeal to common sense, about 30% of Germans still remain unvaccinated. By mid-December 2021, infection rates and Covid-19 deaths were on the rise again.

        Yet, there are way too many Germans who are simply not interested in facts about the pandemic. Beyond Germany’s anti-vaxxers, there are also plenty of people who still deny the existence of the Coronavirus pandemic despite ample evidence to the contrary. Recently however, the proportion of people in the camp of believers of a global Corona conspiracy myths, while also denying the existence of the virus, has actually fallen, somewhat.

      • Medical Racism Is Fueling the Black Overdose Crisis, Advocates Say
      • Health Care and Our Heroes: Kaiser Permanente in COVID Time

        Kaiser’s origins are in the Bay Area, and it still is based in Oakland, today it has 39 nine hospitals and some 700 medical facilities. In recent years, it has expanded to Washington State, Oregon, Hawaii, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia and Georgia. Since just before COVID its membership has grown by 600,000 and it now employs some 300,000 workers, including 80,000 nurses and doctors. In 2020, its profits were $6.4 billion. In 2021, its net worth was $43.3 billion, according to the California Department of Managed Health Care. It returned€ $500 million in pandemic relief funding to the federal government in 2020.

        Kaiser management is doing OK as well; the CEOs bring home salaries that favorably compare to its workers: 231-1! € Greg Adams, the chief executive in Oakland received $17.3 million in total compensation in 2020. He and the 100 top executives have the benefit of eight separate retirement plans.

    • Integrity/Availability

    • Defence/Aggression

      • GOP January 6 Panel Member Says Trump Could Be Subpoenaed, Face Charges
      • Bringing Out the Big Guns

        How did a small, landlocked country without significant natural resources become Africa’s “most inspiring success story”? A hint: Stats about “natural resources” usually don’t include bullets.

      • Opinion | New York Times Reporting on Airstrikes Should Give Daniel Hale More Credit

        The New York Times recently came through with a display of reporting that should be commended. On December 18, the paper announced its release of hundreds of the Pentagon's confidential reports of civilian casualties caused by U.S. airstrikes in the Middle East. This followsits high profile investigations into the U.S. drone murder of the Ahmadi family during the Afghanistan withdrawal, and an American strike cell in Syria that killed dozens of civilians with airstrikes.

      • The Mainstream Media Seems to Want More War for the United States

        For its part, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a $768 billion defense bill that exceeded the requests of both Biden’s White House and the Pentagon.€  The bill included significant increases for countering China; bolstering Ukraine; and modernizing strategic nuclear forces, including hundreds of billions of dollars for replacing the silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles that mar the landscape of the American West.

        If the United States was concerned with nuclear stability and safety, it would abandon all silo-based missiles, which are the most vulnerable.€  Significant reductions of nuclear forces, moreover, would increase U.S. national security; contribute to the lessening of an arms race with Russia and China; and fulfill our treaty obligations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, which has been observed in the breach.

    • Environment

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Mexican Gray Wolves Belong in the Wild, Wherever They Roam

          Almost as soon as the Department dropped him off on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Anubis started running towards his new territory in northern Arizona. He’s a young male wolf, and following his instinct to seek out new terrain and possible mates. Since his return, he’s been successfully crossing the I-40 boundary, avoiding cars, and staying out of conflict with livestock.

          Mexican gray wolves belong in the Coconino and Kaibab National Forests and in the Grand Canyon region, where prey is widely available and there’s plenty of open space for native wildlife to survive and thrive. The only reason Mexican wolves aren’t allowed to wander in suitable wolf habitats is a wholly political decision to keep them south of I-40 and within a limited recovery area for the sake of appeasing ranchers and the anti-wolf states to our north. But in the context of climate change and species adaptation, as well as an recovering population of wolves in the established range, it makes a lot of sense that Anubis and others would be expanding into new turf.

      • Overpopulation

        • Opinion | Time for a Climate Insurgency?

          Since the end of the feudal era the world order has been largely structured by the nation-state system. Individuals have been willing to kill and die for their countries. The pursuit of individual and collective interests has occurred largely within a national framework.

        • Life Circa 2050 Will Be Bad. Really Bad.

          When midnight strikes on New Year’s Day of 2050, there will be little cause for celebration. There will, of course, be the usual toasts with fine wines in the climate-controlled compounds of the wealthy few. But for most of humanity, it’ll just be another day of adversity bordering on misery—a desperate struggle to find food, water, shelter, and safety.

    • Finance

      • 2021 Saw Gaps in Racial and Economic Inequality Widen. But There’s Still Hope.
      • Lessons from the Great Resignation: Can Quitters be Winners?

        The first is the headline item (actually, subhead) that although the quitters’ mental health improved, their finances were not necessarily better after they left their jobs. There is an obvious point here that people should recognize. It is unlikely that, even in a good labor market, people who leave near minimum wage jobs will suddenly find themselves flush with money.

        If someone is earning $10 an hour, even a 20 percent increase (in excess of inflation) only gets them to $12 an hour. That sort of increase likely means a big difference in their standard of living, but still leaves them far short of a comfortable middle-class existence. In some cases, the modest gains from the tighter labor market may give them the ability to get additional education or training that will let them enter a higher paying occupation, but we shouldn’t expect that a tight labor market alone will mean that workers in the lowest paying jobs are now financially secure.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Opinion | I'm 18 With a Full-Ride College Scholarship. But as a Dreamer, I Worry About Being Deported

        In 2005, when I was two years old, my mom brought me across the border from San Luis Potosí, Mexico. We came to reunite with my dad, who was already here and had started his own concrete business in the New Orleans suburbs, where we still reside.€ € For the longest time, I didn't even know I was undocumented. But that changed two years ago, when I realized I couldn't get a driver's license like my other friends.

      • Introducing ‘Department One’ Exiled human rights lawyer Ivan Pavlov launches new legal group to take on Russia’s treason and espionage cases

        Exiled human rights lawyer Ivan Pavlov has launched a new legal group that specializes in defending those accused of treason and espionage in Russia. Pavlov, who fled abroad to escape criminal charges in September, previously led Team 29 — a similar human rights initiative that tackled some of Russia’s most challenging political prosecutions. The group disbanded in July 2021, to protect its members and supporters from persecution. Pavlov’s new project, dubbed “Pervy Otdel” (which translates as “First Department” or “Department One”) also aims to take on cases that are handled “behind closed doors” and will function in cooperation with colleagues working “on the ground” in Russia.

      • The Things Musicians At Territorial Prison Carry: ‘Battle Cry’ Video Premiere

        The Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility was constructed in the late 1800s when the state of Colorado was still a territory. It is the oldest prison in the state’s prison system. It is also is the site, where the first compilation album for Die Jim Crow Records was recorded.Die Jim Crow is the first record label in the United States dedicated to incarcerated musicians. The label recorded seven musicians at Territorial in Cañon City in April 2018.The tracks laid down during these sessions represented an array of genres—Americana, indigenous Nahuatl chant, blues, and hip hop, etc—and matched the diversity of the musicians, who were indigenous, Black, queer Jewish, and white. Some of these men are serving life sentences.“In the 150 years since the prison’s construction, ‘TLAXIHUIQUI’ is the first recorded music to make it outside the forbidding walls of Territorial into the free world,” according to Die Jim Crow Records. [...]

        Newton shared, “Just me growing up the way I was, in an abusive environment and me not knowing how to deal with that, growing up in that environment.”Opening up even more, Newton added, “My mom had me when she was 14. My father was 19. And he took off immediately, so you grow up in that kind of world where it’s watching your mom do drugs and come in and out of these abusive relationships.”“I think you have to be honest about the brokenness in everybody, especially your own [self], before you can move forward. You gotta look yourself in the mirror.”€ 

      • Human rights project Gulagu.net releases more footage of torture in Russian prisons

        Activists from Gulagu.net (No to the Gulag) have obtained and released new footage further evidencing the torture and abuse of inmates in Russian prisons.€ 

      • “A Big Relief”: Haitian Immigrant Rights Leader Jean Montrevil Wins Victory in Fight to Stay in U.S.

        Longtime immigrant rights leader Jean Montrevil has been granted three years of protection from deportation as part of a settlement for the First Amendment lawsuit Montrevil filed against the U.S. government that argued federal immigration officials targeted him for deportation due to his activism. Montrevil was abruptly deported to Haiti in 2018 but was allowed under the Biden administration to return home to New York in October to reunite with his family. We speak with Jean Montrevil, who says the news has given him “peace of mind” to enjoy the holiday season without fear of getting detained or deported, as well as Montrevil’s lawyer Alina Das, who attributes the highly unusual decision to the strength of the immigrant rights movement. “It is the power of organizing that brought the government to the negotiating table,” says Das.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Monopolies



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Biggest "AI Companies" (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) Borrowed (Additional Debt) About $100,000,000,000 in a Year
Who will be held accountable for all this?
In 2009 Microsoft Was Valued at ~150 Billion Dollars, Now They Tell Us Microsoft Lost ~1,000 Billion Dollars in Value. Does That Make Sense?
Or Microsoft lost 700 billion dollars in "value" in less than two weeks
Microsoft Stock Crashed When Alleged Vista 11 Numbers Disclosed
And last summer Microsoft indicated that it had lost 400 million Windows users
 
Links 07/02/2026: Misinformation by Slop, Overrated Slop Causes Stock Market Panic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: Diode Function Generators and Panic Over Buzzwords and Slop
Links for the day
A Can of WORMS - Part III - Envying the Influence and Accomplishments of RMS, Socially Deleterious Attacks on Popular Movements
the actions are deliberate and coordinated, not some 'organic' or grassroots behaviour
Crisis teams assembled as financial regulators anticipate Bitcoin implosion
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 07/02/2026: More White House Racism, "Europe Accuses TikTok of Addictive Design"
Links for the day
Silent Mass Layoffs: It's Not the Revolution, It's the Loophole and the Hack ("Low Performers" or "Underperformers")
Layoffs by another approach
Mark Shuttleworth (MS) Pays Salaries to Microsoft (MS) Employees
Canonical selling Microsoft
Links 07/02/2026: Windows TCO Rising, Lousy Patents Invalided
Links for the day
Microsoft Leadership: Stop Taxing Us, Tax Only Poor People
Does Microsoft create jobs?
In Case You've Missed It (ICYMI), Google's Debt More Than Doubled in a Year
Wait till it "monetises" billions of GMail users with slop
PIPs and Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Still Going on, It's "Forever Layoffs" (to Skirt the WARN Act)
American workers out
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 06, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 06, 2026
Stressful Times for Team Campinos ("Alicante Mafia") at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Keep pushing
Growing Discrimination in the European Patent Office (EPO)
it's a race to the bottom, basically
Google News Drowning in (or Actively Promoting) Slopfarms Again
LLM slop is a nuisance
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: "Choosing a License for Literary Work" and "Social Media Is Not Social Networking (Anymore)"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Git and Email Patches; MNT Pocket Reform
Links for the day
Geminispace Net Growth in 2026 About a Capsule a Day
A pace like this means net gain of ~300 per year, i.e. about the same as last year
It's Not About Speed, It's About the Message (or Its Depth)
Better to write news than to just link to news if there's commentary that the news may merit
Benjamin Henrion Warned About the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Court (UPC) in FOSDEM 2026
Listen to Benjamin Henrion
Economies Crashing Not Because of Slop Improving 'Efficiency' (That's a False Excuse) and 'Expensive' (Read: Qualified) Workers Discarded in Race to the Bottom
Actual cocaine addicts are pushing out moral people
IBM's CEO Speaks of Layoffs, Resorts to Mythical (False) Excuses
This has nothing to do with slop
Links 06/02/2026: Voter Intimidation and Press Shutdowns in US, Web Traffic Warped by LLM Sludge
Links for the day
Does Linux Torvalds Regret Having Dinners With Bill 'Russian Girls' Gates?
See, the rules that govern the Linux Foundation and its big sponsors aren't the same rules that apply to all of us
IBM: Cheapening Code, Cheapening Staff, Cheapening Everything
IBM's management runs IBM like it's a local branch of McDonald's. IBM is a junk company with morbid innards.
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in One of the World's Largest Nations
Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Linux Foundation Operative Says We and Our Software All "Owe an Enormous Debt of Gratitude" to a Software Patents Reinforcer
The only true solution is to entirely get rid of all software patents
Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part IV - EPO Can Get Away With Murders, Suicide Clusters, and Systematic and Prolonged Bullying by 'Team Campinos' ("Alicante Mafia" as Insiders Call It)
Nobody in the Council or the EU/EC/EP gives a damn as long as laws are broken to fabricate 'growth'
Jeff Bezos Isn't Just Killing the Washington Post, He's Killing Thousands of News Sites/Newsrooms (in Dozens of Languages) That Rely on It for Many Decades Already
Not just slopfarms; even the Ukraine-based reporters are culled by Bezos, who's looking to please the dictators of the world
Central Staff Committee Confronted António Campinos for Giving His Cocaine-Addicted Friend Over 100,000 Euros to Do Nothing, Just Pretend to be Ill, While Cutting the Salaries of Everybody Else
"On the agenda: Amicale framework & Financial assistance for courses"
How to Win Lawsuits in 5 Simple Steps
Keep issuing threats every week and send 60 kilograms of legal papers to the target
More Than 99% of "AI" Companies Aren't AI, They're Pure BS
We need to discard those stupid debates about "AI" and reject media that gets paid to participate in such overt narrative control (manipulation like The Register MS)
AI Used to Save Lives, Now "AI" is a Grifting Scheme That Burns the Planet and Will Crash the Economy
What the media calls "AI" (it gets paid to call it that) is the same stuff that could instead be dubbed "algorithms"
Living in Freedom When 'False Flag Operations' Like EFF Get Captured by Billionaires to Take Freedom Away
There are many ways to think of Software Freedom
Amutable is a Microsoft Siege Against Freedom in GNU/Linux, Just Like the People Who Brought You 'Secure Boot' Controlled by Microsoft
Do whatever is possible to avoid Amutable and its "products"
Growing Focus on Publication
Over the past ~10 days we always served more than a million Web hits per day
"Going to be a large number of Microsoft layoffs announced soon"
Everybody knows a giant wave of layoffs is coming Microsoft's way
End of the 'GPU Bubble' and NVIDIA Finally Admits It Won't Bail Out Microsoft OpenAI Anymore
circular financing (financial/accounting fraud)
Corrupt Media Won't Hold Accountable Rich People for Role in Pedophilia
Journalistic misconduct or malpractice is a real thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 05, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, February 05, 2026
EPO Management ("Alicante Mafia") Not Properly Sharing Information on Scale of Strikes by EPO Staff
disproportionate (double) deductions in salaries against people who participate in strikes, which are protected by law
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Slop/Microslop, Home Assistant, and Valid Ex Commands
Links for the day
Blackmail evidence: Debian social engineering exposed in ClueCon 2024 talk on politics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bitcoin crash: opportunity or the end game?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Changes at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
SRA is basically a waste of money
Claims That IBM Will Lay Off 20% (or 15%) of Its Workforce This Year Unless It Finds a Way to Push Them All Out by Threats, Shame, Guilt
Where are the articles about IBM layoffs?
IBM Isn't a Serious Company Anymore, It's a Ponzi Scheme Operated by a Clique and It Misuses Companies It Acquires to Prop Up or Legitimise the Scheme
IBM seems like it's nothing but a "Scheme"
Google News Drowning in Slop About "Linux" (Slopfarms Galore)
Google should know better than to link to any of these slopfarms, but today's Google is itself a pusher of slop
Links 05/02/2026: EU Commission Gutting Net Neutrality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: NixOS Books and Monochrome Emojis
Links for the day
Links 05/02/2026: Canadian Government Uses US LLMs to Override Expert Opinions, NVIDIA Troubles Due to Enablement of Mass Plagiarism ('Piracy') Misleadingly Obscured as "Hey Hi"
Links for the day
Explaining the Letter From JUDGE SYKES FRIXOU, Threatening Me Around the Time GNOME's Nat Friedman Lost His CEO Job at Microsoft GitHub and His Best Friend Got Arrested for Strangulation
this letter (with annotation) is critical
Linuxiac Not Rehabilitated, It's Still Full of LLM Slop (Part of a Trend)
The Web as a resource/source of information is perishing
"Sponsored by Azul" to Write Fake 'Article' About Azul, Quoting Azul Itself
The "journalism" industry [sic] became so utterly corrupt
JuristGate is for sale: three billion Swiss francs for a domain name
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Like Microsoft and IBM, the 'Alicante Mafia'-Governed EPO Does PIPs Nowadays (at the EPO, It's "Professional Incompetence Procedure")
So "PIPs" are definitely in the EPO and we saw letters sent to staff
Time for Change, More New Articles, Less Curation
The oligarchy wants to gut the real press and replace media with slop and social control media (or social control media with slop in it, i.e. their own voices, mechanised)
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: Coercion, Antibiotics, and LVDT Project
Links for the day
Almost 1,600 EPO Employees Went on Strike Last Week
There is another strike coming 2.5 weeks from now
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 04, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 04, 2026