Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 20/02/2023: Microsoft’s Outlook Broken Again







  • GNU/Linux

    • Kernel Space

      • Ghacks ☛ Linux Kernel 6.2 is out with Intel Arc and Sony PlayStation controller support

        Linux Kernel 6.2 is now available.

      • TechRadar ☛ Linux Kernel 6.2 is here, and it now has mainline support for Apple M1 chips
        Version 6.2 of the Linux operating system has been released, and while those expecting sweeping feature additions might be disappointed, one change will stand out for many.

        In a short blog post (opens in new tab), Linux founder and lead developer Linus Torvalds explained that, in the lead up to the release, there had been a few small fixes, stating: “I wasn't going to apply any last-minute patches that weren't actively pushed by maintainers”.

      • Linux Magazine ☛ Linux Kernel 6.2 Released with New Hardware Support
        The latest, greatest Linux kernel has arrived and it includes a number of improvements for hardware support, performance, and security.

        In a recent email to the LKML mailing list, Linus Torvalds had this to say: "But in the meantime, please do give 6.2 a testing. Maybe it's not a sexy LTS release like 6.1 ended up being, but all those regular pedestrian kernels want some test love too."

        Although 6.2 might not be "sexy," it still has plenty to offer. First up are hardware improvements that include out-of-the-box support for Intel Arc graphics and Intel's On-Demand driver. As well, Skylake CPUs have gained a significant performance increase with an addition that's designed to address the Retbleed CPU vulnerability.

      • Ubuntu Pit ☛ Linux Kernel 6.2 Officially Released: Exciting Changes and Improvements

        In a statement sent out to the Linux kernel developer mailing list (LKML) introducing Linux Kernel 6.2, Linus Torvalds enthusiastically invites people to try it out.

      • Ubuntu Handbook ☛ Linux Kernel 6.2 Released! How to Install in Ubuntu 22.04 / Linux Mint 21

        Linux Kernel 6.2 was release this Sunday. Linus Torvalds announced it at lkml.org: So here we are, right on (the extended) schedule, with 6.2 out. Nothing unexpected happened last week, with just a random selection of small fixes spread all over, with nothing really standing out.

      • Ubuntu Pit ☛ Linux 6.3 Merge Window: A Sneak Peek into the Exciting New Features Coming Your Way

        Get ready, as the Linux 6.2 merge window is about to be unveiled! This will mark the official commencement of a two-week period in which all new features and changes for Linux 6.3 are incorporated into one release.

    • Applications

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Linux Hint ☛ How to Install Mousepad Text Editor on Linux Mint 21

        To Install Mousepad on Linux Mint 21 there are three ways: through Apt, through Flatpak. Read this guide for a complete guide.

      • ID Root ☛ How To Install Nmon on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Nmon on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Nmon (Nigel’s performance Monitor) is a popular performance monitoring tool for Linux operating systems.

      • Linux Hint ☛ Vim Spell Check

        Practical tutorial on how to enable the Vim spell-check feature using the commands that allow us to navigate through the misspelled words along with examples.

      • Linux Hint ☛ Vimrc Tutorial

        Tutorial on the customization of the Vim editor in the .vimrc configuration file using different configuration settings, programming language, file types.

      • Linux Hint ☛ Linux File Encryption

        Practical guide on how to use the GPG utility to encrypt and decrypt the Linux files to prevent the unauthorized access to delicate information using examples.

      • Linux Hint ☛ How to Install the Vim Plugins

        Guide on the method to install the Vim plugins in Linux to add a functionality to the text editor using the plugin manager by implementing practical examples.

      • Trend Oceans ☛ How to Change DNS in Linux and Windows for Secure and Fast Response

        It only takes a few easy steps to modify the DNS settings on a Linux or Windows machine to get the most secure and fastest response times when using the internet.

      • UNIX Cop ☛ Installing DDoS Deflate to evade DoS attacks

        Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to install DDoS Deflate to evade DoS attacks on your system. This simple tool can help save your server.

      • Jeff Layton: Using kdevops to test the Linux kernel NFS server

        A few months ago, I transitioned from working on CephFS full time back to helping maintain the Linux kernel NFS server (aka knfsd). Chuck Lever (the primary maintainer) and I have a long-term goal to improve testing of incoming changes. In particular, we’d like to have some sort of continuous integration (CI) to help catch regressions.

        After reviewing a few options, I settled on kdevops since it’s being adopted by several filesystem teams, and configuring and running it uses tools familiar to kernel developers. It’s configured using the same Kconfig system that the Linux kernel uses, and provisioning and running machines is done using make targets.

        Importantly, it is (supposedly) infrastructure-neutral. It can spin up virtual machines locally, using vagrant, or in several major cloud environments using terraform. In principle, it should be possible to run the same set of tests in either environment without any modifications.

      • Kushal Das: Networking in podman 4.x

        podman 4.0 has a new networking stack. It uses Netavark for network setup (this is a direct replacement for CNI), and also uses Aardvark DNS server. Both of these tools are written from scratch in Rust keeping the requirements of podman in mind.

        At the time of writing this blog post, we have podman-4.4.1 in Fedora 37, and podman-4.2.0 in Almalinux9.

      • H2S Media ☛ Why do we use Homebrew on Ubuntu Linux?

        Are you an Ubuntu user looking for a more efficient and fast package management solution apart from the default APT? If so, installing a Homebrew setup on your Linux machine is the way to go.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Discord on Fedora Linux

        Discord is a free voice, video, and text chat app used by millions of people ages 13+ to talk and hang out with their communities and friends.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install PyCharm on Fedora Linux

        PyCharm is a popular integrated development environment (IDE) for programming in Python. It is known for its user-friendly interface and robust features, which make it a preferred choice for developers over other competing software options. One of PyCharm‘s standout features is its intelligent code completion, saving developers significant time when writing and debugging code.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Python on Fedora Linux

        Python is a high-level programming language that has gained tremendous popularity over the years. Created in the late 1980s by Guido van Rossum, Python is known for its simplicity, readability, and ease of use.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Linux Kernel 6.2 on Rocky Linux EL9 or EL8

        The Linux operating system is a popular open-source platform used by developers, businesses, and individuals for its stability, security, and flexibility. Linux Kernel 6.2 is the latest version of the Linux Kernel, officially released by its creator, Linus Torvalds.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install MySQL 8.0 on Fedora Linux

        MySQL 8.0 is a popular and widely used open-source relational database management system. It was first released in April 2018 and was developed and maintained by Oracle Corporation. MySQL 8.0 is a major update that includes significant improvements in performance, security, and scalability.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Firefox Nightly on Fedora Linux

        Firefox Nightly is a pre-release version of the popular Mozilla Firefox browser designed for developers and advanced users who want to test the latest features and capabilities of the browser.

      • Linux Shell Tips ☛ ExifTool – Read, Write and Manipulate Image, Audio, Video and PDF Metadata

        Every multimedia whether in a form of image, audio, or video comes with specific information that we call metadata...

      • LinuxTuto ☛ How to Install Vue.js on Ubuntu 22.04

        Vue.js is a popular open-source JavaScript framework used for building user interfaces and single-page applications.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install Google Chrome on Fedora Linux

        Google Chrome is a popular web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 and has gained a significant market share, becoming the most widely used browser globally. The browser is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android and is known for its speed, simplicity, and security features.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install LXDE on Fedora Linux

        LXDE, short for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, is a free and open-source desktop environment designed for low-resource computers, such as older machines, netbooks, and embedded systems. It is built using the GTK+ toolkit and offers a clean and simple interface that is easy to navigate.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install VLC Media Player on Fedora Linux

        VLC media player is a popular and versatile multimedia player that is free and open-source. It is available on various platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.

      • Linux Capable ☛ How to Install GIMP on Fedora Linux

        GIMP, or the GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a powerful open-source image editing software that can be used for many creative tasks, from photo retouching to graphic design. It is available for multiple operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and Mac.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Ubuntu Pit ☛ Tokodon 23.02.0 Released: Enhancing Your Mastodon Experience on Linux

          Tokodon 23.02.0 has been released, and it is an exciting update for Linux users who use Mastodon, the popular open-source social network. Tokodon is a Mastodon client designed specifically for Linux users, offering an easy-to-use interface and seamless integration with the Mastodon platform.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Linuxiac ☛ Users Are Worried: What’s Going On with SolusOS

      Solus is a fully-fledged, independent rolling release Linux distribution targeted at desktop users. It is unique because it is written from scratch and has its repositories and package manager, EOPKG. In addition, the distro is traditionally associated with Budgie as its flagship desktop environment.

      While receiving less attention than other leading desktop-oriented Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint, and others, Solus has a devoted fan base concerned about what has been happening to their favorite distro in the last month. Here’s what it is all about.

    • Drew DeVault ☛ Porting Helios to aarch64 for my FOSDEM talk, part one

      Helios is a microkernel written in the Hare programming language, and the subject of a talk I did at FOSDEM earlier this month. You can watch the talk here if you like:

      A while ago I promised someone that I would not do any talks on Helios until I could present them from Helios itself, and at FOSDEM I made good on that promise: my talk was presented from a Raspberry Pi 4 running Helios. The kernel was originally designed for x86_64 (though we were careful to avoid painting ourselves into any corners so that we could port it to more architectures later on), and I initially planned to write an Intel HD Graphics driver so that I could drive the projector from my laptop. But, after a few days spent trying to comprehend the IHD manuals, I decided it would be much easier to port the entire system to aarch64 and write a driver for the much-simpler RPi GPU instead. 42 days later the port was complete, and a week or so after that I successfully presented the talk at FOSDEM. In a series of blog posts, I will take a look at those 42 days of work and explain how the aarch64 port works. Today’s post focuses on the bootloader.

      The Helios boot-up process is:

      1. Bootloader starts up and loads the kernel, then jumps to it
      2. The kernel configures the system and loads the init process
      3. Kernel provides runtime services to init (and any subsequent processes)
  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • Linux Hint ☛ Isdigit() Function in C Language

        Guide on how to use the isdigit() function in C language, the theoretical description of this function, its syntax, input and output arguments, and data type.

      • TecAdmin ☛ How to Get the Current Timestamp in JavaScript

        In JavaScript, there are several ways to retrieve the current timestamp. One of the simplest and most efficient ways to do this is by using the built-in Date.now() method.

      • Geeks For Geeks ☛ Lambda Expressions in JavaScript

        A lambda expression is a code you enter to define a short function.

      • Geeks For Geeks ☛ How to loop through an array using forEach in JavaScript ?

        Iterating through an array in JavaScript can be done in multiple ways. One of the most common methods is using the traditional for loop.

      • TecAdmin ☛ What are the Built-in Methods?

        In programming, a method is a block of code that performs a specific task or action. Built-in methods, also known as native methods or standard methods, are pre-defined methods that are included as part of a programming language.

      • Perl / Raku

        • Rakulang ☛ 2023.08 Gherkining

          Anton Antonov created a new Raku module (Gherkin::Grammar), expanding on the work that the late Robert Lemmen did on integrating Gherkin as a test methodology in the Raku Programming Language. And posted an introduction to it.

      • Python

        • Linux Hint ☛ Pandas to HTML

          Tutorial on how to alter a Pandas DataFrame into an HTML table using the “pandas.DataFrame.to_html()” method by designing the DataFrame that renders into HTML.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Pandas Rolling Correlation

          Tutorial on how to compute the rolling correlation on a Pandas DataFrame and find the rolling correlation using the “DataFrame_object.rolling().corr()” method.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Pandas Exponential Moving Average

          Tutorial on the concept of calculating the exponential weighted moving average in Pandas to compute the averages of distinct subsets of the entire dataset.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Pandas Fill Nan with 0

          Practical tutorial on how to change the NaN values in a row or column of a Pandas DataFrame to 0 using fillna() and replace() methods to reduce the complexity.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Pandas Export to CSV

          Tutorial on how to utilize the “to_csv()” Pandas method to export a Pandas DataFrame into a CSV file as a comma-separated value (CSV) datatype to your machine.

        • Linux Hint ☛ Pandas Filter by Index

          Comprehensive tutorial on how to retrieve the DataFrame rows based on their indexes in Pandas using the syntax of the filter() function along with examples.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • Stacey on IoT ☛ Here’s where the CSA’s new health effort should focus

        After successfully bringing together more than 500 companies to create the Matter smart home interoperability standard, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has set its sights on an audacious new standards plan.

  • Leftovers

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Politics

      • Mandatory Planet-Wrecking

        Right wing think tanks (like ALEC and TPPF) are pushing laws that would prevent state agencies from contracting with financial companies unless they prop up fossil fuels, and Texas has already signed into law an implementation of their model bill.

        “Free trade, free speech for me but not for you” seems to be their motto. “Regulation, overreach for you but not for me”, their jam.

    • Technical

      • Random SSL Things

        One is that we're supposed to call it TLS; apparently Microsoft had too much pride to take a knee and use a Netscape protocol, and so SSL had to be renamed.

      • Eyeball-Minute Land

        Just as we pay our electric company by the kilowatt-hour, modern media, from cable channels to newspapers to recipe blogs to social media, is paid by the eyeball-minute. More eyeball-minutes equal more ads equal more money. It's not enough for a site to have good content, provide it to their users, and then have those users fuck off and do something else. The pool of new users to extract eyeball-minutes from would run dry quickly. Users must instead be kept "engaged" with new content which is constantly evolving to their tastes.

      • Internet Office Hours, a new podcast

        @frotz@mstdn.games, @phf@tabletop.social and I recorded a podcast episode! The podcast has exactly one episode. No promises for more. But we had fun doing it, and I like the format: We all come unprepared, everybody can propose a topic and then we decide what to talk about. This time we decided to talk about the idea of having rules without a setting.

      • Yak Attak

        My biggest coup in this regard is getting OpenJDK 19 running. I have little grokage as to what the actual differences are amongst the arm architectures. My system is 64 bit on Raspi 4B, and it seems to be able to handle aarch64 “sometimes”, if I respecify that as armhf.

      • Freezr "P.E.B.C.A.K."

        I already had a similar board before: the Pine64 Rock64 (4GB); that I bought for the same reason (cheap price) and I sold right after for the same issue I am having right now: poor OS support.


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

Recent Techrights' Posts

Real Life Should be Offline, Not Online, and It Requires Free Software
Resistance means having the guts to say "no!", even in the face of great societal burden and peer pressure
 
Links 26/09/2023: KDE, Programming, and More
Links for the day
Mozilla Promotes the Closed Web and Proprietary Webapps That Are Security and Privacy Hazards
This is just another reminder that the people who run Mozilla don't know the history of Firefox, don't understand the Web, and are beholden to "GAFAM", not to Firefox users
Debian More Like an Exploitative Sweatshop Than a Family
Wiltshire is riding a high horse in the UK, talking down to Indians who are "low-level" volunteers in his kingdom of authoritarians, guarded by an army of British lawyers who bully bloggers
Small Computers in Large Numbers: A Pipeline of Open Hardware
They guard and prioritise their "premiums", causing severe price hikes due to supply/demand disparities.
Microsoft Deserves a Medal for Being Worst at Security (the Media Deserves a Medal for Cover-up)
There are still corruptible/bribed publishers that quote Microsoft staff like they're security gurus
10 Reasons to Permanently Export or Liberate Your Site From WordPress, Drupal, and Other Bloatware
There are certainly more more advantages, but 10 should suffice for now
About 200,000 Objects in Techrights Web Site
This hopefully helps demonstrate just how colossal the migration actually is
Good Teachers Would Tell Kids to Quit Social Control Media Rather Than Participate in It (Teaching Means Education, Not Misinformation)
Insist that classrooms offer education to children rather than offer children to corporations
Twitter: From Walled Gardens to Paywalls and/or Amplifiers of Fascism
There's moreover a push to promote politicians who are as scummy as Twitter's owner
The World Wide Web is Being Confiscated From Us (Like Syndication Was Withdrawn About a Decade Ago) and We Need to Fight Back
We're worse off when fewer people promote RSS feeds and instead outsource to social control media (censorship, surveillance, manipulation)
Next Up: Restoring IRC Log Pipelines, Bulletins/Full Text RSS, Wiki (Archived, Static), and Pipelines for Daily Links
There are still many tasks left ahead of us, but we've progressed a lot
An Era of Rotting Technology, Migration Crises, and Cliffhanging
We've covered examples from IBM, resembling the Microsoft world
First Iteration of Techrights as 100% Static Pages Web Site
We want to champion another decade or two of positive impact and opinionated analysis
Links 25/09/2023: Patent News and Coding
some remaining links for today
Steam Deck is Mostly Good in the Sense That It Weakens Microsoft's Dominance (Windows)
The Steam Deck is mostly a DRM appliance
SUSE is Just Another Black Cat Working for Proprietary Giants/Monopolies
SUSE's relationship with firms such as these generally means that SUSE works for authority, not for community, and when it comes to cryptography it just follows guidelines from the US government
IBM is Selling Complexity, Not GNU/Linux
It's not about the clients, it's about money
Birthday of Techrights in 6 Weeks (Tux Machines and Techrights Reach Combined Age of 40 in 2025)
We've already begun the migration to static
Linux Foundation: We Came, We Saw, We Plundered
Linux Foundation staff uses neither Linux nor Open Source. They're essentially using, exploiting, piggybacking goodwill gestures (altruism of volunteers) while paying themselves 6-figure salaries.
Security Isn't the Goal of Today's Software and Hardware Products
Any newly-added layer represents more attack surface
Linux Too Big to Be Properly Maintained When There's an Incentive to Sell More and More Things (Complexity and Narrow Support Window)
They want your money, not your peace of mind. That's a problem.
Modern Web Means Proprietary Trash
Mozilla is financially beholden to Google and thus we cannot expect any pushback or for Firefox to "reclaims the Web" a second time around
Godot 4.2 is Approaching, But After What Happened to Unity All Game Developers Should be Careful
We hope Unity will burn in a massive fire and, as for Godot, we hope it'll get rid of Microsoft
GNU/Linux Has Conquered the World, But Users' Freedom Has Not (Impediments Remain in Hardware)
Installing one's system of choice on a device is very hard, sometimes impossible
Another Copyright Lawsuit Against Microsoft (or its Proxy) for Misuse of Large Works by Chatbot
Some people mocked us for saying this day would come; chatbots are a huge disappointment and they're on very shaky legal ground
Privacy is Not a Crime, Reporting Hidden Facts Is Not a Crime Either
the powerful companies/governments/societies get to know everything about everybody, but if anyone out there discovers or shares dark secrets about those powerful companies/governments/societies, that's a "crime"
United Workforce Always Better for the Workers
In the case of technology, it is possible that a lack of collective action is because of relatively high salaries and less physically-demanding jobs
Purge of Software Freedom and Its Voices
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
GNOME and GTK Taking Freedom Away From Users
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
GNOME is Worse Today (in 2023) Than When I Did GTK Development 20+ Years Ago
To me it seems like GNOME is moving backward, not forward, mostly removing features and functionality rather than adding any
HowTos Are Moving to Tux Machines
HowTos (or howtos) are very important in their own right, but they can easily distract from the news and howtos are usually quite timeless or time-insensitive
Proprietary Panda: Don't Be Misled by the Innocent Looks of Ubuntu (and Microsoft Canonical)
Given the number of disgruntled employees who leave Canonical and given Ubuntu's trend of just copying whatever IBM does in Fedora, is there still a good reason to choose Ubuntu?
Debian GNU/Linux is a Fine Operating System, But What if People Die Making It for Somebody's Corporate/Personal Gain?
Will companies that exploited unpaid volunteers ever be held accountable for loss of life, caused by burnout, excessive work, or poverty?
Links 24/09/2023: 5 Days' Worth of News (Catchup)
Links for the day
Leftover Links 24/09/2023: Russia, COVID, and More
Links for the day
Forty Years of GNU and the Free Software Movement
by FSF
Gemini and Web in Tandem
We're already learning, over IRC, that out new site is fully compatible with simple command line- and ncurses-based Web browsers. Failing that, there's Gemini.
Red Hat Pretends to Have "Community Commitment to Open Source" While Scuttling the Fedora Community (Among Others)
RHEL is becoming more proprietary over time and community seems to boil down to unpaid volunteers (at least that's how IBM see the "community")
IBM Neglecting Users of GNU/Linux on Laptops and Desktops
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Personal Identification on the 'Modern' Net
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Not Your Daily Driver: Don't Build With Rust or Adopt Rust-based Software If You Value Long-Term Reliance
Rust is a whole bunch of hype.
The Future of the Web is Not the Web
The supposedly "modern" stuff ought to occupy some other protocol, maybe "app://"
YouTube Has Just Become Even More Sinister
The way Google has been treating the Web (and Web browsers) sheds a clue about future plans and prospects
Initial Announcement of GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix) on September 27, 1983
History matters
Upgrade and Migration Status
Git is working, IPFS is working, IRC is working, Gemini is working
Yesterday in the 'Sister Site', Tux Machines (10 More Stories)
Scope-wise, many stories fit neatly into both sites, but posting the same twice makes no sense logistically
The New Techrights Will be Much Faster
A prompt response to FUD is important. It's time-sensitive.