● 01.03.22

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● Links 3/1/2022: New Rescuzilla and MDADM 4.2

Posted in News Roundup at 12:27 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

• You might not be a Linux user but have a nerdy friend who won’t shut up about it. Why would they get so excited about an operating system?

• Read on to find out why so many technical people are so in love with Linux.

Server

• You can use pretty much any Linux distro as a server, however, some distros are specialized and configured in a way that makes them a lot better and easier to work on out of the box when it comes to servers. So, technically, all Linux distros are for servers, and you can use any distro for your server.

Audiocasts/Shows

• Ready for 2022, the OBS team is preparing a major new release of the free and open source livestreaming and recording software OBS Studio.

• OBS Studio 27.2 has two Beta versions out bringing in some major new features. For Linux users, it’s a big one too as it brings along our previously reported plans for official Flatpak support. This means users of any Linux distribution will be able to grab the officially supported package with all the bells and whistles.

Kernel Space

• Ingo Molnar ( by Ingo Molnar is ), a well-known Linux kernel developer and author of CFS Task Scheduler (Completely Fair Scheduler), proposed for discussion of Linux kernel development mailing list a series of patches, affecting more than half of all the files in the kernel source and provides an increase in the total rebuilding core speed 50-80% depending on the settings. The implemented optimization is remarkable in that it is associated with the addition of the largest set of changes in the history of kernel development – 2297 patches were proposed for inclusion at once, changing more than 25 thousand files (10 thousand header files in the directories “include /” and “arch / * / include / “and 15 thousand source files).

• The performance gain is achieved by changing the method of handling header files. It is noted that over thirty years of kernel development, the state of header files has taken on a depressing form due to the presence of a large number of cross-dependencies between files. The restructuring of the header files took over a year and required a significant redesign of the hierarchy and dependencies. During the restructuring, work was done to separate the type definitions and APIs for different kernel subsystems.

• Among the changes made are: separation of high-level header files from each other, exclusion of inline functions that bind header files, allocation of header files for types and APIs, provision of a separate assembly of header files (about 80 files had indirect dependencies that interfere with assembly, exposed through other header files), automatic addition of dependencies to “.h” and “.c” files, step-by-step optimization of header files, use of the “CONFIG_KALLSYMS_FAST = y” mode, selective consolidation of C files into assembly blocks to reduce the number of object files.

• The mdadm utility for managing Linux software RAID arrays is out with a new release — its first in more than three years.

• MDADM 4.1 was released long before the pandemic even got started… All the way back in October 2018. As such with MDADM 4.2 now available, it’s a rather big update. Meta’s Jes Sorensen released MDADM 4.2 just before the new year. Jes summed up v4.2 as, “The release includes more than two years of development and bugfixes, so it is difficult to remember everything. Highlights include enhancements and bug fixes including for IMSM RAID, Partial Parity Log, clustered RAID support, improved testing, and gcc-9 support.”

• A patch series sent out by IBM would introduce a new “LEGACY_PCI” Kconfig option for gating legacy PCI device support, including PCI devices attached to PCI-to-PCIe bridges and PCIe devices using legacy I/O spaces.

• Sent out over the holidays were a set of 32 patches proposing new LEGACY_PCI and HAS_IOPORT options for the Linux kernel. The justification for the patch series is IBM’s s390 architecture not supporting legacy PCI devices nor PCI I/O spaces. The interesting aspect for non-s390 Linux users is on the LEGACY_PCI toggle to which it has already been successfully tested on x86_64 hardware and AArch64 (ARM64) too.

Applications

• The release of the open raster graphics editor Pinta 2.0 has been published , which is an attempt to rewrite the Paint.NET program using GTK. The editor provides a basic set of drawing and image processing capabilities, targeting novice users. The interface is simplified as much as possible, the editor supports an unlimited rollback buffer, allows you to work with multiple layers, is equipped with a set of tools for applying various effects and adjusting images. The Pinta code is licensed under the MIT license. The project is written in C # using Mono and the Gtk # binding. Binary assemblies prepared for Linux ( Flatpak , Snap), macOS and Windows.

Instructionals/Technical

• I’m going to ask you a question. What do you see when you pass the ls -l command? A list of files with a bunch of details like permission, number of files, file owner, group owner, size, date & time along with a file name, and more number of data can be accessed using different parameters, but have you ever imagined where all data get stored, and what we call for this data type?

• This type of data is called meta-data, which is useful to store all information of files except file name and data of a file. And meta-data is a part of Inode. Now, what is an inode?

• Tools of the trade continue to rank as a top read for Opensource.com readers. Nimisha Mukherjee, an engineering manager with Red Hat, wrote 13 open source tools for developers. She breaks tools down by Inner loop, the most common tasks developers do, and Outer loop, where the developers’ code goes through continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) for deployment to production.

• Implementing a DevOps toolchain also ranked high on our reader’s interests. A first-time contributor, Tereza Denkova, Marketing Associate at Accedia, an IT professional services company, wrote How to implement a DevOps toolchain and eloquently tied it to innovation.

• The command-line interface (also known as the CLI) might be the most powerful yet intimidating aspect of Linux. It gives you unparalleled power and complete access to what the operating system can do for you.

• Linux inherited the Unix design and its ability to compose more complex commands from simple tools.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install HTTP Git Server on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, HTTP Git Server is an open-source project that uses an Nginx webserver to serve Git repositories over your Local Area Network (LAN). HTTP Git Server is surprisingly easy to set up and manage.

• 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 HTTP Git Server 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.

• Install Odoo 15 on Ubuntu 20.04 with Nginx – AWS. In this tutorial you are going to learn how to install and setup Odoo with Nginx reverse proxy and connect it with PostgreSQL in Amazon RDS.

• Odoo is a management self hosted software to run a business with a top notch user experience. The applications within Odoo are perfectly integrated with each other, allowing you to fully automate your business processes easily.

• Even after using Linux for more than 30 years, I often find myself discovering some command that I didn’t know about or didn’t realize how much I could do with it. 2021 was the first year that I used the cheat command or used the –help option for commands more often that I read their man pages. I also started using the bpytop command fairly often. And, whenever I ran across a command I wasn’t previously familiar with, I took the time to look it up, install it (if needed) on one or more of my Linux systems and play with it. Considering that I’m seeing nearly 2,000 files just in /usr/bin on my Fedora system, I’m not surprised that, even after 30+ years, I’m not familiar with all of them.

Games

• After 7 months of seeing the Linux user share on Steam continue to grow, December saw 2021 end with it dropping slightly. The results can be seen on our Steam Tracker, which shows some trends over time, taken from the official opt-in Steam Hardware Survey.

• December 2021 saw the Linux user share at 1.11%.

• Something we’ve seen a few times, is that when the number of Simplified Chinese language users rises on Steam, the Linux numbers drop and it appears to be what has happened once again this time. It’s not always the case, as we have seen times where Linux has risen regardless but it is often the cause.

• After a reporting snafu over the weekend, Valve has now made available the December 2021 results of the Steam Survey. This metric has been quite interesting to monitor with the increases since Steam Play (Proton) was first introduced but particularly in recent months since the announcement of the Linux-powered Steam Deck causing more excitement around Linux gaming and more people trying out the current state of Steam Play.

• We are back with our usual monthly update! Boiling Steam looks at the latest data dumps from ProtonDB to give you a quick list of new games that work (pretty much?) perfectly with Proton since December 2021 – all of them work out of the box or well enough with tweaks…

• That’s not to say there are *no* Linux gamers out there. But if you’re an average PC boy and you play popular online multiplayer games, then you’re in for a bad time with Linux.

• Controlling all your fancy RGB lighting on Linux can sometimes be a hassle but OpenRGB thankfully can reduce that pain and a new release is out now with OpenRGB 0.7. Since every vendor decides to have their own applications, usually proprietary and Windows-only, OpenRGB is becoming something of an essential item if you want to control your hardware on Linux since it’s vendor agnostic.

• Ending 2021 with quite the bang, the unofficial Epic Games Store app Heroic Games Launcher put up a big new release improving lots of features.

• One of the major annoyances previously was the login system, that used an external browser and needed some copy / pasting to actually get in. That’s been replaced with a new system that directly interfaces with the Epic Store making it much simpler to get going. There’s also a new design for the app, with it using a sidebar instead of a navbar along the top which does look quite a bit nicer.

• Seems DRAG from Orontes Games has been noticed as something special as iRacing has acquired the team.

• Lead developers Christian Folkers and Thorsten Folkers have officially joined the iRacing team, and the statement makes it clear that DRAG will continue to be developed. Not only that, the Folkers will also be developing additional games and bring their expertise and proprietary tech to iRacing.

Distributions

• Joshua Strobl, who was Experience Lead for the Solus Linux distribution, has officially quit but work on the Budgie desktop environment continues.

• Announcing the departure on Twitter, Strobl linked to a longer statement that went over some rather vague issues that probably won’t make much sense to anyone who isn’t close to Strobl or the project. These include problems “which affect the ability to contribute to Solus, both from myself and others in the community”.

• Yours, mine, … my ISP’s, …..? It has taken nearly 2.5 decades (since 1998) to transition from ipv4 to ipv6.Is the day ipv4 will be globally terminated and disabled/banned by all servers? As far as I know there is no foreseeable date for when this can be done, or will it ever. According to our beloved spyware author, google,com, only 30% of all public servers have ipv6 ability. The ONLY servers recently found to have ipv6 ONLY ability, are test servers where if you can not reach them, it means you have no ipv6 ability enabled. A good test for us, we will explain later, or maybe not!

• Talk to a teenager with a relatively good aptitude in math, explain to them the scheme of 255.255.255.255 and also explain why this wouldn’t it be enough of addressing, how should we go about it? I suspect the vast majority would say add another (5th) batch of (0-255) numbers or 2^8 power, and increase the quantity by 250+ times. For every single ipv4 address there can be now 256 subdomains. Instead this illogical scheme of an undetermined number of digits, alphanumeric, colons, was devised as a solution. Few people still today, even networking engineers, can really explain you what does a specific ipv6 address really mean. Ipv4 addressing scheme, like tel-numbers, made sense to even 12 year olds. Ipv6 scheme only makes sense to encryption mathematicians.

• But was it your problem the internet was running out of IP addresses? It wasn’t mine. Did you experience a problem ever, of a dns providing you with an IP that matched two different servers? No, and no. So why are we exposing ourselves to connectivity we have little understanding about, vulnerabilities of a different variety than we know how to handle with ipv4, software that provide the ability to directly communicate through an ipv6 channel, but provide unknown protection for having such ability, and software we wouldn’t imagine they had their own networking functionality, that they actually do. This is a totally different protocol, not an expanded/modified protocol.

New Releases

• The project’s latest release, Neptune 7.0 “Faye”, is based on Debian 11.2 “Bullseye” and includes KDE’s Plasma 5.20 desktop.

• Neptune is a Linux distro for desktops based fully upon the Debian stable branch, except for a newer kernel and some drivers. In addition, Neptune’s devs package and maintain the KDE Plasma desktop as well as KDE Frameworks and KDE Applications.

• Overall it’s very well-behaved and functional, a great derivative of Debian 11, featuring a nice more modern Plasma implementation.

• Now with their latest Faye version, Neptune Linux comes with another great release, helping make Linux more accessible for a broader audience from beginners to gamers. So let’s give it a shot and see what’s new.

• There are two ways you can use Rescuezilla. The first is the traditional method of downloading the ISO, burning the ISO to a USB drive, booting the USB drive, and using the included tools to back up or restore your data. The tool also allows you to easily clone one drive to another, which makes for an outstanding method of rescuing your data from a failing server. The Rescuezilla GUI is straightforward enough that just about anyone can successfully back up data or clone a drive.

• That traditional method should be a part of every admin’s skillset (and fortunately, it really is just as easy as booting a USB drive and following the steps).

Arch Family

• One of the great successes for Arch Linux in 2021 was “archinstall” debuting on the Arch Linux install media as a convenient and quick installer for this enthusiast-minded Linux distribution. This year that easy Arch Linux installer is getting into even better shape.

• Archinstall 2.3.1-rc1 has been released as a test version to showcase the latest Arch Linux installation enhancements. One of the big changes for this point release is continuing to improve the Btrfs file-system support, especially with accommodating more complex file-system configurations. This pull was merged for Archinstall 2.3.1 that now has Btrfs sub-volume support working that can fix various existing issues with the installer as well as paving the way for more Btrfs-driven features moving forward.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

• I remember when I first heard of CentOS (Community Enterprise Operating System) Linux all those many years ago. At the time, the latest release was at a 4.x. I did not initially touch the distro, nor was I an early adopter. I was subscribed to Red Hat and downloading / registering RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). It would not be until 6 was released that I finally decided to opt for CentOS rather than RHEL.

• Fast forward to the present and version 8.3 is not only the latest release but as of December 31, 2021, already EOL’d by Red Hat in favor of their CentOS Stream model which takes the distribution away from its original purpose: to provide a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, RHEL. Although, to most folks, it was just a freely available version of RHEL. Under this model, a version of CentOS was released shortly after a RHEL release of the same version literally containing the same package sources / versions but stripped of the Red Hat branding. It was binary compatible.

• “I am privileged to be here at Opensource.com as the new community manager,” she said. “I’m looking forward to working with existing correspondents and contributors, and also bringing in new contributors and increasing the diversity of thoughts and ideas shared here on Opensource.com.”

• Although the duties associated with the position of community manager varies from organization to organization, in 2020 Opensource.com published an article on community management that might serve as insight into how Red Hat, or at least it’s Opensource.com website, defines the role.

• Digital transformation is never easy, but it is unavoidable – especially as we approach a post-COVID workforce. By laying out a strategy ahead of time and investing in data and analytics to inform your decision-making as you progress, it is possible to execute transformation with less disruption.

Debian Family

• This month I accepted 412 and rejected 44 packages. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 423.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• It seems Canonical, creator of Ubuntu, is finally looking to get serious and improve Ubuntu gaming with a new Desktop Gaming Product Manager job waiting to pull someone in.

• Currently, Ubuntu is still the most popular Linux distribution on Steam, but the likes of Manjaro have been creeping up towards it pretty closely so perhaps with moves like this Canonical can keep Ubuntu on top. Not only that, but more and more people are recommending users install something else often Pop!_OS and even Valve moved away from a Debian base for SteamOS 3 with it being based on Arch Linux and so they suggest developers go with Manjaro.

• According to the job advert, Canonical want to “make Ubuntu the best Linux desktop for gaming” and they “work with partners in the silicon world to ensure the latest graphics drivers and tweaks are built-in for optimal frame rates and latency, as well as with partners in the gaming industry to ensure that mechanisms such as anti-cheat capabilities are available to ensure fairness and product availability”.

• A swathe of new glyphs have been added to the hugely popular Papirus icon set, enhancing its phenomenally broad coverage even further.

• We already consider the Papirus icon pack to be one of the best icon themes for Ubuntu (regardless of which flavour you use) and with this update the popularity of it is only certain to continue.

• So what have designers delivered in this, their first update to the set this year? A total of 45 new icons, including symbols for Linux Mint’s sticky notes tool, GTK4 Reddit client Headlines, Overwatch (when installed through Lutris), and the promising new GTK image viewer ImageRoll (which we’ll be talking about more shortly).

• The changes don’t stop there, though.

• In my happy new year post I looked back at what Ubuntu had been up to in 2021 and touched on what’s planned for 2022, like the brand-new Ubuntu desktop installer, Flutter based apps, and planned long-term support release.

• And the recent job posting for a dedicated desktop game lead suggests that Canonical is aware that Ubuntu could use a bit more oomph in its tank if it’s to keep pace with other desktop Linux distros.

• But forget all that; we know what we think we’ll see from Ubuntu in 2022, but I want to hear from you: what do you want to see Ubuntu (in any of its shades) do this year?

• For those looking for a best looking Linux system, I would recommend Deepin and Zorin OS 16. And, I personally prefer the former one a bit more for the desktop appearance.

• Deepin is based on Debian. It’s great, but for those stick to most recent NVIDIA drivers, Ubuntu PPAs, and/or the Ubuntu communities, then UbuntuDDE Remix is a good choice.

• UbuntuDDE Remix is a Ubuntu flavor that uses the Deepin Desktop Environment. It includes all the goodies from Ubuntu while having the beautiful desktop appearance.

Devices/Embedded

• It’s truly incredible what the hobbyist is now capable of. While it would have seemed all but impossible a few years ago, we’re happy to report that yet another dedicated hardware hacker has managed to spin up their own custom Linux single-board computer. Creator [Ian Kilgore] tells us the only goal when developing CATFOOD (yes, that’s the name) was to gain confidence with at-home board production, so it looks like a success to us.

Open Hardware/Modding

• RejsaCAN-ESP32 is a small board based on ESP32-WROOM-32 WiFi (and Bluetooth) module with a CAN interface that fits into a 3D printed OBD-II dongle for easy installation into most cars.

• Magnus Thomé has already published several automotive projects, notably for car racing with a system that checks real-time tire temperature, and he designed RejsaCAN-ESP32 board so that it can be plugged directly into his car with support for 5-15V input voltage, and also includes an auto-shutdown option to prevent battery drain by monitoring the battery voltage in the car.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Here we are –the last day of the year– we wish everyone a happy new year. Thank you for your dedicated readership: below is our final weekly round-up for 2021; we’ll be back in your inbox in 2022…

Web Browsers

Mozilla

• Happy New Year (I’d like to say nothing can be worse than 2021 was, but I don’t want to tempt 2022). Fortunately, we’re starting the year off right with new changesets on Github for the TenFourFox rolling release.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

• Happy new year, everyone! Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks of 2021 – click the links to learn more…

Programming/Development

Python

• A while ago I set out to get some teenagers interested in programming, and thought about a good way to achieve that. A way that allows them to get started with very little friction, build something that’s relevant in their currently live quickly, and avoids frustration.

• They were old enough to have their own smartphone, and they were already happily chatting with their friends, using the Telegram messenger. I have already experimented a bit with writing bots for Telegram (e.g. @Umklappbot or @Kaleidogen), and it occurred to me that this might be a good starting point: Chat bot interactions have a very simple data model: message in, response out, all simple text. Much simpler than anything graphical or even web programming. In a way it combines the simplicity of the typical initial programming exercises on the command-line with the impact and relevance of web programming.

• But of course “real” bot programming is still too hard – installing a programming environment, setting up a server, deploying, dealing with access tokens, understanding the Telegram Bot API and mapping it to your programming language.

Leftovers

Hardware

• With regard to retro test gear, one’s thoughts tend to those Nixie-adorned instruments of yore, or the boat-anchor oscilloscopes that came with their own carts simply because there was no other way to move the things. But there were other looks for test gear back in the day, as this frequency counter with a readout using moving-coil meters shows.

• We have to admit to never seeing anything like [Charles Ouweland]’s Van Der Heem 9908 electronic counter before. The Netherlands-based company, which was later acquired by Philips, built this six-digit, 1-MHz counter sometime in the 1950s. The display uses six separate edge-mounted panel meters numbered 0 through 9 to show the frequency of the incoming signal. The video below has a demo of what the instrument can do; we don’t know if it was restored at some point, but it still works and it’s actually pretty accurate. Later in the video, he gives a tour of the insides, which is the real treat — the case opens like a briefcase and contains over 20 separate PCBs with a bunch of germanium transistors, all stitched together with point-to-point wiring.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• A major part of the year went to thinking if we can survive the year, India’s medical system broke down completely (the doctors and staff did some amazing job using whatever was available). Everyone I know lost someone in COVID, including in our family. All 3 of us were down in COVID from the end of April & the recovery was long. For a few days in between I could not remember any name.

• [Rich] over at Tropical Ocean Cleanup on YouTube has been working hard to prevent plastic waste from getting into the waters around the Philippines. Even as a mostly one-man crew, he’s collecting large sums of plastic waste using a boom system which he fittingly made out of waste: old tires and empty plastic bottles. This Kaboom system is a low-cost method of capturing any waste so that it can be collected and properly disposed of. In addition [Rich] also installs containers where locals can dispose of their plastic trash.

• The Kaboom system is detailed by [Rich] in this video (also linked after the break). As a shoestring budget project, it relies heavily on donations and local support to install more of these booms. It is however a highly effective way to prevent such common plastic waste from making it into the oceans in the first place. Having these booms made out of waste items that are commonly found where humans roam should make this a snap.

Integrity/Availability

• The turn of the new year has triggered errors in Microsoft Exchange mail servers, causing thousands, possibly millions, of emails around the world to not get sent and staying stuck on email transport queues, in some cases even causing entire servers to crash.

• The server administration community has dubbed this bug “Y2K22” due to its similarity to the infamous Y2K bug, a date-related bug which was feared to cause many computer systems and potentially the world economy itself to collapse at the turn of this century.

Proprietary

Security

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (thunderbird), Fedora (kernel, libopenmpt, and xorg-x11-server), Mageia (gegl, libgda5.0, log4j, ntfs-3g, and wireshark), openSUSE (log4j), and Red Hat (grafana).

• We have had many conversations with other Open Source projects over the years and it looks like everyone has their own donation process – simply because donations do not exist in German tax law.

• He concludes with a request for individuals who have been donating to GnuPG to redirect their generosity toward another deserving project. This is good news; GnuPG ran on a shoestring for far too long.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Mr. S.Q. Masood, a prominent social activist from Hyderabad has filed a petition challenging the deployment of Facial Recognition Technology in the State of Telangana. In the petition, he has argued that the deployment of the technology is not backed by law, unnecessary, disproportionate, and is being done without any safeguards in place to prevent misuse. The petition was listed for hearing before a bench led by the Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court. The bench has issued notice on the petition after hearing submissions from Mr. Manoj Reddy who represented Mr. Masood in court. The case will now be taken up after court vacations which end on 15th January, 2022. IFF provided legal support in the drafting of the petition.

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