● 03.06.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 6/3/2022: digiKam 7.6.0 and Firefox Buxfixes

Posted in News Roundup at 6:59 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Applications

•  After one month of active maintenance and another huge bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.6.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release.

• Long time ago, the AppImage packaging suffered from an important lack of International Components for Unicode (ICU) support. Typically, digiKam and Showfoto deal with the string internally using Qt, but the framework was not compiled with the ICU library to handle properly all string encoding used over the world.

Instructionals/Technical

• We are coming on two decades since IPv6 became a recognised standard and generally available but it is still not being widely adopted by people and organisations that have easy access to IPv4 address space. Even if you have a native IPv4 address, it will typically be in the form of some CG-NAT or other NAT on your customer premises equipment (CPE).

• Things work so much better when they have a dedicated, routable IP address, especially when they don’t need to share a state table with other connections.

• This is what I learned, trying to recover data from a bad drive. Most of this post should work for imaging a disk on a regular non-Synology Linux system.

• LibreWolf is a Firefox fork that focuses on privacy and security by eliminating telemetry, which can be invasive to your personal information, along with increased protection against tracking and fingerprinting techniques, while also including a few security improvements.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install LibreWolf Browser on Debian 11 Bullseye. The tutorial will go over importing the official repository and gpg key and updating and removing the browser.

• For many, English is the universal language, but there is also a very active community of Spanish-speaking developers. That is why we have created a PHP framework with a Latin flavor so that everyone can take advantage of it. Today, you will learn how to install KumbiaPHP on Debian 11 / Ubuntu 20.04

• If you ask the geeky sysadmins, they will swear by rsync or scp commands for transferring files between remote server and local system.

• However, those are command line methods and not everyone feels comfortable.

• Thankfully, there are some GUI tools available that let you transfer files to or from the remote servers.

• FileZilla is a popular, cross-platform, open-source tool for this purpose. It supports transferring file using FTP over TLS or SSL (FTPS) and also FTP over SSH (SFTP) along with old FTP protocol.

• If you’ve ever tried to run a script from the command line in Linux and gotten an error message saying that it’s not executable or attempted to enter a directory only to be blocked by the system, you probably don’t have permissions to do those things. Fortunately, if you have the proper rights or the ability to act as a super user (accessible by using sudo), you can change the permissions on files and directories.

• In this how-to we’ll look at the chmod command, a powerful command that can change file and directory permissions for the owner, user group members and others. In a section below, we’ll also explain how to tell what group your user is in and exactly what Linux means by “others.”

• Whilst you become accustomed to these commands it’s good to work with example empty files and directories and you should take extra care to ensure you are carefully following the instructions.

• All the commands in this how-to will work on most Linux machines. We’ve used a Ubuntu 20.04 install but you could run this how-to on a Raspberry Pi. All of the how-to is performed via the Terminal. You can open a terminal window on most Linux machines by pressing ctrl, alt and t.

• Learn the different ways to install Krita on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish using the command terminal for creating beautiful drawings.

• What is Krita?

• Krita is free drawing software that also lets you create animations and export them as videos. What distinguishes the program from comparable applications? Krita is kept relatively slim but does not lack any of the central functions. You can customize both the user interface and the tools to suit your needs.

• For example, you can freely move and adjust the set-up of the individual tool elements on the user interface. You can save your preferred settings so that they are right there waiting for you next time.

• You also have the option to customize the existing wide brush and tool palette. For example, brushes can be imported from other drawing applications or you can create your own.

• Spotify is a digital music streaming service with both free and paid features. It is the world’s largest music streaming service provider, with over 381 million monthly active users, including 172 million paying subscribers, as of September 2021. Spotify can give you instant access to a vast online library of music and podcasts, which is very popular as you can listen to the content of your choice whenever you feel like it.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Spotify on Manjaro 21 Linux. The tutorial will use the command line terminal with yay AUR helper, ideally most users may be using some wrapper for Pacman, for new users, it is essential to install one to keep your packages up-to-date while you learn Arch/Manjaro.

• MakeMKV is a free, open-source tool that can convert video clips from DVDs and Blu-rays, usually encrypted. The output will have most information preserved but not changed in any way; it’s perfect for people who want their media without hassle or headache caused by software limitations like those found with some other transcoder apps.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install MakeMKV on Manjaro 21 Linux. The tutorial will use the command line terminal with yay AUR helper, ideally most users may be using some wrapper for Pacman, for new users, it is essential to install one to keep your packages up-to-date while you learn Arch/Manjaro.

• Discord is a free voice, video, and text chat app used by tens of millions of people to talk with their communities. Users can communicate via calls or videos in private chats and media files that are usually shared within servers/communities called “servers.” The software has been available on Windows systems since 2009 but also implements OS X (2010) & Linux distros too!

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Discord on Manjaro 21 Linux. The tutorial will use the command line terminal with yay AUR helper, ideally most users may be using some wrapper for Pacman, for new users, it is essential to install one to keep your packages up-to-date while you learn Arch/Manjaro.

• Sublime Text 4 is an excellent choice as your go-to program to edit code. Sublime is known for its speed, ease of use, cross-platform, and community contribution. It natively supports many programming languages and markup tongues, but users can also expand its functionality with plugins!

• The Python API makes it easy; make sure you download within Sublime, or they won’t appear in settings. Also, you can further customize and enhance it by installing additional features using package control and custom settings.

• Telegram is a popular free cross-platform, cloud-based instant messaging system. Telegram is famous for providing end-to-end encrypted video calling, VoIP, file sharing, amongst many other features. One of the main attractions of Telegram, it is unique in having no ties or shared interests with the big social media giants such as Facebook or Twitter. The application is also cross-platform, with app versions available for most operating systems for desktops and mobile/tablet devices.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Telegram on Manjaro 21 Linux. The tutorial will use the command line terminal with yay AUR helper, ideally most users may be using some wrapper for Pacman, for new users, it is essential to install one to keep your packages up-to-date while you learn Arch/Manjaro.

Distributions

• This list is going to be short and there may be a sublist of distros with a medium strict standard. We shall explain what the object is, below the short list (which we hope the community will assist in making longer as we have not been able to currently review the work of every distro and fork).

Devices/Embedded

Open Hardware/Modding

• UP Xtreme i11 is both a single board computer and a mini PC powered by an Intel Tiger Lake processor and designed for industrial edge applications. I received the one sample of the mini PC called “UP Xtreme i11 Edge Compute Enabling Kit” last December based on an Intel Core i7-1185GRE processor, fitted with 16GB RAM, a 128GB SSD, and pre-loaded with Ubuntu 20.04 operating system.

• I’ve now had more time to play with the system, and I’ll report my experience with Ubuntu 20.04 and Edge Insights for Vision, a computer vision framework that’s part of the getting started guide. The latter was missing from my package possibly because customs opened the package, and forgot to put it back in. The most important part is “devkit” is used as username and password.

• Now that 64 bit Raspberry Pi OS is a real thing, I finally got around to updating the pi3hat libraries. Now, as of pypi 0.3.20, you can use the pi3hat library to run console only or graphical tview on the most recent Raspberry Pi OS!

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

•  The NSF is an independent agency of the United States government and the premier funding agency for fundamental research and education in all non-medical fields of science and engineering. They are now major open source supporters as well. To be fair, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds medical research in the United States, is also already a big fan of open source with the first open-access mandate and even an open source 3-D Printing Exchange made famous during the pandemic.

• With PEOSE, the NSF hopes to harness the power of open source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. Existing NSF-funded research projects already result in publicly accessible, modifiable, and distributable open source software or data platforms and now even open hardware that catalyzes further innovation. Open source savings for scientists are large. The return on investment (ROI) for funders of open source development (100s-1,000s% after only a few months) is frankly too high to ignore. The NSF wants to follow the best examples of open source development where the product is widely adopted and forms the foundation of a self-sustaining open source ecosystem (OSE). A distributed community of developers and a broad base of users across academia, industry, and government make up these OSEs. Think Linux for software, Arduino for electronics, or RepRap for manufacturing hardware.

Web Browsers

• Here is a question that you could ask in a certain sort of mood: why is serving static files from a web server so well supported? It’s not universal (there are some web server environments with no support for it), partly because it’s not as simple as it looks and you also need something approximating a filesystem, but it’s very common and has been for a long time.

Mozilla

• Mozilla released new versions of its Firefox web browser on March 5, 2022. The new browser versions fix two critical security vulnerabilities in the Firefox web browser.

Programming/Development

• It’s also designed to make you dip your toes into a lot of commonly used technologies and computer science fundamentals in the process. Namely it makes you deal with these buzzwords: [...]

• Like many pieces of technology, the Web is one of those things that people are perfectly happy to use but have absolutely no idea how it works.[1] It’s natural to think of the Web as a publishing system, and at some level it is: the Web lets people publish documents for anyone to read. But what the Web really is is a distributed computing platform that lets Web sites run code on your computer.[2] Originally, of course, that code just rendered documents, but now it’s used for everything from documents (like the one you’re reading now) to text-based applications like Slack or even videoconferencing apps like Google Meet. Unsurprisingly, then, the Web has a unique security model, which is the topic of this series of (some unknown number of) posts.

• I meant to start right in on security but then I realized I first needed to provide enough background of how the Web works to have the security stuff make sense. This post is the first half of that background material, covering the structure of Web sites and pages. There will be a second post that covers Web “applications”. This isn’t a textbook or a specification, so I don’t intend to provide a complete picture; the idea here is to cover the essential elements for understand the security model.

• During my winternship, I applied code analysis tools, such as GHC’s Haskell profiler, to improve the efficiency of the Echidna smart contract fuzzer. As a result, Echidna is now over six times faster!

• Qt is a nice C++ framework with a GUI toolkit on top, actually, 2 toolkit, Widgets and Qml. Qt is available under the GPL and LPGL, open source licenses and a closed source license. Back in 2020, the Qt company decided to start a war against their own users and contributors by withholding the 5.15 code, only releasing them under a closed license, making the offline installers available to paid customers and requiring a Qt account for the online installer. Due to an agreement with the KDE project they are obliged to release the code after one year under an open source license, and that time has come for 5.15.3. For most LTS releases, the Qt company writes a blog post, but this open source release only gets a mailing list post (One day and 4 blog posts later, no mention of 5.15.3 on their blog). This short post is intended to give a bit more publicity to that release and to tell you about the KDE Qt 5.15 LTS patch collection. Even if I might not agree with the business practices, the framework is nice to work with.

Python

• I’m currently working on a project comparing different CI/CD pipelines, trying to get a better idea of what each offers, how they run, and how much it takes to get them set up. My first stop was CircleCi.

• If you’re looking for a reliable CI/CD platform to deploy your Python Django project, CircleCi offers a lot. It’s easy to set up, comes with tons of reusable set ups called Orbs, and best of all, offers up to 6,000 build minutes per month for free.

Leftovers

• Needless to say, I was right. The post contains absolutely no useful information whatsoever.

• It starts with some useless information about why e-commerce is useful, then covers some platforms you can use, like WordPress or Shopify. Finally it talks about performance and registering a domain.

• Then, somehow, Paul managed to shoehorn a link to an eCigarette shop in there. It’s so unnatural in the context of the post that it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Hardware

• Often used to make rugs, tufting is a process wherein a hollow needle is used to cram thread or yarn into fabric in some kind of pattern. This can be done by hand, with a gun, or with big machines. Some machines are set up to punch the same pattern quickly over and over again, and these are difficult to retool for a new pattern. Others are made to poke arbitrary patterns and change easily, but these machines move more slowly.

• Let’s face it, we all need a little distraction sometimes, especially lately. And for our money, there’s no better way to put your brain in park than to start up a Minecraft world and get to digging. The simple graphics, the open world, and the lack of agenda other than to find resources and build things are all very soothing.

• Sometimes the cost of simplicity is extra complexity. It seems counterintuitive, but it seems to be true. And this single-motor mechanical seven-segment display seems to be a perfect example of this paradox.

• Small is often subjective. For example, a school bus is small compared to an Airbus A380. But other things are just small all on their own and need no comparison to make the point. Such is the case with this micro RC car in the video below the break. It’s an RC model of the Smart Car, that when compared to other vehicles on the road, is quite diminutive, both subjectively and absolutely. But the outward appearance of [diorama111]’s project only tells half the story.

• Microcontroller addict [Debraj] decided to make his own programmable sine wave generator, and was able to put it together for under $40 USD. Other than low-cost, his list of requirements was as follows:

• Not a rhetorical question! This week we consider the most micro microcontroller: the HC32L110. It’s the new title holder of the smallest ARM Cortex M0+ part. But could you actually use it?

• In 1980, Logitech started selling a round, three-button input device known the Depraz mouse or Swiss mouse, which was made by — you guessed it — a Swiss company called Depraz. At the time, Logitech was primarily a software development outfit, but the success they saw in selling the Depraz mouse led them to leave logic and looping behind in order to pursue peripherals permanently.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• How to do it · First, grab a tape measure, then sit down and and measure the distance between your eyes and the screen. Then, go to the optometrist and get that examination, then go to a good glasses merchant and show them your prescription and tell them the measurement and say you want computer glasses.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

Security

Privacy/Surveillance

Defence/Aggression

• Ten days into Russia’s war on Ukraine, United Nations monitors announced Saturday that at least 351 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and another 707 injured—though the actual figures for both are likely much higher.

• The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it believes that “the real figures are considerably higher, especially in government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, as the receipt of information from some locations where intensive hostilities have been going on was delayed and many reports were still pending corroboration.”

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• Many Russians are being fed a daily media diet of Kremlin propaganda that hides the terrible destruction and human cost of their country’s invasion of Ukraine. So how did ordinary Russians in Perm and Vladivostok react when Current Time reporters showed them some images?

Environment

• “A brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”

Finance

• After a White House official confirmed this week that President Joe Biden is considering further extending a pandemic-related pause on student loan payments, lawmakers and activists renewed calls for debt cancellation.

• “We have reached a student debt crisis of epic proportions.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• After a federal appeals court on Friday boosted protections for migrant families endangered by the Biden administration’s continued use of a Trump-era tactic to expel them on public health grounds, Democrats called on the White House to fully scrap the policy.

• “We support yesterday’s D.C. Circuit ruling that the Department of Homeland Security can no longer use Title 42 to expel families to countries where they are likely to suffer persecution or torture,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) in a statement Saturday.

• The attack on Ukraine focuses the mind on a most critical question for humanity: In our fast-changing world, what is democracy’s future?

• As a U.S. diplomat who resigned from the U.S. government in 2003 in opposition to Bush’s war on Iraq, I hoped at the time that all Americans would not be vilified by the world for the actions of the Bush administration.

• Irony does not come darker than last weekend’s statement from Richard Oppenheim, British ambassador to Yemen.

Misinformation/Disinformation

• It’s common for Ukrainians to have family across the border in Russia. But for some, like Oleksandra, their Russian relatives have a contrasting understanding of the conflict. She believes it’s down to the stories they are told by the tightly-controlled Russian media.

• Oleksandra says her mother just repeats the narratives of what she hears on Russian state TV channels.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Prohibited Activities Include, But Are Not Limited To, The Following:

• [...]

• pointing hostnames on No-IP owned domains to an IRC server

• Network data from NetBlocks confirm a major disruption to internet connectivity in Iran from the morning of Friday 4 March 2022. Metrics show the loss of connectivity across multiple providers, corroborating user reports of loss of service in several cities including Tehran. Service was largely restored some three hours after the onset of the outage.

• China was on Friday poised to pull television coverage of the Premier League this weekend over the planned “show of solidarity for Ukraine” during games.

• The world’s richest league was facing a complete blackout in one of its biggest markets after announcing there would be a coordinated response at matches to Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.

• The Premier League said on Wednesday teams will show their support for Ukraine at games from March 5-7, with all 20 captains wearing special armbands in Ukrainian colours.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

• Chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his team came under fire by Russian attackers near a Kyiv checkpoint as they tried to leave the city Monday.

• As they tried to escape from the car, a bullet hit Ramsay in his lower back while camera operator Richie Mockler took two rounds to his body armour.

• They were told a Russian reconnaissance unit was behind the attack.

• “Bullets cascaded through the whole of the car, tracers, bullet flashes, windscreen glass, plastic seats, the steering wheel, and dashboard had disintegrated,” Ramsay wrote. “I do recall wondering if my death was going to be painful.”

• They managed to film the encounter on the phones and can be heard using expletives as they duck for cover.

• He says they discovered later that they were “being ambushed by a saboteur Russian reconnaissance squad”.

• Their camera operator Richie Mockler took two rounds to his body armour, with Stuart being wounded after the shooting.

Civil Rights/Policing

Monopolies

Copyrights

• Pirate IPTV service Nitro TV was sued by DISH Network in 2021 for mass violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions and breaches of the Federal Communications Act. A new filing reveals that Nitro’s operators could face a damages award of $100m and that’s with DISH significantly lowering what it says it is entitled to claim under the law.

• Both Gibson and Chatham House describe the UK (especially England, especially London, especially the City) as being uniquely well-suited among all world’s tax-havens to catering to the need of post-Soviet kleptocrats. Of course, the UK offers financial secrecy (both onshore and in its offshore “treasure islands” in the Channel, the Caribbean and elsewhere).

• But more importantly, it offers financial respectability: there are armies of estate agents that will convert ill-gotten fortunes into leafy mansions in London’s best neighborhoods, with country estates for the weekend. The Tory party has an open cash-for-access system, run by party co-chair Ben Elliot, who also runs a “luxury concierge” business for the ultra-rich. If you give the Tories enough cash, you’re rewarded with private dinners and other events with ministers and the PM.

• Funding the Commons is a virtual 2-day summit for individuals and organizations building new models of sustainable public goods funding and value alignment in open source networks.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

----------

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.