● 08.30.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 30/08/2022: Azure Breaks Down Again and pgagroal 1.5.0 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 5:13 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

• Kubuntu Focus team announces their latest system: The Focus NX small form factor desktop. This is their third model optimized for Kubuntu 22.04 LTS and the KDE Plasma interface.

• The Kubuntu Focus NX can be ordered with either the i5-1135G7 or i7-1165G7 11th generation Intel® CPU. Both are fast and power-efficient. They also include the Xe iGPU, which is often 3x faster than the prior-generation and drive up to four 4K displays concurrently. Systems are built to order and can be customized with up to 64 GB of 3200Mhz dual-channel RAM, 6 TB of total storage (2 TB NVMe, 4 TB SSD), and optional full disk encryption.

• [...]

• “KFocus pioneered ‘DevOps’ to the Desktop, which I leverage to run bare metal on a GPU laptop, in much the same environment as my HPC cluster in the cloud. No messing around with excuses like ‘brew’, ‘xcode’, or ridiculous paths that involve backslashes. Get to work straight away with zero tech giant overhead, while KFocus has your back with responsive experts, tested system management, and drama-free patches in daily package upgrades. Crunch your data and build large models without waiting for permission.”

Audiocasts/Shows

• functionality and now we have GRUB causing boot loops and dropping users directly into there UEFI with no ability to load Linux, what a fun time.

• In this video, we are looking at how to install Flowblade video editor on Pop!_OS 22.04.

Applications

• The Chrome team is delighted to announce the promotion of Chrome 105 to the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux. This will roll out over the coming days/weeks.

• Chrome 105.0.5195.52 ( Mac/linux) and 105.0.5195.52/53/54( Windows) contains a number of fixes and improvements — a list of changes is available in the log. Watch out for upcoming Chrome and Chromium blog posts about new features and big efforts delivered in 105.

• The pgagroal community is happy to announce version 1.5.0.

• The release was driven by Luca Ferrari with a focus on production level usability.

• Converseen, the image converter and resizer for Linux, is now available as AppImage in order to be easily distributed and run on any Linux distribution without installing any kind of dependency (except for GhostScript of course!).

• [...]

• With Converseen you can also transform an entire PDF file into a bunch of images with the characteristics you prefer: you can choose one of the 100+ formats, you can set the size, resolution and the filename.

Instructionals/Technical

• How to split a gz file (database dump) into smaller files and move to another server and restore the database dump there?

• In this tutorial, we learn how to split a gzip file in Linux.

• Rocket.Chat is an open-source chat server developed in JavaScript using the Meteor.js framework. It allows you to communicate securely in real time across multiple devices. It allows companies and organizations to build their chat server for internal communications with their employees. It integrates with social channels, chatbots, social media, and productivity apps. It allows monitoring DevOps workflows with integrations via Bitbucket, Jira, GitLab, Confluence, Bamboo, etc. It is available on multiple desktop and mobile platforms. There are two editions of Rocket.Chat available, one is a free community edition and the other one is an enterprise edition.

• In this tutorial, we will install the free Community edition of Rocket.Chat server on a Rocky Linux machine.

• In this video, I am going to show how to install Manjaro 21.3.7 Gnome Edition

• This guide walks you through each step of installing Docker Desktop on Fedora Linux so you can manage your containers quickly and easily.

• Great developer tools are highly beneficial to both novice and seasoned developers. They are an excellent convenience for new developers while saving experienced ones a lot of work.

• Docker Desktop is an easy-to-install tool that allows you to create and share containerized apps and microservices through a user-friendly graphical interface (GUI).

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PostgreSQL on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, PostgreSQL is an open-source, relational database system that uses SQL to store and scale complicated workloads. This database system dates back to 1986, introduced as part of the Postgres project at the University of California at Berkeley. Ever since, there has been 30 years of active development on the core platform to gain the current reputation of reliability, data integrity, robust feature set, extensibility e.t.c

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the PostgreSQL database on AlmaLinux 9. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

• One of the best things about Linux is the virtually unlimited number of ways you can customize your system. Among all the available options, one sure way to make your system stand out is with a unique splash screen.

• Although it’s not something that is highly publicized, there are actually 11 different splash screens available for Fedora Linux. Best of all, you can switch from one screen option to another with no more than two quick terminal commands that take just a few seconds to execute. Here’s how it works.

• Have you ever wanted to learn “scripting” in Linux? Making them is easier than you might think. Sometimes scripts (often referred to as shell or bash scripts) are real programs with complicated code inside. Other times they’re just a long list of tasks that users put together to make getting things done under Linux faster and easier.

• In this article you will learn how to make a basic shell script under Linux. First we learn about the basics requirement and do’s and don’ts of a shell script. Then, we take user input using the script and print out on the terminal screen. It will show you how easy it is to get started (and the best practices) scripting in Linux.

• In this tutorial we are going to explain to you 10 useful iptables commands applicable in any Linux distro.

• Iptables on Linux servers are used for controlling the incoming and outgoing web traffic. The traffic is controlled by the iptables rules in the firewall written by system administrators or users familiar with Linux servers. The rules in iptables are stored in tables that have chains for every defined rule. In this blog post, we are going to use Ubuntu 22.04 as OS, but you can choose any distro if you want to try these iptables commands by yourself.

• In this tutorial, we are going to explain to you some steps on how to troubleshoot some common website issues on any Linux distribution.

• On a Linux server with Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, or AlmaLinux OS can be hosted a variety of websites written in different languages such as PHP, Java, Python, etc. The main purpose of this tutorial is to be explained the common website issues that are related to the server and not to the language in which the website is written. That is why we are going to focus, on the issues related to the RAM of the server, Disk Usage, permission issues, DDoS attacks, database issues, DNS issues and etc.

• The issues will be explained in different paragraphs and the possible solutions will be proposed as well. Let’s get started!

• Markdown is a very handy way of producing content for the web without having to write HTML. It allows you to write text using its very simple syntax and then converts it to structurally valid HTML.

• If you’re looking to use the Markdown syntax for your web documents, we’ve created a cheatsheet that can help you learn and understand the syntax. While there are many flavors of Markdown, this list contains all the syntax of the core Markdown spec and the extended syntax supported by Github Flavoured Markdown.

• Recent changes in grub added a new command option and changed the way the command is invoked. Depending on your system hardware and setup this could cause an unbootable system due to incompatibilities between the installed bootloader and configuration.

• Today we are looking at how to install Super Tux Party on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

Games

• One of the most common complaints about Linux is that there aren’t apparently many games available. That assumption is wrong. There are lots of places you can download Linux games, both free and paid.

• If you want to unwind after a long day of coding or sysadmining, check out these sites…

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• On 20-21 August KDE’s Promo team held a two-day Sprint in Saumur, France. I was fortunate to be able to attend along with 7 other participants and contribute to discussions about a range of topics. To give a taste, here I will focus on two of the topics discussed: a KDE-for promotional campaign and diversity initiatives at KDE.

• KDE-for is an idea that existed prior to the Sprint. A KDE-for-kids website even exists, but we wanted to see how far we could take the idea. Our brainstorming generated numerous proposals, including KDE-for-creators, KDE-for-developers, KDE-for-researchers, KDE-for-teachers, KDE-for-students, KDE-for-gamers, KDE-for-activists, and so on. Each potential for-group gives us the opportunity to connect KDE products with end users and highlight the many communities within and around KDE. It also provides a place to showcase flagship apps while raising awareness about the sometimes lesser known ones complimenting them.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

• MX Linux offers two Kernel variants. First one is the long term support (LTS) Kernel and the other one is the advanced hardware support (AHS) Kernel. The AHS Kernel brings latest hardware support and features the latest mainline Kernel.

• With that said, this release features the Linux Kernel 5.18 for AHS version of MX Linux and all the refreshed packages as of today.

• Other noteworthy changes includes, a new UEFI management tool added to mx-boot-options, new GUI wrapper for quick-system-info for users for easy copy/paste in forums.

• Also added in this release is a new Kernel clean up tool on mx-cleanup, new option to disable Bluetooth in mx-tweak and a new mxfb-look tool for Fluxbox version for easy saving and restoring of themes.

• Alongside these changes, you get a bunch of bug fixes and improvements in native MX applications and as always latest firmware for your new hardware via the AHS Kernel.

Screenshots/Screencasts

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• The Canonical Kubernetes team is delighted to announce that Canonical Kubernetes 1.25 is now generally available. We consistently follow the upstream release cadence to provide our users and customers with the latest improvements and fixes, security maintenance and enterprise support for Kubernetes on Ubuntu. This blog is a quick overview of the latest development highlights available in Canonical Kubernetes 1.25 as well as a look at our favourite upstream enhancements.

• Devs describe it as ‘an alternative software store for the Ubuntu Desktop made with Flutter‘, the app-development tech Ubuntu is all-in on. It’s not developed by Canonical (though Canonical employees do contribute to the code) and there’s no suggestion it’ll ever ship by default on the OS itself.

• It doesn’t have a name yet, nor any branding, and as it’s still in active development there are only alpha-quality snapshots to play with.

• The upcoming Ubuntu 22.10 release will offer a swathe of desktop features, a new default sound system, and a new Linux kernel.

• Ubuntu 22.10 “Kinetic Kudu” will be released on October 20, 2022, which isn’t that far away — though you don’t have to wait that long to try it as the Ubuntu 22.10 Beta will be released on September 29, 2022.

• In this post I round-up and run-through new features in Ubuntu 22.10, as well the most notable changes, app updates, release info, and more.

• The Web and design team at Canonical runs in two-week iterations building and maintaining all of the Canonical websites and product web interfaces. Here are some of the highlights of our completed work from this iteration.

• The Web and design team at Canonical runs in two-week iterations building and maintaining all of the Canonical websites and product web interfaces. Here are some of the highlights of our completed work from this iteration.

• With a look at how developments in IoT-based enterprise technology are helping to eliminate tedious processes for employees, while increasing accountability and productivity, the segment will explore how Crowdkeep’s patented software platform works with a variety of sensors and IoT gateways, powered by 5G, Bluetooth 5, mesh technology, and Ubuntu Core, to collect actionable data and improve the speed and accuracy of key operations for various organizations.

Devices/Embedded

• Last week, Brock Perry, one of our SANS.edu undergraduate students, came across a neat bash script uploaded to the honeypot as part of an attack. I am sure this isn’t new, but I never quite saw something like this before myself.

• The bash script implements a basic IRC-based command and control channel, all in bash. It even verifies commands using digital signatures. The attack targeted Raspberry Pis via SSH using the default password. Raspberry Pis have not enabled ssh by default in years, but I guess there are still some out here that have not been taken over yet.

• When it comes to home security, you can never be too diligent. That’s why a group of Polish students (Slawomir Sojka, Damian Prochaska, Jakub Ciemala, Nikodem Szlauer, Wojciech Droździk, and Hubert Wróblewski) put together this Raspberry Pi-powered QR code generating gate lock project, known as The IOT Lock (opens in new tab), that creates custom codes for guests to unlock gates and doors. Instead of relying on a single PIN or password, each QR code is unique and can be disabled whenever you like.

• For this project to be effective, the Raspberry Pi must be secured. Therefore, it logs each event so users can monitor activity and ensure the door or gate access is appropriately assigned. According to the team, the idea is to replace the usual lock and key system with something more digital and accessible via smartphone.

• Users can generate QR codes to unlock the door or gate using a web or mobile application. They can send the QR code to whoever needs access to the lock. In addition, a QR scanner reads and identifies the codes, which will trigger the unlocking mechanism while logging the event in a database. It ensures that access is granted to who you want and that the activity is tracked.

• If there’s one thing a Raspberry Pi is good for, it’s breathing life into vintage hardware. Today we’ve got an exciting project to share with you created by maker and developer Riley from Artillect. Using our favorite SBC, he’s upgraded an old Brother AX-25 typewriter into a functioning Linux-based terminal.

• In order to upgrade the typewriter to work as a terminal, Riley opted to use more than one SBC. In addition to the Raspberry Pi, he’s integrated in an Arduino Uno to handle the key input so commands will be automatically typed out and printed in real-time. The Pi is responsible for communicating with the Arduino to complete the circuit.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

• A lot happened: Glodroid is now Android 13 and supports the PinePhone Pro, new releases of Manjaro Phosh and unofficial Fedora for PinePhone, a PINE64 Community Update, your Librem 5 hopefully arriving this year, Maui 2.2.0 and more!

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

Mozilla

• Summer is not a thing in my home country, Indonesia. But I learn that taking some time off after having done a lot of work in the first half of the year is useful for my well-being. So I hope you had a chance to take a break this summer.

• We passed half of Q3 already at this point, so let’s see what SUMO has been doing and up to with renewed excitement after this holiday season.

Programming/Development

• The countdown is on to make an impact at the FOSS XR Conference, but there’s still time!

• Be part of the FOSS XR lineup by submitting your talk by September 5th, 2022. That means there’s one week left for all you AR and VR enthusiasts and industry movers to share your exciting XR projects/news/demos with the world.

• The FOSS XR conference is for anyone interested in Free and Open Source software for VR/AR/MR. With many projects like Monado, Project Northstar, libsurvive, ILLIXR, relativ, OpenHMD as well as universities and tech companies working on freely available software, drivers and hardware, the FOSS XR Conference is here to bring the community together and give a podium to the future of XR.

• Sourceware.org has long hosted the repositories for many important free-software projects, including much of the GNU toolchain.

• We’re working towards finalizing the feature set for 4.0 beta, reviewing many PRs which have been opened prior to our roadmap feature freeze announced a month ago. While this process is ongoing, we’ll keep releasing alpha builds so here’s 4.0 alpha 15! Same deal as usual, lots of bugs fixed and more refactoring and feature work.

• Hello! I’ve been working on writing a zine about debugging for a while (here’s an early draft of the table of contents).

• As part of that I thought it might be fun to read some academic papers about debugging, and last week Greg Wilson sent me some papers about academic research into debugging.

• One of those papers (Towards a framework for teaching debugging [paywalled]) had a categorization I really liked of the different kinds of knowledge/skills we need to debug effectively. It comes from another more general paper on troubleshooting: Learning to Troubleshoot: A New Theory-Based Design Architecture.

• I thought the categorization was a very useful structure for thinking about how to get better at debugging, so I’ve reframed the five categories in the paper into actions you can take to get better at debugging.

• [...]

• This also feels like one of the most straightforward categories of knowledge to acquire to me – all you need to do is investigate a million bugs, which is our whole life as programmers anyway :). It takes a long time but I feel like it happens pretty naturally.

Leftovers

Hardware

• DAQiFi Nyquist 1 is a battery-powered IoT data acquisition (DAQ) device that works over an 802.11n Wi-Fi connection or a USB interface, and can also log the data to a microSD card

• Equipped with 16 digital I/Os and 16 digital inputs, the Nyquist 1 can be used with all sorts of sensors to measure force and strain, pressure, temperature, current & voltage, luminosity, weight, pH

• angular velocity, and more. It’s also possible to connect multiple Nyquist 1 devices to a single PC instead of following the traditional method of having one dedicated PC plugged into each data acquisition solution.

Linux Foundation

Security

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (thunderbird), Fedora (ctk, dcmtk, OpenImageIO, and varnish-modules), Red Hat (systemd), SUSE (libslirp, open-vm-tools, and opera), and Ubuntu (jupyter-notebook, libsdl1.2, and systemd).

• CISA has released 12 Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on August 30, 2022. These advisories provides timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS.

• WordPress 6.0.2 is now available!

• This security and maintenance release features 12 bug fixes on Core, 5 bug fixes for the Block Editor, and 3 security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 3.7 have also been updated.

• WordPress 6.0.2 is a short-cycle release. You can review a summary of the main updates in this release by reading the RC1 announcement.

• The next major release will be version 6.1 planned for November 1, 2022.

• If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.

Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

• The Azure Arm VMs include support for Linux OS distributions Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, CentOS, and Debian, with further support for Alma Linux and Rocky Linux coming soon.

Privacy/Surveillance

• Starting from a young age, we’re taught to share. It’s one of the first lessons we retain as we learn why we have to share our toys, snacks, and crayons. We carry these lessons with us into adulthood and the message behind it is that sharing is caring. However, when it comes to our data, location tracking apps take that sharing message and turn it on its head by sharing our personal information with third-parties.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• On August 15, the Federal Communications Commission released its “Future of Universal Service Fund” report from Congress. This report was required by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which directed the FCC to consider “recommendations on further actions the Commission and Congress could take to improve the ability of the Commission to achieve the universal service goals for broadband and to expand the universal service goals for broadband, if the Commission believes such an expansion is in the public interest.” As the report found, the critically important programs that comprise our universal service fund (USF) are foundational to our telecommunications policy. But while the FCC found the expansion “is in the public interest,” the report declines to provide any roadmap for getting there.

• Congress established the USF out of the belief that rural consumers, low-income consumers, schoolchildren, and library patrons all deserve access to affordable communications services. In the past, the USF was instrumental in connecting communities across the nation to affordable, ubiquitous phone service, the essential communications service of the time. Congress gave the FCC authority to fund the USF by levying a surcharge, known as a “contribution,” on the providers of telecommunications service, which it did, and it based that funding on revenues earned from telecommunications services.

• Koustubh is a veteran of Capitol Hill and public interest organizations, having served most recently as Senior Policy Counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute. He was previously the tech policy attorney for the national civil rights organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

• On Monday, Apple announced it would finally, officially let Mac owners repair their own computers with parts and guides sold by Apple itself. On Tuesday, its Self Service Repair store started taking orders. This, on its face, seems like good news—but as it turns out, their self-repair program makes MacBook Pros seem less repairable. How is that possible?

• Battery replacement is pretty much the only guaranteed MacBook repair. Even if you never use the laptop, you’ll still need to replace the battery due to natural degradation. Every other component is subject to environment and use—how many times have you spilled your iced tea? Dinged the case? Stepped on the USB-C charging cable (welcome back, MagSafe!)? Those factors will change what repairs you’ll need, but battery replacement is inevitable. Batteries are consumable, and just like your tires, they’re rated for a certain lifespan—heck, there’s a battery health menu item that says this outright. It’s a fact of our lithium-powered life.

• This time, along with the manuals, Apple is presenting DIY repairers with an excruciating gauntlet of hurdles: read 162 pages of documentation without getting intimidated and decide to do the repair anyway, pay an exorbitant amount of money for an overkill replacement part, decide whether you want to drop another 50 bucks on the tools they recommend, and do the repair yourself within 14 days, including completing the System Configuration to pair your part with your device. Which makes us wonder, does Apple even want better repairability?

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

• Last weekend, I went on a short backpacking excursion in the San Juan mountains, north of Durango, and saw parts of the Western Slope for the first time. I keep approaching the land here as if it is pristine and untouched, forgetting that even public land sometimes used to be privately owned, so I saw the scars of the mining industry on the sides of the mountains and in the water running down them. Can’t seem to escape history, even in a land as large and grand as this.

• I am starting a new job in a couple of days, 1 September. The lack of thought I’ve put towards it over these two and a half weeks I’ve been waiting to start is a little alarming, but it feels as if I have almost been shedding my previous position with the University. I will be doing similar things in a similar environment, but with hopefully better people and better management. I kinda sorta really need this one to stick, at least for a few years, just in case.

• I had to get up with the baby this morning at 2am, but I was rewarded afterwards with a good view of the southern sky, as well as some mild auroral activity. There was some wispy clouds toward the horizon, but not nearly as thick as the cloud cover I had observed in the day time. Having recently become interested in amateur astronomy, I was amazed how much additional detail could be picked up with just a simple pair of binoculars. I have some Bushnell 4×30 Powerview binoculars — I can’t remember from where I got them.

• I have an office to myself, thanks to remote work and a lack of desks. It’s a small room; just big enough for two desks but there’s only one in there (I’m quite spartan and only use half of it). Somehow two ordinary chairs have ended up in it too, probably because there just happens to be room for them.

• So here’s what I’m thinking: I could move the desk from the inner most spot to the outermost, set the two chairs farther in facing each other, and get a small coffee table to put between them.

Politics

• Society should be split off into small meaningful free-thinking groups (“clades”), and these groups should be supported by a higher resource-based state. The state manages global resources (housing, food, infrastructure) and is made up of representatives from each clade.

Technical

• In the last few days I have been distro-hopping my PinePhone across many different distributions and desktop environments to find out what to settle on for daily-driving in the hopefully near future.

Science

• Electric Batteries are not an energy source. They are an imperfect energy storage device with a heavy ecological cost.

• Come on, greenies, wake up. Factories producing electric car batteries are not a good thing. Subsidies for that cunt Musk are not a good thing. Government-sponsored electric car leases are a terrible idea.

• Electric cars with giant lithium (and a shitton of other metals) batteries do not reduce our energy use. They put an extra load on the existing infrastructure, and because they are far from 100%-efficent, contribute to the pollution and waste. Batteries suck electricity out of the grid (which is often not so green), and deliver some of it to the motor. Pollution is moved to the poor part of town while cashed-up bogans pretend to be green.

Internet/Gemini

• My 2022 kicked off with the deactivation (and later deletion) of my Big Social accounts. Capitalism and worldly ills aside, my social media use (though not excessive on paper) seemed to coincide with poor mental health. It had to go.

• The subsequent weeks and months entailed all sorts of introspection, learning and experimentation to establish and cement better habits, and generally help me make the most of the time and SOMETHING (my brain? my soul?) I was taking back.

• Here are some of the things I tried and how they’re working out. I’m writing this in case anyone out there needs some solidarity and validation.

• I’ve been meaning to start journaling, but it’s not something I’ve ever done so I keep forgetting to actually do it. However, I recently started this capsule and have been using the gemlog to write out thoughts I have as often as I can. So far my posts have ranged from 85 to 450ish words. I’m trying to post every day or at least every other day, but whether I can keep that up (or have that much to say) is to be determined.

• [...]

• I also try and write a little bit for my capsule 4-5 days a week. Right now I’m writing short blurbs about movies I’ve watched, but I’d like to write about books and other things that interest me. So far my movie opinion also range from 45-230 words.

Programming

• I’ve been playing with a new array programming language called BQN, and trying to solve Project Euler problems with it.

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