● 10.12.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 12/10/2022: GNU Health is Fourteen, Mesa 22.2.1, and GStreamer 1.20.4

Posted in News Roundup at 6:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• Hello, glenn green here and I am trying to start a Linux Users Group here in Carson City. There are no dues, membership is free as in beer.

Server

• Kubernetes has become the project developers turn to for container orchestration at scale. The open source container orchestration system out of Google is well-regarded, well-supported, and continues to evolve.

• Kubernetes is also sprawling, complex, and difficult to set up and configure. Not only that, but much of the heavy lifting is left to the end user. The best approach, therefore, isn’t to grab the bits and try to go it alone, but to seek out a complete container solution that includes Kubernetes as a supported, maintained component.

• This article looks at the six most prominent Kubernetes offerings. These are distributions that incorporate Kubernetes along with container tools, in the same sense that different vendors offer distributions of the Linux kernel and its userland.

• As previously announced, support for Istio 1.13 has now officially ended.

• At this point we will no longer back-port fixes for security issues and critical bugs to 1.13, so we heartily encourage you to upgrade to the latest version of Istio (1.15.2) if you haven’t already.

Audiocasts/Shows

• GreenWithEnvy is an incredibly useful tool for NVIDIA GPU, control, overclocking and monitoring that’s in a bit of a pickle, the current maintainer is stepping down from the project and moving to AMD

• In this video, I am going to show an overview of Amarok Linux OS 22.09 and some of the applications pre-installed.

• There are some purposes for which only mainframes fit. In this show, John Mertic of the Linux Foundation tells Doc Searls and Jonathan Bennett how open source is a growing part of how mainframes fit, and how the open source community for the first time has a mainframe of its own.

• 1:08 Linux Innards 34:10 Housekeeping & Announcements

• In our Innards section, we talk about how Linux has permeated Everything;

• And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

• Today we will talk about blocking Tiktok from tracking you even if you are not a user of the platform. They track everyone across the internet and the only way to stop it is for you to block it on your computer or network.

Kernel Space

Graphics Stack

• NVIDIA 520.56.06 is here to implement support for OTA (Over-the-Air) updates in the Proton and Wine NVIDIA NGX build, making it easier to update the graphics driver to the latest version. However, this feature is not enabled by default, so users will have to manually enable it by setting the PROTON_ENABLE_NGX_UPDATER environment variable to value “1”.

• Some things are worth waiting for. With the 2.16 release, we’re finally ready to introduce some impressive features that mark a new chapter for UNIGINE Engine.

Applications

• Here are the best Terminal applications to install on Ubuntu Linux distros to replace the default one for running various commands.

• For those who work with Linux, the terminal is an important and indispensable tool. An IT system administrator cannot do without it. Furthermore, the way via the terminal is usually much faster.

• Probably the most important instrument in the Linux system is the terminal with the corresponding shell, a shell is actually nothing more than a program that acts as a command line interpreter responsible for dialogue and interaction with the user in the Linux system this is usually the bash. The shell provides a command line on a terminal, all configurations can be made using the Linux terminal be it just creating data or writing complex scripts.

• Well, all existing Linux distros with GUI come with a default Linux terminal application to use such as Xterm. However, the look and feel of terminal apps will be different as per the Desktop environment installed on the Linux. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean it will change the command syntax to use. For example, you may find Ubuntu and Linux Mint Terminal emulator apps look different, however, the usage of commands will be the same in both.

• Brief: In this article guide, we are going to explore ways in which CPU-X can be used to gather system-specific information related to the motherboard, CPU, and other components that complete your computer system.

• In the highly digital and technologically advanced world that we live in, accessibility to remote devices is usually a top-of-mind goal for employees and regular users.

• Remote Desktop Service is a popular and widely-used remote access protocol that provides an efficient and user-friendly way for users to connect to their devices. It is particularly valuable to the IT helpdesk and support teams in troubleshooting users’ devices that are not physically accessible.

• Written in Rust programming language, Rustdesk is a free and open-source desktop software application that simply works out of the box with absolutely no configuration required. It allows you to easily access and control your Desktop PC and Android devices from anywhere at any time.

• SBC Case Builder 2.0 tool to create enclosures for single board computers has been released with a customizer graphical user interface, additional cases & SBCs, support for variable height standoffs, and more.

• We wrote about the SBC Case Builder tool to easily generate various types of 3D printable enclosures using OpenSCAD earlier this year. The SBC Model Framework used in the solution was focused on ODROID boards, and you had to type the parameters in a configuration file. SBC Case Builder 2.0 software changes that with a convenient-to-use graphical interface allowing for the dynamic adjustment of any of the case attributes.

• One of the most popular virtual machine applications for Linux has been upgraded to a major new release that offers an overhauled UI and some pretty important features.

• VirtualBox 7.0 is now ready for public consumption. Not only did this release see a major overhaul to the user interface, it finally enjoys support for Secure Boot, which means adding hosts like Windows 11 will be much easier.

• The GStreamer team is pleased to announce another bug fix release in the stable 1.20 release series of your favourite cross-platform multimedia framework!

• This release only contains bug fixes. It should be safe to update from 1.20.x.

• The Linux software universe is growing day by day and most of the software that is available only on Windows is now available in Linux too. In this blog post, we are going to list the best Linux CCTV camera software so that you can easily use the CCTV cameras from your Ubuntu system.

Instructionals/Technical

• Jack Wallen helps take the frustration out of using AppImages on the Linux desktop with the help of an easy-to-use application.

• I don’t care where the application comes from, if it’s helpful I’ll use it. But with the Linux desktop, there are numerous ways to install an application. You can install from source, from your package manager, with the help of Snap or Flatpak packages, and even AppImages.

• All of these are great options and will end up with you having the applications you need. However, not all installation methods are created equal. For example, if you install from source, those applications won’t be easily upgraded via the built-in package manager. AppImages are a great way to run applications on Linux, but they don’t integrate with your desktop. Run an AppImage app, and try to pin it to your dock, panel or shelf. You can’t. At least not out of the box.

• Do you have multiple Terminal emulators on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04? Then learn how to set your favorite Terminal app as the default one on Ubuntu Linux.

• Almost all Linux distros come with a default terminal application to run commands. However, if you feel that your Linux Terminal is not enough for you and want to install some other then you are always free to do so. You can check our list of the 12 best Terminal applications for Ubuntu. Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter which Terminal you have installed but if you have multiple and want to set one of them as your default emulator app to run commands then what to do? In this tutorial, we discuss how to do that using the update-alternatives command line utility.

• If you use a Chromebook or Chrome desktop computer daily, you may want to access files on your local network. Thankfully, Chrome OS supports many types of file-sharing protocols. Here’s how to get network shares set up on your Google Chromebook.

• sysPass is a free, open-source password manager. sysPass is built on top of HTML5 and PHP which supports AES-256-CTR for stronger password encryption. In this article, we will show you the steps to install sysPass password manager on Ubuntu.

• The Steam Deck has gained much attention as an excellent handheld gaming device allowing the average gamer to play AAA titles on Linux.

• For gaming and Linux communities, this news has created a lot of positive buzz, excitement, and anticipation for what is to come. Unfortunately, for now, the Steam Deck is proving to be really difficult for gamers to get their hands on.

• Thanks to the hard work of a collective group of enthusiasts, it’s now possible to install Steam Deck software (SteamOS) directly onto your PC. The best part is that the SteamOS installation is easier than you think.

• Have you ever wondered how some Linux distributions make it so easy to install software while others can be quite difficult? The difference is in the package format that they use. Some distributions use .deb files while others use .rpm.

• But what if there was a package format that could be used on any distribution? That’s where Snapcraft comes in. In this tutorial, you will learn how to install and use Snapcraft to create and install snap packages in Linux.

• This tutorial shows how to configure unattended updates on Debian and Ubuntu. It covers all recent Debian and Ubuntu versions incl. Ubuntu 22.04…

• 7-Zip is free software for compressing/decompressing files. Although you can already compress files by using the tar and zip commands, 7-Zip can outperform other compression technologies in terms of compression ratio, as shown in our benchmark tests for the best compression tool in Linux. 7-Zip can also encrypt your compressed archives with AES-256.

• In this tutorial, you will see how to install 7-Zip on various Linux distributions and learn to use 7-Zip commands to perform compression and decompression of files and directories on the Linux command line.

• A cyber range is a controlled, interactive technology environment where up-and-coming cybersecurity professionals can learn how to detect and mitigate cyber attacks using the same kind of equipment they will have on the job. The range simulates the worst possible attacks on IT infrastructure, networks, software platforms and applications. The setup encompasses technology that is able to operationalize and monitor a trainee’s progress and performance as they grow and learn through simulated experiences. Used the right way a cyber range can instill confidence in cybersecurity workers.

• The range also contains learning management components (A “Learning Management System,” or LMS). An LMS enables both instructors and students to make measured progress through a defined training program. The LMS may also connect with what is known as an “orchestration layer” that connects specific parts of the curriculum with the underlying IT assets that comprise the range. For example, if the instructor wants to simulate an attack that features data exfiltration, the orchestration layer translates these attack parameters to the data and network components of the cyber range. The student can then experience the simulated exfiltration attack and apply his or her defense techniques.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Neofetch on CentOS 9 Stream. For those of you who didn’t know, Spotify is a digital music stream service that provides you access to tons of songs. You can stream for free or buy a subscription. Spotify has an impressive catalog, and it is very unlikely that you will not find your favorite artists.

• 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 Neofetch command-line tool that displays the system on CentOS 9 Stream.

• Netdata is an open-source tool that you can use to collect real-time metrics. These metrics include details such as CPU usage, disk activity, and more.

• By using Netdata on the Raspberry Pi, you can quickly see how the system is being utilized.

• This software is designed to minimize its impact on its system, which is perfect for low-performance devices like the Pi.

• Best of all, Netdata provides all the data it collects in an elegant interface with easy-to-read graphs. It even has support for displaying all of its data in real time.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install SeaMonkey on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, SeaMonkey is a free open-source all-in-one internet suite, that is created as a continuation of Mozilla’s application suite. Containing an Internet browser, email & newsgroup client with an included web feed reader, HTML editor, IRC chat, and web development tools, SeaMonkey is sure to appeal to advanced users, web developers, and corporate users.

• 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 SeaMonkey internet suite on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

• If you’re logged into a remote system via SSH and need to disconnect, there are a few different ways to close the SSH session. You can choose from commands, a keyboard shortcut, or escape characters in the case of a hung connection. In this tutorial, you will learn all the ways possible to disconnect from an SSH session in Linux.

• When using the Apache web server, .htaccess files (also called “distributed configuration files”) are used to specify configuration on a per-directory basis, or more generally to modify the behavior of the Apache web server without having to access virtual hosts files directly (this is usually impossible for example, on shared hosts). For these .htaccess files to have any effect, we must first enable the pertinent setting in the Apache configuration.

• In this tutorial, we will see how to enable .htacces on Apache 2 for a Linux system. You will also learn how to disable it, in case you decide to turn the setting off later.

• As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

• Let’s say I do have the path of /usr/share/man/man1/basename.1.gz, which I’ll use to execute the following command to get the filename.

• The system clock and the hardware clock are used for different purposes on a Linux system. The system clock is maintained by the operating system, and the hardware clock is maintained in BIOS. The hardware clock will continue to keep time when the computer is powered off, thanks to the CMOS battery on the motherboard. The system clock maintains time by querying online time servers whenever the computer is powered on.

• The hardware clock will set the time for the system clock upon installation if there is no internet connection. Apart from this scenario, there is little use for the hardware clock in Linux. Instead, Linux uses systemd to synchronize the system time with online servers or an NTPD server.

• Linux programs and services will rely on the system clock, not the hardware clock. Usually, the hardware clock will get synchronized to the system time whenever the computer is powered off. This way, the hardware time can remain accurate and will not drift off more than a few milliseconds while the computer is off, usually. In this tutorial, you will learn the difference between system clock and hardware clock, and about commands that can be used to view or set the hardware clock and system clock in Linux.

• The locale on a Linux system is what determines the type of characters and encoding that appear in your command line terminal. Changing the locale will set various environment variables to different values. The terminal and other applications can then query those variables to figure out what type of characters and settings to show the user.

• In this tutorial, you will see the step by step instructions on how to list all of the available locales on your Linux system, as well as set and generate a new one to use.

• When a script or process exits or is terminated by some other means, it will have an exit code, which gives some indication about how or why the script or process ended. For example, an exit code of 0 means that the process exited without error – in other words, it completed its task and exited as expected. On the other hand, an exit code of 1 means that the process encountered some kind of error upon exiting.

• In addition to those two exit codes, there are a slew of other reserved codes in Bash that have their own meanings. In this tutorial, we will show you a list of exit codes on a Linux system, and explain what each of them mean.

• You have two options when configuring the IP address on your Ubuntu Server, and that is either a static IP address or DHCP. A static IP address allows you to manually select your IP address by configuring it on the Linux system, whereas DHCP relies on the router or DHCP server to lease you an IP address – either a reserved one or the next available one that is currently free, depending on the setup.

• In addition to the IP address configuration, Linux administrators may also need to set the DNS server and default gateway, or setup a virtual IP address. In this tutorial, you will see how to change to static IP or DHCP, and edit the other aforementioned network settings on Ubuntu Server.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Harbor on Ubuntu systems.

• Harbor is an open source registry that secures artifacts with policies and role-based access control, ensures images are scanned and free from vulnerabilities, and signs images as trusted. Harbor, a CNCF Graduated project, delivers compliance, performance, and interoperability to help you consistently and securely manage artifacts across cloud native compute platforms like Kubernetes and Docker.

• LOMP Stack is an acronym for Linux, OpenLiteSpeed, MariaDB and PHP. OpenLiteSpeed is an open-source version of LiteSpeed Web Server. Litespeed servers are essentially known for the best performance and responsive web server and it integrates easily well with different versions of PHP. MariaDB is a database server, Alot of popular CMS uses MariaDB/MySQL as a database backend to store the content so we will be installing that and alot of CMS are based on PHP Language!

• Python is a programming language that is widely used in many different applications. Python 3.9 is now classified as a Long Term Support (LTS) release of Python, which was released on October 5, 2020. Python 3.9 has moved to a security LTS release, receiving security-only updates until October 5, 2025. Python 3.9 includes many new features from 3.8 and improvements, such as support for Unicode 13.0 and improvements to the asyncio library. In addition, Python 3.9 is now faster and more memory-efficient than previous versions of Python.

• For the official Python 3.9 rundown notes, visit the official Python webpage What’s New in Python 3.9.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to download the latest Python 3.9 on Linux Mint 21 LTS using the command terminal and how to download and compile as an alternative method.

• As anyone who has used AlmaLinux for any time knows, one of its primary focuses is stability. This can often mean that the distribution is relatively stable but usually has very outdated packages in terms of new features. For example, at the time of this writing, AlmaLinux features kernel 5.14, but some users may require a more recent kernel for better hardware compatibility, among many other things. While this focus on stability is admirable, it can be frustrating for users who need the latest and most significant features that newer kernels often provide. Fortunately, there are a few ways to work around this issue. One option is to use the ELRepo repository, which has an excellent reputation amongst EL9 distributions such as CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux, etc.

• Some of the various changes besides the typical CPU improvements include the following.

• Deepin Terminal is a free and open-source program developed by Deepin Technology. The appealing thing about the Deepin terminal emulator is its intuitive interface, which includes useful capabilities. It has a tabby user interface, similar to that of browsers, in which you may add extra workspaces. Customized terminal keyboard shortcuts are also possible.

• If you don’t want to have to write and execute a system update command every time, you can create a keyboard shortcut for it. After that, you just need to hit the assigned keystroke every time, and Deepin Terminal will automatically run the update command.

• In this post, we will cover how to set static ip address on Ubuntu server 22.04. netplan is used set static ip address on ubuntu server from command line.

• The Kubernetes Operator Framework is an open source toolkit that manages Kubernetes operators in an effective, automated, and scalable way.

• Learn how to easily generate Helm charts using Dekorate, how to map properties when installing or updating your charts, and how to use Helm profiles.

• Learn the steps and commands to install Alacritty terminal on Ubuntu 22.04 jammy jellyfish Linux using the PPA repo or by compiling it from source code.

• Alacritty terminal is known for its fast speed. It’s written in Rust and uses OpenGL for rendering to be the fastest terminal emulator available. It is the simplest terminal emulator for Linux because the developers want to increase its performance of it. That means you won’t find things like tabs, splits, or GUI config editor. Therefore, this terminal is for those who are Linux using some old system or have limited resources, or looking for a performance-centric Terminal.

• It is not for those who want some fancy Terminal with dozens of features such as Tabby and Terminator instead a simple, minimal one that can use the GPU to enhance the performance. Well, it is a relatively new Terminal as compared to other popular names such as Gnome terminal or XFCE terminal.

• Here in this tutorial article, where we know how to install and use Alacritty on Ubuntu 22.04 Linux…

Games

• Between 2022-10-05 and 2022-10-12 there were 27 New Steam games released with Native Linux clients. For reference, during the same time, there were 292 games released for Windows on Steam, so the Linux versions represent about 9.2 % of total released titles.

• Valve has released a brand-new Steam app for mobile devices, rebuilt from the ground up on a new mobile framework. The app will still carry the same features such as browsing the store and trading items, but brand new features will also be available such as the ability to sign in with a QR code from a PC, better notifications, and a brand-new library view. In addition to the QR sign-in functionality, the app will also improve security across all of Steam, as the app enables two-factor authentication.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• Among all the great KDE Plasma-based distributions, Kubuntu is the best. Because it brings stability to both Plasma and at its core, that is Ubuntu.

• Kubuntu 22.10 is a short-term release based on Ubuntu 22.10 – supported for nine months from the release. Since short-term releases are to adopt the latest technologies, removing the obsolete ones, its features list is minimal.

• This release of Kubuntu features Linux Kernel 5.19, which brings run-time Average Power Limiting (RAPL) support for Intel’s Raptor and Alder Lake processor, multiple families of ARM updates in mainline kernel and usual processor/GPU and file-system updates. Learn more about Kernel 5.19 features in this article.

• Compared to the prior Kubuntu release 22.04 LTS (with Plasma 5.24), you get the latest KDE Plasma 5.25 (final point release) desktop with all the bug fixes and updates.

• Although, KDE Plasma 5.26, which has just got released, could not make it to this version. But I believe it should come in as a point release, just not on the release day.

• Besides, Plasma 5.25 is not small in terms of features. It’s, in fact, packed with new cool advancements. If you are especially using Kubuntu’s earlier version, you should be aware of these new items.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• A lightweight Linux distro is the perfect solution if you have an old computer that you want to breathe new life into. Lightweight Linux distros are designed to use less system resources and are very easy to install. When it comes to choosing a lightweight Linux distro, there are a few things to consider.

• First, what kind of hardware are you running? If you have an older machine with limited resources, you’ll want to choose a distro that is designed for low-resource systems.

• Secondly, what kinds of tasks do you want to use your machine for? A lightweight distro will be more than sufficient if you’re just looking to do some basic web browsing and email. However, if you’re looking to do more demanding tasks like video editing or gaming, you’ll want to choose a distro with more robust features.

• Finally, what is your level of experience with Linux? If you’re a complete Linux beginner, you’ll want to choose a distro with a friendly user interface and plenty of documentation. However, if you’re an experienced Linux user, you’ll likely be able to get by with a more minimalist approach.

• Tuxedo OS 1 is Ubuntu 22.04, tweaked for the company’s own kit, with KDE instead of GNOME, a natively packaged Firefox, and Flatpak instead of Snap.

• As we mentioned when we covered the launch of Tuxedo’s Pulse G2 laptop, the company has its own in-house rebuild of Ubuntu, as well as as a deployment tool called WebFAI. Now, it is releasing that custom distro to the general public, as Tuxedo OS 1.

• German Linux PC vendor Tuxedo Computers may not be a household name – and we suspect System76 gets most of the limelight in the US – but where the Reg FOSS desk is located in Central Europe, its name pops up regularly, as a sponsor of openSUSE as well as various conferences and events.

• In releasing its OS for general use on other companies’ hardware, Tuxedo Computers is following in the footsteps of US vendor System76, which developed its own, customized version of Ubuntu and subsequently launched it as an independent distro, Pop!_OS.

• The Reg FOSS desk was distinctly underwhelmed by Pop!_OS 21.10, which rendered our test laptop unbootable. Saying that, the following version, based on Ubuntu’s latest LTS, was a much smoother ride.

Red Hat / IBM

• Does it ever feel like some CIOs have a “special sauce” that helps them rise above others? They don’t necessarily have a fancier resume or a better tailor, but they somehow find ways to improve the team around them.

• In this era of technology-fueled disruption, CIOs and IT leaders play a decisive role in make-or-break business transformations. Success depends not only on traditional factors such as which architecture they develop or the system they deploy but also on how they marshal the most timeless business resource: human talent.

• Business transformations are becoming more frequent, and the stakes are higher than ever. According to a survey from EY and Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, 85 percent of senior leaders from a range of industries worldwide say they have been involved in two or more major transformations in the past five years.

• It is fall IBM i software stack refresh week. As we report about elsewhere in this issue, IBM i 7.5 Technology Refresh 1 and IBM i 7.4 Technology Refresh 7 came out today, and as is Big Blue’s custom in recent years, other parts of the IBM i software stack also got some nips and tucks and tweaks, too.

• IBM yesterday announced Technology Refreshes for its two most current IBM i operating systems, including 7.5 and 7.4. Security continues to be a big driver of new functionality with 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7. But the fall TRs bring a bevy of enhancements across all areas, including the database, IBM i services, open source, application development, and analytics, among others.

• Last year, together with my colleagues Miguel and Scott, we released with the help of Packt team the RHEL8 Administration.

• During this one, with the collaboration of Pedro, a long-time colleague from the University LUG, we worked on the updated Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Administration book that it’s now available for preorder on Amazon.

• We all know the importance of setting up limits, whether it is with our kids, our diet, our physical activities and so on. But, when it comes to resources dedicated to our applications, we may think, “Why limit ourselves? If a resource is available, then give it to me.” Well, it turns out that this approach, even in the seemingly unlimited resources world that the cloud offers, may not be such a good idea.

• It’s been five years since Microsoft first brought SQL Server to Linux.

• More and more companies today use unstructured work patterns in their day-to-day management of operations. Tools are proliferating and often solve unique problems, resulting in many different applications, user interfaces (UIs) and processes that must be managed and maintained simultaneously. In response to these challenges, we find our users turning to integration and intelligent automation to create smarter operational workflows for a more efficient and connected enterprise.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• The first point-release of the newest Ubuntu is here, which marks the stage it formally becomes the new long-term-support release.

• As we mentioned last week, there were some last-minute delays in the 22.04.1 release process. The release was delayed until August 11. But now it’s here, as Canonical announced on its official blog. The release notes list the changes.

• This is only a point release of the OS, and if you are already running “Jammy Jellyfish” you will automatically get 22.04.1 when you next run a full update. No new installation of the OS is needed. If you are doing new installations, though, Ubuntu makes new installation images for each point release, so if you go to the downloads page, you will get a shiny new 22.04.1 image. If you keep an emergency boot disk, for instance with Ventoy, this is a good time to update it.

• All the same, it’s significant in a few ways. It’s a bug-fix release, so with any luck, you won’t notice any changes – just a few things may start working more smoothly. In theory, the Snap-packaged version of Firefox may start a little faster.

• One of the most noticeable is that the first point-release that follows an Ubuntu LTS is when people running the previous LTS release will start getting notified and prompted to update. So if you are running 20.04 “Focal Fossa,” or the previous short-term release 21.10 “Impish Indri,” then you can expect to receive nags any time now.

• Ubuntu is a free and open-source Linux distribution. Learn about the benefits and drawbacks of using Ubuntu.

Devices/Embedded

• The M1 is a new new product by xTool, a company that is already well-known in the CNC diode laser space. This laser is quite different to their others though because it is fully enclosed, so it is much safer to use than open gantry style lasers, it properly manages smoke and fume extraction, and it’s got a trick up its sleeve for hobbyists.

• Not only does it have a 10W diode laser module for cutting and engraving, but alongside it is a blade cutting tool, allowing you to accurately cut vinyl, paper, leather, fabrics and felt, all without leaving burn marks around the edges.

Open Hardware/Modding

• When participating in sim racing video games, players often need to use a steering wheel controller in order to enjoy smooth and accurate movements of their on-screen vehicles. However, due to a shortage of certain racing rigs, finding one has become a challenge. Luckily, ilge ipek has come up with a custom solution that not only provides a far cheaper wheel alternative to store-bought ones, but even competes in regard to some features.

• The electronic components ipek selected for this project included a 10K ohm potentiometer for getting the wheel’s current position, an Arduino Leonardo to read the value and send it to the host PC, and an existing steering wheel that could be easily attached to the rig. In terms of software, the Leonardo runs firmware generated from the MMJoy program, which allows hobbyists to connect hardware as various HID inputs via USB. Once uploaded, the attached potentiometer was mapped as a new joystick input that adjusts along the ‘X’ axis.

• Italians are notoriously protective of their culinary traditions, often rooted in the use of specific local ingredients, family recipes passed on from generation to generation, and strict compliance to the way nonna and mamma always prepared favorite dishes.

• However, Italy is also a country of innovation and resourcefulness! So in the face of climate change, major pasta brand Barilla has taken a somewhat daring step forward to suggest their customers try passive cooking: let pasta cook in hot water after only two minutes of boiling on the stove, saving precious energy for the remaining cooking time. Italian grandmothers might cringe at the idea, but Barilla’s clear step-by-step guide claims this can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 80% – which could generate a remarkable positive impact on the environment, considering approximately 400 million plates of spaghetti, penne, tagliatelle, and more are served around the world every day.

• Actinius Icarus SoM DK development board follows the Arduino Uno form factor and is equipped with the company’s Icacus SoM based on Nordic Semi nRF9160 system-in-package with LTE Cat-M, NB-IoT, and GPS connectivity.

• Security is one of the things we value most in our homes. A home is somewhere to feel safe, protected from the harms of the outside world. As a result, we tend to invest a lot of money in security features like well-locked doors, alarms, and cameras.

• Most of the tools we use to keep our homes safe are decades or even centuries old. Can smart technology and automation help make our homes even safer? In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the ways you can use automation and other tools to keep your smart home as secure as possible.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

• Cyclists often require a routing management app to organize their training and cycling practice. While, there are many apps who do this, almost all are not free or open source. Moreover, many apps of these apps do not respect the user’s privacy. With BRouter, it is different. Foremost, it is totally, free and open-source. It also works completely offline as you download the routing map to your device and make it available offline. But the most advantage of using it is: it comes without any tracking scripts, and it never shares your data with any third-party service. Also, there is no in-app purchase or in app advertisements.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

• The unexpected addition (that masquerade as a pinned tab) is for new feature (in testing) called Firefox View. This is a dashboard-style overview showing your 3 most recently closed tabs, plus sections to “pickup” tabs you’re gawking at on your other devices, and promotion for more limited-edition “colorways” (no idea, lol).

• But… I need to digress …

• As a Linux user I take for granted how omnipresent Firefox is. In FOSS-world, this browser is still a big deal; I can pretty much count on a lone hand the number of major Linux distros that don’t ship it as their default browser. Also: it’s very widely used — Firefox is the browser zeitgeist, innit.

• Searchfox (source, config source) is Mozilla’s primary code searching tool for Firefox introduced by Bill McCloskey in 2016 which built upon prior work on DXR. This product vision post describes my personal vision for searchfox and the rationale that underpins it. I’m also writing an accompanying road map that describes specific potential enhancements in support of this vision which I will publish soon and goes into the concrete potential features that would be implemented in the spirit of this vision.

• Note that the process of developing searchfox is iterative and done in consultation with its users and other contributors, primarily in the searchfox channel on chat.mozilla.org and in its bugzilla component. Accordingly, these documents should be viewed as a basis for discussion rather than a strict project plan.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

• Builder.io is a free open-source framework agonistic library for building and design stylish web pages with drag and drop.

• I had some fun when I blogged about using a bot to read my blog post. While fun, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant way to consume blog content. The audio is still a bit robotic, with little care for timing, ephasis and stress on words. So in my next blog post, in which I detailed how to setup Mimic 3, I actually read the blog post out loud, recorded that and attached it as an MP3.

• Yesterday I blogged about using Mycroft AI’s Mimic 3, an Open Source Text-to-Speech engine I used to generate audio of a blog post.

• One thing I didn’t mention, which might be useful, is how to setup Mimic 3. It’s pretty straightforward, so here we go.

• Starting a blog has never been easier. Thanks to WordPress, you can set up your blog in minutes with a few clicks and minimal technical knowledge. But, there are a few things that separate professional bloggers that make money from those that don’t.

GNU Projects

• On a day like this, October 12th, 2008, I registered the “Medical” project at SourceForge. Fourteen years later, GNU Health has become the Libre digital health ecosystem used by governments, hospitals, laboratories, research institutions and health professionals around the globe.

• I want to sincerely thank all the professionals who believed in the project since early on… from small clinics in the African rain forest, to many public primary care institutions in Argentina, to the largest hospital in India and Asia (AIIMS).

Programming/Development

• My last “In praise of” article covered qemu, a project founded by Fabrice Bellard, and today I want to take a look at another work by Bellard: ffmpeg. Bellard has a knack for building high-quality software which solves a problem so well that every other solution becomes obsolete shortly thereafter, and ffmpeg is no exception.

• ffmpeg has been described as the Swiss army knife of multimedia. It incorporates hundreds of video, audio, and image decoders and encoders, muxers and demuxers, filters and devices. It provides a CLI and a set of libraries for working with its tools, and is the core component of many video and audio players as a result (including my preferred multimedia player, mpv). If you want to do almost anything with multimedia files — re-encode them, re-mux them, live stream it, whatever — ffmpeg can handle it with ease.

• Let me share an example.

• We are in October which is well known as the month of Hacktoberfest in the open-source community. During this month, beginner developers learn to contribute to open-source projects.

• I am participating in this event for the last three years. Last year, I also participated as a maintainer. This year, I am also participating as a maintainer and trying my best to help the developers.

• So, I am here to help you by providing some tools you can use while contributing to an open-source project.

• When you manage your IT infrastructure using Foreman and Katello, the smallest unit to operate on is generally a host. You can provision hosts, deliver versioned content, and set configurations. Using Foreman ACD, you can use your Foreman instance to deploy applications consisting of multiple services spanning multiple hosts. This blog post briefly introduces the Foreman ACD plugin and explains how it can help you deploy a Prometheus and Grafana stack. If you want to know more about deploying an ELK stack consisting of an Elasticsearch cluster and Kibana, look at Deploying an ELK Cluster with Application Centric Deployment.

• Almost all modern cloud-native applications are developed using open source components. And yet, security is not always the top priority for open source developers. While many vulnerabilities can be accidental (e.g., coding error) and have minimal impact, some of the largest breaches to date have relied on exploiting known vulnerabilities from open source components. Furthermore, there is also no standardization for open source security integrity. This makes vulnerability management more critical than ever.

• We are happy to announce the release of Qt Creator 9 Beta!

Leftovers

• It’s easy to forget now, but desktop publishing was an immensely innovative thing when it emerged within the computing industry in the early ’80s. While at its heart a mishmash of hardware and software cleverly combined for a single goal, it was an empire builder, one that helped create new businesses and improve the status and positioning of existing ones. And with the decline of print as a medium, it can feel kind of old hat, but lots of stuff still gets typeset every single day. And while we’ve landed on a few standards, a lot of desktop publishing tools failed to make to it the present day. So in a continuation of our list of things that didn’t make it, Today’s Tedium takes a look at 10 early examples of desktop publishing software that you probably don’t remember desktop publishing was a killer app nearly 40 years ago and you were in diapers back then … if you existed at all. (Oh yeah, quick reminder of what makes things obscure, from our point of view.)

Hardware

• There are now not one but two alternatives to the discontinued ODROID-H2+ SBC with the ODROID-H3 and ODROID-H3+ single board computers powered respectively by an Intel Celeron N5105 and Pentium N6005 Jasper Lake processor.

Security

• Despite what Tony Stark says, the word hackers really stuck. Because it’s easy to say, it has a derisive impression to those who do the deed for selfish ends, while remaining technically trendy. Say hacker ten times compared to malicious cyber actor. Anyway, exactly what is hacking? How do hackers hack our social media, our bank accounts, our very lives?

• Researchers have used thermal cameras and ML guessing techniques to recover passwords from measuring the residual heat left by fingers on keyboards.

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (mediawiki and twig), Oracle (expat, gnutls and nettle, and kernel), Red Hat (expat, kernel, and kpatch-patch), and Ubuntu (advancecomp and dotnet6).

• While most processors on the market are faster when disabling security tweaks/patches for certain bugs such as Spectre or Meltdown, it was recently discovered that the AMD Ryzen 7000 family does better when the Spectre V2 mitigations are enabled in the Linux kernel. The tests were first ran on the Ryzen 9 7950X, and then on the Ryzen 5 7600X.

• Adobe has released security updates to address multiple vulnerabilities in Adobe software. An attacker can exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

• The NSA and CISA released the guide “Securing the Software Supply Chain: Recommended Practices Guide for Developers” last month and while David Wheeler, the director of open-source supply chain security at the Linux Foundation and OpenSS, welcomes it, he said there are some questionable requirements.

Finance

• Displaced families in Syrian camps are begging for donations on TikTok while the company takes up to 70% of the proceeds, a BBC investigation found.

• Children are livestreaming on the social media app for hours, pleading for digital gifts with a cash value. The BBC saw streams earning up to $1,000 (£900) an hour, but found the people in the camps received only a tiny fraction of that.

• TikTok said it would take prompt action against “exploitative begging”. The company said this type of content was not allowed on its platform, and it said its commission from digital gifts was significantly less than 70%. But it declined to confirm the exact amount.

Civil Rights/Policing

• The Supreme Court has disposed of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)’s application for directions to stop the continuing prosecutions under S.66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000). The SC pronounced a significant order and issued several directions to ensure that individuals are no longer prosecuted under S.66A. S.66A was struck down by SC in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India & Ors., (2015) 5 SCC 1. Still, cases continue to be registered under it, as PUCL informed the SC in these proceedings. Recognising the graveness of the situation, SC directed: 1) individuals should not be prosecuted under the section; 2) existing cases shall stand deleted; 2) governments should instruct police not to register fresh cases; and 4) government publications which refer to S.66A should state that SC has struck it down in Shreya Singhal.

• [...]

• S. 66A of the IT Act penalized sending “offensive messages” via online communication. The wide powers of the section were frequently used to stifle political dissent. In March 2015, S.66A was declared unconstitutional by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union Of India as it violated the right to speech. The effect of this case should have been that Courts should have dismissed pending cases under S. 66A and authorities should not have instituted fresh cases under S. 66A. The findings on Zombie Tracker – a platform built by IFF in collaboration with CivicDataLab (CDL) – demonstrate that this did not happen and in fact, more cases were registered under S.66A after Shreya Singhal than before. Imagine being prosecuted for an offence which the Supreme Court has held is illegal!!

• The Supreme Court has issued a range of directions which will remedy the situation in proceedings instituted by PUCL with legal support from IFF.

• The draft Telecom Bill’s release for public consultation and comments three weeks ago hit a raw nerve for many. For one, it seeks to dramatically increase the government’s ability to surveil and snoop, while also giving it an even freer hand in shutting down the Internet when it seems fit. For a country that is ranked relatively low on global freedom indices and which is the world leader in Internet shutdowns, this is not exactly ideal.

Monopolies

Copyrights

• When geometrical solids took hold of the Renaissance imagination, they promised the quintessence of the third dimension in its pure and unadulterated form. Noam Andrews discovers how polyhedra descended from mathematical treatises to artists’ studios, distilling abstract ideas into objects one could see and touch.

• [...]

• Archimedes hesitates, transfixed by the rhombicuboctahedron hovering on the edge of the page, like a strange species never before encountered in nature. His body, rendered in layered chiaroscuro print, appears in a pose of almost vigorous, if haltingly arrested, contemplation. In Ugo da Carpi’s (1480–1532) dramatic rendering after Raphael, human and geometrical body are staged as a study in contrasts. At once rational, ordered, and finite, the rhombicuboctahedron is also out of this world. It stands both for itself and for the idea of itself, so much so that it appears to flicker in and out of focus, as if in excess of the real. Swathed in a cascade of wrinkled and tangled cloth, the philosopher is captured on the cusp of apprehending the crux of knowledge made palpable as a discrete object. He grips a tabula rasa in his left hand, grappling with the decision of whether to divert his gaze in order to ensnare it. Perhaps he wonders if, in so doing, he would run the risk of the polyhedron, and all it represented, vanishing beyond the reaches of his imagination. Polyhedra are a spectral yet constant presence in the history of Western culture. Emblems of essence, they encompassed two major groups in the early modern period — the Platonic or regular solids (corpora regulata) and the Archimedean or semiregular solids (corpora irregulata): the latter forms derived by slicing up, truncating, or embellishing the former. There have only ever existed five completely regular and symmetrical polyhedra. No more, no less.1 To artists, mathematicians, and philosophers at the turn of the sixteenth century, these regular solids — the pyramid (four triangular faces), cube (six square faces), octahedron (eight triangular faces), dodecahedron (twelve pentagonal faces), and icosahedron (twenty triangular faces) — radiated a tantalizing promise of divine symmetry, order, and perfection that spanned from the building blocks of matter to the proportions of the human body and the structure of the universe. The maturation of perspectival geometry had only made the representation of the solids a more pressing issue that verged on the realm of the existential. The capacity to produce disegni (drawings/designs), as theorized by Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) and others, resulted from years of artistic training required to fully transmit onto the page “an apparent expression and articulation of the conceit that one has in the mind”.2 Likewise, to successfully represent polyhedra in three dimensions was to boldly venture beyond the gauze separating the world of appearances from the world of causes and to return with an artifact that could be tangibly appreciated.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

• A misconception that spread widely and took root somewhere around 2014 is that when comics and movies are “pandering” or non-genuine by having diverse characters.

• I can’t believe it’s been almost a decade and it’s still a thing. No, not “pandering” (probably better known as representation) but the pandering panic, the hysteria at seeing slightly less than 95% white guys.

• It’s probably useful for us to know that those who suffer from “pandering panic” claim to not be opposed to those characters themselves (although often they do have some extra hatred reserved for whatever group is fascism’s wedge target du jour), it’s when they feel like the representation is “forced” or not genuine.

• The other day, my grandfather clock [1] wasn’t chiming correctly, so I took off the top portion (I think it’s called a “hood”) and placed on a near-by chair. That was not a good idea as a few moments later, as I had my nose buried in the internals of the clock, I heard a horrible crash as the hood fell off the chair and was damaged.

Technical

• Since Linux seems to be the theme of the week (and if not, I’ll make it so *sips Early Grey*), I’ll do another post about it.

Programming

• Everyone knows and loves the old comic strip where the situation is that there is 14 competing standards, and a guy says “14?! Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers everyone’s use cases.” and his friend says “Yeah!” and then the situation is that there are 15 competing standards.

• Ref is a universal version of list-ref, hash-table-ref etc.

• It can handle lists, alists, hash-tables, strings, vectors, records, and all callable procedures (like call-tables).

• You can also pass multiple arguments to dereference recursively.

• 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

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