● 10.15.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 15/10/2022: Sparky 2022.10 Special Editions and Ardour 7.0

Posted in News Roundup at 4:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

• TUXEDO OS is an operating system developed specifically for hardware sold by TUXEDO. But now, you can install it on any non-TUXEDO device as well.

• There’s a growing trend for Linux-focused PC vendors to develop their own distro to showcase the best points of their shiny new hardware. Until recently, TUXEDO OS was available only as a pre-installed option on machines from TUXEDO Computers, now anyone can download and install it on their computer.

Audiocasts/Shows

• Debian is generally considered a 100% free software distro but a lot of people are misinformed about the fact that Debian is not endorsed by the Free Software Foundation and in fact has never been

• In this video I cover several difficult to understanding programming concepts to help you gain some new clarity.

Kernel Space

• How do you know when a file has been changed on a filesystem? Developer tools that need to hot-reload programs or kick off compilation or deploy loops on code changes need a reliable source of information (at Google, I built this for Kubernetes development).

• You can periodically poll for changes – that’s potentially slow and intensive for large file subtrees.

Applications

• Ardour 7.0 is here more than a year after Ardour 6.9 and introduces significant new features like clip launching (a.k.a. cues) to allow you to experiment with combinations of various loops and one-shot samples. This feature is similar to the workflow you’ll find in commercial software like Ableton Live.

• Cues can be controlled in Ardour 7.0 using Ableton’s Push 2 surface. Support for Novation Launchpads and similar devices is planned for future releases. Along with clip launching, the new Ardour release also introduces loop libraries to access tons of additional audio and MIDI loops.

• October 15th, 2022: After more than a year since Ardour 6.9, Ardour 7.0 is now available. This new release features major new features for the software, as well as substantial (even if largely invisible) internal engineering changes. We are happy to bring “clip launching” functionality into Ardour for the first time, along with many other significant improvements, including lots of enhancements for MIDI editing ….

• This release also sees the addition of official builds for Apple Silicon systems (previously available only via the nightly build site). It is also the end of 32 bit builds for Ardour for all platforms as part of the official download site. Some will remain available on the nightly site for the near-term future.

• Linux is the least popular “mainstream” operating system. Unlike its main competitors, Linux is free and open source, which is perfect for various circumstances. It’s also highly customizable, allowing users to add different features based on need.

• But in order to customize this operating system according to your preferences, it’s necessary to know about some of the valuable tools. This article will outline ten Linux tools you shouldn’t miss out on…

Instructionals/Technical

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Element Matrix on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Element is a free and open-source software instant messaging client implementing the Matrix protocol. The Element supports end-to-end encryption, groups, and sharing of files between users. It is available as a web application, as a desktop app for all major operating systems, and as a mobile app for Android and iOS.

• 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 Element Matrix instant messaging client on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install VMware Workstation on Rocky Linux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, VMware is a virtualization tool developed by VMware, Inc. This tool developed in 1998, as a subsidiary of Dell Technologies, bases its virtualization technology on the ESX/ESXi in x86 architecture. In computing, Virtualization is the technology that allows you to create virtual machines over an existing operating system, hardware, server, desktop, storage device, or network resources.

• 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 VMware Workstation on Rocky Linux. 9.

• In this blog post, we are going to show you ten useful lsof commands in Linux with examples.

• The lsof command is a shortcut to List open files and shows the open files and which processes are using them. The lsof output describes several things, such as the identification number of the process that has opened the file, the process group identification number, the command the process is executing, the owner of the process, and many more.

• In this tutorial, we will use the latest Ubuntu 22.04 OS, but you can choose any Linux distro you want. Let’s get started!

• In this tutorial, we are going to show you the most used touch commands in Linux with examples.

• The touch command is a standard command in Linux operating system used on daily basis by the system administrators, developers, and other users familiar with the Linux command line. With the touch command, we can easily create files, empty files, modify files, timestamps and etc.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PyCharm on Rocky Linux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Pycharm is a cross-platform, Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Python programming language that is compatible with macOS, Windows, and Linux systems. It provides some very useful features like Code completion and inspection, Debugging process, support for various programming frameworks such as Flask and Django, Package Management, etc.

• 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 PyCharm on Rocky Linux. 9.

• When there is a version upgrade, the ‘init’ script in the initrd creates a snapshot of the /mnt/wkg/.session folder as a ‘rw-*.sfs’ file. For example, when upgraded to Easy 4.4.1, /mnt/wkg/releases/easy-4.4.1/rw-4.4.1.sfs got created.

• Here’s a precise guide on how you can enable USB in Oracle VirtualBox.

• In this tutorial, we will talk about Kitty Terminal developed in Python and C programming languages. It is a highly configurable Terminal app in the open-source category, the source code is available on GitHub.

• Well, Kitty Terminal is not some fancy app with lots of inbuilt features instead it has been developed to keep one thing in mind i.e performance and low consumption of system resources. However, a user can customize it with the help of its configuration such as Fonts, window size, background, and foreground color, and more…

• You must be used to use Ctrl + C for terminating any process, but do you know it sends the SIGINT signal?

• But there are more types of terminating signals than just using SIGINT (cough Ctrl + c cough). So let’s dive deep into the ocean of terminating signals!!

• I’ve been working with and on container technology for seven years, but I still learn new things every day.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• Recently I’ve worked a lot with multithreading and wanted to share a very simple but useful tool. However, Qt-experts won’t be surprised.

• Both Plasma Mobile Gear 22.09 and Plasma 5.26 have now hit Manjaro ARMs unstable branch, so it’s time to get some testing in before it gets to stable branch.

• [...]

• We did have a few hiccups along the way. Namely a long standing bug on our end, prohibited the panels from starting. This was a configuration issue on our end, made visible by the update to Plasma 5.26, which we have now fixed.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• In 2022, the most popular Linux distributions are MX Linux, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, and OpenSUSE. These distributions have remained popular due to their user-friendly interfaces and wide range of software support. While other distributions, such as Arch Linux and Debian, will continue to be popular among more experienced users, they do not offer the same level of convenience or ease of use that these four distributions provide.

• As the Linux ecosystem continues to grow, there will likely be even more distributions that become popular in the coming years. However, it is unlikely that any of these new distributions will unseat the current leaders. This is because the user base for Linux is relatively small compared to other operating systems such as Windows and macOS. This means developers are less incentivized to create new distributions catering to a specific niche.

• While the current crop of Linux distributions is more than adequate for most users, there is always room for improvement. For example, some users may prefer a more lightweight and efficient distribution. Others may want a distribution that offers more cutting-edge features. Whatever the case may be, there is sure to be a Linux distribution that meets your needs.

• There’s been a renewed interest in NixOS, and its package manager, nixpkgs. The key feature of Nix is declarative configuration – the Linux-based operating system is defined by a set of declarative packages built by the Nix package manager, nixpkgs. It was originally released in 2003 but lately has been seeing renewed interest: a more formal team structure around development (link), new startups built around Nix, 30% YoY user growth (link), and exponential growth in GitHub stars. Is NixOS gaining rapid adoption, or is it just hype? My interest in Nix came during the mid-2010s when I looked at it as a model to solve to the difficulty of installing and configuring packages inside Docker containers. There were a few attempts at making a container-native OS (notably, CoreOS), but neither those operating systems nor NixOS ultimately stuck. There’s been a few notable startups using Nix, but otherwise, I haven’t seen much adoption in the wild. Replit uses Nix to decrease startup times for REPLs (which comes mostly from installing packages). Cardano, the blockchain, uses Nix to configure nodes.

BSD

• Support for running NetBSD on Oracle Cloud Arm-Based Compute Instances has been added to NetBSD -current.

• A build of NetBSD/evbarm64 after 2022-10-15 will generate a bootable image (arm64.img.gz) that can be converted to a Custom Image that can run on Oracle Cloud.

Debian Family

• There are new iso images of Sparky 2022.10 Special Editions: GameOver, Multimedia & Rescue ready to go.

• Sparky “GameOver” Edition features a lightweight desktop, a very large number of preinstalled games, useful tools and scripts. Built for gamers.

• Sparky “Multimedia” Edition uses a lightweight desktop environment and features a large set of tools for creating and editing graphics, audio, video and HTML pages.

• Sparky “Rescue” Edition is an operating system which works in a live DVD/USB mode only (no installation on a hard drive). The Live system contains a large set of tools for scanning and fixing files, partitions and operating systems installed on hard drives.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• Canonical’s placement of an advertisement for its “Ubuntu Pro” service in the application update tool sparked heated debate among users.

• Ubuntu has once again sparked debate among Linux users by implementing a very controversial approach – using the most often used shell command, notably the software update tool, to advertise its service.

• But first, let me explain what this is all about.

Open Hardware/Modding

• Checking heartbeats has more applications than one could think. For example, it is a required feature in projects involving sports IoT devices.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

• Trekarta (former MapTrek) is designed for hiking, geocaching, off-roading, cycling, boating and all other outdoor activities. It uses offline maps, so you do not need to have internet connection.

• Trekarta is developed as a hobby for personal use but is generously shared to public on as-is basis. Developers are welcome to contribute to the project. Specifically experts in OpenGL and PostGIS are much needed.

• With it, you can easily import places and tracks from GPX and KML data formats or create waypoints in application and share them to others. It lets you write the track of your journey, even in the background, so you will never get lost and be able later see where you’ve been.

• [...]

• Trekarta is released as an open source Libre project under the GPL-3.0 License.

• The world is now enjoying technological advantages, and the old analog days have now gone. You no longer need to carry your wallet everywhere if you are living in a technologically developed country. Just have your phone with you; it will work as your wallet. Don’t you get it?

• F-Droid is a free marketplace and application store for open-source apps. It contains numerous apps classified under several categories.

• Many Android users have it on their devices, as it is the primary source for installing free, ads-free apps that do not contain any trackers, or share user’s data with other services.

• While F-Droid is a great app, it lacks many handful features, therefore, G-Droid comes in. G-Droid is based on the F-Droid application repository, so it has the same content, yet with different presentation and better search.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Content Management Systems (CMS)

• Laravel is a popular open-source enterprise grade web framework. While there are many open source content management systems (CMSs) that built on react, they yet focus on offering a compact system or bare bone one.

• That is not the case of TypeiCMS, so what it is different?

• TypiCMS is a free open-source Laravel CMS that can be used to build and complex enterprise content system.

• It offers support for pages, posts, events, news, places, and custom post types.

Programming/Development

• After a few busy and stressful months, I decided to set aside October to rest. Of course, for me, rest does not mean a cessation of programming, but rather a shift in priorities towards more fun and experimental projects. Consequently, it has been a great month for Helios!

• Hare upstream has enjoyed some minor improvements, such as from Pierre Curto’s patch to support parsing IPv6 addresses with a port (e.g. “[::1]:80”) and Kirill Primak’s improvements to the UTF-8 decoder. On the whole, improvements have been conservative. However, queued up for integration once qbe upstream support is merged is support for @threadlocal variables, which are useful for Helios and for ABI compatibility with C. I also drafted up a proof-of-concept for @inline functions, but it still needs work.

• Now for the main event: Helios. The large-scale redesign and refactoring I mentioned in the previous status update is essentially complete, and the kernel reached (and exceeded) feature parity with the previous status quo. Since Helios has been my primary focus for the past couple of weeks, I have a lot of news to share about it.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

• If you want to retrieve stock quotes and crypto price data, you do not even need to leave your command line terminal. In this tutorial, we will show you how to use a Bash script to get stocks and crypto pricing on a Linux system.

Rust

• One of the types of software that’s important for a web developer is the web framework. A framework “is a code library that makes a developer’s life easier when building reliable, scalable, and maintainable web applications” by providing reusable code or extensions for common operations. By saving development time, developers can concentrate on application logic rather than mundane elements.

• A web framework offers the developer a choice about how to solve a specific problem. By using a framework, a developer lets the framework control portions of their application. While it’s perfectly possible to code a web application without using a framework, it’s more practical to use one.

• Rust is a systems programming language that runs fast, prevents segmentation faults, and guarantees thread safety. It accomplishes these goals by being memory safe without using garbage collection. The language enables developers to write programs with the performance and control of a low-level language, but with the powerful abstractions of a high-level language.

Leftovers

• On October 1st, 1932, legendary baseball player George “Babe” Ruth did something he was famous for. He hit a home run. But this was his most famous home run, one that would be familiar to anyone with a moderate understanding of 20th century American history. “The Babe’s Called Shot” is a part of American folklore, rather than verifiable history, because we don’t know if it actually happened. The Babe says he called it. The pitcher, Charlie Root, says Ruth was gesturing to the crowd. But considering Ruth’s stature as one of America’s greatest sports icons, his version of events won out in the larger public consciousness, even if baseball fans are aware of the full controversy. The weight of fame is not consistent. Some people are “famous”, a rare few are famous. While there is no one path to fame (or its cousins notability, notoriety, and infamy), the potential rewards entice a great many to overlook the risks. And quite a few achieve fame by simply calling themselves famous. Today’s Tedium is looking at the concept of self-referential fame and just what it means to be famous anyway.

Security

• Linux’s Wi-Fi code has some nasty bugs, which can be exploited simply by being near an attacker. Remote code execution is a possibility—no need to actually connect to a malicious Wi-Fi network.

• They’ve been there for more than three years, and are caused by our old friend: Memory-unsafe C code. What other nasties lurk in the open source kernel powering billions of phones, routers and IoT devices?

• TP-Link network products — including Wi-Fi routers, repeaters, and access points (AP) — use deep packet inspection (DPI) to intercept specific Domain Name System (DNS) requests. Each product looks for one or two domain names and will hijack the request to issue a local response containing its own internet protocol (IP) address.

• TP-Link wants to make it easier for its customers to get into the web administration interfaces of its products. No one wants to remember the IP address needed to access it, right? The IP address can also change over time, depending on your network configuration.

• Researchers have discovered a new Chinese-language single-file command-and-control (C2) attack framework being widely used in attacks targeting Windows, Linux and Mac machines.

• The framework called “Alchimist” is a 64-bit Linux executable written in GoLang and loaded with resources for web interface and Inseket RAT payloads compiled for Windows and Linux, according to a new report from Cisco Talos.

• The MyDeal site is hosted by Amazon in the US, according to Internet services company Netcraft, and appears to use ASP.NET, technology sold by Microsoft.

• As per Microsoft’s own site, “ASP.NET is a free, cross-platform, open source framework for building Web apps and services with .NET and C#.”

Privacy/Surveillance

• Today from 3-4 p.m., EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson will officially present her controversial draft law on mandatory message and chat control to the EU Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) and answer MEPs’ questions. With the law, the Commission wants to oblige providers of email, chat and messenger services, among others, to search for suspicious messages in a fully automated way and forward them to the police, citing the of prosecuting “child pornography” as reason. End-to-end encryption would have to be thwarted by scans on all cell phones.

Environment

Energy

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

• Fujitsu and Japan’s Keio University have proposed adding an “endorsement layer” to the internet, to verify information and prevent the flow of fake news and disinformation.

• The need for such a layer is explained in a white paper and accompanying video released on Thursday.

• The video details a scenario in which a social media user posts an image of what appears to be unusual quantities of dirty brown water coursing over a dam’s spillway and into a river with an opinion that a flood is imminent. The scenario assumes the post is taken to be true – sparking anxiety among residents, possible panic buying, or even an inappropriate emergency services response.

• The endorsement layer the authors envisage would scour the internet for authoritative data sources, such as water level sensors. Users who view a post about a possible flood could request to access such data, which would be published by the endorsement layer. A better-informed reader would therefore know not to raid supermarkets for a year’s worth of toilet paper, and emergency services would save their resources for more pressing tasks.

• The proposal imagines the endorsement layer would not rely on a single sensor or information source, but instead offer users the chance to add data to the endorsement layer. The result would theoretically be “an endorsement graph with a data structure expressing the connection between additional information linked to the data.”

Monopolies

Software Patents

• You may never have heard of The Clearing House (TCH), but you use its services every day. Its US payment network clears and settles more than $2 trillion of wire, Automated Clearing House (ACH), check image, and real-time payments every day. How does it do it? With open-source software. And that means it’s a target for open-source patent trolls. So, ACH this week joined the Open Invention Network (OIN) — the world’s largest patent nonaggression consortium.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

Technical

Science

• After about of week and a half of nothing but overcast or nearly overcast skies in Fairbanks, we had a brief window of clear skies for about a day and a half. I wanted to do star gazing on Friday morning, but due to various obligations I couldn’t manage to work that around a sensible sleep schedule. But the clear skies lasted long enough that I was able to go out on Friday evening instead.

• It is difficult to do stargazing in the evenings in my yard because of all the people walking in and out of the apartment building, and the bright lights when people drive out of their garages

• 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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