● 08.06.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 06/08/2023: Bram Moolenaar Passes Away, Bootlin Toolchains 2023.08

Posted in News Roundup at 3:43 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• Do you know who else won’t be following Apple or Microsoft to the cloud? People who care about privacy, folks who want control over their data on their machines, and PC power users.

• And where will these good people go? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count. Yes, it’s Linux. That’s why Linux will finally emerge as the top PC operating system.

• Mind you, it’s going to be a much smaller PC market than the one we have today. Those are the breaks. But for people who want a real desktop operating system, Linux will be their first and, indeed, almost their only choice.

Kernel Space

• We are happy to announce that we have just published a new update of our freely available toolchains at toolchains.bootlin.com, version 2023.08.

Graphics Stack

• Faith Ekstrand announces on the Collabora blog that NVK, an open-source Vulkan driver for NVIDIA GPUs, will be included in the Mesa 23.3 release.

• As of today, NVK, the new Vulkan driver for Nvidia GPUs, has landed in the main Mesa branch and will be included as an experimental driver in the 23.3 release of Mesa. This is the culmination of over a year of work by myself (Faith Ekstrand) as well as Karol Herbst and Dave Airlie at Red Hat, and about a dozen community contributors. Special thanks also goes to Danilo Krummrich at Red Hat who has been hard at work building Nouveau kernel support for the new memory binding and execution API required by NVK.

• What follows is a little Q&A to hopefully answer the most pressing questions people may have about the new driver. If you have other questions, feel free to reach out to me on Mastodon!

Applications

• FTP is one of many different file transfer protocols that are used. Here’s our verdict of the best graphical FTP clients.

• Ollama is software in an early stage of development that lets you run and chat with Llama 2 and other models.

• EVO PTT is a comprehensive walkie talkie solution designed specifically for businesses, providing safe and reliable communication between users and supervisors. With the EVO PTT Android App, users can easily communicate with one another, ensuring that important messages are conveyed efficiently and effectively.

• PHPBU is an essential PHP tool for anyone looking to create and encrypt backups, sync backups to other servers or cloud services and monitor backup creation with ease.

Instructionals/Technical

• The split command in Linux stands out as a pivotal utility among the rich assortment of command-line tools. It’s primarily designed to divide large files into manageable segments, proving invaluable when handling substantial datasets, logs, or files requiring segmentation.

• Audacious stands as a testament to the evolution of audio players, combining both a lightweight footprint with a robust feature set.

• Are you getting the error “E: Unable to locate package” when trying to install a package on Ubuntu?

• This error happens for various reasons.

• You will encounter this error, when trying to install a package that it’s not found on Ubuntu repositories.

• Are you new for Linux and even don’t know “how to delete file in Linux Ubuntu 20.04″?

• I have two partitions on my hard disk, and Windows 10 operating system has been installed in the first partition.

• Discord it’s not found on Ubuntu repositories. However, Discord supports Ubuntu, which means we can download the deb file manually and install it on our system.

• It’s worth mentioning that Discord is also available on snap store, so we can also install it by using snap.

• Hello friend,

• long ago I have ditched Arch Linux for my main operating systems and switched to ChromeOS with Arch Linux in Crostini. For a long time this setup worked fine, until I encountered a few issues with Arch Linux and Yubikeys.

• In this article, I would like to show you how I setup my Yubikey on Arch Linux running in Crostini within ChromeOS.

• I am a big fan of LUKS encrypted USB sticks. They are easy to make and easy to handle on most Linux systems. ChromeOS is one of these systems, where I had trouble with LUKS encrypted USB sticks or block devices in general. Although ChromeOS is capable to mount a various number of filesystems, it has no idea what to do with a LUKS encrypted USB stick. The first idea most people have is launching a Crostini container and decrypting the USB stick via cryptsetup.

• Slack is a messaging app, just like skype and microsoft teams. You can use slack to chat with with your teammates, or simply use it to communicate with people.

• On slack you can do pretty much everything you can do on skype or microsoft teams. However, each app has its

• In the digital age, the efficient sharing and downloading of data reign supreme, and Transmission has steadily emerged as a leading player in the torrent client landscape.

• The Linux operating system is renowned for its flexibility, robustness, and security. One of the important aspects of maintaining a secure Linux system involves controlling inbound and outbound network traffic. This is typically achieved through the use of a firewall.

• AS you know Linux is multitasking and multiuser systems…

• Iptables is a powerful and flexible firewall tool built into the Linux operating system. It is used to establish, manage, and configure the tables of IP packet filter rules. One of the common uses of Iptables is to block or restrict access from a specific IP address or a range of IP addresses.

• In the dynamic realm of Linux, the capability to run commands in the background stands as a cornerstone for efficient system management. This guide aims to provide a thorough understanding of how to adeptly run Linux commands in the background, ensuring optimal system performance and streamlined workflows.

• DDEV is a fantastic open-source tool that simplifies setting up PHP development environments using Docker. If you’re looking to set up Laravel, one of the most popular PHP frameworks, using DDEV, you’ve come to the right place.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Brave Browser on Debian 12. For those of you who didn’t know, Brave Browser is a fast, open-source web browser that prioritizes user privacy and security.

• For those familiar with the expansive world of Linux, the significance of Ubuntu Linux hardly needs an introduction. Admired for its robust security mechanisms, Ubuntu stands out in the Linux family. Central to these security features is the often-discussed root password.

• As our digital lives become increasingly dynamic, managing files efficiently is crucial.

• Become a pro finder with these handy tips to improve your file search experience with GNOME’s Nautilus file search.

• We spotlight alternatives tools to Wget, a non-interactive network downloader.

• When it comes to making the most out of your operating system, choosing the right applications is key. One such application is Stable Diffusion, a powerful tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Stable Diffusion is available on all operating systems. However, its optimal performance has been noted, particularly on Linux.

• Regular readers know that I’m on a journey to protect my online privacy and adopt open-source software. That’s partly why I use the Sidekick browser on my Chromebook as it adds privacy protection while making me more productive. And it’s why I switched from Gmail to the secure open-source ProtonMail service a few years back as well. I also use Proton VPN on a Chromebook but I don’t want to use the Android or Linux versions. Turns out there’s a simple solution that uses fewer of my Chromebook’s resources.

• Qt is a cross-platform application framework that allows developers to create and deploy software for multiple operating systems. Primarily used as a way of quickly developing GUIs, it also provides tools for networking, file handling, and database integration.

• Here’s how you can install QT on Linux.

Games

Distributions and Operating Systems

• This should be the last monthly update before OS 7.1 and it’s a good one! We have new releases of our office productivity apps, including several new features in Mail, a much more personal Login & Lock Screen experience with improved accessibility, and a couple of large redesigns in System Settings. Plus, for our developers we have a big new release of Code with tons of bug fixes. And don’t forget to read the Early Access Preview to find out what last minute features might make it into the next big OS release.

• This release of Mail was really a labor of love from Leonhard and includes several new features and quality of life improvements. It now also uses the File Chooser Portal when selecting attachments and the Background & Autostart portal—as previously teased—so you can control its autostart behavior in System Settings → Applications → Startup. Mail also does a better job handling changes in your internet connection, and can check messages in the background even when not autostarted.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling release distribution, so it’s ideal for developers and users that like to have the bleeding edge

• It’s also really “stable” to be a rolling release, from time to time you can find a broken package because of one package is updated and another one is not compatible yet, but it’s something that doesn’t happen too often thanks to openqa tests, so you don’t need to worry about a breaking system.

• You can find the Python interpreter and a lot of python modules in every Linux distribution, but Tumbleweed does an interesting thing for Python.

Fedora Family / IBM

• Asahi Linux, the project aiming to bring a fully functional Linux system to Apple computers running on that company’s own M-series chips, has announced that its new “flagship distro” is Fedora Asahi Remix.

• As announced at Fedora’s Flock conference this week in Cork, Ireland, (and on Asahi Linux’s blog), the Fedora Asahi Remix should be officially released by the end of August 2023. You can try it out now, but you should “expect rough spots (or even complete breakage).”

• The new distro will be “upstream-first,” sending as many of its bespoke M-series tools back to Fedora’s mainline offerings as possible. Hector Martin, writing on Asahi Linux’s blog, notes that the existing project based on Arch Linux was “fully downstream.” Asahi added its own package repository with scripts, forked kernel and Mesa packages, bootloader parts, and userspace support, but with “no significant involvement with upstream Arch Linux ARM or Arch Linux.” Neal Gompa from Fedora reached out to talk about integrating Asahi with Fedora after the project’s debut, and work began in late 2021. Now it’s ready to spread a bit further.

• The developers have officially announced a new Asahi Linux flagship distribution based on Fedora, called “Fedora Asahi Remix”.

• This brings them closer to their goal of bringing full Linux support for Apple Silicon machines than ever before. Let’s dive in and see what it’s all about.

• In this week’s news roundup, our Christine Hall tells you what she thinks has gone wrong at Red Hat, and again tries to wrestle Elon Musk to the floor. In between, she covers some more of this week’s FOSS news.

Debian Family

• Those remembering the Debian Weekly News (DwN) will recognize some of the sections here which served as our inspiration.

• Debian Project Bits posts will allow for a faster turnaround of some project news on a monthly basis. The Debian Micronews service will continue to share shorter news items, the Debian Project News remains as our official newsletter which may move to a biannual archive format.

• The Debian Project was officially founded by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. Since then we have celebrated our Anniversary of that date each year with events around the world. We would love it if you could join our revels this very special year as we have the honor of turning 30!

• Attend or organize a local Debian Day celebration. You’re invited to plan your own event: from Bug Squashing parties to Key Signing parties, Meet-Ups, or any type of social event whether large or small. And be sure to check our Debian reimbursement How To if you need such resources.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• The Linux Mint team has outlined their plans for the next version of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), as well as shed light on their Wayland and Ubuntu plans.

• Linux Mint is one of the most popular Linux desktop distros and WPN’s top recommendation for businesses and individuals looking to make the switch from Windows or macOS. The distro’s main edition is based on Ubuntu LTS releases, but the project has maintained a Debian-based edition as a fallback plan if basing off of Ubuntu ever becomes u# Linux Mint Team Outlines Plan for LMDE 6, Wayland, and Ubuntu

• The Linux Mint team have outlined their plans the next version of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), as well as shed light on their Wayland and Ubuntu plans.

Devices/Embedded

• The DoorPi project aims to provide a solution for controlling a door intercom system through the use of a single-board computer such as the Raspberry Pi and the VoIP communication protocol. This is an innovative and efficient method that can greatly enhance the security of a home or office.

• This is a simple project that will help you turn any Webcam into an IP Camera that you can access from anywhere.

• AlarmPI is a highly efficient and effective home security system that has been specifically designed to cater to the security needs of your home. This security system is based on Raspberry Pi and it supports both wired sensors (PIR, Magnetic etc.) and wireless sensors through MQTT or Hikvision.

• Vigilant is an open source Network Video Recorder (NVR) system that focuses on supporting IP cameras, with Raspberry Pi being its primary target platform.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Just learned this morning that Bram Moolenaar, creator and maintainer of Vim, passed away recently at 62. I’ve been a user of Vim since my 20s, so even though I’ve never met Bram his work has been an important part of my life.

• I’ve already written about how I got started with Vim a while back, so I won’t rehash that here. Suffice to say that I’ve spent a lot of time in Vim since 1999 when I got started with it.

• At a conservative estimate, I’ve written more than 2.5 million words in Vim in my career. (Some of them about Vim, too.) That’s a conservative estimate, as Vim was my primary editor throughout my freelance writing and editing career. It’s also been my go-to for first drafts long after I switched to Google Docs for most of my collaborative work.

• Bram Moolenaar, the creator of the vim editor, passed away on August 3. “Bram dedicated a large part of his life to VIM and he was very proud of the VIM community that you are all part of.” He will be missed.

Events

• In the Linux ecosystems, there are many ways to build all the software used to put together a running system. Whether it’s building all the binary packages for a binary Linux distribution, using a source-based distribution, or building an embedded system from scratch, there are a lot of shared challenges which each system solves in its own way.

• This microconference is a way to get people who work on disparate build systems to discuss common problems and possible shared solutions across the entire problem space. The kinds of topics we want to discuss are the following: [...]

• I’m back from Rīga, Latvia where I attended GUADEC 2023—the annual GNOME conference. It was my first time attending since 2019 due to COVID-19 plus having had another child in 2022. It simultaneously felt like it had been ages since seeing everyone, and like we picked back up after no time at all.

• For me, attending GUADEC in person is exceptionally important: the face-to-face conversations, exploration of the host city, eating and drinking together, and spontaneous hacking all serve as powerful bonding experiences and help develop mutual understandings of the actual humans behind online usernames and avatars. We come away from GUADEC with fresh ideas, new perspectives, stronger friendships, and renewed energy to make GNOME and the open technologies we all care about better than before. You can get a small fraction of that from remote attendance—and remote participation is important to make the event as accessible and inclusive as possible—but I greatly prefer in-person participation if at all possible.

• While traveling from the US was as long and grueling as ever (and meant nearly two weeks away from my family), it was ultimately worth it to be in person. I just hope we can spread GUADEC out a bit more in coming years so it’s not this hard every year. 😅 More on that in a bit…

• This was my first time ever traveling outside of my country. I remember landing in Riga, and on my way to the hotel just being in awe looking at the various buildings and roads, everything was so different from what I’m used to and even though I have seen stuff in movies, seeing it in person is a very different experience. I video-called my parents that day, showing them around the city and I found it very surprising that it was around 9 pm at that time but there was broad daylight everywhere. I’m pretty sure I slept at around 3 am that night because of my excitement for the event.

• The next day, I got late for the opening remarks and ended up missing the first talk because my smart ass went to the wrong venue and I had to quickly go back to the hotel and get a taxi to the actual venue.

• I first attended the talk given by Regina Nkemchor, where she talked about introducing Africans to the GNOME community and the kinds of challenges she faces. It was a very informative talk, and the insights she shared can be very useful for other people as well who are trying to take on a similar task. After the talk, we had a 10-minute coffee break where I finally got a chance to meet my GSoC mentor Sonny Piers.

Programming/Development

Python

• PyPhone is a Python-based GUI VoIP calling app that enables free internet calling. It is fully open-sourced and uses ngrok for port forwarding, making it possible to call from anywhere in the world. With some minor changes, it can also be used as an off-grid calling service within a LAN.

• Regular expressions are a powerful tool in programming that allow developers to search for and manipulate text patterns. A regular expression, commonly known as regex, is a sequence of characters that defines a search pattern.

• By utilizing Python modules like webbrowser, developers can open URLs, specify and register the browsers of their choice.

• In Python, the “pandas.json_normalzie()” method of the “pandas” module is utilized to normalize semi-structured JSON data into a flat table.

• Python regular expressions possess a powerful set of tools to enable efficient pattern searching. Anchors are one of the essential features that make them so effective. Proper use of anchors can ensure that a search engine looks for only specific patterns within an input string.

• Context managers are a programming construct in Python that help developers manage resources effectively. In Python, resources can be anything from files, sockets, or database connections to locks, memory allocation, or even hardware devices. A context manager essentially provides a wrapper around a resource and helps manage its state during execution.

• Python is a high-level, interpreted programming language that is widely used for scripting, automation, and web development. Its simple syntax and powerful libraries make it one of the most popular programming languages today. One of the key features of Python is its use of regular expressions.

• When it comes to programming languages, character sets play a crucial role. Character sets are nothing but collections of characters that computers use to display various symbols, letters, and numbers.

Standards/Consortia

Matěj Cepl: Ebook formatsThis is just collection of alternatives to EPub for electronic books and similar stuff.Why to have alternative to EPub: The publishing industry has a problem, and EPUB is not the solution ? … the author (Jani Patokallio) has a bit of problem confusing EPub with DRM, but otherwise his point that ZIP archive of HTMLs would do at least as well as EPub is a valid one. Except of course there is absolutely no reader for such animal.

Leftovers

Science

• A 44-year-old agreement that established a framework for the U.S. and China to cooperate on scientific research is set to expire at the end of August — putting a longstanding pillar of relations between the two countries in question.

• Why it matters: Whether the agreement — the first signed between the U.S. and China when they normalized relations in the late 1970s — is renewed, reworked or left to expire will send a signal to Beijing. Politicians and practitioners are now debating what exactly that message should be.

• It’s only a matter of time.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

• Vietnam’s repatriation flight corruption trial topples 54, but the ramifications will be more lasting.

Security

• A security engineer at Linux distro maker SUSE has published an advisory for a flaw in the Mozilla VPN client for Linux that has yet to be addressed in a publicly released fix because the disclosure process went off the rails.

• Threat actors are using an open-source rootkit called Reptile to target Linux systems in South Korea.

• This has been a long time coming. Finally got around to doing it. The “Login and Security Manager” is in the “System” category of the menu. In your EasyOS you can see what it looks like; compare with now: [...]

• On August 1, Parathon by JDA eHealth Systems was added to Akira’s site with a note from Akira: “We’re almost ready to share the 560GB of data we’ve taken from their network. Contracts, employee personal information, and confidential documents will be posted shortly.”

Environment

• At least 10 people were killed in floods in a city near Beijing, officials said Saturday, bringing the death toll from recent torrential rains in northern China to at least 30.

Civil Rights/Policing

• News organizations can’t quit writing about “quiet quitting” and its close cousins — bare minimum Mondays, lazy girl jobs, loud quitting, grumpy staying, hush tripping, “act your wage,” etc., etc.

Axios ☛ “Lazy girl jobs” reflects Gen Z’s work anxietiesYoung people’s desire for flexible, low-stress office schedules has led to TikTok’s latest trend: “lazy girl jobs.”Why it matters: Like “quiet quitting” and “bare minimum Mondays,” the trend reflects younger employees’ changing attitudes about work.“It’s a rejection of hustle culture. It’s a rejection of the toxic corporate feminism,” Erin Grau, co-founder of Charter, a media and research firm focused on the future of work, told Axios. 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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