● 08.11.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 11/08/2023: OpenSSH 9.4 Released, PostgreSQL 15.4 and PostgreSQL 16 Beta 3

Posted in News Roundup at 4:07 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• In my world, I have to be open to a multitude of technologies and be willing to explore them and use them. I use macOS, Windows, and Linux. I prefer using macOS daily, but I see the benefits and enjoy the other two ecosystems as well. In our Mine is Better series, we are exploring the reasons why some users insist that their preferred choice is the best choice.

• Linux may not be the most widely used operating system, but it’s certainly catching up to Windows 11. While a laptop supporting Linux out of the box was a rare sight a few decades ago, many laptop manufacturers have started embracing this open-source operating system.

• These days, you can even find laptops that run Linux straight out of the box. Factor in the staggering number of laptops that can easily double boot Linux and Windows 11, and you might have a hard time picking a new laptop for your favorite Linux distro. So, I’ve handpicked some of the best laptops that can flawlessly run Linux to help you narrow down your options.

Kernel Space

• As AMD’s next-gen Zen 5 CPUs come close to launch, it seems like Linux 6.6 has started to receive new patches based on the upcoming “Family 1Ah” architecture.

• The newly emerged patches reveal that AMD has provided support for Error Detection and Correction (EDAC) along with “k10temp”, which is utilized for monitoring CPU temperatures, for its upcoming Zen 5 CPUs. These are the initial set of patches that cover the basic needs of a processor, and we anticipate several patches to get uploaded in the future as well.

Applications

• Introducing “Speech Note”, an open-source software seamlessly combines the power of Speech to Text (STT), Text to Speech (TTS), and Machine Translation (MT), enabling users to effortlessly transcribe, read, and translate notes in multiple languages.

• If you were looking for a decent speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS) app for Linux desktops which is free to use, then this is it.

• The firm foundation of the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, offering an excellent application programming interface for device drivers for sound cards, and the JACK Audio Connection Kit, a professional sound server daemon, provide Linux with the infrastructure to be a serious contender in music production. Further, Linux is endowed with an impressive range of open source audio software which is both mature and feature-laden.

• To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 7 of the finest guitar applications. Whether you are a causal strummer, or can give a virtuoso performance with beautiful chord embellishments in the style of Bobby Jo or Jimi Hendrix, there should be something of interest here for anyone interested in guitar music.

• Our recommendations are captured in the chart below. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

Instructionals/Technical

• Most people who spend time on the Linux command line move quickly into using pipes. In fact, pipes were one of the things that really got me excited when I first used the command line on a Unix system. My appreciation of their power and convenience continues even after decades of using Linux. Using pipes, I discovered how much I could get done by sending the output of one command to another command, and sometimes a command after that, to further tailor the output that I was looking for. Commands incorporating pipes – like the one shown below – allowed me to extract just the information that I needed without having to compile a program or prepare a script.

• Finding the size of directories can be helpful for quickly working out how much something is consuming on your drives.

• There are some projects that initially don’t seem to make sense, but actually turn out to have valid use cases. ChimeraOS appears to be one of those. The idea is that if you own a gaming PC, but it is not necessarily located where you want to be all the time (like in a gaming den or office for example) then ChimeraOS allows you to play games on it remotely via a local machine. That machine may be a media PC attached to your main TV, or perhaps a mobile device like a steam deck.

Games

• Overwatch 2 from Blizzard has now launched on Steam and thanks to that, it’s super simple to get it working on Steam Deck and desktop Linux. Although Steam Deck players will want to change the Proton version.

• Two years ago, at Quake Con 2021, id Software and Nightdive Studios shadow dropped a remaster of the original Quake which was critically acclaimed for its features and meticulous polish. Two years later, id Software and Nightdive are at it again with an enhanced version of Quake II, available now for all platforms and the best part is that, if you already own Quake II on Steam, it’s a free update.

• Allowing you to kick-back and relax a bit more, Hadean Tactics the roguelike deckbuilding game fused with an autobattler now has gamepad support. Hopefully this is another step towards bumping it up from Unsupported to Verified on Steam Deck. It does already have Native Linux support too and they said they are working on improving it for Steam Deck too!

• Papers, Please is a game about being an immigration officer in a fictional dystopian country named Arstotzka. It’s quite a unique experience and clearly did well for the developer Lucas Pope.

• Broforce Forever is now available as a big free upgrade for all owners, here’s a little look over what’s new for my favourite action-platformer.

• Inspired by Miiverse, MSN messenger, early internet forums and 00′s technology VIDEOVERSE this visual novel adventure lets you relive the past internet with the fictional Kinmoku Shark gaming system and its online social network.

• A fresh Proton Experimental release is now live from August 9th, there’s some nice looking fixes included so here’s what to expect from it for Linux desktop and Steam Deck.

• Linux gaming’s march toward being a real, actual thing has taken serious strides lately, due in large part to Valve’s Proton-powered Steam Play efforts. Being Linux, there are still some quirks to figure out. One of them involves games trying to make use of Intel’s upscaling tools.

• Intel’s ARC series GPUs are interesting, in many senses of the word. They offer the best implementation of Intel’s image reconstruction system, XeSS, similar to Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR. XeSS, like its counterparts, utilizes machine learning to fill in the pixel gaps on anti-aliased objects and scenes. The results are sometimes clear, sometimes a bit fuzzy if you pay close attention. In our review of Intel’s A770 and A750 GPUs in late 2022, we noted that cross-compatibility between all three systems could be in the works.

• That kind of easy-swap function is not the case when a game is running on a customized version of the WINE Windows-on-Linux, translating Direct3D graphics calls to Vulkan and prodding to see whether it, too, can make use of Intel’s graphics boost. As noted by Phoronix, Intel developers contributing to the open source Mesa graphics project added the ability to hide an Intel GPU from the Vulkan Linux driver.

• The “force_vk_vendor” system was needed to prevent games like Cyberpunk 2077 from detecting an Intel GPU and seeking to utilize its specific version of XeSS, which led to crashes. A commit earlier this week adds Hogwart’s Legacy to the list of games that need to act like they don’t know about an ARC GPU, joining Cyberpunk 2077 and Spider-Man Remastered.

• The Japanese gaming giant’s deal is reportedly worth 706 million euros.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• We’re pleased to announce we’ve added a new library, KDGpu, to the arsenal of tools we invent to make our lives easier – and then share with you on KDAB’s GitHub. Who is this for?

Distributions and Operating Systems

BSD

• As alluded to with the recent “Call for testing” message on the openssh-unix-dev mailing list, OpenSSH 9.4 has been released!

• OpenSSH is a free, open-source software suite of security-related network-level utilities based on the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, which provides encrypted terminal connections between networked computers.

• It is widely used for secure remote login, file transfers (using the SCP protocol), and creating secure tunnels for other network connections.

• The latest release of OpenSSH 9.4 fixes 15 bugs across all its tools, including SSH, SSHD, SCP, SFTP, SSH Agent, SSH Keygen, and SSH Keyscan. More importantly, however, in this release are the few new capabilities it adds to your arsenal.

• In both earlier attempts I compiled and configured everything by hand – at it was a very interactive time consuming process. This time – after having some poudriere(8) experience – Simple FreeBSD Poudriere Harvester Guide – as shared here – I will now automate customized FreeIPA/IDM packages creation in a FreeBSD Poudriere tool.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

• The Open Enterprise Linux Association has announced its existence. It is a collaboration between CIQ (Rocky Linux), Oracle, and SUSE to provide an RHEL-compatible distribution.

• Red Hat, which was bought by IBM in 2019, said in its June announcement that RHEL source code would be available only to paying customers.

• In a statement on Thursday, SUSE chief technology and product officer Dr Thomas Di Giacomo said his company had formed the Open Enterprise Linux Association along with Oracle and CIQ, the last-named being the company that is behind Rocky Linux, an RHEL clone.

• The statement said OpenELA would encourage development of distributions compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux by providing open and free Enterprise Linux source code.

• Tumbleweed snapshots didn’t lack excitement this week as multiple packages received updates and a couple major versions arrived for openSUSE rolling release users this week.

• The 20230809 snapshot provided an update of GNU Compiler Collection. GNU Compiler Collection. The new 13.2.1+git7683 version for developers that rely on the compiler includes the 13.2 release and various fixes. Notably, the update addresses a patch for a broken testcase in libbacktrace, which resolves build issues on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12. GNOME users received an update of gtk4 4.10.5. The release addresses various issues, including fixing ordering problems with filter model signals, avoiding lingering resize cursors, and resolving alignment issues on the Scalable Processor Architecture. The fuse3 3.16.1 package, which is an interface for userspace programs to export a filesystem to the Linux kernel, had some enhancements with an ability to enable readdir kernel cache from the high-level Application Programming Interface. Office suite libreoffice received a minor version update to 7.6.0.2 a day after updating from the 7.5.4.2 version. This release incorporates bug fixes and updates to bundled dependencies, which ensures a more stable and feature-rich office experience. A third update this week of libstorage-ng 4.5.136 had translation updates for Indonesian. The upower package for power management and device information updated to version 1.90.2. Notably, the release marks the end of lid handling in UPower since the functionality will now be provided by logind. A few other packages updated in the snapshot like python-importlib-resources, which updated to major version 6.0.1 and removed legacy functions deprecated in 5.3; it require Python 3.8 or later.

Fedora Family / IBM

• Apparently, Fedora has ran off so many community members and IBM Red Hat has fired so many developers that I doubt this problem will be solved soon.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• The first release of Rhino Linux brings the rolling release model of Arch Linux to an Ubuntu base, along with the do-it-yourself ethos.

• Rhino Linux 2023.1 is the first full release of a new distro we mentioned last October – as we did its progenitor, Rolling Rhino half a year before then. Rhino Linux is a rolling-release distro which draws on the basis of the current development branch of Ubuntu, combining some novel package-management tools inspired by Arch Linux, wrapped up with a custom Xfce-based desktop.

• The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support.

• As usual, this point release includes many updates and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-severity bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

• Kubuntu 22.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Budgie 22.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu MATE 22.04.3 LTS, Lubuntu 22.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Kylin 22.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu Studio 22.04.3 LTS, and Xubuntu 22.04.3 LTS are also now available. More details can be found in their individual release notes (see ‘Official flavours’)

• While the Home Assistant software doesn’t officially support Ubuntu, it is still possible to run the server since it is based on Debian. There may be a few things that don’t work exactly right but still should function. If you prefer to stick with a supported operating system, you should try moving to Debian 11.

• You can get Home Assistant on Ubuntu in a couple of ways. The first is to use a virtual image and run it within a virtual container. The other is to install and run the “Supervised” version of Home Assistant.

• For this guide, we will focus on installing the Supervised variant of the software directly to the Ubuntu operating system. We will have a separate guide that covers installing Home Assistant through a virtual machine.

Devices/Embedded

• Playing in casinos is attractive and seems innocent unless you think of possible consequences. Responsible gambling is what every player should focus on, since avoiding potential problems in online and offline casinos is a must. This rule concerns Linux gamers: around 3 million users worldwide prefer playing using this OS. Safe gambling is the key to success, so knowing all the tools and measures to be implemented is essential for everyone.

• Not all self-exclusion tools are available for Linux, but some options still remain. For instance, BetBlocker and GamStop are the apps players often choose. Both have multiple advantages for Linux players…

• The F2-212 NAS runs TOS 5.1 Linux operating system and ships with a power adapter and power cord, an Ethernet cable, a few screws, a Quick Installation Guide, and a limited warranty note. We previously wrote about RTD1619 media players, notably the Zidoo Z9X with a RealTek RTD1619DR quad-core Cortex-A55 processor, and it’s unclear how the RTD1619B processor differs, albeit we might assume it has no video output since the TerraMaster does not feature any. The NAS still offers some multimedia capabilities with support for 4K video hardware decoding, and compatibility with uPnP/DLNA, TerraMaster’s “Multimedia Server” app, as well as third-party multimedia servers such as Emby and Plex.

• The Radxa ROCK 5B was one of the first Rockchip RK3588 SBCs, and when we reviewed the developer edition of the board in July 2022 it came with an heatsink and 5V fan that was always on. That’s probably fine for testing, but many people will prefer a fanless solution. It turns out a metal case turning the ROCK 5B SBC into a fanless device has been available since the end of last year, but I’ve only come across it today. The black part is made of metal and the front and back plates are made of green plastic. As with all cases, there are always questions about .

• EDATEC ED-GWL2110 is an IP24-rated outdoor gateway based on Raspberry Pi CM4 and supporting Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE cellular, LoRaWAN, and GPS connectivity, as well as Power over Ethernet (PoE).

• Solder Party’s “Raspberry Pi Pico to Uno FlexyPin Adapter” transforms the Raspberry Pi Pico into an Arduino UNO without soldering the board directly or using headers, but instead relying on FlexyPins flexible pins to attach the Pico board to the adapter using its castellated holes. The end result is basically the same as for the WisdPi ArduPico board, except the Raspberry Pi Pico is soldered to the main PCB on the latter, but it can be easily removed from the Solder Party’s Uno adapter board to be replaced with another compatible model, e.g. Raspberry Pi Pico vs Pico W. The FlexyPins can be used with any board or module with castellated holes, but it’s obviously especially useful for castellated modules without through holes, for example, to easily program a bunch of ESP32 modules.

Open Hardware/Modding

• The duo started by disassembling the interior and repainting the structural components, outside walls, and several other movable objects such as the door and various props. Once this had been completed, the next step involved finding LED filament, many small, discrete LEDs, and a miniature fog machine for creating an additional spookiness factor. The individual LEDs were placed into SLA printed skull lighting fixtures, custom-made clay candles, and inside of the previously pink chandelier where they could then be controlled by an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi.

• My first day at SparkFun was joining our Customer Service team eleven years ago, who also happened to share space in our old building with our Tech Support team. I was so nervous to be moving from my prior jobs in property management to stepping into a world of electronics I knew next to nothing about. I was lucky enough to have a few very good friends that already worked with the team though! The immediate acceptance and inclusion into an incredibly tight knit team was absolutely incredible. From day one I always felt like I belonged and had an important role with the team and the company.

• In part 4, I had the motherboard for the Amiga 4000 #2 mostly working. But it required a new buffer chip for the Fast RAM. That chip arrived, so let’s continue…

• When Pine64 launched its RISC-V tablet earlier this year they were clear from the start: software support, particularly usable desktop Linux distros, would be lacking at first.

• But not for long, it seems.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• HP EliteBook 2170p support was added to coreboot, in the coreboot 4.20.1 release and Libreboot recently updated to a revision past that release.

• It’s been four years since honk 0.1. Before that, the preview, and shortly after the followup. But finally, after a long journey, we’ve reached honk 1.0. (Narrator: honk is a microblog server that federates with other servers via ActivityPub.)

• Once I needed to release 0.9.91 to fix a bug I realized we were getting very low on reserve version space. There’s no particular milestone that makes 1.0 a real release, although it does include some good stuff. But some stuff is still kinda in its 0.7 state. So this post is not really an analysis of the recent changelog entries.

• Instead it’s about the many ways honk has won, and the many ways others have lost. It may also help to explain why some fediverse things work or don’t work the way they do. Totally unbiased, as you should expect from an objective critic.

Web Browsers/Web Servers

• I loved hosting a small site on my Nokia N95 back in the day, and I’d be overjoyed if modern phones allowed this. But there are a few pitfalls.

• I believe today’s phone can definitely handle a small personal website that has similar functionality like that of original Nokia web server. The reason I think this is needed is because a large percent of Internet users cannot afford hosting personal websites. The privilege of self hosting that early Internet users enjoyed was never given to the new Internet users. They joined Internet when their devices were already behind CG-NAT. The next billion websites can come from average phone users if only corporations and government agencies came together. All we need is IPv6 connectivity everywhere and phone operating systems optimized to run web servers.

Mozilla

• In the coming months Mozilla will launch support for an open ecosystem of extensions on Firefox for Android on addons.mozilla.org (AMO). We’ll announce a definite launch date in early September, but it’s safe to expect a roll-out before the year’s end. Here’s everything developers need to know to get their Firefox desktop extensions ready for Android usage and discoverability on AMO…

SaaS/Back End/Databases

• The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released an update to all supported versions of PostgreSQL, including 15.4, 14.9, 13.12, 12.16, and 11.21, as well as the third beta release of PostgreSQL 16. This release fixes two security vulnerabilities and over 40 bugs reported over the last several months.

Programming/Development

• As data-driven decision-making becomes more critical in various fields, the ability to extract valuable insights from datasets has never been more important. One common task is to calculate counts by group, which can shed light on trends and patterns within your data. In this guide, we’ll explore three different approaches to achieve this using the powerful R programming language. So, let’s dive into the world of grouped counting with the help of the classic mtcars dataset!

• If you take a square and rotate it 90 degrees, you get back an identical square. We say the square is rotationally symmetric. Similarly, if you reflect it across an axis, you also get the same square. Since “reflectionally” isn’t a word, we can more generally say it’s “symmetric under reflection”.

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