● 09.08.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 08/09/2023: CircuitPython 8.2.5 and PowerDNS Authoritative Server 4.8.2

Posted in News Roundup at 11:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Applications

• Unlike web forums, Usenet does not have a central server or a dedicated administrator. Instead, Usenet is distributed among a conglomeration of servers that store and pass messages to each other. There are several different types of newsreaders. Some newsreaders are intended primarily for discussions, others are better suited for downloading files. Newsreaders that help users to adhere to the netiquette are evaluated by the Good Netkeeping Seal of Approval (GNKSA). There are also tools which are dedicated for downloading files only.

• The ratings chart below summarizes our verdict. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

Instructionals/Technical

idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install OpenCV on Debian 12. For those of you who didn’t know, In the world of digital content and SEO optimization, the role of image processing cannot be underestimated.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Webmin on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Webmin is a powerful web-based system administration tool that provides a user-friendly interface for managing Linux servers.

howtoforge

• This tutorial will take you through updating a server managed by ISPConfig from Debian 11 (bullseye) to Debian 12 (bookworm). This guide works for both single- and multiserver setups.

• Rspamd is a modern high-performance spam scan software for Linux servers which delivers very accurate filter results. This tutorial describes the steps to replace amavis (amavisd-new) spam scanning software with Rspamd on an ISPConfig 3.1 server.

• This article will show you how to upgrade from Debian 11 (Bullseye) to Debian 12 (Bookworm) in a few easy steps.

• Google Chrome is a popular web browser that is available for many different devices, including Ubuntu 22.04. In this tutorial, we will cover three methods for installing Google Chrome on Ubuntu 22.04: using a Debian package, using Gui and using the Google repository.

• I was using Debian 12 today, and I had the terminal window open installing some stuff on my machine. Once I closed the terminal,

• Elgg is a free and open-source social networking engine that is easy to install and set up…

• This simple tutorial shows how to replace ‘Recent Used‘ with current working directory as default in GTK file chooser in Ubuntu.

• Data visualization is a powerful tool for gaining insights from your data. In R, you have a plethora of libraries and functions at your disposal to create stunning and informative plots. One common task is to plot a subset of your data, which allows you to focus on specific aspects or trends within your dataset. In this blog post, we’ll explore various techniques to plot subsets of data in R, and I’ll explain each step in simple terms. Don’t worry if you’re new to R – by the end of this post, you’ll be equipped to create customized plots with ease!

• Before we start, make sure you have R and RStudio installed on your computer. If not, you can download them from R’s official website and RStudio’s website.

• If and when you set out to traverse through a Unix directory hierarchy, whether to inventory it or to find something, you have a decision to make. I can put this decision in technical terms, about whether you use stat() or lstat() when identifying subdirectories in your current directory, or put it non-technically, about whether or not you follow symbolic links that happen to point to directories. As you might guess, there are two possible answers here and neither is unambiguously wrong (or right). Which answer programs choose depends on their objectives and their assumptions about their environment.

• The Linux Foundation launched the LFCS (Linux Foundation Certified Sysadmin) certification, a shiny chance for system administrators everywhere to demonstrate, through a performance-based exam, that they are capable of performing overall operational support on Linux systems: system support, first-level diagnosing and monitoring, plus issue escalation, when required, to other support teams.

• The series will be titled Preparation for the LFCS (Linux Foundation Certified Sysadmin) Parts 1 through 33 and cover the following topics:

• This guide provides an overview of different SSH authentication methods, with a particular focus on SSH key-based authentication. Additionally, this guide will walk you through the steps on how to configure SSH key-based authentication in Linux and Unix-like operating systems.

• Have you ever used any good old IBM keyboards? Especially, the IBM Model-M space saver bucklespring keyboards are heavy and loud. If you are a fan of bucklespring keyboards, then Bucklespring utility is a great way to enjoy the sound of these keyboards even if you don’t own one. In this brief tutorial, we will see how to enable Bucklespring keyboard sound in Linux.

• Are you get frustrated when horizontal lines are inserted and you face trouble removing them in LibreOffice Writer? These lines can disrupt the flow and appearance of your document. But don’t worry, there are ways to remove them and improve your experience with LibreOffice. This article will guide you through the steps to remove these lines and give you back control over your document’s formatting.

Games

• Want to mod your Steam Deck to make it a little bit more fancy? Deck Buttons from Colored Controllers look awesome but they’re selling out fast.

• Insomniac Games and Nixxes Software showing how good PC support is done with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, with another free upgrade out now. It’s good news for Steam Deck and desktop Linux players too.

• Available really cheap until September 18th, Titanfall 2 has one of the best FPS campaigns around and some great multiplayer with the Northstar mod too.

• Paradox Interactive along with Nimble Giant Entertainment have announced that Star Trek: Infinite will be releasing on October 12th. Unlike titles from their in-house first-party development teams, this one will not have Native Linux support. It’s built on the foundation of Stellaris, and pretty much looks like Star Trek Stellaris.

• KallaX sounds like it could be quite hilarious. With co-op play of between 2-6 players, you will need to build some furniture but the problem is, only one of you has been given the instructions.

• Spirited Thief looks pretty sweet. A tactical turn-based stealth game with a twist, where you take your time to scout ahead and plan your heist as your ghostly friend, then use your knowledge to break in and break out with pricey loot.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• I like to say Wayland is “Negative work.” not only because it just replaces X11 with inferior beta software-quality interfaces, sometimes missing entirely, where everyone has to rewrite the same function from scratch, but because it requires work that doesn’t involve actually improving the desktop and window management for the users.

• A lot of work has been poured into get KDE to do things it already did on X11, and with code that is new and unstable, and incomplete.

• “Negative work” was also a direct quote from IBM.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• The KDE Plasma desktop environment has long been a favorite among countless Linux enthusiasts and open-source advocates, known for its stunning visuals, customizability, and user-friendly design.

• The current stable release, KDE Plasma 5.27 LTS, is the last in the 5.x series and will receive bugfixes only, but no new features.

• In this light, in recent months, all developer efforts have been focused on the upcoming Plasma 6 release, which is expected to be a turning point in the evolution of this beloved desktop environment.

• Development on KDE Plasma 6 kicked off (heh) earlier this year. The desktop side is now built using Qt 6 technologies. This unlock support for new features, capabilities (including enhancements to ‘convergence’ implementations), and further future-proofing.

• Earlier this KDE developers met up in Berlin, Germany to work on the next-generation of the KDE Plasma desktop. A number of interesting details came out of that sprint, including a decision to adopt a slower release cadence.

• Sadly a release date wasn’t part of that info dump, so it’s great to finally have one. Something to jot down in our calendars to look forward to.

Distributions and Operating Systems

• A rant about the complexity of modern Linux distributions, which places them on par with the opaqueness of Windows and OSX.

BSD

• The Foundation has continued our successful partnership with the University of Waterloo Co-Op Program. Since 2017 we’ve had 15 interns, some having returned for more than one internship. We’ve also had two interns become full-fledged committers, and many continue to contribute. We sat down with this year’s Summer Co-Op Student to learn more about them and why they chose to work with FreeBSD.

Debian Family

• It is safe to say that there would be no Ubuntu without Debian. Canonical is a long time supporter of Debian, and a Gold sponsor of DebConf this year. On top of the sponsorship, many Ubuntu developers and Canonical engineers are going to speak at DebConf.

• Till Kamppeter will show us The New Architecture for Printing and Scanning on Debian in a dedicated talk. He is also going to share his experience of running events and inspiring more contributors with his session Opportunity Open Source conference in the IIT Mandi, India: Motivating people to be a part of us!

• The latest release of Armbian helps with the non-trivial problem of installing and running an arbitrary Linux distro on Arm computers.

• The Lenovo Thinkpad X13S Generation 1 which we reviewed back in March is the first mainstream Arm-powered laptop that the Reg FOSS Desk has got to evaluate. There are other Arm-based laptops out there, such as Pine64′s Pinebook Pro and various Arm-powered ChromeBooks, but the X13S is closer to an ordinary X86-based laptop: it has a decent spec, with 16GB of RAM, a 256GB NVMe SSD – plus PC-industry-standard UEFI firmware, which is still relatively unusual on consumer Arm computers. Better still, you can disable Secure Boot, which many Arm-powered devices don’t allow. A decade ago, this was a critical problem with the original Microsoft Surface RT: Windows RT was a flop, and the firmware wouldn’t let you run anything else.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• Ubuntu 23.10 daily builds keep getting exciting new additions!

• Earlier we had covered the major PPA changes, and the new Flutter-based store (which also landed with the latest daily builds).

• Now, we have yet another major change that is set to enhance the security of Ubuntu systems; by changing how users handle the encrypting of their disks (if enabled).

• The initial support for the feature is set to arrive with Ubuntu 23.10 and will be improved in future Ubuntu releases.

• You or your organisation are tasked with hardening your workstations and servers, where do you begin? Installing Ubuntu and applying all the security patches is a good place to start, but what else is needed? The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a cybersecurity agency established in 1988, has published a series of security requirements for cryptographic modules since 1993. Instead of approaching hardening from a blank slate, anyone can benefit from NIST’s ongoing work in under 5 minutes, and have the strongest cryptography and hardening posture, when using Ubuntu.

• Presented by Canonical’s VP of Public Sector, Chris Huffman, and Product Managers Rajan Patel, Ijlal Loutfi, and Henry Coggill. The webinar covers baselines, standards, and guidelines as they pertain to implementing FIPS with maximum security.

Devices/Embedded

• Firmware downloads are available from the downloads page on circuitpython.org. The site makes it easy to select the correct file and language for your board.

Open Hardware/Modding

• There are some improvements that I might implement to a revision of this board. The USB cables connecting the external SSD-s seem to be just small enough to be routable behind the pegboard. Other cables that are visible can probably be hidden on the other side as well, giving the setup a much cleaner look.

• This is the newest iteration of a project that Cogley first started a few years ago. It is robotic hand meant to mimic a human hand as much as possible. Human fingers do not contain muscles. Instead, muscles in the forearms and palms pull on tendons to move the fingers. Cogley’s bionic hand works in a similar manner by using servo motors in the forearm to pull on cables that actuate the fingers. An Arduino UNO Rev3 moves the servos according to commands from a PC, but Cogley needed a way to streamline those commands.

• With the Librem 5 just hitting shipping parity and Purism holding stock for new purchases, it was time for an updated review of the tremendous progress our team has made with PureOS for the Librem 5 and Liberty Phone with Made in USA Electronics.  Here we will talk about the good, bad, and lasting effects of PureOS on the Liberty Phone and Librem 5.

• Both the Librem 5 and Liberty Phone were a giant gamble that paid off in a big way. Prior to the Librem 5, nearly every new phone produced used the software stack from Android or iOS, both of which are fundamentally flawed around data protection and proper transparent fully released source code. Instead of using this problematic base and adopting apps that monetize your data, or where the source code is not released, or worse… both of those. We chose the much harder but proper path and built an Operating System, PureOS, using only free software thereby avoiding data collection entirely, advancing fully free software, and bonus we invented true convergence within PureOS which is a non-Android Linux OS. With PureOS, you get a full Linux Desktop on everything from servers to phones. We don’t collect user data nor provide avenues to easily incorporate ads into our ecosystem. Resulting in a pure experience free of nagging apps and unalterable defaults. The Librem 5 and Liberty Phone running PureOS do not spy on you, giving you peace of mind that you are fully protected from the hardware all the way to the apps.

• On the Liberty phone and Librem 5 the Linux kernel is kept up to date by Purism and its many investments in upstream, it needs a shrinking number of alterations from the main branch because of these advancements. This keeps kernel features up to date and makes it easy to port alternative OSs to the Librem 5 or Liberty Phone. Congratulations are in order for our Linux kernel team.

• At its core, the ESP32 chip is not much more than an integrated circuit, a huge mass of transistors sealed inside an epoxy resin package with some leads. Of course, most of us won’t buy discrete ESP32 chips with no support circuitry since it’s typically easier and often not that much more expensive to get them paired with development boards of some type for easy access to things like USB and GPIO. But these tiny chips need little in the way of support to get up and running as [Paul] demonstrates with this tiny ESP32 board.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• In Authoritative Server 4.8, the LMDB backend gains a new Lightning Stream-compatible schema, which requires a data migration (this is automatic, and there is no migration back to the old schema). LMDB backend users should pay extra attention to the Upgrade Notes.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

• Microsoft 365 is banned for use in classrooms in at least one German state, which has deemed it too insecure to even use at all.

• Also, this is the stuff that survived Microsoft’s PR firm “pruning” things from Wikipedia.

• None of this things can happen to you if you use LibreOffice, and store your documents on your own computer.

• Also, LibreOffice never goes into “read-only” mode if you stop paying a monthly fee. There is no fee.

Education

• Last weekend, I went to Freedom Not Fear 2023 in Brussels. Fnf is an unconference for and by European digital activists. It covers various topics, from the latest terrible European law (Chat Control) to discussing how to get more involved in our democracies.

• I usually attend more technical conferences, and it was refreshing to participate in a conference where ethical and political discussions around digital rights were a central topic. It was an occasion to meet people from different backgrounds, from a Dutch politician (and self-proclaimed student for life), to a member of various organizations (e.g. Edri, NlNet, epicenter.works, Chatons, …) and journalists from Netzpolitik.

• To serve the positive connotation, hacker culture needs to be fairly broadly defined. It usually encompasses various in-group markers and qualities that the bad hackers lack – most often a set of morally pure values with a countercultural, often progressive twist. Early real world political markers of hacker culture were distrust of the (deep) state, safeguarding personal privacy, free speech advocacy and an opposition to predatory capitalism – a heritage from the counterculture prevalent at the time and place of its birth, the US in the late 1960:s. This has since been echoed in many a hacker tract, factual as well as fictional. WarGames (1983) pits a mischievous boy next door against the hubris and excess of the military-industrial complex. Sneakers (1992) features a group of aging hippies doing battle with foreign as well as domestic political actors, and The Lone Gunmen (2001, originally from The X-Files) are at constant odds with both megacorps and US intelligence agencies.

• Through the increased ubiquity of networked computers and the gradual reframing of hackers from criminals to freedom fighters, the connotation of the word hacker itself has gone from largely negative to largely positive. In the word hack’s capacity of describing a clever solution to a problem, it’s even trickled outside the realm of technology and blessed us with life hacks in general and specific ones like kitchen hacks in particular. Hence, new words must be constructed: bad hackers are now instead cyber terrorists or cyber criminals.

Licensing / Legal

• As of September 16, 2023, the drone remote ID rules start applying to drone pilots, too. The final rule for remote ID is a requirement from the Federal Aviation Administration mandating that drones must provide identification and location information, which can then be read by other parties. Consider a sort of electronic licensing plate system for drones, with a built-in layer of location information.

• The FAA’s drone remote ID rules technically went into effect in September 2022, but the FAA actually gave a year for drone pilots to make sure their aircraft actually is equipped with Remote ID. That point comes on September 16, 2023 at exactly 12:01 a.m. — which isn’t far away.

• At that point, all drone pilots required to register their UAS (which is most drone operators flying outdoors with drones that weigh 250 grams or more) must operate their aircraft in accordance with the final rule on remote ID.

• Governments are weird. Maybe “weird” isn’t the right word. The more accurate word may be “opportunistic.” When it comes to speech they don’t like, they move into this mode. If they think they can silence it, they will try to. And they’ll do this while still pretending the speech they’re trying to control is nothing more than their own.

Programming/Development

• I have been off from the blog lately due to a big load of personal projects. Just lately I got a few days off and found time to work on my personal website, to be ready soon. That made me get more into Nginx configuration, where I consider myself a total rookie. However, I was mainly adding a few domains that are intended for different purposes. That is incredibly easy to do using Nginx even with minimal knowledge, and that’s what I want to show here.

• Basically I want to have my shiny apps under one domain, and some other sites under different domains, but using only one server. I also decided to add my own customized 404 error page. There are different ways to accomplish that, here are just a couple of them. I hope they can be of use.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

----------

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.