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● 07.11.17

● Links 11/7/2017: Wayland Protocols 1.9 and Fedora 26 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 10:52 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Shows Which Bits Are Boss

• If you’ve ever been curious enough to look through your system’s root directory (“/”), you may have found yourself a little overwhelmed. Most of the three-letter directory names don’t tell you much about what they do, and if you ever needed to make important modifications, it would be tough to know where to look.

• I’d like to take those of you who haven’t ventured much into your root directory on a brief tour.

=> ↺ Streamline Linux system management with these five tips

• In the data center, Linux can be a double-edged sword: It offers flexibility but also runs the risk of being complex. Fortunately, an arsenal of tools at your disposal can make Linux system management a lot easier.

• Recently, new tools have emerged to assist admins with each aspect of Linux server management. Updates to Red Hat Linux Enterprise (RHEL) 7, for example, give admins more control over policies and security, as well as new tools to manage the Linux boot procedure.

• Familiarize yourself with these tools and more for streamlined management processes.

=> ↺ 5 Misconceptions About Being A Linux User

• ​Ever wondered what Linux is and how it really works? Many of us have asked this question, especially when you are densely populated around with Redmond fans and none of your pals have tried Linux ever! Some people in areas surrounded by FOSS, go ahead with full potential without any issues and for those trying out or curious about GNU Linux then here are the 5 main misconceptions about it.

Server

=> ↺ Oracle Releases Open Source Container Utilities, Including A New Container Runtime Written in Rust

• Oracle has released three open source container utilities including Smith, an Open Container Initiative (OCI) image-compliant container builder that creates “microcontainers” with a single executable and its dependencies; Crashcart, a microcontainer debugging tool that allows operators to sideload an image with Linux binaries into an existing container; and Railcar, a Rust-based alternative container runtime that implements the OCI-runtime specification.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ RISC-V Linux Port Updated, But Doesn’t Look Like It Will Make 4.13

• Last week we reported that RISC-V developers hoped their kernel port would land in Linux 4.13 but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen.

• We’re now one week into the two-week merge window for Linux 4.13 and coming out yesterday was the fifth version of the RISC-V patch-set porting the kernel to this royalty-free CPU instruction set.

=> ↺ F2FS Adds Statx Support & More With Linux 4.13

• The F2FS file-system changes for Linux 4.13 are fairly exciting.

• The Flash-Friendly File-System in Linux 4.13 is seeing initial statx support to match the other file-systems in being able to provide enhanced file information like initial file creation time and more. The statx system call was originally added with Linux 4.11 along with EXT4 support while for Linux 4.13 is the Btrfs support as well as now having F2FS support.

=> ↺ XFS Updates Queued For Linux 4.13

• Darrick Wong has sent in the XFS file-system updates slated for the Linux 4.13 kernel.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Wayland Protocols v1.9 Released

• Jonas Ådahl has announced the release of Wayland-Protocols 1.9 as the newest version of the protocol definitions for Wayland.

=> ↺ Mir 0.27 Released With Drag-And-Drop Support

• Ubuntu’s Mir display server is out today with version 0.27 that is an interim step before Mir 1.0 with Wayland client support. Mir 0.27 contains functionality that was a work-in-progress during Canonical’s recent restructuring and shift in focus.

• Mir 1.0′s goal is now to support Wayland clients directly and that is expected by October with Ubuntu 17.10. However, Alan Griffiths has today announced Mir 0.27 as a stepping stone with new features and their first official release since Canonical decided they would abandon their Unity 8 / Mir desktop dream.

=> ↺ Mir release 0.27/MirAL release 1.4

• This is an interim development release of Mir and MirAL to Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful) that delivers many of the features that were work-in-progress when we needed to restructure the project. The Mir release notes are here: https://launchpad.net/mir/0.27/0.27.0.

=> ↺ Raspbian Still Being Tuned For Greater VC4 Performance

• Eric Anholt has written his usual weekly update concerning his happenings on the open-source graphics driver stack for the Raspberry Pi devices and other Broadcom-powered hardware.

• Over the past week, his biggest milestone was going public with the new VC5 driver stack for future Broadcom graphics IP. And now, of course, wild speculation of a future Raspberry Pi potentially getting this much more powerful successor to VC4.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ Summer 2017 Linux Hardware Statistics From OpenBenchmarking.org

• Complementing last week’s 2017 Linux Laptop Survey results, here are some complementary numbers you may be interested in that are collected by OpenBenchmarking.org based on Phoronix Test Suite activity.

Applications

=> ↺ 4 lightweight image viewers for the Linux desktop

• Like most people, you probably have more than a few photos and other images on your computer. And, like most people, you probably like to take a peek at those images and photos every so often.

• Firing up an editor like GIMP or Pinta is overkill for simply viewing images.

=> ↺ 3 MPD clients for an Armbian music server

• You can see the CuBox music server in this photo—it’s the small square box to the lower right in the foreground. You can also see the digital-to-analog converter (or DAC, the silver dongle to its left), its hard drive (underneath it), and the vintage late-’70s power amp (the box whose cooling fins are visible in the upper left) that connects it to my kitchen speakers.

• Since I installed the server software, a new kernel has been released for the Armbian distribution. Upgrading to this kernel immediately fouled up MPD’s ability to play music—oh no! But some detective work uncovered the reason why… It turns out that the new kernel supports the HDMI interface under Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA), so my device numbering in the MPD configuration file no longer referenced my DAC!

=> ↺ Kolab Now: Another Round of Updates

• I don’t expect everyone to know and understand what these pieces mean, so I’ll divide this blog post in to two parts — one for users of Kolab in general, and one for my fellow sysadmins.

• A heads-up for Kolab users though — I’m much more verbose in the sysadmin parts of my messaging, and so you just might want to read through even though things go way over your head and land nowhere meaningful.

=> ↺ Nageru 1.6.1 released

• Now that Solskogen is coming up, there’s been a lot of activity on the Nageru front, but hopefully everything is actually coming together now. Testing has been good, but we’ll see whether it stands up to the battle-hardening of the real world or not. Hopefully I won’t be needing any last-minute patches.

=> ↺ ODrive – Google Drive GUI Client for Linux Desktop

• ODrive (Open Source Drive) is a GUI desktop client for virtually any cloud service you can mention; including Google Drive. It is developed using the famous Electron platform to be cross-platform and swift in its operations.

• ODrive’s pitch is that it combines all your cloud storage services into one unified, synchronized, shareable, and encrypted account via which you can access all the rest with a single password. It syncs changes to files and directories as soon as you make them and allows you to securely share them with whomever via web-links.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install ReportServer on CentOS 7

=> ↺ How to Install Different PHP (5.6, 7.0 and 7.1) Versions in Ubuntu

=> ↺ How to Transfer ROMs to RetroPie Via USB

=> ↺ 3 Ways to Find Out Which Process Listening on a Particular Port

=> ↺ Steps To Create A Developer Environment In Linux

=> ↺ Sysadmin 101: Alerting

=> ↺ GWT: Changing from GWT-RPC to JSON with RestyGWT

=> ↺ How to Switch Between Chrome OS Stable, Beta, and Dev Channels on a Chromebook

• Google, like many other software developers, offers multiple development channels for their Chrome and Chrome OS products, and we’d like to show you today how easy is to switch between the Stable, Beta, and Dev channels.

=> ↺ What is a linux swap partition, and what does it do?

• Most Linux installations recommend that you include an exchange partition. This may seem strange to Windows users, who are accustomed to having their entire operating system on a single partition.

• What does an exchange, you may even need one, and how big should it be? All of these are important questions that, with the right answers, can greatly improve the performance of your system.

=> ↺ Grasp LaTeX Programming with Free Books

=> ↺ 6 Methods To Check The Running Linux Kernel Version On System

=> ↺ How to : Virtual Private Cloud in AWS

=> ↺ New Kubernetes Online Course Now Open: Sign Up for Free

=> ↺ Taking smart backups with Duplicity

=> ↺ Linux tracing systems & how they fit together

=> ↺ Enable VNC server on RHEL 7 or OEL 7

=> ↺ How To Install Debian 9 “Stretch” DVD1 with GNOME Desktop

Games

=> ↺ Looks like the DOSBox wrapped Linux version of STAR WARS: Dark Forces might make it to Steam

• For the Star Wars fans who don’t already have STAR WARS: Dark Forces on GOG, you might be pleased to know that it looks like the DOSBox version for Linux will also make its way onto Steam.

=> ↺ Dungeon Kingdom: Sign of the Moon, a real-time dungeon crawling RPG has a Linux version

• The problem: If a game releases for Windows, then adds a Linux version later at any point, it doesn’t show up in the newly released section for Linux games. Valve used to manually adjust that list, but they didn’t for long. It’s still an issue today for any developer who adds a Linux version later – they just don’t get listed.

• I’ve seen a few comments asking about more of these games, so I went looking and found it. The game is currently in Early Access, but it is in active development with a fresh release just last month.

=> ↺ Geocore, another six degrees of freedom shooter has Linux & Vulkan support

• Geocore [Steam], an Early Access six degrees of freedom shooter has Linux support and it was recently updated to include Vulkan too. Before getting excited, keep in mind this it’s £1.99, so don’t expect much from it.

=> ↺ Terroir, a 3D tile-based vineyard tycoon game adds Linux support

• Terroir [Steam, Official Site] is an Early Access 3D tile-based tycoon game and it recently added Linux support. In Terroir you are managing your own vineyard and it looks reasonably good.

=> ↺ Check out the Valve presentation from Unite Europe, major Steam Client redesign to come

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ GSoC- Phase 2 Week 1 highlights

• Everything was well planned for a great start for the second phase of GSoC and I anticipated everything to go smoothly since I wouldn’t have any college exams to worry about.

=> ↺ Rand … ahhh

• From that perspective, there are two kinds of accessibility I’m interested in: making KDE available on FreeBSD (which includes hammering PIM into shape) is one. That’s a bit of a cop-out, really. I mean, I could bring my BeagleBone (probably will, too) and claim I was making KDE accessible to armv6. So portability and platform accessibility is a small thing.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ “Xane” Another Cool Icon Set For Your Linux Desktop

• There are plenty of icon sets available for Linux desktops and it feels great to see new addition to it, well Xane icons are not new but released almost one year ago under license GNU Lesser General Public V3. Mainly these icons are designed for KDE plasma desktop but also support other desktops such as Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce, Unity (lack panel icons), and so on. There are four different variants dark-blue, dark-brown, dark-green, dark-yellow and all of them available in dark and light versions, you can choose which fits your theme. You can report bugs or suggest new icons to include in this icon set via this link. You can use Unity Tweak Tool, Gnome-tweak-tool to change icons.

=> ↺ Progress Report June 26th – July 9th

• Another two weeks have passed, and here I am again, reporting on what I’ve done. Contrary what the title says, the work period was (once again, sadly) shorter than that. First week, as it might’ve been known, was the first evaluation week, which I passed (which makes sense, since I’m writing here again, no?)! I want to use this opportunity to thank my mentors for nice feedback they’ve given me on both the evaluation form and on my previous coding experience.

=> ↺ The UI elements to the TODOist Integration with Recipes

• Before starting the project, there was a question as how to deal with TODOist account showing up in control center and serving no purpose when Recipes and gnome-TODO aren’t installed, both of them being non-core apps.

• So, what we did is hide Provider i.e. TODOist from the control center from the providers list and only show it if account is already configured. This hiding is done using a property in gnome-online-accounts that control center respects so as to display todoist or not. But how would that account get added if the provider isn’t visible in the control-center. Solution for this is letting the app itself, be it Recipes or gnome-todo add an account for TODOist. We use an AddAccount method written by Rohit Kaushik (GSoCer with gnome-todo).

=> ↺ Functional testing Gtk+ applications in C

• Automated tests are required to ensure your program’s quality and that it works as expected. Unit tests examine only certain parts of your algorithm, but don’t look at how each component fits together. That’s where functional testing, sometimes referred as integration testing, comes in.

• A functional test basically interacts with your user interface, whether through a website or a desktop application. To show you how that works, let’s look at how to test a Gtk+ application. For simplicity, in this tutorial let’s use the Tictactoe example from the Gtk+ 2.0 tutorial.

=> ↺ GNOME Pie 0.7.1 Released with Initial Wayland Support and a Plate Load of Fixes

• A fresh slice of GNOME Pie, a slick animated application launcher for Linux, is now available. GNOME Pie 0.7.1 arrives out of the oven with basic Wayland support, some minor usability and interaction improvements, plus a layer of pastry flavored patches for previously pernickety problems.

Distributions

OpenSUSE/SUSE

=> ↺ SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications Available on Google Cloud Platform to Help Enterprises be More Agile and Efficient

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications is now available as the operating system for SAP solutions on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Customers can now leverage high performance virtual machines with proven price/performance advantages for SAP HANA workloads on GCP powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications. It is the first supported Linux for SAP HANA on Google Cloud. SAP solutions running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications via GCP help enterprise customers be more agile and reduce operating costs as they only pay for what they use, deploying business-critical applications more quickly and efficiently.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat Introduces Next Generation of OpenShift Online Public Cloud Offering

=> ↺ What does it mean to have an open mindset?

• Successful companies are those that grow and expand. But bigger companies often need more managers. Excessive layers of management can instill cumbersome bureaucracy in a company, and bureaucracy can become a significant problem for companies when it can causes wasteful resource allocation, decreases productivity, and decelerates innovation.

• We can observe that open thinking can challenge or overcome potential problems of bureaucracy. Even if your company isn’t a software company, it’s still possible to adopt the mindset prevalent in free and open source software communities and instill openness within your company’s culture.

Finance

=> ↺ Technical Reports on Application Software Equities — Oracle, Red Hat, Twilio, and Zendesk

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora 26 Brings New Boltron Modularity Technology to Linux Servers

• The Fedora Linux community is set to release its second major milestone release of 2017 on July 11, with the debut of Fedora 26.

=> ↺ Fedora 26 Linux Operating System Is Now Available for Download

• Now that it’s been approved for landing on July 11, 2017, the long-anticipated Fedora 26 Linux operating system was already made available for download ahead of the official announcement later tonight.

=> ↺ Fedora 26 is here!

=> ↺ Fedora 26 Release is here

=> ↺ Upgrading Fedora 25 to Fedora 26

=> ↺ Fedora 26 Linux Officially Released, Ships with GNOME 3.24 and Linux Kernel 4.11

=> ↺ Fedora 26 Is Ready To Roll & It’s Looking Fantastic

=> ↺ Fedora 26 Linux distro available for download

Debian Family

=> ↺ Review: Debian 9 “Stretch” MATE

• It has been about 2 months since the support cycle for Linux Mint 13 LTS “Maya” ended. Since then, I haven’t been able to update Mozilla Firefox or Adobe Flash, and concurrently, I haven’t been able to use the latest versions of Google Hangouts or Skype, the former of which I already cannot use to the fullest extent, and the latter of which I am still somehow able to use but am counting the days when that will end too. Given that, it is urgent that I upgrade the Linux distribution that I use soon, so today, I am trying Debian.

=> ↺ Approaching the exclusive “sub-minute” build time club

• For the first time in at least two years (and probably even longer), debhelper with the 10.6.2 upload broke the 1 minute milestone for build time (by mere 2 seconds – look for “Build needed 00:00:58, […]”). Sadly, the result it is not deterministic and the 10.6.3 upload needed 1m + 5s to complete on the buildds.

• This is not the result of any optimizations I have done in debhelper itself. Instead, it is the result of “questionable use of developer time” for the sake of meeting an arbitrary milestone. Basically, I made it possible to parallelize more of the debhelper build (10.6.1) and finally made it possible to run the tests in parallel (10.6.2).

Derivatives

=> ↺ Parrot Security OS Ethical Hacking Linux Distro Now Based on Debian 10 “Buster

• The developers of the Parrot Security OS ethical hacking and penetration testing distro announced today the release and immediate availability for download of Parrot Security OS 3.7.

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Canonical Announces Its Distribution of Kubernetes 1.7 for Ubuntu Linux Users

• Canonical, through Marco Ceppi, today announced the general availability of its distribution of pure-upstream Kubernetes 1.7 for users of the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

• Canonical’s Distribution of Kubernetes, or CDK for short, is an initiative that provides Ubuntu users with a production-grade method for installing, configuring, and managing Kubernetes lifecycle operations. Today, Canonical upgraded its distribution of Kubernetes to support the latest and most advanced Kubernetes 1.7 upstream release of the production-grade container orchestration tool.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Linux Is Now Available for Download from the Microsoft Windows 10 Store

=> ↺ Now Ubuntu is Available on the Windows 10 Insider Preview

=> ↺ Ubuntu comes to the Windows Store

=> ↺ Ubuntu is now available on the Windows Store

=> ↺ Getting Ubuntu on Windows 10 is now (almost) as easy as downloading an app

=> ↺ Ubuntu is now available for download on the Windows Store

=> ↺ Ubuntu is now available for Windows 10 on the Windows Store

=> ↺ Ubuntu is available in Windows Store now

=> ↺ Ubuntu is now available on the Windows Store

=> ↺ Windows 10 loves Ubuntu

• The installation experience has been greatly improved and using Ubuntu on Windows should be now easier than before.

=> ↺ Canonical: Windows 10 Loves Ubuntu

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Kubuntu Zesty is shaping up to be a perfect distro

• It’s simple. The next serious system I’m going to build or buy will be running Kubuntu as its main asset. There might be other operating systems, but it will be powered by a Plasma flagship, preferably the next LTS. I believe this makes senses given all the changes in the distrosphere in the past 12-18 months and the expected ones over the next 9-12 months. I do have a request, though.

• I must ask the KDE team not to screw this up. The worst thing that can happen is if, sometime in the near future, they release a half-arsed, semi-tested monstrosity that’s gonna kill all hope and enthusiasm. There must be no regressions. And I dread the day when Qt6 waltzes in and replaces Plasma 5. Now that we’ve finally reached stability and quality, the vicious cycle of development could, and most likely, will disrupt things again. Hopefully, that can be avoided, or at least executed in a way that is fully transparent to the user.

• Well, that was my fanboyism speech. I find Plasma to have reached a level of goodness that mirrors the glory days of Linux some 2-3 years ago. It’s a shame that we had to experience the dip, but that’s life. With some luck and wisdom, the next dip will be prevented. For what it’s worth, Kubuntu 17.04 Zesty is a darn good release. My name is Cam Brady, and I happily approve this message. Dedoimedo, over and out.

=> ↺ Why Linux Mint Won

• Now that we’ve covered the basics as to Mint’s success, let’s have an honest conversation. The reason why Linux Mint is successful is because they have always stuck to the KISS principle. KISS stands for Keep It Simple Stupid and when applied wisely, allows for a great deal of predictability.

• When Ubuntu is about to provide a new release, there is always the off-chance that something fairly drastic may change. For example: Inclusion or removal of key features, Ubuntu One storage, Amazon results in the Unity Scope, and talk of new init systems or display servers like Mir. Even if some of these changes never take place, the fact is Ubuntu as a project takes the media hit for each decision.

• Linux Mint learned early on to let Ubuntu take the punches. If something is successfully embraced on Ubuntu, a Mint version of it might be included with the latest version of Linux Mint – MintBackup for example. When Ubuntu switched away from Gnome 2 over to Unity, Mint waited until the time was right and released their own flag ship desktop environment called Cinnamon. In short, Linux Mint plays things safe and keeps drastic changes to the user experience to a minimum. By taking this approach, Mint is able to keep their user base happy and avoid unpleasantness in the media or in the user forums.

• Let me be clear, this article is NOT stating that Linux Mint is better than any other distro. As a matter of fact, I don’t think Mint is and it has had some rough issues with security in the past. That said, the fact is Mint’s popularity is undeniable.

• With Ubuntu refocusing on the cloud/server/IoT space with desktop taking a backseat, I think we’ll see Mint continuing to grab new users and potentially surpass Ubuntu in the coming years. And while I caution people not to take sites like Distro Watch too seriously, as the download numbers aren’t a good way to process popularity, it does provide a lose indicator that Mint isn’t going away anytime soon.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ i.MX6 UL based Pico-ITX SBC is a wireless wonder

• Digi’s rugged “ConnectCore 6UL SBC Pro” runs Linux on an i.MX6 UL with dual Ethernet, WiFi-ac, BT 4.2, NFC, mini-PCIe, and a Digi Xbee socket.

• Digi International’s Pico-ITX form factor ConnectCore 6UL SBC Pro expands upon its an integrated ConnectCore 6UL computer-on-module, which is based on NXP’s low-power i.MX6 UltraLite (UL) system-on-chip, and adds a host of wired and wireless connectivity features. The rugged, industrial temperature resistant ConnectCore 6UL SBC Pro appears to be the same sandwich-style SBC that was released last December as part of a ConnectCore 6UL Development Kit aimed at smart gateways.

=> ↺ Flowhub IoT hack weekend at c-base: buttons, sensors, the Big Switch

• Last weekend we held the c-base IoT hack weekend, focused on the Flowhub IoT platform. This was continuation from the workshop we organized at the Bitraf makerspace a week earlier. Same tools and technologies, but slightly different focus areas.

• c-base is one of the world’s oldest hackerspaces and a crashed space station under Berlin. It is also one of the earliest users of MsgFlo with quite a lot of devices connected via MQTT.

=> ↺ Rugged in-vehicle computer keeps on truckin’ with Bay Trail Atom

• Lanner’s Linux-friendly “LVC-2001” in-vehicle PC runs on a Bay Trail Atom, and offers GPS, 2x GbE, SATA, 3x mini-PCIe, and MIL-STD-810G ruggedization.

Tizen

=> ↺ Visual Studio Tools Preview 4 for Tizen and Tizen.NET 3.0.0 now released

• Samsung has been trying to bring as many developers as possible onboard to the Tizen development community which includes bringing C# developers as well. Hence, Tizen.NET was introduced last year to make it convenient for .NET developers to build Tizen apps. The Visual Studio Tools for Tizen.NET is currently in development and the fourth preview version was recently released bringing in a lot enhancements to building Tizen applications.

=> ↺ Penza State University partners with Samsung to run an affiliate program on Tizen education

• Samsung Electronics Research Center and Penza State University (PSU), Russia, have reached an agreement for Samsung to run the Tizen Education for University, Scientific and Educational Program in the university which will provide modern mobile devices that run on Tizen operating system. This program is slated to commence from the new academic session in two departments (Department of “Information and Computing Systems” and “Computer Science”) and it will be coordinated by Associate Professor of IVS AV Kuzmin – Ph.D.

=> ↺ Droid Lock Screen and Voice Assistant apps now available in Tizen Store

• Somyac Slawomir Baranowski is a popular developer on the Tizen OS platform. He has designed quite a number of apps such as 3D launcher and Nougat Launcher which are available in the Tizen store. Now, two new apps by this developer; Droid Lock Screen and Voice Assistant has just been released to the Tizen Store.

Android

=> ↺ The NVIDIA Shield Android TV is $20 off at Amazon right now

=> ↺ LG Q6 launches as affordable mid-range sibling of the G6

=> ↺ Xiaomi to launch the Mi Max 2 in India next week

=> ↺ Moto X Style Reportedly Receiving Android 7.0 Nougat Update in India

=> ↺ One of our top Android boxes, the 4K Nvidia Shield TV, is £20 off this Prime Day

=> ↺ Louis Vuitton made a $3,000 Android Wear smartwatch

=> ↺ LiquidSky 2.0 beta puts any video game on any Android device

=> ↺ Panic detection mode is quietly featured on Android 7.1 to fight malicious apps

=> ↺ OnePlus 2 Starts Receiving OxygenOS 3.6.0 With June Android Security Update

=> ↺ What do you think Android O will be called? [Poll of the Week]

=> ↺ How to Use Android Nougat’s Hidden Panic Button

=> ↺ Google confirms speed limits on Google Maps only available in two areas

=> ↺ The Best Features That Android and iOS Still Haven’t Stolen From Each Other

=> ↺ Google Patches Critical Android Vulnerabilities

=> ↺ Google shows the UK some Android Pay love with American Express support

=> ↺ Android Candy: Exploding Kittens!

=> ↺ Android 7.1′s silently-implemented panic mode tries to fight back against rogue apps

=> ↺ Latest T-Mobile Galaxy S8 and S8+ update allows nav bar to be hidden, loses black fill option

=> ↺ New BlackBerry KEYone units with display fix now arriving at retailers

=> ↺ How to change icons on the OnePlus 5 – Android Authority (blog)

=> ↺ Galaxy S8 T-Mobile update blocks Bixby button remapping and that’s a dumb move

=> ↺ Nokia 6 first look: Latest Android software and security, sub-$200 price, excellent fit and finish

=> ↺ Galaxy Note FE sees strong sales in Korea, could launch globally this month

=> ↺ Fiksu: iOS marketing costs fell 7% in May but Android rose 28%

=> ↺ American Express adds Android Pay support in the UK

=> ↺ Android has a hidden ‘panic detection mode’ designed to protect users from rogue apps

=> ↺ Moto Z2 Play review – Android Authority

• Lenovo and Motorola brought their modular functionality concept to the mid-range with the Moto Z Play last year. This device was one of our favorite value smartphones of 2016, and now its successor, the Moto Z2 Play, features some key improvements and even more Moto Mod accessories.

• However, Motorola seems to have made a few compromises this time around. The Z2 Play has a much smaller battery than before, and also went up in price. Will this be another home run like the original Z Play, or did the company make too many compromises? Find out, in our full Moto Z2 Play review!

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ How open source took over the world

• GOING WAY BACK, pretty much all software was effectively open source. That’s because it was the preserve of a small number of scientists and engineers who shared and adapted each other’s code (or punch cards) to suit their particular area of research. Later, when computing left the lab for the business, commercial powerhouses such as IBM, DEC and Hewlett-Packard sought to lock in their IP by making software proprietary and charging a hefty license fee for its use.

=> ↺ Survey: Open Source Is Growing, But the Community Is Troubled

=> ↺ Can 5G embrace open source?

• Phil Robb, Vice President of Operations for Networking & Orchestration, Linux Foundation

• With the standardisation of 5G underway, the open source community is being increasingly pulled into the fray as key enablers of 5G will inevitably rely on their solutions. So far, there is collaboration between standardisation bodies like the 3GPP and the open source community, with closer collaboration on defining requirements and features.

• Phil Robb outlines the growing efforts being made between standards development and the dynamic open source methodology of collaboration, as well as the innate challenges of merging the two worlds.

=> ↺ Open Source Is The New Normal In Data and Analytics

=> ↺ SPI 2016 Annual Report Released, Details Various OSS Project Financials

• SPI, Software in the Public Interest, has released their annual report covering 2016. SPI, for the uninitiated, serves as the steward to many open-source projects from Arch Linux to the X.Org Foundation to OpenMPI and LibreOffice.

=> ↺ Brevent is an Open Source Alternative to Greenify, Works Without Root

• Android gives 3rd-party application developers a lot of freedom when it comes to what they can do on the platform. Google is aware that this might not be the best idea when it comes to battery life and they hope to fix some of the worst offenders in the upcoming Android O update. Until then, and for those who own devices that will not receive the update, we will have to look elsewhere for ways to keep applications from running rampant on our devices.

• For many, this has resulted in us using a popular application called Greenify. This works by letting the user “hibernate” an application when it’s not in use and it has been phenomenal for many of us within the community. If you haven’t had a good experience with Greenify in the past, or maybe you’re just looking for an alternative, I’d like to point you to an open source application called Brevent from XDA Senior Member liudongmiao.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ Digilent OpenScope: Open-Source PICMZ All-in-One Instrumentation Device Available Now Exclusively through Digi-Key

=> ↺ Scality Launches Zenko, Open Source Software To Assure Data Control In A Multi-Cloud World

BSD

=> ↺ OpenBSD and the modern laptop

• One thing that never ceases to amaze me is that whenever I’m out and about with my primary laptop at conferences and elsewhere geeks gather, a significant subset of the people I meet have a hard time believing that my laptop runs OpenBSD, and that it’s the only system installed.

Licensing/Legal

=> ↺ Open Source Lawsuits Have Crossed The Watershed

• In addition to the monetary claim, CoKinetic requests that the global corporation be compelled to comply with the requirements of the GPL and reveal the source code for the software that serves as the basis for the IFE system.

• [...]

• The court has already rejected Hancom’s motion to dismiss the claim in limine (on the start), and in reference to Hancom’s argument, the court asserted, inter alia, that an open source license is tantamount to a binding contract between the parties in all respects.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Crossroad 0.7 released and future…

• Last month, I released Crossroad 0.7. Do you remember Crossroad? My tool to cross-compile for Windows from a Linux platform, which I told about a year ago. Well there is not much to say: small release with bug fixes, minor improvements, update of the third-party pre-built Windows package repository (thanks OpenSUSE!), and so on.

• Also there used to be a bug in pip, so any crossroad installed through pip was broken (I had a quick look at the time, and I think it was because it would break the install prefix).

Leftovers

=> ↺ Spotify denies filling popular playlists with ‘fake artists’

• The allegation, first made by industry website Music Business Worldwide and brought to wider attention by culture publication Vulture, is that some playlists on Spotify are full of bands with no public profile, few songs, but millions of song plays – all as a result of their position on the service.

Science

=> ↺ Google wants to make sure AI advances don’t leave anyone behind

• For every exciting opportunity promised by artificial intelligence, there’s a potential downside that is its bleak mirror image. We hope that AI will allow us to make smarter decisions, but what if it ends up reinforcing the prejudices of society? We dream that technology might free us from work, but what if only the rich benefit, while the poor are dispossessed?

=> ↺ The strange and righteous history of the equals sign

• Robert Recorde was one of those people so extraordinarily ahead of his time that he seemed destined to come to a tragic end. In the 16th century, he made advances in economics, medicine, theology, and poetry. But his greatest contribution is taught to every elementary school child, and it arguably laid the groundwork for modern computer science. He invented the equals sign.

Hardware

=> ↺ So you say you’d like a keyboard that will last more than 6 months?

• All keyboards work by the same basic principle. When you press a key, you engage a mechanism that completes a circuit, telling the computer to put a character on the screen. Most modern day keyboards, like those you find on a laptop, are “membrane” keyboards. These keys are thin plastic slabs suspended over rubbery domes that squish when you depress them, completing the circuit. They can be made well, but have very short throw (the distance the keys travel down before they bottom out) and virtually no click. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any keyboard nerd that’s particularly fond of them.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Nokia ‘regrets’ Withings health app backlash

• “The first release of the app was so full of bugs it was incredible. Their new app is appalling and everyone wants the old one back, which we loved.

=> ↺ REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS BUY HEALTH INSURANCE STOCKS AS REPEAL EFFORT MOVES FORWARD

• JUST AS THE HOUSE Republican bill to slash much of the Affordable Care Act moved forward, Rep. Mike Conaway, a Texas Republican and member of Speaker Paul Ryan’s leadership team, added a health insurance company to his portfolio.

• An account owned by Conaway’s wife made two purchases of UnitedHealth stock, worth as much as $30,000, on March 24th, the day the legislation advanced in the House Rules Committee, according to disclosures. The exact value of Conaway’s investment isn’t clear, given that congressional ethics forms only show a range of amounts, and Conaway’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

• It was a savvy move. Health industry stocks, including insurance giants like UnitedHealth, have surged as Republicans move forward with their repeal effort, which rolls back broad taxes on health care firms while loosening consumer regulations which prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for medical treatment. UnitedHealth has gained nearly 7 percent in value since March 24.

=> ↺ Law banning filming Utah slaughterhouses ruled unconstitutional

• A federal judge on Friday overturned Utah’s so-called “ag-gag” ban on filming private agribusiness and slaughterhouse operations without permission. US District Judge Robert Shelby said the measure, enacted in 2012, violated the First Amendment.

• The named plaintiff, Amy Meyer, in 2013 faced up to six months in prison for filming—from the side of a public road—a sick cow being moved in a tractor at a slaughterhouse.

=> ↺ Incurable gonorrhea is lurking—and we may not see it coming, WHO warns

• At least three people in three different countries have turned up with cases of completely incurable gonorrhea—and it’s unclear what happened to all of them and if they’re spreading the infection to others, officials at the World Health Organization report.

• These cases highlight two big concerns about gonorrhea: one is that resistance to last-line drugs is alarmingly popping up around the world and appears to be increasing; and the second is that we have lousy surveillance and data on this.

• In two reports in PLOS Medicine, the WHO warned of the dangers of drug-resistant gonorrhea infections, which can cause infertility and increase the risk of contracting other infections in those left untreated. Summarizing the latest surveillance data, WHO researchers found worldwide incidence of drug-resistant infections and announced that these are on the rise. However, while the data is worrying, it doesn’t actually demonstrate international increases—because there just isn’t enough data to do so.

=> ↺ Nation “Too Broke” for Universal Healthcare to Spend $406 Billion More on F-35

• Though the estimated future cost of the program had previously hovered at a mind-boggling $379 billion, an updated draft that could be submitted to Congress as early as today will reportedly exceed $406 billion—a nearly 7 percent increase.

Security

=> ↺ The .io Error – Taking Control of All .io Domains With a Targeted Registration

• Given the fact that we were able to take over four of the seven authoritative nameservers for the .io TLD we would be able to poison/redirect the DNS for all .io domain names registered. Not only that, but since we have control over a majority of the nameservers it’s actually more likely that clients will randomly select our hijacked nameservers over any of the legitimate nameservers even before employing tricks like long TTL responses, etc to further tilt the odds in our favor. Even assuming an immediate response to a large scale redirection of all .io domain names it would be some time before the cached records would fall out of the world’s DNS resolvers.

=> ↺ security things in Linux v4.12

=> ↺ Self-Service Food Kiosk Vendor Avanti Hacked {sic}

• The breach may have jeopardized customer credit card accounts as well as biometric data, Avanti warned.

=> ↺ Reliance Jio data breached: Why it matters, what it means for you, and everything to know

=> ↺ Technical glitch hits NSE, F&O trading stopped

=> ↺ NSE hit by technical glitch, trade halted

=> ↺ Inquiry set up after Medicare card details leak

• The Australian Government has set up a review to look into the accessibility of Medicare card numbers by health providers, with former public servant Professor Peter Shergold as its head.

=> ↺ Two-factor authentication is a mess

=> ↺ Desperately Seeking Security: 6 Skills Most In Demand

• The last several years have seen a slew of reports coming out lamenting the typical enterprise’s ability to recruit and retain quality cybersecurity talent.

• Earlier this year, ISACA’s Cybersecurity Nexus survey found that more than one in four organizations take six months or longer to fill priority cybersecurity positions. Respondents to the survey said that 40% of organizations report receiving fewer than five applications for cybersecurity positions. And if things keep going the way they’re already headed, the problem is only going to get worse. According to the 2017 (ISC)2 Global Information Security Workforce Study conducted by Frost & Sullivan, by 2022 there will be a global shortfall of cybersecurity workers of 1.8 million people.

=> ↺ ‘Cybersecuring’ the Internet of Things

• I recently had the chance to talk with the legendary Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the internet. We had a wide-ranging discussion about the past, present and future of the internet, network security and what it would take to successfully, safely and reliably merge the digital and physical worlds, a concept known as the “Internet of Things,” or IoT.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ [Old] The power of history: A reflection on the Mattis interview

• The only thing more bizarre than getting the private cell number of United States Defense Secretary James Mattis through a leak is having him call you back.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says

• Traditionally, large scale greenhouse gas emissions data is collected at a national level but this report focuses on fossil fuel producers. Compiled from a database of publicly available emissions figures, it is intended as the first in a series of publications to highlight the role companies and their investors could play in tackling climate change.

=> ↺ Norway-EU row over crabs could fuel oil tensions in remote Arctic

• What is really at stake is oil, some experts claim, and a coming race for the commodity of which there is a lot in the polar region.

=> ↺ Audi manager charged in diesel scandal

• The US Justice Department announced criminal charges against former Audi manager Giovanni Pamio late last week. The 60-year-old manager was on a team concerned with thermodynamics in Audi’s diesel engine department between 2006 and 2015—the years when Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche were producing diesel vehicles that included “defeat device” software. The illegal software killed the cars’ emissions control system when the cars sensed that they were being driven in real-world conditions and not in a lab where emissions were to be detected and reported to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

=> ↺ 220 Cities Losing All Passenger Train Service per Trump Elimination of all Federal Funding for Amtrak’s National Network Trains

• The proposal cuts $2.4 billion from transportation, a 13 percent reduction of last year’s funding, and includes:

• Elimination of all federal funding for Amtrak’s national network trains, which provides the only national network service to 23 states, and the only nearby Amtrak service for 144.6 million Americans;

Finance

=> ↺ Will Bitcoin Tear Itself Apart?

=> ↺ Stripe Partners With Alipay and WeChat to Access Customers in China

• Stripe Inc. unveiled a partnership deal with two of China’s biggest digital payment services, giving the San Francisco-based startup access to hundreds of millions of Chinese customers.

=> ↺ Samsung may oust Apple as the world’s largest tech company

• If its latest quarterly earnings guidance is accurate, Samsung is on a stellar upwards trajectory jumping 50% at year-end 2016 and a 70% year-on-year increase for Q2, 2017.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Wait, what? Trump proposed a joint “cyber security unit” with Russia

• President Donald Trump proposed creating a so-called “cyber security unit” with Russia, then he decided against it after the idea was shot down by pretty much anybody who got word of it, including congressional members of his own GOP party. Trump, after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, said Sunday that they discussed building “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit” to address issues such as election meddling.

=> ↺ Donald Trump’s Proposal to Partner With Putin on Cybersecurity Is a Joke

=> ↺ Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions

• Republicans increasingly say colleges have negative impact on U.S.

=> ↺ Majority of Republicans Say Colleges are Bad for America (Yes, Really)

• A Pew Research Center survey published Monday revealed voters have grown apart in their support of secondary education since the 2016 presidential election season, when a majority of Democratic and Republican Americans agreed the nation’s universities serve as a benefit for the U.S. Whereas 54 percent of Republicans said “colleges and universities had a positive impact on the way things were going in the country” in 2015, the majority now believe the opposite, with 58 percent saying such institutions negatively impact the state of the union.

=> ↺ The G20 proves it. Because of Donald Trump, the world no longer looks to America for leadership

• Donald Trump paused briefly as he and the First Lady reached the top of the steps of Air Force One, gave a quick wave, and was on his way. At 6.05pm, he was heading back to the US, leaving the other members of the G20 disgruntled and defiant, but almost certainly glad he was out of there.

• Until recently, the world looked to the US for leadership at such international forums. But in the six months since Trump entered the White House, that has all changed.

• Now, on issues ranging from trade to climate change, on how to deal with problems such as Ukraine, the US has turned its back on the considered consensus. Even on subjects such as Article Five of Nato’s charter – the part that relates to mutual defence – Trump looks nothing less than wobbly.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

• Beijing has ordered state-run telecommunications firms, which include China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, to bar people from using VPNs, services that skirt censorship restrictions by routing web traffic abroad, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about private government directives.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Former Head Of GCHQ Says Don’t Backdoor End-To-End Encryption, Attack The End Points

• When he was head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan said some pretty clueless things about the Internet and encryption. For example, in 2014, he accused tech companies of ‘facilitating murder’, and joined in the general demonization of strong crypto. Last year, he called for technical experts to work more closely with governments to come up with some unspecified way around encryption.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Are our beliefs so fragile that we would kill over Facebook posts?

=> ↺ What ails the Valley? The fight is four pronged

• The fight is not just two pronged. There are multiple problems as well. They include the sermons in Mosques, the spread of propaganda through mobile phones, ideology being spread by journalists, writers and others.

=> ↺ Iranian women spark debate by defying hijab rule in cars

• A growing number of women in Iran are refusing to wear a hijab while driving, sparking a nationwide debate about whether a car is a private space where they can dress more freely.

• Obligatory wearing of the hijab has been an integral policy of the Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution but it is one the establishment has had a great deal of difficulty enforcing. Many Iranian women are already pushing the boundaries, and observers in Tehran say women who drive with their headscarves resting on their shoulders are becoming a familiar sight.

=> ↺ Bahraini rights activist Nabeel Rajab sentenced to two years in jail

• A Bahrain court sentenced rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab to two years in jail on Monday, supporters said, for allegedly making “false or malicious” statements about Bahraini authorities.

• Authorities at Bahrain’s information affairs office could not immediately be reached for comment. Bahrain has repeatedly denied systematic rights abuses.

=> ↺ Oakland Police Chief Doubles-Down on Promoting the Cops Who Covered-Up the Celeste Guap Case

• Inside a federal courtroom this afternoon, the City of Oakland’s mayor and police chief reaffirmed their commitment to establishing a culture of accountability within the city’s troubled department. But after the hearing, Chief Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters that the commanders who mishandled last year’s internal sex-crimes investigation would still be receiving promotions.

• In fact, when asked directly by the Express whether John Lois and Roland Holmgren would still be promoted, Kirkpatrick justified the move, saying that federal-court monitor Robert Warshaw himself signed off on the decision.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ 50 Million US Homes Can’t Get 25 Mbps From More Than One ISP

• We’ve talked for a while how while there has been a lot of hype placed upon the nation’s scattered but modest deployment of gigabit networks, broadband in countless parts of the country is actually getting significantly-less competitive. That’s thanks in large part to the nation’s phone companies, which have increasingly refused to pony up the necessary costs to upgrade their aging DSL networks at any scale. Instead, many have shifted their focus either to enterprise services, or as in the case of Verizon, into trying to peddle ads to Millennials after gobbling up AOL and Yahoo.

• As a result, cable has established a growing monopoly over broadband across massive swaths of the country. This reduced competition has resulted in rampant price hikes (usually in the form of hidden surcharges or arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps and overage fees). But it also has eliminated any real incentive to keep rates low or repair what’s statistically some of the worst customer service in any industry in America.

=> ↺ Watching Sites Disappear

• At this point there seem to be some systems problems arising on the web. I have had more than minor difficulty attempting to access http://identi.ca as well as http://quitter.se. Identica has frequently been down as of late. As to Quitter.se it seems that there is a site in the so-called fediverse that is providing a proof-of-concept bit of destruction to the federation between social sites. At the last bit I could see, there was discussion of implementing a routing “blackhole” against the miscreant to keep the rest of the federation operating.1

• Between this and other matters, I do have pause to wonder as of late.2 How does our connected world survive? Frankly, I do not know the answer.

• I have noticed lately that the amount of physical media that I own has increased. If there is a DVD version of a movie that I want to watch again, I may in fact own it. I have a decent catalog of books that I own. That you can search that library catalog at https://www.librarycat.org/lib/alpacaherder is something left unfinished.3 Unlike Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory, I do not have things barcoded and I do not have the circulation module fired up. It is more an attempt to just track what I own.4

DRM

=> ↺ “W3C Embraces DRM – Declares War on Humanity” – Lunduke Hour

• The W3C has voted to standardize DRM for all of the Web — in direct opposition to their own Mission Statement. What they are doing could have dire consequences for the entire Web. I yell about that for an hour. Because I’m mad.

=> ↺ DRM free Smart TV

• Libreboot is a free BIOS replacement which removes the Intel Management Engine. The Intel Management Engine is proprietary malware which includes a back door and some DRM functions. Netflix uses this hardware DRM called the Protected Audio/Video Path on Windows 10 when watching 4K videos. The Thinkpad T400 does not even have an HDMI port, which is known to be encumbered by HDCP, an ineffective DRM that has been cracked.

• Instead of using DRM encumbered streaming services such as Netflix, Entertain or Vodafone TV, I still buy DVDs and pay them anonymously with cash. In my home there is a DVB-C connector, which I have connected to a FRITZ!WLAN Repeater DVB-C which streams the TV signal to the ThinkPad. The TV set is switched on and off using a FRITZ!DECT 200 which I control using a python script running on the ThinkPad. I also reuse an old IR remote and an IRDuino to control the ThinkPad.

=> ↺ Over many objections, W3C approves DRM for HTML5

• A narrower covenant not to sue was proposed, but even this much narrower covenant was rejected. The various members of W3C appeared unlikely agree to any particular set of terms, and ultimately were never polled to see if consensus could be reached. Since the original EME proposal didn’t include such a covenant, Berners-Lee decreed that failure to form one should not be allowed to block publication as an official W3C Recommendation.

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