● 11.30.21

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● Links 1/12/2021: Tux Paint 0.9.27 and WordPress 5.9 Beta

Posted in News Roundup at 8:48 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Taking Stock of Librem 14 – Purism

• Like many hardware companies, Purism has taken a “Just In Time” manufacturing approach for our products including the Librem laptop line. That means that we make a bit more of a product than we think we need, and schedule the next manufacturing run so that the product arrives in our warehouse “just in time” for us to deplete the previous manufacturing run. In an ideal world that means we never run out of stock, but also never have massive inventories taking up space in our warehouse.

• Also like many hardware companies the supply chain woes of the last two years have caused us to rethink this approach. Each time it seemed like we had made enough Librem 14s to catch up to current and projected orders, delays of one kind or another created a new backlog as new orders continued to come in. We’ve decided to scrap “Just in Time” in favor of manufacturing far more Librem 14s than we currently need, and will have our shelves full of Librem 14 stock by the end of the year.

=> ↺ HPi95LX Puts Linux In Your Palm | Hackaday

• A few decades ago, palmtop computers were mostly based on MS-DOS, and while many users tried to mimic the UNIX experience, the results were mixed. Fast forward to the present and business-card-sized Linux computers modules abound. Canadian tinkerer [Rune Kyndal] decided to make his own Linux palmtop by sacrificing an old HP-95LX and replacing the guts with a Raspberry Pi Zero and a color LCD screen. We’re impressed with the rich set of features he has crammed into the limited volume of the case:

=> ↺ Linux Fu: The Ultimate Dual Boot Laptop? | Hackaday

• I must confess, that I try not to run Windows any more than absolutely necessary. But for many reasons, it is occasionally necessary. In particular, I have had several laptops that are finicky with Linux. I still usually dual boot them, but I often leave Windows on them for one reason or another. I recently bought a new Dell Inspiron and the process of dual booting it turned out to be unusually effective but did bring up a few challenges.

• If you ever wanted a proper dual-booting laptop, you’ll be interested in how this setup works. Sure, you can always repartition the drive, but the laptop has a relatively small drive and is set up very specifically to work with the BIOS diagnostics and recovery so it is always a pain to redo the drive without upsetting the factory tools.

• Since the laptop came with a 512 GB NVMe drive, I wanted to upgrade the drive anyway. So one option would have been to put a bigger drive in and then go the normal route. That was actually my intention, but I wound up going a different way.

=> ↺ LXer: Laptop Dual Boot Project Part 2

• I know some of you are wondering why go through all of this when I could just install a Linux distro along side of windows and be done with it? One reason was I had to pay it off. A financed $550 laptop takes a little while to pay off. I didn’t want to change the machine any while I owed money on it. And the idea of messing with a bone stock laptop using Linux sounded fun. The good thing now is that I have paid it off so it’s all mine to do whatever I want with.

• So, for me it came down to PCLOS, Mint, SUSE or Ubuntu to install to my laptop. I tried them all ‘live’ from USB drives and a couple of them using VirtualBox. They are all good distros and there are many articles on why one or the other is good or better for you but for me, it came down to PCLinuxOS or Mint. Having come from Windows originally I am most comfortable with a “Windows like” environment. I think both PCLOS and Mint are two versions of that I like best. I like Mint mire but what has drawn me to PCLOS is that it is the only Linux I have tried in that the backlight on my keyboard works. It may sound dumb but it makes it easier for me being able to see the keys no matter the lighting situation I’m in.

• I tried to install PCLinuxOS onto my laptop and I got a “can’t call method on first_usable_sector unblessed reference” error at the very beginning of the install process. I couldn’t get around it and aborted the install. Time to do some research. Come to find out I have a AHCI-RAID problem. I got into the BIOS and changed the SATA configuration from RAID to AHCI but in rebooting, it wouldn’t boot.

• So I went back into my BIOS and wrote down the configuration in the SATA settings. It says I am running the “Intel RST Premium with Intel Optane System Acceleration”. I have been looking that up but haven’t found much…much I understand that is. More Googling is required.

• I got back into the boot menu and changed the SATA config back to Intel’s RAID setting and it re-booted just fine. It seems that for the moment I am able to run Linux from USB ‘live’ and under VirtualBox but I am unable to install it to the HD. For those who don’t know the big difference AHCI and Raid , it is how they store the data to the hard drive.

• I’ll use a sink with water filling it for the metaphor. RAID 1 offers redundancy through mirroring, i.e., data is written identically to two drives. Think of two sinks with the same water in them. RAID 0 offers no redundancy and instead uses striping, i.e., data is split across all the drives. think of two sinks with the water split between them. Half of the data goes into one drive and the other half into another drive. This means RAID 0 offers no fault tolerance; if the drives fails, the RAID unit fails.

=> ↺ Apple car will arrive at the same time as Linux on the desktop

• Years after big reveal, Tame Apple Press predicts

• Apple is unlikely to get its car vapourware on the road for at least another 20 years even if it has a “big reveal” in five years, the Tame Apple Press finally admits.

• For years the TAPs has been running stories insisting that an Apple car was a few years away, even while its Project Titan was downsized and talent left to go to real carmakers.

=> ↺ Zoom boosts security with automatic updates for Windows and macOS — but Linux users miss out

ChromeOS

=> ↺ First Look: Chromebook “extra container management” in Chrome OS 98

• Earlier this month, I covered down a new feature that’s in the works for Chrome OS that will give users a native user interface for managing Linux containers. While still a work in progress, the “extra container” management has finally made an appearance in the Canary channel of Chrome OS and we have our first look at how the feature is going to play out. Getting the feature up and running does require you to be in the very experimental Canary channel, which I do not recommend visiting unless you know what you’re doing and aren’t afraid of possibly bricking your device. In the Canary channel, the #crostini-multi-container flag for the container management must first be enabled, and then, the feature will appear in the Developer section of the Chrome OS settings menu. By default, users can see the “penguin” container inside the Termina VM. This houses the standard Debian framework that runs on Chrome OS when you enable Linux applications. From the menu, you can stop the default container and shut it down but you can’t delete the container. To do this, you would need to remove Linux from your system entirely via the main Developer menu.

=> ↺ Chrome OS 98 adds management of multiple Chromebook Linux containers

• Earlier this month I reported that Chrome OS was adding multiple container management to Chromebook. The last Dev Channel update has finally brought the first iteration of that feature and I do have it working. At the moment, however, I’ve only been able to add a second Linux container for Debian. Regardless, here’s how Chrome OS 98 adds management of multiple Chromebook Linux containers.

• For starters, I had to enable the following experimental flag in Chrome OS 98: chrome://flags#crostini-multi-container and restart my browser. After that, I saw the new “manage extra containers” option in my Linux settings:

• Chrome OS 98 multiple Chromebook Linux containers management Choosing this option brought me to the following screen, which initially had a single container, as expected. Here I could change the color of each one. I clicked the Create button, added a second Debian container, and left it the default color. The three-dot option offers ways to stop or delete a container.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Is Deepin Linux The Windows Killer? (Deepin 20.3 First Look) – Invidious

• Deepin is a Debian-based Linux distro that is devoted to providing a beautiful, easy-to-use, safe, and reliable operating system. The Deepin Desktop Environment is absolutely gorgeous, and it comes with a suite of custom applications.

=> ↺ Free Software Doesn’t Mean Better Privacy? – Invidious

• Most free software advocates can agree that you can’t really trust proprietary software with privacy but does that mean that Free Software is always more private, well not always.

=> ↺ Live – Building a New Linux Experience – The Complete Interface – Invidious

• Back to the code… building out the experience and testing.

=> ↺ Give Your Cinnamon Desktop Fresh And Elegant Look With Orchis GTK Theme – Invidious

=> ↺ Make Your First KDE Patch: How To Improve System Settings! – Kockatoo Tube

=> ↺ How to install Inkscape on Elementary OS 6.0 – Invidious

• In this video, we are looking at how to install Inkscape on Elementary OS 6.0. Enjoy!

=> ↺ Linux overview | Ubuntu MATE 21.10 – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show an overview of Ubuntu MATE and some of the applications pre-installed.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ IO_uring Network Zero-Copy Send Is Boasting Mighty Speed-Ups – Phoronix

• Early patches providing for IO_uring zero-copy send support for the Linux kernel’s networking subsystem is looking extremely promising for greater throughput.

• Developer Pavel Begunkov posted the set of twelve patches today working on this zero-copy send support for IO_uring with the networking subsystem. These initial patches are marked as a “request for comments” as some items are still being sorted out with the code.

=> ↺ AMD-Pstate Driver Updated A 5th Time For Improving Ryzen Power Efficiency On Linux – Phoronix

• Sent out today was the fifth revision to AMD’s new “amd-pstate” kernel driver focused on providing enhanced CPU frequency controls for Linux systems.

• AMD’s P-State driver remains under active development for improving the Linux power efficiency for Ryzen (and EPYC) processors. AMD P-State makes use of ACPI CPPC for more informed and finer-grained frequency controls on modern (Zen 2 and newer) processors compared to what is afforded by the existing ACPI CPUFreq frequency scaling driver currently used by AMD Linux systems.

=> ↺ Intel Posts Linux Patches Bringing Up Alder Lake N Graphics – Phoronix

• With the graphics driver support for Alder Lake S-series in good shape with Linux 5.16 and the Alder Lake P-series support also coming together for upcoming ADL-based laptops, next up is the Alder Lake N enablement happening for Linux.

• Alder Lake N for low-end, low-power hardware is now coming together. Though over the existing ADL-S and ADL-P Linux support, it’s basically adding in new PCI IDs for ADL-N.

=> ↺ Analog Devices Expands Linux Distribution with Over 1000 Device Drivers to Support the Development of High-Performance Solutions | Business Wire

• As the Linux open-source operating system marks its 30th anniversary, Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) announces the expansion of its Linux distribution by recognizing over 1000 ADI peripherals supported by in kernel Linux device drivers. Designed to enable the rapid development of embedded solutions, these open-source device drivers streamline the software development process for ADI’s customers, providing access to tested, high-quality software to create innovative solutions across a range of industries, including telecom, industrial, military, aerospace, medical, automotive, security, Internet of Things (IoT), consumer, and more. This portfolio includes products from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., now part of Analog Devices.

Graphics/Zink

=> ↺ Zink Is Ending 2021 In Fantastic Shape For OpenGL Over Vulkan

• For those wondering about the state today for Zink with mainline Mesa, here are some fresh benchmarks. My last time testing Zink was in August and since then Blumenkrantz has worked on fixes for the various games reported to have issues and even more performance optimizations, making this round of testing now quite interesting.

• Using Mesa 22.0-devel as of 26 November (using the Oibaf PPA for easy reproducibility), I ran benchmarks of various OpenGL Linux games using the native OpenGL driver (RadeonSI in this case) and then again when using Zink running atop the RADV Vulkan driver. This testing was done on an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X system with AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card. The focus is on seeing how Zink compares to using RadeonSI OpenGL across a variety of Linux games.

• 

=> ↺ Haiku OS Managing To Run Zink OpenGL Atop Radeon Vulkan Driver For 3D Acceleration – Phoronix

• Last month we reported on progress for porting the Mesa Radeon Vulkan driver to Haiku, the BeOS-inspired open-source operating system. Now in ending out November they not only have RADV running but also working with Gallium3D’s Zink for offering OpenGL acceleration over Vulkan.

• Haiku developer “X512″ has been the one devoted to this recent effort for getting the open-source AMD Radeon Vulkan driver running on this platform. With some modifications he has been successful in enabling the RADV driver to work on Haiku for 3D hardware acceleration.

Applications

=> ↺ Announcing Tux Paint version 0.9.27

• The Tux Paint development team is proud to announce version 0.9.27 of Tux Paint, which adds many new features to the popular children’s drawing program.

=> ↺ Tux Paint 0.9.27 Release Adds New Magic Tools to Make Drawing Easier Than Ever – It’s FOSS News

• Known for its simplicity and ease of use, Tux Paint is a drawing app primarily aimed at kids.

• Tux Paint has come a long way since its initial release in 2002 on Linux and is now available on many other platforms.

• The latest release of Tux Paint 0.9.27 comes just after four months of its previous release. Just like the previous one, this release is feature-rich but includes new additions and improvements.

=> ↺ OpenPrinting Releases CUPS 2.4 With AirPrint, OAuth 2.0 Support – Phoronix

• Earlier this year OpenPrinting took over development of the CUPS print server with Apple no longer interested in handling the future development of this open-source Linux/macOS/Unix/Solaris print server. Out this week is CUPS 2.4 as the first major release under the guidance of OpenPrinting.

• Apple’s work on CUPS ceased pretty much when CUPS founder Michael Sweet left Apple originally acquiring it back in 2007. Apple is no longer actively developing CUPS but has even contracted Sweet to backport important OpenPrinting CUPS fixes back to Apple’s CUPS code-base.

=> ↺ CUPS 2.4.0 Printing System Released, Check Out What’s New

• OpenPrinting project has just released CUPS 2.4.0 formed without Apple’s participation, which has since 2007.

• The Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) is a cross-platform printing solution used on many different Linux distros. Its use is very widespread, as it has become the standard print manager on the majority of popular Linux distros.

• CUPS acts as a print spooler, scheduler, print job manager, and can store information for numerous local or network printers. It is based on the Internet Printing Protocol and provides complete printing services to most PostScript and raster printers.

• At the end of 2019, Michael Sweet, the lead developer of CUPS left Apple after he joined Apple and the company purchased the source code a decade prior for this long-standing open-source printing system. As a result, Apple’s public CUPS development effectively ended and Apple now is basically interested in just maintaining CUPS 2.3 and not really developing it further.

• Therefore, OpenPrinting now controls the CUPS project moving forward with Michael Sweet being involved in the effort, and the results were not late. Now CUPS 2.4.0 is finally here in its production-ready state, bringing numerous security and performance improvements to make the widely used printing system more reliable and stable than ever.

=> ↺ Best Torrent Client For Linux Based Operating Systems | Itsubuntu.com

• The term “torrent” refers to file sharing through a decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing network. Torrents are an excellent source to download large files. P2P file-sharing protocols allow users to exchange files without uploading them to the server. They transform your PC into part of a host where files are shared as it’s downloaded, so while you’re downloading files from another host, you’re likewise helping other people as they download the part of the files that you have downloaded from another host.

• In this article, we are going to discuss or list out the best torrent client for Linux-based operating systems. So, if you are a Linux user and looking for the best torrent client then you are at the right place.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Collaborate on a file using Linux diff and patch

• I edit a lot of text files. Sometimes it’s code. Other times it’s the written word for role-playing games (RPGs), programming books, or general correspondence. Sometimes it’s nice to make a change, but for my collaborator to compare my change with what they originally had written. Many people default to office suites, like LibreOffice, using comments or change tracking features. Sometimes a simpler tool makes more sense, though, and for that, you can look at programming history for tools like diff and patch, which provide standardized formatting for tracking and applying changes to shared files.

=> ↺ Best ways to destroy Microsoft Windows – blackMORE Ops

• OK, like seriously don’t do it unless you’re doing it in a practice Virtual machine or have permission to do so.. I take no responsibility for these collection of best ways to destroy Microsoft Windows!

=> ↺ Quickemu- Run Windows 11 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Linux in few clicks

• o you want to install Windows 10 or 11 on your Ubuntu 20.04 or 22.04 LTS Linux using QEMU-KVM virtual machine? Then here is a tutorial to do that using the command terminal and Quickemu + Quickgui.

• Although we all have a simple solution that is a virtual box to run Windows 11 virtual machine, what about KVM? Some will say it is not easy to operate because of the command line but no there are few open-source GUI programs to give KVM an easy interface. However, another thing is downloading ISO images of various operating systems including Windows 10 or 11 to use with Virtualbox can be a headache. Hence, to solve all of this, there is a project called QuickEMU with a GUI interface known as QuickGUI. QickEMU uses QEMU_KVM on Linux operating system to run a virtual machine and can easily download all popular operating system Images to install including macOS. Whereas it can be operated via CLI but for ease of usage users can install QuickGUI to download, create, and manage operating systems virtual machines.

=> ↺ Steinar H. Gunderson: Commitcoin

• How do you get a git commit with an interesting commit ID (or “SHA”)? Of course, interesting is in the eye of the beholder, but let’s define it as having many repeated hex nibbles, e.g. “000” in the commit would be somewhat interesting and “8888888888888888888888888” would be very interesting. This is pretty similar to the dreaded cryptocoin mining; we have no simple way of forcing a given SHA-1 hash unless someone manages a complete second-preimage break, so we must brute-force. (And hopefully without boiling the planet in the process; we’d have to settle for a bit shorter runs than in the example above.)

• Git commit IDs are SHA-1 checksums of what they contain; the tree object (“what does the commit contain”), the parents, the commit message and some dates. Of those, let’s use the author date as the nonce (I chose to keep the committer date truthful, so as to not be accused of forging history too much). We can set up a shell script to commit with –amend, sweeping GIT_AUTHOR_DATE over the course of a day or so and having EDITOR=true in order not to have to close the editor all the time.

=> ↺ How to Install Kuma on Ubuntu 20.04 | LinuxHostSupport

• Kuma is an open source monitoring tool like “Uptime Robot” written in Nodejs. In this article, we’ll learn how to install it on Ubuntu 20.04 so we can self-host our Uptime Bot. We’ll also set up a reverse proxy on Apache with a Let’s Encrypt SSL to secure our website.

• Kuma is easy to use and upgrade, and is powerful for traffic control, observability, service discovery, etc.

=> ↺ How to Install SuiteCRM with Apache and free Let’s Encrypt SSL on Debian 11

• SuiteCTM is an open-source Customer Relationship Management solution written in PHP. It is a fully-featured and highly-extensible CRM application that runs on any operating system. It became popular when SugarCRM decided to stop the development of its community edition. It is used for creating business strategies, actions, and decisions. It is an alternate CRM solution for other commercial CRM such as SugarCRM, Salesforce, and Microsoft.

• In this post, we will show you how to install SuiteCRM with Apache and Let’s Encrypt SSL on Debian 11.

=> ↺ How to Install Rudder System Configuration and Auditing Tool on Ubuntu 20.04 – VITUX

• Rudder is an open-source and user-friendly web-based system configuration and audit tool. It helps you to manage your IT infrastructure by automating system configurations while ensuring visibility and control of your infrastructure. Two main components of Rudder are: Root server and node. Root server defines the configurations for the systems it manages. The systems managed by Rudder are known as nodes. Rudder manages the nodes using the Rudder agent which is installed on these systems.

• In today’s post, we will install the Rudder root server and agent on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. We will use two Ubuntu machines: one as the Rudder root server and the other one as the Rudder node.

• Note: You must be a root user or have sudo privileges on both machines in order to install the Rudder server and agent.

=> ↺ How to check if packages in RHEL-based Linux distributions have been patched for specific CVEs – TechRepublic

• CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) are constantly being discovered and patched. When discovered, it means a new security flaw exists in either an operating system or a piece of software and should be patched as soon as possible. Fixing the vulnerabilities, of course, is up to the developers. Patching those vulnerabilities, however, is up to the admin (or user). Thing is, you might not know if you’re using a piece of software that includes one or more CVEs.

• How do you uncover this information? Do you have to spend hours researching? Not really. In fact, all you need to know is the CVE you’re looking for and the piece of software it affects. With those two bits of information in hand, you can quickly discover if what’s installed on your Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based distribution contains that vulnerability.

• I’m going to show you how to do just that.

=> ↺ How to Install and Configure Nginx on Ubuntu

• Web applications have gained wide popularity over the past few years as a means of providing services to different clients. With a web application, you can reach out to a wider audience regardless of the device or operating system they are using.

• Being able to install and configure a web server is a valuable skill to have both as a web developer and software engineer. A web server is a program responsible for delivering your web content to clients over the internet or a network.

• Let’s take a look at how to install and configure the Nginx web server on Ubuntu.

=> ↺ How to install Sublime Merge on a Chromebook

• Today we are looking at how to install Sublime Merge on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

=> ↺ How to Install OpenEMR on Ubuntu 20.04 With LAMP Stack

• OpenEMR is a popular open-source software for the healthcare industry. It offers electronic health records and medical practice management solutions. OpenEMR provides a fully integrated Workflow Management inside healthcare facilities. Any healthcare facility would be able to capture and control patient data using the following features in OpenEMR.

=> ↺ Add current user to all groups on the system except “nobody/nogroup”

=> ↺ How To Install Hyperbola KDE on a Virtual Machine

• This tutorial explains how to install Hyperbola computer operating system with KDE Plasma Desktop on a virtual machine. Let’s start!

=> ↺ How To Install Java on Fedora 35 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Java on Fedora 35. For those of you who didn’t know, Java is a secure, stable, and well-known, general-purpose programming language and computing technology platform with many interconnected capabilities. If you want to use a Java-based tool or program in Java, you’ll need to have Java on your system.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of Java on a Fedora 35.

=> ↺ How To Install Nginx with Let’s Encrypt SSL on Fedora 35 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Nginx with Let’s Encrypt SSL on Fedora 35. For those of you who didn’t know, Let’s Encrypt is a non-profit Certificate Authority (CA) managed by the Internet Security Research Group. It provides free SSL certificates for your domains to secure data on the transport layer. The certificate is valid for 90 days, during which renewal can take place at any time. The offer is accompanied by an automated process designed to overcome manual creation, validation, signing, installation, and renewal of certificates for secure websites.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Nginx with Let’s Encrypt SSL on a Fedora 35.

=> ↺ How to Check Supported TLS and SSL Ciphers (version) on Linux

• OpenSSL is a toolkit and a cryptography library that support the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol on Linux.

• It provides cryptographic protocols to varies applications running on Linux such as ssh, Apache (httpd), Nginx, etc.

• TLS is a cryptographic protocol used to secure network communications between the devices.

• OpenSSL configuration file is located at /etc/pki/tls/openssl.cnf, referred to as the master configuration file, which is read by the OpenSSL library.

• In this guide, we will show you how to check supported TLS and SSL ciphers (version) on opneSUSE system. The same procedure is applicable for other distribution as well.

=> ↺ How to Compile and Run your First Java Program

• Java is one of the most powerful and popular programming languages. Even with several niche languages available now, Java has retained its leading position among developers.

• If you have decided to learn Java, it’s definitely a good choice to enter the world of programming, but the question is, how to create your first piece of code?

• Let’s go through six steps of creating a Java program. We’ve also prepared bonus advice on where you can learn and practice Java.

=> ↺ How to Enable SSH on Debian 11 Bullseye Linux – Linux Shout

• Tutorial to learn the steps to install and enable SSH server in Debian 11 Bullseye Linux using command line terminal. SSH is a network protocol originally developed in 1995 by Finn Tatu Ylönen for encrypted access to other computers in an IP network.

• [...]

• SSH is the abbreviation for Secure Shell. With the help of this protocol, the user can securely establish connections with other devices, for example from a PC to a web server. SSH enables mutual authentication and encrypted data transmission so that sensitive data such as passwords or user names cannot be hacked or seen by unauthorized persons. Secure Shell offers a high level of security. It provides functions for logging in, transmitting and executing text-based commands, and for copying data. In addition to encryption, SSH offers reliable mutual authentication using certificates and public and private key procedures. A popular area of ​​application for Secure Shell is the remote maintenance of servers.

=> ↺ How to Install Brew on Ubuntu and Other Linux

• Homebrew, also known as Brew, is a command line package manager primarily created for macOS.

• Homebrew grew quite popular among macOS users as more developers created command line tools that could be easily installed with Homebrew.

• This popularity resulted in the creation of Linuxbrew, a Linux port for Homebrew. Since it is primarily Git and Ruby, and Linux and macOS are both Unix-like systems, Brew works good on both kind of operating systems.

• Linuxbrew project eventually merged with Homebrew project and now you just have one Brew project called Homebrew.

• Why am I calling it brew, instead of Homebrew? Because the command starts with brew. You’ll see it in detail in a later section.

=> ↺ How to Install Lazarus IDE in Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, 21.10 | UbuntuHandbook

• This is a step by step guide shows how to install the Lazarus IDE in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10 and their derivatives, e.g., Linux Mint, Elementary OS and more.

• Lazarus is a free Delphi compatible cross-platform IDE for rapid application development using the Free Pascal compiler. User may install the project either from Ubuntu repository or by using the official DEB packages.

=> ↺ How to Install Lazarus IDE in Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, 21.10 | UbuntuHandbook

• The most popular Javascript runtime is Node.js, which uses the V8 engine to perform useful tasks such as interacting with local storage. Node.js has boosted the popularity of Javascript, which was already well-known. Previously, Javascript was only used in web browsers to create interactive web applications; however, with Node.js, we can now use Javascript to create command-line applications, as well as web applications that are designed and even backed by Javascript.

• In this article, we will not go into greater detail about Node.js and its functionality. In this article, we will learn how to install Node.js on Ubuntu Linux.

=> ↺ How to Install PuTTY on Debian 11 Bullseye – Linux Shout

• Here we learn the steps to install PuTTy on Debian 11 Bullseye using the command terminal to establish an SSH connection using the graphical user interface.

• Using PuTTY free Telnet and SSH client application on Windows, Linux, and macOS – the user can establish a connection with remote computers and systems in the network via SSH. Encrypted or unencrypted protocols can be used. Although this is a common application to use in Windows, yet still it somebody is interested the can be easily installed on Linux as well for remote system administration.

• Apart from the SSH client, PuTTy comes with a few additional command-line tools such as Plink, PSFTP, and PSCP. With the help of Plink, PuTTY can be controlled via the shell. Shell scripts can also be used. The SCP client PSCP can also be used to transfer encrypted data – PSFTP, on the other hand, is an SFTP client and thus an encrypted FTP alternative.

=> ↺ How to list all running & stopped Docker containers – Linux Shout

• Docker is the popular platform to run container virtual machines using the pre-built app images. The installation and its usage are pretty simple, yet, if you are new to it and want to know how to list all the created or stopped Docker containers to delete or manage them easily. Then here are the commands to follow.

=> ↺ How to modify the Proxmox repositories – Unixcop the Unix / Linux the admins deams

• Hello friends. When we refresh the Proxmox repositories we get an error stating that our IP address is not authorized to access a repository. Well, this repository gives us access to enterprise packages and to use it you must have a valid license. In this post, I will show you how to modify the Proxmox repositories to avoid this annoying error. We will also add another free one and have more tools available.

• So let’s get to work.

=> ↺ How to play Dead Cells on Linux

• Dead Cells is a roguelike video game inspired by Metroid and Castlevania. It was developed and published by Motion Twin. Here’s how you can play Dead Cells on your Linux PC.

=> ↺ How to reset Ubuntu password – LinuxH2O

• In this article, you will learn how to reset your Ubuntu password if you have forgotten it. The guide work on various Ubuntu versions such as Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04, 21.04, and the newer versions.

• There are times when you forget the password for your Ubuntu system, maybe not you, it could be your family member, friend, or colleague. Not just password, people sometimes also forget the username of their system. In any of these cases, you have to show off your Linux skills and resolve the issue. So in this guide, you will basically learn all the steps to reset the Ubuntu password and also identify the username.

• So let’s start.

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ CrossOver 21.1.0 Release Adds GTA V Support on Linux Among Other Enhancements – It’s FOSS News

• CrossOver is a paid tool that lets you run Microsoft Windows software on Linux and Mac. In case you did not know, it is built on top of Wine and other open-source software along with their proprietary tools that make it easy to run Windows-only software.

• With the latest release, i.e., CrossOver 21.1.0, there are some significant additions for Linux and macOS users.

• Here, let me highlight the key changes in this release.

Games

=> ↺ Valve Posts Updated Steam Deck FAQs To Address More Community Questions – Phoronix

• Valve has provided an updated developer-focused “frequently asked questions” area stemming from community questions during the recent Steam Deck developer event.

• While the Steam Deck shipping date slipped into Q1 due to hardware supply chain issues, Valve continues making great progress on the software front and readying the ecosystem and developer partners for their much anticipated Arch Linux powered gaming handheld console.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ More about those zero-dot users – Adventures in Linux and KDE

• Yesterday’s article about KDE’s target users generated some interesting discussions about the zero-dot users. One of the most insightful comments I read was that nobody can really target zero-dot users because they operate based on memorization and habit, learning a series of cause-effect relationships: “I click/touch this picture/button, then something useful happens”–even with their smartphones! So even if GNOME and ElementaryOS might be simpler, that doesn’t really matter because it’s not much harder to memorize a random-seeming sequence of clicks or taps in a poor user interface than it is in a good one.

• I think there’s a lot of truth to this perspective. We have all known zero-dot users who became quite proficient at specific tasks; maybe they learned how to to everything they needed in MS Office, Outlook, or even Photoshop.

• The key detail is that these folks rely on the visual appearance and structure of the software remaining the same. When the software’s user interface changes–even for the better–they lose critical visual cues and reference points and they can’t find anything anymore.

=> ↺ KDE Plasma Desktop Update » PCLinuxOS

• The KDE Plasma Desktop packages have been updated to 5.23.4. This is a service release update.

=> ↺ TSDgeos’ blog: Okular PDF digital signature improvements coming “soon” thanks to NLnet

• Starting on January I will be working on a project named “Improve Okular digital signature support” that has received a grant from the NLnet foundation as part of the NGI Assure fund.

• This will allow me to work part time on Okular (in case it’s not clear I work on Okular on a “when I have time-hobby” basis right now), the planned improvements are:

• 1. Support for signing unsigned signatures. I know it sounds confusing, think about it like something like the old “sign here” boxes on printed paper forms.

Distributions

=> ↺ 2021 hardcore list of linux distributions without elogind and other systemd parts

• This list is going to be short and there may be a sublist of distros with a medium strict standard. We shall explain what the object is, below the short list (which we hope the community will assist in making longer as we have not been able to currently review the work of every distro and fork.

BSD

=> ↺ What Is OpenBSD? Everything You Need to Know

• OpenBSD is no doubt one of the most secure operating systems on the internet. Here’s what you need to know about it.

• Linux fans love to tout their system’s security, but for one group of BSD developers, it doesn’t go far enough. One version of BSD, OpenBSD, claims to be one of the most secure operating systems around. Does it live up to the hype? Let’s find out.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Fugaku Retains Official #1 Spot on TOP500

• Summit, which is an IBM-built system installed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, remains the fastest system in the United States.

=> ↺ Modernizing Enterprise Java: A cloud native guide for developers

• Looking for a quick guide to migrating and modernizing your organization’s Java-based applications? Modernizing Enterprise Java walks you through the journey. Download the free e-book today.

• Java has been one of the most popular programming language choices for developers since its release 25 years ago. It is backed by an open source ecosystem of contributors and a growing number of companies who rely on Java for their core business workloads.

=> ↺ Build lightweight and secure container images using RHEL UBI

• Deploying applications in lightweight container images has practical benefits because container images pack all of the dependencies required for your application to function properly. However, you could lose the benefits of containerization if the container images are too large, and thus take several minutes to boot up the application. In this article, I guide you through how to use Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI) as the foundation to build lightweight and secure container images for your applications.

=> ↺ Automate dependency analytics with GitHub Actions

=> ↺ 20 Years of Red Hat Product Security: From inception to customer experience (Part 1)

• From its inception in 2001, the Product Security team has been focused on providing Red Hat’s customers value in the form of hardened and streamlined security updates and testing across the entire product line, including managed services and, most recently, our own open source software supply chain.

• But more than that, they’ve also been essential members of the wider open source security community, helping ensure the openness and transparency of security vulnerability information, aiding in the fight against open source fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), and being key contributors in the response to a wide array of high profile security incidents and vulnerabilities.

• So, let’s take a look at how Product Security has evolved at Red Hat over the past 20 years, and at what the future might look like.

=> ↺ Skills gap proves a growing barrier for digital transformation initiatives

• In this year’s Red Hat 2022 Global Tech Outlook report, skill-set or talent gaps emerged as the top barrier organizations believe will prevent them from achieving their digital transformation goals. This was also reflected in organizations’ non-IT funding priorities for the next 12 months.

• Red Hat develops a Global Tech Outlook report every year, and from June through August 2021, we surveyed 1,341 information technology (IT) leaders and decision makers to learn about their digital transformation journeys, their IT and non-IT funding priorities for the coming year, and the types of infrastructure they’re using to run their applications.

=> ↺ U.S. Government issues directive to prioritize fixing exploited CVEs: How Red Hat Insights can help

• In November 2021, the U.S. federal government published a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Binding Operational Directive. This Department of Homeland Security (DHS) directive mandates federal agencies within the U.S. act to protect themselves from “…increasingly sophisticated malicious cyber campaigns that threaten the public sector, private sector, and ultimately the American people’s security and privacy.”

• The directive requires United States federal agencies to patch known, “publicly exploited” vulnerabilities. The list of these vulnerabilities is cataloged and updated by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) (on their website) periodically.

=> ↺ Digital transformation: How to beat the challenges of a federated organization | The Enterprisers Project

• In early 2019, I started my role as business transformation executive for the Federal Reserve System, responsible for leading the digital transformation of finance, human resources, and procurement.

• As the central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve is a federated organization made up of 22,000 employees across the 12 Reserve banks. Each bank is its own separate legal entity with its own board of directors, CEO, CFO, CIO, and senior HR and procurement officers.

• Over the years, technology was consolidated while processes and capabilities remained disparate, and it became increasingly challenging to deliver even basic capabilities. With over 40 disjointed, mostly homegrown legacy applications and a high degree of customization supporting proprietary business processes, the system was costly and challenging to maintain. New employees were frustrated by the poor user experience and difficulty accessing data, and collaboration and innovation were hampered.

=> ↺ Digital transformation: 4 questions CIOs should ask now | The Enterprisers Project

• One of the things CIOs have learned during the past eighteen months is that when you have the business behind you, the momentum for transformation is turbocharged. Top CIOs are capitalizing on this lesson to further integrate technology strategy with business strategy. And the first place they’re starting is with the people.

• How well are you doing on the people front of digital transformation? Here are four questions to ask yourself, based on my recent conversations with the CIOs of CarMax, Dow, and Johnson & Johnson.

=> ↺ Virtual Machine Secure Boot Database Updates Made Easy with Oracle Linux

=> ↺ IBM applauds Knative’s application to join the Cloud Native Computing Foundation

• Today, Knative applied to become an incubating project at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Today’s news is a major step in the right direction for the future of Knative.

• Knative adds the necessary components that enable Kubernetes users to more quickly deploy and manage their workloads on Kubernetes — but without the need to become Kubernetes experts. Additionally, Knative adds “serverless” runtime semantics, allowing users to reap the benefit of features such as quick load-based scaling and scaling to zero when idle.

=> ↺ 3 ways to optimize Ansible Automation Platform for scale and performance | Enable Sysadmin

• Try these settings to optimize performance with Ansible Automation Platform on a massive scale.

=> ↺ Introduction to Ansible prompts and runtime variables

• This tutorial is part of a series we dedicated to Ansible. Previously we talked about the Ansible basics, then we focused on some Ansible modules we can use to perform some very common administration tasks, and we also talked about Ansible loops. In this article, instead, we learn how to create interactive prompts we can use to ask for user input and how to pass variables at runtime.

=> ↺ MIXAL on Fedora | Adam Young’s Web Log

• The examples in The Art of Computer Programming (TAOCP) are in the MIXAL programming language. In order to see these examples run, I want to install the tools on my Fedora box. They are packaged as RPMS, so this is trivial. Here are the steps to run and debug a sample program in MIXAL.

=> ↺ Fedora Contributor Annual Survey Data Set Available – Fedora Community Blog

• Over the summer of 2021, the Fedora Council held the first annual Contributor Survey. The survey received 800 complete responses, which exceeded the goal of 500. We have processed the data, which are available for download.

• Coordination of the survey was a wonderful community effort. Fedora Council member Aleksandra Fedorova proposed and led the survey effort with support from Marie Nordin (FCAIC). Many teams across the Fedora Project contributed, including: the Mindshare Committee, the Outreach Revamp Team, the Design Team, the Websites & Apps Team, and the Community Platform Engineering Team. Aleksandra and Marie presented a session at Nest with Fedora which goes further into the process and outcomes.

• Over the last couple months, the work of cleaning up the dataset has been underway. This has been a slow process as there are just a couple of people working on that regularly. An example of “cleaning” would be folks who chose “Other”, filled in “idk”, when the option “I don’t know” existed. Those answers need to be integrated in order to have a more accurate dataset. We removed fill-in answers due to the fact that some people identified themselves, intentionally or not. As we process the data, we are noting feedback to improve the survey for 2022.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Linux Mint Monthly News – November 2021

• Many thanks to all the people who support our project. Thank you very much to all of you for your help and your generous donations.

• All of our focus is on the BETA for Linux Mint 20.3. We’re planning to release it early this December. We’re finalizing translations, artwork and still making fixes and adjustments but for the most part it’s almost ready to enter QA.

• Some of the new features in 20.3 haven’t been revealed yet, but we’re so close to release, I’m not sure there’s much point in giving you a preview

• MATE 1.26 and Flatpak 1.12 were backported.

• In the XApps, the PDF reader received proper manga support (hitting the left arrow key in manga mode now goes forward in the document), the image viewer received the ability to quickly fit to the width or the height of the displayed picture, and many of the apps received improvements for small display resolutions (hiding the menubar, not showing the toolbar in fullscreen…etc), and dark-mode support.

=> ↺ Compact edge AI boxes offer choice of Jetson Nano, TX2 NX, and Xavier NX

• All three systems ship with the Ubuntu 18.04 with Nvidia JetPack 4.5.1. They also support Advantech’s Edge AI Suite and FaceView applications, which are available on its earlier AIR systems.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Blog: Embedded systems: the advent of the Internet of Things – Part II

• This is the second part of the two-part blog series covering embedded Linux systems and the challenges brought about by the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. In Part I, we surveyed the embedded ecosystem and the role Linux plays within that space. This blog takes you on the next step in the journey, where we explore the most demanding challenges facing manufacturers of tightly embedded IoT devices.

=> ↺ CyberDog: a four legged robot revolution with Ubuntu

• Late this year, Chinese tech giant Xiaomi unveiled CyberDog: a quadrupedal, experimental, open-source robot that the firm claims will improve the robot development environment and promote the development of the robot industry. Today, Canonical dives into the specifications of this four legged robot and discover how Ubuntu is helping the device become an open source technological platform.

• Xiaomi has a clear vision for its product. As Huang Changjiang, PM at Xiaomi, explains, “CyberDog is developers’ technological partner from the future. It equips inhouse-made high-performance servo motors, high computing ability, with built-in AI for visual detection system and voice interaction system, supporting a variety of bionic motion gestures.”

=> ↺ ZeroDown® Software Targets Open Source with New Canonical Partnership

• As businesses around the world and in every major industry define and accelerate their cloud strategies, the lack of open, flexible and complete high availability has become a major concern. The ZeroDown platform, built upon Canonical’s industry-leading operating system, Ubuntu, aims at integrating into Canonical’s broader Charmed OpenStack platform with its ZeroDown Ultra High-Availability TM Software, eliminating downtime and data loss for its customers, running seamlessly through planned or unplanned downtime events.

=> ↺ Data centre networking: what is OVS? | Ubuntu

• In one of our preceding blogs, we spoke about Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and the key drivers behind it. Virtualisation is one of the fundamental aspects that characterises SDN, and has influenced the architecture of network switching in the data centre. OVS (Open vSwitch) is a fundamental component of modern and open data centre SDNs, where it aggregates all the virtual machines at the server hypervisor layer. It represents the ingress point for all the traffic exiting VMs, and can be used to forward traffic between multiple virtual network functions in the form of service chains. Let’s take a closer look in order to understand what OVS is.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ FPGA SoC modules gain networking carrier and new PolarFire SoC model

• Enclustra’s “Mercury+ PE3” carrier for its FPGA/SoC Mercury/Mercury+ modules can act as an SBC or plug into a PC via PCIe x8. It offers QSFP+, 4x SFP+, FireFly, and 2x GbE. We also examine a new “Mercury+ MP1” module based on the RISC-V based PolarFire SoC.

• In May, Switzerland based Enclustra announced a Mercury+ ST1 baseboard for its FPGA/SoC powered Mercury and Mercury+ compute modules. These include a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC based Mercury+ XU6 module that was announced at the same time. Now the company has unveiled a more feature-rich Mercury+ PE3 board for the Mercury/Mercury+ product line.

• Farther below, we report on a similarly “in development” Mercury+ MP1 module based on Microchip’s based PolarFire SoC, which includes RISC-V based CPU cores and Microchip’s PolarFire FPGA.

=> ↺ We’ve scaled Fairtrade gold – Fairphone

• We have paved the way to source more Fairtrade gold! Together with Fairtrade, we have partnered with Hirose Electric Co., Ltd. in Japan in order to integrate more Fairtrade gold into our supply chain. Our relationship with Hirose and Fairtrade continues our support of ASM gold projects and miners. This is an incredible stepping stone for the larger vision of a Fairtrade and Fairphone partnership to scale responsible gold in the electronics sector.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Buy A Piece Of The Pi? | Hackaday

• The various companies and organisations that supply our community have achieved differing levels of success, with some staying as kitchen-table operations and others reaching the giddy heights of multinational commerce. Perhaps none has risen so far as Raspberry Pi though, as there are reports that the developer of single board computers might be seeking a £400m listing on the London Stock Exchange some time next year. The news is that they have sought the advice of investment bankers over the possibility of a float, seeking to secure further investment to further develop their product portfolio.

• We’re not investment advisers here at Hackaday so we’re not going to suggest whether or not to bet your shirt on Pi shares, instead our interest lies in what this might mean for their family of products. It’s an inevitable process for any start-up that achieves major success that it will over time progress from being directed by vision to being directed by commerce, and perhaps a listing could be the culmination of this process. It’s fair to say that we tinkerers probably represent less of a market than education or industry to the Pi folks, so how might we win or lose when the suits take the helm?

=> ↺ What’s The Deal With UEFI?

• The Linux community, generally speaking, is agnostic at best and antagonistic at worst towards UEFI. The BIOS interface is pushing 45 years as of the time of writing and is considered legacy in every sense

=> ↺ Open-Source FPGA-Based RISC-V GPGPU That Supports OpenCL 1.2 – Phoronix

• While there was the Libre RISC-V GPU effort aiming to provide an open-source GPU accelerator based on RISC-V, it ultimately turned into Libre-SOC with a focus now on the POWER ISA. Meanwhile Vortex is continuing to mature as an open-source, FPGA-based RISC-V GPGPU processor.

• Vortex is a RISC-V GPGPU currently for FPGA-based implementation with either the Intel Arria 10 or Intel Stratix 10 working. This general purpose GPU makes use of the RISV-V RV32IMF 32-bit ISA and can yield up to 1024 threads at 250MHz.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ How to Split-Screen and Multitask on Android – Dignited

=> ↺ How To Wipe Your Android Device & Restore It To Factory Settings

=> ↺ Samsung Android 12 update: These devices have One UI 4.0 – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Android 12 should make these changes in future updates – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Want Android 11 on Your Nokia 9? Nokia Says Buy a New Phone | Digital Trends

=> ↺ Millions of Android phones need to be fixed NOW over ‘eavesdropping’ scare

=> ↺ 25 best free-to-play Android games in 2021

=> ↺ Amazon Appstore Is Crashing on Android 12 Even After a Month of Its Public Release: Reports | Technology News

=> ↺ Xiaomi testing MIUI 13 based on Android 11 and 12, list of devices in tow – comments

=> ↺ Android 12 gets home controls, wallet in power menu w/ app – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Nokia 9 PureView won’t get Android 11, here is why – PhoneArena

=> ↺ Nokia 9 Android 11 upgrade canceled permanently – Android Authority

=> ↺ YouTube for Android is trying out a new Material You look

=> ↺ How to Control Your Android Phone With Facial Gestures

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Best 3 Open-source, privacy-aware, ads-free Diabetes Managers for Android

• Diabetes is a long-lasting (chronic) health condition, that occurs when blood sugar is too high. It is a life-altering disease, as it changes eating habits and exercises routine.

• Diabetes management apps are many, and they come as web-based services, standalone mobile apps, and desktop apps. However, most of them are not free, open-source, or respect patient privacy much. Therefore, we write this article.

• Diabetes management and assistant apps are classified under a PHR “Personal Health Records” apps, where the patient logs and keeps all of his private records for future analysis and use.

=> ↺ Penpot: an open-source Prototyping and design platform for teams

• Penpot is a free, open-source web-based design and prototyping application for teams. It works with open web standards as it uses SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format.

• Penpot can be installed on a remote server or the local machine with help of Docker and Docker Compose.

• With Penpot, you can quickly design a web or mobile prototype in no time.

=> ↺ FreeScout is an open-source helpdesk for teams

• FreeScout is a free, open-source web-based support and ticketing system. It is written in PHP using the Laravel framework.

• FreeScout features a responsive user interface that works on small mobile screens and tablets.

• It is an ideal solution for team, technical support, and customer support for small and medium-sized companies as well as enterprise.

• FreeScout is battle tested with hundreds of satisfied companies, it is also supported with a large community of advanced users and professionals.

• [...]

• FreeScout is released under GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.

• The GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 permits commercial use, system modification, distribution, patent use, and private use. However, it comes with a limitation for liability and warranty, and several conditions.

=> ↺ UMLet: Open-source multi-platform UML tool

• UMLet is a free, open-source UML modeling tool for developers that allows them to draw UML diagrams quickly and export them to many formats.

• The program is released as an open-source under GPL-3.0 License.

=> ↺ JetUML: Open-source UML diagramming tool for Windows, Linux, and macOS

• JetUML is a free, lightweight desktop app for building and editing UML diagrams.

• JetUML is built with Java which comes also in a small .jar package.

=> ↺ The OpenNMS Group Releases OpenNMS Minion Appliance – the Next Evolution of Distributed Monitoring

=> ↺ Monica is your own persona CRM/ Assistant solution

• Monica is a free, open-source self-hosted personal CRM solution to help you keep tracking all of your social events, activities, work information and strengthen your interaction with your family members.

• [...]

• Monica is released under Affero General Public License (AGPL) v3.0.

=> ↺ Watch Blender Plugin Make Animated PCB Traces (and More) | Hackaday

• The idea is that one begins with an image texture with a structure showing a bunch of paths (like a maze, or traces on a PCB), and that gets used as an input. The plugin then uses a path finding algorithm to determine how these paths could grow from an origin point, and stores the relevant data in the color channels of an output image. That output is further used within Blender as the parameters with which to generate the actual animation, resulting in the neat self-creating PCB seen above. That PCB isn’t just for show, by the way. It’s the PCB for [Staacks]’s smart doorbell project.

• Blender is an amazingly comprehensive tool for modeling and animation, and while we’ve covered using it to create high-quality KiCad renders, this kind of animation is really something else.

=> ↺ Weekly-ish recap — 30 November 2021

• This is more of a monthly recap, for my sins! Highlights: new releases of BlenderBIM and IfcOpenShell, Natron, LibrePCB, Shotcut, VCV Rack, Blender 3.0 is coming later this week, Krita and darktable are prepping up for a major update.

• [...]

• The most recent release of Shotcut arrived with support for markers (at long, long last). Dan has been expanding this feature ever since. There’s now a Markers dock where you can add, edit/rename, and remove markers. UX for marker color selection has been improved too, and you can now seek to previous and next markers. Also, you can now export markers as chapters. You can expect all that (and more) in the next release.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla Performance Blog: Updates to Warm Page Load Tests

• We have recently begun the process of updating our warm page load tests to be more representative of real user behavior.

• Cold page load is defined as the first page load, just after the initial startup of the browser. Warm page load is any load of a page after the first page load, and the cache has been populated with some data for the page, i.e. the cache is “warmed up”.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ PostgreSQL: PGConf NYC 2021 starts Thursday!

• That means registration is closing since the conference will be starting!

• The first community PostgreSQL conference in North America in many months is in New York City this Thursday and Friday! PGConf NYC is a non-profit, community-run and PostgreSQL community recognized conference being run by the United States PostgreSQL Association (PgUS).

• Don’t wait any longer to register for this great event happening right in downtown New York City!

• PGConf NYC delivers two days packed with presentations about PostgreSQL and related technologies, as well as the usual hallway and social track. PGConf NYC is being held December 2nd and 3rd, 2021 in New York City.

=> ↺ Publication of the “Transition guide to PostgreSQL”

• We’re pleased to announce an English version of the “Transition guide to PostgreSQL”. This aims to answer questions from project owners and management about implementing PostgreSQL in place of a commercial solution.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ WordPress 5.9 Beta 1

• WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 is now available for testing!

• This version of the WordPress software is under development. You don’t want to run this version on a production site. Instead, it is recommended that you run this on a test site. This will allow you to test out the new version.

=> ↺ People of WordPress: Devin Maeztri

• In this series, we share some of the inspiring stories of how WordPress and its global network of contributors can change people’s lives for the better. This month we feature a translator and campaigner who uses WordPress to highlight good causes and helps people in her area benefit from the open source platform.

FSF

=> ↺ Help the FSF tech team maintain email services in freedom

• The Free Software Foundation’s (FSF) tech team is a small but dedicated team of three staff. With your support, and with the help of volunteers and interns, we run hundreds of services on a few dozen physical machines in four data centers.

• We are very excited about some of the initiatives we are working on, like deploying our upcoming forge site and other new systems, expanding our physical server deployments, and a further refresh of fsf.org. In parallel, the tech team is always working to better maintain, understand, and document our existing systems. Mastering those keeps vital systems running smoothly and lays the groundwork for future improvements.

• Email is a key service we provide. Besides it being one of the FSF campaigns and licensing teams’ most important ways of communicating, we also support thousands of mailing lists for other free software projects, which send millions of emails per year. Free software is extremely capable in all aspects of email, and there continue to be innovative advancements in free software email programs that we are excited to explore and adopt.

Licensing/Legal

=> ↺ First Update on the Vizio lawsuit – Conservancy Blog – Software Freedom Conservancy

• Yesterday, we received from Vizio their first official response in our pending litigation against Vizio for their copyleft license violations. So, what was their response?

• Did Vizio release the source code — as the GPL and LGPL require — for the modified versions of Linux, alsa-utils, GNU bash, GNU awk, BusyBox, dmesg, findutils, dmsetup, GNU tar, mount and selinux found in their TV’s firmwares? No.

• Did Vizio propose a CCS candidate for us to review, provide them with additional feedback, so that we could help them get consumers who bought their TVs the source code they deserve? Nope.

• Did Vizio argue that we had erred, and in fact, none of those programs we list above appear in their firmware? Not that either. (Unlikely though — after all, they surely know those programs are in their firmware!)

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ German coalition treaty endorses “Public Money, Public Code” principle – The Document Foundation Blog

• A quick news update from Germany: the upcoming coalition government endorses free and open source software. In the coalition agreement (German), there are some key sentences on this topic, for instance…

=> ↺ Nextcloud Forms European Coalition — Begins Antitrust Actions Against Microsoft

• A European coalition formed by Nextcloud is taking antitrust action against Microsoft like it’s 1999.

• The Germany-based company behind the on-premises content collaboration platform that shares its name, has put together a coalition of 30 organizations to fight Microsoft on antitrust grounds.

• “The 90s have just called and they see that nothing has changed,” Stefane Fermigier, founder and CEO of open source software vendor Abilian — a part of the coalition — said in a statement. “Microsoft’s anti-competitive practices remain a major concern for the competitiveness of the European software and cloud industry. As it has done in the past in similar cases, the European Commission must put an end to these practices.”

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Daniel Aleksandersen: Closing the open redirect in the Libravatar ecosystem

• Libravatar is a decentralized open-source alternative to Gravatar – the avatar image service. Last week, I noticed an URL Redirection to Untrusted Site (‘Open Redirect’) vulnerability (CWE-601) in the Libravatar application programming interface (API) specification.

• [...]

• An attacker can use the redirect to leech off the reputation of a Libravatar server’s domain. An open redirect can be used to obscure a link’s true destination, or help a spam or phishing message to sneak past filters.

• An open redirect is a common vulnerability, but the security community tries to shut them down whenever they’re discovered. What’s making this one noteworthy is that you can auto-discover Libravatar servers using DNS service discovery (DNS-SD) by querying domains for the DNS SRV records.

• I DNS-SD queried the web’s top 5,1 million domains (Tranco list #44KX) to see how many Libravatar instances and open redirects I could find. In total, I discovered 18 instances (unique IP addresses) on 23 distinct domain names. 11 instances were vulnerable (13 domain names).

• Notably, the servers operated by academic institutions were not vulnerable. These institutions are likely running custom software solutions on top of their staff and student databases to generate the avatars.

=> ↺ Hacks Decoded: Seyi Akiwowo, Founder of Glitch

• I’m not, I don’t think I want to “keep going” anymore. I grew my organization by 50% in terms of income and more in terms of staff and diversified our income streams before we hit the two-year mark — during a pandemic! I’m ready to rest, I’m ready to sleep more, I’m ready to do work that is still great with minimum viable effort. That’s the sweet spot I’m looking for.

=> ↺ A Super Speedy Lightweight Lossless Compression Algorithm | Hackaday

• [Dominic Szablewski] was tinkering around with compressing RGB images, when he stumbled upon idea of how to make a simple lossless compression algorithm, resulting in the Quite OK Image Format, which seems to offer comparable file sizes to the PNG format but is so simple it runs up to 50 times faster for compression and up to four times faster for decompression. Implementation can be achieved with a miniscule 300 lines of C. Need a bit more detail on the real-world performance? Well [Dominic] has that covered too, with a complete set of benchmarks for your perusal.

=> ↺ HLK-W801 board features Alibaba Xuantie XT804 based MCU with WiFi 4, Bluetooth LE 4.2 – CNX Software

• But the company has a nearly identical WinnerMicro W801 microcontroller that bumps the internal flash to 2MB, and more importantly adds a 2.4 GHz radio with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 4.2 connectivity, and HiLink also released the HLK-W801 board that’s nearly identical to HLK-W806, except for some extra LEDs, a USB-C port instead of a Micro USB port, and a longer form factor to make space for the PCB antenna.

=> ↺ Running the MIXAL Insertion Sort | Adam Young’s Web Log

• With the information gained in last posts investigations, I now know how to turn the smaple code of the insertion sort out of TAOCP into runnable code.

• The key insight I had was that the Accumulator was operating on the whole value it would fetch or store, and the I# registers were just used for counters. Thus, the buffer needed to be of word length elements. For MIX that means 5 characters long.

=> ↺ Russell Coker: Your Device Has Been Improved

• By “stability improved” they mean “fixed some bugs that made it unstable” and no technical person would imagine that after a certain number of such updates the number of bugs will ever reach zero and the tablet will be perfectly reliable. In fact if you should consider yourself lucky if they fix more bugs than they add. It’s not THAT uncommon for phones and tablets to be bricked (rendered unusable by software) by an update. In the past I got a Huawei Mate9 as a warranty replacement for a Nexus 6P because an update caused so many Nexus 6P phones to fail that they couldn’t be replaced with an identical phone [1].

• By “security improved” they usually mean “fixed some security flaws that were recently discovered to make it almost as secure as it was designed to be”. Note that I deliberately say “almost as secure” because it’s sometimes impossible to fix a security flaw without making significant changes to interfaces which requires more work than desired for an old product and also gives a higher probability of things going wrong. So it’s sometimes better to aim for almost as secure or alternatively just as secure but with some features disabled.

=> ↺ All change at JetBrains: Remote development, new IDE preview • The Register

• JetBrains has introduced remote development for its range of IDEs as well as previewing a new IDE called Fleet, which will form the basis for fresh tools covering all major programming languages.

• JetBrains has a core IDE used for the IntelliJ IDEA Java tool as well other IDEs such as Android Studio, the official programming environment for Google Android, PyCharm for Python, Rider for C#, and so on. The IDEs run on the Java virtual machine (JVM) and are coded using Java and Kotlin, the latter being primarily a JVM language but with options for compiling to JavaScript or native code.

=> ↺ PHP Foundation Looks to Fund Open Source Language Development

• The PHP Foundation is gearing up as a new organization to help fund and support the continued development of the open source PHP programming language.

Perl/Raku

=> ↺ MONKEY-SEE-NO-CROSSPRODUCT | Playing Perl 6␛b6xA Raku

• The challenge of the week is screaming: “Nest all the loops!”. I don’t like being yelled at, so I refuse to use any nested for/while/loop. The rules don’t require to put the two sub-challenges into separate files, so I won’t.

=> ↺ Excellent Free Tutorials to Learn Raku – LinuxLinks

• Raku is a member of the Perl family of programming languages. Formerly known as Perl 6, it was renamed in October 2019. Raku introduces elements of many modern and historical languages. Compatibility with Perl was not a goal, though a compatibility mode is part of the specification.

=> ↺ It’s that time of the year… again – Raku Advent Calendar

• And we’re still around and kicking new advent posts with the best, the nicest and the merely possible in the Raku realm.

• Also the 13th year in a row for this calendar, and also 6th year since what was then called Perl 6 was released. Raku is now faster, it’s already in production in a number of places, and it’s got a healthy ecosystem with lots of useful modules. Who would wish for more? Well, we wish for a dozen and a again (possibly) baker’s dozen of articles for everyone to enjoy.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ Combinations from 2 lists: speed trials

• This post was inspired by a recently published scientific paper describing how Python was used to build a list of a million scientific names. Each name was composed of parts taken from a list, and combinations of those parts were generated.

• The result was something like a Cartesian product, about which I’ve blogged before. This time I was interested in performance: how does the time required to get a result vary with the number of combinations to be built?

Rust

=> ↺ 1.57.0 pre-release testing

• The 1.57.0 pre-release is ready for testing. The release is scheduled for this Thursday, December 2nd. Release notes can be found here.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Recycled Parts Round Out Soap Shaped Electric Car

• Hong Kong based [Handy Geng] has a knack for fitting his creations with a large percentage of recycled material. And as is exemplified by the video below the break, he also loves to mix the practical with the whimsical.

• Using parts salvaged from motor scooters, trash heaps, and likely many other sources, [Handy] has put together a small vehicle that he himself describes as looking like a bar of soap as it slips across the floor. You’ll agree when you see the independent front and rear steering at work, allowing the car’s front and rear to be driven and steered on their own. Crabbing sideways, driving diagonally, and we’re guessing spinning in place are possible.

Hardware

=> ↺ Two-Stage Dust Collector Recycles Blasting Media | Hackaday

• A critical element of a good blasting cabinet setup is a vacuum system that can suck out the dust, blasting media, and bits of removed material faster than it collects inside the chamber. A cyclone separator can get the job done, but since it dumps all the waste from the cabinet into one bucket, it can make reusing the blasting material a dirty job. But as [Daniel Bauen] explains in the latest Engineerable video, his two-stage dust collector is able to keep the cabinet clear while separating the used blasting material into its own container.

=> ↺ Giving Flip Dots The Oil Treatment To Shut Them Up | Hackaday

• Flip dot displays are awesome — too bad it’s so hard to find large panels to play around with, but that’s for another article. [Pierre Muth] has been working to find different and interesting things to do with these flip dots, and he recently explored how you can flip them very very gently.

• Now you likely remember [Pierre’s] work from earlier this year where he was pushing the speed of the displays as high as possible. Using a capacitor discharge trick he made it to 30 fps, which absolutely stunning work. This time around he attempted to do something equally impressive by micro-stepping the dots. It’s a bonkers idea and unfortunately didn’t work. It seems the dots are engineered for two steady states and you just can’t get very good performance with the in-between states.

=> ↺ Amazon Announces C7g AWS Instances Coming Powered By Graviton3 – Phoronix

• Amazon Web Services today shared that C7g instances are coming powered by Graviton3, their next-gen in-house AArch64 processors.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

Pseudo-Open Source

Privatisation/Privateering

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ New Linux Foundation Project Accelerates Collaboration on Container Systems Between Enterprise and HPC Environments

• The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced it will host the Apptainer project. Formerly the Singularity project, Apptainer is the most widely used container system for High-Performance (HPC) computing and is one of the container systems uniquely suited for both enterprise and HPC use cases. It is designed to execute applications at bare-metal performance while being secure, portable and completely reproducible.

=> ↺ New Linux Foundation Project Accelerates Collaboration on Container Systems Between Enterprise and High-Performance Computing Environments

• The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced it will host the Apptainer project. Formerly the Singularity project, Apptainer is the most widely used container system for High-Performance (HPC) computing and is one of the container systems uniquely suited for both enterprise and HPC use cases. It is designed to execute applications at bare-metal performance while being secure, portable and completely reproducible.

• “The Apptainer project has had massive growth and needs a neutral home with proven open source governance to support its next development and adoption phase,” said Gregory Kurtzer, CEO of CIQ and Founder and Project Lead of Singularity/Apptainer. “The Linux Foundation is the natural host for Apptainer, where it can also collaborate with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Open Container Initiative, OpenHPC and other projects to expand its ecosystem.”

=> ↺ New Quantum Intermediate Representation Alliance Serves as Common Interface for Quantum Computing Development

• he Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the new QIR Alliance, a joint effort to establish an intermediate representation with the goal to facilitate interoperability within the quantum ecosystem and provide a representation suitable for current and future heterogenous quantum processors. Founding members include Honeywell, Microsoft, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Quantum Circuits Inc. and Rigetti Computing.

=> ↺ Linux Foundation launches quantum computing alliance to drive interoperability

=> ↺ ‘Linux’ Foundation

• The Linux Foundation has announced a new joint effort to help facilitate interoperability within the quantum computing ecosystem.

• Dubbed Quantum Intermediate Representation (QIR), the alliance is part of the Linux Foundation’s efforts to promote the development and use of open standards.

=> ↺ Linux Foundation: Defending the Global Software Supply Chain from Cyberattacks in 2021

=> ↺ back doors alliance

=> ↺ NSA ties

• Attackers are increasingly targeting software supply chains (the processes, repositories, and toolchains used for developing and delivering software). The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, ENISA, estimated in “Threat Landscape for Supply Chain Attacks” that there would be four times as many software supply chain attacks in 2021 as compared to 2020. The report states due to “…more robust security protection that [many] organizations have put in place [today], attackers successfully shifted towards suppliers.”

• Governments around the world have noted and responded to this growing risk to the software supply chain. In May 2021, the US released an Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity to enhance software supply chain security, including providing software purchasers with a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). Similar efforts are underway around the world.

• In 2021, our communities rose to the challenge of providing tools and best practices for the security hardening of the global software supply chains. Our efforts included launching Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) as a funded project, expanding Let’s Encrypt — the world’s largest certificate authority, ensuring the ISO standardization of SPDX as the SBOM standard, directing funds to identify and fix vulnerabilities in critical open source software, and building new training curriculum to improve secure coding practices.

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Launches New Quantum Intermediate Representation Alliance

• The Linux Foundation has announced the new QIR Alliance, a joint effort to establish an intermediate representation with the goal to facilitate interoperability within the quantum ecosystem and provide a representation suitable for current and future heterogenous quantum processors.

Security

=> ↺ New HP MFP vulnerabilities show why you should update and isolate printers | CSO Online

• Security researchers have published details about two serious vulnerabilities that impact over 150 different HP multifunction printer models with FutureSmart firmware going back at least nine years. The attack vectors associated with the flaws and their impact serve as a reminder that printers can pose significant security risks to enterprise networks if not properly secured, updated and segmented.

• “For one, the vulnerabilities date back to at least 2013 and affect a large number of HP products released,” researchers from security firm F-Secure, who found the flaws, said in their report. “HP is a large company that sells products all over the world. Many companies are likely using these vulnerable devices. To make matters worse, many organizations don’t treat printers like other types of endpoints. That means IT and security teams forget about these devices’ basic security hygiene, such as installing updates.”

• Exploiting one of the vulnerabilities requires physical access and can be done through physical ports that are exposed on its communications board. A skilled attacker with physical access to a vulnerable MFP would need around five minutes to perform the attack and deploy a stealthy implant that could take full control of the device and exfiltrate potentially sensitive information.

• The second vulnerability is even more dangerous because it’s located in the firmware’s font parsing code and essentially allows anyone who can print a specifically crafted file to execute malicious code on the vulnerable MFPs. The vulnerability is wormable and exploitation can be achieved in seconds through multiple remote attack vectors, including by users visiting malicious websites.

=> ↺ Security updates for Tuesday [LWN.net]

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (samba), Fedora (kernel), openSUSE (netcdf and tor), SUSE (netcdf and python-Pygments), and Ubuntu (imagemagick).

=> ↺ Nasty Windows 10 vulnerability gets a patch, but not from Microsoft

• Cybersecurity researchers have released an unofficial patch for a bug in Windows 10, originally reported to Microsoft in October 2020, which later research revealed could take the form of a local privilege vulnerability as well.

=> ↺ RedHat: RHSA-2021-4848:07 Moderate: Migration Toolkit for Containers (MTC)

=> ↺ Inside Intel’s Secret Warehouse in Costa Rica

• Chip maker is stockpiling legacy technology for security research, plans to expand facility to house 6,000 pieces of equipment

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Over 100 civil society groups call for changes to EU AI Act

• A total of 114 civil society organisations have signed an open letter calling on European institutions to amend the forthcoming Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) so that it properly protects fundamental human rights and addresses the structural impacts of artificial intelligence (AI).

• The European Commission’s proposed AIA was published in April 2021 and sought to create a risk-based, market-led approach to regulating AI by establishing self-assessments, transparency procedures and various technical standards.

• Digital civil rights experts and organisations have previously told Computer Weekly that although the regulation is a step in the right direction, it will ultimately fail to protect people’s fundamental rights and mitigate the technology’s worst abuses because it does not address the fundamental power imbalances between tech firms and those who are subject to their systems.

=> ↺ The EU needs an Artificial Intelligence Act that protects fundamental rights

• Access Now and over 110 civil society organisations have laid out proposals to make sure the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act addresses the real-world impacts of the use of artificial intelligence (AI), places fundamental rights protection front-and-centre, and maintains a broad definition of AI systems.

• “Access Now’s priority is not to have an EU law on AI, but to have one that is an effective instrument to protect people’s rights,” said Fanny Hidvégi, Europe Policy Manager at Access Now. “We’ve laid out the steps needed to boost the proposed regulation’s human rights standards, and are looking forward to working with the Council and Parliament to guarantee they are achieved.”

• Access Now and AlgorithmWatch rang the alarm bell last week when information leaked suggesting the European Council is planning on drastically narrowing the definition of AI systems, potentially excluding many technologies that impact human rights. The AI Act needs to be amended, but those amendments must increase protections for fundamental rights, not water them down.

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Clavis Artis by “Zoroaster” – The Public Domain Review

• Alchemical images from a 17th- or 18th-century manuscript that claims to be much older: a direct translation from Zoroaster himself.

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