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● 12.23.21

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● Links 24/12/2021: Neptune 7.0 “Faye” Released, Another Massive Security Hole in Azure

Posted in News Roundup at 7:14 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Server

=> ↺ Pete Zaitcev: Adventures in tech support

• OVH was pestering me about migrating my VPS from its previous range to the new (and more expensive) one. I finally agreed to that. Migrated the VM to the new host, it launches with no networking. Not entirely unexpected, but it gets better.

• The root cause is the DHCP server at OVH returning a lease with netmask /32. In that situation, it’s not possible to add a default route, because the next hop is outside of the netmask.

• Seems like a simple enough problem, so I filed a ticket in OVH support, basically saying “your DHCP server supplies incorrect netmask, please fix it.”

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Who REALLY OWNS Linux? – Invidious

=> ↺ elementary OS 6.1 Jólnir overview | The smart, capable and ethical replacement for Windows and macOS – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show an overview of elementary OS 6.1 Odin and some of the applications pre-installed.

=> ↺ Bad Volume 3×41: By A Hair Or Two

• Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia are in your ears for the last time in 2021, as we look back on what we thought this year would be back in January, and then how it’s actually been now that we’ve lived through it. Yes, it’s prediction review time! Did you do better than us?

• We will do better next year. And we plan to do so, live and on camera! Keep an eye out for our first live stream of a show recording, January 13th 2022!

Applications

=> ↺ 23 Best Free Internet Radio Software

• Internet radio (also known as web radio, net radio, streaming radio, and online radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet.

• Why do we like internet radio? There’s no sign-up or subscription charges. There’s a huge range of stations available from around the world. If you like classical music, pop music, folk music, news, talk radio, and much more, internet radio has something for everyone wherever you live (providing you have a net connection). Internet radio offers every format that is available on traditional broadcast radio stations.

=> ↺ Audacity 3.1.3 Open-Source Audio Editor Makes Project Loading Up to 50x Faster

• Audacity 3.1.3 is here with several new features and many bug fixes, but most importantly it brings a huge performance boost when loading projects. Due to this under-the-hood change, the devs claim that Audacity will load projects with up to 50x faster compared to the Audacity 3.1.0 release.

• For the new features, this release adds snap guides when resizing clips, re-adds the Quick Play indicator, adds a new selection region indicator in the timeline with updated visuals), and adds new keyboard shortcuts for looping, namely Shift+L for the “Set Loop to Selection” function and Shift+Alt+L for the “Clear Looping Region” function.

=> ↺ Best Linux File Managers

• As time passed, we started to rely more on digital documentation while our storage devices grew to keep up. The way we proudly organized our data just a few years ago is no longer relevant as the number of files kept on a typical desktop computer continues to rise. Therefore, file management is critical these days, especially if you work with various files daily.

• The Linux operating system and its distributions come with lots of different feature-rich and easy-to-use file managers that are also very friendly to use. Many users are unaware of the large range of file management options available or the full capabilities of the ones they are aware of. Like every other part of Linux, file managers provide a plethora of alternatives, and some of the preferred file managers will be discussed in this article.

=> ↺ Top alternatives of Microsoft Outlook for Linux

• Mozilla Thunderbird is an open-source email server that is an alternative to Outlook and most widely used by the Linux community. It can be downloaded by visiting its official website and also be it can be used for chatting, saving dates of important events on the calendar, and staying updated with the newsfeed.

• [...]

• The other widely used email client in Linux is Evolution, which usually comes with the GNOME Desktop Environment in Linux. Evolution usually comes with GNOME in the installation of Ubuntu, and Debian-based distributions, if it’s not, it can be installed using their package manager and it can be downloaded from its official website.

• [...]

• It is a software suite that contains tools for email, calendar, to-do-list, and contacts that are KMail, KOrganizer, and Kontact. This suite provides all the tools that are used in daily life in one place, and this project is developed and maintained by KDE.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Using Ansible to Install and Configure Postgres 14 on Rocky Linux/Alma Linux

• In this guide we are going to install and configure Postgresql 14 in Rocky Linux Using Ansible. This guide works for other RHEL 8 based derivatives like Alma Linux and Oracle Linux.

• Postgresql is an open source object-relational database system with over 30 years of active development that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance.

• Ansible is an open-source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool enabling infrastructure as code. It runs on many Unix-like systems, and can configure both Unix-like systems as well as Microsoft Windows.

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

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

=> ↺ Can Ansible Create EC2 Instances?

• Chances are, if you are looking at this tutorial, you do not need an introduction to Ansible. However, it does not hurt to make a quick recap.

• Ansible is the most popular and probably powerful configuration management tool. It is built to facilitate the management and configuration of remote hosts using a set of commands defined as tasks.

• It works by using modules developed for specific tasks such as managing users, managing files, installing and removing software packages, and many more.

• This guide will use the Ansible AWS module to provision and manage an EC2 instance. We will start with the basics of setting up an AWS account, installing Ansible, and finally cover how to work with the Ansible AWS module.

=> ↺ How to use time command in Linux

• Time is the essential parameter to evaluate the efficiency or performance of any task. Such a good processor is judged by good processing speed which is evaluated on the basis of time. Similarly, in Linux, the “time” command is used to evaluate the processing time taken by different commands in their execution. There are different ways to do the same task, for example, we can edit the text files using the vim editor as well as the nano editor, with the help of the time command we can evaluate which editor takes less execution time, then we can use that editor for text editing purposes for better performance.

=> ↺ How to deploy a Bitwarden server with Docker – TechRepublic

• Bitwarden is one of my favorite password managers. But if you’re seriously concerned about security and would rather not save your password database on a third-party server, you might want to consider deploying your own Bitwarden server.

• That might sound like a serious challenge but, thanks to Docker, it’s actually quite simple. I’m going to show you how to do just that.

=> ↺ Install Centreon Monitoring on AlmaLinux 8 | Rocky Linux 8 – Linux Shout

• Centreon is an open-source monitoring system for monitoring IT infrastructures. Due to its modular structure and good scalability suitable for monitoring small to big networks through to complex IT environments with hundreds of hosts. Here in this tutorial, we will learn the commands to install the Open Source Centreon monitoring tool on AlmaLinux 8 or Rocky Linux 8 RPM Linux.

• The project Centreon started in 2005 and was distributed among developers under GPLv2 and Apache Open Source licenses. It comes in four editions- Open Source; IT Edition; Business Edition and MSP Edition. Of course, editions other than open-source are subscription-based and with extra features as compared to community (open source) ones.

• Just like Nagios or Icinga, Centreon also offers a web interface to view and manage multiple systems, furthermore, configuration through the Centreon web interface makes the effort considerably easier, especially when monitoring complex IT environments with hundreds of hosts and services.

=> ↺ How to use mail command in Linux

• Mail is the quickest way of communicating messages to your loved ones, there are different email client servers that allow users to send emails, besides this, Linux by default provides the feature of sending an email using the “mail” command through its terminal. We can write the subject, message along with the email address of the recipient and send it by just executing a single command.

• There are different packages through which we can install the mail command, these packages are discussed in this write-up as well as the use of the mail command is also explained in detail.

=> ↺ How to remove background in Inkscape

• Photo editing software and vector graphics editors such as Inkscape utilize the background removal feature to remove unwanted and unnecessary items from images, ultimately making their look more outstanding and attractive. It also assists in directing the audience’s attention to the main subject of the image. After removing the background from an image, various creative things can make the image more charming. Photographers use the background removing services to eliminate the error and the imperfections for the shot images.

• In Inkscape software, you can use the image tracing and the outlining method for removing the background of an image. The “Trace Bitmap” feature helps trace the selected image in image tracing. Whereas a “Bezier” tool is used to outline the image’s main subject in the outlining method. This write-up will teach you both methods for removing the white background and colored background in Inkscape. So, let’s start!

=> ↺ How to remove all files of a directory in Linux

• Files are created and saved in the directories of Linux, they can be text files, image files, music files, or any other format. These files occupy some space and many files present in our system are purposeless, they should be deleted in order to make space for new files.

• In Linux, we can either delete/remove a single file or delete all the files from a directory using a single command in a terminal. In this write-up, we will discuss the ways to remove all the files in a directory of Linux.

=> ↺ How to remove a Linux user

• A computer system in an organization can be operated by a number of users, if someone leaves the organization his/her account becomes useless, it should be removed or deleted from the system to save storage space. If the operating system is Linux-based, the users can be managed using the terminal conveniently. In this follow-up, we are going to explain some simple queries through which we can remove the users from Linux.

=> ↺ How to move a directory in Linux

• In Linux we can move the directories to a specific folder and protect them by changing their access permission in order to secure the files and data present in those directories. To move the directory from one path to another is much simpler and can be done easily.

• The one thing most people are confused about is the difference between move and copy command; copy command is used to make the clone of files/directories to some other paths while keeping the original file/directory at its original path, while the move command is used to move the file/directory from its original path and place it to some other path.

• In this write-up, we have explained the methods in detail through which we can move the directories from one path to another in Linux.

=> ↺ How to Count Lines in the file of Linux

• The practice of counting lines in the file is usually adopted by the developers to determine the length of their code or the program. They do so to find out the efficiency of the program, the program having fewer lines performing the same task compared to the program of greater lines is assumed to be more efficient.

• In Linux, there are different methods to count the number of lines in the files, all of these methods are discussed in this article in detail.

=> ↺ How To Install Zimbra Mail With Ubuntu 18.04 -

• Here, we will learn how to install Zimbra mail with Ubuntu 18.04. Zimbra is an open-source email server utility. Zimbra collaborations suite is a good but cost-effective alternative for MS O365, G Suite, or other email services. Day-to-day user management, calendar management can be managed with Zimbra. Even ven file sharing and chatting can be managed easily with the collaboration suite. Zimbra does not support Ubuntu 20.04 or 21 as of now. To learn Zimbra installation with CentOS, you can refer to our article.

=> ↺ How to set up a Git repository in minutes on Linux – TechRepublic

• Sometimes you just need to deploy a quick Git repository so you can collaborate on a project, back up your code or house your files on a remote machine. When you feel like doing that, you don’t want to have to spend an hour or so deploying a server and setting it up … especially when you already have everything you need at your fingertips.

• I’m going to show you how you can quickly deploy a Git repository using just git and ssh. You should be able to spin this up in less than five minutes (two, if you type fast).

=> ↺ How to install Mozilla Thunderbird on a Chromebook

• Today we are looking at how to install Mozilla Thunderbird, a mail client, 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.

• This tutorial will only work on Chromebooks with an Intel or AMD CPU (with Linux Apps Support) and not those with an ARM64 architecture CPU.

• If you have any questions, please contact us via a YouTube comment and we would be happy to assist you!

=> ↺ Install vTiger CRM on CentOS 8 – Unixcop the Unix / Linux the admins deams

• Vtiger is an open source CRM which includes inventory, email, project management, and other tools that provides a complete business management suite. Using vTiger CRM you can ensure premium support, sales management and for marketing teams to work smoothly to boost business growth and improve customer experience.

=> ↺ How to Install Qubes OS on VirtualBox

• If you are really conscious about security and don’t want to spend your money on expensive software, then Qubes OS is the answer to all your security woes.

• Qubes, as an operating system, works in isolation. It creates isolated compartments, all of them based on Xen-based virtualization technology.

• This helps in the creation and management of “qubes” (isolated compartments). Each individual qube limits the interactions between software and hardware, to enhance the concept of security delivery.

• In this guide, the intent is to help you install the latest version of Qubes OS on Oracle VirtualBox.

=> ↺ How to Install KDE Plasma Desktop on CentOS 8 Stream – LinuxCapable

• The name KDE comes from “K Desktop Environment.” For those not familiar with KDE Desktop, it is a free, open-source desktop environment. It provides Linux users with an alternative graphical interface to customize their desktop environment and applications for everyday use enhancement.

• In CentOS’s case, this is GNOME. Besides the graphical enhancements and changes, it is also a lightweight, fast, smooth environment with superior performance compared to native shipped desktops with some Linux Distributions.

• In the following tutorial, you will have learned how to install KDE Desktop Environment on your CentOS 8 Stream desktop environment.

=> ↺ How to Install Liquorix Kernel on Fedora 35 – LinuxCapable

• Liqourix Kernel is a free, open-source general-purpose Linux Kernel alternative to the stock kernel shipped with Fedora 35. It features custom settings and new features and is built to provide a responsive and smooth desktop experience, especially for new hardware.

• Liquorix Kernel is popular amongst Linux Gaming, streaming, and ultra-low latency requirements and often boasts the latest Linux Kernels.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest Linux Kernel on your Fedora 35.

=> ↺ How to Install XanMod Kernel on Fedora 35 – LinuxCapable

• XanMod is a free, open-source general-purpose Linux Kernel alternative to the stock kernel with Fedora 35. It features custom settings and new features and is built to provide a responsive and smooth desktop experience, especially for new hardware.

• XanMod is popular amongst Linux Gaming, streaming, and ultra-low latency requirements and often boasts the latest Linux Kernels before landing on Fedora.

• Installing a third-party kernel may be for you for users seeking to have their system kernel up to date and not wanting to install kernels or use the testing/unstable repositories manually.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest XanMod Kernel on your Fedora operating system.

=> ↺ How to Install Xfce Desktop on CentOS 8 Stream – LinuxCapable

• Xfce is a lightweight free, open-source desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It is designed to be fast and light on system resources while visually appealing than the default desktop environments that ship with most operating systems. Xfce is very popular with older systems with hardware as a key feature in its design is to conserve both memory and CPU cycles.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Xfce on your CentOS 8 Stream desktop.

=> ↺ How to Install John the Ripper on all platforms – TREND OCEANS

• John the Ripper is open-source software that comes preinstalled in Kali Linux. It is mainly recognized by cracking and recovering passwords for Linux, Winrar, Windows, FTP, SSH, WordPress, etc.

• Initially, it was released for the UNIX system to detect weak passwords, but now support more than 100 hashes and ciphers. It comes in two different variants free and premium.

=> ↺ How To Install Brave Browser on Fedora 35 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Brave Browser on Fedora 35. For those of you who didn’t know, Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. What distinguishes Brave from others is its ability to block ads and website trackers out of the box. Brave is also called a “crypto browser” because it uses the Ethereum blockchain that is used to secure users’ data.

• 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 Brave browser on a Fedora 35.

=> ↺ How to install go 1.18 on Ubuntu 20.04 – NextGenTips

• In this tutorial, we are going to explore how to install go on Ubuntu 20.04.

• Golang is an open-source programming language that is easy to learn and use. It is built-in concurrency and has a robust standard library. It is reliable, builds fast, and efficient software that scales fast.

• Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel-type systems enable flexible and modular program constructions.

• Go compiles quickly to machine code and has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection.

• In this guide, we are going to learn how to install golang 1.18 on Fedora 35.

=> ↺ How to install Ansible in Ubuntu 20.04. – NextGenTips

• Welcome to today’s tutorial, we are going to talk about the easier way to install Ansible inside Ubuntu 20.04 distro.

• Ansible is an open-source software provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment tool enabling infrastructure as code. It runs both on Unix-like systems and on Windows platforms.

• Ansible is a radically simple IT automation engine that automates cloud provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, intra-service orchestration, etc.

• Ansible uses no agents and no additional custom security infrastructure. It is easy to deploy because it uses YAML file systems that allow you to describe your deployment environment in plain English.

• To install the released version of Ansible, pip or packet manager is used.

=> ↺ Using the mv Command to Move Files & Directories in Linux

• The mv command in Linux stands for move. It is used to move one or more files or directories from one location to another within the file system. The command usually works without prompting, but we will show you how you can prompt before renaming or moving a file.

• In this article, we will discuss the mv command in Linux, its options, and some common use cases.

=> ↺ [Updated] How to Set GRUB2 Password in RHEL, CentOS and Fedora Linux

• GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) is a default bootloader in all Unix-like operating systems. As promised in our earlier article “How to reset a forgotten root password“, here we are going to review how to protect GRUB with passwords.

• As mentioned earlier post, anyone can log in into single-user mode and may change system settings as needed. This is the big security flow. So, to prevent such unauthorized person to access the system we may require to have grub with password protected.

• Here, we’ll see how to prevent users from entering into single user mode and changing the settings of systems that may have direct or physical access to the system.

=> ↺ Openstack RDO && KVM Hypervisor: Uploading dictionaries into SQLite tables via Pandas DataFrames on Python 3.9.9

• The following below is a not entirely trivial algorithm for students that creates a Python dictionary after scanning text according to the conditions of the problem, which gets converted into Pandas Dataframe and uploaded to SQLite database table to be analyzed via nested SQL Query.

=> ↺ How-To: Docker on Windows and Mac with Multipass | Ubuntu

• If you’re looking for an alternative to Docker Desktop or to integrate Docker into your Multipass workflow, this how-to is for you.

• Multipass can host a docker engine inside an Ubuntu VM in a manner similar to Docker Desktop. That Docker instance can be controlled either directly from the VM, or remotely from the host machine with no additional software required. This allows you to run Docker locally on your Windows or Mac machine directly from your host terminal.

Games

=> ↺ Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from GamingOnLinux | GamingOnLinux

• For 2022, things are going to be both exciting and scary for Linux gaming. So much hinges on how the Steam Deck launch goes and if it will be a success or not. We’re still a few months away yet and no doubt Valve have plenty more upgrades for Steam and Proton up their sleeves. We’ve no idea when we will be able to do our own direct Steam Deck coverage, as after the delay our reservation is currently sat on Q2 2022.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Krita 5.0 Released! Much Faster Now while Less Memory Usage

• After a few beta testing releases, the popular digital painting software Krita 5.0 is finally out with lots of new features!

• Krita 5.0 has re-written the resource system that handles brush presets, gradients, palettes and more. The new system is much faster and uses much less memory!

• Gradients have been improved in the release. They are much more smoothed and can handle wider gamuts. The smudge brush engine has been completely rewritten, and a new brush engine to load MyPaint 1.2 brushes into Krita.

Distributions

=> ↺ My Top 5 Linux Distro Releases of 2021

• I may write a blog about Ubuntu. I may use Ubuntu. But the Linux ecosystem? I know it’s far more than just Ubuntu. It’s a rich and vibrant scene chock-full of choice, colour, and creativity. There are dozens upon dozens of top-drawer distros out there, all deserving of attention.

• What follows is intended as a celebration; a shoutout to some of 2021’s standout Linux releases in my opinion. This post is not a proclamation of superiority; distros aren’t ranked in any special order; and anything not featured isn’t automatically being badged as un-good.

New Releases

=> ↺ Neptune 7.0 “Faye” Released with Zswap, Based on Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye”

• Coming more than two years after Neptune 6.0 and more than a year after Neptune 6.5, the Neptune 7.0 release is based on the latest and greatest Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system series and it’s powered by the long-term supported Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series.

• Dubbed “Faye,” after the member of the Bebop crew from the Cowboy Bebop anime series, Neptune 7.0 ships with the KDE Plasma 5.20.5 desktop environment that has been beautified with a new Neptune specific theme that’s fully compatible with KDE Plasma’s Breeze widget style.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ Holidays in the openSUSE Bar!

• First, on behalf of all the openSUSE BAR regulars, we’d like to wish you Happy Holidays / Merry X-mas🎄. But, we are also aware that many of us will be spending the holidays this year unable to celebrate the way that we would like to. Therefore we’d like to invite you to join our ‘holiday bar party’, which will be available from the 24-26th of December.

• We are also planning to celebrate the New Year in the bar as well! Many of us will be online in the bar, celebrating the New Year over and over again, as it comes throughout the day and the night in all of our time zones around the world.

Arch Family

=> ↺ Manjaro 21.2 Qonos Released with Updated Desktop Environments

• Manjaro Linux is out with version 21.2 Qonos ahead of the holidays, powered by the latest Linux 5.15 LTS kernel.

• Manjaro is a desktop-oriented operating system based on Arch Linux. It has a focus on user friendliness and the system itself is designed to work fully “straight out of the box” with its variety of pre-installed software.

• Now, with their latest Qonos version, Manjaro comes with another fantastic release at the end of this year, helping make Linux more accessible for as broader audience from beginners to gamers, and that’s always a plus in our book for promoting free software. So let’s give it a shot and see what’s new.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Upcoming downtime for Fedora Discussion

• Almost three years ago, we moved the existing Ask Fedora site from an engine which attempted to replicate Stack Exchange to a new system (the current Ask Fedora) based on Discourse, a modern open source web forum platform. We had some frustrations with the software, and the Stack-Exchange-like approach wasn’t really working for us. This has been a huge success, and the new Ask is incredibly popular.

• At the same time, we also tried an experiment — we set up Fedora Discussion as a parallel site for community and project conversations. This goes hand-in-hand with the (soft-launch, but we’re getting there) Matrix-based Fedora Chat service — Discussion for longer-form, long-lasting asynchronous communication, and Chat for synchronous connections.

• This experiment has gone well, and we have solid and increasing use, with several different Fedora teams (including Fedora Council and CommOps) making it their primary place for communication. We’ve had some nice improvements over time as we’ve learned to use the system (not to mention a nice new logo from Máirín Duffy and the Fedora Design Team). But, the site’s basic structure is still what we arbitrarily came up with when we first launched it: kind of a mishmash of categories and concepts. As we’ve had more requests to use the site, it’s become increasingly clear that these early decisions don’t match what we need.

=> ↺ Top 10 digital transformation articles of 2021 | The Enterprisers Project

• In 2021, CIOs entered year two of the COVID-19 pandemic. After accelerating their digital transformation efforts to get their workforce up and running remotely, leaders quickly found their hard work rewarded with more hard work: Namely, transforming the customer and employee experiences, ramping up security efforts, and sustaining the breakneck pace of digital acceleration without burning out their talent.

• As we looked back at our most popular digital transformation articles of 2021, it’s clear that CIOs are seizing this opportunity to drive business strategy, set ambitious goals for their organizations, and work in agile new ways to achieve them.

• “As we continue to push forward with the digitalization agenda, it’s opening a world of opportunity – literally – for IT and business operations. Now, geographic boundaries are mostly irrelevant, and from now on, we’ll enjoy the flexibility to place employees wherever they’re needed and give them the freedom to choose where they live and work. Thanks to greater adoption of cloud technologies, there are almost no limitations,” writes Linda Kahangi, Chief Information and Operations Officer (CIOO) at Nomadix Inc.

=> ↺ More machine learning with OpenShift Data Science

• We hope you enjoyed the first two Red Hat OpenShift Data Science learning paths: Launch Red Hat OpenShift Data Science and OpenShift Data Science documentation and resources.

• This week, we’ve released two new learning paths, which address the common data science challenges of accessing Amazon S3 data and creating a TensorFlow model. Developers and data scientists can use these hands-on courses to learn how to access data and create machine learning models. You’ll also learn how much easier common data science procedures are with OpenShift Data Science.

• This article introduces the learning paths and provides an overview of OpenShift Data Science, including where to find more information.

=> ↺ Top 10 tutorials for Linux administrators | Enable Sysadmin

• I’ve been administering Linux systems for several years now, and I don’t think a single day has gone by without a learning opportunity. One of my favorite parts about the Linux ecosystem is the willingness to share both tools and information. This year’s top Linux administration articles are a testament to that culture of top minds sharing their knowledge so that you can progress on your Linux journey.

=> ↺ 10 open source career lessons from 2021 | Opensource.com

• The ongoing pandemic kept 2021 far from normal, yet there were glimmers of hope through the uncertainty. In-person conferences slowly resumed, if smaller and with more masks than in years past. And the asynchronous essence of open source allowed many people to keep working on passion projects while growing their careers.

• Accordingly, readers loved the past year’s posts on all things work and career. Below, we’ve shared 10 of our most popular articles on these subjects in 2021. Whether you’re looking for a great open source note-taking app or want inspiration for non-coding roles in tech, Opensource.com’s authors covered it all.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Mike Gabriel: MATE 1.26 has finally landed in Debian testing

• For those, you haven’t realized, yet: MATE 1.26 has now been uploaded to Debian and should be available in Debian testing to all happy testers.

• [...]

• The MATE 1.26 DEB package preparations had been done while sitting in bed with my hot water bottle in the back and a pot of honeyed thyme tea next to me on the window sill. Things were getting too boring while being sick, so the monotonous wrapping up of +/- 40 desktop environment DEB packages was a welcome change then (and not too complex for reduced brain activity, either).

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu 22.04 – Release Date, What’s New & More

• Ubuntu releases run on a schedule/cycle. All Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) releases are released every 2 years, on the fourth month of the year. The numbering in the release tells the year (2022) and month (04). The exact release date of Ubuntu 22.04 is April 21, 2022. However, there are other important dates you should know in the release schedule.

Devices/Embedded

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ WS2812s On A 6502 | Hackaday

• We can still remember when the WS2812 LED first came into ourconsciousness, way back in the mists of time. The timing diagrams in the datasheet-of-questionable-veracity made it sound quite tricky, with tight timing tolerances and essentially a high-speed two-bit PWM data protocol at 500 kHz. It was a challenge to bit-bang with an ATtiny85 back then, but there’s no way something as old and crusty as an Apple II would be up to snuff, right?

• [Anders Nielsen] took up the challenge of getting the venerable 6502 processor to drive Neopixels and won! After all, if the chip is good enough for Bender and the Terminator T-800, it should be able to blink some colored LEDs, right? The secret sauce is shift registers!

=> ↺ Dual 10GbE router supports WiFi 6 (AX3600) – CNX Software

• There’s no information about software, but we can assume the system runs a Linux OS based on Qualcomm SDK or OpenWrt.

=> ↺ Back-to-Back Belts Drive Filament In This Unique Extruder Design | Hackaday

• It’s hard to say when inspiration will strike, or what form it’ll take. But we do know that when you get that itch, it’s a good idea to scratch it, because you might just end up with something like this cool new design for a 3D printer extruder as a result.

• Clearly, the world is not screaming out for new extruder designs. In fact, the traditional spring-loaded, toothed drive wheel on a stepper really does the job of feeding filament into a printer’s hot end just fine, all things considered. But [Jón Schone], aka Proper Printing on YouTube, got the idea for his belt-drive extruder from seeing how filament manufacturers handle their products. His design is a scaled-down version of that, and uses a pair of very small timing belts that run on closely spaced gears. The gears synchronize the movement of the two belts, with the filament riding in the very narrow space between the belts. It’s a simple design, with the elasticity of the belt material eliminating the need for spring pre-loading of the drive gears.

=> ↺ Arduino IoT Cloud Scheduler Enhances Automation for Your Projects

• Cloud Scheduler is a brand new feature that’s now live as part of your Arduino Cloud platform. It’s a powerful addition that adds a whole new dimension of automation and control to your projects.

=> ↺ Retrofit your light switch with this remote-controlled device | Arduino Blog

• It can be extremely annoying and frustrating to finally get comfortable somewhere only to realize that you forgot to turn off a light, thus requiring a short journey to and from the wall switch. Mechanical engineering student and Instructables user alanmerritt ran into the same problem in his dorm room, so he responded by creating a device that could remotely operate a light switch without any modifications to the switch itself.

• The first step in designing this remote control device was measuring the fixture and modeling it in CAD, after which Alan made a small rack-and-pinion mechanism that uses a servo motor to rotate a gear and thus lift an attached slider up or down. He also 3D printed an enclosure that surrounds the otherwise ugly electronics, hiding them from the view of potential visitors.

=> ↺ A Simple 3D Printed Gear Clock Shows Off How It Works | Hackaday

• Analog clocks are beautiful things inside, using ornate gear trains to keep track of time in a dance of mechanical beauty. However, all too often, the complexity is hidden inside. This gear clock design from [Tada3], however, proudly shows off its workings.

• A small stepper motor is used to run the clock’s movement, a small part of the 28BYJ-48 variety. The motor is driven once per second, making the gear train tick along in a rather compelling way that is somehow more visually interesting. Of course, with some modification to the design, continuous motion could easily be done as well.

• The stepper motor is driven by an Arduino Nano, which also handles the timekeeping. One thing that’s missing is a real-time clock, something that should be added to the design if you wish it to keep accurate time. As it is, the included Arduino sketch simply uses the delay() function to time the stepping of the motor. It makes the clock tick along, but will quickly drift out of sync.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ How can you improve Android security?

=> ↺ Google Photos Locked Folder coming to more Android phones – How to set it up – Komando.com

=> ↺ Huawei Watch GT 3 Hands-on: Huawei Prioritized | Digital Trends

=> ↺ Best Android game and app deals on sale for the holidays – 9to5Toys

=> ↺ Android 13 build leaks, showing some of the coming changes – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Here’s What We Know About Android 13 So Far

=> ↺ Nokia X10 is HMD Global’s latest smartphone to get Android 12

=> ↺ So, uh, Samsung’s Android 12 update clearly wasn’t tested properly – SamMobile

=> ↺ Best Android TV: Boxes, dongles, soundbars, more – 9to5Google

=> ↺ 8 of the Best Android Emulators for Your Desktop

• Are you a desktop user with a yearning to play some Android games or test out an Android-only app? With Android emulators, you don’t have to switch between your desktop OS and Android. By installing an emulator on your Mac, Linux, or Windows desktop, you can run all the latest Android games and Android-exclusives on a larger screen. Emulators can also be useful if you’re building your own mobile app and want to test the user experience on Android.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Sustainable creativity in a world without copyright

• I don’t believe in copyright. I argue that we need to get rid of copyright, or at least dramatically reform it. The public domain has been stolen from us, and I want it back. Everyone reading this post has grown up in a creative world defined by capitalism, in which adapting and remixing works — a fundamental part of the creative process — is illegal. The commons is dead, and we suffer for it. But, this is all we’ve ever known. It can be difficult to imagine a world without copyright.

• When I present my arguments on the subject, the most frequent argument I hear in response is something like the following: “artists have to eat, too”. The answer to this argument is so mind-bogglingly obvious that, in the absence of understanding, it starkly illuminates just how successful capitalism has been in corrupting a broad human understanding of empathy. So, I will spell the answer out: why do we have a system which will, for any reason, deny someone access to food? How unbelievably cruel is a system which will let someone starve because they cannot be productive within the terms of capitalism?

• My argument is built on the more fundamental understanding that the access to fundamental human rights such as food, shelter, security, and healthcare are not contingent on their ability to be productive under the terms of capitalism. And I emphasize the “terms of capitalism” here deliberately: how much creativity is stifled because it cannot be expressed profitably? The system is not just cruel, but it also limits the potential of human expression, which is literally the only thing that creative endeavours are concerned with.

• The fact that the “starving artist” is such a common trope suggests to us that artists aren’t putting food on the table under the copyright regime, either. Like in many industries under capitalism, artists are often not the owners of the products of their labor. Copyright protects the rights holder, not the author. The obscene copyright rules in the United States, for example, are not doing much benefit for the artist when the term ends 70 years after their death. Modern copyright law was bought, paid for, and written by corporate copyright owners, not artists. What use is the public domain to anyone when something published today cannot be legally remixed by even our great-great-grandchildren?

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ 2021: The Year the LibreOffice Documentation Team Shined

• 2021 is ending, so let’s recap our achievements and look forward for 2022. It has been a very tough year for all of us in our professional or personal matters, and for sure worsened by the persisting pandemic, even with the release of the COVID vaccines.

• But this year was a great documentation year after all. We closed the gap between the LibreOffice major releases. and the update of the corresponding User Guides. By the year end, we will have all of our version 7 guides updated to the LibreOffice release 7.2, and ready to continue for the forthcoming release – 7.3 – due in early February 2022. The goal of tracking the software release closely was achieved, and now we are in a steady state of small updates between releases.

FSF

GNU Projects

=> ↺ GIMP 2.10.30 improves support for PSD and various image formats

• GIMP 2.10.30 It is now available as another minor release of the eternal second version of the well-known image manipulation application, which is showing itself in good shape since it is under the GNOME umbrella and its future leap to the third major version is well under way.

• This time we don’t have many groundbreaking news, but there are some interesting improvements. For example, support for AVIF, HEIF, PSD, DDS, RGBE and PBM image formats has been improved in GIMP 2.10.30, which never hurts for those who manipulate or export to things other than JPG and PNG, the two most popular formats. Being more specific with one of them, the export to AVIF now favors the AOM AV1 renderer.

• Another interesting point that has been improved in GIMP 2.10.30 has been the support of PSD, the file format (or rather documents according to your own defined) used by Adobe Photoshop projects. Added here support for “Layer Masks labeled with invalid dimensions, CMYK no alpha, CMYK no layers, blended image of a 16 bit per channel RGBA that had an opaque alpha channel, and so on. For CMYK PSD files, for now, GIMP will convert to sRGB to allow you to view the contents of a file instead of displaying a message that the file is not supported.”

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Convert Array to String PHP

• There is always an issue with manipulating arrays in PHP. Although they are widely used and fully supported, PHP faces a few drawbacks when working with arrays.

• For example, to echo a single element of an array, you can convert the array to a string and print it on the screen.

• In this tutorial, you will learn how to convert a PHP array to a string.

=> ↺ PHP Convert Array to Comma Separated String

• An array is a data type that allows storing multiple related values under a single variable. Arrays are incredibly useful when you need to manage associated data without the risk of repetition.

• This guide will teach you how to convert an array of values to a comma-separated string.

=> ↺ How to Parse PDF in PHP

• Have you ever tried to open a PDF file to search for a specific line or word? It does not work. All you will find is binary data that makes absolutely no sense.

• Parsing PDF files is very tedious and complicated for any software developer, not because it’s complex but because of the nature of PDF files. PDF files contain objects which are identified by a unique number. PDF objects can collect information such as images, text, and more. These objects are encrypted and compressed, making it nearly impossible to process PDFs as text documents.

• This guide will learn how to parse PDF documents using the PHP programming language.

=> ↺ Configure Lighttpd

• Lighttpd or Lighty is a free and open-source web server developed for high-performance environments. Lighttpd server is lightweight, high-speed, and secure. It is mainly provided as an alternative to web servers such as Apache because it consumes very few resources such as CPU and memory. Lighttpd can handle more than 10000 parallel connections on a single server; it is often an excellent option for high-traffic sites.

• This guide will walk you through installing and configuring the Lighttpd server.

=> ↺ Redis Get Key

• Redis is a key-value database or data store that utilizes the concept of key and value to store data. Unlike relational databases, keys in Redis must be unique and serve as unique identifiers for the value they hold.

• Redis uses simple commands to perform operations using the Redis CLI utility. In this tutorial, you will learn how to fetch the keys in Redis databases.

=> ↺ PHP Convert String to Datetime

• This article will teach you how to convert a simple string to a date format using various PHP methods and techniques.

Leftovers

Hardware

=> ↺ Simple Upgrades Make An Old Industrial Sewing Machine New Again | Hackaday

• [Eric] found this Pfaff 463 on Craigslist. It was built somewhere around 1950, and it only does one thing — a single-needle, straight stitch, forward or reverse — but it will do it through damn near anything you want (unlike those computerized hunks of plastic made for home use nowadays). Again, these machines are always built into a table, and they come with a lamp. While the machine itself may be a workhorse, the light is wimpy, so [Eric] replaced it with a goose-neck LED light that has a magnet for sticking it anywhere light is required around the machine.

• No matter the size, electric sewing machines are driven with a foot pedal. On a domestic, the pedal is loose and you just put it on the floor wherever you want, but industrial foot pedals are built into the table frame. [Eric] drilled a bunch of new holes in the side of the pedal so he can move the connecting rod closer to the pivot point. This gives him better control with less footwork.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Microsoft Teams might have a few serious security issues

=> ↺ Microsoft is incapable of making software that actually works

• Security researchers have discovered four separate vulnerabilities in Microsoft Teams that could be exploited by an attacker to spoof link previews, leak IP addresses and even access the software giant’s internal services.

• These discoveries were made by researchers at Positive Security who “stumbled upon” them while looking for a way to bypass the the Same-Origin Policy (SOP) in Teams and Electron according to a new blog post. For those unfamiliar, SOP is a security mechanism found in browsers that helps stop websites from attacking one another.

=> ↺ 4-Year-Old Bug in Azure App Service Exposed Hundreds of Source Code Repositories

• A security flaw has been unearthed in Microsoft’s Azure App Service that resulted in the exposure of source code of customer applications written in Java, Node, PHP, Python, and Ruby for at least four years since September 2017.

• The vulnerability, codenamed “NotLegit,” was reported to the tech giant by Wiz researchers on October 7, 2021, following which mitigations have been undertaken to fix the information disclosure bug in November. Microsoft said a “limited subset of customers” are at risk, adding “Customers who deployed code to App Service Linux via Local Git after files were already created in the application were the only impacted customers.”

=> ↺ Microsoft informs customers of ‘NotLegit’ Azure bug

• Microsoft’s Security Response Center has released a blog post explaining its response to the “NotLegit” bug in Azure that was discovered by cloud security company Wiz.

• Wiz said all PHP, Node, Ruby, and Python applications that were deployed using “Local Git” on a clean default application in Azure App Service since September 2017 are affected. They added that all PHP, Node, Ruby, and Python applications that were deployed in Azure App Service from September 2017 onward using any Git source — after a file was created or modified in the application container — were also affected.

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Thursday

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (openjdk-11), Fedora (keepalived and tang), openSUSE (openssh, p11-kit, runc, and thunderbird), Oracle (postgresql:12, postgresql:13, and virt:ol and virt-devel:ol), Red Hat (rh-maven36-log4j12), and SUSE (ansible, chrony, logstash, elasticsearch, kafka, zookeeper, openstack-monasca-agent, openstack-monasca-persister-java, openstack-monasca-thresh, openssh, p11-kit, python-Babel, and thunderbird).

=> ↺ New Linux Patches For AMD i2c Bus Sharing With The PSP

• The newest Linux hardware support patches for the kernel revolve around i2c bus sharing support for newer SoCs where the i2c bus is being shared by AMD’s Platform Security Processor (PSP). This i2c controller is based on common DesignWare IP but new kernel code is being crafted for handling that bus sharing between the kernel and the PSP co-processor.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Dissent is democratic: Looking at the dissent notes in the report of the JPC #SaveOurPrivacy

• In the final report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, 8 Members of Parliament have filed dissent notes against the final recommendations. In this post, we look at what the MPs are saying and explain the various amendments proposed by them.

Environment

Energy

=> ↺ How To Get Into Cars: E85 Fuel | Hackaday

• If you’ve spent any time around the modified car scene in the last few years, you’ve probably heard about E85. Maybe you’ve even noticed a sweet smell emanating from the pitlane, or heard people cracking jokes about “corn juice.”

• The blended fuel, which combines alcohol and traditional gasoline, can have significant performance benefits if used properly. Today, we’ll explore what those are, and how you can set your ride up to run on E85.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Why linking Aadhaar with voter IDs could end up excluding voters – Times of India

• Former Chief Election Commissioner Dr S Y Quraishi remembers how in 2011 his team was attempting to weed out duplicate voters using different software when he met then UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani. At the time, there were more voter ID cards than Aadhaar cards, and after a failed attempt at collecting and verifying voters’ fingerprints in a state, the poll regulator didn’t take up the issue again.

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